VOLUME 3(2) • 2015
Language-related self-inflicted death
ABSTRACT. Most of the psychiatric disorders, both as manifestation and diagnosis, sometimes resumptive, are related to language use, affective disorders, interhuman attitudes, etc. Self-inflicted death is no exception, come to think of it. It is a matter of ethics in the first place, and the argumen..
Plunging into deep water
ABSTRACT. In Greek and Roman mythologies we will find many examples of suicides but in Romanian mythology, and Slavic mythology as well, they appear sporadically, because of the inheritance of several mythical and religious precepts from Thracian and Dacian ancestors and maybe because of the impact ..
Taking off the amber, putting out the lamp
ABSTRACT. After first dealing with the theoretical background of suicide notes and farewell letters, with their history, semantics, and “differential diagnosis,” we deal with the particular case of poets, writers and artists and do not fail to see that theirs are richer in symbolic values, with rega..
The tragic heroism of failure
ABSTRACT. In the psychological novel Radacini/Roots, which concludes the Hallipa cycle by Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu we will find the psychological profile (seen from “within”) of “illegitimate” children, a category whose semantic field the author expands, including in it the unwanted children, espe..
Respice, adspice, prospice
ABSTRACT. Although there is no clear-cut threshold of old age, for medical purposes physicians tend to define “elderly” as beginning in the range of 65 to 70. In practice, however, treatment decisions are based not on age alone but on a person’s entire medical profile and mental outlook – both of wh..
Fallaces sunt rerum species
ABSTRACT. When visiting the Achilleion on the Greek island of Corfu, one could see among the many statues representing the mythological hero Achilles, a particular one staging his death. It is a sculpture showing the mighty warrior being hit by an arrow in the only vulnerable part of his body, the h..
Indirect death: ennui and void
ABSTRACT. The questions that Emil Cioran asks time and again could be phrased like: What was God doing before creating the world, time and man? What does God do when he leaves man all alone in the world? What does God do when man turns away from Him who wishes to be worshipped? What about the man wh..
Iris confesses
ABSTRACT. Establishing herself as a sophisticated intellectual historian of the crisis in language revolution Iris Murdoch defined her language philosophy for the readers and, in creating models for her fiction, she also enriched both her fiction and her philosophy although she never liked to be cal..
Narcissus confesses
ABSTRACT. Our main concern has been to outline, in its fundamental aspects, the system of the idea of confession, its repertoire of features. From its fundamental claim to truth derives a series of characteristics, i.e. sincerity, authenticity, etc., which although originally moral conditions, have ..
Mania, depression, and culture
ABSTRACT. What occurs in psychopathology is the disturbance of psychoanthropological modules, or rather the demise of institutions like the king’s fool, and the detour of cultural phenomena like the carnival. They become undifferentiated, rigid, relatively autonomous, tending to react to minor and n..
Madness, power and histrionism
ABSTRACT. By associating relaxation, excitement and death with entertainment, the frenzy of imperial performances includes with the same force of contagion the public space and the space of power in a drunken violence and delight projecting decadentism onto the Roman world in an orgiastic Dionysian ..
Hymera juri: Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus
ABSTRACT. In its century-old history the Church has often joined courses with the State, so that negotiating boundaries between them was hardly ever an easy job. Important aspects were sometimes neglected in order to contain ambitions and avoid trespassing. In this context, if one might think that s..