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Freud, the Contemporary Super-ego, and Western Morality traces the origins of the relationship between the morality of the super-ego and the destructive impulse of the death drive in the liberal democracies of the 21st century. Giosuè Ghisalberti begins by refuting the analysis by contemporary social theorists of the phenomenon described as "the return of the religious," presenting instead a comprehensive set of ideas as outlined by Freud in the writings of the 1920s and the analysis of a contemporary theological-political unconscious. Ghisalberti argues that the psyche of the liberal West has regressed to an infantile and primitive present, driven by an unconscious hostility towards the Oe...
Soteriology and the End of Animal Sacrifice traces the historically sustained critique of animal sacrifice in both the Jewish prophets and Greek philosophers and offers a reinterpretation of the fundamental expression of piety in both cultures. The Jewish prophets, such as Isaiah, and Greek philosophers beginning with Pythagoras, provided not only an unequivocal denunciation of animal sacrifice as a religious ritual. Equally important, they also offered an alternative conception of piety in and through a language dedicated to the therapeutic health and well-being of others. In the philosophies of Socrates and Epicurus in the Greek world and in the teaching and healing of Jesus in the Jewish world of first-century Palestine, we reach a decisive moment in the revolution of religion in the ancient world. The practice of animal sacrifice in the temples of Greece and Jerusalem begins to be reconceived and eventually abolished and replaced by a soteriology or healing wholly dedicated to the well-being of individuals no less than entire societies. The replacement of animal sacrifice with soteriological speech is the single most important revolution in the religions of antiquity.
The slaughter of animals as a religious ritual and the execution of human beings as a judicial one was an interrelated phenomenon in the ancient world. Writings from different traditions had to be interpreted in relation to each other for the connection between two sacred rituals to be made. The history of the death penalty within the textual traditions of Judaism and ancient Greece could be traced to specific commandments beginning in Genesis and in laws specified as early as in Hesiod's Theogony--in each case, however, with far from unambiguous conclusions despite their divine origins in YHWH or Zeus. An ever-present uncertainty in the nature of the death penalty pervades the writings of t...
This book on Alain Badiou’s philosophy begins with a central theme: the attempt to trace how Badiou has replaced the tradition of critical theory and negation with an affirmative support of his four generic procedures (art, science, love, and art) as inseparable from his revitalization of both the subject and the concept of truth. By defining four procedures as conditions of philosophy, Badiou makes the attempt to establish each as inter-related and systematically necessary to make a new proposal for thought. The fidelity to Badiou’s project for the 21st century, however, requires a fundamental examination: are his four truths complicated by an inescapable dilemma? And if so, can the four truths be retained, as a whole, or does the individual reader have to make a decision that will alter Badiou’s project and conclusions? By presenting the dilemmas of his thought, the scholarly reader will be in a position to then pursue the necessary study to come to their own conclusions and, by doing so, become sufficiently free to resist the many coercions of social and political life in liberal democracies today.
Under the microscope of recent scholarship the universality of Greek tragedy has started to fade, as particularities of Athenian culture have come into focus. Miriam Leonard contests the idea of the death of tragedy and argues powerfully for the continued vitality and viability of Greek tragic theater in the central debates of contemporary culture.
This book examines Nietzsche’s early writings on education, paying particular attention to his thought on scholarship and teaching. Giosuè Ghisalberti examines Nietzsche’s view of himself as a teacher in the broader context of his reflections on scholarship and philology, and puts Nietzsche’s examination into conversation with prominent themes in his later philosophy (including morality, truth, and language). The book is to be read as an assessment of our social predicament, in and out of the university. “We Scholars” According to Nietzsche develops ideas on our contemporary world most especially in institutions of higher learning and how morality is proving to be inimical to freedom.
Writing Indians and Jews examines discursive practices surrounding the representation of Jews and Jewishness in Indian literature in English. These investigations make an important contribution to the study of contemporary South Asian and diasporic literature, and understandings of anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, and globalization.
A perpetually creative platform, kabbalistic literature challenges plain, predictable, or privileged interpretations of biblical narratives, reimagining and reinventing familiar characters, episodes, and images. Eve, Esther, and Judith, for example, embody the female aspect of the kabbalistic divinity, as do several nameless women whose roles the Kabbalah augments and celebrates, often in daring and surprising ways. What allows the Kabbalah to revolutionize hermeneutical practices is its capacity to explore a wide variety of styles and genres: drama, poetry, the fairy tale, the picaresque novel, the personal diary, the dream journal, surrealist fiction, magical realism, philosophical investi...
The word "nihilism" today is everywhere. A staple of common speech ever since its coinage by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in the eighteenth century, is there any other term of philosophical provenance more descriptive of our times? Finding Meaning: Essays on Philosophy, Nihilism, and the Death of God deepens the longstanding and ongoing debate about the problem of nihilism. Drawing upon a wide range of philosophical and theological schools, traditions, and figures, the eleven specially commissioned essays by international scholars enrich the discussion of how to meet the challenge of nihilism. Fundamental problems and topics include the existence of God, the origins and status of morality, the ...