Eros

The argument presented here explores homosexuality within the
context of applied Christian ethics. The argument works by asking students to grapple with and define the common characteristics of all eros relationships.  Once the students analytically break down eros relationships, and wrestle with defining concepts such as “love,” “sex,” and “desires,” basic biblical moral precepts are applied. After this biblical application it can be shown that there is latitude enough in Christian morality to openly permit homosexuality that is compatible with biblically stated ethical dictums. The argument is pedagogical in nature, and is a challenging, engaging, and accessible argument that avoids the educational pitfalls that entangle other arguments of this nature.

Mythos begets nomos. In myth begins the normative universe in which we live. Law emerges to maintain that universe, and to foreclose others. Law polices the normative reality through the official stories that it tells, for these are the stories whose meanings are backed by the force of the state. But law's stories are often shaped and informed by popular narratives from the culture at large. This shared process of narrative production, adaptation, and critique attests to law's deep entanglement in the meaning-making function of culture.

The felt sense of whoness is not a me-ness…me is self-fixation and in fact the sense of whoness can free us from objectified self-fixation. The sense of me often replaces the sense of who. When the experiential nonconceptual felt sense of who is not known or experienced, the felt sense of me-ness arises desperately. The sense of who is unfixatedness and this innate sense of no-thingness can be found and even experienced as ongoing timeless awareness in time. Innermost awareness in its manifestation can be experienced as whoness, no-thingness and open knowingness. The sense of me-ness is self-fixated, self-referencing and this me-ness can obscure the experiential arising of whoness. The sense of me-ness reflects the being in mind alone, and the sense of whoness reflects being deeply within the awareness field. Whoness manifests most directly as pause and within the pause. The pause is unbound in betweeness…the space in between..transitional spaciousness. When the spaciousness of the breathless breath opens whoness can be felt as uncontained and unbound. Whoness is experiential openness….openess without a name or prior to name. We may say openness prior to mind. Dasein to use Heideggarian language. When the breathless breath manifests the experience is always mysterious. What does breathless breath mean? Breathless means no breath, there is no breath. The word breath here, in this context signifies that there is no breath but there is respiration. There is this inner most experience of no breath, no inhaling or exhaling of air and yet there is respiration. There is a respiration without breath and beyond breath. For instance, in the Kechari mudra this breathless breath experience takes place. The breath stops and yet there is an inner sense of breathless respiration. This experience of respiration without breath is described in various traditions of eastern philosophy. In the Dzogchen tradition Longchenpa describes the experience in his great text Words and Meaning. This

"The Tale of Salāmān and Absāl presented as a translation from Greek, attributed in the text’s opening lines to Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq is saturated with references from a wide-ranging variety of sources with an array of religious, cultural and textual orientations; these, as well as its generic affiliations, ideological leanings, location on the spiritual-metaphysical spectrum and Vorlagen have been studied by many. In this paper, I focus on the wording and literary forms of the text, some of which have been glossed over in the rendition of Henry Corbin, by which this text is often known. My point of departure is a collocation which draws on motifs and phraseology from popular sources, the canons of poetry and poetry in prose (including belles lettres elements in the Qur’ān), as well as terminology in medical literature in Arabic and Greek traditions. Through an analysis of phrasing drawing on philological methods of Blachère, Von Grunebaum, Arazi and others, a contextualization of this Tale (which is not covered in research on “profane love theory” e.g. by Lois Giffen) may lead to a reading of this Hermetic text within a repertoire of “romantic” commonplaces and innovations of expression. 

Keywords: Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq, Salāmān and Absāl, muḍṭariban maǧnūnan, popular literature, Greek, displaced erotic wording
"""""

a hebrew version of an article in festschrift volume in honour of yehuda liebes. "love struck" (مضطرباً مجنوناً) -- traditions of popular love literature and other literary and textual traditions in the qissat salaman wa-absal attributed to hunayn b. ishaq.

AbstrAct: In questa nota si presenta uno spunto teorico sul tema della ψυχή. In partico-lare si cerca di realizzare una riproblematizzazione dell'argomento, che ha radici che si per-dono nel tempo. Animus e Anima sono presentati come protagonisti della vita dell'uomo, in quanto elemento maschile e femminile, attraverso una ricerca costante di un equilibrio che riporta in vita quel dialogo tra λόγος e δαίμων.

