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1	De/Limiting Emptiness and the Boundaries of the Ineffable Duckworth, Douglas S. 01 January 2010 (has links) Emptiness (śūnyatā) is one of the most important topics in Buddhist thought and also is one of the most perplexing. Buddhists in Tibet have developed a sophisticated tradition of philosophical discourse on emptiness and ineffability. This paper discusses the meaning(s) of emptiness within three prominent traditions in Tibet: the Geluk (dge lugs), Jonang (jo nang), and Nyingma (rnying ma). I give a concise presentation of each tradition's interpretation of emptiness and show how each interpretation represents a distinctive aspect of its meaning. Given that Buddhist traditions (1) accept an extra-linguistic reality and (2) maintain a strong tradition of suspicion of language with the belief that language both constructs and distorts reality, this paper responds to an issue that is not so much whether or not an inexpressible reality can be expressed, but rather how it is best articulated. Buddhism emptiness ineffability Mipam Tibet
2	Language as ritual: saying what cannot be said with Western and Confucian ritual theories Whitney, Lawrence Arnold 02 October 2019 (has links) This dissertation addresses one of the classical philosophical and theological problems of religious language, namely, how to speak meaningfully about matters that appear to be inexpressible. While addressed extensively in a variety of literatures across cultures, the problem persists, particularly in regard to harmonizing theological, philosophical, and linguistic perspectives. The dissertation argues that (i) language is best understood as a species of ritual; (ii) so understood, religious language speaks to and about religious realities subjunctively, that is, as if such realities could be talked about; and (iii) this way of understanding language achieves greater harmony among philosophical and linguistic approaches while achieving some degree of cross-cultural generality. The argument begins with a cross-cultural comparison between modern social scientific ritual theories, especially that of Roy A. Rappaport, and the Confucian ritual theory of Xunzi. This generates a novel theory of ritual capable of engaging theories of language that have emerged in modern linguistics, philosophy of language, logic, and hermeneutics. The semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce provides the unifying framework for the theory, which leads to the first conclusion that language can be understood as a species of ritual. When language is understood as ritual, there are several options for interpreting religious speech as meaningful. An analysis of these alternatives on terms semantically demarcated by Hilary Putnam leads to the conclusion that language expresses theological insights in the same way it expresses anything else: as if reality and its elements were the way the language form and process construes and renders them. This analysis both advances critiques of language as understood under the linguistic turn, especially by Terrence W. Deacon and Daniel L. Everett, and establishes the second and third conclusions of the thesis. The proposed theory of language as ritual is in need of further development in the directions of a philosophy of mind, an underlying metaphysical semiotics, and a comparative logic. But it does formalize a novel solution to a long-standing problem in religious language that is applicable to a wide variety of religious-cultural contexts and capable of registering insights from several relevant disciplinary domains. Theology Confucianism Ineffability Language Religion Ritual Subjunctive
3	Il Tieste di Ugo Foscolo e l’estetica teatrale di Melchiorre Cesarotti. Per la storia e le implicazioni di un’inconciliabilità ideologica e filosofica / Il Tieste by Ugo Foscolo and Melchiorre Cesarotti's idea of theater. An ideological and philosophical incompatibility / Tieste d’Ugo Foscolo et l’esthétique théâtrale de Melchiorre Cesarotti. Pour l’histoire et les implications d’une incompatibilité idéologique et philosophique Scagnetti, Matteo 17 May 2019 (has links) Ce travail approfondit la pièce théâtrale de jeunesse de Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), célèbre poète italien vécu entre la fin du XVIIIème siècle et les premières décennies du XIXème. La pièce en question, le Tieste, n‟est pas seulement remarquable pour le jeune d‟âge de l‟auteur, encore adolescent, mais parce qu‟elle dévoile une idée de la littérature encore inconnue à son époque. Le Tieste est une tragédie qui ne respecte pas les conventions généralement acceptées à son