Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy
... This said, to deny Othered human beings the existential fact of potentiality requires apparatuses of force and violence to prevent enslaved persons from actualizing their potentiality lest it shatter the assumptive world of the slavers, who believe their prisoners are not persons. Agamben (1999), in addressing the relation between potentiality and actuality, points out that the movement from potentiality to actuality necessarily implies undergoing change, raising the question of what facilitates a person's actualizing their potentiality. There may be many possibilities here, but when considering psychosocial development, personal care and trust are essential for children to actualize their potentiality (see LaMothe, 2024). ...
... There are two other points to make. In discussing the concept of potentiality with regard to human beings, Agamben (1999) points out that, in the case of infants, actualizing their potentiality means they undergo a change. What Agamben does not explore is what is needed for human beings to actualize their potentiality. ...
Relying on psychoanalytic, philosophical, and pastoral concepts, this article begins by analyzing and describing the noxious masculinity of slavers in Daniel Black’s 2015 novel The Coming. This foray helps understand the relentlessness of white male brutality and indifference and the slavers’ fear and hatred of human precarity, vulnerability, and dependency. The second part of the article entails understanding the resilience and resistance of enslaved persons in the face of routine and repeated assaults on their bodies, minds, and relationships. There is, in bare life, something—an excess—that cannot be extinguished except through death. This excess can be understood as ungovernable selves and is evident in acts of resistance and resilience to the warped masculinity of the slavers.
... We share existential insignificance, impermanence, and precarity with all life, which creates a space for the virtue of humility and practices of compassionate care toward all living beings. 15 For Agamben (1999), to render an apparatus inoperative requires exercising one's capacity for impotentiality. Agamben (1999) argues that "human beings are the animals who are capable of their own impotentiality. ...
... 15 For Agamben (1999), to render an apparatus inoperative requires exercising one's capacity for impotentiality. Agamben (1999) argues that "human beings are the animals who are capable of their own impotentiality. The greatness of human potentiality is measured by the abyss of human impotentiality. ...
The dire present and future realities of climate change have evoked diverse emotional responses (e.g., eco-anxiety, fear, guilt, despair). This article focuses on eco-remorse, which is distinct from eco-guilt. Relying principally on the work of Giorgio Agamben, it is argued that eco-remorse is a first and necessary step toward eco-metanoia. This sets the stage for a discussion of the attributes of eco-metanoia—namely, acts of care that entail the (1) recognition and respect for the singularities of other species, (2) subordination of instrumental epistemologies to personal epistemologies, and (3) inclusion of other species in justice discourses and in political deliberations.
... The post-critical concept of 'pure means', introduced by Agamben, illustrates this attitude well. According to the researcher, human activity might be viewed either instrumentally, as means to a specific end, or as 'pure means', i.e. means without an end (Agamben, 2000; see also . Embracing a postcritical stance may guide researchers away from fixating on instrumental assessments (regarding the impact of deconsumption movement on the world), and instead prompt an emphasis on various positive aspects of this lifestyle, appreciating it as a value in its own right. ...
... While the apparent opposition to the instrumental approach is reminiscent of the post-critical perspective, it differs from it in at least one important aspect. With the concept of pure means (Agamben, 2000), post-critical pedagogy rejects any form of instrumentalization, allowing the SML researcher to forgo utilitarian assessments. Whereas Finger (1989) postulates that individual transformation leads to social transformation, the post-critical researcher may contend that individual transformation is social transformationsocial transformation takes place simultaneously with an individual one. ...
The objective of this paper is to highlight the potential contributions of the post-critical perspective to social movement learning (SML). To achieve this aim, the study employs a thematic analysis of findings derived from a systematic literature review on deconsumption (an umbrella term understood as rejection of consumerism together with materialistic values prevalent in the Western consumer societies, encompassing movements such as voluntary simplicity, freeganism etc.). Identified themes are presented within the framework of post-critical pedagogy and analysed through its lens. This approach allows the researcher to demonstrate the implications and insights of the post-critical perspective in SML and adult education. This article argues that integrating the post-critical perspective into SML can yield a novel understanding of pertinent issues within this subfield. Such an application not only broadens the scope of adult education but also expands post-critical pedagogy itself.
... x I will wrap up this scene in the drama of figuration by retelling a little parable composed by Giorgio Agamben for his book Profanations. Agamben, as is well-known, has long been exercised, from his own materialist-Marxist perspective, by the Messianic aspects of Walter Benjamin's work and legacy, and especially the key concept of redemption (see Agamben 2000). To borrow a phrase from Auerbach, Agamben's chosen mission is to grapple with, and somehow negotiate the revelation or illumination of a "veiled, eternal reality" (Auerbach 1959, 60) in Benjamin's thought and writing, without entirely being absorbed into its very particular religious meaning -to capitalise on, to grasp the illumination without buying into the specific belief system. ...
