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From Actors to YouTubers: Benjamin, Baudrillard, and Digital Authenticity

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Actors and Streamers. AI art Introduction In his 1935 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility , Walter Benjamin described how modern technologies were transforming art and representation. One of his most insightful observations was the difference between the theatrical actor, who presents himself physically before an audience, and the film actor, whose words and gestures are fragmented by the camera and then reassembled. Half a century later, Jean Baudrillard deepened this analysis in Simulacra and Simulation (1981/1994), arguing that images no longer represent reality but generate it. Both thinkers offer key insights for understanding the new figures of the digital age—YouTubers, TikTokers, and streamers—who operate in a realm where performance is both intimate and mediated, spontaneous and staged. Stage and Screen Benjamin considered the stage as the place of presence. The theatrical actor addresses the audience directly, and this unique encounter...
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The Limits of Interpretation: From Postmodern Relativism to Distinctive Features

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Minimal Pairs. AI art   Introduction: Between Flexibility and Limit The postmodern claim that “all interpretations are equally valid” has had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy and the social sciences. Its appeal lies in the fact that, at first sight, it reflects common experiences: what feels cold to one person may feel warm to another; what for some counts as freedom may for others be restriction. Yet behind this interpretive flexibility hides a fundamental confusion: the difficulty of making certain categories explicit is taken as proof that limits do not exist. This mistake leads to a radical relativism that ignores the role of reality as a structuring framework. Although concepts such as heat, love, or truth cannot always be defined with precise conceptual clarity, this does not mean that any interpretation is valid. There are objective boundaries which, beyond our disagreements, impose the category. The Postmodern Confusion The genealogy of this confusion ...
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The Impossibility of Pure Language: Derrida on Aristotle’s Definition of Metaphor Introduction

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Traces. AI art Introduction In his Poetics , Aristotle offered one of the most cited definitions of metaphor: it consists, he writes, in “giving the thing a name that belongs to something else” (Poetics 1457b6–9). Jacques Derrida recalls this formula in Margins of Philosophy (p. 231), where it becomes the point of departure for a wide-ranging deconstruction of the philosophical dream of literal language. If metaphor is alien naming, then its opposite must be authentic naming: a speech where every entity possesses its own proper designation. This apparent alternative, Derrida argues, is precisely what metaphysicians have pursued—the fantasy of a discourse purified of figurative intrusion. Yet the very idea of such purity is internally compromised, since it is framed through metaphors of ownership, propriety, and transfer. Aristotle’s Definition and Its Implications Aristotle’s wording situates metaphor as a form of displacement: a name is carried across from its rightful home to...
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White Metaphor: Derrida on Myth, Philosophy, and the Illusion of the Proper

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Only Traces. AI art Introduction When Jacques Derrida published White Mythology: Metaphor in the Text of Philosophy in 1971, he struck at the core of philosophy’s self-image. Philosophy had long prided itself on speaking literally, distinguishing itself from rhetoric and poetry. Yet Derrida argues that philosophy is pervaded by metaphors, and that its central concepts are sedimented figures whose symbolic force has been effaced. The most vivid and unsettling claim of the essay is that philosophy is a white mythology : a mythology that has forgotten itself, appearing as universal reason while carrying the traces of Indo-European myth and image. Aristotle and the Dream of the Proper At the center of Derrida’s analysis stands a canonical definition: “Metaphor (metaphora) consists in giving (epiphora) the thing a name (onomatos) that belongs to something else. The transference being either from genus to species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on grounds o...
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Derrida’s Double Life: Between Activism and Bureaucracy

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Jekyll and Hyde. AI art Introduction Few thinkers of the twentieth century have divided opinion as sharply as Jacques Derrida. Celebrated as the father of deconstruction , he became a rallying figure for radical intellectual movements, especially in the Anglo-American world. Yet, as Jonathan Rée observed in his review Metaphor and Metaphysics: The End of Philosophy and Derrida , Derrida embodies a striking contradiction. At times he appeared as an incendiary political voice, attacking the foundations of Western thought and calling for its transfiguration. At other moments he seemed a consummate insider, directing state-sponsored institutions and pursuing a career indistinguishable from that of any other academic philosopher. This duality—radical prophet abroad, bureaucratic professor at home—defines Derrida’s “double life.” Far from being an incidental detail, it reveals both the mechanisms of his reception and the fractured nature of subjectivity itself. The Political Hyperactivis...
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Sciences vs. Humanities: Bias in the Reception of AI

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Verse and Formula. AI art Introduction: Disciplinary Bias Artificial intelligence has become a transversal tool across multiple areas of knowledge. Yet, not all fields welcome it in the same way. In the hard sciences—physics, chemistry, biology—its integration is seen as natural and beneficial: algorithms that predict protein structures (Jumper et al., 2021), computer vision systems for laboratory experiments, and models for astronomical simulation. The prevailing view is that AI enhances precision, saves time, and opens new horizons for discovery. In contrast, within the humanities—literature, philosophy, history—the response is often skeptical. When an intelligent system composes a poem, an essay, or even a critical review, it is accused of lacking “authenticity,” “soul,” or “inner life.” In cultural forums and journals, machine-generated texts are questioned as hollow copies, while their applications in the hard sciences are accepted without hesitation. This essay argues that ...
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The Elusive Sign: Derrida, Tradition, and the Question of Meaning

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Introduction Few concepts have exercised such enduring influence over the history of philosophy and linguistics as the sign . From Aristotle’s On Interpretation to Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics , the sign has been treated as a bridge between thought, language, and reality. Yet Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction in Of Grammatology demonstrates that this apparently stable structure is undermined by its own assumptions. By interrogating the metaphysical commitments underlying the sign, Derrida exposes the fragility of notions such as origin, transcendental signified , and logocentrism . This article explores Derrida’s critique in relation to classical and modern accounts of the sign, focusing on Aristotle, Augustine, Jakobson, and Saussure, and culminating in Derrida’s own proposal of arche-writing . The Classical Foundations: Aristotle and Augustine The Western tradition of the sign begins with Aristotle’s Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας ( On Interpretation ). For Aristotle, signs me...
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