Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access

Volume 3 Issue 1

January 2020

Issue of Open Philosophy

Contents
Journal Overview

Topical issue: Imagination and Potentiality: The Quest for the Real, edited by Graham Harman and Kristupas Sabolius

Open Access November 23, 2020

Editorial for the Topical Issue “Imagination and Potentiality: The Quest for the Real”

Graham Harman, Kristupas Sabolius

Page range: 694-698

In contemporary debates, the realist position (here speculative realism/materialism is of particular interest) not only implies a belief in what is real, but also allows us to ascertain a certain possibility of accessing reality, thus bringing about the question of correlation as it pertains to determination and subordination. This article borrows from Cornelius Castoriadis’ arguments regarding Georg Cantor’s set theory to criticize the primacy of mathematics in Quentin Meillassoux’s thinking. At the same time, it argues that there are three regimes of correlation. The first two senses of correlation imply determining subordination, whereas the third one invokes a new understanding of correlation: being is always related to the subject, but is never determined or subordinated by it. In this light, Castoriadis’s notion of radical imagination aims to maintain an emancipatory meaning – the call for an anamorphic procedure of change in perspective, to the gestures of constant re-determination, without any pretense to totality.

Topical issue: Changing One's Mind: Philosophy, Religion and Science, edited by Yossef Schwartz, Paul Franks and Christian Wiese

Open Access December 18, 2020

Editorial note

Paul Franks, Yossef Schwartz, Christian Wiese

Page range: 736-738

This article proposes to narrow the gap between the space of reasons and the space of causes. By articulating the standard phenomenology of reasons and causes, we investigate the cases in which the clear-cut divide between reasons and causes starts to break down. Thus, substituting the simple picture of the relationship between the space of reasons and the space of causes with an inverted and complex one, in which reasons can have a causal-like phenomenology and causes can have a reason-like phenomenology. This is attained by focusing on “swift reasoned actions” on the one hand, and on “causal noisy brain mechanisms” on the other hand. In the final part of the article, I show how an analogous move, that of narrowing the gap between one’s normative framework and the space of reasons, can be seen as an extension of narrowing the gap between the space of causes and the space of reasons.

Topical issue: Philosophy of the City, edited by Sanna Lehtinen

Open Access December 7, 2020

Editorial Introduction to the Topical Issue “Philosophy of the City”

In recent years a burgeoning bicycle culture has reanimated the city of Detroit. The following essay analyzes this reanimation through the themes of embodiment, mobility, spatiality, and the intersubjective creation of place, using the techniques of phenomenology. The description that emerges is an evolving social ontology with implications for cities like Detroit. In such cities any plan for re-urbanization must re-conceptualize both transportation schemas and public space on terrain once dominated by the automobile. The provisional phenomenological description on offer here should be thought of as just one tool in this project, as Detroit and cities like it negotiate the reconstitution of their communities.

Topical issue: Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics II, edited by Graham Harman

Open Access November 18, 2020

Editorial for the Topical Issue “Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics II”

The aesthetic theory of Graham Harman’s Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) revolves around the concept of allure, a nonliteral experience of an object’s displacement from its qualities that draws attention to a deeper reality. But applying allure to aesthetic interpretation is hampered in two ways. First, OOO necessarily moves between the constrained viewpoint of experience and a more global perspective. Yet mixing these “inside” and “outside” views can risk ambiguity. Second, the phenomenological difference between the parts and qualities of an object must be clarified before Harman’s model of wholes and parts can be incorporated into OOO aesthetics. Addressing these two ambiguities will make it possible to further develop OOO’s resources for aesthetic commentary. For instance, one conclusion is that allure itself has two varieties: a tension between the object and its qualities (“allusion”) and a tension between the whole and its parts (“collusion”). These options parallel Harman’s twofold critique of reductionism. Another conclusion is that the literal needs an explanation within the framework of OOO insofar as it is a genuine feature of experience.

The article argues for a contextualised reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus . It analyses in detail the role that use and application play in the text and how that supports a conception of transcendentality of logic that allows for contextualisation. The article identifies a tension in the text, between the requirement that sense be determinate and the contextual nature of application, and suggests that it is this tension that is a major driver of Wittgenstein’s later ideas.

About this journal

Open Philosophy is an international Open Access, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all areas of philosophy. The objective of Open Philosophy is to foster free exchange of ideas and provide an appropriate platform for presenting, discussing and disseminating new concepts, current trends, theoretical developments and research findings related to the broadest philosophical spectrum. The journal does not favour any particular philosophical school, perspective or methodology.

Article Processing Charges

Call for proposals for topical issues

Open calls for papers:

Lukács and the Critical Legacy of Classical German Philosophy, edited by Rüdiger Dannemann (International Georg-Lukács-Society) and Gregor Schäfer (University of Basel) - deadline for submissions: October 31, 2023.
The Human Being and Time: From Kant to Existentialism, edited by Addison Ellis (The American University in Cairo) - deadline for submissions: October 31, 2023.
Dialogical Approaches to the Sphere ‘in-between’ Self and Other: The Methodological Meaning of Listening, edited by Claudia Welz and Bjarke Mørkøre Stigel Hansen (Aarhus University, Denmark) - deadline for submissions: November 15, 2023.
Theory Materialized—Art-object Theorized, edited by Ido Govrin (University of Tessaly, Greece) - deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024.
Happiness in Contemporary Continental Philosophy, edited by Ype de Boer (Radboud University) - deadline for submissions: January 31, 2024.

Published Topical Issues:

2018:

The New Metaphysics: Analytic/Continental Crossovers (ed. Jon Cogburn and Paul Livingston)
Objects Across the Traditions (ed. Tom Sparrow)

2019:

Does Public Art Have to Be Bad Art? (ed. Mark Kingwell)
Computer Modeling in Philosophy (ed. Patrick Grim)
Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics (ed. Graham Harman)
Experience in a New Key (ed. Dorthe Jørgensen)

2020:

Imagination and Potentiality: The Quest for the Real (ed. Graham Harman and Kristupas Sabolius)
Changing One's Mind: Philosophy, Religion and Science (ed. Yossef Schwartz, Paul Franks and Christian Wiese)
Philosophy of the City (ed. Sanna Lehtinen)
Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics II (ed. Graham Harman)

2021:

Philosophy and Sonic Research - Thinking with Sounds and Rhythms (ed. Martin Nitsche and Vít Pokorný)
Home and Exile - Feminist Philosophy in Thought, History and Action: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (ed. Nicole des Bouvrie and Laura Hellsten)
Object-Oriented Ontology and Its Critics III (ed. Graham Harman)

2022:

Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic: A Re-Evaluation (ed. Michael Lewin and Rudolf Meer)
Conceptual Personae in Ontology (ed. Carlos A. Segovia)
Ethics and Politics of TV Series (ed. Sandra Laugier)
Home and Exile - Feminist Philosophy in Thought, History and Action: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (part II) (ed. Nicole des Bouvrie and Laura Hellsten)