Music and the Ineffable

Music and the Ineffable PDF Author: Vladimir Jankélévitch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069126838X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these two threads, the philosophical and the musical, as an extraordinary quintessence of his thought. Jankélévitch deals with classical issues in the philosophy of music, including metaphysics and ontology. These are a point of departure for a sustained examination and dismantling of the idea of musical hermeneutics in its conventional sense. Music, Jankélévitch argues, is not a hieroglyph, not a language or sign system; nor does it express emotions, depict landscapes or cultures, or narrate. On the other hand, music cannot be imprisoned within the icy, morbid notion of pure structure or autonomous discourse. Yet if musical works are not a cipher awaiting the decoder, music is nonetheless entwined with human experience, and with the physical, material reality of music in performance. Music is "ineffable," as Jankélévitch puts it, because it cannot be pinned down, and has a capacity to engender limitless resonance in several domains. Jankélévitch's singular work on music was central to such figures as Roland Barthes and Catherine Clément, and the complex textures and rhythms of his lyrical prose sound a unique note, until recently seldom heard outside the francophone world.

Music and the Ineffable

Music and the Ineffable PDF Author: Vladimir Jankélévitch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069126838X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these two threads, the philosophical and the musical, as an extraordinary quintessence of his thought. Jankélévitch deals with classical issues in the philosophy of music, including metaphysics and ontology. These are a point of departure for a sustained examination and dismantling of the idea of musical hermeneutics in its conventional sense. Music, Jankélévitch argues, is not a hieroglyph, not a language or sign system; nor does it express emotions, depict landscapes or cultures, or narrate. On the other hand, music cannot be imprisoned within the icy, morbid notion of pure structure or autonomous discourse. Yet if musical works are not a cipher awaiting the decoder, music is nonetheless entwined with human experience, and with the physical, material reality of music in performance. Music is "ineffable," as Jankélévitch puts it, because it cannot be pinned down, and has a capacity to engender limitless resonance in several domains. Jankélévitch's singular work on music was central to such figures as Roland Barthes and Catherine Clément, and the complex textures and rhythms of his lyrical prose sound a unique note, until recently seldom heard outside the francophone world.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness PDF Author: Vladimir Jankélévitch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226392139
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch has only recently begun to receive his due from the English-speaking world, thanks in part to discussions of his thought by Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Lévinas, and Paul Ricoeur. His international readers have long valued his unique, interdisciplinary approach to philosophy’s greatest questions and his highly readable writing style. Originally published in 1967, Le Pardon, or Forgiveness, is one of Jankélévitch’s most influential works. In it, he characterizes the ultimate ethical act of forgiving as behaving toward the perpetrator as if he or she had never committed the action, rather than merely forgetting or rationalizing it—a controversial notion when considering events as heinous as the Holocaust. Like so many of Jankélévitch’s works, Forgiveness transcends standard treatments of moral problems, not simply generating a treatise on one subject but incorporating discussions of topics such as free will, giving, creativity, and temporality. Translator Andrew Kelley masterfully captures Jankélévitch’s melodic prose and, in a substantive introduction, reviews his life and intellectual contributions. Forgiveness is an essential part of that legacy, and this indispensable English translation provides key tools for understanding one of the great Western philosophers of the twentieth century.