Where is film analysis at today? What is cinema theory up to, behind our backs? The field, as professionally defined (at least in the Anglo-American academic world), is presently divided between contextual historians who turn to broad formations of modernity, and stylistic connoisseurs who call for a return to old-fashioned things like authorial vision, tone, and mise en scène. But there are other, vital, inventive currents happening — in criticism, on the Internet, in small magazines, and renegade conferences everywhere — which we are not hearing much about in any official way. Last Day Every Day shines a light on one of these exciting new avenues.
Is there a way to bring together, in a refreshed manner, textual logic, hermeneutic interpretation, theoretical speculation, and socio-political history? A way to break the deadlock between classical approaches that sought organic coherence in film works, and poststructuralist approaches that exposed the heterogeneity of all texts and scattered the pieces to the four winds? A way to attend to the minute materiality of cinema, while grasping and contesting the histories imbricated in every image and sound?
... Agamben, G. (1999b). The End of the Poem: Studies in Poetics. ...
... 12 DeSantis 2021. 13 Agamben 1999, 185. 14 Agamben 1999, 186. ...
It is widely assumed that Heidegger never wrote a single word on love or erotic desire, and that his early work, which culminates in Being and Time, focused on "negative" moods and emotions like angst or terror. In this chapter, I propose a rather bold argument: that not only is Heidegger's early philosophy not devoid of love, but, on the contrary, love is the hidden fundamental disposition in Being and Time that operates as a motivator for angst, which is the formally indicated mood of authentic Dasein.
... This is a key point regarding the relation between potentiality and impotentiality. Agamben (1999) writes: ...
This article contends that Western iterations of sovereignty and its apparatuses produce, in part, souls and selves that have contributed to destructive, depersonalizing relations between human beings, other species, and the Earth. Given this, it is necessary to reimagine the notion of “soul” in relation to the idea of anarchy with the aim of creating more life-enhancing and inclusive eco-social-political relations. The underlying premise of this article is that anarchic souls are an existential reality that, in the West, have mostly been hidden, denied, or suppressed as a result of persons internalizing the philosophical and theological ideas, beliefs, and values associated with varied apparatuses of domination.
... La razón que ordena los cálculos sobre la gente trabaja al exterior de los discursos, añadida al ordenamiento que no sólo consiste en representación de cosas, eventos y gente. Los cálculos son modos de prestar atención y anticipar en la planeación de acciones posibles (Deleuze, 1968(Deleuze, /1994Deleuze y Parnet, 1977/1987Agamben, 1999). 9 Como pliegue en la infraestructura, el deseo es lo que está inscrito como sustancial para la vida, pero dirigido a lo que está para ser cambiado e implicado, lo que debería ser como potencialidades de tipos de personas, como el niño creativo, el maestro experto, el estudiante de toda la vida, el aprendiz y la madre protectora. ...
Mi discusión sobre el análisis del discurso como método(s) se
enmarca en la literatura de los post- (posmodernismo, posfundacionalismo,
poscolonialismo) y el nuevo materialismo.
Muchos post- y muchos nuevos —¡lo siento!, me centro en estas literaturas
para aportar estrategias alternativas para etnografías, investigaciones
cualitativas e investigaciones de archivos que a menudo están
organizadas por lógicas representacionales, empirismo y positivismo.
La discusión surge, en parte, de mis propios estudios etnográficos,
científicos e históricos. Estos estudios han buscado “despensar”1 los
Este documento se presentó y discutió originalmente como la conferencia magistral
“Análisis de Discurso como método en el marco del posmodernismo, el posfundacionalismo, el poscolonialismo y el nuevo materialismo” (\
“métodos” de la ciencia a través de un compromiso crítico con la política
del conocimiento y la razón comparada de la escolarización y la
investigación contemporáneas. El “des-pensar” a través del pensamiento
de los post- es como un juego intelectual (o al menos eso creo)
para crear métodos de estudio y sus estrategias de interpretación, y tal
vez nuevos sistemas de preguntas para comprender las posibilidades
y límites de nuestras condiciones actuales.
La discusión se centra en el discurso como sistema de razón materializado
que plantea principios sobre los tipos de personas y diferencias
que no son meramente descriptivos sino que anticipan y dirigen
el presente hacia el futuro, yendo
... Spinoza uses a Ladino verb to provide an example of this verbal form: pasearse. Agamben takes this verb as the paradigm of a specific type of action (which will become, within Agamben's thought, a paradigm to use), in which "potentiality coincides with actuality and inoperativeness with the work [...] [describing] the infinite movement of self-constitution and self-manifestation of Being" [23]. Agamben then relates Spinoza's concern to a Stoic theme that understands modes and events as immanent to substance. ...
