Thorsten Botz-Bornstein was born in Germany, studied philosophy in Paris, and received his Ph.D. from Oxford University. As a postdoctoral researcher based in Finland he undertook extensive research on Russian formalism and semiotics in Russia and the Baltic countries. He received his ‘habilitation’ from the EHESS in Paris in 2000. He has been researching in Japan for three years, in particular on the Kyoto School and on the philosophy of Nishida Kitarô, has worked for the Center of Cognition of Hangzhou University (China) for 2 years, and taught at the historically black Tuskegee University in Alabama. He is now Professor of philosophy at the Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait and the director of the Global Studies Center. He has published 17 authored books, 6 edited books, and published over 150 articles. Botz-Bornstein attempts in his philosophy to establish conceptual links between style, play, and dream by borrowing elements from non-Western philosophies (especially Japanese), architecture, and the aesthetics of cinema. His approach can be described as “neo-organic." Website: www.botzbornstein.org
Why would somebody decide to believe? I tackle this question by comparing religion, first with ar... more Why would somebody decide to believe? I tackle this question by comparing religion, first with art, and then with games. Aesthetic appreciation does not depend on “plausibility.” We appreciate art because art “makes sense” within those limits that have been established by art itself. Similarly, when we play, we know that a game only makes sense as a game. The play-art-religion connection reveals a curious combination of two conditions that would normally contradict each other: belief and skepticism. Games require an unconditional acceptance of rules and the simultaneous awareness that we are “only” playing games. Religion is a game, and a game is only valuable as an illusion. The provocative thesis of this book is that in the present cultural and intellectual environment of the West, the illusion of religion can finally be lived as an illusion, that is, as a religion. When irony and skepticism enter religion, religion becomes what it was always supposed to be: a game. In the modern age, cultures preserve the spirit of religion in the form of a game. By playing religion as a game, we recuperate the most original spirit of religion that has been lost in more “real” phases of religion’s history.
The COVID-19 crisis has brought about a proliferation of conspiracy theories that reject, among o... more The COVID-19 crisis has brought about a proliferation of conspiracy theories that reject, among other things, official accounts of the virus’ origins and remedies, and sometimes even the existence of the virus itself. Conspiracy theories usually link events to secret plots concocted by powerful conspirators, whether it be Bill Gates or Big Pharma. In this book I want to point to another dominant driving force: the desire to find simple and apparently reasonable explanations for phenomena that are actually purely random and contingent. Often, conspiracy theories emerge because contingency is not accepted, and necessities are looked for at all cost. How did various ages, cultures, and philosophies deal with conspiracy theories? Why do conspiracy theories appear very much in certain ages but less in others? Conspiracy theories require a peculiar philosophical mindset. Some philosophies, such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism, make conspiracy theories quasi-impossible because they find original ways of combining contingency with ontological, theological, or cosmological premises. How can the world be explained without falling into either contingency fatalism or the determinism of conspiracy theories? The alternatives I present highlight the notions of play and game as essential terms for the philosophy of contingency. Play faces contingency “head on.” It does not avoid the coincidence by transforming it into necessity, but it does not fall into deterministic fatalism either. The conspiracy theory is an area, or an entire country, that receives refugees from the world of Enlightenment. After centuries of struggles, modernity has created a universe in which everybody is liberated, and everything, even art and sexuality are democratic, tolerant, well organized, and ranked. The problem is that this late Enlightenment system is so perfect that some people cannot find their place in it. Those who are left out become conspiracy theorists. As Baudrillard wrote, “the more the system is perfect, the more people are left out” (2005: 69). The aim of this book is to find a different approach towards contingency. Both the modern and the anti-modern people have difficulties dealing with contingency as they oppose progress to anti-progress, and Enlightenment to anti-Enlightenment. The one or the other are both seen as necessities. What about contingency? What about this quality that had always perturbed order, progress, science, belief, and convictions? If people recognize that the world is made, to a large extent, of contingencies, and that even modernity is not founded on necessity alone but on a slew of arbitrary decisions, the “perfect world model” of late Enlightenment can look more penetrable, accommodating, and humane.
Philosophers of early Showa and late Taisho moved away from Meiji ideals of civilization and enli... more Philosophers of early Showa and late Taisho moved away from Meiji ideals of civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika) and by doing so, they transcended the most basic ideas of both modernism and of national salvation. Some of those philosophers developed an explicit philosophical concept of space by transforming a traditional notion of communal space into a sophisticated, processual " time-space development. " I find similar approaches in the work of " Islamic liberalists " of the Arab world that emerged in parallel with the Meiji restoration. The 1870's were the period when national consciousness became articulate in Egypt. In particular, I want to concentrate on the work of Egyptian religious scholar Muhammad Abduh, whose writings were not only a response to Western imperialism but also an attempt to produce a modern Arab philosophy. The Arab Cultural Renaissance or Nahda, which lasted from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, is the Arab equivalent of the above modernization movements. Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897), the teacher of Abduh, was one of the initiators of the Nahda. Like al-Afghani, Abduh has been described as the Luther and Calvin of modern Islamic history. I compare elements from two late texts by the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro with ideas from the book The Theology of Unity by the Egyptian philosopher and reformer Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). Both thinkers develop religious philosophies in non-Western cultures and in the context of modernization processes that had begun in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both thinkers attempt to think relationships between the individual and the universal through organic models, and they do so by using similar theological theories. The philosophies that I want to compare here, one Japanese, the other Arab, emerged within similar cultural contexts. Furthermore I believe that both Abduh's and Nishida's philosophies attempt to manufacture similarly paradoxical positions regarding the integration of reason and religion. Like Abduh, Nishida is interested in the unity of God.
How Much Religion is Good for Us? is a provocative book which examines parallels between play and... more How Much Religion is Good for Us? is a provocative book which examines parallels between play and religion from a philosophical, theological, and anthropological perspective. Understanding "religion as a game" in the context of secular culture, it explores the "playful" patterning of spiritual and religious belief in modern societies. Drawing on the Nietzschean concept of a dead but powerful God, the book depicts modern civilizations as players treading a secular age in which the spirit of religion unconsciously survives. It argues that the spirit of religion is preserved in cultures in the form of a spiritual game, distilling moral precepts and imperatives much like poetry and works of art do. Comparative in scope, it references Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Sufism, and Daoism. This interdisciplinary volume is an outstanding resource for students and scholars of Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology.
Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that ... more Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that could offend or marginalize certain people or groups of people. Many of PC’s policies are used to define and correct language. The belief that altering language usage will change the public’s perception of reality has led to an important reform of personal pronouns and gender pronouns. How would Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century BC, have reacted to these linguistic reforms? Zhuangzi was a language skeptic, which means that he did not believe that language could convey the true meanings of the world. This view opposes Daoism to Confucianism, which is famous for its vast “language correction project.” Some scholars have established a link between the Zhuangzi and dandyism. Oscar Wilde wrote one of the first reviews of the book. Dandyism does not engage in a Confucian “correction” of names but is instead tempted by what Daoism calls the playful “chaotification” of rules and names. The Daoist yóu (遊), which is aimless roaming, rambling, or sauntering, appears to be the equivalent of the dandyist flâner. The useless activity of yóu or flâner can be interpreted as a measure opposing political correctness spread by Confucianism, Victorian puritanism, and neoliberal culture.
In ancient Greek philosophy, macrocosm and microcosm provided meaningful interpretations of the r... more In ancient Greek philosophy, macrocosm and microcosm provided meaningful interpretations of the relationship between the universal and the particular. In sociology, the word microcosm is still used to identify small groups of individuals. In economics, macroeconomics is the study of the economic system as a whole, whereas microeconomics studies the economic behavior of individuals or small groups. Strangely, there is no micro or macro philosophy. Modernity, as it follows the guidelines of efficiency and precision, has difficulties dealing with micro inputs. In modern life, time and space are supposed to be universal and functional. The entire process of modernization can be seen as a macro process depriving social phenomena of its micro aspects.
After World War II, organic aspects were neglected even in biology. Biology decided to work on either genes (micro) or populations (macro). Most recently, this changed. Biology witnesses the return of the organic. Biologists will remember the twentieth century as the century of the gene and the twenty-first century as the century of the organic. This book attempts to establish this view in (political) philosophy.
The micro is concrete and individual. The micro is culture and culture is an organic micro phenomenon evolving in contact with macro structures. In a neoliberal environment, micro aspects lead an increasingly precarious existence. What role can philosophy play in a world predominantly determined by macro structures? Will it join the generalized universalism (as it used to do most of the time for centuries)? Or will it switch to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy that has repercussions on politics and culture. Our thinking should switch to the organic.
Meanwhile published as a book with the same title. The research establishes conceptual links betw... more Meanwhile published as a book with the same title. The research establishes conceptual links between religious fundamentalism, neoliberal excellence, and kitsch. All three thrive in a postindustrial environment of globalization and information culture. Studies have shown that the consumption of kitsch is due to an intrinsically narcissistic impulse. Correspondingly, social media enable individuals to recycle their own selves without being confronted with the culture of the “other.” The rise of self-centered “alternative truths” and conspiracy theories as well as the fascination with selfies are linked to the fundamentalism–neoliberalism–kitsch pattern of deculturation.
Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to... more Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future. ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.
Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy a... more Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film.
Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy a... more Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film.
Born in Vyborg in 1884 by parents of German descent, Vasily (Wilhelm) Sesemann grew up and studie... more Born in Vyborg in 1884 by parents of German descent, Vasily (Wilhelm) Sesemann grew up and studied in St. Petersburg. A close friend of Viktor Zhirmunsky and Lev P. Karsavin, Sesemann taught from the early 1920s until his death in 1963 at the universities of Kaunas and Vilnius in Lithuania (interrupted only by his internment in a Siberian labor camp from 1950 to 1956). Botz-Bornstein’s study takes up Sesemann’s idea of experience as a dynamic, constantly self-reflective, ungraspable phenomenon that cannot be objectified. Through various studies, the author shows how Sesemann develops an outstanding idea of experience by reflecting it against empathy, Erkenntnistheorie (theory of knowledge), Formalism, Neo-Kantianism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Bergson’s philosophy. Sesemann’s thought establishes a link between Formalist thoughts about dynamics and a concept of Being reminiscent of Heidegger. The book contains also translations of two essays by Sesemann as well as of an essay by Karsavin.
Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume 105, Number 3, pp. 235-258, 2023
In December 2019 the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, all of them at odds with... more In December 2019 the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, all of them at odds with their countries' populist governments, signed a pro-European declaration called the "Pact of Free Cities." Can cities officially go against the political commitments of their rulers? "Free cities" are reminiscent of Middle Ages' "freie Städte." While this development is mainly positive and necessary, I also formulate some criticism. City networks are necessary and have many merits, but they neglect the organic conception of the city that has been put forward by Mumford, Geddes, and anarchists such as Kropotkin and Bookchin.
The world has become more complicated. The new aggressor of the West is no longer some fanatic we... more The world has become more complicated. The new aggressor of the West is no longer some fanatic weirdo hiding in a cave in the middle of nowhere, but a clean-shaven, calculating, and “civilized” individual quietly operating from a country that is most commonly believed to be a part of the European cultural sphere. I relate the Ukrainian war to the terms culture and civilization. The distinction between culture and civilization is not very well embedded in the English language but has always been meaningful in other European languages, as I explain. Putin does not have a problem with Western civilization but rather with Western culture. The first reason is that Putin has no alternative civilizational project to offer but can only imitate Western civilization. This distinguishes him from Islamist extremists. Islam offers an alternative civilization. The war in Ukraine is therefore not inscribed in a logic of ‘culture against civilization’ nor in one of ‘civilization against civilization’, but it is a war of ‘culture against culture’.
The Neo-Eurasianist thinker Alexander Dugin has often been described as "Putin's brain," as obser... more The Neo-Eurasianist thinker Alexander Dugin has often been described as "Putin's brain," as observers find his themes in Putin's speeches. But what even is "Eurasianism" in relation to the present geopolitical situation?
Tropos: Journal of Hermeneutics and Philosophical Criticism 5:1, pp. 139–56, 2012
In several philosophical traditions, play is supposed to express a (methodological, ontological) ... more In several philosophical traditions, play is supposed to express a (methodological, ontological) state of non-foundedness by means of which foundational, metaphysical ways of thinking are reviewed or overcome. I retrace the philosophical function of play in the hermeneutic tradition as it has been developed by Ast, Boeckh, Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. I also refer to important parallels in Derrida and Wittgenstein. Those philosophers identify 'play' as a sort of 'style' that is not necessarily empirically present, but which can still be 'seen.' I contrast this intellectual model with Gehlen's anthropology of games. Play as an 'absent' (stylistic) concept is compared to the idea of the 'absent structure' in structuralism.
in B. Janz (ed.) Hermeneutics, Space, and Place (Springer Publishers), 2016
I show that Gadamer's thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definitio... more I show that Gadamer's thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definition of a hermeneutics of place. From a hermeneutic point of view, places are experienced whilst the subject is both in the place and part of the place. There is a dialectical relationship between the individual and a space that is always already at work for that individual. Similar to what happens in play, the experience of the place overcomes subjectivity, which means that an "experienced place" has its own essence independent of the consciousness of the one who is in the place. In this context, style as a hermeneutic notion becomes important for the definition of "cultural places." This is linked to the ontology of play. The game has not only laws and rules but any game must be played in a certain way. Furthermore, if play represents a model of non-foundation, the style provided by the game is equally non-founded. A hermeneutics of place will thus focus on play and style and elaborate how both interfere with places. I also introduce the notion of dream because it clarifies the ontological particularity of "played spaces."
Why would somebody decide to believe? I tackle this question by comparing religion, first with ar... more Why would somebody decide to believe? I tackle this question by comparing religion, first with art, and then with games. Aesthetic appreciation does not depend on “plausibility.” We appreciate art because art “makes sense” within those limits that have been established by art itself. Similarly, when we play, we know that a game only makes sense as a game. The play-art-religion connection reveals a curious combination of two conditions that would normally contradict each other: belief and skepticism. Games require an unconditional acceptance of rules and the simultaneous awareness that we are “only” playing games. Religion is a game, and a game is only valuable as an illusion. The provocative thesis of this book is that in the present cultural and intellectual environment of the West, the illusion of religion can finally be lived as an illusion, that is, as a religion. When irony and skepticism enter religion, religion becomes what it was always supposed to be: a game. In the modern age, cultures preserve the spirit of religion in the form of a game. By playing religion as a game, we recuperate the most original spirit of religion that has been lost in more “real” phases of religion’s history.
The COVID-19 crisis has brought about a proliferation of conspiracy theories that reject, among o... more The COVID-19 crisis has brought about a proliferation of conspiracy theories that reject, among other things, official accounts of the virus’ origins and remedies, and sometimes even the existence of the virus itself. Conspiracy theories usually link events to secret plots concocted by powerful conspirators, whether it be Bill Gates or Big Pharma. In this book I want to point to another dominant driving force: the desire to find simple and apparently reasonable explanations for phenomena that are actually purely random and contingent. Often, conspiracy theories emerge because contingency is not accepted, and necessities are looked for at all cost. How did various ages, cultures, and philosophies deal with conspiracy theories? Why do conspiracy theories appear very much in certain ages but less in others? Conspiracy theories require a peculiar philosophical mindset. Some philosophies, such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism, make conspiracy theories quasi-impossible because they find original ways of combining contingency with ontological, theological, or cosmological premises. How can the world be explained without falling into either contingency fatalism or the determinism of conspiracy theories? The alternatives I present highlight the notions of play and game as essential terms for the philosophy of contingency. Play faces contingency “head on.” It does not avoid the coincidence by transforming it into necessity, but it does not fall into deterministic fatalism either. The conspiracy theory is an area, or an entire country, that receives refugees from the world of Enlightenment. After centuries of struggles, modernity has created a universe in which everybody is liberated, and everything, even art and sexuality are democratic, tolerant, well organized, and ranked. The problem is that this late Enlightenment system is so perfect that some people cannot find their place in it. Those who are left out become conspiracy theorists. As Baudrillard wrote, “the more the system is perfect, the more people are left out” (2005: 69). The aim of this book is to find a different approach towards contingency. Both the modern and the anti-modern people have difficulties dealing with contingency as they oppose progress to anti-progress, and Enlightenment to anti-Enlightenment. The one or the other are both seen as necessities. What about contingency? What about this quality that had always perturbed order, progress, science, belief, and convictions? If people recognize that the world is made, to a large extent, of contingencies, and that even modernity is not founded on necessity alone but on a slew of arbitrary decisions, the “perfect world model” of late Enlightenment can look more penetrable, accommodating, and humane.
