Archaeology and his break: the need for genealogy and the appearance of power relations in Michel Foucault thinking
Thana Mara de SOUZA, Bruno Abilio GALVÃO
Original title: A arqueologia e seu rompimento: a necessidade de uma genealogia e o aparecimento das relações de poder no pensamento de Michel Foucault
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Archaeology, Genealogy, Knowledge, Speech, power.
Breaking the boundaries of archeology is the result of a long trajectory of Foucault’s thought that in L’Archéologie du savoir, becomes unable to analyze the new issues that arise: the subject and social grounds relating to the choices of themes and theories that make certain discourse. The question of the subject presented in archaeological history from the beginning, in Histoire de la Folie, linked to the concept of historical a priori, as it always refers to a “someone” involved in discursive practices. But the “social foundation” appears in L’archéologie du savoir when Foucault investigates the strategic formations of a speech. From that moment, to explain the emergence of knowledge linked with social practices in which the subject is inserted, Foucault opts for a genealogy of power. So the aim of our work is to show how the breaking of boundaries of archeology, a fact that drives Foucault to look at the thought of Nietzsche, genealogy as a method that provides continuing with their studies occurs. As we reach the archaeological limit Foucault entering his genealogical period, we will see the emergence of the issue of power and its relation to the discursive practices presented during the term of archeology.
Moses and the gnosiology of God, according Gregory’s of Nyssa interpretation in Canticum Canticorum
Eirini ARTEMI
Original title: Moses and the gnosiology of God, according Gregory’s of Nyssa interpretation in Canticum Canticorum
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Agnoia, Canticum Canticorum, Gnofos, Gnosiology, Gregory of Nyssa, Ignorance, Knowledge, Moses.
This paper seeks to provide an exposition on Gregory of Nyssa’s work on how Moses could “know” and “see” God. Humanity and God stand on two very different planes of existence. Moses “knew” God, because he tried to leave with God’s order. Every time that Moses made a movement that included a kind of his sacrifice, God appeared to him. God presented Himself to Moses through the burning bush. Gregory underlined that that every person, included Moses, can know the essence of God – one cannot know what God is. However, one can know “that God is” – meaning that we can know that God exists. Moses had many “visions” of God and Gregory explained that it is not possible for any man to describe these God’s revelation to Moses, because “Humans are not capable of this knowledge because it is “other than” or “beyond” them”. Moses wanted to see God all the time. Gregory reminded his audience that erotic desire mirrors spiritual desire only in part; spiritual desire – and ultimately the divine nature – cannot be limited to erotic desire. Thus, Gregory of Nyssa highlighted both God’s imminence and God’s transcendence. Moses wanted to see the same face of God. His desire was expressed to God. He knew that Salvation is achieved through knowledge about God, but in Christian dimension. This knowledge determined both humans and the form and content of their life. The knowledge for God is no longer man’s work in Christian teaching. It is the work of faith to the revealed truth. For this high feat-conquest has as assistant only the faith of man to God and the grace of God to man.
The Notion of Excessus in Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: A noção de Excessus em Santo Tomás de Aquino (1224-1274)
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
Keywords: Deus, Excessus, Knowledge, Metaphysics, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas, Transcendence, Triplex via.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the notion of excessus in St. Thomas Aquinas (Sth. Iª, q. 84, a. 7 ad 3). We will highlight the influence of the negative way of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on human intellectual knowledge about God. The term excessus indicates the way of eminence (via eminentiae, per excessum) of our knowledge of the fullness of God’s perfections, that is, of his transcendence.
The degrees of knowledge to the mystical vision in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
José GONZÁLES RÍOS
Original title: Los grados de conocimiento hacia la visión mística en el pensamiento de Nicolás de Cusa (1401-1464)
Published in Mystic and Millenarianism in Middle Ages
Keywords: Knowledge, Metaphysics, Mystical vision, Neoplatonism, Nicholas of Cusa.
The speculation on the topic of vision (visio), and in it around the mystical vision (visio mystica), is rich in the system of thought of Nicholas of Cusa. It is permanently present in his sermons, letters and in the rest of his theological and philosophical work. While there are various ways to address it, we propose considering it from his metaphysics of the human mind (mens human) point of view, and in it through the consideration of the degree of knowledge what the mind gradually transit in the conjectural searching of vision of the first principle from which she and all proceeds. To this end, we will address the topic of the mystical vision by considering first, the elements that Cusano gives in the context of his early sermons (before 1440). Second, through the presentation of the degrees of knowledge of the human mind, as they appear in the first great metaphysical systematization of knowledge in the books of De coniecturis (1442/3).Third, we discuss the topic in his work De visione Dei (1453). Analyzing this elements we hope to show that the topic of the mystical vision in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa is inseparable from his metaphysics of the human mind.
