If I relate beauty to nothingness, what happens? Is nothingness sort of an absence of beauty? Or it is portrayed by our culture and society, and, in such case, can I define this absence of beauty? Is it beauty that you cannot even catch? Is its appearance neutral, almost hidden? When we are born, we all have the same degree of beauty and purity, which is progressively lost as long as we start growing up. In a life span, we accumulate wrinkles, and defects and dirt which needs to be concealed in order to fit in certain social categories. But our bodies register all the marks, absorb all the signs and impurities, likewise filters. We don’t necessarly perceive our own dirt or impurities as disgusting, whereas, in the clash with the other, we automatically are ahsamed of it. Same way, we tend to regard the other’s dirt as disgusting, not our own, very private dirt. Dirt is matter out of place, so is ugliness. The stain must be cleansed, purified as it represents a threaten for beauty. It is subtracting clean space to beauty. We are part of a society that intimates us to clean up, shape up, hide your -very human- dirt under the carpet. But beauty, nor humanity, would not exist without that dirt. We do absorb impurities all life long. And that is what makes us what we ultimately are: humans. Dirt paradoxically works as a protection: the dirtier we are, the less afraid of getting dirty we will be. In the society we live in exist many difficulties when it comes to find an identity as humans and a position in it. We are often put in a situation of having to follow: a certain career, a living style, an ideology, somebody’s else opinion, what to consume, school systems. Etcetera. In such a society, and because of this “follower-like”, passive position, where we mostly have to repeat the same living patterns, it got harder and harder to retrieve the meaning of things and to understand where we come from. Who we really are. We tend to put on uniforms or masks to fit in different standardazied situations. Everything and everybody has to fit in its or his standard place. This way our intrinsic human beauty is concealed and somehow controlled. With my essai, I try to look under the carpet, undress, unmask and reach a new definition of beauty: a naked beauty, not concealed nor camouflaged. The beauty we all deeply share, unpretentious and honest. A beauty of nothingness: something I see or feel, but about which I keep wondering whether it is or it is not beauty. To develop such new definition of beauty, I recollect ideas and concepts of beauty from the past, with a main reference to western society: from beauty models in the ancient Greece, Apollonian VS Dionysian, to the Sublime, untill the present time. I try to define what purpose and non-purpose beauty is. What is ugliness and dirt and how they both are a prerequisites of beauty. I finally take a more personal look upon contemporary society and how its mechanisms define a beauty which is standard. It is starting from a reflexion about standard society and beauty, that I then define a more intrinsic human beauty. Such unevokable sensation of beauty is extremely subtle, hard to acknowledge: one needs to train ones eyes and go beyond the layers, to discover the beauty of nothingness.

Orientador: Orna Messer Levin / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-12T15:30:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Guilhen_Ellen_M.pdf: 1100602 bytes, checksum: 2de411dc68486b8c574bcb1e7309444b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: No final do século XIX, uma cena particular da peça Hamlet (1600), de Shakespeare - o suicídio-acidente da jovem Ofélia, descrito na cena VII do quarto ato - adquire especial destaque nos poemas simbolistas, inclusive nos brasileiros. Sem deixar de trazer para a comparação os poemas "ofélicos" de Jules Laforgue, Georges Rodenbach, Laurent Tailhade, António Nobre, essa pesquisa escolheu analisar os desdobramentos e as releituras da cena nos poemas dos brasileiros Valentim de Magalhães, Cruz e Sousa, Alphonsus de Guimaraens, Guerra Duval, Da Costa e Silva, Eduardo Guimaraens, Alceu Wamosy, entre outros. A explicação encontrada para a recorrência na poesia simbolista da imagem de Ofélia morta nas águas foi a dissolução total da personagem no elemento água (o "nada substancial", para Gaston Bachelard), reproduzindo o desejo do homem finissecular de mergulhar no Nada, no Vazio. Essa