Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0218
R. König
Abstract The article focuses on re-evaluating Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic by initially highlighting its seemingly negative function within the Critique of Pure Reason as a mere regulative form for cognition and experience. The Dialectic, however, does not only have such a negative-regulative function but also its very own positive and founding character for cognition that even is present in the supposedly most immediate forms of intuition. In exploring this positive side of the Transcendental Dialectic it becomes clear that it manifests itself as a bridge between the so-called theoretical and practical reason inasmuch as it fills in their gap within Kant’s philosophy. From the practical side, the Dialectic is manifest as an action full of purposiveness, maxims, and imperatives within cognition, from a theoretical side it assumes the form of syllogistic inference, which is the adequate and acting theoretical form of practical reason. Therefore, the unity of reason is shown in presenting its inner gap as a dialectical misunderstanding that Kant not only highlights in the Transcendental Dialectic but also tends to leave unsolved mostly. Nevertheless, the Dialectic can be shown as the a priori synthetic act of unifying reason, if investigated in the context of Kant’s complete critical endeavour.
{"title":"Towards a Unity of Theoretical and Practical Reason: On the Constitutive Significance of the Transcendental Dialectic","authors":"R. König","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0218","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article focuses on re-evaluating Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic by initially highlighting its seemingly negative function within the Critique of Pure Reason as a mere regulative form for cognition and experience. The Dialectic, however, does not only have such a negative-regulative function but also its very own positive and founding character for cognition that even is present in the supposedly most immediate forms of intuition. In exploring this positive side of the Transcendental Dialectic it becomes clear that it manifests itself as a bridge between the so-called theoretical and practical reason inasmuch as it fills in their gap within Kant’s philosophy. From the practical side, the Dialectic is manifest as an action full of purposiveness, maxims, and imperatives within cognition, from a theoretical side it assumes the form of syllogistic inference, which is the adequate and acting theoretical form of practical reason. Therefore, the unity of reason is shown in presenting its inner gap as a dialectical misunderstanding that Kant not only highlights in the Transcendental Dialectic but also tends to leave unsolved mostly. Nevertheless, the Dialectic can be shown as the a priori synthetic act of unifying reason, if investigated in the context of Kant’s complete critical endeavour.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44556832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0216
Babette E. Babich
Abstract In what follows I raise the question of Ariadne and Dionysus for Nietzsche, including the relative size of Ariadne’s ears, as Dionysus observes at the close of “Ariadne’s Lament” [Klage der Ariadne]. Nietzsche’s references to ears invoke not only Nietzsche’s “selective” concern with having the right ears (both to hear what he says and with respect to his discovery regarding ancient Greek tragedy: hearing with one’s eyes, that is the relation of ancient Greek music in the word) but also the question of myth and genealogical context. Reading through myth is key not only in terms of the textual, lyric tradition but also painting and sculpture, including sarcophagi in antiquity. It makes all the difference to ask, as Karl Kerényi cites Nietzsche as asking: Wer weiß …was Ariadne ist? And not less: who was she to Dionysus? To this extent, Nietzsche’s concern with ears, small and long, is less incidental or furry fetish than hermeneutic attunement.
{"title":"Nietzsche’s Ariadne: On Asses’s Ears in Botticelli/Dürer – and Poussin’s Bacchanale","authors":"Babette E. Babich","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0216","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In what follows I raise the question of Ariadne and Dionysus for Nietzsche, including the relative size of Ariadne’s ears, as Dionysus observes at the close of “Ariadne’s Lament” [Klage der Ariadne]. Nietzsche’s references to ears invoke not only Nietzsche’s “selective” concern with having the right ears (both to hear what he says and with respect to his discovery regarding ancient Greek tragedy: hearing with one’s eyes, that is the relation of ancient Greek music in the word) but also the question of myth and genealogical context. Reading through myth is key not only in terms of the textual, lyric tradition but also painting and sculpture, including sarcophagi in antiquity. It makes all the difference to ask, as Karl Kerényi cites Nietzsche as asking: Wer weiß …was Ariadne ist? And not less: who was she to Dionysus? To this extent, Nietzsche’s concern with ears, small and long, is less incidental or furry fetish than hermeneutic attunement.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48263789","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0228
Kristoffer Willert
Abstract By considering the semantic footings of the so-called antinomies of pure reason, this article contributes to the debate about whether Kant was committed to semantic realism or anti-realism. That is, whether verification-transcendent judgements are truth-apt (realism) or not (anti-realism). Against the (empiricist) semantic principle that Strawson, and others, have ascribed to Kant as the “principle of significance,” the bedrock of my article is what I call Kant’s Real Principle of Significance: an extension-based and normative principle stating that a judgement can have no “significance” or “objective validity” (truth-value) without a universally recognizable norm for verifying it. This principle entails semantic anti-realism. I argue that we can extract the principle from the antinomy chapter of KrV, since in there Kant concludes that judgements of the form “the world as such is x” are without “significance” (lack a truth-value) in virtue of being unverifiable as a matter of principle. I propose that Kant’s reference to some of the antinomical judgements as “false” is not incompatible with this anti-realist reading because he operates with two distinct world-concepts: an illegitimate transcendental realist one and a legitimate transcendental idealist one. In contrast to most anti-realist Kant-interpretations, it is furthermore argued that any satisfactory anti-realist construal of Kant’s view must be compatible with his assertion that the thesis in the third antinomy about freedom “can be true.” That requires a thicker conception of “significance” or “objective validity” than what is often ascribed to Kant, which is encapsulated by the Real Principle of Significance.
