Download or read book Living with Ambiguity written by Donald A. Crosby and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a religion based on the sacredness of nature deals with the problem of evil.
Download or read book Ambiguity of the Sacred written by Jonna Bornemark and published by . This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The distinction between the secular and the sacred or holy seems at first to constitute a definitive line, the establishment of which also defines Western modernity. Yet this apparently strict demarcation is today not only questioned, but also increasingly difficult to maintain. In order to understand and conceptualize what is happening in the intersection between religion, politics, and aesthetics, we need to rethink the very meaning of the sacred in its full ambiguity, to explore again in thinking the vicissitudes and possibilities of this complex phenomenon, and to learn to move more freely through the category itself. The book contains contributions by researchers from many different fields, philosophers, theologians, political scientists, and literary historians, who also comment on each other. It establishes new connections and trajectories for mapping and understanding the nature and meaning of the sacred both as a social, an aesthetic, and a religious phenomenon. With contributions by: Bettina Bergo, Ward Blanton, Marcia Sa Cavalcante Schuback, Karolina Enquist Kallgren, Mattias Martinson, Paivi Mehtonen, Elena Namli, Jacob Rogozinski, Hans Ruin, Muniz Sodre, Fredrika Spindler and Jon Wittrock.
Download or read book A Culture of Ambiguity written by Thomas Bauer and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Western imagination, Islamic cultures are dominated by dogmatic religious norms that permit no nuance. Those fighting such stereotypes have countered with a portrait of Islam’s medieval “Golden Age,” marked by rationality, tolerance, and even proto-secularism. How can we understand Islamic history, culture, and thought beyond this dichotomy? In this magisterial cultural and intellectual history, Thomas Bauer reconsiders classical and modern Islam by tracing differing attitudes toward ambiguity. Over a span of many centuries, he explores the tension between one strand that aspires to annihilate all uncertainties and establish absolute, uncontestable truths and another, competing tendency that looks for ways to live with ambiguity and accept complexity. Bauer ranges across cultural and linguistic ambiguities, considering premodern Islamic textual and cultural forms from law to Quranic exegesis to literary genres alongside attitudes toward religious minorities and foreigners. He emphasizes the relative absence of conflict between religious and secular discourses in classical Islamic culture, which stands in striking contrast to both present-day fundamentalism and much of European history. Bauer shows how Islam’s encounter with the modern West and its demand for certainty helped bring about both Islamicist and secular liberal ideologies that in their own ways rejected ambiguity—and therefore also their own cultural traditions. Awarded the prestigious Leibniz Prize, A Culture of Ambiguity not only reframes a vast range of Islamic history but also offers an interdisciplinary model for investigating the tolerance of ambiguity across cultures and eras.
Download or read book A Durkheimian Quest written by William Watts Miller and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2012-08-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Durkheim, in his very role as a "founding father" of a new social science has become like a figure in an old religious painting, enshrouded in myth and encrusted in layers of thick, impenetrable varnish. This book undertakes detailed, up-to-date investigations of Durkheim's work in an effort to restore its freshness and reveal it as originally created. These investigations explore his particular ideas, within an overall narrative of his initial problematic search for solidarity, how it became a quest for the sacred, and how, at the end of his life, he embarked on a project for a new great work on ethics. A theme running through this is his concern with a modern world in crisis and a hope in social and moral reform. Accordingly, the book concludes with a set of essays on modern times and on a crisis that Durkheim thought would pass but which now seems here to stay.