Draught version. A look at the statue in Renaissance literature, artistry, philosophy, and psychology through the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) as a symbol of the intertwining of the body and architecture, with special reference to the works of Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
This essay is dedicated to Alberto Pérez-Gómez and the final version is published for his Festschrift in a new volume called Architecture's Appeal: How Theory Informs Architectural Praxis, edited by Marc Neveu and Negin Djavaherian (Routledge, 2015)

Leitura da filosofia da educação proposta no Fedro de Platão a partir da presença nesse diálogo de uma crítica à escrita e do uso de estratégias didáticas da paideia arcaica tradicional. Através de pesquisa bibliográfica, tais elementos – a paideia tradicional e a escrita – são, em um primeiro momento, postos em relação entre si a partir do seu desenvolvimento histórico contextualizado pela cultura grega arcaica. E, em um segundo momento, é analisada, no diálogo em foco, a presença desses mesmos elementos, levando em consideração as funções que ali exercem na descrição da paideia filosófica, com suas respectivas ressignificações simbólicas a partir dos objetivos almejados por essa paideia. A paideia arcaica tradicional é compreendida principalmente por sua função paradigmática de promover um ideal de homem através de um modelo de nobreza realizado mediante a disputa pela supremacia por meio das ações e do bom uso das palavras. Este modelo foi socialmente difundido pelos mitos, principalmente nas figuras heroicas presentes nos poemas épicos de Homero e Hesíodo, mas também através da estratégia didática da associação (synousía) entre um homem mais velho e um jovem com a finalidade de transmitir os valores e as habilidades necessárias para a realização desse ideal. A synousía
era entendida como uma instituição sob o controle familiar que visava promover a paideia de um jovem, podendo ser praticada, em determinadas circunstâncias, através de um vínculo afetivo erótico entre o jovem aprendiz e seu mestre, recebendo, nesse caso, o nome de pederastia. A synousía, em todas as suas modalidades, teve diminuída sua importância em Atenas a partir do século IV a.C. com a profissionalização da formação superior dos jovens promovida pela
paideia dos sofistas. Concomitante ao declínio da synousía ocorreu também uma gradual institucionalização do uso da escrita alfabética na cultura grega que, desde sua introdução por volta do século VIII a.C., foi empregada progressivamente nas instituições da cidade grega até a intensa burocratização da administração pública na democracia radical no final do Arcaico. Com a democracia, a escrita tornou-se indispensável para a atuação política, constituindo-se em um dos principais elementos da nova paideia proposta pelos sofistas. No Fedro de Platão, há uma descrição da pederastia, praticada segundo a filosofia, como um rito de iniciação com a finalidade de tornar os amantes semelhantes a um deus e capacitando-os para alcançar as reminiscências dos Seres verdadeiros contemplados pela alma antes de nascer em um corpo material. Já a escrita adquire um papel secundário na paideia filosófica. O filósofo é caracterizado como aquele que reserva as coisas de maior valor para o ensinamento oral dialético, não reconhecendo em seus
escritos uma função legitimamente educativa. O uso adequado da estratégia didática da associação pederástica e da escrita aparecem como elementos definidores da paideia filosófica proposta por Platão no Fedro, ainda que adaptados aos novos objetivos pertinentes a essa paideia.

The appropriation of the term eros by Plato in the Symposium culminates in Socrates'/Diotima's speech. However there is a more specifi c sense of eros, which could be called philosophical eros. On the one hand, philosophical eros is the immediate consequence of the development of the dynamis by which one is capable of recognizing both the existence and the value of the Forms. On the other hand, the development of this same dynamis promotes the desire to transmit this dynamis to those regarded as a fertile ground to it. Understanding this twofold dimension of philosophical eros will shed light both on Plato's conception of philosophy and on Socrates, character of Plato's dialogues, as lover of beautiful boys.

""Solinas’ Studie untersucht den Einfluss von Platons Anschauungen von Traum, Wunsch und Wahn auf den jungen Freud. Anhand der Untersuchung einiger zeitgenössischer kulturwissenschaftlicher Arbeiten, die bereits in die ersten Ausgabe der Traumdeutung Eingang fanden, wird Freuds nachhaltige Vertrautheit mit den platonischen Lehren erläutert und seine damit einhergehende direkte Textkenntnis der thematisch relevanten Stellen aus Platons Staat aufgezeigt.
Die strukturelle Analogie von Freud’schem und platonischem Seelenbegriff wird inhaltlich am Traum als »Königsweg zum Unbewussten«, in dem von Freud selbst angesprochenen Verhältnis von Eros und Libido sowie an den ethischen und moralischen Dimensionen von Traum und Wahn erkennbar.""

