Concept Of Transcendence Research Articles

Nietzsche, Nishitani, and Laruelle on the Apostle Paul: tradition and the affirmation of life

ABSTRACT This article offers two further philosophical engagements with the writings of the Apostle Paul. The recent work of Francois Laruelle on Paul in his turn to Christian non-theology is placed in dialogue with Nishitani Keiji’s account. This effort is accomplished by briefly grounding the discussion in Friedrich Nietzsche’s interpretation, where Paul is cast as the inventor of Christianity and the primary influence in the religion’s turn to a doctrinal and world-denying form of existence. As described here, Laruelle follows the broad outline of Nietzsche’s interpretation, where Paul once more deviates from the example of Christ and is guilty of encouraging a turn away from the world towards concepts of transcendence and life after death. Nishitani, on the other hand, and despite his affection for Nietzsche’s thought, sees in Paul’s life and writings a turn towards immanence, and offers a heavily contrasting read of Paul, one which deserves greater attention.

Examining the Role of Existentialism in Climate Change Mitigation

Man has relied on nature for food, medicine, fresh air, water, and other life-supporting factors. However, human activities have threatened biodiversity which now poses a magnanimous threat to man’s food, water, air, and medicine supply. Existentialist philosophy emphasizes the aspects of freedom, choice, and responsibility. We are where we are because of man’s choice and we can change our situation through choice. In this paper, we refer to among various existential themes, the concept of freedom, authenticity, transcendence, choice, and responsibility. We acknowledge that man’s actions have led to threats to his existence. On the contrary, man has lived in bad faith by relying on the deity to save him (man) from self-inflicted anguish. It can be observed that unless man authentically takes responsibility, his very existence is threatened and may lead to his extinction. For centuries, man’s existence has been dependent on nature for survival, however, man’s actions have destroyed nature upon which man’s existence was dependent. The purely scientific course of action which depends on the political will of the governments has not produced any tangible fruits, since politicians tend to act based on political expediency. Governments are formed by politicians who are often keen on winning the next election. As such, most governments tend to place climate change on the periphery as they get preoccupied with what can help them win the next election. This therefore implies that there is very high confidence that policies managed by governments are very likely to fail. This is why this paper seeks to reinvent the narrative and develop a framework based on existentialist philosophical aspects of individual, authenticity, freedom, and choice, and demonstrate how this framework anchored on existentialist philosophy goes beyond mere mitigation and adaptation.

Bohdan Zavidnyak, The Concept of Transcendence in the Thought of Philo of Alexandria

Bohdan Zavidnyak, The Concept of Transcendence in the Thought of Philo of Alexandria

On Stifling a Transcendental Breath

The article contends that respiratory philosophy has, thus far, laid predominant stress upon the empirical form of breathing, as opposed to the transcendental; or at least it has used breath precisely as an occasion to elide or deconstruct this very opposition. Breath is then conceived primarily as material, bodily, and natural: as binding us together with the animals and with all living things. And yet this apparently benign ecological gesture is not without its deleterious side-effects: by contrasting this gesture with a more humanistic and transcendental conception of breath, inspired by Giorgio Agamben’s work on the voice, we might begin to gain some clarity as to the jarring contrast that sprang up between the friendly valorisation of a shared con-spiration that has characterised this young philosophy up to now, and the intense, even violent, hostility to the breath of the other which the developed world exhibited from at least 2020 to 2022. We consider whether an overly empiricistic conception of breath and of the human might have played a part in this reversal of values. In conclusion, the article urges upon us a certain turn towards the transcendental form of the breath, and indeed to a certain human exceptionalism in this regard.

Life as Metaphor in Derrida and Fink

This article explains how Derrida’s notion of an originary or generalised metaphoricity can be understood in terms of the analyses presented in Voice and Phenomenon (1967) in response to Eugen Fink’s question of a ‘transcendental logos’ and of the paradoxical ontological status of phenomenological language. Tracing Fink’s impact on Derrida, as well as the key differences between them, the article shows that underlying Derrida’s reappropriation of the phenomenological concept of ‘life’ is an expansion of indicative relations—which in Husserl typify the function of signs within intersubjective communication and modes of judgement characterised by the non-presence of the intended object—to a general feature of the ‘living present’. While for Fink the indicative or metaphorical nature of the transcendental concept of ‘life’ does not threaten the founding unity it serves to name, for Derrida it is this very unity which is undermined by the proliferation of indication at the core of temporal experience.