This article delves into the theme of the death of God in Giorgio Agamben’s work from a political perspective, seeking to interpret the notion of “God” in Agamben through the concepts of “government” and “transcendence”. Although Agamben does not extensively address the theme of the death of God, my hypothesis is that by continually dealing with the ethical and political legacy of Western theology, it is possible to conceive the death of God as an unconsummated political horizon, but that it is yet to come. In this sense, the first two sections of the text provide a review of the theme of governance of men and governance of oneself in Agamben’s work, engaging in dialogue with Schmitt, Peterson, Heidegger, Foucault, and Plato, as well as the concepts of transcendence oikonomia, technology, and care. The last two sections of the text explore Agamben’s response to this diagnosis. Agamben’s philosophical proposal is presented through a dialogue with Spinoza and Stoicism, with the central concept being the idea of use of oneself, which is linked to the notions of immanence, Ungovernable, and anarchy.
... As this identity and geographical location-based contradictions make it impossible for me to capture the Perspectives on Ambedkarian Aesthetics and Social Movements South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 31 | 2023 experience of the marginalized-the content of my artistic representations-, I fill compelled to critique the existing notions of artistic creativity and productivity, embracing my own impotentiality when it comes to being an artist in the conventional sense. The term "impotentiality," borrowed from the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1999), refers to the "potentiality to not-be," as different from being in a simple state of deprivation and destitution. I understand the concept through its resonances with the idea of "Brokenness" in your own writings, the notion of "fugitivity" developed by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney (2013), and of "Inarticulateness" by Frantz Fanon (1961), as well as Dr. Ambedkar's concept of the "Broken Man" (1948). ...
This contribution proposes to restitute a conversation organized between the art historian and professor at JNU, Yashadatta Alone, and the practicing artist Anupam Roy. These two protagonists discuss constitutive characteristics of artistic activism in South Asia, and focus on four main thematics: the impact of the concept of “Brahmanical Modernity,” how it has contributed to the constitution of the history of Modern Art in India, as well as its persistence in writing an artistic contemporaneity in India; the investment of established political parties, especially the Communist Party of India (CPI) and other political parties, in Dalit artistic activism; the emergence of an “Ambedkarian aesthetics” and possible ways of showing an engaged Dalit art within the structures of the Indian art market (private galleries and government venues); and whether the advent of Dalit art allows for the emergence of new artistic practices, as well as new places to exhibit artistic productions. This is a discussion between two friends and colleagues belonging to two different generations but sharing a long-term involvement with art activism in their own writings and art productions.
... For Giorgio Agamben (1999Agamben ( , 2008, at stake in understanding the concept of potentiality is not the mere impotentiality, in the sense of impossibility, but rather the potentiality "not-to-do." This is not the absence of what could be done, but that which proves that there exists the capacity to do something. ...
Very often tradition has been reinvented in order to legitimize a certain ideology, discourse or political agenda and representation has played a crucial role in this process. Any representation is itself the product of a row of representations, and moreover a tradition – a process through which content is transported and created. For Cadava (2001: 39) the image is never closed, content and form are often based on an invented genealogy. In this article, I propose to focus on architecture and the way in which political content and ideology have been transmitted through the images architecture produces. These are intended to represent and apparently ‘re-produce’ certain traditions. My examples will focus on both the discipline of architecture (specifically recent practices of recreation of vernacular architecture and construction techniques) and artistic approaches to architecture.
El artículo explora cómo las crisis contemporáneas revelan la incapacidad de las estructuras sociales y políticas actuales para imaginar alternativas significativas. Se examina la relación entre la imaginación y lo desconocido, destacando la posibilidad de usar lo incierto como una oportunidad para el cambio. Proponemos una visión de la imaginación como un proceso creativo y relacional, influenciado por las ideas de pensadores como Arendt, Castoriadis y Simondon. La imaginación se presenta no sólo como una facultad individual, sino como una fuerza política que puede superar las narrativas apocalípticas que nos condenan a un futuro de colapso. Se exploran las nociones de imaginación radical, acción política y la relación con el entorno, sugiriendo que la transformación de nuestro milieu associé es clave para imaginar y crear futuros alternativos.
“The Broken Mechanical Wind-up Bird”: A Philosophical Memoir
Key Takeaways
* The narrative intertwines personal memoir with philosophical discourse, exploring life, death, and memory through the author's experiences and philosophical insights.