{"title":"Semantic Anti-Realism in Kant’s Antinomy Chapter","authors":"Kristoffer Willert","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0228","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract By considering the semantic footings of the so-called antinomies of pure reason, this article contributes to the debate about whether Kant was committed to semantic realism or anti-realism. That is, whether verification-transcendent judgements are truth-apt (realism) or not (anti-realism). Against the (empiricist) semantic principle that Strawson, and others, have ascribed to Kant as the “principle of significance,” the bedrock of my article is what I call Kant’s Real Principle of Significance: an extension-based and normative principle stating that a judgement can have no “significance” or “objective validity” (truth-value) without a universally recognizable norm for verifying it. This principle entails semantic anti-realism. I argue that we can extract the principle from the antinomy chapter of KrV, since in there Kant concludes that judgements of the form “the world as such is x” are without “significance” (lack a truth-value) in virtue of being unverifiable as a matter of principle. I propose that Kant’s reference to some of the antinomical judgements as “false” is not incompatible with this anti-realist reading because he operates with two distinct world-concepts: an illegitimate transcendental realist one and a legitimate transcendental idealist one. In contrast to most anti-realist Kant-interpretations, it is furthermore argued that any satisfactory anti-realist construal of Kant’s view must be compatible with his assertion that the thesis in the third antinomy about freedom “can be true.” That requires a thicker conception of “significance” or “objective validity” than what is often ascribed to Kant, which is encapsulated by the Real Principle of Significance.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41481303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0213
James Kreines
Abstract To judge by the title, one would expect that interpretations of the Critique of Pure Reason would prioritize the division of the book most about reason and its critique: The Transcendental Dialectic. But the Dialectic is surprisingly secondary in the most established interpretive approaches. This article argues as follows: There is a problem that contributes to explaining the lack of popularity: The problem of how arguments really based in the Dialectic itself really promise to ground a broader project in theoretical philosophy, of the scope of the Critique. But the problem can be solved: One aim important in the critique is critical argument against rationalist metaphysics. The Dialectic must play a central role in such critique, given a difficulty concerning begging the question. The positive claims of the Dialectic, about reason and the unconditioned, are necessary for such an argument, and the Dialectic gives them enough defense for that purpose. Finally, there are reasons to take seriously Kant’s promises that the Antinomy of the Dialectic can support the weight in such an argument, without begging the question. The article concludes that a Dialectic-first approach to the Critique is viable and worth further development.
{"title":"For a Dialectic-First Approach to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason","authors":"James Kreines","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0213","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract To judge by the title, one would expect that interpretations of the Critique of Pure Reason would prioritize the division of the book most about reason and its critique: The Transcendental Dialectic. But the Dialectic is surprisingly secondary in the most established interpretive approaches. This article argues as follows: There is a problem that contributes to explaining the lack of popularity: The problem of how arguments really based in the Dialectic itself really promise to ground a broader project in theoretical philosophy, of the scope of the Critique. But the problem can be solved: One aim important in the critique is critical argument against rationalist metaphysics. The Dialectic must play a central role in such critique, given a difficulty concerning begging the question. The positive claims of the Dialectic, about reason and the unconditioned, are necessary for such an argument, and the Dialectic gives them enough defense for that purpose. Finally, there are reasons to take seriously Kant’s promises that the Antinomy of the Dialectic can support the weight in such an argument, without begging the question. The article concludes that a Dialectic-first approach to the Critique is viable and worth further development.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45489336","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0225
Andrés Gómez-Emilsson, Chris Percy
Abstract The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, including those that specify a certain causal structure for the computation like Integrated Information Theory. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to construct a computer in a way that permits cleanly slicing each gate and connection in half, creating two identical computers each instantiating the same computation. The slicing can be reversed and repeated via an on/off switch, without changing the amount of matter in the system. The question is what do different computational theories of consciousness believe is happening to the number and nature of individual conscious units as this switch is toggled. Under a token interpretation, there are now two discrete conscious entities; under a type interpretation, there may remain only one. Both interpretations lead to different implications depending on the adopted theoretical stance. Any route taken either allows mechanisms for “consciousness-multiplying exploits” or requires ambiguous boundaries between conscious entities, raising philosophical and ethical questions for theorists to consider. We discuss resolutions under different theories of consciousness for those unwilling to accept consciousness-multiplying exploits. In particular, we specify three features that may help promising physicalist theories to navigate such thought experiments.
