CONFERENCE

Philosophers Panel: Clashes between Civilizations

Zofia Rosinska

Need for regained naivety

The theoretical premise underlying the second part of the Panel is a belief that everything that belongs to graphic arts lies outside graphic arts, that is, in man and in culture.

The category that allows us to link something lying "outside graphic arts" with graphic art itself is "experience". We wish to reflect on experiences that can be observed in contemporary culture, and in particular some experiences of a special kind: the experience of nostalgia for a harmonious whole and the need to return to it.

In philosophy, that harmonious whole is called primary naivety, that is, a non-reflexive state of being in “a union with..." In different conceptions, the union can be with nature, myths and symbols or with space etc. Ricoeur calls that tendency towards a past existential state: striving for "regained naivety".

Invoking the category of "regained naivety" aims to draw attention to a possible understanding of the changes that take place in art (printmaking/graphic art) and its reception; and to some conditions necessary for a clash of civilizations to take place. Because the field of art does not always become the space in which that clash would manifest itself. Our presentations put forward a controversial thesis that a clash or manifestation of cultural diversity is easier to accomplish in traditional printmaking than in computer graphics.