Name: On Doubt
Price: 888.00 TWD
Availability: InStock
Author: Vilém Flusser
ISBN: 9781517912932

Type

Physical Book

Author

Vilém Flusser

Illustrated by

Siegfried Zielinski

Publisher

University of Minnesota Press

Language

English

Pages

100

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

19.4 x 12.4 x 2.5 cm

ISBN13

9781517912932

Synopsis "On Doubt"

In On Doubt, Vilém Flusser refines Martin Heidegger's famous declaration that "language is the dwelling of Being." For Flusser, "the word is the dwelling of being," because in fact, in the beginning, there was the word. On Doubt is a treatise on the human intellect, its relation to language, and the reality-forming discourses that subsequently emerge. For Flusser, the faith that the modern age places in Cartesian doubt plays a role similar to the one that faith in God played in previous eras--a faith that needs to be challenged. Descartes doubts the world through his proposition cogito ergo sum, but leaves doubt itself untouched as indubitable and imperious. His cogito ergo sum may have proved to the Western intellect that thoughts exist, but it did not prove the existence of that which thinks: one can eliminate thinking and yet continue being. Therefore, should we not doubt doubt itself? Should we not try to go beyond this last step of Cartesian doubt and look for a new faith? The twentieth century has seen many attempts to defeat Cartesian doubt, however, this doubt of doubt has instead generated a complete loss of faith, which the West experiences as existential nihilism. Hence, the emergent emptying of values that results from such extreme doubt. Everything loses its meaning. Can this climate be overcome? Will the West survive the modern age?

Vilém Flusser

(Author)

View Author's Page

Vilém Flusser (Prague, May 12, 1920 – November 27, 1991) was a Czech-Brazilian philosopher, writer, and journalist, known for his reflections on technology, communication, and the image in the post-industrial era
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born into an intellectual Jewish family, Flusser began studying philosophy at Charles University in Prague in 1938. Following the Nazi occupation, he emigrated to London in 1939 and, the following year, moved to Brazil, where he lived until his death. In Brazil, he worked in various companies and began to develop his philosophical thought, publishing articles and books in Portuguese, German, English, and French.

Among his most notable works are Language and Reality (1963), Towards a Philosophy of Photography (1983), and Vampyroteuthis infernalis (1987), a philosophical fable that explores the relationship between humans and the world. In Towards a Philosophy of Photography, Flusser analyzes photography as a transcendental act and its impact on the perception of reality.

Flusser died in 1991 in a car accident on the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia, the country he had left in his youth. His legacy continues to be an essential reference in studies on technology, communication, and contemporary philosophy.

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