The Bad Conscience

The Bad Conscience PDF Author: Vladimir Jankélévitch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780226009537
Category : Conscience
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
One of the most distinctive figures in twentieth-century French philosophy, Vladimir Jankélévitch (1903-1985), is becoming increasingly known to the English-speaking world. The Bad Conscience, which focuses on remorse, is central to his moral philosophy. Indeed, Jankélévitch finds the foundation of ethics in our experience of "the bad conscience” or remorse. Unlike repentance, remorse arises out of the realization that we can never undo what has been done in the past; it will remain and be a part of us forever. This bad conscience gives rise to scruples in us and, in doing so, makes us aware of our freedom and the responsibility that our freedom entails. According to Jankélévitch, most ethical theories and systems shield us from remorse. This is unfortunate because, in his view, the very experience of remorse provides the seeds to overcome it. In the end, the overcoming of remorse--as the result of a gratuitous act--is accompanied by true joy. In many ways The Bad Conscience and Jankélévitch’s Forgiveness (Chicago 2005) represent philosophical "bookends.” For Jankélévitch, remorse is a condition or state that gives rise to forgiveness and without which forgiveness would make no sense. Remorse opens up the possibility of forgiveness, but it does not necessitate it. From a Jankélévitchean perspective, forgiveness is the gratuitous response of one person to another’s remorse. La mauvaise conscience was first published in France in 1933, but was subsequently revised and expanded. This carefully and sensitively translated English-language edition corresponds to the most recent edition, but indicates where differences among the editions occur. Andrew Kelley, who is also responsible for the English Edition of Jankélévitch’s Forgiveness (Chicago 2005), provides a superb Translator’s Introduction placing The Bad Conscience into intellectual and historical context.

Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson PDF Author: Vladimir Jankelevitch
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822375338
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Appearing here in English for the first time, Vladimir Jankélévitch's Henri Bergson is one of the two great commentaries written on Henri Bergson. Gilles Deleuze's Bergsonism renewed interest in the great French philosopher but failed to consider Bergson's experiential and religious perspectives. Here Jankélévitch covers all aspects of Bergson's thought, emphasizing the concepts of time and duration, memory, evolution, simplicity, love, and joy. A friend of Bergson's, Jankélévitch first published this book in 1931 and revised it in 1959 to treat Bergson's later works. This unabridged translation of the 1959 edition includes an editor's introduction, which contextualizes and outlines Jankélévitch's reading of Bergson, additional essays on Bergson by Jankélévitch, and Bergson's letters to Jankélévitch.

Vladimir Jankélévitch and the Question of Forgiveness

Vladimir Jankélévitch and the Question of Forgiveness PDF Author: Alan Udoff
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739176684
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The essays focus on the work of Vladimir Jankélévitch as a moral philosopher, particularly that aspect of his work dealing with the question of forgiveness. They treat topics such as the place of moral philosophy in relation to his work as a whole, his relationship to contemporary French thought, and the backgrounds of classical Judaic tradition and world literature. The centerpiece of this tableau is Jankélévitch’s book Le Pardon (Forgiveness). Chief among the distinguishing characteristics is its rigorous defense of what might be termed a forgiveness free of the entanglements that taint the common understanding of forgiveness—what Jankélévitch refers to as pseudo-forgiveness. The advocacy of forgiveness in the name of political or social expediency, as well as the psychological benefit for the victim, are similarly repudiated. In their place, Jankélévitch substitutes a radical forgiveness that is “initial, sudden, spontaneous”—not able to erase the past, but able to create a new future and, thereby, a new relationship to the past. He does not permit even this future, however, to serve as forgiveness’s justification. For him, beyond all justifications, beyond justice itself, forgiveness is a gift akin to love.

Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch

Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch PDF Author: Marguerite La Caze
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498593518
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Contemporary Perspectives on Vladimir Jankélévitch: On What Cannot Be Touched performs a cross-disciplinary theoretical analysis of the philosophy of Vladimir Jankélévitch. An international group of contributors, including both established and emerging scholars, engage with his writings from diverse disciplinary angles and consider his importance for contemporary political and cultural contexts. Edited by Marguerite La Caze and Magdalena Zolkos, the collection provides a holistic and multi-perspectival approach to Jankélévitch’s writings, one that illuminates nuanced and complex connections across the five sub-fields of philosophy to which Jankélévitch contributed: moral philosophy, virtue theory, metaphysics, philosophy of music, and philosophy of religion. The book addresses different aspects of and problems in Jankélévitch’s philosophy, with all chapters unified by a preoccupation with the motif of intangibility—that which cannot be touched.