Download or read book A History of Ambiguity written by Anthony Ossa-Richardson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since it was first published in 1930, William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity has been perceived as a milestone in literary criticism—far from being an impediment to communication, ambiguity now seemed an index of poetic richness and expressive power. Little, however, has been written on the broader trajectory of Western thought about ambiguity before Empson; as a result, the nature of his innovation has been poorly understood. A History of Ambiguity remedies this omission. Starting with classical grammar and rhetoric, and moving on to moral theology, law, biblical exegesis, German philosophy, and literary criticism, Anthony Ossa-Richardson explores the many ways in which readers and theorists posited, denied, conceptualised, and argued over the existence of multiple meanings in texts between antiquity and the twentieth century. This process took on a variety of interconnected forms, from the Renaissance delight in the ‘elegance’ of ambiguities in Horace, through the extraordinary Catholic claim that Scripture could contain multiple literal—and not just allegorical—senses, to the theory of dramatic irony developed in the nineteenth century, a theory intertwined with discoveries of the double meanings in Greek tragedy. Such narratives are not merely of antiquarian interest: rather, they provide an insight into the foundations of modern criticism, revealing deep resonances between acts of interpretation in disparate eras and contexts. A History of Ambiguity lays bare the long tradition of efforts to liberate language, and even a poet’s intention, from the strictures of a single meaning.
Download or read book Terror and Transformation written by James W. Jones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion has been responsible for both horrific acts against humanity and some of humanity's most sublime teachings and experiences. How is this possible? From a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective, this book seeks to answer that question in terms of the psychological dynamic of idealisation. At the heart of living religion is the idealisation of everyday objects. Such idealisations provide much of the transforming power of religious experience, which is one of the positive contributions of religion to the psychological life. However, idealisation can also lead to religious fanaticism which can be very destructive. Drawing on the work of various contemporary relational theorists within psychoanalysis, this book develops a psychoanalytically informed theory of the transforming and terror-producing effects of religious experience. It discusses the question of whether or not, if idealisation is the cause of many of the destructive acts done in the name of religion, there can be vital religion without idealisation. This is the first book to address the nature of religion and its capacity to sponsor both terrorism and transformation in terms of contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory. It will be invaluable to students and practitioners of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, psychology and religious studies, and to others interested in the role of religion in the lives of individuals and societies.
Download or read book Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium written by Youval Rotman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prologue. Insanity and religion -- Part I. Sanctified insanity: between history and psychology -- The paradox that inhabits ambiguity -- Meanings of insanity -- Part II. Abnormality and social change: early Christianity vs. rabbinic Judaism -- Abnormality and social change -- Socializing nature: the ascetic totem -- Epilogue. Psychology, religion, and social change
Download or read book The Sacred and the Sinister written by David J. Collins, S. J. and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspired by the work of eminent scholar Richard Kieckhefer, The Sacred and the Sinister explores the ambiguities that made (and make) medieval religion and magic so difficult to differentiate. The essays in this collection investigate how the holy and unholy were distinguished in medieval Europe, where their characteristics diverged, and the implications of that deviation. In the Middle Ages, the natural world was understood as divinely created and infused with mysterious power. This world was accessible to human knowledge and susceptible to human manipulation through three modes of engagement: religion, magic, and science. How these ways of understanding developed in light of modern notions of rationality is an important element of ongoing scholarly conversation. As Kieckhefer has emphasized, ambiguity and ambivalence characterize medieval understandings of the divine and demonic powers at work in the world. The ten chapters in this volume focus on four main aspects of this assertion: the cult of the saints, contested devotional relationships and practices, unsettled judgments between magic and religion, and inconclusive distinctions between magic and science. Freshly insightful, this study of ambiguity between magic and religion will be of special interest to scholars in the fields of medieval studies, religious studies, European history, and the history of science. In addition to the editor, the contributors to this volume are Michael D. Bailey, Kristi Woodward Bain, Maeve B. Callan, Elizabeth Casteen, Claire Fanger, Sean L. Field, Anne M. Koenig, Katelyn Mesler, and Sophie Page.
Download or read book Pilgrimage and Ambiguity written by Angela Hobart and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This books reflects on sites such as shrines, monasteries or a revered mountain, cave or tree, shared by more than one religion in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Brazil. It explores how their multiple meanings, inherent ambiguity and shared rituals, transcending the confines of orthodoxy, may contribute to their power for the pilgrim.
