The project

MNESEEK PHILOSOPHY

By Julien Guerraz

The question of an editorial policy for the site did not arise directly. My own freedom, and the freedom of the people who use the site, was the rule: each person could index the links they wished, according to their own interests. Yet if one looks at the site today, fifteen years after it first went online, certain lines of force appear.

"What do we hold dear? What are our 'cornerstones,' those principles to which we are attached almost without knowing it? Human dignity, personal conscience, the project of improving the world, the quest for truth." — Chantal Delsol, in Les pierres d'angle (The Cornerstones)

The links

The site's Philosophy section (internet links) currently comprises some 311 links. In principle, every field of philosophy is concerned, and the whole history of the discipline: from Stoic thought to Gilles Deleuze's lectures online, or again to Jean Baudrillard's abécédaire.

The statements

As for the Mneseek statements, here are the 25 most documented statements on the site (the interactive list of the most documented statements can be found in the site's "Statements" section):

- Buddhism (465)

- Humor (324)

- Animals (184)

- Encyclopedism (156)

- The limits of reason (127)

- Non-doing (126)

- The dream (114)

- Politics (112)

- Surrealism (103)

- The fullness of the haiku (102)

- Peace (92)

- Knowledge (90)

- Words (84)

- Action (82)

- Analogy (79)

- Collective intelligence (68)

- Poetry (60)

- Fraternity (52)

- The future (49)

- Solitude (46)

- Paul Klee — Mathematics and poetry (45)

- Objects, do you then have a soul? (44)

- Photographs by Claire Libaux (42)

- Resonance (40)

- The courage of nuance (38)

Buddhism

Buddhism as philosophy, meditation as practice. One can regard Buddhism as a genuine science of the mind (see, for example, the 51 mental formations…). Impermanence, interdependence… Buddhism presents itself under different "schools": Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism (Japan…), mindfulness (Thich Nhat Hanh; meditation and mindfulness as secularized and taught in France within the medical system), New Age philosophy (USA)… It is one of the principal contributions of Eastern philosophy to our Western heritage.

Humor

It was very important for us to have a "section" devoted to humor on the site. Humor is a release. It lets one step back… while remaining pleasant. One can say great things with humor. From Aristophanes (a Greek author) to Guy Bedos, by way of Alphonse Allais, Woody Allen, or Groucho Marx, humorists are friends of the human race. They teach us to put things in perspective and to laugh at our condition. Humor also has a political dimension.

Animals

Animals, and nature in general… Taking an interest in animals does one good. Studying animal taxonomy trains us in taxonomy in general. Interest in their ways of life teaches us many things (ethology; zoopharmacognosy: the discipline that studies how animals treat themselves in nature). Therapies centered on contact with animals are, moreover, booming… Finally, animal welfare is no doubt one of the great political themes of our near future. On the site there is the statement "Animals," which points to links, quotations, and images. And then there is the "Animal" category: an interactive list, animal by animal.

Encyclopedism

Mneseek's encyclopedic ambition feeds on everything that has been said, thought, and done on this great philosophical theme. Many philosophers (Aristotle, Leibniz, Eco…) help us in this regard. What is called "the theory of knowledge" structures the entire philosophical field, from its origins to the present day. Finally, at a time when artificial intelligence is rising, rethinking encyclopedism may perhaps help humanity in its quest for knowledge and wisdom…

The limits of reason

"Our pale reason keeps us from seeing the infinite," Arthur Rimbaud. Western thought (and thought as such) has always oscillated between recognizing the limits of reason (and going beyond them) and praising it. According to Kant, studying the limits and the power of reason must be philosophy's new task. Reason is generally set against other means of knowledge: instinct, nature, the irrational, the dream, madness, faith, experience, feeling, impulse (surrealism, China), complexity, the richness of affective life, of the real. Finally, the hyperspeculation practiced by non-philosophers amounts to reasoning endlessly, in every sense of the term.

Non-doing

I chose this expression because it is through it that Dōgen, in his work the Shōbōgenzō, approaches the question of action. This name seems to me the most generic. It also expresses well the idea of rest, of the end of activity understood as activism. For Laozi (Tao), rest is the return to the origin. One can therefore make rest a kind of refuge. Chinese sages withdrew alone into the mountains… Approaching action through its opposite, inaction, can greatly help us, so much does busyness seem to me one of the modern scourges (perhaps in the process of being overcome). "Whoever wins well does not toil. Whoever toils does not win well." Chinese proverb.

The dream

Let us start from this interrogative sentence, drawn from André Breton's First Manifesto of Surrealism: "Might the dream, too, not be applied to the resolution of life's fundamental questions?" Could we today try to answer this question — I would say, in a somewhat serious way? It is obvious to everyone that dreams have a function and, what is more, a very precise function in human physiology. The intelligence of the dream, its study, can help a person approach the real in a more creative way and move beyond a certain weariness in the face of concrete life.

Politics

We all do politics all the time.

Surrealism

The two manifestos of surrealism are a good introduction to what was, and what remains, one of the major movements of modern and postmodern art and thought. Surrealism, as André Breton intended it, is a world. We can take up our exploration again by reading (and studying) The Magnetic Fields (Les champs magnétiques, André Breton and Philippe Soupault), historically the first book entirely devoted to automatic writing.

