This thesis examines Nietzsche’s relationship to Socrates through his positive philosophy of education, arguing that the latter is crucial to resolving the apparent contradictions of the former. While there is a good deal of literature dealing with Nietzsche’s criticisms of the educational system of his day, there is relatively little on his own account of what education should be. I point out that the Greek conception of agon (roughly “contest” in English), is central to Nietzsche’s understanding of education, and informs his ideal of the student-mentor relationship. This is the model on which, I contend, Nietzsche’s relation to Socrates needs to be interpreted. Such an interpretation helps to make sense of, and reconcile, the divergent pictures of Socrates Nietzsche presents in his texts, which are sometimes admiring and imitative, sometimes hostile and contemptuous, and have led to conflicting interpretations within the scholarship on this subject. My analysis aims to shed new light on both the figure of Nietzsche’s Socrates, and Nietzsche’s philosophy of education, by relating these to one another.

From its beginnings, Christianity has been fundamentally conditioned by the idea of repentance. However, while the institutional practice of repentance in the early Christian world has received much scholarly attention, relatively little exists which deals with the development and applications of the wider concept (of which its institutional aspect is only a part). The purpose of this dissertation is to provide both a re-assessment and a re-framing of this foundational concept of repentance in Christian late antiquity, with special reference to formative Greek monastic sources from the fifth to seventh centuries. Following a discussion of scholarship, terms, and methodology in chapter one, the question of defining repentance in the Greek patristic world is addressed in chapter two, looking first at the major sources for later approaches (the Septuagint, the New Testament, and Classical/Hellenistic texts). A significant re-appraisal of the dominant scholarly narrative of repentance in the early church will be offered in the following chapter, making way for a close study of the chosen monastic authors: Mark the Monk, Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and John Climacus in turn. A threefold framework whereby their respective approaches to repentance can be understood in their integrity and diversity will be suggested, involving 1) initial or 'cognisant' repentance, in which the sinner recognizes his or her fallen state and turns it heavenward; 2) 'existential' repentance, which involves the living out of repentance as a way of life, governing all the Christian's actions and intentions; 3) 'Christ-like' repentance, which serves as the summit and ultimate goal of the Christian's personal repentance, whereby the loving and sacrificial 'repentance' of Christ for others and the world at large is assimilated and worked out in the Christian's own life. It will be argued that this framework provides a new and significant hermeneutical lens through which not simply the early Christian concept of repentance in itself can be better understood, but also through which the development of early Christian self-identity and self-perception, particularly in an ascetic context, can be gauged.

This thesis examines Epictetus' view on Cynic philosophy, as it is being expressed in chapter 22 of the third book of Diatribai ("The Discourses"). The chapter has traditionally been seen as an idealized and deceitful portrait of the Cynic, and has been questioned as an intended justification of stoics and Cynics in the overall view on the history of philosophy. This thesis, however, attempts a different approach on the matter, based upon a thorough discussion regarding the field of research, as well as on different ways to read and understand the text at hand, in order to seek out a view that goes beyond the traditional distinction between practice and theory. The thesis thus challenges the view where the philosophy of Epictetus is seen as an instrumental practice of stoic theory, isolated to the field of ethics.   The reading of the chapter focuses mainly on the philosophical purpose of the text and its intended practice, and finds that much of the stoic ascetic practice is not only taught through instructions, but also performed in the lecture and Epictetus' way of speaking. Epictetus' portrait of the philosophical Cynic is thus understood, not only as an extreme end that serves as an ascetic role-model, but also as a basic archetype of what it actually means to practice a philosophical way of thinking, that is of central importance to Epictetus philosophy. This sheds a new light on both the traditional distinction between stoic theory and practice, and on much of the research performed on the field of stoicism this far, as well as on that of Cynicism.

This thesis explores ideas of everydayness, the mundane, and the repetitive emptiness of consumer culture. It looks at the malaise that plagues everyday life and examines several attempts throughout history to break from its grips which revolve around a search for a more ideal state. This research includes utopias of modernism, the transcendental, the communal living of Shakers and Early Christians, ascetic monks and The Desert Fathers. These ideas have shaped my studio practice as I construct installations based on worlds which allude to the eternal, the otherworldly, and the fragility of our physical world when compared to more eternal spiritual archetypes.

