Outside — again

pp. 143-143

in: Mats Rosengren, Cave art, perception and knowledge, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

I hope that I have managed to show some of the topicality of both Castoriadis and Cassirer in relation to cave art. Their philosophies of technique, creation and symbolic forms are consonant with many important modes of contemporary thought. From the current interest in immanence and stratification to the latest advancements in cognitive science, passing through political science and political philosophy, the notions of embodiment and becoming are central today and in need of clarification and development. Both notions can be found in their works, once we start to read them as contemporary and, perhaps, as doxological thinkers. And to end this cavernous text — the case of cave art studies may, I hope, serve as an example of how we may proceed in creating, in the guise of recreation, a symbolic form consonant with the specific epistemic needs of our current scientific and political situation, wherein bodies have come to matter more and more, in every kind of sense. Perhaps this will create a spin, making the cracks in the walls wider; opening into yet unexplored galleries of our human cave.