Tattva Journal of Philosophy

Beyond the Weapons: The Philosophy of Kalaripayattu, a South Indian Martial Art

Ashitha Mandakathingal — 2024-12-19

Kalaripayattu, a traditional martial art that has evolved over centuries in the southern Indian state of Kerala, offers a rich tapestry of physical practice, ritualistic elements, and philosophical underpinnings. Beyond its function as a combat system, Kalaripayattu embodies a unique ideology that intertwines the body, mind, and spirit. While the philosophical dimensions of other martial arts have been extensively explored, Kalaripayattu remains a largely untapped wellspring of philosophical inquiry. This study delves into the intricate interplay between the martial practice, ritualistic performances, and the underlying philosophy of this martial performance. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's concept of ‘lived body’, this study explores the non-dualistic nature of a unique Indian martial art, demonstrating how it transcends the traditional mind-body dichotomy. By examining the various dimensions of this art form, the essay aim to illuminate its significance as a cultural and intellectual pursuit that transcends mere physical combat. This study employs a multifaceted method, combining detailed fieldwork with historical research

Editorial

Peter Jonkers — 2024-12-19

Arriving At Theory In Time

Sinchana — 2024-12-19

The Future of Literary Theory

Soumili Datta — 2024-12-19

Introduction

Mithilesh Kumar — 2024-12-19

In this thematic section of the issue of Tattva Journal of Philosophy, we use this aporia of original, translation, and multiple productivity of texts to investigate and contribute to the contemporary debates on artificial intelligence, machine learning, writing, ChatGPT, and several other concerns emerging from the current time of the “algorithmic self” (Pasquale, 2015). This investigation is through interrogations of Jacques Derrida and the series of “events” that his three books of 1967 helped initiate: De la grammatologie translated into English as Of Grammatology (1976); L'écriture et la difference translated into English as Writing and Difference (1978) apart from Speech and Phenomena this conference is celebrating.

Towards a Theory of ‘Ambitopia’

Avirup Ghosh — 2024-12-19

Emphasizing the need to scrutinize the division between thought and technology, this paper examines how Derrida revisits Martin Heidegger's 'question concerning technology' under the framework of originary technicity. The term is discussed as an alternative expression for Derrida's earlier concepts of 'writing' or 'archi-writing,' with a focus on its alignment with practical technology, exemplified in everyday writing facilitating ideal concepts and scientific precision. The paper delves into emerging approaches to signification, including programmed language input into machine learning, and their impact on intelligibility. It emphasizes the augmentation required in conditions constituting discreteness, and illustrates archi-writing's role in facilitating comprehension despite lacking inherent meaning. Derrida's view of technology and machines as fundamentally unintelligible is highlighted, with case studies from two novels, namely The Circle and Several People Are Typing. In Several People Are Typing, ambitopic disruption occurs in bodily functions post-transcendence, while in The Circle, it manifests in the enigmatic nature of a comatose individual's thoughts, suggesting potential future innovations.

The paper introduces the concept of "Ambitopia" as a response to ambiguity in archival spacing and temporalization, emphasizing liberation over confinement. Derrida's dichotomy between "le futur" and "l'avenir" is applied to underscore the unforeseeable future's open realm, embodied by Ambitopia's disruptive forces agitating events and questioning their feasibility.

Cogito, Machina, Sum

Aiswaria Samyuktha S — 2024-12-19

AI personalization is used in variety of areas offering improved user experience. The integration of AI in entertainment leads to the very commodification and mere reproduction of existing works. The nature of creativity and human-AI collaboration is complex and a multifaceted area of exploration. While culture influences the evolution of AI, AI likewise impacts culture in various ways. Generative AI in the recent years have seen remarkable growth. With its application in the creative field there are debates and repudiation over the creative works by AI. Consequently, there is a need for redefining creativity in the era of AI especially with the emergence of promptology, synthography etc., Derrida’s différance highlights the instability of meaning. And Artificial Intelligence through algorithms interpret and generate text and images, this shows that the digital content is never fixed, and it is continually deferred and evolving. This also leads to the discussion on authenticity. Thus, this paper aims to critically examine the boundaries, authenticity and power dynamics in digital identities in the AI driven era.