Philosophers of early Showa and late Taisho moved away from Meiji ideals of civilization and enli... more Philosophers of early Showa and late Taisho moved away from Meiji ideals of civilization and enlightenment (bunmei kaika) and by doing so, they transcended the most basic ideas of both modernism and of national salvation. Some of those philosophers developed an explicit philosophical concept of space by transforming a traditional notion of communal space into a sophisticated, processual " time-space development. " I find similar approaches in the work of " Islamic liberalists " of the Arab world that emerged in parallel with the Meiji restoration. The 1870's were the period when national consciousness became articulate in Egypt. In particular, I want to concentrate on the work of Egyptian religious scholar Muhammad Abduh, whose writings were not only a response to Western imperialism but also an attempt to produce a modern Arab philosophy. The Arab Cultural Renaissance or Nahda, which lasted from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, is the Arab equivalent of the above modernization movements. Jamal al-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897), the teacher of Abduh, was one of the initiators of the Nahda. Like al-Afghani, Abduh has been described as the Luther and Calvin of modern Islamic history. I compare elements from two late texts by the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro with ideas from the book The Theology of Unity by the Egyptian philosopher and reformer Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). Both thinkers develop religious philosophies in non-Western cultures and in the context of modernization processes that had begun in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both thinkers attempt to think relationships between the individual and the universal through organic models, and they do so by using similar theological theories. The philosophies that I want to compare here, one Japanese, the other Arab, emerged within similar cultural contexts. Furthermore I believe that both Abduh's and Nishida's philosophies attempt to manufacture similarly paradoxical positions regarding the integration of reason and religion. Like Abduh, Nishida is interested in the unity of God.
How Much Religion is Good for Us? is a provocative book which examines parallels between play and... more How Much Religion is Good for Us? is a provocative book which examines parallels between play and religion from a philosophical, theological, and anthropological perspective. Understanding "religion as a game" in the context of secular culture, it explores the "playful" patterning of spiritual and religious belief in modern societies. Drawing on the Nietzschean concept of a dead but powerful God, the book depicts modern civilizations as players treading a secular age in which the spirit of religion unconsciously survives. It argues that the spirit of religion is preserved in cultures in the form of a spiritual game, distilling moral precepts and imperatives much like poetry and works of art do. Comparative in scope, it references Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Sufism, and Daoism. This interdisciplinary volume is an outstanding resource for students and scholars of Religious Studies, Islamic Studies, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, and Anthropology.
Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that ... more Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that could offend or marginalize certain people or groups of people. Many of PC’s policies are used to define and correct language. The belief that altering language usage will change the public’s perception of reality has led to an important reform of personal pronouns and gender pronouns. How would Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century BC, have reacted to these linguistic reforms? Zhuangzi was a language skeptic, which means that he did not believe that language could convey the true meanings of the world. This view opposes Daoism to Confucianism, which is famous for its vast “language correction project.” Some scholars have established a link between the Zhuangzi and dandyism. Oscar Wilde wrote one of the first reviews of the book. Dandyism does not engage in a Confucian “correction” of names but is instead tempted by what Daoism calls the playful “chaotification” of rules and names. The Daoist yóu (遊), which is aimless roaming, rambling, or sauntering, appears to be the equivalent of the dandyist flâner. The useless activity of yóu or flâner can be interpreted as a measure opposing political correctness spread by Confucianism, Victorian puritanism, and neoliberal culture.
In ancient Greek philosophy, macrocosm and microcosm provided meaningful interpretations of the r... more In ancient Greek philosophy, macrocosm and microcosm provided meaningful interpretations of the relationship between the universal and the particular. In sociology, the word microcosm is still used to identify small groups of individuals. In economics, macroeconomics is the study of the economic system as a whole, whereas microeconomics studies the economic behavior of individuals or small groups. Strangely, there is no micro or macro philosophy. Modernity, as it follows the guidelines of efficiency and precision, has difficulties dealing with micro inputs. In modern life, time and space are supposed to be universal and functional. The entire process of modernization can be seen as a macro process depriving social phenomena of its micro aspects.
After World War II, organic aspects were neglected even in biology. Biology decided to work on either genes (micro) or populations (macro). Most recently, this changed. Biology witnesses the return of the organic. Biologists will remember the twentieth century as the century of the gene and the twenty-first century as the century of the organic. This book attempts to establish this view in (political) philosophy.
The micro is concrete and individual. The micro is culture and culture is an organic micro phenomenon evolving in contact with macro structures. In a neoliberal environment, micro aspects lead an increasingly precarious existence. What role can philosophy play in a world predominantly determined by macro structures? Will it join the generalized universalism (as it used to do most of the time for centuries)? Or will it switch to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy that has repercussions on politics and culture. Our thinking should switch to the organic.
Meanwhile published as a book with the same title. The research establishes conceptual links betw... more Meanwhile published as a book with the same title. The research establishes conceptual links between religious fundamentalism, neoliberal excellence, and kitsch. All three thrive in a postindustrial environment of globalization and information culture. Studies have shown that the consumption of kitsch is due to an intrinsically narcissistic impulse. Correspondingly, social media enable individuals to recycle their own selves without being confronted with the culture of the “other.” The rise of self-centered “alternative truths” and conspiracy theories as well as the fascination with selfies are linked to the fundamentalism–neoliberalism–kitsch pattern of deculturation.
Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to... more Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future. ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.
Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy a... more Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film.
Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy a... more Plotinus and the Moving Image offers the first philosophical discussion on Plotinus' philosophy and film. It discusses Plotinian concepts like "the One" in a cinematic context and relates Plotinus' theory of time as a transitory intelligible movement of the soul to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s time-image. Film is a unique medium for a rapprochement of our modern consciousness with the thought of Plotinus. The Neoplatonic vestige is particularly worth exploring in the context of the newly emerging “Cinema of Contemplation.” Plotinus' search for the "intelligible" that can be grasped neither by sense perception nor by merely logical abstractions leads to a fluent way of seeing. Parallels that had so far never been discussed are made plausible. This book is a milestone in the philosophy of film.
Born in Vyborg in 1884 by parents of German descent, Vasily (Wilhelm) Sesemann grew up and studie... more Born in Vyborg in 1884 by parents of German descent, Vasily (Wilhelm) Sesemann grew up and studied in St. Petersburg. A close friend of Viktor Zhirmunsky and Lev P. Karsavin, Sesemann taught from the early 1920s until his death in 1963 at the universities of Kaunas and Vilnius in Lithuania (interrupted only by his internment in a Siberian labor camp from 1950 to 1956). Botz-Bornstein’s study takes up Sesemann’s idea of experience as a dynamic, constantly self-reflective, ungraspable phenomenon that cannot be objectified. Through various studies, the author shows how Sesemann develops an outstanding idea of experience by reflecting it against empathy, Erkenntnistheorie (theory of knowledge), Formalism, Neo-Kantianism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Bergson’s philosophy. Sesemann’s thought establishes a link between Formalist thoughts about dynamics and a concept of Being reminiscent of Heidegger. The book contains also translations of two essays by Sesemann as well as of an essay by Karsavin.
Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume 105, Number 3, pp. 235-258, 2023
In December 2019 the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, all of them at odds with... more In December 2019 the mayors of Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, and Warsaw, all of them at odds with their countries' populist governments, signed a pro-European declaration called the "Pact of Free Cities." Can cities officially go against the political commitments of their rulers? "Free cities" are reminiscent of Middle Ages' "freie Städte." While this development is mainly positive and necessary, I also formulate some criticism. City networks are necessary and have many merits, but they neglect the organic conception of the city that has been put forward by Mumford, Geddes, and anarchists such as Kropotkin and Bookchin.
The world has become more complicated. The new aggressor of the West is no longer some fanatic we... more The world has become more complicated. The new aggressor of the West is no longer some fanatic weirdo hiding in a cave in the middle of nowhere, but a clean-shaven, calculating, and “civilized” individual quietly operating from a country that is most commonly believed to be a part of the European cultural sphere. I relate the Ukrainian war to the terms culture and civilization. The distinction between culture and civilization is not very well embedded in the English language but has always been meaningful in other European languages, as I explain. Putin does not have a problem with Western civilization but rather with Western culture. The first reason is that Putin has no alternative civilizational project to offer but can only imitate Western civilization. This distinguishes him from Islamist extremists. Islam offers an alternative civilization. The war in Ukraine is therefore not inscribed in a logic of ‘culture against civilization’ nor in one of ‘civilization against civilization’, but it is a war of ‘culture against culture’.
The Neo-Eurasianist thinker Alexander Dugin has often been described as "Putin's brain," as obser... more The Neo-Eurasianist thinker Alexander Dugin has often been described as "Putin's brain," as observers find his themes in Putin's speeches. But what even is "Eurasianism" in relation to the present geopolitical situation?
Tropos: Journal of Hermeneutics and Philosophical Criticism 5:1, pp. 139–56, 2012
In several philosophical traditions, play is supposed to express a (methodological, ontological) ... more In several philosophical traditions, play is supposed to express a (methodological, ontological) state of non-foundedness by means of which foundational, metaphysical ways of thinking are reviewed or overcome. I retrace the philosophical function of play in the hermeneutic tradition as it has been developed by Ast, Boeckh, Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer. I also refer to important parallels in Derrida and Wittgenstein. Those philosophers identify 'play' as a sort of 'style' that is not necessarily empirically present, but which can still be 'seen.' I contrast this intellectual model with Gehlen's anthropology of games. Play as an 'absent' (stylistic) concept is compared to the idea of the 'absent structure' in structuralism.
in B. Janz (ed.) Hermeneutics, Space, and Place (Springer Publishers), 2016
I show that Gadamer's thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definitio... more I show that Gadamer's thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definition of a hermeneutics of place. From a hermeneutic point of view, places are experienced whilst the subject is both in the place and part of the place. There is a dialectical relationship between the individual and a space that is always already at work for that individual. Similar to what happens in play, the experience of the place overcomes subjectivity, which means that an "experienced place" has its own essence independent of the consciousness of the one who is in the place. In this context, style as a hermeneutic notion becomes important for the definition of "cultural places." This is linked to the ontology of play. The game has not only laws and rules but any game must be played in a certain way. Furthermore, if play represents a model of non-foundation, the style provided by the game is equally non-founded. A hermeneutics of place will thus focus on play and style and elaborate how both interfere with places. I also introduce the notion of dream because it clarifies the ontological particularity of "played spaces."
We are industrious in the post-industrial society, but is it the right kind of industriousness? W... more We are industrious in the post-industrial society, but is it the right kind of industriousness? We had thought that, once the industrial period is left behind, all problems of the industrial period will be left behind, too. But obviously this is not the case. We reproduce the industrial world’s major problems and make the situation even worse by depriving society of its industrial, productive ground. Work is more meaningless and entfremdet than it has ever been before. Neoliberal administrators maintain a working culture that keeps us busy as if we are still living in an industrial society though in reality we aren’t. Services can be multiplied as long as service providers buy services from other service providers. Services can also be outsourced to agencies who will buy services from other agencies. The logical consequence is an increase of bullshit jobs. Neither goods nor knowledge are produced. This kind of working culture would have been inacceptable for earlier capitalists.
Journal of the Philosophy of History 6, pp. 151–172, 2012
Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology difffer in their choice of complementary ... more Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology difffer in their choice of complementary perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. For R. G. Collingwood historical science discovers not only pure facts but considers a whole series of thoughts constituting historical life. Also Lévi-Strauss sees this: "To understand history it is necessary to know not only how things are, but how they have come to be." However, Lévi-Strauss does not perceive the double-sense of history, which can fijirst be a record of historical "conscious" facts and second, a chain of unconscious or half-conscious acts. Like Lévi-Strauss, Charles Bally has derived the main theses of his theory from Saussure. However, contrary to Lévi-Strauss, Bally does not fijind structures at the inside of the phenomena but at their outside: "Our attention is drawn to the expressive side and not to the interior side of the facts of language." Bally calls those structures not "history" but "style." In Roland Barthes's attempt to establish a structuralist system of fashion we can fijind a defijinition of style very similar to Bally's. In the end, however, none of these thinkers addresses the fact that unconscious relations within historical life are constantly interlocked with conscious elements.
Sura P. Rath (ed.): Dialogics of Cultural Encounters: New Conversation among Nations and Nationalities (Delhi: Pencraft International)., 2005
The root of Huntington’s misinterpretations is his failure to define the phenomenon of civilizati... more The root of Huntington’s misinterpretations is his failure to define the phenomenon of civilization that for him continues to be a fixed entity of materialized consciousness, widely ignoring the complexities of human self-consciousness. Huntington’s attitude appears as characteristic of an objectifying attitude seeing civilizations as something “made”, consisting of, as Huntington writes, “objective elements, such as language, history, religion, custom, institutions” (43) on the one hand, and of “subjective” elements like “self-identification” (ibid.) on the other. The problem with this account is that the “subjective” side looks equally as “objective” as the preceding objective elements.
Sesemann links the question of the difference between the internal-subjective and the external-ob... more Sesemann links the question of the difference between the internal-subjective and the external-objective in psychology to the discussion of objectivism and subjectivism that was widespread in Germany at that time. The same question is also central to a large part of Bakhtin’s philosophy. Apart from that, correspondences also exist between these ideas and some of the intellectual potential that has become accessible through the work of the psychologists and philosophers of post-Freudian, Lacanian France.
Abstract: The conspiracy theorist rejects a world of contingency and wants to create a universe s... more Abstract: The conspiracy theorist rejects a world of contingency and wants to create a universe structured by a necessary order. I explain the ontology of the accident as a contingent phenomenon that can be understood as an existential experience. The accident is facticity and contingency, but when it happens, gives us an uncanny feeling of an existential concreteness. I analyze the coronavirus as an accident and as such an extraordinary existential experience. The coincidence is uncanny, which lends it an ambiguous existential status, as I explain with the help of Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida. To perceive regularities and their disruptions is part of the human survival instinct. Coincidences are unlikely to happen, and a certain skepticism towards coincidences is normal. The coincidence disrupts the regular order because suddenly, the environment is no longer understood. The occurrence of too many coincidences can also signify danger. To grasp a coincidence at the right moment can be a matter of survival, too. Both, the incapacity or unwillingness to see necessities, and the categorical rejection of coincidences are pathological. Conspiracy theorists suffer from a pathological sense of regularity and refuse to recognize coincidences as such. (In German)
K. Gray, S. Keck and H. Bachir (eds.), Eastward Bound: The Politics, Economics and Pedagogy of Western Higher Education in Asia and the Middle East (Lanham: Lexington), pp. 243–263, 2016
In education, quality monitoring, quality reporting, and quality measuring meet with particularly... more In education, quality monitoring, quality reporting, and quality measuring meet with particularly strong skepticism by the faculty of the humanities. The generalized hyperactivism of administrations when it comes to quantification and evaluation are found to be disturbing. The obsession with control, standardization, and (questionable) ideals of competition and excellence are often ridiculed. The criticism presents the corporatization and the scientization of academic life as parallel developments. The Gulf States in particular, need to be reminded of this problem. Since the 1990s, many Gulf Universities have invested in neo-liberal business models and cooperate with American universities, often fully paying the setup and operation costs.
Chapter from T. Botz-Bornstein (ed.), The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethical Responses to the Viagr... more Chapter from T. Botz-Bornstein (ed.), The Philosophy of Viagra: Bioethical Responses to the Viagrification of the Modern World (Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2011), 89-98.
Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 9, no. 1, , 2013
Is hermenuetics the contrary of deconstruction? I revisit the Derrida-Gadamer debate in order to ... more Is hermenuetics the contrary of deconstruction? I revisit the Derrida-Gadamer debate in order to analyze more closely the problem of the foundation of reason and of interpretation. I explore the theme of play as a metaphor of non-foundation in both philosophers and analyze how both extract this quality from their readings of Plato's Phaedrus. Does Derrida not essentialize the game by declaring that the playful experience of a Gadamerian dialogue must produce a metaphysical presence in the form of a hermeneutic intention? I find that the circular structure of understanding permits-for both philosophers-no clear signifiant either in speech or in writing. The game of interpretation produces-in changing endlessly between reading and rhetoric-an endless chain from one signifier to the next signifier without ever imitating a divine logos.
Ancient Greek philosophy talked about microcosm and macrocosm. In modern political thought the mi... more Ancient Greek philosophy talked about microcosm and macrocosm. In modern political thought the micro-macro approach did not catch on. Organic thinking disappeared even in biology. A new generation of biologists reinstates the organism back to the center stage. We need a similar paradigm shift in politics.
Islam scholar Olivier Roy explains that the separation of religion from culture – brought about b... more Islam scholar Olivier Roy explains that the separation of religion from culture – brought about by secularization – has had negative consequences for religion. Instead of secularizing religion, it merely isolates religion from culture and enables its pursuit in terms of an anti-cultural purification. I compare Roy’s analysis with Bill Readings’ findings on the separation of learning and culture in neoliberal, corporate universities. Readings criticizes that in globalized, neoliberal universities, any appeal to virtues and values anchored in local cultures has become impossible. In a neoliberal environment, the idea of culture is no longer available as a referent because any qualitative content of learning is not supposed to refer to culturally specific things or ideas. Instead, universities have to function in terms of “excellence.” Excellence is a vague term not because it refers to too many things but, on the contrary, because it is pure and content-less.
The distinction between culture and civilization is not well embedded in the English language but... more The distinction between culture and civilization is not well embedded in the English language but has remained relatively meaningful in both other European and non-European languages. Edward B. Tylor designed an idea of civilization that covers both culture and civilization. Similar attempts had been made in late 18th Century Germany. Though it is sometimes stated that Tylor’s relativist concept of culture harks back to Herder, the latter’s cultural relativism differs from Tylor’s civilizational relativism. Tylor’s holistic definition of civilization-culture has created an amount of confusion that can still be felt today.
The origin of science ction is twentieth-century Futurism. For the largest part of the twentieth ... more The origin of science ction is twentieth-century Futurism. For the largest part of the twentieth century, science ction maintained an optimistic attitude towards the future. At the end of the 1970s, the modern, optimistic, and futurist vision of the future, typical for avant-garde movements of the 1930s, took a negative turn and became dark, pessimistic, and cynical, in a postmodern sense; it became what would be called, in a word, 'cyberpunk.' In this article, I want to show that the terrorist organization generally known as ISIS (Islamic State) intends, or rather intended, to go back to futurism and modernism by overcoming postmodernism and cyberpunk. At the center of the futurist ISIS imagination is the machine. This is not the virtual, postmodern bio-digital machine inserted in bodies and manipulating a universe made up of data; rather, it is the analog, mechanical machine.
Polish Journal of Aesthetics, 71 (4), pp. 1–16, 2023
Artists do not simply think and feel but incorporate feeling into their artistic thinking process... more Artists do not simply think and feel but incorporate feeling into their artistic thinking process or thinking into their feelings. The computer's problem is neither that it does not think nor has any feelings (it might have some one day). The difference between a human drawing and a robot drawing is thus not that the former thinks and the latter does not. What matters is the "ruminating" aspect of creation that Wittgenstein alluded to, which Mondrian defined as thinking-feeling. I analyze the importance of randomness in human art and AI art.
Bullshit Art. Special issue of The Polish Journal of Aesthetics 63: 4, 2022 edited by T. Botz-Bornstein and Adrian Mróz, 2022
The NFT art world is a mixture of late capitalism and populist aesthetics in which any idea of an... more The NFT art world is a mixture of late capitalism and populist aesthetics in which any idea of an "adequate artistic expression" has become increasingly difficult. Beeple's digital artwork "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days" sold for $69.3. Twobadour, one of the two buyers of the work, thinks that work "is going to be a billion-dollar piece someday." Until recently, "art" as a vague institution could still provide some landmarks about the 'how' of art and the discourse attached to it. Galleries and museums played a role in promotion, which sparked debates, both public and elitist. Curators, who are generally excluded from the financial craze, functioned as gatekeepers. Once NFTs are introduced into a highly speculative art market, any notion of aesthetic "truth" becomes dysfunctional. Authenticity emerges from the Enlightenment tradition for which being authentic meant to be free and autonomous. In the twenty-first century, authenticity needed to be installed in nonmateriality, and NFTs are the latest result of this process. Dematerialization means despatialization. The digitized version of a work is authentic, but authentic has here a meaning different from what it was before. The shift goes hand in hand with the reissuing of authenticity as a highly abstract category that is common in the twenty-first century.
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2010
Baudrillard’s elaborations on the fetishistic aspect of sexuality and the transformation of women... more Baudrillard’s elaborations on the fetishistic aspect of sexuality and the transformation of women into objects (dolls) touch upon the theme of cuteness. At times it can seem that the cute shùjo, as a self-sufficient, non-productive being who has nothing but itself as an end and who engages in an endless inflation of signs, has sprung right from Baudrillard’s theories. At first sight it appears that if we follow Baudrillard’s prescriptions, we will designate kawaii eroticism as it appears in shùjo manga as the most genuine form of all female eroticisms.
Theandros: An Online Journal of Orthodox Christian Theology and Philosophy, 2004
I compare two of the most classical aesthetic expressions: Russian icons and Japanese Noh-plays. ... more I compare two of the most classical aesthetic expressions: Russian icons and Japanese Noh-plays. Though the former are pictorial and the latter theatrically enacted, both turn out to be highly compatible on several levels: both require a high degree of formalization and regulation; both maintain an interesting anti-relationship with realism; and their meditative characters make aesthetic experience the central theme of a religious art.
I show how a consistent line of anti-Cartesian and anti-Kantian philosophies established by Herde... more I show how a consistent line of anti-Cartesian and anti-Kantian philosophies established by Herder, Humboldt, Hamann, and Vossler transformed the sign-character of human expressions into an expression of style by concentrating on the German term ‘Art’ as a sort of habitus. Especially Humboldt concentrates on the non-natural and non-functional character of language in defining it as a cultural product. Herder, Humboldt, Hamann, and Vossler recognize the insignificance of grammar as long as it is regarded as an abstract foundation for linguistics. Style is of utmost importance for all of them since they undermine the representation-theory by means of an “open rhetoric” using flexible rules and defining a sort of creative structural analysis. “Die Art” or the “how” of language gives linguistic expression the status of something spiritual and non-static. All four thinkers formulated their opposition to philosophical abstractions in terms of a “philosophy of life” and attempted to read “signs” as expressions of a historical and cultural reason.
This is an examination into the “aesthetics of genes.” Any “aesthetics of genes” supposed to tran... more This is an examination into the “aesthetics of genes.” Any “aesthetics of genes” supposed to transcend the pure accumulation of elements must remain determined, by its nature, by a state of posthuman disorientation. Certitude cannot be introduced into this chaos through the elabo¬ration of structural qualities. It cannot be found in Romantic organic models either. First, genes are virtual because they are neither real nor imagined. Second, similar to virtual reality, genes have no existential function for the human being.
Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and th... more Both the veil and sunglasses aim to disrupt gazes. Marshal McLuhan has analysed sunglasses and their relationship with his system of hot and cool media. The attractive eyes of the veiled woman invite the gaze to further scrutiny.
I present several modern ways of coming to terms with the notion of style. Gottfried Semper saw s... more I present several modern ways of coming to terms with the notion of style. Gottfried Semper saw style as a functional coefficient directly determined by exterior natural and social factors. The avant-garde movement produced, by creating its own notion of a free and independent anti-style, “just another” form of style. The ambition of the moderns was to cancel the notion of style as a whole in order to accentuate the “functional.” The post-functionalist part of modernity cancelled style in order to make its expressions more “human” or “organic.” Finally, with the late modern cultural environment marked off by a heterogeneous interplay of different voices it has become very difficult to identify something like a “style” in the modern sense. At the same time, a certain late modern “Absolute Style” with totalitarian undertones emerges. This Absolute Style is totalitarian even when it accommodates several sub-styles in itself. Paul Valéry and Jacques Derrida attempted to submit style to the notion of a supposedly value-based spirit. Mikhail Bakhtin attempted to replace style with a “polyphony of styles” that has an essentially nihilistic character. Derrida’s and Heidegger’s deconstruction of style-spirit is centered around an untranslatable German word, the Gemüt – a notion that is supposed to twist western thinking out of an eternal shifting between soul (âme), consciousness (conscience), Geist (esprit), and body.
Harry Frankfurt defines bullshit as the misrepresentation of reality that remains different from ... more Harry Frankfurt defines bullshit as the misrepresentation of reality that remains different from lying because, contrary to the liar, the "bullshitter" does not try to deceive. The question, in the realm of art, is whether kitsch overlaps with bullshit as a sort of "aesthetic bullshit" or if there are differences between bullshit as a predominantly ethical phenomenon and kitsch, which works more with categories such as pleasure and indulgence. i will show that, given bullshit's intrinsic link with the technique of embellishment, bullshit is as much at home in the realm of aesthetics as in the realm of ethics.
Coolness developed in the form of a behavioral attitude practiced by black men in the United Stat... more Coolness developed in the form of a behavioral attitude practiced by black men in the United States at the time of slavery and residential segregation, which made necessary the cultivation of special defense mechanisms employing emotional detachment as well as irony. At the same time cool is a principle of white American culture leading to ascetism and self-control and it has been cultivated during the Victorian period. I concentrate on the question if cool is a virtue or a value because the twofold origin of the concept provides an interesting input for this discussion. Aristotle held that in order to recognize and advocate the good we need virtue. The value-oriented African American cool, however, works towards ritualized expressions. The imperturbable state of cool, enhanced by aesthetic values like smooth, fluid, and easy motion, is tinged by a mysteriousness or even by moral ambivalence.
In an earlier article (2015) I established parallels between kitsch and Bullshit. Both traffic i... more In an earlier article (2015) I established parallels between kitsch and Bullshit. Both traffic in snaring the unsophisticated, be it in the form of ‘collectible’ enamelware or self-help books written by pseudo-experts. Both distort the truth through exaggeration, a willful lack of critical activity, or by simply not being serious. In the present article I want to drive the comparison further and examine whether it is possible to be fascinated or attracted by bullshit in the same way in which one can be fascinated by kitsch. Kitsch is boastful, exaggerated and ‘not quite true’; still it can be attractive when it is aesthetically pleasing. Is the same true for bullshit? In order to answer this question, I analyze the relationships that both kitsch and bullshit maintain with pretentiousness, self-deception, cheating, and seduction.
To be cool means to remain calm even under stress (see Botz-Bornstein 2010). In Bowie’s case, coo... more To be cool means to remain calm even under stress (see Botz-Bornstein 2010). In Bowie’s case, coolness cannot be limited to a mannerist imitation of streetwise toughness. He never imitated anything but controlled his own body movements. There is nothing “fake” about this. Bowie’s coolness was always very honest. It was no pose, but had become an attitude, always linked to the boyish honesty that he could maintain until the end. Bowie seemed to be constantly saying: ‘that’s precisely how cool you can get as a thin, frail, shy, white, suburban kid with bad teeth. Not more and not less. Take it or leave it.’
The Cool Kawaii: Afro-Japanese Aesthetics and New World Modernity, 2011
Chapter 8 of "The Cool Kawaii". Abstract: Like cool and kawaii, dandyism uses ironical forms of r... more Chapter 8 of "The Cool Kawaii". Abstract: Like cool and kawaii, dandyism uses ironical forms of resistance to fight bourgeois society up to the point that it produces a cultural situation that comes close to New World Modernity. Cornel West’s culture of alienation, combined with an eccentric pride derived from a past of oppression and the belief in a “decadent American civilization at the end of the twentieth century”, was anticipated by Baudelaire who wrote that “dandyism is the last spark of heroism within an age of decadence”
Paul Delvaux is a surrealist painter who attains what other surrealists attempted but often had d... more Paul Delvaux is a surrealist painter who attains what other surrealists attempted but often had difficulties to attain: a “Being-dimension” of dream. Because Delvaux directed his attention to the ego, he appears more Husserlian than Heideggerian. No “Being-with” (Mitsein) surrounds these characters, there is not what one could call the “hermeneutic determination” of the ego by its environment. On the contrary, the environment itself seems to develop by taking the ego as a point of departure.
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, 2009
The dandyist procedure of subsuming life into style creates something that is very similar to wha... more The dandyist procedure of subsuming life into style creates something that is very similar to what we call today “virtual reality.”
1 Peter Winch, The Idea of Social Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), pp. 52-... more 1 Peter Winch, The Idea of Social Science (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), pp. 52-53: see also Charles Taylor, who remarks on the importance of style in human science: 'Take the example of the gentleman; or its seeming opposite, the macho male. In either case, ...
I read the debate on veiling through Sarah Kofman’s reflections on the “respect for women” develo... more I read the debate on veiling through Sarah Kofman’s reflections on the “respect for women” developed in her book Le Respect des femmes (1982). In Kofman’s opinion, the respect for women humiliates and elevates women at the same time because “the respect for women is always the moral and glorious flipside of men’s ‘misogyny’.” The veil turns out to be a highly ambiguous item for exactly those reasons. Kofman’s analysis of respect for women reveals a series of paradoxes linked to the logic of veiling as well as self-veiling: respect-modesty, sexuality-chastity, power-non-power.
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the spectacularly rising popularity of tattoos by showing that tat... more ABSTRACT This article analyzes the spectacularly rising popularity of tattoos by showing that tattoos have become a spatial project in the largest sense: the way they participate in the creation of social space is different from that of tattoos before the Tattoo Renaissance. I explain this project as a shift from tattoos to body graffiti. In the past (predominantly male) tattoo-spheres could be located within the margins of society. Once an identity had been assumed through the adoption of a tattoo, the person could be assigned a particular geographical position within an urban sphere. Contemporary tattoos have this one-dimensional identifying function to a much lesser extent, which influences the way in which these tattoos create space. Within the new tattoo space, the skin does not wear the stigmatic mark, nor does it function as a screen of male desire, but it becomes a wall on which multiple desires are projected. In this sense, tattoos have become graffiti. I establish the particularity of the female tattoo as opposed to the masculine tattoo by focusing on an important element of the pro/contra discussion of female tattoos: the purity and ‘blankness’ of the female skin. Jean Baudrillard's concept of the blank female skin as a ‘void’ that men rush to fill with their own desires is central to this discussion. Finally, I show that the spatial function of narcissistically oriented female tattoos is at least partly established within the Suicide Girls interactive website.
in Robert Arp (ed.) Tattoos – Philosophy for Everyone: I Ink, Therefore I Am (Oxford: Blackwell-Wiley), pp. 53–64. , 2012
In the past, tattoo spheres could be located within the margins of society, and, once an identity... more In the past, tattoo spheres could be located within the margins of society, and, once an identity had been assumed through the adoption of a tattoo, the person could be assigned a particular geographical position within an urban sphere. I argue that contemporary female tattoos no longer have this one-dimensional identifying function. I show there is a new ‘tattoo space’ in which the skin need not necessarily bear the stigmatic mark, nor need it function as a screen of male desire. The tattooed skin becomes a wall on which multiple thoughts and desires are projected; tattoos have become graffiti.
Chapter Nine of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: Veils, Nudity, and Tattoos: The New Feminine Aesthetics.... more Chapter Nine of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein: Veils, Nudity, and Tattoos: The New Feminine Aesthetics. Lanham: Lexington-Rowman & Littlefield, 2015
Why is there, in certain sectors of populations, so much resistance to wearing a face mask? Since... more Why is there, in certain sectors of populations, so much resistance to wearing a face mask? Since the coronavirus is airborne, is it not simply a matter of common sense to cover your nose and mouth in order to avoid it-at least partially? The problem with the anti-mask movement is that it ethicises and politicises the mask until it acquires an almost religious dimension. Instead of seeing the mask as a simple sanitary device, it turns the mask into a niqab.
