Books by Lucilla Guidi
Wittgensteinian Exercises. Aesthetic and Ethical Transformations, 2023
This volume explores and expands a Wittgensteinian account of philosophy as an ongoing transforma... more This volume explores and expands a Wittgensteinian account of philosophy as an ongoing transformative practice. It investigates the simultaneously aesthetic and ethical dimension of philosophical exercises, so as to uncover their transformative potential for and within ordinary practice, conceived of as a weave of inherited embodied habits. For this purpose, the volume focuses on three intertwined aspects. First, it analyzes the aesthetic form of Wittgenstein’s writings. In particular, it considers the use of pictures, dialogues, comparisons, and instructions as exercises to be enacted by readers, thereby exploring their transformative (aesthetic and ethical) effects. Second, it draws a number of connections between Wittgenstein’s philosophical exercises and particular aesthetic practices. Third, it sheds light on continuities and discontinuities between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and the ancient understanding of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life, so as to sketch out an account of ethics as a practical attitude and way of being. In addition, by including pictures and a text in three different languages, this volume explores new ways of doing philosophy in a Wittgensteinian spirit.
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Studies in Contemporary Phenomenology Vol. 19 Brill, 2020
This volume, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch, establishes the first systematic connect... more This volume, edited by Lucilla Guidi and Thomas Rentsch, establishes the first systematic connection between phenomenology and performativity. On the one hand, it outlines the performativity of phenomenology by exploring its enactment and the transformation of attitude it effects; this exploration is conducted through a number of parallels between phenomenology and the ancient understanding of philosophy as an exercise and a way of life. On the other hand, the volume examines different notions of performativity from a phenomenological perspective, so as to show that a phenomenological understanding of embodied experience complements a linguistic account of performativity and can also offer a ground for bodily practices of resistance, critique, and self-transformation in our own day and age.
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Dalla prefazione di Vincenzo Vitiello:
Due gli aspetti, o momenti, di questo lavoro: l’uno ‘stor... more Dalla prefazione di Vincenzo Vitiello:
Due gli aspetti, o momenti, di questo lavoro: l’uno ‘storico-critico’, fondamentale per comprendere, con la formazione, l’esito della filosofia di Heidegger; l’altro, ‘teoretico’, concernente il passaggio dal ‘contenuto’ del pensiero e del linguaggio alla loro ‘pratica’. Un mutamento radicale che riporta la filosofia alla sua dimensione originaria: l’esistenza, fuori della tradizionale partizione “vita-riflessione”, “io-mondo”, “soggetto-oggetto”. I due aspetti, o momenti, di questo studio si richiamano a vicenda, per cui se l’intento propriamente teoretico – il concetto di “performatività negativa” – regge l’intera ricostruzione storica, questa a sua volta costituisce il terreno su cui quella concezione poggia, avendo avuto in quel pensiero la sua prima origine.
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Papers by Lucilla Guidi
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Philosophy Study
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Guidi, L. (2020). The Pragmatic and Transformative Dimension of Heidegger’s Early Method of Formal Indication. Bollettino Filosofico, 35, 83-92.
In the present contribution, I explore the notion of formal indication in Heidegger’s early Freib... more In the present contribution, I explore the notion of formal indication in Heidegger’s early Freiburg Lectures, in order to emphasize that its pivotal meaning both as a method and an expression lies in its preparing and awaking a transformation of the reader’s experience. For this purpose, I first of all draw attention to the constitutive ambivalence between the phenomenon of factical life experience and philosophy, so as to further examine the difference between formally indicative “expressions” and “order-concepts”. Finally, I analyze the notion of formal indication in the 1921-22 Lecture “Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle”, so as to argue that formal indication can be conceived of as a pragmatic use of language, which works through practical negations and addresses readers. From this perspective, I claim that formal indication embodies a task to be accomplished by readers, since it points to a transformation of the reader’s experience.
