Tragic Sense Of Life Research Articles

Weldon Kees and the Poetic Landscapes of Despair

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the efforts to renew an interest in the poetry of Weldon Kees, a more or less forgotten American poet of late modernism. The main argument of this paper is that Weldon Kees, while a belated poet of modernism, successfully swerved away from the earlier poetics of modernism and proved capable of constructing a unique poetics of despair and alienation. In many ways, an heir of Hart Crane’s tragic sense of life, Kees’ misreading of Hart Crane was highly fertile and crucially conducive to the creation of his own visionary poetics. In the first part of our discussion, a more generalized overview of Kees’ poetry is developed, while in the second part, we analyze the four Robinson poems which constitute the nucleus of Kees’ existential aesthetics. Notwithstanding the fact that despair is a ubiquitous presence in Kees’ poetry, it does not manifest itself as an inhibiting force; on the contrary, while despair is inextricably linked to his tragic fate, it also acts as a major creative impetus, which helped Kees express his relationship to the world and, consequently, his place in it.

우나무노의 문학에서 불멸과 개인 동일성의 문제

The quest of immortality is one of the central themes running through Unamuno''s works. The starting point of his thought in this regard is the conflict between the faith that pursues the immortality of existence and the reason that awakens human beings to the impossibility of it, as well as the ‘tragic sense of life’ that appears as a result. Based on this, Unamuno explores the way in which a being can become immortal in the midst of his life in literary works such as Mist and The Christ of Velázquez. However, at the end of his life, he reveals a negative view on the afterlife and immortality, as seen in Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr, and seems to give up his intense longing for the survival as an individual after physical death. This study considers this change not as a result of Unamuno’s end of his longing for immortality but as a shift in the way he pursues immortality and tries to understand it in relation to his modified perspective on ‘personal identity’. Considering this aspect, we find that the immortality he seeks is transformed from an individual level based on personal identity to a collective level. In this way, the present study attempts to examine how the immortality pursued by Unamuno is related to the problem of personal identity.

Un católico en Nueva York: Lorca’s Tragic Vision of the United States

This article discusses the role of Spanish Catholic tradition in the poetry of Federico García Lorca, especially in Poeta en Nueva York. Beginning with key concepts from Miguel de Unamuno’s Tragic Sense of Life to elucidate this tradition of irrationality, suffering, and spiritual vitality, we see that Lorca uses similar ideas as resistance to a “Protestant” modernity that, according to Lorca, favored materialist progress while eschewing human suffering. This article also demonstrates how the use of Spanish religious tradition complicates long-standing stereotypes of Spain’s supposed lack of modernization.

Dinámica de la otra vida en la filosofía de Unamuno

Unamuno concibe la otra vida en su óptima forma como un dinamismo en el sentido zubiriano. Ha leído en el Libro de Job la visión de vida y muerte como una conscripción militar o como una contratación laboral. El relato unamuniano «Juan Manso. Cuento de muertos» (1892) rechaza la mansedumbre, favoreciendo una «embestida» existencial antes y después de morir. La crisis de 1897 a 1902 hace a Unamuno temer la nada y buscar alivio en una pasajera conversión al protestantismo liberal. Pero cuando la inseguridad regresa, convierte su incertidumbre de la salvación en punto de partida para su filosofía trágica de la religión. En cuatro sucesivas fases, profundiza cada vez más en su concepción dinámica de la vida eterna: en Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, en el Tratado del amor de Dios; en Del sentimiento trágico, y en La agonía del cristianismo.

