Rico Sneller

Ethiek en religie

2012-01-24T15:19:00.002+01:00

Lezing Dr Rico Sneller over "Ethiek en religie", Rotterdam, Café De Bovenwereld, maandag 31 januari 20.30-22.30. Voor meer info, zie hier.

minisymposium Filosofie en spiritualiteit, 10 februari 2012

2012-01-02T11:24:00.004+01:00

Filosofie en Spiritualiteit

10 februari 2012

De ziel in therapie

Tegenwoordig is spiritualiteit een officiële categorie in de definitie van gezondheid zoals die door de The World Health Organisation wordt gehanteerd: gezondheid als dynamiek van fysiek, mentaal, spiritueel en sociaal welbevinden. In Nederland vindt tweederde van de bevolking dat reguliere en betrouwbare alternatieve behandelwijzen samen moeten gaan in een integrale gezondheidszorg. Na een filosofische bespiegeling over de verdwijning en de terugkeer van het zielsbegrip, worden in dit mini-symposium vier alternatieve behandelwijzen gepresenteerd waarin spiritualiteit en de ziel centraal staan.

PLAATS:

Universiteit Leiden, Pieter de la Courtgebouw, zaal SB45, Wassenaarseweg 52, Leiden (Achter station CS, zie hier).

DATUM:

vrijdag 10 februari 2012

TIJD:

11:00 – 17:00 uur (Let op: vervroegde aanvangstijd)

KOSTEN:

€ 5,- te voldoen bij entree.
NB: voor studenten en medewerkers van de UL is de toegang gratis

Programma

11:00 uur Prof. dr. Hans Gerding (dagvoorzitter)

Opening en welkom

11.15 uur Dr. Gerard Visser

Van substantie naar resonantie.

Over het lot van het zielsbegrip in filosofie en wetenschap

Het zielsbegrip is in filosofie en wetenschap geleidelijk gestorven. Voeling ermee keert vanaf het einde van de 19^e eeuw in de filosofie terug en dat vooral in het kader van de rehabilitatie van affectiviteit en individualiteit. Maar voltrekt ditzelfde zich tegenwoordig niet minstens zo krachtig, zo niet sterker binnen alternatieve therapieën?

12:00 uur Drs. Trees van Ewijk (reïncarnatietherapie)

Laat het verleden los

Over een retour naar een vorig leven van onze ziel. Als je het verleden los kunt laten, kan je meer in het hier en nu leven. Dát is het doel van reïncarnatietherapie. In deze therapie gaat men er van uit dat niet alleen ervaringen uit ons huidige leven nog grip op ons kunnen hebben, maar ook ervaringen uit een vorig leven, waarin onze ziel in een ander lichaam op aarde leefde.

12:45 uur Lunch (de mensa is open)

13:45 uur Henk Visser (kinesiologie)

Onbekende en ongekende mogelijkheden van kinesiologie

Met kinesiologie kunnen we met dat ongrijpbare fenomeen, onze ziel, communiceren! Het is een effectieve manier om zonder veel praten het contact met de ziel te herstellen, te verbeteren of te verdiepen. Met kinesiologie wordt eerst het lichaam in balans gebracht. Vervolgens zorgt de creatieve verbeelding voor de benodigde antwoorden voor herstel van binnenuit. Twaalf zielskwaliteiten spelen hierbij een belangrijke rol.

14:30 uur Drs. Stella Lackore (creatieve therapie)

Hand - Hoofd - Hart: voedsel voor de ziel

Na mijn ‘Werdegang’ wordt mijn werk als creatief therapeut beeldend bij de GGZ Kinderen & Jeugd belicht: intake, observatie en evaluatie en het werk van de jongeren. Een intermezzo van 10 minuten: zelf ervaren, observeren of beschrijven. Tenslotte: mensbeeld en de spirituele en transpersoonlijke ontwikkeling.

15:15 uur Thee pauze

15:45 uur Drs. Jos Olgers (hypnotherapie)

Hypnotherapie: Heling door communicatie met het onbewuste

Hypnose kan gebruikt worden om toegang tot het onbewuste te verkrijgen en om de onbewuste inhouden en processen te leren kennen. Aan de hand van voorbeelden wordt ingegaan op onbewust handelen, onbewuste lichaamsprocessen en op hypnotische trance. Bij dit alles ligt de nadruk op de therapeutische mogelijkheden die hypnose biedt.

16:30 uur Forumdiscussie

17:00 uur Einde (borrel in café De Koets)

Voorafgaande registratie is niet vereist maar wordt wel op prijs gesteld. Klik hier.

Filosofie en spiritualiteit is an initiatief van prof. dr Hans Gerding (Wijsbegeerte UL), dr. Gerard Visser (Wijsbegeerte UL), drs. Barbara Zwaan (Godsdienstwetenschappen UL) en dr. Rico Sneller (Godsdienstwetenschappen UL)

Minisymposium Filosofie en spiritualiteit: Boekpresentatie "Wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn"

2011-11-11T11:29:00.000+01:00

Filosofie & Spiritualiteit

9 december 2011

13.30-16.30 uur

Lipsiusgebouw, zaal 003

Cleveringaplaats 1, Leiden

Boekpresentatie

Wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn.

Filosofen over telepathie en andere buitengewone menselijke ervaringen

(Ten Have 2011)

Hein van Dongen, Hans Gerding, Rico Sneller

In alle tijden en culturen rapporteren mensen buitengewone ervaringen. Deze ervaringen zijn voor veel mensen belangrijk voor de manier waarop zij zich oriënteren op zichzelf, hun medemens en de wereld waarin zij leven. Deze ervaringen zijn door wetenschap en filosofie (nog?) niet getemd. Ze worden in leerboeken voor psychologie- en filosofiestudenten nauwelijks of hooguit in voetnoten genoemd. En als ze besproken worden overheersen reductionistische en betekenisonderdrukkende 'verklaringen'. Wie desondanks in de wijsbegeerte naar deze ervaringen op zoek gaat, wordt niet teleurgesteld. Grote filosofen blijken zich er niet alleen mee bezig gehouden te hebben, maar er ook verrassende ideeën over te hebben.

13.30 uur

Dr. Hein van Dongen

Over het ontstaan van het boek:

Wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn

13.45 uur

Prof. dr. Hans Gerding

Buitengewone ervaringen: incidentie en betekenis

Uit enqête-onderzoek blijkt dat ongewone ervaringen massaal worden gerapporteerd. Mensen melden ondermeer, buitenlichamelijke ervaringen, helderziendheid, telepathie en voorschouw. Hoe reageren therapeuten, wetenschappers en filosofen? Hoe reageren de mensen die zulke ervaringen hebben, en met welke levensvragen brengen zij deze ervaringen in verband?

14.30 uur

Dr. Rico Sneller

Parapsychologie als spiritualiteit?

'Spiritualiteit' kan worden beschouwd als aandacht voor de diepte en reikwijdte van onze ervaring. In de middeleeuwen waren het mystici, in de Romantiek occultisten en kunstenaars, eind 19e eeuw de eerste psychologen en begin 20e eeuw de fenomenologie, die deze diepte en reikwijdte hebben proberen te redden voor het intellectuele discours. Het is aan deze denkers en stromingen te danken dat de hedendaagse filosofie überhaupt nog enige interesse heeft voor 'spiritualiteit', en niet volkomen is weggezakt in het cerebrale spierballenvertoon van de analytische wijsbegeerte. Is het misschien mogelijk om de zogenaamde 'common sense', waarvan zoveel hedendaagse denkers zeggen uit te willen gaan, te ontgrenzen in de richting van een 'uncommon sense'? Richten de uitzonderlijke menselijke bewustzijnstoestanden die de parapsychologie bestudeert niet evenzovele vragen aan de strakheid van de grenzen van het 'normale', 'rationele' bewustzijn?

14.45 uur pauze

15.15 uur

Dr. Hein van Dongen

Psychical Research: een verdwenen geschiedenis

Psychical research was historisch onderzoek: onderzoek naar buitengewone ervaringen die concrete mensen in hun levensgeschiedenis hebben meegemaakt. Het vak is nu zelf een historisch verschijnsel geworden: de belangstelling van wetenschappers en filosofen voor dit onderzoek is goeddeels verleden tijd, de bevindingen lijken te zijn vergeten.

Het is opvallend dat dit vergeten onderzoek, dat zo discontinu lijkt te zijn met de wetenschappelijke cultuur, zelf juist de discontinuïteit van het geheugen onderzocht. In een tijd waarin alles transparant moet zijn en we zogenaamd 'over alle informatie beschikken' zijn we ons niet meer bewust van de selectiviteit van ons geheugen. Misschien is psychical research toch een wetenschap voor de toekomst.

16.00 uur

Forumdiscussie

16.30 Voor wie wil … mee naar het café

Meer informatie: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Boek voorbestellen, zie hier.

Voorafgaande registratie is niet vereist maar wordt wel op prijs gesteld.

nieuw tijdschrift Violence and Religion

2011-11-01T15:38:00.000+01:00

Zie hier voor de officiële aankondiging van een nieuw internationaal tijdschrift over Religion and Violence. Enige tijd geleden ben ik tot de redactie toegetreden. Indien de tijd het toelaat wil ik zelf enkele bijdragen het licht laten zien over o.a. de Franse 'geweldsfilosofen' René Girard en Georges Bataille, of ook n.a.v. mijn huidige MA seminar Ethics and Religion: War and Peace. Eén van de auteurs die hier op het programma staat is de filosoof/psychoanalyticus Erich Fromm, bekend van zijn werk The Anatomy of Human Destructivity.

Van harte aanbevolen!

publicatie Terrorisme en ethiek

2011-10-18T10:49:00.000+02:00

Binnenkort verschijnt er een boek waarbij ik betrokken ben geweest: Mahmoud Masaeli (ed.), Morality and Terrorism. An Interfaith Perspective. Dit boek gaat terug op een conferentie te Ottawa uit 2010, die werd georganiseerd door mijn bevriende collega Dr Mahmoud Masaeli. Van een eerdere conferentie te Ottawa zijn de resultaten gepubliceerd onder de titel: The Ethical Wrongfulness of Terrorist Actions (Ottawa, Commoners Publishing, 2009), zie hier.

Mijn eigen bijdrage handelt over apocalyptisch bewustzijn binnen het jodendom. Ik vergelijk een tweetal apocalyptische denkers, van wie de één welbewust geweldloosheid voorstaat (Walter Benjamin, 1892-1940) en de ander geweld niet schuwt (Meir Kahane, 1932-1990).

Zie hier voor meer informatie.

nieuwe publicatie: Filosofie en "uitzonderlijke menselijke ervaringen"

2011-10-18T10:47:00.000+02:00

Binnenkort verschijnt er een boek dat ik samen met twee bevriende collega's heb geschreven: Wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn. Filosofen over telepathie en andere buitengewone ervaringen.

Wetenschappers nemen ‘paranormale ervaringen’ nauwelijks serieus. Vroeger was dat anders. Het concept ‘paranormaal’ bestond niet eens. Voor filosofen als Kant, Schopenhauer en Bergson waren het hooguit bijzondere, intrigerende ervaringen.

William James, die uitgebreid studie maakte van spiritistische mediums, noemde ze ‘wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn’.

Dit boek maakt duidelijk dat voor veel filosofen – van Kant tot Derrida – omstreden verschijnselen als telepathie en helderziendheid een serieus studieobject vormen. De auteurs bestuderen veelzeggende teksten van filosofen die tot nu toe weinig aandacht kregen. Ze laten zien hoe elk van deze denkers op eigen wijze een serieuze interpretatie probeerde te geven van zulke ervaringen, die op het eerste gezicht ons begrip te boven lijken te gaan.

Dr. Hein van Dongen is filosofisch consulent, docent en onderzoeker voor diverse instellingen.

Prof.dr. Hans Gerding is directeur van het Parapsychologisch Instituut te Utrecht en bijzonder hoogleraar Metafysica in de geest van de theosofie aan het Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte van de Universiteit Leiden.

Dr. Rico Sneller is universitair docent Wijsgerige ethiek aan het Leids Instituut voor Godsdienstwetenschappen.

Voor meer informatie en bestellen zie hier.

Yes and No

2011-09-17T22:44:00.000+02:00

The Yes Foundation

Den Bosch/webcam 16 september 2011

Gott spricht nur immer Ja, der Teufel saget Nein;

Drum kann er auch mit Gott nicht Ja und eines sein.

God always says Yes, the Devil says No;

Therefore he cannot be Yes and One with God.

A quote from the 16th Century mystical thinker Angelus Silesius. God always says: Yes. He is himself a Yes: an infinite affirmation, an affirmation of existence. Everything that exists, inhales and exhales this Yes. It repeats it. Just by its act of being, all that exists repeats this Yes. Even if it says No. Even my No says: Yes. I cannot deny this. I cannot deny this arch-Yes, this original Yes underlying each affirmation and each negation. This arch-Yes derives from an arch-Yesterday. Today repeats this Yesterday. Today, I am repeating Yesterday’s Yes.

The Devil denies. He says No. He doesn’t want… What does he not want? Just anything, he does not want as such. He rejects. He declines. He does not want to repeat this arch-Yes that has always already resonated. Even though he himself always already repeats it. Even the Devil affirms. If the Devil says No, he cannot deny that he also says Yes. His negation affirms itself. It says Yes by saying No. If the Devil says: I don’t want this or that, he cannot deny implying: True, indeed, I DO not want this or that. It is true that I do not want it. I affirm that I do not want it.

If God says Yes, and the Devil says No, then the devil cannot silence God’s Yes. He just repeats it.

The devil cannot deny Yesterday. He cannot deny the day before he was born. He always comes too late.

The devil’s No is a way of saying Yes. If we assume that for example War is a huge denial, a denial of Peace, of Law and Order, of Art, of Philosophy, of Religion, then even War breaths a Yes. There is a Yes even in War, however atrocious it in itself is. The No cannot deny the Yes by simultaneously repeating this Yes.

Then why is there a No? Why is there War? Why is there a devil saying No?

I don’t know. Nobody does. Nobody knows why there is a No. Knowing itself, the activity of knowing, the notion of knowledge as such, already implies this negation. Every determination implies a negation. For example: if I know that the world is round, I know that it is not flat. So knowing the reason for the existence of this No already obeys to its logic. If someone claims: “I know why there is a No in this world, let me explain you”, then one may easily reply: “you are lying. For if you had truly known the reason for this No, you would not have known. True ‘knowledge’ of the No cannot be knowledge anymore. No, it can’t.”

And why is there this Yes? Can we procure the foundation of it? Is there a Yes foundation? No, there is not any. The Yes cannot even be said to have founded itself. It is just there. And we repeat it, just by being there. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Yes, we do.