associação de Ofélia ao Vazio foi distribuída, tendo como base os poemas encontrados, em três subtópicas: a união dos cadáveres-amantes - herança do Ultra-romantismo - na qual a confusão dos corpos, completamente amalgamados, remete ao estado de androginia; a esterilidade polar - especificidade do Simbolismo - na qual as grandes extensões geladas, denunciando um afastamento do ritmo da vida, produzem uma luz fria, alimentada pelo auto-refletir; e a metapoesia - prenúncio do Modernismo - na qual a própria Arte, representada por símbolos castos e/ou estéreis, é vista como o último reduto da crença do poeta. Em todas essas três divisões, é patente a presença da Lua e de outras figuras circulares, representando, ao mesmo tempo, a plenitude (o bastar a si mesmo) e a esterilidade (o círculo que de nada se alimenta e nada produz), o que indica um afastamento significativo do retrato romântico de Ofélia. / Abstract: At the end of the 19th century, a particular scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet (1600) - young Ophelia's accident-suicide, described in Act IV, Scene VII - gets in the spotlight of symbolist poems, including the Brazilian ones. This research aims at analysing the spin-offs and rereadings of the referred scene in the Brazilian poems of Valentim de Magalhães, Cruz e Souza, Alphonsus de Guimaraens, Guerra Duval, Da Costa e Silva, Eduardo Guimaraens, Alceu Wamosy, among others, in comparison to the "ophelian" poems of Jules Laforgue, Georges Rodenbach, Laurent Tailhade and António Nobre. The explanation for the repetition of the image of dead Ophelia in the water in the symbolist poetry was the total dissolution of the character in the water element (the "substantial nothingness", according to Bachelard), reproducing an end-ofcentury wish to immerse into Nothingness, into Emptiness. Ophelia's association to Emptiness was distributed, based on the found poems, into three subtopics: the union of the lovers' corpses - as a heritage from Ultra-Romanticism - in which the confusion of the bodies, totally amalgamated, reminds us of the state of androginy; the polar sterility - a particularity of Symbolism -, in which great cold extensions, which reveal a separation from the rhythm of life, produce a cold light, fed by self-reflections; and the metapoetry - a herald of Modernism - in which Art itself, represented by chaste or sterile symbols, is seen as the poet's last stand of faith. The Moon, as well as other circular images, is remarkably present in all these three divisions, simultaneously indicating plenitude (self-sufficiency) and sterility (the circle in which nothing is fed and nothing is produced), which shows a significant distance from Ophelia's romantic picture. / Mestrado / Teoria e Critica Literaria / Mestre em Teoria e História Literária

Le Zibaldone est le grand journal de pensées de Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). Le jeune philologue et poète y consigne, sur près de quinze ans (1817-1832) et plus de 4500 pages, des pensées qu’il nomme « de philosophie variée et de belle littérature ». Et en effet, c’est bien la variété, et même la plus étonnante bigarrure qui caractérisent ce monumental magasin d’écriture : bigarrure des matières brassées (théorie de la connaissance, métaphysique, anthropologie, politique, morale, esthétique, autobiographie) ; bigarrure de ses formes (aphorisme, anecdote, maxime, remarque, citation, note érudite, essai) ; bigarrure de ses tonalités (tour à tour sarcastique ou sérieuse, docte ou familière, polémique ou poétique) ; intensité variable de ses rythmes d’écriture etc. Le Zibaldone apparaît donc tout d’abord comme un flux discontinu et disparate de pensée. Cependant, Leopardi n’entend pas y exposer une rhapsodie de vérités isolées et fragmentaires mais une véritable philosophie, un authentique système philosophique. « Il mio sistema » : « mon système se fonde sur un scepticisme raisonné », « mon système ne se fonde pas sur le christianisme mais s’accorde avec lui », « mon système ne détruit pas l’absolu mais le multiplie » etc. La philosophie de Leopardi se place sous le signe d’une assomption répétée et explicite de la systématicité : « il n’existe pas de philosophe véritable sans système ». Affronter la question du système revient alors pour lui à affronter la question de l’ordre. Il ne s’agit pas d’une simple velléité mais d’une exigence aussi bien méthodologique qu’ontologique. Manquer