Modern French Jewish Thought

Modern French Jewish Thought PDF Author: Sarah Hammerschlag
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 151260187X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
"Modern Jewish thought" is often defined as a German affair, with interventions from Eastern European, American, and Israeli philosophers. The story of France's development of its own schools of thought has not been substantially treated outside the French milieu. This anthology of modern French Jewish writing offers the first look at how this significant and diverse body of work developed within the historical and intellectual contexts of France and Europe. Translated into English, these documents speak to two critical axes--the first between Jewish universalism and particularism, and the second between the identification and disidentification of French Jews with France as a nation. Offering key works from Simone Weil, Vladimir JankŽlŽvitch, Emmanuel Levinas, Albert Memmi, HŽlne Cixous, Jacques Derrida, and many others, this volume is organized in roughly chronological order, to highlight the connections linking religion, politics, and history, as they coalesce around a Judaism that is unique to France.

Deep Refrains

Deep Refrains PDF Author: Michael Gallope
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022648369X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Deep Refrains is a wide-ranging investigation of the philosophy of music. Michael Gallope asks what it means for music to "speak" when it is not saying anything in particular. To answer this question, he turns to the writings of some of the most revered thinkers of the twentieth century--Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jankelevitch, Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari. For these theorists, Gallope argues, the paradox that music is both ineffable and yet harbors deep philosophical wisdoms is fertile ground for thinking outside of conceptual boundaries. It provides the lens for a utopian potentiality that inspires hope (Bloch), an ethical critique of modernity (Adorno), an exemplification of the ephemeral movement of lived time (Jankelevitch), and a sonic extension of the syncopated, contrapuntal rhythms of sense and social life (Deleuze and Guattari). Gallope argues that a philosophical engagement with music's ineffability rarely calls for silence or declarations of the unspeakable. Rather, it asks us to think through the ways in which the impact of music is made to address complex philosophical problems specific to the modern world.

Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World

Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World PDF Author: Hent de Vries
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231540124
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
One can love and not forgive or out of love decide not to forgive. Or one can forgive but not love, or choose to forgive but not love the ones forgiven. Love and forgiveness follow parallel and largely independent paths, a truth we fail to acknowledge when we pressure others to both love and forgive. Individuals in conflict, sparring social and ethnic groups, warring religious communities, and insecure nations often do not need to pursue love and forgiveness to achieve peace of mind and heart. They need to remain attentive to the needs of others, an alertness that prompts either love or forgiveness to respond. By reorienting our perception of these enduring phenomena, the contributors to this volume inspire new applications for love and forgiveness in an increasingly globalized and no longer quite secular world. With contributions by the renowned French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, the poet Haleh Liza Gafori, and scholars of religion (Leora Batnitzky, Nils F. Schott, Hent de Vries), psychoanalysis (Albert Mason, Orna Ophir), Islamic and political philosophy (Sari Nusseibeh), and the Bible and literature (Regina Schwartz), this anthology reconstructs the historical and conceptual lineage of love and forgiveness and their fraught relationship over time. By examining how we have used—and misused—these concepts, the authors advance a better understanding of their ability to unite different individuals and emerging groups around a shared engagement for freedom and equality, peace and solidarity.

Sartre, Jews, and the Other

Sartre, Jews, and the Other PDF Author: Manuela Consonni
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110597616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The starting point for this compilation is the wish to rethink the concept of antisemitism, race and gender in light of Sartre’s pioneering Réflexions sur la Question Juive seventy years after its publication. The book gathers texts by prestigious scholars from different disciplines in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, with the objective or revisiting this work locating it within the setting of two other pioneering – and we argue, related – publications, namely Simone De Beauvoir’s Le deuxième sexe of 1949 and Franz Fanon’s Peau noire et masques blancs of 1952. This particular and original standpoint sheds new light on the different meanings and political functions of the concept of antisemitism in a political and historical context marked by the post-modern concepts of multi-ethnicity and multiculturalism.