ABSTRACT Certain features of our conceptual scheme seem necessary for subjects with our basic nature: we cannot imagine humans accomplishing their basic projects without having a conceptual scheme with these features. Other aspects of our conceptual scheme seem more contingent: we can imagine communities effectively using a somewhat different conceptual scheme. Conceptual cartography is the project of investigating the necessity and contingency of the various features of conceptual schemes. The project of conceptual (...) cartography has not received much explicit methodological attention. But in this paper, I argue that conceptual cartography has important implications for the study of conceptual engineering. I also provide a general framework for thinking about conceptual cartography. (shrink)

I articulate and argue for a modest use to which philosophers who are not historians of philosophy might put the history of philosophy. That use is in conceptual cartography. I understand conceptual cartography to be the practice of mapping how concepts, including those as complex as philosophical views, relate. Using the history of philosophy in conceptual cartography uses that history to situate landmarks on a conceptual map, and then situates other views (historical or (...) contemporary) relative to those landmarks. After articulating and arguing for this use, I consider objections. (shrink)

The digital society is reconfiguring the relationships between digital culture and intercultural citizenship in Peru. To understand these connections, it is important to examine thesis reports presented in Peruvian universities. Conceptual mapping is used as a research method, allowing for the identification of emerging thematic connections. The results demonstrate a growing interest in research on digital culture and intercultural citizenship in Peru, as well as the interconnections and gaps that highlight national inequalities. Essentially, the need for public policies that (...) promote digital culture, and an active and participatory intercultural citizenship online is revealed. (shrink)

This paper pushes back against the Democritean-Newtonian tradition of assuming a strict conceptual dichotomy between spacetime and matter. Our approach proceeds via the more narrow distinction between modified gravity/spacetime and dark matter. A prequel paper argued that the novel field Φ postulated by Berezhiani and Khoury's 'superfluid dark matter theory' is as much matter as anything could possibly be, but also below the critical temperature for superfluidity as much spacetime as anything could possibly be. Here we introduce and critically (...) evaluate three groups of interpretations that one should consider for such Janus-faced theories. The consubstantiality interpretation holds that Φ is both matter and a modification of spacetime, analogously to the sense in which Jesus is both human and god. The fundamendalist interpretations consider for each of these roles whether they are instantiated fundamentally or emergently. The breakdown interpretations focus on the question of whether Φ signals the breakdown, in some sense to be specified, of the MG-DM dichotomy and perhaps even the broader spacetime–matter distinction. More generally, it is argued that hybrid theories urge a move towards a single space of theories, rather than two separate spaces of spacetime theories and matter theories, respectively. (shrink)

Though only one component product of the larger eugenics movement, the eugenic family study proved to be, by far, its most potent ideological tool. The Kallikak Family, for instance, went through eight editions between 1913 and 1931. This essay argues that the current scholarship has missed important ways that the architects of the eugenic family studies theorized and described the subjects of their investigation. Using one sparsely interrogated work and one previously unknown eugenic family study from the Southern Plains, this (...) essay aims to introduce “environment” as a schema that allows for how the subjects of the eugenic family study were conceptualized with respect to their surroundings. Geospatially and environmentally relevant constructions of scientific knowledge were central to the project of eugenics during its formative years, but remain largely and conspicuously absent from the critical literature which engages this project to separate the fit from the unfit in American society. The dysgenic constituted a unique human geography, giving us significant insight into how concatenations of jurisprudence as well as cultural and social worth were tied to the land. (shrink)

One potentially extremely fruitful use of the tools of corpus analysis in the philosophy of science is to help us understand disputed terrains within the sciences that we study. For philosophers of biology, for instance, few controversies are as heated as those over the concepts we use in taxonomy to classify the living world, with the definition of ‘species’ perhaps most fundamental among them. As many understandings of biodiversity, in turn, involve counting the number of species present in a given (...) area, these taxonomic concepts thus become crucially implicated in our efforts in conservation biology and our response to climate change. In this chapter, we present a corpus of taxonomic journal papers, and illustrate how it might be used to make progress in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. What parts of the biological world do taxonomists most often study? Are these areas of focus related to other methodological commitments, or perhaps to their underlying conceptual disagreement? Are species that are more important to conservation, or economic concerns, or more important to local cultures, more or less likely to be the target of biological study? Corpus-based methods, we argue, are uniquely powerful for approaching questions such as these, and we hope that the case we present can serve as a fruitful example for others considering their implementation. (shrink)

While there are numerous difficulties with the standard spacetime ontological dichotomy, namely, substantivalism versus relationism, this investigation will focus on two specific issues as a means of examining and developing alternative ontological conceptions of space that go beyond the limitations imposed by the standard dichotomy. First, while Newton and Leibniz are often upheld as the progenitors of, respectively, substantivalism and relationism, their own work in the natural philosophy of space often contradicts the central tenets of that dichotomy. Second, while the (...) modern substantivalism versus relationism dichotomy is to some extent functional within the setting of Newtonian mechanics, it has proved extremely problematic when transferred to the setting of modern field theories, in particular, general relativity, but also as regards the more recent quantum gravity hypotheses. Based on our examination of these two issues, it will be argued that the "territory" of spacetime ontology thus requires a new "map", i.e., a new conceptual system, to replace the old "map", the substantivalism versus relationism dichotomy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Normativity of Action Concepts The Difficulties A Diagnosis of the Error Conceptual Cartography References: primary sources Further reading.

