Representations of the world and elementary symbolism

2013

Confronting different philosophical, religious and literary pieces of work, this thesis studies the concept of representation through the use of the four elements: Air, Earth, Water and Fire. Through the similar notions of participation, analogy, fold or flesh which bring up the question of relationship between body and soul, we realize that the representation, or staging, is an obvious way to understand this relationship, and is also, paradoxically, a way for the subject to put a distance between himself and the world. How can we understand this "presence-absence" ambivalence? In order to do it we have to question the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity and furthermore the on…