Philosophy and Public Space
Group Reference: RG-PHIL-Norte-Porto-502-1272
Time Interval: 2007-2010; 2011-2012; 2013-2014
Location of Group (Host Institution): Instituto de Filosofia / Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Principal Investigator: Prof.ª Doutora Paula Cristina Moreira Silva Pereira
Philosophy and city, as public space, tell a parallel story in the conquest of the uninhabited and the unthought-of. This conquest translates into a desire for humanization, intersecting new forms of thinking and of inhabiting (L. Sória). The city is not merely a physical space, it is a place of affectivity and memory, a space of significant learning.
The research with intend to carry on through this project arises in a context where contemporary thinking of reception is confronted with the estrangement and exclusion of an info-communication society which has shaped the city and hyper-specialised its spaces, traversed by social conflicts leading to moral injuries (Honneth).
The following mobilising notions-concepts are assumed: hospitality, acknowledgement, deterritorialisation, delocalisation, public space, private space, freedom, equality, virtue, power, participation, citizenship, sustainability, multiculturalism, hybridism, desire, solitude, sensibility, intimacy, utopia, privatopia. Our research will explore the fecundity of humanness focusing on space, which works as a mediator of levels of civility, so as to position the city as a space-experience of territoriality and reception.
Objectives:
Bearing in mind the relation between philosophy and the polis (Plato, Aristotle), reflection on public and private space (Arendt) and the fact that the notion of polis has progressively shifted away from the notion of city (Cambiano), the research aims to reflect on the place and role of philosophy in public space, particularly urban life, when confronted with the challenges of contemporary society, so that philosophy be brought to bear as a factor in social development.
The city, as a concept, is primarily a political heritage, albeit intersected with manifold heritages (cultural, social, architectural, urban) and different modes of conceiving and experiencing space; thus, an interdisciplinary approach will be pursued drawing on insights from different fields (philosophy, sociology, psychoanalysis, geography, architecture, urbanism*), contributing to broadening knowledge and understanding of phenomena of the public space, the relations between the human/non-human, the natural/social, the individual/collective. Any less inclusive approach, devoid of these dimensions, will lead to failure in achieving desired levels of civility and denigrate the identity of the places.
1) Identify and evaluate a few essential lines of thought in contemporary production on issues related to public space from an interdisciplinary approach. (philosophy, sociology, geography, architecture, urbanism).
2) Reflect on the issues of the technical, technology, virtual, relation, communication, artificial, natural, hybrid, reception, hospitality, alterity, sensibility, in their relation with the contemporary city.
3) Seminars in partnership with postgraduate training.
4) Training PhD and Master’s students; Training young researchers and students.
5) Networking with other scientific communities.
6) Publications.
7) Organization of Scientific Meetings.
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