If we are to think about diagrams closely, we must register their cognitive significance as they direct work and establish networks of relationships among multiple symbolic fields. Diagrams do not engage a simple horizon of understanding but are part of an integrative process through which structures literally appear in the world. Rather than being hermeneutic in a strict sense, diagrams are heuristic because they are accompanied by an expectation that they participate in a process that turns words and experience into (...) structure. Because diagrams may shift in status, they may be thought of as relays that both create meaning and enable symbolic translation from one mode of representation to another. While a diagram may visually present or reinforce an idea one moment, the next it may provide a means for seeing something never seen before. After commenting on how recent architectural theory has approached diagram, I consider the relationship between diagram and metaphor before turning my attention to the ways that diagrams function within a process that includes design as well as building. Finally, I ask how the use of diagram within architecture points not only to a phenomenology of invention and practice but also to the networks which constitute architecture. (shrink)

This article aims to examine the relationship between image and narrative by means of Peirce’s first trichotomy of qualisign-sinsign-legisign or, for the purposes of the current argument, image-diagram-metaphor. It is argued that narrative, as an extended metaphor, can be examined in three modes: in the image; schematically, in the imagination; and allegorically or in a thought experiment, through hypothetic interpretation. The article outlines two kinds of diagrammatic reasoning emphasized by Peirce: corollarial deduction in which the image is ‘literally seen’ (...) and the reasoning steps are manifest in its conclusion; and theorematic deduction where the conclusion in a diagram is subject to a hypothesis which transforms the image into something new. Demonstrating the breadth of diagrammatic reasoning with reference to the 2018 film, The Shape of Water, the article seeks to explore how allegory and diagram are mutually cooperative, based on three ontological modes: the expressive, the cognitive, and the symbolic. Its primary focus, then, is not so much on the story events of the narrative, as the way that they are visualized and characterized as the fairy story unfolds. It is suggested that the interpreting activity involved in allegory and diagram ties interpretation to metacognition, ultimately (re)recognizing the image in The Shape of Water in an attempt to ascertain the meaning of love. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

The paper aims to show how by elaborating the Peircean terms used in the title creativity in learning processes and in scientific discoveries can be explained within a semiotic framework. The essential idea is to emphasize both the role of external representations and of experimenting with those representations , and to describe a process consisting of three steps: First, looking at diagrams "from a novel point of view" offers opportunities to synthesize elements of these diagrams which have never been perceived (...) as connected before. Second, by forming those observed syntheses to "new objects" of thinking, and by signifying these objects through new signs , new means of thinking and acting are created . And finally, by applying these new means – in proofs, for instance – the "intelligibility" of new discoveries and their power to explain problematic facts must be tested. (shrink)

In this paper, we would show how the logical object “square of opposition”, viewed as semiotic object, has been historically transformed since its appearance in Aristotle’s texts until the works of Vasiliev. These transformations were accompanied each time with a new understanding and interpretation of Aristotle’s original text and, in the last case, with a transformation of its geometric configuration. The initial textual codification of the theory of opposition in Aristotle’s works is transformed into a diagrammatic one, based (...) on a new “reading” of the Aristotelian text by the medieval scholars that altered the semantics of the O form. Further, based on the medieval “Neo-Aristotelian” reading, the logicians of the nineteenth century suggest new diagrammatic representations, based on new interpretations of quantification of judgements within the algebraic and the functional logical traditions. In all these interpretations, the original square configuration remains invariant. However, Nikolai A. Vasiliev marks a turning point in history. He explicitly attacks the established logical tradition and suggests a new alternation of semantics of the O form, based on Aristotelian concepts that were neglected in the Aristotelian tradition of logic, notably the concept of indefinite judgement. This leads to a configurational transformation of the “square” of opposition into a “triangle”, where the points standing for the O and I forms are contracted into one point, the M form that now stands for particular judgement with altered semantics. The new transformation goes beyond the Aristotelian logic paradigm to a new “Non-Aristotelian” logic, i.e. to paraconsistent logic, although the argumentation used in support of it is phrased in Aristotelian style and the context of discovery is foundational. It establishes a bifurcation point in the development of logic. No unique logic is recognized, but different logics concerning different domains. One branch of logic remains to be the “Neo-Aristotelian” one, while the new logic is “Non-Aristotelian”. (shrink)