This paper has two principal goals. The first is to set out a bit of conceptual cartography, mapping out a number of distinct conceptual issues that are frequently conflated in the vast literature on multiple realization. The second is to review very briefly how work by Carl Gillett and myself attempts to address a few of the many problems of multiple realization. One of these is explaining what Jerry Fodor apparently took to be mysterious, namely, how multiple (...) realization of properties is possible. (shrink)

This is not a very strong contribution to the Monograph Series. Given the present state of the debate in the philosophy of mind, I think most readers will find this essay anachronistic in its metaphilosophy, incomplete and confused in its presentation of the issues, sloppy in its argumentation, and unimposing in its conclusions. And I think most readers will be right. Ostensibly, it is an essay in descriptive metaphysics, an essay in “conceptual geography”. In the author's words, “… this (...) essay constitutes an attempt to map one particular area of the conceptual countryside… that surrounding the concept person.” The vintage of the metaphors aside, this does remain a worthy undertaking, for certainly the full story on our common-sense conception of persons has yet to be told. Curiously, however, Professor Englebretsen's contributions on this particular score are surprisingly slim, and we find him instead discussing and criticizing at length a variety of substantive theories as to what the things we conceive of as persons really are. This is adventurous behaviour for one whose concerns pretend a limit at the inspection, description, and explication of the current state of common-sense, and one wonders how the author supposes that mere conceptual cartography can serve to settle these apparently substantive issues. (shrink)

This dissertation, located at the crossroads of Continental political philosophy, feminist theory, critical theory, intellectual history, and cultural studies, provides a critical cartography of contemporary new materialist thought in its various constellations and assemblages, while using diffractive theorizing to examine two Continental terror(ist) events. It is argued that such a critical cartography is not only a novel but also much needed undertaking, as we, more than almost two decades after the Habermas-Derrida dialogues on terror(ism), are in need of (...) a Zeitgeist-adjusted conceptual framework, and, thus, a revitalization of philosophizing as such, that could lead to an analysis of the complex ontological, epistemological, and eco-ethico-political entangled aspects of global crises, and, specifically, terrorist events, the actual terror they produce, and the bio-/necropolitical repercussions they often engender. -/- Using the new materialist methodologies of critical cartography and diffraction, this project’s first part explores what it means to “theorize from the ground up” in a feminist manner, while furthermore offering a situated critical cartography of new materialist thought. Within the contours of this Deleuzoguattarian mapping exercise, new materialist thought is shown to be grounded in foregoing materialist philosophies, transversal and trans(/)disciplinary, and, moreover, a revitalizing ever-evolving philosophical strand of thought with crisscrossing, transcontinental roots and a strong foundation in (post-)Foucauldian poststructuralist thought. Particular attention is paid to what in this project are called “critical” new materialisms, or those new materialist philosophies that take the necessity of critical power analyses seriously, and could be said to be “eco-ethico-political” in nature. This cartography is furthermore accompanied by a digital critical cartography that can be utilized for pedagogical means. -/- The second and final part of this dissertation, preceded by an excursus that accentuates the importance of Harawayan ecophilosophical thought for critical new materialist philosophies, consists of one chapter that puts the idea of diffractive theorizing into practice; subsequently exploring theorizing on terror(ism), the Habermas-Derrida dialogues with regard to 9/11, and the Paris 2015 and Brussels 2016 attacks as affect-inducing events of “feeling-thinking-through.” This chapter ends with a diffractive rereading of Habermas, Derrida, Benjamin, and also partially Levinas, on the subject of the contemporary democratic state, terrorism, and the legitimacy of lockdowns and emergency state declarations. By doing so, this final chapter anticipates on this dissertation’s epilogue, in which the need for an up-to-date critical new materialist eco-ethico-political model of justice and responsiveness-as-response-ability, is highlighted. (shrink)

I offer a new cartography of ethical resistance. I argue that there is an uncharted interaction between managerial secrecy and organizational silence, which may exponentially increase the incidence of corruption in ways not yet understood. Current methods used to raise levels of moral conduct in business and government practice appear blind to this powerful duo. Extensive literature reviews of secrecy and silence scholarships form the background for an early stage conceptual layout of the co-production of secrecy and silence.

