UEFISCDI-FUNDED PROJECTS:
BEING YOURSELF IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS – AN APPROACH TO THE AESTHETICS OF AUTHENTICITY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF VIRTUAL ONTOLOGY [BEYOU]
TE 64 of 12/05/2022 (project registration code PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021 -0439)
- Evaluation of the three stages: impact and achievements
- STAGE 3
- STAGE 2
- STAGE ONE
- TEAM
- PROJECT PRESENTATION
I.1. Stage one aimed to question the philosophical and conceptual roots of the concept of authenticity and to analyze the numerous metamorphoses and changes within the Western philosophical tradition up to the point where approaches to virtual ontology affect the mechanisms of self-production. To achieve these objectives, the BE YOU project team carried out the planned actions for the 2022 calendar year.
For Activities 1.1. and 1.2., the research team employed hermeneutic and phenomenological methods and conducted research disseminated at conferences and colloquiums reported in Section II. The research endeavors were carried out through access to databases and resources held by the BCU branch within the Faculty of Philosophy.
Activity 1.1., namely the discussion on the Platonic tradition of the concept of aletheia and the ethical perspective on the good life (eudaimonia), is reflected both in the lectures delivered at international conferences and the national colloquium reported for this stage, as well as in the biopolitics articles drafted. Activity 1.2. involved a collective effort to analyze the developments and shifts of these concepts within the Christian tradition from Augustine to Kierkegaard, highlighting the rediscovery and reinterpretation of authenticity from the perspective of existentialism. On this occasion, two of the project team members, Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea and Conf. Univ. Dr. Cornel-Florin Moraru, prepared studies submitted for publication to the Revue Roumaine de Philosophie. The journal published by the Romanian Academy is indexed in notable databases such as Clarivate Analytics, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, and Philosopher’s Index. Each of the four project team members will have articles published in this thematic issue. The guest editor of this special issue will be Lect. Univ. Dr. Cornel Florin Moraru.
In order to carry out the activity 1.3, the team aims to evaluate how the philosophical tradition of authenticity withstands the challenges posed by virtual societies. This involves reflecting on the various ways self-curation has impacted canonical understandings of authenticity, creating a tension between the roles of discourse and images in shaping our identities on social media. With this perspective, our goal is to exclusively publish specialized articles and disseminate research findings through conferences. The contributions by Lecturer Dr. Oana Șerban focus on exploring the formation of virtual identity and the relationship between the real self and the virtual self, offering an original analysis of the biopolitical implications of social media and its educational potential. Lecturer Dr. Dragoș Grusea and Assistant Lecturer Dr. Paul Gabriel Sandu have published research papers focused on the value of authenticity in the virtual environment and the (post)rationalist, romantic, and postmodern expressions of selfhood.
Additionally, the research conducted during this stage has a unique editorial resonance. In 2022, the BE YOU project supported philosophical analysis efforts in the publication of the book „The Scientific Turn of Contemporary Aesthetics: Avant-Garde Research in Neurosciences and Artificial Intelligence,” authored by Lecturer Dr. Cornel Moraru, and set to be published by EIKON, a category B accredited publisher in the field of philosophy. Several hypotheses make this research unique in the fields of neuroaesthetics and virtual societies. Since its formation as an autonomous discipline in the 18th century, aesthetics has sought to systematically study a distinct type of knowledge, different from theoretical knowledge, which we might call „sensitive knowledge,” „intuitive knowledge,” or „artistic knowledge.” Over time, as the concept of science became increasingly distinct from that of art, the program and subject matter of aesthetics reconfigured and, ultimately, changed. Thus, from being a „science of sensitive knowledge,” as envisioned by Alexander Baumgarten, or a „system of fine arts,” as conceived by Charles Batteux, aesthetics has today become more of a rhapsodic effort to understand the increasingly diverse and heteronomous artistic practices of contemporary arts. With this shift, the methodological and thematic unity of modern aesthetics began to fragment into a multitude of particular aesthetics, such as „everyday aesthetics,” „accelerationist aesthetics,” „organizational aesthetics,” and so on.
These new scientific research directions in philosophical aesthetics constitute the main theme of this book, where I propose to show that there is a „continuity in dissonance” between the program of modern aesthetics and the avant-garde studies of recent decades in the fields of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. In other words, the main thesis of this work is that there is a continuity in terms of fundamental concepts and programmatic coordinates between the foundational treatises of modern aesthetics and the current avant-garde studies in scientific aesthetics, even though the two categories of research are in different paradigms of understanding science.
To support this thesis, I try to analyze from a genealogical perspective two fundamental concepts of modern aesthetics – imitation and genius – tracing their evolution throughout the history of philosophy and highlighting the conceptual constants that have been maintained over time, regardless of the hermeneutic paradigm in which they were treated. In this way, we can draw a „red thread” throughout history, directly linking the fundamental concepts of modern aesthetics to the current themes in neuroaesthetics and the aesthetics of artificial intelligence, thus proving the latter’s descent from the former.
Regarding the concept of imitation, I focus on two fundamental paradigms of understanding – the ancient paradigm, represented by Aristotle, and the modern paradigm, represented by Charles Batteux – to show that the essential features of this concept have been preserved over time and can be found in new research related to mirror neurons and the informatization of art in artificial intelligence. Concerning the concept of genius, I show that the modern paradigm of understanding genius – represented by the thoughts of Charles Batteux and Arthur Schopenhauer – finds its extension in current studies in neuroaesthetics related to creativity and in efforts within informational aesthetics to reduce creativity to syntax, an idea that underlies the possibility of art created by artificial intelligence.
During this stage, the BE YOU team researchers achieved the following scientific results:
- a) The ethical and aesthetic implications of key concepts such as virtuality and authenticity can be distinguished within five paradigms of virtuality:
1) The theological paradigm (represented by (neo)Platonic thought and medieval scholasticism);
2) The scientific (or philosophical-naturalist) paradigm, represented by Newtonian optics;
3) The transcendental paradigm (represented by Kant and Kantianism);
4) The psychoanalytic paradigm (represented by Freud and Jung’s research into the human unconscious);
5) The informational paradigm.
- b) The relationship between authenticity and happiness is significantly altered by the intervention of social networks and new technologies, which make us distinguish between the nature of the „object” in question, namely the identity of the self, and, on the other hand, the self-determination or becoming of the self in its relation to what is different from itself, the authenticity of the self, to answer the traditional question: „Who am I?”
- c) The notion of „self” can only be approached through the relationship between physical identity and narrative identity, which, in terms of virtuality and self-constitution, traverses the dialectic between idem and ipse. By asserting that ipseity (selfhood) addresses the temporality of the self, Ricœur shows that it involves two models of permanence over time, different from the unbroken continuity or similarity assumed by identity strictly understood as idem. These consist of what he calls the persistence of character and self-maintenance in promise.