According to the deductivist view of mathematics which became the rule during the nineteenth century, formal proofs working with symbolic formulas replaced the intuitive knowledge that used to be gained by the step-by-step construction of geometric fgures and diagrams. Twentieth century epistemological refection on symbolic formulas and formal proofs, however, took them to be diagrams respectively exhibiting formal relations and transformations. The claim was also made that, for such diagrams to be proofs, temporal displays of transformations—and of other (...) speech acts—were required. By returning to the signifcant elements of contemporary theories of mathematical proofs, we will here show how these proofs came to be a matter for semiotics and pragmatics as much as for formal logic. Once this is done, we will provide a few arguments against the standard objections to the ability of diagrams to present temporal order or perform speech acts. (shrink)

Deduction systems and graph transformation systems are compared within a common categorical framework. This comparison results in a proposal for a new deduction method in diagrammatic logics, allowing the deletion of intermediate lemmas.

The recent wave of data on exoplanets lends support to METI ventures (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), insofar as the more exoplanets we find, the more likely it is that “exominds” await our messages. Yet, despite these astronomical advances, there are presently no well-confirmed tests against which to check the design of interstellar messages. In the meantime, the best we can do is distance ourselves from terracentric assumptions. There is no reason, for example, to assume that all inferential abilities are language-like. (...) With that in mind, I argue that logical reasoning does not have to be couched in symbolic notation. In diagrammatic reasoning, inferences are underwritten, not by rules, but by transformations of self-same qualitative signs. I use the Existential Graphs of C. S. Peirce to show this. Since diagrams are less dependent on convention and might even be generalized to cover non-visual senses, I argue that METI researchers should add some form of diagrammatic representations to their repertoire. Doing so can shed light, not just on alien minds, but on the deepest structures of reasoning itself. (shrink)

In this work, formulas are inclusions \ and non-inclusions \ between Boolean terms \ and \. We present a set of rules through which one can transform a term t in a diagram \ and, consequently, each inclusion \ ) in an inclusion \ ) between diagrams. Also, by applying the rules just to the diagrams we are able to solve the problem of verifying if a formula \ is consequence of a, possibly empty, set \ of formulas taken as (...) hypotheses. Our system has a diagrammatic language based on Venn diagrams that are read as sets, and not as statements about sets, as usual. We present syntax and semantics of the diagrammatic language, define a set of rules for proving consequence, and prove that our set of rules is strongly sound and complete in the following sense: given a set \ of formulas, \ is a consequence of \ iff there is a proof of this fact that is based only on the rules of the system and involves only diagrams associated to \ and to the members of \. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce Speedith which is an interactive diagrammatic theorem prover for the well-known language of spider diagrams. Speedith provides a way to input spider diagrams, transform them via the diagrammatic inference rules, and prove diagrammatic theorems. Speedith’s inference rules are sound and complete, extending previous research by including all the classical logic connectives. In addition to being a stand-alone proof system, Speedith is also designed as a program that plugs into existing general purpose theorem (...) provers. This allows for other systems to access diagrammatic reasoning via Speedith, as well as a formal verification of diagrammatic proof steps within standard sentential proof assistants. We describe the general structure of Speedith, the diagrammatic language, the automatic mechanism that draws the diagrams when inference rules are applied on them, and how formal diagrammatic proofs are constructed. (shrink)

It is suggested that Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic semiotics provides a framework for a diagrammatic representation of a sign's proper structure. The action of signs is described at the logical and psychological levels. The role of (unconscious) abductive inference is analyzed, and a diagram of reasoning is offered. A series of interpretants transform brute facts into interpretable signs thereby providing human experience with value or meaning. The triadic structure helps in de-mystifying the relations between Penrose's three worlds when the (...) latter are considered as constituting a semiotic triangle. (shrink)