Doğu’dan Batı’ya Kolektiviteler Üzerinden Birey-Devlet İlişkisi: Konfüçyan, Hegelyan ve Komüniteryan Siyaset Felsefelerinde Toplumsal Birey Anlayışı

This study aims to analyze the nature of the individual-state relationship from a descriptive approach and a holistic perspective. The importance attributed to the sociality of the individual is embedded in both Eastern and Western political philosophies. The position of the individual vis-à-vis the state and other social structures depends on the philosophical understanding of the period and context. The emphasis on the sociality of the individual, which is put forward in the critique of classical liberalism’s perception of the individual is also observed in Confucian ethics and Hegel’s philosophical approach and thus implies a linear understanding. Especially since the last quarter of the 20th century, liberal communitarians have revived the debate by criticizing classical liberal conception of the individual. In contrast to classical liberalism’s understanding of transcendental individual who is free from social/collective features, liberal communitarians highlight the significance of social ties and structures. Recognizing the importance of the individual’s collective ties, this study examines the individual’s relationship with collective structures, especially the state, in Confucianism, Hegelian political thought, and communitarianism and argues that the relationship between the two has been a subject of constant debate from past to present.

Jung on Transcendence

ABSTRACT Throughout this essay the author analyzes the concept of transcendence in Jung’s theoretical corpus with a focus on its philosophical parameters and therapeutic efficacy in promoting a category of value. Although Jung did not precisely define the terms transcendence, transcendent, and transcendental, it is necessary to tease out these features in order to illuminate the varieties of transcendence in Jung’s thought. Distinctions are made between the ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological dimensions of transcendence, including the structure, method, form, and process of mediating, transitioning, and transforming inner experience. Jung’s notion of the dialectic operative within the transcendent function is specifically critiqued. Here the author explores the possibility of a synthesis of internal opposition that leads to a greater principle of unity through the sublation of psyche. He further examines the transcendent function in the process of active imagination by drawing on patient material derived through associations in the analysis of the transference.

Thinking Transcendence as Ethical Relationship and Its Cultural Presuppositions: A Hermeneutical Encounter between Zhu Xi's 'Authentic Nature' and Levinas' 'Face'

Abstract: Through an intercultural dialogue—Chinese and Western—this article explores the possibility of building cultural diversity and pluralism in philosophy. It focuses, first, on building a dialogue between Levinas' and Zhu Xi's apparent (philosophical) affinity for ethics at the level of meaning of the concept of transcendence in the Neo-Confucian and Levinasian ethical contexts and, second, on uncovering and analyzing the inapparent differences at the level of cultural presuppositions on which this apparent affinity is based. I offer that both Levinas and Zhu Xi distinguish the impulse to care for the other—out of which the human relationship emerges—as rooted not in the ontological self but in an ethical transcendence: the other's face (Levinas) and the human authentic nature as mandate of heaven (Zhu Xi). The article comparatively interprets them and their cultural presuppositions.

Sambandha as a ‘Śakti-of-Śaktis’: Bhartṛhari’s Influence on the Relational Realism of Pratyabhijñā

Contemporary scholarship has significantly advanced our understanding of the grammarian Bhartṛhari’s influence on the Pratyabhijñā Śaivism of Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta. One area that has been somewhat neglected, however, is the subject of relation (sambandha). Here, I examine the influence of Bhartṛhari’s sambandha-vāda on the Pratyabhijñā school. As I see it, Bhartṛhari’s understanding of the holistic movement of sphoṭa—the practical process of ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ linguistic information—leads to a necessary reevaluation of the general logical form of sambandha, i.e., ‘relationality-as-such.’ On this account, Bhartṛhari articulates a basically transcendental conception of sambandha as a ‘śakti-of-śaktis’ in his ‘Exposition of Relation’ (Sambandhasamuddeśa [SSam]). This effectively means that one cannot designate the general logical form of sambandha in linguistic terms without also thereby changing its essential nature as such (cf. Houben: 170–4). I maintain that Utpaladeva’s ‘Proof of Relation’ (Sambandhasiddhi [SS]) leverages this insight into a series of pragmatic arguments to demonstrate that vimarśa, or recognitive judgment, is the true locus of relational action—i.e., unity-in-diversity (bhedābheda). In doing so, he effectively salvages a coherent understanding of relation as necessarily real (satya) from the deconstructive agenda of the Buddhist eliminativist, even though the referent may indeed appear paradoxical from the perspective of theoretical reason alone.

