The Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts presents a talk entitled ‘Doing philosophy with computer games’. The speaker is Dr Stefano Gualeni. The talk will be held on Wednesday 9 December from 17:30 to 19:30 in the Faculty of Arts Library.
Abstract
Being both a philosopher who designs computer games and a game designer who is passionate about philosophy, Dr Gualeni studies virtual worlds in their role as mediators of thought. In his work, they are treated as interactive, artificial environments where philosophical ideas, alternative world-views, and thought-experiments can be explored, manipulated, and communicated objectively.
The idea of pursuing philosophy materially (through crafting and experiencing) in the age of interactive digital media is founded on three core beliefs:
- The possibility to utilize computer simulations and video games as viable mediators of philosophical thought (as recently pointed out in my 2015 book Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools), and
- The persuasion that designing interactive worlds, interfaces and experiences is in itself a deeply philosophical activity, both in its analytical dimensions and in its unique projectual ones.
- The belief that 'building' – doing, constructing as a heuristic practice – offers an opportunity 'to correct the discursive and linguistic bias of the humanities'.
This talk will provide the basic philosophical foundations and a few design examples concerning the possibilities and limitations of computer games as philosophical media.