Contemporary philosophy. 5 th April

Transcription

1 Contemporary philosophy 5 th April

2 More than knowledge? Knowledge is the main issue in philosophy, even if no epistemic claims have been made: art, ethics, feeling, body they all add to knowledge {or so they say } Social scien@sts, however, have queried the monolithic role of knowledge: knowing is too undifferen@ated an ac@on to reveal the mul@ple nature of man s being

3 Am I a dog who is determined to its posi@on? How does my complex existence mind, body, soul, spirit, physiology, culture, educa@on, hereditary tendencies, desire, hormones (inside and outside), light, darkness, community expecta@ons, poli@cs, etc. become one, or does it? Are separate approaches to world a swell way to construe my being? Do I ever find out what is the emphasis of any factor in my becoming me?

4 If I am tepid towards something because of the lack of knowledge, experience, discrimina@on, or what? If knowledge based approaches and differen@a@ons are not proper, what is? How to avoid stupidity, New Age, and poli@cs of mediocrity and s@ll stay wild and free? If I am cri@cal towards the heritage of West, how am I able to communicate with others? Is there wisdom, research, clearness, etc. outside the common beliefs?

5 How much of life is needed? Is life a game? Who knows the rules? What role has the unknown? Who is known? Thus: Is knowledge overrated? Are systems (like scien@fic disciplines, areas of experience) overrated? Is individuality overrated?

6 Feelings? In everyday discussion people oxen refer to their feelings (gender restricted way of speaking) and indicate that such a way of experience is different from knowledge Problems: What to include to feelings? How to separate inner and outer sources in feelings? Are feelings touch related? Have they any consistence or coherence? Have others an access to them? How to communicate them?

7 Unhappy childhood? AXer the birth of psychology, personal history became an issue: one s known and unknown childhood experiences and youthful incidents were taken as a condi@on of later understanding The historicity of human life belongs to one s reality but certainly not as a fate like condi@on: the dynamism of mind seems to re make (resignify, re refer, etc.) everything, again and again This won t be an independent factor

8 Culture? Since sociology and cultural sciences turned up and became popular, the culture one is living in became a condi@onal knowledge : one reflects one s culture (back and forth) Culture explains fate, interest, and personal choices The dialogical rela@on between man and culture makes this a vicious circle if used as an explana@on

9 Literature Literature Jules Henry, Culture against man (1963) Pier Paolo Pasolini, Here4cal empirism (1972)

10 More than knowledge Art, embodied skills, original thinking, sensory dialogical preparing something together, living together, (etc.), being in the world, and other forms of being open to other The world as a heterological context, source, net of rela@ons, coherence, all Approached by living, doing, making, thinking, reflec@ng, loving, ea@ng, touching And being approached by the same ones

11 The idea of the discourse Philosophers who propagandize for discourse instead of knowledge (Foucault, Derrida etc.) insist that being is so and that no man made system can present it well Human experience already simplifies being and makes divides that are dependent on the of human and wit What we need is a plaeorm for bringing the experienced world one again

12 Literature Foucault, Archaeology of knowledge (1969) Foucault, History of sex 1 3 ( ) Foucault, Discipline and punish (1975) Derrida, Dissemina4ons (1972) Derrida, Margins of philosophy (1972)

13 Genealogy We may as well speak of heterologies (plural) since every phenomenon is linked to nets and all they are needed in order to be enlightened But the heterologies always remain insufficient: all are only approximate and in constant need of new genealogies

14 Genealogies The idea of genealogies wiped off the causal with one fell; in life world there is no causal chains, at least they are not the chains we are interested in Cultural and cultural structures build up the reality for us but only within the experienced everydayness: we are all on the edge of becoming causal things but in the next moment certainly not cultural semiosis machine grinds all to a story

15 Myths and genealogies We have a basic storehouse of narra@ves as myths, both ancient and recent myths, and new ones are emerging intermikently They must be known and used, re interpreted and put in new constella@on again and again in order to work to our needs Myths are not epistemic but more like images, performa@ves, even music They create temporary genealogies

16 Genealogies and are always they explain as if but never even claim to be truth: they are true if well done but the abstract idea of truth can never be achieved is a significant area of knowledge since every explana@on, analysis, etc. lean on fic@@ous narra@ves: the idea of represen@ng knowledge as a story comes from story telling, not other way round

17 Good genealogies In with others, one must be good in telling stories; even beker if one is not ever believed the importance of truth or being honest and sincere For oneself, such a skill opens up both the language as well as the world with a vigour that is absent in a serious quest for knowledge As well, it changes the altude towards knowing: knowing becomes open, open to others

18 Heterologies Heterologies indicate an altude: abundance of events and story lines in everyday reality are more meaningful than wisdom acquired in one s own mind We should, all of us, concentrate on others, telling stories of our encounters with others, and trying to abandon the cri@cal mind that is trained by truth ridden philosophies

19 Literature De Certeau, Heterologies (1986) Said, Orientalism (1978)

20 Story based life Living a life is thus not a documentary but beyond comprehension if taken as a collec@on of facts; instead it is a compila@on of separate stories whereof some are en@re fic@@ous, some concrete encounters with world (Nature) The plot is unreal either made by me or someone else One should take into one s own account to tell his/her story and then live it trough

21 Literature De Beauvoir, The second sex (1949) Gerard Geneke, Narra4ve discourse ( )