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Azimuth. Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age, 2020
This paper analyzes Patočka's reassessment of Heidegger's phenomenology by examining his critical... more This paper analyzes Patočka's reassessment of Heidegger's phenomenology by examining his critical reformulation of Heidegger's notion of situated, affective understanding. The paper approaches this topic by focusing in particular on the Lectures which Patočka gave at the Philosophical Faculty of Prague's Charles University in the academic year 1968-1969. In the introduction, the paper briefly sketches out Patočka's critical examination of Husserl's phenomenology, according to the necessity to expand it beyond what Patočka considers to be Husserl's subjectivistic account of consciousness. In the second section, this paper analyses Patočka's critical appropriation of Heidegger's phenomenological account of being-in-the-world by investigating the practical dimension of Dasein's understanding. In the third section, Patočka's criticism of Heidegger will be examined, so as to show how Patočka's notion of sensibility and affection as "harmony with the world"-in contrast to Heidegger's account-represents a dimension of experience, which enables a situated, affective understanding and allows humans to "be at home" from the very beginning-in contrast to the Unheimlichkeit (literally: not-being-at-home) which Heidegger ascribes to Dasein.
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Humana.Mente, Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol 12 No 36 (2019): Beyond the Self: Crisis of Disembodied and Individualistic Paradigms , 2019
In this paper I will examine the embodied dimension of emotions, and of inner life more generally... more In this paper I will examine the embodied dimension of emotions, and of inner life more generally, according to Wittgenstein's anti-subjectivistic account of expression. First of all, I will explore Wittgenstein's critique of a Cartesian disembodied account of the inner life, and the related argument against the existence of a private language. Secondly, I will describe the constitution of inner life as the acquisition of embodied ways of expressing oneself and of responding to others within a shared context, against the background of an inherited weave of cultural expressive practices. Here, I will analyze Wittgenstein's embodied account of expression, the 'modified concept of sensing' and 'seeing' which is involved in seeing the emotions of others as their expressions, and consequently Wittgenstein's critique of an epistemological account concerning our 'knowledge' of others' minds. Finally, with reference to Cavell's and Mulhall's readings, I will reflect on the figure of the 'aspect-blind', one who 'just knows' the emotion of others but cannot acknowledge it, and accordingly is not able to see it as the embodied expression of the other's inner life. In this way, I wish to argue that Wittgenstein not only calls into question a disembodied account of the inner life from a theoretical point of view, but also shows the ethical consequences of a disembodied account of self through the figure of the aspect-blind.
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Philosophy Study , 2019
In this paper, the transformative and critical potential of the groundlessness of praxis–a centra... more In this paper, the transformative and critical potential of the groundlessness of praxis–a central issue in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty–is outlined. It argues that the groundlessness of human praxis entails neither a relativistic nor a foundationalistic epistemological position. On the contrary, following Stanley Cavell and a “resolute reading” of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, it claims that Wittgenstein’s aim is to let us acknowledge that both epistemological foundationalism and epistemic relativism are apparent needs, so as to invite us to change our practical way of acting. From this perspective, this paper suggests that Wittgenstein’s account of philosophy addresses the readers and involves a transformation of their own practical attitude and way of acting.
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The paper analyzes the performative dimension of Heidegger’s phenomenological language, by examin... more The paper analyzes the performative dimension of Heidegger’s phenomenological language, by examining Heidegger’s first method of formal indication. It argues that this use of language involves a performative dimension, since it does not communicate any semantic contents but rather a transformative enactment, and hence requires this transformative enactment on the reader’s part as well. The paper claims that the latter spells out a transformation which does not concern what we experience but rather our way of living, and which therefore can be seen to stand in continuity with the Greek and Christian notion of conversion. By analyzing the difference between formal indication and objective concepts, the paper aims to show that formal indication may be understood as a critique and a radicalization of Husserl’s occasional expressions. Furthermore, by examining Heidegger’s concept of guilt in Being and Time, it aims to show how formal indication has actually been used, even though it has no longer been directly thematized. Hence, it claims that Heidegger’s phenomenological language as a whole involves this performative dimension. The paper further aims to illustrate the use of formal indication as a performative strategy which pragmatically negates the semantic contents of language, so as to make us aware of the impossibility to ground both the inherited context of meanings which constitute ourselves, and the spontaneity of our action. In conclusion, the paper claims that the use of formal indication embodies a performative strategy which requires a transformation of our self-comportment.
