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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Reconciliation And Harmony: The Philosophical Art Of Tragic Drama, Lawrence Kimmel
Reconciliation And Harmony: The Philosophical Art Of Tragic Drama, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
In the performance of art one can begin at the beginning, but in a discussion of art one must begin somewhere in the middle. Here, it is with the conviction that art, in whatever form, though it may surprise the sense and quicken the spirit, disturb our thinking or revoke a thoughtless ease, still, its full expression restores a sense of presence and wholeness to our being. That is, every art form has a point of closure in a harmony of the spirit. Even tragic drama, which brings the darkness of human character into a glare of recognition and acceptance, …
Culture And The Philosophy Of Moral Life: The True, The Good, The Beautiful, And The Sacred, Lawrence Kimmel
Culture And The Philosophy Of Moral Life: The True, The Good, The Beautiful, And The Sacred, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
Philosophy as a profession is blessed with leisure and exempt from an obligation to be socially useful or productive, and so has a special obligation to address fundamental questions about the meaning of the human project not otherwise on the contemporary agenda. This is not an undertaking that requires technical language or special skills. William James described the deceptively simple task of philosophy as saying something true about things that matter. That said, it is hardly the prerogative of philosophy to adjudicate which are matters of crucial importance to a given culture. Moreover, philosophical investigations are of a kind that …
Technology: The Future Of Our History, Lawrence Kimmel
Technology: The Future Of Our History, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
No abstract provided.
Death, And The Elemental Passion Of The Soul: An Ancient Philosophical Thesis, With Poetic Counterpoint, Lawrence Kimmel
Death, And The Elemental Passion Of The Soul: An Ancient Philosophical Thesis, With Poetic Counterpoint, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
In his famous “Letter”, Epicurus writes to his young friend Menoeceus that “Death is nothing” — either to fear or to hope for.1 This counsel further suggests that death is not something one can claim as his/her own, and that even its contemplation brings “a craving for immortality”, and so, loosens the fragile hold we have on the life of the soul.
The Poetics Of Place, Lawrence Kimmel
The Poetics Of Place, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
Paul Ricoeur, at a Hannah Arendt retrospective some 15 years ago, spoke of the controlling metaphor of Arendt's work as that of Place, and said that he offered in his own work, instead, an enabling metaphor of Time. To bring together the work of these two exceptional thinkers, to bridge the divide and to map out the complementarity of engaging metaphors would be a worthy task of scholarship, however I will not try to do so even in outline here. Still, the contrast and convergence of the two metaphors of time and place is one I want to at least …
Journeys Home: The Pathos Of Place, Lawrence Kimmel
Journeys Home: The Pathos Of Place, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
The pathos of place is elemental in grounding the risk of life, the source of confidence requisite to the human quest whether it is conceived as arche or telos, whether it is where one begins, or the end toward which one’s journey is directed. The project of living is such that one’s journey is always toward a homeland, however it be conceived: dreams of homecoming the recovery of innocence, the joyful receiving of the retrieved prodigal, the triumphal march of the heroic legions, the quiet return of the native — all hopeful to appear once again in the light of …
Poetry, Life, Literature, Lawrence Kimmel
Poetry, Life, Literature, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
The question and theme of the poetry of life reaches deep into the essential questions of human existence. In the sense that poetry is the central core of literature, it is essential to the meaning of our lives. This question does not necessarily place human life, nor indeed biological life at the center of inquiry. We will examine the sense in which life itself is poetry, and great literature--in this essay we will refer only to that--is recognized by its capacity to capture and express that poetry. When it does this it penetrates to the heart of human accord and …
Notes On The Art Of Memory, Lawrence Kimmel
Notes On The Art Of Memory, Lawrence Kimmel
Lawrence Kimmel
A few years ago I was asked to write a piece for a memorial Festschrift for a friend and colleague who had just died. It occurred to me then that remembrance was a very special faculty of mind; this essay takes up the threads of that remembrance. The task of understanding memory is daunting: it is ubiquitous in every aspect of life and thought. I will try to distinguish important features of memory as it functions in our individual and collective lives, but my primary concern is with a particular aspect of remembrance that is a creative resource vital to …