This thesis provides an inter-disciplinary study of selected works by Ingmar Bergman. I explore how key concepts from Melanie Klein and Jean-Paul Sartre apply to the focus on characters in a state of heightened imagination; and the value placed on imagination in the construction of these films. This involves recognition of the way an active response from the viewer is encouraged. Klein, Sartre and Bergman also attend to contextual factors that challenge any notion of subjectivity as sovereign and the power of imagination is frequently placed in a social context. All three figures develop their ideas within specialised fields drawing on the influence of others. Chapter 2 shows how Klein’s ideas relate to the influence of Freud before exploring how her work can be applied to Bergman’s films through the example of Wild Strawberries. Chapter 3 concentrates on Sartre’s early work, The Imaginary and considers how this is significant in relation to some of Sartre’s better-known philosophical ideas developed during and after the Second World War. These ideas will lead to an exploration of The Seventh Seal. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 focus on three films from distinct parts of Bergman’s career: Summer with Monika, The Virgin Spring and Hour of the Wolf. In Chapter 4 this will be preceded by a brief over-view of three more films from the early part of Bergman’s career. These chapters explore how Kleinian and Sartrean ideas can be incorporated in close analysis, and alongside selected critical responses to the films. The analysis integrates key points from Klein and Sartre in a methodology specific to film studies. This will include analysis of cinematic elements such as camera work and lighting, and recognition of narrative structure and character development

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 555-560)

This work focuses on the home/house as the most important locus of human dwelling, the place where through the ages humans were born and died. It is the innermost background of humans and their link to what is back of the ground. That home/house, so familiar a reality, faces a threat of becoming what is at the same time most remote. It is at the threshold of the home/house that humans and the world encounter one another. Countless images, symbols, experiences and conceptions of the home/house which we can trace through the ages mirror the immense effort and extent of human coming to be at home. One of the chief aims of this study is to use various aspects of this being-at-home to call attention to the magnitude of the loss which, according to Heidegger, homelessness as a global fate inflicted on humans. In this study we have set out from certain "foundations", presented in the chapters devoted to Greek, Jewish and Christian ideas and images of the home/house.

The thesis analyses heuristically the ideas of the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solomonovich Bibler (1918-2000), who belongs to the continuers of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin's philosophical school. Bibler's work is unknown in our country. In his thoughts, Bibler came to the statement we are now at the new beginning of philosophy and thinking, at the time of different present and past cultures meeting. These cultures are in mutual dialogue transforming their meanings. On the basis of Bibler's thoughts, the School of Dialogue of Cultures was created in Russia. Its aim is to prepare a man of culture who himself is able to be active in the dialogue of cultures. Individual classes of this school copy the historical sequence of cultures (the classical age, the medieval age, the modern age, and the present age). The School has been proven experimentally with success.

