Abstract:
Western metaphysics is based on the opposition between reality and appearance. This construction essentially rests on a visual model, or more exactly on a particular staging of what visual experience is. Jocelyn Benoist will question the basis of this metaphysics, by taking into account the reality of appearances and reflecting on their various uses, in particular artistic ones. This path will be taken in the first place by shifting the focus of philosophical analysis from visual to acoustic models. Thus, Jocelyn Benoist will envisage a realism of echoes, as opposed to the metaphysics of shadows.

Jocelyn Benoist, born in 1968, is Professor at the university Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, where he teaches Contemporary Philosophy, and currently a member of the ‘Institut Universitaire de France’. He has dedicated his early work to phenomenology and the bridges between phenomenology and early Analytic philosophy. For some time he was the Director of the Husserl Archive of Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure. Then, he developed a personal investigation into the meaning of realism in philosophy. He has published many books, including recently: Toward a Contextual Realism, H.U.P., 2021, Von der Phänomenologie zum Realismus, Mohr Siebeck, 2022, and Sans Anesthésie: la réalité des apparences, Vrin, 2024.