Thinking resilience

Thinking about resilience, in all its forms and definitions, consist essentially to think about the amphibolic character of phenomena or situations that are triggering change (breaking) when at their tipping points. In scientific terms, it refers to a state of intermediacy where a metabolic process participates in both anabolic and catabolic pathways of an organism or system.

In human sciences, the notion of resilience refers to our capacity to overcome or compose with adverse phenomena through our experience of the real and to explore the critical points of our relationship to the world : life itself, nature and the very movement of all things. Resilience would therefore be that «kick inside», a vital process pushing us forward would have said Bergson. Life above all.

Minding life

Generally speaking, attempts have been made to understand and explain the notion of resilience according to two major philosophical models. The first, largely inspired by scientific positivism and known as cognitive science, consists of studying a set of functionalities, data and calculations based on constructed realities (reification) and relating to systems. The second, for its part, is more concerned with the phenomenological or perceptual aspects of nature and our experience of reality and has inspired a whole field of studies relating, in particular, to critical theories, existentialism and the humanist movement. These different approaches, in turn, bring together a range of thoughts, research and practices likely to enlighten us on the complexity of living systems and the very foundations of the notion of resilience.

Here, first philosophy should be considered as the only true attempt and the only way to transcend this dualism between materialism and the spiritual on which the cognitive sciences and phenomenology are founded. For, it proposes an intuitive and creative - ethical, non-representational and poetic - approach to «living in the world».  Its poietic is ineffable in essence, beyond reason and enlivening the irrational. Entirely in action. Presence and absence. A sentiment and a self-giving to the unknown and a hundred passages to life that opens up to the becoming of our being.

(in development - 2025-07-28)

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JF