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From Conventionalism to Social Authenticity, Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, 10, Springer, Cham, 179-197, 2017
The paper discusses Martin Heidegger's account of the anyone in "Being and Time" in connection wi... more The paper discusses Martin Heidegger's account of the anyone in "Being and Time" in connection with his reinterpretation of Aristotle's categories of 'poiesis' and 'praxis', carried out in his Lecture on Aristotle's Ethics. The main purpose of the paper is to rethink the relation between production and action developed in Hannah Arendt's "Vita Activa", by understanding them as two different ways of enacting our relation to the world. By showing the inseparability between anyone and self in Heidegger's account, and therefore by drawing a parallel between these two different ways of existing and Heidegger's phenomenological interpretation of 'poiesis' and 'praxis', the paper aims at reformulating Arendt's distinction between work and action. The purpose is to show – with and against Arendt's conception – that there is no authentic action without a transformation of the sphere of production. Furthermore, by analyzing the constitutive ambivalence of the activity of building, the paper describes – with and against Heidegger's perspective – the possibility to transform the self-assurance involved in each making, i.e. in our productive way of being. This transformation points to an ongoing process and lies in facing our self-assurance, thereby acknowledging our constitutive groundlessness and building a public and political place.
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In: G. Thonhauser (Hrsg.), Perspektiven mit Heidegger, Karl Alber Verlag, Freiburg. , 2017
Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, den Status der phänomenologischen Rede und Praxis zu thematisieren. ... more Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, den Status der phänomenologischen Rede und Praxis zu thematisieren. Die hermeneutische Dimension von Heideggers Phänomenologie wird mit Austins Begriff der Performativität verbunden: einerseits, um die Sinndimension der Phänomenologie als performativ zu verstehen; andererseits, um die Figur der Performativität mittels der Phänomenologie neu zu lesen. Aus dieser Perspektive ist die Wahrheit des In-der-Welt-seins, die die Phänomenologie expliziert und die eine Weise des menschlichen Lebens ist, nicht innerhalb der Disjunktion zwischen wahr oder falsch verstehbar. Stattdessen spricht sie eine immanente Transformation an, die die Situation des Lesers betreffen kann. Diese Sinndimension ist performativ, da sie eine immanente Transformation der jeweiligen Situation beinhaltet; gleichzeitig reformuliert sie aber auch den Begriff der Performativität, da diese Transformation nicht in einer intentionalen Sprechhandlung besteht, die in einer geeigneten Situation gelungen ist. Die negative Performativität der Phänomenologie ist stattdessen auf die Erfahrung der Unbestimmtheit der Situation selbst angewiesen.
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Philosophia. Philosophical Quarterly of Israel, Springer, 2017
The paper analyzes the ontological meaning of mood (Stimmung) in Heidegger’s conception of Attune... more The paper analyzes the ontological meaning of mood (Stimmung) in Heidegger’s conception of Attunement (Befindlichkeit), in order to relate this notion of Stimmung specifically to our “attunement” (Übereinstimmung) to a form of life, as conceived in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language. It claims that moods spell out the constitutive impossibility to grasp and found the human experience as such. However, this impossibility is not a lack of human knowledge, but rather corresponds to the necessary opacity, indeterminability and groundlessness of every human experience, which make it possible as such. The paper argues that the ontological mood of anxiety in Heidegger’s thought cannot be understood as a dark feeling, since it points to a constitutive sense of disorientation, which involves the impossibility to found and ensure the very familiarity of our ordinary experience. Moreover, the paper claims that the same impossibility is also involved in our “attunement” to language and to a form of life, as described by Wittgenstein in his "Philosophical Investigations". By analyzing the mood of trust sketched out by Wittgenstein in "On Certainty", the paper suggests that the ontological mood of trust, as the groundless certainty of our praxis, points to the very impossibility to found and ensure every human experience. From this perspective, moods reveal the groundlessness of human experience and make us acknowledge it.
