Clayton Crockett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227211
- eISBN:
- 9780823235308
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227211.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book represents a powerful theological engagement with psychoanalytic theory in Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Žižek, as well as major expressions of contemporary continental philosophy, including ...
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This book represents a powerful theological engagement with psychoanalytic theory in Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Žižek, as well as major expressions of contemporary continental philosophy, including Deleuze, Derrida, Marion, and Badiou. Through creative and constructive psycho-theological readings of topics such as sublimation, schizophrenia, God, and creation ex nihilo, this book contributes to a new form of radical theological thinking that is deeply involved in the world. Here the idea of the Kantian sublime is read into Freud and Lacan, and compared with sublimation. The sublime refers to a conflict of the Kantian faculties of reason and imagination, and involves the attempt to represent what is intrinsically unrepresentable. Sublimation, by contrast, involves the expression and partial satisfaction of primal desires in culturally acceptable terms. The sublime is negatively expressed in sublimation, because it is both the “source” of sublimation as well as that which resists being sublimated. That is, the Freudian sublime is related to the process of sublimation, but it also distorts or disrupts sublimation, and invokes what Lacan calls the Real. The effects of the sublime are not just psychoanalytic but, importantly, theological, because the sublime is the main form that “God” takes in the modern world. A radical postmodern theology attends to the workings of the sublime in our thinking and living, and provides resources to understand the complexity of reality. This book is one of the first sustained theological readings of Lacan in English.Less
This book represents a powerful theological engagement with psychoanalytic theory in Freud, Lacan, Kristeva, and Žižek, as well as major expressions of contemporary continental philosophy, including Deleuze, Derrida, Marion, and Badiou. Through creative and constructive psycho-theological readings of topics such as sublimation, schizophrenia, God, and creation ex nihilo, this book contributes to a new form of radical theological thinking that is deeply involved in the world. Here the idea of the Kantian sublime is read into Freud and Lacan, and compared with sublimation. The sublime refers to a conflict of the Kantian faculties of reason and imagination, and involves the attempt to represent what is intrinsically unrepresentable. Sublimation, by contrast, involves the expression and partial satisfaction of primal desires in culturally acceptable terms. The sublime is negatively expressed in sublimation, because it is both the “source” of sublimation as well as that which resists being sublimated. That is, the Freudian sublime is related to the process of sublimation, but it also distorts or disrupts sublimation, and invokes what Lacan calls the Real. The effects of the sublime are not just psychoanalytic but, importantly, theological, because the sublime is the main form that “God” takes in the modern world. A radical postmodern theology attends to the workings of the sublime in our thinking and living, and provides resources to understand the complexity of reality. This book is one of the first sustained theological readings of Lacan in English.
Vesna A. Wallace
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195122114
- eISBN:
- 9780199834808
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195122119.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Buddhism
The first part of this last chapter discusses the path of actualizing gnosis in relation to the individual. The Kālacakratantra's theory of the nature of gnosis, prāṇas (life force or life winds), ...
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The first part of this last chapter discusses the path of actualizing gnosis in relation to the individual. The Kālacakratantra's theory of the nature of gnosis, prāṇas (life force or life winds), spiritual ignorance, and mental afflictions, as well as the relationships among them, provides the rationale for the Kālacakratantra practices for eliminating mental afflictions and actualizing the four bodies of the Buddha. Among the Kālacakratantra's multifaceted approaches to the eradication of mental afflictions, several are especially significant: first, the path of eliminating mental afflictions is the path of sublimating the afflictive nature of mental afflictions into the peaceful and pure nature of the enlightened beings, who are the pure aspects of the elements from which mental afflictions arise; second, the path of sublimating mental afflictions in the Kālacakra tradition is the path of recognizing the ultimate nature of one's own mental afflictions, which is gnosis. The following three sections of the chapter look at the transformative body of the path of initiation, the transformative body of the path of the stage of generation, and the transformative body of the path of the stage of completion. The last section examines the phases of the ṣaḍ‐aṅga‐yoga (six‐phased yoga) of the Kālacakratantra; this is a meditative process that manifests the successively more encompassing aspects of the mind.Less
The first part of this last chapter discusses the path of actualizing gnosis in relation to the individual. The Kālacakratantra's theory of the nature of gnosis, prāṇas (life force or life winds), spiritual ignorance, and mental afflictions, as well as the relationships among them, provides the rationale for the Kālacakratantra practices for eliminating mental afflictions and actualizing the four bodies of the Buddha. Among the Kālacakratantra's multifaceted approaches to the eradication of mental afflictions, several are especially significant: first, the path of eliminating mental afflictions is the path of sublimating the afflictive nature of mental afflictions into the peaceful and pure nature of the enlightened beings, who are the pure aspects of the elements from which mental afflictions arise; second, the path of sublimating mental afflictions in the Kālacakra tradition is the path of recognizing the ultimate nature of one's own mental afflictions, which is gnosis. The following three sections of the chapter look at the transformative body of the path of initiation, the transformative body of the path of the stage of generation, and the transformative body of the path of the stage of completion. The last section examines the phases of the ṣaḍ‐aṅga‐yoga (six‐phased yoga) of the Kālacakratantra; this is a meditative process that manifests the successively more encompassing aspects of the mind.