* Concepts of "form-of-life" and "potentiality" are examined, using the author's late uncle and his home as metaphors for these ideas.
* The text draws on the works of Giorgio Agamben and other philosophers to explore how life is lived, remembered, and how objects and memories can embody life's potential and absence.
* The narrative reflects on the philosophical and emotional dimensions of life, using personal experiences to illustrate complex philosophical concepts.
Link: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/the-broken-mechanical-wind-up-bird-a-philosophical-memoir
A noticiabilidade resulta da compreensão de uma ordem noticiosa relacionada à percepção de uma dada ordem social, apontando que mudanças de uma
sociedade em crescimento econômico passam a configurar um relato noticioso de
novas relações sociais, discutindo os limites da materialidade discursiva no processo de conversão em notícia de fatos anteriormente considerados irrelevantes.
The Communism of Thought takes as its point of departure a passage in a letter from Dionys Mascolo to Gilles Deleuze: “I have called this communism of thought in the past. And I placed it under the auspices of Hölderlin, who may have only fled thought because he was unable to live it: ‘The life of the spirit between friends, the thoughts that form in the exchange of words, by writing or in person, are necessary to those who seek. Without that, we are by our own hands outside thought.’”
What, in light of that imperative, is a correspondence? What is given to be understood by the word, let alone the phenomenon? What constitutes a correspondence? What occasions it? On what terms and according to what conditions may one enter into that exchange “necessary,” in Hölderlin’s words, “to those who seek”? Pursuant to what vicissitudes may it be conducted? And what end(s) might a correspondence come to have beyond the ostensible end that, to all appearances, it (inevitably) will be said to have had?
The aim of this paper is to revisit the theme of paradise and animality in the work of Kafka, whilst at the same time elucidate Agamben's complex understanding of these notions with the help of the literary imagery of Kafka. In a world where many find themselves crushed by the anthropological machine, Agamben outlines an intuition Kafka had about animals, that can help humans to reconcile with their animal nature, and let them guide us back to paradise. If animals have never left paradise, and the human realm is not substantially different for the animal realm, then like the animals we have never truly left paradise but only think we did. It is only in trying to uphold a higher, human sphere, through self-subjection and exclusion, that we leave the paradisical realm. Kafka's creatures show us the ridiculousness of these divisions between human and animals.
The conclusion examines two pedagogical approaches for applying South Asian gnostic spiritual exercises today, focusing on their therapeutic potential. The first approach involves deeply internalizing traditional philosophical systems, requiring time, elite training, and cultural immersion, but offers profound access to transformative knowledge. The second, more adaptable approach, engages students with their own knowledge, enabling a self-directed, dialectical negation of identity and worldview. This method bypasses external authorities, fostering personal transformation and autonomy. The author argues that integrating gnostic practices with modern knowledge can create a non-aligned spiritual path. Ultimately, gnostic philosophy offers a framework for disengaging from conventional societal norms, fostering independence, detachment, and peace.
One of Agamben’s significant works, which plays an essential role in his ‘coming politics’, is The Coming Community . In this short book, Agamben expresses his thoughts on a liberated community, which he believes would also be a truly human community. In this article, I argue that there is a form of Platonic communism in Agamben’s thought, particularly in The Coming Community . By examining Agamben’s unique interpretation of Plato’s theory of ideas, I suggest that the coming community can be seen as the idea ( eidos ) of any liberating community, just as whatever being is the idea of man, or man as an idea ( eidos ). Here, the idea is not a distinct or transcendent entity, but a sensible thing placed in a paradigmatic relationship with itself, representing its intelligibility and universality.