{"title":"The “Slicing Problem” for Computational Theories of Consciousness","authors":"Andrés Gómez-Emilsson, Chris Percy","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0225","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The “Slicing Problem” is a thought experiment that raises questions for substrate-neutral computational theories of consciousness, including those that specify a certain causal structure for the computation like Integrated Information Theory. The thought experiment uses water-based logic gates to construct a computer in a way that permits cleanly slicing each gate and connection in half, creating two identical computers each instantiating the same computation. The slicing can be reversed and repeated via an on/off switch, without changing the amount of matter in the system. The question is what do different computational theories of consciousness believe is happening to the number and nature of individual conscious units as this switch is toggled. Under a token interpretation, there are now two discrete conscious entities; under a type interpretation, there may remain only one. Both interpretations lead to different implications depending on the adopted theoretical stance. Any route taken either allows mechanisms for “consciousness-multiplying exploits” or requires ambiguous boundaries between conscious entities, raising philosophical and ethical questions for theorists to consider. We discuss resolutions under different theories of consciousness for those unwilling to accept consciousness-multiplying exploits. In particular, we specify three features that may help promising physicalist theories to navigate such thought experiments.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45952101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0220
Annapaola Varaschin
Abstract Unity is a central concept in the Critique of Pure Reason, since it is only through the unifying act of our spontaneous faculties that an experience can emerge, according to Kant. However, the faculty of reason brings forth a different unity than that of the understanding: Kant characterizes the former as a collective unity, while the latter as a distributive unity. This article aims to explain the meaning of these terms, with reference to the Nachlass on metaphysics and the writings on right where Kant employs them in a clearer manner. This explanation can provide a basis to understand the difference between the faculty of understanding and the faculty of reason within the first Critique, a difference rather neglected by scholars, who have focused mainly on Kant’s distinction between sensibility and understanding.
{"title":"The Collective Unity of Reason in the First Critique","authors":"Annapaola Varaschin","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0220","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Unity is a central concept in the Critique of Pure Reason, since it is only through the unifying act of our spontaneous faculties that an experience can emerge, according to Kant. However, the faculty of reason brings forth a different unity than that of the understanding: Kant characterizes the former as a collective unity, while the latter as a distributive unity. This article aims to explain the meaning of these terms, with reference to the Nachlass on metaphysics and the writings on right where Kant employs them in a clearer manner. This explanation can provide a basis to understand the difference between the faculty of understanding and the faculty of reason within the first Critique, a difference rather neglected by scholars, who have focused mainly on Kant’s distinction between sensibility and understanding.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41427678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0209
C. Segovia
Abstract This essay pursues Gilbert Durand’s plea for a new anthropological spirit that would overcome the bureaucracy-or-madness dichotomy which has since Nietzsche left its imprint upon contemporary thought, forcing it to choose between an “Apollonian” ontology established upon some kind of first principle and a “Dionysian” ontology consisting in the erasure of any founding norm. It does so by reclaiming Dionysus and Apollo’s original twin-ness and dual affirmation in dialogue with contemporary anthropological theory, especially Roy Wagner’s thesis on the interplay of “elicitation” and “containment” in sociocultural life. What would happen then, I ask, if we were to reimagine today’s philosophical game – which after Heidegger Deleuze, and Derrida turns variously and increasingly around subtraction – otherwise: as a chiastic board on which Apollo would cut Dionysus’s continuum, which Dionysus would in turn restore despite Apollo’s cuts, and on which the obliteration of any of the two gods would entail the inevitable dismemberment of the other? Accordingly, I offer a full reassessment of Dionysus’s and Apollo’s complementary roles in ancient-Greek culture in discussion not only with Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy but also with Ihab Hassan’s postmodern critique of Orpheus. All of it less with the purpose of putting forward a new metaphysics than with the intent of restating the translucent-ness that keeps together reality and thought against any claim that they are either transparent or opaque to one another.
