Culture and Aesthetics
CultureLab (Laboratory of Culture and Aesthetics) explores the many ways in which philosophy engages with the diverse manifestations of culture, with particular attention to their theoretical, historical, and social contexts. As an organic part of IFILNOVA’s structure, the laboratory devotes a substantial portion of its activities to the field of aesthetics, understood as a privileged domain of cultural expression.
Its researchers focus on questions that, in their specificity, seek to address the challenges and problems posed by our own time, including those emerging from art and literature. This approach is framed by a dialogical relationship with the history of philosophy, which involves revisiting key authors from Antiquity to the present.
In this sense, the laboratory’s work also assumes a meta-philosophical dimension, aiming to understand how the cultural aspects that shape our reflection relate both to their own philosophical and historical formation and to the life practices that may arise from such understanding.
The laboratory’s research is developed through three methodological axes that intersect in various ways:
- A combination of interpretative rigour, the re-reading of key authors and currents in the history of philosophy and their implications for contemporary themes.
- Reflexive analysis of cultural manifestations and their interconnection with aesthetics, particularly in the field of literature and other arts.
- A critical approach to the relationship between philosophy and culture, taking into account the historicity of this relationship, its relation to life and the challenges of the present.
The work of the laboratory is reflected in the various projects funded in recent years, in the numerous and relevant publications and activities developed, in the scientific dissemination within and outside the academic sphere, as well as in the interdisciplinary focus and the collaboration with other laboratories of IFILNOVA.
CultureLab hosts the Lisbon Nietzsche Group, which is dedicated to the study of Nietzsche’s works and thought, and to the relevance of his legacy for our times, particularly regarding the problem of nihilism and the contemporary crisis of values.
