Primordial Nature Research Articles

Home in the Poetry of Saudi Distinguished Poets: Abdullah Al-Faisal a Case in Point (2)

It can be posited that an individual's attachment to their homeland evolves and matures in tandem with their personal development, ultimately becoming an intrinsic aspect of their consciousness. The resonant call of the poet, though profound, is inevitably eclipsed by the enduring and primordial nature of one's homeland; it remains a perpetually innate affection. This paper, the second instalment in a tripartite series, seeks to elucidate the expertise, familiarity, and proficiency of Abdullah Al-Faisal as expressed through his poetic oeuvre, while concurrently illuminating his profound loyalty to the extensive and illustrious territory to which he is indelibly connected. This research commences with a brief overview of poetry and its cultural significance, before delving into the context of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, particularly focusing on the relationship between poetry and the concept of homeland. Subsequently, the study examines the literary contributions of the poet Abdullah Al-Faisal, with a primary emphasis on his poem "The Redemption." Utilising a critical-analytical-descriptive methodology, the investigation highlighted key thematic elements within the poem. Through a detailed analysis of selected lines from "The Redemption," the research elucidates the nuanced and multifaceted nature of the idea of homeland as expressed in Al-Faisal's work. The study posits that Al-Faisal's poetry serves as a conduit for expressing profound nationalistic sentiments. Additionally, it illustrates his unwavering dedication to his homeland, as evidenced by the intimate portrayal of his connection to the land throughout his oeuvre. The concluding section synthesises these findings, affirming the intrinsic link between Al-Faisal's poetic expressions and the themes of national identity and belonging.

EXPLORING THE LEGACY OF GREAT BABUR: JUSTICE AND TOLERANCE

In this article, the author presents research findings within the realm of Eastern philosophy's discourse on the philosophy of love. The entry of love into the history of world civilization highlights the philosophical and anthropological significance of its role in human understanding. From this perspective, there arises a theoretical and practical need to analyze the place of love within the morphology of the individual from both a philosophical and anthropological standpointExamining the concept of love in its theoretical and practical dimensions becomes imperative in the context of exploring the human imagination's spiritual journey. This journey grapples with the challenges posed by the issues of human existence and its relationship with the phenomenon of love, a universal and all-encompassing force. Emotions' vulnerability, diversity, the primordial nature of love, and its role in modern human existence all converge in the complex tapestry of human life. Amidst the challenges posed by emotions, ambiguity, the reconfiguration of love, and the liberalization of sexual ethics in contemporary society, the enduring presence of love stands as a guiding star in the constellation of human existence.

Rethinking the Concept of Fiṭra

Little attention has been given to the role of innate human nature or fiṭra in the motivation behind human action. This article examines the views of contemporary Western thinkers to creatively rethink the concept of fiṭra, not only from a theological perspective but also a scientific perspective. Drawing upon Islamic scholarship and previous research on the subject that explore the wide spectrum of connotations couched in the Islamic term fiṭra in comparison with Western perspectives, this study offers a fresh look at, and approach to, the concept of human disposition or primordial nature, giving special attention to the biological, epistemological, and ethical dimensions, while most studies of fiṭra focus mainly on the theological and spiritual sides. It is hoped that this conceptual analysis will serve as a stepping stone towards a more nuanced understanding of fiṭra not only as (i) a natural tendency to act or think in a particular way, but also as (ii) the religious instinct, (iii) the power of the mind to think and understand in a logical way, and (iv) the inner voice or conscience of what is right and wrong in one’s conduct or motives that drives the individual towards right action.