The notion of eros as it is developed in Diotima's speech in the Symposium is used to interpret Socrates' discussion of "taking a stand" in the Apology.  Eros, as the arena of vulnerability and commitment, is then shown to define the terrain of education and justice.  This allows the conclusion that knowledge is self-transformation in light of one's sense of the good.

Love and furious love has an important place in ancient Greek philosophy and Christianity. In this article, we will examine the meaning of the terms “agapi” and “furious love” in
two characteristic texts of the ancient Greek literature and the Christian and even the New
Testament. Characteristically, we will refer to these two terms through Plato's “Symposium”
and John's evangelist “first Catholic Letter”. The questions that we are asked to answer are
how do the ancient Greeks analyze terms and how do Christians? Can it be a common component between the contents of these two terms according to what is written in Plato's Symposium and in the Epistle of John? Christian or ancient Greek love are connected through the
salvation of the other and which of the two respects the free will of the other

This paper was done for an undergraduate philosophy class at Indiana University Southeast.  It focuses on proto-feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft's critique of the eros- which was particularly based on Rousseau's ideas- and how she applied it to relationships between men and women.  In Wollstonecraft's time relations between men and women were not equal primarily because women did not have the same educational rights, privileges, and accesses as men did.  This paper applies Wollstonecraft's original ideas found in her "Vindication of the Rights of Women" and applies and studies it to various male-female relationships throughout history, whether mythical or actual.  It examines the problems with relationships built on superficial attractions and the advantages of relationships built on substantial commonalities (both phrases given to me by my educator Dr. Leigh Viner).

En Los helechos arborescentes, la Historia de España pasa ante los ojos de Francesillo, un adolescente que vive en Valladolid. En esta ciudad coinciden personajes y hechos históricos de diferentes épocas que, sin embargo, se relacionan con naturalidad. De modo que «Francesillo ha reunido, y confundido […] su historia con la Historia» (Martínez, 2004, pp. 215-216). Se produce así una «simultaneidad» (Haro, 1999, p. 9) que le permite a Francesillo narrar la Historia de España en su conjunto y otorgarle un sentido: la «eterna guerra civil…» (157). La Historia se pliega como un abanico, de modo que los acontecimientos dispersos representan la oposición entre la violencia militar y la imaginación que permite la libertad del personaje. El narrador maneja el tiempo de la historia para generar un efecto fantástico detrás del que hay un ejercicio crítico y una parodia al poder. Dicho en otras palabras, el mismo lenguaje que utiliza sirve para dotar de sentido a la historia y para tomar distancia de la misma. Este trabajo rinde homenaje a los 40 años de la publicación del la novela de Francisco Umbral y resulta de especial interés por la falta de estudios críticos sobre esta obra en concreto. Se analizan las técnicas narrativas que permiten la confusión de los tiempos y que otorgan un sentido a una historia en un primer momento dispersa. Asimismo, se abordan los aspectos thanáticos del ideal militar aparente y caduco frente a los aspectos eróticos que permiten la imaginación de Francesillo.

The nature of the erotic (including the sexual) is subversive but not transgressive. The difference between these two positions is vast. Transgressive means to violate an appropriate value or boundary. Subversive implies the intentional subverting of cultural values or boundaries for the sake of a higher vision. Transgressive undermines that which should not be undermined. Subversive is revolutionary, undermining that which needs to be overthrown. The difference is subtle but highly significant. The goal is to move from the unconscious to the conscious, from shadow to light. When we liberate Eros, we are able to access the aliveness of transgressive sex in the context of our committed relationships of whatever nature they might be. The way to do so is to restore temple consciousness—that is to say, a world in which sex is not transgressive but subversive. Sex is subversive in that it points to an order of being beyond the conventional. Ordinary reality involves pragmatic surface relationships in which each person looks out for his or her own self-interest. The basic social contract of society is built on precisely such notions of individual self-interest and civil interaction. Sexuality models the possibility of breaking the boundary of the superficial to enter the deep. Sex, in its ideal form, subverts the “normal” order of society.

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According to the centuries-long analysis of Homer by the idealist philosophers of Greece, the venerable bard’s recondite conclusion in the ‘Iliad’ is that Mankind is the subject of an infinite educative process. Mankind is being taught the true meaning of the words “Beauty,” “Truth,” and “Goodness” which, after a long, bloody, stupid, and futile course of evasion, denial, and senseless disputation, they necessarily find to be equivalent and then begin to live accordingly.

