{"title":"The playful unliving: Creativity and contingency in scientific practice","authors":"Juan Felipe Guevara-Aristizábal","doi":"10.1016/j.endeavour.2021.100782","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Standing apart from Martin Heidegger’s 1929–1930 metaphysical lessons is his description of a photograph taken by Josef Maria Eder, for Sigmund Exner, using the lens of a glow worm’s eye. Since the technical details of the production of such a photography are not readily available, I will reconstruct the experimental setting. Paying attention to the technical details opens up a venue for historical and philosophical reflection based on the creative potential of scientific practices. Through a critical approach, a rather generic experimental meshwork could be turned into a natural-artifactual, living-nonliving hybrid setting in which the concepts of dense technological environment, philosophical toy, and experimental system meet and intertwine thanks to the playfulness that goes through them, a quality rooted in scientific practices. Within this hybrid and playful configuration, the unliving emerges as a paradoxical voice for the living.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":0,"journal":{"name":"","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.endeavour.2021.100782","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160932721000375","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Standing apart from Martin Heidegger’s 1929–1930 metaphysical lessons is his description of a photograph taken by Josef Maria Eder, for Sigmund Exner, using the lens of a glow worm’s eye. Since the technical details of the production of such a photography are not readily available, I will reconstruct the experimental setting. Paying attention to the technical details opens up a venue for historical and philosophical reflection based on the creative potential of scientific practices. Through a critical approach, a rather generic experimental meshwork could be turned into a natural-artifactual, living-nonliving hybrid setting in which the concepts of dense technological environment, philosophical toy, and experimental system meet and intertwine thanks to the playfulness that goes through them, a quality rooted in scientific practices. Within this hybrid and playful configuration, the unliving emerges as a paradoxical voice for the living.