Jos de Mul. 2017-08-28 Biology beyond genes. Psychiatry in the age of postgenomics. Invited lecture at the series Herman van Praag Lectures 2017. Utrecht:  Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht. Maandag 28 augustus 2018.

Short bi(bli)ography Jos de Mul

Jos de Mul (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. /  www.demul.nl/en) is full professor Philosophical Anthropology  at the Faculty of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam. He has also taught at universities in the US, China, and Japan.  His research is on the interface of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of biology, philosophy of technology, aesthetics, and history of 19^th and 20^th century German philosophy.

His book monographs include: Romantic Desire in (Post)Modern Art and Philosophy (State University of New York Press, 1999), The Tragedy of Finitude. Dilthey's Hermeneutics of Life (Yale UP, 2004, 2010), Cyberspace Odyssey. Towards a Virtual Ontology and Anthropology (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), and Destiny Domesticated. The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Technology (State University of New York Press, 2014). Among his edited books are Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology. Perspectives and Prospects (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014) and  Playful identities. The Ludification of Digital Media Cultures (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2015).

The focus of his last NWO-project (2012-2016), in which he collaborated, among others, with molecular biologist Frank Grosveld (Erasmus MC) and physiologist Denis Noble (Oxford University), was on the impact of the postgenomic turn in biology for human self-understanding. In 2015 he wrote a lengthy introduction and commentary for the Dutch translation of Denis Noble’s book The Music of Life. Biology Beyond Genes (Oxford UP, 2006 / Amsterdam UP, 2015).

Herman van Praag Lectures 2017. 

23 January 2017 - Nikolaos Koutsouleris
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich – Germany

20 February 2017 - Terry Jernigan
Center for Human Developments, San Diego – US

13 March 2017- Akira Sawa
Johns Hopkins Schizophrenia Center, Baltimore – US

27 March 2017 – Machteld Huber
Institute for Positive Health – The Netherlands

10 April 2017 - Merete Nordentoft
University Copenhagen – Denmark

8 May 2017 - Kerstin Konrad
RWTH Aachen University – Germany

26 June 2017 - Jonathan Flint
UCLA, Los Angeles – US

28 August 2017 - Jos de Mul
Erasmus University, Rotterdam - The Netherlands

25 September 2017 - Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
University of Oxford – UK

23 October 2017 - David Glahn
Yale School of Medicine, New Haven – US

27 November 2017 - Dorothy Bishop
University of Oxford – UK

Jos de Mul. From Yijing to Hypermedia: Some Notes on Computer-mediated Literary Theory and Criticism. In: Peng Feng (ed.), Aesthetics and Contemporary Art. International Yearbook of Aesthetic. Volume 16. Beijing University: 2016, 114-125.

The development and global dissemination of computers - from the mainframe computers in the middle of the 20^th century up to the smart phones that enable us to be online everywhere at any time - has an enormous impact on virtually every domain in human life, including art and literature. In the past decades, we have witnessed the emergence of different kinds of new media, that – among many other things – also have given birth to new art forms and genres, such as computer animations, hypertext, and interactive netart. All these new (that is: computer-mediated) media can be called “hypermedia”, because they share two fundamental characteristics: they are media that are both multimedial and non-linear.

In this contribution I will discuss the impact of hypermedia on literary theory and criticism. More particularly, the question I will focus on in my lecture is: how to write about hypermedia? In what ways do hypermedia affect literary theory and literary criticism. However, when writing about hypermedia, literature can only be a point of departure of our examination. After all, hypermedia are media that absorb and thereby re-mediate the other “old media”, literature included.[1] And this, as I will argue, also applies to literary theory and literary criticism, which at least partly is going to be transformed into hypermedial criticism.

Geert Maarse. Panic in the Polder. Interview with Jos de Mul. Erasmus Today, March 28, 2017.

Panic in the Polder or how the Netherlands can survive populism. Days before the Dutch elections professor Jos de Mul spoke on Erasmus Studio, presenting his book ‘Paniek in de polder’ (Panic in the Polder) in which he analyses the so called fight between ‘the people’ and ‘the elites’. He also explains the popularity of Donald Trump and Geert Wilders among populist voters. The question is: who are these populists? And is our democracy in crisis?

Jos de Mul. Database Identity. Invited lecture at the Herrenhausen conference Society through the Lens of the Digital. Hannover, May 31-June 2, 2017.

New information and communication technologies are changing the very nature of human identity. In my talk, I will argue that they facilitate a change from narrative to a database identity. Narrative identity is what has traditionally defined people. A narrative identity can be complex, multilayered and dynamic, but it is strung out over a spatio-temporal continuum and has a certain logic and coherence through time. It forms a tissue of stories that makes a person, defining who she is. This narrative identity is being giving way, increasingly, to a database identity. With a database identity a person’s experience, qualities and characteristics all become entries in a database. These can be called up, assembled and re-assembled in never-ending set of combinations. Database identity is a post-modernization of identity. It is a playful pastiche of qualities and characteristics, decoupled from their context of origin and from their role in a person’s history.

Jos de Mul. Théo van Doesburg 2.0. What is Data? In: Mieke Gerritzen et al. From Dada to Data. Breda: Museum of the Image (MOTI), 2016, 23.

théo van doesburg 2.0: What is Data? (Publisher: “No Style” The Hague, 2023).

You will probably be surprised to be hearing something about Data from someone who is innocent of Dataism, from a non- Dataist

Data: the terror of the stock market gurus, of the privacy seeker, the designer, the cultural entrepreneur, the Gutmensch — of everybody?