Spaces, too, have a history. And history always takes place in spaces. But what do historians mean when they use the word "spaces"? And how can spaces be historically investigated? Susanne Rau provides a survey of the history of Western concepts of space, opens up interdisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon of space in fields ranging from physics and geography to philosophy and sociology, and explains how historical spatial analysis can be methodologically and conceptually conceived and carried out in practice. The (...) case studies presented in the book come from the fields of urban history, the history of trade, and global history including the history of cartography, but its analysis is equally relevant to other fields of inquiry. This book offers the first comprehensive introduction to the theory and methodology of historical spatial analysis. (shrink)

I offer a new cartography of ethical resistance. I argue that there is an uncharted interaction between managerial secrecy and organizational silence, which may exponentially increase the incidence of corruption in ways not yet understood. Current methods used to raise levels of moral conduct in business and government practice appear blind to this powerful duo. Extensive literature reviews of secrecy and silence scholarships form the background for an early stage conceptual layout of the co-production of secrecy and silence.

Deepfakes, as hyperrealistic digital fabrications, reveal gaps and uncertainties in existing ontological frameworks. Neither simply images nor realities, deepfakes occupy an ambiguous metaphysical position between concepts such as representation/simulation, human/machine, and real/artificial. Their emergent generation via AI and experiential traction as credible synthetic media underscores limitations in prevailing paradigms reliant on purified binaries and anthropocentric assumptions. Rather than anomalies, deepfakes epitomize the imperative for new ontological cartographies and conceptual vocabularies attuned to increasingly unbounded algorithmic creation. The paper surveys debates (...) about digital objects and theories of representation to contextualize this argument. Deepfakes’ ontological novelty stems from their ambiguous origins, autonomous proliferation, and infiltration of perceivable situations with credible fictions. This destabilizes ontological foundations such as creative intentionality and indexical truth. I conclude deepfakes signal the insufficiency of existing ontology for navigating realities transformed by generative technologies. New paradigms are needed that grapple with their radical metaphysical challenges. (shrink)

Exploring the idea of knowledge as embodied, engendered and embedded in place and space, gender and sexuality are re-examined through the methodological and conceptual lenses of cartography, fieldwork, resistance, transgression and the divisions between local/global and public/private space. BodySpace brings together some of the best known geographers writing on gender and sexuality today to explore the role of space and place in the performance of gender and sexuality. The book takes a broad perspective on feminism as a theoretical (...) critique, and aims to reassess notions of sexuality, citizenship, work, violence, "race" and disability in their geographical contexts. (shrink)

Félix Guattari mentioned an ‘ecology of the virtual’. This notion is developed in this article along two dimensions. The first dimension, which is conceptual, relates the mental or subjective ecology of The Three Ecologies to the ‘functors’ of Schizoanalytic Cartographies. The other dimension takes into consideration today’s context in Brazil, especially Amerindian struggles. I focus on how Guattari’s thinking of the virtual, in dialogue with other contemporary authors, opens the way to heterogenetic processes, with their own ecopolitical consequences.

Context: On 12 November 2010, Ernst von Glasersfeld passed away. He was one of the most important, if not the most important, proponents of constructivist philosophy. Problem: In his life Ernst influenced many other scientists and philosophers. By whom was he himself influenced; who shaped his intellectual development? By collecting contributions from those who knew him closely or have an excellent understanding of radical constructvism we aim at presenting a cartography of the past and current state of affairs of (...) radical constructivism. These contributions should also shed light on the question of the legacy that Ernst leaves behind. Method: Some 25 authors accepted our invitation to contribute to this commemorative issue. Some texts are reminiscence essays expressing their friendship with Ernst, others are academic papers that investigate Ernst’s influence in various disciplines. Two contributions Ernst von Glasersfeld authored himself. Results: Ernst von Glasersfeld is described as an intellectual mentor for many of his students. His legacy is alive in many disciplines ranging from education science to linguistics. Implications: Ernst’s impact on mathematics education is described in some detail in these articles. However, his impact on science education has also been extensive. Constructivism is a foundation stone in the thinking behind the curriculum in many countries and this collection of papers should be useful to practitioners and researchers in education. We think that the work on conceptual analysis could be used more fully as a tool for modelling emerging concepts and hope that the articles here will facilitate interest in this aspect of Ernst’s work. (shrink)

Hanjo Berressem establishes the notion of a schizoanalytic ecology as the most consistent conceptual spine of Félix Guattari's work. He covers the whole range of Guattari's solo work and the books co-authored with Gilles Deleuze, primarily a rigorous explication and analysis of 'Schizoanalytic Cartographies'.

