2017-02Forum
Science-Art: Neuronaturalism Beyond the Decentred Spectator

Abstract: Science-art collaborations are a growth area. An example is the Wellcome Collection exhibition “States of Mind”. I focus on one work yellowbluepink by Ann Veronica Janssens. As framed within the exhibition this piece is understood to present a model of spectatorship in which the art-encounter prompts an awareness of the  p o s s i b i l i t y  of neuroscientific self-understanding. I take…

2017-01Forum
Mystical Experience: Pathology, or Supernormality?

Abstract: In the contemporary humanities there is still a problem with the understanding of the great texts of Western Mysticism – the common interpretations oscillate between taking the mysticism as the pathology or as the supernormality. Different researchers, including psychiatrists, psychologists, theologians and philosophers, are usually presenting theories that are either too narrow or not enough…

2017-01Forum
From Moral Annihilation to Luciferism: Aspects of a Phenomenology of Violence

Abstract: Do the various ascriptions of “violence,” e.g., to rape, logical reasoning, racist legislation, unqualified statements, institutions of class and/or gender inequity, etc., mean something identically the same, something analogous, or equivocal and context-bound? This paper argues for both an analogous sense as well as an exemplary essence and finds support in Aristotle’s theory of anger…

2017-01Forum
Self(ie)

Abstract: In this paper, the mode in which the self reveals itself in the contemporary world-historical situation will be analysed. Hence, the focus will be on a particular form of technological mediation of the self by examining a recent phenomenon commonly referred to as the s e l f i e. Unlike most psychological studies suggest, it will be argued that selfies enable a human epistemological need…

2017-01Forum
Freedom, Symmetry Breaking and Reflective Judgements. An Attempt at an Incompatibilist Account of Freedom

Abstract: In this paper free volitions are construed as a subclass of reflective judgements in the Kantian meaning, i.e. judgements not involving any fixed concepts but displaying a concept-like form. Judgements expressing volitions and issuing in action may be termed volitional judgements, therefore free volitions are construed as reflective volitional judgements. Due to an element of conceptual novelty and…

2017-01Forum
Time as the Source of Inalienable Freedom: Henri Bergson’s “Immunizing” the Self

Abstract: The paper looks at the idea of grounding human freedom in selfhood, with particular attention to the strategies of “denaturalizing” time, resulting in its separation into different modalities. The perspective of practical philosophy, interested in accounting for and making legitimate the spontaneous first person assumption of being a free agent, is enriched with some historical…