Jos de Mul. I giochi come vero Organon della filosofia. Ontologie ludiche: Schelling, Huizinga, Borges e oltre. In: Marco Accordi Rickards & Fabio Belsanti (Ed.) Homo Cyber Ludens. Bari: Idra Editing, 101-129.[1] Also availble as Kindle edition in Italian and English.

Introduzione

Uno spettro ludico si aggira per il mondo. Dagli anni '60, in cui la parola "ludico" è diventata popolare in Europa e negli Stati Uniti per designare comportamenti e oggetti inerenti il gioco, la ludicità è diventata sempre più una caratteristica fondamentale della nostra cultura. Nei primi decenni del XXI secolo si può persino parlare di una «ludificazione della cultura» globale (Raessens 2006). Forse la prima cosa che viene in mente in questo contesto è l'immensa popolarità dei videogiochi (Frissen et al. 2015). Ma sebbene forse più visibile, la cultura dei videogiochi è solo una manifestazione del processo di ludificazione che sembra penetrare in ogni dominio culturale (Neitzel e Nohr 2006). Nella nostra attuale economia dell’esperienza, ad esempio, la ludicità non caratterizza solo il tempo libero (shopping “divertente”, giochi televisivi, parchi divertimento, uso ludico di computer, internet e smartphone), ma anche quegli ambiti che un tempo erano seri, come il lavoro (che oggi dovrebbe essere soprattutto divertente), educazione (serious games), politica (campagne ludiche) e persino guerra (wargames digitali e simulatori virtuali di battaglie sul campo). Secondo Jeremy Rifkin, «il gioco sta diventando importante nell'economia culturale quanto il lavoro lo era nell'economia industriale» (Rifkin 2000, 263). La cultura postmoderna nel suo insieme è stata descritta come «un gioco senza uno scopo generale, un gioco senza una destinazione trascendente» (Minnema 1998, 21). E secondo il sociologo Zygmunt Bauman, anche l'identità umana è diventata un fenomeno ludico. Nella cultura ludica, sostiene, la ludicità non è più limitata all'infanzia, ma è diventata un atteggiamento permanente: «Il segno dell'età adulta postmoderna è la volontà di abbracciare il gioco con tutto il cuore, come fanno i bambini» (Bauman 1995, 99).

Di conseguenza, i fenomeni del giocare e del gioco sono osservati e studiati con sempre più attenzione dalle scienze naturali, le scienze sociali e le scienze umane. Si può pensare, ad esempio, all'implementazione della teoria dei giochi in biologia (Sigmund 1993), economia (Von Neumann e Morgenstern 2007, Leonard 2010) e antropologia culturale (Bateson 1977, 1955). Oltre al crescente interesse per  l’attività ludica, che in queste discipline era preesistente, negli ultimi decenni – motivato dalla crescita sostanziale del tempo libero e dalla crescita della ludoindustria e del ludocapitalismo (Dibbell 2008), diversi nuovi campi interamente dedicati allo studio di giochi e videogiochi sono emersi (es. Raessens e Goldstein 2005, Fuchs et al. 2014).

Come dobbiamo intendere questa “ludificazione della cultura”? Cosa dice della nostra vita e della nostra visione del mondo all'inizio del XXI secolo? In ciò che segue presenterò un'interpretazione di questo fenomeno della ludificazione con l'aiuto di due libri: il Sistema dell’idealismo trascendentale (System of transcendental Idealism, 1800) di Friedrich Schelling e Homo ludens (1938) di Johan Huizinga, insieme a un racconto di Jorges Luis Borges intitolato La biblioteca di Babele (The Library of Babel, 1941). Sosterrò che questi lavori, quando li collochiamo nel contesto dell'ontologia dei database che caratterizza la nostra epoca informatica, offrono una prospettiva illuminante sull'ontologia ludica che sta alla base della ludificazione della cultura.

Svilupperò la mia argomentazione in tre passaggi. Nei primi due presenterò alcune delle idee chiave che si possono trovare rispettivamente nel Sistema dell’Idealismo trascendentale di Schelling e nel saggio Homo ludens di Huizinga. Discuterò il loro comune desiderio romantico di trascendenza immanente mediante l'estetizzazione del mondo, così come la loro comune – e non meno romantica – avversione verso la tecnologia moderna. Tuttavia, come sosterrò nella terza e ultima parte del mio intervento, contrariamente a quanto credevano sia Schelling sia Huizinga, è proprio nelle moderne tecnologie dell'informazione che si realizza l’ontologia ludica che cercavano. Usando La biblioteca di Babele (e facendo anche riferimento a simulazioni ludiche di questa biblioteca su internet), questo mi porterà alla conclusione che la svolta ludica della tecnologia trasforma il gioco per computer (i videogiochi) nel "vero organon della filosofia".

