Alessandro De Cesaris

The paper proposes the notion of “Two-Worlds Model” (TWM) as a theoretical framework in order to analyse some currents in the contemporary debate on technologically mediated experience. According to this model, technologically mediated experience—especially immersive experience—can be described as a form of “digital metempsychosis”—a feeling of being elsewhere. The paper argues that this model is not new in the history of philosophy, and that it is a very common theoretical and cultural strategy, often used to reduce medial differences—differences in the way of being or of experiencing something—as objectual difference. By analysing some specific topics—the most common accounts of immersive experience, the relation between immersivity and presence, and the notion of “cyberspace”—the paper aims at showing the limits of the TWM, in particular when it is used in order to describe technologically mediated experience.

Der Beitrag bietet eine Analyse von Ernst Kapps Philosophie der Technik und insbesondere seiner berühmtesten These, der Organprojektion. Die Forschungshypothese ist, dass das Denken Ernst Kapps sich nicht mit einer Anthropologie des Mangels in Verbindung bringen lässt und dass seine Ähnlichkeit mit anderen Theorien der technischen Erweiterung des Körpers (z. B. Marshall McLuhans berühmte These über Medien als Erweiterungen der Sinnesorgane) nur oberflächlich ist. Stattdessen wird Kapps Denken als eine dynamische Ökologie der Medien interpretiert, in der die Beziehung zwischen Medialität und Raum eine grundlegende Rolle spielt. Außerdem lassen sich in Kapps Denken zwei Ebenen der Technizität ausmachen: eine horizontale und eine vertikale Dimension, die als Diatechnik bzw. Metatechnik bezeichnet werden. Diese Unterscheidung eröffnet die Möglichkeit, Kapps Philosophie des Technischen als eine potenzielle Grundlage für eine Philosophie des Designs zu betrachten.

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.

Aim of this paper is to analyze Hegel’s notion of “singularity” as it is presented in the third part of the Science of Logic. It is argued that Hegel’s philosophy not only offers a definition of singularity, but also develops a very specific and original account of it. The first part of the paper deals with the Doctrines of Being and of Essence, in order to prove the relationship between objective and subjective Logic and to show how the genesis of Hegel’s notion of Singularity starts from the categories of “Something” and of “Thing”. The second part of the paper deals with Hegel’s account of Concept, of Judgement and of Syllogism and shows how Hegel’s notion of Singularity is the core notion of the whole Begriffslogik. Finally, in the third part is argued that the distinction between singularity and individuality is pivotal in order to understand Hegel’s standpoint on the matter. Hegel does in fact differentiate the two notions and his Logic shows the passage from singularity to individuality and finally to personality. It is also argued, after a thorough analysis, that the holistic-inferentialist approach to Hegel’s notion of individual being is insufficient, since it basically obliterates the originality of Hegel’s contribution to the topic and often doesn’t allow to recognize the specificity of his theory with respect to the tradition.

The paper proposes the notion of “Two-Worlds Model” (TWM) as a theoretical framework in order to analyse some currents in the contemporary debate on technologically mediated experience. According to this model, technologically mediated experience—especially immersive experience—can be described as a form of “digital metempsychosis”—a feeling of being elsewhere. The paper argues that this model is not new in the history of philosophy, and that it is a very common theoretical and cultural strategy, often used to reduce medial differences—differences in the way of being or of experiencing something—as objectual difference. By analysing some specific topics—the most common accounts of immersive experience, the relation between immersivity and presence, and the notion of “cyberspace”—the paper aims at showing the limits of the TWM, in particular when it is used in order to describe technologically mediated experience.

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.

MATHEMATISATION AND CONTINGENCY. THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL LAWS STATUTE ACCORDING TO QUENTIN MEILLASSOUX’S THOUGHT Our ability to find nature’s necessary laws has traditionally been based on the possibility to express natural beings’ properties in mathematical terms. In his groundbreaking book After finitude, Quentin Meillassoux turns this assumption upside down, arguing that we can prove the absoluteness of mathematical properties thanks to the absolute contingency of natural laws – contingency that can be proved as well. On this basis Meillassoux tries to reconnect philosophical thought with hard sciences, and to escape from the “ptolemaic revolution” he sees in Kant’s transcendental turn. Aim of this paper is to give account of Meillassoux’s philosophical attempt starting from his first book and up to his latest papers. My thesis is that Meillassoux endorses a very one‐sided interpretation of modern science, and that his attempt to reintroduce the distinction between primary and secondary qualities on the basis of his “principle of factuality” is – at least at the moment – still inconclusive.

DATA AS RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. SOME REMARKS ON THE SPIRITUAL CONDITION OF HYPERMODERN SOCIETIES The paper investigates the relationship between ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and religion. The focus is not how religions and religious life has changed thanks to technological evolution, but rather how it is possible to interpret our relationship to technology as a kind of religious experience. The paper starts from the notion of “hypermodernity” and tries to offer a comprehensive theoretical frame in order to interpret the changes occurred in Western societies after the so-called “fourth revolution”. According to this frame, technology has had a pivotal role in the cultural changes that led to our present condition. ICTs are the source for a vast variety of shared beliefs, hopes and fears; they are at the core of the present world-view of Western societies. Starting from this interpretation, the paper offers a brief analysis of some myths connected to ICTs, and develops an attempt to understand their function in the social and cultural context.