Unfinishing the World

The time of philosophy incorporates the experience of an ending, in two senses. It is the finite word, the word that states what we think as finite and mortal beings. And it is, for this very reason, the word that asks about the end, which is to say about the sense and horizon of our action, both personal and collective. Now, this philosophical experience of the ending has been changed by a possibility which humanity has never before had to face: the possibility of bringing about its own end, through its everyday actions. Living the way we are living, we are making ourselves extinct. All of us. How does this situation change our human condition and our position as political subjects? And what, then, is the power of thought? We have gone from being constructors of the world to its destroyers. Beyond apocalyptic discourse, which drives us to salvation or doom, what does unfinishing the world mean today and what does it commit us to?

Marina Garcés is a tenured lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Zaragoza. Her most recent book is Filosofia inacabada (Unfinished Philosophy, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2015).

Presented by: Brigitte Vasallo, writer and activist.