Mark S. Morrisson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195306965
- eISBN:
- 9780199785414
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306965.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter discusses how the close relationship between Theosophical theories of matter and the new atomic science led Theosophists to launch a decades-long research program of “clairvoyant ...
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This chapter discusses how the close relationship between Theosophical theories of matter and the new atomic science led Theosophists to launch a decades-long research program of “clairvoyant chemistry” in 1895. This research continued in the 20th century and has even occupied contemporary scientists in chemistry and physics.Less
This chapter discusses how the close relationship between Theosophical theories of matter and the new atomic science led Theosophists to launch a decades-long research program of “clairvoyant chemistry” in 1895. This research continued in the 20th century and has even occupied contemporary scientists in chemistry and physics.
Gloria L. Schaab
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195329124
- eISBN:
- 9780199785711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195329124.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Chapter 2 explores the epic of an evolving universe in order to understand the entities, structures, and processes that disclose the nature, attributes, and purposes of its Creator. This exploration ...
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Chapter 2 explores the epic of an evolving universe in order to understand the entities, structures, and processes that disclose the nature, attributes, and purposes of its Creator. This exploration investigates insights regarding the origin of the cosmos and engages scientific theories that challenge classical conceptions of the God‐world relationship. It focuses on Darwinian and neo‐Darwinian theories that suggest an ongoing creativity immanent in the cosmos itself. It probes the interaction of law and chance that suggests freedom and autonomy inherent in the evolving cosmos and that raises questions concerning the operation of divine omnipotence and omniscience in relation to cosmic events. Arriving at the conclusion that such cosmic freedom and autonomy implies an intrinsic measure of risk, pain, suffering, and even death for its creatures and its Creator, this exploration finds itself in an inexorable movement toward the inference of the suffering of God in, with, and under the suffering of the cosmos.Less
Chapter 2 explores the epic of an evolving universe in order to understand the entities, structures, and processes that disclose the nature, attributes, and purposes of its Creator. This exploration investigates insights regarding the origin of the cosmos and engages scientific theories that challenge classical conceptions of the God‐world relationship. It focuses on Darwinian and neo‐Darwinian theories that suggest an ongoing creativity immanent in the cosmos itself. It probes the interaction of law and chance that suggests freedom and autonomy inherent in the evolving cosmos and that raises questions concerning the operation of divine omnipotence and omniscience in relation to cosmic events. Arriving at the conclusion that such cosmic freedom and autonomy implies an intrinsic measure of risk, pain, suffering, and even death for its creatures and its Creator, this exploration finds itself in an inexorable movement toward the inference of the suffering of God in, with, and under the suffering of the cosmos.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199212415
- eISBN:
- 9780191707223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212415.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically ...
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This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.Less
This chapter argues that the Enlightenment in its multiplicity made the Romantic concept of a universal and inherently meaningful symbolism not only intellectually desirable, but philosophically possible. Four developments, each entailing in its way a rejection of dualism, were crucial: (1) the non-subjectivist recuperation of sensible intuition in the disciplines comprising ‘ natural history’; (2) the interpretation of humanity's cognitive relation to nature in terms of a microcosm-macrocosm analogy; (3) the increased acceptance of metaphysical monism after the reported affirmation of Spinoza's philosophy by the much-admired Lessing; and (4) the replacement of mechanistic with vitalist theories of matter in the later 18th century. These developments were not necessarily compatible with each other: vitalism, for example, rejected the mechanistic concepts that Spinoza applied more rigorously and comprehensively than anyone else. But by a process of syncretic assimilation the Romantics, especially Schelling (with active encouragement from Goethe), undertook to develop out of the various anti-dualist tendencies in Enlightenment thought ‘a markedly unified interpretation of matter and spirit, of nature and history, as elements of a single ascending process’ — in short, the Naturphilosophie on which the claims for the symbol would be based.
Leonard Lawlor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226535
- eISBN:
- 9780823235742
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226535.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This book develops a philosophy of life in opposition to the notion of “bio-power,” which reduces the human to the question of power over what Giorgio Agamben terms “bare life,” mere ...