{"title":"Rethinking Dionysus and Apollo: Redrawing Today’s Philosophical Chessboard","authors":"C. Segovia","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0209","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay pursues Gilbert Durand’s plea for a new anthropological spirit that would overcome the bureaucracy-or-madness dichotomy which has since Nietzsche left its imprint upon contemporary thought, forcing it to choose between an “Apollonian” ontology established upon some kind of first principle and a “Dionysian” ontology consisting in the erasure of any founding norm. It does so by reclaiming Dionysus and Apollo’s original twin-ness and dual affirmation in dialogue with contemporary anthropological theory, especially Roy Wagner’s thesis on the interplay of “elicitation” and “containment” in sociocultural life. What would happen then, I ask, if we were to reimagine today’s philosophical game – which after Heidegger Deleuze, and Derrida turns variously and increasingly around subtraction – otherwise: as a chiastic board on which Apollo would cut Dionysus’s continuum, which Dionysus would in turn restore despite Apollo’s cuts, and on which the obliteration of any of the two gods would entail the inevitable dismemberment of the other? Accordingly, I offer a full reassessment of Dionysus’s and Apollo’s complementary roles in ancient-Greek culture in discussion not only with Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy but also with Ihab Hassan’s postmodern critique of Orpheus. All of it less with the purpose of putting forward a new metaphysics than with the intent of restating the translucent-ness that keeps together reality and thought against any claim that they are either transparent or opaque to one another.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46363394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0223
S. Butera
Abstract Deleuze’s reversal of Platonism shifted the traditional emphasis on thinking that which participates in a concept to that in which a claim to participation occurs. The first part of this article presents a reading of this reversal that highlights the implications of Deleuze’s ontology for his non-ontological account of participation, highlighting how this ontology (1) builds on aspects of Plato’s philosophy recovered from beneath the later Platonic tradition of philosophy and (2) supports Deleuze’s account of the rival claims of philosophy and opinion to participate in thought. The second part outlines the difficulties presented by philosophy’s constitutive participation in friendship, love, and rivalry for it to be able to achieve its distinctive task of creating concepts that defeat opinion’s rival claims to address the problems that present themselves to thought.
{"title":"Rivalry and Philosophy after Deleuze’s Reversal of Platonic Participation","authors":"S. Butera","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0223","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Deleuze’s reversal of Platonism shifted the traditional emphasis on thinking that which participates in a concept to that in which a claim to participation occurs. The first part of this article presents a reading of this reversal that highlights the implications of Deleuze’s ontology for his non-ontological account of participation, highlighting how this ontology (1) builds on aspects of Plato’s philosophy recovered from beneath the later Platonic tradition of philosophy and (2) supports Deleuze’s account of the rival claims of philosophy and opinion to participate in thought. The second part outlines the difficulties presented by philosophy’s constitutive participation in friendship, love, and rivalry for it to be able to achieve its distinctive task of creating concepts that defeat opinion’s rival claims to address the problems that present themselves to thought.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43485205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0217
G. S. Moss
Abstract The concept of “conceptual personae” is a contradiction in terms. On one sense of the term, personae are the characters in a work of art, such as a play or a novel. As characters, they are not common terms – King Lear is a particular; he is not a universal, for he cannot be shared in common. However, concepts are quite unlike King Lear. As universals, they are common terms that can be shared in common. “Conceptual personae” renders the particular universal and thereby declares the universal not to be universal. However, I argue that as long as philosophers maintain a traditional attitude toward conceptual truth, philosophers will not be able to successfully think the structure of being without appealing to the mythical imagination, of which conceptual personae form an essential constituent.