The square of opposition and many other geometrical logical figures have increasingly proven to be applicable to different fields of knowledge. This paper seeks to show how Blanché generalizes the classical theory of oppositions of propositions and extends it to the structure of opposition of concepts. Furthermore, it considers how Blanché restructures the Apuleian square by transforming it into a hexagon. After presenting G. Kalinowski’s formalization of Blanché’s hexagonal theory, an illustration of its applicability to mathematics, to modal logic, and (...) to the logic of norms is depicted. The paper concludes by criticizing Blanché’s claim according to which, his logical hexagon can be considered as the objective basis of the structure of the organisation of concepts, and as the formal structure of thought in general. It is maintained that within the frame of diagrammatic reasoning Blanché’s hexagon keeps its privileged place as a “nice” and useful tool, but not necessarily as a norm of thought. (shrink)

The popular iconography of insight casts a thinker as he or she uncoils from a Rodin pose and a bulb that lights a world hitherto hidden. By and large, these features of folk mythology capture and guide how psychologists conduct research on insight: Mental processes — some of which may be unconscious — transform an inceptive abstract representation of the world until it prescribes a fruitful solution to a problem. Yet thinking and problem solving outside the laboratory involve interacting with (...) external resources, and through this interactivity with a material world, solutions are distilled. Still, laboratory work on problem solving pays scant and largely indifferent attention to interactivity: Sometimes problems are presented as riddles or static graphical or diagrammatic images, or sometimes they are accompanied by artefacts that can be manipulated. The research methodology — and indifference to the central role of interactivity in thinking — follows from a deep-seated commitment to mentalism and methodological individualism. However, a thinker is an embodied creature embedded in a physical world: The materiality of external resources and artefacts through which problems manifest themselves inevitably determines a set of action affordances. From a systemic perspective, thinking is traceable along a contingent spatio-temporal itinerary wrought by interactivity and evidenced by changes in the world. (shrink)

The present paper expounds the logic notation proposed by Augustus De Morgan in 1850 from within the original context of De Morgan’s account of syllogistic logic and his approach to quantification. The notational system of 1850 is shown to be a flexible tool to state inferences, to prove their validity and to derive formulæ of the respective system by ‘blind’ application of transformation rules. These pertain to the swapping of operator signs, which are of inverse ‘character’ in a two-fold sense: (...) The signs both represent inverse operations and exemplify oppositeness due to their very shapes. Thus, while De Morgan’s initial choice of symbol shapes is due to certain diagrammatic features, his notational system of 1850 leads to an account of logical operations as effected by manipulation of symbol tokens. It is concluded that as an instantiation of what De Morgan terms a ‘calculus of opposite relations’, his notation of 1850 may also be conceived of as a ‘graphicism’ affording for the working of a ‘symbolic machine’ on ‘de-semantification’. (shrink)

This article describes an artwork in progress; a digital video of synchronized visual patterns based in part on rhythmic practices that are said to reliably lead to a shifted state of consciousness. The artwork is being developed to further understand the correlation of rhythm and consciousness. The investigation is based on a comparative study of the following practices: ‘The Art of Memory’ and Raymon Llull’s thirteenth-century diagrammatic mnemonics, the Lucid Dreaming exercises developed at Stanford University and the African Yoruba (...) rhythms of ritualized possession. Throughout history, states of extreme lucidity, whether described as ‘ah-ha’ moments or life-transforming epiphanies, have been described with striking consistently and with such frequency that, rather than extraordinary, they seem to be fundamental to the human condition. The paradoxical state of lucid dreaming has been scientifically identified at Stanford University as a state of wakeful awareness that occurs during REM sleep, while dreaming. We might anticipate in the near future, the identification of a wakeful state of lucidity, a state as distinct from normal wakeful awareness as the state of dreaming. Those who have experienced altered states of consciousness can lend unique perspective and insight into the nature of consciousness. Analysis of practices that lead to such states add further insight. From running, to rhythmic breathing, to the circular movement of pilgrims at Mecca, to circular mosh pits, rhythmic activity is prevalent among practices that are said to lead to a shifted state of consciousness. The research suggests that in addition to rhythm itself, the relationship between rhythms is a significant factor corresponding to shifted states of consciousness. The digital video artwork discussed in this article might be thought of as a visualization of such rhythmic sequencing, and its development a creative method of inquiry. (shrink)