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This book develops a philosophy of life in opposition to the notion of “bio-power,” which reduces the human to the question of power over what Giorgio Agamben terms “bare life,” mere biological existence. Breaking with all biologism or vitalism, the book attends to the dispersion of death at the heart of life, in the “minuscule hiatus” that divides the living present, separating lived experience from the living body and, crucially for phenomenology, inserting a blind spot into a visual field. This book charts a post-phenomenological French philosophy. What lies beyond phenomenology is “life-ism,” the positive working out of the effects of the “minuscule hiatus” in a thinking that takes place on a “plane of immanence,” whose implications cannot be predicted. Life-ism means thinking life and death together, thinking death as dispersed throughout life. The book sets out the surpassing of phenomenology and the advent of life-ism in Merleau–Ponty, Derrida, and Foucault, with careful attention to the writings by Husserl and Heidegger to which these thinkers refer. A philosophy of life has direct implications for present-day political and medical issues. The book takes its point of departure from the current genocide in Darfur and provides conceptual tools for intervening in such issues as the AIDS epidemic and life-support for the infirm. Indeed, the investigations contained in this book are designed to help us emerge once and for all out of the epoch of bio-power.Less
This book develops a philosophy of life in opposition to the notion of “bio-power,” which reduces the human to the question of power over what Giorgio Agamben terms “bare life,” mere biological existence. Breaking with all biologism or vitalism, the book attends to the dispersion of death at the heart of life, in the “minuscule hiatus” that divides the living present, separating lived experience from the living body and, crucially for phenomenology, inserting a blind spot into a visual field. This book charts a post-phenomenological French philosophy. What lies beyond phenomenology is “life-ism,” the positive working out of the effects of the “minuscule hiatus” in a thinking that takes place on a “plane of immanence,” whose implications cannot be predicted. Life-ism means thinking life and death together, thinking death as dispersed throughout life. The book sets out the surpassing of phenomenology and the advent of life-ism in Merleau–Ponty, Derrida, and Foucault, with careful attention to the writings by Husserl and Heidegger to which these thinkers refer. A philosophy of life has direct implications for present-day political and medical issues. The book takes its point of departure from the current genocide in Darfur and provides conceptual tools for intervening in such issues as the AIDS epidemic and life-support for the infirm. Indeed, the investigations contained in this book are designed to help us emerge once and for all out of the epoch of bio-power.
Ibrahim Kalin
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199735242
- eISBN:
- 9780199852772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735242.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter focuses on two issues. The first is the question of mystical knowledge and the extent to which such a term applies to Ṣadrā's epistemology. Ṣadrā argues that existence can be known only ...
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This chapter focuses on two issues. The first is the question of mystical knowledge and the extent to which such a term applies to Ṣadrā's epistemology. Ṣadrā argues that existence can be known only intuitively and that intuition is not only an epistemic but also a spiritual act of encounter and witnessing. The chapter also discusses Ṣadrā's relation to traditional Sufism within the context of Safavid Shiism and the Akhbāri opposition to Sufism and philosophy. The second issue is the definition of knowledge as finding existence. Ṣadrā establishes a close link between degrees of existence and levels of consciousness. A logical result of this is a doctrine of “ontological vitalism” according to which all things, animate and inanimate, have some degree of consciousness by virtue of the fact they exist. It is within this context that Ṣadrā develops his central thesis that when we interact with the world around us, we interact with the various modalities and degrees of existence.Less
This chapter focuses on two issues. The first is the question of mystical knowledge and the extent to which such a term applies to Ṣadrā's epistemology. Ṣadrā argues that existence can be known only intuitively and that intuition is not only an epistemic but also a spiritual act of encounter and witnessing. The chapter also discusses Ṣadrā's relation to traditional Sufism within the context of Safavid Shiism and the Akhbāri opposition to Sufism and philosophy. The second issue is the definition of knowledge as finding existence. Ṣadrā establishes a close link between degrees of existence and levels of consciousness. A logical result of this is a doctrine of “ontological vitalism” according to which all things, animate and inanimate, have some degree of consciousness by virtue of the fact they exist. It is within this context that Ṣadrā develops his central thesis that when we interact with the world around us, we interact with the various modalities and degrees of existence.
