Existentialism

Récupérable!. Les Mains sales

by Yan Hamel

'Making Subjects', 'Making Meaning': How the encounter with the work of art can affect societal change

by Tina Kinsella

This paper was presented at a conference entitled 'Beauty will save the world' at Bristol University, September 2010

The discursive relationship between ethics and aesthetics has been largely excluded from much contemporary postmodern... more The discursive relationship between ethics and aesthetics has been largely excluded from much contemporary postmodern theory. However, in recent years the texts of many theorists1 and the work of certain artists2 have heralded a timelyre-conceptualisation of the relationship between ethics and aesthetics by claiming that art has the potential to transform societal dynamics, practices and realities. Such theorists and artists have variously championed a re-conceived ethico-aesthetic dynamic, broady situated within three dominant strands: the “return to beauty”, “relational aesthetics” and ʻart as socially engaged practice”.

In this paper I aim to contribute to such contemporary ethico-aesthetic debate by positing a an alternative, though complementary, lens through which to consider the transformative potential of art. Claiming that the artwork has the power to contest dominant and hegemonic social practices, I will further suggest (i) that the encounter with the artwork is a
site of radical engagement with otherness, (ii) that this encounter with otherness offers the viewing subject a site at which to respond but, crucially, without having to act upon, the
meaning-making of others and that (iii) thus the encounter with the artwork opens into a privileged liberatory, contemplative trans-subjective space in which the subject can imagine and create alternative “meaning-makings”, allowing the viewing subject to re- conceptualise hegemonic social practices and realities.

Drawing primarily on Simone de BeauvoirʼsThe Ethics of Ambiguity (1948) and the writings of Emmanuel Levinas, I will interrogate Michael Hanekeʼs recent film, The White Ribbon
(2009). Through an application of key philosophical concepts — such as temporality, bad faith, disclosure and radical alterity — I will suggest that such concepts offer a potentially
transformative modality by which (i) individual ethical subjectivity can be re-structured (ii) the ethico-aesthetic dynamic can be re-invigorated and (iii) societal realities and practices
can be re-perceived.

How to live

by John Shand

Philosophy, 82, 2007.

No Pain, No Gain. The Understanding of Cruelty in Western Philosophy

by Giorgio Baruchello

2010 Filozofia 65(2): 170-83

Almost daily, we read and hear of car bombings, violent riots and escalating criminal activities. Such actions are... more Almost daily, we read and hear of car bombings, violent riots and escalating criminal activities. Such actions are typically condemned as “cruel” and their “cruelty” is taken as the most blameworthy trait, to which institutions are obliged, it is implied, to
respond by analogously “cruel but necessary" measures. Almost daily, we read and hear of tragic cases of suicide, usually involving male citizens of various age, race, and class, whose farewell notes, if any, are regularly variations on an old, well-known adagio: “Goodbye cruel world.” Additionally, many grave cruelties are neither reported nor even seen by the media: people are cheated, betrayed, belittled and affronted in many ways, which are as humiliating as they are ordinary. Yet, what is cruel? What meaning unites the plethora of phenomena that are reported “cruel”? How is it possible for cruelty to be so extreme and, at the same time, so common? This essay wishes to offer a survey of the main conceptions of cruelty in the history of Western thought, their distinctive constants of meaning being considered in view of a better understanding of cruelty’s role in shaping each person’s selfhood.

Conservation Philosophy: Cesare Brandi and the Place and Time of Human Existence

by Fidel Meraz

Presented in Cultural Role of Architecture Conference, University of Lincoln, June 2010

In conservation of culturally significant architecture (CSA), awareness about problems of temporality has usually... more In conservation of culturally significant architecture (CSA), awareness about problems of temporality has usually focused on accounts that mainly approach the past and the present, and more rarely the future, but do not consider a complete human temporality, or explicit ontological bases. In this paper, architecture emerges as a manifold being in constant becoming compeling human being to exercise permanently memory and assimilation. After epistemological and phenomenological analysis of Brandi’s thought – focusing on his paradigmatic Theory of Restoration – his attitude comes forth as a particular form of conservation limited to architecture as a work of art. By ontological and phenomenological investigations about architecture and temporality, the paper reveals conservation in its modern form as a limited temporal intentionality. After these theoretical pre-conditions, the existential approach applied on the space and time of Dasein – in Heidegger’s terms – proves the grounding of conservation on an existential interpretation of the more fundamental notions of cultivation and care.
After the phenomenological analysis of memory, architectural conservation in its modern form is demonstrated as a partial account of human temporality that can be overcome considering human inhabitation in a creative way. Supported on the cases of remembered architecture, the hermeneutical approach concludes suggesting a solution for the impasse with an existential account of both, the artistic grounding of architecture and its characterisation as the place that temporally accompanies Dasein. Thus, architecture is ontologically demonstrated as a manifold being in constant state of transformation that participates of an unavoidable humanised temporality, appearing as a less ambiguous object of conservation. Hence, architecture is existentially demonstrated as constituting the space for the authentically concerned human, whose temporal consciousness compels to cultivate and care about, enriching the possible approaches to conservation as a collective endeavour.

