Contralytic (est. 2023) is an indie press that publishes philosophy at the intersections of culture, art and the humanities. The team is based in Glasgow.
Circularity is a recurring theme in philosophical discourse. In addition to connoting a geometric property, circularity is present whether one is falling prey to fallacious circular reasoning (or being accused of as much), or setting off into the infinite epistemological and metaphysical quagmire of a regress, or perhaps even in the process of grasping a texts’ meaning, the philosophical contemplation of circularity is inevitable.
In a less technical sense, circularity is also manifest across cultural iconographies, signifying unity, renewal, and recurrence. This expresses a deep and intuitive grasp of the underlying self-regulating dynamics of nature, society, and the strange loops that we ourselves are.
From here we leave it to our readers to decide which aspects of circularity should be built, broken, and embraced, and what forms should be altered, maintained, and challenged.
John D. Caputo
Ricki Bliss
K. Angel
Olafur Eliasson
Alessandro Keegan
Gary Kemp
Axl Kasper
Daisy Lafarge
Katie Paterson
Steve Patterson
Konrad Paszek
Nic Nahar Sharp
Kathrine Sowerby
Sun Yung Shin
Peter Thickett
Máté Tenke
Grit Richter
December 2023
ISSN: 2976-7385
13 x 23 cm
76pp
£11 / 12.50€
Contradictions hold a special place in the sport of philosophical discourse. They are typically regarded as something to avoid or resolve in the defence of an idea; otherwise, they are pursued and revealed in the offense of an idea.
The contradiction antagonises our affinity for consistency, rationality, and linearity. That some thing is and is-not, that some thing and its very negation should co- exist simultaneously and oppose one another is an ungraspable (im)possibility.
To contemplate contradiction requires a tolerance that philosophical discourse does not praise, nor incentivise. That they provoke nausea when expressed through paradox, evoke estrangement under the guise of cognitive dissonance, arouse the poet, rouse the philosopher, and amuse the artist is something to behold.
Such a task of investigation requires an attitude of tolerance for the ambiguity of conflict without resolve. What to do with these strange yet supposedly impossible possibilities is precisely what this issue hopes to achieve. In this first issue of Contralytic, our contributors investigate contradiction – some with ease, others not so much.
Flora Leask Arizpe
Alexander A. Cameron
Tim Tim Cheng
Serafina Cusack
Simon Kerola
Seva Khusid
Lucy Lauder
Lucille Mona Ling
Mahee Mustafa
Marily Papanastasatou
Graham Priest
Anniina Ruonala
Maria Sledmere
Roy Sorensen
Andrew Tamlyn
June 2023
ISSN: 2976-7385
13 x 23 cm
72pp
£9 / 10.50€
