Soberba e humildade em Agostinho são analisadas neste trabalho por meio de uma inter-relação entre os métodos anagógico/Pátria-Via e o Trinitário, métodos que, segundo cremos, foram utilizados por Agostinho. A aplicação deste método nos levará a notar que soberba e humildade só podem ser entendidas uma à luz da outra, porque possuem uma estrutura simetricamente proporcional: a soberba é a enfermidade radical da condição humana, e a humildade o seu remédio adequado. Assim, a soberba, no nível do ser, corresponde a uma usurpação, uma pretensão de roubar o que é próprio de Deus, a autonomia e independência no ser; no nível do conhecimento, consiste numa presunção de valer por si mesmo, o que leva a um movimento de afastamento da verdade interior, tornando o homem cego no mais profundo de sua alma; e finalmente, no nível do querer, corresponde a uma injustiça, pois consiste na causa do primeiro mau uso do livre-arbítrio, que levou ao rompimento da ordem estabelecida por Deus na lei eterna. A humildade, em simetria invertida, corresponde, no nível do ser, a um aniquilamento voluntário, pelo qual o Cristo abaixa-se de sua natureza igual a Deus, assumindo uma natureza que lhe é inferior, a natureza humana; no nível do conhecimento, se entende como confissão a respeito da verdade sobre Deus e sobre o próprio homem, da sua condição de criatura e pecador; e finalmente, no nível do querer, como o caminho pelo qual o Cristo, por meio de sua livre obediência até a morte de cruz e posterior ressurreição, restabelece a justiça perdida na primeira desobediência à lei eterna. / Pride and humility in Augustine are analyzed in this work through an inter-relationship between the anagogical/homeland-Way (Patria-Via) and Trinitarian methods, which we believe were used by Augustine. Applying this method will lead us to note that pride and humility can only be understood in the light of one another, because they have a symmetrically proportional structure: pride is the radical disease of the human condition, and humility its adequate remedy. Thus, the pride, in the level of being, represents an usurpation, a desire to steal what is proper to God, the autonomy and independence in being; in the level of knowledge, is a presumption of worth by himself/herself, which leads a movement away from inner truth, making the man blind in the depths of his soul; and finally, at the level of wanting, corresponds to an injustice because it is the cause of the first misuse of free will, which led to the breakup of the order established by God in the eternal law. Humility, in inverted symmetry, corresponds, at the level of being, to a voluntary destruction, by which Christ stoops of his nature equal with Gods, taking a nature that is lower, the human nature; in the level of knowledge, it is understood as a confession regarding the truth about God and man himself, of his condition of sinful creature; and finally, at the level of wanting, as the path by which Christ, through his free obedience unto death on a cross and subsequent resurrection, restores justice lost in the first disobedience to the eternal law.

Este estudo investigou, em uma perspectiva construtivista, se existe desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. Participaram 28 crianças, distribuídas em três grupos etários (6, 9 e 12 anos), pareadas por sexo. Utilizaram-se duas histórias: em uma delas, o benfeitor foi humilde; na outra, o benfeitor não foi humilde. Cada história foi seguida de uma entrevista semiestruturada. Evidenciou-se que o sentimento de obrigatoriedade de retribuir um favor apresentou variações dependendo do tipo de benfeitor (humilde ou não-humilde). Houve uma maior tendência das crianças mais velhas levarem em conta a humildade e a falta dessa virtude quando comparadas com as crianças mais novas. Ao explicitar-se a diferença entre as histórias, a frequência deste tipo de resposta aumentou em todas as idades, além de ter surgido o tema da generosidade. Os resultados sugeriram que existe um desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. / Based on a constructivist approach, this study examined whether the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood. Twenty-eight children, divided into three age groups (6, 9 and 12 years old), participated in this research. We used two vignettes: in one of them, the benefactor was humble; in the other one, the benefactor was not humble. Each story was followed by a semi-structured interview. The feeling of obligation to return a favor showed variations depending on the type of benefactor (humble or not humble). There was a greater tendency for older children to take into account the benefactor’s humility and the lack of this virtue when compared to younger children. When the differences between the vignettes were made explicit, the frequency of this type of response increased in all ages and the theme of generosity appeared. Results showed that the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood.