The rage at French president Macron's perceived attacks on Islam is very much due to communicatio... more The rage at French president Macron's perceived attacks on Islam is very much due to communication problems. Non-Muslims and Muslims understand the word "holy" differently. Non-Muslims establish the word in a comparative fashion as "something that is related to religion." Holiness is not a fixed essence, but one draws an associative link towards something else, which is religion. Arab Muslims see "muqaddas" or "qadasa" as an absolute quality referring to an essence that is provided through the link between the person/object and God. We are living in an age of communication, and technology has created a sphere in which people from various communities communicate across borders on all levels. Apart from images, communication happens through words and concepts, and it is assumed that these elements, if properly translated, are understood by all participants. However, with the rage at French
In April 2013 we conducted a survey on Islamic veiling at the Gulf University for Science and Tec... more In April 2013 we conducted a survey on Islamic veiling at the Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. The purpose of the survey was to view the veil through the prism of recent international developments that have transformed veiling, at least partially, into a fashion phenomenon. It became obvious that most veiled students at GUST recognize that, in religious terms, hijab and fashion are incompatible. However, they do not "solve" the contradiction by transforming the hijab into a merely cultural item, thus fusing traditional veiling and contemporary fashion in order to create a new ethos of "veiling fashion." Nor do they solve the contradiction by stating that the hijab has been forced upon them and that they are trying to soften its effects by combining it with modern influences. Instead, they separate the hijab as a religious phenomenon conceptually from the cultural phenomenon called fashion. By doing so, they hope to establish a moral justification of their engagement in fashion. * We thank Ahmed Al Saber from the Gulf University for Science and Technology for his help with the statistics. 2
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies 11:1, 2014
Religion pertains to absolute values granted by revelation and on the existence of a god. Culture... more Religion pertains to absolute values granted by revelation and on the existence of a god. Culture is more relativist but also more able to seduce. I show that the revelation-seduction opposition developed by Baudrillard in Of Seduction applies to the difference between religion and culture. In Of Seduction, Baudrillard does not talk much about religion but postulates, right at the beginning, that seduction is clearly not on the side of religion because “for religion seduction was a strategy of the devil, whether in the guise of witchcraft or love. It is always the seduction of evil – or of the world. It is the very artifice of the world.” Baudrillard mentions McLuhan’s ideas about a “hot” presence opposed to a more elusive but inspiring “cool” semi-presence in the context of ritual forms that transcend all sociality and by which we are seduced. For McLuhan, the term “hot” applies to any kind of information that is highly defined or that “leaves not much to be filled in”; and revelation is supposed to be exactly that. As a matter of fact, nothing can be “hotter” than revelation. Religion (as it contains revelation) is thus hot, while culture is cool because it leaves the transmitted information partly unexplained and open to interpreta¬tion. I look at fusions of Muslim culture with Punk, Hard Rock or Hip Hop youth culture Those are no “counter-cultural religions” and have no potential to convert into those. Their version of “Islamic Revival” is strictly cultural and cannot be compared with the sort of “religious revivals” occurring in the U.S. in the form of groups like Youth for Christ, Jesus Freaks, Hare Krishna or the Unification Church (the Moon Sect), all of which represent responses to the increased secularism and materialism of contemporary society by using purely religious means.
Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review (ASRR), 2017
I examine the epistemological vision of the body as an accumulation of genes that has been develo... more I examine the epistemological vision of the body as an accumulation of genes that has been developed by the UFO religion called the Raëlian Movement. I reflect it against various posthumanist theories and take an approach that has rarely been used in this domain: I analyze the aesthetic aspect of such scientific and religious models. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review (ASRR) in 8: 1 2017, 101-125.
I attempt to disentangle the compact knot composed of culture, religion, and civilization. Often ... more I attempt to disentangle the compact knot composed of culture, religion, and civilization. Often the difference between secularists and believers is construed along the lines of a religious “culture” unable to join a more progressive civilization. The identification of culture with religion and of civilization with more general, civic phenomena summarized under the heading of civilization is widespread. I analyze different points of view, which classify “Secularism as Civilization,” “Civilization as Evil,” or “Religion as Evil.” I also consider the converse point of view, which sees religion as a sort of civilization that is opposed to culture. Finally, I trace the term culture with the help of a few words from Matthew Arnold who delimits culture from the above idea of civilization. Arnold believes that culture “is best described by the word interesting.” From a certain point onwards, Islam was no longer “interesting.” Values would be hermetically codified up to a point that this religion offered no intellectual challenge. At present, Islam is losing even more of its cultural appeal, offering few pleasures and entertainment that could be seen as intrinsic to Islam. Islam has submitted to the identification of concrete cultural items with general civilizational guidelines. A civilizational understanding of religion in the fundamentalist sense is more and more emphasized and the distinction between culture and religion is becoming more and more distinct.
Many religious people see the secular worldview as a purely technocratic enterprise that might be... more Many religious people see the secular worldview as a purely technocratic enterprise that might be efficient with regard to details but lacks holistic principles able to “explain” things. Secular people find the religious worldview equally random and incoherent. At the bottom of the eager religious search for “a center” are not just proper religious concerns, but more generally, what Richard Rorty has described as the mentality of the “liberal metaphysician” who wants “a final vocabulary with an internal organic structure” (Rorty 1989: 92). I compare two critiques of “western” relativism, one formulated by Muslim scholar Ziauddin Sardar and the other by the American philosopher Allan Bloom. Bloom believes that relativism as it is practiced in modern western societies is superficial, lacks self-reflectivity, and therefore loses sight of truth altogether. What Blooms’ vision has in common with Sardar’s idea of “postmodern secularism” is that both are based on circular structures. I then distinguish between Critical and Uncritical Relativism.
Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that ... more Political Correctness (PC) is a measure that attempts to prevent all expressions or actions that could offend or marginalize certain people or groups of people. Many of PC’s policies are used to define and correct language. The belief that altering language usage will change the public’s perception of reality has led to an important reform of personal pronouns and gender pronouns. How would Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the 4th century BC, have reacted to these linguistic reforms? Zhuangzi was a language skeptic, which means that he did not believe that language could convey the true meanings of the world. This view opposes Daoism to Confucianism, which is famous for its vast “language correction project.”
A. Barkman & J. Steiff (eds.) Manga and Philosophy. Open Court, 2010
Cool and cute have some things in common. Both are social expressions that invite interaction and... more Cool and cute have some things in common. Both are social expressions that invite interaction and involve the spectator’s imagination. Both “hold back,” are potentially sexually fecund, and operate within the realm of possibilities rather than appearing as openly threatening and aggressive behaviors.
At the turn of the millennium, international youth culture is dominated by mainly two types of ae... more At the turn of the millennium, international youth culture is dominated by mainly two types of aesthetics: the African American cool, which, propelled by Hip-Hop music, has become the world’s favorite youth culture; and the Japanese aesthetics of kawaii or cute, that is distributed internationally by Japan’s powerful anime industry.
A. Minh Nguyen (ed.), New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics: Philosophy, Politics, Culture, Literature, and the Arts (Lanham: Lexington), 2015
According to the National Geographic World Music website, the new millennium has been characteriz... more According to the National Geographic World Music website, the new millennium has been characterized by an international youth culture dominated by the Afro-American cool and the Japanese aesthetics of kawaii or cute internationally distributed by Japan’s powerful anime and manga industry. The African American philosopher Cornel West sees “black-based hip-hop culture of youth around the world” as a grand example of the “shattering of male, WASP cultural homogeneity.” Kawaii culture engages in a similar fight against an “official” modernity and replaces it with a subtler mode of what West calls a “New World Modernity.” This chapter attempts to define a dialectics of cool and kawaii and shows that on a deeper level this dialectics leads towards the development of a “New World Modernity.” African American coolness is part of the modern aesthetic project, particularly in the context of the ethics and aesthetics of alienation. New World Modernity is cool because it depends on wilful acts of alienation. Similar things can be said about kawaii. Both cool and kawaii overcome a passive techno-future determined by coldness and automation. Both cool and kawaii must be perceived as modern values able to embrace antagonistic terms such as liberation, fragmentation, and alienation. I show that both jazz and contemporary Japanese popular culture have found a type of cool that can be called the anti-sarcastic cool. Both African American culture and Japanese anime/manga brush against the grain of binary moralisms and introduce features transcending the bitter irony of white mainstream coolness. New World Modernism is able to overcome the “binary oppositions of natural, primitive, rules, and peoples of color” says West. Kawaii culture, as it is located in futuristic postcolonial Japan, is “timed” in an eccentric fashion, which means that this culture does not follow the “popular realism” of mainstream white Europeans or Americans. The expansion of both cool and kawaii culture is thus an attribute of the above New World Modernism.
Abstract. Wabi (as well as sabi) preach modesty while kitsch is boastful. Wabi and sabi cling to ... more Abstract. Wabi (as well as sabi) preach modesty while kitsch is boastful. Wabi and sabi cling to the ideal of non-perfection while kitsch likes the smooth surfaces of perfection. Wabi aesthetics prefers natural colors and materials and shuns decoration, while kitsch most often comes along with glaring colors. Kitsch, as an attribute of petty-bourgeois taste, is mainly conservative, and looks for safety and certitude. Wabi and sabi, on the other hand, manifest a real avant-garde spirit, trying to undermine the safe patterns of human (aesthetic) existence by preaching even the attractiveness of deprivation and destitu¬tion. In spite of these oppositions, I would venture to say that the traditional Japanese aesthetic ideal of wabi/sabi and the aesthetic manifestations that we classify today as kitsch have “deep” psychological structures in common. These resemblances are not manifest in the content of aesthetics but in its formal character. I contrast wabi and kitsch on all levels that concern their respective contents but draw parallels only between their formal characteristics.
ABSTRACT Since 1990, two eminent French-speaking sinologists, François Jullien and Jean François ... more ABSTRACT Since 1990, two eminent French-speaking sinologists, François Jullien and Jean François Billeter, have been engaged in a debate on the principles of comparative philosophy and sinology. The debate has been developed in several books and articles and attracted the attention of a relatively broad public as well as of a wide range of French intellectuals. The arguments with regard to an older discussion on the difference between philology and philosophy are evaluated here, and conclusions are drawn concerning the present status of comparative philosophy in academia.
ABSTRACT I still believe that this is a debate about philology and philosophy, and Dr. Weber has ... more ABSTRACT I still believe that this is a debate about philology and philosophy, and Dr. Weber has not convinced me that Billeter is in any way more philosophical. “Framing” has always had a metaphorical character and its only purpose is to highlight some (certainly subjective) points. They are subjective especially since they echo (as I explain) my personal observations of how philosophy is often dealt with today within the larger field of the human sciences. Weber’s question “Which China is Jullien actually talking about?” is precisely one of those questions that philosophers are asked by those more empirically minded humanists. I try to make clear that within certain abstract, philosophical contexts, such questions have less importance. It is thus not very useful to point out that the frame does not always fit in a literal sense. The frame could have been called “empirical versus speculative” (speculatio being the Latin translation of theoria), which would have eliminated references to concrete events in the history of philosophy. It is also true that Jullien has attempted to design his own methodology, which he wants at times to push beyond the limits of the traditional “comparative” program, but seen through a wider and international lens Jullien’s writings still overlap very much with comparative philosophy. The purpose of my comment was not to give grades to Billeter and Jullien and evaluate their merits in sinology, but to draw attention to a problem that concerns philosophy and the humanities in general.
S. Holland and K. Spracklen (eds.), Alternativity and Marginalisation: Essays on Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces. Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2018
In 2017 I launched an online survey at a private English-speaking university in Kuwait to evaluat... more In 2017 I launched an online survey at a private English-speaking university in Kuwait to evaluate the status, value and importance of Japanese and Korean popular cultures in Kuwait. East-Asian culture is a subculture that is very widespread in the region because of internet use and the influence of English-speaking education. The survey shows that this subculture can be understood as an alternative culture because it tends to contain a dissimulated critique of traditional Kuwaiti culture. Many students approach Japanese and Korean cultural products because they are in search for a coherent lifestyle founded on a certain ethics. The Japanese-Kuwaiti cultural transfer implies a double resistance towards the local culture and towards American culture. The resulting marginalization is therefore twofold, too. Resistance towards Western culture is here not based, as is often assumed in Arab contexts, on cultural closure and conservatism but rather on the willingness to engage with an alien culture. This creates a paradoxical pattern of resistance to both the East and the West through the adherence to another Eastern culture. The phenomenon can be understood in terms of globalization but also of anti-globalization.
La Chine contre l’Amerique: Culture sans civilisation contre civilization sans culture?, 2012
This is an English translation of the introduction to Thorsten Botz-Bornstein’s book _La Chine co... more This is an English translation of the introduction to Thorsten Botz-Bornstein’s book _La Chine contre l’Amerique: Culture sans civilisation contre civilization sans culture?_ (L’Harmattan 2012)
Max Weber examined Chinese society and European Puritanism at the beginning of the Twentieth Cent... more Max Weber examined Chinese society and European Puritanism at the beginning of the Twentieth Century in order to find out why capitalism did not develop in China. Not surprisingly, he found that Confucianism and Puritanism are mutually exclusive, which enabled him to oppose both in the form of two different kinds of rationalism. In the present article I do not attempt to refute the Weberian thought model but rather give it a further push and show – by going full circle – that just because of Weber’s findings and because of a further twist that “Western culture” has received when becoming American, both cultures manifest amazing similarities. I am not merely reiterating that the existence of Asian modernity, of Confucian Capitalism, or even of some Asian forms of “Protestant Ethics” undermines Weber’s verdict and that Asian capitalism obviously is possible (which would be a trite argument). More radically, I hold that, at all stages of its existence, Confucianism has been very modern or even postmodern because it has produced the same sort of hyperreality for which America, as the world’s most modern, most capitalist, and most protestant country, is so famous. More precisely, I show that the parallel between America and China can be spelled out not only in terms of hyperreality, but also in terms of a particular treatment of transcendence.
This essay reflects on Chinese and American hyperrealism and its effect on the self-perceptions a... more This essay reflects on Chinese and American hyperrealism and its effect on the self-perceptions and cultural identities of both countries. Hyperreality is a condition whereby it is impossible to distinguish reality from fantasy. Such a condition is common in technologically advanced cultures where virtual reality has made possible the endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearances. It is however also possible to speak of hyperreality in terms of “culture” or “civilization.” As a first example, China produces a hyperrealist version of its culture in ways that are peculiar to the Confucian treatment of history. As a second example, hyperrealism can be seen in American civilization, which has often been described by some as a materialized utopia excelling in simulations such as Disneyland or Las Vegas and that permeates through large parts of American life like an underlying structure. The mythical and pseudo-historical past upon which many Chinese philosophical discourses are built has arguably led to a quasi-virtual timelessness whose effects remain significant in China’s contemporary political life. At the same time, American civilization consists – viewed from a certain angle – in an aseptic, dishistoricized culture that authors such as Jean Baudrillard have described in terms of “hyperreality.”
The verb κενόω (kenos) means ‘to empty’ and St. Paul uses the word ἐκένωσεν (ekenosen) writing th... more The verb κενόω (kenos) means ‘to empty’ and St. Paul uses the word ἐκένωσεν (ekenosen) writing that ‘Jesus made himself nothing’ and ‘emptied himself’. Śunyata is a Buddhist concept most commonly translated as emptiness, nothingness, or nonsubstantiality. An important kenosis–śunyata discussion was sparked by Abe Masao’s paper ‘KenoticGod and Dynamic Śunyata’ (in 1984). I confront the kenosis–śunyata theme with Vattimo’s kenosis based philosophy of religion. For Vattimo, kenosis refers to ‘secularization’: when strong structures such as the essence and the fulfilment of the Christian message are weakened. Parallels between Abe’s and Vattimo’s thought will be demonstrated with regard to themes current in East–West comparative philosophy: reality and emptiness, the overcoming of metaphysics, the position of the Self, the human and the divine, and the relationship between science and religion. The latter point is particularly timely because since the 1990s religious fundamentalism has pushed forward a curious ‘religion as science’ hypothesis. Both thinkers’ relationship with the idea of Nothingness will also be explored. Finally, Abe’s interpretation of śunyata will be presented as a formof ‘weak thought’. Both Abe and Vattimo design a religious attitude based on negativity without falling into the trap of antireligious nihilism. Abe’s negation of the subject, which leads to a pluralism of beings, can very well be compared with Vattimo’s paradoxical ‘credere di credere’ (to believe to believe), throughwhich Vattimo describes the attitude of an ego that has lost its own subjectivity. The person who does not believe but only ‘believes to believe’ is a sort of non-ego. I show that a ‘half-theistic’ way of thinking God based on kenosis can work in the service of plurality because it deconstructs the principle of reality based on faith and ‘fullness’.