Aphorisms 2011

2011-09-02T20:21:00.000+02:00

Diesseits bin ich gar nicht fassbar.

Not all of the telepathic messages you received were addressed to you. You may have picked up one by accident.

In touching there is neither subject nor object.

Even a nightmare's prophecy can be prevented by a good interpretation.

Our dream is heading towards its interpretation, inverting time.

I am suffering from a severe midwife crisis.

A dream will only become true after it has been interpreted.

A dream will only become true after it has been interpreted.

Philosophy is a matter for the genius, NOT for common sense.

What of consciousness were not reality's absolute opposite, but a PART of it?

Love is an quake of space, a spacecake.

There is no place, nor is there space. Feel how your place is always already shaken by a metaphysical earthquake!

The degree zero of language is writing.

Our memory: a stimuli rejection of our neural network.

Our relation to the telepathic is neither one of knowing nor of not-knowing.

Only parapsychology could give an appropriate foundation for morality.

If man as a person is immortal, then the higher animals must also be. (Hans Driesch)

This f*cking anglosaxon approach prevents students from thinking!

Freedom is linked to necessity. Arbitrariness is alien to both.

A true experience of spirits can only be achieved in... freedom.

»Dein Herz ist wie eine Berliner Synagoge / Es wird Tag und Nacht bewacht / Ich wünschte es wäre anders / Aber es ist anders als gedacht.«

Making them as crazy as I am ... myself.

Women adore being refuted. It gives them the feeling of finally being taken seriously.

The Buddha must have reached enlightenment only after his death. His life must have been romanticised by ... those who plucked the fruits of his doctrine.

I only have faith in philosophers struggling with life. I cannot but feel pity for those combining there job with being director or manager.

Those babbling about the need for 'interdisciplinarity' and who tell you that "much work has to be done yet" are the true nihlists. They have been foreseen by Zarathustra.

Human sciences today are in profound need of spiritual orientation. What I have tasted of them up to now is so incredibly empty! It's abhorrent!

This man talks for an hour but has nothing to say. ("Thank you for this very instructive and insightful lecture." pffffff)

I wanna be the disciple of the philosopher I will be in my next incarnation (which I shall assume only if my current life remains as unenlightened as yours has always been).

I don't speak Italian but I just try, by italicising my Romanticism.

Ultimately, war cannot be distinguished from peace.

Polemoumen hin' eirènèn agomen, we are polemical in order to commit peace.

Ascholoumetha hina scholazomen, we don't go to school in order to go to school. ;)

Theodicy: a cosmic 'potatoe' is being peeled. There being no extra-cosmic 'bin' to throw the peelings in, they are recycled inside.

Je n'ai aucun besoin d'un Dieu que je comprends. (Bottéro)

Noctem amplectere mihi placet. Ani rotsee lashevet bemachsevat hashem. Kalè nychta o makarioi!

Our strongest motives upon which we determine our action are usually, nay, always, the ones we resist to.

Our death instinct is ultimately a ruse of ... the libido.

We need no teachers of religion! We need Talmudists! (And philosophers, to prevent you from getting all too stupid).

The essence of faith: a readiness to suffer.
Freud may have read Job III, before musing about man's Thanatos:
הַמְחַכִּים לַמָּוֶת וְאֵינֶנּוּ; וַיַּחְפְּרֻהוּ, מִמַּטְמוֹנִים.
Who long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;

Quand on aime, on traduit. (Pierre Assouline)

We are all born crazy, only some remain it. (Samuel Beckett)

All (wo)men are Jewish, only some remember it. (Bernard Malamud)
Can (reflective) consciousness finally master any destructive death instinct? If so, how?

The concept of 'matter' has been a stumbling block for most, if not all, philosophers.

It suffices to walk one night in Vienna or Kaunas or Pécs or Lodz or Czernowitz to perceive that the streets are full of Jews who are not there.

Is Jewish (s)he whose grandchildren will be Jewish. (Adin Steinsaltz)

‎"La poésie c'est quand un mot en rencontre un autre pour la première fois." Jean Tardieu

‎"One's opinions are one's psychical fixations, nothing more nothing less. (thanks to MM)

Are not some autistiform 'disturbances' in fact related to... the third eye?

Had we not better refrain from language altogether if we want to do justice to 'reality'...

J'immisce mes spéculations métaphysiques avec des spéculations... encore plus métaphysiques!

Man is the weakest animal on earth! Man is so... feminine!!!

Beautiful women are ultimately not impressed by physical beauty, they are magnitised by spirit.

Does Being itself presuppose or transcend consciousness?

Has not Kant neglected to re-ontologise transcendental consciousness?

Can the knowledge of nature be itself a part or product of nature? (T.H. Green)

Towards the elimination of ethics as a system of precepts.

Free will is not a human faculty, it is an ontological possibility.

The exact numerical middle of the Torah: daroosh darash, "he diligently sought" (Leviticus X, 16). Its essence and meaning is to be sought, it is not a given. (cf M.-A. Ouaknin)

The universal is the local without walls. (Miguel Torga)

The novelist does not invent but transforms the real into a fable.

Our most tender and thrilling declarations of love arise out of a suppressed impulse of ... hostility.

The essence of psychic diseases: regression to previous states of our affect life.

Our social virtues: egoistic motives supplemented with erotic ones.

Those whom we admire as morally 'good' usually have been facing the strongest 'evil' inclinations in their childhood. So many Ghandi's and Mother Theresa's, so many neatly prevented... catastrophes!

Love and hate within us usually tend towards the very SAME object (i.e. 'person').

Our conscience: a form of social anxiety.

In my previous life I was... you!

Single women with spiritual wisdom: if you want to become happy, there is only ONE remedy: take a man whom you can be ... subservient to.

Depression is a form of impeded creativity.

Tears are the brickstones of the coming kingdom, smiles its cement, beauty its gate, love its sanctuary. Its soul is... Thou-ness, pure and intense Thou-ness.

If you start crying for the loss of something or someone, it's a sign that your sadness has always already been there, even before the moment of loss. Sadness doesn't need an immediate cause, you see?

The human psyche (the ‘subjective’) and outward history (the ‘objective’) may be intertwined, the world an extension of the soul.

War: an interference of two opposed time schedules: 1) diachrony (i.e. ordinary, linear time), and 2) synchrony (i.e. the time of victory, victorious time)

There may be a higher unity of the ‘moral’ (soll, ought to, should) and the ‘inevitable’ (muss, must).

And you, Anja Meulenbelt, and you, Gretta Duisenberg, and you, Helen Thomas, shall I explain your exasperating critiques of Israel? Let me guess: you are profoundly lacking an intimate love relationship!

And all ye empirical nitwits, I want ye to enjoy at typically Dutch rainy summer! That's what you f*ck*ng need!

Women seem to be predisposed for pre-intentionality, men for post-intentionality. Scientists, computer salesmen, and fish-women, however, cannot overcome mere intentionality.

Whatever you in your moral courage may have to reproach to Berlusconi, he possesses something that you don't: wit.

Our life's flow consists of a PERFECT mixture between choice and fatal determination.

Unknowingly we already determine our future in our past. Our life's space-time, like Einstein's, is curved.

I just DON'T like prosaic people!
The divine in us must be unfrozen. Do you want me to be your microwave or your oven?
Instinct is not to be reviled. It's rather a matter of subtle perception!

‎'Fascism' is a dimension inherent to any view. It may be equivalent to having a viewpoint as such. It's opposite is: structural hesitation.

Neem een abonnement op het tijdschrift Filosofie!

2011-06-29T18:03:00.002+02:00

Neem nu een abonnement op het tijdschrift Filosofie! Studenten genieten korting! Sinds kort zit ik in de redactie. "Filosofie" is serieuzer dan het Filosofie Magazine, maar minder zwaarwichtig dan het Tijdschrift voor filosofie. Enkele nummers per jaar zijn gewijd aan een filosoof (Augustinus, Spinoza, Marx, Schopenhauer), andere aan een thema (Verlichting, Filosofie en psychiatrie, Muziek, Politieke filosofie, Vrije wil, Monotheïsme, Religiekritiek enz enz).

Verder zijn er vaste rubrieken over Filosofie en techniek, Filosofie en onderwijs, Comparatieve filosofie (Filosofie Oost-West), Praktische filosofie enz.

Hier vind je een link naar het tijdschrift en de uitgeverij (Garant, Antwerpen/Apeldoorn).

Miniconferentie Filosofie en spiritualiteit, Leiden, 17 juni 2011: ‘Het stoïcisme als spirituele levenskunst?’

2011-06-01T10:43:00.000+02:00

Minisymposium Filosofie en Spiritualiteit

Vrijdag 17 juni (13.30-16.30 uur)

Van Eyckhof 1 zaal 003C

Het stoïcisme als spirituele levenskunst

Sprekers:

Dr. Rijk Schipper

Dr. Hilde Debacker

Inleiding

'Rede en begeerte in de klassieke filosofie'.

Dr. Rijk Schipper

De verhouding van rede en passies is voor mensen van alle tijden van groot belang geweest. Plato gebruikt het beeld van een driespan voor de vermogens van de menselijke ziel: de rede als bestuurder, het streven als het goede en de begeerte als het slechte paard. Ook meer gematigde posities komen wij tegen in de klassieke oudheid, zoals bij Aristoteles en de ‘middenplatonist’ Plutarchus. Zij dringen aan op het bewandelen van de middenweg, die wordt aangewezen door het inzicht.

Dr. H.G. Schipper is classicus, theoloog en filosoof. In 1997 promoveerde hij op het onderwerp ‘Leo de Grote en de manicheeërs’. Zijn boek Marsilio Ficino: De wereld als kunstwerk verscheen in 2005. Hij is werkzaam als docent klassieke talen en filosofie, zowel in universitair verband als aan het HBO. Verder is hij redacteur van Hermeneus, Tijdschrift voor antieke cultuur.

‘Het stoïcisme als spirituele levenskunst?’

Dr. Hilde Debacker

Kan je het stoïcisme beschouwen als een spirituele filosofie en welke rol spelen de door hun beoefende filosofische praktijken daarbij? Dat is de vraag die in deze lezing centraal staat.

Eerst wordt nader ingegaan op de aard van de stoïsche filosofie. Daarna wordt het scala aan stoïsche oefeningen onder de loep genomen. Om hun spiritueel karakter bloot te leggen, wordt tevens een vergelijking gemaakt met gelijkvormige boeddhistische oefeningen. Tot slot wordt (samen) gekeken naar de actuele relevantie van het stoïcisme als spirituele levenskunst.

Hilde Debacker (1972) begon haar loopbaan als coördinator in de Brusselse vluchtelingensector. Daarna was ze als onderzoeker werkzaam op de Vrij Universiteit Brussel. Ze verrichtte er onderzoek naar het stoïcisme als spirituele levenskunst en verdedigde in februari 2010 haar proefschrift hierover. Momenteel woont ze in Utrecht en is ze verbonden aan de Hogeschool voor Geesteswetenschappen. Ze is tevens werkzaam als sacrale dansdocente.

Meer informatie: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Voorafgaande registratie is niet vereist maar wordt wel op prijs gesteld.

Filosofie en parapsychologie

2011-03-25T11:38:00.000+01:00

Dit voorjaar verschijnt het er een boek, dat ik met twee bevriende collega's schreef, over filosofie en parapsychologie:

Wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn

Filosofen over telepathie en andere buitengewone ervaringen

Wetenschappers nemen ‘paranormale ervaringen’ nauwelijks serieus. Vroeger was dat anders. Het concept ‘paranormaal’ bestond niet eens. Voor filosofen als Kant, Schopenhauer en Bergson waren het hooguit bijzondere, intrigerende ervaringen.

William James, die uitgebreid studie maakte van spiritistische mediums, noemde ze ‘wilde beesten in de filosofische woestijn’.

Dit boek maakt duidelijk dat voor veel filosofen – van Kant tot Derrida – omstreden verschijnselen als telepathie en helderziendheid een serieus studieobject vormen. De auteurs bestuderen veelzeggende teksten van filosofen die tot nu toe weinig aandacht kregen. Ze laten zien hoe elk van deze denkers op eigen wijze een serieuze interpretatie probeerde te geven van zulke ervaringen, die op het eerste gezicht ons begrip te boven lijken te gaan.

Dr. Hein van Dongen is filosofisch consulent, docent en onderzoeker voor diverse instellingen.

Prof.dr. Hans Gerding is directeur van het Parapsychologisch Instituut te Utrecht en bijzonder hoogleraar Metafysica in de geest van de theosofie aan het Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte van de Universiteit Leiden.

Dr. Rico Sneller is universitair docent Wijsgerige ethiek aan het Leids Instituut voor Godsdienstwetenschappen.

Verschijningsdatum 15-1-2011

ISBN nummer 9789025959463

Bestel.

Conference 'The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective', Leiden 18-19 May 2011

2011-03-25T11:24:00.000+01:00

Conference 'The Root Causes of Terrorism: A Religious Studies Perspective', Leiden 18-19 May 2011

Introduction

Nine years after the event of the September 11th and the global war on terror, bombs are still blasted and innocent people are being killed under the banner of terrorism. Most of these sinisterly threatening events are motivated by religious claims, or are taken place in religiously affected places. Is religion the main cause of terrorism, or does terrorism still arise because of leaders who brainwash and coach future terrorists so that they kill under the banner of religion? Religious imagination seems to hold here an influential power in the creation of ‘delusion’ to orient the ‘bigot’ believers toward the fulfilling of their religious duty against those who are religious in a different way or not religious at all. Religion, in this sense, is tightly allied with political aspirations as it can be seen in most of the current instances

In spite of sacred pretexts justifying acts of killing, more ‘enlightened’ religious leaders and religious minded people believe and argue that religion is a source of peace and mercy. For them, the sacred texts must be read from a ‘humanist’ perspective because the whole religion is ultimately, so they claim, about human beings who are all equal and created by the same God. This is the attitude of many religious people today, i.e. that God is merciful and compassionate, and the religious tradition thus praised would never allow religious hatred, intolerance, and resentment. Nor do scriptures provide any rationale, so they say, for one-sided and serf-serving interpretations or interpretations that promote aggression against others. If religion falls short, they continue, of mercy, compassion, and peace, it falls into ideological dogma and stoned-headedness. Therefore, those interpretations that justify aggression and acts of killing are the shallow and purposeful readings of the religious texts aiming at political intentions, so more benevolent advocates of religions might plead.

Whatever reading of religious traditions one might advocate, it cannot be denied that in practice, religion and ‘violence’ often are closely associated. The central question of this conference is what a religious studies perspective (rather than that of a religious advocate or representative) can contribute to the deep links between religion and terrorism.