Jos de Mul. Games as the True Organon of Philosophy. Playful ontologies: Schelling, Huizinga, Borges and beyond. In: Marco Accordi Rickards & Fabio Belsanti (Eds.) Homo Cyber Ludens. Bari: Idra Editing, 97-124.  Also availble as Kindle edition in Italian and English.

Introduction

A playful specter is haunting the world. Since the 1960s, in which the word ‘ludic’ became popular in Europe and the US to designate playful behavior and artifacts, playfulness has increasingly become a mainstream characteristic of our culture. In the first decades of the 21^st century, we can even speak of a global ‘ludification of culture’ (Raessens 2006). Perhaps the first thing that comes to mind in this context is the immense popularity of computer games (Frissen et al. 2015). But although perhaps most visible, computer game culture is only one manifestation of the process of ludification that seems to penetrate every cultural domain (Neitzel and Nohr 2006). In our present experience economy, for example, playfulness not only characterizes leisure time (fun shopping, game shows on television, amusement parks, playful use of computers, internet and smartphones), but also those domains that used to be serious, such as work (which should above all be fun today), education (serious gaming), politics (ludic campaigning), and even warfare (video games like war simulators and interfaces). According to Jeremy Rifkin “play is becoming as important in the cultural economy as work was in the industrial economy” (Rifkin 2000, 263). Postmodern culture as a whole has been described as “a game without an overall aim, a play without a transcendent destination” (Minnema 1998, 21). And according to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, even human identity has become a playful phenomenon. In ludic culture, he argues, playfulness is no longer restricted to childhood, but has become a lifelong attitude: “The mark of postmodern adulthood is the willingness to embrace the game whole-heartedly, as children do” (Bauman 1995, 99).

As a result, the phenomena play and game have gained strong attention in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. One can think, for example, of the implementation of game theory in biology (Sigmund 1993), economics (Von Neumann and Morgenstern 2007, Leonard 2010) and cultural anthropology (Bateson 1977, 1955). In addition to the increased interest in play and games in these already existing disciplines, in the last decades – motivated by the substantial growth of leisure time and the growth of ludo-industry and ludo-capitalism (Dibbell 2008), several new fields entirely devoted to the study of play and (computer) games have emerged (e.g. Raessens and Goldstein 2005, Fuchs et al. 2014).

How should we understand this ‘ludification of culture’? What does it say about our life and world view at the beginning of the 21^st century?  Today I will present an interpretation of this phenomenon of ludification with the help of two books - Friedrich Schelling’s System of transcendental Idealism [System des transzendentalen Idealismus] (1800) and Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens. A Study of the Play-Element in Culture [Homo Ludens. Proeve ener bepaling van het spel-element der cultuur] (1938) and one short story, Jorges Luis Borges’ ‘The library of Babel’[‘La biblioteca de Babel’] (1941). I will argue that these works, when we situate them in the context of the database ontology which characterizes our computer age, offer an illuminating outlook on the playful ontology that underpins the ludification of culture.

I will develop my argument in three steps. In the first two I will present some of the key ideas that can be found in respectively Schelling’s System of transcendental Idealism and Huizinga’s Homo ludens. I will discuss their shared romantic desire for immanent transcendence through aesthetization of the world, as well as their shared – and no less romantic - aversion toward modern technology. However, as I will argue in the third and last part of my talk, contrary to what both Schelling and Huizinga expected, precisely in modern information technologies the playful ontology they were after, is realized. Using ‘The Library of Babel’ (and also referring to playful simulations of this Library at the internet), this will lead me to the conclusion that the ludic turn of technology turns the computer game into the ‘true organon of philosophy’.

Jos de Mul. From mythology to technology and back. Human‐animal combinations in the era of digital recombinability. In: Bruno Accarino, Jos de Mul und Hans-Peter Krüger (Hrsg.). Internationales Jahrbuch für Philosophische Anthropologie. Band 10 (2020)/ International Yearbook for Philosophical Anthropology. Volume 10 (2020) Katharina Block &Julien Kloeg (Eds.). Ecology 2.0 - The Contribution of Philosophical Anthropology to Mapping the Ecological Crisis.  Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, 79-97.

