Part 31 (1/2)
Significantly better answers to ontological, gnoseological, episteical, and even historic questions have to reflect such and other cognitively relevant perspectives of knowledge
Philosophy undergoes a process of ain access to science and iic oriented, enetic sche to the current memetic conversations and methods It is not unusual for philosophers to abandon the pattern of rehashi+ng older theories and views, and to atteencies and their reason The scientification of philosophy could not have happened under the scrutiny of language and the domination of literacy Neither could we expect, within the literate frareat philosophical systeel, and Marx, to the literary seduction of Heidegger, Sartre, or Martin Buber
In scientific disguise
Developing, parallel to couage), different types of sign syste force in order to increase the efficiency of their action ”Give me a fixed point and I'll move the world” is the equivalent philosophical statement characteristic of the civilization of the lever and pulley ”When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty says in a scornful tone, ”it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less” ”The question is,” says Alice, ”whether you can ue fronificent works of great philosophers (froel, Peirce and many more) in mind, one understands Alice's trouble With the exception of Wittgenstein, nobody really seems to have been bothered by the ability people have to s
Today, we could be directed to a philosophical paraphrase in which, instead of a fixed point, the need for a sign systee) is spelled out Adapted to the scope of the conceived practical experience, such a sign systee the world, will ”nitive enetics, coence and artificial life, as well as political, social, aesthetic, or religious concepts are exan systems have been devised
They have facilitated forms of human self-constitution that contribute to the contradictory ies reflect the fundaressive uages used, and affect the status and value systeuise of philosophy
Clarity (difficult to achieve in natural language), evidence, and certainty seee of science In addition, objectivity and the ever seductive truth, for which philosophy was never known, are also apparently within reach
There is to philosophic discourse an internal reason for its continuous unfolding: People constituting thees Hu is part of the world; the ability and, moreover, the desire to think of new questions, atteht answer are part of what defines the hu The consequences of nored Mediation iration of hu individual contribution anonyree of the subject's independence in respect to the object of work or reasoning, or the object represented by the other participants in human praxis While it seems appropriate for science to know e of subjects, it contradicts the ie and embodied in the ideal of literacy Due to this e, each philosopher is rated than ever before due to the necessary interconnection of this knowledge Theof this paradoxical situation is not easy to clarify The overall process has folloo qualitatively contrary directions: 1) concentration on a precisely delineated aspect of knowledge or action in order to understand and control it; 2) abandoning interest in the whole as a consequence of the assumption that the parts will finally be reunited in the social integrating mechanism of the market, whether ant it or not
We now have particular philosophies-of law, ethics, science, sport, recreation, feer a couise of philosophy contributes to its renewed struggle for legitimacy It adopts concepts and methods pertinent to rationality In order to deal with reason, or to do away altogether with questions of reasoning, it unfolds in science and technology Durkheim tried to apply Darwin's natural selection model to explain labor division At present, philosophers have become memeticians, and examine computational simulations of Darwinian principles in order to see how ideas survive and advance Spencer believed that the increase of the productive power of work increases happiness Present-day philosophers are eager to diagram the relation betork satisfaction and personality Some even try to revive Compte's positivist philosophy, to improve upon past Utopian sche Short of a philosophic inquiry, everything beco for a philosopher who does not want to stay within the boundaries of the history of philosophy
Once new move the shi+ft from the authority-based civilization of literacy to the endless freedom of choice of the illiterate context, needed a powerful instrurams, they chose, or were chosen by, philosophy Secularisay ration of new technology, i, the new holisms, popular philosophy, sexual e this line In a way, this reflects the neareness of efficiency that perle to enerated by the choice of subjects that seem to attract philosophers, and by the apparent lack of philosophic e is not obscure, the philosopher seems to discuss matters, not really question reasons, and even less advance ideas or explanatory eneralizations do not help, but one can really not escape the feeling that the process through which philosophy liberates itself from literacy has been less productive than the sie
A journey through the many philosophically oriented Web sites reveals very quickly that even when philosophy opts out of the print medium, it carries over many of the limitations of literacy The ability to open philosophic discourse, to adopt non- linearity, and to encourage dialogue free of the pressure of tradition is often signaled, but rarely accomplished The medium is resisted, not enjoyed as an alternative to classic philosophical discourse Such observations have pro the most appropriate philosophers of their own contributions
Who needs philosophy? And what for?
At this point, one question naturally arises: Is philosophy relevant after all? Moreover, is it even possible without the participation of natural language, or at least without this intermediary between philosophers and their public? In blunter terms, can we live without it? In the context in which efficiency expectations translate into a practical experience of an unprecedented degree of specialization, will philosophy turn into anotherpeople? Or will it be, as it was considered in the culture of a Romantic ideal, huel's philosophy? If indeed philosophy is absorbed into science, what can its purpose be?