d’esprit de système c’est manquer d’ordre, et c’est surtout manquer l’essence même du réel, de la nature en tant que totalité , une nature qu’il ne saurait concevoir autrement, elle aussi, que comme un système et comme un ordre. Quel est donc l’ordre du système léopardien ? Et dans quelle mesure celui-ci épouse-t-il l’ordre du système de la nature ? Quel est leur fondement commun ? Répondre à ces questions revient à parcourir l’ensemble du manuscrit et à montrer en quoi cette totalité mouvante, ouverte et réticulaire qu’est le Zibaldone est le seul lieu à même d’accueillir une pensée placée devant l’urgence de statuer sur les guises de l’existence et de la contradiction. / The Zibaldone is Giacomo Leopardi’s (1798-1837) famous diary of thoughts. The young philologist and poet recorded, for almost fifteen years (1817-1832) and in over more than 4,500 pages, thoughts that he calls "of varied philosophy and fine literature." And, indeed, it is its variety and even the most striking variegation which characterise this monumental magasin d’écriture: the variegation of its subject matters (theory of knowledge, metaphysics, anthropology, politics, morals, aesthetics, autobiography); the variegation of its forms (aphorism, anecdote, maxim, observation, quotation, scholarly notes, essay); the variegation of its tones (sarcastic or serious, learned or familiar, polemical or poetic); the variable intensity of its writing rhythms and so forth. So the Zibaldone appears as a discontinuous and disparate stream of thought. However, Leopardi does not mean to put forward a rhapsody of isolated and fragmentary truths but a true philosophy, a genuine philosophical system. "Il mio sistema": "my system is based on a well-argued scepticism", "my system is not based on Christianism but is compatible with it", "my system does not destroy the absolute but multiplies it", etc. Leopardi’s philosophy is placed under the sign of a repeated and explicit assumption of systematicity: "there is no true philosopher without a system." For him confronting the question of the system means confronting the question of order. It is not about a simple inclination but about a methodological as well as an ontological requirement. Lacking the spirit of a system is lacking order, and it’s above all lacking the essence of reality itself, the essence of nature as a totality, a nature he cannot conceive otherwise than as a system and an order. So what is the order of the leopardian system? And to what extent does it fit in with the order of the system of nature? What is their common foundation? Answering these questions means browsing through the whole manuscript to show to what extent this moving, open and reticular totality which is the Zibaldone is the only suitable place to receive a thought placed in front of the urgency to pronounce a judgment on the modes of existence and contradiction.

Since 1950s, the concept of Kongwu (空無, Emptiness, Nothingness) has migrated into American-European experimental performances, including those of John Cage and Cage-influenced artists who developed Happenings, Fluxus, and intermedia practices. This research-through-practice investigates how the concept of kongwu, an intercultural synthesis of Chinese Daoism and Indian Buddhism, may shape the principles underlying performance making and how performance may, in turn, elucidate Kongwu way of making sense the world. The installation-performance, Poem without Language contemplates Kongwu’s distrust of language by undermining the communicative purpose of writing and responds to Nam June Paik’s approach to media language. The research practice, One Street, Three Persons, Different Narratives, and Different Memories responds to John Cage’s use of silence to revise time and measurement, and exposes the habit, how we experience the ‘present’ as accumulations of the past, and how we order experiences as a linear continuity, which we call ‘time’. My performance, … is Present suggests different definitions of the ‘meditative mind’ and ‘being-here-and-now’ and critiques the relationship between embodiment and identity in Marina Abramović’s construction of ‘suchness’. Three works offer one response to the poetics and politics of intercultural encounters in the context of Chan/Zen in intermedia performance. My research-through-practice sheds light on Kongwu way of experiencing, particularly Kongwu’s attitude towards language, time, and self.

Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous proposons d’explorer la patiente explication que Heidegger a poursuivie avec Hegel à propos de l’origine de la négativité – problème qui s’impose de fait à titre d’« unique pensée d’une pensée qui pose la question de l’être ». Partant du constat d’une affinité insoupçonnée entre les deux penseurs quant au rôle insigne qui doit revenir à la négation en philosophie, nous entendons percer à jour les motifs de la constante fin de non-recevoir que Heidegger oppose néanmoins à la méthode dialectique de son plus coriace adversaire. Afin de rendre justice aux différents rebondissements d’une explication en constante mutation, et qui, de surcroît, traverse l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Heidegger, nous procédons à une division chronologique qui en circonscrit les quatre principaux moments. I. En un premier temps, notre regard se porte ainsi sur l’opposition résolue que le jeune Heidegger manifeste à l’égard de la montée du néo-hégélianisme, au nom d’une appropriation toute personnelle de l’intuitionnisme husserlien. Les transformations auxquelles il soumet la méthode phénoménologique de son maître doivent néanmoins laisser transparaître un furtif emprunt à la dialectique hégélienne, dont le principal mérite serait d’avoir conféré une fonction productrice à la négation. II. Le propos d’Être et temps demeure toutefois bien discret quant à cette dette méthodologique, bien que ses vestiges se laissent exhumer, notamment sous la forme d’une négation contre-déchéante dont l’intervention essentielle ponctue l’analytique existentiale. C’est qu’un désaccord subsiste entre Heidegger et son prédécesseur quant à l’origine ontologique de la néantité, qui semble devoir se dérober à toute forme de sursomption dialectique. III. Loin d’être alors définitivement réglé, le problème de l’origine du négatif rejaillit au cœur d’une nouvelle mouture métaphysique du projet heideggérien, la minant peut-être même en son fond. Il s’agit en l’occurrence de disputer à Hegel une compréhension plus originaire du néant, comprise comme témoignage de la finitude de l’être lui-même et s’inscrivant en faux face à l’accomplissement spécifiquement hégélien de la métaphysique. IV. Des tensions qui ne sont pas étrangères à cette délicate entreprise entraînent toutefois Heidegger sur la voie d’un dépassement de l’onto-théo-logie et de l’achèvement technique que Hegel lui a préparé. Il s’agit dès lors de situer l’origine abyssale du négatif auprès d’un irréductible retrait de l’estre, à l’encontre de l’oubli nihiliste auquel Hegel l’aurait confinée en la résorbant au sein de l’absolue positivité de la présence. Par là même, Heidegger propose un concept de négation qu’il juge plus originaire que son contrepoids dialectique, négation à laquelle il attribue la forme d’une réponse interrogative, patiente et attentive à la réticence hésitante de l’événement appropriant. Mais est-ce suffisant pour soutenir qu’il parvient, en définitive, à se libérer de l’embarras dialectique qui semble coller à sa pensée et qui exige de lui un constant effort de distanciation ? Cette thèse entend contribuer à établir les conditions d’une décision à cet égard. / In this thesis we explore Heidegger’s patient engagement (Auseinandersetzung) with Hegel about the origin of negativity – an inescapable problem insofar as it is “the sole thought of a thinking that asks the question of Being”. We begin by noting an unsuspected affinity between the two thinkers with respect to the privileged role that negation must play in philosophy, and from there we elucidate the motives for why Heidegger nevertheless rejects the dialectical method of his toughest adversary. Heidegger’s engagement with Hegel evolved constantly over his entire oeuvre; in order to do it justice we therefore propose a chronology that delimits its four principal stages. I. Firstly, we examine the young Heidegger’s resolute opposition to the rise of Neo-Hegelianism in the name of a very personal appropriation of Husserl’s intuitionism. The modifications that Heidegger made to his master’s phenomenological method nevertheless reveal that he also surreptitiously borrowed from Hegelian dialectic, the principal merit of which was to have granted negation a positive function. II. Being and Time does not openly declare