Metanoia is an informal research group aimed at establishing and fostering fruitful collaborations between philosophers, social scientists, and natural scientists who are interested in exploring, understanding and ultimately transcending the dichotomies that exert enormous influence in our contemporary worldview: self/world, mind/body, inner/outer, fact/value, etc. We believe that these dualisms stem from specific theoretical, pragmatic, and existential commitments that have developed in the course of a unique historical development, and that, in order to successfully bridge them, they need to be first studied and understood carefully.

To this end, Metanoia tries to explore subjects, topics and disciplines where the said dualisms are most pertinent, and authors who have either played a crucial role in articulating and developing the dichotomous worldview or have sought to develop productive ways for overcoming it.

Activities

The activities of the group are divided into several subsections:

• Epoché (reading group),
• Ouroboros (research-discussion group),
• Écris (writings),
• and Khiazmos (dialogues/debates).

Topics and Relevant Authors

In our discussions and inquiries, we draw on multiple sources and traditions, including but not limited to: phenomenology (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gurwitsch, Patočka), process philosophy (Whitehead), pragmatism (James, Dewey, Peirce), second-order cybernetics (Pask, Mead, von Foerster, Varela), gestalt psychology (Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka), historical epistemology (Bachelard, Canguilhem, Koyré), holist approaches in life sciences (Uexküll, Goldstein, Buytendijk, Plessner, Weizsäcker), and embodied or enactive cognitive science (Maturana, Varela, Thompson).

Goal

This seemingly disparate array of authors and traditions is used critically in an attempt to develop a new way of (theoretically and existentially) understanding ourselves, world, and others, a way that, instead of statism, atemporality, separation and linearity, underscores dynamism, temporality, intertwining and recursivity.

Team

Lead Researcher: Sebastjan Vörös

Écris

• Editor: Viktorija Lipič
• Technical Editor: Pia Kos

Articles, published in Écris, are internally peer-reviewed.

Website Administrator

Primož Vidovič, Adnan Sivić