With Giacomo Pezzano (University of Turin). For the cycle Inheriting 2. Semiotics of transmission, organised by the 'Umberto Eco' International Centre for Humanistic Studies, the Antonio Pasqualino Museum, the TRAME Centre and the Sicilian Semiotic Circle.
Date: 20 OCTOBER 2023 from 15:00 to 17:00
Event location: Sala Rossa, Centro Umberto Eco, Via Marsala 26, Bologna - In presence and online event
One of the first things we learn about history is that it begins with writing: thanks to it, human beings take full part in that process of preservation and transmission of meanings that we call culture. Hitherto, as I shall discuss, writing has basically meant recording and sharing words, but this assumption has begun to cease to be valid today: not only in a theoretical sense, as is, for example, well understood by those semioticians who - unlike philosophers - have been able to take the plural dimension of the sign seriously, but also and above all in a practical-anthropological sense. Indeed, one of the consequences of the digital or information revolution is that the traditional everyday primacy of words in the semiotic marketplace and of word technologies in the media marketplace is being overwhelmingly undermined by images and image technologies.
By clarifying the contours of such a scenario, my paper intends to develop some decisive implications, tackling head-on a number of questions, including above all: what are the transformations our practice and conception of writing is undergoing? How can the change of the fundamental fabric of cultural and semantic heritage in an 'imaginal' key redefine the very contours of what it means to think? Because taking these phenomena seriously may also allow us to recognise and address a number of hitherto neglected epistemic injustices?
Bio:
Giacomo Pezzano (PhD) is a researcher in Moral Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin. With the research projects "Philographics. How To do Concepts with Images' and 'GraPhil. New Habits in Mind' (EU H2020 programme) he is currently investigating the ways in which media and digital technologies can reconfigure the clothes of thought, with a focus on the possible transformation of the production and transmission of philosophical knowledge. Current activities include the production of a philosophical graphic essay in collaboration with the International School of Comics in Turin. His latest books are 'Inheriting. The thread that unites and separates generations' (2020), '4 minutes. Philosophy for the Passing Times' (2022), 'Thinking Reality in the Digital Age. A philosophical perspective' (2023) and 'D1git4l-m3nte. Philosophical anthropology and digital humanity' (2024).