temps, et ceci sur le double niveau du style et du contenu, tout à fait modernes et définitivement affranchis de la philosophie des Lumières.Afin de démontrer l‟envergure de l‟opération du poète vénitien, cette thèse se concentre sur le rapport entre l‟idéologie et, pourrait-on même dire, les préceptes du philosophe padouan Melchiorre Cesarotti (1730-1808), et la tragédie de Foscolo. Les idées de Cesarotti sur le théâtre étaient une sorte de Bible, qui prévoyait pour la tragédie des caractéristiques bien précises, autant qu‟une vision optimiste de la vie et de la société humaine, avec la victoire (du moins morale) des personnages vertueux et la défaite des personnages cruels.Le Tieste démonte morceau par morceau les caractéristiques qui selon Cesarotti font une bonne tragédie, en mettant en scène deux personnages qui devraient être positifs mais se révèlent confus et impuissants, tandis que le dictateur, impitoyablement, détruit les autres personnages, sans une vraie raison, comme un metteur en scène sadique qui joue avec ses marionnettes.L‟inexplicabilité du mal et son ineffabilité marquent la fin d‟un monde Ancien Régime pour permettre à l‟homme de s‟interroger sur ses peurs les plus profondes. C‟est là la valeur du Tieste, qui peut être donc considéré comme un texte qui ouvre à l‟époque contemporaine. / This work analyzes the tragedy written by Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827) at the end of his adolescence : Tieste. The drama has not been sufficiently studied yet, but presents various and important elements of interest. The idea of literature emerging from it is definitely new, and Tieste tries untrodden ways, incompatible with the dominant idea of tragedy at its epoch.Most of all, Tieste marks a rebellion against the aesthetic canons of Melchiorre Cesarotti (1730-1808), a well-known philosopher who had a deep influence in the theatrical field and who had established the standards of a good tragedy. Cesarotti‟s parameters were still those of the Enlightenment, and imposed a moral message to every tragedy, whose characters should be rewarded or punished on the basis of their goodness or their wickedness. For Cesarotti, a character would have encountered an unfavourable fate only as a consequence of a moral crime. His virtue, instead, would have avoided any danger.In Foscolo, on the contrary, there is no providence, and the destiny of human beings doesn‟t depend on their behaviour. Virtuous characters are powerless and succumb without even understanding why, while the evil tyrant triumphs, moved only by his sadism.The evil is ineffable and inexplicable, and Reason, which solves every problem in Cesarotti‟s Weltanschauung, is now helpless and meaningless. Foscolo‟s first tragedy therefore represents the transition from an Ancien Régime world view to the phantoms and the nightmares of the contemporary age, when no certitude is possible anymore. Tragédie Italie France Illuminisme Rébellion Nouveau Ineffabilité du mal Tragedy Italy France Enlightenment Rebellion New Ineffability of Evil
4	Wittgenstein and poetry : negotiations of the inexpressible Rose, Michael David January 2016 (has links) This study performs a reading of Wittgenstein’s thought that integrates his sometimes sidelined remarks on aesthetics and belief, and emphasises consideration of language use on the level of practice. It analyses the many ways that Wittgenstein engages with the inexpressible or the limits of expression through comparison with poetry as a practice. The potential of a Wittgensteinian method of literary analysis concentrating on grammatical structures, exemplary forms of expression and quotidian meaning-making is shown by viewing several poets’ work in connection with specific forms of the inexpressible. This thesis consists of three parts. The first chapter surveys previous applications of Wittgenstein to aesthetic appreciation and analysis, and considers common interpretations of his earlier and later work. Incorporating a wide range of Wittgenstein sources allows a new reading to emerge that gives appropriate weight to his hitherto under-researched writings. This reading is tested in Chapters 2-5, in each case studying a poet or poets alongside a philosophical text or topic. Chapter 2 uses the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius to probe the ineffable; through Cora Diamond’s resolute reading of the Tractatus, Kei Miller’s ‘Church Women’ series and John Burnside’s intimate ineffable of ‘Parousia’, a grammatical understanding of inexpressibility emerges. Chapter 3 compares John McDowell’s minimal realism in Mind and World with Wallace Steven’s Supreme Fiction, demonstrating how