N.B.: Readers are advised of the subsequent substantial conceptual concretion of the foregoing thesis in a series of studies by the same author, to be found here:

'Totalization of Universal History by Meta-Analytic Ascent (URLs)'
(https://www.academia.edu/43292436/Totalization_of_Universal_History_by_Meta-Analytic_Ascent_URLs_)

RESUMO
Este artigo busca apresenta dois temas religiosos em Platão: a sua noção de deus e a ascese erótica do Simpósio. Em um primeiro momento, o artigo apresenta alguns aspectos da noção de deus em Platão, mais especificamente no Timeu e na República, e depois, em uma segunda parte, apresentará a importância de Eros como motor do conhecimento filosófico na Simpósio. Apresento de forma resumida os argumentos principais no diálogo Timeu de Platão que descrevem o Demiurgo, artesão do Cosmos, suas atividades e suas características. Como modo a complementar certos traços do que se poderia chamar de deus em Platão, apresento ainda algumas passagens em que se fala sobre deus e seus aspectos na República. Por fim, na segunda parte do artigo, analiso a Escada Erótica descrita por Diotima como sendo parte dos mistérios elevados do Eros, presente no Simpósio 210a.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Platão. Deus. Eros. República. Timeu. Simpósio

RESUMÉ
Cet article veut montrer deux thèmes religieux en Platon : sa notion de dieu e la ascese erotique présent dans le Symposium. En premier lieu, l'article montre quelques aspects de la notion de dieu chez Platon, en particulier dans le Timée et la République. Puis, en deuzième partie, on montrera l'importance d'Eros comme moteur de la conaissance philosophique dans le Syposium. On résumera les principaux arguments du Timée qui décrivent le Démiurge, artisan du cosmos, sés activités et sés caractéristiques. Afin de compléter certains aspects de ce qu'on pourrait appeler dieu chez Platon, l'article présente encore quelques passages où on parle de dieu et sés aspects dans la République. Enfim, dans la seconde partie du texte, j'analyse l'Échelle Érotique, décrite par Diotime comme partie des Mystéres Élevés d'Eros et présente dans Symposium 210a.
MOT-CLES: Platon. Dieu. Eros. République. Timée. Symposium.

I interpret, defend and partially transform Freud’s notion of “the unconscious” as it is developed in Freud's work, "Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality." In Section 1, I focus on the conceptions of childhood and of the body that are at play in the “Three Essays,” in order to develop an understanding of the self-transcending character of human experience. In Section 2, I carry over the conclusions from Section 1 to show that Freud’s studies require that the human family be reconceived as an experiential reality, rather than a biological one. Section 3 investigates the experience of other persons upon which the child’s experience of the family depends; this leads to a criticism of Freud, and an argument that the unconscious must be understood as inherently intersubjective. Section 4 uses the results of Section 3 to show that it is phenomenological philosophy that properly lives up to the demands of method that are entailed by the Freudian conception of the unconscious, and that it is thus phenomenological philosophy.

This paper seeks to explore the folk aesthetics of the springtime Bihu festival of Assam. The concept of Rasa, a significant part of the classical aesthetics found in Bharatmuni’s Natyashastra, has been outlined and illustrated through the Bihu songsthe dancing, the gestures as well as the overall ethos of the festival. A major aspect of the paper is the dialectics that form between the folk and the classical canon; an effort has been made to understand the juxtaposition of the two as well as the formation of the classical from the folk. Bihu as a celebration of eros, romance and fertility forms the core of the argument; adi-rasa and shringar-rasa form the primary essence of this celebration and this paper. This folk festival is undergoing rapid modernisation which has brought the dance form onto the urban stage that has led to the metamorphosis of the otherwise agricultural nomenclature of Bihu into a more ‘sanitised’ version of the same. [

It is a widespread belief, today as much as in the day of archaic Greek poetry, that those who are in love are not free, but rather slaves, prisoners of the desire to become conjoined with their beloved. This is the love of Aphrodite, sexual desire; authentic erotic desire is instead the love of Eros, understood as a psychic tension, a relationship between two lovers who remain free. This is the kind of love described by Plato in the Symposium through Diotima’s speech, delivered by Socrates, which explains why he refused to unite with Alcibiades. True love means freedom, self-sufficiency and independence as part of couple. But how is it possible to be self-sufficient and independent? By knowing oneself, taking care of one’s soul, taking the time to look within, detaching oneself from the goods and obligations of the world around us. The re-appropriation of time, its subversion, its suspension, is the key to everything. It is the suspension which Plato invites us to perform in Phaedrus, when – in a description that finds no parallels in the dialogues – he shows Socrates leaving the city, and stopping to rest under a tree. This rest is not sleep intended to restore the body from daily toils and to prepare it for other labors, but a time to engage in dialogue, to heal the soul. The suspension of time is the sap of authentic erotic desire: it is the time which Odysseus and Penelope take for themselves, in an exemplary way, when they meet again after spending twenty years apart.

