Transcendence and Negation

Transcendence and Negation PDF Author: Moti Lal Pandit
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Description: The Buddha, upon the attainment of enlightenment, found out that the conditioned existence, whatever be its form or state, is basically and inherently characterized by pain. The conditioned existence is painful on account of it being insubstantial and impermanent and also due to it being subject to constant becoming. As life in the world is painful, so it is necessary to find out such a treatment by the application of which suffering as such could be transcended. The basic thrust of the Dharma of the Buddha, thus, is not to realize the telos of life in and through the world; rather it is to go beyond that which is given. It is the negation or transcendence of the given that the ultimate goal is reached, which is termed as nirvana or the extinction of suffering. Since it is not possible for every individual to reach this ultimate goal of nirvana, so Buddhism, particularly in its Mahayana version, devised a practical scheme in terms of which a Bodhisattva, seen as the embodiment of compassion, could come to the rescue of those who sought his help. As a religious idea, the compassion of a Bodhisattva for sentient beings became the basis of Buddhist spirituality, which meant that no more would one seek self-salvation unless each creature attained to the state of freedom from becoming. It is towards the salvation of others that a Bodhisattva works for, and not for his own salvation. The question that arises is this: Is this selfless compassion equivalent to the Christian charity which the Word, upon becoming flesh, expressed upon the Cross at Calvary? As Buddhism believes neither in the existence of a loving and living God nor in a substantial self, so the compassion of a Bodhisattva cannot be accorded with any ontic reality. As and when a Buddhist speaks of compassion, he treats it merely as an expedient means. In contrast with this Buddhist concept of compassion as an expedient means, Christianity treats love both as a means and as a goal of life. Moreover, love is seen as the very nature of God. As love has its source in God, so we are asked to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and this love found its ultimate expression when offered himself as a victim upon the Cross for the remission of sins of mankind. What it amounts to saying is this: Christian idea of love radically differs from that of Buddhist compassion. It is this theme of love versus compassion that constitute the heart of the book.

Transcendence and Negation

Transcendence and Negation PDF Author: Moti Lal Pandit
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 220

Get Book Here

Book Description
Description: The Buddha, upon the attainment of enlightenment, found out that the conditioned existence, whatever be its form or state, is basically and inherently characterized by pain. The conditioned existence is painful on account of it being insubstantial and impermanent and also due to it being subject to constant becoming. As life in the world is painful, so it is necessary to find out such a treatment by the application of which suffering as such could be transcended. The basic thrust of the Dharma of the Buddha, thus, is not to realize the telos of life in and through the world; rather it is to go beyond that which is given. It is the negation or transcendence of the given that the ultimate goal is reached, which is termed as nirvana or the extinction of suffering. Since it is not possible for every individual to reach this ultimate goal of nirvana, so Buddhism, particularly in its Mahayana version, devised a practical scheme in terms of which a Bodhisattva, seen as the embodiment of compassion, could come to the rescue of those who sought his help. As a religious idea, the compassion of a Bodhisattva for sentient beings became the basis of Buddhist spirituality, which meant that no more would one seek self-salvation unless each creature attained to the state of freedom from becoming. It is towards the salvation of others that a Bodhisattva works for, and not for his own salvation. The question that arises is this: Is this selfless compassion equivalent to the Christian charity which the Word, upon becoming flesh, expressed upon the Cross at Calvary? As Buddhism believes neither in the existence of a loving and living God nor in a substantial self, so the compassion of a Bodhisattva cannot be accorded with any ontic reality. As and when a Buddhist speaks of compassion, he treats it merely as an expedient means. In contrast with this Buddhist concept of compassion as an expedient means, Christianity treats love both as a means and as a goal of life. Moreover, love is seen as the very nature of God. As love has its source in God, so we are asked to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and this love found its ultimate expression when offered himself as a victim upon the Cross for the remission of sins of mankind. What it amounts to saying is this: Christian idea of love radically differs from that of Buddhist compassion. It is this theme of love versus compassion that constitute the heart of the book.

