Research Research LaboratoriesPhilosophical Laboratory of the Global Age

Philosophical Laboratory of the Global Age – Labfileglob

The Philosophical Laboratory of the Global Age (Labfileglob) focuses on issues and problems related to the transformations of the global age.

 

The professors and young researchers involved in the Philosophical Laboratory of the Global Age (Labfileglob) share a strong interest in the study of the problems and issues related to the main transformations occurring with the global age. Even though the Labfileglob members come from different disciplines, they strongly believe that philosophy could and should contribute to analysing the urgent challenges produced by globalization. This is the reason why Labfileglob aims to develop a critical approach, able to connect the current challenges with the analytical and methodological tools provided by social philosophy: according to this perspective, Labfileglob wants to outline possible remedies to these challenges at the ethical, social and political levels, not by referring to abstract normative principles, but by following an immanent critique enabled by the subjects and resources within of the social reality. Such an immanent approach requires reflection on the psycho-anthropological structure of individuals starting from the socio-historical living contexts, in order to further investigate the motivations – especially the emotional ones – and the world images at the root of individual and social agency. This philosophical approach provides a critical diagnosis of the present grounded on a transformative perspective and inspired by world images so as to develop a utopic and post-ideological emancipatory project.

 

Within this theoretical framework, Labfileglob devotes special attention to the following issues and approaches:

• analysis of the global challenges and their ethical, affective and psychological effects on subjectivities;
• critical diagnosis of capitalism as a dynamic form of life that has assumed a global scale, reframing its relationship with politics, nature and society;
• an anthropological theory of democracy, able to explain the changed relationships between politics, violence, power and domination better than the traditional approaches;
• a relational theory of the subject, inspired by some feminist reflections and gender studies, going beyond the opposition between the modern idea of a sovereign subject and the postmodern idea of the implosion of the subject;
• reflection on a set of key concepts – such as vulnerability, interdependence, conflict, care, responsibility, sense, imagination and world image – to outline the possible affective, ethical and political remedies for an emancipative transformation of the present.

This methodological frame and this thematic focus entail the following requirements:

• a careful consideration of the most significant classics for a critical diagnosis of the present;
• new focus on as-yet-unexplored or underestimated theoretical perspectives;
• open interdisciplinarity, involving sociology, political science, anthropology and psychoanalysis, neurosciences, literature and cinema;
• a fresh discussion of fundamental concepts of the philosophical theory of modernity in order to verify whether it is obsolete or continues to be valid in the face of the present epochal transformations.

 

The Department of Humanities participates in the Philosophical Laboratory of the Global Age, located at the Department of Political and Social Sciences (DSPS) of the University of Florence.

 

Prof. Ubaldo Fadini is among the members of this Laboratory.

 

→ Philosophical Laboratory of the Global Age Website