1,720,958 research outputs found
The Hybris of Plants: Reinterpreting Philosophy through Vegetal Life
Get PDFThis dissertation reexamines the place of plants in the history of Western philosophy, drawing on the diverse philosophical approaches of Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Hegel, and Nietzsche, among others. I suggest that a close reading of these philosophers reveals an aspect of vegetal existence that calls for a fundamental reconceptualization of life as a manner of being: in its ambivalent encounters with philosophy, the vegetative shows itself in terms of what I call hybris. By “hybris” I mean the activity by which the plant relates a proliferative, overflowing growth with a characteristic proportionality by which the plant composes a determinate manner of existence. In Part One, I trace the emergence of “plant hybris” in Goethe and Hegel’s scientific writings and Nietzsche’s philosophy of life. In Part Two, I expand and develop this concept by returning to Plato and Aristotle’s biological works.2023-10-1
Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Questionability of Truth
Get PDFDoes Nietzsche’s inquiry into the question of truth take him beyond the sense of truth as correctness found in Platonism toward a more Greek understanding of truth that brings concealment into an unsettling prominence within truth? I explore in this thesis a possible double reading of Nietzsche underdeveloped within Heidegger’s first Nietzsche lecture course from 1936-37. The first reading focuses on Nietzsche as an inversion and overturning of Platonism. The second reading focuses on Nietzsche as a thinker who resonates with pre-Platonic thought through his development of semblance and concealment as essential to life. In this second reading I explore a consistent ambiguity within Heidegger’s reading of Nietzsche that allows for the more overt reading of Nietzsche as an inverter of Platonism to be contested at least partially
The bodily dimension in thinking
No full textIncludes bibliographical references (p. 129-154) and index.Daniela Vallega-Neu
Rhythm and the Sense of the World
No full textThis project shows how rhythm is a source of rationality and a primary relationship to the world. Beginning with Ancient Greek philosophers, it uncovers a connection between rhythm and λόγος and explores how we might reorient ourselves in thinking the sense of the world. Central to this reorientation is understanding how the experience of wakefulness and dreaming shape the sense of the world. The question of the world and the origin of sense are shown to be intimately related, and rhythm is offered as a way of responding to these questions. In investigating the genesis of rationality, the project also addresses how some philosophers have accounted for error, illusion, or deviations from the rational. The chapters show how dreams are commonly excluded from Western rationality and have been considered a primary source of illusion and error. The project demonstrates how rhythm might help broaden the scope of rationality by opening us to senses that rationality sometimes represses, ones that often spring from the oneiric. Rather than exclude dreams from philosophical reflection, rhythms may let us suspend the intellectual tendency to determine, predict, and control so that we might come upon other senses of the world. Throughout, rhythm becomes a generative guide for rational inquiry as a way of engendering not simply senses made but sense in the making, allowing us to continually learn and relearn the sense of the world.2027-10-1
The Becoming-Life-of-Life: An Investigation into the Relationship between Nature and Freedom in F.W.J. Schelling
No full textThe present thesis is an investigation into the intimacy between nature and freedom through the work of F.W. J. Schelling. The guiding question that I will be asking throughout the text is what calls for, or necessitates, a philosophy of nature? On the one hand, this question asks about the motivating factors, themes, and concerns that articulated Schelling’s philosophy of nature, whether one considers this inquiry as simply a “phase” that Schelling passes through among others or the inquiry that defines Schelling’s overall philosophical career. On a deeper level however, the question asks about the very relationship between philosophy and nature: how does nature concern philosophy? Is it simply one of the regions of beings that philosophy engages or did philosophy originate entirely out of a concern, even care, for nature
Poetry and Ecstasy: Thinking Bodily with Heidegger and Bataille
No full textThis essay explores the possibilities for thinking of the body as a site of exposure to and commingling with the world. I begin with Martin Heidegger’s engagement with the question of poetry as an encounter with the non-conceptual dimension of experience (earth). I then show how the disclosure of this non-conceptual dimension of experience in poetry requires an irreducibly bodily form of thought and experience.
In the second chapter, I turn to the work of Georges Bataille in order to explore the bodily experiences and meditative practices he developed in the decades around and during World War II. First, I examine his writings concerning eroticism and laughter to show how these bodily experiences exceed conceptual determination and explanation. Lastly, I look at Bataille’s appropriation of medieval mystic Angela of Foligno’s practice of stigmatic meditation as a discipline of bodily exposure
The History of Philosophy
No full textThis year’s symposium will explore and celebrate the thought of one of the leading and most innovative philosophers of our time, John Sallis, who is the Frederick J. Adelmann, S.J. Professor of Philosophy at Boston College. He previously held Chairs at Pennsylvania State University, Vanderbilt University, Loyola University of Chicago, and Duquesne University, where he co-founded the Simon Silverman Phenomenology Center. He is the founding editor of the journal Research in Phenomenology, and General Editor of Studies in Continental Thought for Indiana University Press. He has lectured extensively in Europe, Asia, North and South America and is the author of more than 20 books encompassing the areas of ancient philosophy, German idealism, art, and contemporary philosophy in the phenomenological tradition.
This video (.mp4) is of Session 3: The History of Philosophy.
Saturday, October 27
9:00am - 12:00pm Session 3: The History of Philosophy – Africa Room, Student Union
Session Leader: David F. Krell
1. Drew Hyland, “On Translating John Sallis” - Timestamp: 0:12:30
2. Daniela Vallega-Neu, “John Sallis’ Liminal Phenomenology” - Timestamp: 1:06:15
3. Peg Birmingham, “John Sallis: On Sensibility and the Imagination” - Timestamp: 2:07:3
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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