L’œuvre de Hans Blumenberg, reçue d’abord pour son apport au débat sur la sécularisation et sa proposition d’une « métaphorologie », trouve son centre de gravité dans une anthropologie philosophique originale et complexe. C’est à celle-ci que notre thèse se consacre, en prenant acte du fait qu’« anthropologie » et « homme » sont les noms de deux problèmes avant d’être ceux d’un champ de savoir et de son objet. Si la pensée de Blumenberg s’élabore en premier lieu dans un dialogue critique avec la phénoménologie, ce n’est pas pour lui adjoindre le chapitre anthropologique qu’elle aurait omis, mais pour réformer de fond en comble ses thèses, sa méthode et ses principes implicites. Il ne s’agit pas non plus de retourner simplement aux questions et réponses traditionnelles que la philosophie a formulées à propos de l’homme. S’interrogeant, dans la lignée de l’anthropologie philosophique allemande, sur la possibilité de l’homme, Blumenberg oriente sa réflexion dans une voie « négative », dont notre travail s’attache à rendre raison autant qu’à interroger les limites. Avec l’image d’un homme fondamentalement « démuni », un être lacunaire, que les descriptions et narrations de l’auteur mettent en scène, ne retrouve-t-on pas une conception « prométhéenne », qui reconduit les présupposés qu’elle critiquait pourtant ? Notre interprétation vise, dans une analyse des procédures discursives que l’auteur met en œuvre et une discussion des thèses qu’il propose, à faire valoir leurs ambivalences, tout autant que leur fécondité. Ce qui est à lire, en dernière instance, dans l’œuvre de l’auteur, c’est un ensemble d’approches historiques et philosophiques de la « seconde nature » de l’homme, qui décrit les inquiétudes inhérentes à sa condition culturelle, autant que les intermittences du sujet. / First appreciated for the contribution made to the ‘Secularisation’ debate, along with its conception of ‘Metaphorology’, the work of Hans Blumenberg represents a complex and original philosophical anthropology, the core reflections of which form the central focus of this dissertation. We begin from a point of questioning whether “anthropology” and “man” are not simply terms used to describe a field of academic practice and it’s topic of study, but rather two distinct issues to be examined. The dominant motive of Blumenberg’s thought is to be found in a critical dialogue with phenomenology, but he is not interested in simply contributing an anthropological ‘chapter’ to the field, rather he works to criticise and seek a total reform of the theses, methodology and implicit principles therein. He similarly refuses to rerun the familiar philosophical debates regarding man, instead questioning the possibility of man, inspired by the German philosophical tradition. This thesis will assess and critically consider this ‘negative’ turn in Blumenberg’s thought. Do his descriptions and narrative conveying the human as a fundamentally lacking being not tend to invoke a ‘promethean’ conception of man, the very assumptions of which they seek to criticise?Through analysis of Blumenberg’s discursive procedures and consideration of his theses, our interpretation intends to demonstrate their sense of ambivalence as well as their considered abundance. Ultimately, what is to be found in the work of this author is a collection of approaches to the ‘second nature’ of man which together describe the unease inherent in the cultural condition, as well as the intermittencies of the subject.

Stefan Klingners Studie stellt sich die Aufgabe, rein auf der Grundlage des Werkes Kants die Möglichkeit und Durchführbarkeit einer „Kulturphilosophie […] als Theorie technischer Vernunft“ (3) zu begründen. Er will nachweisen, dass eine solche Kulturphilosophie über Kants kritisches Werk verstreut schon vorliegt, und somit das bis heute gängige philosophiegeschichtliche Vorurteil entkräften, eine Kulturphilosophie auf kantischer Grundlage bedürfe von außen an sie herangetragener Ergänzungen.

[pt] Friedrich Nietzsche, ao longo de sua obra e, em especial, em sua crítica ao valor dos valores morais ocidentais para a vida, em que elabora a tipologia da moral nobre e moral dos escravos, associa a criação de valores a diferentes fisiologias humanas (homem ativo e homem reativo, homem como ave de rapina e homem como ovelha), compreendendo a moral como não desligada da vida orgânica e se colocando contra valores e práticas de homogeneização e nivelamento. Decorre daí uma visão que valora a alteridade – o que é outro, diferente, alheio – como de valor à vida, enquanto característica fisiologicamente inerente aos homens e que alimenta a força plástica humana. Oswald de Andrade, leitor confesso de Nietzsche, em especial em seus manifestos e ensaios filosóficos, resgata e reelabora a noção de antropofagia, enquanto visão de mundo e postura filosófica em que o outro é alimento de transformação de si, orgânica e moralmente (isto é, enquanto alimento ao corpo, no caso do ritual em sua origem, e também enquanto alimento à criação de novos valores); e que, portanto, também valora a alteridade como de valor à vida. Oswald elabora a sua própria tipologia, a do homem messiânico e homem antropofágico (patriarcado e matriarcado), e a sua análise do valor dos valores morais ocidentais para a vida, em que a sua crítica à moral do sacerdócio em muito se aproxima à crítica de Nietzsche feita a essa que, para o filósofo alemão, foi a mais forte das morais de escravo e de rebanho que o homem ocidental desenvolveu. Dentre aproximações e diferenciações, ambos os pensadores nos indicam a reflexão sobre a alteridade enquanto elemento de valor à plasticidade humana e, assim, à vida, apesar das tendências homogeneizadoras que possamos identificar ao longo da história e, ainda, do momento presente. / [en] Friedrich Nietzsche, throughout his work and, in particular, in his critique of the value of western moral values for life, in which he elaborates a typology of the master morality and slave morality, associates the creation of values to different human physiologies (active man and reactive man, man as bird of prey and man as sheep), comprehending the morality as not excluded from organic life and being against values and practices of homogenization and leveling. It follows from this a view that values alterity – what is other, different, unrelated – as a value to life, as a physiologically inherent characteristic of men and that feeds human plasticity force. Oswald de Andrade, a self-confessed reader of Nietzsche, especially in his manifestos and philosophical essays, rescues and re-elaborates the notion of anthropophagy, world view and philosophical posture in which the other feeds the transformation of the self, organically and morally (that is, as nutrition for the body, in the case of ritual in its origin, and also for the creation of new values), in which, therefore, he also values alterity as a value to life. Oswald developed his own typology, that of messianic man and anthropophagic man (patriarchy and matriarchy), proposing his analysis of the value of Western moral values for life, in which his critique of priesthood morality is very close to Nietzsche s critique of that. That one, for The German philosopher, is the strongest slave and herd morality that was developed by the western man. Among the approximations and differences, the thinkers indicate paths to think about alterity as a valuable element to human plasticity and, thus, to life, although homogenization tendencies we can identify along the History and still in the present.

