Call for papers: Sea (2022)

Philosophy has always held a deep relationship with sea space. From Thales to Kant, from Lucretius to Schmitt, from Hegel to Arendt, from Freud to Bachelard, countless thinkers have made the sea an object of interest in their philosophical reflections.

The sea, however, is not an “object” among many. It is also, and above all, an equivocal, hybrid dimension, extremely multiform and difficult to deal with. On the one hand, the sea shows the unknown to plough, thus agreeing to that yearning for knowledge that is the fundamental motor of philosophy, which moves between curiosity, wonder, and amazement. At the same time, the sea presents itself, by definition, as the place of danger, and refers to an unfathomable abyss that destines human being to vulnerability and uncertainty.

The seascape is, at one and the same time, a space of landings and defeats, a place of conquest and shipwreck; it is that open space to be contemplated, according to a well-known metaphor, from a safe distance.

Now pelagus, now ocean, it symbolises, with its ancipital character, the main condition of existence of organic life and the threat of its own extinction. The topic, so familiar to the ancients, of sinking (consider Plato’s Atlantis) takes on an extremely significant value today - facing climate change, the melting of ice and the consequent rise in sea level – not only from a scientific-experimental point of view, but also and above all from a theoretical and speculative one.

From pre-Socratic philosophy to contemporary reflections, thought has constantly addressed the sea, its deepest meanings, the mythologies it suggests, and the rich symbolism it never stops offering. The aim of this issue of “Filosofia” is to retrace, in the richest possible way, the speculative trajectories provided by the sea to the philosophical eye.

Possible lines of research on which the authors are invited to reflect are, among others, the following:

• Which authors have reflected most philosophically on the theme of the sea?
• Can the sea be a starting point to reflect on aesthetic categories such as the beauty, the tragic, the sublime?
• How does the sea relate to the symbolism of the four elements?
• Is an ontological analysis of the sea and its components possible?
• Can the peculiar spatiality of the sea offer hints for a philosophical-political analysis?
• Is a geophilosophy which takes the sea as its peculiar feature possible?
• Can reflection on the sea suggest new approaches to ecological issues?

“Filosofia” accepts submissions in Italian and English. The articles should comply with the following standards:

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html

All contributions will undergo peer-review. Authors will be notified of the result of the selection and will receive a detailed referee report on their submission.

Deadline for submission is 15 January 2022.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All submissions should be sent to the following address redazionefilosofia.dfe@unito.it

Each contribution should include:

• one .doc file (no .pdf et alia) intended for a blind referee. The text should be anonymous and preceded by an abstract in English of no more than 150 words;
• a .doc file intended for the editorial board, which should include the author’s name, academic affiliation and an e-mail address.

All files should not exceed 40.000 characters (including spaces and footnotes).

For further information please contact: redazionefilosofia.dfe@unito.it