Objectal remainder: The ontology of honor

Pithamber Rao Polsani, Purdue University

Abstract

Departing from the traditional--sociological and moralist--approaches for the study of honor in the seventeenth-century Spanish comedia, this dissertation undertakes an inquiry into the essence of honor. The question of honor's ontological determination acquires importance precisely because the characters perceive and judge the world from the point of view of honor. Yet honor can be apprehended only in its manifestations, not in its essence. The primordial mode of its manifestation is its loss (dishonor). Honor appears the moment it disappears and it emerges only in effacing itself. Though this quasi-conceptual status of honor is indeterminate, its effects produce death. In this dissertation I define the condition of honor in its multiple disclosures: as law from a Kantian perspective that lacks content and exists as a pure from; as a reified imaginary object that lures the subject to an infinite pursuit; and as super-ego, an internalized aggression against another which forever proves the subject's guilt.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Stephenson, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Romance literature|Philosophy

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