Kawaii is different from the western cute because it may also include 'cool'. The paradoxical coe... more Kawaii is different from the western cute because it may also include 'cool'. The paradoxical coexistence of weakness and strength, of cute and cool, is interesting in philosophical terms. Kawaii is not simply weak but equipped with its own kind of strength. In this article, I explore kawaii by using philosophical ideas linked to the paradigm of 'strength out of weakness' that appears in the so-called 'weak thought' philosophy of Gianni Vattimo. The Heideggerian term Verwindung (twisting) as it is used by Vattimo, is at the centre of this analysis. Vattimo's philosophy is also based on the Christian idea of kenosis, a classic theological term that can be translated as 'weakening'. Feminist theologians use the concept of kenosis in order to 'femin-ize' theology. It is in this context that kawaii can be shown as bringing together such antagonistic qualities as submission and subversion. Vattimo's Verwindung describes the effect of distortion to which gender distinctions are submitted through the impact of kawaii. As a result, kawaii should be seen as femininity without meta-narratives because kawaii strips feminist gestures of their metaphysical features.
Philosophy East & West Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 481-506, 2000
Kuki links contingency to the phenomenon of existence. A phi-losophy that forces itself to see co... more Kuki links contingency to the phenomenon of existence. A phi-losophy that forces itself to see contingency behind necessity also dis-covers nothingness behind reality. A philosophy of contingency does not simply see “what there is” but forces itself to be surprised at what it can trace back to nothing other than to contingency.
Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan, 2009
In the present book I examine the parallels between Russian and Japanese philosophies and religio... more In the present book I examine the parallels between Russian and Japanese philosophies and religions by revealing a common concept of space in Russian and Japanese aesthetics and political theories. I show points of convergence between the two traditions regarding the treatment of space within the realm of identity (both individual and communal), and in formulations of the relationship between regionalism, localism and globalism.
The International Journal of the Asian Philosophical Association (IJAPA), 2008
Japanese “culturalism” compared with some exponents of Russian philosophy. What the works of the... more Japanese “culturalism” compared with some exponents of Russian philosophy. What the works of these Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s-30s and those of Russian thinkers linked to Eurasianism have in common is that they transcend the most basic ideas of both modernism and of national salvation.
Paper presented at the exposition-conference “Pietilä in the Middle East” held at the Aalto Unive... more Paper presented at the exposition-conference “Pietilä in the Middle East” held at the Aalto University in Helsinki on November 21, 2018
A detailed analysis of Reima and Raili Pietilä’s “Sief Palace Area” mega project of Kuwait (1969-... more A detailed analysis of Reima and Raili Pietilä’s “Sief Palace Area” mega project of Kuwait (1969-1986), which included the construction of three official buildings as well as the development of a new plan for the entire city. I explain the architects’ intentions, the reception of the buildings as well as the transformations that the Ministry building and the site underwent during the last thirty years. The chapter is divided into three sections. First I discuss the urban plan of Kuwait on which the Finnish architects had been working for several years. Then I proceed to a discussion of “transcultural architecture,” its relationship with Critical Regionalism, and how the Sief Palace Area project reflects those differences. Last comes an analysis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kuwait, which I have revisited thirty years after its completion. Pietilä emphasized the tension between identity and internationalism and as a result, he ended up with a particular form of transculturalism. At the same time, he saw the use of traditional styles as “a defense mechanism against the domination of the sweeping identity of globalization.” Further analysis shows that the particularities of Kuwaiti culture, which unfortunately the architects did not fully understand, played an important role in the reception. The Sief Palace Buildings are a case in point whenever the topic “Can Critical Regionalism be applied in non-Western countries?” is discussed. The Kuwait project permits reflection on the “Westernness” of critical theories as well as on the possibilities and limits of transcultural architecture.
Introduction 1. “City of Kuwait: A Future Concept” 1.1. Kuwait in 1969 1.2. A History of Master Plans 1.3. The Pietiläs’ Two Plans for Kuwait 1.4. The Sief Palace Area 1.5. The Morphology of the Inner City 2. The Sief Palace Buildings 2.1. The Old and the New Sief Palace 2.2. The Sief Palace Extension 2.3. The Ministry 2.4. Metaphors, Symbols and Analogies in the Ministry 2.5. The “Skin Technique” 2.6. The Ministry’s Connection to the Area 3. Transcultural Architecture 3.1. Transculturalism 3.2. Multiculturalism 3.3. Micro and Macro Levels 3.4. Fusion, Mosaic, Network 3.5. Transcultural Architecture and Critical Regionalism 3.6. Pietilä’s “Skin Technique” and Transculturalism 3.7. Postcolonialism 3.8. Identity in Finland and in Kuwait 4. The Ministry Transformed 4.1. The Ministry Buildings 4.2. The Environment of the Ministry 4.3. New Buildings 4.4. The Macro Scale 5. Conclusions 5.1. The Urban Problem 5.2. The Aesthetic Problem 5.3. The Kuwait Project and the Problem of Critical Regionalism 5.4. Critical Thinking in Kuwait 5.5. The Limits of Critical Regionalism 5.6. A Brief Comparison with Two Other Buildings
This article analyzes Chinese and American hyperrealism and its effects on self-perceptions and c... more This article analyzes Chinese and American hyperrealism and its effects on self-perceptions and cultural identities. In their respective architectural traditions both American and Chinese ambitions to retrieve a psycho-social quality succeed in circumventing common requirements of authenticity. The past is present in China in the form of the Chinese language and letters. Meanwhile, in the United States, the “Disney” approach promotes the authenticity of the copy within the “real” sphere of American civilization. In paradoxical fashion both approaches thus attempt to find authenticity and identity in a process of imitation. A comparison of the two traditions shows how authenticity is never a stable “material” entity, but rather how all monuments are somehow “monuments of the mind.”
The Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 2009
The article -- which is arguably the first academic article on Wang Shu -- introduces the work o... more The article -- which is arguably the first academic article on Wang Shu -- introduces the work of the Chinese experimental architect WANG Shu who practices “Critical Regionalism” in China by developing, among other things, the principle of “free design” that he derives from Chinese garden architecture. Further the article examines the possibilities of critical regionalism within a typically Chinese socio-cultural context that is determined by a particular relationship with history. A critical philosophical tradition (in the west developed by Humboldt and Ranke) is absent in Chinese thought. Neither in Qing China, during the years of attempted reforms, nor during the “Hundred Days Reform” or the “Chinese Renaissance,” has Chinese thought been able to establish a critical tradition. The author discusses if contemporary Chinese architects will be able to create a valuable Chinese environment flowing out of a critical interchange with China’s history.
Hong Kong will not disappear but it has installed its existence within a peculiar aesthetics of d... more Hong Kong will not disappear but it has installed its existence within a peculiar aesthetics of disappearance. Abbas actually believes that Hong Kong will remain almost unchanged for another fifty years (23). The floating state of Hong Kong’s existence makes it a true forerunner of Dubai, which seems to be suspended in a similar state of floating existence, though at the opposite end of the spectrum. Dubai will simply not appear. For this city, the act of becoming has been charged with such complicated connotations that “becoming” seems to have been eternalized. While Hong Kong revels in what is (almost) no longer there, Dubai revels in what is not yet there. While Hong Kong engenders, in the words of Abbas, the feeling of a déjà disparu rooted in an irretrievable, colonial ex-past, Dubai installs itself in a perpetual not yet there that speaks to us through the veil of an indiscernible ex-future. Dubai’s cultural status develops towards a “colonial space of appearance.” According to Mike Davis, Dubai becomes, through its neo-colonial lifestyle, “expert at catering to colonial nostalgia” (Davis 2007: 64). This colonial past does not refer to a reality in the form of colonial buildings and concrete memories, which makes it different from Hong Kong where, in spite of their twofold nature, discussions on colonialism as a concrete experience are possible because of the presence of the dominating father figure: Britain. In Dubai, neo-colonialism has been reissued in the form of “offshore urbanism.”
The Korean architect H-Sang Seung derives architectural necessities from two sources: the Korean ... more The Korean architect H-Sang Seung derives architectural necessities from two sources: the Korean tradition and the imperatives of territorial qualities he calls “landscripts.” The latter can be traced back to the Korean tradition of geomancy, which has consequences for the definition of design. A design process considering “landscript” disengages the notion of landscape from its strict association with earth and interprets it in terms of urban development. I interpret Seung’s “landscript” based concept of design through Heidegger’s concept of “Gestell” as well as through the Chinese notion of wen, which means pattern, structure, writing, and literature in Chinese. In the Chinese history wen is a “pattern of interrelating structures that emerge out of concrete situations and reflexively organize and regulate human life in the world.
http://www.botzbornstein.org/#!chinese-architecture/c23og
What do monuments look like in the “soc... more http://www.botzbornstein.org/#!chinese-architecture/c23og What do monuments look like in the “socialist” world? Is the ideologically loaded monument also here subject to discomfort? What makes the case of the Chinese buildings presented above so curious is that they do not provide the slightest discourse of domination. These arches do not even register grave errors nor do they evoke the tiniest micronarrative or microhistory. Instead of dominating our understanding, those monumental elements are dominated - but by what? They are dominated by global or international ideas that are not only alien to the architectural elements themselves but also, to a certain extent, to the cultural environment in which they appear.
The Rural Studio, an outreach program of Auburn University, designs innovative houses for poor pe... more The Rural Studio, an outreach program of Auburn University, designs innovative houses for poor people living in Alabama’s Hale County by using “junk” such as car windshields, carpet tiles, baled cardboard, and old license plates. The article theorizes this particular architecture in terms of Critical Regionalism developed by Tzonis/Lefaivre and Frampton and by reflecting on aesthetic problems of junk-architecture. Further, the article evaluates the achievements of the Rural Studio by discussing cultural problems arising through participatory design as well as Third World architecture and the cultural and social obstacles that architects and architecture students need to overcome. As students become members of the community, patterns of Third World architecture are transgressed. I conclude by saying that no vernacular architecture should be politically instrumentalized; architecture like that of the Rural Studio can only thrive within a self-sufficient niche, that is, within the space of an absolute vernacular, disconnected from the context of globalization.
Kubrick deterritorialises Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and transforms it into a piece of major cine... more Kubrick deterritorialises Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and transforms it into a piece of major cinema. Schnitzler’s ethno dream goes Hollywood.
Chapter in Botz-Bornstein and Stamatellos (eds.), Plotinus and the Moving Image: Neoplatonism and Film Studies (Leiden: Brill), 2017
In Slow Cinema boredom cannot appear if we think in truly Plotinian terms because contemplation o... more In Slow Cinema boredom cannot appear if we think in truly Plotinian terms because contemplation overcomes the distinction between the subject and the object.
NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) , 2021
In films, dreams become a matter of space because the dreamer’s perception of space is not limite... more In films, dreams become a matter of space because the dreamer’s perception of space is not limited by those categories that are necessary for the perception of space in waking life, which are that of the subjective and the objective. The dream space is neither objective nor subjective. Through this dreamlike perception, space becomes what I would call aesthetic. The overcoming of subjective and objective, the peculiar “aesthetic” perception, is true not only for space but also for time. Dreams are not produced by an objectivizing stylization of the reality of waking life into the reality of dreams, but the “dream style” emerges autonomously.
Daniel Frampton inaugurates a new way of perceiving the reality of film by insisting that film do... more Daniel Frampton inaugurates a new way of perceiving the reality of film by insisting that film does not narrate or show things, characters or actions; it thinks them. When watching a film we observe a thinking process. Frampton attempts to grasp this cinematic thinking process with the help of newly coined concepts such as ‘film-thinking’ and ‘filmind’ and assigns to ‘filmosophy’ the task of “conceptualizing all film as an organic intelligence” (7). Everything that Frampton points out about film being an autonomous cognitive realm can also be said about dream. Just like films, dreams represent an autonomous reality that functions independently of our imaginative and narrative inputs. Frampton dismisses the possibility that dream can fulfill the function of a filmind. The filmind is the reality as it is experienced by the film in the same way in which the dream reality is the reality experienced by the dreamer. The dream reality is not the reproduction of some “exterior” reality, but it is its own world with its own intentions and its own creativity. Like Frampton’s filmind, the dream is not of the world but it is a world. We encounter such non-essentializing accounts of dreams much more in far-Eastern than in Western definitions of dreams. Zen philosophy and practice in particular develops a scheme that attempts to grasp a non-objectified reality reminiscent of Frampton’s filmind.
Plotinus confronts us with a "unification of rationalism and
mysticism" (Bréhier). Also Tarkovsky... more Plotinus confronts us with a "unification of rationalism and mysticism" (Bréhier). Also Tarkovsky’s "spiritualist" penchant flows out of a religious, "non-modern" attitude. But Tarkovsky and Plotinus are also heirs of a rationalist tradition strongly marked by scientific formalism. Tarkovsky was well aware of the philosophical problems linked to the subjectivism of perception. He intended to modify the final result obtained by the materialist deconstruction of subjectivist empathy carried out before by the Eisensteinian materialism-formalism. Plotinus was confronted with problems of the same order. He aspires a "mystical union," Plotinus could be classified as a subjectivist. Still, the "mystical union" of Plotinus’ design is not as simplistic as that which is usually advanced by subjectivism. I detect the development of Russian formalism towards a Plotinian "formalism" realized by Tarkovsky. The conception of the image as "an organic link between idea and form" culminates in an aesthetics of non-symbolic images communicated without passing through the intermediary of the intellect, directly representing the Intelligible.
Abstract: I examine Days of Being Wild by distinguishing between two kinds of nostalgia: the fulf... more Abstract: I examine Days of Being Wild by distinguishing between two kinds of nostalgia: the fulfilled one and the sustained one. While fulfilled nostalgia can easily turn into an affected sentimentality, sustained nostalgia never ends. Sustained nostalgia is produced when time is not permitted to “flow” in a straightforward fashion but when it proceeds towards the desired past along more “twisted” and torturous lines. A typical device used by sustained nostalgia is the metonymy. The metonymy is a figure of speech, which, like the metaphor, calls a thing not by its own name but by the name of another. In metonymy this act of substitution is based on contiguity. In WKW’s films “present moments” are encapsulated in the metonymical presentation of narrative details, which contain a past though this past cannot be accessed and traced in the form of a “real past” through symbolizing gestures. Wong Kar-wai’s films are not about time as a temporal flow but about time-details that have been “packaged,” conserved or “canned” in order to be contemplated. This procedure is metonymical. Keywords: Wong Kar-wai, metonymy, mnemesis, anamnesis, metaphor, symbolism, nostalgia, chronotope.
