IN_Philosophy Festival

HAPPINESS

Being or having?

The InSophia cultural association, a non-profit organization that founded the festival,

in collaboration with the Municipality of Ischia, the University of Toronto (Department

of Visual Studies Mississauga), the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies

– Naples, with HETA - Centro per il trattamento e il disagio psichico e Dora News –

psicologia e altro, Filosofia in movimento, with the high school “A. Canova” of Treviso

and the high school “G. Buchner” di Ischia, with Giardini “La Mortella” di Ischia, Amici

di Gabriele Mattera, with the patronage of the Campania Region, the International

Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP), the “G. Sadoul” Circle and the “PIDA” International

Architecture Award, are pleased to announce the eleventh edition of the

“IN-Philosophy Festival 2025” (Ischia and Naples International Festival of Philosophy),

which will take place in Ischia from 1-28 September.

A UNIQUE FESTIVAL!

The Ischia and Naples International Festival of Philosophy stands out as an entirely

unique gathering in the panorama of international cultural events. As a conference

that is open to the public as well as scholars, it aims to highlight the need for philosophers

of every sort to question their relationship with the ever-changing social

contexts that shape our world.

The figure of the philosopher that is locked up in the intellectual stronghold of the

Ivory Tower must rediscover a new relational vivacity and interact with other communities

and institutions to create more heterogeneous modes of thinking and more

synergistic pedagogical processes—in short, a fresh engagement between philosophy

and the lived social world.

From 2015 to the present, the festival has involved thousands of participants from

outside the academy and over 1000 philosophers from around the world. Defined

by the national press as “An open-air think tank” (La Repubblica), Ischia is not simply

one of the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean; in the month of the festival, it

offers a particularly bold, iconic setting for this unique endeavour in critical thought

and reflection.

Here is the call for papers for the tenth edition.

XI EdIition

Happiness. Being or having?

Few other concepts—like that of “happiness”—involve contradiction to the point of

not being comprehensible without facing that core contradiction with an open mind

and determined courage. In ancient Greek, happiness was called eudaimonia, which

meant having a good demon inside oneself. But the demon is an ambiguous figure:

a link between the human and the divine for some, for others an entity with the power

to influence the human world in a malevolent way.

Happiness can be a state of well-being linked to the material things of the world

(felicitas), or a blissful condition of the spirit addressed to lofty, immaterial thoughts

(beatitudo).

Similarly, happiness is an individual phenomenon that, according to the pre-Socratics,

concerns the mind, body and soul, but it can also be a collective phenomenon

linked to rites, myths, social upheavals and even revolutions.

In each of these cases, happiness is still passion but, here too, pathos in ancient

Greek also referred to suffering. In this regard, it’s no coincidence that the fatherof psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, repeatedly underscored the point that the the greatest happiness (love) is intimately linked, and therefore inseparable from, the greatest suffering (death).

The French Revolution was the first great historical event in which an ideology, namely

Jacobinism, attempted both to theorize and to realize the “right to happiness”. But

this was a collective happiness imposed by an absolute power, since Robespierre

and Saint-Just held that individual happiness is a symptom of egoism contrary to

the social spirit. We know how this experiment ended: in the Terror. So much so that

Kant, shocked by that historical experience, came to declare the impossibility of

happiness in the earthly world, referring happiness instead to an intelligible world

called “the kingdom of grace”: As the great philosopher wrote in 1793, “Despotism

reappears every time someone comes to explain to men how they should be happy,

suffocating an inalienable right, that of individual freedom.”

Things are no better for individual happiness, considering that Freud himself considered

it possible only under one very difficult condition: that the ego is able to

reconcile and harmonize the instinctual and libidinal dimension of the unconscious

(devoted to the pleasure principle) with the rational and prohibitive dimension of the

superego (guided by the reality principle).

In short, when all is said and done, happiness presents itself more as a regulative

ideal that, when anyone tries to reach it, produces frustration and suffering. Perhaps

then we need to reverse the terms and, instead of reaching it, let it reach us?

But how? Today, for example, by defending our ability to think autonomously and

critically—a capacity put at risk by the automatisms of algorithms and the dogmas

of the financial market, which push the human instead to function. But that which

functions does not think, and that which does not think does not even know how to

recognize it, happiness.

AREAS OF INTERVENTION

The festival opens the conference portion to all fields of knowledge: from philosophy

to psychology, from art history to biology and physics, all interventions with a critical

reflective contribution to make that are consistent with the call for papers will

be taken into consideration for the conference sessions, which will be held in Ischia

from 26-27 September 2025.

Below are the reference areas to which the participation proposal should be addressed,

offered as subjects of orientation with some possible starting points for the

composition of proposals.

1. Philosophies

What is happiness? From Epicurus to Nietzsche. The philosophical history

of happiness in the Western and Eastern traditions up to the present day.

Happiness, pleasure, joy and bliss compared. The personal and collective

dimension.

2. Digital Humanities

Happiness in the world of the web. Influencers, popularizers and intellectuals

of our time. Metaphysics and the Metaverse of happiness. The production

and reproduction of packaged happiness.

