221 research outputs found
Writing and the rights of reality: usurpation and potentiality in Derrida, Plato, Nietzsche, and Beckett
No full textThe thesis critically evaluates Jacques Derrida's conferral of the rights of reality on writing, focussing on his theory of an arche-text in light of the speculative nature of this theory. The theory is initially considered in the context of Derrida's elucidation of the usurpatory status of writing within the Platonic and Nietzschean texts. This consideration reveals an admission of writing's usurpatory status by both writers while at the same time demonstrating their awareness of the intrinsically speculative nature of this view, the significance of writing lying in its ability to exteriorise the radically indeterminate status of consciousness m relation to reality rather than its ability to displace consciousness or reality The analyses, therefore, not only bring the Derridean hypothesis of a repressive or phonocentric metaphysical episteme into question but also exhibit the historical and philosophical role of potentiality in relation to writing, writing's ultimate significance lying in its capacity to exteriorise our existence as a mode of potentiality. Accordingly, in the second half of the thesis the Derridean theory of writing is countered with a specifically Aristotelian theory of the text as it is exhibited in the prose of Samuel Beckett, an author whose significance lies in his close alignment with Derridean theory within contemporary criticism. It is demonstrated that this identification has obviated an awareness of the significance of potentiality within the Beckettian text, his work consequently being appraised in the previously neglected context of Aristotelian metaphysics
Virtue and democracy in Plato's late dialogues
No full textBoth Plato's theory of virtue and his attitude towards
democracy -the two being correspondent- change significantly as we
move from the middle to the late dialogues. The Republic is a
substantially authoritarian work which expresses an unmitigated
rejection of democracy. Its authoritarianism is deeply rooted in
the fact that its ethical and political assertions are justified
on a metaphysical basis. Plato suggests that virtue and
metaphysical knowledge legitimize political power, but both virtue
and knowledge are so defined as to be attainable only by a tiny
minority. In the Politicus Plato reasserts the superiority of a
complete virtue grounded on philosophical knowledge, but seriously
questions the attainability of this ideal. In the closing part of
this dialogue Plato demonstrates an interest in history and in
this respect the Politicus anticipates the Laws, where political
theory is not justified by metaphysics, but is informed by
historical experience. More specifically, Plato attempts to
reproduce on a theoretical level a legislation similar to the
actual historical legislation of Solon and he underlines the need
for a moderate state involving elements from different
constitutions. Because Plato adopts a historical perspective in
the Laws, his earlier authoritarianism is severely curtailed
(though not completely abandoned). So, despite still holding a low
opinion of democracy, Plato does use some democratic elements in
his Magnesian constitution and the predominant conception of moral
virtue put forward in the Laws is not the highly exclusive virtue
of the Republict but a virtue falling within the capacities of the
ordinary citizen. In comparison to the state of the Republic the
city of the Laws is for Plato only a "second best". Even so,
however, the latter dialogue with its moderation, its rejection of
absolutism and its surprisingly modern emphasis on the
accountability of all officials constitutes a contribution of
lasting interest to Western political thinking
Komposisi Musik Odak-odak Ras Patam-Patam dalam Format Penggabungan Musik Etnik Karo dan Orkestra
No full textSuku Karo merupakan sebuah suku yang mendiami dataran tinggi karo di Sumatera Utara dan sebagian wilayah Aceh Tenggara. Suku Karo merupakan sebuah suku yang mandiri, memiliki adat istiadat sendiri dengan segala macam kearifan budaya dan kebudayaan yang tinggi baik di bidang arsitektur, makanan, musik dan pertanian. Sebagian besar suku karo bekerja sebagai petani karena tanah tempat tinggal suku karo merupakan tanah yang subur untuk bercocok tanam. Suku Karo juga memiliki kebudayaan yang unik dan khas, khususnya di bidang musik. Sampai saat ini musik karo masih tetap hidup dalam kehidupan orang-orang Karo. Berangkat dari situlah karya ini kemudian bermula dan menjadi sebuah inspirasi untuk membuat kolaborasi musik etnik karo dengan orkestra. Komposisi Odak-odak ras Patam-patam ini merupakan ekspresi untuk menunjukkan kecintaan pada musik karo dan suku Karo. Darah yang mengalir di nadi akan terus mengalir sampai akhir hayat sebagai seorang suku Karo
A Study On Protagorean Objectivism
No full textProtagoras, the first and greatest sophist in the fifth century BCE, is known to have performed professionally as a teacher of various subjects, having interests in human language, political and ethical theories and activities, and education, associating himself with major and influential politicians of his time.
Ever since Plato’s interpretation of Protagoras’ Man-Measure Doctrine in the Theaetetus as a thesis of radical relativism regarding perceptual epistemology (‘each individual is the criterion of the truth of a judgement about a given object or a state of affairs’, thus, ‘a thing which appears/is perceived as F to/by a is F for a, while the same thing which appears/is perceived as ¬F to/by b is ¬F for b’), Protagoras has been criticised by intellectuals both in antiquity and modern times for self-contradiction.