KEYWORDS: Generative AI, Digital Self, Art, HMI Top of Form

(De)constructing Dasein in Cyberspace

Swapna Roy — 2024-12-19

Human beings are ontological designers. We build the tools, and then the tools reshape our identities. The ontological status in an electronically mediated world always implies a referential whole, a “totality” that endows “language”, “events,” and “actions” with meaning and significance. The ontological discourse is all about the chain of signifiers; surprisingly, the events of appropriation by which the being is (un)folded depend on a synchronic axis. The twist is that the axis can only be visible on a diachronic background. Questions of the existence of a digital being are always associated with the notions of time and space. Being-in is different than being in as it is located in the “now.” The spatiality of “now” in cyberspace is essential as this “now” talks about the forms of time—past, present and future of Dasein via the unconscious. Each post we share, and each comment we put on cyberspace opens the possibilities for new ways of thinking—a thinking pattern involves the other avatars through the interplay of who they are and what they experience in “the desert of the real” (Zizek, 2001, p. 13). Thus, the function of the “in-between” becomes différance, and in this act of deferral emerges the prospect of “poíēsis.” Bernard Stiegler, in his book Techniques and Time: The Fault of Epimetheus (1998, p.140), describes that the epiphylogenesis of man “[b]estows its identity upon the human individual: the accents of his speech, the style of his approach, the force of his gesture, the unity of his world.” Identity is like a (un)concealed truth, a whole of potentialities yet to be discovered but never arrive at the ending. Language is a special equipment to understand the notions of identity, especially in the Heideggerian world, where “essence” precedes “existence”. That is why we refer to beings in their connection to other beings. To know why and how they connect to other beings and even to the digital “spectre” (in Derridean understanding), we must revisit the Lacanian understanding of lack and Freud’s tripartite structure of the human psyche. The subject splits in the course of its striving to fulfil the lack forged by the desire of others. Therefore, the signifying chain is an automata—a lifeless network of signified jouissance in the virtual world. Lacan’s Seminar XI is primarily taken up for its potential to radically suspend Heideggerian questions of the primary meaning of Being. Therefore, this paper shall explore the genealogy of the “essence” of a digital being taking up multiple roles in a true post-human world by highlighting the newly emerged socio-cultural avenues cohabited with artificial intelligence and human beings—a world where the matrix disguises itself in its simulation.

Keywords: Dasein, Unconscious, Simulacra, Cyberspace, Lacan

An Ethics of Deconstruction responding to AI generated Bias

Himanshu Jaysawal — 2024-12-19

The paper aims to respond to the ethical concern of biases generated by Artificial Intelligence systems. Even though biases enter an AI network via different channels, its presence in the algorithm can pose serious difficulties. AI systems have an algorithmic way of working where language is ‘formal’ and meaning is ‘fixed’. We employ deconstructive strategies of Jacques Derrida to understand the nature of this problem of AI bias through examination of algorithmic/programming language. Derridean philosophy looks at metaphysics as heavily depended on notions such as logocentrism where logos refers to the privileged part in a dichotomy. Logos is the centre of formal language which works as a system of signs. The main point of deconstruction is to apprise us of this privilege given to ‘presence’ of a concept or meaning over its ‘absence’. Derrida’s notion of Undecidables and Aporia, not only destabilizes rigid dichotomies like speech/writing but also give way to an opening of a concept in its ‘impossible -possibility’. In AI systems, programming/algorithmic language conforming to its algorithm offers definitive answers to problems. This takes us a step ahead in ‘formalization’ of language. Derrida, however offers a response via his ethical deconstruction where the process of ‘completion’ of any concept is deferred and its meaning ‘undecided’.

Interrogating the Interplay between Media Teletechnology, AI and (Post)-truth through Derrida

Tapan Mandal — 2024-12-19

In 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries selected “post-truth” as the “Word of the Year” and defined it as “a term relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”The 21^st century has witnessed a radical transformation in the way information is disseminated and consumed by using technology based media power. The concept of truth, once considered a stable and objective foundation, has become malleable, elusive, and subject to manipulation. My paper tries to show how the media or teletechnology plays a pivotal role in shaping public perceptions and realities, post-truth. To navigate this complex landscape, we have to turn to the philosophy of Jacques Derrida and his portmanteau terms like artifactuality, actuvirtuality and teletechnology, which provide a compelling framework for understanding the interplay between truth, post-truth, and the media. Now the question arises whether Jacques Derrida is a catalyst of designing the idea of post-truth, although there are different registers of truths among which Derrida’s focus is on the truth in philosophy.Using the thoughts of Derrida in his filmed interviews Echographies of Television (with Bernard Stiegler) (Derrida and Stiegler2002) and Bernard Stiegler in his two volumes of Technics and Time (Stiegler1994, 2009), it can be shown how this information/power nexus is carved through a model of visual communication, gradually displacing and supplementing writing (while the ghost of writing surely continues to haunt, the way ghost of speech continued to haunt writing). I also intend to explain how the use of visual elements in information networks creates a new form of power and connection distinct from traditional print and analog forms of communication.