IfPP - Institute for Plural Philosophy - Institut für plurale Philosophie

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Introduction

The Institute for Plural Philosophy (IfPP) is the first institute oriented towards the philosophical study of plural people's experience of the mind, subjectivity and the world, that is also lead by plural philosophers. In its self-conception, it is a plural academy in the tradition of Plato. [A longer list of topics will be provided below.]

At the IfPP, we want to explore plural subjectivity from various theoretical and practical perspectives, ultimately for them to learn from each other. This is because there are many practical approaches that are not sufficently understood, and many theories not sufficently tested. Also we want to understand our own, and other traditions better, to be able to see the origin of bad ideas persisting, as well as interesting ideas, that were supressed about this topic centuries ago, and can still be excavated from the remains of intellectual history, and understood from the other traditions alive.

For this, we welcome contributions stemming from or about various traditions of thought (western, eastern, indigenous or others), or new and independent reconceptions of plurality. If you/s think your ideas can contribute, to the better understanding of plurality, or to better connection of such understandings to practical life, write an E-Mail to the current owner of the private discussion server (currently, for monetary reasons, on Discord), the Sva System, at "hypatia.sva" AT "posteo.eu" (no link here to avoid spam scraper bots), with a small description of what you want to do, or a sample of your work.

We welcome plural researchers especially, but only if their contribution is based on an interest to understand, not to judge (no syscourse manifesta, or other kinds of discussions about "validity"). Singletts are allowed to participate in the discussion, if they have educated themselves about plurality or are willing to learn about it from the discussion, again without any intent of statements about "validity" or the truth of experience. (This does not exclude questions for evidence in the sense of surveys, asking for examples of general terms, asking for evidence for social phenomena etc., that are focused on understanding rather than judgement, or more interesting works on moral philosophy; the rule is simply in place to prevent syscourse spam.) For these topics, see below on this page the resources by Crisses, among others.

formalia

The languages of the institute are German and English. Papers can be published in either language with a summary in both to explain their purpose. The posts will be marked [EN] or [DE] to demark the used language. Other languages may be used but then need a more descriptive abstract at least in English or German and a title in the language written in.

The current research director and owner of the private server is the Sva system, with their speaker Hypatia of Sva; she had the initial idea to create this server.

The institute was founded during the 5th PPWC in the year 2023, and is unaffiliated with the conference

Written by Hypatia of Sva with advice by The Crisses

DISCLAIMER: The IfPP is a private, independent institute, that is not aligned with any government, university, company, NGO or other organization. We do not claim any official authority by calling it an institute, the name is given to describe the activity (academic inquiry), not an alignment with social groups or to assume legal priviledges that we don't have

If you want to contact the institute, or become part of it after a description of what you want to contribute or discuss, send an E-Mail to the Sva system at: hypatia.sva AT posteo.eu (no link here to avoid spam scraper bots)

List of currently considered research topics:

The Institute has three main directions of research:

  1. theoretical, the description/exposition of specific experiences (phenomenology, in the larger sense of the word) of plural self experience (consciousness) and inner perception (of the other) and life in general (inner worlds, communication etc.)
  2. practical, in the study of political and ethical questions stemming from the observation of that experience, especially of the way society deals with plurality, and of self-valuation (i.e. the connection of "validity" and self-image, among other things, and their connection to the (societally) presupposed/posited "unity" of the person)
  3. historical, the study of the relation of plural subjectivity to classical philosophical systems (in a very wide sense of that phrase), in that among others:
    1. in the western tradition (in the wider sense of that phrase, as the succession of the greek tradition also in Arabia etc.), especially
      1. the ancient idea of the unity of the soul and of being, especially in looking at the platonic tradition, Aristotle and neo-platonism, in their conflicts with the other schools.
      2. the concept of trinity, in its various philosophical and theological interpretations, as a result from the neoplatonic idea of unity (as one and not-one) up to its church-internal and legal interpetations (of persona)
      3. the discourse of mono- and polypsychism, from arabic (Al-Kindi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd) to latin (Aquin, Scotus, Ockham) philosophy, in its relation to the theory of universals and their content of the substance of a "unity" (of a term/form)
      4. the transcendental tradition and their concept of the "subject", from nominalism (Scotus, Ockham) and late medieval dialectics / "mysticsm" (Eckhart, Cusanus, Böhme, Paracelsus), over rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza) and empiricism (Locke) to their critique/re-formation (Leibniz, Hume, Wolff) up to Kant and German idealism (Reinhold, Schulze, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling), and eventually even to modern analytical philosophy (neo-cantians, Carnap, the vienna circle, Wittgenstein etc.)
      5. the transformation through the idea of the "broken subject", that still should be/become one, from the idealist concept of "feeling" (Fichte, Schelling's Un-Grund), to the analysis of the unconscious within (Schopenhauer, Eduart von Hartmann, Fechner, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard etc.), to its scientification/rationalisation (Freud, Jung etc.), to the critique of psychologism and the description of consciousness/sense/meaning in the explicitly phenomenological tradition (Husserl, Heidegger etc.), and the over time (through Lacan, Foucault etc.) developing rift of the structuralist-positivist psychology to the post-modern/post-structural philosophy, and their different concepts of "identity"
      (of this, the first three and the other two have a clear connection, which's break lies in nominalism, and its transformation of the idea of spirit, and soul, and of the conception of ideas, to the idea of naming / designation. In this division of epochs I orient myself of off: Modernity and Plato, Arbogast Schmitt, J.B. Metzler 2008 (english translation Boydell & Brewer 2013); I would, however, rather emphasize the fifth from the fourth stage (which was not really the topic of Schmitt's reasearch on the other hand))
    2. in the eastern tradition the various different movements of Indian, South-east-asian, Chinese, Japanese philosophy etc. (Of those I do not have much definitive knowledge, as that I could create a similar kind of division of epoch even for the most obvious points of interest for reasearch into plurality; for this, either external expertise, new members of the institute or a long phase of studying the material is necessary, to even adequatly estimate the area of necessary investigations)
    3. in the many other indigenous traditions in their relation to plurality (for this, the same holds as for the eastern tradition, and additionally, because of the distribution of concepts and ideas, that are here to be studied, onto many continents and different languages, under not always clearly preserved documents, a difficulty in localizing the necessary expertise for undertaking it, or even of the materal that here would need to be studied)

