Seminar held at the 11th of March @ Deck 22 Willem Buytewechstraat 22

Program

7.30 opening/start of seminar

8.00 Presentation by Izaak Dekker (MA Philosophy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam)

8.20 Commentator

8.30 Presentation by Aetzel Griffioen (MA Philosophy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam)

9.00 Comments by David Bassett (Research master EIPE)

9.20 Discussion

--.-- Drinks

Work in the "new" Economy

Arendt and Sennett's concepts of Work in our Contemporary Society

[powerpoint presentation] [paper presented]

- Izaak Dekker

In this presentation the concept of work and its meaning in the current society will be addressed from the perspective of Hannah Arendt and Richard Sennett. Arendt defends that work can no longer fulfill a contemplative role when it is solely concerned with processes and reproduction (implying that the latter is the case in our current society). Instead of asking "what?" the homo faber (man as maker) through history became concerned with asking "how?", thereby dismissing morality and values from its domain. Sennett re-thinks work, and counters that material culture matters. We can achieve a humane material life through understanding the making of things as craftsmen. The craftsman way of working can offer people an anchor in material reality and hand ways of "using tools, organising bodily movements, thinking about materials that remain alternative, viable proposals about how to conduct life with skill."