Existential Kantian

by Carmela Cyril Lua

Final paper submitted for Ethics

This paper shall discuss briefly the various ethical theories, their strengths and their weaknesses, in an attempt to... more This paper shall discuss briefly the various ethical theories, their strengths and their weaknesses, in an attempt to supply sufficient background in discerning which ethical theory would provide the best guideline to moral life. It shall also incorporate the importance of reflective morality.

Da eticidade própria às práticas psicológicas fenomenológico existenciais

by Herlon Bezerra

BEZERRA, Herlon A. Da eticidade própria às práticas psicológicas fenomenológico existenciais. (Apresentação Oral). I Seminário do Lab. de Psicologia em Subjetividade e Sociedade (LAPSUS) - “Consumo, Ética e Brasilidade”. 04 e 05.11.2004.

Num momento cultural em que não são mais possíveis nem as garantias fundamentais da tradição nem a referência moderna... more Num momento cultural em que não são mais possíveis nem as garantias fundamentais da tradição nem a referência moderna à vontade livre de um Eu soberano como instâncias últimas de decisão ética, jurídica e política, revelam-se as práticas psicológicas fenomenológico existenciais, em seu compromisso com aquele horizonte da trágica verdade humana, fundamento da irrepetível singularidade de seu existir que se subtrai por essência a toda captura por parte do conhecer, uma bem sucedida resposta cultural ao modo como se coloca contemporaneamente o problema irrecusável da verdade e sentido da ação humana no mundo – núcleo originário mesmo das questões éticas.

Was es heißt, den Menschen als Menschen zu sehen: Wittgenstein und der Existenzialismus

by Thomas Wachtendorf

Aufriss einer existenzialistischen Ethik

by Thomas Wachtendorf

El fundamento de la esperanza en "El intercambio", de Clint Eastwood

by Juan Pablo Serra

Published in Enrique Fuster and John Wauck (eds.), RAGIONE, FICTION E FEDE: CONVEGNO INTERNAZIONALE SU FLANNERY O'CONNOR, EDUSC, Roma, 2011, 361-370 [congress proceedings]

In order to not being a mere fantasy or a delusion, hope needs to spring from a real ground, neither invented nor... more In order to not being a mere fantasy or a delusion, hope needs to spring from a real ground, neither invented nor forced by humans. The last line of dialogue from the film "Changeling" (Clint Eastwood, 2008) refers to the rebirth of hope for the protagonist, which, given the unfair, arbitrary and incomprehensible social environment depicted in the film, tinges with ambiguity such a statement. Can a tragic director like Clint Eastwood propose hope at the end of a movie? After reviewing the critical reception of the film and pointing out the fundamental anthropological insights in Eastwood's filmography, in this paper I shall distinguish between and "existential" and an "ontological" optimism. Then I will go to study whether there is a real change in the view of human nature in Eastwood's recent films, and finally I'll explain in what sense Eastwood himself is entitled to speak of hope -after all, the tragic is also capable of recognizing the existence of valuable realities which "validate" the hope- and in what sense his affirmation of hope is still unfounded, as it is made from a voluntarist attitude -namely, an attitude of expecting things because you "want" to but wait on something.

Whitehead as a Neglected Figure of Twentieth-Century Philosophy

by Anderson Weekes

In: Michel Weber & Anderson Weekes (eds.), Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind (New York: SUNY Press, ISBN 978-1-4384-2941-0 & ISBN 978-1-4384-2940-3), 2009, pp. 57–72, coauthored with Michel Weber.
English

Although Whitehead’s particular style of philosophizing--looking at traditional philosophical problems in light of... more Although Whitehead’s particular style of philosophizing--looking at traditional philosophical problems in light of recent scientific advances--was part of a trend that began with the scientific revolutions in the early 20th century and continues today, he was marginalized in 20th century philosophy because of his outspoken defense of what he was doing as “metaphysics.” Metaphysics, for Whitehead, is a cross-disciplinary hermeneutic responsible for coherently integrating the perspectives of the special sciences with one another and with everyday experience. The program of such a meta-discipline is challenging to philosophical orthodoxy because it enlarges, rather than narrows, the range of empirical evidence that philosophy must acknowledge. This places Whitehead’s philosophy in a perennial tradition that seeks to resolve fundamental antinomies through synthesis and reconciliation rather than reduction or elimination.

