This article suggests that ?evolutionary vision,? the unifying paradigm of physical, biological, and sociocultural evolution, needs to be fully embodied and deeply experienced in the human being, and that this can be effected by the experience at the heart of the ?perennial wisdom tradition,? 1 that is, that of ?non-dual perception.? The article suggests an ?action-based? experiment paralleling the method of a ?thought experiment,? based on the assumption that one way that one can experience this embodiment is by ?trying on? (...) the lens of non-dual perception, as practiced by the many traditions of perennial wisdom. (shrink)

The Platonic chora, as the third, intermediating term, has been left in a state of virtual dereliction in the West. Its ternary logic transmutes oppositional logics of binarity, including the oppositions of interior and exterior, psyche and cosmos, human and divine. In this article I analyse the mytho-philosophical trajectory of the chora from Plato’s Timaeus, and Diotimaic love found in Plato’s Symposium. I argue that both the disruptive force of Diotimaic love, and the subversive chora with its ‘bastard reasoning’1 are (...) indicative of Plato’s efforts to resolve an internalized conflict which mirrored a larger conflict found in his cultural epoch, a time in which abstracted self-consciousness was on the horizon and chthonic-participatory consciousness was receding. In membering the chora I find a fecund space-time, an enabling field, for human participatory becoming-with the cosmos. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The connection between the unity of God and the multiplicity seen in the universe represents the central concern for the Sufi thinker, Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn ‘Arabī (d. 638/1240). It deeply affected the thought of the Southeast Asian mystic, Ḥamza Fanṣūrī (d. 1590?), and his alleged disciple, Shams al-Dīn al-Sumatra’ī (d. 1630). Traces of this idea, through its popularisation in the poems of Fanṣūrī, exert a powerful influence on the Indonesian intellectual topography to this day. This article investigates the concept (...) of unity and multiplicity, of the One expressed as the many in the phenomenal world, in Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fuṣūṣ al-ḥikam (Ringstones of Wisdom). Through a close textual reading of the chapters of Ādam (Adam) and Ibrāhīm (Abraham) and their various commentaries by the most influential followers of Ibn ‘Arabī, it concludes that the representation of ‘oneness of being’ (waḥdat al-wujūd), which was extensively taught by Fanṣūrī in Aceh, as an erasure of the God-Man divide, is untenable. (shrink)

Prispevek predstavi imaginalni svet [imaginal world], osrednji Avicenov koncept kot tudi njegovih iranskih filozofskih privržencev, zato da bi prikazal načine, kako imaginalno še naprej deluje v filmih Abbasa Kiarostamija. Kot implicira že njegovo ime, imaginalno zadeva podobo, natančneje povedano, podobo, kolikor je dojeta kot udeležena v politični ekonomiji božanskega oziroma znotraj aparata, ki povezuje časovni, politični red ljudi z odmaknjeno instanco božanskega. Če so bila dela falasife anatema islamske teologije, je bilo to v celoti povezano z umikom božanskega, ki je (...) delovalo v političnem redu zgolj na način odsotnosti. Kiarostamijev film Close Up prikazuje koncept imaginalnega a contrario. (shrink)

In my thesis, I aim to develop a systematic and philosophically coherent thesis of ultimate reality for Ibn Arabi. In this pursuit, I adopt the style of analytic philosophy, seeking to employ and utilise some of its methods and theories. The philosophical aspects of Ibn Arabi’s doctrine are in dire need of conceptual clarification and systematic analysis with a closer focus on argumentation. The analytic tradition will prove most helpful in this regard. In my thesis, I begin by tracing Ibn (...) Arabi’s related views and concepts as they are dispersed throughout his writings. I then clarify, sharpen and, in many cases, develop these views and concepts into fully constructed forms. Finally, I weave the developed concepts and views into a systematic thesis or set of sub-theses. Where necessary, I provide my own arguments and concepts to help substantiate and strengthen the structure of Ibn Arabi’s thesis. I propose that Ibn Arabi’s various, and sometimes apparently inconsistent, views are best presented in terms of three main concepts: the concept of ultimate reality as existence, which has long been known as Ibn Arabi’s thesis of the oneness of existence ; the concept of ultimate reality as the Divine Self ; and the concept of ultimate reality as God. The three concepts neither represent different ultimate realities nor different perspectives of the same ultimate reality. Instead, they represent the same ultimate reality but each one has its own unique scope and encompassment. The three concepts are aimed at encompassing Ibn Arabi’s various views and concepts of ultimate reality in a consistent and systematic manner. (shrink)

Breath is a perceptual practice, a form of listening, of attending. These words begin to mark out the unique space of this thesis. It is ‘written from the breath’, a stance that breaks free of the silencing of breath in contemporary language theory. Importantly, the thesis makes the large claim that the closing down of conceptual breathing spaces in the twentieth century parallels the asphyxiation of a spiritual connection with the world. This is seen by Helen Sharp, the author of (...) this posthumous thesis, as ‘the loss of the profane halo’. Sharp acknowledges a debt to Georgio Agamben’s notion of the ‘Halo’ in The Coming Community as composed of a ‘tiny displacement’. She identifies such displacements as breath movement. ‘Each breath event develops as a potentiality of relationship where self is re-conceived and born anew in tiny little flutters…’ of each inhalation and exhalation. Here lies the core of her thinking where the movement of life surges forth in the ‘imperceptible trembling of the finite’. This, she writes, is equivalent to ‘the illuminated field of the breath as halo’. Moving into the realm of the artistic-poetic, the thesis itself comes to take on the character of a work of art. Its three edges are written dialogues, performance prologues, and breath practice including breath dialogue. (shrink)

Creation or becoming as a philosophical and theological problem has always been one of the main controversial issues of philosophers and theologians. It is sometimes defended that creation is an instant act or event; sometimes it is thought that creation is a process without a beginning. In this article, the approaches of Ibn Arabī and Ibn Taymiyya to the issue of creation are examined and compared. These two scholars mainly advocate that it is not possible for creation to begin at (...) a certain time as an instant event. According to them, while nothing material can be co-eternal with God, He has always been creating and manifesting from eternity because of His perfection. This study argues that when this issue is taken in its various aspects, it will be seen that Ibn Arabī and Ibn Taymiyya stand together about the issue against both philosophers and theologians. (shrink)