Mary Shelley
David H. Guston, Ed Finn, Jason Scott Robert, Joey Eschrich, and Mary Drago (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780262533287
- eISBN:
- 9780262340267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262533287.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The editors provide a brief chronology of important dates in the history of science in the context of Mary Shelley’s life and important aspects of the novel.
The editors provide a brief chronology of important dates in the history of science in the context of Mary Shelley’s life and important aspects of the novel.
Leonard Lawlor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226535
- eISBN:
- 9780823235742
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226535.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter argues that Greek metaphysics is only one part of Western thinking. Contemporary naturalism (the knowledge willed in relation to bio-power) consists, as well, in ...
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This chapter argues that Greek metaphysics is only one part of Western thinking. Contemporary naturalism (the knowledge willed in relation to bio-power) consists, as well, in a negation of Christianity. Through its drive to be reductionistic, naturalism is not only anti-Platonic, but also anti-Christian. The other side of the deconstruction of Christianity would then be “life-ism.” Life-ism would not be a return to earlier versions of vitalism. Vitalism is an idea that does not belong to our present. We can assemble the characteristics that define the new concept of life. It would not be biological in a strictly material sense; it is not natural life. Instead, in this life the living is spiritual.Less
This chapter argues that Greek metaphysics is only one part of Western thinking. Contemporary naturalism (the knowledge willed in relation to bio-power) consists, as well, in a negation of Christianity. Through its drive to be reductionistic, naturalism is not only anti-Platonic, but also anti-Christian. The other side of the deconstruction of Christianity would then be “life-ism.” Life-ism would not be a return to earlier versions of vitalism. Vitalism is an idea that does not belong to our present. We can assemble the characteristics that define the new concept of life. It would not be biological in a strictly material sense; it is not natural life. Instead, in this life the living is spiritual.
John J. McDermott (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823224845
- eISBN:
- 9780823284894
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823224845.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, American Philosophy
This chapter begins by describing vitalism and materialism. The name “vitalism” is often given to those doctrines which have used the hypothesis that the phenomena of living organisms are due to some ...
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This chapter begins by describing vitalism and materialism. The name “vitalism” is often given to those doctrines which have used the hypothesis that the phenomena of living organisms are due to some process which is essentially identical in its nature with the process exemplified by people's conscious voluntary activities. On the other hand, some things and events in the natural world—such as the recurrent movements of the heavenly bodies and the processes which attend the workings of machines—seem to be in many respects essentially different from the processes which result from people's plans, choices, and voluntary deeds. What is called a “mechanical theory of nature” or “materialism” undertakes to account for the vital processes, for the activities of organisms. The chapter then considers the three classifications of scientific methods: the historical, the mechanical, and the statistical.Less
This chapter begins by describing vitalism and materialism. The name “vitalism” is often given to those doctrines which have used the hypothesis that the phenomena of living organisms are due to some process which is essentially identical in its nature with the process exemplified by people's conscious voluntary activities. On the other hand, some things and events in the natural world—such as the recurrent movements of the heavenly bodies and the processes which attend the workings of machines—seem to be in many respects essentially different from the processes which result from people's plans, choices, and voluntary deeds. What is called a “mechanical theory of nature” or “materialism” undertakes to account for the vital processes, for the activities of organisms. The chapter then considers the three classifications of scientific methods: the historical, the mechanical, and the statistical.
John Beer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199574018
- eISBN:
- 9780191723100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199574018.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Coleridge's ideas retain their potency into the nineteenth century and beyond, though their initial popularity in promoting a ‘third force’ fuelled by the concurrence of imagination and heart, is ...