המחאות שהתעוררו בקיץ 2020, שהצטיירו כפרץ מבוזר ואקלקטי של התנגדות אזרחית, התלכדו מאחורי דרישה פוליטית נחרצת אחת. הסיסמאות המלוות אותן – ״הם הייאוש, אנחנו התקווה״, ״דור שלם דורש עתיד״ ו״לילה טוב ייאוש, בוקר טוב תקווה״ – סימנו את התקווה כטובין הפוליטי העיקרי שעליו נסוב המאבק נגד שלטון נתניהו וכמסר הצלול ביותר שלו. המאבק על התקווה, שהמחאות הללו היו נקודת השיא שלו, נדמה כתגובה מתבקשת לתחושת התקיעות, השיתוק והייאוש ששורה בשנים האחרונות על השמאל והמרכז הפוליטי בישראל. אך האם הפוליטיקה של התקווה יכולה לעמוד בהבטחתה לחלצנו מהמבוי הסתום? ועל מה בדיוק מעידות הכמיהה הרחבה לתקווה, והפיכתה של העמדה הרגשית הזאת מאמצעי לקידום מטרות פוליטיות לתכלית העומדת בזכות עצמה? המאמר מבקש לדון בשאלות הללו באמצעות פנייה מהשיח הפוליטי שחותר לעורר את התקווה אל היצירה השירית שעוסקת בחסרונה. ״זמן התפוז״, אלבומה של רונה קינן שיצא במרץ 2019, מתעד את המלכוד הפוליטי והרגשי שבו שאלת התקווה כולאת אותנו כיום, ומבהיר מדוע הפוליטיקה של התקווה אינה יכולה לפרוץ אותו. בעזרת האלבום הדיאגנוסטי של קינן, המאמר מסרטט דיוקן של חיים במבוי סתום שבו התקווה והייאוש גם יחד הם תחושות שאיננו חשים, ומצביע על הצורך לפתח עמדות רגשיות אחרות ביחס לעתיד, שפורצות את הניגוד המשתק בין שתי אלה.
Durante las últimas tres décadas, el ensayo de Walter Benjamin "La obra de arte en la época de su reproductibilidad técnica" puede haber sido citado con más frecuencia que cualquier otra fuente, en áreas que van desde la teoría de los medios de la nueva izquierda hasta los estudios culturales, desde el cine y la historia del arte hasta la cultura visual, desde la escena artística posmoderna hasta los debates sobre el destino del arte, incluido el cine, en la era digital. En el contexto de estas invocaciones, el ensayo no siempre ha adquirido nuevos significados ni se ha vuelto menos problemático que cuando fue escrito por primera vez.
Recent years have seen an immense upsurge in developing the notion of institution with the aim of updating and reconfiguring its conceptualisation to make it correspond to present times. The stakes are high as the current Western institutional framework struggles to ensure its historical continuation—conceived broadly as political, economic, social, scientific, artistic, and other institutions—as the predominant global dispositive. In the article, we first review the current most significant orientations and disciplines that focus on institutions and proceed with a critical assessment of relevant events. In the second part, we question the subjective process and subjectivation of an institutional framework. If we reject the linguistic, empirical, or hermeneutic approaches, how can we capture the dynamics of change in a framework? What indicates that a subjective process is taking place? We draw on the cases of St. Paul and Giordano Bruno to illuminate the Law’s historical repetition through cumulative cultural growth in re-inscribing the subjectivization of faithful and enduring—i.e. universalist—operations of rupture and dispute leading to a Decision against reigning particularisms of institutional setups.
Deconstructionist depiction of fictionality within the relationship between truth and sovereignty helps to understand how time relates to post-truth politics and to counter its proliferation within politics. The article connects the philosophical arguments of Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben to explore the pervasive nature of post-truth within politics. Their differing conceptualisations of the place of time are both fundamentally rooted in the ontological problem of sovereignty, though they yield significantly different implications for post-truth politics. Derrida’s deconstruction of the temporal dimension in politics highlights the intricate relationship between the temporal and epistemological aspects inherent in the fictional narratives reinforced by sovereignty—narratives that fuel post-truth politics. This approach contrasts Agamben’s archaeological political theory, which reveals fictionality by subsuming sovereignty over time. This illuminates the epistemic challenges posed by post-truth politics and contends that deconstructionist epistemological standards are essential heuristics to counter the rise and proliferation of post-truth politics.
In this article I offer a critical examination of Giorgio Agamben’s vision of political liberation as it is articulated in his philosophy of language. Focusing on his affirmative politics as a particular kind of performance, I show that he has in mind a radically ‘pure’ performative that affirms only language as such. This conception is very different from other influential approaches to performativity in the contemporary scene of political thought, such as those developed by Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler. Rather than offering a meaningful alternative to these approaches, however, I argue that this pure performative makes visible the specific problems connected to Agamben’s model. Ultimately, Agamben risks affirming what he sees as problematic in political terms, namely the isolation of his preferred type of experience of language to a separate ‘sphere’. It is, moreover, questionable whether his performative points to a plausible model of political contestation in an age where careless and void utterances have become widespread.
The power of the imagination ( al - khayāl ) is decisive to the constitution of Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī’s virtuous city. The imagination enables the citizens of the virtuous city to effectively distinguish between certain images as a necessary means to attaining happiness. The imagination is cultivated through a regimen of civic education which prepares citizens to engage in political deliberation. The realization of the virtuous city is determined by the exercise of the imagination beginning with the philosopher-ruler-imām who receives and translates intelligibles ( ma‘qūlāt ) from the Active Intellect into images ( muḥākāt ) communicated to the political community. In what follows, we shall seek to demonstrate how the power of the imagination contributes to al-Fārābī’s cosmopolitical imaginary and the inception of his cosmopolitanism.
