Nihilism: a current philosophical issue

 

Professors Dr. Jean-Luc Marion and Dr. Costantino Esposito, two of the most relevant figures in philosophy nowadays, have recently published two articles in the Italian newspaper L’Osservatore Romano discussing the experience of nihilism in the contemporary world. The analyses of these two important philosophers point out that nihilism is a current philosophical theme whose discussion can offer new horizons of thought.

Prof. Dr. Esposito is a research fellow at the International Centre of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic) and has as one of its research areas, precisely, the phenomenon of contemporary nihilism.

Link to the article: https://www.osservatoreromano.va/it/pdfreader.html/quo/2023/05/QUO_2023_122_2805.pdf.htmldf.html

International journals edited by CeNic research fellows

 

International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism informs about the international journals edited by its researchers, with the aim of inviting professors and students interested in Philosophy to visit their website and get to know them in detail:

 Cuestiones de Filosofía. (Editor: Prof. Dr. Alfredo Rocha de la Torre)
https://revistas.uptc.edu.co/index.php/cuestiones_filosofia/index
 Phainomena. Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics (Editor: Prof. Dr. Dean Komel)
http://www.phainomena.com/en/
 Quaestio. Anuario di storia della metafísica (Editor: Prof. Dr. Costantino Esposito)
https://www.quaestio.info/
 Signos (Editor: Prof. Dr. Rogerio Schuck)
http://www.univates.br/revistas/index.php/signos/index
 Teoria. Rivista di Filosofia fondata da Vittorio Sainati (Editor: Prof. Dr. Adriano Fabris)
http://www.rivistateoria.eu/
 Trópos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica (Editores: Prof. Dr. Gaetano Chiurazzi / Prof. Dr. Gianni Vattimo)
https://troposonline.org/
 TVRĐA – Journal for theory, culture and visual arts (Editor: Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić)
https://tvrdja.com/

New Publication: Prof. Dr. Costantino Esposito

 

Prof. Dr. Costantino Esposito, research fellow at International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism, has published O Nihilismo de nosso tempo: Uma crônica (Edições Loyola, 2023). This book was originally published in Italian (Carocci, 2021) and has been translated into Spanish (Ediciones Encuentro, 2021), Russian (Современный нигилизмХроника; Ripol Classic Éditions, Moscou 2022) and Portuguese for the present edition. In this work the author presents nihilism as an open question, that is, as a phenomenon that brings up different problematics that demand the urgency of thinking about a meaning for the different experiences of life. Nihilism is not conceived as an obstacle that leads to the loss of values and ideals, but as an opportunity for the search for meaning. In this way, the author, using philosophical, literary, cultural, aesthetic, cinematographic references and the analysis of social phenomena, analyses the ways in which the phenomenon of nihilism manifests itself in the contemporary world and allows us to rethink the meaning of man and the world.

New Publication: Prof. Dr. Andreas Urs Sommer

 

Prof. Dr. Andreas Urs Sommer, research fellow at International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published Entscheide Dich! Der Krieg und die Demokratie (Herder, 2023). Some of the main questions raised in this book are: Is war a legitimate tool of democracy? Is war a reprehensible matter in itself, which must be rejected per se by all democratic societies? In response to these questions, the author points out that war and democracy are not mutually excluded; on the opposite, war can also be seen as an opportunity for democratic societies to take responsibility for themselves. This problematic is not only important in the background of the current war in Ukraine, but should be understood as an important contribution to the debate on the geopolitical “tipping point”.

New Publication: Prof. Dr. Dean Komel

 

Prof. Dr. Dean Komel, research fellow at International Centre of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published V paralelah smisla [In the Parallels of Meaning] (Humanistična zbirka INR, 2023). This book explores the relationship of philosophy to culture, the humanities, language, poetry, technoscience, historicity, sociality and mentality. When philosophically reflecting on the above-mentioned areas, it is not enough to follow established criteria of scientific objectivity, but it is necessary to specifically develop the own context of meaning that guides the understanding. The oscillation between the ‘determinability’ and ‘indeterminability’ of direction establishes philosophical experience as an open relationship. In this way, the meaning that takes place in parallel makes it possible to move between different expressive registers. For instance, the voice and the image that make up the word are transformed by the poem into a string and a face. But for the information channels this means nothing, which reveals the nihilism of communication that dominates the world.

