DE LA INEXISTENCIA DEL ARTE Nº4 - 30/11/2015

2011

Metaphysics has traditionally represented contingency via the modality of possibility. Contingent being is thought via the dierent being that it possibly can be. We claim that this mediation is an improper exchange of contingency. It collides with what Baudrillard calls the Impossible Exchange Barrier. 1 If contingency is to be thought absolutely, it must be thought independently of the map of possibilities. The notion of possible states must be eradicated throughout and Meillassoux's factual speculation should nd its adapted medium instead. We investigate what this alternative medium may be. Physics (instead of metaphysics) can be our guide, because quantum mechanics acts precisely at the level where the range of possible states is not yet decided. It strikes behind the scene where things are, precisely at the hinge where they can be. It is not in probability that absolute contingency will nd its right mediation or translation, but in a material medium that will replace probability altogether. Consequently, the necessity of contingency will no longer be intellectual but will become plainly material speculative thought having itself undergone the same material exchange as the one granting the proper translation of the strike of contingency. Absolute contingency In this article, we propose an alternative treatment of contingency one that doesn't unfold in time and never leaves the place where contingency strikes. The world emerged at a single stroke, Baudrillard writes in Impossible Exchange, and this is why it cannot have any determinate meaning or end.

This critical piece argues that the recent infatuation with the notion of event has everything to do with 1/ the fascination of our culture with spectacular phenomena and 2/ an unacknowledged longing for the irrational. It is certainly misguided to see in the “happening” of events phenomena that cannot be explained by reason since the word event itself means that something comes out of something (e-venire). It comes from something out of which it can be explained even if our feeble reason cannot yet entirely account for it. When one celebrates the notion of event as something unpredictable or destabilizing, as is common today, one confuses the fact that something cannot now be accounted for with the fact that it cannot be explained at all.

This article analyzes the status of Badiou's concept of the event in the context of the artistic field; specifically in relation to one paradigmatic event of modern art: Marcel Duchamp's ready-made. A comparative analysis between the ready-made and Badiou's event is established through four major points: first, the definition of ready-made's evental site; second, the description of the appearance of this event as an "effacing inscription"; third, the nature of the ready-made as a paradoxical object (fundamentally undecidable); fourth, the presence of what Badiou terms "interventional nomination" and "fidelity procedure" in the case of the ready-made. This analogical exploration defines the event's procedure as a delayed sabotage and leads to the detection of essential and problematical divergences.

2009

Everything that belongs to a whole constitutes an obstacle to this whole insofar as it is included in it Action, manor of the subject The real is the impasse of formalization; formalization is the place of the forced pass of the real vii xxxviii xliii 3 13 22 Hegel: 'The activity of force is essentially activity reacting against itself' 29 37 Subjective and objective Part II. The Subject under the Signifiers of the Exception Of force as disappearance, whose effect is the Whole from which it has disappeared Deduction of the splitting 'A la nue accablante tu' Any subject is a forced exception, which comes in second place Jewellery for the sacred of any subtraction of existence Part Ill. Lack and Destruction The new one forbids the new one, and presupposes it On the side of the true

Inquiry

It may be true that we are epistemically in the dark about various things. Does this fact ground the truth of fallibilism? No. Still, even the most zealous skeptic will probably grant that it is not clear that one can be incognizant of their own occurrent phenomenal conscious mental goings-on. Even so, this does not entail infallibilism. Philosophers who argue that occurrent conscious experiences play an important epistemic role in the justification of introspective knowledge assume that there are occurrent beliefs. But this assumption is false. This paper argues that there are no occurrent beliefs. And it considers the epistemic consequences this result has for views that attempt to show that at least some phenomenal beliefs are infallible.

