The attention of the International History of Ideas Club at Jagiellonian University in Krakow is focused — at the beginning of a new decade of the 21st century — on the tension between two contested notions: Kultur and civilisation/civilization. This argument, which originated during the Enlightenment, has accompanied European thought for almost two centuries: from circa 1750 to 1950. Over two centuries the British civilization and the French civilisation were presented in opposition to the German Kultur (Binoche 2005). It is known that these two concepts intermingled with the political doctrines of Europe, particularly in times of national ambitions and nationalisms. Due to the contributions such as Arnold Joseph Tonybee’s or the eminent thinkers of the Frankfurt School, the opposition between Kultur and civilization/civilisation has lost its importance since. The end of World War II did not only end the long history of these two intertwined concepts, but also marks the emergence of a new understanding of culture, in particular the one we have recently come to know under the name of the “cultural turn” or “turns” (conceptualized in singular or in plural, as does Doris Bachmann-Medick in her bestseller entitled Cultural Turns; Bachmann-Medick, 2008).

One of the last examples of the Pre-1945 perspective – anchored in the long history of the aforementioned competing notions (Kultur/civilization/civilisation) – is Alfred North Whitehead’s concept of civilization, drafted in his 1933 study Adventures of Ideas. His concept of civilisation, derived from the Greek, consisted of five elements: i.e. truth, beauty, relation between truth and beauty, adventures and peace. In this quasi-architectural perspective Whitehead unveils conceptual underpinnings of the term civilization. Certain elements of that grid have shaped the continuum of western thought. He also tries to explain the main philosophical aspects of his notion of civilisation, in which the problem of appearance and reality is being unmasked. Since the time of Plato’s cave allegory the said problem has had a profound impact on the canon of mainstream thought in the West. According to Whitehead, for a long time this dichotomy unduly attracted the attention of philosophers. However, this aforementioned dichotomy still influences today’s debates and disussions – noticeable, for instance, in the vagaries between “linguistic turn” and “pictorial”, “visual”, “iconic turn”. This new approach has yielded studies such as P. M. S. Hacker's “Philosophy of Mind” or given rise to new fields such as “Visual Studies” and “Visual Culture.” This is at least what Bachmann-Medick has said to be the case for the German-language context – the dynamic development of particular disciplinary or research constellations rooted in an actual visual sensitivity: “image anthropology” (Bild Anthropologie), “image and media studies” (Bild-Medienwissenschaft), “image cultural encounters studies” (transkulturelle Bildkulturwissenschaft) or “interdisciplinary general image studies” (interindisziplinäre Allgemeine Bildwissenschaft). This interdisciplinary approach is increasingly set in opposition to linguistics, which has dominated German thought under the name of general linguistics (Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft). The conceptual tension does not come as a surprise in this tradition of thought, in which the notion of “Bild” has been conceived as a way of perceiving the world (Welterfassung) and which Barbara Cassin qualifies as the untranslatable (intraduisible) ones (Cassin 2004). Concurrently, it is clear that in the global context the “iconic turn” shows the importance of the past 20th century’s revolutions that brought an Übersetzungskehre in relative terms, the famous translational turn with its Translational Studies aiming again at new understanding, (re)interpretation of culture and its phenomena. It seems that the dichotomy of appearance and reality attracts the attention of a wider audience. Recently, Raphael Enthoven discussed this problem - the relationship between appearance and reality - on the Arte television channel (France Culture broadcasting station journalist and Philosophie programme moderator on Arte) and Alexander Schnell (lecturer of Sorbonne and Erasmus Mundus Exchange Programme “EuroPhilosophie” Coordinator).

To express the same problem, that is of Being (Sein) and appearance (Schein), appearance (Scheinhaftigkeit) and reality (Wirklichkeit) or poetry (Dichtung) and truth (Wahrheit), a contemporary artist from Berlin, Mischa Kuball, chose a different way --a project he called Platon’s [sic] Mirror. In times of the spectacular spread of the social and political rather than the philosophical aspects of the said problem, Kuball puts pressure on the relationship between realities by zooming in on exhibition and performance. The theme of shadow and illusion, the play of light and images are what Kuball excels in. His art was publically shown from September 2011 in Sydney and Wellington, then in Cracow. It will take place a decade after the most painful caesura of contemporary history, the infamous September 11th. Undoubtedly this day became a turning point in World recognition or “Welterkenntnis.” The September 11th turn became the starting point for a hasty search for (re)construction rather than (de)construction of various metaphysical aspects of western thought. As a result, the ideas of culture and civilization, as well as the ideas of appearance and reality are being pulled out of the shadows and are being projected into the epicentre of mostly political discourse. The International History of Ideas Club at Jagiellonian University in Krakow (in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut Krakau and Institut Français) would like to invite you to a round table discussion on “Appearance, reality and beyond. It will take place in Cracow on December 8th and includes spectrum of interests - historical, social, political and philosophical as well). On the same day, Mischa Kuball’s Platon’s Mirror will be opened to the public, with the support of the Goethe-Institut Krakau, in the Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University.

