Drafts by Marketa Jakesova
In the notorious paragraph 9 of Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, the author ask... more In the notorious paragraph 9 of Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, the author asks, rhetorically, whether when we perform a pure judgment of taste, taking pleasure in a beautiful object comes first and only then does any aesthetic judgment follow or if it is the other way around. While elaborating this question by way of other parts of the third Critique, namely, the hierarchization of various types of art, the possibilities of cultivation of taste, and the unnecessity of the actual presence of an object for aesthetic evaluation, I would like to emphasize and strengthen the political intimations which are otherwise more emphatic in Kant's other texts. In the second part, these traits will be related to the concept of an object of art as understood by Walter Benjamin and how it relates to emancipation, which was an important concern for both thinkers.
This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of the body as a mass as he drafted... more This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of the body as a mass as he drafted it in his " On the Soul " lecture. He conceptualizes the soul as the reflection of the fact that we have (or we are) a body, thus the conception of the body as a mass may offer possibilities to think the body outside or prior to this reflection. In the article, I expand on three types of bodies. The first of these possibilities is an abstracted body Nancy ascribed to St. Augustine, it is a body which has been criticized by feminist scholars like Judith Butler. The second one is a hypothetical pre-body proposed by the object-oriented philosopher Graham Harman which may have existed before the actual body emerges. The last one is the disintegrated rotting body which I connect to asubha kammaṭṭhāna, a Thai meditational praxis.
The world around me started to tremble many years ago when I met postmodernism. After that came f... more The world around me started to tremble many years ago when I met postmodernism. After that came feminism, then postcolonialism. My world has been falling to pieces ever since, but now I am beginning to glimpse views of a place to stand on, reinforced by a net of contingent and temporal affinities across the boundaries that my society had drawn for me. This paper should be an attempt to fixate this flash, and with the help of a cyborg fantasy (and Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto) to abandon or at least suspend my phenomenological “insistence on victimhood as the only ground for insight”.
Conference Presentations by Marketa Jakesova
The aim of this paper is to connect Merleau-Ponty's account of dreams and time with cityscapes, J... more The aim of this paper is to connect Merleau-Ponty's account of dreams and time with cityscapes, Japanese anime and nightmares. First, I will briefly introduce Merleau-Ponty, then I will present three anime dealing with dreams, cities, and time. In conclusion, I will connect these using Susan Buck-Morss' interpretation of Walter Benjamin's texts of the Arcades Project.
There is a prevalent tendency among Japanese to be skeptical towards medical transplantations of ... more There is a prevalent tendency among Japanese to be skeptical towards medical transplantations of vital organs, especially when their donors should be so-called 'brain-dead' persons. This is because it does not necessarily have to be the brain which (alone) ensures a person's identity and also because the 'foreign' parts in the receiver's body can endanger his or her integrity (cf. Ohnuki-Tierney 1994). This may indicate an understanding of the body as a compact and bounded entity, however a lot of Japanese anime movies and series offer a rather different picture. First, the differences between animal, human, vegetal or mechanical bodies are fluid and unsteady, so they change both their form and substance, and second, the bodies seem to flow between material, virtual, and dream realities without any apprehensible anchoring. This paper aims to propose an integrated understanding of these two techno-socio-cultural phenomena by using some of the philosophical approaches that draw on both Japanese and Western traditions. The philosopher Ichikawa Hiroshi describes various types of the body: some of them are not limited by the skin but rather represent a structure or a network intimately connected to their environment, other bodies included. The philosopher Yuasa Yasuo treats the well-known problems of subjectivity and body-mind unity but instead of taking this unity as the point of departure and then explaining it, he sees it as a possible goal of bodily techniques inspired by Buddhist meditation practice. Thus it seems that not only is the subject fundamentally embodied (as for example in the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty) but most importantly, it appears to be able to absorb and integrate into itself anything (both biological and mechanical) from its environment, and change with it. I will argue that this way of thinking can offer some alternatives to the highly individualistic Western milieu and could even be a better departure for responding to environmental issues while more justly treating all possible relations and connections between different people, biological species, and other entities.
Papers by Marketa Jakesova
Research in Phenomenology, May 7, 2020
This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of the body as a mass as he drafted... more This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of the body as a mass as he drafted it in his “On the Soul” lecture. He conceptualizes the soul as the (however minimal) reflection of the fact that we have (or we are) a body, thus the conception of the body as a mass may offer possibilities to think the body outside or prior to this reflection. In the article, I expand on three types of bodies. The first of these possibilities is an abstracted body Nancy ascribed to St. Augustine, a body which has been criticized by feminist scholars like Judith Butler. The second one is a hypothetical pre-body proposed by the object-oriented philosopher Graham Harman that may have existed before the actual body emerges. The last one is the disintegrated rotting body in two different contexts: European baroque imagery and asubha kammaṭṭhāna, a Thai meditational practice. All three types of bodies-as-a-mass are legitimate conceptualizations of what Nancy indicates. However, the mass quality is the very nonconceptuality, which is therefore the ultimate outcome that I had to reach.