History through the prism of adamism: the poem “The Campaign of Alexander in India” by Mikhail Zenkevich

The article considers the artistic reception of the historical person and her deeds in the poem “The Campaign of Alexander in India” by Mikhail Zenkevich (1909), which was included in the first book of poems of the poet “Wild Porphyry” and clearly demonstrates the specifics of the vision of the events of world history in Mikhail Zenkevich’s poetic picture of the world. The purpose of the study is to analyse the structural-semantic organisation of this text in the aspect of the conceptually realisation of adamism as the ideological basis of the poet’s creative work. The analysis of the poetics of the poem dedicated to the comprehension of the final achievements in the life of King Alexander the Great (the conquest campaign to India and its consequences) shows, that Mikhail Zenkevich conceptualises world history as realisation of anthropological comprehension of the natural origins of the world order. In the narrative structure of the poem, which consists of two plot parts, the deep mechanism of subordination of a human to the “dark” ontological foundations of the universe is revealed. In the 1st part of the text, which tells about the contact of Alexander the Great with the Indian lands he conquered, the approach to the border of the natural-mystical region of the world is explicated. The 2nd part represents the deep consequences of such contact – transformation of the external secrets of a foreign country into the internal “dark” secrets of the human “self”. The attempt to conquer India by King Alexander III of Macedon turns into enslavement (“poisoning”) his personality with primordial chaos and leads the hero to madness. It is concluded that in Mikhail Zenkevich’s “adamistic” mythopoetics the “historical” (royal) man invariably turns out to be “natural” Adam, who feels his “dark relatedness” with the chaos of primordial nature.

Legal problems of the existence of "sacrifice" zones as an indicator of environmental injustice

In order to ensure proper implementation of the principle of environmental justice, which is based on guaranteeing the realization of citizens’ right to an environment safe for life and health, it is necessary to identify all possible environmental risks that block the achievement of such a goal. The system of identifying the most environmentally dangerous enterprises and measures to ensure their environmental safety, introduced by domestic legislation, is considered insufficient in the framework of ensuring environmental justice, since it does not guarantee overcoming the ecological risk of technogenically polluted territories, and therefore makes it impossible to realize the constitutional right of citizens to an environment safe for life and health. This is evidenced by the movement initiated in foreign practice in order to recognize territories that are artificially overloaded as “sacrifice” zones.
 It was found that such zones are considered as: areas whose residents are exposed to a higher level of influence due to the neighborhood with environmentally hazardous objects; part of the legacy of environmental racism and environmental injustice; areas of mass diseases caused by consumption of polluted environment; moral stains of the nation. Therefore, in “sacrifice” zones it is not possible to guarantee the right to an environment safe for life and health, since the concept of “environment” in this case is not considered in the sense of “primordial nature”, but as “the cheapest possible”. In this case, both human life and natural resources are considered “disposable” and cannot be passed on to future generations.
 Taking into account the outlined circumstances, a scientific conclusion was formed in which it was noted that the main direction of overcoming such negative factors as the imbalance of environmental risks on the territory of Ukraine is the need for full-scale greening of material production, and at the intermediate stage - the provision of social payments to residents of “sacrifice” zones for the purpose of conditionally guaranteeing environmental justice and compensation for environmental damage caused to the health and life of people in technogenically polluted territories.

Bound by Non-action: The Art of Not Doing in The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas

ABSTRACT In their adaptations of Hamlet, the two Chinese films, The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas, present the protagonists' dilemma from a very different light and emphasizes the role of non-action in their exploration of self-worth and the objective truth. As a popular Taoist practice, wu wei, as prince Wu Luan clearly shows, allows one to achieve integration with primordial nature. In politics, it helps one govern in the most natural and unselfconscious manner. For the Tibetan prince, Lhamoklodan, the Buddhist meditation is key to attaining the truth. This deliberate non-action helps the prince to discover his lineage and reach spiritual awakening. Neither of the films gives non-action an unqualified endorsement, however. An uncritical observance of wu wei leaves one vulnerable in the political world; for Buddhism, violence is sometimes justified, insofar as it helps a would-be wrong-doer avoid the accumulation of further negative karma.

THE MYTHOLOGICAL IMAGE OF THE LADYBUG AMONG THE PEOPLES OF THE URAL-VOLGA REGION

The article is devoted to the mythological image of a ladybug among the Slavic, Finno-Ugric and Turkic ethnic groups of the Ural-Volga region.
 
