Intro to Philosophy Lecture Series (2023)

This series is based on lectures I wrote for my Intro to Philosophy course at Fordham University.

Whereas ideas and themes are frequently represented in images, the challenge here was representing multiple statements and their relationships. I needed symbols to stand for concepts and relations in order to build the complexity of an argument.

The symbols became visually interrelated enough that in knowing the sign for “life” you could predict, or at least easily decipher, the sign for “death”. 

Pictured below is a version of the lexicon arranged for viewing.

At first the symbols were random and some even realist. I tossed those and started at home (homme). I came up with signs for “body” and “mind” then combined them to make “human”. From there I added different marks to “mind” for mental processes and faculties, such as judgment and reason, respectively. Then came instincts, emotions, and eventually other lifeforms, relationships, events and on and on.

I used lines, arrows, connectors, symbolic logic signs, etc. to indicate relationships between the concepts and form the argument. The black matte background stood in for the blackboard and chalk pastels for well, chalk. 

There are currently seven drafts of future works in this series.

Many more themes remain undrafted.