Către o metafizică a virtualului. Ispitele contemplative neoplatonice și realitatea virtuală
Towards a Metaphysics of the Virtual: Neoplatonic Contemplative Temptations and Virtual Reality

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, I argue for the relevance of the Neoplatonic way of thinking in the contemporary debates concerning the problem of virtuality and the ontology of virtual objects. In order to reach this goal, I claim that the actuality of this way of thinking consists in the fact that the Neoplatonists imposed a set of thinking patterns and ideals that are still discernible in a pre-judicative way in the contemporary debates about virtuality. In this respect, I identify a set of three so-called contemplative temptations that foreshadow our approach to the domain: the temptation of the ineffable origin of things, the temptation of λόγος, conceived as a formative and ordering principle of things, and the temptation of emanation. Starting from the Neoplatonic thematization of these concepts, I demonstrate that the contemporary debates around virtuality follow the same lines of thought, although transposed in the conceptual framework of computer science and information theory.

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