Author: Oliver Freiberger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199719013
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
Scholars of religion have always been fascinated by asceticism. Some have even regarded this radical way of life-- the withdrawal from the world, combined with practices that seriously affect basic bodily needs, up to extreme forms of self-mortification --as the ultimate form of a true religious quest. This view is rooted in hagiographic descriptions of prominent ascetics and in other literary accounts that praise the ascetic life-style. Scholars have often overlooked, however, that in the history of religions ascetic beliefs and practices have also been strongly criticized, by followers of the same religious tradition as well as by outsiders. The respective sources provide sufficient evidence of such critical strands but surprisingly as yet no attempt has been made to analyze this criticism of asceticism systematically. This book is a first attempt of filling this gap. Ten studies present cases from both Asian and European traditions: classical and medieval Hinduism, early and contemporary Buddhism in South and East Asia, European antiquity, early and medieval Christianity, and 19th/20th century Aryan religion. Focusing on the critics of asceticism, their motives, their arguments, and the targets of their critique, these studies provide a broad range of issues for comparison. They suggest that the critique of asceticism is based on a worldview differing from and competing with the ascetic worldview, often in one and the same historical context. The book demonstrates that examining the critics of asceticism helps understand better the complexity of religious traditions and their cultural contexts. The comparative analysis, moreover, shows that the criticism of asceticism reflects a religious worldview as significant and widespread in the history of religions as asceticism itself is.
Author: Oliver Freiberger
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780197738269
Category : Asceticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
'Asceticism and its Critics' presents cases from both Asian and European traditions: classical and medieval Hinduism, early and contemporary Buddhism in South and East Asia, European antiquity, early and medieval Christianity, and 19th/20th century Aryan religion.
Author: Geoffrey Galt Harpham
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226316904
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
In this bold interdisciplinary work, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that asceticism has played a major role in shaping Western ideas of the body, writing, ethics, and aesthetics. He suggests that we consider the ascetic as "the 'cultural' element in culture," and presents a close analysis of works by Athanasius, Augustine, Matthias, Grünewald, Nietzsche, Foucault, and other thinkers as proof of the extent of asceticism's resources. Harpham demonstrates the usefulness of his findings by deriving from asceticism a "discourse of resistance," a code of interpretation ultimately more generous and humane than those currently available to us.
Author: Leif E. Vaage
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135962243
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 457
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Book Description
First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author: Stephen Mulhall
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192650793
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
In The Ascetic Ideal, Stephen Mulhall shows how areas of cultural life that seem to be either essentially unconnected to evaluative commitments (science and philosophy) or to involve non-moral values (aesthetics) are in fact deeply informed by ethico-religious commitments, for better and for worse. The book develops a reading of Nietzsche's concept of 'the ascetic ideal', which he used to track the evolution, mutation, and expansion of the system of slave moral values, associated primarily with Judaeo-Christian religious belief through diverse fields of Western European culture—not just religion and morality, but aesthetics, science, and philosophy. Mulhall also offers an interpretation of Nietzsche's genealogical method that aims to rebut standard criticisms of its nature, and to emphasize its potential for enhancing philosophical understanding more generally. The focus throughout is on developments in those fields which occurred after the end of Nietzsche's intellectual career, and in particular on influential modes of thought and practice that have a contemporary significance. The goal is not simply to argue that Nietzsche's diagnosis and critique retains considerable merit, but also to show that Nietzsche is himself significantly indebted to the ideals he criticizes, and that this opens up a possibility of synthesizing elements of his approach with those drawn from its target. Hence, the book also tracks various ways in which the object of Nietzsche's criticism has undergone further mutations (just as his genealogical method would suggest), and in doing so has generated ways of pursuing the values central to asceticism that avoid Nietzsche's criticisms, and might even further his own goals.
Author: Julia F. Saville
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813919409
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Others decry his monasticism as the regrettably oppressive regimen from which he was able to escape only occasionally through his sensuous, sometimes overtly homoerotic verse." "Julia F. Saville uses Lacanian theories of sublimation and courtly love to reconfigure this long-standing rift in the field of Hopkins criticism."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Evert Peeters
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845459873
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
Asceticism, so it is argued in this volume, is a modern category. The ubiquitous cult of the body, of fitness and diet equally evokes the ongoing success of ascetic practices and beliefs. Nostalgic memories of hardship and discipline in the army, youth movements or boarding schools remain as present as the fashionable irritation with the presumed modern-day laziness. In the very texture of contemporary culture, age-old asceticism proves to be remarkably alive. Old ascetic forms were remoulded to serve modern desires for personal authenticity, an authenticity that disconnected asceticism in the course of the nineteenth century from two traditions that had underpinned it since classical antiquity: the public, republican austerity of antiquity and the private, religious asceticism of Christianity. Exploring various aspects such as the history of the body, of aesthetics, science, and social thought in several European countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Belgium), the authors show that modern asceticism remains a deeply ambivalent category. Apart from self-realisation, classical and religious examples continue to haunt the ascetic mind.
Author: Patrick J. McGrath
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487505329
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
Challenging contemporary perceptions of the ascetic in the early modern period, this book explores asceticism as a vital site of religious conflict and literary creativity, rather than merely a vestige of a medieval past.
Author: Alda Balthrop-Lewis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333
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Book Description
Boldly reconfigures Walden for contemporary ethics and politics by recovering Thoreau's theological vision of environmental justice.
Author: Peter J. Woodford
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022653992X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
What, if anything, does biological evolution tell us about the nature of religion, ethical values, or even the meaning and purpose of life? The Moral Meaning of Nature sheds new light on these enduring questions by examining the significance of an earlier—and unjustly neglected—discussion of Darwin in late nineteenth-century Germany. We start with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings staged one of the first confrontations with the Christian tradition using the resources of Darwinian thought. The lebensphilosophie, or “life-philosophy,” that arose from his engagement with evolutionary ideas drew responses from other influential thinkers, including Franz Overbeck, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert. These critics all offered cogent challenges to Nietzsche’s appropriation of the newly transforming biological sciences, his negotiation between science and religion, and his interpretation of the implications of Darwinian thought. They also each proposed alternative ways of making sense of Nietzsche’s unique question concerning the meaning of biological evolution “for life.” At the heart of the discussion were debates about the relation of facts and values, the place of divine purpose in the understanding of nonhuman and human agency, the concept of life, and the question of whether the sciences could offer resources to satisfy the human urge to discover sources of value in biological processes. The Moral Meaning of Nature focuses on the historical background of these questions, exposing the complex ways in which they recur in contemporary philosophical debate.
