The aim of this entry is to provide the reader with a philosophical map of the progression of the concept and experience of boredom throughout the Western tradition—from antiquity to current work in Anglo-American philosophy. By focusing primarily on key philosophical works on boredom, but also often discussing important literary and scientific texts, the entry exposes the reader to the rich history of boredom and illustrates how the different manifestations of boredom—idleness, horror loci, acedia, sloth, mal du siècle, melancholy, ennui, (...) monotony, and emptiness—are grounded in the historical context in which they arise. (shrink)

Hans Blumenberg wrote, in an unpublished manuscript entitled Ein Betrug? / Der böse Dämon (UNF 532-534), that «the whole world and human intelligence were hidden beneath the earth, where the relics of the precursors of life rest». The German philosopher was not a palaeoanthropologist in the strict sense but dedicated much of his life to excavating in the ground, in search of replies to the great questions about the human condition. This paper is the result of a work compiling and (...) classifying a series of unpublished texts about palaeoanthropology to be found dotted throughout his Nachlaß. The aim is to show the interest that disciplines such as palaeoanthropology aroused in the German thinker, and that his understanding of the matter, reflected in part in his anthropological-philosophical theses, has not yet been systematised. (shrink)

This paper introduces the hypothesis that boredom may be a decisive factor in the social outbreak that took place in Chile in 2019. It is based on another hypothesis that postulates that boredom can become a political emotion capable of unleashing a revolution when it affects an entire community. The main objective of the work is to explain the theoretical, philosophical framework in which the second hypothesis is inscribed and to give reasons why, if this is true, it could be (...) applied to the specific case of Chile. In this sense, an unpublished definition of the concept of boredom is first outlined and the literature that describes boredom as a reactive and political emotion is examined. Then, the Chilean socio-political context of the last forty years is analyzed in search of isolatable factors that may be related to the experience of boredom. Lastly, an original line of research is proposed on which to work to test both hypotheses in a broader project that aims to be able to predict when a social system is on the verge of collapse because of boredom. (shrink)