Frank Graziano
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195136401
- eISBN:
- 9780199835164
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195136403.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
An analysis of what mysticism might mean if its underlying presumptions–that God desires suffering, that mystics marry Christ–are false. Also explores trends in the scholarship on female mysticism, ...
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An analysis of what mysticism might mean if its underlying presumptions–that God desires suffering, that mystics marry Christ–are false. Also explores trends in the scholarship on female mysticism, including a devaluation or dismissal of erotic and psychological aspects. The concluding section treats the inversions of values and meanings in mysticism, then surveys perceptions regarding whether saints’ mortification is for imitation or wondrous admiration.Less
An analysis of what mysticism might mean if its underlying presumptions–that God desires suffering, that mystics marry Christ–are false. Also explores trends in the scholarship on female mysticism, including a devaluation or dismissal of erotic and psychological aspects. The concluding section treats the inversions of values and meanings in mysticism, then surveys perceptions regarding whether saints’ mortification is for imitation or wondrous admiration.
Marie McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199691524
- eISBN:
- 9780191742262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199691524.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
In his later work, Wittgenstein attacks the tendency to sublime the logic of our language that he finds in Russell and his own earlier philosophy. This chapter argues that this tendency should be ...
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In his later work, Wittgenstein attacks the tendency to sublime the logic of our language that he finds in Russell and his own earlier philosophy. This chapter argues that this tendency should be taken to include, not only our craving for generality, but also the temptation to picture meaning as a remarkable act of mind. The chapter then discusses the strategies employed by the later Wittgenstein to undermine both aspects of this tendency.Less
In his later work, Wittgenstein attacks the tendency to sublime the logic of our language that he finds in Russell and his own earlier philosophy. This chapter argues that this tendency should be taken to include, not only our craving for generality, but also the temptation to picture meaning as a remarkable act of mind. The chapter then discusses the strategies employed by the later Wittgenstein to undermine both aspects of this tendency.
Peter Otto
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187196
- eISBN:
- 9780191674655
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural ...
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This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural discourses of his time, in profound dialogue with Swedenborg, Locke, and Young. In the course of this conversation, Blake anatomizes a remarkable variety of cultural practices (including religion, science, and art) designed to achieve transcendence. He focuses in particular on the fate of the body in cultures of transcendence, developing perhaps the first theory of sexual sublimation. Blake's radical visual and verbal strategies in this poem are part of an attempt to defer the movement of transcendence, long enough for the reader to see the warring elements of the fallen world as the dismembered body of humanity.Less
This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural discourses of his time, in profound dialogue with Swedenborg, Locke, and Young. In the course of this conversation, Blake anatomizes a remarkable variety of cultural practices (including religion, science, and art) designed to achieve transcendence. He focuses in particular on the fate of the body in cultures of transcendence, developing perhaps the first theory of sexual sublimation. Blake's radical visual and verbal strategies in this poem are part of an attempt to defer the movement of transcendence, long enough for the reader to see the warring elements of the fallen world as the dismembered body of humanity.
Joseph M. Hassett
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199582907
- eISBN:
- 9780191723216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582907.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Yeats's conversations with Maud Gonne's daughter, Iseult, during the summer of 1916 inform the intriguing essay on poetic creativity that he wrote while wrestling with the idea that Iseult might ...