This study focuses on nuclear tourism, which flourished a decade ago in the Exclusion Zone, a regimented area around the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (Ukraine) established in 1986, where the largest recorded nuclear explosion in human history occurred. The mass pilgrimage movement transformed the place into an open air museum, a space that preserves the remnants of Soviet culture, revealing human tragedies of displacement and deaths, and the nature of state nuclear power. This study examines the impact of the site (...) on its visitors and the motivations for their persistence and activities in the Zone, and argues that through photography, cartography, exploration, and discovery, the pilgrims attempt to decode the historical and ideological meaning of Chornobyl and its significance for future generations. Ultimately, the aesthetic and political space of the Zone helps them establish a conceptual and mnemonic connection between the Soviet past and Ukraine’s present and future. Their practices, in turn, help maintain the Zone’s spatial and epistemological continuity. Importantly, Chornobyl seems to be polysemic in nature, inviting interpretations and shaping people’s national and intellectual identities. (shrink)

The paper addresses the problem of continuing education of teachers in early childhood education in contemporary times, asking how to elaborate formative pathways that do not focus exclusively on the models/standards of professionalization predetermined by academic production, and later adopted by government policies. It is organized from the investigative movement traced with the teachers who participate in the extension-research project UERJ-EDU-DEDI, coordinated by the author. It critically analyzes the main causes that justify the failure of the training projects established based (...) on the aforementioned models of professionalization and points out conceptual possibilities to think more immanent formative processes, that is, produced from the experiences that unfold itself in the curricular movement, experiences in which teachers try to build more ethical educational relationships with childhood. It concludes that the formative movement needs to be configured as space-time for the expression and collective evaluation of the ethical-educational potentialities engendered in these experiences. The work is conceptually aligned with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of difference, especially the reading he performs of Baruch Spinoza's "Ethics". It is methodologically guided by the monitoring the modes of subjectivation cartography traced by the teachers in the process of curriculum production for early childhood education, according to the theoretical guidance provided by Suely Rolnik and Felix Guattari. (shrink)

Este trabajo reflexiona críticamente sobre la construcción discursiva de la Patagonia como una distancia intersubjetiva, relativa, polisémica e histórica. En el análisis se distinguen las ideas de la región como territorio, unidad geocultural, geografía imaginaria, domicilio existencial y lugar de enunciación, y se señalan algunas de sus superposiciones y contradicciones conceptuales más frecuentes. Se problematizan las perspectivas esencialistas y folklorizantes de la región y su literatura, así como la inscripción de la Patagonia en las cartografías culturales nacionales y nacionalistas. This (...) work proposes a critical reflection about the discursive construction of the Patagonia as an inter-subjective, relative, polysemic and historical distance. In the present analysis, we distinguish between different ideas of the region, such as territory, geocultural unit, imaginary geography, existential residence and locus of enunciation, and we indicate some of its overlapping and more frequent conceptual contradictions. We criticize the essentialist and folklorist perspectives of the region and its literature, as well as the inscription of the Patagonia in the national and nationalistic cultural cartographies. (shrink)