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Coleridge's ideas retain their potency into the nineteenth century and beyond, though their initial popularity in promoting a ‘third force’ fuelled by the concurrence of imagination and heart, is undermined by the contemporary acceptance of Darwin's ideas. At a political level, on the other hand, the existential element in his ideas survives in the achievement of globally oriented ‘modern’ thinkers and writers such as Vaclav Havel. In the twentieth century, also, the implications of their vitalism are investigated by writers such as D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot, followed by others, such as Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, who show particular concern at the loss of a shared mythology.Less
Coleridge's ideas retain their potency into the nineteenth century and beyond, though their initial popularity in promoting a ‘third force’ fuelled by the concurrence of imagination and heart, is undermined by the contemporary acceptance of Darwin's ideas. At a political level, on the other hand, the existential element in his ideas survives in the achievement of globally oriented ‘modern’ thinkers and writers such as Vaclav Havel. In the twentieth century, also, the implications of their vitalism are investigated by writers such as D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot, followed by others, such as Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, who show particular concern at the loss of a shared mythology.
Holly Folk
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469632797
- eISBN:
- 9781469632810
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469632797.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
Chiropractic is the most common form of alternative medicine in the United States today, but its origins stretch back to the popular healing subcultures of the nineteenth century. This book focuses ...
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Chiropractic is the most common form of alternative medicine in the United States today, but its origins stretch back to the popular healing subcultures of the nineteenth century. This book focuses on two of chiropractic's earliest founders, Daniel David (D. D.) Palmer and his son, Joshua Bartlett (B. J.) Palmer, who established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1897. It traces the history of ideas behind early chiropractic theory, as developed by the Palmers and their contemporaries and rivals. This book argues that a great deal of alternative medicine can be apprehended through two themes: vitalism and populism, and that the protean positioning of chiropractic as a scientific practice and a holistic alternative allows it to appeal to health consumers desires. The Palmers' system depicted chiropractic as a conduit for both material and spiritualized versions of a “vital principle,” reflecting popular contemporary therapies and 19th -century metaphysical beliefs, including the idea that the spine was home to occult forces that regulated bodily health. Chiropractic illustrates how the ideological and therapeutic aspects of health care are intertwined. In the Progressive Era, as the relationship between science and religion took on an urgent, increasingly competitive tinge, many remarkable people, including the Palmers, undertook highly personal reinterpretations of their physical and spiritual worlds. In this context, this book reframes alternative medicine as a type of populist intellectual culture in which ideologies about the body comprise an appealing form of cultural resistance. This legacy continues in the Straight Chiropractic movement.Less
Chiropractic is the most common form of alternative medicine in the United States today, but its origins stretch back to the popular healing subcultures of the nineteenth century. This book focuses on two of chiropractic's earliest founders, Daniel David (D. D.) Palmer and his son, Joshua Bartlett (B. J.) Palmer, who established the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1897. It traces the history of ideas behind early chiropractic theory, as developed by the Palmers and their contemporaries and rivals. This book argues that a great deal of alternative medicine can be apprehended through two themes: vitalism and populism, and that the protean positioning of chiropractic as a scientific practice and a holistic alternative allows it to appeal to health consumers desires. The Palmers' system depicted chiropractic as a conduit for both material and spiritualized versions of a “vital principle,” reflecting popular contemporary therapies and 19th -century metaphysical beliefs, including the idea that the spine was home to occult forces that regulated bodily health. Chiropractic illustrates how the ideological and therapeutic aspects of health care are intertwined. In the Progressive Era, as the relationship between science and religion took on an urgent, increasingly competitive tinge, many remarkable people, including the Palmers, undertook highly personal reinterpretations of their physical and spiritual worlds. In this context, this book reframes alternative medicine as a type of populist intellectual culture in which ideologies about the body comprise an appealing form of cultural resistance. This legacy continues in the Straight Chiropractic movement.
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195320992
- eISBN:
- 9780199852062
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195320992.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in ...
