Project Description – Philosophical Upcycling
Philosophical Upcycling is an interdisciplinary initiative that retools philosophical thought to confront the complexities of the digital age. It doesn’t treat philosophy as a museum of ideas, but as a living, adaptive practice that can be reshaped to illuminate current technological, ethical, and societal shifts.
The project critically engages with themes such as artificial intelligence, automation, algorithmic governance, and digital subjectivity. Rather than offering ready-made solutions, it proposes philosophical tools for navigating these transformations—tools that are repurposed, reinterpreted, and sometimes radically reimagined.
Philosophical Upcycling is not confined to the Western canon. It deliberately integrates insights from non-Western traditions, animist cosmologies, and indigenous knowledge systems. This broadened horizon is essential for grappling with the global and plural nature of digital realities.
Through essays, workshops, dialogues, and visual experiments, the project fosters a public-facing philosophy—accessible but not simplistic. It encourages speculative thinking, poetic rigor, and intellectual humility in the face of uncertain futures.
In short, Philosophical Upcycling is a space for reflective experimentation: thinking-with rather than thinking-against the digital world.
Conceptual Figures of Thought
A Denkfigur—or figure of thought—is a conceptual tool that shapes how we perceive, structure, and engage with complex ideas. Rather than being neutral, it guides interpretation, channels attention, and opens specific ways of seeing while closing off others. Often metaphorical or narrative in nature, Denkfiguren make abstract or unfamiliar concepts intelligible by giving them a form.
They are central to philosophical thinking, but also operate across disciplines and in everyday reasoning. Examples include the “veil of ignorance,” the “social contract,” or “the ghost in the machine.” These figures do not merely illustrate arguments—they embody them.
Denkfiguren are not fixed. They can be dismantled, reassembled, or upcycled for new contexts. As such, they are dynamic engines of thought—frames that make thinking possible, and in doing so, shape what can be thought at all.
Figures of Thought
Philosophical thinking operates through figures of thought—conceptual structures that shape how we perceive, interpret, and question the world. These Denkfiguren are not merely rhetorical devices; they are mental architectures that orient our understanding and guide how we engage with complexity.
They create perspectives, establish boundaries, and introduce tensions. At the same time, they offer the possibility of transformation: figures can be reused, deconstructed, recontextualized—or upcycled—to address new challenges and unfamiliar conditions.
In the context of digital culture and technological transformation, these figures become even more crucial. They help articulate what is often elusive: the invisible logic of systems, the blurred line between presence and absence, the interplay between autonomy and automation.
To think through figures is to recognize that thought itself has a shape—and that reshaping these forms may change what becomes thinkable.
