Jos de Mul. Naar een posthistorische film?. In: Janette Kolkema en Martijn Mewe (eds.), Filmmakers en de toekomst. Amsterdam: Dutch Directors Guild, 2007, 27-33.

Jos de Mul. Lekenstaat of lijkenstaat? Pleidooi voor een verlichte polythiek In: D. Loose (red.), Religie in het publieke domein. Fundament en fundamentalisme. Budel: Damon, 2007, 100-139.

Jos de Mul. Wittgenstein 2.0: Philosophical reading and writing after the mediatic turn. In: A. Pichler & H. Hrachovec (eds.) Wittgenstein and the Philosophy of Information. Proceedings of the 30th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. New Series, Vol 6. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag, 2007, 157-183.
 

Wittgenstein 2.0: Philosophical reading and writing after the mediatic turn
 

Wir sind aufs Glatteis geraten, wo die Reibung fehlt, also die Bedingungen in gewissem Sinne ideal sind, aber wir eben deshalb auch nicht gehen können.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Glattes Eis, ein Paradies für den, der gut zu tanzen weiß.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Introduction¹

‘Although Wittgenstein is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential philosophers of this century, there is very little agreement about the nature of his contribution. In fact, one of the most striking characteristics of the secondary literature on Wittgenstein is the overwhelming lack of agreement about what he believed and why’. These are the opening words of David Stern’s article ‘The availability of Wittgenstein’s philosophy’ in The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein (Stern 1996, 442). In his introduction to the same volume, Hans Sluga even proposes that our fascination with Wittgenstein might be ‘a function of our bewilderment over who he really is and what his works stand for’ (Sluga 1996, 1).

Jos de Mul. Von der narrativen zur hypermedialen Identität. Dilthey und Ricoeur gelesen im hypermedialen Zeitalter. In: Frithjof Rodi und Gudrun Kühne-Bertram (Hrsg.) .Dilthey und die hermeneutische Wende in der Philosophie. Wirkungsgeschichtliche Aspekte seines Werkes, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Mai 2008, 313-331.

Jos de Mul. Kleine bijdrage aan Han van Ruler en Hugo Verbrugh (red.), Desiderius Erasmus. Filosoof en Bruggenbouwer.Rotterdam, 2008.

Jos de Mul. Ziedende bintjes 3.0. Van biologie naar technologie en weer terug. In: Valerie Frissen en Jop Esmeijer (red.),Omzien naar de toekomst. Jaarboek ICT en samenleving 2008-2009. Gorredijk: Media Update Vakpublicaties, 2008, 253-272.

Jos de Mul. The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Manipulation. In Jale N. Erzen (ed.), XVII. Congress of Aesthetics: Aesthetics Bridging Cultures. Volume 1: Panels, Plenaries, Artists' Presentations, Ankara: Sanart 2008, 225-234.

Jos de Mul. "Digital Arts and Digital Aesthetics. Introduction & Editorship." In Jale N. Erzen (ed.) XVII. Congress of Aesthetics: Aesthetics Bridging Cultures. Volume 1: Panels, Plenaries, Artists' Presentations, 224-51, Ankara: Sanart, 2008.

Jos de Mul. Prometheus unbound. The rebirth of tragedy out of the spirit of technology. In: Arthur Cools, Thomas Crombez, Rosa Slegers, and Johan Taels (eds.), The Locus of Tragedy. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 279-298.Vrijheid en identiteit: een strijdige harmonie. Gastcolumn voor Nationaal Comite Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei. (www.4en5mei.nl)

Jos de Mul. The aesthetics of Freud (in Chinese). In: Huimin Jin (Ed.), A History of Western Aesthetics. vol. 4: XXth Century, ed. Huimin Jin. Beijing: Chinese Social Science Press, 2009, 19-52

Jos de Mul. The work of art in the age of digital recombination. In J. Raessens, M. Schäfer, M. v. d. Boomen, Lehmann and S. A.-S. & Lammes (eds.), Digital Material: Anchoring New Media in Daily Life and Technology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, May 2009, 95-106.

Artists, from the prehistoric painters who engraved and painted figures on cave walls to new media artists whose work depends on computer technologies, have always used media. Media, used here in the broad sense as ‘means for presenting information’[1], are not innocent means. Ever since Kant’s Copernican revolution, we know that experience is constituted and structured by the forms of sensibility and the categories of human understanding, and after the so-called linguistic and mediatic turns in philosophy, it is generally assumed that media play a crucial role in the configuration of the human mind and experience. Media are interfaces that mediate not only between us and our world (designation), but also between us and our fellow man (communication), and between us and ourselves (self-understanding). Aesthetic experience is no exception: artistic media are interfaces that not only structure the imagination of the artist, but the work of art and the aesthetic reception as well.[2]

In this paper I aim to contribute to this reflection by analyzing the way the computer interface constitutes and structures aesthetic experience. My point of departure will be Walter Benjamin‘s ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction‘,  first published in the Zeitschrift  für Sozialforschung  in 1936. In this epochal essay Benjamin investigates how mechanical reproduction  transforms the work of art, claiming that in this ontological transformation  the cult value, which once characterized the classical work of art, has been replaced by exhibition value. The thesis I will defend in this paper is, firstly, that in the age of digital recombination, the database constitutes the ontological model of the work of art and, secondly, that in this transformation the exhibition value is being replaced by what we might call manipulation value.

Jos de Mul. Hans-Georg Gadamer: Wahrheit und Methode (1960). In René Gabriels (red.), De 20ste eeuw in 10 filosofische boeken. Amsterdam: Boom, 2009, 133-154.