Cet article cherche à réévaluer le rapport de Bruno Latour à la philosophie à travers le motif de la cartographie dans son oeuvre. Si les cartes y constituent d’abord des exemples particulièrement frappants de la production scientifique de vérité, ses derniers écrits suggèrent un rôle beaucoup plus central pour la cartographie. La pensée latourienne, dans le cadre du réchauffement climatique, appelle en effet une philosophie cartographique, basée sur la notion de territoire, et développant à la fois une méthode « ambulatoire (...) » et un projet conceptuel qui consiste à résister à ce que Whitehead appelait la « bifurcation de la nature ».This article seeks to reassess Latour’s relation to philosophy through an examination of the many references to cartography in his work. Whereas in his early writings maps were treated as striking examples of the way science produces truth, his latest writings ascribe a more central function to cartography. During this time of global warming, Latour’s thinking calls for a cartographic philosophy rooted in the notion of territory, which develops both an “ambulatory” method and a conceptual project of resistance to what Whitehead called the “bifurcation of nature”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chanter’s Democratizing PhilosophyMoira FradingerDeinvesting Fetishism, Embracing Radical DemocracyA radical democrat: This is how I have come to see Tina Chanter in our intellectual exchanges. She ceaselessly alerts us to the conditions of production of our privileges; the exclusions on which our social, political, sexual, racial identities are constructed; the blood of those others who “have crafted our eyes,” to recall Donna Haraway’s famous manifesto (Haraway 1988, 585);1 the suffering (...) that allows for our happiness; the “danger” that defines our “purity,” to pay homage to Mary Douglas’s early anthropological exploration of boundary-formations (Douglas 1966). Chanter’s questioning of all the exclusions that give meaning to our identities and social orders is not oriented to “include” that which is excluded, as if she aimed at an “adding approach.” Rather, Chanter aims at thinking about how inclusions can change what Jacques Rancière refers to as the “cartography of the perceptible, the thinkable and the feasible” (Rancière 2009, 72). At stake is how to make inclusion speak of difference instead of sameness.Chanter has questioned major feminist thinkers (Irigaray, Kristeva) as to their failure to avoid reinstating exclusions, that is, to avoid the fetishistic logic, thoroughly studied by Chanter, whereby excluded elements are assigned a fixed meaning. Recently she has engaged Rancière’s thought on the radical premise of equality as a starting point for politics and critical thought. But long before this new development, and within the ranks of her discipline, Chanter was a practicing democrat of sorts in the Rancièrian sense, bringing to bear those concepts “with no part” (to use Rancière’s phrase) in philosophy, concepts coming from other disciplines, in order to denaturalize reified “partitions of the sensible” (again Rancière 2010, 36) as they appear in the discipline of philosophy.2 In other words, she was engaged in making philosophy hear the [End Page 144] “difference” of other regimes of thought without reducing them to philosophical categories, with the premise that they are neither “truer” nor “lesser” than philosophical thought (in contrast to certain philosophical traditions of understanding “art,” as Chanter has argued).3 Thus, Chanter’s engagement with such “impurities” (from the point of view of philosophy) as literature, performance, reception studies, or psychoanalysis redraws the boundaries of her home discipline.Rachel Jones calls this practice “Chanter’s ethics of restlessness,” an alertness to the ways in which we, as feminist critics, may reproduce the exclusions that we denounce as constitutive of the systems of representation we inhabit. Double alertness at that, or perhaps an ethical dimension proper to the democratic questioning of boundaries: Chanter alerts us also to the fact that our questioning is never enough. We need a scene of interlocution that can keep our questioning open when we are tempted to close it. We unravel processes of exclusion but we always remain “blind” to the exclusions effected by our own critiques. It is perhaps her engaging of psychoanalysis—for all her critique of its conceptualization of sexual difference—which shows here: a commitment, if I may say so, to the subject of the unconscious, to being subjected to representational systems modeling our perceptions beyond our consciousness. This is to redeem, for philosophical thinking, the strange failure of consciousness that we call “the unconscious,” to paraphrase Lacan’s musings on this concept in Seminar XI (Lacan 1998, 17–64). In other words, Chanter’s conscious attention to exclusions is also an attention to the experience of that which our language makes or leaves silent. It is an experience of an excess or a void—always an experience of precariousness with respect to our symbols, a fragility of our means of expression. A structural failure; a failure of “language as such” that is always already a failure of our language.The inclusion of the subject—individual or collective—is crucial here, and this is where I see the crux of Chanter’s “restlessness”: For it is not a question of philosophizing about “the” essential nature of language as always failing but rather of pointing to the radical singularity through which the failure becomes manifest in any given system of... (shrink)

