The same etymological root gives us, surprisingly enough, two very different concepts, those of reflex and of reflection, that is the most immediate performance of a living being, and the very figure of mediation, the figure within which our link to the most intimate tends to fall in an endless labyrinth, to lose the way in an infinite game of mirrors. The same happens with the ancient and persisting image of the mirror itself, which suggests an immediate proximity, a form of knowledge which is absolutely close, and at the same time a fundamental distance which involves the whole variety of enigmas, illusions, suggestions, tricks, traps, metaphores, and inventions.

Editor

edited by Federico Leoni

Argument

The same etymological root gives us, surprisingly enough, two very different concepts, those of reflex and of reflection, that is the most immediate performance of a living being, and the very figure of mediation, the figure within which our link to the most intimate tends to fall in an endless labyrinth, to lose the way in an infinite game of mirrors. The same happens with the ancient and persisting image of the mirror itself, which suggests an immediate proximity, a form of knowledge which is absolutely close, and at the same time a fundamental distance which involves the whole variety of enigmas, illusions, suggestions, tricks, traps, metaphores, and inventions.

Chiasmi 2020 will reserve a special dossier to the figure of the mirror in its many senses and implications. In part the dossier will explore the presence of this figure within Merleau-Ponty’s work and cultural universe. Merleau-Ponty’s work unravels from a first great work, the Structure of Behavior (1942), which is also a profound meditation on the nature of reflex, to the last unaccomplished book, The Visible and the Invisible (1964), whose central doctrine is related to a notion, that of flesh, which is defined and carefully explored as a “mirror phenomenon”.

But this trajectory can be explored through Merleau-Ponty’s writings, towards Merleau-Ponty’s interlocutors, and towards Merleau-Ponty’s direct or indiretc heritage. Just a few suggestions among others: 1) Canguilhem, The Formation of the Reflex Concept, and French philosophy of biology deriving from that seminal work; 2) Lacan, The mirror stage, and lacanian contemporary psychoanalysis; 3) Caillois, his writings on mimetism, his original intertwining of myth, psychopathology, and ethology; 4) Whitehead, Process and Reality, and its cosmology, which in many ways suggests that every event is a mirror of every other event, that symmetries and breaking of symmetries play not only an epistemological but an ontological key role; 5) Gallese, Rizzolatti, and the theory of the mirror-neurons, which still challenges contemporary neurosciences and their comprehension of comprehension.

Submission guidelines

The deadline for submissions is January 15th, 2020.

Please send articles:

To:

• Federico Leoni (Editor of the section): Email: federico.leoni@univr.it

In CC:

• Anna Caterina Dalmasso (Editorial Coordinator): Email: annacate.dalmasso@gmail.com

and

For submissions in French:

• Mauro Carbone (Codirector): Email: mauro.carbone@univ-lyon3.fr

For submissions in English:

• Ted Toadvine (Codirector): Email: tat30@psu.edu
• Galen Johnson (Codirector): Email: gjohnson@uri.edu

For submissions in Italian:

• Federico Leoni (Codirector): Email: federico.leoni@univr.it

Submissions are subject to double blind review process. The authors may be required to make revisions based on the feedback by reviewers.

Articles must be prepared for submission according to the Editorial Guidelines below.