- d) While the ancient dimension of authenticity insists on the naturalistic and spiritual implications of self-constitution, the modern dimension assumes the elaboration of romantic expressivism and the individualism of disengaged rationality. The connection between these two levels is susceptible biopolitically, not just ethically and aesthetically.
I.2. The second stage aimed to evaluate the correlations between the concept of authenticity and that of selfhood, to show that the way authenticity is conceived depends on how we traditionally conceive what is called the ego or subject. This stage also aimed to evaluate the relationship between self-creation and self-production, focusing on how the former can be pursued as a process of self-discovery, and the forms of reconciling the tensions between the work of self-creation and the sense of belonging to a community that cultivates common values. One of the final objectives of this stage was to research the concept of self-museification based on the modern concept of „museum,” conceived as a colonial idea that has changed our attitude towards art, others, and ourselves.
The objectives corresponding to the second stage were achieved through the completion of eight key activities conducted throughout 2023. Through Activity 2.1, fundamental research on the relationship between self-creation and self-production in reality and the virtual environment, and Activity 2.2, research on analyzing the relationship between self-creation and the sense of belonging to a virtual society, the BE YOU team members evaluated genealogically and archaeologically the relationship between authenticity and virtuality, involving phenomenological aspects such as embodiment as a relationship between mind and body, allowing the performance of models of authenticity; ethical aspects, reducible to the dimension of a new public sphere marked by the symbolic capital of influence of subjects who commodify authenticity and impose it as a consumer good in terms of a new social contract at the level of follower communities; and aesthetic and artistic aspects, aiming at the overlap of the ideal of the good life with that of the beautiful life, as these two constructs traverse different social media platforms.
Through Activity 2.3, consisting of critiquing forms of subjectivity engaged in the virtual environment; Activity 2.4, which aimed to understand and evaluate the differences between the notions of ego, self, and subject in the context of digital societies, and Activity 2.5, research on the concept of self-museification based on the modern concept of the museum, conceived as a colonial idea that has changed our attitude towards art, ourselves, and others, the BE YOU team members developed studies compiled in a collective volume published by EIKON (B/CNCS), titled „Digital Existence: Studies in the Philosophy of Virtuality.” The study written by Associate Professor Dr. Cornel Moraru evaluates the ancient roots and medieval extensions of the concept of virtuality, present in the contents of Christian philosophy, to designate the way spiritual entities (the soul, angels, God himself) manifest in physical reality through the effects they produce. Thus, there is a Platonic-Christian model of virtuality that decisively influences the modern paradigms of this concept. Lecturer Dr. Dragoș Grusea explains to what extent this Platonic-Christian paradigm of virtuality has been replaced by a transcendental one, themed in four different instances; his thesis is that a set of similarities can be identified between the different ideas of virtuality within this paradigm, while the idea of virtuality implies the transformation of space into time. Assistant Lecturer Dr. Paul Sandu explains the predominantly reductionist dimension of virtuality and signals the urgent need to thematize virtuality in relation to corporeality, starting from authors such as Bergson, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Deleuze, articulating a new theory regarding embodied existence. Lecturer Dr. Oana Șerban evaluates the concept of performative authenticity and proposes accepting virtual identity as a form of anti-art, in which authenticity acquires an aura of unmediated presence, in Benjamin’s sense. The imperative „Be yourself!” produces paradoxical consequences: commodification, consumption, personal branding, communities of „followers” who mimetically reproduce a form of authenticity. At the end of the volume, Dr. Cristina Cristea highlights why social media platforms can be valuable in the process of self-discovery and achieving authenticity.
Through conferences and symposiums, Activity 2.6, consisting of analyzing the dynamics of the philosophical and cultural implications of virtuality, and Activity 2.7, analyzing self-curation and the museification of virtual identity in social media, were fulfilled by disseminating explorations of new forms of art born out of navigating social media, such as the concept of creleisure (creativity & leisure). Throughout these activities, the research results were constantly monitored and evaluated.
Scientific Results Achieved by the BE YOU Team:
- a) Relevance of different paradigms of understanding the human being: The research elucidated the relevance of human paradigms such as homo faber, homo ludens, and homo democraticus in forming a new social contract for the digital public sphere. This contract focuses on replicating models of authenticity and cultural mimicry (the relationship between influencers and the public), consumerism, the blurring of boundaries between intimacy and privacy, and increasing concerns for moral themes like security, digital safety, privacy, and cyberbullying.
- b) Models of Authenticity: The team distinguished two types of authenticity models: performative and counter-performative. The performative model involves a type of control and creates an aporia; social media validates authentic content but only produces a discourse that excludes what is already known to be non-compliant. This authenticity becomes a normative framework where a standard lifestyle is personalized by each user according to available criteria or resources. The performative authenticity can produce a brand and be commodified as a form of capital (both symbolic, cultural, and economic). The counter-performative authenticity is validated through originality, is non-commodifiable, unalterable, and evaluated morally. These models support each other and are reproduced through forms of social capital both online and offline.
- c) Self-Curation and Virtual Identity Museification: The research explained the relationship between self-curation and the museification of virtual identity, evaluating the self as a product with artistic but not aesthetic pretensions. In the digital spheres, a user’s performance is distinguished from the performativity of their degree of authenticity, where the latter sets norms that precede and constrain the performer’s behavior. Virtual identity performance is conscious; performativity is not. The museification of virtual identity involves a poíēsis linked to a form of self-ethnography, where social media users create a virtual identity connected to real social, political, and cultural experiences, even if they transgress them. The selfie is the result of this self-curation process, becoming a digital artifact that enables Cartesian self-examination and produces an affective transfer between the body as a site of identity performances and audiences through its image. Selfies also re-map the self in connection with places implying mobility and globalization, demanding a certain existential immediacy and expecting immediate, not retrospective, reactions.
- d) Artistic Pretensions of Self-Curation: The evaluation highlighted the artistic but not aesthetic pretensions of self-curation, relying on avant-garde reflexes: the Dadaist use of everyday material, the Surrealist technique of automatic dictation in vlogs or live broadcasts, and the Futurist engagement with technology as the essence of a new era.
Stage III Objectives:
3.1. Investigation of Self-Creation in Social Media: This stage aimed to investigate and understand how self-creation in the virtual world of social networks functions as a form of self-aestheticization and museification.
3.2. Final Research Evaluation and Sustainability: The final research evaluation and identification of sustainability mechanisms for the project long-term were key goals.
Activities:
- Research/Documentation/Article Writing: The BE YOU researchers observed how self-aestheticization and museification in the virtual world capture tensions between zoe (organic life) and bios (social, political, and cultural life). The concept of biopolitical art developed from this, showing how virtuality and authenticity models can transform closed communities into open ones, promoting tolerance and social inclusion. Through conferences and debates, the team discussed the relevance of authenticity and personal identity narratives in combating bullying, discrimination, cyber hate, and antisemitism.