 The purpose of the study is to reveal some of the origins of this mythologeme among the peoples of the region.
 
 Materials and methods. The work mainly used the comparative historical method, as well as field studies. The materials drawn from the scientific literature on this subject, the author’s field studies, were supplemented with the materials of explanatory and etymological dictionaries, compared and analyzed.
 
 Results. As a result of the research, the author revealed the following picture. The basis of the ladybug’s mythological image is likely to be made by animistic-totemic beliefs. So one of the Chuvash names of the insect deserves attention – “bird of the top”. Perhaps in the past, the ladybug could act as a totem-the progenitor of individual family lines. Among Russians, Udmurts, Mari, Bashkirs, the ancient image is concretized through the concept of “god” or the name of a certain deity (Marena, Inmar, Kilchin, Invu-mums, Kuaz, Humo).
 
 Conclusions. It is worth agreeing with the researchers of the topic that among the Russians the ladybug is equated, as a rule, with the concept of a heavenly god, among the Mordvins and the Udmurts – with rain, water, among the Chuvash, the Tatars and the Bashkirs – with rainless weather and the sun. The latter may be due to the fact that in ancient Turkic mythology, the idea of the “primordial nature of heaven and earth” played an important role. On the contrary, the cosmogonic myths of the Finno-Ugric peoples anyhow include an element of the water primordiate. The Russian and Udmurt materials, as the researchers note, go back to the mythologeme of heavenly flocks. Some Udmurt and Mari materials are probably calques from the Russian language or motifs associated with a Proto-Indo-European source. At the same time, as the author of the article believes, in Mari mythology, the connection of the ladybug with wet young grass, forest, with water primordial, bottom (the earth, as opposed to the heaven), the creation of the world from an egg and a “heavenly wedding” is traced. The association of the ladybug with rainless weather can be traced mainly among the mountain Mari. The originality of the image of the “Mari” ladybug, as the author sees it, can be explained by the fusion of both Turkic and Finno-Ugric traditions. The author also believes that the ideas of the Udmurts and the Mari people about the “Inmar/Kylchina/Kuazya/Yumo cow” could have arisen independently on the basis of an already existing idea of bulls (cows) or horses of the heavenly god. In this regard, it is necessary to pay attention to another, perhaps Central Asian, source of legends about the animal-the messenger of God. This refers to the legend of the “eaten book”, common among the Russians, the Mari, the Udmurts, the Chuvash and the Tatars.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka’s Proposition of the New Critique of Reason. Imagination–Creativity–Freedom

Phenomenology is one of the main currents of modern philosophy. Philosophers most often understand it from the perspective of Edmund Husserl’s (1859–1938) phenomenology as a concept of cognition and a method of viewing and describing what is directly given, i.e. a phenomenon. In addition, phenomenology is the fundamental science – prima philosophia that determines what and how is directly given. Roman Ingarden (1893–1970), a student of E. Husserl, was the first thinker in Poland who practiced philosophy in a phenomenological way. R. Ingarden contributed to the dissemination of Husserl’s phenomenology in Poland and became an outstanding phenomenologist who developed an original phenomenological path proposing a creative reception of his teacher’s thoughts between World Wars II and I. Inagrden’s phenomenological path was different from Husserl’s. While Husserl developed a transcendental-idealistic form of phenomenology, Ingarden did not wholly abandon the transcendental path but went toward realism. The Polish phenomenologist did not want to question his master’s concept of the transcendental Self but only wanted to find a place for this Self in the real world. Polish thinkers who further deepened the creative reception of Husserl’s phenomenology have always gathered around Ingarden. One such person was Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (1923–2014). Their professor-student meeting occurred at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow just after the end of World War II. Husserl’s phenomenology inspired A.-T. Tymieniecka, but this was phenomenology understood by Ingarden, taking into account the realism of the world and the entire sphere of empiricism. We can assume that the scholar’s meeting with Ingarden allowed Tymieniecka to develop her phenomenological concept, which she called the concept of the phenomenology of life and the human creative condition. It is a phenomenology that rejects idealism and chooses the realism of the world and life in the cosmic dimension. The human being here is a living entity whose life is anchored in nature but ultimately evolves and develops in culture through scientific and technological activities. In this cosmological and dynamically changing perspective, the source experience of the subject – a living being – becomes the experience of being alive and living in the unity-of-erything-there-is-alive. Therefore, Tymieniecka rejected the primordial nature of the cognitive-constitutive act of the pure consciousness, which we deal with in classical phenomenology, favouring a creative act founded in man’s creative imagination and only secondarily reflected in the cognitive act. The Polish philosopher believed that only in such a case is there a possibility of freedom in the human world of life and, thus – authentic self-realisation and self-interpretation of man in existence.