The moment chosen by the organizers coincides with the Polish Presidency of the European Union, the end of the first decade of the 21st century and the memory of a turning point in world politics. In this context questions will arise automatically: “to what extend does the contemporary conceptualization of the term ‘civilization’ vary from earlier ones? And “is the dichotomy of appearance and reality pertinent or should it be dismissed?”

Michel Henri Kowalewicz

Programme

Thursday, December 8th, 2011
Place: Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University, 33 Krupnicza Street in Krakow

09h00 Official welcome by: Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Jaroslaw Gorniak
Consul General of Germany, Mr. Dr. Heinz Peters
Consul General of France, Mr. Alexis Chahtahtinsky
Consul General of Austria, Mr Christophe Ceska
Director of Goethe-Institut Krakau, Mr. Daniel Göpfert
Head of the International History of Ideas Club and
History of Ideas Research Center, Mr. Michel Kowalewicz

09h30 – 10h00 Official Opening of the Exhibition Platon’s Mirror
by Daniel Göpfert, Director of Goethe-Institut Krakau
Presentation and communication by Mischa Kuball

10h30 – 13h00
Plenary Session Sciences
(Guest speakers) Papers presented by
10h30-10h45 Günther Lottes (Potsdam), World/Global History
10h45-11h00 Helmut Pulte (Bochum), Science and its Demarcation in the Light of History of Ideas
11h00-11h15 Gunter Scholtz (Bochum), Die Vernunft als Quelle des Scheins. Kants Vernunftkritik und ihre Folgen
11h15-10h30 Karl Acham (Graz), Über Schein und Wirklichkeit, Ephemeres und
Bedeutsames. Zur Aktualität alter Unterscheidungen im Lichte neuer Fragen
10h30-11h45 Hermann Lang (Würzburg), Schein und Realität in der Psychoanalyse
11h45-12h00 Paweł Dybel (Warsaw), Der Leib als Spiegel in der Philosophie der Malerei von Merleau-Ponty
12h00-12h15 Rüdiger Thiele (Leipzig), What is a function? A historical report
12h15-12h30 Stefano Mattioli (Siena), The idea of animal in the last 150 years of
zoology
12h30-12h45 Eric Nelson, (UML - University of Massachusetts Lowell), Semblance, Reality, and Generativity: Reflections on Chinese and Western Thought
12h45-13h00 summary

13h00 – 14h00
Lunch break
14h00 – 15h30 Plenary Session Arts
(Guest speakers)
Papers presented by
14h00-14h15 Highlights from the Opera “Madame Curie” (by Elżbieta Sikora)
14h15-14h30 Elżbieta Sikora (Paris), Art / Science: Raison ou Intuition
14h30-14h45 An introduction to the exhibition of Duoprint paintings by Jane McAdam Freud. Presentation by Jane McAdam Freud
14h45-15h00 Jane McAdam Freud (London), Beyond: EartH DeatH
15h00-15h15 Lyrics of Andrei Bronnikov. Recitation in Russian and in English by doctoral cand. (Krakow)
15h15-15h30 Andrei Bronnikov (Amsterdam), Poetry: a breakthrough to reality

15h30 – 16h00
Coffee break

16h00 – 18h00 Round Table With Summary and official closing of the Session

fficial closing of the Session
Topic: Appearance, Reality and Beyond
(Debate in English no translation available)
Round Table Speakers:
Karl Acham, Andrei Bronnikov, Paweł Dybel, Danuta Glondys, Hermann Lang, Günther Lottes, Jane McAdam Freud, Stefano Mattioli, Helmut Pulte, Gunter Scholtz, Elżbieta Sikora, Rüdiger Thiele and other particpants
18h00 – 19h30
Dinner break

20h00 World Premiere of Antonio Vivaldi's L'Oracolo in Messina (Fabio Biondi)