agonistics: a language game

Submitted by NT2 on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 16:16

Author(s):

Agonistics est un jeu de combat où les participants s'affrontent dans des discussions argumentatives en ligne (forums alimentés par envoi de courriels). Les participants doivent déstabiliser leurs adversaires pour gagner des points, mais ils risquent ainsi d'entraver le processus démocratique... Il s'agit ainsi avant tout d'une réflexion sur la philosophie politique. Chaque participant peut choisir le groupe de discussion auquel il participe (sujet et langue).

Anciennement hébergé au http://hybrid.ucsc.edu/Agonistics/Artport/description.html, le site se retrouve maintenant au http://artport.whitney.org/gatepages/artists/sack/.

Infos

Hosting website:

Whitney ARTPORT

Hosting website URL:

http://artport.whitney.org/

Date of last consultation:

March 18, 2007

Coordonnées de l'artiste:
wsack@media.mit.edu
Groupe de recherche:
Identités narratives

Citation(s)

Political theorists, like Mouffe, interested in the democratic potential of agonistic contests, oftentimes recast deliberative discussion as a language game -- in the sense invented by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Moreover, this reimagining of politics leans heavily on Friedrich Nietzsche's understanding of agonistics and ancient Greek philosophy. A close look at the writings of this set of political theorists (which must also include Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Bruno Latour) rewards one with the following insight: just as Lakoff and Johnson show how everyday thinking about arguments draws on a set of metaphorical images and actions, so do these theorists assume a different set of metaphorical images and actions to describe verbal contests -- specifically, game like images and actions. Neither are these images and actions the moral frameworks of, for example, Jurgen Habermas and other moralists hoping for perfect conditions for communicative interaction. Nor, are these images and actions the violent ones implied by the commonsense metaphor "argument is war."

Notes

\Ag`o*nis"tics\, n. The science of athletic combats, or contests in public games. Webster's 1913 Dictionary The images and actions used as metaphors by Chantal Mouffe and other theorists of "agonistic democracy" can be instantiated literally as interactive, graphical objects and dynamics. This literal instantiation is offered as an online, computer game that can played by posting messages to a public, online discussion forum.

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agonistics: a language game

Sack, Warren