Process Philosophy: Via Idearum or Via Negativa?

by Anderson Weekes

In: Michel Weber (ed.), After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics (Frankfurt/Lancaster: Ontos Verlag, ISBN 3-937202-49-8), 2004, pp. 223–266.
English

Nicholas Rescher’s way of understanding process philosophy reflects the ambitions of his own philosophical project and... more Nicholas Rescher’s way of understanding process philosophy reflects the ambitions of his own philosophical project and commits him to a conceptually ideal interpretation of process. Process becomes a transcendental idea of reflection that can always be predicated of our knowledge of the world and of the world qua known, but not necessarily of reality an sich. Rescher’s own taxonomy of process thinking implies that it has other variants. While Rescher’s approach to process philosophy makes it intelligible and appealing to mainstream analytic philosophy, it leaves behind the more daring ideas of Bergson, James, and Whitehead, all of whom envisioned the primordial reality of process in a radical ontology of becoming. This variant of process thought can be construed as coherent and self-consistent, but not without relinquishing the correspondence theory of truth and embracing challenging ideas that bring us in close proximity to existentialism, apophatic theology, and Buddhism.

Dasein; death, finitude and authenticity. Existential presentations within a private counselling practice.

by randolph ellis

Reconciling Synchronicity and Existentialism (FINAL VERSION)

by aMan Bloom

"Philosophy of Existence and Philosophical Anthropology (or, Sartre and Heidegger on Humanism)” (with Peter Caws) in The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Philosophy (University of Edinburgh Press, 1997) pp. 152-162

by Peter Fettner

Co-authored with "Philosophy of Existence and Philosophical Anthropology (or, Sartre and Heidegger on Humanism)” (with Peter Caws) in The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Philosophy (University of Edinburgh Press, 1997) pp. 152-162

Explores the debate between Sartre and Heidegger on humanism and existentialism. Explores the debate between Sartre and Heidegger on humanism and existentialism.

“From Space and Time to the Spacing of Temporal Articulation: A phenomenological re-run of Achilles and the Tortoise.”

by Louis Sandowsky

Originally published in Existentia: An International Journal of Philosophy. (Vol. XV / 1-2 – 2005. SOCIETAS PHILOSOPHIA CLASSICA).

A Note on
“From Space and Time to the Spacing of Temporal Articulation: a phenomenological re-run of Achilles... more A Note on
“From Space and Time to the Spacing of Temporal Articulation: a phenomenological re-run of Achilles and the tortoise”

My research in phenomenology and existentialism has always been drawn, through a deconstructive lens-piece, to the significance and key importance of the issue of temporality – that, indeed, consciousness [Bewusstsein], Being-there [Dasein], and Being-for-itself [Être-pour-soi] are other names for the articulation of time. The horizon of Temporality (Temporalität – with its transcendental character) could be said to refer to the absolute horizon of all horizons of Being.
In the following essay on the spacing of temporal articulation (based on a research paper of the same title that I wrote in 1989 during the period of my M.A. studies in Continental Philosophy at Warwick University), I examine some of the ways in which phenomenology, existentialism and deconstruction have radicalized the treatment and conceptualization of time in contemporary philosophy. The principal focus is on how they have successfully exposed the kinds of aporia that infect the popular model in which time is expressed as a linear succession of 'discrete' moments.
The importance of the analyses undertaken by Husserl and Heidegger, in particular, lies in the way in which their 'horizonal' (horizontal and vertical) approach to time shows how the 'now,' far from being a discrete moment or extensionless point, is intrinsically 'spanned.' This represents much more than a mere reiteration of the obvious argument that a single point (parameter) means nothing without reference to at least one other point: that the 'now' must be the space-between two parameters. Such a model is still far too limited.
The 'now,' or rather the Living Present (lebendige Gegenwart) is, in the most primordial sense, an extended / extending field that carries its 'no-longer' and its 'yet-to-come' within it. Any parameters that limit its space are arbitrary. It is a pure overflowing – a horizon of pure extending / stretching that first provides the space (spacing) of such limits. As the title of this article suggests, the senses of extension or spacing are subjected to rigorous investigation, for these terms are irreducible to pure spatiality alone – hence the transition from the supplement ‘and’ to the preposition ‘of’ with respect to the relation between space and time – the time of space and the space of time: time-space / space-time. Here, the question of 'positionality' is encouraged to reveal a far deeper significance than the mere language of spatial location. Spatializing is always already intertwined with temporalizing.
The motivating idea for the following investigation announced itself, somewhat indirectly, through certain implications that arise when Zeno's paradox "Achilles and the tortoise" is treated to a phenomenological reading (I urge the reader to take a look at Jorge-Luis Borgès' extraordinary
essay – extraordinary in terms of the tremendous scope of its observations and ideas, despite its narrative economy, regarding the many different manifestations of this paradox throughout the history of Occidental philosophy – “The Avatars of the Tortoise” [see bibliography], which served as a major inspiration for the present text).
This 'paradox' takes the notion of the 'infinite divisibility' of any magnitude as its principal theme and shows how it problematizes the question of the reality of motion. Through this treatment of motion we find that the infinite divisibility of space is also equally applicable to time and that the 'discrete' moments of measured time can be nothing more than fictional entities.
Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the tortoise still continues to fascinate and seduce those who wish to flex their philosophical muscles in an attempt to understand precisely why it is a paradox. However, despite the fact that it is still compelling in its narrative power to draw one into its surreal horizon, as an argument against the reality of change and motion, it remains little more than a logical curiosity. For reasons of strategy, however, I treat the 'narrative structure' of the tale seriously in order to show...

