3,119 research outputs found
Econokenosis: Three Meanings of Kenosis in post-modern Thought;
Among contemporary philosophers who have, in many different ways, turned to the study of
religion, one often finds an interesting tendency: the tendency to rescue religion, however minimal or
reticent this rescue operation might be. They try to save something of/in religion that should be kept
âsafeâ in their view from the immense criticism that religion has been subjected to in modern thinking,
with which they otherwise â apart from this small remainder to be saved, this ârestâ as some of the
authors in question call it â fully agree. My hypothesis is that this saving-something-of/in-religion
usually follows the ambivalent structure and discourse of kenosis. Kenosis can be described as one of the key notions that evoke the complex relationship between God
and humanity, between transcendence and immanence, between the sacred and the profane, between
the Other and the Self - in short, the religious relationship, or the specific and enigmatic relationship
we call religion. Kenosis, originally an ancient Christian notion
derived from Paulâs letter to the Philippians (2: 6-8), is used to refer to two entirely opposite meanings
with regard to the religious relationship. It is this ambiguity of kenosis that interests me in particular in
what follows
Intuitions of the Other: An Analysis of AnschauĂŒng in Schleiermacherâs On Religion â with references to Kant
Part of a threefold publication: Erik Borgman, Laurens ten Kate, Bart Philipsen, A Triptych on Schleiermacher's On Religion, pp. 382-416; preface by L. ten Kate, p. 382.
The following three texts form a triptych in the classic meaning this term has
in late medieval painting. They are independent panels with their own
themes, arguments and disciplinary background (literary theory, philosophy
and theology); and still they âliveâ from constant reference to and dependance
on one another. They were first presented at the International Society for
Religion, Literature and Cultureâs conference âSacred Spaceâ in Stirling,
Scotland, October 2006, and later reworked thoroughly.
There common focus is a series of new readings of Friedrich
Schleiermacherâs (1768â1834) famous On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured
Despisers (1799). In the first article, Bart Philipsen explores the intellectual
context of this book, especially Schleiermacherâs relation to the Early
Romanticists, and focuses on the hermeneutical, rhetorical and poetical
questions and strategies through which Schleiermacherâs performative concept
of religion is developed. In the second article, Laurens ten Kate treats a key
concept in Schleiermacherâs account of the meaning of religion in modern
culture, that of intuition; he investigates the relation between intuition and
performativity, and analyses the influence of Kantâs philosophy at this point.
In the third article, Erik Borgman studies and evaluates the central notion of
melancholy in Schleiermacherâs views on religion, and, comparing these with
the thought of Rudolf Otto and Edward Schillebeekx, he pleads for a new
understanding of the way Schleiermacher should be called a modern thinker
Intimate Distance: Rethinking the Unthought God in Christianity
The work of the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy shares with the thinkers of the âtheological turn in phenomenologyâ the programmatic desire to place the âtheologicalâ, in the broad sense of rethinking the religious traditions in our secular time, back on the agenda of critical thought. Like those advocating a theological turn in phenomenology, Nancyâs deconstructive approach to philosophical analysis aims to develop a new sensibility for the other, for transcendence, conceptualized as the non-apparent in the realm of appearing phenomena. This is why Nancy launches a project looking for the âunthoughtâ and unexpected within the Christian traditions, called deconstruction of Christianity. However, the deconstructive approach to the non-apparent differs fundamentally from that of the thinkers of the turn (1) in its being non-apologetic and non-restorative with regard to religion, because it starts from a problematization of theâtypically modern, that is romanticâdesire to defend and protect what would be âlostâ and possibly to restore this, (2) in its focus on the complex difference-at-work (diffĂ©rance) between religion and secularism, a difference that can be termed entanglement and complicity between these two, (3) in its hypothesis that this entanglement is essentially one between (the meaning and experience of, the rituality around) presence and absence in modern culture, (4) in its conviction that the philosophy and history of culture must join, support, complete and maybe even turn around phenomenology when dealing with the difficult task of determining what exactly would be âleftâ of the âtheologicalâ in our time. In this article, both positions are compared and confronted further, leading to an account of Nancyâs re-readings of the Christian legacy (its theology, doctrine, art, rituals etc.), and ending in a more detailed, exemplary inquiry into the tension between distance and proximity, characteristic of the Christian God
Outside in, inside out: Notes on the Retreating God in Nancy's Deconstruction of Christianity
According to Jean-Luc Nancy, a deconstruction of Christianity looks for the âunthoughtâ in the
christian religion. By this unthought dimension he means âsomethingâ in Christianity that at the same
time âis not Christianity properâ and âhas not mingled with itâ. It appears to be simultaneously outside
and inside Christianity. At the same time, this unthought undermines and âexhaustsâ Christianity, and
it would be this self-exhaustion that would be a key characteristic of Christianity; it follows that a
deconstruction of Christianity primarily investigates the way Christianity deconstructs itself. In this
article, the thesis is developed that this complex, unthought structure of Christianity expresses
Christianityâs modern status, and is expressed in the nucleus of the christian traditions, namely in
the ways in which Christianity deals with the name, the experience and the concept of God. This is
demonstrated â in dialogue with Nancyâs work â by offering short analyses of the christian doctrines
of the Creation and of the Trinity. These analyses show that the christian God âincarnatesâ in various
concrete ways the structure of being outside and inside: outside as well as inside Himself, the world,
and even outside and inside Christianity. Shaped by this double bind, the unthought God is always a
retreating God
'Cum' Revisited: Preliminaries to Thinking the Interval
In the name of âthe community,â humanity - in particular in 20th century Europe - has
shown an unexpected capacity to destroy itself. This destruction has been quantitative -
mass extermination on such a scale that the very concept of quantity and of quantification
was perverted and inverted into a quality: the quality of the unquantifiable, numbers
becoming innumerable, becoming absolute, infinite figures. And at the same time
this autodestruction has been qualitative, for the idea and the value of âhumanityâ and
of âhuman natureâ itself was destroyed, and its fragile texture being torn up; precisely
because of this, human singularities were reduced to numbers, quality being perverted
and inverted into quantity.