Organizers

Dr. Rico Sneller
Assistant professor of Ethics and History of Philosophy
Institute for Religious Studies
Leiden University
Phone: +31 71 527 2583 +31 71 527 2583
h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Dr. Lucien van Liere
Assistant Professor Religion and Conflict
Dep. Religiewetenschap en Theologie
Utrecht University
Phone: +31 30 253 1974 +31 30 253 1974
L.M.vanLiere@uu.nl

Dr. Jalil Roshandel
Associate professor
Director, Security Studies
East Carolina University
Brewster A - 116
Greenville, NC 27858-4353
Phone: 001 1 252 328 1062
RoshandelJ@ecu.edu

Dr. Mahmoud Masaeli
Professor of Ethics and International Relations
Faculty of Philosophy, Saint Paul University, Ottawa
President, Global Solutions Praxis
2028 Belcourt Blvd.
Ottawa, ON K1C 1M6
Phone: 001 613 818 4726 001 613 818 4726
mmasaeli@ustpaul.ca
president@global-solutions-praxis.ca

For further information, see here: http://hum.leiden.edu/religion/terrorism-conference-2011/

Review Jacob Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie

2011-03-23T18:04:00.000+01:00

Jacob Taubes, Abendländische Eschatologie. Mit einem Nachwort von Martin Treml, Berlin, Matthes & Seitz, 2007 (1991, 1947). 288S. ISBN 978-3-88221-256-3.

Review by Dr Rico Sneller, Leiden University, in: Church History and Religious Culture, 90.1, 2010, 157-158

Dem österreichischen Rabbiner und Philosophieprofessor Jacob Taubes (1923-1987) verdanken wir dieses faszinierende Studium des eschatologisch-apokalyptischen Motivs in der abendländischen Kulturgeschichte.

Die Erstausgabe seiner Doktorarbeit aus dem Jahr 1947 ist nicht mehr erhältlich, und die jetzige Neuausgabe, mit Nachwort versehen, erfolgt einer früheren von 1991. Obwohl Taubes überhaupt nicht auf geschichtliche Ereignisse eingeht und sich beschränkt auf die Entwicklung des einfachen Ideenbefundes, kann man sich des Aktualitätsanspruchs dieser Neuausgabe im ‚Zeitalter der Terror‘ nicht erwehren. Jüdisch-persischen Kreisen entstammend, so Taubes, erweisen sich apokalyptische Motive, wie etwa die einer künftigen Welt, eines transzendenten Gottes oder einer tiefgründigen Weltentfremdung der einzelnen Gläubigen, unerhört fruchtbar. Nicht nur in der vom griechischen Logos fast unberührt gebliebenen Gnosis, sondern auch in der von diesem gerade geprägten dominierenden abendländischen, theologischen sowie philosophischen Geschichte.

Ungeachtet der Verinnerlichung, die dem apokalyptischen Gedanken in den ersten Jahrhunderten nach Jesu Auftreten widerfährt (vgl. Origenes und Augustin), taucht er doch immer wieder auf, häufig in öffentlich verurteilten ‚chiliastischen‘ Bewegungen und Theologien.

Viel Wert legt Taubes auf die Bedeutung Joachims von Fiore, der sich sogar schon in seinem 12. Jahrhundert indirekt dem Judentum annäherte dadurch, dass er das Reich des Vaters (Altes Testament) und das des Sohnes (Neues Testament) jetzt für beendet hielt und das des Geistes, das „dritte“, für eröffnet. Der joachimitische Gedankengang wusste sich, Taubes zufolge, durchzusetzen und kehrte wieder in täuferischen Kreisen, wie etwa denjenigen Thomas Münzers (dessen epochemachende Bedeutung für spätere Revolutionäre nicht nur von Taubes, sondern auch schon von Ernst Bloch (ein)gesehen wurde).

Entscheidend ist hier überall, so Taubes, der apokalyptisch-gnostische Gedanke des Verfallenseins dieser Welt und der unmittelbar bevorstehenden Erlösung: „Denn mit der Apokalyptik und Gnosis hebt jene neue Denkform an, die sich untergründig, verdeckt von der aristotelischen und scholastischen Logik bis in die Gegenwart erhalten hat und von Hegel und Marx aufgenommen und ausgeformt wurde.“ (52)

Mit Hegel und Marx ist die christliche Apokalypse inzwischen zusammengebrochen oder aufgehoben in vereinzelten religiösen Sekten wie etwa verschiedenen kalvinistischen Gruppierungen aus England (woher unmittelbare Fäden zum späteren Sozialismus laufen), oder in Formen des Pietismus, oder auch in der Theologie des Coccejus. In säkularisierter Gestalt findet sich die Apokalypse verschiedenartig wieder in neuzeitlichen Philosophien, wie denjenigen Kants, Hegels und vor allem Marx‘ und Kierkegaards.

Man bedenke hier, dass Taubes für seine Einschätzung beider letzteren den Studien Karl Löwiths viel verdankt (so wie übrigens denen Hans Jonas‘ für seine Beurteilung der Gnosis).

Wo Hermann Mendelssohn und Cohen das vernünftige, und Gershom Scholem das mystische Erbe des Judentums aufzuzeigen versucht haben, da findet Taubes hauptsächlich die eschatologisch-apokalyptischen Befunde( vor).

Wie wir wissen aus seiner späteren Bemühung um „die politische Theologie des Paulus“ und seinen Beziehungen zu Carl Schmitt, dem ehemaligen ‚Kronjuristen des 3. Reiches‘, hat Taubes auch ein persönliches theologisches-philosophisches, nicht nur rein-historisches Interesse an den Apokalyptizismus.

Im 1. Abschnitt der Abendländischen Eschatologie heißt es schon: „Die gleichgültige Nähe zu Gott übersieht das Wesen der Geschichte als Weg zur Erlösung. Die Ideologie des Fortschritts vereinzelt dagegen den teleologischen Pol, wenn sie jeden Moment der Geschichte zu Gunsten eines Ideals entwertet, das im Unendlichen liegt statt im Ewigen.“ (23) Taubes Anliegen ist jedoch, die ursprüngliche Zukunftserwartung, die Hoffnung des nahen Kommens des Gottesreiches auf Erden, wieder hervorzuheben.

Dieses Studium verknüpft dazu scheinbar weit auseinanderliegende kulturhistorische Gedanken und Motive und verfolgt ihren Gang bis zu ihrem Verschwinden oder ihrer Aufhebung in säkularen Strömungen. Das Resultat ist eine höchst originelle Arbeit, deren Beitrag zur heutigen Debatte über aktuelle religiöse Seitenpositionen (nicht zuletzt diejenige des ‚religiösen Terrorismus‘) besonders wertvoll sein könnte.

Dr Rico Sneller, Leiden University

Minisymposium Filosofie en spiritualiteit, vrijdag 25 maart 2011

2011-02-18T10:17:00.003+01:00

Tussen licht en duisternis: de God van Rainer Maria Rilke

vrijdag 25 maart 13.30-16.30

Sprekers:

dr. Rick Benjamins (PThU)

coreferaat: dr. Henri Bloemen (Lessius Antwerpen/KULeuven)

Locatie:

Leiden, Matthias de Vrieshof 4, zaal 008A

Rick Benjamins

Mijn God is duister

God geeft zichzelf, maar God of het transcendente kun je alleen maar denken vanuit een bepaald perspectief dat door mensen ontworpen wordt. De ontvankelijkheid voor God, aan wie wij zelf productief bijdragen, is door Rilke in zijn vroege dichtwerk gethematiseerd. In het 'Stundenbuch' is het een terugkerend motief dat God door onze taal uit het duister tevoorschijn treedt en aan het licht wordt gebracht.

Rick Benjamins is docent dogmatiek aan de PThU in Leiden en publiceerde in 2003 Een zachte soort van zijn. Drie manieren om van God te denken. Plotinus, Rilke, Jonas. Hij houdt een inleiding over Rilke's duistere God en onze God-taal.

Henri Bloemen

Coreferaat

Henri Bloemen is Germanist en docent vertaalkunde aan de Lessius Hogeschool Antwerpen / KU Leuven. Zijn expertisegebied betreft vertaaltheorie, vertaalethiek, epistemologie, vertaalbeschrijving, studie van hervertalingen, ironie en vertaling. Hij is gepromoveerd op de Zwiterse auteur Robert Walser.

Meer informatie: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Voorafgaande registratie is niet vereist maar wordt wel op prijs gesteld.

2011-02-08T14:29:00.003+01:00

Masters Seminar ‘Ethics and Religion’ Autumn Term 2011

'War and Peace'

«Die wertvollste Erkenntnis, die aus der Schule des Krieges davongetragen wird, ist die, dass das Leben in seinem innersten Kerne ganz unzerstörbar ist.»

(“The most valuable insight born of the school of war is that life at its innermost core is entirely indestructible.”)

(Ernst Jünger, ‘Das Unzerstörbare’, in: Politische Publizistik 1919-1933, p.613)

Instructor: Dr. H.W. Sneller, Institute for Religious Studies, University of Leiden

e-mail

tel.: 071 527 25 83

5 ects

Thursday, 11-13pm

First meeting: September, 15th, 2011.

Location:

Wijkplaats 2/003

Please register by e-mail or telephone!

War and peace are inextricably intertwined. In a two year sequence this master seminar will deal with war and peace respectively. The focus of this year’s seminar will be not so much on political and polemological questions as on the intra-psychic, or even metaphysical resonance of war. Does warfare teach us something about a fundamental inner combat? Does it betray thorough ontological tensions? How relevant is a gender perspective here, given the fact that wars are mostly waged and prepared by men, albeit sometimes for the sake of women (e.g. Helena, Cleopatra, Patma)? Can causes of war be derived from projective identifications invested with religious energy (e.g. Kosovo, ‘Palestine’, Jerusalem)? On what conditions can these questions be answered at all?

Starting with a reflection on the famous pre-combat conversation between Krishna and Arjuna in the Baghavad Gita, we will study several authors who connected war and destructivity to inner-human or even ontological tendencies: authors varying from psychoanalytical thinkers (Freud and Fromm), idealists (T.H. Green), existentialists (Gabriel Marcel), to a First World War combat soldier whose writings are renowned for having inspired Hitler (Ernst Jünger).

By discussing the war phenomenon within a psychological-metaphysical framework, this seminar aims at giving an alternative approach to this ineradicable tragedy of human history, called ‘war’.

English translations or substitutes are available, though German and French are highly recommended.

Survey of the seminar:

1. Introduction. Bhagavad-Gita.

2. Why War? Freud, ‘Warum Krieg?’ (GW XVI, 11-27) and ‘Zeitgemäßes über Krieg und Tod’ (GW X, 323-355).

3. The Spiritual Principle in Knowledge and Nature. T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Book I Ch 1.

4. Man’s Relation to the Spiritual. T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Book I Ch 2 – Book II Ch 1.

5. Desire, Intellect, Will. T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Book II Ch 2.

6. Virtue. T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Book III Ch 5.

7. Freedom and Loss of Freedom. Gabriel Marcel, Les hommes contre l’humain, 1ère partie - 2ème partie Ch. I

8. Fanaticism, Abstraction, Depersonalisation. Gabriel Marcel, Les hommes contre l’humain, 2ème partie Ch II - 3ème partie, Conclusion.

9. Aggression I. Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 3rd Pt, Ch. 9-10.

10. Aggression II Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 3rd Pt, Ch. 11-12.

11. Aggression III. Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 3rd Pt, Ch. 13.

12. Conclusion. Ernst Jünger, Politische Publizistik 1919-1933, ‚Der Krieg als inneres Erlebnis’ (100-107), ‘Der Frontsoldat und die innere Politik’ (146-152), ‚Die totale Mobilmachung’ (558-582), ‚Das Unzerstörbare’ (613-615).

Language:

The course will be taught in English except when all participants have a working knowledge of Dutch.

Procedure of the Seminar:

The participants of the seminar prepare themselves weekly by reading very carefully the texts that have been placed at their disposal beforehand, and by accomplishing several assignments. Those who read German will have to read the original text!

Final conclusion:

Weekly participation in and preparation for the courses is indispensable. The seminar has to be concluded by a written paper, containing 5-10 pages. Deadline January 31st, 2012.

The paper will have to be centered on some crucial or telling passage taken from one of the texts discussed. This passage will have to be considered and commented upon scrupulously.

These are the criteria of evaluation:

1. originality and consistency of the argument

2. attested capability of integrating elements from the other texts into the argument

3. attested capability of actualizing the argument by referring to existing discussions and burning issues of today

Seminar: 4 ects. Paper: 1 ects.

Admission and requirements:

A satisfying knowledge of the history of philosophy, particularly of moral philosophy, is required and indispensable. This seminar is open to both master and bachelor students. Assignments can be reduced for BA-students.

Reading assignments:

Although texts may be available on the internet, students may wish to procure one or more books themselves. For antiquarian books, see www.eurobuch.com, http://www.antiqbook.com/, http://www.zvab.de/ or http://www.amazon.com/. New: http://www.proxis.be/. These are the relevant titles :

o Bhagavad-Gita (many translations and editions available).

o T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2003 (1883)

o Gabriel Marcel, Les hommes contre l’humain, Paris, Fayard, 1951. (trans. The Existential Background of Human Dignity, Harvard University Press, 1963). (Antiquarian, library).

o Erich Fromm, Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Holt Paperbacks, 1992 (1973).

Minisymposium Filosofie en spiritualiteit over "De waarheid" 28 januari 2011

2010-12-13T18:07:00.001+01:00

Geloof en waarheid

Minisymposium Filosofie en spiritualiteit.

Vrijdag 28 januari 2011, 13.30-16.30h.

Sprekers:

Prof. dr. Gerrit de Kruijf (Protestantse Theologische Universiteit)

Dr. Gerard Visser (Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, UL)

Locatie: Van Wijkplaats 2, zaal 002, Leiden.

Gerrit de Kruijf

Victime de la Verite

De titel komt van de Franse thomist Sertillanges, die ermee uitdrukte dat waarheid een ervaring is van onder de indruk komen, een toegeven aan overtuigingskracht.

In de christelijke theologie wordt dit wel bedoeld met de term 'belijden'. Dit kan worden toegepast op leerstellingen ('waarheden') en op de persoon van Jezus ('Jezus is de weg, de waarheid en het leven').

In de lijn van de Leidse theologen Gunning (de waarheid is ethisch) en Miskotte zal ik over het persoonlijke karakter van de waarheid spreken. Eberhard Jungel gebruikt in dit verband het begrip 'metaforische waarheid' (vgl. de recente dissertatie van J.M. de Klerk, Onderbrekingen).

Met behulp van dat begrip zal ik het geloof in Jezus als de waarheid verhelderen in relatie tot bij voorbeeld het correspondentie-begrip van waarheid.

