This book discusses the shift from the absolute demand of truth and from the complete system of knowledge in Descartes to the pragmatic approach of the French Encyclopédie (Diderot and d'Alembert). The latter is not conceived of as a totality of truth, but rather as knowledge, which presents itself as public good. The author of the book traces this shift in the changing rhetoric of philosophical texts, where metaphors of the subject's individual journey and of the systematic tree of knowledge (Descartes) are replaced by significantly more open and temporary images of a labyrinth and of a world map (Encyclopédie). This metaphorical shift is then enabled precisely by acknowledging the fact that the completness of any system of knowledge, which would present itself as useful to the public, is utterly impossible.
COBISS.SI-ID: 258564096
The author examines the linkage between the processes of truth and the existence of the world. At first, the author investigates one of the basic and traditional gestures of philosophy, namely, considering sensuality to be fallacious, false, imperfect, and further he presents a certain development of those systems of truth which make the methodologies of Cartesian doubt, Hume’s agnosticism and phenomenological reduction superfluous. This monograph presents a thesis on the naïve existence of the world, on the possibility of philosophical concession of naïve realism.
COBISS.SI-ID: 259617024
The underlying premise of the book is a simple one: the global capitalist system is approaching an apocalyptic zero-point. Its four riders of the apocalypse are the ecological crisis, the consequences of the biogenetic revolution, the imbalances within the system itself (problems with intellectual property, the forthcoming struggle for raw materials, food and water), and the explosions of social divisions and exclusions. Society's first reaction is ideological denial, then explosions of anger at the injustices of the new world order, attempts at bargaining, and when this fails, depression and withdrawal set in. Finally, after passing through this zero-point we no longer perceive it as a threat, but as the chance for a new beginning. Among other topics concernitng the notion of public, the analyses of the privatisation of public space in the fields of architecture, eduction and media, are especially relevant for our research project
COBISS.SI-ID: 2182023