Cette thèse vise à décrire comment un ordre religieux subit des processus d'évolution et de transformation qui permettent d'interpréter et de satisfaire les besoins religieux de la société. L'hypothèse à la base de ce travail est que les ordres religieux et les gourous sont des éléments centraux qui caractérisent et influencent la société indienne dans le passé et dans le présent.Je focalise mon attention sur le sampradāya des Rāmānandī –groupe religieux datant de Rāmānanda- qui eut un rôle primordial dans la diffusion de la bhakti de Ram (dévotion envers Ram) dans le nord de l’Inde vers la fin du XVème siècle. Mon but est de montrer comment la figure de Rāmānanda et l’organisation de l’ordre religieux ont évolué au cours des siècles, pour être capables ensuite d’interpréter les principaux changements survenus au XXème siècle.A cause de ces différences internes, les Rāmānandīs n’ont jamais eu de représentant dans un centre officiel qui puisse fonctionner comme pôle directeur pour l’ordre. Donc, l’utilisation du titre de Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya et la construction du Śrī Math au XXème siècle représentent un changement significatif dans l’histoire de l’ordre. C’est pour cela que j’ai formulé mes principales questions, base de ma recherche, sur ce thème :1) pourquoi au XXème siècle, un sampradāya caractérisé par diverses disciplines religieuses (sādhanā-s) et diffusé dans différents centres indépendants a senti la nécessité de créer la fonction de Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya comme leader principal ?2) le Śrī Math fait-il partie de la reconstruction du charisme du Rāmānanda et est-il un instrument pour aider à la fonction de Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya ?Pour retracer l’évolution de la tradition des Rāmānandī de leur origine à nos jours j’ai utilisé une approche multidisciplinaire, dans laquelle méthodologies anthropologique et historique coopèrent. / In this dissertation, I focus my attention on the Rāmānandī sampradāya - a religious group supposedly formed by the religious teacher Rāmānanda – that had a primary role in spreading Rām bhakti (devotion toward Rām) throughout northern India, possibly from the end of the 15th century. My purpose here is to reconstruct how the representation of Rāmānanda and the organization of the sampradāya evolved over the centuries in order to interpret the two main changes that have occurred in the 20th century: the establishment of the office of Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya as the leader of the sampradāya, and the construction of the Śrī Maṭh, a monastery on the place where, according to the Rāmānandī tradition, Rāmānanda used to preach. Because of these internal distinctions, the Rāmānandī-s have never had a single representative leader installed in a particular place that could work as directive pole for the sampradāya. Therefore, the bestowing of the title of Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya and the construction of the Śrī Maṭh in the 20th century represent a significant change in the history of the order. For this reason, I formulated the main questions at the base of my research as follows: 1 Why has a sampradāya characterized by several religious disciplines (sādhanā-s) and spread across several independent religious centers established the office of a Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya as central leader in the 20th century? 2 Which role does the Śrī Maṭh play in the reconstruction of Rāmānanda’s charisma and in support of the office of Jagadgurū Rāmānandācārya? To accomplish my analysis I employ a multidisciplinary approach – described in Chapter 1 – in which anthropological and historical methodologies cooperate to reconstruct the evolution of the Rāmānandī tradition from its origin until the present.

La répétition, matrice essentielle de l’écriture de Robert Pinget, en informe tous les enjeux. Les reprises sous-tendent l’écriture et en font un lieu aporétique : entre désir de mimèsis et impossible figuration, cohésion textuelle et déstructuration narrative, reconstitution authentique de la parole et avancée tâtonnante, écriture romanesque et oralité toute théâtrale, foisonnement baroque et épure poétique. Ce retour linguistique de la répétition se fait chemin vers un retour mémoriel. Anamnèse qui s’avère impossible et à laquelle se substitue une complexe remontée vers le roman des origines familiales où la fable et la fiction prennent la place des souvenirs réels. Aucune restauration mémorielle n’étant possible dans le monde pingétien, les œuvres signent l’échec des mémoires familiale, historique et patrimoniale dans un monde où seules demeurent des histoires retranscrites dans des manuscrits qui les perpétuent – mémoire textuelle essentiellement. Dans ce travail mémoriel, qui se veut avant tout scriptural, émerge une figure essentielle bien que marginale au sein de l’œuvre de Robert Pinget : l’écrivain. En charge d’une œuvre fondamentalement inachevée, ce dernier est un être singulier qui hante les marges des textes et du monde. L’écrivain pingétien, en véritable anachorète, s’astreint à une difficile ascèse scripturale pour accéder au texte pur, lieu d’une parole vraie et authentique. Dans cette posture littéraire tout autant que morale peut se lire le parcours même de l’auteur Robert Pinget qui n’a eu de cesse d’occuper une place marginale au sein du champ littéraire de son époque, à la fois proche et en retrait du Nouveau Roman et du Nouveau nouveau roman. / Repetition, a founding pattern of Robert Pinget's writing, affects all its aspects. Repetitions underlie the writing, making it aporetical – between desire of mimesis and impossible representation, textual cohesion and narrative destructuration, authentic reproduction of speech and hesitant progression, novelistic writing and utterly dramatic orality, baroque profusion and poetic refining. This linguistic recurrence of repetition becomes the way back into memory all the characters are looking for. An anamnesis which turns out to be impossible and is replaced by a slow and complex return to the novel of family origins, in which fable and fiction substitute themselves for real memories. No restoration of memory being possible in Pinget's world, his works bear witness to the failure of family, historical and patrimonial memories in a world where the only stories left live on in manuscripts which retranscribe them – i.e. mostly textual memory. From this work on memory, which first of all aims at focusing on the writing, an essential figure – marginal as it may be in Robert Pinget's works – stands out : the writer. Responsible for basically uncompleted works, this one is a singular being haunting the margins of both the text and the world. The pingetian writer, a true anchorite, compels himself to a difficult asceticism of writing to reach pure text, and thus a true and authentic speech. Through this literary as well as moral position we can glimpse the very path followed by author Robert Pinget, who constantly endeavoured to play a marginal part in the literary world of his times, both close and standing back from the « Nouveau Roman » and the « Nouveau nouveau roman ».