This dissertation is a comparative study which traces the development of a distinctive aesthetics in the late twentieth century novels of the Austrian writer, Christoph Ransmayr. The three novels, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara, while quite different in terms of spatial and temporal orientation, share several key features which contribute to the operation of what I define and examine as the aesthetics of humility in the texts. These recurrent thematic, structural and symbolic elements in the three novels relate to the texts??? critique of scientific modernity, their privileging of myth (both thematically and stylistically), the representation of nature and the texts??? readings of apocalypse and transformation. The theory of myth developed by Hans Blumenberg in Arbeit am Mythos provides an interpretative framework to explain the re-emergence of myth as a contemporary response to the ???absolutism of reality??? which the systems and technologies of scientific modernity have produced in the twentieth century. The first part of this thesis examines the representation in individual novels of the collapse and breakdown of selected metanarratives of modernity. The second part consists of an examination of three core myths which function to restructure the narrative of human existence in each novel. This thesis determines that the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr???s novels is dependent on the reader???s recognition of the changed perspective and the changed perception which characters in each novel experience. To different extents the characters in each novel abandon a rational perception of reality. The aesthetics of reality acknowledges a textual consciousness and privileging of the projected Other of reason; nature, myth, fantasy, irrationality and barbarity. The human subject no longer occupies the privileged central position in humanist cosmology. Displaced from the centre to the periphery of civilization, the human subject is also represented as having lost control of its physical and psychical environment. Human pretensions to power and influence over itself and its environment are negated in the texts??? revelation of the transience of life. This loss of status and place is related on a seemingly moral level to the novels??? representation of the human potential for brutality and cruelty. The ultimate disappearance of the human subject in each novel is related to the subject???s gradual objectification in the text and the final dissolution of its identity.

In this project, I argue that David Foster Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite jest (or IJ) is both about recovering from addiction through humility, and also it produces that humility in some of its readers by making us feel ourselves to be addicts to a certain kind of reading: a reading to find closure, certainty, and resolution. But, in frustrating the desires for closure, certainty, resolution, etc., IJ denies readers the satisfaction of completing the fix. It is precisely this denial that prompts readers to re-read, repeating the structure of addiction--but also destructuring it, by installing habits of reading that pleasure in the failure to close, the uncertainty, the impossibility of resolution--habits which I treat as humility. Following a thread in the performative theory of J.L. Austin, Jacques Derrida, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, I clear space for reconceptualizing the performative utterance through an unusual example of a performative utterance: I take IJ to be the utterance of humility. Drawing on Avital Ronell's "narcoanalysis" in Crack wars, I argue that IJ's performative or substantializing work is in exploiting one kind of habit (addiction) in order to replace it with another (humility). The rhetorical transformation (to humility) effects itself through IJ's performative formation (in the reader) of the humbled habit. This project is a reading of a performative utterance (IJ) that produces a rhetorical effect, which effect is the formation of the habit of humility. / text

