In this paper I intend to discuss some notions encountered in Jacques Derrida’s The Truth in Painting (1978) immediately linked to the manner in which the art object is understood and addressed, its limits, what it does/does not include/exclude, what it touches upon—if we can use such formalist terms in a deconstructive framework. These notions have perhaps formed in the past decades the art object, even though there is no frequent reference of Derridean deconstruction in texts regarding art.3 The ones (...) I will mostly refer to are the parergon, the frame and the abyss. I intend to support that Derrida has not just doubted the limits between ergon and parergon but has also illustrated in an almost painterly manner the abyss and the parergon, thus reframing fields of aesthetics, philosophically and visually. (shrink)

We examine the emergence of the field of life-history strategies during the 1950s. (We consider a 'field' an area of scientific activity consisting of a theoretical core, a subject of research, a vocabulary and research tools). During the late 1940s and early 1950s, population ecology faced many problems, concerning its conceptual framework, its mathematical models, experimental deficiencies, etc. Research on life-history characteristics remained descriptive, lacking explanations about the causes and significance of phenomena. This was due to the deficiencies of the (...) theoretical framework of population ecology up to the 1950s. The catalyzing factor for the emergence of the new field was the interdisciplinary impacts, and especially the impact of neodarwinism. The elaboration of a new theoretical core, invoking also methodological shifts, was the triggering factor, conditioning the emergence of the new field. (shrink)

The representation of a complex but stable, self-regulated and, finally, harmonious nature penetrates the whole history of Ecology, thus contradicting the core of the Darwinian evolution. Originated in the pre-Darwinian Natural History, this representation defined theoretically the various schools of early ecology and, in the context of the cybernetic synthesis of the 1950s, it assumed a typical mathematical form on account of α positive correlation between species diversity and community stability. After 1960, these two aforementioned concepts and their positive correlation (...) were proposed as environmental management tools, in the face of the ecological crisis arising at the time. In the early 1970s, and particularly after May’s evolutionary arguments, the consensus around this positive correlation collapsed for a while, only to be promptly restored for the purpose of attaching an ecological value on biodiversity. In this paper, we explore the history of the diversity–stability hypothesis and we review the successive terms that have been used to express community stability. We argue that this hypothesis has been motivated by the nodal ideological presuppositions of order and harmony and that the scientific developments in this field largely correspond to external social pressures. We conclude that the conflict about the diversity–stability relationship is in fact an ideological debate, referring mostly to the way we see nature and society rather than to an autonomous scientific question. From this point of view, we may understand why Ecology’s concepts and perceptions may decline and return again and again, forming a pluralistic scientific history. (shrink)

Habitat templets are graphical-qualitative models which describe the development of life-history strategies in specific environmental conditions. In the context of the previous models of life-history strategies, life-history theorists focused on the density-dependent factors as the factors determining life-history strategies. With the use of habitat templets, the focus is oriented towards the environmental causal factors, considering density-dependent phenomena as by-products of the environmental impact. This implies an important shift in causality as well as in the worldview of life-history theorists: population is (...) not considered as a closed system isolated from the environment. The object of study is the organism-in-its-environment, as a complex multilevel system. This shift has also methodological consequences: Life-history theory combines holistic and reductionistic insights, using a variety of heuristic models. This imposes a new conception of generality as well as of the structure of scientific theories. (shrink)