Mapping Ishigurian Temporality: The Timeless Universe and His Prodigal Offspring

Time's elusive and enigmatic nature becomes evident when examining its diverse conceptualizations across fields, from cyclical rhythms to linear progression and quantum manifestation. While in Einsteinian physics time intertwines with space to form spacetime, revolutionizing the view of the Universe, the human perception of time involves a complex interplay of psychological factors, influencing memories, decision-making, and well-being. Literature has also embraced time as a central theme, transcending reality and exploring temporal distortion. This study takes a comprehensive journey through the intricate and multi-dimensional nature of a concept so deeply embedded in the human experience. Drawing insights from temporal science, psychology, spirituality, and literary studies, the research paper delves into the profound implications of temporal manipulation in the works of renowned writer Kazuo Ishiguro. The protagonists' distorted timelines highlight the fluidity and subjectivity of time, reflecting the intricate relationship between psychological states and time perception. Ishiguro's use of temporal dislocation reflects feelings of alienation and disconnection, illuminating the characters' struggles with memory, identity, mortality, and the search for meaning. Ultimately, the study seeks to demonstrate that Kazuo Ishiguro's novels provide profound insight into the human condition and the timeless quest for understanding. By embracing the primordial nature of existence, individuals may transcend the limitations of their time perception and connect with cosmic greatness. Ishiguro's work thus stands as a testament to literature's enduring relevance in illuminating human experience and the enigmatic nature of time itself. Overall, an in-depth exploration of time and its variants in literature leads to a more comprehensive understanding of life, fostering interdisciplinary connections and a holistic view of the world.

Narrating Ethnicity in Oral History Interviews: Life Stories of People Resettled from Estonia to Germany in 1941

This article demonstrates the possibilities of using oral history sources in the study of ethnicity. Interviews conducted with people who resettled from Estonia to Germany in 1941 were analysed for this purpose. It was asked why some interviewees are remarkably vague in their ethnicity narratives while some others present highly firm statements. The analysis that relies on the Communication Theory of Identity shows that interviewees’ pre-war ethnic, cultural and linguistic background was relatively insignificant. Instead, the most important distinguishing factor was involvement in the Baltic German or exile Estonian communities after World War II; the former was rather related to vagueness and the latter rather to firmness. Thus, it depended mainly on this factor what were the narrating strategies the interviewees made use of to present themselves in a desired way during the interview. In addition, the expressions, both vague and firm, were related to the widespread understanding of the primordial nature of ethnicity to which the interviewees tried to fit their own, often inconsistent, ethnic background and life stories. The results suggest that to understand the appearance of ethnicity in oral history interviews, the patterns of how ethnicity is narrated would be useful to trace and common perceptions on ethnic identity should be considered.