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This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in Renaissance esotericism and its rapid diffusion during the period 1550–1650 is directly related to its combination with Neo-Platonic and Hermetic approaches to nature, and especially to the controversy surrounding Paracelsus. It discusses Paracelsus' esoteric ideas concerning the cosmic all-life, the spiritualization of matter and the divine nature of virtue and energy, which are now integral elements in the new philosophies of science of vitalism and holism and in the archetypes of Jungian psychoanalysis.Less
This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in Renaissance esotericism and its rapid diffusion during the period 1550–1650 is directly related to its combination with Neo-Platonic and Hermetic approaches to nature, and especially to the controversy surrounding Paracelsus. It discusses Paracelsus' esoteric ideas concerning the cosmic all-life, the spiritualization of matter and the divine nature of virtue and energy, which are now integral elements in the new philosophies of science of vitalism and holism and in the archetypes of Jungian psychoanalysis.
Feldman Fred
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195089288
- eISBN:
- 9780199852963
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195089288.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
In the previous chapter, the life-functional theories of life were discussed. This chapter discusses more approaches to the analysis of life, which are vitalism, the genetic information theory of ...
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In the previous chapter, the life-functional theories of life were discussed. This chapter discusses more approaches to the analysis of life, which are vitalism, the genetic information theory of life, and DNA-ism.Less
In the previous chapter, the life-functional theories of life were discussed. This chapter discusses more approaches to the analysis of life, which are vitalism, the genetic information theory of life, and DNA-ism.
Peter Triantafillou and Naja Vucina
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526100528
- eISBN:
- 9781526138972
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526100528.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Comparative Politics
This book examines the politics of health promotion in Denmark and England. Based on two areas of health interventions, namely obesity control and mental recovery, the book analyses how public health ...
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This book examines the politics of health promotion in Denmark and England. Based on two areas of health interventions, namely obesity control and mental recovery, the book analyses how public health policies have shifted since the 1980s from a dual strategy of prevention – by modifying the physical environment – and curation to a strategy of health promotion. This involves a new kind of power exercised over and through the subjectivity not only of the ill and sick, but, in principle, all citizens. Thus, the aim of health promotion is not only to prevent or cure illness, but to improve health, a political ambition that has no immanent limits. While health promotion is endorsing a soft mode of power that works through the subjectivity and freedom of those over whom it is exercised, its drive to indefinitely improve the health of each and all calls for concern. Inspired by Michel Foucault, the book employs the conceptual terms constructivist neoliberalism and optimistic vitalism to grasp this phenomenon. Whereas the former denotes a general mode of power working through the mobilization of the self-steering capacities of individuals and groups, the latter term points to the specific mode of biopower by which public authorities constantly seek to augment the health and productive capacities of its citizens.Less
This book examines the politics of health promotion in Denmark and England. Based on two areas of health interventions, namely obesity control and mental recovery, the book analyses how public health policies have shifted since the 1980s from a dual strategy of prevention – by modifying the physical environment – and curation to a strategy of health promotion. This involves a new kind of power exercised over and through the subjectivity not only of the ill and sick, but, in principle, all citizens. Thus, the aim of health promotion is not only to prevent or cure illness, but to improve health, a political ambition that has no immanent limits. While health promotion is endorsing a soft mode of power that works through the subjectivity and freedom of those over whom it is exercised, its drive to indefinitely improve the health of each and all calls for concern. Inspired by Michel Foucault, the book employs the conceptual terms constructivist neoliberalism and optimistic vitalism to grasp this phenomenon. Whereas the former denotes a general mode of power working through the mobilization of the self-steering capacities of individuals and groups, the latter term points to the specific mode of biopower by which public authorities constantly seek to augment the health and productive capacities of its citizens.
Tamara Levitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730162
- eISBN:
- 9780199932467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730162.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines the extreme split in Stravinsky’s music between his attempt to solidify Christian dogma on heterosexual marriage through archetypal musical dramaturgy and his hidden expressions ...