Gerard Visser

In gesprek met Nietzsche

In een brief van 11 juni 1865, aan het einde van zijn eerste jaar in Bonn, waar hij theologie en klassieke talen studeert, houdt Friedrich Nietzsche zijn zus Elisabeth het alternatief voor dat zijn eigen filosofische weg nadien als geen ander heeft beheerst:

`Elk waar geloof is ook onfeilbaar, het levert datgene wat de betreffende gelovige persoon erin hoopt te vinden, het biedt echter niet het geringste houvast tot fundering van een objectieve waarheid. Hier nu gaan de wegen van de mensen uiteen; verlang je zielsrust en geluk, kies het geloof, wil je een leerling van de waarheid zijn, welaan onderzoek.’

In mijn lezing zal ik deze onderscheiding van Nietzsche tot vertrekpunt nemen voor een bezinning op het vraagstuk van geloof en waarheid.

Ik zal twee vragen aan de orde stellen, de vraag wat waarheid nu eigenlijk is, en daarnaast de vraag of wij waarheid niet ten onrechte inperken tot wetenschappelijke waarheid.

Nietzsches eigen latere denken bewijst dat het waarheidsfenomeen zo gelaagd is, dat dit de boven aangehaalde onderscheiding op zijn minst relativeert.

Meer informatie: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Voorafgaande registratie is niet vereist maar wordt wel op prijs gesteld.

new thoughts

2010-12-09T16:00:00.000+01:00

The alphabeth's ugliest letter: the X! A quasi guttural resembling vomiting. I can only stand its pluralised form: xxx.

The alfabeth's nicest and most promising letter: the N! A messiaNic denial of anything which is simply given.
My heat will unfreeze, not the frozen, but the frost itself! I'm microwaving your evil sparks.

"I don't care about you": a contradiction in terms.

I'll leave you the shells of my metamorphosis. I will fly and you will continue lingering around without even having started to peel off your skin.

I am transcribing my life's handwriting.

The moon is as sharp as your nails are. Behold, I see its hidden part, it is dark but visible.

Time's extension is so... painful! This is the real torture of being!

Go to the ants, thou women, and get wise!

Women and philosophy: a contradiction? The combination is highly inflammable.

Sleep, thou majority of this world's women! Thine carelessness is not always a man's medicine. It is rather thine passion inutile.

Your inner drive is intertwined with your ego. Disentangle them, but don't eliminate your drive.

You are a mirror to me, but am a mirror to you. Together we reflect a common abyss.

And thou shalt deplore the day that I will have reached my summit. For then, I will not be able to see you anymore.

The essence if ethics is violence.

The essence of light is darkness.

Ethical consciousness is a trap.

Invincible things: intellectual and attractive women, philosophy, crazy people, gays, disco, Jews, Arabic language, horror, stubborn and obsessed women, dreaming, heaven, German philosophers, Freud, iPhone, ambiguous humour, nothingness, extrasensuous perception and being cared for. O, and foreign kitchen.

Disgusting things: sport, social talk, managerial attitudes, boring people, rain, most men, being, anticlimaxes, some women, TV, awaking, atheists, orthodoxy, English frusto music, hooligans, most people, ego's and flies.

O no, I know now!

What the stars in heaven truly are: diseased lovers finally united, finally making true love!

Music is our last resort. Daily life our last subterfuge.

‎"I am very special", I sometimes tell myself (but... who is talking to whom?)

Ethics is a type of theurgy.
Physicists claiming truth for their findings are metaphysicians.

Le'moor: lo emoor: so as NOT to say! This is a fully opposed reading. Oo how I love those clever Jewish exegeses! (this one comes from Chouchani).

What Christianity does to Judaism? It precipitates it. What Hinduism does to Judaism? It mends its excesses. What secular liberalism does to Judaism? Nothing, it's just another name for Judaism's eternal flaw.

I'm a student at Divinity school. I'm not bad, but not too good either. I'm just a slow, very slow student. My angelic instructors must be patient with me.

Loth devient l’hôte de l’hôte.

Creation does not exclude the eternity of matter... if matter is a divine attribute. Then what is creation? A material penetration of a provided void. How reminiscent!

Dealing with gender questions, important though it may be, has never lead to paramount philosophy.
G*d-intoxication: a tautology?

I am firework: ignited on earth, zooming throughout life, exploding in heaven.

The notion of 'public conscience' belongs to the realm of 'inauthentic' existence.

To fail to heed a moral imperative is to miss something crucial about the ultimate structure of reality.

Erets zavat chalaav udevash... Does that mean that there will still be cows and women giving birth to young ones?

In the beginning, there was... feeling. And all that was created was created in order to enable G*d to outpour this feeling. And we, humans, are only a shell covering this very same feeling, looking for occasions to burst. ("Phoenix and the Turtle fled in a mutual flame from hence.")

Verklärungen des Zeitlichen durch Augenblicken der Ewigkeit.

Conservatism is always pathological. Just as well as progressivism, by the way.

Philosophy: a preparation for aesthetic, erotic and vital ecstasy (these all being akin).

Why did G*d create so many people? A few nice ones would have sufficed!

Let's exchange our bodies! Or souls (which comes down to the same)!

I am an coward exhibitionist, not audacious enough to fully expose myself.

Taking revenge on one's own body: is that contradictory?]

Can you identify with your body?

The night is my morphine.

Having power over others is a spiritual enjoyment. It exempts one from the urgency of exerting this power physically. (This explains young women's capacity for deferral, and elderly women's lack of it.)

What disarms my iron armature: hypersensitive females that see things that I don't see.

Reality does not exist.

Can we apply the time-scale of a 'year' to cosmic history before earth and sun were born? If not, we will never know how old the cosmos is.

Only the inorganic matter has been created. The organic is part of the divine substance itself. (Complete the syllogism...)

The inner secret of time is desire.

O how I love having this female chatting around me! It gives a deep relaxation to my deep philosophico-intellectual thoughts! :p

Now leave me alone, muse, or rather: restrict to physiognomy and be silent. For the night has fallen and dreams will take control of your servant.

Who is crazier: the philosofool or the coward? With whom would you prefer to have your breakfast? Eh?

It was difficult for you to find me, but it will be more difficult for you, now that you found me, to lose me!

What I want as a present for Santaclaus: your breath, your heartbeat and your blood pressure, all wrapped in paper.

I want to do inverted mathematics: calculate with concretions rather than with abstractions, experience rather than calculate.

Why the darkness of midnight is sacred and sunrise isn't: it's a negative theology.

Heaven: to be eternally tortured by love, yin yang and blushing. Hell: to be eternally surrendered to aunts, neighbours and other bourgeois.

This is why G*d created the earth: in order to be touched. This is why humans shouldn't commit suicide: in order to undergo the thrill of divine touch (which shall be the Aufhebung of the necessity of suicide).

Haptonomising philosophy, philosophising haptonomy: what shall I do?

I'm your Pythia, be my hermeneus.

Suffering divine things.

Sois ma carapace, parole! Protège-moi des flux paradisiaques qui n'ont de cesse de confluer dans mon âme.

So you think my words are lethal to true affects? Let me tell you: they mitigate the lethal force of the affects themselves.

Without my dream I cannot live. Nor can I live with it. A dream bridges the gulf between life and death.

If scientists are too impervious for the perception of entelechy, let them watch art; for artists are susceptible for entelechy and morphogenesis.

Anthropos an-entropos.

I'm listening to your physiognomy.

Teaching is the best proof of antisubjectivism. Ego's cannot teach anything to anybody.

Essence of prophecy: prophets don't predict the future, they enhance it!

Kiss me with your eyes, watch me with your lips, and... let me go, to come back only when I feel that time is over, forever.

I like talking to you, as I'm listening to the silence in your words!

Man is eternal in what he does to G*d.

Life: a temporarily lived eternity.

The sacred is experienced in the transgression of moral law. However, who still has a fundamental notion of moral law today?

You poor Struldbrug!

I hear your voice because you're far away, I feel your skin because you're beyond reach, I see you because you're invisible. Distance is nothing but my extended soul. Bewusstseinserweiterung um das Du, that's how it's called.

My inner heat is a counter-proof against the law of conservation of energy.

Life's biggest secret: the present.

Anxiety is the huge price life has to pay for being alive, it increases in proportion to life's higher development.

Where enthusiasm fertilises knowledge, what arises according to the all-time beliefs of all peoples is Revelation, Illumination, Inspiration.

Any experience will always be modified, if not distorted, as soon as it has been thought.

Greek "wisdom" has perverted to Modern "science", "knowledge" to "calculability".

Root causes of violence and terror: asceticism, nihilism, materialism.

I am your X-ray...

G*d is an exception, always.

The objectification of consciousness cannot be a conscious act itself. It overcame consciousness, as its biggest error.
Ludwig Klages was simply... missing his prematurely deceased mother. So he wrote Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele as a work of mourning.

What is the moral equivalent of war?

Depressure, deep, très sûr, soeur, sur les dés des prés. T'es prête à la porter? (Mais un coup de dés n'abolira jamais le hasard!)

Feeling the heavy weight of the clouds, the air and the light upon my soul...

You are a character-polyhedron...

The basis of the prohibition of idols-making: they dispense with a truly felt God experience. Dogma's are also idols. Dogmaticists are unbelievers.

I have a leaky pervious margin.

What the hell is it that prevents heaven to become earth?

The unbearable sadness of being...

I won't take any pictures, but I bury the unforgettable moments in my heart. The rest is to perish.

Gegensatz ist nicht Widerspruch, la polarité excède la logique.

Philosophy and depression: thinking hurts because it is deprived of feeling. However, if feeling unites with thought the highest summits will be achieved.

The angel is coming to Berlin. Concealed in earthly clothing, but setting me ... afire.

Führe mich nach außen, und ich führe dich nach innen. Zwangsumtausch.

Ich habe keine Weltanschauung, ich schaue einfach... und sehe vielleicht mehr.

Sustain the tension in the middle, heaven is coming but you should NOT be reaching out for it! Lausche die Geräusche ihres leisesten Nahens, aber mache die Augen zu!

How can you talk about Life if you fully dispense with Libido yourself? Quoting Nietzsche doesn't make it any more convincing! Puh!

Studying philosophy, literature and psychoanalysis is my sacrament.

A strong tendency to self-affirmation relies upon a minority complex.

Whosoever loves peace cannot fear death.

Time: a product of frustrated instinctual drives. The phenomenality of time: will.

The development of life on earth amounts to a giant and ongoing nuclear division.

I am your morphogenetic germ.

A chreode is a curvature of space. It stimulates both organismic growth on a micro-, and locomotion of light on a macrocosmic level.

I am your chreode!

Foolish Pythagoras and elderly Plato: ours is not a world of numbers, ours is a world of living forms.

Short conference Philosophy and spirituality 26 November: Imagining Karma and Reincarnation

2010-10-18T08:25:00.004+02:00

Imagining Karma and Reincarnation

Short conference Philosophy and Spirituality

Leiden, Friday 26 November 2010

13.30-16.30h

Prof. dr. (em.) Erlendur Haraldsson

University of Iceland

Dr. Hein van Dongen
Filosofie Oost-West

Location: Lipsius Building, Cleveringaplaats 1, room 228.

Erlendur Haraldsson

Investigating children remembering previous lives

Professor Haraldsson will present some cases from Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Iceland, describe how they were investigated, their characteristics, and give an overview of the major findings in this area of research. He has investigated numerous cases of children who claim to remember a previous life, particularly in Sri Lanka and Lebanon. His investigations have centred on the question of whether statements made by these children can be verified and if persons can be found that fits the description made by the children, as well as examining psychological, religious and cultural explanations for this phenomenon.

Erlendur Haraldsson is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg in Germany and did further studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He has published over two hundred papers, mostly on anomalistic experiences, conducted national surveys, field studies and experiments related to such phenomena, and also on psychological testing and interrogative suggestibility. He is the author of five books, two of which have appeared in many languages (“At the hour of death” and “Miracles are my visiting cards”).

Hein van Dongen

"I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"
Karma East and West

Karma is usually seen as relating to our acts or agency for which we remain responsible, even in subsequent reincarnations. The doctrine of Karma was developed in the context of Hinduism and Buddhism, but under the influence of theosophy it also reached the Western world. To many people, the concept of Karma has gained a personal meaning. In my lecture I will follow the tracks of this development, and I will insist upon the view of Karma in some 20th Century Indian philosophers, viz. S. Dasgupta and S. Radhakrishnan.

Hein van Dongen is philosophical consultant and director of the programme committee of Philosophy East and West. He wrote his doctoral thesis with prof. Otto Duintjer on the problem of incommensurability.

More information: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

Previous registration is not required but will be appreciated.

Philosophy and spirituality is an initiative by prof. dr Hans Gerding (Philosophy UL), dr. Gerard Visser (Philosophy UL), drs. Barbara Zwaan (Religious Studies UL) and dr. Rico Sneller (Religious Studies UL)

Ongoing thoughts and ideas.

2010-07-09T18:10:00.000+02:00

Another word for ´history´ is: 'gender'.

Can you be a good company to yourself?

Very small is life's part in which we live truly. The greater part between birth and death is not life but merely extended time.

Suffering is present everywhere, even in the most delicious moments, particularly there!

Is it possible? The Good pacting with Evil to achieve its goals??? But perhaps all this... must be so...

Whosoever is busy fears being confronted to a wasted past, evades the present and vainly attempts to extend the future.

Seelenruhe oder Seelenschwaengerung (Ibbur)?

Creatio ex nihilo is a contradiction in the terms. The 'nihil' cannot have been radical but only relative nothingness. Since there is being, nothingness is impossible once and for all. (Mind the ambiguity of the word 'since' here).

There's always an element of mourning in our relation to the other. Check it out!

G*d does not produce or cause birth and death of animate beings, he is engaged in it.

Who are bad lovers? Terrorists, fundamentalists, bureaucrats, narrow-minded peasants, alcoholics, Heidegger, patres familiae, second generation feminists, scholastics, in short: all those who suffer from their ego.

Anything is liable to criticism. Even this.

True wisdom cannot be anything else than theosophy. However, not every theosophy is wise.

True power is the property of the powerless; that's why the 'powerful' need to suppress them.

I dislike religious self-affirmation - if it is ego-bound.

Any inspiration, be it philosophical, amorous or artistic, comes do to a struggle with, AND SO, an opposition to divine power. Art, love and philosophy are yet to be overcome.

I feel pity for those who reject the idea that woman has been created out of man's bone.

God sings in colours. Do you hear it???

Your beauty is the perfect counter venom against my inborn inclination of setting myself as absolute. Nein, Fichte, am Anfang war nicht die Tat sondern... ein Antlitz, das mich unheilbar verrueckt hat.

Contempt for others is one of the subtlest manifestations of our ego.

Your facial expression protects me from ever becoming an atheist.