In a central scene in 3-Iron, the female protagonist dissects her own photo and reconstitutes it ... more In a central scene in 3-Iron, the female protagonist dissects her own photo and reconstitutes it in a cubistic fashion. While in this film the act of reframing seems to symbolize the establishment of a new identity, in other films by Kim Kiduk, various subject positions can be defined neither as re-compositions of disparate identities nor as splits of two polar opposites. Often we are confronted with situations in which the notion of the authentic subject has possibly been overcome. I attempt to understand these patterns evolving in Kim Kiduk’s films, within the Korean cultural context determined by the country’s division as well as occupations by foreign powers. Critics have noticed the violence and the crude treatment of human relations in Kim’s films because here people seem “to act out of impulses” (Gombeaud, 2006:13). Though literature has extensively treated the relationship between Korean cinema and the country’s troubled past, few authors have attempted to connect Kim Kiduk’s emanations of violence to the problem of the divided nation. Even more surprising is the fact that, so far, few critics have put the problem of identity to the center of a study of Kim’s films, let alone attempted to link this theme to that of the Korean nation suffering from an identity crisis. Still it appears that the main theme in Kim’s films is that of “identity troubles”: most of his fifteen films deal with fundamental changes of personal identities through unusual encounters or situations. The dissecting and reconstituting of portraits is one of the most recurrent themes in Kim’s films. The identity theme appears most clearly in Time where Sehie, fearing that her boyfriend Ji-woo will soon get bored of her and reject her, decides to undergo aesthetic surgery in order to approach him as a new person (Saehie). Though, socially speaking, Sehie and Saehie are different persons, they share identical lifeworlds. In many of Kim’s films, faces are dissected, reconstituted, and dissected again. Most of the time these procedures are applied to paper faces, but in Address Unknown Eun-ok’s eye is hurt by a knife, and in Time, real faces are submitted to the scissors. It is clear that the acts of self-mutilation are metaphorical expressions of real social problems existing in the Korean nation. It will be shown that what is elaborated in Kim’s films is not the split of personalities into two segments but rather a play of signifying selves and others that lets any authentic identity entirely disappear and which comes amazingly close to both Roland Barthes’s and Jean Baudrillard’s systems of communication in which “signs are exchanged against each other rather than against the real” (Baudrillard, 1993:7).
Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky as well as The Matrix (1999) by the Wachovs... more Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky as well as The Matrix (1999) by the Wachovski brothers are science fiction films with a highly metaphysical appeal. In addition, all three films deal with the possible falseness of what we generally suppose to be a “reality.” In The Matrix, a reality of millions is declared to be due to cognitive manipulations effectuated by machines and computers and thus not real; in Solaris, a strange kind of non-reality penetrates reality and creates doubts about the “cognitive correctness” of reality; and Stalker evokes, though in an ambiguous and ironical way, a spiritual reality more real than ordinary reality.
We know about the classical Freudian devices of dreamwork which are condensation, displacement an... more We know about the classical Freudian devices of dreamwork which are condensation, displacement and distortion. In the case of Persona, all questions about the legitimization of any “device,” even at the moment it has been identified as a device, reoccur because we have to ask ourselves: “who condenses, who displaces and who distorts?”
Asian thought, from Hinduism and early Buddhist philosophy up to Japanese poetry, uses the dream ... more Asian thought, from Hinduism and early Buddhist philosophy up to Japanese poetry, uses the dream metaphor as a means of expressing different modes of human existence. Kim’s new film Dream develops a plotline determined by adventurous splits of identities and their subsequent fusions. Ran acts like Jin’s avatar in a Second Life virtual space. What looks like a film about dreams and waking life and its imbrications is, in reality, more complex because a supplementary aspect is introduced into the symmetrical dream-reality system through the acts of the dreamless, sleepwalking Ran. The sleepwalker’s state of consciousness is special, it is even more mysterious than that of the dreamer, which necessitates a more refined interpretation of the relationship between Jin’s and Ran’s respective states of awareness. “The person of non-mind sees the objects of the world as neither real nor unreal, as neither independent substances nor dreams or illusions,” writes Thomas Kasulis (1981: 44). With the help of her no-mind, Ran overcomes the distinction between Jin’s dream (that she acts out) and the reality in which she is acting.
Inception and Philosophy: Ideas to Die For, Chicago: Open Court, 2011
Inception abounds with flashing insights about dreams, many of which seem to have been borrowed f... more Inception abounds with flashing insights about dreams, many of which seem to have been borrowed from philosophers.
Benjamin reevaluates the idea of Einfühlung though holding aloof corresponding Romantic or positi... more Benjamin reevaluates the idea of Einfühlung though holding aloof corresponding Romantic or positivist projects. Benjamin follows the strategy of the Russian Formalists: There is an estranged world that we cannot understand by means of common, Romantic, positivist or other rationalist theories of understanding. Tarkovsky’s developments of the Formalist heritage come close to Benjamin’s ideas about the strange.
In this article I intend to reflect upon the ways in which Andrei Tarkovsky has decided to repres... more In this article I intend to reflect upon the ways in which Andrei Tarkovsky has decided to represent "facts". I believe that for Tarkovsky this project involves questions about time and history in a way it does in few other contemporary artists. For Tarkovsky the approach of transforming facts into what is most commonly called "fiction" is based on sophisticated reflections upon the relationship between history and the present, and these reflections transcend, so I think, the playfulness of many classical "postmodern" approaches.
Les rêves, ces événements trop humains qui nous font régulièrement croire que des choses qui n'ex... more Les rêves, ces événements trop humains qui nous font régulièrement croire que des choses qui n'existent pas existent, possèdent une qualité qui les rend différents de la réalité non-rêvée: ils ont un style. Cela il ne faut pas le comprendre comme si le “style” faisait partie de la substance des rêves mêmes, qu'il existerait à l'intérieur des rêves au moment où nous font leur expérience, au moment même où les rêves sont rêvés. C'est plutôt le discours sur le rêve, les rêves tels qu'ils apparaissent quand ils sont racontés ou mémorisés, qui contiennent une quantité qu'on peut reconnaître comme du style.
L'expansion globale des modes de production, de consommation et d'information du type occidental ... more L'expansion globale des modes de production, de consommation et d'information du type occidental crée partout les mêmes modes de vie et les mêmes aspirations au bonheur (pas forcément les meilleures). Elle risque de supprimer les particularités culturelles des peuples et d'aliéner les ressources intellectuelles et morales inhérent à leurs traditions ancestrales. L'homme universel de nos jours, c'est l'homme producteur et consommateur de biens industriels.
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 54: 3, pp. 776-778, 1999
Review of Leslie PINCUS: Authentificating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shûzô and the Rise of N... more Review of Leslie PINCUS: Authentificating Culture in Imperial Japan: Kuki Shûzô and the Rise of National Aesthetics. University of California Press 1996.
Olivier Roy attire notre attention sur la coexistence de deux interprétations différentes du harc... more Olivier Roy attire notre attention sur la coexistence de deux interprétations différentes du harcèlement sexuel des femmes : l’interprétation culturelle et l’interprétation naturelle.
Figures de l’art: Revue d’études esthétiques 25, 2013
L’architecte coréen H-Sang Seung dérive les nécessités architecturales de deux sources : la tradi... more L’architecte coréen H-Sang Seung dérive les nécessités architecturales de deux sources : la tradition coréenne et les impératifs liés aux qualités territoriales qu’il appelle « écritures territoriales » (teomune). Seung et son équipe de la Biennale du design de Gwangju affirmèrent la nécessité de repenser la définition du design en lançant le thème paradoxal inspiré du confucianisme du « Design est le design est non-design ». Le thème rappelle les réflexions de Heidegger qui suggérait que la technique fonctionnait « toujours-déjà » à l’intérieur d’un « projet ». Il est possible de comprendre le concept heideggérien de « Gestell » (arraisonnement) comme « design ». Le problème du design devient alors qu’il fonctionne à l’intérieur de limites tracées par son propre processus de design. « L’ecriture territoriale » de Seung apparait comme un non-design dépassant le design conventionnel.
Introduction to DARUMA 14
Revue internationale d’études japonaises
Numéro spéciale: L’architect... more Introduction to DARUMA 14 Revue internationale d’études japonaises
Numéro spéciale: L’architecture japonaise contemporaine Les choses et “l’entre les choses”
Les similitudes architecturales entre Witgenstein et Tadao Ando sont : une évaluation de l'artisa... more Les similitudes architecturales entre Witgenstein et Tadao Ando sont : une évaluation de l'artisanat ; la limitation des matériaux, surtout s'ils correspondent à certaines idées architecturales ; la concision ; et la recherche d'un mode de vie particulier.
ANDÔ Tadao est l’architecte qui, au Japon, formulait de façon consistante des approches non-moder... more ANDÔ Tadao est l’architecte qui, au Japon, formulait de façon consistante des approches non-modernistes évoquant celles des « modernistes de la deuxième génération ». La juxtaposition d’Aalto et Andô, aussi bien qu’une clarification de la philosophie architecturale d’Andô montre comment des contre-mouvements antimodernes sont restés constants durant les dernières cinquante années. French version of: ‘Play, Dream, and the Search for the “Real” Form of Dwelling: From Aalto to Ando’ in The Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 2, 2003.
Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 t... more Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 to the EHESS of Paris.
‘De l’ostranenie à la logique du rêve: Tarkovski’
et
‘Le cinéma de la cruauté’
Chapter contained... more ‘De l’ostranenie à la logique du rêve: Tarkovski’ et ‘Le cinéma de la cruauté’
Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 To the EHESS of Paris Habilitation à diriger les recherches
Chapter 2 contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999... more Chapter 2 contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 To the EHESS of Paris Habilitation à diriger les recherches
Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 t... more Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 to the EHESS of Paris.
Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999
T... more Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 To the EHESS of Paris Habilitation à diriger les recherches
In A. Berque (Eds.), Logique du lieu et dépassement de la modernité. Bruxelles: Ousia., 1999
In French! SPACE, DREAM, AND THE SPACE OF DREAM
The Platonian-Aristotelian distinction between th... more In French! SPACE, DREAM, AND THE SPACE OF DREAM The Platonian-Aristotelian distinction between the intelligible and the sensible has dominated the understanding of Elean philosophy. However, there is one idea that appears to be central in Elean thought that has challenged this very Aristotelian distinction: the idea of “being-in,” as it has been treated especially by Zeno and which presents itself as a dialectical problem in regard to Being.
Le but de cette étude est à observer ces deux pays et leurs relations mutuelles à travers la lune... more Le but de cette étude est à observer ces deux pays et leurs relations mutuelles à travers la lunette d’un débat philosophique classique : quelles sont les distinctions entre la culture et la civilisation ? Selon Jean Baudrillard, notre monde contemporain a été remplacé par une copie de celui-ci dans laquelle les questions de la « réalité » et de l’authenticité sont devenues redondantes. La Chine produit une version hyperréaliste de sa propre culture par des moyens spécifiques au traitement traditionnel (confucéen) de l’histoire. L’hyperréalisme américain a, par tradition également, créé une civilisation de l’utopie matérialiste excellant dans la construction d’univers fictifs comme Disneyland et Las Vegas. Les analyses développées dans le livre mènent à une comparaison de l’Amérique et de la Chine contemporaines et historiques capable à expliquer des éventuels conflits à travers leurs nationalismes ou leurs idées différentes sur la religion et sur l’architecture…
Obama's election in 2008 observed from inside a historically black university in Alabama (in Fren... more Obama's election in 2008 observed from inside a historically black university in Alabama (in French).
Selon Jean Baudrillard, notre monde contemporain a été remplacé par une copie de celui-ci dans la... more Selon Jean Baudrillard, notre monde contemporain a été remplacé par une copie de celui-ci dans laquelle les questions de la « réalité » et de l’authenticité sont devenues redondantes. La Chine produit une version hyperréaliste de sa propre culture par des moyens spécifiques au traitement traditionnel (confucéen) de l’histoire. L’hyperréalisme américain a, par tradition également, créé une civilisation de l’utopie matérialiste excellant dans la construction d’univers fictifs comme Disneyland et Las Vegas.
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2012
Review of ‘Patricia Pisters: The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen Cultu... more Review of ‘Patricia Pisters: The Neuro-Image: A Deleuzian Film-Philosophy of Digital Screen Culture’
Review of "A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World" by Rana Mitter (Oxford: O... more Review of "A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World" by Rana Mitter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)
The European Legacy Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 83–116, 2006, 2006
What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi
Yoshimi. By Yoshimi Takeuchi (New York:
Columbia Universi... more What Is Modernity? Writings of Takeuchi Yoshimi. By Yoshimi Takeuchi (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005)
Double Review of
Wolfgang Kraushaar: The Revolt of the Educated: From the Arab Spring... more Double Review of Wolfgang Kraushaar: The Revolt of the Educated: From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement (Der Aufruhr der Ausgebildeten: Vom Arabischen Fühling zur Occupy Bewegung). Hamburger Edition, 2012, And Roland Gori : The Impostor Factory (La Fabrique des Imposteurs). Paris : Les liens qui libèrent, 2013
On and champions of ‘assessment culture’ and occupy people. Both, (1) the assessment culture of constant evaluations and the tendency to capture everything (including humans) in the form of data bases or biometric profiles, and (2) the ongoing international protests sparked by an often vague sense of dissatisfaction, are the events that dominate contemporary culture like perhaps nothing else. What do they have in common?
Straightforward, combative, and radical with regard to both contents and method, this book consid... more Straightforward, combative, and radical with regard to both contents and method, this book considers Jean Baudrillard's contributions to the literature on theory as poetry. With lashings of quotes from the works of this unique intellectual voice and thought-provoking takes on Baudrillard's ideas, the book will certainly appeal to many intrigued readers.
John Orr (1943-2010) was a British sociologist specialising in cultural studies who was teaching ... more John Orr (1943-2010) was a British sociologist specialising in cultural studies who was teaching at the University of Edinburgh at the time of his death. Very early in his career, Orr's interest in aesthetics led him to sociological examinations of literature and also, since the 1990s, of cinema. His trilogy consisting of Cinema and Modernity (1993), Contemporary Cinema (1998) and The Art and Politics of Film (2000) is important, as well as his book Hitchcock and 20 th Century Cinema (2005). His last book, Romantics and Modernists in British Cinema (2010), takes a fresh look at the major traditions by which British cinema history has been shaped. Orr also edited Postwar Cinema and Modernity (2000), The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda (2003) and The Cinema of Roman Polanski (2006). Demons of Modernity contains posthumously published chapters of a planned book on Ingmar Bergman that could not be finished. Similar to what he was doing with his book on Hitchcock, Orr establishes in those chapters connections between Bergman and various other directors via comparative analyses of certain films. In spite of Orr's general interest in philosophy (especially Georg Simmel, Sigmund Freud, and Theodor W. Adorno), this book contains very little theory. Orr also uses very little secondary literature. Though conflicts and contradictions within Swedish society are occasionally pointed out, in general, I do not see a sociologist at work in the first place. Instead, the overall impression is that this is the work of a drama specialist able to dissect plots, compare the dissected parts with other elements, and unravel unexpected connections. Sociological themes like power, identity, subjectivity and desire can be attached to those comparisons, but what dominates is an analytical machine working with an uncanny precision of observation and a capacity to process details until parallels become manifest. After a first chapter on Bergman's youthful sympathies with the Nazis (to which I shall return below), the remaining three chapters compare certain
The book’s main objective is to draw attention to the broadness of the concept of slowness and to... more The book’s main objective is to draw attention to the broadness of the concept of slowness and to show how widespread it actually is in contemporary cinema.
Dominique Cardon is a French sociologist working on social questions of the internet. In his thir... more Dominique Cardon is a French sociologist working on social questions of the internet. In his third book, he unmasks the internet world of algorithms by which our everyday lives are increasingly dominated. An algorithm is a self-contained mathematical operation used in data processing and automated reasoning. The book's title What are Algorithms Dreaming Of? suggests that the "reasoning" of algorithms imitates neither Kant's pure reason nor Aristotle's' practical reason. Algorithms seem to be "dreaming" of something; what raises more concern is that we are supposed to accept their dream as a reality. There are few gestures in our lives that are not influenced by calculating infrastructures: shopping, traveling, sex, personal and professional decisions… We tend to take those calculations not entirely seriously but at the same time, we make no serious attempt to escape them. The philosophy behind this algoritmization of everything is that our lives, our bodies, conversations, food, and sleep, are measurable and that the right calculation of their data will make our lives more efficient. The problem is that this measuring activity, to which in the past only specialists (mostly employed by governments) had access, can now be practiced by everybody. Another problem is that the logic of personalization creates a new category of the social, which is the "behavior society" where the relationship between a central authority and the (increasingly) autonomous individuals is about to be completely redefined.