There is a prevalent tendency among Japanese to be skeptical towards medical transplantations of ... more There is a prevalent tendency among Japanese to be skeptical towards medical transplantations of vital organs, especially when their donors should be so-called 'brain-dead' persons. This is because it does not necessarily have to be the brain which (alone) ensures a person's identity and also because the 'foreign' parts in the receiver's body can endanger his or her integrity (cf. Ohnuki-Tierney 1994). This may indicate an understanding of the body as a compact and bounded entity, however a lot of Japanese anime movies and series offer a rather different picture. First, the differences between animal, human, vegetal or mechanical bodies are fluid and unsteady, so they change both their form and substance, and second, the bodies seem to flow between material, virtual, and dream realities without any apprehensible anchoring. This paper aims to propose an integrated understanding of these two techno-socio-cultural phenomena by using some of the philosophical app...
This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of the body as a mass as he... more This paper aims to explore and expand Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of the body as a mass as he drafted it in his " On the Soul " lecture. He conceptualizes the soul as the reflection of the fact that we have (or we are) a body, thus the conception of the body as a mass may offer possibilities to think the body outside or prior to this reflection. In the article, I expand on three types of bodies. The first of these possibilities is an abstracted body Nancy ascribed to St. Augustine, it is a body which has been criticized by feminist scholars like Judith Butler. The second one is a hypothetical pre-body proposed by the object-oriented philosopher Graham Harman which may have existed before the actual body emerges. The last one is the disintegrated rotting body which I connect to asubha kammaṭṭhāna, a Thai meditational praxis.
The world around me started to tremble many years ago when I met postmodernism. After that came f... more The world around me started to tremble many years ago when I met postmodernism. After that came feminism, then postcolonialism. My world has been falling to pieces ever since, but now I am beginning to glimpse views of a place to stand on, reinforced by a net of contingent and temporal affinities across the boundaries that my society had drawn for me. This paper should be an attempt to fixate this flash, and with the help of a cyborg fantasy (and Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto) to abandon or at least suspend my phenomenological “insistence on victimhood as the only ground for insight”.
Epistemology & Philosophy of Science
This article aims to critically examine three approaches to reflexivity in philosophical texts, s... more This article aims to critically examine three approaches to reflexivity in philosophical texts, specifically the case when the textuality becomes its own topic. The first approach is when there is no reflexivity at all. It is just describing how – according to the author – things are. As an example of this approach I take German media philosophy. This tradition is specific because reflexivity is supposed to be its very topic. However, the media philosophers succeeded in touching the indefinability of mediality itself. Another method is to question one’s own and possibly also the reader’s position. I have chosen Annemarie Mol’s empirical philosophy as the example here. The problem is that despite following the “ontological turn”, the author remains (probably inevitably) also to a large extent trapped in the fact that he/she describes the world, that is, in subject/object dichotomy and therefore, in epistemology. The third way to write aims to make readers feel what the author tells. ...
The Court of Reason
In the notorious paragraph 9 of Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, the au... more In the notorious paragraph 9 of Immanuel Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, the author asks, rhetorically, whether when we perform the pure judgment of taste, there is first taking pleasure in a beautiful object and only then does any aesthetic judgment follow or if it is the other way around. While elaborating this question by way of other parts of the third Critique, namely, the hierarchization of various types of art, the possibilities of cultivation of taste, and the unnecessity of the actual presence of an object for aesthetic evaluation, I would like to emphasize and strengthen the political intimations which are otherwise more emphatic in Kant's other texts. In the second part, these traits will be related to the concept of an object of art of Walter Benjamin.
This article aims to critically examine three approaches to reflexiv-ity in philosophical texts, ... more This article aims to critically examine three approaches to reflexiv-ity in philosophical texts, specifically the case when the textuality becomes its own topic. The first approach is when there is no re-flexivity at all. It is just describing how-according to the author-things are. As an example of this approach I take German media philosophy. This tradition is specific because reflexivity is supposed to be its very topic. However, the media philosophers succeeded in touching the indefinability of mediality itself. Another method is to question one's own and possibly also the reader's position. I have chosen Annemarie Mol's empirical philosophy as the example here. The problem is that despite following the "ontological turn", the author remains (probably inevitably) also to a large extent trapped in the fact that he/she describes the world, that is, in sub-ject/object dichotomy and therefore, in epistemology. The third way to write aims to make readers feel what the author tells. My example here is the varied work of Walter Benjamin whom I for the purpose of this article consider more as a prophet rather than the precise thinker who he (also) by all means was. While using the second approach myself, I discuss advantages and challenges of the three and find their points of touch.
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Drafts by Marketa Jakesova
Conference Presentations by Marketa Jakesova
Papers by Marketa Jakesova