Abdication of the Sovereign Self

Abdication of the Sovereign Self
Author: Andrew Spano
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1527526623

Language and logic are inextricably commingled in our everyday speech. What we say, particularly in the form of statements, tends not only to mirror our world, but mold it into our own image. This book looks at how much of our verbal communication can be considered “valid” from the point of view of the rules of logic. Are we saying what we mean to say? Is what we hear from the media, our peers, our leaders, and those who determine the narrative “story” of our lives meaningful, rational, and logical? Even more important than the answers to these questions is the answer to whether we are the governors and rulers of our own lives. Have we abdicated this sovereign rule to forces that may not have our best interests and wellbeing in mind? Using works of Continental and analytic philosophy ancient and modern, psychology, linguistics, religion, and literature, this book supports the thesis that we have surrendered the only thing we could ever possibly own – ourselves – for unprecedented access to consumer goods, credit, and the hope for medical immortality. Further, the argument is made that the prevailing discourse of global modern culture consists of statements which are invalid because their inner semantic structure is inherently contradictory. The argument is aimed at those who want to learn more about what makes our everyday discourse and thinking rational or irrational. At the same time, it indicts the individual of the modern industrialized state for the crime of the voluntary abdication of his sovereignty and for forcing others who have little control over their lives to do the same. This book is a call for introspection in the hope that the reader will see something of the situation described reflected not only in himself, but in the society he inhabits.

Being and the Between

Being and the Between
Author: William Desmond
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 580
Release: 1995-03-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1438400934

As Plato told us long ago, the human being is neither a god nor a beast, but someone in between. Philosophy too is in between. How do we philosophize in between? W hat is the being of the between? This book answers the question in the most comprehensive terms possible. It offers an original understanding of metaphysical thinking and the fundamental senses of being, namely, the univocal, equivocal, dialectical, and metaxological senses. Part I of Being and the Between focuses on the nature of metaphysics, the question of being, in terms of the above fourfold sense. Part II develops a metaphysics of being as between, relative to our basic perplexities, concerning origin, creation, things, intelligibilities, selves, communities, being true, being good. The book calls for a generous hermeneutical rethinking of the philosophical tradition. Major figures and positions are reinterpreted. Desmond addresses the issue, common since Hegel, endemic since Heidegger, concerning the end of metaphysics. Granting a proper understanding of the between, Desmond believes that we need a resurrection of metaphysics, where the old perplexities, ever new, stand before us again.

Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age
Author: Albrecht Classen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 813
Release: 2010
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 3110253976

The aim of this English-language series on medieval studies is to establish a methodical, discerning connection between text analysis and cultural history. The series addresses the fundamental cultural themes of the medieval world from the perspective of literarystudies and the humanities. These fundamental themes are the culture-formative conceptualizations, world views, social structures and everyday conditions of medieval life, namely, childhood and old age, sexuality, religion, medicine, rituals, work, poverty and wealth, superstition, earth and cosmos, city and country, war, emotions, communication, travel etc.Fundamentals of Medieval Culture pursues important current discussions in the field and provides a forum for interdisciplinary medieval research. The series is open to anthologies as well as monographs. The aim of the series is to present compendium-like works on the central topics of medieval cultural history that provide a sound overview of a limited subject area from the perspective of various disciplines. On the whole, the series thus presents an encyclopedia of medieval literary and cultural history and its main topics.

A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough

A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough
Author: Stephanie Lynn Budin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2024-11-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040183042

This multidisciplinary volume examines the ongoing effects of James G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough in modern Humanities and its wide-ranging influence across studies of ancient religions, literature, historiography, and reception studies. The book begins by exploring the life and times of Frazer himself and the writing of The Golden Bough in its cultural milieu. It then goes on to cover a wide range of topics, including: ancient Near Eastern religion and culture; Minoan religion and in particular the origins of notions of Minoan matriarchy; Frazer’s influence on the study of Graeco-Roman religion and magic; Frazer’s influence on modern Pagan religions; and the effects of Frazer’s works in modern culture and scholarship generally. Chapters examine how modern academia and beyond continues to be influenced by the otherwise discredited theories in The Golden Bough, ideas such as Sacred Marriage and the incessant Fertility of Everything. The book demonstrates how scholarship within the Humanities as well as practitioners of alternative religions and the common public remain under the thrall of Frazer over one hundred years since the publication of the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, and what we must do to shake off that influence. A Century of James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is of interest to scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines, including Ancient History, History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Classical Studies, Archaeology, Historiography, Anthropology, Folklore, and Reception Studies.

Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act

Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act
Author: Alison L Young
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2008-12-05
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1847314732

The Human Rights Act 1998 is criticised for providing a weak protection of human rights. The principle of parliamentary legislative supremacy prevents entrenchment, meaning that courts cannot overturn legislation passed after the Act that contradicts Convention rights. This book investigates this assumption, arguing that the principle of parliamentary legislative supremacy is sufficiently flexible to enable a stronger protection of human rights, which can replicate the effect of entrenchment. Nevertheless, it is argued that the current protection should not be strengthened. If correctly interpreted, the Human Rights Act can facilitate democratic dialogue that enables courts to perform their proper correcting function to protect rights from abuse, whilst enabling the legislature to authoritatively determine contestable issues surrounding the extent to which human rights should be protected alongside other rights, interests and goals of a particular society. This understanding of the Human Rights Act also provides a different justification for the preservation of Dicey's conception of parliamentary sovereignty in the UK Constitution.

Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern

Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern
Author: Christopher Ben Simpson
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1725237288

William Desmond's original and creative work in metaphysics is attracting more and more attention from philosophers of religion. Putting Desmond in conversation with John D. Caputo, an important philosopher of religion from the Continental tradition, Christopher Ben Simpson casts new light on Desmond's complex, multifaceted, and nuanced thought. The comparative approach allows Simpson to get at the core of recent debates in the philosophy of religion. He develops a rich understanding of how ethics and religion are informed by metaphysics, and contrasts this approach to the decidedly anti-metaphysical stance in Continental philosophy. Religion, Metaphysics, and the Postmodern presents a systematic analysis of Desmond's thought as it advances work on Caputo's thinking and on the philosophy of religion.

My Life As a Border Collie

My Life As a Border Collie
Author: Nancy L. Johnston
Publisher: Central Recovery Press, LLC
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-09-11
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1937612007

In this fun, inviting look at a serious topic—codependence—Nancy L. Johnston shares the life lessons she learned from her observations of the relationship behaviors exhibited by her pet collie, Daisy: "The book began by my noticing behaviors in Daisy that resemble the codependent behaviors in me, which I have been working to moderate through my recovery. Daily I am struck by our tendencies to attend to others, to herd, to overreact." Johnston's delightful book examines twelve specific behaviors that, in their extreme form, can be codependent. It also offers new information on codependence and help for it, including the latest research-supported findings, so that readers can understand "What am I doing that is not producing the relationship results I really want?" Nancy L. Johnston, MS, LPC, LSATP, is a licensed psychotherapist and licensed substance abuse treatment practitioner in private practice in Lexington, Virginia. She has thirty-three years of clinical experience addressing a wide range of emotional and behavioral issues. Johnston specializes in treating adolescents and adults, and has always had a special interest in addiction and its effects on both individuals and family systems. Her first book, Disentangle: When You've Lost Your Self in Someone Else, was published by Central Recovery Press in 2011.

The Scaffolding of Sovereignty

The Scaffolding of Sovereignty
Author: Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 538
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231171870

What is sovereignty? Often taken for granted or seen as the ideology of European states vying for supremacy and conquest, the concept of sovereignty remains underexamined both in the history of its practices and in its aesthetic and intellectual underpinnings. Using global intellectual history as a bridge between approaches, periods, and areas, The Scaffolding of Sovereignty deploys a comparative and theoretically rich conception of sovereignty to reconsider the different schemes on which it has been based or renewed, the public stages on which it is erected or destroyed, and the images and ideas on which it rests. The essays in The Scaffolding of Sovereignty reveal that sovereignty has always been supported, complemented, and enforced by a complex aesthetic and intellectual scaffolding. This collection takes a multidisciplinary approach to investigating the concept on a global scale, ranging from an account of a Manchu emperor building a mosque to a discussion of the continuing power of Lenin’s corpse, from an analysis of the death of kings in classical Greek tragedy to an exploration of the imagery of “the people” in the Age of Revolutions. Across seventeen chapters that closely study specific historical regimes and conflicts, the book’s contributors examine intersections of authority, power, theatricality, science and medicine, jurisdiction, rulership, human rights, scholarship, religious and popular ideas, and international legal thought that support or undermine different instances of sovereign power and its representations.