In order to understand the Socrates of Plato’s Dialogues as someone moved by eros one must recognize two dimensions of this character: firstly, that he is a man who has experienced a conversion which has turned him into a lover of the highest form of knowledge; secondly, that he is a man who by this conversion became, as the Symposium puts it, “fruitful in the soul”, i.e., someone who feels the urgent need to communicate his knowledge once he has found the right receptacle. Being “fruitful in the soul” represents, in the largest part of the Symposium, a person who is able to lead young men to the acquisition of civic virtue, engaging in pederastic relationships with them; being so, Socrates too establishes pederastic relations with young men, but one of a very special kind. On the one hand, he is “pregnant” with “epistemic virtue” and feels the need to pass it on. On the other hand, he is not interested in the body of young men, nor is he expecting sexual favours in return. A unitary interpretation of Socrates’ character through the Dialogues will show that He is not driven by sexual attraction for
the young men he longs to guide, as a superficial approach might suggest.
Keywords: Socrates, Plato, eros, lover, guide.


Compreender o Sócrates dos Diálogos platônicos como um homem animado por eros implica em reconhecer duas dimensões dessa personagem: em primeiro lugar, trata-se de um homem que passou por uma conversão, fato que o transformou num apaixonado pela mais alta forma de conhecimento; em segundo lugar, é um homem
que, após tal conversão, tornou-se, como diz o Banquete, “fecundo na alma”, ou seja, alguém que experimenta urgência em transmitir seus conhecimentos quando encontra um receptáculo adequado. O “fecundo na alma” representa, em boa parte do Banquete, o homem que é capaz de guiar os jovens no caminho da aquisição da virtude cívica e que se engaja numa relação pederástica com eles, de modo que também a personagem Sócrates estabelece relações pederásticas, as quais, todavia, são de natureza singularíssima. Se, por um lado, Sócrates é “grávido” da virtude “epistêmica”, a qual vai além da virtude cívica tradicional, por outro lado, Sócrates não se interessa pelo corpo dos
jovens que guia, nem deles espera favores sexuais. Uma interpretação unitária desta personagem através dos diálogos permitirá sustentar que Sócrates não é movido por atração sexual pelos jovens que guia, ainda que uma abordagem superficial de certas passagens possa sugerir o contrário.
Palavras-chave: Sócrates, Platão, eros, amante, guia

Baudelaire and Mallarmé had an impact on Rosa Chacel, who was an attentive reader and translator of classic and modern French literature. Both writers strengthen Chacel’s preference for traditional genres such as the sonnet, her favourite poetic form. While Baudelaire serves her explicitly as a thematic model for an open examination of subject matters that are transcendent but also close to ordinary life, the traces of Mallarmé in her work are also a central element, though discreet and almost furtive. Beyond the borrowing of several passages, metaphors or themes, Mallarme’s influence becomes evident in Chacel’s playful use of poetry about everyday life, where the opacity so peculiar to the master of symbolist writers plays a leading role.

The Culture of Victimhood
The Hagar Complex
In rejecting Hagar’s tears, biblical consciousness speaks with great power to the epidemic of victimhood that threatens to cripple much of what is great and good in Western society. Hagar is abused. She is hurt. She is a victim. And Hagar has power. She has options. She can turn fate into destiny. She can embrace the desert. Her tears become not the ritual bath of her purification but the swamp of her drowning. She falls prey to the Hagar complex of victim identity.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Naftali of Ropshitz, a Hassidic Zen master of sorts, was once called upon to attempt an intervention with the son of a Polish nobleman.
For some reason, the boy has been crying nonstop. He refuses to be comforted. No one is quite sure what is the source of his pain. Days have gone by, and he simply continues to cry. All the great physicians and healers have been brought in to stop the boy’s crying and restore him to the land of the living—what we moderns like to call functionality.