Analysis of Heidegger's "On the Essence of Truth"

The research background is "On the Essence of Truth", a monograph on philosophical research by the famous German philosopher Heidegger, which is compiled from his lecture notes. Its main content is that Heidegger gave his own answer to the question of the essence of truth by studying the works of ancient Greek philosopher Plato, especially "Reign" and "Theaetetus".The research goal of this paper is to try to reveal the core of "On the Nature of Truth" is that the essence of truth is freedom, and freedom reveals itself as the Being of beings; that is, it participates in the Un-Verbergung process of beings itself. The research methods I adopt are philology, hermeneutics, literature research and comprehensive text analysis. My main finding lies that freedom itself originates from the primordial nature of truth, the mystical operation in delusion, and the concealing operation of the concealed. Contributions to the field of my findings and key messages are the essence of truth is to clarify the origin, foundation and essence of truth through the clarification of the difference between beings and Being. This is of great help for people to understand and study Heidegger's "On the Essence of Truth" more clearly.

Ж.М. Феррейра де Кастро и «зеленый ад» Амазонии. К вопросу об истоках литературной традиции

The article is devoted to the origin and formation of the so-called green hell literature — a variety of Latin American tellurism. The origins of this phenomenon are associated with the work of the famous Brazilian writer and journalist Euclides da Cunha. The novels of the Portuguese-Brazilian regionalist writer José Maria Ferreira de Castro The Jungle (A selva, 1930) and the Colombian José Eustasio Rivera The Vortex ( La vorágine, 1925) are considered as a continuation of the tradition laid down by da Cunha. The paper considers typical features and differences in the approach to the material in The Jungle and The Vortex. The genetic memory of the pioneers is analyzed as a means of recreating the image of the rainforest, which allows Ferreira de Castro to demonstrate the inversion of the traditional myth of the American Eden. The analysis allows to bring out some new features in the image of the Amazonian selva, which were subsequently developed and / or rethought by other writers of the green hell literature: overreaching (going beyond limits), a specific sense of closed space, irrational cruelty, chaos of the self-reproducing primordial nature. It is emphasized that not only heaven and hell, but also many other Biblical and Christian images are recoded and desacralized. The Portuguese-Brazilian tradition of understanding the green hell of da Cunha and Ferreira de Castro with its reliance on the personal experience of the writer, the poetics of testemunho, can be viewed as the first contribution to the concept of marvelous Latin American reality.

SECRET OF “ALWAYS ALREADY” (OF THE LOST TRACE OF PHENOMENOLOGY) IN DECONSTRUCTION OF DERRIDA

Based on key texts of Derrida as well as his interviews and recently published seminars the article presents a “micrological” analysis of deconstructivist thought in the context of its appeal to phenomenology of Husserl and fundamental ontology of Heidegger. Derrida begins his intellectual path with a reflection on the most important topics of Husserlian phenomenology and discovers in the descriptions of temporalization a paradoxical movement of the immanent self-deconstruction of phenomenology. It from within undermines its own basic principle of the primordial givenness of the living present to itself in its whole presence. From the point of view of Derrida’s deconstruction, the living present of self-presence of the transcendental ego, like itself, is no longer the original source of sense, meaning, knowledge and experience but rather the effect of difference. Derrida discovers the radical constitutive dependence of the present on the trace of the inevitably lost past, thus, his thought resolutely destroys the primordial nature of the present and roots it in the true “origin” as a game of delays and differences. Similarly, Derrida criticizes the project of fundamental ontology. While Heidegger conceives of the ontological difference between being and Being as the last hidden basis of any question in the discourse of metaphysics, Derrida insists that this differentiation is derived from différance as an even more primordial movement of difference. And although Derrida claims to have a more essential comprehension of the core of metaphysics compared to Husserl and Heidegger and even confidently classifies their philosophical work ones to the field of metaphysics, he continues to use the resources of phenomenological and transcendental discourse again and again, leaving them without any criticism. The most telling example here is the use of the phrase “always already” (toujours déjà, immer schon), incredibly common in the works of Heidegger and Husserl (as well as most other most famous modern phenomenologists) and accompanying most of Derrida’s texts. In this article we seek to draw attention to the mystery power of this phrase, which hides the secret of the origins of phenomenological, fundamental-ontological, transcendental, and deconstructivist discourses as such, and also to demonstrate the possibilities of self-deconstruction of deconstruction, which with new urgency returns us to the problem of defining the limits of metaphysics and the “margins of philosophy”.

