Jos de Mul.  Leben erfaßt hier Leben: Dilthey as a philosopher of (the) life (sciences). In: Eric Nelson (ed.). Interpreting Dilthey. Cambridge University Press, 2019, 41-60. 

Eric Nelson (ed.). Interpreting Dilthey. 

In this wide-ranging and authoritative volume, leading scholars engage with the philosophy and writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, a key figure in nineteenth-century thought. Their chapters cover his innovative philosophical strategies and explore how they can be understood in relation to their historical situation, as well as presenting incisive interpretations of Dilthey's arguments, including their development, their content, and their influence on later thought. A key focus is on how Dilthey's work remains relevant to current debates around art and literature, the biographical and autobiographical self, knowledge, language, science, culture, history, society, and psychology and the embodied mind. The volume will be important for researchers in hermeneutics, aesthetics, practical philosophy, and the history of German philosophy, providing a valuable introduction to Dilthey's work as well as detailed critical analysis of its ongoing significance.

Jos de Mul. Encyclopedias, hive minds and global brains.A cognitive evolutionary account of Wikipedia. In: Alberto Romele and Enrico Terrone (eds.) Towards a Philosophy of Digital Media. Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 103-119.

城市花园，回归还是走向自然 作者：约斯德·穆尔鹿特丹伊拉斯姆斯大学 译者: 寒啸，武汉大学，城市设计学院，设计学硕士 女士们先生们 [The Earth Garden: Going Back or Going Forward to Nature? In: Chen, W. (ed.) Beautiful China and Environmental Aesthetics, Wuhan: Wuhan University Press], 2018, 346-350.

首先，我要感谢主办方,特别是陈望衡教授能邀请我在“环境美学和美丽的中国”会议上发言。这些都是非常重要和具有挑战性的学科,美丽的环境,特别是中国的环境,正面临着严重的威胁。在工业化的西方世界和像中国这样快速发展的国家现代化造成了非常严重的环境问题。因为在过去十年间中国工业化的惊人速度增长，中国的环境问题在世界上属于最糟糕的了。如果我们做个比较，例如世界上主要空气污染的工业区——东亚、欧洲以及北美，将变得非常清楚的是环境问题属于当今中国面临的最大问题，武汉亦是如此。据中华医学协会前任会长钟南山表示,空气污染甚至可能在不久的将来成为中国最大的健康威胁。

在我今天的演讲中，我想提出一些艺术、哲学以及与美学相关学科的看法，这些看法可能会有助于解决这些严重的环境问题。当然，我充分意识到这样一个事实就是艺术家和哲学家不去减少工厂排放和汽车尾气的绘画和写作。然而,两者都可以通过灌输思想和激动人心的想象力去改变人们的态度和行为，并且最终都可能领导一个更加健康、更加美丽的世界。在我的演讲中，我希望通过结合一些源自东方和西方艺术和哲学中卓有成效的思想来为这一任务尽一份微薄之力。

让我对自己的演讲做一个简短的概述。第一部分包括一个在对比的方式上的简短冥想，景观已经在东方和西方的绘画传统中被代表和理想化了。我将尝试用一些引人注目的例子去表明在过去两个世纪里山水画的发展反映了人与自然关系的改变，导致无论是在东方还是西方怀旧的渴望回归自然的表达，亦或是在现代，技术的世界中消失的自然的一种阴郁的表达。I

在我演讲的第二部分，联系“和谐” 这一关键的东方美学概念，以及在西方哲学中自然与技术的关系的一些思考，我会请求不同的后怀旧的自然和自然美的概念，自然和技术不再被视为对立的类别，而是因为在一个共同进化的过程中相互交织的两极。因为这个原因，我们不应该努力去“回归自然”， 而是要去“面对自然”并且在人与非人类自然与技术之间建立新的和谐关系。

在第三部分和最后一个部分，我会给一些例子来说明这种后怀旧的自然观怎样在包括中国以及世界其他地区引导我们走向一个更健康和美丽的环境的。

 Jos de Mul. A Cyberspace Odyssey. Oneindigheid voor beginners. In: Jos de Mul. Cyberspace Odyssee. Kampen: Klement, 6de druk: 2010 [2002], 248-270.