Miguel de Unamuno’s Anthropological Theses – From Tragedy to Transcendence

The aim of the text is to provide a preliminary discussion of the assumptions and anthropological theses in Miguel de Unamuno’s philosophy, mainly because of his best-known book from 1912 Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (Tragic Sense of Life). Unamuno’s extensive deliberations can be considered in many contexts: ontological, epistemological, ethical and axiological. However, anthropological theses seem to be dominant in his thoughts. In Unamuno’s anthropological theses, especially in his affi rmation of human existence, it is easy to see references to religious thought and theology (Catholic and Protestant). Unamuno infl uenced the further development of philosophy and his theses can be considered as a presentation of the main philosophical problems of the 20th century: the identity of the individual, the sense of existence, the individualisation of life goals and choices, freedom as a task facing the individual, the impermanence of norms and the search for lasting values, senses and meanings. It is easy to notice that what makes Unamuno’s theses stand out is the anthropocentrism of his theses, i.e. the belief in the original – in an ontological sense – essence of humanity. Unamuno, in his anthropological theses, captures the essence and existence of humanity, but the starting point is always the concrete, individual human being and its existence. In characterising humans, Unamuno describes the human effort and desire for immortality, adopts the assumptions of historical relativism, referring at the same time to the permanent and unchanging sphere of transcendence. He assumes an inherently diverse human being, which is internally contradictory. This internal contradiction results in different anthropologies, but also in a differentiated identity of the individual. The tragic character of the mundane existence relates to the irremovable aporias of the spiritual and the material in humans, as well as reason and will, aspiration and inability. Faith in God is the decisive element in the tragic existence of humans, which is nevertheless affi rmed by Unamuno. It is this existence in a mundane form that we wish to preserve through immortality and our way towards transcendence.

The tragic core of criminal justice: Coercive social control and the loss of innocence

Practitioners and academics in Criminal Justice are engaged in tragic work. The core defining aspect of criminal justice is using coercion, or the threat of it, to ensure social control. As noted by many writers, force to compel others taints the character of the compeller who cannot remain both good and innocent, even when force is used for good ends, I argue that a tragic sense of life, which accepts the impossibility of being both good and innocent, is the practical and conceptual glue that defines criminal justice as a discipline.

Unamuno y su concepción trágica de la existencia

El sentimiento trágico de la vida fue una de las grandes aportaciones filosófico-religiosas de don Miguel de Unamuno. Si es cierto que, al lado de su concepción trágica de la existencia, se yuxtaponen conceptos tan fundamentales y decisivos como los de conatus essendi, lucha por la vida, fe y Dios, en el presente estudio nos ceñiremos a la relación polémica y angustiada que la pistis mantiene con la gnosis o, si se quiere, que la fe mantiene con la razón en cuanto al destino último de las conciencias individuales. Con ello intentaremos poner de relieve los rasgos más característicos y simbólicos de la existencia humana tal como la conceptualizó Unamuno en su época finisecular decimonónica, cuando el positivismo y la fenomenología impugnaban la metafísica como rama legítima del conocimiento.

Commercialism, Fear, and a “Tragic Sense of Life”

Commercialism, Fear, and a “Tragic Sense of Life”

Happiness, Despair and Education

In today’s world we appear to place a premium on happiness. Happiness is often portrayed, directly or indirectly, as one of the key aims of education. To suggest that education is concerned with promoting unhappiness or even despair would, in many contexts, seem outlandish. This paper challenges these widely held views. Focusing on the work of the great Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky, I argue that despair, the origins of which lie in our reflective consciousness, is a defining feature of human life. Education, I maintain, should not be seen as a flight from despair but as a process of deepening our understanding of suffering and its potentially pivotal role in our humanisation. In developing these ideas, I draw on Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death and Unamuno’s The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, among other sources.

Philosophical Lessons from Scientific Biography

If we set aside personal edification, what reasons remain for a philosopher of science to study the intellectual biography of a famous (or infamous) scientist? This question raises familiar and perhaps tired arguments about the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science, but it is also practical: why take the time to digest almost 600 pages devoted to the controversial German zoologist Ernst Haeckel? A preliminary answer is the author. The historical investigations of Robert Richards have been of ongoing interest to philosophers, whether it be evolutionary explanations of mind and behavior in the nineteenth century (Dennett 1989) or his contentious claims—reinvigorated in the present volume—about Darwin’s commitment to embryonic recapitulation (Lennox 1994). Richards has a knack for unearthing details germane to conceptual reflection, in no small part because of his own philosophical predilections (e.g., a selection model of scientific theory development). Here I entertain three more reasons to follow the injunction tolle lege: the prescient synthesis exemplified in Haeckel’s evolutionary theorizing, the impact of model organism choice, and the critical role of pictures in scientific reasoning accented by Haeckel’s artistic proclivities. In The Tragic Sense of Life, Richards elaborates on the Romantic

La consciencia histórica e intrahistórica en Miguel de Unamuno

Realizaremos un estudio del concepto unamuniano de consciencia con base en las nociones ontológicas de historia e intrahistoria. Intentamos percibir la doble acepción del concepto de consciencia en Unamuno, considerando los principios ontológicos propios de la primera etapa de su formación que, bajo la trasmutación de su pensamiento de la exterioridad hacia la interioridad, se reestructuran en los conceptos de subjetividad carnal y subjetividad histórica. Dicha metodología se legitima en el trasfondo filosófico del pensamiento unamuniano, que se desvincula del concepto de consciencia colectiva a favor del concepto de consciencia individual. Consideramos importante la noción de sustancia que el autor concibe e interpreta en Vida de don Quijote y Sancho y Del sentimiento trágico de la vida. Con base en su existencialismo, de corte vitalista, los conceptos de apariencia y realidad asumen matices muy peculiares en la doble dimensión del concepto de consciencia, cuando se correlacionan con el conatus spinoziano.