This thesis makes an exhaustive investigation of the ancient evidence for Protagoras and concludes that in fact it supports an objectivist reading which, if right, would absolve Protagoras of this criticism. For this purpose, I first analyse the so-called Great Speech of Plato’s Protagoras as a source for Protagoras’ ethical and political ideas (Chapter II). In the light of this, I suggest that an alternative reading of the Man-Measure Doctrine is possible in a political-ethical context (Chapter III). My interpretation of Protagoras’ peri theōn (‘on the gods’) fragment suggests a new understanding of the sophist’s epistemological views (Chapter IV). Then, I examine Protagoras’ interest in the correct use of language (Chapter V), and finally his rhetorical sophism through the investigation of the so-called ouk estin antilegein (‘it is not possible to contradict’) doctrine (Chapters VI).
My investigation of the evidence for Protagoras shows that, in his version of objectivism, the things that are related to human affairs, such as political virtues, can and should be known and taught on the basis of the common and objective civic senses; knowledge and teaching of them is accomplished through the human objective epistemological condition and a process of synthesis of human experiences, in a correct linguistic and grammatical manner, for a good life lived in human community. If this is right, then Protagoras is not vulnerable to the accusation of self-contradiction; in fact the sophist holds a coherent ‘epistemological’-‘political and ethical’-‘linguistic’ position according to which his political and ethical ideas are supported by objectivist views of epistemology and naturalism of language
The death of William Golding: authorship and creativity in darkness visible and the paper men
No full textIn the seventies and eighties William Golding was deeply responsive to the critical, anti-authorial ethos that followed the publication of Roland Barthes's "La mort de I'auteur" (1968). In Darkness Visible (1979) and The Paper Men (1984) he investigates means by which to reaffirm authorial presence. Working through paradox, he performs the authorial death in these novels, and establishes language’s inadequacy as a means of conveying absolute meaning, authorial "vision," truth or revelation. Having done so he nonetheless gestures towards the divine, towards the possibility of a vatic communication. In this manner the novels work upon principles of contradiction and collapse. What remains is a discourse of hope, promise, desire, without means of substantiating such optimism. Thus Golding might be said to have practiced a form of negative theology, and to have anticipated in this respect some recent trends in literary theory
Leading Beautifully: How Mastery, Congruence and Purpose Create the Aesthetic of Embodied Leadership Practice
No full textThis paper explores the territory of leading as an embodied activity through the
lens of the aesthetic category of ‘the beautiful’. Its starting point is that
although much of the literature about effective leadership practice focuses on
leadership behaviours, little is written about the way in which those behaviours
are actually enacted. The musician, Bobby McFerrin serves as a case study for
identifying three key aspects of leading beautifully: mastery, congruence
between form and content, and purpose. These are further considered through
reference to the concept of beauty as theorised by the philosophers Plato and
Plotinus. The paper then considers how ‘leading beautifully’ might differ from
other conceptualisations of leadership and discusses the particular insight it
brings to understanding the nature of leading as a relational ph
Poetics of the same: a philosophical poetic recourse into sameness
No full textPhDThis study endeavours to investigate the philosophical and poetological
dimensions, the philological origins, and significant philosophical-literary
representations of the Same. It also assesses sameness as a philosophical and
poetological modus operandi; that is to say, it analyzes the ways in which the
Same operates in different types of discourses both as an object of investigation
and as an agent of (poetic) thought. The concept of the Same or the operation of
sameness as the philosophical question par excellence will be considered in the
development of Continental philosophy and philosophical poetics from classical
antiquity to Postmodernism, and its transposition into poetry.
The elaboration of the issue of sameness encompasses any philosophical
inquiry which seeks to establish the essence of Being and make it susceptible to a
general, unifying principle: as a search for an underlying element; for a
metaphysical unity or universal, preceding division or difference and amounting
to the harmony in the Universe; or for a transcendental absolute totality.
Postulations of the pure conceptual difference are likewise examined as part of the
elaboration of sameness, and will be viewed as indispensable for revealing the
genuine plenitude of sameness.
Part One traces the inception of sameness as a concept of pure identity,
amounting to the harmony of the Universe by virtue of the operations of
belonging (Presocratics), participation (Plato), and emanation (Plotinus), anchored
in the relationships between the One and the many, between the Whole and its
parts, between the Original and the copy. Part Two inquires into the limits of
postulating sameness in terms of pure identity and points to two possible solutions
to this problem: a philosophical-aesthetic digression from sameness (Kant and
related aesthetic theories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) and the
return to sameness as an absolute totality in Part Three (Schelling and Hegel).
Part Four investigates the re-postulation of sameness as pure Difference
(Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida), hence the entire re-organization of thought in
terms of the other. Part Five analyzes the transposition of sameness from
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philosophy into the poetic language of repetition, using Rilke’s Sonnets to
Orpheus as its prime poetic example.