Download or read book The Ambivalence of the Sacred written by R. Scott Appleby and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text explains what religious terrorists and religious peacemakers share in common and what causes them to take different paths in fighting injustice.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim written by Jeffrey C. Alexander and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-26 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays redefining the relevance of Durkheim to the human sciences in the twenty-first century.
Download or read book Being and Ambiguity written by Brook Ziporyn and published by Open Court. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Being and Ambiguity is a brilliant work of philosophy, filled with insights, jokes, and topical examples. Professor Ziporyn draws on the works of such Western thinkers as Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and Hegel, but develops his main argument from Tiantai school of Chinese Buddhism. This important work introduces Tiantai Buddhism to the reader and demonstrates its relevance to profound philosophical issues. Ziporyn argues that we can make both of the claims below simultaneously: This book is about everything. It contains the answers to all philosophical problems which ever shall exist. This book is all claptrap. It is completely devoid of objective validity of any kind. These claims are not contradictory. Rather, they state the same thing in two different ways. To be objective truth is to be subjective claptrap, and vise versa. All interchanges of any kind - conversations, daydreams, sensations - are not only about something but also about everything. Thus, this book concerns itself with no less than the nature of what is and what it means for something to be what it is. It provides a new approach to the basic Western philosophical and psychological issues of identity, determinacy, being, desire, boredom, addiction, love and truth.
Download or read book Emile Durkheim written by W. S. F. Pickering and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A five volume collection of scholarly journal articles and chapters from books covering the subject of Emile Durkheim's work. The five volumes are thematically organized in the following sections: Volume I: 1. Durkheim: The man himself, 2. General sociology. Volume II: 3. Religion, 4. Epistemology and the philosophy of science. Volume III: 5. Morality and ethics, 6. Political sociology. Volume IV: 7. Suicide and anomie, 8. Division of labour and economics, 9. EducationP
Download or read book Reimagining the Sacred written by Richard Kearney and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary conversations about religion and culture are framed by two reductive definitions of secularity. In one, multiple faiths and nonfaiths coexist free from a dominant belief in God. In the other, we deny the sacred altogether and exclude religion from rational thought and behavior. But is there a third way for those who wish to rediscover the sacred in a skeptical society? What kind of faith, if any, can be proclaimed after the ravages of the Holocaust and the many religion-based terrors since? Richard Kearney explores these questions with a host of philosophers known for their inclusive, forward-thinking work on the intersection of secularism, politics, and religion. An interreligious dialogue that refuses to paper over religious difference, these conversations locate the sacred within secular society and affirm a positive role for religion in human reflection and action. Drawing on his own philosophical formulations, literary analysis, and personal interreligious experiences, Kearney develops through these engagements a basic gesture of hospitality for approaching the question of God. His work facilitates a fresh encounter with our best-known voices in continental philosophy and their views on issues of importance to all spiritually minded individuals and skeptics: how to reconcile God's goodness with human evil, how to believe in both God and natural science, how to talk about God without indulging in fundamentalist rhetoric, and how to balance God's sovereignty with God's love.
Download or read book Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular written by Dr Abby Day and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the important relationship between the 'sacred' and the 'secular', this book demonstrates that it is not paradoxical to think in terms of both secular and sacred or neither, in different times and places. International experts from a range of disciplinary perspectives draw on local, national, and international contexts to provide a fresh analytical approach to understanding these two contested poles. Exploring such phenomena at an individual, institutional, or theoretical level, each chapter contributes to the central message of the book - that the ‘in between’ is real, embodied and experienced every day and informs, and is informed by, intersecting social identities. Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular provides an essential resource for continued research into these concepts, challenging us to re-think where the boundaries of sacred and secular lie and what may lie between.
Download or read book Reinventing the Sacred written by Stuart A. Kauffman and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-11-29 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of mile Durkheim written by Hans Joas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and one of the most deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology.