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Yeats's conversations with Maud Gonne's daughter, Iseult, during the summer of 1916 inform the intriguing essay on poetic creativity that he wrote while wrestling with the idea that Iseult might succeed her mother as Muse. In the essay, called Per Amica Silentia Lunae, he says that he seeks inspiration by ‘invit[ing] a marmorean Muse,’ thus invoking the image in the accompanying poem, ‘Ego Dominus Tuus,’ of Dante setting his chisel to the hardest stone and hungering for ‘the apple on the bough/Most out of reach.’ Yeats asks whether advancing age requires that he continue his quest for an unattainable Muse: ‘A poet, when he is growing old, will ask himself if he cannot keep his mask and his vision without new bitterness, new disappointment.’ He concludes that there is no alternative to the ‘bitter crust’ of unrequited pursuit of the Muse — a conclusion fraught with peril because it suggested that, in order to retain his access to poetic inspiration, he needed to relive his unsatisfied quest for Maud Gonne in uncanny pursuit of her daughter. Chapter 4 examines the way in which Iseult Gonne accelerated Yeats's career when it threatened to stall upon his abandonment of her mother as Muse. Iseult, the pupil as Muse, helped Yeats formulate his alternative to Freud's theories of the role of desire and sublimation in creativity. Her presence, ideas, and her own poetry profoundly influenced Yeats's work during this critical period. Yeats proposed marriage to Iseult in September 1917. She declined, but seemed unwilling to let him go completely. The prospect of a second generation of pursuing the unattainable was unnerving. Almost immediately, Yeats decided to marry George Hyde‐Lees, a young woman to whom Olivia Shakespear had introduced him a few years earlier.Less
Yeats's conversations with Maud Gonne's daughter, Iseult, during the summer of 1916 inform the intriguing essay on poetic creativity that he wrote while wrestling with the idea that Iseult might succeed her mother as Muse. In the essay, called Per Amica Silentia Lunae, he says that he seeks inspiration by ‘invit[ing] a marmorean Muse,’ thus invoking the image in the accompanying poem, ‘Ego Dominus Tuus,’ of Dante setting his chisel to the hardest stone and hungering for ‘the apple on the bough/Most out of reach.’ Yeats asks whether advancing age requires that he continue his quest for an unattainable Muse: ‘A poet, when he is growing old, will ask himself if he cannot keep his mask and his vision without new bitterness, new disappointment.’ He concludes that there is no alternative to the ‘bitter crust’ of unrequited pursuit of the Muse — a conclusion fraught with peril because it suggested that, in order to retain his access to poetic inspiration, he needed to relive his unsatisfied quest for Maud Gonne in uncanny pursuit of her daughter. Chapter 4 examines the way in which Iseult Gonne accelerated Yeats's career when it threatened to stall upon his abandonment of her mother as Muse. Iseult, the pupil as Muse, helped Yeats formulate his alternative to Freud's theories of the role of desire and sublimation in creativity. Her presence, ideas, and her own poetry profoundly influenced Yeats's work during this critical period. Yeats proposed marriage to Iseult in September 1917. She declined, but seemed unwilling to let him go completely. The prospect of a second generation of pursuing the unattainable was unnerving. Almost immediately, Yeats decided to marry George Hyde‐Lees, a young woman to whom Olivia Shakespear had introduced him a few years earlier.
Johanna Malt
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199253425
- eISBN:
- 9780191698132
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253425.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter addresses what happens when language is introduced into the picture-quite literally-in the form of the poème-objet, which combines text with three-dimensional collage. André Breton's own ...
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This chapter addresses what happens when language is introduced into the picture-quite literally-in the form of the poème-objet, which combines text with three-dimensional collage. André Breton's own practice in the domain of object creation diverges from that of Salvador Dalí and others in one crucial respect: the incorporation of language into the surrealist object. The chapter considers how Breton's own involvement with visual forms of surrealist activity is motivated by particular aims, notably that of including language in the category of phenomena to be reappraised and inscribed in a dialectic of subjective and objective forces. For in seeking to prove the materialist credentials on which surrealism's political engagement relied, Breton created a class of poème-objet in which a power struggle takes place between word and image, between concealment and display, between fetishism and sublimation.Less
This chapter addresses what happens when language is introduced into the picture-quite literally-in the form of the poème-objet, which combines text with three-dimensional collage. André Breton's own practice in the domain of object creation diverges from that of Salvador Dalí and others in one crucial respect: the incorporation of language into the surrealist object. The chapter considers how Breton's own involvement with visual forms of surrealist activity is motivated by particular aims, notably that of including language in the category of phenomena to be reappraised and inscribed in a dialectic of subjective and objective forces. For in seeking to prove the materialist credentials on which surrealism's political engagement relied, Breton created a class of poème-objet in which a power struggle takes place between word and image, between concealment and display, between fetishism and sublimation.