This dissertation is a comparative study which traces the development of a distinctive aesthetics in the late twentieth century novels of the Austrian writer, Christoph Ransmayr. The three novels, Die Schrecken des Eises und der Finsternis, Die letzte Welt and Morbus Kitahara, while quite different in terms of spatial and temporal orientation, share several key features which contribute to the operation of what I define and examine as the aesthetics of humility in the texts. These recurrent thematic, structural and symbolic elements in the three novels relate to the texts??? critique of scientific modernity, their privileging of myth (both thematically and stylistically), the representation of nature and the texts??? readings of apocalypse and transformation. The theory of myth developed by Hans Blumenberg in Arbeit am Mythos provides an interpretative framework to explain the re-emergence of myth as a contemporary response to the ???absolutism of reality??? which the systems and technologies of scientific modernity have produced in the twentieth century. The first part of this thesis examines the representation in individual novels of the collapse and breakdown of selected metanarratives of modernity. The second part consists of an examination of three core myths which function to restructure the narrative of human existence in each novel. This thesis determines that the development of the aesthetics of humility in Ransmayr???s novels is dependent on the reader???s recognition of the changed perspective and the changed perception which characters in each novel experience. To different extents the characters in each novel abandon a rational perception of reality. The aesthetics of reality acknowledges a textual consciousness and privileging of the projected Other of reason; nature, myth, fantasy, irrationality and barbarity. The human subject no longer occupies the privileged central position in humanist cosmology. Displaced from the centre to the periphery of civilization, the human subject is also represented as having lost control of its physical and psychical environment. Human pretensions to power and influence over itself and its environment are negated in the texts??? revelation of the transience of life. This loss of status and place is related on a seemingly moral level to the novels??? representation of the human potential for brutality and cruelty. The ultimate disappearance of the human subject in each novel is related to the subject???s gradual objectification in the text and the final dissolution of its identity.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 1996. / Title from the title screen (viewed September 8, 2009) Degree awarded 1996; thesis submitted 1995. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Este estudo investigou, em uma perspectiva construtivista, se existe desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. Participaram 28 crianças, distribuídas em três grupos etários (6, 9 e 12 anos), pareadas por sexo. Utilizaram-se duas histórias: em uma delas, o benfeitor foi humilde; na outra, o benfeitor não foi humilde. Cada história foi seguida de uma entrevista semiestruturada. Evidenciou-se que o sentimento de obrigatoriedade de retribuir um favor apresentou variações dependendo do tipo de benfeitor (humilde ou não-humilde). Houve uma maior tendência das crianças mais velhas levarem em conta a humildade e a falta dessa virtude quando comparadas com as crianças mais novas. Ao explicitar-se a diferença entre as histórias, a frequência deste tipo de resposta aumentou em todas as idades, além de ter surgido o tema da generosidade. Os resultados sugeriram que existe um desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. / Based on a constructivist approach, this study examined whether the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood. Twenty-eight children, divided into three age groups (6, 9 and 12 years old), participated in this research. We used two vignettes: in one of them, the benefactor was humble; in the other one, the benefactor was not humble. Each story was followed by a semi-structured interview. The feeling of obligation to return a favor showed variations depending on the type of benefactor (humble or not humble). There was a greater tendency for older children to take into account the benefactor’s humility and the lack of this virtue when compared to younger children. When the differences between the vignettes were made explicit, the frequency of this type of response increased in all ages and the theme of generosity appeared. Results showed that the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood.

Este estudo investigou, em uma perspectiva construtivista, se existe desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. Participaram 28 crianças, distribuídas em três grupos etários (6, 9 e 12 anos), pareadas por sexo. Utilizaram-se duas histórias: em uma delas, o benfeitor foi humilde; na outra, o benfeitor não foi humilde. Cada história foi seguida de uma entrevista semiestruturada. Evidenciou-se que o sentimento de obrigatoriedade de retribuir um favor apresentou variações dependendo do tipo de benfeitor (humilde ou não-humilde). Houve uma maior tendência das crianças mais velhas levarem em conta a humildade e a falta dessa virtude quando comparadas com as crianças mais novas. Ao explicitar-se a diferença entre as histórias, a frequência deste tipo de resposta aumentou em todas as idades, além de ter surgido o tema da generosidade. Os resultados sugeriram que existe um desenvolvimento das relações entre gratidão e humildade na infância. / Based on a constructivist approach, this study examined whether the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood. Twenty-eight children, divided into three age groups (6, 9 and 12 years old), participated in this research. We used two vignettes: in one of them, the benefactor was humble; in the other one, the benefactor was not humble. Each story was followed by a semi-structured interview. The feeling of obligation to return a favor showed variations depending on the type of benefactor (humble or not humble). There was a greater tendency for older children to take into account the benefactor’s humility and the lack of this virtue when compared to younger children. When the differences between the vignettes were made explicit, the frequency of this type of response increased in all ages and the theme of generosity appeared. Results showed that the relations between gratitude and humility develop over childhood.