Alice Le Goff ,Christian Nadeau | : Ce texte constitue une introduction au dossier. Il introduit les différentes contributions en mettant en relief leurs principales orientations. Ce faisant, il propose donc une cartographie conceptuelle, forcément partielle, des enjeux associés à la notion de démocratie épistémique et des enjeux du croisement de cette notion avec celle de démocratie de contestation. En un premier temps, nous revenons sur l’apport du procéduralisme épistémique et sur les questions qu’il soulève. Ensuite, nous revenons sur le (...) néo-pragmatisme et la façon dont il permet d’envisager une justification épistémique de la démocratie. Puis nous mettons l’accent sur les enjeux d’un dialogue entre modèle républicain de la démocratie contestataire et modèle épistémique. Enfin, le texte propose un résumé du parcours proposé dans le cadre de ce dossier. | : This introduction brings out the main lines of the articles collected in the present issue. Our aim is to provide the reader with a conceptual overview of the main stakes of epistemic democracy and of its intersections with the model of contestatory democracy. First, we focus on epistemic proceduralism, its contributions and the questions it raises. Second, we emphasize the way neo-pragmatism deals with the epistemic justification of democracy. Then, we insist on the interest of a dialogue between epistemic democracy and the neo-republican model of contestatory democracy. Finally, the text sums up the path followed in that issue. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.1 (2003) 63-66 [Access article in PDF] The Pragmatics of Psychiatry and the Psychiatry of Cross-Cultural Suffering Jennifer Radden I AM IN SUBSTANTIAL AGREEMENT with many of the conclusions David Brendel draws in his thoughtful discussion. Misleading language aside, I particularly applaud his use of my plea for ontological descriptivism to support clinical practice, which respects, as he puts it, the subjectively "melancholic" person living (...) behind the objectively "depressed" clinical presentation.Brendel offers two main critiques of my discussion about the relationship between today's depression and melancholia of past eras. First, he asserts that I neglect the relevance of causal reasoning in my preference for a descriptivist over a causal ontology. Second, arguing that pragmatic considerations ought to be, as he says, front and center when philosophers and psychiatrists "grapple with the complexities of psychiatric explanation," (Brendel 2003, 54) he questions what he sees as my too ready dismissal of pragmatism in this discussion. Allegiance to pragmatism seems to me to sit strangely with support for a causal ontology, as I shall try to demonstrate. But first let me comment on these two sides of Brendel's commentary.The case of Van Gogh's alleged melancholia is particularly well chosen because there has been continuing debate about Van Gogh's condition, including scholarly work attributing it to an inherited metabolic disorder (Arnold 1992). Brendel's suggestion that a causal ontology might allow us to use historical evidence to throw light on the relation between depression and melancholia is an interesting and fruitful one that I had overlooked. Brendel also holds hope for drug cartography as a means of determining the causes of mental disorders. I admit to the initial plausibility of the approach to classification employed by drug cartography, of course. Diagnostic maps must be evaluated according to their effectiveness for the purposes they serve, and cannot—or should not—be seen as mere descriptions of natural phenomena. And maps based on psychopharmacological effects will serve one of the most important purposes we can have in relation to mental disorders: their successful treatment. Nonetheless, as I indicated in my essay, there are conceptual limitations to drug cartography. That several different syndromes respond to the same drug is suggestive, but it does not tell us anything definitive about structural similarities or differences between those different disorders. Nor, from the fact that a condition is alleviated by drugs, does it follow that a particular brain state was the initiating cause of that condition.My dismissal of a pragmatic approach in the foregoing discussion may have been overly hasty. [End Page 63] But in trying to make good this omission, I find myself struck by the complexity of the task. There appear to be at least five different places where a pragmatic response might be called for: (1) in deciding what to say about the relationship between depression and melancholia; (2) in determining the structure of any given psychiatric classification; (3) in choosing between what I have called descriptivist and causal ontologies; (4) in electing a course or method of treatment in the clinical context; and (5) in evaluating psychiatric explanations.With regard to (1), I have sketched in a note one pragmatic consideration in favor of equating melancholia and depression: by so doing, we might reinvest depressive states with some of the glamorous associations from the past and so diminish the stigma and provide some compensation and consolation for the suffering attaching to depression. Pragmatic reasoning may be perfectly appropriate here. I beg to point out that pragmatic considerations let me neglect it.With regard to (2), I recognize that psychiatric classifications are not so much identifications of natural kinds as responses to our various purposes; indeed, this point is offered as one drawback of adopting a causal analysis, because there is little reason to expect our purposes, which are a product of culture, to correspond to natural arrangements, which are not.With regard to (3), if there were overriding pragmatic considerations that favored accepting one or the other of these ontologies, then perhaps this would be... (shrink)

Since time immemorial, organization and visualization has emerged as the pre-eminent natural combination through which abstract concepts in a domain can be understood, imbibed and communicated. In the present era of big data and information explosion, domains are becoming increasingly intricate and facetized, often leaving traditional approaches of know­ledge organization functionally inefficient in dynamically depicting intellectual landscapes. The paper attempts to present, ab initio, a step-by-step conceptual domain development methodology using know­ledge graphs, rooted in the rudiments of interdisciplinary know­ledge (...) organization and know­ledge cartography. It briefly highlights the implementation of the proposed methodology on business domain data, and considers its research ramifications, originality and limitations from multiple perspectives. The paper concludes by summarizing observations on the entire work and particularizing future lines of research. (shrink)

It is in the obscure terrain between the life-world of Greek science and technology and the language of its metaphysics that one sees the attempts of early navigators and map-makers to conceptualize what lies beyond the oikoumene. This interest later effects astronomy in terms of what is “beyond the heavens [ezo tes ouranos]” and then in metaphysics as a “Beyond Being [epekeina tes ousias],” an ideal Beyond proposed by Plato in Republic and one that is to eventually become a mainstay (...) of NeoPlatonism. Thus, the “fundamental act” that Romm describes in the above quote was not only taken up with geographical interest, but is one that can be seen as a preparatory gesture in a culture readying itself for the advent of metaphysics, a gesture that continued to make itself felt up until the last days of the Ancient Academy in the fifth century AD. The threads of the intellectual history of a Beyond Being find technological roots in the increasingly sophisticated acts of representation that one finds in early cartography, astronomy, and cosmology, one of which will be to mark boundaries around the heavens themselves and to call that Being. (shrink)

