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The Concept Of Myth In Kōsaka Masaaki And Miki Kiyoshi’S Critique, Fernando Wirtz
The Concept Of Myth In Kōsaka Masaaki And Miki Kiyoshi’S Critique, Fernando Wirtz
Comparative Philosophy
This paper explores the concept of myth in two books written by Kōsaka Masaaki, The Historical World (1937) and Philosophy of the Nation (1942). In both, myth appears as a central moment in the transition from primitive to modern societies. The role of myth is closely related to Kōsaka’s notion of nature, since one goal of his reflection is to show how history is supported by the “substratum” of nature. In this sense, he also distinguishes between the natural and historical aspects of nations. After analyzing the subcategories of primordial nature, environmental nature, and historical nature, the paper shows how …
Dionysian Biopolitics: Karl Kerényi’S Concept Of Indestructible Life, Kristóf Fenyvesi
Dionysian Biopolitics: Karl Kerényi’S Concept Of Indestructible Life, Kristóf Fenyvesi
Comparative Philosophy
Scholar of religion Karl Kerényi’s last book, Dionysos, is a grand attempt at reinterpreting ζωη (zoe), the Greek concept of indestructible life, which he distinguishes from βίος (bios), finite life. In Kerényi’s view, the meaning and sensual experience of zoe was expressed in its richest form in the Cretan beginnings of the cult of Dionysos. The major characteristics of this cult, as Kerényi describes, were beyond the cultural, political, and sexual limits of the Christian interpretations of life and nature. Searching for modern analogies to zoe, Kerényi explains the idea in relation to molecular biology’s minimum definition of life. Despite …
Anti-Nature In Nature Itself, Ryōsuke Ōhashi
Anti-Nature In Nature Itself, Ryōsuke Ōhashi
Comparative Philosophy
Nature and civilization are often regarded in opposition to each other. However, civilization employs technologies and is based on laws of nature. Also, the historical world is a result of the development of the natural world. An “anti-nature” must thus be contained somewhere within nature. The idea of “anti-nature” is neither alien to the Eastern nor to the Western traditional concepts of nature. The philosophy of Lao Zi never embraces mere naturalism. Lao Zi has observed that things in the world are not always “so on their own” but rather in the mode of anti-nature. Anti-nature in nature itself does …
All Or Nothing? Nature In Chinese Thought And The Apophatic Occident, William Franke
All Or Nothing? Nature In Chinese Thought And The Apophatic Occident, William Franke
Comparative Philosophy
This paper develops an interpretation of nature in classical Chinese culture through dialogue with the work of François Jullien. I understand nature negatively as precisely what never appears as such nor ever can be exactly apprehended and defined. For perception and expression entail inevitably human mediation and cultural transmission by semiotic and hermeneutic means that distort and occult the natural in the full depth of its alterity. My claim is that the largely negative approach to nature that Jullien finds in sources of Chinese tradition can also be found in the West, particularly in its apophatic currents or countercurrents that …