De lijn is uitgestrekt in één richting, het vlak in  twee richtingen en vaste lichamen in drie richtingen; daarbuiten bestaat geen andere uitgestrektheid, want deze drie zijn alles.

Aristoteles

De vierde dimensie en de niet-euclidische geometrie behoren tot de belangrijkste unificerende thema’s van de moderne kunst en wetenschap.

Linda Henderson
 

1 Een odyssee door ruimte en tijd 2.0

Stanley Kubricks film 2001: A Space Odyssey wordt terecht beschouwd als een van de hoogtepunten uit de geschiedenis van de sciencefiction. De uit 1968 stammende film wordt niet alleen geroemd vanwege zijn grote artistieke kwaliteiten en zijn nog altijd verbazingwekkende (analoge) special effects, maar vooral ook vanwege de ideeënrijkdom die er uit spreekt.[1] Vooral Kubricks indringende visie op de evolutie van het leven en de rol van de techniek daarin heeft nog niets aan betekenis ingeboet.

Zoals alle grote kunstwerken kent deze film meerdere betekenislagen. Toen ik als middelbare scholier de film enkele jaren na de première voor het eerst zag, werd ik vooral gegrepen door het spannende verhaal over de reis van het ruimteschip Discovery naar Jupiter, op zoek naar buitenaards leven. Die reis wordt ondernomen nadat er op de maan een zwarte monoliet is ontdekt die radiosignalen richting Jupiter uitzendt. De bemanning bestaat naast de astronauten David Bowman en Frank Poole uit drie in hibernatie (kunstmatige winterslaap) verkerende experts en een kunstmatige intelligentie, de sprekende en zelflerende boordcomputer HAL.[2] HAL controleert alle functies van het ruimteschip en heeft de eindverantwoordelijkheid voor de gehele missie. Wanneer HAL Bowman en Poole de opdracht geeft het defecte onderdeel AE-35 van de centrale antenne van het ruimteschip te vervangen, ontdekken zij dat het onderdeel geen enkel mankement vertoont. Omdat zij in de veronderstelling verkeren dat HAL van slag is geraakt en misschien nog meer en mogelijk fatale fouten zal maken, besluiten ze zijn hogere functies uit te schakelen. Wanneer HAL daar achter komt, besluit hij de bemanning te elimineren. HAL slaagt erin vier van de vijf bemanningsleden te doden, maar Bowman ziet alsnog kans de boordcomputer uit te schakelen en de reis te vervolgen. Als de Dicovery Jupiter bereikt, vindt er een mysterieuze ontmoeting plaats tussen Bowman en de zwarte monoliet.

De door Kubrick verhaalde odyssee is, net als de Odyssee van Homeros waarnaar de titel van de film verwijst, meer dan het verslag van een avontuurlijke reis van enkele heldhaftige individuen door een onbekende wereld. De film toont enkele cruciale stappen in de odyssee die de mensheid voert door de onmetelijke tijd en ruimte. Het is, zoals ik in de Inleiding met verwijzing naar het programmaboekje bij de video-uitgave al opmerkte, “an epic tale of man’s ascent, from ape to space traveller and beyond” (Kubrick 1997). Hoewel het verhaal fictief is, sluit het nauw aan bij de natuurwetenschappelijke en technologische kennis van deze odyssee ten tijde van de productie van de film.

Jos de Mul. Foreword: From the Mediatic Turn to Gua-le-ni. In: Stefano Gualeni. Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools. How to Philosophize With a Digital Hammer. London: Palgrave Macmillan 2015, x-xiii.

In the last couple of decades a new discipline, called ‘media philosophy’, has entered the philosophical arena. According to Reinhard Margreiter, one of its proponents, this name refers not only, and not even predominantly, to the exploration of yet another ontological domain, but rather designates a fundamental transformation  of  philosophy  itself,  which  is  characterized  by  a  turn towards (the descent and history of) the mediatic foundations of philosophy. In his view, media philosophy might become a contemporary ‘prima philosophia’ (Margreiter 2003, 151). However, Margreiter does not argue for a modernist kind of foundationalist superdiscipline, but rather for a critical discourse that has to accompany every act of knowing.