2017

In this paper, we maintain that no extant argument in favor of so-called phenomenal externalism (PE) is really convincing. (PE) is the thesis that the phenomenal properties of our experiences must be individuated widely, that is, in extrinsic terms, insofar as they are constituted by worldly properties the experience puts its bearer in relation with. We will consider what we take to be the five best arguments for (PE): the 'irrelevance of indistinguishability'-argument, the transparency argument, the error argument, the individuation argument, and the weirdness argument. We will try to show that none of them really proves what it aims at proving. As things stand, unless better arguments in favor of phenomenal externalism will show up in the debate, we presently see no reason to relinquish an idea that sounds intuitive and has attracted many cognitive scientists. This is the idea that phenomenology is narrow, i.e., that phenomenal properties are intrinsic, hence monadic aka non-relational, properties of our experiences. Such an idea grounds the opposite philosophical position, phenomenal internalism (PI).

В статье представлена критика доводов Дэвида Чалмерса в пользу неопровержимости интроспекции феноменальных убеждений. Целью статьи является выдвижение ряда возражений против тезиса о неопровержимости интроспекции феноменальных убеждений, главное из которых исследует лежащие в основании данного тезиса имплицитные допущения существования особой интимной связи между чистым феноменальным понятием и представляемым им феноменальным свойством, а также прямого доступа через процедуру «знакомства» к самим феноменальным убеждениям. Ключевые слова: достоверность интроспекции, интроспекция, феноменальное понятие, феноменальное убеждение, эпистемология интроспекции. The aim of this article is to criticize David Chalmers’ incorrigibility thesis, which holds that a direct phenomenal belief cannot be false. In order to maintain his claim, Chalmers distinguishes three types of phenomenal concepts – relational phenomenal concepts, demonstrative phenomenal concepts and pure phenomenal concepts. According to Chalmers, pure phenomenal concepts do not pick out phenomenal properties relationally or indexically as do relational phenomenal concepts and demonstrative phenomenal concepts. Instead, they pick them out directly, in terms of their intrinsic phenomenal nature. Chalmers also distinguishes two subtypes of pure phenomenal concepts – direct phenomenal concepts and standing phenomenal concepts. Direct phenomenal concepts, which underlie direct phenomenal beliefs, can be formed by a subject only in presence of an object with phenomenal properties and only if she directs her attention to them. Standing phenomenal concepts can be formed by memory. Chalmers assumes that direct phenomenal concepts can be described as phenomenal concepts, which are partly constituted by underlying phenomenal qualities. He also insists on the existence of a special intimate connection between a direct phenomenal concept and its content – the phenomenal quality. This specific intimate connection makes the phenomenal concept’s representation of its content incorrigibly accurate. Moreover he describes the introspective access to a direct phenomenal belief (at heart of which there is a direct phenomenal concept) as an immediate, non-relational connection, which he names by the Russellian term “acquaintance.” First, the article tries to show that the idea of there being a special connection between direct phenomenal concepts and phenomenal properties, along with the idea of acquaintance, makes Chalmers’ incorrigibility thesis weak, for these two ideas remain unexplained in his current description of this thesis. Moreover, because of their mysterious meaning, they most likely cannot be explained in the future. Second the article points out that the specific immediate connection between direct phenomenal concepts and phenomenal properties seems inexplicable, because of the meaning of the word “concept,” which presupposes that any concept – relational or not – picks out only certain features of the object and cannot grasp all its details. Third, the article challenges the incorrigible accuracy of the representation of content in direct phenomenal concepts in the light of modern theories of consciousness, according to which phenomenal experience is illusory. Finally the article draws attention to the fact that even if direct phenomenal beliefs are indeed incorrigible, it remains unclear how they can enrich philosophical and psychological studies of consciousness as long as their content is so private. The first objection is, I think, the most serious one.

Dummett’s Manifestation Argument –or Challenge- against realism attempts to show that a realist conception of meaning cannot explain the existence of understanding of truth-conditions transcendent to evidence. In this work the general structure of the argument is discussed along with several objections to it. This examination finds that, if some commitments on the anti-realist’s part are allowed (which relate specifically to a deflationary conception of the normative character of meaning), he can address those objections. Finally, it is contended that the argument in its present form cannot have metaphysical consequences (at least not petendo principio against the realist). The Manifestation Argument nonetheless seems cogent as an elucidation of the nature of understanding; and therefore is a good piece of Hermeneutics, although not of Metaphysics.