Atopy (philosophy)

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The atopy ( Greek ατοπία ATOPIA 'undetermined' "rootlessness", "high originality ") refers to the ineffability and Unverortbarkeit of rare experiencer, the first adverts out, the original in the best sense. Atopy is understood either as an ethos , an observable (experience) quality - in itself or for others - or as an ideal (for example in the genius cult of the romantic era ).

Atopy as an ethical determination in Plato

The original use of the word can be found in Plato's banquet, in which he describes Socrates as atopos. Socrates is invited to the Agathon victory celebration, but is lost in thought before entering the house.

“Socrates has gone back and is standing in the front door of a neighboring house and, despite my invitation, does not want to come in. (...) Because that is a custom that he has in himself: sometimes he goes aside where it is meeting and stops. "

In this context, Atopos means that Socrates behaves inappropriately and in an unexpected way for everyone else, ie that he defies the usual social ethos (“that is his custom”). The Atopos is part of society, but does not 'fit in', that is, it has no definable position and behaves in a way that today would be called “non-conformist”.

Atopy as a quality of experience

The loving person, irrespective of where his admiration and inflammation is directed, be it a loved one, a mystically understood God or an idol , shows himself, if it is not just "enthusiasm" but "emotion", unable to " Defining the object ”of one's love in terms of properties declares the“ obscure object of desire ”to be unique and incomparable.

The assignment of properties ( attribution ) from the banal everyday world appeared to the serious lover as a betrayal ( sacrilege ) of the very own love itself. Nobody has described and analyzed this more emphatically than Roland Barthes in his famous essay volume “ Fragments of a Language of Love ” from the 1977. But, on closer inspection, it is an everyday phenomenon of all "normal mortals" that the parents can describe, gloss over or curse the relationship with their children, but recognize the depth of their feelings for their own offspring as atopic, i.e. indescribable.

The "natural religion" therefore speaks of " Tao ", the "original" and "undivided", similar to mysticism , while ontological philosophy and theology speaks of "abundance of being". The more sensual, cosmopolitan poetry calls it "the cornucopia" or, more prosaically, "the inspiration ". Psychological science explores it under the heading of creativity or, more specifically, as "the flow" ( flow experience ).

Where the atopy can now be described, it cannot be located. This is then about an anarchy of forms of experience, which Barthes consistently expands into a general critique of paradigms in his lectures on the neuter (1979). The neuter is the discursive counterpart of love, because it too overrides the structuralist dichotomy of the concepts and thus their external polemics. R. Koselleck writes in relation to the historical sciences that historians must be atopoi if they are to give an unbiased lecture on state history. Atopy is not only about the (impossible) assignment of properties (e.g. in lovers), but also about the impossible positioning of the judge, writer, etc. In this respect, experience and ethos aspects of atopy are closely interwoven .

Occurrence

Most adults are familiar with atopy as the rose-colored glasses of those phases of being in love , art lovers as the genius and the auratic, readers as the "You shouldn't make a picture" in Max Frisch's "Stiller", which refers to the image of God in the "Ten Commandments" refers back, or Bert Brecht's “Stories from Mr. Keuner”. Atopy as a quality of experience is also experienced in moments of bewilderment, e.g. B. in scandal and in general in situations that you don't know what to do with at first, that leave you speechless. A situation is atopic if it cannot be assigned.

literature

supporting documents

  1. ^ Plato: The Banquet at Zeno.org .