Inscriptions Vol 4, No. 1: Call For Papers

INSCRIPTIONS

journal for contemporary thinking on
art, philosophy and psycho-analysis

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Deadline for proposals: 15 September 2020. Full manuscripts due 15 October 2020.

Ethics, the question of how to live right and well, has been one of philosophy’s key concerns from its beginnings. In the thought of Wolfgang Schirmacher the ethical life is connected to artifice: subjected to the event of technology we recognise our ethical being in mediated form, and it is through reflecting on this our present condition that we can begin regain our composition as ethical subjects.

For our volume 4, n1, Inscriptions, a journal for contemporary thinking on art, philosophy and psycho-analysis, seeks essays that reflect on, interrogate, and bring new perspectives to the notion of artificial life and ethical living in general. Key questions include:

· How must I compose myself in order to live a good, satisfying life?

· What is the good life, and what values are relevant to us in our present time?

· How has the figure of the subject been challenged by our technological order, and how may we begin to ethically reassess our present condition?

Please submit a brief proposal (of up to 300 words) or full-length manuscript (of up to 5000 words) through our online platform. Proposals receive a preliminary assessment. All scholarship published by Inscriptions undergo double-blind peer review. We also accept book reviews, commentaries, and short interventions of up to 1500 words.

Open Access, no APCs

Access to content in this journal remains open on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. For this upcoming issue we will not charge authors for submission or publication.

Inscriptions is published online and in print, and is indexed by, among others, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Our authors include Wolfgang Schirmacher, Siobhan Doyle, Christopher Norris, and Jørgen Veisland.

Our issues are archived electronically and in print by Norway's National Library.

Recent Issues

· Inscriptions 3, no. 2: Open Issue, July 2020

· Inscriptions 3, no. 1: Outsourced!, January 2020

· Inscriptions 2, no. 2: Kierkegaard, July 2019

· Inscriptions 2, no. 1: The Global Unconscious, January 2019

· Inscriptions 1, no. 1-2: Consecrations, July 2018

Yours sincerely,
Dr. Torgeir Fjeld
Editor-in-Chief, Inscriptions

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https://inscriptions.tankebanen.no/

 

Coming Soon: Polanyi on Zoom

Polanyi Society 2020 Zoom Conference

9-11 June

The times and brief descriptions of all six zoom presentations are listed below. Anyone interested can participate in any of these zoom discussions, but you do need to register in order to set up a secure connection. You will later be e-mailed a link for the specific session.

There is a zoom presentation link on the Polanyi Society website (polanyisociety.org). The paper for one session listed below is not yet posted but should be posted here in a few days. If additional zoom presentations/discussions are scheduled, the information about the sessions will be posted on polanyisociety.org as soon as details are worked out.

If you wish to participate in any of the Zoom discussions, please send an email to both Gus Breytspraak (gus.breytspraak@ottawa.edu) and Phil Mullins (mullins@missouriwestern.edu).

11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Tuesday 9 June 2020

Discussion of Michael Polanyi’s “Economics Education” Film with Gabor Biro

“Money Circles, Sensible Citizens and the Walt Disney of Economics” is a 21-minute talk (with PowerPoint slides) by Gabor Biro posted on YouTube at the following address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0HT6QO7jOM 

Biro, author of The Economic Thought of Michael Polanyi (2019), provides details about Michael Polanyi’s diagrammatic film on selected Keynesian ideas that Polanyi hoped would transform society as well as economics in the thirties and forties.

11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Wednesday 10 June 2020

Jon Fennell, “Michael Polanyi and the Theologico-Political Problem”

Polanyi declares that reason and revelation are so different in kind that they cannot conflict.  Surprisingly, this denial of the theologico-political problem is the product of acquiescence to the very presuppositions that are the central target of Polanyi’s rejection of Cartesian systematic doubt.  Fuller appreciation of Socratic rationalism supports Polanyi’s project while demonstrating the perennial salubrious tension between reason and revelation.

11 a.m. US-Central Daylight-Saving Time, Thursday 11 June 2020

Robert Hyatt, “Trauma, Metaphor and Meaning”

Polanyian insights into the ways meaning is created within the arts provides a coherent perspective for understanding why and how the arts are useful in ameliorating the devastating effects of trauma. Recent discoveries by humanistically oriented practitioners of trauma therapy conform to, and helpfully extend, Polanyi’s views of the relationship of mind and body.

Please download all three components:

• B. Austin, “The Monster Within” (1-page poem)
• Robert Hyatt, “Polanyian Poetics: Commentary on ‘The Monster Within’” (3 pages)
• Robert Hyatt, “Polanyian Philosophical Resources for Mental Health Professionals Dealing with Trauma Related Pathologies” (9 ½ page essay)

12:15 p.m. US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Thursday 11 June 2020

Charles Lowney, "Body-Knowing and Neural Networks: Is a Computer’s Ability to Learn Human Skills a Victory for Reductionism?"

Harry Collins believes that Collective Tacit Knowledge (CTK) is irreducible, but Somatic Tacit Knowledge (STK) is, in principle, explicable and reducible. Polanyi, in contrast, sees irreducibility in a process of tacit knowing that extends from bodily skills right up through linguistic and social skills. Using examples from Martial Arts, I first show how the body displays intentionality and innovation that Collins sees only at the CTK level. This, however, might not convince Collins because neural network computing machines are able to perform skilful tasks we once thought irreducibly human, e.g., driving a car. I show how Polanyi's structure of tacit knowing and learning is indeed modelled by these machines, but they also display irreducibility.

11 a.m. US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Friday 12 June 2020

Phil Mullins, “Michael Polanyi’s ‘Social Capitalism’”

This presentation/discussion is one that leads into and complements the session which immediately follows it (15 minutes after the conclusion of this session). “Social Capitalism” was a 2200-word Michael Polanyi opinion piece (1946) that provocatively reflects some of Polanyi’s mid-century social and political ideas as well as his developing account of the history of economic ideas. Posted are both Polanyi’s short essay and a 10-page comment on a few interesting elements. The posting for the following session is a concise 1947 essay by Karl Polanyi.

• Michael Polanyi, “Social Capitalism,” Time and Tide, 13 (April 13, 1946): 341-342.
• Phil Mullins, “Michael Polanyi’s ‘Social Capitalism’”

12:15 p.m. US-Central Daylight Saving Time, Friday 12 June 2020

Walter Gulick, Gus Breytspraak, and Phil Mullins, “Michael and Karl Polanyi”

Scholars interested in Michael Polanyi usually pay little attention to Karl Polanyi’s abundant writing and vice versa. Should this standoff end? These brothers read each other’s writings and communicated with each other. They are not, of course, always on the same page, but neither are they always “worlds apart.” This discussion aims to open up not only some of the connections and disconnections between Michael’s and Karl’s thought, but to explore how each has insights that complement the thought of the other.

• Karl Polanyi, “Our Obsolete Market Mentality,” Commentary 3 (1947): 109-117.