Agostinho confere relevância especial às coisas simples. Na infância, cuja estatura é signo da humildade própria das coisas ínfimas, deleita-se com a verdade nos seus pequenos pensamentos sobre pequenas coisas. Este deleite, na alma da criança com mínimo de ser, remete à verdade de Deus, com máximo de ser. Com máximo de ser, Deus se humilha ao ponto de assumir a condição humana, nascer como criança e com humildade contrária à soberba anular o efeito da queda causada pela soberba. Fundamento da humildade que é, poderia ser pensado menor que o homem, pois sendo Deus se fez homem. Se assim fosse, o ser com máximo de ser seria, paradoxalmente, o ser com mínimo de ser. Mas não é, pois quando Deus desce à condição inferior é para elevar o homem à condição superior. Esta é a análise a que se propõe este trabalho. / Augustine confers special relevance to simple things. In infancy, whose stature is a sign of the humility characteristic of the lowest things, he delights in the truth in their small thoughts about small things. This delight, within the child with the least of being, remits to the truth of God, with the highest of being. Yet with highest of being, God humbles himself to the point of assuming the human condition, being born as a child and, with humility contrary to pride, nullifies the effect of the fall caused by pride. The foundation of humility that he is, he could be considered less than man, because being God he became man. If it were thus, the being with highest of being would, paradoxically, be the being with the least of being. But it is not like that, because when God descends to the inferior condition, hit is to elevate man to the superior condition. This is the analysis that this work proposes.

Soberba e humildade em Agostinho são analisadas neste trabalho por meio de uma inter-relação entre os métodos anagógico/Pátria-Via e o Trinitário, métodos que, segundo cremos, foram utilizados por Agostinho. A aplicação deste método nos levará a notar que soberba e humildade só podem ser entendidas uma à luz da outra, porque possuem uma estrutura simetricamente proporcional: a soberba é a enfermidade radical da condição humana, e a humildade o seu remédio adequado. Assim, a soberba, no nível do ser, corresponde a uma usurpação, uma pretensão de roubar o que é próprio de Deus, a autonomia e independência no ser; no nível do conhecimento, consiste numa presunção de valer por si mesmo, o que leva a um movimento de afastamento da verdade interior, tornando o homem cego no mais profundo de sua alma; e finalmente, no nível do querer, corresponde a uma injustiça, pois consiste na causa do primeiro mau uso do livre-arbítrio, que levou ao rompimento da ordem estabelecida por Deus na lei eterna. A humildade, em simetria invertida, corresponde, no nível do ser, a um aniquilamento voluntário, pelo qual o Cristo abaixa-se de sua natureza igual a Deus, assumindo uma natureza que lhe é inferior, a natureza humana; no nível do conhecimento, se entende como confissão a respeito da verdade sobre Deus e sobre o próprio homem, da sua condição de criatura e pecador; e finalmente, no nível do querer, como o caminho pelo qual o Cristo, por meio de sua livre obediência até a morte de cruz e posterior ressurreição, restabelece a justiça perdida na primeira desobediência à lei eterna. / Pride and humility in Augustine are analyzed in this work through an inter-relationship between the anagogical/homeland-Way (Patria-Via) and Trinitarian methods, which we believe were used by Augustine. Applying this method will lead us to note that pride and humility can only be understood in the light of one another, because they have a symmetrically proportional structure: pride is the radical disease of the human condition, and humility its adequate remedy. Thus, the pride, in the level of being, represents an usurpation, a desire to steal what is proper to God, the autonomy and independence in being; in the level of knowledge, is a presumption of worth by himself/herself, which leads a movement away from inner truth, making the man blind in the depths of his soul; and finally, at the level of wanting, corresponds to an injustice because it is the cause of the first misuse of free will, which led to the breakup of the order established by God in the eternal law. Humility, in inverted symmetry, corresponds, at the level of being, to a voluntary destruction, by which Christ stoops of his nature equal with Gods, taking a nature that is lower, the human nature; in the level of knowledge, it is understood as a confession regarding the truth about God and man himself, of his condition of sinful creature; and finally, at the level of wanting, as the path by which Christ, through his free obedience unto death on a cross and subsequent resurrection, restores justice lost in the first disobedience to the eternal law.