This research aims to examine the concept of haecceity conceived by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari - which has started from the notion given to the concept in A Thousand Plateaus - Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2 (Mille Plateau: capitalisme et schizophrénie 2, 1980). To illustrate this concept the philosophers turned to literature, and more specifically the Proustian literature. They affirm that the haecceity concept has found in the episode with the small group (la petite bande) of girls in the seaside (...) town of Balbec - the novel by Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu, 1913-1927) ¬- its best translation: "What's a girl, what is a group of girls? Proust at least show us and for all that their individuation, collective or singular, proceeds not by subjectivity but by haecceity, pure haecceity" (A Thousand Plateaus - Capitalism and Schizophrenia 2. Translation and foreword by Brian Massumi, Minnesota Press, 1987: 271). According to the Deleuzian thought, the fundamental question of haecceity concept is concentrated in its own definition: an individuation devoid of subjectivity, foreshadowing an individual who doesn't belong to individuation anymore, but it does to singularization. This non-subjectivated affirmation is part of an innovative philosophical proposal which has its own conceptual vocabulary: haecceity will exist in a new space (not extensive), where there's no distinction between the beginning or the end; the middle is where haecceity (formed by lines and not by points) will present itself as a rhizome. This mode of impersonal individuation reveals itself as a cartography that is made by forces - longitude - and intensities - latitude. Taking the group of girls as such a composition of forces moving, we will extract Albertine Simonet from it. She has the synonym of a group, and being adopted as an intercessor, she will leave the "group by group". The trajectory of this poetic and psychosocial entity (where the concept of haecceity originates from), will support us in the examination of the mode of existence of haecceity. (shrink)

In the essay ‘Sexual Differing’ from their book New Materialism: Interviews and Cartographies, Rick Dolphijn and Iris van der Tuin develop their new materialist take on sexual difference through their rereading of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. I propose to read this essay as deploying the ‘analytical tool’ of ‘jumping generations’ articulated in the homonymous paper by van der Tuin as signature of the ‘new materialist’ ‘third wave’ of feminist theory. By pointing to the immediate textual context of the (...) passages from The Second Sex quoted in ‘Sexual Differing’, to the philosophical underpinning of Beauvoir's work, and to the historical context of its reception, I argue that while the tool of ‘jumping generations’, as put to use in ‘Sexual Differing’, might produce unexpected outcomes, it also risks confining to dusty feminist archives segments of feminist philosophy that might still be relevant for thinking gendered oppression and liberation today: Beauvoir's understanding of the social ontogenesis of freedom, the collective and egalitarian nature of political transformation and the genealogy of materialist feminist thought theoretically and historically linked to Beauvoir and The Second Sex. The issue is not merely one of historical and theoretical accuracy, but of enabling a capacious materialist analysis of gendered oppression and liberation. I conclude by pointing at how Dolphijn and van der Tuin's approach expressly discards understandings of history and scholarship that it nevertheless necessarily performs, and propose that this can be taken as a starting point to rethink sexual differing in terms of a political and ethical commitment beyond its originary metaphysical new materialist articulation. This is where, I propose, the above-mentioned conceptual resources linked to The Second Sex and muted by ‘Sexual Differing’ could prove fruitful, and timely. (shrink)

The concept of knowledge is the topic of this monograph, the purpose of which is to study how it has been represented in educational research literature since 1939. Six texts have been selected, which use the Malmö Longitudinal Study data. These texts span the time period of 1939-1995 and have different foci, such as intelligence, social adjustment, benefits of education, recurrent education and quality of life. Discourse analysis has been used to study the texts. The assumption, guiding the analysis, is (...) that representations of knowledge are found in the texts. In this study the representations that are sought are ideas with reference to knowledge. It was found that different concepts of knowledge have been constucted by diverse activities of choosing, judging and interpreting. The purposes and sources, for whcih these activities have been undertaken, are quite dissimilar, so much so, as to constitute differing conceptualizations of knowledge, underlying these six educational research texts.
The theoretical framework is based on the work of two philosophers, Ernst Cassirer and Michael Lyncg. Cassirer's work from the 1930s and 1940s, in which precision in scientific concepts is advanced, is contrasted to Lynch's work from 1995, in which he proposes the use of fluid concepts. One such fluid concept has been used in the title of this monograph. Over the years, conceptualizations of knowledge have changed in this educational discourse. These results are presented, using social cartography to map the texts as intertextual fields. Visualizing complex pheonomena in this manner provides the reader with an interpretation of the discourse, in which the change is seen. Thus, mapping opens up the discourse for us to see, showing us the concepts of knowledge embedded in the texts, and allows us to see how the ways of seeing have changed over time in this discourse. The monograph ends with a discussion on the construction of knowledge, its consequences for the nature of knowledge and Cassirer's "unity of essence". (shrink)

