Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media – it is ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that does not call for more transparency. But what does this word actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the paradoxical logics of transparency and mediation? This O...

Let’s stop criticising or extolling the old value systems. Instead, let’s anticipate the value systems of the future, exploring, expressing, developing and living them here and now. There’s no need for science fiction, the thought of the future is active at this moment right under your nose. Take the side of the plant and a whole new vista opens up.

Presupposing that accidents produce technologies, this book inquires into the forms of power and authority that accidents materialise. For instance, what are the specific accidents of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and pattern recognition systems? And what insights can accidents give about the technology that generates them? Perhaps we can reverse this thinking and see “accidents” as extended forms of functionality, which may be undesired but not entirely dysfunctional. With c...

The debate on innate sources for morality continues – some argue for innate moral instincts, while others believe that morality is primarily shaped by social and cultural influence. The most powerful innate instinct is the individual survival instinct, which encapsulates the innate drive within living organisms to ensure their own survival. This belongs to man’s primal instincts and manifests itself in various ways, encompassing both physical and psychological responses to potential threa...

Joop van Hezik brings philosophy to life, in more ways than one. He shows that the ideology of 'economic growth' is the basis of our modern societies and economies, and even of our sustainable development policies. In this ideology people and nature seem to be merely instruments for economic growth. This results in destruction and the failure of sustainable development policies at all geographical levels. As Van Hezik clearly demonstrates, we need utopian thinking to reflect on the real value...

After the linguistic and the affective turns, the new materialist and the performative turns, the cognitive and the posthuman turns, it is now time to re-turn to the ancient, yet also modern and still contemporary realization that humans are mimetic creatures. In this second installment of the Homo Mimeticus series, international scholars working in philosophy, literary theory, classics, cultural studies, sociology, political theory, and the neurosciences engage creatively with the theory dev...

'Landschap' roept eindeloze verwachtingen en associaties op: er is geen eenduidige, vastomlijnde beschrijving te geven van deze term. Het landschap is daarom uitermate geschikt als uitgangspunt voor filosofische vragen over de dynamiek van culturele centra, de visies van instituten en de evolutie van cultuur in een natuurlijke omgeving. Want van wie is dit land eigenlijk? Wie bezit het? Wie maakte het landschap? Wie bepaalde het culturele ritme? Wie claimt de grond? Dit boek wil deze vragen o...

The word “vegetative” usually brings to mind passiveness and decay. But vegetal matter is, in fact, a source of existence, sustenance, peace, beauty, and hope. When plants join in rhizomatic networks, they participate in a lively exchange of energy and information. Performance artist and writer Anushka Nair proposes a conceptual and artistic methodology in the context of plant life, encouraging an embodied form of co-existence. Nair thus offers a unique perspective on connecting with plan...