- Critique of Authenticity Ideals: The critique of authenticity ideals examined how these shape virtual behaviors and our understanding of identity, impacting life choices and social dimensions. A special role in criticizing these models of authenticity was played by the workshop „Digital Existence” and the book launch of the volume with the same name.
- Dissemination of Research Results: The „Digital Existence” workshop and book launch were pivotal in disseminating research findings.
Scientific Contributions specific to Stage III:
- a) Philosophy of the Virtual: Prof. Dr. Cornel Moraru presented the coordinates of a virtual philosophy, highlighting fundamental aporias of cyberspace and the relationship between digital virtuality and intentionality.
- b) Analysis of the German Philosophical/transcendental tradition: Dr. Dragoș Grusea innovatively explored German authors’ contributions to the concept of virtuality in the transcendental paradigm, emphasizing Lessing’s virtual simultaneity of sculpture, Bergson’s virtual duration, Bouterwek’s virtual idealism, and Palágyi’s virtual movement of imagination.
- c) Metamorphoses of Embodied Existence: Dr. Paul Gabriel Sandu discussed the relationship between existence (Dasein) and virtuality, proposing a re-conceptualization of the concept of possibility as virtuality.
- d) Digital Heroism and Authenticity: Dr. Oana Șerban examined the relationship between the culture of authenticity and the authenticity of culture in the 2.0 era, proposing a theory of digital heroism in the „creative proletariat” society.
Final Evaluation and Opportunities:
The final scientific report and evaluation identified opportunities to continue and expand this interdisciplinary research effort.
Section II. Presentation and Evaluation of Achieved Results
All estimated indicators were met and some were even exceeded, demonstrating the team’s performance and perseverance. Key achievements include:
- Stage I: Indicators exceeded by 300% for international and national conference participations and philosophical journal articles.
- Stage II: Indicators were exceeded by 250% for BDI articles, 350% for national conference participations, and 200% for international conference participations.
- Stage III: Indicators were fully met, with additional achievements such as publishing studies in national volumes and delivering lectures at national workshops.
Overall Project Achievements:
- International Conferences: 8 participations (initial estimate: 3)
- National Conferences: 10 participations (initial estimate: 3)
- BDI Articles: 10 (initial estimate: 4)
- ISI Articles: 2 (initial estimate: 2)
- National Volumes: 1 (initial estimate: 1)
- Workshop: 1 organized (initial estimate: 1)
- Annual Progress Reports: 3 (initial estimate: 3)
- Individual Summative Evaluation Reports: 4 (initial estimate: 4)
- Additional Achievements: New deliverables included 4 lectures at a national workshop, 5 book chapters in a national volume, and 5 studies in national volumes.
Overall, the BE YOU project achieved and exceeded its initial goals, showcasing the team’s high performance and collaborative effort. The initially estimated results were exceeded by 266% for participation in international conferences, by 333% for participation in national conferences, by 225% for the publication of BDI articles, and were met 100% for the publication of a national volume at a CNCS-B publisher, for the completion of stage reports and summary reports, and for the organization of a national workshop. New deliverables, not initially included in the results plan, were produced, such as the publication of studies in national CNCS-B volumes and an article in the proceedings volume of an international conference. The fact that we exceeded the initially estimated indicators justifies the team’s performance and the good collaboration that led to the development of a set of deliverables built in an interdisciplinary manner and through a coordinated effort.
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Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea delivered the lecture Kant’s concept of aesthetic infinity at the International Conference Kant 300: Celebrating the 300th anniversary of Kant’s Birth, organized by the Institute of Philosophy of the Romanian Academy on 22-26 April 2024.
The abstract of the lecture is reproduced below:
„This study argues for the idea that in the Kantian system there is a gradual integration of the infinite represented by the transcendental ideas. The first step is the so-called transcendental deduction of the regulative Ideas in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic in the Critique of Pure Reason, where the Ideas acquire an „indeterminate objective validity” by being determined as imaginary points without which experience would lose its systematic character. This indirect demonstration of the objectivity of Ideas sets the foundation for the transformation of the idea of infinity in the Critique of Judgment. Kant shows that the infinite can be given in experience, but either only negatively (Analytic of the Sublime) or indirectly (Analytic of the Beautiful). The hypothesis introduced in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic is extended by Kant in the third Critique by showing that the infinite can be given, but only in an aesthetic experience as sublime awe or as communication of the unutterable in poetry. Though this experience of the infinite the subject is put in front of his true self, which lies outside space and time.”
As part of the BE YOU project, we organized the national workshop Digital Existence, hosted on 16 April by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest. Lectures were given by:
Cornel-Florin Moraru, Contributions to a philosophy of the digital environment;
Dragoș Grusea, The concept of virtuality in the paradigm of transcendentality;
Paul Gabriel Sandu, Metamorphoses of embodied existence;
Oana Șerban, The concept of (counter)performative authenticity;
Launching event of the volume Digital Existence. Studii de filosofie a virtualității, Coordinator Cornel-Florin Moraru, Bucharest, Eikon Publishing House, 2023, 978-606-49-1048 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest, in the evening of 16 April 2024. Valentin Ajder, Director of EIKON Publishing House, and members of the BE YOU project, Cornel-Florin Moraru, Dragoș Grusea, Paul Gabriel Sandu and Oana Șerban (Facebook page of CCIIF – Centre for Research on the History of Philosophical Ideas)
The launch benefited from an intense media promotion, through press releases as follows:
- Launch of the volume Digital Existence, UB platform release.
- Mediafax press release, launch of the volume Digital Existence
https://www.mediafax.ro/comunicate/lansare-de-carte-volumul-existenta-digitala-studii-de-filosofie-a-virtualitatii-22339560
- Expert News press release, launch of the Digital Existence volume
https://expertnews.ro/volumul-existenta-digitala-studii-de-filosofie-a-virtualitatii-prezentat-in-cadrul-unui-eveniment-cciif
- Article presenting the launch of Digital Existence, forthcoming in the print edition of Q Magazine, 2024, May (forthcoming)
From this introductory article, we extract a brief summary of the ideas and currents of opinion that were expressed at the launching event:
„In order to capture the heart of the matter, the researchers of the BE YOU project (Being Yourself in the Age of Social Networks – An Approach to the Aesthetics of Authenticity from the Perspective of Virtual Ontology), preferred to take a step back and identify the very philosophical origins of virtuality studies, surprisingly placed in the post-Aristotelian debates on the existence of angels in the Summae of St. Thomas. We wouldn’t have thought that when we sit at the buttons of social media we are carrying on a medieval legacy.
According to Cornel-Florin Moraru, starting from the relationship between what is actual and what is possible, rooted in Aristotle’s philosophy, „medieval thought took up this suggestion and developed for the first time the actual concept of virtuality in the coordinates of Christian philosophy, to designate the way in which spiritual entities (the soul, angels, God himself) manifest themselves in physical reality through the effects they produce”.