Robert J. Richards. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Pp. xx+551. $39.00 (cloth), $25.00 (paper).

Robert J. Richards. <i>The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Pp. xx+551. $39.00 (cloth), $25.00 (paper).

Early German Darwinism reconsidered

For a long period, German evolutionism has been overshadowed by the ‘‘Darwin industry’’ with its concentration on the Anglo-American cultural tradition. Even such a towering figure of continental Darwinism as Ernst Haeckel remained bypassed in the monographic literature. The situation changed recently, first of all, due to path-breaking books by Mario Di Gregorio (Di Gregorio, M. From Here to Eternity, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005) and Robert Richards (Richards, R.J. The Tragic Sense of Life, Chicago, 2008). The book under consideration is one more step toward rethinking the pre-Darwinian and immediate post-Darwinian developments in German-language biology. The major objective of the book is to explore the early history of German Darwinism with a special attention to ‘‘how German Darwinism relates to Darwin’s own version’’ (5). To answer this question, the author explores the scientific worldview of Darwin’s German translator H. G. Bronn and the consequences of Bronn’s reading of Darwin for German evolutionism and, first of all, for Haeckel. Yet, Gliboff’s aspiration is not only to introduce new historical data, but also to rethink the very methodology of historical investigations into German science. He rejects reconstructions which represent the intellectual history as a rigid chain of influences resembling ‘‘terminal additions’’ in ontogeny and claims that German evolutionists ‘‘were not passive recipients of influences from the German predecessors’’, but selectively constructed their research programs based on the entire range of available intellectual resources. Proceeding from this assumption, Gliboff rebels against the interpretative tradition originating from Edward S. Russell’s understanding of pre-Darwinian German biology as a stronghold of idealistic morphology. Even the coming of

The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought (review)

The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought (review)

A Spectre Haunts Evolution: Haeckel, Heidegger, and the All-Too-Human History of Biology

Since The Meaning of Evolution (1992), Robert J. Richards has argued that modern evolutionary theory is rooted in late 18th-century Romantic science. The publication of The Tragic Sense of Life (2009) provides a fitting occasion to evaluate how this perspective revises the standard history of biological thought. This essay focuses on three aspects of Richards's attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of German Naturphilosophie: (1) the identification of Romantic strains in Charles Darwin's portrait of evolutionary history; (2) the demonstration that any attempt to treat Ernst Haeckel as a "pseudo-Darwinian" inevitably renders Darwin himself a "pseudo-Darwinian"; and (3) the denial of Haeckel's alleged responsibility for the rise of Nazi racial hygiene. This article examines Richards's case for clearing Haeckel's name, as well as the subsequent (slanderous) charge from Daniel Gasman that Richards is guilty of whitewashing the Haeckelian roots of the Holocaust.

The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought by Robert J. Richards

The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought by Robert J. Richards

Darwinism's Tragic Genius: Psychology and ReputationRobert J. Richards. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. xx + 512 pp., apps., figs., bibl., index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2008. $39 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessEssay ReviewsDarwinism's Tragic Genius: Psychology and Reputation Robert J. Richards. The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. xx + 512 pp., apps., figs., bibl., index. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 2008. $39 (cloth).Nick HopwoodNick Hopwood*Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RH, United Kingdom. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 100, Number 4December 2009 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/652030 Views: 56Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2010 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:reviewed by Alan C. Love Robert J. Richards: The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought,, Philosophy of Science 78, no.44 (Jul 2015): 696–701.https://doi.org/10.1086/661776

H.G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism: A Study in Translation and Transformation * The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

H.G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism: A Study in Translation and Transformation * The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

:The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

:The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought

The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought, by Robert J. Richards.

<i>The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought</i>, by Robert J. Richards.