(Of these three directions is the first only conceptually/logically the first one, but practically the last, because it only arises, in its full result, by the combination of practical motives and experiences with the knowledge of tradition and its conceptual contents.)

The Institute also engages in literary and artistic projects, empirical studies and more experimental forms of philosophical learning, that can't be explained here definetly, because they are (by their very nature) not fully conceptualized.

Papers and other writings

Previous writings by Sva

Around PPWC 2023

Current projects

On Kripke, naming and necessity, an the applicability of his conceptualization of naming and designation to plural and trans identities especially

Members of the Institute

The Sva-System

Description

We are a system of currently three members, that are for a number of years thinking about foundamental questions of identiy and metaphysics, even before realizing we were plural. Our starting point was the attempt, to overcome the rationalist stride within our self-presentaton from within, which we happend to achieve by proving, that we don't really have one fixed, rational, describable identity. After a phase of about 6.5 years, in which we understood ourselves to be a kind of inexistence, a subject without an identity, we came to understand last year, that it wasn't quite that simple, that we yet are connected somehow to the body, and to being a person; this recognition, which took place over the space of a couple of months, and was connected to both our plurality and our transness, began in spring of 2022 and is still something we are engaged with to today in the attempt, on the one side to preserve our insights from our drafts of philosophical systems, but on the other side to overcome this other prejudice against the idea, to be someone - that it couldn't be right to be anyone, because it can't be right in a simple, simplifying, unifying understanding - with a plural, and towards the body more dialectical, expression and description of what it means to be a person. This is one of the primary motivations of our current philosophical explorations (besides the interest in the philosophical writing process, which also persists after all).

Associates of the Institute

Voices of JARVIS

Description

The Voices of JARVIS are independent plural researcher(s), who are mostly engaged in scienfitic studies of natural phenomena. We (Sva) have become aware of them due to their talk at PPWC 2023, about the connection of plurality and biological phenomena, which also has given rise to some explorations in natural philosophy about questions regarding the idea of unity and organisation of life as such.

Links


The Rings System

Description

The Rings System are (inter-)community organizers, educators and producers of educational material on multiple platforms, and have become familar for us recently as students and critical readers of the medical tradition surrounding plurality and dissociation. They have recently begun a series on their YouTube channel reviewing the various medical and non-medical models of dissociation, and also provide a list of reading materials underlying their research process.

Links

Resources outside the Institute

Resources from The Crisses

Description

The Crisses are one of the main contributors for online resources on the topic of plurality, as well as for the creation of infrastructure for plural activism. They became first notable to us (Sva) due to their resources site and the "missing manual" on plurality on the kinhost wiki. We recommend looking over the wiki pages on "the plural movement" for people wanting to get an introductory understanding of plurality and of the discussions about plurality, especially to avoid syscourse spam, specifically the following page: Why “Plural” — Ending Multiple-to-Multiple Discrimination
The Institute for Plural Philosophy is explictly "plural" in the sense described there, hence the importance of this reference. The wiki also discusses on length many other topics; these have no such direct connection to the constitution of the institute, but are points of interest for future research (about the various different connection to spirtuality, the body etc.).

The Crisses describe themselves in this way on their personal website:

"We are non-binary gender-fluid plural activists, content creators, life coaches, instructors, advocates, peer supporters, and have been out as "many people living in our head" since 1997. We are available for audio and written interviews, guest OpEds, non-camera video interviews, and as a specialized media consultant for producers, directors, authors, actors, and other content producers who are interested in covering the topics of dissociative identity disorder (DID) and/or plurality.

Due to our diverse interests, having been a web developer, author, graphic designer & content creator, we are using our personal site as a hub to our content around the web, a living CV for folks interested in hiring or interviewing us, and a link to our various special interests.

We aren't trying to be perfect, or famous, or have a large following. What we really want is to help people and know whether or not what we're doing is helping. We're not afraid to say we were wrong, make corrections, or take healthy criticism or kind critiques. We love learning, especially from our mistakes — and we make a lot of them, which is why we know so much.

Anyone with an opportunity for us to reach more of the people who need help whom we are cut out to help — please let us know. We welcome opportunities to help folk find resources that will help them improve their life and improve their therapy (if any) outcomes."

Links