Are we, however, by inhabiting the virtual environment, more alienated from our own bodies and our own reality? One of the challenges of this volume is to make us aware that any contemplation of the body should necessarily include a reflection on virtuality, and the realm of digital virtuality and virtual space can only be effectively understood when viewed through the prism of the body. The ‘incarnation’ of our consciousness into the avatar world makes us wonder how much of our pleasures, desires and instincts follow us in the virtual space? Specifically, how authentic do we remain in the metaverse?
From this perspective, Oana Serban explains that the moral imperatives of authenticity – „Be yourself!”, „Know yourself!”, „Take care of your own self!” – are being converted into functions of a personal brand in the midst of capitalist, consumerist and digital civilisation. Ironically asking „who has authenticity to sell?”, Oana Șerban declares that the paradox of authenticity in the digital space comes down to the demand that influencers be followed, an „apostolate” that is quantified in financial rewards: „Virtual communities become small businesses, and influencers live off the reproduction of authenticity capital.”
Without being exclusively pessimistic, there are some noble roots of the virtual world that we have a duty to acknowledge. On the one hand, it forces us to incorporate the world of art into our lives: we don’t post randomly, the pretense of beauty in most virtual content is unmistakable, and while we don’t feel we’ve generated aesthetic content, we all expect our posts to be viewed as somehow artistic. In doing so, we inadvertently mix three avant-garde gestures: the addiction to routine and the everyday, borrowed from the Dada daily vlog movement, and the automatic dictation technique of surrealism and futuristic addiction to technology becoming tools in the hands of content creators. On the other hand, even as we are closer to culture, we are further from the political environment: digital democracies, the authors note, are increasingly unmanageable as fake-news and the fluid society of the 2.0 world swamp social consensus and the need for truth. This is why Cornel Moraru notes that the new social contract can only evolve from the aporia between guilt and responsibility. Without realising it, virtual communities are rewriting and testing new forms of the social contract based not on the influence of the elected, but on the notoriety of those who impose themselves. So, before passively joining new communities, remember that today’s influencer has a moral responsibility when offering models for a ready-made life: every follow, every like is a follow, imposes a consequence of the virtual on the real. Simply put, any ready-made model in the virtual world keeps us further from our own authenticity.
In 250 pages of studies in the philosophy of virtuality, the authors of Digital Existence polemically rewrite the history of the 2.0 world using ethical, aesthetic and phenomenological tools, in the hope that readers will be saved from the risk of the simulacra society living them. A book to the taste of Internet users, a manual of moral responsibility for influencers, a guide to observing the relationship between culture and counterculture in cyberspace. At the end of this book you will understand why the value that unites the real and the virtual is freedom, in its intimate and public exercise alike.
Studies published in books published by CNCS-B publishers.
Following the Colloquium on the Phenomenology of Intermediate Worlds, organized at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iași last autumn, two members of the BE YOU team submitted studies for publication to be included in the volume resulting from this event. The studies were evaluated and accepted for publication, with the volume expected to be published by the end of the calendar year 2024. The volume includes the following two contributions.
- Oana Șerban, „Efectul Pygmalion în epoca Netflix: ecranul global şi opera de artă”, în Fenomenologia lumilor intermediare, coordonatori George Bondor și Ioan Mateiciuc, Editura Universității „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași, 2024, pp. 231-260 (în curs de apariție)
Abstract: The Pygmalion Effect in Times of Netflix. The Global Screen and the Work of Art. This article tackles the ontological differences between painting and photography, on the one side, and theatre and film, on the other side, closing observing how the reproduction of the artwork by industrial means impacted our philosophical understanding on concepts such as mimesis, poíēsis and simulacrum. Inspired by Benjamin’s and Adorno’s critical readings of cinema, I will analyse to what extent streaming platforms such as Netflix benefited from the Pygmalion effect on organizing, by capitalist means, non-auratic artistic products that progressively led to a “class society of images”, extensively discussed by Lipovetsky and Serroy in their book devoted to The Global Screen. This research has at its heart the following hypothesis: as the cinema of the hypermodernity embraces the Deleuzian taxonomy of images (perception-image, the action-image, and the affection-image), later completed by Lipovetsky (excess-image, multiplex-image, distance-image) democracies redefine their sense for beauty, entertainment and mass-culture. As a consequence, influenced by a new discipline of consuming ready-made realities, contemporary democracies advanced, under the impact of the global screen, telecracy and cyberdemocracy as particular phenomena of aestheticizing our lives and refashioning our ideal of authenticity.
- Paul Gabriel Sandu, „Sinele în contratimp: Ființa umana ca virtualitate”, in Fenomenologia lumilor intermediare, in Fenomenologia lumilor intermediare, coordinators George Bondor and Ioan Mateiciuc, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași Publishing House, 2024, pp. 111-124 (forthcoming)
Abstract: Syncopated Self: The Human Being as Virtuality. In this paper, I will try to argue that the mainstream understanding of virtuality is profoundly reductionist and overlooks a rich reflection on the concept, which predates the advent of computers. The thesis I will endeavor to defend, drawing from certain passages from the renowned Proustian novel In Search of Lost Time and from Heidegger’s Being and time, but also leveraging a set of Deleuzian conceptual distinctions, is that virtuality is constitutive for the human existence, that human beings are essentially virtual beings. Only from this standpoint, is possible to discuss the concept of “virtual space” and to explore the way in which the digital virtual world influences our relationship with ourselves as embodied existences.
In the list of publications comprising studies published in national volumes we include the following publication, which was written and submitted for publication in 2023, but appeared in 2024:
- Cornel-Florin Moraru, „From Homeric Automata and Artificial Intelligence. Schița unei genealogii”, in Studii de hermeneutică prejudicativa e meontologie, coord. Viorel Cernica, Bucharest, University of Bucharest Publishing House, 2024, pp. 7-50.
An ISI article, soon, under the aegis of the BE YOU project: we are pleased to announce that the article of our colleague Dragoș Grusea, „Kant’s concept of aesthetic infinity” will appear in the Romanian Journal of Philosophy Volume 69, no. 2, 2024 ISSN: 1220-5400 (forthcoming, accepted for publication).
Component of the BE YOU project, disseminated in a proceedings volume of an international conference! Our colleague, Oana Șerban, publishes the study „What is biopolitical art?”, in Conference Proceedings for the 2nd international „Philosophy and Film” Conference, edited by Viktor Jovanoski, Skopje, Philosophical Society of Macedonia, 2024 (forthcoming)
A new BDI article, branded BE YOU! We invite you to read the article by our colleague Cornel-Florin Moraru, „The experience of philosophical theory in understanding the virtual. The experience of philosophical theory and the understanding of the virtual. Outline of a philosophy of virtuality”), appeared inRevista de filosofie, Vol. LXXI, Nr. 1, 2024, Romanian Academy Publishing House, pp. 33-48.