Who does not know the wonderful human-animal combinations in Greek mythology?[1] The Centaur, the creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse; Medusa, the woman with eyes of stone, from whose head snakes grow instead of hair; Chimaera, the monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and a snake for a tail? They sowed death and destruction. Quite comforting that they don’t exist.

Or should we say: did not yet exist? Because human-animal combinations are among us again, and this time not as creations of mythological imagination, but as products of contemporary biotechnology, such as cybrids and chimeras. Think of mice with sizable pieces of genetic code that originated from the human genome, used in cancer and pharmaceutical research, or pigs with a human heart, that are grown for medical applications.

Such biotechnological creations evoke a lot of resistance in public debates. This resistance is partly based on rational arguments, such as health risks, but often strong emotions, like feelings of disgust, play a major role as well. Why would that be the case? All things considered, contemporary biological insights inform us that human beings, like all species, actually are already polygenomic organisms, and for that reason, fundamental biological concepts such as ‘individual’ and ‘species’ deserve considerable nuance. On closer inspection, the mythological human-animal combinations appear to contain more truth on this point than nineteenth-century biology, which was strongly driven by a separative cosmology, which still haunts common sense conceptions of life today.

In this essay I will discuss recent developments in postgenomic molecular biology from the perspective of the interconnective cosmology of Greek mythology. Not in order to claim the ‘eternal truth’ of this ancient cosmology, but to show that it contains insights that help us to better understand contemporary postgenomic biology and philosophical anthropology and to situate them in a broader world-historical context.  

Bruno Accarino, Jos de Mul und Hans-Peter Krüger (Hrsg.). Internationales Jahrbuch für Philosophische Anthropologie. Band 10 (2020)/ International Yearbook for Philosophical Anthropology. Volume 10 (2020) Katharina Block &Julien Kloeg (Eds.). Ecology 2.0 - The Contribution of Philosophical Anthropology to Mapping the Ecological Crisis.  Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, 318 p.

Philosophical anthropology reflects on the human condition, which is put into urgent question by today’s ecological crisis. An Ecology 2.0 has developed to meet this challenge. In this volume, contributing authors probe both theoretical approaches to ecology and the tradition of philosophical anthropology itself. The tradition bears fruit and stands to be extended beyond its usual textual bases, mirroring the sense in which questions of human existence as such take on an intensified role.

Transhumanismus aus Sicht der Philosophischen Anthropologie Helmuth Plessners. In: Olivia Mitscherlich-Schönherr (Hrsg.), Das Gelingen der künstlichen Natürlichkeit. Mensch-Sein an den Grenzen des Lebens mit disruptiven Biotechnologien. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, 351-365. [Open access: download the entire book for free]

Mit den Worten Unmensch und unmenschlich sollte man sparsam sein.

Helmuth Plessner

Zusammenfassung

Der Beitrag vergleicht die extra-, trans- und posthumanisti­schen Utopien der Menschenverbesserung mit der philosophischen Anthropolo­gie von Helmuth Plessner kritisiert den Transhumanismus anhand der drei an­thropologischen Grundgesetze, die Plessner in seinem Opus Magnum „Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch“ (1928) formuliert. Es wird gezeigt, dass der Transhumanismus mit Plessners erstem anthropologischen Gesetz überein­stimmt: dem Gesetz der „natürlichen Künstlichkeit“ des Menschen. Es gibt jedoch zwei wichtige Unterschiede, die den Transhumanismus zu einer radikalisierten philosophischen Anthropologie machen. Erstens wollen Transhumanisten im Gegensatz zu Plessner die natürliche Künstlichkeit nicht nur beschreiben, son­dern auch aktiv befördern. Zweitens bemühen sich die Transhumanisten, das gegenwärtige Mensch-Sein in eine transhumane oder sogar posthumane Le­bensform zu verwandeln. Während Plessner die Möglichkeit von Lebensformen jenseits der exzentrischen Position des Menschen nicht für möglich hält wird mit Bezug auf Bienen, Oktopoden und Craniopagus Zwillingen argumentiert, dass die Natur bereits polyzentrische und polyexzentrische Lebensformen kennt und dass die technische Realisierung dieser Lebensformen mindestens logisch nicht aus­geschlossen ist. Gleichwohl gibt es gute Gründe gibt, sich den transhumanisti­schen Träumen nicht begeistert zu überlassen. Plessners zweites Grundgesetz - das Gesetz der „vermittelten Unmittelbarkeit“ - lehrt, dass die Entwicklung von Techniken weder vorhersehbar noch kontrollierbar ist. Und das dritte Grundge­setz - das Gesetz des „utopischen Standorts“- macht deutlich, dass eine Über­windung der konstitutionellen Heimatlosigkeit des Menschen - wenn dies über­haupt möglich wäre - das Ende der menschlichen Lebensform bedeuten würde. In einem Einzeiler zusammengefasst: Transhumanisten lassen sich mit jemandem vergleichen, der alle Vorbereitungen für eine wilden Party trifft, zu der er selbst allerdings nicht eingeladen sein wird.