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This chapter examines the extreme split in Stravinsky’s music between his attempt to solidify Christian dogma on heterosexual marriage through archetypal musical dramaturgy and his hidden expressions of desire. This split can be explained within the context of the debate about Stravinsky’s Russianness after the revolution, in which Boris Asafyev articulated the pre-Stalinist humanist and later Soviet materialist, Boris de Schloezer a humanist, Western European, aestheticist, and Pyotr Suvchinsky a Eurasianist view. Stravinsky reacted to this dialogue by hiding behind neoclassical “poses” or “manners,” and by fashioning himself into Suvchinsky’s vision of a Russian creative genius with a dialectical character split between a private vitalist sphere of mystical revelation of the material world and a public sphere of Christian subjugation to universal laws. These attitudes determined how Stravinsky represented desire in Perséphone, which this chapter compares to Ravel’s melancholic expression in Le Tombeau du Couperin. Stravinsky’s approach results in a fractured musical form that resembles Walter Benjamin’s modernist allegory.Less
This chapter examines the extreme split in Stravinsky’s music between his attempt to solidify Christian dogma on heterosexual marriage through archetypal musical dramaturgy and his hidden expressions of desire. This split can be explained within the context of the debate about Stravinsky’s Russianness after the revolution, in which Boris Asafyev articulated the pre-Stalinist humanist and later Soviet materialist, Boris de Schloezer a humanist, Western European, aestheticist, and Pyotr Suvchinsky a Eurasianist view. Stravinsky reacted to this dialogue by hiding behind neoclassical “poses” or “manners,” and by fashioning himself into Suvchinsky’s vision of a Russian creative genius with a dialectical character split between a private vitalist sphere of mystical revelation of the material world and a public sphere of Christian subjugation to universal laws. These attitudes determined how Stravinsky represented desire in Perséphone, which this chapter compares to Ravel’s melancholic expression in Le Tombeau du Couperin. Stravinsky’s approach results in a fractured musical form that resembles Walter Benjamin’s modernist allegory.
Tamara Levitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730162
- eISBN:
- 9780199932467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730162.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and ...
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Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and future—tells us about the politics of modernist neoclassicism. Gide introduces the cardboard figure of Triptolemus as a symbol of renewal he associates with the Soviet Union, and with Orpheus’s “backward glance” and the anxious politics of his pédérastie. Rubinstein, Copeau, and Stravinsky, in contrast, think of Persephone’s rebirth in terms of the resurrection of Christ. Stravinsky interprets resurrection from Suvchinsky’s Eurasianist perspective as related to the notion of cyclical history, and to the political idea of Russia resurrecting as a theocracy after the Bolshevik revolution. In his music he realizes the temporal idea of the simultaneity of past, present, and future by composing music that functions as a “vitalist” sculpture, and that can be compared to Aby Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel. The chapter ends with reflections on how Perséphone failed on the night of its premiere, and the heterogeneity of interpretations it elicited.Less
Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and future—tells us about the politics of modernist neoclassicism. Gide introduces the cardboard figure of Triptolemus as a symbol of renewal he associates with the Soviet Union, and with Orpheus’s “backward glance” and the anxious politics of his pédérastie. Rubinstein, Copeau, and Stravinsky, in contrast, think of Persephone’s rebirth in terms of the resurrection of Christ. Stravinsky interprets resurrection from Suvchinsky’s Eurasianist perspective as related to the notion of cyclical history, and to the political idea of Russia resurrecting as a theocracy after the Bolshevik revolution. In his music he realizes the temporal idea of the simultaneity of past, present, and future by composing music that functions as a “vitalist” sculpture, and that can be compared to Aby Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel. The chapter ends with reflections on how Perséphone failed on the night of its premiere, and the heterogeneity of interpretations it elicited.
Sjoerd van Tuinen (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474421041
- eISBN:
- 9781474438605
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421041.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Following the recent ‘speculative turn’ in Continental philosophy, the aim of this volume is to propose a ‘counter-discourse’ of speculative approaches to art history. How could today’s materialist, ...