01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023
Evaluating the correlations between the concept of authenticity and the concept of the self and showing that the way authenticity is conceived depends on the way we conceive what is traditionally called ego or subject. To assess the relationship between self-creation and self production, focusing on how the former can be pursued as a process of self-discovery, and on ways of reconciling the tensions between the labour of self-creation and the sense of belonging to a community that cultivates shared values. Investigation of the concept of musealization of the self starting from the modern concept of „museum”, thought of as a colonial idea that has changed our attitude towards art, our own self and others
International conferences held by the BE YOU project team
- Univ. Dr. Cornel-Florin Moraru held the International Seminar Religion. Knowledge. Society, 8th edition, „Human Being in the Horizon of Authenticity. Philosophical and Religious Perspectives”, the lecture „The Virtual Self: Is Authenticity Possible in the Digital Era?” The event took place on 10-11 May 2023.
- Univ. Dr. Paul-Gabriel Sandu participated in the international conference Levinas Today, held in Vilnius on 7-10 Nov. 2023. The lecture delivered on this occasion was „Otherwise than Human or Beyond the Anthropological Difference – Levinas and the Problem of Animality”.
- Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban participates on 6 December in the 8th edition of the International Conference Dialogue „East-West” – Philosophy and Global Issues, organized in Skopje, Macedonia, by the Macedonian Philosophical Society, giving the lecture „Global Biopolitics: Facing Violence, Strengthening Remembrance”.
- On 26 May 2023, three members of the BE YOU project team participated in the international festival Noaptea Philosophie in Timișoara, organized by the French Institute. During this event, a series of international conferences, lectures, workshops and book launches took place, disseminating to the general public the research of important philosophers from the French and Romanian space alike: Pebarthe, Barbara Stiegler, Anne Simon, Fabienne Brugere, Eric Prem, Theofanis Tasis, Aurélien Bellanger, Elise Domenach, Dragan Prole, Daniel Nica, Radu Uszkai, Mihail Cernea, Adriana Babeți, Marcel Tolcea, Claudiu Mesaroș, Grigore Vida, Octavian Repolschi, Adrian Briciu, Armand Voinov, Alin Gavreliuc, Florin Lobonț, Ionuț Mladin, Anca Tiurean, Camil Mihăescu. In the series of lectures, Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea, Conf., Univ. Dr. Cornel-Florin Moraru and Lect, Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban disseminated the results of the BE YOU project under the panel „Virtual Reality – a challenge for philosophy?” The event was intensely publicized and had a remarkable international visibility. Moreover, the event was curated by Cornel-Florin Moraru, BE YOU project manager, and Raphael Zagury-Orly, French philosopher, professor of philosophy at the Institut Catholique de Paris, Programme Director at the Collège International de Philosophie (Paris) and research associate at the Centre for Research on Arts and Language (Paris).
National conferences held by the BE YOU project team
Participation in the national conferences in the second phase involved both independent lectures by BE YOU project members and panels held by the whole project team under the auspices of national conferences:
- Univ. Dr. Paul-Gabriel Sandu gave the lecture „The Other Turn of Martin Heidegger’s Thought – A Reflection on the Black Notebooks”, at the I.F.P. ALE Research Seminars, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, on March 2, 2023.
- Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban delivered the lecture „Self-curation: „instagramming” virtual identities, anti-art? Dadaist, Surrealist and Futurist Implications”, disseminating on this occasion the results of the aesthetic component of the BE YOU project. The lecture took place on 19 May 2023, within the framework of the National Conference on Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art „Ion Ianoși”, 10th edition: „(Post)modern art: movement as transformation”. The conference was organized by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest through CCIIF – Centre for Research on the History and Circulation of Philosophical Ideas. More information about the event can be found at: https://filosofie.unibuc.ro/conferinta-nationala-de-estetica-si-filosofia-artei-ion-ianosi-arta-postmoderna-miscarea-ca-transfomare-editia-a-x-a/
- Univ. Dr. Cornel Florin Moraru participated in a national conference, disseminating the metaphysical, hermeneutical and phenomenological component of the project. On 22-23 May 2023, he participated in the National Conference on Aesthetics and Art Theory (ETA), 11th edition, held in Cluj and organized by Babeș-Bolyai National University, through the Faculty of History and Philosophy, giving the lecture: „Art and Virtuality. Two possible models for an aesthetics of the virtual”. The research focused on the problem of virtuality, which is one of the most challenging and, at the same time, difficult research topics in the context of contemporary philosophy. The aim of the lecture was to prefigure two such models of understanding the aesthetics of the virtual on the basis of the contemporary idea of information, which have their sources in two completely distinct meanings of this notion that are often confused in philosophical discourse: the semantic and the ontological sense.
- Univ. Dr. Cornel Moraru, Lect. Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban, Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea and Asist. Univ. Dr. Paul Sandu participated in the National Colloquium of the Centre for Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and Practical Philosophy, 14th edition, „The Phenomenology of Intermediate Worlds. Crossings and portals in virtual space” on 17-18 November, organized by the University „Al. I. Cuza din Iași” and the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Political Sciences. During this colloquium, a special panel dedicated to the BE YOU project „Towards a hermeneutics of the virtual. From the history of philosophy to the aesthetics of the digital self”:
- Cornel-Florin Moraru/Five paradigms of virtuality. From Plato to digital virtuality
- Dragoș Grusea/Two concepts of virtuality in German philosophy: G.E.Llessing and Friedrich Bouterwek
- Oana Camelia Șerban/(Post)philosophy and (anti)art: curating digital identity on Instagram, from Dada to Data
- Paul Gabriel Sandu/Digitizing the body. Reflections on existence in cyberspace.
- Univ. Dr. Cornel-Florin Moraru presented at the International Seminar Religion. Knowledge. Society, 8th edition, „Human Being in the Horizon of Authenticity. Philosophical and Religious Perspectives”, the lecture „The Virtual Self: Is Authenticity Possible in the Digital Era?” The event took place on 10-11 May 2023.
- Univ. Dr. Paul-Gabriel Sandu participated in the international conference Levinas Today, held in Vilnius on 7-10 Nov. 2023. The lecture delivered on this occasion was „Otherwise than Human or Beyond the Anthropological Difference – Levinas and the Problem of Animality”.
- Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban participates on 6 December in the 8th edition of the International Conference Dialogue „East-West” – Philosophy and Global Issues, organized in Skopje, Macedonia, by the Macedonian Philosophical Society, giving the lecture „Global Biopolitics: Facing Violence, Strengthening Remembrance”.