 دكتور بروفسور يوس دي مول. الربيع العربي وشهر العسل على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي - مجلة المصير - عدد ١٦ - ربيع ٢٠٢٠ - صفحة ١٠٧-١١٣  [[The honeymoon of the Arabic Spring and the social media. Al Masir. Nr. 16, Spring 2021, 107-113. Translation: dr. Khaled Chouket]

الربيع العربي وشهر العسل على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي

يوس دي مول*

 تم تصوير الربيع العربي على أنه ثورة الفايسبوك بسبب الدور الذي لعبته وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي فيه. ومع ذلك ، فإن السؤال هو ما إذا كان هذا الدور عظيمًا جدًا وكان التأثير إيجابيًا جدًا. ماذا تعلمنا الأفلام في مهرجان الفيلم العربي عن هذا؟

حقيقة أن مهرجان الفيلم العربي مخصص هذا العام لـ "الربيع العربي" ليس مفاجئًا بالنظر إلى الذكرى العاشرة لهذه الثورة. فالربيع العربي، الذي اندلع في الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا من ديسمبر 2010 إلى صيف 2012 وألهم ثورات ضد الأنظمة الاستبدادية في إيران (2011) والصين (2011) وأوكرانيا (2013)، من بين أمور أخرى، يعتبر حدثًا تاريخيًا مهمًا، ليس فقط بسبب تأثير الدومينو وسقوط الأنظمة الاستبدادية في تونس ومصر واليمن وليبيا ، ولكن أيضًا لأن وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي كانت ستلعب دورًا مهمًا فيه.

نظرًا لأن وسائل الإعلام في العديد من الدول العربية تخضع لسيطرة الأنظمة الاستبدادية، فإن التأثير السياسي المحتمل لـ Twitter و Facebook - قبل خمس سنوات من الربيع العربي كان محدودا، لكنه ابتداءا من عام 2011 سيكون لديه بالفعل 50 مليون تغريدة يوميًا و 500 مليون مستخدم على التوالي في جميع أنحاء العالم، ومن الطبيعي أن تكون لدى هذه الوسائط عدد أكبر في البلدان ذات الصحافة الحرة والنقدية. في عام 2009 ، تم تقديم النسخة العربية من Facebook ، مما أدى إلى فتح جمهور محتمل يصل إلى 250 مليون شخص وإنشاء مساحة عامة على الإنترنت حيث يكون للنساء والأقليات العرقية والدينية صوت أيضًا.

على الرغم من أن اللغة العربية المحكية لها لهجات مختلفة على نطاق واسع، إلا أن اللغة العربية المكتوبة تعمل كلغة مشتركة ، وترسل أخبار الثورة ودعوات إلى العمل كالنار في الهشيم من خلال "العالم العربي". ونظرًا لأنه اعتبارًا من عام 2010 ، أصبح من الممكن أيضًا مشاهدة الصور ومقاطع الفيديو في Twitter فقد سهل ذلك الاستخدام ، حيث وصلت الرسالة الثورية أيضًا إلى الأشخاص المتعلمين رقميًا وذوي الأمية المنخفضة.

ظهرت مجموعة كبيرة من المنشورات على مدار العقد الماضي حول تأثير وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي على الربيع العربي، بما في ذلك وسائل الإعلام الاجتماعية Carvins Distant Witness ، والربيع العربي وثورة الصحافة (2012)، والموجة الرابعة "هوارد وحسين" للديمقراطية ؟ الإعلام الرقمي والربيع العربي (2013)، الربيع العربي على "الجمالي أونلاين". وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي والتغيير الأساسي (2015) و Snowdons The People لم يكونوا مجرد صورة. الفيديو العامي بعد الربيع العربي (2020). لا يمكن إنكار أن وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لعبت دورًا في تنظيم وتنسيق ونشر الاحتجاجات في جميع أنحاء العالم ، والتي تمت الإشارة إليها بالتالي باسم "ثورة الفايسبوك" أو "انتفاضة تويتر".