[pt] Este trabalho é o resultado de uma pesquisa sobre o desenvolvimento do conceito de desamparo no percurso teórico de Freud, desde os textos prépsicanalíticos do final do século XIX, até suas últimas obras na década de 1930. Investigamos como Freud compreende, a partir da categoria de desamparo, algumas das mediações presentes entre a vida psíquica e a vida política, ou ainda, alguns dos elos que unem o desenvolvimento singular dos indivíduos e o desenvolvimento geral da civilização. Analisando a categoria do desamparo, pudemos compreender como Freud passa a conceber a vida como uma dádiva conferida pelo Outro e não como o propósito máximo do ser vivente. Isto é, sem a alteridade não há destino para a pulsão senão a destruição total da vida. Tal conclusão revela a necessidade de pensarmos o aparelho psíquico como o produto de um trabalho social e não como algo essencialmente individual. / [en] This work is the result of research on the development of the concept of helplessness in Freud s theoretical trajectory from the pre-psychoanalytic texts of the end of the 19th century to his latest works in the 1930s. We investigate how Freud builds on the category of helplessness in order to understand some of the mediations that take place between psychic life and political life, or, differently put, some of the links that connect the singular development of individuals and the general development of civilization. Analyzing the category of helplessness we could understand how Freud starts to conceive life as a gift conferred by the Other and not as the highest aim of the living being. That is, without otherness there is no destination for the drive but the total destruction of life. Such conclusion shows the need to think of the psychic apparatus as the product of social work instead of something essentially individual.

Posthumanistischer Feminismus ist ein transdisziplinäres Wissenschaftsgebiet, das dem kritischen Posthumanismus zugeordnet werden kann. In diesem rückt die Frage nach der vergeschlechtlichten Dimension des Humanismus-Diskurses in den Fokus, der u. a. auf der androzentrischen Gleichsetzung von Mensch und Mann sowie der rassistischen Gleichsetzung von Mensch und Weiß-Sein beruht. Für eine feministisch-posthumanistische Forschungsprogrammatik gelten folgende Perspektiven als zentral: Der feministische Posthumanismus gesteht allen Lebewesen, Artefakten, Hybridwesen und weiteren belebten und unbelebten Konfigurationen Handlungsfähigkeit (agency) und Aktivität zu und kritisiert die Differenzierung zwischen Natur und Kultur und daran anknüpfende Grenzziehungen zwischen männlich/weiblich sowie Weiß-Sein/Schwarz-Sein. Zudem wird die Frage nach Körperfigurationen und -grenzen sowie nach deren sozialem Konstruktionscharakter und ihrer Kontextabhängigkeit aufgeworfen.