The founder of both American pragmatism and semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce is widely regarded as an enormously important and pioneering theorist. In this book, scholars from around the world examine the nature and significance of Peirce’s work on perception, iconicity, and diagrammatic thinking. Abjuring any strict dichotomy between presentational and representational mental activity, Peirce’s theories transform the Aristotelian, Humean, and Kantian paradigms that continue to hold sway today and, in so doing, forge a new path for understanding the centrality (...) of visual thinking in science, education, art, and communication. The essays in this collection cover a wide range of issues related to Peirce’s theories, including the perception of generality; the legacy of ideas being copies of impressions; imagination and its contribution to knowledge; logical graphs, diagrams, and the question of whether their iconicity distinguishes them from other sorts of symbolic notation; how images and diagrams contribute to scientific discovery and make it possible to perceive formal relations; and the importance and danger of using diagrams to convey scientific ideas. This book is a key resource for scholars interested in Perice’s philosophy and its relation to contemporary issues in mathematics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, semiotics, logic, visual thinking, and cognitive science. (shrink)

Logicians have strongly preferred first-order natural deductive systems over Peirce's Beta Graphs even though both are equivalent to each other. One of the main reasons for this preference, I claim, is that inference rules for Beta Graphs are hard to understand, and, therefore, hard to apply for deductions. This paper reformulates the Beta rules to show more fine-grained symmetries built around visual features of the Beta system, which makes the rules more natural and easier to use and understand. Noting that (...) the rules of a natural deductive system are natural in a different sense, this case study shows that the naturalness and the intuitiveness of rules depends on the type of representation system to which they belong. In a diagrammatic system, when visual features are discovered and fully used, we have a more efficacious deductive system. I will also show that this project not only helps us to apply these rules more easily but to understand the validity of the system at a more intuitive level. (shrink)

The formal ontology here presented is what we might call a typed combinatorial Meinongian mereology. Its author seeks to formulate the laws, here called ‘canons’, regulating how entities can combine together in wholes of different sorts. The method, as in Bergmann’s earlier works, involves the construction of an ideal language of such a sort that the analysis of complex wholes can be achieved by transforming our natural-language representations of reality into what we might think of as artificial characteristic maps or (...) diagrams which allow the relevant ontological structures to be read off immediately from the symbolic representations which results. In former works Bergmann had held that the symbolic language of Principia Mathematica could serve as the appropriate diagrammatic device for the standard first-order functional calculus and develops instead a new sort diagrammatic language. (shrink)

The subject of normalization and its relationship to sex/gender is a major one in feminist theory; Heyes' book is unique in her masterful use of Foucault; its clarity, and its sophisticated mix of the theoretical and the anecdotal. It will appeal to feminist philosophers and theorists.