It will be argued that the philosophical displacement of the Same from a
concept of identity into that of difference does not amount to an abandonment of
its plenitude, but rather points to the need for a precarious balance between
sameness and difference, the simultaneous quest for unity and the absolute
singularity of the other. This balance, it will be argued, must be sought for in
every genuine creation
Barthes, Bakhtin, Structuralism: A Reassessment
No full textPhDThe thesis is a comparative analysis of the shared ideas and concerns in the works of
Mikhail Bakhtin and Roland Barthes from the point of view of differences between
French and Slavic literary structuralisms. Its background argument is that the
structuralism developed in the later works of the Russian Formalists and by Prague
Structuralists and Soviet Semioticians is more historically and socially oriented than its
French version, defining the structure of a literary work as a system of all of its
elements and effects (even those that take us outside of the text, like literary tradition
and historical and political circumstances). In this sense, Bakhtin can be seen as a part
of the Slavic structuralist tradition (and not opposed to it as is often claimed), and
Barthes (seen throughout his career) is on the whole perhaps closer to the Slavic
structuralism than he is to the French.
The particular problems discussed are those of the relationship between
literature and ideology, the notions of intertextuality, heteroglossia, dialogism and
polyphony and the differences between them, and the role of the author.
Barthes and Bakhtin shared a lifelong interest in the role of ideology in literature
and the influence of authoritarian language or myth on culture in general and the literary
text in particular. They looked for ways in which the deadening effect of the
mythological (epic, monological) thought and word can be counteracted through
literature, and different versions of what Kristeva termed 'intertextuality' played an
important part in their treatment of the subject. They also both discussed the role of the
author and their voice in the literary text, and the question of their power over the text,
its characters (Bakhtin) and the reader (Barthes).
The main thread of Barthes and Bakhtin's thought focuses on the problem of
counteracting authoritarian language through literature, and the solutions they proposed
can fruitfully be seen in the light of Slavic structuralism's notions of literary structure
Metajournals. A federalist proposal for scholarly communication and data aggregation
No full textWhile the EU is building an open access infrastructure of archives (e.g. OpenAIRE) and it is trying to implement it in the Horizon 2020 program, the gap between the tools and the human beings – researchers, citizen scientists, students, ordinary people – is still wide. The necessity to dictate open access publishing as a mandate for the EU funded research – ten years after the BOAI - is an obvious symptom of it: there is a chasm between the net and the public use of reason. To escalate the advancement and the reuse of research, we should federate the multitude of already existing open access journals in federal open overlay journals that receive their contents from the member journals and boost it with their aggregation power and their semantic web tools. The article contains both the theoretical basis and the guidelines for a project whose goals are: 1. making open access journals visible, highly cited and powerful, by federating them into wide disciplinary overlay journals; 2. avoiding the traps of the “authors pay” open access business model, by exploiting one of the virtue of federalism: the federate journals can remain little and affordable, if they gain visibility from the power of the federal overlay journal aggregating them; 3. enriching the overlay journals both through semantic annotation tools and by means of open platforms dedicated to host ex post peer review and experts comments; 4. making the selection and evaluation processes and their resulting data as much as possible public and open, to avoid the pitfalls (e. g, the serials price crisis) experienced by the closed access publishing model. It is about time to free academic publishing from its expensive walled gardens and to put to test the tools that can help us to transform it in one open forest, with one hundred flowers – and one hundred trailblazers
Metajournals. A federalist proposal for scholarly communication and data aggregation
No full textWhile the EU is building an open access infrastructure of archives (e.g. Openaire) and it is trying to implement it in the Horizon 2020 program, the gap between the tools and the human beings – researchers, citizen scientists,
students, ordinary people – is still wide. The necessity to dictate open access publishing as a mandate for the EU funded research – ten years after the BOAI - is an obvious symptom of it: there is a chasm between the net and the
public use of reason. To escalate the advancement and the reuse of research, we should federate the multitude of already existing open access journals in federal open overlay journals that receive their contents from the member journals and boost it with their aggregation power and their semantic web tools.
The article contains both the theoretical basis and the guidelines for a project whose goals are:
1. making open access journals visible, highly cited and powerful, by federating them into wide disciplinary overlay journals;
2. avoiding the traps of the “authors pay” open access business model, by exploiting one of the virtue of federalism: the federate journals can remain little and affordable, if they gain visibility from the power of the federal overlay journal aggregating them;
3. enriching the overlay journals both through semantic annotation tools and by means of open platforms dedicated to host ex post peer review and experts comments;
4. making the selection and evaluation processes and their resulting data as much as possible public and open, to avoid the pitfalls (e. g, the serials price crisis) experienced by the closed access publishing model.
It is about time to free academic publishing from its expensive walled gardens and to put to test the tools that can help us to transform it in one open forest, with one hundred flowers – and one hundred trailblazers
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