In this article I perform a metanalysis of a particular moment in the development of the field of educational theory. I do this by distinguishing three (ideal) types of educational theory, and indicating the way these induce particular uses of a theory. Technical educational theories aim at describing causal mechanisms governing education, in order to give efficient means that would make education productive. Critical theories of education offer knowledge on the role of education in perpetuating inequalities, oppression and enslavement, simultaneously
stressing education’s emancipative or revolutionary potential. Post-critical, affirmative or performative theories try to make a next step after radical critique, that would indicate and express educational phenomena and practices which are marginalised and suppressed by the dominant discourses on education. These theories create a symbolic horizon within which one can practice education. There theories are performed in order for education to happen.
This article looks at how once-promising infrastructures that became dormant mediate collective and individual anxiety for historically-marginalized border community in Indonesia. Dormant infrastructures are sleeping, waiting for the right technical and non-technical interventions to awake them. Here, anxiety revolves around the temporary and permanent awakening of these dormant infrastructures, leading to a reconfiguration of the relationship between the state and border residents.
With a view to illuminating the role that architecture plays in Jacques Lacan’s seventh seminar, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, this paper undertakes to do three things: first, to place Lacan’s references to architecture in this seminar in the context of his description of artistic sublimation as “the elevation of the object to the dignity of a Thing”; second, to situate that formula within the context of his broader treatment of the Thing (das Ding); and third, to highlight the degree to which his interest in the Thing is informed by an early and perduring preoccupation with the singular rapport that human animals establish with their environments as a result of the helplessness (Hilflosigkeit) that marks the earliest stages of their development. As I observe, that “elevation” Lacan invokes in his formula for artistic sublimation concerns the creation of an emptiness that he describes as marking the locus of an internally generated Unlust that he follows Freud in placing at the center of the Nebenmensch Thing. Such would be the connection between these two discussions of the Thing. Architecture plays a central role in forging this connection, since it is chiefly with reference to that art that Lacan links the emptiness that is the creator’s special product with a sinkhole of pain whose origin is endogenous.
German Theory“ is a theory that has not yet been written, but could have been. „Theory“ is here understood as a “territory of thought” that transcends the boundaries of its origins, and travels to other sites. „French Theory“, for example, is the label for the travel of French poststructuralism to Anglophone humanities. In this sense, „German Theory“ does not exist (yet), but as this paper will argue, it exists as a potentiality that has not (yet) actualized. To show this potential, this paper turns to the work of Friedrich A. Kittler. To illustrate why Kittler did not become a cornerstone of „German Theory“, and to discuss how it could have been, this paper proceeds in two steps: first, it traces the recent history of the reception of Foucault in German language geography and the humanities. This analysis shows that Kittler and German language geography morphed Foucault's discourse theory into two distinct thought styles – the „discourse school“ in German language geography into a „textual“ one; Kittler into a „materialist“ one. This incompatibility of thought styles, this paper asserts, obstructed the travel of Kittler to Anglophone geography, although Kittler's notion of „materiality of communication“ resonates with the „material turn“ in Anglophone geography. Nor did the Foucault of the „discourse school“ travel to Anglophone geography. Kittler's „German Foucault“ travelled to Anglophone media studies as „German School“, though. In the last part of the paper, I ask the question how Kittler's „German Foucault“ could have travelled to (anglophone) geography and what could have been gained theoretically through this travel.
This brief brochure is intended to present a philosophical theory known as relational materialism. We introduce the postulates and principles of the theory, articulating its ontological and epistemological content using the language of category theory. The identification of any existing entity is primarily characterized by its relational, finite, and non-static nature. Furthermore, we provide a categorical construction of particularities within the relational materialist onto-epistemology. Our objective is to address and transform a specific perspective prevalent in scientific communities into a productive network of philosophical commitments.
Uma das tarefas essenciais de uma teoria da comunicação é abordar o pro
blema da mediação e do meio, seja este medium tecnológico ou não. Afinal de
contas, comunicar é já utilizar uma forma mediadora (semiose) para gerar um
significado comum. Este capítulo defende uma teoria da comunicação mediada1 que é tam
bém – e concomitantemente – uma teoria da mediação comunicacional.
Pressupõe que a mediação não é simplesmente um processo tecnológico
homogéneo e universal. Em vez disso, apresento-a enquanto geração, remo
delação e transformação. A realidade mediada é, antes de mais, um mediador
da experiência humana. Mostrarei de que forma podemos integrar os dis
positivos tecnológicos de mediação simbólica, vulgarmente referidos como
Média, numa teoria da mediação comunicacional.