We present two of the three major steps in the construction of motivic integration, that is, a homomorphism between Grothendieck semigroups that are associated with a first-order theory of algebraically closed valued fields, in the fundamental work of Hrushovski and Kazhdan [8]. We limit our attention to a simple major subclass of V-minimal theories of the form ACV FS, that is, the theory of algebraically closed valued fields of pure characteristic 0 expanded by a -generated substructure S in the language (...) . The main advantage of this subclass is the presence of syntax. It enables us to simplify the arguments with many different technical details while following the major steps of the Hrushovski–Kazhdan theory. (shrink)

Livestock systems across the world are transformed by capitalist forces. Understanding these social, economic, and cultural transformations is important because it has major implications for rural populations across the world. Traditionally, the study of livestock systems has been organized along the conceptual classification of ranching in North America and Australia and pastoralism in Africa and Asia, but this intellectual division has limited our understanding because of a priori assumptions about the extent to which these systems have been shaped by (...) capitalism. The goal of our paper is to outline a conceptual framework to come to a better understanding of the different ways that livestock systems across the globe have become more and less capitalist. We use a comparative approach that considers a wide range of livestock systems in different parts of the world, ranging from pastoralism in open access and communally held grasslands to ranching in privately owned and fenced rangelands, and industrial agriculture, to examine the diversity, complexity, and dynamics of these systems at the intersection with capitalism. We describe how livestock keepers across the world adopt, adapt to, and challenge capitalist logics and offer new ways to raise livestock in the twenty-first century. One of the emergent themes of our review is the persistence of pastoral values and identities across livestock systems. (shrink)

This book collects some of the most exciting pioneering work in perceptual and cognitive psychology. The authors' quantitative approach to the study of mental images and their representation is clearly depicted in this invaluable volume of research which presents, interprets, evaluates, and extends their work. The selections are preceded by a thorough review of the history of their experiments, and all of the articles have been updated with reviews of the current literature. The book's first part focuses on mental rotation; (...) the second includes other, more complex transformations and sequences of transformations. A third part describes work on rotational transformations in the context of the perceptual illusion of &"apparent motion.&" Roger N. Shepard is Professor of Psychology, Stanford University. Lynn A. Cooper is Professor of Psychology, University of Arizona. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Through an examination of such disciplinary keywords, and their silences, as the West, modernity, globalization, the state, culture, and the field, this book aims to explore the future of anthropology in the 21st century, by examining its past, its origins, and its conditions of possibility alongside the history of the North Atlantic world and the production of the West. In this significant book, Michel-Rolph Trouillot challenges contemporary anthropologists to question dominant narratives of globalization and to radically rethink the utility of (...) the concept of culture, the emphasis upon fieldwork as the central methodology of the discipline, and the relationship between anthropologists and the people whom they study. (shrink)

Expertise is usually thought of as an individual achievement. The expert is a receptacle for knowledge and skills. The knowledge and skills required for expertise are usually thought of as residing...

This article examines the relationship between the use of computer-based systems and transformations in parts of the social order. Answers to this question rest heavily on the way computer-based systems are consumed -not just produced or dissemtnated. The discourse about computerezation advanced in many professional magazines and the mass media is saturated with talk about "revolution, " and yet substantial social changes are often difficult to cdentcfy in carefully designed empirical studies. The article examines qualitative case studies of computerization (...) in welfare agencies, urban planning, accounting, marketing, and manufacturing to examine the ways that computerization alters social life in varced ways: sometemes restructuring relationships and in other cases reinforcing existing social relationships. The article also examines some of the theoret ical issues in studies of computerization, such as drawing boundaries. It concludes with some observations about the sociology of computer sctence as an academic discipline. (shrink)

In 1978, Yu. F. Borisov presented an axiom system using a few basic assumptions and four explicit axioms, the fourth being a formulation of the relativity principle; and he demonstrated that this axiom system had (up to choice of units) only two models: a relativistic one in which worldview transformations are Poincaré transformations and a classical one in which they are Galilean. In this paper, we reformulate Borisov’s original four axioms within an intuitively simple, but strictly formal, first-order (...) logic framework, and convert his basic background assumptions into explicit axioms. Instead of assuming that the structure of physical quantities is the field of real numbers, we assume only that they form an ordered field. This allows us to investigate how Borisov’s theorem depends on the structure of quantities. We demonstrate (as our main contribution) how to construct Euclidean, Galilean, and Poincaré models of Borisov’s axiom system over every non-Archimedean field. We also demonstrate the existence of an infinite descending chain of models and transformation groups in each of these three cases, something that is not possible over Archimedean fields. As an application, we note that there is a model of Borisov’s axioms that satisfies the relativity principle, and in which the worldview transformations are Euclidean isometries. Over the field of reals it is easy to eliminate this model using natural axioms concerning time’s arrow and the absence of instantaneous motion. In the case of non-Archimedean fields, however, the Euclidean isometries appear intrinsically as worldview transformations in models of Borisov’s axioms and neither the assumption of time’s arrow, nor the rejection of instantaneous motion, can eliminate them. (shrink)