- On 26 May 2023, three members of the BE YOU project team participated in the international festival Noaptea Philosophie in Timișoara, organized by the French Institute. During this event, a series of international conferences, lectures, workshops and book launches took place, disseminating to the general public the research of important philosophers from both the French and Romanian cultural space: Pebarthe, Barbara Stiegler, Anne Simon, Fabienne Brugere, Eric Prem, Theofanis Tasis, Aurélien Bellanger, Elise Domenach, Dragan Prole, Daniel Nica, Radu Uszkai, Mihail Cernea, Adriana Babeți, Marcel Tolcea, Claudiu Mesaroș, Grigore Vida, Octavian Repolschi, Adrian Briciu, Armand Voinov, Alin Gavreliuc, Florin Lobonț, Ionuț Mladin, Anca Tiurean, Camil Mihăescu. In the series of lectures, Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea, Conf., Univ. Dr. Cornel-Florin Moraru and Lect, Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban disseminated the results of the BE YOU project under the panel „Virtual Reality – a challenge for philosophy?” The event was intensely publicized and had a remarkable international visibility. Moreover, the event was curated by Cornel-Florin Moraru, BE YOU project manager, and Raphael Zagury-Orly, French philosopher, professor of philosophy at the Institut Catholique de Paris, Programme Director at the Collège International de Philosophie (Paris) and research associate at the Centre for Research on Arts and Language (Paris).
Research articles
- Oana Șerban, „A (Post)Philosophical Argument on Anti-Art And Digital Transgressions of Self-Fashioning. From Dada to Data, or How to Curate Selves on Instagram?”, in Philosophical Alternatives. A Journal of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, 2023, pp. 134-145, ISSN 0861-7899 (print), ISSN 2815-4568 (online) https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1159500 Indexing/Abstracting Services: Articles in the journal are abstracted (indexed) in The Philosopher’s Index, EBSCOhost, Central and Eastern European On-line Library (www.ceeol.com).
- Oana Șerban, „Social-Media (Un)Supporting E-Learning and Education: Reproducing Digital Inequalities and Cultural Capital Beyond Virtual Identities,” in Filosofiya-Philosophy, Bulgarian Journal of Philosophical Education, Perspectives towards Education for the 21st Century, Vol. 32, No. 3, Special Issue, 2023, Sofia, pp. 87-95 https://azbuki.bg/uncategorized/social-media-unsupporting-e-learning-and-education-reproducing-digital-inequalities-and-cultural-capital-beyond-virtual-identities/ Indexing: Articles in the journal are abstracted (indexed) in Web of Science, The Philosopher’s Index, European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (ERIH PLUS), Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL), EBSCOhost Research Databases, Google Scholar, Primo (Ex Libris), Summon (ProQuest)
- Cornel-Florin Moraru, „Towards a metaphysics of the virtual. Neoplatonic contemplative temptations and virtual reality”, in Revista de Filosofie, LXX, 1, pp. 5-19, 2023 https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=1178953 (EBSCO, CEEOL, The Philosopher’s Index)
- Paul-Gabriel Sandu, „Einfühlung – Interpretation – Einverstehende Apperzeption. Versuch einer kritischen Erklärung der ersten Ausarbeitung einer Fremdwahrnehmungstheorie Edmund Husserls,” in Studia UBB Philosophia, No. 1/2023, pp. 59-82, ISSN (online): 2065-9407. http://www.studia.ubbcluj.ro/download/pdf/philosophia/2023_1/05.pdf (Clarivate Analytics, ESCI)
- Paul-Gabriel Sandu, „Figures of authenticity: a complicated history,” in Journal of Philosophy 2023, Ed. Academiei Române (forthcoming) (EBSCO, CEEOL, The Philosopher’s Index)
- Dragoș Grusea, „Virtual Simultaneity in Lessing’s Aesthetics” in Revue Roumaine de Philosophie Volume 67, no. 2, 2023 ISSN: 1220-5400 (Clarivate Analytics
- Philosopher`s Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index) http://www.institutuldefilosofie.ro/request.php?1770
Studies in volumes published by national publishers
- Cornel-Florin Moraru, „From virtus dei to artificial intelligence. Sketch for a meontology of the virtual,” In Studii de Hermeneutică Pre-Judicativa e Meontologie, Vol. 7 / Studies in Pre-Judicative Hermeneutics and Meontology, Vol. 7, Bucharest University Press, pp. 7-52, ISBN 978-606-16-1378-6
- Dragoș Grusea, „The Concept of <sentience> in Kazimir Malevich’s Aesthetics. Between Absence and Virtuality.” In Studies in Epistemology and Value Theory, Vol. IX, 2023
Editorial appearance
Digital Existence. Studies in the philosophy of virtuality, Coordinator Cornel-Florin Moraru, Bucharest, Eikon Publishing House, 2023, 978-606-49-1048-6
The volume includes both contributions from BE YOU project team members and external contributions, as follows:
- Cornel-Florin Moraru, Contributions to a Philosophy of the Digital Environment. (Pre)History of Virtuality from Plato to Thomas Aquinas…
- Dragoș Grusea, „The concept of virtuality in the transcendental paradigm (G.E Lessing, Henri Bergson, Friedrich Bouterwek, Melchior Palágyi)”
- Oana Șerban, „(Counter)performative authenticity”
- Paul-Gabriel Sandu, „Metamorphoses of embodied existence. Reflections on the dynamics between virtuality and corporeality”
- Cristina Cristea, „Reflection on the authenticity of the self in the age of social media”
Media appearances
In the radio show Izvoare de Filosofie, broadcasted by Radio Romania Cultural and directed by Conf. Univ. Dr. Cornel Moraru, during the summer, there was a season of ten special episodes, in dialogue with Lect. Univ. Dragoș Grusea, about the unconventional history of modern German philosophy, starting with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and ending with Friedrich Hölderlin, in order to put in a new perspective the two centuries that changed the cultural destiny of all mankind – the 18th and 19th centuries. Part of these themes were devoted to the analysis of an idealism of virtuality, which led in time to the emergence of the concept of virtual reality.
The project comprised ten episodes with the following thematic layout:
(30 June): Why an unconventional history of modern German philosophy?
(7 July): Johann Winckelmann – Divine form and intellectual intuition
(14 July): G.E Lessing – Philosophy of full form
(21 July): Immanuel Kant – The Analysis of the Sublime and the Genesis of Romantic Categories
(28 July): J.G Fichte – The Imaginary Essence of the World and the Longing for the Infinite
(4 August): Friedrich Bouterweck – The Idealism of Virtuality
(11 August): K.P.Moritz – The dark essence of beauty. The world of the unformed.
(18 August): Novalis – Longing for the ineffable
(25 August): Friedrich Schlegel – From Kant to „universal progressive poetry”.
(1 September): Friedrich Hölderlin: – The Romantic Concept of Becoming
https://izvoaredefilosofie.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2023-10-19T13:10:00%2B03:00&max-results=10
At the same time, on 3 March 2023, Conf. Univ. Dr. Cornel Moraru had as guest, in the same broadcast, Lect. Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban, for a dialogue on „Cultural capital and artistic capitalism. Reflections on the de-aesthetization of the arts”. The show also opened the door to the aesthetic component of the BE YOU project.
15/05/2022 – 31/12/2022
Understanding the philosophical and conceptual roots of the concept of authenticity and analysing the many metamorphoses and changes within Western thought, to the extent that approaches to virtual ontology affect the mechanisms of self production.