This thesis examines Nietzsche’s relationship to Socrates through his positive philosophy of education, arguing that the latter is crucial to resolving the apparent contradictions of the former. While there is a good deal of literature dealing with Nietzsche’s criticisms of the educational system of his day, there is relatively little on his own account of what education should be. I point out that the Greek conception of agon (roughly “contest” in English), is central to Nietzsche’s understanding of education, and informs his ideal of the student-mentor relationship. This is the model on which, I contend, Nietzsche’s relation to Socrates needs to be interpreted. Such an interpretation helps to make sense of, and reconcile, the divergent pictures of Socrates Nietzsche presents in his texts, which are sometimes admiring and imitative, sometimes hostile and contemptuous, and have led to conflicting interpretations within the scholarship on this subject. My analysis aims to shed new light on both the figure of Nietzsche’s Socrates, and Nietzsche’s philosophy of education, by relating these to one another.

Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists attempts to characterize the ethos of late antiquity (100–500 CE) as one that despised matter and the body. It operates within the assumption that there are four criteria which establish this characterization, namely an emphasis on the evil of life, a distrust of the sociopolitical world, asceticism, and an interest in the supernatural. These four criteria are evident in the Platonists, Christians, and Gnostics of the period. As Chapter Two reveals the dissertation understands the concept of ethos in the context of R. C. Trench's discussion of aion: "all the thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, impulses, and aspirations present in the world at any given time." In Chapter Three Plato and the Middle Platonists are viewed as bequeathing to late antiquity its world–denying philosophy which the Gnostics preached more incessantly than the Platonists and the Christians practiced more conscientiously than the Gnostics. The Neoplatonists were the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of such figures as Plotinus and Porphyry the hatred of matter and the body is boldly expressed, and it is only slightly less apparent in later philosophers like Iamblichus and Proclus. In Plotinus we discern a profound distrust of the sociopolitical world and in Proclus a thoroughgoing asceticism paired with an interest in the supernatural. In Chapter Four it is shown that Gnosticism was more unyielding than either Platonism or Christianity in its insistence that matter and the body were evil, and it followed the late antique distrust of the social world both in its elitism and in its view of martyrdom as an act of casting pearls before swine. Gnosticism tended to accept the asceticism of late antiquity though some of its adherents practiced an extreme licentiousness that was the counterpart of asceticism in that it approached the body as worthless. The late antique emphasis on the supernatural is evidenced by such Gnostic figures as Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Chapter Five demonstrates that the hatred of matter and the body is also expressed by the Christians albeit with less consistency to their worldview. It can be glimpsed in the ante– Nicene, post–Nicene, and desert fathers as well as in the Arians. It is most notable in the attempts of Justin Martyr, Origen, and Arius to place the Son at a lower ontological level than the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The late antique distrust of the sociopolitical world is manifested in the Christian view of martyrdom as a way of scorning a corrupt world, a view unlike that of the Gnostics. No one possessed this distrust more strongly than the Donatists with whom the later Augustine had some kinship. Many of the Christians tended to practice asceticism and the miraculous, the form in which the supernatural took in their case. The desert fathers can be said to be the most sincere representatives of late antiquity with their intense practice of both of these expressions of the ethos. / Thesis (M.A. (Church and Dogma history))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Christians, Gnostics, and Platonists attempts to characterize the ethos of late antiquity (100–500 CE) as one that despised matter and the body. It operates within the assumption that there are four criteria which establish this characterization, namely an emphasis on the evil of life, a distrust of the sociopolitical world, asceticism, and an interest in the supernatural. These four criteria are evident in the Platonists, Christians, and Gnostics of the period. As Chapter Two reveals the dissertation understands the concept of ethos in the context of R. C. Trench's discussion of aion: "all the thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, impulses, and aspirations present in the world at any given time." In Chapter Three Plato and the Middle Platonists are viewed as bequeathing to late antiquity its world–denying philosophy which the Gnostics preached more incessantly than the Platonists and the Christians practiced more conscientiously than the Gnostics. The Neoplatonists were the Platonists of late antiquity. In the writings of such figures as Plotinus and Porphyry the hatred