The fullness of the haiku

The theory of the haiku, as we have approached it, is inseparably linked to Japanese culture and its characteristics: praise of the ephemeral, wonder and mystery, the suspension of discursive reason… Reading haikus (we will prefer, at first, commented haikus, as a way of somewhat "guiding" our gaze and of making up for a certain hermeticism) will allow us to shift the center of our attention and to reach a certain subtlety of the visible and of the invisible…

Peace

On the subtle, and not so obvious, articulation between the micro level (peace within oneself) and the macro level (peace in the world). "A person who is not at peace with themselves will be at war with the whole world…" (unknown author): this quotation sums up the matter, and what remains to be done. Micro and macro: an articulation that runs both ways. Gilles Deleuze subtitled Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus "Capitalism and Schizophrenia"… The war of all against all…

Knowledge

Some time ago I "amused" myself by treating this statement — knowledge — exhaustively on the site. Let me explain: I went back through every quotation containing this term, as well as every internet link posted so far, and extracted from them every phrase containing the word "savoir" (knowledge). To get a sense of the result, from the "Statements" section of the Mneseek site you can click "Search in statements" and enter "savoir." The result is impressive, I find. A second step could consist of starting from these results and fleshing out the content: expressions, various texts, a grammatical analysis of the indexed statements… all with a view to describing the language.

Words

The greatness and the misery of words.

Action

The theme of action is a transversal theme that will need to be treated in depth. Only a small part of the material relating to it has so far been treated on the site. For example, the site presents some 630 quotations linked to this theme, most of which still call for treatment.

Analogy

At the origin of the interest in analogy lies the reading of a book from a few years ago: Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking (L'analogie : cœur de la pensée), by Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander. This book is a study of the deep relationship between analogy and thought (notably through the acquisition and practice of language). For the authors, analogy and categorization are the two indivisible faces of human thought. In this book they also explore the relations between analogy and scientific discovery. Personally, the theme of analogy feeds my inspiration. Analogy was, for example, the theoretical basis of my article "The Harvest — Hyperspeculation, rumination, trituration" (see the "Articles" section of the Mneseek site).

Collective intelligence

I have made it a habit to use the Mneseek site as a support for intellectual reflection on the Mneseek project itself. The subjects of encyclopedism and of collective intelligence are therefore privileged. Rather than the term artificial intelligence — which is not so artificial, since it is based on everything human beings have produced in the field of thought and in the cultural field — I would prefer that of collective intelligence.

Poetry

"You know, thinking is the second most beautiful thing in the world. The most beautiful is poetry. If there existed a poetic thought and a thinking poetry, that would be paradise." — Pascal Mercier

Fraternity

"Without anyone realizing it, Fraternity is already today the principal force driving the vanguard of the world." — Jacques Attali, in Fraternités (Fraternities)

The future

Past, present, future. "To the confines of all futures and of the infinite time to come." — Shōbōgenzō, Master Dōgen, Volume I

Solitude

Solitude can be serene, welcomed, awaited, or even sought out. "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves." — Aristotle. An ambivalent notion, then. Solitude has notably been sung: Barbara, Moustaki, Ferré… And then there is this quotation from Marguerite Duras: "Solitude is that without which one does nothing. That without which one no longer looks at anything." — Marguerite Duras, in Écrire (Writing).

Paul Klee — Mathematics and poetry

Organizing series of images is one of the creative possibilities on the Mneseek site. This series devoted to the work of Paul Klee combines images of paintings and textual elements gleaned from his written work. Paul Klee hoped that, starting from the worlds he created, one might perhaps one day overcome the imperfection of all the art of the past and create a work "of immense vastness, traversing the whole of the elementary, figurative, semantic, and stylistic domains."

Objects, do you then have a soul?

Objects as subjects, subjects as objects. In Holland, still lifes are called "the quiet life of things."

Photographs by Claire Libaux

Claire Libaux is a photographer friend of whom I exhibit some thirty photographs. Themes: nature, the city, the image of the self…

Resonance

To become a poet is to feel the heart and see the soul of things. "Resonance means first and foremost a state or mode of dynamic relation in which the subject and the world touch each other and transform each other reciprocally. The subject is affected, moved, by the world." — Hartmut Rosa

The courage of nuance

Notes following the reading of Jean Birnbaum's book The Courage of Nuance (Le courage de la nuance), in which the author portrays several intellectuals (Albert Camus, Georges Bernanos, Hannah Arendt, Raymond Aron, George Orwell, Germaine Tillion, Roland Barthes) who preferred the courage of nuance to the ready-made ideas of every camp.

________________________________________________________________

Among the specific statements addressed on the site, there are a certain number to which I am very attached (the limits of reason, remaining wild, meaning, the dream…). Moreover, certain statements can be privileged gateways toward questions of meaning that matter to us: "One must…," interrogative statements… Treating "fundamental questions" is one of the site's "programs": "The mother of all questions: 'Are you happy?'" — Jacques Attali, in Fraternités…

In a general way, one can see philosophy as a property that encompasses the entire cultural field. According to this idea, the whole Mneseek site deals with philosophy: the philosophy of songs (Berger, Gall…), and see also, in particular, the "Personal development" section…

I personally use comments on the site to express, when the occasion arises, my own ideas. Or again the articles (see, for example, the article "The Harvest — Hyperspeculation, rumination, trituration").

Non-philosophy

The Mneseek project maintains relations — still to be developed — with the theory of Non-Philosophy. This discipline, created by François Laruelle, is today carried by the ONPhI (the International Non-Philosophical Organization / Organisation Non-philosophique Internationale). Non-philosophical practice is a call to each person's creativity, notably through philo-fictions and hyperspeculation… By way of an introduction, one may note that Non-Philosophy posits the equivalence of philosophical statements…

The indexing of statements on the Mneseek project: each person indexes what is salient for them. One could bring this idea close to that of unilateralization in François Laruelle…

https://onphi.org/