Though the name ‘media philosophy’ is a recent invention, the phenomenon is not altogether new. Already in Plato’s Phaedrus and Seventh Letter we find fundamental reflections on the impact of writing on philosophy, that is: on the type of oral philosophy that precedes written philosophy and which is still reflected in the dialogical form of Plato’s writings. However, in the tradition of Western philosophy, which is strongly connected with the book, this kind of reflection remains relatively scarce and marginal for a long time. Starting from Parmenides’ identification of being and thinking, a dominant part of the metaphysical tradition was based on the presupposition that thinking and being – nous and phusis – share the same form (eidos, morphé), guaranteeing the identity of what can be thought and what can be (cf. Allen 2004, 218).

Jos de Mul. Afterplay. In: V. Frissen, M. de Lange, J. de Mul, S. Lammes & J. Raessens (eds.) Playful identities. The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press/ Chicago University Press, 2015, 337-45.

Jos de Mul. Meeting OSCAR and Erica. On almost living bodies, new media aesthetics, and the East-West divide. In Aesthetics and Mass Culture. Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Aesthetics. Seoul: Seoul National University, Invited Round Table. Seoul: Seoul National University, 2017, 64-69.

Jos de Mul. Turkish Delight. In: Ayşen Savaş & Sevin Osmay (eds.), Jale Erzen Testimonial. Middle East  Technical University (METU) Press, 2017, 146-152.

Of all the times I met with Jale Erzen over the last couple of decades, our meeting in May 2002 was perhaps the most memorable. Jale had invited me to take part in the 6th International Symposium of SANART about Art and Social Engagement, held at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara. The Symposium took place shortly after 9/11, a time when many heated discussions were held in Turkey, just as in other countries, about the political Islam, the role of religion in society, and the separation of church and state, and in Ankara the tension was running high between the Kemalists and the politicians inspired by the Islam.  

Following the conference, I went on a short trip with Jale and about ten other philosophers, from five different continents, to the east of Turkey, which was planned by Jale. We flew to Diyarbakir and then travelled on by bus and later by jeep through the northern part of the virtual state of Kurdistan. It was a memorable trip because of several reasons. In the first place because of the awe-inspiring endless bleak mountains around us, in which the only humans living there seem to be goatherds herding their flocks in search of the last remnants of vegetation. It was difficult to imagine a bigger contrast with the polders in Zeeland where I grew up.  The impression the vast and rugged landscape made on me was intensified by the realisation that we were surrounded by thousands of years of history. This vast region situated 'between the rivers', the Euphrates and the Tigris, used to be called Mesopotamia in ancient times and was full of fig-, olive-, walnut- and pomegranate trees, vines and oleander bushes. According to tradition here was once the Biblical Garden of Eden.

Jos de Mul. Preface. In: Zha Changping. World Relational Aesthetics. A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art. Volume One. Shanghai: Sanlian, 2017, xiv-xvi, xvii-xx.

In 2006, as part of a lecture tour through China, which brought me to cities as different as Urumqi and Shanghai, I also participated in a conference of the International Association of Aesthetics in Chengdu. It was on this occasion that I met Zha Changping for the first time. I was introduced to him by a common friend of us, the Shanghai-based historian Chen Xin. During my stay in Chengdu, Changping and I had several conversations, and I especially remember one hot evening in June, whenwe, together with museum sculptor Zhu Cheng and my wife Gerry, were sitting on a terrace near the Fu river, discussing the state of contemporary art, religion and politics in China and Europe, meanwhile enjoying the delicious Sichuan food and cool beers and watching the joyful play of the little children on the terrace. It was a wonderful evening, to which my memories often return.

