Labyrinth: An International Journal for Philosophy, Value Theory and Sociocultural Hermeneutics
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Quod vitae sectabor iter? Salamanca between city paths and humanity in the path
Get PDFThis paper aims to analyze the façade and staircase of the historic building of the University of Salamanca as an expression of the relationship between philosophy, theology and art in the Spanish Siglo de Oro, and will try to provide a new perspective on the sculptural elements present in both spaces of the university. There are few interpretations on this subject, but they all converge on understanding sculptures as an expression of the myth of the Spanish monarchy. This essay, instead, will show how those same elements can be read in relation to the moral and anthropological needs of 16th century humanity and, thus, that the relationship between university spaces and the people who frequent them is even closer. To enter a space, according to such an interpretation, does not simply mean to use it, but to frequent it and understand in it and from it reflections for everyday life.
The Critical-Linguistic Critique of the Aesthetic Ideology in the Late Writing of Paul de Man
Get PDFThe focus of this essay is Paul de Man\u27s provocative antipathy towards the category of the aesthetic in his late writings on philosophical aesthetics. I introduce de Man\u27s critique of what he terms aesthetic ideology – a form of ideological communication – which he considers manifest in the aesthetics of Schiller in particular but also in more scrupulously critical philosophers. I begin the essay with Benjamin\u27s well known observation that twentieth century fascisms aestheticized political practice as part of a defence of existing property relations. I introduce de Man\u27s critique of aesthetic ideology as a way of developing or elaborating on what are relatively sketchy comments on the relationship aesthetics and politics in Benjamin\u27s earlier essay
Camus and Aristotle on the Art Community and its Errors
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to show the agreement of Camus and Aristotle on the cultural function of the art community (the community of artist and audience), in particular their criticism of what should be called barbarian or nihilistic practices of art. Camus\u27 art and criticism have been frequent targets of modern critics, but his point is and would be that such critics have the wrong idea of the purpose of art. His answer to such critics and the parallelism of his ideas with Aristotle\u27s criticism of barbarian culture, show that the real issue between Camus and his critics is cultural
Institutionalization and autonomy of art: Can socially engaged art be institutionalized?
Get PDFThis paper deals with the autonomy of art and more specifically with the autonomy of socially engaged art once it is institutionalized. The originality of the article is its use of Goodman\u27s terminology to theorize socially engaged art. By comparing two works of art from the same collective (one without an institutional framework and the other in a festival), the main issue is to defend the hypothesis that artistic consecration prevents an emancipatory action from functioning as art or prevents an action from functioning as socially engaged art. Thus, in the context of engaged art, the question is no longer "when is art?" but "where is art?"
Dante\u27s Self-Angelizing: A Prophecy of Egalitarian Transhumanism
No full textIn this article, I argue that Dante\u27s philosophical goal is what I term "self-angelizing," an ennobling philosophical education granting one the knowledge and power of an angel, which the medieval scholastics conceived as celestial intelligences. Dante\u27s own path to self-angelizing begins in his early New Life, which approaches a living Beatrice as exemplar of terrestrial angels. Next, Dante\u27s middle-period Banquet discusses following Beatrice into self-angelizing through an education in philosophical virtue. Finally, in his climactic Paradise, Dante performs his own self-angelizing. The upshot of this journey is Dante\u27s prophecy of an egalitarian transhumanism
Bernard Williams and the concept of shame: What makes an emotion moral?
Get PDFThe paper proposes a way to understand moral emotions in ethics building upon Bernard Williams\u27 claim that feelings, emotions and sentiments are an integral part of rationality. Based upon Bernard Williams\u27 analysis of shame we argue that the richness and thickness that it is attached to some emotions is the key to understand why some emotions have a distinct ethical resonance. The first part takes up Bernard Williams\u27 philosophical assessment of the concept of shame (Williams 1993) establishing a general framework to show how recent developments in philosophy of emotions are in line with the far-reaching consequences of Bernard Williams\u27 insights. Then we highlight the way in which there is both an historical relativity to emotions and an intemporal understanding of their ethical role, and use the concept of meta-emotion to reinforce the idea that what makes some emotions moral requires employing Williams\u27 distinction between thick and thin concepts
The Experiential Self Re-Creates Itself in Others via the Enlargement of the Self’s Space-Control Ability: Dan Zahavi\u27s Arguments for the Existence of the Self
Get PDFThe diversity and complexity of the arguments and criticisms among philosophers on the question of the actual existence of the self can be condensed into two contrasting issues: The self is an experienced phenomenon that is generalized into a concept to assign to the cognitive subject as a tool for identification, or the self has its own existence as a transcendental entity that is activated and developed through interactions between the cognitive subject and the environment. Dan Zahavi summed up the endless controversy over the formation of the self in phenomenology, existentialism, and new insights in neuroscience to conclude that the existence of the self is only meaningful when it is "the experiential self." My article will focus on two issues: firstly, the self is formed by the interaction between the subject and the object in which the object is actively engaged in the control space of the subject; secondly, the understanding of the subject’s self-perception process, through the perspective of neuroscience, is triggered by the subject seeing itself in the other person.
On the Relationship between Values, Rights, Norms and Feelings
Get PDFEditorial to the special issue is dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute for Axiological Research and its journal Labyrinth. 
La valeur de la connaissance des émotions
Get PDFThe Value of the Emotional Knowledge Emotional knowledge is a form of self-knowledge which holds great interest for ordinary individuals. It is not obtained by any obligation but rather because we think it is crucial to obtain (Cassam 2017). In this article it is a matter of demonstrating that emotional knowledge holds an instrumental and a prudential value. By arguing that it can allow a control over our emotions, I shall maintain that emotional knowledge affects individual marginalization or acceptance in society. In addition, this type of knowledge is revealing of our personality by allowing us to identify our affective identities. Finally, I shall defend the idea that emotional knowledge contributes to the conduct of a good life. As such, my hypothesis could be viewed as incompatible with widespread ideas (Montaigne 2019), according to which the knowledge of our own emotions can trigger negative emotional states, e.g. mental rumination, anxiety, that do not contribute to our well-being.
Valeurs et normes sociales dans le projet d\u27émancipation de Cornelius Castoriadis
Get PDFThe purpose of this article is to analyze the philosophy of values developed by Cornelius Castoriadis from his theory of the imaginary institution of societies. By understanding the emergence of imaginary significations, it is possible to identify their manifestations through the representations, the affects and the intentions of individuals. In this context, values correspond to a series of significations that motivate the conduct of individuals. In fact, in a specific society, individuals believe in symbols that make sense for them. The presentation of the values does not reflect a moral project, but rather a socio-political construction that must be carefully described in order to identify the alteration of values over time. The article explores the way in which Castoriadis poses the problem of the persistence of past values with the risk of depending on established norms without being able to really transform them. In this perspective, Castoriadis refers to a fundamental value which is that of autonomy capable of questioning existing imaginaries.