IZVOARE DE FILOSOFIE (RADIO SHOW), GUEST PAUL SANDU
July 15 edition: How you can be yourself in the age of social media. A look at the aesthetics of the virtual environment
GUEST: PAUL GABRIEL SANDU
https://izvoaredefilosofie.blogspot.com/2022/07/editia-din-15-iulie-cum-poti-fi-tu.html?fbclid=IwAR3PG0f4Ooh6x4fmAbxu140tBwjkkYEflGJrNQTbv0hPDkboa114Ytgm74c
This week we invite you to a debate on how we can be ourselves in the online environment and how we can build an authentic virtual existence with Paul Gabriel Sandu, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bucharest and member of the research team of the project „Be You – Being yourself in the age of social networks – an approach to the aesthetics of authenticity from the perspective of virtual ontology”, a research project that aims to address the new challenges posed by the online environment to contemporary human existence.
IZVOARE DE FILOSOFIE (RADIO SHOW), GUEST DRAGOS GRUSEA
Editions of 29 July and 5 August: The abstract in philosophy and art. Reflections on abstract painting
GUEST: DRAGOȘ GRUSEA
https://izvoaredefilosofie.blogspot.com/2022/07/editia-din-29-iulie-abstractul-in.html?fbclid=IwAR1jeUj_ho3z6-1s3a5D1xcXGzcS7jNF8wj6T9QtOD-Xtw1cUKMyUHymYdk
This week we invite you to a debate on the notion of abstract in philosophy and art, with Dragoș Grusea, PhD in philosophy and lecturer at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. With master’s and doctoral studies done at the Eberhard-Karls Universität in Tübingen, our guest is one of the best young specialists in modern German philosophy in Romanian culture today.
IZVOARE DE FILOSOFIE (RADIO SHOW), GUEST OANA SERBAN
19th August edition: Towards a philosophy of the digital environment – Social networks and the post-truth era
GUEST: OANA SERBAN
https://izvoaredefilosofie.blogspot.com/2022/08/editia-din-19-august-catre-o-filosofie.html?fbclid=IwAR1Gm9IQdJyfSsnGntvziEaCOFXQkxSHZT5ZPBb06vh49oMW8uJdTXuXKMg
This week we propose a discussion about social networks in the post-truth era, with Oana Șerban – PhD in philosophy, professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Bucharest and researcher at the Centre for Research on the History of Philosophical Ideas (CCIIF).
Part of the BE YOU research disseminated at the 4th International Scientific Conference Contemporary Perspectives before the Humanities and Social Sciences, Varna, Bulgaria.
From 30 August to 2 September, Lect. Univ. Dr. Oana Șerban will present the paper Biopolitical Incursions of Self-Fashioning and Revaluing Life through Social Media in the Context of the War between Russia and Ukraine, at the 4th International Conference Contemporary Perspectives before the Humanities and Social Sciences (Varna, Bulgaria), disseminating part of the research supported by the BE YOU project, (UEFISCDI contract TE64/2022, PN-III-P1-1.1-TE2021-0439).
This paper tackles the role of social-media in performing biopolitical incursions into the so-called immunization process that harmed communities and collateral victims of the Russian-Ukrainian war deal with, in overcoming abusive actions policies applied by aggressors.
My argument is that within the era of post-truth, social-media transgresses a biopolitical turn: affected communities and their supportive actors create a new social contract based on preventing violence, combating fake-news and increasing real interest for truth beyond political narratives and mediatic appetite for drama.
Engaging Agamben`s, Harari`s and Esposito`s biopolitical arguments, I will explain to what extent the traumatic experience of war reframes a digital social-contract that, by means of networking and virtual self-fashioning, reconsider the value of life, the experience of premeditated death, the responsibility behind guilt and the need for an authentic and uncompromised memory, by placing at their core the interference, uses and abuses of social-media.
On 10 November, Lect. Univ. Dr. Cornel Moraru participated in the international workshop Responsible Robotics: agency, virtues and art, organized in Bucharest by the Faculty of Philosophy, through CCEA – Centre for Research in Applied Ethics, in the framework of the CoMoRe project (http://comore.ccea.ro/comore-project/).
During this workshop, Lect. Univ. Dr. Cornel Moraru presented the paper Hallucinating art. What does Artificial Intelligence teach us about aesthetic experience?
Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea attended the Ethos, Mythos, Logos Symposium (Hosman & Mediaș), on 23-25 September 2022. The symposium, organized by ProArmenopolis Gherla, Casa de lângă Sinagogă Mediaș, Jugendburg Holzmengen Hosman, had an interdisciplinary constitution, at the border between philosophy, history and religious studies. Lect. Univ. Dr. Dragoș Grusea presented the paper Existence in colours: Goethe and the chromatic cosmos. The title of the conference reveals the concern for the aesthetic dimension of the process of self-constitution.
Assist. Univ. Dr. Paul Gabriel Sandu participated in the Marcel Proust 100 Colloquium, organized on 17 and 18 November 2022, in Bucharest. The colloquium was organized by the Central University Library. The lecture he gave on this occasion, „The Self in Countertime. Expropriation as a dynamic of the acquisition of the self” reflects the concern for the phenomenological understanding of a model of selfhood and authenticity grafted around the concept of personal identity.
BE YOU research is gaining momentum! Researchers passionate about the topic of authenticity, self-constitution and the unveiling of virtual identities can consult two articles recently published under the aegis of the BE YOU project:
– Oana Șerban, „Biopolitical Incursions of Self-Fashioning and Revaluing Life Through Social Media in the Context of the War Between Russia and Ukraine”, in Philosophical Journal NotaBene, Issue 58, 2022, ISSN 1313-7859 (electronic journal, indexed in ERIH PLUS)
– Dragoș Grusea, „Kant despre sentimentul spazioului”, in SIFU – Studii de istorie a filosofiei universale, Bucharest, Romanian Academy Publishing House, 2022, ISSN 1583-8536.
Two other articles may soon be made available to philosophical audiences:
– Paul Gabriel Sandu, „PG – Einfühlung – Interpretation – Einverstehende Apperzeption”, in Studia UBB Philosophia (Dec. 2022, forthcoming), ISSN 2065-9407 (indexed in ESCI).