‘Maqam and Transcendence terminology on Wafayee Poems

The paper is entitled ‘Maqam and Transcendence terminology on Wafayee Poems’. Maqam and Transcendence are two significant stages of Sufism. Wafayee has utilized some of the terminologies of maqam and transcendence, therefore to shed light of this aspect of his poems and lack of an independent study on Sufism in Wafayee poems, this study was deemed necessary. The objective of this study is to identify the stages of Sufism and highlighting the terminologies related to maqam and transcendence in his poems. The scope of the study is limited to Wafayee’s Kurdish poems. The study adopts descriptive-analytic approach. The study design is as follows: The study consists of two main parts. The first part is divided into two sections. The first section tackles Wafayee’s life , his relation with sheikh of his doctrine ,then defines the concept of maqam and explains the terminologies that Wafayee used in his poems. The second section defines the concept of transcendence and analyzes the terminologies used in Wafayee poems.The second part is divided into two main sections. In the first section, Maqam terminologies in Wafayee’s poems are analyzed in detail. The second section is devoted to analyzing transcendence terminologies in Wafayee poems. The study ends in conclusions and list of references.

The secret life of objects in the immanent art of Morandi: Or: How art shows us how to write about art if we only let it1,2

In this example of relatively long-form art writing, the writer begins by relaying an anecdote regarding a difficult interaction with an editor. As this rocks the confidence of the writer, they try to rally themselves but seeking out an almost arbitrary receptor for their art writing skills and passions. This turns out to be a concurrent exhibition of the paintings of Giorgio Morandi. The piece describes the writer’s feelings, as well as the journey to the gallery, and ultimately creates a form of review or representation of the exhibition. However, the initial impulse for the piece remains and is returned to in a series of analyses of the writer’s method. This includes a candid exploration of the writer’s considerations of the place of judgement in their own and in contemporary art writing. Ultimately, the piece toys with the idea that, in an age of ambivalence, in which judgements all too easily seem all too harsh, it might just be the use of adjectives that are sufficient to betray an art writer’s evaluation of what they are otherwise simply describing. While the initial criticism by an editor involved the concept of transcendence, the art writer takes this accusation on board and tries, again candidly, to judge themselves, and for themselves, with regard to this concept. Ultimately, they find that, far from leaning towards transcendent values in art they are in fact committed to forms of immanence. Along the way other artists, including Cezanne and De Chirico, as well as other thinkers such as Deleuze and Alfred Jarry are utilized to develop the lines of thought. Ultimately, and rather obliquely, the piece becomes a response to the editor’s riposte and appears to succeed, to some extent, in re-founding the writer’s confidence in their own methods and beliefs, to which they have been led by their own approach to art writing, and of course by the art itself.

The architecture of transcendence: John Webster and Dietrich Bonhoeffer on divine agency, Christology and theological method

AbstractJohn Webster and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are two theologians invested in prioritising certain conceptions of divine transcendence within their respective theological projects. Specifically, both appeal to conceptions of divine transcendence and agency amidst what they understand to be the problematic naturalisation of theological discourse in modern Protestant theology, particularly within its liberal German traditions. The way they understand transcendence, however, and the doctrinal loci they choose to affect it, leads to different conceptualisations of the possibilities, scope and organisation of systematic theology. Where Webster (especially in his later work) seeks to prioritise God's immanent perfection and aseity through theology proper, Bonhoeffer instead emphasises God's freedom pro me within the person of Jesus Christ. These differences in first theological foundations have important consequences for the shape of theological method and doctrinal architecture within the practice of contemporary systematic theology.

