Conditions and Problems of Contemporary Philosophy III

The basic outline of the research is defined by the investigation of the destiny and mutations undergone by the traditional philosophical categories on the ground of contemporary philosophical thought, as well as by the investigation of the new categories introduced by contemporary philosophy. The framework of this research consists of three fundamental questions that constitute and dictate the organising principle of the research as a whole. These are the question of ontology and its criticism, the question of discontinuity (interruption, break, change), and the question of temporality in its different dimensions. These fundamental questions, which are also interrelated, constitute conceptual junctions and linking points between the different individual research programmes, and provide the perspective from which the analysis of particular categories and thematic blocks of the research will be conducted.

Since an extensive and lively discussion related to the question of philosophical ontologies has recently developed in international philosophical discourse, we will put a somewhat greater emphasis on researching this thematic block. Based on the research conducted in the previous programme period, we will focus especially on the possibility of connecting the ontological and logical conceptions into one single onto-logical conception. The research will also analyse the possibilities offered by the concept of onto-logic for the application of philosophy to other fields of thought and operation, thus for a transdisciplinary treatment of the contemporary problems of science, politics, and art. In the framework of the topic of discontinuity, we will explore the classical philosophical problems of cause, contingency, necessity, and event. We will continue with the research centred on the philosophical analysis of and reflections on the scientific revolution as a radical transformation of the philosophical and scientific conceptual apparatus. We will investigate the problematic of the break also in the context of contemporary art and theory of art. We will explore to what degree the concept of the break itself is constitutive of the (self-)perception of modern and postmodern art. In the framework of researching the problematic of temporality, we will take as our point of departure the fundamental shifts in the conception of time within philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, and politics. We will show that the problematic ontological status of time, caught between being and non-being, was a constant source of conceptual quandaries for philosophy. In view of this, we will then formulate the possibility of a different conception. In the research programme, the three mentioned fundamental problem clusters are structurally strongly interrelated. Their structural connections will ensure that the wide range of content that will be the object of research are organised into a homogenous, consistent, and coherent research standpoint.