this methodological debt, yet traces of it can be found, notably in the form of a counter-falling negation that plays a marked and essential role in the existential analytic. A disagreement remained between Heidegger and his predecessor as to the ontological origin of nothingness, which seemed to elude any form of dialectical sublation. III. The problem of the origin of the negative, far from having been definitively settled, then resurged at the heart of a new conception of metaphysics within the Heideggerian project, perhaps even undermining its very foundations. Heidegger vied with Hegel for a more originary understanding of nothingness, one which he conceived as a testament to the finitude of Being itself and as opposed to the specifically Hegelian accomplishment of metaphysics. IV. However, the tensions inherent to this delicate enterprise led him to go beyond onto-theo-logy together with the technical completion that Hegel had envisioned for it. From then on, Heidegger sought to situate the abyssal origin of the negative in an irreducible refusal of Being – over against the nihilistic forgetfulness to which Hegel had confined it by having resorbed it into the absolute positivity of presence. In so doing Heidegger proposed a concept of negation that he deemed more originary than its dialectical counterpart, construing negation as an interrogative answer, patient and attentive to the hesitant refusal of the event (Ereignis). But can it ultimately be maintained that Heidegger thereby succeeded in freeing himself, once and for all, from the dialectical troubles that seemingly clung to his thought and from which he constantly strove to distance himself? The present thesis will contribute to settling this very question.

Ce mémoire examine le rapport du visible à l’invisible dans l’œuvre du cinéaste hongrois Béla Tarr afin de montrer comment cette œuvre fait sa plus grande place, quoique le plus souvent sous la forme d’une absence-présence, à la question du néant et de la mort. À travers une étude tripartite, tour à tour concernant le traitement cinématographique et thématique du monde, du temps et du personnage et de leurs fonctions, l’objectif de cette recherche est celui de montrer comment cette œuvre soustractive interroge le rapport de l’existant à un monde qui fait défaut. C’est la promesse, en partie telle que théorisée par Peter Sloterdijk, qui permettra ultimement d’éclairer la démarche tragique des personnages tarriens : lutte contre la mort au moyen d’un constant effort de soi et ce, jusqu’à l’épuisement radical. La notion de personnage-figurant développée dans ce mémoire se propose d’articuler ensemble les valeurs figuratives et thématiques communes aux différents personnages qui traversent l’œuvre afin d’en mieux comprendre, malgré les ruptures stylistiques et narratives, la continuité. Enfin, le dialogue engagé ici entre l’œuvre du cinéaste et certains concepts-clé de la tradition philosophique (le monde, le soi, le temps) entend montrer comment la première ouvre des pistes pertinentes pour une réflexion sur le sujet contemporain et son époque. / This master’s thesis examines the relation between the visible and the invisible in Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr’s work in order to shed light on the exploration of nothingness and death—mostly appearing as an absence-presence—in Tarr’s cinema. Through a tripartite study focusing on the visual and thematic treatment, as well as the function of the world, of time and of the cinematic character, I will demonstrate how Tarr’s “subtractive” films interrogate the relation of the self to a missing world. The notion of the “promise”, as conceptualized by Peter Sloterdijk, will provide insight into the Tarrian character’s tragic fate: a tremendous effort to escape death that can only end in an extreme fatigue. The notion of “personnage-figurant” proposed here aims to bind together the figurative and thematic values shared by the various characters in order to better understand the continuity of the work beyond its stylistic and narrative ruptures. Finally, the dialogue initiated here between Tarr’s work and various philosophical key concepts (world, self, time) intends to demonstrate how the Hungarian director’s work opens up interesting avenues for a discussion of subjectivity in our own times.