of matter and the body is boldly expressed, and it is only slightly less apparent in later philosophers like Iamblichus and Proclus. In Plotinus we discern a profound distrust of the sociopolitical world and in Proclus a thoroughgoing asceticism paired with an interest in the supernatural. In Chapter Four it is shown that Gnosticism was more unyielding than either Platonism or Christianity in its insistence that matter and the body were evil, and it followed the late antique distrust of the social world both in its elitism and in its view of martyrdom as an act of casting pearls before swine. Gnosticism tended to accept the asceticism of late antiquity though some of its adherents practiced an extreme licentiousness that was the counterpart of asceticism in that it approached the body as worthless. The late antique emphasis on the supernatural is evidenced by such Gnostic figures as Simon Magus, Carpocrates, and Valentinus. Chapter Five demonstrates that the hatred of matter and the body is also expressed by the Christians albeit with less consistency to their worldview. It can be glimpsed in the ante– Nicene, post–Nicene, and desert fathers as well as in the Arians. It is most notable in the attempts of Justin Martyr, Origen, and Arius to place the Son at a lower ontological level than the Father in order to protect God from the evil entity of matter. The late antique distrust of the sociopolitical world is manifested in the Christian view of martyrdom as a way of scorning a corrupt world, a view unlike that of the Gnostics. No one possessed this distrust more strongly than the Donatists with whom the later Augustine had some kinship. Many of the Christians tended to practice asceticism and the miraculous, the form in which the supernatural took in their case. The desert fathers can be said to be the most sincere representatives of late antiquity with their intense practice of both of these expressions of the ethos. / Thesis (M.A. (Church and Dogma history))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Ascetic Citizens: Religious Austerity and Political Crisis in Anglo-American Literature, 1681-1799, attends to a number of scenes of voluntary self-restraint in literary, political, and religious writings of the long eighteenth century, scenes that stage, what Alexis de Tocqueville calls, “daily small acts of self-denial” in the service of the nation. Existing studies of asceticism in Anglo-American culture during the period are extremely slim. Ascetic Citizens fills an important gap in the scholarship by re-framing religious practices of seclusion and self-denial as a broadly-defined set of civic practices that permeate the political, religious, and gender discourses of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglo-American culture. This thesis focuses on the transatlantic relevance of the ascetic citizen—a figure whose rhetorical utility derives from its capacity, as a marker of political and religious moderation, to deploy individual practices of religious austerity as a means of suturing extreme political binaries during times of political crisis. My conception of asceticism’s role in Anglo-American society is informed by an understanding of ascetic citizenship as a cluster of concepts and cultural practices linking the ascetic’s focus on bodily control to republican theories of political subjectivity. The notion that political membership presupposes a renunciation of personal liberties on the part of the individual citizen represents one of the key assumptions of ascetic citizenship. The future guarantee of individual political rights is ensured by present renunciations of self-interest. As such, the ascetic citizen functions according to the same economy by which the religious ascetic’s right to future eternal reward is ensured by present acts of pious self-abnegation. That is to say, republican political liberty is enabled by what we might call an ascetic prerequisite in which the voluntary self-sacrifice of civic rights guarantees the state’s protection of such rights from the infringements of one’s neighbour. While the abstemious nature of ascetic practice implies efficiency grounded in economic frugality, bodily self-restraint, and physical isolation, the ascetic citizen functions as the sanctioned perversion of a normative devotional practice that circumvents the division between profane self-interest and sacred disinterestedness. The relevance of ascetic citizenship to political culture is its political fluidity, its potential to exceed the ideological functions of the dominant culture while revealing the tension that exists between endorsement of, and dissent from, the civic norm. Counter-intuitively, the ascetic citizen’s practice is marked by a celebration of moderation, of the via media. Forging a space at the threshold between endorsement/dissent, the ascetic citizen maps the dialectic movement of cultural extremism, forging a rhetorically useful site of ascetic deferral characterized by the subject’s ascetic withdrawal from making critical decisions. Ascetic Citizens provides a detailed investigation of how eighteenth-century Anglo-American authors such as Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, Hannah Webster Foster, and Charles Brockden Brown conceive of individual subjectivity as it exists in the pause or retired moment between competing political orders.