– Oana Șerban, „Social-Media (Un)Supporting E-Learning and Education: Reproducing Digital Inequalities and Cultural Capital Beyond Virtual Identities”, in Filosofiya-Philosophy (indexed in Web of Science, EBSCO, ERIH PLUS, The Philosopher`s Index, CEEOL, Google Scholar, ProQuest (Summon), Primo (Ex Libris), 2023 (forthcoming)
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Cornel Florin Moraru (manager proiect) Cornel-Florin Moraru is lecturer of Philosophy, Aesthetics and Applied Ethics at The National University of Arts in Bucharest. With an interdisciplinary formation in philosophy, classical philology, cybernetics and visual arts, his research interests spread from hermeneutics and history of philosophy to information aesthetics and neuroaesthetics. He has so far published three books in the field of philosophy and numerous scientific articles. For a complete CV, please refer to his personal website – www.cornelmoraru.ro |
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Dragoș Grusea (CȘ3) Dragoș Grusea – is lecturer at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. He completed his B.A studies at the University of Bucharest in 2009 and his M.A studies at the University of Tübingen in 2015 with a dissertation concerning the schemata of reason in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. He received his PhD in 2020 from the University of Bucharest with a thesis on Kant’s concept of a priori motion. Currently he is a PhD student at the University of Tübingen. His research interests vary from pure metaphysics to the aesthetics of modern art. Grusea published in a diverse range of subjects including german idealism, neokantianism or modern theories of art. In his book „Moment and Time” (2020) he analysed the concept of time as it appears in Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche’s Thus spake Zarathustra and Kant’s Critique of Judgement. He is currently translating into romanian the two volumes of Paul Klee’s notebooks: The thinking Eye and Infinite History of Nature. |
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Paul Gabriel Sandu (CȘ3) Paul Gabriel Sandu s-a născut la Reșița. A studiat filozofia la București, Tübingen și Freiburg, iar în 2018 a obținut doctoratul în filozofie la Universitatea Albert-Ludwig din Freiburg. A tradus în limba română o serie de lucrări din sfera filosofiei și științelor politice, din autori precum Schelling, Heidegger, Habermas, Chomsky etc. și a publicat o serie de articole și studii pe teme de filosofie contemporană în volume/reviste internaționale. În 2021 a publicat volumul Koexistenz im Ineinander la editura Mohr Siebeck din Tuebingen, Germania. În prezent este asistent universitar în cadrul Facultății de Filosofie a Universității din București. |
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Oana Șerban (CȘ3) OANA ŞERBAN teaches Modern Philosophy and Aesthetics at the University of Bucharest, as titular professor of the Department of Practical Philosophy and History of Philosophy and of UNESCO Chair in Interculturality, Good Governance and Sustainable Development. She is the Executive Director of CCIIF – The Research Center for the History and Circulation of Philosophical Ideas (University of Bucharest) and recently she has been involved in different CIVIS projects and applications (including summer schools, seminars, classes and research activities). She has authored different volumes, from which Artistic Capitalism (Paralela 45, 2016) and After Thomas Kuhn. The Structure of Aesthetic Revolutions (De Gruyter, 2022, forthcoming) are the most important. She has co-edited different volumes of philosophy, culture and aesthetics. Around 40 academic articles and studies reflect her interest in the following main areas of expertise: Aesthetics, Modern and Political Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Biopolitics, History of Art, Cultural Heritage. Recently, she became interested in the biopolitical potential of modern art, a topic explored in her latest study, published in the volume Philosophy and Film: Bridging Divides, eds. Christina Rawls, Diana Neiva, Steven Gouveia, at Routledge (2019). |
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PURPOSE
The main goal of this research project is to reconstruct the concept of authenticity in the light of its manifestations and impact on the popular culture of our time, especially in the virtual world of the social networks, by thoroughly taking into account the way it shapes and structures our virtual lives, our virtual interactions with each other and the way online social networks work as such. In order to do this, we shall try to understand the historical and philosophical roots of the concept of authenticity, to analyse its numerous metamorphoses and shifts throughout the history of western thought, to discuss the correlation between the concept of authenticity and that of the (techno)self, to examine possible ways of critically rethinking this concept, to question the concept of „virtuality” from a philosophical and cultural point of view, showing that the virtual and digital world, as it is represented in today’s AI research, brings up a completely new understanding of reality; finally, we shall analyse different ways of bridging the divide between sociality and authenticity, whose acute expression is, among others, the distorted, even false sense of belonging created by different types of virtual communities.
OBJECTIVES
The first objective (1) of this project is to understand the cultural and philosophical roots of the concept of authenticity and to analyse its numerous metamorphoses and shifts throughout the history of western thought, until virtual-based ontology approaches have radically changed the way we see the production of the self. The starting point of this endeavor (1.1) will be Plato’s account of alethes bios and Aristotle’s ethical perspective on the good life (eudaimonia) which he develops in the Nicomachean Ethics. The much-debated idea of self-creation – especially important in the context of the contemporary discussions on authenticity – which can be traced back to Aristotle’s account of the virtuous life will constitute the focus of our research at this stage, along with the concept of self-care (epimeleia heautou). In a second step (1.2) we will focus on the evolution and mutations of these concepts within the Christian tradition from Augustine to Kierkegaard and the rediscovery and reinterpretation of authenticity from the perspective of existentialism. We will try to show that this evolution is not at all linear, and that oftentimes we have to deal with conflicting understandings of authenticity. In order to fully accomplish our objective, (1.3) we will evaluate how much of the philosophical tradition of authenticity resists nowadays facing virtual societies, by reflecting on the multiple manners in which the curation of the self has impacted the canonical understandings of authenticity and, implicitly, has created a tension between the role of discourses and that of images in processing our identities in social-media.
Our second objective (2) is to discuss the correlation between the concept of authenticity and that of the self and to show that the way authenticity is conceived depends on the way we conceive what traditionally bears the name of ego or subject. At this stage the various critiques of the subjectivity will be taken into account, in order to understand to what extent notions such as ego, subject and self are retailored by process identity within virtual societies.
Our third objective (3) is to bring into focus the discussion on self-creation vs. production of the self. How should this self-creation be understood, to what extent can we still interpret self-creation as a self-discovery process and how can we reconcile the idea of self-creation with that of belonging to a community of shared meaning.
In order to achieve the main goal of our research one more step is necessary, namely the analysis of the concept of „virtuality” (4) from a philosophical and cultural point of view, showing that the virtual and digital world, as it is represented in today’s AI research, brings up a completely new understanding of reality that we don’t fully grasp yet and that our brain, from a neuroscientific point of view, has not evolved to function in.
STAGES
15/05/2022 – 31/12/2022
Understanding the philosophical and conceptual roots of the concept of authenticity and analyzing the many metamorphoses and changes within Western thought, to the point where approaches to virtual ontology affect the mechanisms of self-production.
01/01/2023 – 31/12/2023
Assessing the correlations between the concept of authenticity and the concept of the self and to show that how authenticity is conceived depends on how we conceive of what is traditionally called the ego or subject. Assessing the relationship between self-creation and self-production, focusing on how the former can be pursued as a process of self-discovery, and on ways of reconciling the tensions between the labour of self-creation and the sense of belonging to a community that cultivates shared values. The investigation of the concept of musealization of the self-starting from the modern concept of „museum”, thought of as a colonial idea that has changed our attitude towards art, our own self and others.
01/01/2024 – 14/05/2024
Investigating and understanding how the creation of the self works in the virtual world of social networks as a kind of aestheticization and museification of the self. Final evaluation and identification of levers for the long-term sustainability of the project