Filosofia. Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto

Volume Completo

2023-07-24T17:07:48+00:00

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39

Folha de Rosto

2023-07-24T13:20:25+00:00

Catástrofes e Filosofia. Introdução ao Problema

2023-07-24T13:45:16+00:00

https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39intr

A dispersão das catástrofes. O ilimitado e a estrução do mundo

2023-07-24T13:50:35+00:00

Neste texto, propomo-nos examinar os modos como o pensamento nancyano da catástrofe, devedor da indagação heideggeriana da ontologia e da sua história, se lança numa leitura do mundo contemporâneo marcada pela passagem do «com» (Mitdasein) do plano existencial ao plano simplesmente categorial. Assim, a constituição ontológica do existente resvala para a pura justaposição, tal como esta aparece na sua análise da «proliferação dos fins» e da sua incessante transformação em meios. Dedicamos ainda a nossa atenção à ruína, saturação e ruptura do modelo da «construção». É na infinitização de toda e qualquer acção, pela imprevisível arquitectura técnica que a desenha, que o catastrófico penetra o mundo com a sua multiplicidade constitutiva e o estado de «suspensão» que o define. A vida dos resíduos na sua dispersão é exemplar neste contexto: a catástrofe desdobra-se assim em caducidades lançadas no ambiente e no psiquismo dos sujeitos, algo que pode ser visto como a introjecção da temporalidade da estrução. A anomia que hoje acolhe as catástrofes que se entrelaçam diante dos nossos olhos, aparentemente «escandalosa» num paradigma da acção, decorre num «presente que nunca se cumpre como presença» (Nancy) e que se encontra na impossibilidade de exprimir o sentido do mundo. A desordem da estrução, que caracteriza o que alguns chamam com impropriedade o Antropoceno, não acontece como reversão ou destruição de uma ordem, mas antes como des-ligamento do carácter imperativo da ordem. A partir desta questão, abre-se uma discussão sobre o sentido da/na comunidade que se abeira da catástrofe.

Palavras-chave: Ontologia, Catástrofe, Estrução, Mundo, Nancy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a1

Catastrophic Times. Against Equivalencies of History and Vulnerability in the «Anthropocene»

2022-08-24T23:31:16+00:00

With catastrophic events of «nature» like global warming, arguments emerge that insinuate an equivalence of vulnerability, responsibility or being affected by these catastrophes. Such an alleged equivalence when facing climate catastrophe is already visible, for example, in the notion of the «Anthropocene» itself, which obscures both causes and various vulnerabilities in a homogenized as well as universalized concept of humanity (anthropos). Taking such narratives as a starting point, the paper explores questions about the connection between catastrophe, temporality, and history, following mainly Walter Benjamin, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Jean-Luc Nancy with the goal to provide (1) a critique of the concept «Anthropocene» on the basis of nonequivalence while retaining its key features to still grasp the catastrophic present, (2) an analysis of anthropocenic time and the chronical structure of catastrophe, (3) philosophical considerations on the intersection of catastrophe and history.
Keywords: Catastrophe, Anthropocene, Climate Catastrophe, Philosophy of History, Walter Benjamin.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a2

Filosofia del peggio

2023-07-24T14:13:42+00:00

Este artigo considera as obras Logique du pire de Clement Rosset e Das Prinzip Verantwortung de Hans Jonas a partir da perspectiva do pior. Em muitos aspectos, tratam-se de livros diametralmente opostos. Se para o primeiro tudo é acaso (sorte) e nenhuma acção é possível, excepto a do riso exterminador, para o segundo a acção de evitar a catástrofe é um dever e é mero jogo (azar) acrescentar acaso ao acaso através de acções imprudentes. Ambas as soluções são insuficientes. Para compreender porquê, é necessário ter uma visão mais nítida da catástrofe. Uma catástrofe é aquele acontecimento que quando se desenvolve é imprevisível, envolvendo indiscriminadamente um grupo de indivíduos e infligindo-lhes danos irreversíveis ou, melhor, danos que os amputam. É por isso necessário construir uma filosofia do pior sobre uma filosofia de amputação.

Palavras-chave: Rosset, Jonas, pior, catástrofe, mutilação.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a3

On the existential link of catastrophe and tragedy

2023-07-24T14:24:05+00:00

The main thesis of this dissertation is set out in its very title, and to prove it will be necessary to eliminate the usual negative or melodramatic meaning of the two concepts that appear there and take them rather as the two extremes of the dialectical process of redefining the sociopersonal consciousness. In accordance with this, any catastrophe implies the violent breakup of the normal conditions of existence due to a natural or human factor whose direct consequences each one must understand and overcome on the triple ontological, social, and psychological determinations of the self. For its part, tragedy stands for the phase of critical and reflective integration that follows the catastrophe, which goes a lot beyond the sheer negativity of sorrow and even death, since even if the person or the people carried away by the catastrophe die, others will be able to make the most of that and the sociopersonal consciousness will be rearticulated. Of course, this implies that the self at issue is not only the individual one, so that other members of the lifeworld must be considered for the phenomenon to reveal a new or critical sense of existence beyond any previous approach to it. Thus, although there is an undeniably negativity throughout, it aims at a deeper level of comprehension of existence, which finally implicates that catastrophe is contextualized in a concrete cultural framework and not only as a sudden unsettlement and that tragedy is accordingly conceived as a philosophical tool more than as a literary genre that deals with the cruelty of fate. To get its aims, the dissertation will be divided into three sections of variable length: in the first one it will be analysed the experience and sense of catastrophe; in the second one, that of tragedy; in the third one, it will briefly be shown why understanding the nexus of both phenomena is axial for the current intellectual dynamics.