Para tal, princípio por apresentar a teoria da Mediatização no contexto
da teoria dos Média para, num segundo momento, a distinguir da mediação.
Sublinho que o uso anglo-saxónico da palavra “mediação” é usado de forma
muito próxima àquele da mediatização, ainda que subsistam algumas disse
melhanças. Concluo apresentando o entendimento de meio (ou média) que
uma teoria comunicacional da mediação supõe e exponho-a nos seus princi
pais traços.
This article is a systematic investigation into the symbolic and sensory metaphors in architectural buildings. It presents definition and differentiation of symbolic (stereotype images) and sensory (architectural experience) metaphors. According to the semiotics model of architecture, they are tested empirically and the results are presented in order to understand their influence in architecture. In this regard, this paper designed a research method and adapted a novel semiotic model to investigate the relationship between sensory metaphors (architectural experience) and symbolic metaphors. The cases included six distinctive buildings and 30 subjects. Results demystified that buildings high in connotative qualities do not always connote positive architectural experience. A building with a high number of symbolic metaphors could create a high number of sensory metaphors but these sensory metaphors may not be necessarily positive feelings and experiences.
In this article, evidence is briefly presented for three facts that together point to something puzzling. (1) That major continental philosophers of the nineteenth century tended to engage in some detail, as part of a broader preoccupation with ancient Greek thought, with Pyrrhonian scepticism. (2) That major continental philosophers of the twentieth century tended to engage in some depth with their nineteenth-century forebears and maintained their tendency to engage significantly with ancient Greek thought. (3) That twentieth-century continental philosophers demonstrate little to no interest in Pyrrhonian scepticism. This raises the question: why does engagement with Pyrrhonism disappear from continental philosophy? The article discusses two hypotheses that might explain this disappearance.
The assembled nature of the art and archive of Ha Bik Chuen signifies a diagrammatic supposition that contests objective decisiveness as invalid. Akin to the notion of constellations, the diagrammatic essence channels dialectic inquiries of things as Benjamin, Walter’s dictum of the dialectic of history in the form of image constellations. One of the significant discoveries during the relocation of the personal collection of Ha from To Kwa Wan to Fotan, where the materials were relocated to in 2016 as project space under AAA’s custodianship, and the transformation into the Ha Bik Chuen Archive is the modified books of Ha. They were unearthed and made known—even Ha’s family did not know the existence—during the physical relocation of the archive. There are over three hundred volumes of unique modified books in the late artist’s collection. Ha collected various printed ephemera and would cut out images of all sizes and pages from them and used them to produce his modified books. These modified books are collages in the form of books, which are constructed in various ways, including juxtaposing cut-out images onto pages of existing publications, handbounding various loose-pages, and inserting loose leaves between pages. The modified books of Ha epitomise the notion of constellation wherein the meanings are constantly renewed and the detour of the histories of the city is revealed.
Degree Show Catalogue documenting an ESALA MArch (Modular Pathway) studio ‘Conversations Through Making [PLZEŇ]’. Studio Leaders: Kevin Adams and Louisa Butler. 2021-2022.
La hipótesis del Antropoceno está reorientando los marcos teóricos que estructuran el debate epistemológico en disciplinas de las humanidades y las ciencias sociales. Este artículo se centra en el impacto sobre los modos de temporalización histórica que conlleva esta hipótesis. Más concretamente, lo que indaga es el recorrido que posee potencialmente para el ámbito de la historia de la educación. Para tal fin, se realiza un primer acercamiento al imaginario temporal de la historia cultural de la educación, cuya principal aportación ha sido generar formas de periodización no homogéneas. Más adelante, se analizan los postulados centrales en torno a la concepción del tiempo de la corriente del posthumanismo crítico. Finalmente, se indaga en la noción de tiempo estratificado que ha sido desarrollada recientemente. Lo que se constata es la posibilidad para los historiadores de la educación de una temporalización renovada en el marco de la era geológica del Antropoceno.
Hearing is an intricate but delicate modality of sensory perception, continuously enfolded in the surroundings in which it takes place. While passive in its disposition, it is integral to the movement and fluctuations of one’s environment. Always attuned to the present and immersed in the murmur of its background, hearing remains a situated perception but fundamentally overarching and extended into the open. It is an immanent modality of being in and with the world. It is also the ultimate juridical act, a sense-making activity that adjudicates and informs the spatio-temporal acoustics of law and justice.