GENDER POLITICS AND SELF-IDENTITY: A FEMINIST COMPARATIVE STUDY OF FAHMIDA RIAZ AND ADRIENNE RICH

This research investigates the aspect of gender politics and women’s self-identity through the comparative study of Fahmida Riaz’ collection of Poems Four Walls and a Black Veil and Adrienne Rich’s selected poems. Jacques Derrida’s concept of Binary Oppositions in deconstruction theory is the basic framework to conduct the study under feminist perspective. Since the construction of female gender, issues of women identity and their relevance with opposite male gender have raised many questions. The works of these Eastern and Western poets respectively encounter the universal truth of their subjugation as dependent creature in political and social dogmas where females have been assigned fixed gender roles of motherhood, sexuality and partisanship in undesirable pursuit. This classification of the binary assertions can be challenged and re investigated through various contextual lenses. The problem of gender politics and self-identity has been examined under the feminist perspective against structural binary of male/female as the fundamental viewpoint This research raises questions ;how Fahmida Riaz and Adrienne Rich dismantle their dogmatic beliefs, which tools they practice to reject fixed binary oppositions (bisexuality) and rethink feminism, and how concept of transcendence is deconstructed in Eastern and Western literature through social, cultural and political shifts. This research finds out the real practice of gender politics and women identity in both contexts with dissimilar and also a homogeneous approach of the writers in certain aspects. Keywords: Gender Politics, Self-identity, Binary Oppositions, Feminism, Social Dogma.

Variations on Judicial Precedent: From the Perspective of the Chilean Legal System

This paper is the result of my participation in a discussion event of Problema. Anuario de filosofía y teoría del derecho entitled “The Construction of Precedent in Civil Law: Debates, Concepts and Challenges”. Several colleagues with a vast knowledge on the subject of judicial precedent participated in this seminar, which also delved into the widely debated aspects of judicial precedent focused on the case of Chile. The entire discussion aimed at proposing solutions, as well as shedding some light on some of its important aspects.Starting from such transcendental concepts as, rationality and argumentative use, it is possible to find certain problems arising from the improper use of the above concepts, which in turn leads us to stare decisis, a term that if used incorrectly may result in an act against the internal independence of judges.

The body and the contagion: a symbiosis of yoga, dance, health and spirituality

ABSTRACT What are the connections between bodies, healing, and transcendence? I propose that by examining the intersections of the medical and the socio-cultural body with dance or the performative body, we can shine a critical light on this question. This paper brings Yoga and Indian dance together to explore how notions of health, spirituality, and morality came to be inscribed in particular kinds of bodies leading to selective ideas of bodily transcendence and spirituality in postcolonial India. I show through a diverse range of scholarships how the heterogeneous roots of Yoga have been homogenized in modern India as something Hindu and Brahminical (which is now integrated with rightwing Hindutva). Interestingly, the Indian classical dance revivalism shared the same logic as Yoga revivalism. As a result, the upper caste Hindu bodies distinguished themselves from their cultural others (Muslims and low caste Hindus) through concepts of purity, health, spirituality, and transcendence. I examine how some of these concepts of Yoga, dance, and embodiment from the east and west mingled in recent times and influenced narratives of ‘contemporary dance’ in India and the U.S. In these symbiotic, cross-cultural exchanges, concepts of somatics and neurobiology blended with modern Yoga and dance to render the elite, upper-caste/class bodies, and/or white bodies as universal, righteous, and transcultural.

“Bodyheartminding” (xin 心): Reconceiving the Inner Self and the Outer World in the Language of Holographic Focus and Field

“Bodyheartminding” (<i>xin</i> 心): Reconceiving the Inner Self and the Outer World in the Language of Holographic Focus and Field

The Enemy, the Demon, Lucifer: Jesuits Coming to Terms with the Devil in Sixteenth-Century Japan

This article focuses on how Jesuit missionaries to Japan during the sixteenth century recurred on notions of the devil as their primary enemy. They took these notions from contemporary late medieval and early modern Catholic demonology and configured them according to local circumstances, reconfiguring the concept of the devil to make sense of their environments. Similar developments as in Japan took place in the contemporary Jesuit mission fields of South America, but yielded slightly different results. As different ways to conceptually reframe the devil were directly connected to the question of his presence in the everyday world – was he a transcendent or an imminent force of evil, and how did he manifest himself and make use of his respective attributes? – this research is guided by the analytical concepts of transcendence and immanence.