Rebecca Bowler and Claire Drewery (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474415750
- eISBN:
- 9781474415774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415750.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This monograph brings together the most recent research on Sinclair and re-contextualises her work both within and against dominant Modernist narratives. It explores Sinclair’s negotiations between ...
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This monograph brings together the most recent research on Sinclair and re-contextualises her work both within and against dominant Modernist narratives. It explores Sinclair’s negotiations between the public and private, the cerebral and the corporeal and the spiritual and the profane in both her fiction and non-fiction. The essays contained in this volume are grouped under two sections entitled ‘The Abstract Intellect’ and ‘Abject Bodies’. They each address the various ways in which Sinclair endeavoured to formulate aesthetic techniques through which the subjective, physical and intellectual experience of ‘reality’ might be represented. Together, the two sections of the monograph investigate the many fruitful connections between Sinclair’s fictional, critical and philosophical output and the structures of epochal change traditionally associated with literary Modernism. They focus in particular upon Sinclair’s engagement with early-twentieth century cultural changes in perceptions of the construction and representation of the human subject. Such interrogations were made possible through contemporaneous shifts in humanist beliefs about subjective construction following thinkers like Freud, who theorized humans as constructs of unconscious drives and desires. Ultimately, the essays and the volume as a whole conclude that Sinclair’s work might be viewed in this context as a radical ontological challenge to traditional assumptions about what it means to be human.Less
This monograph brings together the most recent research on Sinclair and re-contextualises her work both within and against dominant Modernist narratives. It explores Sinclair’s negotiations between the public and private, the cerebral and the corporeal and the spiritual and the profane in both her fiction and non-fiction. The essays contained in this volume are grouped under two sections entitled ‘The Abstract Intellect’ and ‘Abject Bodies’. They each address the various ways in which Sinclair endeavoured to formulate aesthetic techniques through which the subjective, physical and intellectual experience of ‘reality’ might be represented. Together, the two sections of the monograph investigate the many fruitful connections between Sinclair’s fictional, critical and philosophical output and the structures of epochal change traditionally associated with literary Modernism. They focus in particular upon Sinclair’s engagement with early-twentieth century cultural changes in perceptions of the construction and representation of the human subject. Such interrogations were made possible through contemporaneous shifts in humanist beliefs about subjective construction following thinkers like Freud, who theorized humans as constructs of unconscious drives and desires. Ultimately, the essays and the volume as a whole conclude that Sinclair’s work might be viewed in this context as a radical ontological challenge to traditional assumptions about what it means to be human.
Anne Dufourmantelle
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823279586
- eISBN:
- 9780823281459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279586.003.0025
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
Is gentleness a form of sublimation? Sublimated desire requires that the very place from which it comes be abolished. From this perspective, gentleness culturally sublimates the violence and ...
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Is gentleness a form of sublimation? Sublimated desire requires that the very place from which it comes be abolished. From this perspective, gentleness culturally sublimates the violence and brutality of our most archaic animal reflexes. As power, gentleness is not sublimation in the sense of a life drive that strives to always preserve the conditions of its own fulfilment. What it sublimates is the very access to the living—a gentleness drive?Less
Is gentleness a form of sublimation? Sublimated desire requires that the very place from which it comes be abolished. From this perspective, gentleness culturally sublimates the violence and brutality of our most archaic animal reflexes. As power, gentleness is not sublimation in the sense of a life drive that strives to always preserve the conditions of its own fulfilment. What it sublimates is the very access to the living—a gentleness drive?
C. Anne Wilson
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198152484
- eISBN:
- 9780191710049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198152484.003.0017
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
A large collection of chemical recipe texts dating from the end of the first century BC to the Byzantine period appear to describe actual chemical experiments and reactions carried out in ancient ...
