CFP: "Filosofia" 2019 – Immagini della Natura / Images of Nature

“FILOSOFIA” 2019 – CALL FOR PAPERS

Images of Nature

As we know, Nature has been the privileged object of investigation of the philosophical reflection since its origins. Physics, study of nature, of physis, of its laws and rules has been, for centuries, a philosophia naturalis, an epistemological statute lost only in the twilight of modernity. However, it was modernity itself, with its continuous intersection of philosophical reflection and scientific theory, to offer the still current image of Nature as a book to be understood in order to be better dominated, according to the baconian maxim for which domination of Nature runs hand in hand with the ability to obey them.

Thinking about Nature, thus, rides through the whole history of philosophy; the increasing complexity reached by scientific disciplines during the 20th century, nevertheless, seems to have produced a caesura between philosophical and scientific reflection. Due to the hegemony of technics and to the development of disciplines such as quantum physics, philosophy has risked taking its eyes off its privileged object. 

By the way, what we would like to suggest is that if philosophical reflection about Nature has moved far away from positive science, it has nevertheless led it to other dimensions of knowledge, such as ethics and politics. The problem of ecological crisis, that arises nowadays, has forced philosophy to break out the classic schemes of modernity, engaging to develop new categories and a renewed Philosophy of Nature. Now more than ever, where the man’s domination of nature is showing seemingly unsolvable contradictions, Nature becomes a thought-laboratory, from which to think new ethical and political, but also esthetical and metaphysical, perspectives.

The issue, here, is not only the epistemological disarticulation between philosophy and science. The human praxis, with its perpetual exploitation of natural resources, has definitely undermined the role itself of mankind on Earth planet. Nowadays, logics pursued in the use of Nature, according to the famous thesis of Hans Jonas, threaten the human future itself. To such a crisis of relationships between Man and Nature, are connected the catastrophic feelings about the End Times, which colonize the collective imagination: movies, tv series and novels, highlighting such a kind of global paranoia, at the same time, recall the Krakauer attitude – never so topical – to sift the “superficial manifestations of an era” in order to rebuild the logics that shape and cross it.

The impossibility to hold, develop or sustain a univocal image of Nature, implies the need to collect the many images of it, in order to show their political, ethical, metaphysical, esthetical and theological features. Moving from these brief suggestions, the next number of “Filosofia” intends to reflect about the new status of Nature assumed in the contemporary era. What are the “images of Nature” that overbear the current collective imagination? Are there metaphysical constructions or theological systems concretely able to contrast the "colonization of the imaginary"? Is it possible to recognize, in the philosophical tradition, paradigms and conceptual tools useful to face the ethical and political challenges emerged by the current ecological crisis? What could be the role of the philosophical reflection in an era dominated by the fragmentation and the compartmentation of knowledges. Lastly, what practice, what use of World can rehabilitate Nature by subtracting it from the complete domination of the human?

Hoping to inspire a debate that is as interdisciplinary and depth as possible on the topic, next number of “Filosofia” will consider for the publication contributions referred to the following thematic fields: 

- Images of Nature in the History of Philosophy;
- Epistemology and Ontology of Nature;
- Artistical representations of Nature;
- Relations between Philosophy and Ecological thought;
- Ethics, Politics and Theologies of Nature;
- Ecological crisis and Eschatological thought;
- Nature and Culture in the technological era.

“Filosofia” accepts submissions in Italian, English and French. The articles should comply with the following norms:

http://mimesisedizioni.it/riviste/filosofia.html 

All contributions will be blindly peer-reviewed.

Authors will be notified of the result of the selection and will receive a detailed referee report on their submission.

Deadline for submission is March 15, 2019.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION

All submissions should be sent to the following address

[email protected] 

Each contribution should include:

• one .doc file (no pdf et alia) intended for a blind referee. The text should be anonymous and preceded by an abstract in English of no more than 150 words;

• a .doc file intended for the editorial board, which should include the author’s name, academic affiliation and an e-mail address.

All files should not exceed 50000 characters (including spaces and footnotes).

For further information please contact: [email protected]