The Political Task of Philosophical Anthropology in the Age of Converging Technologies. In Erik Norman Dzwiza-Ohlsen & Andreas Speer (Hrsg). Philosophische Anthropologie als interdisziplinäre Praxis. Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner und Nicolai Hartmann in Köln – historische und systematische Perspektiven. Paderborn: Brill/Mentis, 2021, 305-326.

Die philosophische Anthropologie des 20. Jahrhunderts ist ohne sie undenkbar: Plessner, Scheler und Hartmann. Dass die drei Denker nicht nur Pioniere einer philosophischen, sondern auch einer interdisziplinären Anthropologie waren, macht sie zu idealen Dialogpartnern für die großen Fragen unserer Gegenwart und Zukunft. Der Band liefert eine einzigartige Standortbestimmung der philosophischen Anthropologie und Ontologie von Max Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann und Helmuth Plessner. Der Band dokumentiert auf umfassende Weise, wie die Denker an der nach dem 1. Weltkrieg neu gegründeten Kölner Universität einen nachhaltigen interdisziplinären Dialog initiierten und dabei eine erhebliche internationale Strahlkraft entfalteten.

In my contribution, I will focus on the reciprocal constitution of Plessner’s Philosophical Anthropology and political philosophy. I will analyze Plessner’s critique of reductionist and determinist Neo-Darwinism and its political implications as elaborated in Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch (1928), Macht und Menschliche Natur (1931) and his recently published lectures on Philosophische Anthropologie, which he held in Göttingen in 1961. Against this background, I will discuss the challenges and task of philosophical anthropology in our present age, characterized by converging technologies. This term refers to the increasingly integrated biotechnologies (such as genetic modification), digital neuro-technologies (such as brain implants), artificial intelligences (such as predictive algorithms) and nanotechnologies (manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale, which plays an enabling a role in the other three.

Jos de mul. The Living Sign. Reading Noble from a Biosemiotic Perspective. Biosemiotics. 14 (2021), 1,   (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-021-09426-y)

Abstract
The author argues that the reductionist illusions of the Modern Synthesis, which Noble criticizes in his target article, are to a large extent resulting from a mere syntactical notion of biological information, neglecting the pragmatic and semantic dimension of information. Although the syntactical notion, introduced by Shannon, has been applied with much success in information theory and computer technologies, it is too narrow to understand biological reality. Biosemiotics can help to clarify the problems identified by Noble, and offers a more adequate biological information concept, which not only may help to overcome these problems in the life sciences, but may also serve to integrate natural-scientific and humanities approaches to life.

Keywords Biosemiotics . Noble . Living sign . Syntactics . Pragmatics . Semantics

Jos de Mul. De wittebroodsweken van de sociale media. Bijlage 10 jaar Arabische Lente. Trouw, 19 maart 2021, 4-5.

De Arabische Lente wordt vanwege de rol die de sociale media erin speelden ook wel de Facebook-revolutie genoemd. Het is echter maar de vraag of die rol zo groot én het effect zo positief was. Wat leren de films op het Arab Filmfestival ons daarover?

De Arabische Lente, die van december 2010 tot de zomer 2012 in het Midden-Oosten en Noord-Afrika woedde en in onder meer Iran (2011), China (2011) en Oekraïne (2013) opstanden tegen autoritaire regimes inspireerde, geldt als een belangrijke historische gebeurtenis. Niet alleen vanwege het domino-effect en de val van autoritaire regimes in Tunesië, Egypte, Jemen en Libië, maar ook omdat sociale media er een belangrijke rol in gespeeld zouden hebben.
Omdat de massamedia in veel Arabische landen onder controle staan van autoritaire regimes, was de potentiële politieke impact van Twitter en Facebook er wellicht nog groter dan in landen met een vrije en kritische pers. In 2009 werd de Arabische versie van Facebook geïntroduceerd, waardoor een potentieel publiek van 250 miljoen mensen werd ontsloten en er een online publieke ruimte ontstond waarin ook vrouwen en minderheden een stem kregen. Omdat vanaf 2010 in het gebruiksvriendelijk Twitter ook foto’s en videoclips konden worden bekeken, bereikte de revolutionaire boodschap ook digibeten en laag-geletterden.