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A large collection of chemical recipe texts dating from the end of the first century BC to the Byzantine period appear to describe actual chemical experiments and reactions carried out in ancient Greece with the object of transforming the outward appearance of copper first to silver, then to gold. However, the gold was not a realistic imitation designed to deceive the unwary, like the adulterated or imitation gold and silver of the recipes in the Egyptian goldsmiths' notebooks of the third century AD. To determine the experimenters' real aims, this chapter examines the experiments' theoretical background as well as the role of distillation (evaporation of liquids and collection of the recondensed vapour) and sublimation (the heating of minerals within a sealed vessel to release gases which can react with other substances placed in the vessel). It argues that metalworkers already skilled in those technologies were among the founders of the chemical art, and discusses the significance of Democritus to them.Less
A large collection of chemical recipe texts dating from the end of the first century BC to the Byzantine period appear to describe actual chemical experiments and reactions carried out in ancient Greece with the object of transforming the outward appearance of copper first to silver, then to gold. However, the gold was not a realistic imitation designed to deceive the unwary, like the adulterated or imitation gold and silver of the recipes in the Egyptian goldsmiths' notebooks of the third century AD. To determine the experimenters' real aims, this chapter examines the experiments' theoretical background as well as the role of distillation (evaporation of liquids and collection of the recondensed vapour) and sublimation (the heating of minerals within a sealed vessel to release gases which can react with other substances placed in the vessel). It argues that metalworkers already skilled in those technologies were among the founders of the chemical art, and discusses the significance of Democritus to them.
Suzi Adams
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234585
- eISBN:
- 9780823240739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234585.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
The following two chapters address the creative imagination in its two, mutually irreducible poles: the radical imagination of the psyche and the radical imaginary of the social-historical, ...
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The following two chapters address the creative imagination in its two, mutually irreducible poles: the radical imagination of the psyche and the radical imaginary of the social-historical, respectively. This chapter focuses on the radical imagination of the psyche. Castoriadis elaborates the radical imagination as the basis of an anthropology of subjectivity, leaning on—and reconstructing—Freudian psychoanalysis in the process. In elucidating the psyche, Castoriadis uncovers the psychic monad as a deeper, more primordial layer than Freudian unconscious. The radical imagination appears as the psychic flux of representations; the representations are elaborated as creations ex nihilo, which in turn presume the psyche to be defunctionalized. The psyche encapsulates Castoriadis's understanding of human modes of being as magma; indeed it was originally in relation to the psyche that he first used the term. Representations form (proto)meaning, which, through the process of social-sublimation encounter the other dimension of meaning: social imaginary significations.Less
The following two chapters address the creative imagination in its two, mutually irreducible poles: the radical imagination of the psyche and the radical imaginary of the social-historical, respectively. This chapter focuses on the radical imagination of the psyche. Castoriadis elaborates the radical imagination as the basis of an anthropology of subjectivity, leaning on—and reconstructing—Freudian psychoanalysis in the process. In elucidating the psyche, Castoriadis uncovers the psychic monad as a deeper, more primordial layer than Freudian unconscious. The radical imagination appears as the psychic flux of representations; the representations are elaborated as creations ex nihilo, which in turn presume the psyche to be defunctionalized. The psyche encapsulates Castoriadis's understanding of human modes of being as magma; indeed it was originally in relation to the psyche that he first used the term. Representations form (proto)meaning, which, through the process of social-sublimation encounter the other dimension of meaning: social imaginary significations.
Oliver Marchart
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748624973
- eISBN:
- 9780748672066
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748624973.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
In 1956, troops of the Warsaw pact states invaded Hungary and cracked down on the Hungarian revolution. This event had heavily dislocating effects on Western political thought. As a reaction, Paul ...
