Media do not exist : performativity and mediating conjunctures

Collection : Theory on demand ; 31Media Do Not Exist: Performativity and Mediating Conjunctures by Jean-Marc Larrue and Marcello Vitali-Rosati offers a radically new approach to the phenomenon of mediation, proposing a new understanding that challenges the very notion of medium. It begins with a historical overview of recent developments in Western thought on mediation, especially since the mid 80s and the emergence of the disciplines of media archaeology and intermediality. While these developments are inseparable from the advent of digital technology, they have a long history. The authors trace the roots of this thought back to the dawn of philosophy. Humans interact with their environment – which includes other humans – not through media, but rather through a series of continually evolving mediations, which Larrue and Vitali-Rosati call ‘mediating conjunctures’. This observation leads them to the paradoxical argument that ‘media do not exist’. Existing theories of mediation processes remain largely influenced by a traditional understanding of media as relatively stable entities. Media Do Not Exist demonstrates the limits of this conception. The dynamics relating to mediation are the product not of a single medium, but rather of a series of mediating conjunctures. They are created by ceaselessly shifting events and interactions, blending the human and the non-human, energy, and matter

Unity and Closure through Performatism: A Possible Replacement of Postmodernism?

Through the use of aesthetically mediated devices, the contemporary literary theory is argued, by Raoul Eshelman, to have ushered into a new epoch making era of performatism by assigning unity and closure to the current art works in the world. Eshelman attempts to apply his newly formed concept in different art works ranging from literary writings to architecture, movies and paintings in his book, Performatism or End of Postmodernism in 2008. This paper is an attempt to overview and analyse the concept of Performatism by applying it, as an example, on a recent Pakistani narrative The Party Worker by Mohsin Hamid Shahid. The rationale for the selection of this work is owing to the claim by Eshelman that Performatism has seeped into art works globally. The textual analysis of the selected novel signifies that Eshelman’s view of contemporary state of literary theory cannot be neglected as there are attempts at unification and closure of the narratives, a departure from postmodern disintegration and fragmentation. However, the imposition of unity and closure owing a great deal to the use of aesthetic devices and authoriality through the strategic maneuvering by the writer poses a threat to the smooth shifting from postmodernism to performatism.Through the use of aesthetically mediated devices, the contemporary literary theory is argued, by Raoul Eshelman, to have ushered into a new epoch-making era of performatism by assigning unity and closure to the current art works in the world. Eshelman attempts to apply his newly formed concept in different art works ranging from literary writings to architecture, movies and paintings in his book, Performatism or End of Postmodernism in 2008. This paper is an attempt to overview and analyse the concept of Performatism by applying it, as an example, on a recent Pakistani narrative The Party Worker by Mohsin Hamid Shahid. The rationale for the selection of this work is owing to the claim by Eshelman that Performatism has seeped into art works globally. The textual analysis of the selected novel signifies that Eshelman’s view of contemporary state of literary theory cannot be neglected as there are attempts at unification and closure of the narratives, a departure from postmodern disintegration and fragmentation. However, the imposition of unity and closure owing a great deal to the use of aesthetic devices and authoriality through the strategic maneuvering by the writer poses a threat to the smooth shifting from postmodernism to performatism

Perceiving Multiplicity

Experience presents us with multiple entities and with connections and differences between them. This multiplicity in experience is the basis of the justification experience is supposed to provide for belief. I argue that neither the newly resurgent Relational approach to perception nor the predominant Representational approach can account for this core feature. The former views experience in terms of a primitive experiential relation between the subject and the world, and the latter in terms of a subject’s relation to representational contents. My arguments emphasize that experience which justifies a complex proposition, such as that something has multiple properties, must also justify the propositions entailed, such as that something has each of those individual properties. This requires the experience to have multiple “objects” (ranging over ordinary objects, properties or states). When these are treated as terms of a relation, there is no room to explain the presentation of connections between them as required for the justification of the complex proposition. This difficulty assails the Representational view as well for it appeals to multiple contents treated as multiple terms of a representational relation. I argue that no explanation of the justificatory unity of the terms is forthcoming. This failure stems from inadequately distinguishing empirical justification from rational justification. The difference must lie in empirical justification being sensitive to the object of perception in a way that rational justification is not. I argue that for this to be so, experience must be understood as necessarily partial and the only way to adequately account for this is to regard the subject as the unity of the experience. The common failure of Relational and Representational views then traces to their adopting a framework that wrongly reifies the subject

Reference in fiction

Most discussions of proper names in fiction concern the names of fictional characters, such as ‘Clarissa Dalloway’ or ‘Lilliput.’ Less attention has been paid to referring names in fiction, such as ‘Napoleon’ (in Tolstoy’s War and Peace) or ‘London’ (in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four). This is because many philosophers simply assume that such names are unproblematic; they refer in the usual way to their ordinary referents. The alternative position, dubbed Exceptionalism by Manuel García-Carpintero, maintains that referring names make a distinctive semantic contribution in fiction. In this paper I offer a positive argument for Non-Exceptionalism, relying on the claim that works of both fiction and non-fiction can express the same singular propositions. I go on to defend my account against García-Carpintero’s objections