Your fysiognomy provides me with an interesseloses Wohlgefallen.

Pure enjoyment and satisfaction are auto-immune: they produce the ego as their suffocating counterforce.

We are both hyperaesthetic, though in different respects. Beware of the overlap, it can produce a nuclear reaction if activated.

Show me the erogenous zones of your soul, and I will anaestesise them, if need be.

My body is a stranger to me. My neighbour. However, thou shalt love thy neighbour... Shalt!

I want a private lake and beach, all for myself and for some nice people of MY choice. No managers or bureaucrats, nor Israel-bashers, only people with a sense of humour, intelligence, loving philosophy, literature, art AND playing in the water like little children!! it must be multicultural, and all animals are welcome, esp. chicken!

We fall in love with someone who is similar to the parent with whom we have unresolved childhood issues, unaware we are seeking to resolve this childhood relationship in adulthood.

Judaism: a missed opportunity for a European Buddhism.

Concentration: contemporary irreligiosity is a result of the lack of it.

How about the specific uneasiness human beings undergo if they are deprived of business and daily distractions and fully exposed to the profound dimension beyond these?

Experience requires active repression of the evidence of memory.

The Ego attempts to domesticate the vicissitudes of nature in order to perpetuate and safeguard its original enjoyment.

The notion of ‘application’ in Gadamer testifies to a cautious return to subjectivism within an originally Heideggerian atmosphere of pre-intentionality, depriving Gadamer of adequate tools to deal with evil.

I am a finite Buddha.

There is something about ethics which is unethical itself.

In a group of golems there will always be a messianic person. Humble, unnoticed, but ... seeing.

Art history is impossible except on the basis of aesthetics.

Some people are golems, i.e. bodies without a living, amiable spirit.

They are scholars, no philosophers.

Totality cannot be thought.

Suffering is always related to the other, even if one is alone. For one cannot be alone, the other is always around.

Pure nothingness cannot be wanted anymore, even if one did. It's forever too late. Im Anfang war das Ja.

I am nostalic for a paradise that never existed. Then where did the authors of Genesis get their fantasy from?

How about the evolution of consciousness, you flat darwinists, how about the phenomenology of the spirit?

Stupid women in lovely bodies have made a wrong choice before their incarnation. The Demiurge's revenge: their eyes betray them!

Quoi du Kulturkampf, vous les nationaux-socialistes? Rendez grace à Bismarck qui vous a prepare le travail d'unification et de la Gleichschaltung.

A fundamental ambiguity in Gadamer’s conception of hermeneutics may blind him for a perception of what I shall call here for the moment, ‘evil’.

Darwin was wrong: I'm not fit for life but I am still alive.

Gadamer's hermeneutics: a supererogation of human capacities in the face of 'evil'.

Documentary on Happiness

2010-05-26T09:55:00.002+02:00

This is me (admittedly, somewhat reduced to pieces), in a documentary on Happiness. The voice-over sometimes quotes me, isn't it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMuI1_ATlFk

other truths

2010-03-31T21:03:00.000+02:00

European Catholicism, however silly its ideology may be, holds in store precious spiritual drugs for ill-minded crowds, especially managers, stock brokers, directors and the like.

Rationality can only be wholesome if one is sane already. It is too dangerous a weapon, however, in the hands of nihilists and cynics.

Does love (1) confirm or (2) affirm being? Or (3) reject it? I opt for the third one.

The phenomenon of ecstasy: an ontological paradox! There must be more than being, or rather, should!

No history without apocalypticism.

Good teachers have better students.

Messiah's are itinerants.

I will build his beloved ones into a sefirot system whereof I shall be the nucleus.

Plato was right: we are fallen angels, we only have slight remembrance, e.g. when we smell spring in the air, or some lovely girl's perfume, or if we hear Derrida speaking, or a rabbi. Then... words and images fail, and we... too.

El Shaddai: God of breasts, not pantokratoor! The might is a might of breasts, no power!

I wish I were pure air, so that I could float on your breath and words.

Experiential wave-length...

Greek philosophy is ultimately... Jewish, as it presupposes openness to the other.

What do spring and the the Female have in common? They both don't want me to study philosophy too seriously. But... I am stubborn.

Thou art great, Kundalini, I love thee. Or rather, thou art the love itself wherewith I love thee.

Religion testifies to the presence of an unresolved problem at the heart of culture: the God question.

There is no perishing without a becoming.

Plato: strict separation of feeling, willing and thinking. Wundt and James: intertwinement of them. Deciding between them? Depends of... each' conceptuality. So: complete undecidability as a result of their incommensurability.

Why (wo)men tell with their bodies what they in fact want to conceal.

Countries holding a promise to the world: Israel, India, Germany: three differing democratico-spiritual promises with deep roots.

Countries with the most promising and exciting politico-democeatic system: Israel and Germany.

What is freedom? A chance.

How can good bye be good? And farewell be fair?

Psychanalysing global islam. And the Roman Catholic church.

My most beloved "categories" (forgive me this term): Jews, women, (true) philosophers, (some) artists. Please don't combine these for me, I will faint immediately! Whosoever maltreats them can count upon my eternal hostility.

In order to "combat" the cruelties in this world let's surrender to forms of the purest love ever to be found in the universe: anticipations to an ultimate love, yet to be realised.

Pure love is pure vibration. The excess of love, however, is pure... tranquillity. The passage from the former to the latter is... beyond our finitude.

With you whom I love I want to fuse... and enjoy peace, justice and truth fused as well, into one single intense moment, where time and space do not count.

Is there a place where peace and justice do not contradict but ... meet? What could they have in common?

Science cannot approach what is closest to us.

Morphogenesis (establishment of form): a defy to modern scientific approach of living bodies as functional machines. How about a G e s t a l t approach to the male and female body?

Neither biological nor physical universe can truly escape the relativity of its existential form.

Beauty: an aspect of truth. Women, if thou art beautiful, be aware of thine responsibility to reflect truth.

I would like to evacuate all managers to, say, the Gaza strip. Academic activities will greatly profit from it.

Rabbi Meir Kahane and Pim Fortuyn: two radical, pretended messiahs finally shot by extremists.

Being thrown into this world like Daniel in a lion's hole. Our lions, however, do bite!

Let's choose a new pope in Avignon!

Anger: the continuation of love with other means.

Our world's revolutionaries are and have been in a constant need of feeling contact with... Revolution itself: something that is always going on and won't stop... till the end.

Dialogical philosophies are always... derivative. Deepest truths lie in monologism and soliloquy.

Evil must be overcome or undergone. Both options are purificatory.

After having learnt from past mistakes, our past immediately vanishes ontologically. Yes, the past is changeable!

One can only reject ideas that one shares.

A comparison between 'Kahane' and Muslim extremism is deemed to be superficial and misleading. No comparative religion here!

Meir Kahane, how about Carl Schmitt?

The chemistry of vowels! using them can unite people!

Ascending the mystical path: always skip to another level, the road is discontinuous through and through. Women and artists can be your guides, but also... your Sirenes.

Feel like Moses on Mount Nebo.

No differentiation! Just unity!

Perfect unity is imperishable.

Suffering philosophers need... women; not to satisfy their their desires but... to bend their thoughts. Truth can only be reached indirectly, never straight away.

I have no faith in philosophers who do not profoundly suffer.

Most, if not all, discussions are affect-based; rarely are people out for truth. They... fear the truth, as it is painful, and can only be reached through... suffering.

There are no objects, no molecules, atoms, nor even snares. There are only divine forces, playing with us as sun beams. 'Objects' are just expressions of our... anxiety.

Our mind is a bullwark protecting our soul's... What? Its fragility? Our soul cannot break. Only our mind can. So, why is there a need of protection here!

Can pleasure be abstracted from its objects? Yes, it can, but...not yet!

Only from sadness can new ideas arise.

some truths

2010-02-26T21:45:00.000+01:00

The first human beings were artists, the last, consumers.

Poetry: the arch form of language.

Several different people you meet may in fact be... one and the same person, each time! (S)he is trying to tell you something.

Beautiful women have a higher responsibility than others: they have a duty to LIVE their beauty instead of only being it!

What in fact is wrong with cannibalism? If we manage to eat each other without killing him/her, it would be an expression of the purest love!

Chatting is spell-bound.

For something to be an object of possible experience, it must not be an object. Only the indeterminate can be experienced.

Types of silence, eidè sigès, genera silentionis...

"Tout autre est tout autre" (Derrida): a Spinozistic logic (cf. the undivisibility of substance in Ethics I)!

We stick to our political, religious, scientific etc. choices but to appease our conscience.

Theoria: the religious background of the Greek concept of reason.

Do we really think what we think, or do we merely think what we want to think? How to decide here? Maybe we all need a preliminary... rebirthing experience.

"To play" is "to do a play" (i.e. a game), and "to do a play" is "to play". Ominous circularity! Or better in German: "Spielen" is "ein Spiel spielen"; or in French: "jouer" is "jouer un jeu".

Etymologies are no explanations but anticipations to them, hints at them. There is no contingency in language.

Words show their true meaning when being used metaphorically. Eine Lehre vom Ähnlichen.

Ça m'ennuie,
la pluie,
c'est comme si
tu me dis:
"tant pis, tant pis,
mon favorit,
tu t'alanguis!"
Vas-y! Vas-y!
te répondis-je.
Car j'ai pris
le parti
de m'enrichir,
d' mes souvenirs
de jadis!

My ideal: a world finally without privacy.

Art as an imitation of nature? Of what nature exactly? The impoverished reductions of silly materialists?

Statistics in the humanities: how sorry do I feel for these blind people who completely lack vision or intuition, the sole justified basis for true science (scire, scientia).

Nominalistic, empiricist science has relegated art to the realm of mere subjectivity.

Soliloqies prove the impossibility ... of being alone. Der Wanderer und sein Schatten.

I am incapable of dealing with frustrated people. And unwilling.

Contradictions only apply to our intellect. Experienced contradictions don't exist (they are a contradiction in terms).

Love: a free transfer of energie onto the beloved object. Free!

Tür, Tor, Tod, thanatos, toll, tragisch, Tanz, Trümmer, Tiefe, thalassa, Traum, thuein, tuer, taire: Türhüter.

Psychical infection.

The most despicable and deplorable humans: those who are self-complacent. They are even stupider than philosophers (who at least know they are stupid).

I love beautiful people, so I must be ugly myself. (Reading the Symposion).

God not being man, a medium is required for their interaction: language, dreams, ecstasy.

Being sleepless is like having lost your key when someone is ringing your door bell.

Our common moral intuition is a but tiny part of a much greater theosophical consciousness possessed by far fewer people.

Is love determined by beauty or beauty by love?

The inner co-penetration of all elements of consciousness. No cartesianism!

Schiller, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Schelling: Romanticists.

Logic = virtual lobotomia, brain masochism.

I don't like Alltäglichkeit!

If thoughts are feelings, why can one not satisfy oneself with... thoughts? Because thoughts are equal to... unpleasant feelings?

I think therefore I am: non sequitur.

Understanding is a kind of feeling.

Contempt is sadness.

I treat my soul like the meat you bake: contantly exposing it to the heat so that it may finally become roasted... and tasty. If you get infected, you have tasted too early. Just wait till I'm done!

The least of all I am a revolutionary thinker. The only thing I am constantly revolutionising is not society but... myself!

Wanna become letters read by you, wanna fuse with your eyes and mind, wanna fuse with philosophy's mystical core, which is not identical with but connected to female grace, friendship, in short... anything alien; yes, wanna get alien to myself!

The spirit of a new world!!!!

The difference between women and numbers: numbers are a transcending-of-female-ideality gone mad.

Mathematics: eschatology for extremists.

I like style, not fashion.

Taste: the beginning of culture.

I don't like women with long, uncombed, colourless hair wearing knitted guernseys in all colours of the rainbow.

Mutuality of sense perception: seeing and being seen, seeing each other; feeling and being felt, feeling each other, smelling and being smelled, smelling each other, tasting and being tasted, tasting each other, hearing and being heard, hearing each other, intuiting and being intuited, intuiting each other.

I hate abstractions, but they are my way to survive: they idealise what is still impossible and incomplete.

master seminar Ethics Autumn 2010: Questioning Life and Death

2010-02-17T16:49:00.005+01:00

Masters Seminar ‘Ethics’ Autumn Term 2010

‘Questioning Life and Death’

«Und deshalb kann der Tod geradezu das Tor zur Metaphysik höchster Art heissen»

(“Therefore death can be called the gateway to a metaphysics of the highest degree.”)

(H. Driesch, Wirklichkeitslehre, p.291)

Instructor: Dr. H.W. Sneller, Institute for Religious Studies, University of Leiden

e-mail: H.W.Sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl

tel.: 071 527 25 83

5 ects

Tuesday, 13-15pm

First meeting: September, 14th, 2010

Location: Matthias de Vrieshof 4 room 010.

Please register by e-mail or telephone!

A year after the celebration of Charles Darwin’s bicentenary, questions of life and death are more relevant than ever before. As the essence of life is closely related to death, life and death cannot be discussed separately. Unravelling mysteries of the one will inevitably shed a light on the other, and dealing with both seems a prerequisite for any moral reflection today that does not want to restrict itself to making superficial statements.

Death is as big a mystery as life. Not only has the life question not been sufficiently solved by the ‘mere’ discovery of DNA, reports about so-called ‘near death experiences’ complicate the predominantly biologico-materialistic explanations of death as well.

In this seminar, we will focus on several facets of death, e.g. the moribund’s perspective, mortality and immortality, the uninterrupted chain between life and death, (un)willingness to die, and the God question. These topics tend to be neglected in current philosophical, let alone medico-biological debates.

The metaphysical frameworks in which these topics are placed will be tested by a final confrontation with the case of voluntary death.

English translations or substitutes are available, though German is highly recommended.

Survey of the seminar:

1. September, 14th. Introduction. John Hardwig, ‘Going to Meet Death: The Art of Dying in the Early Part of the Twenty-First Century’, in: Hastings Center Report 39/4, 2009, 37-45. (Available at digit al library or to be distributed by course instructor).

2. September, 21st. In the Face of Death. Rousseau, Julie ou la nouvelle Héloïse, lettre 11-12.

3. September, 28th. Crossing the Border between Life and Death. Schelling, Clara. Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt.

4. October, 5th. Willing not to Die. Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (1), IV. Buch: ‚Die Lehre vom Willen’. 1. Abschnitt ‘Gesetz und Willkür’. For an alternative reading in English, see here and here.

5. October, 12th. Willing not to Die. Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (2), IV. Buch: ‚Die Lehre vom Willen’. 2. Abschnitt ‘Trieb und Wille’.