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In 1956, troops of the Warsaw pact states invaded Hungary and cracked down on the Hungarian revolution. This event had heavily dislocating effects on Western political thought. As a reaction, Paul Ricoeur published one of his best-known essays, ‘The Political Paradox’, in which he seeks to come to terms philosophically with the exigency of the Hungarian events. Counter to state-Marxism, his aim is to think what he perceives as the double originality of politics: a specifically political rationality and a specifically political evil. In order to work his way towards this double specificity he has to disentangle the rationality of politics from the sphere of economic rationality, to which it was reduced by Marxism. It seems that the way ‘the political’ is understood differs between the followers of Hannah Arendt and the followers of Carl Schmitt. While the ‘Arendtians’ see in the political a space of freedom and public deliberation, the Schmittians see in it a space of power, conflict and antagonism. Both the Arendtian and the Schmittian trajectory share what can be called the neutralisation or sublimation thesis.Less
In 1956, troops of the Warsaw pact states invaded Hungary and cracked down on the Hungarian revolution. This event had heavily dislocating effects on Western political thought. As a reaction, Paul Ricoeur published one of his best-known essays, ‘The Political Paradox’, in which he seeks to come to terms philosophically with the exigency of the Hungarian events. Counter to state-Marxism, his aim is to think what he perceives as the double originality of politics: a specifically political rationality and a specifically political evil. In order to work his way towards this double specificity he has to disentangle the rationality of politics from the sphere of economic rationality, to which it was reduced by Marxism. It seems that the way ‘the political’ is understood differs between the followers of Hannah Arendt and the followers of Carl Schmitt. While the ‘Arendtians’ see in the political a space of freedom and public deliberation, the Schmittians see in it a space of power, conflict and antagonism. Both the Arendtian and the Schmittian trajectory share what can be called the neutralisation or sublimation thesis.
Clayton Crockett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227211
- eISBN:
- 9780823235308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227211.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter deals with the general question of sublimation and its relevance for understanding religion. The sublime is clearly located within the subject and not within the object. This ...
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This chapter deals with the general question of sublimation and its relevance for understanding religion. The sublime is clearly located within the subject and not within the object. This disorientation provoked by the process of sublime judgment signifies a discord at the heart of the self, and this process prefigures the complexity and disorientation within the self diagnosed by psychoanalysis.Less
This chapter deals with the general question of sublimation and its relevance for understanding religion. The sublime is clearly located within the subject and not within the object. This disorientation provoked by the process of sublime judgment signifies a discord at the heart of the self, and this process prefigures the complexity and disorientation within the self diagnosed by psychoanalysis.
Clayton Crockett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227211
- eISBN:
- 9780823235308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227211.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter opens up the question of the ethics of psychoanalysis by considering the desire for the Thing discussed by Lacan in his Seminar VII. The desire for the Thing is beyond good and evil in a ...
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This chapter opens up the question of the ethics of psychoanalysis by considering the desire for the Thing discussed by Lacan in his Seminar VII. The desire for the Thing is beyond good and evil in a conventional moral sense. Moreover, it also indicates a powerful desire for what Lacan calls the Real. Sublimation is important because people cannot approach the Real in itself. More than being, people want God to be good, but psychoanalysis suggests that this is not a simple want, and theology's God may be more subtle and ambivalent than many are prepared to admit.Less
This chapter opens up the question of the ethics of psychoanalysis by considering the desire for the Thing discussed by Lacan in his Seminar VII. The desire for the Thing is beyond good and evil in a conventional moral sense. Moreover, it also indicates a powerful desire for what Lacan calls the Real. Sublimation is important because people cannot approach the Real in itself. More than being, people want God to be good, but psychoanalysis suggests that this is not a simple want, and theology's God may be more subtle and ambivalent than many are prepared to admit.
Clayton Crockett
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227211
- eISBN:
- 9780823235308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823227211.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter investigates the question of the theological generation of meaning, which is a process of sublimation. It provides an understanding of creation ex nihilo from a confrontation of Lacan ...
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This chapter investigates the question of the theological generation of meaning, which is a process of sublimation. It provides an understanding of creation ex nihilo from a confrontation of Lacan and Tillich. A confrontation emerges out of a contrast between Tillich and Žižek in their respective readings of Schelling, and the chapter provides a reading of the second draft of Schelling's Ages of the World. The psycho-theological concept of creation ex nihilo at the center of the book functions as an axis around which the other essays on previous chapters partially pivot. The end of the chapter confronts Tillich and Schelling directly with Lacan on the concept of creation.Less
This chapter investigates the question of the theological generation of meaning, which is a process of sublimation. It provides an understanding of creation ex nihilo from a confrontation of Lacan and Tillich. A confrontation emerges out of a contrast between Tillich and Žižek in their respective readings of Schelling, and the chapter provides a reading of the second draft of Schelling's Ages of the World. The psycho-theological concept of creation ex nihilo at the center of the book functions as an axis around which the other essays on previous chapters partially pivot. The end of the chapter confronts Tillich and Schelling directly with Lacan on the concept of creation.