Imperative Sense and Libidinal Event

My dissertation presents a comprehensive rethinking of the Kantian imperative, articulating it on the basis of what I call originary sense. Calling primarily upon the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard, I show (1) that sense constitutes the ontologically most basic dimension of our worldly being and (2) that the way in which this sense happens is determinative for our experience of the ethical imperative. By originary sense I mean to name something that is neither sensible sense (sensation) nor intelligible sense (meaning), but rather a kind of unity of these two that is ontologically anterior to their separation. In the first chapter I follow Merleau-Ponty’s argument in Phenomenology of Perception that sensible sense and intelligible sense belong originarily together at the level of the lived body. We are able to intend the meaning of worldly situations (Husserl’s Sinngebung) only insofar as we are responsive in an embodied way to the imperatives that are given in the sensible itself. The intelligible lawfulness so characteristic of the Kantian imperative is thus shown to be grounded in a more fundamental unity of intelligible and sensible sense. The second chapter follows Merleau-Ponty’s later works, especially The Prose of the World and The Visible and the Invisible, showing how the sensibility that is inseparable from the imperative introduces important limitations to the universalizing tendencies of Kant’s moral philosophy, drawing us back to the irreducible situatedness of ethical situations. In the third chapter I turn to the very different articulation of sense given by Gilles Deleuze, primarily in his Logic of Sense. I show there that Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological conception of sense does not allow us to think the singularity of the imperative, the fact that the ethical command weighs on a me that cannot be grasped in terms of the generalities of my public identity. This singularity corresponds broadly to the idea of dignity in Kant’s moral philosophy. I argue that Deleuze, who conceptualizes sense as an event, gives us the resources to think singularity and to understand what it entails for our ethical practice. Finally, I attempt in the fourth chapter to think these two sides of the imperative—its demand for universality and its emphasis on singularity and dignity— together in the idea of libidinal sense. Calling on Jean-François Lyotard’s Libidinal Economy and, to a lesser extent, on Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus, I show that these two apparently incompatible requirements of the imperative have a common source in the event of libidinal investment (cathexis). In thus locating the source of the imperative in originary, libidinal sense, I hope both to shed some light on the irreducible complexity of our ethical being and to present a more humane, less moralizing version of the imperative than is typically articulated in moral philosophy

Creationism and evolution

In Tower of Babel, Robert Pennock wrote that “defenders of evolution would help their case immeasurably if they would reassure their audience that morality, purpose, and meaning are not lost by accepting the truth of evolution.” We first consider the thesis that the creationists’ movement exploits moral concerns to spread its ideas against the theory of evolution. We analyze their arguments and possible reasons why they are easily accepted. Creationists usually employ two contradictive strategies to expose the purported moral degradation that comes with accepting the theory of evolution. On the one hand they claim that evolutionary theory is immoral. On the other hand creationists think of evolutionary theory as amoral. Both objections come naturally in a monotheistic view. But we can find similar conclusions about the supposed moral aspects of evolution in non-religiously inspired discussions. Meanwhile, the creationism-evolution debate mainly focuses — understandably — on what constitutes good science. We consider the need for moral reassurance and analyze reassuring arguments from philosophers. Philosophers may stress that science does not prescribe and is therefore not immoral, but this reaction opens the door for the objection of amorality that evolution — as a naturalistic world view at least — supposedly endorses. We consider that the topic of morality and its relation to the acceptance of evolution may need more empirical research

Reference and Indexicality

Tese arquivada ao abrigo da Portaria nº 227/2017 de 25 de Julho-Registo de Grau EstrangeiroThis thesis is a general defence of a context-dependent description theory of reference with special regards to indexical reference on the basis of a truth-conditional theory of meaning. It consists of two parts. In the first part, the roots of the Frege-Russell view are laid out and contrasted with various aspects of direct reference theory and the New Theory of Reference. Two description-based accounts of the reference of proper names, nominal and external description theory, are defended against various known counter-arguments such as Kripke’s circularity objection and the Church-Langford translation test. It is shown how the resulting analysis of de dicto belief ascriptions can be made compositional, but also argued that compositionality is not mandatory. The second part deals with forms of indexical and non-indexical contextdependence. Taking into account a range of typological data, referential features of indexical expressions like their egocentricity, token-reflexivity, and the vagueness of spatial and temporal indexicals are laid out. Kaplan’s Logic of Demonstratives is then reformulated, but following Cresswell (1990) it is argued that full quantification over modal indices is needed. Various indicators and demonstratives are analyzed on the basis of a description theory of reference in a variant of first-order predicate logic with non-traditional predication theory and two sorts of reified contexts. Examples analyzed include: I, now, here, actually, we, the former president, the left entrance, context-shifting indexicals, and demonstratives like Japanese are. Finally, essential indexicality is addressed and it is conceded that description theory cannot deal with attitudes de se. In defense of indirect reference it is argued that the cognitive phenomena underlying essential indexicality, as for example I-thoughts, aren’t aspects of the public meaning of natural language expressions and that speaking of a ‘language of thinking’ or ‘reference in thinking’ are unfitting metaphors for general semiotic reasons