Paths to Transcendence

Paths to Transcendence PDF Author: Reza Shah-Kazemi
Publisher: World Wisdom, Inc
ISBN: 0941532976
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Compares and shares insights into the Transcendent Absolute from the spiritual perspectives of three key historical religious figures in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, in a reference that focuses on a theme of transcendence and explains a spiritual vision that underlies all religions. Original.

Transcendence and Self-transcendence

Transcendence and Self-transcendence PDF Author: Merold Westphal
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253344137
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
The question of the transcendence of God has traditionally been thought in terms of the difference between pantheism, which affirms that God is wholly "within" the world, and theism, which affirms that God is both "within" and "outside" the world, both immanent and transcendent. Against Heidegger's critique of onto-theology and the general postmodern concern for respecting and preserving the difference of the other, Merold Westphal seeks to rethink divine transcendence in relation to modes of human self-transcendence. Touching upon Spinoza, Hegel, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Aquinas, Barth, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Derrida, and Marion, Westphal's work centers around a critique of onto-theology, the importance of alterity, the decentered self, and the autonomous transcendental ego. Westphal's phenomenology of faith sets this book into the main currents of Continental philosophy of religion today.

Human Existence and Transcendence

Human Existence and Transcendence PDF Author: Jean Wahl
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268101094
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
William C. Hackett’s English translation of Jean Wahl’s Existence humaine et transcendence (1944) brings back to life an all-but-forgotten book that provocatively explores the philosophical concept of transcendence. Based on what Emmanuel Levinas called “Wahl’s famous lecture” from 1937, Existence humaine et transcendence captured a watershed moment of European philosophy. Included in the book are Wahl's remarkable original lecture and the debate that ensued, with significant contributions by Gabriel Marcel and Nicolai Berdyaev, as well as letters submitted on the occasion by Heidegger, Levinas, Jaspers, and other famous figures from that era. Concerned above all with the ineradicable felt value of human experience by which any philosophical thesis is measured, Wahl makes a daring clarification of the concept of transcendence and explores its repercussions through a masterly appeal to many (often surprising) places within the entire history of Western thought. Apart from its intrinsic philosophical significance as a discussion of the concepts of being, the absolute, and transcendence, Wahl's work is valuable insofar as it became a focal point for a great many other European intellectuals. Hackett has provided an annotated introduction to orient readers to this influential work of twentieth-century French philosophy and to one of its key figures.

Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought

Transcendence in Heidegger’s Early Thought PDF Author: Erik Kuravsky
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031412915
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This book demonstrates how Heidegger's departure from ontotheology occurs initially as a preparation for the concept of Dasein's transcendence and subsequently as its explicit development and overcoming. Dasein's transcendence is revealed as the foundation for the subsequent concept of Beyng as an Event, which stands in contrast to all ontotheological perspectives that assert a singular a priori foundation of the universe attributed to beings, God, consciousness, or even an independent "process" of Being that doesn't rely on Dasein. The book illustrates that transcendence is not an attribute of human consciousness or a connection to something external to it. Instead, as a "primal act," transcendence paves the way for a non-representational dwelling in the essence of a historically unfolding Being, a contemplative recollection of the truth of Beyng. Throughout the book, there is a gradual progression towards an understanding of transcendence as an active engagement, wherein we "do" transcendence. This process involves a reconstruction of the ontological significance of action, emphasizing its performative embeddedness in existence and its inseparability from Beyng.

Existential Semiotics

Existential Semiotics PDF Author: Eero Tarasti
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253028531
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 227

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Book Description
Existential semiotics involves an a priori state of signs and their fixation into objective entities. These essays define this new philosophical field.

Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice

Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice PDF Author: Nicholas Davey
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350347671
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
How do words and images function hermeneutically? How does hermeneutic practice work? Answering these questions and more, Nicholas Davey develops the hermeneutical foundations of creative practice. In doing so, he not only uncovers the significance of philosophical hermeneutics for the arts and the humanities, but defends the humanities as a whole from the current scepticism inspired by deconstruction and post-structuralism. Taking Gadamer's language ontology as its cue, this pioneering volume not only addresses certain weaknesses that Davey observes in Gadamer's thought but further takes Gadamerian thinking beyond Gadamer himself. In particular, Davey investigates the productive value of negativity that is central to hermeneutics and to wider spheres of creative learning. Advocating a renewed confidence in hermeneutics and the humanities, Negative Hermeneutics and the Question of Practice reveals how hermeneutical thinking provides a map of the dynamics within creative practice, eliminating the need for an externally imposed 'theory' of the arts.

Distinctions in the Flesh

Distinctions in the Flesh PDF Author: Dieter Vandebroeck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317302044
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The past decades have witnessed a surge of sociological interest in the body. From the focal point of aesthetic investment, political regulation and moral anxiety, to a means of redefining traditional conceptions of agency and identity, the body has been cast in a wide variety of sociological roles. However, there is one topic that proves conspicuously absent from this burgeoning literature on the body, namely its role in the everyday (re)production of class-boundaries. Distinctions in the Flesh aims to fill that void by showing that the way individuals perceive, use and manage their bodies is fundamentally intertwined with their social position and trajectory. Drawing on a wide array of survey-data – from food-preferences to sporting-practices and from weight-concern to tastes in clothing – this book shows how bodies not only function as key markers of class-differences, but also help to naturalize and legitimize such differences. Along the way, it scrutinizes popular notions like the ‘obesity epidemic’, questions the role of ‘the media’ in shaping the way people judge their bodies and sheds doubt on sociological narratives that cast the body as a malleable object that is increasingly open to individual control and reflexive management. This book will be of interest to scholars of class, lifestyle and identity, but also to social epidemiologists, health professionals and anyone interested in the way that social inequalities become, quite literally, inscribed in the body.

Derrida and Negative Theology

Derrida and Negative Theology PDF Author: Professor Harold Coward
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791409633
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This book explores the thought of Jacques Derrida as it relates to the tradition of apophatic thought--negative theology and philosophy--in both Western and Eastern traditions. Following the Introduction by Toby Foshay, two of Derrida's essays on negative theology, Of an Apocalyptic Tone Newly Adopted in Philosophy and How to Avoid Speaking: Denials, are reprinted here. These are followed by essays from a Western perspective by Mark C. Taylor and Michel Despland, and essays from an Eastern perspective by David Loy, a Buddhist, and Harold Coward, a Hindu. In the Conclusion, Jacques Derrida responds to these discussions.

Transhumanism and Transcendence

Transhumanism and Transcendence PDF Author: Ronald Cole-Turner
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 1589017943
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
The timeless human desire to be more beautiful, intelligent, healthy, athletic, or young has given rise in our time to technologies of human enhancement. Athletes use drugs to increase their strength or stamina; cosmetic surgery is widely used to improve physical appearance; millions of men take drugs like Viagra to enhance sexual performance. And today researchers are exploring technologies such as cell regeneration and implantable devices that interact directly with the brain. Some condemn these developments as a new kind of cheating—not just in sports but in life itself—promising rewards without effort and depriving us most of all of what it means to be authentic human beings. “Transhumanists,” on the other hand, reject what they see as a rationalizing of human limits, as if being human means being content forever with underachieving bodies and brains. To be human, they insist, is to be restless with possibilities, always eager to transcend biological limits. As the debate grows in urgency, how should theology respond? Christian theologians recognize truth on both sides of the argument, pointing out how the yearnings of the transhumanists—if not their technological methods—find deep affinities in Christian belief. In this volume, Ronald Cole-Turner has joined seasoned scholars and younger, emerging voices together to bring fresh insight into the technologies that are already reshaping the future of Christian life and hope.