A N N O U N C E M E N T OF AN EVENT organised by the Aesthetics Laboratory of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences:
EstLab Colloquium: Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism
TIME: Tuesday, 19 May 2026, from 17:30
VENUE: Room 39 on the first floor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
We are talking about… Humanism. On what occasion? Well, while reading a philosophical text written 80 years ago. Yet the “matter of thinking” – which still matters to us profoundly – calls us into the “proximity of Being”. The question was: How can we restore meaning to the word HUMANISM? It was posed by none other than Martin HEIDEGGER, an iconic name associated with the “matter of thinking” (which we still also call… philosophy). Where does the humanity of the human being reside? The author of the key philosophical work of the 20th century, Being and Time (1927), would say that it lies in the human being’s essence… and furthermore, that this essence rests in their ek-sistence. In ek-sisting, the TRUTH of Being is safeguarded…
But what does this discussion mean to us today? Can Heidegger’s “discourse” somehow be made understandable so that we might begin, at least to some extent, to comprehend what is happening to us today(?). Perhaps it is not entirely appropriate to employ the discourse of someone who entered the history of the 20th century in the context of the controversial Die Schwarzen Hefte!? Deleuze and Guattari speak of this “shame” that had to enter philosophy. They write that Heidegger “lost his way along the paths of reterritorialization, for they are paths without signposts or parapets” (“Geophilosophy” in their book What Is Philosophy?, 1991).
Yet, in a world in which meaninglessness prevails, do we wish to restore MEANING to the word humanism? We are prepared to make a pact with the devil himself if that is what it takes. Even with Heidegger himself! But… let us abandon the sensationalist mode of discourse and return to the “matter of thinking”. What matters is that “… the truth of Being comes to language and that thinking attains to such speech”. Then we would surely not fear that “philosophy lies on its deathbed” (Badiou). This is why it remains important for us at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences to continue talking about… philosophy. At a time when homelessness reigns over the remnants of what we call the “world”, it is essential for us to dwell in “language as the house of Being”. Equally, we must follow the instruction to be “shepherds of Being”. Nooo, this is not meekness and humility! Devotion to the “matter of thinking” is the last refuge in which we encounter a deeper MEANING. And YEEES… in an age threatened by universal catastrophe, the ancient question becomes ever more pressing: Why is there SOMETHING rather than NOTHING?? Let us try to think Die andere Anfang, the “new beginning”…
Let us talk about all of this – as well as other contemporary phenomena – with Dean KOMEL, philosopher/professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana! It will all take place in Room 39 at FFOS, on Tuesday, 19 May 2026, from 17:30.