12 de septiembre de 2020

CBU: Desire and Recognition

Midterm exam
Pablo Franco Ceballos
201713026

Answer each question as completely as possible in the space of about one or two paragraphs.
Each question is worth 5 points. The exam is worth 30% of your final grade.

1. According to Alexander Kojève, what is the essential connection between self-

consciousness and recognition? Why can genuine recognition only be attained through a
“fight to the death for pure prestige”?

According to Kojève, as humans, self-conscious beings, we desire lots of things that go beyond
our primal instincts, things based on the sentiment of self, the “I”. Yet, we also have an “animal
life” which is a basic desire, a desire to keep that life. In that order, to speak of self-
consciousness is necessarily to speak of a fight to the death for recognition, human desire can
imply the risk of that animal life just for the sake of such a desire, all of it as a human reality that
only “comes to light” through that “fight to the death for pure prestige”. The reason of this is that
human being is formed only in terms of a desire directed toward another desire, therefore, it can
only be formed if at least two of this desires confront one another, something like two beings
ready to give everything in the pursuit of the satisfaction of that desire, risking their lives in order
to impose themselves to be recognized.

2. In light of Aristotle’s description of the “great-souled man,” analyze the character of Ajax
in Sophocles’ play of the same name. After his disgrace, why is suicide the “only option”
for Ajax?

Ajax was the son of Telamon and a Greek commander from Salamis, he was the greatest of the
greeks, the great shield man, big Ajax… In order to have so much recognition, he must have
done many glorious things. According to Aristotle, greatness of soul resides in greatness itself,
clearly Ajax was great for greeks, glorified in every single way, but that does not mean that he
was great in soul, for example, Aristotle says that “it would in no way be suitable for a great-
souled man to flee with arms swinging or to commit injustice”, Ajax did one after the other
because of his madness, tried to kill his comrades and even worse, he killed a herd of cattle
believing they were them. ¿Is he innocent because of his sickness? ¿Is he a great souled man or
even a great man? Well, of course he was in the eyes of the greeks until then but, he became mad
because of an incommensurable rage, that´s no badge of honor in no way from Aristotle
conception of greatness.

Ajax was trying to redeem himself, despite of all of his virtues, he was being dishonored
by all the greeks, he did something unforgivable, no victory, no feat, no achievement could give
him glory anymore, no one would recognize him or if even if they do, they would always
remember that time when he became mad. A former glorious soldier, who had all the recognition
that one could ever imagine, doesn´t had a single taste anymore, ¿how could a man like Ajax live
with that? He couldn´t, he “redeemed” himself with his own blood.

3. According to Denis de Rougemont, why does passionate love seek out obstacles to its
own satisfaction? Why does love that attains the object of its love cease be love?

We tend to love blindly, Denis de Rougemont explain what passionate love is from passion
itself, he explains that passion basically conflicts and define love in lots of ways. According to
him, passionate love is idealized but it is a misfortune. An example he proposes is that the
community still drives passionate love in nine cases out of ten to take the form of adultery, happy
love can’t have history. Romance it´s only possible where love is doomed by life itself. Passion
guides us, and passion means suffering. Love have lost its aesthetic virtues together with its
spiritual and tragic values, leaves an after taste of dull and diluted pain, unclean and gloomy and
that is because passion puts obstacles to it.

Love cease, there´s no eternal love, suffering is often used to understand love, when one shares
passionate love, the love is being fought against, it becomes unhappy mutual love, anxious for
happiness, a love that rejects its own disaster in a false reciprocity and eventually ends hurtfully
because of that.