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Conference by Lucilla Guidi
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DECEMBER 6-7-, STIFTUNG UNIVERSITÄT HILDESHEIM, GRADUIERTENKOLLEG "ÄSTHETISCHE PRAXIS"
This wor... more DECEMBER 6-7-, STIFTUNG UNIVERSITÄT HILDESHEIM, GRADUIERTENKOLLEG "ÄSTHETISCHE PRAXIS"
This workshop aims to explore the embodied character of practices from a phenomenological perspective, so as to bring this phenomenological account into dialogue both with »Performative Aesthetics« (Erika Fischer-Lichte) and with performances as embodied aesthetic practices. This topic is addressed from both a theoretical and practical point of view: the workshop includes an artistic installation initiated by Susan Kozel using augmented reality to archive the somatic quality of Margrét Sara Gujónsdóttir’s performance, as well as a session of somatic exercises based on Gujónsdóttir’s choreographic method.
DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2477 »Ästhetische Praxis«
https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/grk-2477
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“All my life has been learning to see and exercising”. It is such terms that Edmund Husserl descr... more “All my life has been learning to see and exercising”. It is such terms that Edmund Husserl described the phenomenological praxis. Phenomenology, therefore, is not a theoretical doctrine, but an exercise. It means learning to see and to experience and hence involves a shift of perspective, i.e. a transformation of our way of experiencing things. This exercise has
a critical character, since it focuses our attention on those conceptions which objectify ourselves, others and the world. From this perspective, the conference aims to connect the phenomenological approach to the paradigm of performativity. For the first time J. L. Austin, with the concept of “performative”, pointed to a dimension of language which does not
describe a state of affairs, but rather performs an action, thus making things with words. Jacques Derrida radicalized Austin’s conception from a phenomenological perspective, by arguing that every praxis involves a performative dimension, since it constitutes itself in repetition, bringing out effects into the world that re-act retrospectively upon praxis as such. Moreover, Michel Foucault‘s discourse analysis and Judith Butler‘s gender studies describe subject-constitution as a performative process.
In this way, they also open up to the possibility of resistance and transformation. The concept of performativity involves a bright polivocity as well as an increasing centrality. The aim of the conference is to
systematically connect phenomenology and performativity. This connection aims on the one hand to understand phenomenology in a new way, that is: as a performative exercise. On the other hand, it intends to offer a critical perspective on the “performative turn” as well.
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Books by Lucilla Guidi
Due gli aspetti, o momenti, di questo lavoro: l’uno ‘storico-critico’, fondamentale per comprendere, con la formazione, l’esito della filosofia di Heidegger; l’altro, ‘teoretico’, concernente il passaggio dal ‘contenuto’ del pensiero e del linguaggio alla loro ‘pratica’. Un mutamento radicale che riporta la filosofia alla sua dimensione originaria: l’esistenza, fuori della tradizionale partizione “vita-riflessione”, “io-mondo”, “soggetto-oggetto”. I due aspetti, o momenti, di questo studio si richiamano a vicenda, per cui se l’intento propriamente teoretico – il concetto di “performatività negativa” – regge l’intera ricostruzione storica, questa a sua volta costituisce il terreno su cui quella concezione poggia, avendo avuto in quel pensiero la sua prima origine.