This collection gathers multidisciplinary contributions on the relationship between law and hearing, the human vocalisations and non-human echolocations, the spatial and temporal conditions in which hearing takes place, as well as the forms of order and control that listening entails. Contributors explore, challenge and expand the structural and sensorial qualities of law, and recognise how hearing directs us to perceiving and understanding the intrinsic acoustic sphere of simultaneous relations, which challenge and break the normative distinctions that law informs and maintains. In exploring the ambiguous, indefinable and unembodied nature of hearing, as well as its objects – sound and silence – this volume approaches it as both an ontological and epistemological device to think with and about law.
The influence of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy on the ideas of Gilles Deleuze was quite substantial. However, analyses of the correlation between the ideas of the two philosophers have not yet received proper research attention, especially in Russian-language literature. To reveal the essence and history of the development of Deleuze’s attitude to Kant, the former’s work, Kant’s Critical Philosophy: The Doctrine of the Faculties (1963), in which the French philosopher aims to find the potential limits of interpretation of Kant’s philosophy. Deleuze appeals to Kant’s study of faculties, in which he finds contradictions and “gaps” that find their solution in the Critique of Judgment. Deleuze refers to the free coherence of the faculties as to “something third”, which gives options for reactualising Kant’s philosophy without striving to overcome it. I also provide a brief history of the issues related to Kantian philosophy, appearing in the works of Deleuze — from a course of lectures on the problem of grounds, given by the young Deleuze at the Lyceum Louis the Great in Paris, to his last article published in his lifetime, “Immanence: A Life”, in which Deleuze brings up the question of the transcendental field. Despite the fact that Kant and Deleuze are more often contrasted than considered as possible allies, and despite the cases of criticisms of Kant by Deleuze, I defend the thesis that their philosophical projects are firmly linked. Considering Kant’s presence in Deleuze’s study, I conclude that Kant’s philosophy has shaped some key aspects of the French philosopher’s thinking — in particular, the concept of “transcendental empiricism” — and also has influenced Deleuze’s ideas about difference, becoming, ground and immanence.
In Agamben’s 1978 book Infancy and History: On the Destruction of Experience, the unusual pair of concepts can be equated with transcendental categories of experience: language and time (or the lack of them), although the question of their relationship to each other is left open. Yet, what stands at the intersection of the two is, for Agamben, initially, the notion of childhood, and afterwards the notion of potentiality, which extends later in his work into a philosophy of possibility. The work takes account of the problem of experience in three chapters: the destruction of aesthetics, then of tradition, and finally of experience itself. While for Benjamin the ‘devaluation of experience’ was caused by a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, the First World War, for Agamben the loss of experience has become a ‘basic experience’ of the bleak everyday: the loss of personal experience means that it has become untellable and inexpressible. The present paper reconstructs the destruction of experience in Agamben’s essay and attempts to connect it with Agamben’s theory of power, known from his long-run philosophical project Homo sacer thus giving both contemporary theories a new relevance.
Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy has been influenced by Michel Foucault’s thoughts in various aspects. This influence can be seen especially in methodology and political philosophy to a certain extent. Agamben’s political project, Homo Sacer, culminates in the publication of The Use of Bodies, where he proposes ‘form-of-life’ as a way to overcome the contemporary biopolitics. While the concept of form-of-life has often been considered in connection with the issue of sovereignty and law, this article argues that it (and Agamben’s coming politics) can also be understood as a response to Foucault’s biopower. This is possible by considering several conceptual oppositions raised by Agamben against Foucault’s ideas, concepts such as “intimacy”, “community”, and “zoe/bios”. And this is, finally, an effort to re-appropriate human freedom.
The considerable literature discussing Walter Benjamin’s “idea of happiness” points both to the important role it plays in his thought and, in this context, to the diversity of interpretations his elliptic style has generated. The pivotal role played by the term in Benjamin’s oeuvre from his early writings on language to his Passagenwerk originates in what has been regarded as his “dialectics of happiness.” While this is certainly a plausible diagnosis, a closer look at the wording of the relevant passages in Benjamin’s oeuvre reveals more nuanced and numerous manifestations of the indirectness that characterizes his approach to happiness. Benjamin invokes the term “happiness” (Glück) at crucial crossroads in his thought. It oscillates between potentiality and inaccessibility; individual and collective experience; commemoration and utopia, Eros and emancipation, concrete phenomena and abstract ideas, and last but not least between politics and theology. Equally striking are the divergent modes of expression in which Benjamin’s notion of happiness is articulated. They range from the inexpressible (das Ausdruckslose) to the most lyrical effusions. My talk will correlate Benjamin’s seemingly incommensurable invocations of happiness with the very detours, incompletions, and indirections in his writings about this state of being.
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