6. October, 26th: ‚Die Lehre vom Willen’. 3. Abschnitt ‚Tat und Wirklichkeit’ Chs. 48-50.

7. November, 2nd. Willing not to Die. Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (4), IV. Buch: ‚Die Lehre vom Willen’. 3. Abschnitt ‚Tat und Wirklichkeit’ Chs. 51-53

8. November, 9th. Death and Dualism. Hans Driesch, Wirklichkeitslehre. Ein metaphysischer Versuch, III ‚Übergang zum zweiten Teile der Wirklichkeitslehre: Vom Tode’.

9. November, 17th. Immortality. Hans Driesch, Wirklichkeitslehre. Ein metaphysischer Versuch, IV ‚Der Wirklichkeitslehre höhere Stufen: Die Lehre von den Wirklichkeitsformen’

10. November, 23rd. Mortality. Hans Jonas, Metaphysische Untersuchungen und Vermutungen, 1. Teil ‚Theorie des Organismus und Sonderart des Menschen’

11. November, 30th. Death and God? Hans Jonas, Metaphysische Untersuchungen und Vermutungen, 3. Teil ‚Dem Fragenden unverwehrbar: Gedanken über Gott’.

12. December, 7th. Conclusion. David Novak, The Sanctity of Human Life, Ch. 3 Physician-Assisted Suicide, Washington, Georgetown Un. Press, 2007.

Language:

The course will be taught in English except when all participants have a working knowledge of Dutch.

Procedure of the Seminar:

Final conclusion:

Weekly participation in and preparation for the courses is indispensable. The seminar has to be concluded by a written paper, containing 5-10 pages. Deadline January 31st, 2011.

The paper will have to be centered on some crucial or telling passage taken from one of the texts discussed. This passage will have to be considered and commented upon scrupulously. These are the criteria of evaluation:

1. originality and consistency of the argument

2. attested capability of integrating elements from the other texts into the argument

3. attested capability of actualizing the argument by referring to existing discussions and burning issues of today

Seminar: 4 ects. Paper: 1 ects.

Admission and requirements:

Reading assignments:

Although texts may be available on the internet, students may wish to procure one or more books themselves. For antiquarian books, see http://www.eurobuch.com/, http://www.antiqbook.com/, http://www.zvab.de/ or http://www.amazon.com/. New: http://www.proxis.be/. These are the relevant titles :

o Rousseau, Julie ou la nouvelle Héloïse. Trans. Julie, or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps, Works. Vol. 6. Dartmouth 1997

o Schelling, Clara. Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt. In: Werke, Stuttgart 1976ff. Trans. Clara: Or, on Nature's Connection to the Spirit World SUNY 2002.

o Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, Bonn, Bouvier Verlag, 2008 (1929-1932).(Sämtliche Werke Bd. I-II) Many copies available on http://www.eurobuch.com/). NB: Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, Studienausgabe. 2010. 1600 Seiten. Kartoniert. 978-3-416-03146-2 € 39.90, information: Boekhandel Atleest, Kort Rapenburg 12a, 2311 GC Leiden – Nederland, tel. 071 512.50.39. PS the link contains the pdf-file of the German text (8Mb).

o Hans Driesch, Wirklichkeitslehre. Ein metaphysischer Versuch, Leipzig : Emmanuel Reinicke, 1930 (1917) UB: 3596 A 15. For an English review see here or here. Easily available in antiquarian bookshops, e.g. here or here.

o Hans Jonas, Metaphysische Untersuchungen und Vermutungen, Frankfurt, Insel, 1992. If you don’t read German use this book: The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology, Northwestern University Press, 2001.

Dithyrambe voor Gerard Vissers 60e verjaardag: "Het Leven zélf!"

2010-02-14T19:58:00.001+01:00

Het leven zélf

‘Waarover schrijf ’k mijn nieuwste boek?’, vroeg Gerard zacht,

De pen hield hij ter hand, keek peinzend in de lamp en lacht’,

Zo zachtjes in zichzelv’, en dacht over ’t belevingsonderzoek

Dat, zònder definities, spieg’lend slechts, mondd’ in een boek.

‘Waarover?’, kreunde hij. “O lampgeest, deel je mee!

Dan volg ik je gedwee.

Want voor ik mij met boeken nu bedelf,

Weet: één is ’t die mij leert: Het leven zélf!”

Al blaad’rend in zijn vroeg’re boek: hoe was ’t daar ook gezegd?

Hoe had hij ’t moeten zéggen, toen, hoe ’t pleit beslecht?

Was ’t Nietzsch’ geweest, Cézanne of Heidegger destijds?

En in het lamplicht staart hij diep, gebaart dan wijds.

“Wie volgd’ ik, lampgeest?”, zuchtte Geer’d devoot,

“was jij het die ’t mij bood?”

“Wel neen!”, zo knipperde ’t lampje hel,

“dat was niet ik, dat was het leven zélf!”

Zachtjes nu bloosde Geer’d, verlegen stond hij op,

Ontdeed zich van zijn kamerjas, met slaapmuts slechts en: hop!

Daar danst’ hij al, de armen wijd, een nachtwals, d’ogen toe,

Een driekwartsmaat met ’t leven, ‘n zalig rendez-vous.

Door ’t raam zag men de nimfen kijken, faunen, en Dionysos

Die grijnsde, elfden reiden toe, gesluierd slechts, uit ’t bos.

En Gerard, naakt nu, boeken op een schelf,

Riep schreiend: “’k dans met ’t leven zélf!”

En Riet, zij schudde ’t hoofd voor ’t sleutelgat,

Benijdde noch betwistte Geer’d het diepe pad

Dat manlief gaan moest, dansend met onzichtbare genoot,

En dat een diep’ en eeuw’ge lust hem, náákt gemutst slechts, bood.

Zij minde Geer’d, die minde ’t leven, ’t feilloos diepe leven,

Zij minde ’t leve’ in hém, hij in het leven háár. Gedreven

Door een zoet beleven onder ’t hemelse gewelf

Beminde Gerard, dansend, immer ’t leven zélf.

En Gerard danste, walste, wiegde, met onzichtbare genoot,

Gemutst slechts zweefde hij het raam door, opgetogen bloot.

Hij leek gevleugeld wel, en Riet geloofd’ haar ogen niet,

Maar Geer’d die danst’ als één die weidse verten ziet.

Zijn armen braken glas. Hij deinde zwijgend voort.

Zijn ogen zagen reeds de poort,

Waardoor hij menigmaal reeds ging,

Waar telkens d’eeuwigheid hem ving,

Waarboven ‘t stralend zenith minzaam welft.

Het was de trotse poort van ’t leven zélf!

Zijn oren hoorden lier en snarenspel, zo mooi, zo zoet,

Zijn ogen zagen licht, zijn neus rook zilt van ebb’ en vloed,

Zijn handen tastten albast, marmer, koud als ijs,

Zijn tong die smaakte nectar. ’t Zalig paradijs

Der zinnenlust schonk zich aan Zarathustra’s zoon.

En, schoon hij ’t zingenot was ongewoon,

Daar gilde hij, tot schrik van satyr, faun en elf:

“’t is niet meer ik, het is het leven zelf!”

De reien sloten zich,

De elfen, satyrs, faunen,

Zij die ’t Elyseum bewonen,

Zij allen dansten vederlicht

En zongen deze heldenprosodie,

Op ongehoorde faunenmelodie:

Gij hebt het zo verstaan!

O Geer’d,

Wij zijn met u begaan!

Ons deert

Uw lot,

’t Gebod

Dat D’ónysos u gaf.

Hij wees met wijnomrankte staf

U aan,

Om te verstaan

Het leven zélf,

Het hoog gewelf,

Dat boogt over ons allen,

Op wie de druppels vallen

Van godendrank,

En engelklank!

Het leven zélf, het leven zélf!

O jubelt met ons mede!

Het welft, het welft

Haar zang al over onze bede!

O zang! O nachtkaars, brandend!

O rad! O poort!

Ons hart verpandend

Aan uw, uw toverwoord!

Zingt nu tezaam,

Ontkleed, ontdaan

Van toog, tuniek,

En draagt muziek

Als uw kledij,

En lauwert u

Uw slapen nu.

Verstaat, verstaat

Der faunen raad!

En zingt, ja galmt!

Laat gaan uw kalmt’!

Looft, satyr, elf,

Het leven zelf!

ongoing aphorisms

2010-01-29T20:52:00.000+01:00

O world, follow my statuses, I am a parttime prophet, a navi meshugeh.

Making love in a dialogue.

God is the only one who had to contract; we need to extend.

I hate contexts...

Why did some rabbis and some stupid reverends forbid dancing? Because they didn't want the crowd to unite with God.

Uniting with poetry, a lovely woman or a philosophical idea: it is impossible, alas...

Art, religion, philosophy: relate us to unity by way of releasement.

Art, religion, philosophy: activities of absolute, i.e. unbound spirit.

Abstention is a precondition for approaching.

Abstention can give the power for martyrdom.

Normalcy = adaptation. This applies to human society, but... does it also apply to nature? What if? 'Parapsychology' would become ... a rule. The rule of exceptionality.

Morality is theurgy.

Speech is spoken on a divine breath.

The mystical experience is the arch-form of poetry.

Poetry is the arch-form of language.

Love is unbearable, it is the event as from which nature transforms into history, as nature needs to transcend itself to be able to sustain love at all!

The extremity of thinking: honour. The extreremity of affectivity: love.

Alternative viewpoints held by others on subjects that matter to us are initially ALWAYS a threat to us.

Reading the other's eyes is most important. They can't hide secrets. Show me your eyes, and I'll tell you who you are.

Virtue leads to suffering and from suffering new energies arise.

'Shame': how ambiguous a feeling! There is some enjoyment in it. Even in morally aroused shame.

Ironical distance, as can be found frequently in scholars and scientists, betrays a suppressed credulity. My own credulity betrays a suppressed irony.

Being a sensitive person does not equate being a highly developed character.

All people are equal, they say. But some people cannot support being treated as equals.

Goods are mere conditions of and occasions for morality, not its essence.

The Bible should be read from the perspective of the particular passage that attracts you.

Freedom and mechanism in human behaviour do not necessarily mutually exclude; the exclusion of freedom may rest upon a superficial observation of mechanism.

In child raising prohibition is requisite, to learn that not everything can be had what one wants. Frustration is inevitable, so that a purer longing may arise. This purer longing, however, does not know what it is longing for, yet.

The higher a culture, the more profound and energetic its ethical reflexivity.

I don't understand this crazy world anymore! By the way, I have never understood it.

Being should not have been.

This stupid behaviour does not suit you, as you are so... profound already.

Don't accelerate your spiritual itinerary. Just enough time will be granted to you.

The kindly ones will make each other explode for pure ecstasy; but as they already are infinite, their pieces will mingle and form new loving and delicious unities. For evermore!

Those of you who are beautiful and lovely from within, to your beauty will be added, until... you burst... of love and delight!

Why, of why did God entrust the fragility of the Woman, and that of the Jewish people, to bastards, idiots, fools, pagans? Can blunt ever be sharpened? Hypothesis: to make the already sharp still sharper, and prepare them for celestial existence.

Finally, finally I have got access to the spirit of the artist. And to the woman's. It won't leave me.

English poets, female English novelists, from present and past: save us from the analytical philosophers!

Re-enchantment and re-mystification of the world (cf. New Age): a result of lacking a corporeal relation to it.

By killing one's feelings one also kills the life flow. Alienation of one's own body is a result.

I-pod = fetish! cf Freud's Der Fetischismus! (“Nein, das kann nicht wahr sein, denn wenn das Weib kastriert ist, ist sein eigener Penisbesitz bedroht, und dagegen sträubt sich das Stück Narzissmus, mit dem die Natur vorsorglich gerade dieses Organ ausgestattet hat.”)

Take care about your fulfilling your duty, not about its outcome.

True piety: not to believe that your teacher has found the truth, but that (s)he has earnestly searched for it.

How to understand understanding itself? Or how to feel feeling? How can that be done?

Religions are far more complicate to understand than philosophies. This is even pleonastic!

In my celestial heart there are many rooms, but only YOU are my... spine!

Walter Benjamin studiedag 14 januari 2011: Geschichtsphilosopische Thesen

2010-01-25T10:28:00.001+01:00

Die Mummerehlen is de naam voor een studiegroep rond het werk van Walter Benjamin.

Initiatiefnemers zijn dr. Winibert Segers (Lessius Hogeschool Antwerpen) en dr. Rico Sneller (Universiteit Leiden). Dr. Henri Bloemen (Lessius Hogeschool) verzorgt dit jaar de tekstselectie.

De groep komt eenmaal per jaar bijeen, afwisselend te Leiden en Antwerpen, rond één of meerdere teksten van Benjamin. In januari 2010 stond op het programma Benjamins Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels.

Op 14 januari 2011 zullen we te Leiden ingaan op de Geschichtsphilosophische Thesen.

Plaats: Universiteit Leiden. Locatie: bestuurskamer Instituut voor godsdienstwetenschappen, Matthias de Vrieshof 1, Leiden.

Tijd: 10.30-17h

Aanmelding bij Winibert Segers (e: winibert.segers@lessius.eu) en Rico Sneller (e: h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl).

Tijdens de ontmoetingen zullen geen aparte lezingen worden gehouden. Het doel is om in een vrij gesprek dieper door te dringen tot de wonderlijke, enigmatische wereld van een geniaal denker.

Enige bekendheid met het werk van Benjamin wordt verondersteld.

In augustus 2011 hoopt Die Mummerehlen een landelijke conferentie te organiseren rond het thema: "Benjamin en het denkbeeld". Nadere informatie volgt.

Ongoing thought experiments

2010-01-09T16:25:00.000+01:00

You woman! Why do you betray your own treasures by yielding to your... friends?

We desire in virtue of what we have seen in Paradise, but what is out of our grasp for always.

All our desires: awakened arch-impressions from time immemorial.

Self-love: a contradiction in terms.

How you annoyed me, by talking about anything but you.

True philosophy will ALWAYS be spiritual. Logic is a perversion of thinking. Never mind: it is auto-immune.

Artists, religious people and philosophers must be... bad lovers. They "spill their seed on the floor": of culture. Colere, colui, cultus.

How I love to touch your glandus pinealis!

Thanatos, our death drive, wants us to quicken our final theosis; but it ... must wait. It is immaturity par excellence.

Our relation to the other is always permeated by a thorough mourning. The maternal breasts (El Shaddai) will inexorably retreat. That is life. But in return, we receive... divine breath and divine blood, libido. Interior intimo meo.

It's slippery outside and inside my mind, but ... I like gliding and sliding. Slipperiness: not too smooth, not too rough, just right!

"Love must be the master plan"

All people we get acquainted with, on a more special level, are people we had something with in a previous life. Even crossing gazes on the street, with someone unknown, testifies to previous experiences in our past lives.