A subject such as this is perhaps least suitable for a serious lecture, which is not at all what I have in mind.

I will be satisfied if, as an obligation to friends, I can illuminate the Dataistic attitude to life. This seems to me especially important in a country that has been hermetically sealed against any new expression of life since the 60s.

It would indeed be pretentious if I was under the impression that I could make the mystery of Data intellectually intelligible.

Geert Maarse. How can the Netherlands survive populism? Interview with Jos de Mul. Erasmus Magazine. #6 February 2017, 10-14.

The issue. From Trump to Wilders: political populism is making waves across the planet. Philosopher Jos de Mul explains how this came about, what can be done about this trend and which opportunities it presents.

The populist Party for Freedom (PVV) holds a lead in the polls. What’s going on?

“One of the key contributors to the rise of populism is the fact that – despite a large number of new parties – for quite a few years now, voters have had very little to choose between. In a democracy, all segments of the population need to be represented. But at the end of the day, does it really matter whether you vote the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) or Labour (PvdA)? This whole thing started with ‘Purple’ [the socialist-liberal coalition formed by PvdA, VVD, and Democrats 66 and headed by Wim Kok, eds.] and the embracement of the neoliberal model. For part of the Dutch population, the associated globalisation and European unification proved very advantageous: students were able to study everywhere; international trade became a lot easier for companies. But the free movement of persons and goods has also made a lot of casualties – people working in transport or construction, for example. And the same applies for the multicultural society. For some of us, it’s very nice to be able to eat in a Thai or Mexican restaurant and enjoy a novel by Kader Abdolah or Najoua Bijjir. But when you see your old neighbourhood going downhill, are one of the few white people left in your street, and you lose your job to boot, it may be a very different story. At that point, you want someone to stand up and say ‘we’re fed up with this’.”

Bruno Accarino, Jos de Mul und Hans-Peter Krüger (Hrsg.). Internationales Jahrbuch für Philosophische Anthropologie. Band 6 / International Yearbook for Philosophical Anthropology. Volume 6. Thomas Ebke, Sebastian Edinger, Frank Müller und Roman Yos. (Hrsg.). Mensch und Gesellschaft zwischen Natur und Geschichte. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, 294 p.

Gegenstand dieses Bandes ist das Wechselverhältnis zweier prägender Traditionen moderner deutscher Philosophie: der Kritischen Theorie und der Philosophischen Anthropologie. Nach Jahrzehnten gegenseitiger Vorbehalte gilt es, Nähe und Differenz dieser philosophischen Richtungen in so grundlegenden Begriffen wie Mensch, Gesellschaft, Natur und Geschichte systematisch zu untersuchen.

This volume explores the interplay between critical theory and philosophical anthropology. After decades of reciprocal misgivings, the time has come to systematically examine the commonalities and differences between these philosophical approaches with respect to such fundamental concepts as the person, society, nature, and history.  

Jos de Mul. Games as the true organon of philosophy. On Schelling, Huizinga, and playful ontologies. Keynote at the 10th International Philosophy of Games Conference. Malta, November 2, 2016.

This year’s edition focuses on the theme of Knowledge. Games inspire curiosity – as we explore and experiment with a game, our engagement is to a great degree shaped by epistemic processes of inquiry and discovery. What knowledge is learned through playing a game? What does it mean to know a game? We invite papers tackling questions related to epistemology, knowing how versus knowing that, embodied knowledge, normative knowledge of rules, ecological knowledge and affordances, cybernetics, systems theory and knowledge. For more detailed information, jump to http://pocg2016.institutedigitalgames.com/keynotes/

Jos de Mul. Meeting Erica and OSCAR. On almost living bodies, new media aesthetics, and the East-West divide. Lecture at the 20th In ternational Congress of Aesthetics. Seoul, July 26, 2016.

It is often noticed that the attitude towards robots and artificial intelligences in Western culture differs strongly from the attitude in Asia. Whereas in the Western world android robots are under taboo, Asian scientists and artists seem to be fond of  robots that mimic human appearance and behavior. It has been claimed that the differences in attitude towards android robots are connected with differences in worldview and religion. Whereas Asian, interconnected  cultures do not sharply distinguish between human subjects and natural objects, in Western, separative cultures a sharp distinction is being made between active subjects and passive objects. Moreover, in the Christian tradition the creation of living things is traditionally considered to be a taboo (‘Thou shall not play God!’). Although the notion of the ‘uncanny valley’ (the unpleasant feeling evoked by robots or other entities that closely resemble living human beings, such as corpses and zombies was introduced by the Japanese robot specialist Masahiro Mori,  at first sight it seems more applicable to the Western attitude towards android robots than to the Asian attitude.  Taking some prominent European and Asian new media artworks in which artificial life and robots play a prominent role as a starting point, I will focus on the question whether these stereotypes are still valid in contemporary, globalized intercultures.

Jos de Mul. Cognitive space, global brains, and the hive mind An evolutionary account of information and communication technologies. Lecture at Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. July 22, 2016.

The emergence of information and communications technologies (ICTs) can be regarded as a milestone in the cognitive evolution of mankind, comparable to the two other major transitions of the cognitive structure of the genus Homo: the development of spoken language, and the invention of writing. In order to fully understand the new cognitive space disclosed by recent information and communication technologies, we have to situate it against the background of these two earlier transitions. It will be argued that new technologies like the internet, wireless communication and brain implants are part of an ongoing construction of a global brain and the emergence of a hive mind.