This paper examines the role and power of the state in modernity and its transformation throughout it and into the present. First, it recognizes the centrality of the role of information control for the modern state constitution, which allows sovereign power to extend to the national level. Secondly, it discusses the shift of state power from a purely informational power to an informational and bargaining power, as well as the gradual transformation of sovereignty into governmentality. Finally, it analyzes the (...) class='Hi'>transformations that have led to a critical loss of both powers by the state and have enabled their acquisition by tech corporations. It examines the implications of this shift in power and the consequent disempowerment of the state, defining the mode of operation of the power embodied by tech corporations as a regime of performativity, rephrasing the Foucauldian regime of truth, which presided over the ways in which governmental power was performed. Such a regime bases its power not on the ability to order discourse and knowledge, but on the ability to automate it, and to predict and manipulate human behaviors. In this way, it has disintermediated not only the state in its role as the primary informational agent, but also, to some extent, the ability of individuals to assert rights through their actions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bergson and the Transformations of the Notion of Intuition NATHAN ROTENSTREICH THE CONCEPT "INTUITION",like many other concepts referring to the particular or the singular mode of philosophic cognition, is by no means a univocal concept. In different philosophical systems this concept was given different meanings and directions in accordance with the general trend of the system at stake. We are about to attempt to understand the meaning of (...) the concept of intuition in Bergson's system against the transformations that concept underwent in some major philosophical world-views. Let us observe in the first place: the term 'intuition' derives from the root intu~rL Like several other concepts in the philosophical vocabulary referring to modes of knowledge this term too denotes seeing, a mode of cognition brought about by a direct visual encounter with the world. It belongs to a family of concepts like theoria, speculatio, contemplatio. It is a conjecture that the first use of the term 'intuition' connoting a singular mode of knowledge appears in the mystical literature. The mystic conception stresses the mode of seeing whereby the light is seen; pursuing the Platonic notion, the light of vision makes the very seeing possible. From the mystical literature the concept intuition was absorbed into the philosophical vocabulary.1 Intuition is a mode of knowledge. Yet it conveys a particular ingredient in the sum-total of knowledge, making this mode of knowledge different from other modes. The ingredient conveyed is that of the certainty of the achievement reached by knowledge. From this point of view 'intuition' denotes the position of knowledge in terms of its ultimate consummation, taking consummation as being different from the procedure leading to the final outcome. This component characteristic of 'intuition' is present in Bergson's doctrine, though possibly does not occupy a central place in it. From here we can proceed to the discernment of an additional meaning of 'intuition', a meaning which to some extent seems to be the most common one. 1 Shlomo Pines, translator's Introduction to Maimonides' The Guide oJ the Perplexed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963),p. Iv. [335] 336 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 'Intuition" is knowledge which takes place directly, without mediation. As such it does not stand in a need of a method, since every method is a way leading to knowledge as well as a wall between the step taken and the final objective of knowledge. A method is essentially a mediation, as a way is a mediation between the point of departure and the destination. Knowledge acquired through a method is thus different from knowledge acquired directly or immediately. We do not confine the notion of method to any particular method, whether experimental or analytic. Any method is reasoning, comparison, verification and a procedure for deriving conclusions. Against these aspects of method intuition is presented precisely as seeing. Seeing is that visual encounter with objects which does not take on a methodical character. It might be preceded by methodological knowledge, but the act of seeing per se is trans-methodical. A close reading of Bergson's text will show that this aspect of intuition again is present in his doctrine, but it is by far not the most prominent aspect of his own rendering of intuition. It can be said in a general way that in different philosophical systems we find a kind of a conjunction of the first meaning of 'intuition' in terms of certainty with the second meaning in terms of directness. Different philosophers in different contexts maintained the view that the unqualified certainty of knowledge can refer only to the ultimate stratum of reality or to God, and that this stratum or God can be known directly. Plato's view (to look to the absolute and eternal) could be a paradigm of this trend. 2 This view re-emerges in Spinoza. The mode of knowledge which is the highest and most certain achievement on the ladder of modes of knowledge, as Spinoza puts it, is true and necessary: "He, who has a true idea, simultaneously knows that he has a true idea, and cannot doubt of the truth of the thing perceived." 3 This mode of knowledge is adequate to its... (shrink)

Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek together have emerged as two of Europe’s most significant living philosophers. In a shared spirit of resistance to global capitalism, both are committed to bringing philosophical reflection to bear upon present-day political circumstances. These thinkers are especially interested in asking what consequences the supposed twentieth-century demise of communism entails for leftist political theory in the early twenty-first century. _ Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations_ examines Badiouian and Žižekian depictions of change, particularly as deployed at the (...) intersection of philosophy and politics. The book details the origins of Badiou’s concept of the event and Žižek’s concept of the act as related theoretical visions of revolutionary happenings, delineating a number of difficulties arising from these similar concepts. Johnston finds that Badiou and Žižek tend to favor models of transformation that risk discouraging in advance precisely the efforts at changing the world of today that these uncompromising leftists so ardently desire. _Badiou, Žižek, and Political Transformations_ will surely join Johnston’s _Žižek’s Ontology _as an instant classic in its field. (shrink)

The idea that social and political institutions can be designed in order to achieve specific human ends goes back, at least, to Plato’s presentation of the appropriate form of the just city-state i...

Un istoric al noţiunii de societate civilă va considera, fără îndoială, absurdă tentativa mea de a retrasa formarea conceptului în sânul teoriei contractualiste moderne, şi aceasta din doua motive. In primul rând, pentru că în filozofia politică a secolelor XVII-XVIII expresia "societatea civilă" este încă perfect sinonimă cu "comunitate politică". Apoi, pentru că sensul contemporan al expresiei se dezvoltă în afara tradiţiei contractualiste, în particular în scoala scoţiană, care, de la Hume la Smith şi Ferguson, respinge ideea de contract fondator (...) ca pe o ficţiune de filozof. Pe scurt, susţinătorii contractualismului nu vorbeau despre societatea civilă în sensul contemporan când utilizau aceasta expresie, iar inventatorii societăţii civile în sens contemporan erau adversari ai contractualismului. (shrink)

The objective of this article is twofold. First, a methodological issue is addressed. It is pointed out that even if philosophers of mathematics have been recently more and more concerned with the practice of mathematics, there is still a need for a sharp definition of what the targets of a philosophy of mathematical practice should be. Three possible objects of inquiry are put forward: (1) the collective dimension of the practice of mathematics; (2) the cognitives capacities requested to the practitioners; (...) and (3) the specific forms of representation and notation shared and selected by the practitioners. Moreover, it is claimed that a broadening of the notion of ‘permissible action’ as introduced by Larvor (2012) with respect to mathematical arguments, allows for a consideration of all these three elements simultaneously. Second, a case from topology – the proof of Alexander’s theorem – is presented to illustrate a concrete analysis of a mathematical practice and to exemplify the proposed method. It is discussed that the attention to the three elements of the practice identified above brings to the emergence of philosophically relevant features in the practice of topology: the need for a revision in the definition of criteria of validity, the interest in tracking the operations that are performed on the notation, and the constant and fruitful back-and-forth from one representation to another in dealing with mathematical content. Finally, some suggestions for further research are given in the conclusions. (shrink)