Shaktipad, I can heal you.

Sleeping is like going to the cinema. Gonna watch my dream films tonight!

Nicht Aufklärung, sondern Verklärung...

Zachar unekeva bara otam, male and female He created them: the zachar (male) is apt for commemoration (lizchor), whereas the nekeva (female) is forgetful like a sieve (nakav): a plokanon or chora (Timaeus).

I am unarmed, have no weapons but my sole ratio (in which I do not believe, though). Have mercy on me!

I just can't stand it: soul satisfaction! Yin and yang philosophising! Explosion!

Love pain helps to get better separated from our tight Oedipal bonds. It hurts because we feel as if rejected... by our very own father or mother.

Eve was left behind in Eden on new years eve. She has never left it.

We breath a common breath, you and I.

some new reflections

2009-12-24T13:06:00.000+01:00

The present's piercing: the past. Not an adornment, however, but ... a shining.

Morts, on s'attend à l'arrivée, d'accord?

The only reason for living is: to be a host to the host, i.e. to be received by my own guest.

The essence of artistic experience is that we learn to linger. it's our temporal preview of eternity.

Is it merely coincidence that the English word for 'literature' is 'fiction'? Literature is NOT fiction, you *&^&%$## English empiricists!!! Your 'scientific' empiricism is itself highly fictitious!

Art is an experience of truth. However, where the conception of art changes, the conception of truth will change as well. The latter becomes meager and anorectic: "scientific".

Eden's garden was a place within God's mind, Adam and Eve could walk freely in it, enjoy every little plant and flower. It is comparable to lover's going in and out of each other's mind, spiritual lovemaking.

Derrida's entire oeuvre abounds with synchronicities! It should be re-interpreted in light of Klages' (who coined the term 'logocentrism') or Jung's.

A child's and a woman's smile are tantamount to G*d's!

Admiring a woman's beauty amounts to having a vision - of the future.

Our human bodies are too finite to stand the depths of love, and other such things...

Gottesgeburt in der Seele, o it hurts so much!

Frustration and loss of desired Object lead to narcissism, as a re-investment of libidinal energy. So... (reconstruct this syllogism, if you can).

Let me lit your fire, that we may burn together. Phenix and the turtle fled in a mutual flame from hence...

The face to face cannot be sensed by a third one, by none! It's completely irreducible.

Surrealistic art and literature enable reflectedness of human life, inasmuch as they alienate man from his ordinary stance.

Common sense based analytical philosophy is ultimately thoroughly nihilistic and ultrademocratic. However, the crowd's general opinions and language are fully INSIGNIFICANT!!!

further aforisms

2009-12-03T20:47:00.000+01:00

Meditate on homonyms to experience the power of words.

Hospitality: the essence of culture.

The testimony of belonging does not belong to the whole itself. E.g. if I testify to my being-Dutch, this testimony is not itself Dutch.

The further one progresses on one's spiritual trajectory, the more insurmountable the obstacles become. See Kafka, Vor dem Gesetz ("aber hinter mir sind noch andere Türhüter, viel mächtiger noch als ich bin").

Descartes believes the intermediary between res cogitans (mind) and res extensa (body) is in the pineal gland. I believe it is in (wo/)man's sexual parts. Augustin, calling his God "interior intimo meo", how, yes how can he say such silly things about the male erection and human libido both in paradise and in the contemporary world? Why is this physical body of us always to be taken as a boundary between us and the divine? Are we not made in God's image inasmuch as we submit... to sexual difference? ... Lees verderZakar unekeva bara otaam! Christianity, as well as today's civilised 'puritanism', are to be purified by ... hinduism before it can first become hospitable to its Jewish kernel.

Women (and men) showing too much of their naked bodies lack content; they really don't have anything to show. Those who do have something to show, hide it, and thus, only thus, they will show it.

Reasons and arguments: lobotomy of the soul.

Lovers don't love each other, they love what is in between them.

You can withstand the penetrating power of my soul only by harming your own.

Anatomy of the soul.

If love be food of wisdom, then go on, my love, give me excess of it.

Our breath: a pathway to God.

additional aforisms

2009-12-02T23:05:00.000+01:00

Our breath: a pathway to God.

There is no final distinction between 'reality' and 'imagination'. Fantasy could be taken as the 5th dimension (the 4th being 'time'), thus ruling out the system of dimensions... altogether.

Über die Pflanzenseele (L. Klages): plants have a soul, they have some form of perception, they can communicate with us, if we just be patient and sensitive.

If love be food of wisdom, then go on, my love, give me excess of it.

Anatomy of the soul.

You can withstand the penetrating power of my soul only by harming your own.

again: aforisms

2009-12-01T21:22:00.000+01:00

Taking our feelings as a gateway to deeper layers of consciousness, beyond their immediate stimuli.

Confronting intelligence to concrete life, hanging it out as laundry in the blowing wind of existence.

A national identity only becomes known to a nation as soon as it stops existing. Identities are always beyond their bearers.

Whenever can entelechial equilibrium be said to be equilibrious enough for sustaining organic wholeness? How far can we go supplementing an organism with protheses without destroying its original, entelechial unity?

For Santa Claus I wish a cell membrane to cover my psychoid (such, I once learnt, is the difference between animals and plants; yes, I want to be a plant, preferably a tree).

aforisms 4

2009-11-30T21:14:00.000+01:00

Men talking: matching. Women talking: wheeling. What do I prefer? Neither. I want the third possibility.

The soul is the meaning of the body. The body is the manifestation of the soul.

Scientific association of phenomena by means of physical 'laws' can never lead to meaning. It only leads to a quantifying atomism and to annihilation of differences.

The quest for meaning is already a sign of nihilism.

Why does tree start with a T? Why bee with a B? Deep with a D? Pee and peep with a P? B buzzing, T tending, D dying, P puffing. Consonnes, je dirais quelque jour vos naissances latentes.

Seeking tranquillity in my unconsciousness.

Double bind: forget me!

Love can be loved, but hate cannot be hated; nor can hate be loved. Hate is self-denying, love self-affirming. Can love be hated? If so, then love has already been felt, so hate must be a mere repression of love. Shit, sometimes I hate my own sofistications! Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele.

Jealousy: a sign of our being remote from our soul.

Spirituality of letters and numbers.

To getting drunk by alcohol I prefer getting drunk by my own thoughts.

There are still heroes in this world! The electrify me! Some philosophers, dead or alive, some artists. Some women. But the crowds... Well, let's always be compassionate. Quidam cenent tecum, quia digni sunt, quidam, ut sint.

new aforisms

2009-11-28T14:55:00.001+01:00

Evolution versus creation? Either a silly one night stand or an act of making true love, to the cosmos. Divine intimacy.

Ontology, hauntology. Conjuring up ghosts as an act of civilisation.

Civilisation: styling interhuman behaviour as well as human intercourse with the transcendent. Meaning that some men, but more often women, are civilised beings as such.

Spirituality of letters and numbers.

To getting drunk by alcohol I prefer getting drunk by my own thoughts.

It has been proved scientifically that hardcore rock music fans may have a (however tiny) brain damage. Disco fans, on the contrary (like me), eehhh, what did they say, eeeh, yes, I believe that they are.... eeehhh, very healthy, tender and kind people! Yes!

I realise with a shock that the world is less interesting to me than my own mind.

aforisms 3

2009-11-25T22:22:00.000+01:00

I don't have a soul of myself, but to myself (ouchi emou all'emooi).

Never project my own fancies upon the other. But, what remains if all my projections suddenly vanish? Maybe unnecessarily little. So, let's stop half-way, in-between projection and disillusion. Then, yes, only then the truth will unfold.

Getting rid of myself, to find... love. But the desert, ah, the desert.

The in-between position is... so extreme. How to stand it! It's truly divine, entre-nous, entre-deux, entre-Dieu, Dieu l'entre, Dieu l'Antre, entremise, antremise, mise à l'antre, ant-mice, ant-telechy, ant-hologie, ant-thelema, to thelema tou theou.

The symbolicity of male and female anatomy! The body as a divine temple. Better say: bodies. Worship? A pantomime! Mon Dieu! Dumnezeu!

some other aforisms:

2009-11-25T17:42:00.001+01:00

Beautiful people (i.e. people with a beautiful soul) sometimes ‘hasten’ towards other beautiful people, forgetting… that they already own what they admire; they merely see themselves reflected in the other’s soul/eyes and think they have the object of the love in front of them, whereas in fact… they already substantialise this ‘object’ themselves!

One can always become suddenly aware of one’s own inner ‘seed’; no one who has discovered this inner seed will ever blame the universe, God, the One, or whatever, for predetermining human lives, as such an accusation would already be tantamount to a spiritual backdrop.

Terms like ‘decision’, ‘choice’, ‘ethical dilemma’ or ‘question’ still have too much of an objectifying stance. What would be more appropriate is talking about ‘experience’ or ‘awareness’. Contemporary (medical ethical) discourse has dissolved morality into a certain amount of ‘questions’, ‘issues’, ‘topics’ to be ‘resolved’. But it forgets that, in doing so, it has already adopted a distanced, representational position, that it has already muted (mutilated) itself. An appropriate stance would cope more contemplatively with life and its occasions. Maybe it would not even experience a ‘question’ at all!

aphorisms

2009-11-20T22:04:00.003+01:00

Some aphorisms

Empirical critique of philosophical conceptuality is boring, and ultimately irresponsible. Philosophical concepts should not be taken as adequate representations of some 'objective' reality, but rather as testimonies of responsibility. When I use a concept, I thereby take full responsibility for what I am confronted with. Philosophy's highest task is: taking responsibility for reality, and so... re-creating it.

There is no pure creation. Everything starts with re-creation. In the beginning earth and heaven were re-created, created anew. Eschatology is at the beginning. To put it differently, there is no pure beginning.

The so-called 'common sense' is not just in innocent toy for the crowds. It is bedevilled. It is a shameless lie.

If you want to be my friend, be an artist, or a philosopher. Or a woman. Not necessarily a combination of these, it will make me dizzy...

Life in itself is a burden. We must embellish it to hide its atrocious depths. We must re-create it, and so... find a still deeper level: a divine smile.

Our senses betray us usually - if our mind is stubborn. Let us dig holes into our 'sense data' and explore their profundities.

All contemporary 'psychologists' criticising Freud make themselves utterly ridiculous, and NOT EVEN liable to be psychanalysed themselves (for one must feel the urge of being treated first). What we tend to single out as 'emotions' have as their first 'ontological' basis... libido.

The cosmos is permeated by a libidinous drive. Those ridiculising this idea as 'sexist' or 'pervert' betray themselves as fully insensitive and deaf-mute-blind. I'd like to put a Mme Jeannette pepper in their ass-holes, or rather, let them do it themselves.

Aristocracy of the mind..., yes, Walter...

Schelling, how did you dare enter the divine Being? Who gave you the audacity to theosophize? But... how convincing you are to me. Just keep your secrets to yourself, I pray.

May my whole life be a constant prayer, not just a momentary.

Rico Sneller

Van Agt en Hamas

2009-10-14T10:49:00.001+02:00

Zie hier voor een bespreking van het recente boek van Van Agt over Israël en Hamas.

Filosofie en spiritualiteit

2009-10-08T12:07:00.009+02:00

Filosofie en spiritualiteit is een initiatief van Dr. Gerard Visser (UL, wijsbegeerte), prof. dr. Hans Gerding (UL, wijsbegeerte), drs. Barbara Zwaan (UL, godsdienstwetenschappen) en dr. Rico Sneller (UL, godsdienstwetenschappen).

Enkele malen per jaar worden er aan de Leidse universiteit geruchtmakende (mini)symposia georganiseerd, doorgaans op de vrijdagmiddag. Hier treden academische sprekers op die, voor een breed publiek, het ongewisse grensvlak verkennen tussen de empirisch-rationele en de uitzonderlijke bewustzijnspositie.

Binnen de academische wereld dreigt deze verkenningstocht te bezwijken onder de druk van de vermeende 'superioriteit' van de empirisch-rationele bewustzijnspositie.

Millennia-oude wijsgerige tradities, buiten èn binnen Europa, betwistten deze superioriteit allang voor ze ook maar kon opkomen. Werkelijk inzicht en vernieuwing van denken, zo moeten ook de empirisch-rationelen tenslotte toegeven, komt uitsluitend als een 'inval' tot stand: een inval die minstens naar de vorm overeenkomsten vertoont met 'mystieke' of 'extatische' bewustzijnstoestanden.

In een wereld waarin de grote religies zich nogal eens verliezen in onvruchtbare zelfreflectie of in ongeremde geweldsuitoefening, zijn er bewegingen gaande die het beste van de religieuze erfenissen proberen te koesteren en te beproeven.

Denkers en zieners, dichters en profeten, academici en narren, blijken elkaar soms... te kunnen vinden zònder zichzelf daarbij te hoeven verloochenen.

De academische context vergt blijvende wijsgerige bespiegeling en kritiek. Goedkope spiritualiteit is er uit den boze.

Op onze symposia voeren sprekers, publiek en discussieleiders spannende intellectuele exercities op, die nimmer zelfbevrediging van het intellect tot doel hebben, maar uitsluitend in de ban proberen te komen van datgene wat mensen uiteindelijk tot in hun merg kan raken.

De symposia worden doorgaans op deze plaats aangekondigd, alsook via overige voordehandliggende kanalen (Leidse universitaire en facultaire nieuwsbrief, mailingslist, affiches).

Wie zich wil laten toevoegen aan de mailist kan zich opgeven bij Rico Sneller, h.w.sneller@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

Voorbije symposia:

vrijdag 18 december 2009 'De presentie van de dood in het leven'. M.m.v. dr. Victor Kal (UvA), dr. Edith Plantier (VU), dr. Gerard Visser (UL) en dr. Hein van Dongen (Prana & Parapsychologisch Instituut) 10.30-16.30h.

vrijdag 29 januari 2010 'Poëzie en mystiek. Het vraagstuk van onthechting'. M.m.v. Dr. Gerard Visser (UL), Prof.dr. Jaap Goedegebuure (UL), Ds. dr. Kees Bregman (Soest).

vrijdag 11 juni 2010 'De presentie van het leven in het leven'. M.m.v. dr. Rico Sneller (UL) e.a.

In september 2010 zal het nieuwe programma voor 2010/2011 worden bekendgemaakt.

"Was aber den 'Aberglauben' oder die 'Phantastik' betrifft, so möge man nicht vergessen, dass davon frei zu sein nur den fragwürdigen Vorzug der 'Gebildeten' ausmacht, wohingegen wir tiefer und tiefer in beide hineingeraten, je weiter wir hinuntersteigen auf die Stufe des Volksbewusstseins, wo allein sich die Fäden knüpfen zur menschlichen Vorgeschichte."