New publication: Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić

 

Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić, research fellow at International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published the book The Return of Totalitarianism. Ideology, Terror and Total Control (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). This book argues with theorists of totalitarianism and calls for a re-evaluation of the approaches concerned with mass manipulation of people and ideological mechanisms of control. Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić points out that totalitarianism is not only a political-ideological problem, but also a problem of the relationship between the technosphere, political power and the narcissistic culture of spectacle, which offers postmodern revisionism and forgetting of history, as opposed to courageous civic participation in the public sphere of common action. The author investigates the transformations experienced in the contemporary world by the political and cultural processes associated with the concept of “totalitarianism”, and the changes (and differences) that this concept expresses today in comparison with what Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism represented in the 20th century.

New Member: Prof. Dr. Costantino Esposito

 

Prof. Dr. Costantino Esposito has recently joined the International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic) as a research fellow. Costantino Esposito is Doctor in Philosophy from the Università degli Studi di Bari (Italy) and is currently Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Metaphysics at the Università degli Studi di Bari, at the Dipartimento di Ricerca e Innovazione Umanistica (DIRIUM) and at the Istituto di Studi Filosofici of the Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) in Lugano. He is founder and editor of the international journal Quaestio. Anuario di storia della metafísica, and of the series of studies and texts Biblioteca Filosofica di Quaestio and Ad Argumenta. Quaestio special Issues. He is also a specialist in the thought of Heidegger, Kant and Francisco Suárez, and has translated several of their works into Italian.

New publication: Prof. Dr. Éric Pommier

 

Prof. Dr. Éric Pommier, research fellow at International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published La Democracia Medioambiental. Preservar nuestra parte de la naturaleza (Ediciones UC, 2022). This book, originally published in French by PUF (2022), proposes to explore ways of reconciling the ethical and the political through the concept of environmental democracy. In the context of the deployment of technical power and its threats, increasing attention is being paid to the need of defending a principle of responsibility towards future generations, life and Earth. However, it is not clear, on the one hand, how the interests of future generations could be represented –since they have not yet been born– and, on the other, how the interests of living beings and Earth could be defended, since they are not subjects of law. Is it to be concluded from this that the new ethical demand is only an unrealizable utopia, which could even be dangerous for democracies if its realization is sought at all costs? If it is possible to criticize democracy for its lack of concern for the planet, living beings and future generations, it is also possible to distance oneself from a regime that seeks to defend these interests in detriment of the rights of classical subjects, i.e., contemporary humanity.

New publication – Prof. Dr. Adriano Fabris.

 

Prof. Dr. Adriano Fabris, co-director and research fellow of International Centre of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published Heidegger. Una guida (Carocci editore, 2023). The volume consists of ten chapters, written by some of the leading scholars of the German philosopher (Adriano Fabris, Stefano Bancalari, Francesco Camera, Costantino Esposito, Giusi Strummiello, Adriano Ardovino, Eugenio Mazzarella, Carmine Di Martino, Virgilio Cesarone, Aldo Magris), presenting in a clear and exhaustive way the main themes of Heideggerian philosophy: Phenomenology, hermeneutics, ontology, the “thought of Ereignis”, meditations on the work of art and poetry, as well as those on technology and questions of ecological impact, including the nexus with Christianity. An updated bibliography and an explanatory index by Annalisa Caputo of the fundamental concepts used by Heidegger in his research complete the volume.

New Publication: Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić

 

Prof. Dr. Žarko Paić, research fellow at International Center of Studies on Contemporary Nihilism (CeNic), has published The Technosphere as a New Aesthetic (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022). This collection, devoted to the theme of Homo Kybernetes, examines the genesis and development of various considerations of the technosphere as an aesthetic problem. The contributions collected in the book reflect on cybernetic thought as a condition of possibility of digital aesthetics, and on the possibilities of transition of human sensibility towards a different mode of bodily existence. The volume brings together contributions by Massimo De Carolis, Adriano Fabris, Dieter Mersch, Žarko Paić, David Edward Rose, Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Miško Šuvaković, Tonči Valentić and Natasha Vita-More.