Art and the Disappearing Body; The Force of Scientific Authority
Two essays and two events this week!
Dear all,
This week, the Sunday reads will be from the archive - two fantastic essays from our two speakers this week, Bret W. Davis and Nima Bassiri. Both were initially published in 2021. I hope you enjoy them and the events to follow!
Your Sunday Read #1
“Nothing Matters” by Bret W. Davis. This essay is a wonderful overview of the philosophical idea of “nothingness”, taking in questions from Zen Buddhism, the Kyoto School philosophers, the problem of nihilism, and fundamental questions in metaphysics. You can read Bret’s essay here.
Here is the cover from our “Nothing” issue, featuring artwork from Joanna Borkowska.
Your Sunday Read #2
“The Force of Scientific Authority” by Nima Bassiri. This intense and powerfully argued essay explores the nature of scientific authority and the complex underpinnings of anti-scientific conduct. As Bassiri argues, “An unquestioned moral-political investment in the inviolability of the value of truth may not actually stamp out the menace of anti-science, but serve instead to inflame it.” You can read Nima’s essay here.
Here is an image by jc lenochan that we featured in our “Authority and Knowledge” issue from 2021 (from which Nima’s essay is taken):
Monday Event: 11am PT/2pm ET/7pm UK
Art and the Disappearing Body
Bret W. Davis with Brad Evans and Chantal Meza
The “State of Disappearance” series will ask urgent questions about extreme violence, the normalization of human vanishing, state and ideological complicity, and memorialization, along with wider concerns about what it means to be human in the twenty-first century. Political philosopher Brad Evans and abstract painter Chantal Meza will be joined by a series of guests to explore the states of disappearance into which life is continually thrown.
In this opening event of the series, renowned philosopher Bret W. Davis will speak on the relationship between art and the bodies that are forcibly disappeared. The conversation will explore the philosophical question of nothingness, what memorialisation in the face of human absence looks like, and what role art can play in recovering the human. You can find out more and register here.
Here is the poster for the whole mini-series:
Tuesday Event: 7pm ET/10am (Wed.) AET
The Force of Scientific Authority
Nima Bassiri in conversation with Amogh Sahu
Please note the later start time: 7pm Eastern/10am (Wednesday) Australian Eastern.
Join critical theorist Nima Bassiri and philosopher Amogh Sahu for an exploration of the spectre of “anti-science” in the Western political imaginary and, concomitantly, how the humanistic categories of “critique” and “critical theory” have been increasingly perceived as complicit with, and as providing intellectual succour for, scientific scepticism and, as such, culpable not only with the erosion of scientific truth but with core tenets of liberal democracy itself.
Building on arguments from his essay posted above, Bassiri will argue that the virulence of anti-scientific conduct may not be cured through mechanisms of educative hygiene alone, for such behaviours are not opposed to, but actually intimately bound up with the nature of scientific authority and to the conduct-inciting truth regimes upon which that authority rests. An unquestioned moral-political investment in the inviolability of the value of truth may not actually stamp out the menace of anti-science, but serve instead to inflame it.
This event is part of a mini-series exploring questions relating to science, anti-science, and pseudoscience in our time. The series is supported by the Challenging Pseudoscience group at the Royal Institution in London with funding from the Open Society Foundations.
Recording of last week’s event
For those of you who missed Monday’s event on “Pseudoscience after Feyerabend” featuring Ian James Kidd and Chiara Ambrosio, you can watch the recording here.
Ending
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Wishing you all a lovely Sunday, wherever you are.
Anthony Morgan
Editor