The Virtual Self: Is Authenticity Possible in the Digital Era?

Our existence in an increasingly digitalised world poses unprecedented challenges to our self-image and how we relate to our own personality in the online social media environment. This is why the issue of authenticity is perhaps more pressing today than ever before, as our digital selves often compete and sometimes even contradict our real selves.
The working hypothesis from which we are trying to understand the problem proposes a conceptual genealogy of the notion of virtuality, going back to medieval philosophy, in order to reveal, starting from the thought of philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, the origins of the contemporary idea of virtuality in scholastic debates on the spiritual realities of the Christian world. As we shall see, the entire spiritual realm of existence (populated by souls, angels, demons and God himself) was thought of by medieval philosophers as a horizon of virtuality, from which various entities can enter the concrete, material world through application.

Rostită la: Constanta (Romania) – 10-11 May, 2023
Adresa: Hotel Ramada (B-dul Mamaia, Constanța)