Demographics of the M-star Multiple Population in the Orion Nebula Cluster

We present updated results constraining multiplicity demographics for the stellar population of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC, a high-mass, high-density star-forming region), across primary masses 0.08–0.7 M ⊙. Our study utilizes archival Hubble Space Telescope data obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys using multiple filters (GO-10246). Previous multiplicity surveys in low-mass, low-density associations like Taurus identify an excess of companions to low-mass stars roughly twice that of the Galactic field and find the mass ratio distribution consistent with the field. Previously, we found the companion frequency to low-mass stars in the ONC is consistent with the Galactic field over mass ratios = 0.6–1.0 and projected separations = 30–160 au, without placing constraints on the mass ratio distribution. In this study, we investigate the companion population of the ONC with a double point-spread function (PSF) fitting algorithm sensitive to separations larger than 10 au (0.″025) using empirical PSF models. We identified 44 companions (14 new), and with a Bayesian analysis we estimate the companion frequency to low-mass stars in the ONC = 0.13 and the index of the power-law fit to the mass ratio distribution = 2.08 over all mass ratios and projected separations of 10–200 au. We find the companion frequency in the ONC is consistent with the Galactic field population, likely from states of high transient stellar density, and a probability of 0.002 that it is consistent with that of Taurus. We also find the ONC mass ratio distribution is consistent with the field and Taurus, potentially indicative of its primordial nature, a direct outcome of the star formation process.

Becoming Indigenous Again

Abstract The figure of the “native informant,” as outlined by Spivak, confers a legitimacy of “inside” information for the colonial subject that, ultimately, is generalized to the point of confirming the colonist’s view of the world, challenging nothing and, instead, providing authenticity to existing beliefs. Since Indigenous groups are often associated with primordial nature in the hemispherically American context, there is a long tradition of settler colonial societies appropriating the figure of the Native to claim authentic land rights or establish an identity distinct from Europe. This article argues that, in its modern iteration, appropriation of the native informant within the natural context serves anxieties concerning potentially illegitimate land stewardship for settler colonial societies. Focusing on the native informant figure in Richard Powers’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Overstory, the article explicates how, in the age of climate change, patterns around settler land theft are repeated and repurposed for the settler episteme in which, instead of reconsidering who has the rights to land stewardship, the settler seeks to transfer Indigenous knowledge to themselves, authenticating the settler society’s continued right to the colonized land. While Powers makes significant contributions to reconsidering the European model of an anthropocentric relation to nature, the article argues that The Overstory does this through repeating such settler colonial traditions as associating Indigenous peoples solely with the past and depicting the American landscape in a way that relies on the legal mythology of terra nullius.

Searching for mass-spin correlations in the population of gravitational-wave events: The GWTC-3 case study

One fundamental goal of the newly born gravitational wave astronomy is discovering the origin of the observed binary black hole mergers. Towards this end, identifying features in the growing wealth of data may help in distinguishing different formation pathways. While large uncertainties still affect the binary formation models, spin-mass relations remain characteristic features of specific classes of channels. By focusing on the effective inspiral spin $\chi_\text{eff}$, the best reconstructed spin-related merger parameter, we show that current GWTC-3 data support the hypothesis that a fraction of events may display mass-spin correlations similar to one expected by dynamical formation channels of either astrophysical or primordial nature. We quantify the Bayesian evidence in favour of those models, which are substantially preferred when compared to the Gaussian phenomenological model adopted to describe the distribution of $\chi_\text{eff}$ in the recent LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA population analyses.

Structural basis for the absence of low-energy chlorophylls in a photosystem I trimer from Gloeobacter violaceus.