As with literacy, the inclination is to suggest that, regardless of the new condition of language, philosophy remains possible and is indeed relevant As far as its functions are concerned- activity, humanity's self-consciousness, corpus of interpretive discourse about humatic context It is needless to reiterate that within each scale of humankind, philosophy pursued different interests as these proved pertinent to efficiency expectations Philosophers never contributed bread to the table nor artifacts Their skill was to for questions-”What is what?” and ”Why?”-in their atte the reason of things and actions-in other words, understanding the world and its apparent order (what the Greeks called eunomia)-made them simultaneously philosophers and interpreters of science ”How can we know?” and ”How can we explain?” are subsequent questions, pursued ently by people in search of scientific rationality than by philosophers per se
No historic account, no matter how detailed, can do justice to the definition of philosophy Its subject changes as hue in the process of their practical self-constitution From philosophy, science and all the huy, law) evolved Even our concern with language is of a philosophic nature It seems that philosophy is, in the final analysis, the only authentic domain of abstraction Its interest is not the individual, the concrete, the immediate, not even the idea, but the abstraction of these Where other douistics, and physics are intent on understanding the abstract notions around which their do them life in the context of practical experiences, philosophy see the next level of abstraction, the abstraction of abstractions, and so on Science uses abstraction as an instru concreteness; philosophy follows the inverse path There is always to the philosophic attempt a call for the next step, into the infinite Each accomplishment is provisional To experiment philosophically means not so much to search systematically for causes as to never end the inquiry There are no right or wrong philosophic theories Philosophy is cu
That people will never stop wondering what is what, theentities, goes alain how they can kno they can be sure that what they know is true, or at least relevant, is also evident The species is characterized by its ability to think, produce and e value, and constitute itself as a coh its playfulness and other characteristics (alluded to in terms such as homo economicus, Zoon semiotikon, Zoon politikon, homo ludens)
Probably more than all these partial qualifiers, the species is the only one known to question everything As language experiencee mechanisms in the first place When the child articulates the first question, the entire genetic endowment is at work
We are who and e are in our inquisitive interaction with others Our h this interaction This statement says in effect that to philosophize became part of the process of human self-constitution and identification The only referent of philosophy is the huether with other surviving literacies, philosophic literacy will be one of many The philosophy of the civilization of illiteracy will reflect the circumatic framework It will also be subjected to the severe test of encies as these reflect efficiency expectations characteristic of the new scale of humankind Science can justify itself by the return in investies and to higher levels of efficiency in human practical experiences Philosophy certainly has a different justification Philosophic necessity is evasive Short of living off the past, as literacy, religion, and art do, it needs to refocus on reason as the co on alternative practical experiences, philosophy can practically help people to free theress-seen as a sequence of ever-escalating records (of production, distribution, expectation)-and moreover, from the fear of all its consequences It can also focus people's attention on alternatives to everything that affects the integrity of the species and its sense of quality, including the relation to their environment When past, present, and future collapse into the illiterate frenzy of the instant, philosophy owes to those who question its articulations an honest approach to the question, ”Is there a future?” But as this future takes shape in the presence of hu in the open world of networked interactions, banalities will not do
Art(ifacts) and Aesthetic Processes
Confusing as it is, a snapshot of everything that today goes under the names art and literature conveys at least a sense of variety Forget the never-ending discussions of what qualifies as art and what does not And forget the irreconcilable disputes over taste What counts are practical experiences of self-identification as artist or writer, as well as involveed within the experience as art or as literature, ie, experiences through which the art public and readershi+p are constituted
What comes to mind e think about the art and literature of the civilization of illiteracy are not illiterate writers-although they exist-and not illiterate painters, composers, pianists, dancers, sculptors, or computer artists of all kinds Rather, disparate exaether unremarkable), but above all marked by characteristics that distinctly disconnect them from the literate experience of art and literature capture our me Auschwitz translated into a co the nazis) andtheir victiroup because so for them; the tear-jerkers from Disney Studios (a company whose audience is the world), classic stories or history turned into fes by a controversial artist (self-h as overvalued shares of a new Internet co parade of computer animation miracles; the Web sites of uninterrupted aesthetic frenzy that would have delighted Andy Warhol, one of the authentic founders of art in the civilization of illiteracy, if anyone could pinpoint the beginning of this civilization
These are exaeneity, and artfulness are the exception The process through which these exas qualifiers different frois of literate expectations Today, art is produced much faster, eh more media, and exhausted in a shorter ti! Cycles of artistic style are abridged to the extre impossible to define Artistic standards are leveled as the democracy of unlimited access to art and literature expands their public, without effecting a deep rapport, a long-lasting relation, or a heightened aesthetic expectation Never before has more kitsch been produced and more money spent to satisfy the obsession with celebrity that is the hallmark of this tibranches all over the world, not unlike MacDonalds and fashi+on retail stores And never before were ical and scientific means involved in the practical experience of art, always on the cutting edge, not only because art is traditionally associated with innovation These new experiences make possible the transition from an individual, private, almost mystical, experience to a very public activity Open a virtual studio on the Web, and chances are that(or curiosity) on the digital canvas Not infrequently, this activity is carried on at the scale of the integrated world: rate art froe of literatures fused into neriting workshops, distributed, interactive installations united in the experience of digital networks Good taste and bad co-exist; pornography resides as bits and bytes in formats not different from those of the most suave examples from art history The Internet is the one and only uncensored place left on the earth All these phenoe of the condition of hue from a literacy-dominated art to an art of ue notions of value and significance
Making and perceiving
Nature and culture meet in artistic practical experiences of human self- constitution, as theyextraordinary is the fact that e see, or hear, or listen to is the expression of their intersecting Through art, hunitive, characteristics The experience of structuring a category of artifacts, defined through their aesthetic condition, and the coh aesthetically relevant actions constitute the realm of the artistic In their interaction with objects and actions resulting fro as they define theiven context Like any other practical experience, the production of art belongs to the prag, drawing, telling stories, creating rhys, artists identify theh particular aptitudes and skills: rhythm, movement, voice, sense of color, hare and the consecutive experience of recording led to the association of skills with the writing of the language, that is, drawing and reading it to others, perfor it in rituals