Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

There are two especially important problems surrounding agential causation in the Iliad: first, whether divine causation or motivation behind human actions and thoughts undermines human agency, and, second, whether the causation or motivation of psychic organs undermines the agency of the unified self. In this essay, I first defend an interpretation according to which a solution commonly applied to the first problem—“double determination”—can be seen as relevant also for the second one. Second, I sketch a proposal for how psychological indeterminacy can be integrated into a constructive account of Iliadic ethics. On this proposal, a certain flexibility vis-à-vis agency can be considered an ethically constructive attitude.

How can we create a collaborative filmmaking method within the creative constraints caused by COVID pandemic-related lockdowns?

The Covers Are the Eyelids was made using a method of projecting moving images onto objects and then re-filming the projections. The method of synthesis of components is made visible as the multiple layers can be seen simultaneously. This layering through a video projection method was used to combine components made by practitioners from diverse disciplines. The combination of components is a creative event that results in the frames towards the completed film. The film could be written about in many ways. This text concentrates on the layering-in because this filmmaking method produced a mode of collaborative practice.

This text describes the practical method of creative collaboration involving filming layered projections onto objects. Moreover, it outlines the creative combination involved in the selection of projected images and objects. The finished film explores this method of creative imbrication through practice. This imbrication can be understood as a practice which makes visible a ‘production of novel togetherness’, which Alfred North Whitehead terms ‘concrescence’ (1928/1978 pg.31). The core proposition is that the film acts as a tacit exposition of a process of concrescence. To make this claim, we first summarise the proposition of concrescence from Whitehead, we then articulate the filmmaking challenge as a research question. In the methods section we describe the creative practices that come together in filmmaking. In the outcomes section, we further apply Whitehead’s proposition of concrescence in order to articulate how the process is made apparent by the method of filming projections.

The author explores whether Spinoza can consistently maintain two doctrines which he espouses in his Ethics. The first doctrine is the equivalence between perfection, reality, being, and essence. The second doctrine is the Metaphysical Difference between that in which essence and existence are identical (God) and those things for which essence and existence are distinct (everything but God). The article is structured as follows. First, the author shows that these two key doctrines apparently clash. Second, she shows two ways in which this clash can be avoided. The first way consists in drawing a line between mere being and existence. This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called “Platonist” in the secondary literature. The second way consists in denying that the Metaphysical Difference cuts reality at its joints. Instead, the Metaphysical Difference, on this reading, differentiates between appearances (those things in which essence and existence come apart) and reality (that thing in which they are one). This reading of Spinoza has sometimes been called Eleatic in the secondary literature. The author concludes by suggesting that, if the Spinozist rejects both the Eleatic and the Platonist approach, she is obliged to find another way to salvage her system.