Le présent travail vise à confronter les ontologies de l’imaginaire de Sartre, Merleau-Ponty et Grimaldi. Empruntant la voie d’une critique du bergsonisme, chacune de ces philosophies s’élabore en accordant une valeur ontologique au négatif et en reconsidérant la signification de la temporalité. La réflexion sur le statut de l’image, et plus avant, sur les relations entre réel et imaginaire, présent et passé, conscient et inconscient, laisse émerger un sens original de la négativité. Merleau-Ponty et Grimaldi opposent ainsi à la dialectique de l’être et du néant l’idée d’une négativité qui pénètre l’être de part en part, le premier ouvrant la voie d’une alternative phénoménologique, le second lui préférant une alternative métaphysique. Ils prétendent par là, mieux que Sartre, rendre raison de la passivité de la subjectivité, de ses attaches dans l’être, source vive du mensonge à soi-même. Les limites de l’ontologie sartrienne trouvent leur origine dans une certaine idée de la conscience qui verrouille d’emblée les relations entre imagination et affectivité. C’est au contraire le libre jeu de cet axe qui rend possible le débordement de l’horizon de visibilité de la subjectivité en direction d’un certain invisible. La jonction concrète de l’imagination et de l’affectivité se déploie alors aux parages de la notion de désir, qui donne son sens rigoureux à la négativité dépistée initialement : à la différence de Sartre, Merleau-Ponty et Grimaldi pensent le caractère médiatisant de l’être compris comme désir et théorisent un décentrement radical de la subjectivité qui culmine pour l’un dans une pensée de l’intercorporéité, pour l’autre dans une éthique du don de soi. / This study aims at confronting the ontologies of the imaginary of Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Grimaldi. Following the path of a critical assessment of Bergsonism, each of these philosophies develops by granting ontological value to the negative, and through a reconsideration of the meaning of temporality. A new approach of negativity emerges from the reflection on the status of the image and further, upon the relationships between real and imaginary, past and present, conscious and subconscious. Merleau-Ponty and Grimaldi thus reject dialectics of being and nothingness in favour of the idea of a negativity thoroughly penetrating being itself; the first one opening the way for a phenomenological alternative, and the second favouring a metaphysical alternative. They thereby claim to account, better than Sartre does, for the passivity of subjectivity, its rootedness in being–the living source of self-deceiving.The limitations of Sartrean ontology on the subject derive from a specific view of consciousness which locks off the relation between imagination and affectivity. On the contrary, the free play of this axis allows for the overflowing of the horizon of visibility of subjectivity toward a certain invisible. The concrete junction of imagination and affectivity then spreads out into the region of the notion of desire, which gives its determinate meaning to the negativity detected in the beginning. Unlike Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Grimaldi study the mediatizing character of being understood as desire, and they theorize about a decentring of subjectivity culminating for Merleau-Ponty in a thought of intercorporeity and for Grimaldi in an ethics of self-sacrifice.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:34:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Danilo Barcelos Correa.pdf: 630255 bytes, checksum: 5cf8e5a841c45a10692e848da3a76a02 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Carlos Drummond de Andrade, in his poems, reflects aesthetically about the self, time and language, silencing his readers so power over nothing acts on them. To think about nothingness s matter in the poet s poems is treading a path in his thinking, feeling poetically as he shows, "the power of speech and silence" of his verses creating the self. Analyzing his poems as the poet reflects on the twentieth century and its major problems, in tune with the different disciplines of knowledge and central issues of that time period. By checking this it is understood how the poet conceives the concepts of poem, poetry, time and silence. Establishing these points it becomes possible to see how poems effect and suspend the self in