Andrea Hurst
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823228744
- eISBN:
- 9780823235179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823228744.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter elaborates on the theme of action and its implications for Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic account of ethical action. It shows that the masculine je, formed ...
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This chapter elaborates on the theme of action and its implications for Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic account of ethical action. It shows that the masculine je, formed via a rejection of castration, dominated by the death drive as return, and bound by the stereotypes of an existing order, operates from a position of ideological paranoia, whereby his lot is the fixated action of an obedient functionary of the externally imposed law. In contrast, the feminine je, formed via wholesale acceptance of castration, dominated by the death drive as dissolution, and bound to smash up existing stereotypes, operates from a position of hysterical transgression, whereby her lot is the paralysis of pure destruction. Beyond these two libidinal styles, Lacan derives a third style, namely, one of inventive sublimation. This style, which invokes the aporia of a paradoxical interweaving of inventive and destructive action, is the key to Lacan's account of ethical action.Less
This chapter elaborates on the theme of action and its implications for Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic account of ethical action. It shows that the masculine je, formed via a rejection of castration, dominated by the death drive as return, and bound by the stereotypes of an existing order, operates from a position of ideological paranoia, whereby his lot is the fixated action of an obedient functionary of the externally imposed law. In contrast, the feminine je, formed via wholesale acceptance of castration, dominated by the death drive as dissolution, and bound to smash up existing stereotypes, operates from a position of hysterical transgression, whereby her lot is the paralysis of pure destruction. Beyond these two libidinal styles, Lacan derives a third style, namely, one of inventive sublimation. This style, which invokes the aporia of a paradoxical interweaving of inventive and destructive action, is the key to Lacan's account of ethical action.
Judith A. Peraino
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520215870
- eISBN:
- 9780520921740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520215870.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Knowledge of the “truth of God” can only be achieved through a process of thorough self- examination that leads to self: regulation of sexuality. But equally important to sexual discipline in the ...
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Knowledge of the “truth of God” can only be achieved through a process of thorough self- examination that leads to self: regulation of sexuality. But equally important to sexual discipline in the production of truth and subjectivity is the discipline of disclosure. This chapter explores how the notion of confession applies to music; that is, how music can function as disclosure and as discipline. The primary focus is on the post-Freudian cultural climate, in which Christian confession was secularized through psychoanalysis. At nearly the same point in time in the late nineteenth century, the medical category of the “homosexual” emerged. Two composers, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Benjamin Britten, provide case studies for the role of musical disclosure and discipline in the modern homosexual subject. The finale of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony offers an exemplar of presumed sexual sublimation and confession, while Britten's compositions Billy Budd and Abraham and Isaac together disclose a methodical exploration of the ethics and erotics of self-discipline.Less
Knowledge of the “truth of God” can only be achieved through a process of thorough self- examination that leads to self: regulation of sexuality. But equally important to sexual discipline in the production of truth and subjectivity is the discipline of disclosure. This chapter explores how the notion of confession applies to music; that is, how music can function as disclosure and as discipline. The primary focus is on the post-Freudian cultural climate, in which Christian confession was secularized through psychoanalysis. At nearly the same point in time in the late nineteenth century, the medical category of the “homosexual” emerged. Two composers, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Benjamin Britten, provide case studies for the role of musical disclosure and discipline in the modern homosexual subject. The finale of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony offers an exemplar of presumed sexual sublimation and confession, while Britten's compositions Billy Budd and Abraham and Isaac together disclose a methodical exploration of the ethics and erotics of self-discipline.
Garrett Stewart
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226201214
- eISBN:
- 9780226201351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201351.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
In contrast with actions appearing in plain sight, the title of this chapter evokes the secret two-dimensional frames of recorded event, in photo print or film strip, that operate at the ...