Since that first meeting more than ten years have passed, in which Changping and I kept in touch. I followed his publications (unfortunately only being able to read the English ones, as I am not able to read Chinese) and was impressed by his productivity andthe broad scope of his publications, ranging from art criticism and art history – such as the very informative Up-On Chengdu, Somatic Aesthetics and Scene Connection (2013) - to studies in the logic of history, Japanese history, New Testament studies, and a series of translations. What moreover impressed me was his profound familiarity with Western art theories and the creative way he applied them within a Chinese context. Changping proved to be all-round humanities scholar with an inspiring intercultural approach.

序言 约斯·德·穆尔 (Jos de Mul. Introduction) In: Zha Changping. World Relational Aesthetics. A History of Ideas in Pioneering Contemporary Chinese Art. Volume One. Shanghai: Sanlian, 2017, xiv-xvi, xvii-xx.

序言约斯·德·穆尔（鹿特丹伊拉斯谟大学）

2006年，我来中国参加学术讲座，访问了不同的城市。这些城市各具千秋，例如乌鲁木齐和上海。我也参加了国际美学协会在成都举办的会议。会上，我第一次见到查常平先生。介绍我们认识的是一位共同的朋友：上海的历史学者陈新。在成都逗留期间，常平和我有几次对话。我还记得六月一个炎热的夜晚，我们和雕塑家朱成以及我妻子格里（Gerry）一起坐在府河边的露台上，讨论中国和欧洲的当代艺术、宗教和政治的状况，一面享受着四川美食和冰啤，一面看着露台上小孩快乐地玩耍。真是一个美好之夜，让我难以忘怀。

    一晃十多年过去了。此间，常平和我保持着联系。他的出版物我都拜读过（可惜只能读翻译成英文的那些作品，因为我不懂中文）。他产出之多、涉猎之广，令我钦佩，从艺术批评和艺术史——如丰富多彩的《向上成都，身体美学与场景凸现》（2013）——到历史逻辑、日本历史、新约研究和一系列翻译作品。更令我印象深刻的是：他深谙西方艺术理论并且能够灵活应用于汉语语境中。常平确实是一位全面的人文学者，善于运用启发性的跨文化研究方法。

Jos de Mul. From Yijing to Hypermedia: Some Notes on Computer-mediated Literary Theory and Criticism. In: Peng Feng (ed.), Aesthetics and Contemporary Art. International Yearbook of Aesthetics. Volume 16. Beijing University: 2016, 114-125.

The development and global dissemination of computers - from the mainframe computers in the middle of the 20^th century up to the smart phones that enable us to be online everywhere at any time - has an enormous impact on virtually every domain in human life, including art and literature. In the past decades, we have witnessed the emergence of different kinds of new media, that – among many other things – also have given birth to new art forms and genres, such as computer animations, hypertext, and interactive netart. All these new (that is: computer-mediated) media can be called “hypermedia”, because they share two fundamental characteristics: they are media that are both multimedial and non-linear.

In this contribution I will discuss the impact of hypermedia on literary theory and criticism. More particularly, the question I will focus on in my lecture is: how to write about hypermedia? In what ways do hypermedia affect literary theory and literary criticism. However, when writing about hypermedia, literature can only be a point of departure of our examination. After all, hypermedia are media that absorb and thereby re-mediate the other “old media”, literature included.[1] And this, as I will argue, also applies to literary theory and literary criticism, which at least partly is going to be transformed into hypermedial criticism.

Jos de Mul. Théo van Doesburg 2.0. What is Data? In: Mieke Gerritzen et al. From Dada to Data. Breda: Museum of the Image (MOTI), 2016, 23.

théo van doesburg 2.0: What is Data? (Publisher: “No Style” The Hague, 2023).

You will probably be surprised to be hearing something about Data from someone who is innocent of Dataism, from a non- Dataist

Data: the terror of the stock market gurus, of the privacy seeker, the designer, the cultural entrepreneur, the Gutmensch — of everybody?

A subject such as this is perhaps least suitable for a serious lecture, which is not at all what I have in mind.

I will be satisfied if, as an obligation to friends, I can illuminate the Dataistic attitude to life. This seems to me especially important in a country that has been hermetically sealed against any new expression of life since the 60s.

It would indeed be pretentious if I was under the impression that I could make the mystery of Data intellectually intelligible.