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Philosophy and Mediation. A Manifesto

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De Cesaris A.

Ethics in Progress

2019

vol. 10

issue 1

67-82

The current condition of philosophy as a discipline is quite problematic, in particular if we consider its relationship to other human sciences and to other disciplines in general. The philosophical debate appears fragmented, and philosophy itself has lost any specific role in the present scientific landscape. This situation determines a sort of “identity crisis”, whose main consequence is the coexistence of antinomical views about philosophy in the contemporary scientific and public discourse. Starting from this context, the paper aims at providing a description of philosophy as “theory of mediation”. This description does not want to be ‘original’, but rather tries to emphasize an element that is always been rooted in the very essence of philosophy, but that has also often been neglected. Philosophy has always pointed out the necessity to think the in-between of things, their relation and the passage from one to another, rather than just offering a taxonomy or a factual description of the world. In order to prove this point, the paper offers an analysis of some classical texts, in particular of some fragments by Heraclitus and of a passage taken from Hegel’s early writings. A view that rethinks philosophy as “mediology” allows a rehabilitation of philosophy as a specific discipline and as a systematic enterprise, at the same time providing a new framework for the understanding of the relationship between philosophy and other sciences.

Limit and Creation. Towards an Ethic of Self-Limitation in the Digital Era

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De Cesaris A.

Ethics in Progress

2017

vol. 8

issue 1

89-100

Aim of this article is to analyse the relationship between creativity, freedom and future in contemporary society. The main focus is on the notion of creativity in our digital era. Common sense understands creativity as a concept implying something new, something original that did not exist before. And yet in our society the constant overflow of news, products and contents doesn’t surprise anymore, is no longer connected to a truly creative act. The complete lack of limits seems to be our society’s own limit, since newness is not experienced anymore as something really new. The solution to this situation is a new ethic of self-limitation that reshapes our idea of creativity and bases it on different criteria. The first part of the article is an analysis of hypermodern society. Hypermodernity is defined through three features: quantity as a qualitative element, override of distance, sublation of perspective. Unlike postmodern society, hypermodernity defines itself positively on the basis of some technological and social results that are experienced as improvements. In the second part of the article the paradox of hypermodern society is discussed: despite its obsession for newness, despite the huge spread of creative jobs and the passion for future, newness seems to be something given an usual, being creative means conforming to given standards, and future is almost completely implemented into present. In the last part of the article I argue that a solution to this situation is an ethic of selflimitation, in which a rediscovery of limit leads to a new concept of creativity no longer based on quantitative increment, but rather on the ideas of qualitative selection, objective distance, personal perspective. According to this view, being creative is no longer a matter of content, but rather of form. I will also argue that the aesthetics of Oulipo, a French literary movement of the Sixties, already expressed this stance in a very similar situation.

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Philosophy and Mediation. A Manifesto

Limit and Creation. Towards an Ethic of Self-Limitation in the Digital Era