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In contrast with actions appearing in plain sight, the title of this chapter evokes the secret two-dimensional frames of recorded event, in photo print or film strip, that operate at the psychological and narrative border of voyeuristic indulgence and detective investigation. Evidence picks up on an undercurrent of eroticized looking accompanying the high-tech manipulations of the technopticon in the last chapter to frame the comparison of two classic films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960). These are screen narratives that bring to crisis, for their photographer-protagonists, the sexual sublimations involved in “peeping” as well as predatory recording at exactly the porous genre boundary of psychological melodrama and detective plotting. Such an uneasy fusion of narrative motives (and optical motifs) is then found, more briefly, to carry over into the wholesale implosion of sexual violence and vicarious electronic sighting in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In (2011).Less
In contrast with actions appearing in plain sight, the title of this chapter evokes the secret two-dimensional frames of recorded event, in photo print or film strip, that operate at the psychological and narrative border of voyeuristic indulgence and detective investigation. Evidence picks up on an undercurrent of eroticized looking accompanying the high-tech manipulations of the technopticon in the last chapter to frame the comparison of two classic films, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960). These are screen narratives that bring to crisis, for their photographer-protagonists, the sexual sublimations involved in “peeping” as well as predatory recording at exactly the porous genre boundary of psychological melodrama and detective plotting. Such an uneasy fusion of narrative motives (and optical motifs) is then found, more briefly, to carry over into the wholesale implosion of sexual violence and vicarious electronic sighting in Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In (2011).
Joseph Farrell
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198777342
- eISBN:
- 9780191823060
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198777342.003.0009
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Ancient Religions
As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character ...
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As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character of Hermes’ erotic activity is different from that of other gods. In general, as might be expected, he relies on stealth rather than force, and he is often content to play a secondary role by facilitating the amorous adventures of other figures. In fact, Hermes can be said in most cases to sublimate his own sexuality in favor of someone else’s, often in a way that bespeaks his own greater interest in homosocial bonding than in sexual conquest. These tendencies are clearly visible in archaic, classical, and Hellenistic representations of Hermes, and they develop in generally consistent and almost predictable ways through classical Roman treatments of Mercury down to quite late texts that become foundational for the medieval reception of classical antiquity.Less
As a lover, Hermes is generally regarded as comparable to other male divinities. His perceived connection to ithyphallic herms only strengthens this impression. In literature, however, the character of Hermes’ erotic activity is different from that of other gods. In general, as might be expected, he relies on stealth rather than force, and he is often content to play a secondary role by facilitating the amorous adventures of other figures. In fact, Hermes can be said in most cases to sublimate his own sexuality in favor of someone else’s, often in a way that bespeaks his own greater interest in homosocial bonding than in sexual conquest. These tendencies are clearly visible in archaic, classical, and Hellenistic representations of Hermes, and they develop in generally consistent and almost predictable ways through classical Roman treatments of Mercury down to quite late texts that become foundational for the medieval reception of classical antiquity.
Maureen Sabine
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823251650
- eISBN:
- 9780823253043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823251650.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
Chapter 2 analyzes the representation of Anglican missionary nuns in Black Narcissus, and argues that while these sisters have been critiqued as agents of British and Christian imperialism in India, ...
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Chapter 2 analyzes the representation of Anglican missionary nuns in Black Narcissus, and argues that while these sisters have been critiqued as agents of British and Christian imperialism in India, they have not been studied as women contending with the psychosexual pressures of the celibate religious life. The visually stunning flashbacks in this Powell and Pressburger film reveal the turbulent desires hidden beneath the veil; demonstrate the dangers of the emotional repression of sexuality; trace an emergent counter dynamics of sublimation; and elevate erotic memories into flashes of spiritual illumination. This chapter goes on to suggest how Deborah Kerr's fire-and-ice screen image embodies the tensions of sexual repression, attraction, and sublimation that are examined not only in Black Narcissus, but less successfully, in two later 1957 films, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and Sea Wife.Less
Chapter 2 analyzes the representation of Anglican missionary nuns in Black Narcissus, and argues that while these sisters have been critiqued as agents of British and Christian imperialism in India, they have not been studied as women contending with the psychosexual pressures of the celibate religious life. The visually stunning flashbacks in this Powell and Pressburger film reveal the turbulent desires hidden beneath the veil; demonstrate the dangers of the emotional repression of sexuality; trace an emergent counter dynamics of sublimation; and elevate erotic memories into flashes of spiritual illumination. This chapter goes on to suggest how Deborah Kerr's fire-and-ice screen image embodies the tensions of sexual repression, attraction, and sublimation that are examined not only in Black Narcissus, but less successfully, in two later 1957 films, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and Sea Wife.