Nevertheless, the multiform history of the community, whether in its universal,
global, or in its particular, local shape, should not be seen as some evil, disastrous deviation
from the course of civilization; however stained it may have become, it is not an
aberrance from normality but rather humanityâs and humanismâs less innocent, less
ethereal side. One of the compelling questions of our time is whether the community is
a place, a topos, of self-destruction humanity cannot avoid or eliminate. At least this
presupposes that we must think the community as a âgroundformâ and not a side-effect
of human existence. As soon as people are exposed to one another in a plurality â and
what else could humanity be than precisely this reciprocal exposition of people and
peoples? â âthere is communityâ. But this fundamental form of community is not simply
their product, nor their operation or âoeuvreâ; it is not just the sum of individuals
having something in common. It is a place where they, inadvertently, are in common,
only to discover that this âin-commonâ cannot be controlled by them and so eludes
them. Consequently, anything can happen, can take place in this strange place of the
âinoperative communityâ (of âthatâ in a community which remains inoperative): peace
and violence, order and disorder, cohesion and destruction
Interaction between current imbalance and magnetization in LHC cables
The quality of the magnetic field in superconducting accelerator magnets is associated with the properties of the superconducting cable. Current imbalances due to coupling currents ÂżI, as large as 100 A, are induced by spatial variations of the field sweep rate and contact resistances. During injection at a constant field all magnetic field components show a decay behavior. The decay is caused by a diffusion of coupling currents into the whole magnet. This results in a redistribution of the transport current among the strands and causes a demagnetization of the superconducting cable. As soon as the field is ramped up again after the end of injection, the magnetization rapidly recovers from the decay and follows the course of the original hysteresis curve. In order to clarify the interactions between the changes in current and magnetization during injection the authors performed a number of experiments. A magnetic field with a spatially periodic pattern was applied to a superconducting wire in order to simulate the coupling behavior in a magnet. This model system was placed into a stand for magnetization measurements and the influence of different powering conditions was analyze
Desperate Affirmation: on the Aporetic Performativity of Memoria and Testimony, in the Light of W.G. Sebalds Story Max Ferber; with a Theological Response
Is ârememberingâ an intentional activity, residing in the subjectâs autonomy,
or does it belong to the realm of receptivity, interrupting the subject? Or
is it both at once? This jointly authored paper sets these questions in the
context of a recently renewed interest in memoria in cultural theory and
the humanities, as well as of an increasing pluralism in Western societies. The
impossibility of sharing memories as a common good and a common truth
is explored by putting the theme of historical responsibility, to which every
gesture of memoria is tied, in a new light. The paper first demonstrates that
the concept of performativity, as developed in particular by Jacques Derrida
through a critical reading of Austin and Searle, can be a fruitful theoretical
model in the analysis of memoria and of its double status: active and receptive
at the same time. A reflection on the practice of testimony, again starting from
Derrida, will further articulate this coherence between performativity and
memoria. After this theoretical clarification, the value of performativity as a
model for memoria will be tested through a detailed reading of the German
writer W.G. Sebaldâs (1944â2001) story âMax Ferberâ, focussing on the
delicate way this story stages an impossible testimonial drama. The authors
will, finally, enquire as to the relevance of the performative model for a
theological view of memoria and testimony
Zwischen ImmunitÀt und Unendlichkeit. Der Ort in Peter Sloterdijks SphÀrologie, im Hinblick auf seine Durchdenkung der christlichen Erbe
Die Trilogie SphÀren ist vor allem eine Philosophie des Ortes. Sie geht von der
PrimordialitÀt des Topos des Menschen aus, statt von dessen Wesen, Substanz
oder IdentitÀt. Entmodernisiert Sloterdijk mit der von ihm suggerierten Verfallsgeschichte
das Christentum gewissermaĂen? Das wĂ€re zu einfach. Die SphĂ€ren-Trilogie
lÀsst sich vielmehr als ein faszinierendes Gefechtsritual lesen: als ein analytischer
und rhetorisch-narrativer Kampf mit dieser Religion, die die abendlÀndische
Welt geprÀgt hat und die so Àrgerlich modern ist in ihren unmodernsten
Erfahrungen, Vorstellungen und Dogmen. Als solches, als Symptom einer
(post)modernen Unsicherheit, ist SphÀren, ist die ganze Arbeit Peter Sloterdijks
schon jetzt eines der kanonischen Instrumentarien fĂŒr kritische SelbstprĂŒfung
in unserem neuen Jahrhundert
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