Nataliya Atanasova

This book analyzes the principle of circularity within logical and philosophical works of leading representatives of the continental tradition: Hegel, Marx, Husserl, and Heidegger. The review pays attention to circularity in everyday life elucidating Marx’s–Mamardashivili’s “converted form” as well as Hegel’s logical movement from less true to really true based on the speculative presupposition. It is also exposed how the constant self-disclosure of Being as aletheia is Dasein’s circular structure of a dynamic teleological transcending towards being-in-the-world and being-with-others. Expressing the theme of intentionality is Husserl’s intersubjectivity as a way of relating better to the world, always moved by a telos.

Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” (1967) contains entire sentences copied from Marx’s Capital, often modified by replacing the word “capital” with “spectacle”. Accordingly, the two words were always used, by the situationists, as if they were equivalent to each other. In this respect, the following paper argues that, for the situationists, commodities and entertainment not only share the same elements of a common language but are the same language, which consequently produces individuals and their worldview. And while the situationists owe their main ideas to Hegel and Marx, there are also visible traces in their theories of concepts borrowed from the fields of anthropology and semiotics. This is especially noticeable from the situationists’ adoption of the notion of “potlatch” formulated by Marcel Mauss (1925). As it will be analyzed in this paper, contrary to Mauss’s view who saw the gift as a symbol of power relations, for the situationists the gift is the negation of commodity: it is not a ritual of exchange, but an act based on the unconditional receiving and giving of oneself, in the society of abundance.

The following study examines the critical interplay between ideology, mediated reality, and the role that individuals’ perceptions, beliefs, and actions play in this process. In doing so, the study delves into the examination of the way power structures and dominant narratives proceed into influencing cultural expression and, consequently, impact social action. It is thus argued that in contemporary society, the Situationist notion of “the spectacle” has replaced any understanding of reality and created a reified social world dominated by commodities that reinforce dominant ideologies and determine subjective perceptions. Furthermore, the paper addresses the impact of this mediated reality on personal subjectivity and agency. Drawing on Marx’s metaphor of the “camera obscura” as ideology, it argues for a transformative “reversal of perspective” that changes how individuals view and engage with their environment. Ultimately, this study underscores the profound impact of “the spectacle” on social relations, ideology, and perception. It argues for a transformative and creative approach that challenges individuals to resist the grasp of the spectacle, reclaim their agency, and develop new perspectives for interacting with the world. The extensions of the gaze subtly refer to the basis of economy manifested as “false consciousness” reflected by the camera obscura as an inverted image but readjusted with the tools of spectacles and mirrors within the reflective apparatus.