Revisiting Our Stories
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go: The Performative Function of Literature and the Discourse on Humaness and Identity View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Marilena Saracino
This paper explores the performative function of literature in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, a novel that, significantly, exemplifies the performative function of literature in particular and of art in general. It does its work by getting the readers to see science differently by way of fiction, not by direct representation of science. The Hailsham experiment, which aims to challenge the whole system of the organs' donation programme, fails because it will contribute further to the consideration of the students as "shadowy objects in test tube", both to alleviate the guilt of those who thought of using science for these purposes and above all through the solitary performances of the teachers of the college, who with their methods do not encourage students to become more aware. It is an experiment that aims to destroy identity, to demotivate every project by extinguishing dreams and hopes, to stifle any unforeseen development, to ignore individuals and individual psychic processes, sexual orientation and emotional disorientation. After a first theoretical part where the notion of performative is developed, the paper proceed with an analysis of the novel in order to show what NLMG shares with Posthumanism and posthuman critical theories to conclude that both are committed to the construction and representation of the human under the pressure of a new conception of existence in which technological invasions require a redefinition of individuals and their identity in the light of an anthropodecentralized, anti-human and therefore posthuman condition.
What Is Wrong with/about Socrates’ Pedagogy in the Geometry Lesson to the Slave-boy? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Adam Weiler Gur Arye
The literature on Socrates' geometry lesson to the slave-boy in Meno usually highlights merits of the lesson such as (a) resorting to visual experience (b) the method of teaching by asking questions (c) affording the slave-boy an opportunity to suggest conjectures and examine them (d) gradually leading the slave-boy towards the crucial recognition that he does not know. All these enable the slave-boy to become an active and engaged student. However, hardly any criticism has been expressed regarding some serious pedagogical flaws and drawbacks inherent in the lesson. In this study, this is considered in terms of: (a) When the slave-boy realizes and acknowledges that he does not know the specific answer to the problem presented to him by Socrates, he is not afforded an explanation of what he has learned so far or of what he does know regarding the problem and its solution. (b) He is not granted a chance to raise conjectures concerning the solution to the problem—following the introduction of the diagonal—but is rather forced to accept Socrates’ solution, which is delivered through a kind of “frontal attack.” (c) Socrates does not explain to the slave-boy, at the end of the lesson, that the original question, which was raised at its beginning, remains unanswered, and does not discuss this issue with him. (d) Socrates does not allow, or, at least, does not encourage, the slave-boy to ask questions of his own.(e) The way Socrates treats the slave-boy on a personal level is rather flawed.
How Does Philosophy Differ from Science? View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Chrysoula Gitsoulis
The earliest Greek philosophers – the “pre-Socratics” – laid the foundations for Western science by rejecting stories that posited super-natural beings (the deities) as the causes of earthly events and sought, instead, to explain the world in terms of its own inherent principles. The works of the pre-Socratics are distinguished above all else by their appeal to reason and observation. This is the crucial element that these early scientists shared in common with the philosophical tradition they helped shape, and indeed which philosophy continued to share in common with science in the millennia that followed: an effort to uncover truths about the world and the beings that occupy it, and an emphasis on reason in doing so. But there are also important differences between philosophy and science. In my paper, I will amplify on at least five important differences: (1) Philosophy does not attempt to offer reductive analyses of the concepts it seeks to clarify; (2) Philosophy focuses on normative, and not merely descriptive questions, and the way approaches descriptive questions differs from the way science does; (3) Philosophy doesn’t merely discover but creates answers to the questions it seeks to answer; (4) There is no standard method that is employed by philosophers to answer philosophical questions as there is in science (the scientific method); (5) We don’t find the same kind of progress in philosophy as we do in science. In my paper I explain and expand on each of these important differences.