Serious essays on films are normally of an academic nature. Thus, it is no surprise that a philos... more Serious essays on films are normally of an academic nature. Thus, it is no surprise that a philosophical film like Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) has attracted the attention of several academic philosophers. My first thought when I heard of Dyer's project was: how can a writer (not a philosopher or academic) write a whole book about a film? My next thought was: why Stalker and not Nostalghia? To be clear right at the beginning, I am one of those academic philosophers. Dyer leaves no doubt that for him, Nostalghia is a sort of self-celebratory, pretentious kitsch movie that he has despised from his early youth on while Stalker was a revelation. Watching it for the first time in a godforsaken cinema in Gloucestershire in the 1980s, he realized that the film was bound to determine his entire future existence. Well, that is what Nostalghia was for me. Is that how some people become writers and others philosophers?
Review by T. Botz-Bornstein of Berenice Levet, Libérons-nous du féminisme [Let’s liberate ourselv... more Review by T. Botz-Bornstein of Berenice Levet, Libérons-nous du féminisme [Let’s liberate ourselves from feminism/Let’s get rid of feminism]
Review of David Wang's _A Chinese Philosophy of Architecture: Past, Present, Future_ (2017) publi... more Review of David Wang's _A Chinese Philosophy of Architecture: Past, Present, Future_ (2017) published in _Architecture Philosophy_ (Journal of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture Vol 4: 1, pp. 103-108.
‘The New French Right. Alexandre Devecchio's Les nouveaux enfants du siècle and Bérénice Levet's ... more ‘The New French Right. Alexandre Devecchio's Les nouveaux enfants du siècle and Bérénice Levet's Crepuscules des idoles progressistes'. Reviewed by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein Published in The Berlin Review of Books Dec. 31, 2017.
Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten (2008) Review: 'Style and Substance in The Matrix', Film-Philo... more Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten (2008) Review: 'Style and Substance in The Matrix', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 1: pp. 107-116. <http://www.film-philosophy.com/2008v12n1/botzbornstein .pdf> ISSN: 1466-4615 online ... In The Matrix a reality of millions is declared to be due to ...
Susan Hopkins describes in her book on “Girl Power” how a postpunk and postfeminist environment h... more Susan Hopkins describes in her book on “Girl Power” how a postpunk and postfeminist environment has produced the cute but powerful girl-woman, that is, the heroic female overachiever who knows how to make things happen, is not afraid of what men think, but still insists on a “girlish” aspect that helps her to gain even more personal power.
Review of Lotringer, Sylvère and Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art, New York, Semiotext(e), 2005,... more Review of Lotringer, Sylvère and Paul Virilio, The Accident of Art, New York, Semiotext(e), 2005, 119 p.
Review of John Betz's book on J.G. Hamann for the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5:3... more Review of John Betz's book on J.G. Hamann for the European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5:3, 2013
ODIP in cooperation with ALAFI invites entries on topics related to intercultural philosophy. ODI... more ODIP in cooperation with ALAFI invites entries on topics related to intercultural philosophy. ODIP offers brief and understandable definitions of non-Western philosophical terms. It aims to promote a shift from Comparative Philosophy to World Philosophy enabling a genuine plurality of knowing, doing, and being human. Deadline for submissions: June 5th, 2020. For more information, please access https://www.odiphilosophy.com/
ODIP, em cooperação com ALAFI (Associação Latino-Americana de Filosofia Intercultural), convida para envios de temas relacionados à filosofia intercultural. ODIP oferece breves e compreensíveis definições de termos filosóficos não-ocidentais. Seu intuito é promover uma mudança de uma perspectiva da filosofia comparada para uma Filosofia Mundial, permitindo uma genuína pluralidade do conhecimento, da prática e da vivência humana. Prazo de entrega: 5 de junho, 2020. Para mais informações, por favor, acesse https://www.odiphilosophy.com/
Why was Nabokov’s Pale Fire chosen for Blade Runner 2049's baseline test? The book is an exampl... more Why was Nabokov’s Pale Fire chosen for Blade Runner 2049's baseline test? The book is an example of organic composition because it consists of a poem of an imaginary author, a fictional introduction, and a commentary.
What are the predominant aesthetics of the twenty-first century? Thorsten Botz-Bornstein argues t... more What are the predominant aesthetics of the twenty-first century? Thorsten Botz-Bornstein argues that deculturation, embodied by the conspicuous vulgarity of kitsch, is the overriding visual language of our times. Drawing on the work of Islam scholar Olivier Roy, who argued that religious fundamentalism arises when religion is separated from the indigenous cultural values, Botz-Bornstein shows that the production of ‘absolute’ truths through deculturation also exists in contemporary education. The neoliberal environment has separated learning from culture by emphasizing standardization and quantified learning outcomes. In a globalized environment, the idea of culture is no longer available as a referent; instead we are taught to rely on the culturally neutral term ‘excellence’. For BotzBornstein, this is an absolute value similar to the ‘truth’ of religious fundamentalists. Similarly, kitsch is what happens when aesthetic values are separated from cultural contexts. Kitsch is aesthet...
Abstract: I attempt to disentangle the compact knot composed of culture, religion, and civilizati... more Abstract: I attempt to disentangle the compact knot composed of culture, religion, and civilization. Often the difference between secularists and believers is construed along the lines of a religious "culture" unable to join a more progressive civilization. The identification of culture with religion and of civilization with more general, civic phenomena summarized under the heading of civilization is widespread. I analyze different points of view, which classify "Secularism as Civilization," "Civilization as Evil," or "Religion as Evil." I also consider the converse point of view, which sees religion as a sort of civilization that is opposed to culture.Finally, I trace the term culture with the help of a few words from Matthew Arnold who delimits culture from the above idea of civilization. Arnold believes that culture "is best described by the word interesting."From a certain point onwards, Islam was no longer "interesting.&qu...
Chapter 1 Acknowledgments Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 1.Cool and Kawaii Chapter 4 2.New Worl... more Chapter 1 Acknowledgments Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 1.Cool and Kawaii Chapter 4 2.New World Modernity Chapter 5 3.Aspects of Cuteness Chapter 6 4.Cross Gender Tendencies in Cool and Kawaii Chapter 7 5.Coolness between Virtue Ethics and Aesthetics Chapter 8 6.The Temptation of Kitsch Chapter 9 7.Kitsch in Japan: Tradition and Modernity Chapter 10 8.Cool and Dandyism: Two Words-One Concept Chapter 11 9.Dandyism, Consumer Society, and Virtual Reality Chapter 12 10.Conclusion: A Dialectics of Cool and Kawaii? Chapter 13 Bibliography Chapter 14 Index Chapter 15 About the Author
In architecture, the concept of Critical Regionalism gained popularity as a synthesis of universa... more In architecture, the concept of Critical Regionalism gained popularity as a synthesis of universal, “modern” elements and individualistic elements derived from local cultures. Being introduced in the early 1980s by Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre, and Kenneth Frampton, the idea to produce buildings that are modern without neglecting contextual elements like scenery and historical references, has not only produced interesting architectural creations but also spawned a whole range of new theoretical reflections on alternatives to a universalist order or consumerist iconography that Critical Regionalists perceive as oppressive. Critical Regionalist alternatives are more than a postmodern mix of ethno styles but integrate conceptual qualities like local light, perspective, and tectonic quality into a modern architectural framework. In order to “critically” root architectural works in their corresponding traditions, Critical Regionalists base their conceptual stances on those philosophe...
ABSTRACT. I show how a consistent line of anti-Cartesian and anti-Kantian philosophies establishe... more ABSTRACT. I show how a consistent line of anti-Cartesian and anti-Kantian philosophies established by Herder, Humboldt, Hamann, and Vossler transformed the sign-character of human expressions into an expression of style by concentrating on the German term 'Art' as a sort of habitus. Especially Humboldt concentrates on the non-natural and non-functional character of language in defining it as a cultural product. Herder, Humboldt, Hamann, and Vossler recognize the insignificance of grammar as long as it is regarded as an abstract foundation for linguistics. Style is of utmost importance for all of them since they undermine the representation-theory by means of an "open rhetoric" using flexible rules and defining a sort of creative structural analysis. "Die Art" or the "how" of language gives linguistic expression the status of something spiritual and non-static. All four thinkers formulated their opposition to philosophical abstractions in terms o...
I show that Gadamer’s thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definitio... more I show that Gadamer’s thoughts on Spiel (game or play in English) are essential for the definition of a hermeneutics of place. From a hermeneutic point of view, places are experienced whilst the subject is both in the place and part of the place. There is a dialectical relationship between the individual and a space that is always already at work for that individual. Similar to what happens in play, the experience of the place overcomes subjectivity, which means that an “experienced place” has its own essence independent of the consciousness of the one who is in the place.
Harry Frankfurt defines bullshit as the misrepresentation of reality that remains different from ... more Harry Frankfurt defines bullshit as the misrepresentation of reality that remains different from lying because, contrary to the liar, the “bullshitter” does not try to deceive. The question, in the realm of art, is whether kitsch overlaps with bullshit as a sort of “aesthetic bullshit” or if there are differences between bullshit as a predominantly ethical phenomenon and kitsch, which works more with categories such as pleasure and indulgence. I will show that, given bullshit’s intrinsic link with the technique of embellishment, bullshit is as much at home in the realm of aesthetics as in the realm of ethics.
Botz-Bornstein Thorsten. Leslie Pingus, Authentificating Culture in Imperial Japan : Kuki Shûzô a... more Botz-Bornstein Thorsten. Leslie Pingus, Authentificating Culture in Imperial Japan : Kuki Shûzô and the Rise of National Aesthetics. In: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 54ᵉ année, N. 3, 1999. pp. 776-778
The verb κενόω (kenos) means ‘to empty’ and St. Paul uses the word ἐκένωσεν (ekenosen) writing th... more The verb κενόω (kenos) means ‘to empty’ and St. Paul uses the word ἐκένωσεν (ekenosen) writing that ‘Jesus made himself nothing’ and ‘emptied himself’. Śūnyatā is a Buddhist concept most commonly translated as emptiness, nothingness, or nonsubstantiality. An important kenosis–śūnyatā discussion was sparked by Abe Masao’s paper ‘Kenotic God and Dynamic Śūnyatā’ (in 1984). I confront the kenosis–śūnyatā theme with Vattimo’s kenosis-based philosophy of religion. For Vattimo, kenosis refers to ‘secularization’: when strong structures such as the essence and the fulfilment of the Christian message are weakened. Parallels between Abe’s and Vattimo’s thought will be demonstrated with regard to themes current in East–West comparative philosophy: reality and emptiness, the overcoming of metaphysics, the position of the Self, the human and the divine, and the relationship between science and religion. The latter point is particularly timely because since the 1990s religious fundamentalism has pushed forward a curious ‘religion as science’ hypothesis. Both thinkers’ relationship with the idea of Nothingness will also be explored. Finally, Abe’s interpretation of śūnyatā will be presented as a form of ‘weak thought’. Both Abe and Vattimo design a religious attitude based on negativity without falling into the trap of anti-religious nihilism. Abe’s negation of the subject, which leads to a pluralism of beings, can very well be compared with Vattimo’s paradoxical ‘credere di credere’ (to believe to believe), through which Vattimo describes the attitude of an ego that has lost its own subjectivity. The person who does not believe but only ‘believes to believe’ is a sort of non-ego. I show that a ‘half-theistic’ way of thinking God based on kenosis can work in the service of plurality because it deconstructs the principle of reality based on faith and ‘fullness’.
Abstract: I examine Days of Being Wild by distinguishing between two kinds of nostalgia: the fulf... more Abstract: I examine Days of Being Wild by distinguishing between two kinds of nostalgia: the fulfilled one and the sustained one. While fulfilled nostalgia can easily turn into an affected sentimentality, sustained nostalgia never ends. Sustained nostalgia is produced when time is not permitted to “flow” in a straightforward fashion but when it proceeds towards the desired past along more “twisted” and torturous lines. A typical device used by sustained nostalgia is the metonymy. The metonymy is a figure of speech, which, like the metaphor, calls a thing not by its own name but by the name of another. In metonymy this act of substitution is based on contiguity. In WKW’s films “present moments” are encapsulated in the metonymical presentation of narrative details, which contain a past though this past cannot be accessed and traced in the form of a “real past” through symbolizing gestures. Wong Kar-wai’s films are not about time as a temporal flow but about time-details that have been “packaged,” conserved or “canned” in order to be contemplated. This procedure is metonymical. Keywords: Wong Kar-wai, metonymy, mnemesis, anamnesis, metaphor, symbolism, nostalgia, chronotope.
Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology differ in their choice of complementary p... more Claude Lévi-Strauss holds that history and anthropology differ in their choice of complementary perspectives: history organizes its data in relation to conscious expressions of social life, while anthropology proceeds by examining its unconscious foundations. For R. G. Collingwood historical science discovers not only pure facts but considers a whole series of thoughts constituting historical life. Also Lévi-Strauss sees this: “To understand history it is necessary to know not only how things are, but how they have come to be.” However, Lévi-Strauss does not perceive the double-sense of history, which can first be a record of historical “conscious” facts and second, a chain of unconscious or half-conscious acts. Like Lévi-Strauss, Charles Bally has derived the main theses of his theory from Saussure. However, contrary to Lévi-Strauss, Bally does not find structures at the inside of the phenomena but at their outside: “Our attention is drawn to the expressive side and not to the inte...
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How did various ages, cultures, and philosophies deal with conspiracy theories? Why do conspiracy theories appear very much in certain ages but less in others? Conspiracy theories require a peculiar philosophical mindset. Some philosophies, such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism, make conspiracy theories quasi-impossible because they find original ways of combining contingency with ontological, theological, or cosmological premises.
How can the world be explained without falling into either contingency fatalism or the determinism of conspiracy theories? The alternatives I present highlight the notions of play and game as essential terms for the philosophy of contingency. Play faces contingency “head on.” It does not avoid the coincidence by transforming it into necessity, but it does not fall into deterministic fatalism either.
The conspiracy theory is an area, or an entire country, that receives refugees from the world of Enlightenment. After centuries of struggles, modernity has created a universe in which everybody is liberated, and everything, even art and sexuality are democratic, tolerant, well organized, and ranked. The problem is that this late Enlightenment system is so perfect that some people cannot find their place in it. Those who are left out become conspiracy theorists. As Baudrillard wrote, “the more the system is perfect, the more people are left out” (2005: 69). The aim of this book is to find a different approach towards contingency. Both the modern and the anti-modern people have difficulties dealing with contingency as they oppose progress to anti-progress, and Enlightenment to anti-Enlightenment. The one or the other are both seen as necessities. What about contingency? What about this quality that had always perturbed order, progress, science, belief, and convictions? If people recognize that the world is made, to a large extent, of contingencies, and that even modernity is not founded on necessity alone but on a slew of arbitrary decisions, the “perfect world model” of late Enlightenment can look more penetrable, accommodating, and humane.
After World War II, organic aspects were neglected even in biology. Biology decided to work on either genes (micro) or populations (macro). Most recently, this changed. Biology witnesses the return of the organic. Biologists will remember the twentieth century as the century of the gene and the twenty-first century as the century of the organic. This book attempts to establish this view in (political) philosophy.
The micro is concrete and individual. The micro is culture and culture is an organic micro phenomenon evolving in contact with macro structures. In a neoliberal environment, micro aspects lead an increasingly precarious existence. What role can philosophy play in a world predominantly determined by macro structures? Will it join the generalized universalism (as it used to do most of the time for centuries)? Or will it switch to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy that has repercussions on politics and culture. Our thinking should switch to the organic.
ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.
Botz-Bornstein’s study takes up Sesemann’s idea of experience as a dynamic, constantly self-reflective, ungraspable phenomenon that cannot be objectified. Through various studies, the author shows how Sesemann develops an outstanding idea of experience by reflecting it against empathy, Erkenntnistheorie (theory of knowledge), Formalism, Neo-Kantianism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Bergson’s philosophy. Sesemann’s thought establishes a link between Formalist thoughts about dynamics and a concept of Being reminiscent of Heidegger.
The book contains also translations of two essays by Sesemann as well as of an essay by Karsavin.
How did various ages, cultures, and philosophies deal with conspiracy theories? Why do conspiracy theories appear very much in certain ages but less in others? Conspiracy theories require a peculiar philosophical mindset. Some philosophies, such as Daoism and Zen Buddhism, make conspiracy theories quasi-impossible because they find original ways of combining contingency with ontological, theological, or cosmological premises.
