The Sketch of the Fundamental Properties of (Any) Multinaturalistic Theatre Science (Possible)

My recent effort is focused on the methodological problem of multinaturalism. As Bruno Latour asserts, contemporary research is still based on the universal referent of nature (therefore "mononaturalism"):

"Different cultures existed, with their many idiosyncrasies, but at least there was only one nature with its necessary laws. Conflicts between humans, no matter how far they went, remained limited to the representations, ideas and images that diverse cultures could have of a single biophysical nature." (LATOUR 2002: 6)

All of the "differences of opinion, disagreements and violent conflicts" are raising from the subjectivity, so the "differences, in other words, never cut very deep; they could never be fundamental." Latour proposes a thesis, that now it is time to permit, that human and non-human agents exist in multiple ontologies. It means not to overcome modernism, but to recognise, that "Modernism has never been anything more than a highly biased interpretation of events with different and sometimes entirely opposite motivations." (Ibid. 19, for more see LATOUR 1991). This project hardly leads to a convenient peace, better to say, it declares war:

"To put things in a more positive and less bellicose way, one might say that we have moved, within the past few years, from a situation of total war led by absolute pacifists, to a situation of open warfare which offers genuine prospects for peace." (LATOUR 2002: 25)

I have been working on a theoretical article for Czech theatre journal Divadelní revue (Czech Theatre Review; the article is to be called "Get Our Hands Dirty: Why Theatre Research Have to Unlearn Cling to Cleanness"), the text is now in a review process. In the conclusion of my argument I have tried to sketch the fundamental properties of multinaturalistic (not only) theatre science. Here are those items on the methodological agenda:

1. Symmetry – We want to give objects the ability to object to us, so to return their dignity to them. We approach them not from the position of a certain framework, that we apply to them to prove our assertions, but rather we respect the subjects themselves.
2. Multinaturalism (meaning the hybrid nature of phenomena) – there is hardly only one ontology and only one adequate methodology for examining reality. We must always begin with the effort to identify as many actors as possible and to recognise their ontology collected in the subject.We are obliged to find adequate theoretical and methodological bases.
3. Collaboration and Contamination – On this basis, teams are formed in which the researchers commit themselves to individual ontologies to approach an adequate description of the object, with a proper understanding of its significant properties, that can lead to the understanding of other objects or processes. The researchers are obliged to dialogue, trying to understand, not not afraid to get their hands dirty from the work of others. "Collaboration is work over differences." (TSING 2015: 29)
4. Assemblage – no theory can be consistent, because even the reality is not homogeneous and indisputable. The research results are a certain assemblage of findings that mirrors the collection of ontologies in the studied phenomenon, and they are thus an attempt to build up a "parliament" of the collective present in the phenomenon.
5. Transformation – because we admit that facts are not separated from values and that every ontology has its own perspective (and that scientific research itself has a political dimension), the result of such research is hardly just a report on the phenomenon. It also reflecrs ourselves. Through dialogic principles and contamination, scientists are transformed, transformed, both professionally and as people. The result of their research is democratic practice.

Those assertions should be understood as conclusions of the article's argument and they are presented on this blog without proper discussion just as the illustration of my methodological research process. I hope I will be able to write my argument in a form of article in English in near future. 

References

• LATOUR, Bruno. War of the Worlds: What about Peace? Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2002. Available on-line.
• LATOUR, Bruno. Nous n’avons jamais été modernes: Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte, 1991.
• TSING, Anna Lowenhaupt. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins.Princeton – Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015.

Contemplating Novalis's Bildung

Reading Novalis' Fragments, I am musing about his notion of "organic poetry". It is clear that for a philosopher poetry is not mere a literary work, but first and foremost an art of life. "To become a human being is an art," (LFI #87) so speaks the philosopher. As is philosophy a never-ending process of Bildung (self-education, "conversation with oneself" leading to the "revelation of the self", LFI #21), i. e. the unity of imagination and understanding ("the poem of understanding", LFI #24) that strenghtens the powers of the individual with the powers of humanity, it is apparent, that poetry is a part of the Bildung-process.
Poetry works in the same way as philosophy (and state as well). It makes an individual the instrument of the whole, and the whole becomes the instrument of an individual (LFI #25). "Poetry is the basis of society as virtue is the basis of the state," asserts Novalis in his Logological Fragment no. 31. So what does this Bildung-process mean? Is it a kind of a cognitive accumulation? Is it education as an information accumulation?
No, this process is "organic", meaning that it is an elevation of the human being above himself (LFI #37). It is a process, hardly a methodological mechanism. It is similar to planting or cultivation (culture). The process is a self-regulated movement (LFI #21). Bildung has its own individual rules interconnected with the whole via its self-understanding and imagination (and the harmony of both). It reminds me the homeostasis, as it is used by Roger Scruton in his political philosophy (see references below). Bildung in this sense of its meaning is a cultural self-education growing from individual's desire for transcendence (his drive to God, to the whole). The desired unity is hardly monolitic, being the unity in manifold. This can be approached only by the means of diverse community realization, through a critical self-reflexive discussion (SEP).
Therefore Bildung is a historical process, an organic cultural growth, uniting understanding and imagination, enriching the logical philosophy with imagination (LFI #13). The living reflexive philosophy is practical and it is art. Moreover, the philosophy is not only a solipsistic dreaming, but it is irrevocably intersubjective: "Every word is a word to conjure with. Whichever spirit calls - another such appears." (LFI #6) Nowadays it is the time for the union of hitherto purely mechanical (discursive) and purely intuitive (dynamic) thinking (LFI #10). That process is collaborative and is done within a community.
That Bildung-process means hardly the progress of the Enlightenment. Novalis emphasises, that Bildung is the process of seeking "the original meaning":

"The world must be made Romantic ... By endowing the commonplace with a higher meaning, the ordinary with mysterious respect, the known with the dignity of the unknown, the finite with the appearance of the infinite, I am making it Romantic." (LFI #66)

It reminds me Heidegger's notion of Lichtung, the site of truth (aletheia). Lichtung comes from lichten, "to clear", and represents a possibility of truth as revelation, i. e. truth is a kind of never-ending process. Thus not truth as it is in the Platonic cognitive notion of idea, but as it is in the Aristotelian dynamic energeia. We should avoid reaching the ideas, because we have to immerse in disclosure (aletheia means Unverborgenheit). The truth obtains its presence in Freien der Lichtung, in the free space of the Lichtung (GA14: 82). The practical aspect of the process of disclosure is affirmed by Aristotelian ethics in Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics.
Bildung-process is a never-ending cultural growth therefore, based on collaborative self-education and self-transcendence, uniting understanding and imagination in harmony. The non-cognitive Bildung leads us not only towards a self-reflexive democracy, but towards the disclosure of truth as such.

References

1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (eds. Robert C. Bartlett - Susan D. Collins). Chicago - London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011.
2. Abbrev. GA14 refers to Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens in Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe: Band 14: Zur Sache des Denkens. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007.
3. Abbrev. LFI refers to Logological Fragments I in Novalis, Philosophical Writings (ed. Margaret Mahony Stoljar). Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
4. Abbrev. SEP refers to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry: Gjesdal, Kristin, "Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg [Novalis]", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/novalis/>.
5. Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2002.