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From the Ethical to the Existential: Tragic Knowledge and Religious Identity

Submitted to Program Units
1: Ethics Unit

Russell Johnson, University of Chicago, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

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Papers

  • Amanda Bolaños, Duke University

    The Existential Movement from Lament to Hope: How Identity is Formed through Spaces of Sacredness

    Abstract

    Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Nietzsche each attend to the role of identity in their existential thoughts. However, what is the role of space – physical and social – in relationship to identity? How does space function and affect identity in the depths of absurdity, in the midst of liberation? In seeking to discern identity in the midst of absurdity, a consistent movement from lament to hope is detected. Looking to postmodern existential thinkers, such as Mariana Ortega, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Toni Morrison, this paper will explore the importance of recognizing the development of one’s identity in this existential movement of lament to hope – an identity that is able to be discerned through spaces of sacredness beyond religion proper. I yearn to turn exclusively to women of color existential thinkers who offer critical viewpoints of euro-centered aestheticism, bringing to the forefront the effects of the diaspora space on those who have multifaceted identities.

  • E. P. (Petruschka) Schaafsma, Protestant Theological University

    How evil is the tragic? On the differences between tragic, ethical and religious views of evil  

    Abstract

    This paper explores characteristics of "tragedy" by distinguishing a tragic perspective on evil from an ethical and a religious perspective, respectively. Underlying this three-pronged approach is Paul Ricoeur's analysis of evil in La Symbolique du Mal. Symbolic language can express the ambiguity inherent in experiencing evil due to an intermingling of, in particular, an ethical and a tragic view. These views are studied here in Immanuel Kant (ethical) and Karl Jaspers (tragic). Kant turns out to incorporate a kind of tragic perspective in his ethical view when going into religion. Jaspers’ tragic view however is far less ambiguous. This difference is further clarified by Ricoeur’s notion of the ‘end of evil’ as characteristic of a religious view of evil. Understanding the three approaches in relation to each other gives insight into why evil might be seen as most ‘at home’ in a religious view.  

     

  • Charles Mathewes, University of Virginia

    Tragedy and Irony in Religious Ethics

    Abstract

    Recent interest in tragedy in religious ethics—exemplified by Kate Jackson-Meyer’s _Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics_—suggest ongoing interest in the topic. This paper attempts to connect these recent researches with earlier philosophical, theological, and literary debates about tragedy, to argue that irony may offer a clue for thinking about tragedy in ways heretofore underappreciated.  Scholars such as George Steiner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Martha Nussbaum, Bernard Williams and Jonathan Lear suggest important resources.  This paper arguest that a category of irony, deployed by Niebuhr in theological terms and Lear in psychoanalytic terms, offers some insight into how Christianity, with a high providential view of Divine agency as supervening over the human situation, can accommodate the ontological insights of tragedy as a "broken knowledge" alongside a theological claim that such tragedy is always a partial knowledge, thus opening the space of irony for further affirmation and investigation of the phenomena under study.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen

Sabbath Observance

Saturday (all day)
Sunday (all day)

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Monday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Schedule Info

Monday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

evil

Session Identifier

A25-310