nothingness, unmaking and remaking the self in the poetic thought of Drummond / Carlos Drummond de Andrade, em seus poemas, pensa esteticamente o ser, o tempo e a linguagem, silenciando seus leitores para que neles se opere a força do nada. Pensar a matéria do nada nos poemas do poeta é trilhar um caminho em seu pensamento, tateando, como poeticamente ele o faz, o poder de palavra e o poder de silêncio de seus versos para fundar o ser. Verificamos, ao analisar seus poemas, como o poeta reflete seu tempo e seus problemas maiores, afinado com as diversas disciplinas do saber e com as questões centrais de sua época. A partir disso, verifica-se o que entende o poeta por eu, poema, poesia, tempo e silêncio. Estabelecidos estes pontos, torna-se possível perceber como os poemas nos angustiam e nos suspendem no nada, desfazendo-nos e refazendo-nos no pensar poético de Drummond

Keiji Nishitani, philosophe de l’École de Kyoto, a développé sa philosophie de la religion en étudiant les sermons allemands de Maître Eckhart à la lumière de la notion du « néant absolu » de Kitarô Nishida. Nishitani applique cette dernière à la « Déité » (Gotheit) exposée dans la prédication d’Eckhart, où il découvre l’idée d’un éveil à la subjectivité originaire dans l’âme humaine. Cet éveil ouvre à l’âme une liberté « en Dieu sans Dieu », accessible à la vraie intelligence religieuse, détachée de tout dualisme. Dans cette perspective, comment pouvons-nous intégrer la métaphysique que Maître Eckhart expose dans ses œuvres latines ? Dans le Commentaire de l’Évangile selon Jean, Eckhart déploie sa vision sur Dieu, Être-Un, « Principe sans principe », et il enseigne à « vivre » l’unité entre « être » et « connaître », en laquelle consiste la béatitude. Notre réflexion s’articule autour de l’idée de « vivre la vie ». Nous essayons d’unifier le détachement dans le « néant de la Déité » selon Nishitani et l’« Être illimité » selon le commentaire biblique, de manière à représenter la pensée eckhartienne comme une synergie de la spéculation métaphysique et de la pratique existentielle pour expérimenter le Transcendant dans notre vie immanente. / Keiji Nishitani, philosopher of the Kyoto School, developed his philosophy of religion, studying the German sermons of Meister Eckhart, in the light of the notion of “absolute nothingness” of Kitarô Nishida. He applies that notion to the “Godhead” (Gotheit) outlined in Eckhart’s preaching, where he discovers the idea of awakening to the elemental subjectivity in human soul. This awakening opens up to the soul a liberty “in Godwithout God”, accessible to the religious intelligence detached from all dualism. In this perspective, how can we integrate the metaphysics exposed by Eckhart in his Latin works ? In the Commentary on the Gospel of John, Eckhart explains his vision of God, Being-One, “Principle without principle”, and he teaches to “live” the unity between “being” and “knowing”, of which the beatitude consists. Our study revolves around the thinking on “live the life”. We try to unify the detachment in the “nothingness of the Godhead” according to Nishitani and the “unlimited Being” according to the biblical commentary, so as to show the Eckhartian thought as a synergy between metaphysic speculation and existential practice to experience the Transcendent in our immanent life.

The essay is an attempt to make sense of the apparently special relation between self-knowledge and agency. To achieve that goal, the essay translates the account of what it is like to be a human self offered by Sartre into the language of evolutionary psychology. In L’être et le néant, Sartre describes the phenomenology of the self as a series of inescapable choices in a contingent set of circumstances. This essay identifies Sartre’s description with what Baumeister, Maranges and Sjåstad call a matrix of maybe: the mechanism of nonfactual pragmatic prospection found in humans. Consequently, it defines the self as a matrix of maybe operating within a contingency matrix and reflecting on its own operation. Self-knowledge, the essay concludes, seems special because we routinely and erroneously ascribe to the self features of its contingency matrix. Most of our true first-person claims should not be read as I PREDICATE. Instead, they can be explicated as I have to act in a world where C PREDICATE, where C is the relevant part of the contingency matrix.