i...how Zeno adopts the status of 'privileged observer' thus positioning his discourse within the bounds of a traditional (objective) idea of reality and the presence of the present, even though ultimately pushing it to its limits.
ii...how, at the point of rupture, the paradox demands that we make explicit that which is not made thematic by the narrative, but is presupposed by its 'operation': namely, lived time.
iii...how the asymptotic relation between Achilles and the tortoise can be expressed in such a way as to open up a space for a sense of extension / extending that speaks of the pluri-dimensionality of time as articulated through the stretching-out of the now of lived-experience.

Ultimately, the provisional approach leads away, through various shifts in perspective on the aporetic traces that it leaves in its wake, from engaging the closed limits of an objective linear continuum to addressing time as a horizonal 'interplay' whose spacing resists the language of
closure. The shift involves nothing less than a phenomenological-deconstruction of the expressions
time, space and motion – and, as such, it re-situates the question of what is meant when, like Zeno, we ask whether they are real. The 'real' is not that which can ever be totalized (like within an ideal Euclidean point or its 'objective' temporal counterpart in the traditional notion of time: the 'now' as a discrete 'piece' of time) – but exceeds objective determination or reification. We shall see that the power of Zeno's narrative can be said to lie in the way in which it puts the primacy generally assigned to presence and the present into question.
Therefore, the following reading of Achilles and the Tortoise does not follow the traditional path of logical analysis. The paradox is subjected to a phenomenological-deconstructive form of interrogation. The principal question that guides the investigation is: what would it be to experience a world in which the slowest of competitors in a race is always ahead of the one who is faster?
In contemporary phenomenological and deconstructive discourse, presence can no longer be privileged. Neither can there be any 'privileged observers' in a universe that is articulated, both spatially and temporally, through 'perspectives.' But, having said this, it is still necessary to ask about the conditions of the possibility of such perspectives, in terms of their formation and unity through change.
Consciousness of plurality is possible for an extended-extending consciousness only – a 'lived unity' which exceeds its finite moments. Consciousness is stretched within itself under the tri-horizonal form of the Living Present. It is fundamentally historical; a project, a projecting whose form is that of the extending of the Living Present. The 'now,' when thought according to this structurality, is pure opening and intertwining (Ineinander). In the speaking-out of the 'now' we
always find a matrix of interwoven moments – a horizon that extends into both the past and the future. It is the 'field' of the Urgemeinschaftung [original communality] of the past, present and future. This intertwining is that which originarily constitutes the present as opening.
The title of this article incorporates a form of play in which the classic difference that separates discourse on time from that of a spatial order is put into suspension. The following
inquiry does not settle for the traditional disjunction that defines time as an 'order of successions' as distinct from space as an 'order of coexistences.' The discourse on the
intertwining of space and time is not a question of adding two discrete horizons – as implied by the use of the supplement 'and.' The intertwining of which I speak names a field that is earlier than such a disjunction. It is the horizon of the spacing of temporal articulation.

“Time and Epoché.”

by Louis Sandowsky

A contribution to the internet project: On The Future of Husserlian Phenomenology. The New School for Social Research – The Husserl Archives in Memory of Alfred Schutz. Received February, 2007.

Louis N. Sandowsky © February, 2007. Haifa University

A contribution to the internet project:
On... more Louis N. Sandowsky © February, 2007. Haifa University

A contribution to the internet project:
On The Future of Husserlian Phenomenology.
The New School for Social Research –
The Husserl Archives in Memory of Alfred Schutz.