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Following the recent ‘speculative turn’ in Continental philosophy, the aim of this volume is to propose a ‘counter-discourse’ of speculative approaches to art history. How could today’s materialist, realist, pragmatist, vitalist or object-oriented speculations offer alternatives to the mere complementarity of philosophy of art and art history, often based on mutual recognition and critical limitation rather than imaginative crossovers? What new intermedial methodologies for art and art historical writing do they provide? Or vice versa, how can the encounter with art induce new forms of philosophy? How do speculative concepts of time, past and contingency challenge typically modern engagements with art’s ‘history’? Is there, for example, an unexpected contemporary relevance for pre-modern, e.g. or mannerist or gothic ideas of art? Is it possible for art history to experience a work of art in its novelty beyond its historical facticity? And what is the speculative potential of works of art themselves? Does the speculative open up new ways of extending art into fields of biology, mathematics or the digital? What is the ‘thing’ or ‘object’ of art, whether inanimate or animate? What does it mean to have an ‘idea’? And finally, what remains of ‘beauty’ and ‘expressivity’, after decades of critical mistrust and embarrassed deconstruction?Less
Following the recent ‘speculative turn’ in Continental philosophy, the aim of this volume is to propose a ‘counter-discourse’ of speculative approaches to art history. How could today’s materialist, realist, pragmatist, vitalist or object-oriented speculations offer alternatives to the mere complementarity of philosophy of art and art history, often based on mutual recognition and critical limitation rather than imaginative crossovers? What new intermedial methodologies for art and art historical writing do they provide? Or vice versa, how can the encounter with art induce new forms of philosophy? How do speculative concepts of time, past and contingency challenge typically modern engagements with art’s ‘history’? Is there, for example, an unexpected contemporary relevance for pre-modern, e.g. or mannerist or gothic ideas of art? Is it possible for art history to experience a work of art in its novelty beyond its historical facticity? And what is the speculative potential of works of art themselves? Does the speculative open up new ways of extending art into fields of biology, mathematics or the digital? What is the ‘thing’ or ‘object’ of art, whether inanimate or animate? What does it mean to have an ‘idea’? And finally, what remains of ‘beauty’ and ‘expressivity’, after decades of critical mistrust and embarrassed deconstruction?
Theresa Levitt
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199544707
- eISBN:
- 9780191720178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199544707.003.0005
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
This chapter looks at the question of light and living bodies. Arago once again fashioned himself as a debunker, questioning the claims of the rising spiritualist movement that there exist previously ...
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This chapter looks at the question of light and living bodies. Arago once again fashioned himself as a debunker, questioning the claims of the rising spiritualist movement that there exist previously unknown forms of radiation that act on living organisms. Biot, meanwhile, strove to make exactly that point: through optical activity, the world could be divided into active (living) and inactive (non-living) matter. One could only distinguish the two by the effect they had on the plane of polarization of light. Biot's work became the basis of Pasteur's anti-materialism crusade.Less
This chapter looks at the question of light and living bodies. Arago once again fashioned himself as a debunker, questioning the claims of the rising spiritualist movement that there exist previously unknown forms of radiation that act on living organisms. Biot, meanwhile, strove to make exactly that point: through optical activity, the world could be divided into active (living) and inactive (non-living) matter. One could only distinguish the two by the effect they had on the plane of polarization of light. Biot's work became the basis of Pasteur's anti-materialism crusade.
JESPER LÜTZEN
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198567370
- eISBN:
- 9780191717925
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198567370.003.0025
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
This chapter analyses Heinrich Hertz's views concerning the range of applicability of his mechanics, in particular his views about living systems. Hertz discussed these matters in the introduction of ...
