Vilém Flusser. The Bald, Bearded and Bespectacled Pipe Smoking Philosopher
This essay deals with Vilém Flusser’s unique style of self-presentation that he developed in the course of his life. The elements composing this specific look were a pipe, sometimes unlit, a full beard, possibly compensating for an early baldness, and one, occasionally, two pairs of glasses. Add to this the movements of the hands and the extended arms, sometimes symmetrical, sometimes stressing difference. Beard and baldness set the stage for the mobile components – the pipe, the glasses and the hands – that Flusser used skilfully, together or on their own, one hand holding a pipe or both to attract attention to a specific point, to signal a pause or to emphasize a sudden change in argumentation. Flusser’s image of the 1980s and early1990s – the time when he became famous as the philosopher of communicology, technical images and telematics – is that of a thinker restlessly talking and gesticulating while manoeuvring his pipe from one hand to the other or his glasses from the nose to the forehead and back or that of the meditating philosopher slowly walking back and forth in front of his audience with his hands folded behind his back and a pair of glasses pushed up onto the forehead. This personal style of self-presentation leads to the very heart of Flusser’s philosophy. His nomadic way of thinking finds a visible enactment in his gestures and his parallel use of pipe and glasses. It is a peripatetic, non-linear form of argumentation, constantly moving back and forth, characterised by frequent cuts and shifts: standing up and sitting down, walking hither and tither, moving the pipe from one hand to the other, putting it away and getting hold of it again, pushing the glasses onto the forehead or to the top of the head and sliding them down again.
, ( ) , On Vilém Flusser’s Idiosyncratic Use of Commas and Round Brackets
This essay explores a dimension of Vilém Flusser’s writing and thinking that has not received any attention so far: his idiosyncratic use of punctuation. Punctuation marks are more than just a way of structuring sentences. They can also be seen as gestures, as embodiments of specific mental attitudes. In this sense, Flusser’s frequent combination of round brackets included within commas articulates a fundamental tension in his thinking. These punctuation clusters are the very site where two contrary tendencies of his thinking meet and collide: the constant creative push forward and the continuous flow of the ongoing reflection, on the one hand, and the persistent urge to stray off from the main path through frequent associative eruptions on the other. It is the conflict between circles and lines, between the sprawl of tangential offshoots and the continuous attempt to impose linearity by chopping off the outgrowths, the tension between losing oneself in writing and the wish to keep in control. As Flusser calls it in “The Gesture of Writing”, it is the tenacious struggle between the ramifications of the ‛branching thought tree’ and the formal compulsion of the ‛Mesopotamian brick’. The essay also contains a detailed analysis of Flusser’s “The Gesture of Writing”, “Le geste d’écrire” and “O gesto de escrever” that shows how the use of this specific punctuation cluster evolves in the process of self-translation.
Flusser and Descartes. The Unremitting Mindfulness of Thinking and Being
Of all modern scholars, Descartes is probably the one who has met with most criticism, and even though his formulation of the cogito sounds pretty obvious, Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Žižek have repeatedly tried to poke holes in his ideas. The lifelong effects of the Cartesian doubt worried Vilém Flusser too. To him, Cartesianism is Christianity through and through. What exactly, in Flusser’s view, is so unacceptable about the Cartesian doubt, then? Why does Flusser identify Descartes with Christianity? Can we appreciate Flusser’s concern with the Cartesian doubt without losing the excitement and intimacy of grappling with Descartes’ metaphysics? Of course, Flusser’s critique is not mainstream; and we can even hear traces of Heidegger’s voice in the background. Still, Flusser’s objection is unique and interesting, making it a refreshing alternative in the scholarly discussion of Descartes. One aim of the paper is to turn the sword of Flusser’s critique of the Cartesian doubt against Descartes’ own detractors.