Papers by Lucilla Guidi
Conference by Lucilla Guidi
This workshop aims to explore the embodied character of practices from a phenomenological perspective, so as to bring this phenomenological account into dialogue both with »Performative Aesthetics« (Erika Fischer-Lichte) and with performances as embodied aesthetic practices. This topic is addressed from both a theoretical and practical point of view: the workshop includes an artistic installation initiated by Susan Kozel using augmented reality to archive the somatic quality of Margrét Sara Gujónsdóttir’s performance, as well as a session of somatic exercises based on Gujónsdóttir’s choreographic method.
DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2477 »Ästhetische Praxis«
https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/grk-2477
a critical character, since it focuses our attention on those conceptions which objectify ourselves, others and the world. From this perspective, the conference aims to connect the phenomenological approach to the paradigm of performativity. For the first time J. L. Austin, with the concept of “performative”, pointed to a dimension of language which does not
describe a state of affairs, but rather performs an action, thus making things with words. Jacques Derrida radicalized Austin’s conception from a phenomenological perspective, by arguing that every praxis involves a performative dimension, since it constitutes itself in repetition, bringing out effects into the world that re-act retrospectively upon praxis as such. Moreover, Michel Foucault‘s discourse analysis and Judith Butler‘s gender studies describe subject-constitution as a performative process.
In this way, they also open up to the possibility of resistance and transformation. The concept of performativity involves a bright polivocity as well as an increasing centrality. The aim of the conference is to
systematically connect phenomenology and performativity. This connection aims on the one hand to understand phenomenology in a new way, that is: as a performative exercise. On the other hand, it intends to offer a critical perspective on the “performative turn” as well.
Due gli aspetti, o momenti, di questo lavoro: l’uno ‘storico-critico’, fondamentale per comprendere, con la formazione, l’esito della filosofia di Heidegger; l’altro, ‘teoretico’, concernente il passaggio dal ‘contenuto’ del pensiero e del linguaggio alla loro ‘pratica’. Un mutamento radicale che riporta la filosofia alla sua dimensione originaria: l’esistenza, fuori della tradizionale partizione “vita-riflessione”, “io-mondo”, “soggetto-oggetto”. I due aspetti, o momenti, di questo studio si richiamano a vicenda, per cui se l’intento propriamente teoretico – il concetto di “performatività negativa” – regge l’intera ricostruzione storica, questa a sua volta costituisce il terreno su cui quella concezione poggia, avendo avuto in quel pensiero la sua prima origine.
This workshop aims to explore the embodied character of practices from a phenomenological perspective, so as to bring this phenomenological account into dialogue both with »Performative Aesthetics« (Erika Fischer-Lichte) and with performances as embodied aesthetic practices. This topic is addressed from both a theoretical and practical point of view: the workshop includes an artistic installation initiated by Susan Kozel using augmented reality to archive the somatic quality of Margrét Sara Gujónsdóttir’s performance, as well as a session of somatic exercises based on Gujónsdóttir’s choreographic method.
DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 2477 »Ästhetische Praxis«
https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/grk-2477
a critical character, since it focuses our attention on those conceptions which objectify ourselves, others and the world. From this perspective, the conference aims to connect the phenomenological approach to the paradigm of performativity. For the first time J. L. Austin, with the concept of “performative”, pointed to a dimension of language which does not
describe a state of affairs, but rather performs an action, thus making things with words. Jacques Derrida radicalized Austin’s conception from a phenomenological perspective, by arguing that every praxis involves a performative dimension, since it constitutes itself in repetition, bringing out effects into the world that re-act retrospectively upon praxis as such. Moreover, Michel Foucault‘s discourse analysis and Judith Butler‘s gender studies describe subject-constitution as a performative process.
In this way, they also open up to the possibility of resistance and transformation. The concept of performativity involves a bright polivocity as well as an increasing centrality. The aim of the conference is to
systematically connect phenomenology and performativity. This connection aims on the one hand to understand phenomenology in a new way, that is: as a performative exercise. On the other hand, it intends to offer a critical perspective on the “performative turn” as well.