3. Aesthetics

Aesthetics of happiness? To be, to have or to appear? The new worlds of

happy experience. Bodies and happiness. The surgery of being.

4. Influencer Philosophers

A session dedicated to “influencer philosophers” who want to take the

floor on the annual theme of the festival, through an interview or an online

presentation.

5. “The Classics” of Thought

A thematic and popular session dedicated to the great thinkers of philosophical

and literary history and their classics. This session will include all

the interventions that aim to disseminate “exemplary” works on the concept

of happiness.

6. Political Philosophy

The right to happiness: populism and ideology. Happiness between individual

and collective dimensions. Utopias and revolutions of political systems

for collective well-being. The happiness of a partial world.

7. Science and Philosophy of Science

Science and philosophy in dialogue. Happiness and evolutionary success.

Endorphins and individual alterations: the power of science as an antidote

to collective malaise.

8. Literature and Art

Art and literature as narrative constructions of happiness. Artificial happiness:

comics and manga or heroes in defense of happiness. Happiness as

narrative fiction?

9. Psychology

Psychoanalysis and the structures of the ego. Happiness and the Other.

Therapy and unhappiness: psychotherapy as an index of malaise? Malaise

and well-being: “evidence-based” happiness.

10. Sociology and Anthropology

Rituals: happiness and good luck. Quantifying happiness: the happiest

civilizations, between stereotypes, studies and surveys. Having to be happy,

a social imperative.

12. Pedagogies

Is education for happiness possible? Digital happiness: the unhappy body.

School and social media: an imperfect alliance. School as a place to build

happiness. Friendship and happiness: learning the Other.

12. Ecology, Economy and Ethics

The unhappy planet: resources and production of an economic and globally

polarized system. Happiness through consumption: I buy therefore I am.

To be or to have? Individual empowerment and unbridled luxury: low-consumption

happiness.

13. Architecture and Design

Spaces of happiness: the home and happiness. Public space and happiness.

The unhappy suburbs.

14. Cinema and the Visual Arts

Cinematic and photographic treatments of happiness. Cinema as a prosthetic

consciousness that allows the spectator to feel and/or reflect on

happiness through another’s experience. The history of cinema as a medium

of scientific exploration into the rationalization of happiness, facial

expressions, and modern research into emotions. Performance and happiness.

Happiness as a matter of appearance or expression—the “punctum”

of happiness in photograpy. Moviegoing as a medium for collective

experiences of happiness, in comparison to the isolated modes of spectatorship

often practiced in digital media culture.

15. Technology, Digital Knowledge and Social Media

The new regimes of information and communication. Informing and disinforming

online. The crisis of happiness in the era of the “observed” Other.

Digital inheritances: virtual goods and assets that make you happy. Apps

that promise to make people happier and more peaceful. Lifestyle marketing

and Instagram as source of malaise. Happiness after life. Infinite

happiness.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Languages: Italian, English

Proposals at a minimum length of 3,000 and a maximum length of 4,500 characters

including spaces (12-point Times New Roman font, single-spaced), accompanied

by a bibliography and a brief autobiographical note (specifying any current

institutional affiliation, or in the absence of an academic position, the last place of

research/study and degree completed), must be sent by 11:59 pm on 15 April 2024

to: [email protected] (also send a CC copy to: direzione@inphilosophyfestival.

it).

Please send the short biographical statement in a separate file (max 1000 characters

including spaces), and please send all files in *.doc, *.docx, or *.odt format, not

in *.pdf format (12-point Times New Roman, single-spaced).

Please respect the formal specifications indicated above for the submission of all

proposals.

Each presentation will be given 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes for discussion. Talks

can be given in Italian or English. Panel proposals are also welcome.

DEADLINE → 15/04/2025 h 11:59 pm

ITA/ENG

Times New Roman / 12 pt / single-spaced

REPORT

min 3,000

max 4,500

BIO

max 1,000

*.doc / *.odt

TO → [email protected]

CC → [email protected]

www.inphilosophyfestival.it inphilosophyfestival 8 / 8

Each panel proposed should consist of 3 or 4 papers on a common theme. The

Chair of each panel, who may also be one of the panelists, is responsible for introducing

and guiding the discussion. All panel proposals must include the abstracts

of each presentation and an introduction of a maximum length of 1000 characters.

A registration fee will be paid by all speakers. Solutions will also be proposed for

overnight stays on the island during the week of the conference.

SELECTION

The ability to communicate ideas formed over a sustained period of research to a

wider audience is essential for being selected. All proposals will be evaluated by the

scientific committee. The most significant interventions will be published, to be selected

by the session directors.

+ INFO

For further information, please contact the organizing secretariat of the festival or

the Director at any of the following addresses:

- [email protected]

- [email protected]

On the website below you will find all the info to send proposals, including to the

Summer School of Humanities and the Young Thinkers Festival.

www.inphilosophyfestival.it

Facebook: inphilosophyfestival

Instagram: @inphilosophyfestival