Sexual difference theory can best be explained with reference to French post‐structuralism, more specifically its critique of the humanist vision of subjectivity. The “post” in poststructuralism does not denote only a chronological break from the structuralists' generation of the 1940s and 1950s, but also an epistemological and theoretical revision of the emancipatory programme of structuralism itself, especially of Marxist feminist political theory. The focus of poststructuralism is the complex and manifold structure of power and the diverse, fragmented, but highly effective (...) ways in which power, knowledge, and the constitution of subjectivity combine. Poststructuralism questions the usefulness of the notion of “ideology,” especially in the sense developed by Louis Althusser, as the imaginary relation of the Subject to his/her real conditions of existence. In a feminist version, ideology refers to the patriarchal system of representation of gender and, more specifically, to the myths and images that construct femininity. Subjectivity is conceptualized therefore as a process (assujettissement) which encompasses simultaneously the material (“reality”) and the symbolic (“language”) instances which structure it. Psychoanalytic notions of identity, language, and sexuality – especially in the work of Jacques Lacan – play a central role in the redefinition of the subject as a process, rather than in the more traditional sense of a rational agent. The notion of difference emerges as a central concept in the poststructuralists' critique of both classical humanism and of the humanist legacy of Marxist‐inspired structuralist social theory. It includes both differences within each subject (between conscious and unconscious processes), as well as differences between the Subject and his/her Others. (shrink)

In a "parenthesis of fascinated horror" before "the complete discovery and subjection of the body to science", Renaissance anatomists and poets shared peculiar emotions of dread and desire towards the bodies they dissected and described. Jonathan Sawday's ambitious project is to evoke the common taboos, resistances, and fears which the human body provoked in its various early modern investigators, while telling "stories of terrible cruelty, which are tinged by a form of dark eroticism". He is justifiably proud of the historical (...) range of his study, across medicine, cartography, literature, the law, myth, art, theology, social history, and philosophy. But he seeks more than a synthesis of these disparate domains, hoping also both to sketch a new grand narrative about conceptual, practical, and phenomenological changes regarding the body, and further "if not to dispel, then at least to explain" our own multiple, ambiguous feelings about our innards. Thus he marvellously maintains simultaneous attention to culture and psychology, combining high theory with historical precision in rare and risky fashion. (shrink)

Schizoanalytic Cartographies represents Félix Guattari's most important later work and the most systematic and detailed account of his theoretical position and his therapeutic ideas. Guattari sets out to provide a complete account of the conditions of 'enunciation' - autonomous speech and self-expression - for subjects in the contemporary world. Over the course of eight closely argued chapters, he presents a breathtakingly new reformulation of the structures of individual and collective subjectivity. Based on research into information theory and new technologies, Guattari (...) articulates a vision of a humanity finally reconciled with its relationship to machines. Schizoanalytic Cartographies is a visionary yet highly concrete work, providing a powerful vantage point on the upheavals of our present epoch, powerfully imagining a future 'post-media' era of technological development. This long overdue translation of this substantial work offers English-speaking readers the opportunity finally to fully assess Guattari's contribution to European thought. (shrink)

Cartographies contributes to the growing debates on the value of poststructuralist theory. Grounded in a theoretical framework, it combines poststructural semiotics and a philosophy of the body. While interest in poststructuralism is well established, the currently felt need to anchor that interest in a political, material reality is where these readings gain their critical edge. They address the material - social, political and economic - effects of representation, marking anew direction in the debate.

En Algérie, la nouvelle loi sur les hydrocarbures autorise l’exploitation des hydrocarbures non conventionnels, incluant le gaz de schiste, dont les réserves ont récemment été réévaluées à la hausse. Ces rebondissements ont suscité autant l’intérêt que l’inquiétude de l’opinion publique. Très sommairement, le débat est perçu comme opposant les « pour » l’exploitation qui mettent en avant des gains économiques aux « contre », écologistes s’opposant à la fracturation hydraulique. Cette dualité ne rend pas justice à la complexité de la (...) controverse. Le but de ce travail est donc de percevoir clairement les enjeux liés à la controverse en mettant de l’avant la complexité et la variété des argumentaires présentés à travers une cartographie de la controverse. Nous souhaitons, par la même occasion, démontrer qu’une bonne compréhension des dynamiques et des processus de conflits exprimés par la controverse est nécessaire et décisive pour le processus d’acceptabilité sociale. (shrink)

Should philosophy help address the problems of non-philosophers or should it be something isolated both from other disciplines and from the lay public? This question became more than academic for philosophers working in UK universities with the introduction of societal impact assessment in the national research evaluation exercise, the REF. Every university department put together a submission describing its broader impact in case narratives, and these were graded. Philosophers were required to participate. The resulting narratives are publicly available and provide (...) a unique resource permitting a more comprehensive, empirically based consideration of philosophy’s influence outside the academy than has hitherto been possible. This paper takes advantage of this data to develop a cartography of the ways in which philosophers engage society in their work. We identify five approaches: dissemination, engagement, provocations, living philosophy, and philosophy of X. We compare these along the six dimensions proposed by Frodeman and Briggle to characterize the ideal field philosopher. We conclude that there are multiple ways of being a field philosopher, which vary in their emphasis. This pluralism bodes well for the expansion of philosophy’s societal influence, since there are routes available to suit different preferences. (shrink)