The blind spot of philosophy: to live a life Age-old philosophical texts, from Plato to Montaigne or from Lao-tse to Rousseau, are still being read by many. What makes these texts so attractive and ‘contemporary’ today, other than scientific texts from long ago? Most of the time these texts do not address empirical or conceptual questions, but address the problem to understand ourselves as creatures that try to live a life. Academic philosophy has left this question more and more aside, (...) in an ongoing process of ‘scientification’, and concentrated more on conceptual and epistemological questions or on the reconstruction of the philosophical tradition. Yet, in the margins of academic philosophy, in neighboring fields of research and in the public sphere, we can discern examples of a philosophical practice that rephrases the classical philosophical question in a new manner. In this essay an attempt is made to draw the contours of this new practice of philosophy and the writings it produces. Starting with (among others) Nietzsche and Benjamin, and inspired by recent lectures by Norman Lear, a portrait is created of an author who operates somewhere on the borders between science and literature, as a placeholder – or more precise: as an ethnographer who, more than the average scholar, is closely involved with the object of his research, and who, more than the average novelist, addresses ‘the weird problem of having a life’ in a direct way, starting with the problematic and problematizing experiences of others. This philosophical attitude comes close to what Michel Foucault called ‘an ontology of the present’ that writes about the question of who or what we are here and now from a ironical involvement with everyday problematizations of our cultural, political or personal identity. The essay ends with some concrete examples of this philosophical practice and with some suggestions for a philosophical institute in which such a practice could be a central concern. (shrink)

The rise and development of the interdisciplinary academic discipline of cultural studies is part of a broader cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences that represents a fare- well to mono-causal and reductionist methodologies in favor of a more complex, holistic and dialectical analysis of social and cultural processes. In so-called ‘critical theory’ this has led to a shift from economic and political sources of social inequality and struggles towards the persistence and irreducible complexity of cultural difference or otherness, (...) evidenced by important studies of the role of nationalism, the aestheticization of everyday life or the growing influence of new media of communication and imagination. This cultural turn in humanities and social sciences is related to a growing influence of cultural and at the same time post-political forms of power in everyday life, exemplified by the dominance of a meritocratic culture of ‘positive thinking’ in different areas of society, or in other words: of a neoliberal culture and ideology. In cultural studies historical awareness of this growing influence of cultural power is combined with anthropological research into the specificities of contemporary everyday culture and with a strong sensibility for the tensions, inequalities and contradictions in that culture, due to an ever growing globalization of its conditions. This inter- or transdisciplinary perspective on the power of culture finally cannot do without a serious rethinking of the aesthetic quality or dimension of everyday culture – and at the same time a rethinking of the scope and substance of aesthetics itself. (shrink)

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Universiteiten hebben tegenwoordig een missie. Die missie verwoorden zij in hun strategische plannen en hun jaarverslagen. Tot de missie van de universiteit waarvoor ik werk, de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, behoort nadrukkelijk dat zij de publieke rol en relevantie van de wetenschap en van de wetenschappers die haar beoefenen wil bevorderen. Daarmee bevestigt de universiteit een lange traditie waarin van wetenschappers als vanzelfsprekend wordt verwacht dat zij naast het geven van wetenschappelijk onderwijs en het verrichten van wetenschappelijk onderzoek tevens een intellectuele taak (...) hebben. Die taak delen zij met andere professionals, van kunstenaars tot journalisten, schrijvers en essayisten. Een intellectueel is iemand die zijn kennis of professionele vaardigheden op actieve wijze inzet ten bate van het algemeen belang, of beter: van de publieke zaak. Ik kom nog terug op intellectuelen en hun publieke rol. Hier gaat het me om die missie. (shrink)

The founders of Krisis saw their journal as part of Rudi Dutschke’s ‘long march through the institutions’: a philosophical journal that would criticize and change the practices and institutions of academic philosophy from within. Philosophy should play a critical and emancipatory role in society and in intellectual and public debates, and the journal could help to enhance that role. Academic philosophy did change, but in a rather different direction: new public management took over and submitted academic research and education to (...) a new regime of entrepeneurial efficiency and disciplinary competition. To survive, Krisis metamorphosized several times and is now a broad bilingual online journal for intellectual debate and research with a loose relationship with academic philosophy. If it strengthens this identity, it can continue to play an intermediary role between academic research and public debate, in both directions. (shrink)