Conditions and Problems of Contemporary Philosophy IV

The research programme ‘Conditions and Problems of Contemporary Philosophy’ represents a continuation of some of the central research positions, themes, and goals of the research programme conducted by the Institute of Philosophy during the years 2015–2019 (and partly also before, in the periods 2009-2014 and 2004–2008). At the same time, the present research programme introduces significant new research content and perspectives.
 
The basic outline of the research is defined by our ongoing enquiry into the mutations undergone by the traditional philosophical categories in contemporary philosophical thought, as well as by investigation of the new categories introduced by contemporary philosophy. Three central issues constitute the framework of the proposed research programme and determine the structuring principle of the research as a whole. These are the following: 1) the question and criticism of ontology, which continues as a direct prolongation and furthering of the research conducted thus far. Our previous research has shown that it is in the field of ontology that crucial alterations of fundamental philosophical categories can best be observed. With such a focus, our research work is also a response to the fact that extensive and lively debate on the question of philosophical ontologies has recently developed in international philosophical discourse. 2) The question of transformations, which continues and at the same time shifts the accent of the past research on discontinuity and temporality. The focus will particularly be on the question of the effects of discontinuity, on how discontinuity begets its own new continuity, what it transforms and what the temporality of this transformation is, in both its subjective and objective dimensions. 3) Philosophy and its outside: this introduces a new theme and perspective, although the question was already implicitly posed in our past research programme. It will involve researching the conditions of philosophy, as well as an inquiry into specific events, discoveries, and important breaks that occur outside philosophy yet significantly influence the modification of its concepts and the formulation of new ones, which in turn helps us respond to this ‘outside’. These fundamental questions, which are also interrelated, constitute conceptual junctions and linking points between the different themes of the research, and provide the perspective from which the analysis of particular categories and questions will be conducted.