Keywords: violence, finitude, situation, consciousness, dialectics.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a4

Shared Responsibility and Disaster Preparedness

2023-07-24T14:36:03+00:00

This article focuses on some «disaster ethics» considerations on disaster preparedness and its related responsibilities. After recalling that concerns about preparedness and vulnerability have come to the fore in the domains of «disaster risk reduction» over the last decades, the article will endorse the view that the demarcation between natural disasters and human-induced disasters has becoming blurred and even questionable in many cases. Then, it will be argued that the ethical assessment of disasters needs to consider the entire disaster cycle and that ethical duties extend to the phase of disaster preparedness and require a framework of prospective and shared responsibilities. Accordingly, a number of ethical duties concerning disaster preparedness will be commented upon. Finally, the article will discuss a specific socio-epistemic dynamics of blame assignment that unbalances the appraisal of both vulnerability conditions and moral responsibilities of certain worst-off disaster victims.

Keywords: Disaster ethics, Duties, Preparedness, Responsibility, Vulnerability.

Human needs or Human wants? The Impact of crises and catastrophes on Human Rights

2023-07-24T13:59:24+00:00

Philosophers, lawyers, and political scientists have for a long time attempted to solve issues related to human rights, crises, and catastrophes. This article aims at bringing these debates together, to show that human rights and crises are mutually interdependent. More precisely, I will illustrate that the instincts and emotions triggered by the materialization of certain crises and catastrophes might devalue the implementation of human rights law as it influences our conception of the grounding of human rights qua moral rights. For this reason, a call for a “theory of want” as a justification for the grounding and the implementation of human rights in times of
crisis is needed.
Keywords: Human Rights, Crisis, Catastrophe, Moral Rights, Legal Rights.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a6

The human-made aspect of disasters. A philosophical perspective from Japan

2023-07-24T14:12:13+00:00

What is a disaster? This paper explores the different hermeneutic levels that need to be taken into consideration when approaching this question through the case of Japan. Instead of a view of disasters as spatiotemporal events, we approach disasters from the perspective of the milieu. First, based on the Japanese «dictionaries of disasters», the Japanese vocabulary of disaster is described. Second, this paper reviews briefly the Japanese interdisciplinary disaster-management tradition. To highlight the humanmade aspect of disasters, the idea of fūdo 風土 is introduced. This concept allows us to see disasters as a phenomenon of the milieu, which emerges from the co-constitutive relations between individuals, communities, and the local environment. The final part debates the narratives by some national and international political actors that link «Japanese identity and culture» to disaster management and sometimes include nationalist claims rooted in the essentialization of the «Japanese exception». Given
the cruciality of sociocultural and political representations of disasters tied to identity politics, and the increasing frequency and intensity of disasters, a long-term, local people-focused and culturally sensitive perspective on disasters might be better adapted to the climate change era.
Keywords: disaster, Japanese philosophy, resilience, Japan, fūdo 風土, essentialism.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a7

Pandemonium and postmedia animism

2023-07-24T14:17:09+00:00

In what follows I distinguish «postmodern animism» from my preferred term «postmedia animism», which I propose is a better term to express a minor, virtual, contrarian art and media. In the time of planetary trauma, ecological devastation and collapse, this term will serve as a heuristic concept to trace the passage from pandemic, panic, catastrophe and crisis to the series pandemonium, delirium and the carnivalesque. My gambit is to invoke a rebellious and affirmative Yōkai imaginary (妖怪, ghost, phantom, strange apparition) in order to contest passive forms of
«transcendental narcissism» or «transcendental miserabilism». 2 This we shall designate as an aesthetics of existence. 3. In particular, I will analyse the relationship between natural disasters and politics within the Japanese imagination through reference to Namazu-e (鯰絵, woodblock prints depicting catfish), and their political effects in the aftermath of the earthquake of October 1855 (安政江戸地震, Ansei Edo Jishin) in the Edo period of Japanese history (FIG 1). My intention is to show that this
historic art form, which grew out of trauma, demonstrates a fabulatory, dissensual and political aesthetics of resistance and creativity. It is an imaginary which appears conspicuously absent in our contemporary moment.
Keywords: Postmedia, Animism, Edo period (江戸時代 –1603-1867), Guattari.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a8

Na antecâmara da catástrofe ou pensar o peresente a partir do impensado

2023-07-24T14:32:42+00:00

As expressões de nacionalismos, as crispações identitárias e as (des)territorializações violentas que acompanham, hoje, muitos fenómenos de mobilidade humana e reconfigurações geopolíticas são cada vez mais frequentes e disseminadas pelo mundo. Adquiriram sobretudo uma complexidade que, neste artigo, serve uma crítica do presente e instiga o equacionamento de transformações nos processos de produção das relações sociais, da estruturação do viver social e da subjetividade. Os conflitos sociopolíticos contemporâneos alinham-se, assim, com questões acerca da possibilidade de esforços coletivos e suas condições de aplicabilidade - em contexto atual de dispersão, conflito e desigualdade -, na prevenção ou mitigação de potenciais catástrofes.
Palavras-chave: desterritorialização, catástrofe, filosofia social e política, subjetividade, ontologia social

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39a9

Índice Onomástico

2023-07-24T14:45:48+00:00

Ficha técnica

2023-07-24T13:29:13+00:00

Normas Editoriais

2023-07-24T14:52:08+00:00

Índice

2023-07-24T13:32:44+00:00

David J. Rosner (ed.), Catastrophe and Philosophy, Lexington Books, 2019; 370 pp.; ISBN 978-1-4985-4011-7

2023-07-24T14:35:49+00:00

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil39r1

Estatuto Editorial

2023-07-24T14:54:47+00:00