Eli Kramer
(Assistant Professor, Department of the Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw)
Abstract:
Since the dawn of professional philosophy in the nineteenth century the rich variety of -philosophical-literary genres have been eclipsed by the academic essay. This kind of academic exercise typically focuses on a linear and lucid argument (as I am doing right now, the irony is not lost on me). This narrowness of what counts as serious and legitimate modes of philosophical-literary genres has greatly weakened professional philosophy’s ability to offer support for robust and enriched cultural life. As secure tenure line/habilitation line positions ever shrink, and the justifications of pure scholarship in the humanities become ever hollower (for good and for ill), the dominance of this very kind of academic essay, never mind its presentation at an academic conference, is doomed for “real deletion.” As one step toward recovering robust philosophical-literary genres beyond the essay, ones that can thrive in the digital and post-digital world, the paper will articulate and defend what can be called the philosophical oeuvre of “dynamic images.” Dynamic images are reflectively charged versions of what Susanne Langer called “presentational symbols.” Presentational symbols are what the arts give us. Think of the way a painting, or even a good novel, can be educative and enriching for us, and yet we cannot fully determine a discursive story that exhaustively captures the kind of knowledge they give us. Unlike a presentational symbol, a dynamic image needs to be charged to incite a “reader” to new reflective and discursive engagement with the subject matter. Plato’s dialogues, Montaigne’s Essays, Emerson’s Nature, Eco’s philosophical novels like The Name of the Rose or Foucault’s Pendulum, and Tarkovsky’s Stalker (Сталкер) are examples of works written as dynamic images. Unlike a Van Gogh painting, the whole purpose of their significant forms is to incite our reflective life and discursive reasoning.
Eli Kramer is an Assistant Professor at the Department of the Philosophy of Culture, Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, and an Editor at Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture (www.eidos.uw.edu.pl). He is a philosopher of culture who specializes in meta-philosophy, as well as the history and philosophy of higher learning. He is the co-editor of a new edited collection: Contemporary Philosophical Proposals for the University: Toward a Philosophy of Higher Education. His work has appeared in journals such as Syndicate Philosophy, the Philosophy of Education Yearbook, The Journal of School and Society, Democracy and Education (forthcoming) and as an introduction to a new anthology on Richard Rorty (that he is co-editing) entitled, Rorty and Beyond (Lexington Books, forthcoming). His areas of specialty are Philosophy of Culture, European and American Idealism, Classical American Philosophy, and Process Philosophy.