This article is a critique of the research perspective that analyzes political myths based on the methods of the study of myths.The author points to the need to supplement this perspective with the Lacanian theory of fantasy, which allows for capture of subjective desire manifested in myths.Theories in the study of myths (of Lvi-Strauss and Barthes) conceptualize myth as an attempt to overcome the original antinomy of human experience by constructing a space of ahistorical meaning deprived of contradictions.Based on the analysis of classic study of myths texts and Marcin Napirkowski's work, the author points to a paradox within the methods of the study of myths: while it describes myth as a tool for getting rid of historical contradictions, it creates ahistorical, and therefore, mythologized, interpretative categories.Supplementing this method with the Lacanian theory of fantasy allows us to overcome this paradox by pointing to historicized interpretation of desire that is manifested in myths.

This essay proposes a visualist ontological framework for understanding design, rooted fundamentally in the theories of emergent properties and affordances.Opposing functionalist and intentionalist paradigms, the framework underscores design's visuality and relational engagement as its core ontological elements.The concepts of emergent properties and affordances are presented as deeply interconnected, reflecting their philosophical and practical relationship within the ontology of design.Emergent properties are conceptualized as qualities that do not reside intrinsically within individual components but instead arise through the dynamic relational interactions among parts within a system, often exemplified in complex, non-linear systems.I demonstrate, however, that even singular, discrete design objects encapsulate complexity and exhibit emergent qualities.Design's ontological structure extends beyond its planned form to include these emergent qualities and open affordances rooted in visual surface configurations and relational engagement, because design inherently exists in relations -not only with users but also with other objects and environments.Relatedly, affordances elucidate how visual and material configurations invite specific actions, enabling meanings and functions to be continually redefined through ongoing interactions.The integration of these theories offers a comprehensive, non-reductionist account of design's ontology, emphasizing its inherently relational, dynamic, and open-ended nature as central to its identity and operative capacity.

In a critical commentary on the final paragraph of The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht, 1067 (1885)) it is argued that Nietzsche ironically presupposes the metaphysics, and even the theology, he putatively eschews and repudiates.Nietzsche's anti-realism about aesthetics, in its broadest extension, is refuted by showing that the Apollonian is not an illusion but a fundamental presupposition of the Dionysian.Pace Nietzsche, Being (Sein) is primordial with regard to Becoming (Werden).We may ask: Is there Becoming or no Becoming?If there is no Becoming, Nietzsche's ontology is straightforwardly false.If there is (eg gibt, il y a) Becoming, then Becoming onto-logically presupposes Being.It follows that Nietzsche is a metaphysician and a theologian malgre lui.Some of his claims about art and the aesthetic may therefore be understood to unintentionally express profound truths.

Military history has to date shown little interest in war periodicity. It will soon witness the confirmation or disproof of a war forecast made over thirty years ago, by a socio-political model of Anglo-American culture that predicted a major civic and war crisis for the 2020s. Extending that model beyond the scope of original authors, Neil Howe and William Strauss, this essay finds a mathematical periodicity of major war over fourteen centuries of American and English history. This periodicity similarly calculates 2025 at high probability for the start of a drift into civil conflict and/or slide into world war. Military historiography can deploy this modeling for empirically valid research without relying on dubious political agendas or philosophical axioms about national destinies or international determinisms. Philosophy of culture and social realism should encourage historiography’s disciplined empirical investigations and predictions.

Chairs, cups, books, and utensils populate our everyday lives and are protagonists of much of our ordinary aesthetic experience.It would seem natural, therefore, for the philosophy of design and everyday aesthetics to constitute intersecting fields of inquiry.Yet the contemporary philosophical debate on the aesthetics of design, articulated through three main approaches -formalist, functionalist, and performative -has not offered a fully developed account of this relationship.This article develops a meta-theoretical critique showing how the functionalist approach risks being of little relevance to everyday aesthetics.Building on this critique, the article proposes expanding the performative approach by introducing a distinction between applicative uses, which realize an already given function, and constitutive uses, which institute new practical states of affairs through creative appropriation.This distinction allows for a new working definition of "design" better aligned with everyday aesthetics: one that focuses on the constitutive force of use as a legitimate source of aesthetic properties.

The study of aesthetics proceeds along many lines, containing both the theory of beauty and the theory of art, and investigating both aesthetic objects and aesthetic experiences, employing description, prescription, analysis, and explanation.

I will defend a thesis about the proper way to aesthetically appreciate instances of design that incorporate natural elements.My main case studies will be drawn from the work of fashion designer Alexander McQueen, such as a bodice incorporating mussel shells from the Voss collection (Spring/Summer 2001).I will defend a version of cognitivism about the proper aesthetic appreciation of nature incorporated in these design elements, according to which a certain amount of knowledge about one's object of appreciation is necessary for its proper aesthetic appreciation.The knowledge I will suggest is necessary concerns whether something is natural or artificial, knowledge of natural kinds, as well as an awareness of the contrast between the appearance of something and its nature.This account of the aesthetic appreciation of design incorporating natural elements can be developed to specify what is aesthetically praiseworthy in certain instances of sustainable fashion.

Your recent book (Making Values Explicit. On How We Are Moved to Do

Preview: / Richard Shusterman interviewed by Crispin Sartwell / In the context of contemporary philosophy, Richard Shusterman occupies a singular position. As one of the most influential figures revitalizing and extending the pragmatist tradition into new domains of aesthetic, somatic, and intercultural inquiry, his work has not only reinvigorated longstanding concerns with embodiment, perception, and the art of living, but also expanded the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy into dialogue with performance, education, design, and popular culture. His contributions have opened new avenues of research across philosophy of mind, art theory, cultural studies, and global philosophy, establishing him as a central interlocutor in ongoing efforts to conceive philosophy as an embodied, critical, and transformative practice. His most recent book, The Critical Shusterman – a collection of sixteen texts on decisive themes of his intellectual trajectory – prompted the following interview, which was conducted by the editor of the book, Crispin Sartwell, over a month of shared writing and reflection. Sartwell’s insightful questioning invites Shusterman to articulate the origins and implications of his philosophical commitments with rare candor. In a deeply personal and intimate tone, the conversation ranges over a wide variety of topics, from the formative experiences that shaped his early interest in aesthetics and the development of somaesthetics to the complex interplay of eros, embodiment, lived experience, and philosophical reflection; from his ambivalent relationship with modernism and postmodernism to his decisive shift from analytic philosophy to pragmatism; from his engagement with multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and the politics of cultural appropriation to his evolving reflections on Jewish identity, intercultural exchange, and the global reception of his work; from his critique of rigid gender binaries to his explorations of eroticism and performance art as later sprouts of somaesthetics.

The aim of my paper is to provide a phenomenological outline of solidarity understood as a social phenomenon.I will defend the thesis that solidarity cannot be properly understood either as a concept, or as some institutionalized mechanism grounded in a legal-political order.It precedes and grounds such orders.Solidarity belongs to the social realm within which it can be properly understood only as an event.That is, a radical phenomenon appearing beyond (or even against) all expectations, preceding its own causes, opening a horizon of novelty, of positive social and normative reconstruction (regardless of concrete forms such reconstruction may take).However, as an event it is also ephemeral and transient.If so, the question of its potential impact on the political realm is essentially open.I will also defend the thesis that it is Eastern Europe, where solidarity took/has taken on its most genuine, exceptional forms.My analysis will be based on the examples of the Polish Solidarity Movement, the Singing Revolution, Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, and the Belarusian Revolution.