{"title":"The Mythical Absolute: The Fiction of Being","authors":"G. S. Moss","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0217","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The concept of “conceptual personae” is a contradiction in terms. On one sense of the term, personae are the characters in a work of art, such as a play or a novel. As characters, they are not common terms – King Lear is a particular; he is not a universal, for he cannot be shared in common. However, concepts are quite unlike King Lear. As universals, they are common terms that can be shared in common. “Conceptual personae” renders the particular universal and thereby declares the universal not to be universal. However, I argue that as long as philosophers maintain a traditional attitude toward conceptual truth, philosophers will not be able to successfully think the structure of being without appealing to the mythical imagination, of which conceptual personae form an essential constituent.","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43485375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1515/opphil-2022-0198
S. Laugier
TV series are gaining increasing attention in current research. However, their aesthetic potential for visualizing ethical issues and both forming and facilitating collective inquiry into democratic values has not yet been fully appreciated. Because of their format (weekly/seasonal regularity, home viewing) and the participatory qualities of Internet usage (tweeting, chat forums), series allow for a new form of education by expressing complex issues through narrative and characters. This education is both political and moral. This topical issue elucidates the power, diversity, and richness of TV series and their moral and political purpose. TV series provide common reference points, which populate ordinary conversations and political debates. They become shared representations of moral reasoning and feelings. They arouse ethical reflection in their viewers – in the spirit of philosophy. Taking TV series seriously means investigating the intentions of media creators, reconsidering the public’s capabilities, and exploring how TV series structure our understanding of the world and our experiences of it. It seems that we have not yet taken the measure of the role that TV series play, and can play, in educating and constituting “publics,” in transmitting and sharing values, in creating awareness of terrorist or environmental threats, and in social inclusion and the integration of diversity in terms of gender, race, and sexuality. It is clear that the global distribution of US series (from ER, 1994–2007, to Game of Thrones, 2010–2018), as well as an increasing number of mainstream series produced in the EU (The Bureau, 2015–2020, Money Heist, 2017–2021) and in Asian countries (Delhi Crime, 2019, Squid Game, 2021) – to mention only the most spectacular ones – has made it possible to draw attention to a number of important social, political, racial, health, and security issues. An increasing number of scholars in philosophy, history, media studies, sociology, and political science are therefore taking an interest in TV series. Yet, TV series often remain marginal to their main research agenda: used as simple illustrations, they are not seen as serious objects of analysis. As of today, the existing research on TV series has focused on their modes of production, formal features, or reception – always separately. Most publications on TV series and philosophy take them as an opportunity to illustrate existing philosophical theses, debates, or ideas. The ambition of the present issue is to demonstrate the intellectual and philosophical ambition of TV series themselves, as works of art. Over the past fifty years, the relationship between cinema and philosophy has been explored by key scholars.1 It has evolved into acknowledging film as philosophy rather than seeing film as an “object” for philosophy;2 into analyzing film as sustaining an immanent ethics, thus following Cavell and his characterization of moral perfectionism through Hollywood film.3 TV series, w
{"title":"Taking TV Series Seriously","authors":"S. Laugier","doi":"10.1515/opphil-2022-0198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/opphil-2022-0198","url":null,"abstract":"TV series are gaining increasing attention in current research. However, their aesthetic potential for visualizing ethical issues and both forming and facilitating collective inquiry into democratic values has not yet been fully appreciated. Because of their format (weekly/seasonal regularity, home viewing) and the participatory qualities of Internet usage (tweeting, chat forums), series allow for a new form of education by expressing complex issues through narrative and characters. This education is both political and moral. This topical issue elucidates the power, diversity, and richness of TV series and their moral and political purpose. TV series provide common reference points, which populate ordinary conversations and political debates. They become shared representations of moral reasoning and feelings. They arouse ethical reflection in their viewers – in the spirit of philosophy. Taking TV series seriously means investigating the intentions of media creators, reconsidering the public’s capabilities, and exploring how TV series structure our understanding of the world and our experiences of it. It seems that we have not yet taken the measure of the role that TV series play, and can play, in educating and constituting “publics,” in transmitting and sharing values, in creating awareness of terrorist or environmental threats, and in social inclusion and the integration of diversity in terms of gender, race, and sexuality. It is clear that the global distribution of US series (from ER, 1994–2007, to Game of Thrones, 2010–2018), as well as an increasing number of mainstream series produced in the EU (The Bureau, 2015–2020, Money Heist, 2017–2021) and in Asian countries (Delhi Crime, 2019, Squid Game, 2021) – to mention only the most spectacular ones – has made it possible to draw attention to a number of important social, political, racial, health, and security issues. An increasing number of scholars in philosophy, history, media studies, sociology, and political science are therefore taking an interest in TV series. Yet, TV series often remain marginal to their main research agenda: used as simple illustrations, they are not seen as serious objects of analysis. As of today, the existing research on TV series has focused on their modes of production, formal features, or reception – always separately. Most publications on TV series and philosophy take them as an opportunity to illustrate existing philosophical theses, debates, or ideas. The ambition of the present issue is to demonstrate the intellectual and philosophical ambition of TV series themselves, as works of art. Over the past fifty years, the relationship between cinema and philosophy has been explored by key scholars.1 It has evolved into acknowledging film as philosophy rather than seeing film as an “object” for philosophy;2 into analyzing film as sustaining an immanent ethics, thus following Cavell and his characterization of moral perfectionism through Hollywood film.3 TV series, w","PeriodicalId":36288,"journal":{"name":"Open Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46366463","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：