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This chapter analyses Heinrich Hertz's views concerning the range of applicability of his mechanics, in particular his views about living systems. Hertz discussed these matters in the introduction of his book Principles of Mechanics, after the introduction of conservative forces, and in four sections following the introduction of the fundamental law. These latter sections are entitled: Validity of the Fundamental Law, Limitations of the Fundamental Law, Method of Applying the Fundamental Law, and Approximate Application of the Fundamental Law. This chapter discusses practical applications of Hertz's mechanics, validity and applicability of the fundamental law, constructability of forces, vitalism, teleology, reductionism, and mechanism in 19th-century biology, and applicability and correctness.Less
This chapter analyses Heinrich Hertz's views concerning the range of applicability of his mechanics, in particular his views about living systems. Hertz discussed these matters in the introduction of his book Principles of Mechanics, after the introduction of conservative forces, and in four sections following the introduction of the fundamental law. These latter sections are entitled: Validity of the Fundamental Law, Limitations of the Fundamental Law, Method of Applying the Fundamental Law, and Approximate Application of the Fundamental Law. This chapter discusses practical applications of Hertz's mechanics, validity and applicability of the fundamental law, constructability of forces, vitalism, teleology, reductionism, and mechanism in 19th-century biology, and applicability and correctness.
NEIL VICKERS
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199271177
- eISBN:
- 9780191709647
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199271177.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter offers a historical sketch of the state of practical and theoretical medicine in the 1790s. It starts by considering the range of practitioners offering medical treatments during the ...
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This chapter offers a historical sketch of the state of practical and theoretical medicine in the 1790s. It starts by considering the range of practitioners offering medical treatments during the eighteenth century and goes on to describe some important but often overlooked differences between our medicine and the medicine of Coleridge's time. It also discusses some of the ramifications of the main theoretical controversies in eighteenth-century medicine: the slow decline of the humoral pathology and rise of the view that disease – possibly all disease – is caused by disturbances in the nervous system; the materialist challenge to vitalism; and the attempt to refound medicine along essentialist philosophical lines.Less
This chapter offers a historical sketch of the state of practical and theoretical medicine in the 1790s. It starts by considering the range of practitioners offering medical treatments during the eighteenth century and goes on to describe some important but often overlooked differences between our medicine and the medicine of Coleridge's time. It also discusses some of the ramifications of the main theoretical controversies in eighteenth-century medicine: the slow decline of the humoral pathology and rise of the view that disease – possibly all disease – is caused by disturbances in the nervous system; the materialist challenge to vitalism; and the attempt to refound medicine along essentialist philosophical lines.
Hrileena Ghosh
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781789620610
- eISBN:
- 9781789629798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781789620610.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter offers an account of the London teaching hospitals to show that Keats had privileged access to intellectual capital. London was a hotbed of intellectual ferment, as embodied by ...
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This chapter offers an account of the London teaching hospitals to show that Keats had privileged access to intellectual capital. London was a hotbed of intellectual ferment, as embodied by professional bodies like the Guy’s Hospital Physical Society and which found expression in the Vitalism Debates. The milieu within which Keats lived and worked is explored, focusing particularly upon characteristic aspects of Romantic medical training that are now obsolete, such as dissection of corpses freshly exhumed by ‘resurrection men’. The only known account of Keats in action as a surgeon is discussed, revealing that Keats was not fully persuaded by the prevailing Brunonian hypothesis of physiology. The chapter draws upon unpublished contemporary manuscripts in dating Keats’ medical notes, thus resolving an important and hitherto uncertain issue.Less
This chapter offers an account of the London teaching hospitals to show that Keats had privileged access to intellectual capital. London was a hotbed of intellectual ferment, as embodied by professional bodies like the Guy’s Hospital Physical Society and which found expression in the Vitalism Debates. The milieu within which Keats lived and worked is explored, focusing particularly upon characteristic aspects of Romantic medical training that are now obsolete, such as dissection of corpses freshly exhumed by ‘resurrection men’. The only known account of Keats in action as a surgeon is discussed, revealing that Keats was not fully persuaded by the prevailing Brunonian hypothesis of physiology. The chapter draws upon unpublished contemporary manuscripts in dating Keats’ medical notes, thus resolving an important and hitherto uncertain issue.