How can the world be explained without falling into either contingency fatalism or the determinism of conspiracy theories? The alternatives I present highlight the notions of play and game as essential terms for the philosophy of contingency. Play faces contingency “head on.” It does not avoid the coincidence by transforming it into necessity, but it does not fall into deterministic fatalism either.
The conspiracy theory is an area, or an entire country, that receives refugees from the world of Enlightenment. After centuries of struggles, modernity has created a universe in which everybody is liberated, and everything, even art and sexuality are democratic, tolerant, well organized, and ranked. The problem is that this late Enlightenment system is so perfect that some people cannot find their place in it. Those who are left out become conspiracy theorists. As Baudrillard wrote, “the more the system is perfect, the more people are left out” (2005: 69). The aim of this book is to find a different approach towards contingency. Both the modern and the anti-modern people have difficulties dealing with contingency as they oppose progress to anti-progress, and Enlightenment to anti-Enlightenment. The one or the other are both seen as necessities. What about contingency? What about this quality that had always perturbed order, progress, science, belief, and convictions? If people recognize that the world is made, to a large extent, of contingencies, and that even modernity is not founded on necessity alone but on a slew of arbitrary decisions, the “perfect world model” of late Enlightenment can look more penetrable, accommodating, and humane.
After World War II, organic aspects were neglected even in biology. Biology decided to work on either genes (micro) or populations (macro). Most recently, this changed. Biology witnesses the return of the organic. Biologists will remember the twentieth century as the century of the gene and the twenty-first century as the century of the organic. This book attempts to establish this view in (political) philosophy.
The micro is concrete and individual. The micro is culture and culture is an organic micro phenomenon evolving in contact with macro structures. In a neoliberal environment, micro aspects lead an increasingly precarious existence. What role can philosophy play in a world predominantly determined by macro structures? Will it join the generalized universalism (as it used to do most of the time for centuries)? Or will it switch to ethnophilosophy and postmodern fragmentation? Universalist cosmopolitanism and egocentric culturalism are not the only alternatives. Western philosophy has created a false dichotomy that has repercussions on politics and culture. Our thinking should switch to the organic.
ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.
Botz-Bornstein’s study takes up Sesemann’s idea of experience as a dynamic, constantly self-reflective, ungraspable phenomenon that cannot be objectified. Through various studies, the author shows how Sesemann develops an outstanding idea of experience by reflecting it against empathy, Erkenntnistheorie (theory of knowledge), Formalism, Neo-Kantianism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Bergson’s philosophy. Sesemann’s thought establishes a link between Formalist thoughts about dynamics and a concept of Being reminiscent of Heidegger.
The book contains also translations of two essays by Sesemann as well as of an essay by Karsavin.
new ‘tattoo space’ in which the skin need not necessarily bear the
stigmatic mark, nor need it function as a screen of male desire. The tattooed skin becomes a wall on which multiple thoughts and desires
are projected; tattoos have become graffiti.
Lanham: Lexington-Rowman & Littlefield, 2015
Baudrillard mentions McLuhan’s ideas about a “hot” presence opposed to a more elusive but inspiring “cool” semi-presence in the context of ritual forms that transcend all sociality and by which we are seduced. For McLuhan, the term “hot” applies to any kind of information that is highly defined or that “leaves not much to be filled in”; and revelation is supposed to be exactly that. As a matter of fact, nothing can be “hotter” than revelation. Religion (as it contains revelation) is thus hot, while culture is cool because it leaves the transmitted information partly unexplained and open to interpreta¬tion.
I look at fusions of Muslim culture with Punk, Hard Rock or Hip Hop youth culture Those are no “counter-cultural religions” and have no potential to convert into those. Their version of “Islamic Revival” is strictly cultural and cannot be compared with the sort of “religious revivals” occurring in the U.S. in the form of groups like Youth for Christ, Jesus Freaks, Hare Krishna or the Unification Church (the Moon Sect), all of which represent responses to the increased secularism and materialism of contemporary society by using purely religious means.
distinct.
African American coolness is part of the modern aesthetic project, particularly in the context of the ethics and aesthetics of alienation. New World Modernity is cool because it depends on wilful acts of alienation. Similar things can be said about kawaii. Both cool and kawaii overcome a passive techno-future determined by coldness and automation. Both cool and kawaii must be perceived as modern values able to embrace antagonistic terms such as liberation, fragmentation, and alienation.
I show that both jazz and contemporary Japanese popular culture have found a type of cool that can be called the anti-sarcastic cool. Both African American culture and Japanese anime/manga brush against the grain of binary moralisms and introduce features transcending the bitter irony of white mainstream coolness. New World Modernism is able to overcome the “binary oppositions of natural, primitive, rules, and peoples of color” says West. Kawaii culture, as it is located in futuristic postcolonial Japan, is “timed” in an eccentric fashion, which means that this culture does not follow the “popular realism” of mainstream white Europeans or Americans. The expansion of both cool and kawaii culture is thus an attribute of the above New World Modernism.
The mythical and pseudo-historical past upon which many Chinese philosophical discourses are built has arguably led to a quasi-virtual timelessness whose effects remain significant in China’s contemporary political life. At the same time, American civilization consists – viewed from a certain angle – in an aseptic, dishistoricized culture that authors such as Jean Baudrillard have described in terms of “hyperreality.”
important kenosis–śunyata discussion was sparked by Abe Masao’s paper ‘KenoticGod and Dynamic Śunyata’ (in 1984). I confront the kenosis–śunyata theme with Vattimo’s kenosis based philosophy of religion. For Vattimo, kenosis refers to ‘secularization’: when strong structures such as the essence and the fulfilment of the Christian message are weakened. Parallels between Abe’s and Vattimo’s thought will be demonstrated with regard to themes current in East–West comparative philosophy: reality and emptiness, the overcoming of
metaphysics, the position of the Self, the human and the divine, and the relationship between science and religion. The latter point is particularly timely because since the 1990s religious fundamentalism has pushed forward a curious ‘religion as science’ hypothesis. Both thinkers’ relationship with the idea of Nothingness will also be explored. Finally,
Abe’s interpretation of śunyata will be presented as a formof ‘weak thought’. Both Abe and Vattimo design a religious attitude based on negativity without falling into the trap of antireligious nihilism. Abe’s negation of the subject, which leads to a pluralism of beings, can very well be compared with Vattimo’s paradoxical ‘credere di credere’ (to believe to believe), throughwhich Vattimo describes the attitude of an ego that has lost its own subjectivity. The person who does not believe but only ‘believes to believe’ is a sort of non-ego. I show that a ‘half-theistic’ way of thinking God based on kenosis can work in the service of plurality because it deconstructs the principle of reality based on faith and ‘fullness’.
Contents:
Preface
Introduction:
Space and the Virtual: An East-West Comparison
1. The Gamelike and Dreamlike Structures of Nishida Kitarô’s Pure Experience
2. Iki, Style, Trace: Kuki Shûzô and the Spirit of Hermeneutics
3. Contingency and the ‘Time of the Dream’: Kuki Shûzô and French Prewar
Philosophy
4. The ‘I’ and the ‘Thou’: A Dialogue between Nishida Kitarô and Mikhail Bakhtin
5. Ma, Basho, Aida: Three Japanese Concepts of Space at the Age of Globalization
6. Nishida Kitarô and the Politics of the Virtual Body
7. Nishida and Wittgenstein: From Pre-conceptual Experience to Lebensform
Postface: “Predicative Logic” and Virtual Stylistics
Appendix:
Introduction
1. “City of Kuwait: A Future Concept”
1.1. Kuwait in 1969
1.2. A History of Master Plans
1.3. The Pietiläs’ Two Plans for Kuwait
1.4. The Sief Palace Area
1.5. The Morphology of the Inner City
2. The Sief Palace Buildings
2.1. The Old and the New Sief Palace
2.2. The Sief Palace Extension
2.3. The Ministry
2.4. Metaphors, Symbols and Analogies in the Ministry
2.5. The “Skin Technique”
2.6. The Ministry’s Connection to the Area
3. Transcultural Architecture
3.1. Transculturalism
3.2. Multiculturalism
3.3. Micro and Macro Levels
3.4. Fusion, Mosaic, Network
3.5. Transcultural Architecture and Critical Regionalism
3.6. Pietilä’s “Skin Technique” and Transculturalism
3.7. Postcolonialism
3.8. Identity in Finland and in Kuwait
4. The Ministry Transformed
4.1. The Ministry Buildings
4.2. The Environment of the Ministry
4.3. New Buildings
4.4. The Macro Scale
5. Conclusions
5.1. The Urban Problem
5.2. The Aesthetic Problem
5.3. The Kuwait Project and the Problem of Critical Regionalism
5.4. Critical Thinking in Kuwait
5.5. The Limits of Critical Regionalism
5.6. A Brief Comparison with Two Other Buildings
that he derives from Chinese garden architecture. Further the article examines the possibilities of critical regionalism within a typically Chinese socio-cultural context that is determined by a particular relationship with history. A critical philosophical
tradition (in the west developed by Humboldt and Ranke) is absent in Chinese
thought. Neither in Qing China, during the years of attempted reforms, nor during the “Hundred Days Reform” or the “Chinese Renaissance,” has Chinese thought been able to establish a critical tradition. The author discusses if contemporary Chinese architects will be able to create a valuable Chinese environment flowing out of a critical interchange with China’s history.
What do monuments look like in the “socialist” world? Is the ideologically loaded monument also here subject to discomfort? What makes the case of the Chinese buildings presented above so curious is that they do not provide the slightest discourse of domination. These arches do not even register grave errors nor do they evoke the tiniest micronarrative or microhistory. Instead of dominating our understanding, those monumental elements are dominated - but by what? They are dominated by global or international ideas that are not only alien to the architectural elements themselves but also, to a certain extent, to the cultural environment in which they appear.
Frampton dismisses the possibility that dream can fulfill the function of a filmind. The filmind is the reality as it is experienced by the film in the same way in which the dream reality is the reality experienced by the dreamer. The dream reality is not the reproduction of some “exterior” reality, but it is its own world with its own intentions and its own creativity. Like Frampton’s filmind, the dream is not of the world but it is a world. We encounter such non-essentializing accounts of dreams much more in far-Eastern than in Western definitions of dreams. Zen philosophy and practice in particular develops a scheme that attempts to grasp a non-objectified reality reminiscent of Frampton’s filmind.
mysticism" (Bréhier). Also Tarkovsky’s "spiritualist"
penchant flows out of a religious, "non-modern" attitude.
But Tarkovsky and Plotinus are also heirs of a rationalist
tradition strongly marked by scientific formalism. Tarkovsky was well aware of the philosophical problems linked to the subjectivism of perception. He intended to modify the final result obtained by the materialist deconstruction of subjectivist empathy carried out before by the Eisensteinian materialism-formalism. Plotinus was confronted with problems of the same order. He aspires a "mystical union," Plotinus could be classified
as a subjectivist. Still, the "mystical union" of Plotinus’ design is not as simplistic as that which is usually advanced by subjectivism. I detect the development of Russian formalism towards a Plotinian "formalism" realized by Tarkovsky. The conception of the image as "an organic link between idea and form" culminates in an aesthetics of non-symbolic images communicated without passing through the intermediary of the intellect, directly representing the Intelligible.
Keywords: Wong Kar-wai, metonymy, mnemesis, anamnesis, metaphor, symbolism, nostalgia, chronotope.
Critics have noticed the violence and the crude treatment of human relations in Kim’s films because here people seem “to act out of impulses” (Gombeaud, 2006:13). Though literature has extensively treated the relationship between Korean cinema and the country’s troubled past, few authors have attempted to connect Kim Kiduk’s emanations of violence to the problem of the divided nation. Even more surprising is the fact that, so far, few critics have put the problem of identity to the center of a study of Kim’s films, let alone attempted to link this theme to that of the Korean nation suffering from an identity crisis. Still it appears that the main theme in Kim’s films is that of “identity troubles”: most of his fifteen films deal with fundamental changes of personal identities through unusual encounters or situations.
The dissecting and reconstituting of portraits is one of the most recurrent themes in Kim’s films. The identity theme appears most clearly in Time where Sehie, fearing that her boyfriend Ji-woo will soon get bored of her and reject her, decides to undergo aesthetic surgery in order to approach him as a new person (Saehie). Though, socially speaking, Sehie and Saehie are different persons, they share identical lifeworlds. In many of Kim’s films, faces are dissected, reconstituted, and dissected again. Most of the time these procedures are applied to paper faces, but in Address Unknown Eun-ok’s eye is hurt by a knife, and in Time, real faces are submitted to the scissors.
It is clear that the acts of self-mutilation are metaphorical expressions of real social problems existing in the Korean nation. It will be shown that what is elaborated in Kim’s films is not the split of personalities into two segments but rather a play of signifying selves and others that lets any authentic identity entirely disappear and which comes amazingly close to both Roland Barthes’s and Jean Baudrillard’s systems of communication in which “signs are exchanged against each other rather than against the real” (Baudrillard, 1993:7).
Revue internationale d’études japonaises
Numéro spéciale: L’architecture japonaise contemporaine
Les choses et “l’entre les choses”
Sous la direction de Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 to the EHESS of Paris.
et
‘Le cinéma de la cruauté’
Chapter contained in the habilitation file of Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999
To the EHESS of Paris
Habilitation à diriger les recherches
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999
To the EHESS of Paris
Habilitation à diriger les recherches
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999 to the EHESS of Paris.
Submitted on Nov. 1, 1999
To the EHESS of Paris
Habilitation à diriger les recherches
The Platonian-Aristotelian distinction between the intelligible and the sensible has dominated the understanding of Elean philosophy. However, there is one idea that appears to be central in Elean thought that has challenged this very Aristotelian distinction: the idea of “being-in,” as it has been treated especially by Zeno and which presents itself as a dialectical problem in regard to Being.
Selon Jean Baudrillard, notre monde contemporain a été remplacé par une copie de celui-ci dans laquelle les questions de la « réalité » et de l’authenticité sont devenues redondantes. La Chine produit une version hyperréaliste de sa propre culture par des moyens spécifiques au traitement traditionnel (confucéen) de l’histoire. L’hyperréalisme américain a, par tradition également, créé une civilisation de l’utopie matérialiste excellant dans la construction d’univers fictifs comme Disneyland et Las Vegas.
Les analyses développées dans le livre mènent à une comparaison de l’Amérique et de la Chine contemporaines et historiques capable à expliquer des éventuels conflits à travers leurs nationalismes ou leurs idées différentes sur la religion et sur l’architecture…
Yoshimi. By Yoshimi Takeuchi (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2005)
Wolfgang Kraushaar: The Revolt of the Educated: From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement (Der Aufruhr der Ausgebildeten: Vom Arabischen Fühling zur Occupy Bewegung). Hamburger Edition, 2012,
And
Roland Gori : The Impostor Factory (La Fabrique des Imposteurs). Paris : Les liens qui libèrent, 2013
On and champions of ‘assessment culture’ and occupy people. Both, (1) the assessment culture of constant evaluations and the tendency to capture everything (including humans) in the form of data bases or biometric profiles, and (2) the ongoing international protests sparked by an often vague sense of dissatisfaction, are the events that dominate contemporary culture like perhaps nothing else. What do they have in common?
Reviewed by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Published in The Berlin Review of Books Dec. 31, 2017.
Bullshit Art. PJA Volume 63 (4/2021)
Submission deadline ⏰: June 30, 2021
Editors: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein (Gulf University for Science & Technology, Kuwait) & Adrian Mróz (The Jagiellonian University in Krakow, PL)
Submission site: https://pjaesthetics.uj.edu.pl/en_GB/wyslij-tekst
For more information, please access https://www.odiphilosophy.com/
ODIP, em cooperação com ALAFI (Associação Latino-Americana de Filosofia Intercultural), convida para envios de temas relacionados à filosofia intercultural. ODIP oferece breves e compreensíveis definições de termos filosóficos não-ocidentais. Seu intuito é promover uma mudança de uma perspectiva da filosofia comparada para uma Filosofia Mundial, permitindo uma genuína pluralidade do conhecimento, da prática e da vivência humana. Prazo de entrega: 5 de junho, 2020. Para mais informações, por favor, acesse https://www.odiphilosophy.com/