Photosystem I (PSI) is a multi-subunit pigment-protein complex that functions in light-harvesting and photochemical charge-separation reactions, followed by reduction of NADP to NADPH required for CO2 fixation in photosynthetic organisms. PSI from different photosynthetic organisms has a variety of chlorophylls (Chls), some of which are at lower-energy levels than its reaction center P700, a special pair of Chls, and are called low-energy Chls. However, the sites of low-energy Chls are still under debate. Here, we solved a 2.04-Å resolution structure of a PSI trimer by cryo-electron microscopy from a primordial cyanobacterium Gloeobacter violaceus PCC 7421, which has no low-energy Chls. The structure shows the absence of some subunits commonly found in other cyanobacteria, confirming the primordial nature of this cyanobacterium. Comparison with the known structures of PSI from other cyanobacteria and eukaryotic organisms reveals that one dimeric and one trimeric Chls are lacking in the Gloeobacter PSI. The dimeric and trimeric Chls are named Low1 and Low2, respectively. Low2 is missing in some cyanobacterial and eukaryotic PSIs, whereas Low1 is absent only in Gloeobacter. These findings provide insights into not only the identity of low-energy Chls in PSI, but also the evolutionary changes of low-energy Chls in oxyphototrophs.

COGNITIVE CONCEPTUALISATIONS OF POLITICAL EUPHEMISTIC EXPRESSIONS

This paper discusses political euphemistic expressions from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. It is human to say something naturally and socially acceptable, emotionally not irritating, logically intelligible, and communicatively inter-translatable. Euphemistic expression is a way with which language speakers’ experiences can be linguistically and cognitively manifested. As a soft word or expression which is used to denote to things about which people may find disappointing or embarrassing to talk, euphemistic expressions enable to say something impossible possible. Introspection as a deep understanding of any language speaker to his/her language system on any talks is used as the data analyzing method. Research data is taken from online mass media. The research data focuses on politically related euphemistic expressions. The accounts of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) are used to give insights into the cognitive mechanism of euphemistic expressions. Political euphemistic expressions are logically intelligible. The research findings demonstrate that there are two basic motivations of euphemizing political expressions. The two are function and characteristics. The internalization of language speaker to the primordial nature of something to euphemize is the key to understand the way to construct the euphemistic expressions.

The Concept of Myth in Kōsaka Masaaki and Miki Kiyoshi’s Critique

This paper explores the concept of myth in two books written by Kōsaka Masaaki, The Historical World (1937) and Philosophy of the Nation (1942). In both, myth appears as a central moment in the transition from primitive to modern societies. The role of myth is closely related to Kōsaka’s notion of nature, since one goal of his reflection is to show how history is supported by the “substratum” of nature. In this sense, he also distinguishes between the natural and historical aspects of nations. After analyzing the subcategories of primordial nature, environmental nature, and historical nature, the paper shows how these layers are articulated by myth. Authority, in the contractual form of potlatch, signalizes the moment of transition to the true self-determination of nations. Miki Kiyoshi was one author who pointed out the problematic aspects of Kōsaka’s theory of nation. A comparison with Miki’s thought uncovers how authority is the main characteristic of Kōsaka’s view of myth. The paper finishes by investigating where this authority comes from. Since it cannot come from nature alone, it should also come from the past character of myth itself, which is an expression of what Kōsaka terms “the eternal now”.

Konsep Tuhan dan Agama Menurut Alfred North Whitehead

This article discusses the concept of God and religion according to Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy. The main issue is how to describe Whitehead's concept of God and its implications for religious life. Whitehead's critique of scientific materialism is an entry point to understand the characteristics of his thought. This criticism leads to Whitehead's cosmology in which each actual entity is in the process of becoming. God is not excluded from this cosmological scheme. In this way of thinking, God is the source of eternal objects or values. God experiences every actual event that occurs in the temporal world. Thus, God can be understood from two perspectives: the former refers to a cosmological frame, while the latter refers to religious experience. In Whitehead's language, God has two distinct natures, a primordial nature, and a consequent nature. From the perspective of religious life, Whitehead's concept of God seems to put more emphasis on divine immanence.