Buddhism as Teaching of the “Axial Age” in the Work of Alexander Men

The article analyzes the interpretation of Fr. Alexander Men (1935-1990) of Buddhism as teaching of the “Axial Age”. It is based on his seven-volume work “History of Religion: In Search of the Way, Truth and Life” (1970-1983). First defines the methodology used by Fr. Alexander, which is comparative and hermeneutic in nature. At the same time, he proceeds from a theistic-Christian value position, which, nevertheless, allows him respectfully treats other religious-philosophical traditions. The originality of the author’s interpretation of Buddhism is determined, both its adequate features and one-sided, set by the value orientation. The concepts of transcendence and transcendent are differentiated, which allows conducting a comparative analysis of Buddhism and Christianity, assessments given by Fr. Alexander. The denial of the transcendent in Buddhism does not mean the absence of transcendence, especially in understanding the status of nirvana, which is defined purely apophatically. In the Indian worldview, he finds five essential principles that make Buddhism and Christianity related, despite all the difference in their positions: apophaticism, denial of the highest value of earthly goods, recognition of the high dignity of personal asceticism in spiritual life, the concept of “karma” as retribution (it is the aspect of retribution that is emphasized), the idea of salvation-liberation as the main goal of religion. These principles, in his opinion, “constitute a strong bridge connecting Eastern religious experience with the Gospel”. The work of A. Men contributes to the expansion of the cultural horizon, liberation from both nationalist and Eurocentric points of view, contributes to the development of a dialogue that is so necessary right now. It is noted that the “Axial Age” concept by K. Jaspers as a whole allows avoiding one-sided assessments, revealing the common source of all axial teachings, which can be defined as “a breakthrough to the transcendent”.

The Problem of Anthropomorphism in Abū l-Yusr al-Bazdawī

Abstract The problem of anthropomorphism has been an important source of the conflict between traditionalism and rationalism in Islamic theology. Theologians have had to reconcile the anthropomorphic expressions about God in the Koran and hadiths with their conceptions of His unity (tawḥīd) and transcendence (tanzīh). The Māturīdite theologian Abū l-Yusr al-Bazdawī devoted several chapters of his Uṣūl al-dīn to dealing with the problem. He lays the mainly rational grounds for God’s incomparability and incorporeality before turning to the anthropomorphic expressions, some of which he interprets symbolically, and others simply accepts. He also refutes the later Karrāmite idea that God is “elevated,” which creates ambivalence in his position towards the Prophet’s Ascension. His negotiation between the traditionalist and rationalist approaches to the topic highlights the impact of his intellectual environment on his thought as well as the rise of Māturīdite theology in Transoxania.

Cosmic motivational psychology_gunas affect cognition

Considerable attention by scholars and scientists has been given to the differences between science and spirituality. Yet could there be a cause or a substratum between these two subjects that is shared? Little attention has been directed to the possibility of cosmic energetics being responsible for the creation of the universe. This includes our world of time, space, forms, creatures, processes, cycles, science, humankind, ideas, and thought processes. This paper aims to delve behind the created universe, to a cosmological dimension that existed prior. During the earliest period of creation, there may have been cosmic forces responsible for first micro-organisms, processes, stages, elements, and all creation. Some peoples claim that creation was performed by a divine being or God; others claim that creation of the universe was a natural process of cosmic intelligence. Either due to a divine cosmic being orchestrating a substratum of cosmic forces, or due to a phenomenon of cosmic intelligence, the entire creation occurred. Science, philosophy, spirituality, and psychology all have interest in what exists beyond materiality. Perhaps the concept of consciousness used by scientists, the concept of transcendence used by religions, and transformation used by psychology have a common denominator for transpersonal change