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THE COMPLEXITIES OF SENSE AND SPIRIT IN THE CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF JEAN-FRANCOIS LYOTARD, JEAN-LUC NANCY AND THE 17-TH CENTURY METAPHYSICAL POETRY

E. Bobrowska

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relation between the rhetoric of J.-F. LyotardВ’s late writings, The Confession of Augustine in particular, as well as the philosophical approach to the human body in the thought of J.-L. Nancy (Corpus), and the imagery of the early seven-teenth century English metaphysical poetry of John Donne and George Herbert. In the poems, the sublime topics and affections are introduced in the contrastive light of the symbols of earthly matters and the carnal mind, as well as the metaphors of precision and calculation. The latter reflects the Kantian approach to time and space as an attempt to internalize metaphysics. In both cases, the intellectual wit is juxtaposed with the inten-sity and the enthusiasm of passionate feeling and thought. The sensual elements connect with the spirit and the mystically enlightened soulВ’s divine nature, which parallels Lyo-tardВ’s of reading St. AugustineВ’s Confessions. His turn toward theology results in a some-how Freudian and, at the same time, very poetic analysis of the very paradigm of autobi-ography. At the core of this study, there are inherent dualisms of human nature such as: sin and salvation, evil and divine, being and appearance, image and word. The body and its needs, its sensual experience and erotic drives do not constitute an obstacle to faith and religious mystical experience but rather form its indispensable element.

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