Stevens’ – and Wittgenstein’s – rich conception of experience can close off a number of philosophical lacunae. Chapter 4 concentrates on the poetry of Jorie Graham, whose conception of the self is saturated with language. Parallels with Wittgenstein’s methodology are drawn, and some reminders issued to curb the excesses of postmodern accounts of subjectivity. The focus in Chapter 5 moves to the use of cartographical metaphor in Philosophical Investigations and Kei Miller’s poetry. The constraints of specific discourses on our thinking are examined, together with poetry’s potential for laying bare or reinvigorating the pictures by which we navigate. Finally, Chapter 6 discusses a selection of poetic projects completed alongside my research, to extend the reading of Wittgenstein into the area of creative practice. This thesis demonstrates Wittgenstein’s prolonged engagement with the limits of expression and with poetry, as well as the profit of a Wittgensteinian approach to poetry. It thereby questions a number of current responses to Wittgenstein’s work, and displays its own original creative outcomes. 821.009
5	A promise kept: the mystical reach through loss Collins, Jody 04 October 2019 (has links) The meaning of loss is love. I know this through attention to experience. Whether loss or love is experienced in abundance or in absence, the meaning is mystical with an opening of body, mind, heart and soul to spirit. And so, in the style of a memoir, in the way of contemplative prayer, I contemplate and share my soul as a promise kept in the mystical reach through loss. With the first, initiating loss, the loss of my nine-year-old nephew, Caleb, I experience an epiphany that gives me spiritual instructions that will not be ignored. I experience loss as an abundance of meaning that comes to me as gnosis, as “knowledge of the heart” according to Elaine Pagels or divine revelation in what Evelyn Underhill calls mystical illumination in the experience of “losing-to-find” in union with the divine. Then, with gnostic import, in leaving the ordinary for the extraordinary, I enter the empty room in the painful yet liberating experience of the loss of my self. In the embrace of emptiness, I proceed to the first wall, the second wall, the third wall, the dark corner of denial, the return to centre, and, finally, to breaking the fourth wall in the empty room so as to keep my promise to you. Who are “you”? You are God. You are Caleb. You are spirit. You are my higher soul or self. And, you are the reader. You are my dear companion in silence. And then, through a series of broken promises and more loss, within what John of the Cross calls, “the dark night of the soul,” I am stopped by the ineffability of the dark corner of denial, the horror of separation and the absence of meaning, which is depicted as the grueling gap between the spiritual abyss and the breakthrough. What does it mean to keep going through a solemn succession of losses? I don’t know. In going into the empty room, I simply put pain to work in order to reach you. Through loss, though there are infinite manifestations, there is only one way: keep going. And so, in a triumph of the spirit, I keep going so as to be: a promise kept in the mystical reach through loss. As for you, through my illumined and dark experiences of loss, what is my promise to you? I keep going to reach the unreachable you. In the loss of self, with embodied emptiness, in going into the dark corner of denial, with a return to the divine centre of my emptied self, in an invitation to you, I give my soul to you in union with you. / Graduate / 2020-06-25 mystic mysticism apophatic cataphatic mystical mystical reach a promise kept empty promise broken promise reverence epiphany losing-to-find gnosis loss union divine will parsing perfection Caleb Lanz put pain to work wholehearted emptiness the empty room first wall second wall third wall dark corner of denial stonewall breaking the forth wall return to centre Promised Land abyss gap standing in the gap void memoir contemplative prayer contemplation everywhere and nowhere revelation illumination ineffable ineffability metaphor higher self self-giving self-emptying embodied emptiness higher soul spirit the dark night of the soul mystical union God breakthrough infinity infinite dynamism spiritual instruction invitation to spirit paradox symbol eulogy spiritual eyes spiritual heart looking into the slow reveal remaining sudden I am everywhere and nowhere what is what ought to be what can be what will be what is as it already is on earth as it is in heaven no-self unknown spirituality

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