Performance Philosophy as an Interdisciplinary Field: Perspectives and Limits

Abstract

Performance Philosophy (PP) has established itself over the past fifteen years as an interdisciplinary field at the crossroads of performative practice and philosophical inquiry. The essay traces its theoretical genealogy – from Fischer-Lichte’s aesthetics of the performative to the research network launched by Cull Ó Maoilearca and Lagaay in 2012 – against the backdrop of a longstanding philosophical deficit: performance has traditionally been theorised within theatre studies, linguistics, and anthropology, rarely on genuinely philosophical grounds. Productive as PP undoubtedly is, the essay raises a number of concerns: its constitutive openness risks methodological vagueness; a theatre-centred bias persists beneath its interdisciplinary ambitions. What remains missing, the author argues, is a rigorous philosophical account of performance as such.