"den lösenden und verschmelzenden Flor, der nur dem Mitternachtsauge der Seele leuchtet."

Ludwig Klages, Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (1929-1932), p.446v.

L'islam aux Pays Bas (article à paraître en Suisse, dans 'La vie protestante')

2009-10-08T09:23:00.002+02:00

Tout se passe comme si la vague islamique qui a inondé les Pays Bas au cours des dernières décennies rouvrait, de par son ressac, les plaies causées par les anciennes querelles religieuses post-Réforme d’il y a quatre siècles. La liberté de religion, enfin conquise après (grâce à) la période napoléonienne puis circonscrite, entre autres, dans les célèbres lois sur l’éducation de 1878 et 1917 synchronisant l’enseignement tant public que spécial (religieux), reste fondamentale pour ce pays.

Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, tout groupe exprimant une conception particulière de la vie a le droit de s’organiser au niveau social, religieux et éducatif. On appelle ce droit la « liberté d’union et d’association ». Comme aux Pays-Bas les formations religieuses diverses, surtout calvinistes, abondent, ceux et celles qui profitent de cette liberté sont nombreux. Chaque « formation idéologique ou identitaire » a le droit de bâtir sa propre église, temple ou mosquée, pourvu que les limites des plans de zonages soient respectées. Des écoles et même des universités d’orientation religieuse (surtout catholiques et protestantes, mais aussi celles s’inspirant de l’anthroposophie steinerienne) jouissent d’un support financier par l’Etat égal à celui des écoles et des universités dites « publiques ».

Ce système d’égalisation de l’enseignement public et religieux – ironie de l’histoire – est devenu tout le contraire de la fameuse laïcité française.

Les juifs – pour en rester à l’exemple de l’enseignement – ont toujours profité de cette liberté, et n’ont jamais provoqué de problèmes sociaux (ils ne le pouvaient d’ailleurs pas, faute de patrie où se réfugier). Au contraire, les quelques lycées juifs néerlandais, sortent les meilleurs élèves, et la question de l’intégration s’y pose bien moins encore que dans certaines écoles ultra-calvinistes.

Il n’en va pas toujours de même des écoles islamiques, malheureusement. Dès leur installation et au fur et à mesure de leur fonctionnement, elles ont été le sujet de débats véhéments concernant leur absence de caractère intégrant et socialisant ainsi que la faiblesse de leur niveau. Qu’il en soit ainsi ne me semble pourtant pas s’inscrire dans la logique interne de l’islam, et doit peut-être mis sur le compte d’autres facteurs (surtout culturel).

Qu’en est-il aux Pays-Bas, mis à part les droits religieux, sociaux et culturels relativement favorables à la pratique de l’islam, du climat socioculturel dans lequel vivent les musulmans ? Ce climat est parfois tendu. La présence du terrorisme islamique mondial y est pour beaucoup, évidemment, de même que le degré inférieur d’intégration de certains jeunes criminels d’origine marocaine.

La droite politique, par ailleurs défenderesse convaincue de la liberté d’expression, montre ici sa scission interne et irréductible, lorsqu’elle proteste aussi, d’une voix plutôt conservatrice, contre les forces « antilibérales » et « antidémocratiques » inhérentes à la présence islamique – montrant par là-même la contradiction interne de la démocratie libérale occidentale.

La gauche, par contre, qui traditionnellement se fait l’avocate des minorités sociales, et donc aussi des groupes d’une autre origine ethnique, se voit confrontée à certaines attitudes religieuses qui sont nocives à l’émancipation des femmes et des homosexuels, qui se transforment une critique d’Israël en un antisémitisme virulent, et qui inhibent la liberté artistique.

La présence musulmane, profitant de la sensibilité occidentale antiraciste née de la Shoah, n’en montre pas moins ses contradictions démocratiques internes.

Elle montre que la neutralité de l’Etat est une fiction, que la démocratie incarne des valeurs positives et donc plus que formelles, mais encore que l’élite culturelle et intellectuelle n’a pas le droit d’identifier ses « modes » artistiques aux démarches démocratiques tout court.

Bref, que la démocratie, toute positive et non-formelle qu’elle soit, n’est la possession privée de personne.

Dr. Rico Sneller,
Université de Leyde, Institut de sciences religieuses
Pays-Bas

Israël en Gaza

2009-01-05T12:27:00.002+01:00

Zie hier voor een reactie van het CIDI op veel kritische vragen n.a.v. Israëls inval in de Gaza-strook.

Weib und Vernunft

2008-10-23T10:36:00.000+02:00

Seid ihr nicht wie die Weiber, die beständig
Zurück nur kommen auf ihr erstes Wort,
nachdem man Vernunft gesprochen stundenlang?

Schiller, Wallensteins Tod, 2,3

radiointerview BNR over zelfmoordterrorisme

2008-06-12T19:15:00.002+02:00

Klik hier voor een radiointerview met mij over zelfmoordterrorisme, Hamasmanifest e.d.: kijk bij Radioarchief, zet datum op "donderdag 12 juni", en tijd op "15.03".

Duur van het interview: ruim 10 minuten.

Het artikel waarvan in het interview sprake is: ‘De moraal van de zelfmoordterreur. Analyse van het Handvest van Hamas’, in: Tijdschrift voor Theologie 47 (2007), 389-407.

collumns

2008-05-28T22:51:00.001+02:00

In de maanden juni en juli ben ik gevraagd als gastcollumnist bij de interreligieuze werkplaats (www.interreligieuze-werkplaats.nl/). Mijn eerste collumn zal gaan over de Jij-beleving.

interview over mystiek

2008-02-05T14:58:00.000+01:00

Klik hier voor een video-interview met mij over mystiek, spiritualiteit etc.

Gotteswort und Menschenwort

2008-01-10T09:52:00.001+01:00

Gottes Wege und des Menschen Wege sind verschieden, aber das Wort Gottes und das Wort des Menschen sind das Gleiche. Was der Mensch in seinem Herzen als seine eigene Menschensprache vernimmt, ist das Wort, das aus Gottes Munde kommt.

F. Rosenzweig, Stern der Erlösung, 167v.

Hegel

2007-11-28T10:17:00.000+01:00

"Das Leben Gottes und das göttliche Erkennen

mag also wohl als ein Spielen der Liebe

mit sich selbst

ausgesprochen werden;

diese Idee sinkt zur Erbaulichkeit und selbst zur Fadheit herab,

wenn der Ernst,

der Schmerz,

die Geduld und Arbeit des Negativen

darin fehlt."

Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, 'Einleitung'

Rosenzweig, Stern der Erlösung

2007-11-28T09:54:00.000+01:00

"aber der Mensch kann sich in der Liebestat erst äussern,

nachdem er zuvor von Gott wachgerufene Seele geworden ist.

Nur die Gottgeliebtheit der Seele macht ihre Liebestat zu mehr

als einer blossen Tat,

nämlich zur Erfüllung eines - Liebesgebots."

Rosenzweig, Stern der Erlösung, p.239

Levinas: ethiek, mystiek en erotiek

2006-06-20T11:02:00.000+02:00

Recent verschenen: themanummer van Wijsgerig Perspectief jg. 46 2006, nr.1.

Hierin o.a. een artikel van mijn hand over Ethiek, mystiek en erotiek. Bestellen? Zie in de catalogus van uitgeverij Boom: http://www.uitgeverijboom.nl/catalogus/index2_3.html.

onlangs verschenen: Judéités. Questions pour Jacques Derrida

2006-05-27T16:55:00.000+02:00

Onlangs verscheen een boek met daarin teksten van en over Derrida in relatie tot het jodendom.
Overige auteurs zijn o.a. Betty Rojtman, Moshe Idel, Gianni Vattimo, Jürgen Habermas, Cathérine Malabou en Jean-Luc Nancy.
De tekst van Derrida is getiteld: 'Abraham, l'autre'. Aandacht hierin voor o.m. Kafka, Yeruschalmi en Sartre.
Tip: een uitdagend artikel van Moshe Idel: 'Jacques Derrida et les sources cabalististiques'

toespraak bij uitreiking onderwijsprijs 2005

2006-04-12T09:06:00.000+02:00

Speech on occasion of awarding educational prize
June, 7th, 2005.I am so incredibly proud of being honoured with this prize, you cannot imagine! Thanks to all those students who voted for me, thanks to the Leiden Students Council!

Will I ever be able to go on the same way? Should I go on the same way? Should I not always look for self improvement?

I am convinced that humility is the most adequate academic attitude. Especially when teaching. Especially when teaching, as I do, philosophical subjects. Especially when doing this, as I do, at a theological faculty. Teaching – philosophy – at a theological faculty – should double, or three-double, humility.

For, in the first place, students may reveal my final ignorance.

For, in the second place, philosophy is more about asking questions than about giving answers.

And finally, theologians should heed otherness and singularity, as they have made too many mistakes on this field in the past.

Why is teaching so important for me?

Because I like students, and I like them being perplexed or dazzled. I like to share with them my own perplexity. I must confess that I hate it when they don’t.

Teaching is also important for me because in philosophy, I would say, discussion is more important than writing. It is more difficult, too. The other always questions my own streams of consciousness.

Teaching ethics is important for me, as it enables me to contribute to a sense of responsibility in the students. I know that the university is not a political party or a pressure group. The university aims at a so called ‘objectivity’. But I doubt whether cynicism or a purely reductive approach of phenomena – as you find them so often on our academic campuses – meets this objectivity, either. I think that if we, as university teachers, send our students into the wide world of power and influence without a sense of responsibility, if we affect them with our own dissatisfaction, as we so often do, we are simply failing.

Some of you may have read late Saul Bellow’s latest novel Ravelstein. This novel is about the Jewish-American philosopher Allan Bloom, famous for his book The Closing of the American Mind. What I admire so much in this university teacher, Ravelstein, alias Allan Bloom, is, that he, secular though he may be, did not hesitate to admit that he was appealing to his students’ souls. He taught several times about Plato’s Symposion or the Phaedrus – I do not even know what the subject was he was supposed to teach – in order to make his students aware of their souls. “It is all about your soul”, he used to say to his students.

I guess that most of you here will dislike this expression. But I would like to readopt it today. Why not? Does not the concept of ‘soul’, unattainable though it may seem for experimental research, refer to the enigma that haunts man? Does it not refer to his being able to feel responsible for another? So, I would like you to reconsider with me today this notion of ‘soul’.

I have only been given two minutes here to reply, so there is no time to expand on this. I would like to express my deeply felt gratitude towards all the students who voted for me. I prefer discussing with them about the question of Being to being engaged in managerial activities, for which I am fairly unsuited. Without students, the university can pack up and go. When we are to reduce Leiden University to a sole research factory, the students’ educational polls will inevitably shake us awake. I hope that education on our university remains a matter of special interest.

I would also like to recommend to every one here our theological faculty as a good place to pursue his or her own intellectual self-development. The world is rediscovering religion today as something that cannot be neglected. So I hope that all my colleagues from other faculties share the world’s tendency and that they rediscover our small faculty.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this prize today to the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who died last year. My thesis was about him. Most of Derrida’s published texts pre-existed in the form of his weekly seminar. His thought took shape during those seminars. In a way, he is an example to me, though I will never attain his level. When I spoke him once – as I was still preparing my thesis – I had the impression, during that particular conversation, that I was speaking to a madman. But ingenious people, I think, are always a bit crazy.

Unless they are not. Maybe it is the other way round. Maybe it is we who are crazy. Maybe we are still sleeping, and maybe we do not like being awakened.

I hope that during my future seminars, students will not stop trying to awaken me, when I have fallen ‘asleep’ while talking and thinking. And perhaps, sometimes, I will be awakening them. May we be each other’s madman.

Thank you!

absolute goed

2006-04-08T14:29:00.000+02:00

Zojuist verschenen in het Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift (febr. 2006), mijn artikel 'Het absolute Goed: een open vraag'. Hierin een poging om Plato's mysterieuze "idee van het Goede" (Politeia 509b)) in actueel perspectief te plaatsen. Ik ga in op o.a. Leo Strauss, Levinas, Adorno, Hitler's Mein Kampf en Eichmans dagboeken. Zie ook:
http://www.boekencentrum.nl/recent_tijdschriften.tpl?detail=T&sku=5468950#nummerinhoud

poésie

2006-04-05T22:26:00.000+02:00

Ci-haut et là-bas
Poème fait à l'occasion de mon congé de Paris, juin 1991

Faut-il que je te quitte, Paris, ma joie, mon allégresse?
Que dans l'obscur septentrional mon âme si gaie se rabaisse,
et que comme les mânes d'Eurydice, s'envolant à jamais
dans de sombres enfers inaccessibles à l'amant, je me dresse
à un sol infertil et lourd des larmes qu'y pleurent les cieux?

Toi, Orphée, Héros illustre, qui tes pas
dirigeas vers ce repos redoutable des ombres,
bravas les portes de l'enfer - et Cerbère là-bas
oublia sa vengeance par ta flûte enchantée - sans encombre,
Orphée, arrivas-tu au seuil du palais infernal -
Orphée, dis-je, m'emmèneras-tu, et braveras-tu
la hydre hollandaise qui, pour qu'elle s'apaise, m'empale
sur les ailes des moulins qui s'enchaînent dans un flux et reflux?

Inutile, o Héros, car Lutèce me perdra à jamais, à ses doigts
glisserai-je, ses rêves n'y rêverai-je plus désormais.
Vers les aurores boréales, vers les souffles rhénans, vers ses pluviaux dais
dirigerai-je à jamais le destin incertain de mes pas.

Oui,ah oui, te quitterai-je, Lutèce de mon âme, douce nourrice de mon coeur.
A ton sein m'arracherai-je, à ton lait préfèrerai-j'une patrie plus sombre
qui, bien que l'enfer de tes caresses célestes, en nouveau pasteur
gîterai mes angoisses, m'abreuvera, m'alimentera dans de ses bergeries l'ombre.

Paris, le 18 juin 1991.
Rico Sneller

religie en ethiek

2006-01-24T19:54:00.000+01:00

Onlangs verschenen:

Jos Kole/Gerrit de Kruijf, Het ongemak van religie. Multiculturaliteit en ethiek, Kampen, Kok, 2005.

Tegenwoordig is godsdienst een factor van belang, vooral in negatieve zin: volgens velen bezorgt religie de samenleving op zijn zachtst gezegd ongemak. Toch staat in deze bundel de stelling centraal dat religie een positieve rol kan spelen in onze multiculturele samenleving en democratische rechtsstaat.

Van mijn hand een bijdrage getiteld, ‘Overwonnen of versmaad? Religie als ferment van de ethiek’. Hierin verdedig ik onder verwijzing naar de joodse filosoof Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) dat 'religie' een normatief begrip is, en ook als zodanig dient te worden opgevat.