Contemporary philosophy 12 th April
The problem Distance, 8me, needs, death and heritage have always made it hard to understand how human beings share world, how Nature is understandable to each of us We need instruments, tools, means to communicate that But how to exceed the differences of sensi8vity, of senses, of combining? Is there one tool? Or do we need mixed media?
Representa8on In early 16 th century natural philosophers (becoming natural scien8sts) construed a program that included both the use of geometry and mathema8cs and enhance the concept language to bemer describe Nature ANer 300 years of doing so the situa8on is s8ll quite unsemled Nietzsche began (1870) and post modern thinkers carry on ques8oning whether concept language has succeeded in its amempt to describe well Nature and world
Quite afar The overall answer has been: no Concept language, no Even in lesser amount mathema8cs and logics People are today more farther away off from each other than ever before: those who read and have internet access have a world that seems to be from another planet if compared to those who don t
Nietzsche N gives hundreds of examples how fragmented, differen8ated, incompa8ble our understanding is, even here (West, North) He sees no real way out of such difference but abandon concept language and turn to myths, orgies, and delirium He calls for representa8ve medium or frame that we could devote us to, like a new belief It must be art but not the art of today (1870)
Representa8on The ques8on is: how to represent Nature in any given or created medium so that it makes sense to human being? This is the core ques8on of any knowledge, any science and any human skill It as well adds to understanding human being since we need a mirror whereon to reflect the specific human way of framing, separa8ng, contextualizing, etc. the known
Representa8on We have only a fragmentary history of how Nature and world (and human therein) has been represented: clay items, cave pain8ngs, agriculture, ci8es, dance, myths, music, mores, laws, stories, philosophy, religion, ornaments, epic poems, plays, poetry, theatre, visual arts, universi8es, schools, states, sciences, agreements, trea8es, contracts, entertainment, theories, discourses, etc.
Representa8on None of these, alone, is able to reveal the rela8onship between man and Nature, man and world Plus: the sum of these is an irra8onal collec8on that does not speak one tongue Plus: above these there is no sphere that could unite the irra8onal and make it ra8onal
Representa8on Philosophers have used the word transcendental to describe human ability to share something that is not really shared in experience (species bound ability?) transcendental became an abracadabra that conceals the great gap there is between you and me in front of Nature As if we must understand each others The harsh denial of differences is a premeditated act of power
Representa8on Instead, we may try to approach the problem differently as some contemporary thinkers have done Lingis, Sloterdijk, Bataille, Foucault, Schürmann, Krell, etc. they think we need new answers, not new tools
Representa8on If you read French or German, please visit Wikipedia (no English version available) Regles pour le parc humain Regeln für den Menschenpark This gives you some idea of the enormity of the ques8on In Finnish: Nuori Voima 1/2000, ss. 7 16
Frame frame is a descrip8on of an idea where Nature or world is seen or taken purposefully limited and filtered, like in a frame Image is a frame: nothing is outside though everything is outside, really
Representa8on We need a representa8ve frame that includes 8me and distance (so it does not turn to conceptual), and is sensory based (so it does not turn to transcendental ) For most of the thinkers the frame is cinema since it is as if a fragment of life, already started somewhere, some8mes, and leaving behind a nondescript future whereto no one has access
Cinema It is not taken as a simulacrum of life but as the best mixed media representa8on we have, so far, managed to create of world and Nature Cinema, not a theory or a science, is the most informa8ve representa8on Philosophical research should assist and promote cinema to become what it already is: sensory based virtual representa8on of our need to understand (and share, perhaps)
Cinema This does not mean that we are aner a philosophy of cinema (whatever that may be) but that philosophy takes place in cinema This is a strange turn: Nietzsche promoted total art work (Gesamtkunstwerk) as the highest representa8ve frame West ever created (and at its best, stage+music+singing+ac8ng) since it replaced philosophy The same seems to take place in cinema: it does not replace philosophy but makes it happen anew
Nietzsche Literature on the theme The Gay Science (1882) The Case Wagner (1888) Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Representa8on of what? Philosophy has never defined itself as a representa8on; on the contrary, opposite to all other disciplines, philosophy has been on the trail of reality (=Nature, world) It must have taken representa8onal forms (language, theory, etc.) to make itself known and scru8nize the forms for its own purposes Philosophy has taken place independently of any other form, namely by thinking
Representa8on of what? In postmodern thinking we have a new situa8on: philosophy will be done in representa8on only in order to get access to reality One single representa8onal form acts as a door, give frames, give a certain 8me dimension, virtually, and like a laboratory makes it possible to dissect Nature and world into pamerns and meanings within a manageable frame (context)
Representa8on This indicates an important change: philosophy is not done in thinking but in seeing, hearing, feeling, with physical (or corporeal) empathy, as if being very near to emo8onal and bodily func8ons of human life so that no one can own the outcome (as my thinking, my thoughts ) because whoever may carry on alongside the representa8on and endlessly replenish and disprove all what has been done This indicates that philosophy takes place as a discourse on/in cinema
Representa8on Who is a philosopher, then? That is not the ques8on since people who make cinema, experience it, write of it are all taking stance in the same discourse where then philosophy takes place Quite few directors, cri8cs, etc. can be named as philosophers but the way they make us experience sensibly and thus think propor8onate to the work of cinema they are the ones who bring well framed ques8ons into the arena of publicity where we can carry on
Representa8on It is the talk, the discourse on cinema that makes us philosophize, not as if on reality but on framed reality, again and again, when the frame changes film by film Cinema is representa8onal form but the discourse that emerges from it is presen8ng Nature and world to us in a way that is not obscured by bombas8c idea of thinking the reality as it is
Literature Deleuze, Cinema 1 2 (1983, 1985) Journal of Philosophy and Moving Image (Lisbon) Journal Film Philosophy (www.filmphilosophy.com)