continent. 1.3 (2011): 149-155. The world is teeming. Anything can happen. John Cage, “Silence” 1 Autonomy means that although something is part of something else, or related to it in some way, it has its own “law” or “tendency” (Greek, nomos ). In their book on life sciences, Medawar and Medawar state, “Organs and tissues…are composed of cells which…have a high measure of autonomy.”2 Autonomy also has ethical and political valences. De Grazia writes, “In Kant's enormously influential moral philosophy, autonomy (...) , or freedom from the causal determinism of nature, became prominent in justifying the human use of animals.”3 One of the oldest uses of autonomy in English is a description of the French civil war from the late sixteenth century: “Others of the…rebellion entred in counsell, whether they ought to admit the King vpon reasonable conditions, specially hauing their autonomy.”4 Life, and in particular human life, and in particular human politics, is well served by the usages of autonomy . What about the rest of reality, however? Should it be thought of, if it's even considered real and mind-independent, as pure stuff for the manipulation or decorative tastes of truly autonomous beings? We tend to think of things such as paperweights and iPhones as mere tools of human design and human use. To use them is to cause them to exist as fully and properly as they can. But according to Martin Heidegger, when a tool such as a paperweight is used, it disappears, or withdraws ( Entzug ). We are preoccupied with copying the page that the paperweight is holding down. We are concerned with an essay deadline, and the paperweight simply disappears into this general project. If the paperweight slips, or if the iPhone freezes, we might notice it. All of a sudden it becomes vorhanden (present-at-hand) rather than zuhanden (ready-to-hand).5 Yet Heidegger is unable to draw a meaningful distinction between what happens to a paperweight when it slips from the book I'm copying from and what happens to the paperweight when it presses on the still resilient pages of the thick paperback itself. Further still and related to this point, even when I am using the paperweight as part of some general task, I am not using the entirety of the paperweight as such. My project itself selects a thin slice of paperweight-being for the purposes of holding down a book. Even when it is zuhanden the paperweight is withdrawn. Graham Harman is the architect of this way of thinking.6 Harman discovered a gigantic coral reef of withdrawn entities beneath the Heideggerian submarine of Da-sein, which itself is operating at an ontological depth way below the choppy surface of philosophy, beset by the winds of epistemology, and infested with the sharks of materialism, idealism, empiricism and most of the other isms that have defined what is and what isn't for the last several hundred years. At a moment when the term ontology was left alone like a piece of well chewed old chewing gum that no one wants to have anything to do with, object-oriented ontology (OOO) has put it back on the table. The coral reef isn't going anywhere and once you have discovered it, you can't un-discover it. And it seems to be teeming with strange facts. The first fact is that the entities in the reef—we call them “objects” somewhat provocatively—constitute all there is: from doughnuts to dogfish to the Dog Star to Dobermans to Snoop Dogg. People, plastic clothes pegs, piranhas and particles are all objects. And they are all pretty much the same, at this depth. There is not much of a distinction between life and non-life (as there isn't in contemporary life science). And there is not much of a distinction between intelligence and non-intelligence (as there is in contemporary artificial intelligence theory). A lot of these distinctions are made by humans, for humans (anthropocentrism). And the concept autonomy has come into play in policing such distinctions. In this essay I shall to try to liberate autonomy for the sake of nonhumans. I shall do so by parsing carefully the title, which is taken from Hakim Bey's work The Temporary Autonomous Zone .8 First we shall explore the term autonomous . Then we shall explore what the full meaning of zone is. Finally, we shall investigate what temporary means. Each of these terms is of great value. An object withdraws from access. This means that its very own parts can't access it. Since an object's parts can't fully express the object, the object is not reducible to its parts. OOO is anti-reductionist. But OOO is also anti-holist. An object can't be reduced to its “whole” either, “reduced upwards” as it were. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. So we have a strange irreductionist situation in which an object is reducible neither to its parts nor to its whole. A coral reef is made of coral, fish, seaweed, plankton and so on. But one of these things on its own doesn't embody part of a reef. Yet the reef just is an assemblage of these particular parts. You can't find a coral reef in a parking lot. In this way, the vibrant realness of a reef is kept safe both from its parts and from its whole. Moreover, the reef is safe from being mistaken for a parking lot. Objects can't be reduced to tiny Lego bricks such as atoms that can be reused in other things. Nor can be reduced upwards into instantiations of a global process. A coral reef is an expression of the biosphere or of evolution, yes; but so is this sentence, and we ought to be able to distinguish between coral reefs and sentences in English. The preceding facts go under the heading of undermining . Any attempt to undermine an object—in thought, or with a gun, or with heat, or with the ravages of time or global warming—will not get at the withdrawn essence of the object. By essence is meant something very different from essentialism . This is because essentialism depends upon some aspect of an object that OOO holds to be a mere appearance of that object, an appearance-for some object. This reduction to appearance holds even if that object for which the appearance occurs is the object itself! Even a coral reef can't grasp its essential coral reefness. In essentialism, a superficial appearance is taken for the essence of a thing, or of things in general. In thinking essentialism we may be able to discern another way of avoiding OOO. This is what Harman has christened overmining .? The overminer decides that some things are more real than others: say for example human perception. Then the overminer decides that other things are only granted realness status by somehow coming into the purview of the more real entity. When I measure a photon, when I see a coral reef, it becomes what it is. But when I measure a photon, I never measure the actual photon. Indeed, since at the quantum scale to measure means “to hit with a photon or an electron beam” (or whatever), measurement, perception ( aisthesis ), and doing become the same. What I “see” are deflections, tracks in a diffusion cloud chamber or interference patterns. Far from underwriting a world of pure illusion where the mind is king, quantum theory is one of the very first truly rigorous realisms, thinking its objects as irreducibly resistant to full comprehension, by anything.9 So far we have made objects safe from being swallowed up by larger objects and broken down into smaller objects—undermining. And so far we have made objects safe from being mere projections or reflections of some supervenient entity—overmining. That's quite a degree of autonomy. Everything in the coral reef, from the fish to a single coral lifeform to a tiny plankton, is autonomous. But so is the coral reef itself. So are the heads of the coral, a community of tiny polyps. So is each individual head. Each object is like one of Leibniz's monads, in that each one contains a potentially infinite regress of other objects; and around each object, there is a potentially infinite progress of objects, as numerous multiverse theories are now also arguing. But the infinity, the uncountability, is more radical than Leibniz, since there is nothing stopping a group of objects from being an object, just as a coral reef is something like a society of corals. Each object is “a little world made cunningly” (John Donne).10 We are indeed approaching something like the political valance of autonomy . The existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. Objects contain other objects, and are contained “in” other objects. Let us, however, explore further the ramifications of the autonomy of objects. We will see that this mereological approach (based on the study of parts) only gets at part of the astonishing autonomy of things. Yet there are some more things to be said about mereology before we move on. Consider the fact that since objects can't be undermined or overmined, it means that there is strictly no bottom object . There is no object to which all other objects can be reduced, so that we can say everything we want to say about them, hypothetically at least, based on the behavior of the bottom object. The idea that we could is roughly E.O Wilson's theory of consilience .11 Likewise, there is no object from which all things can be produced, no top object . Objects are not emanations from some primordial One or from a prime mover. There might be a god, or gods. Suppose there were. In an OOO universe even a god would not know the essential ins and outs of a piece of coral. Unlike even some forms of atheism, the existence of god (or nonexistence) doesn't matter very much for OOO. If you really want to be an atheist, you might consider giving OOO a spin. If there is no top object and no bottom object, neither is there a middle object . That is, there is no such thing as a space, or time, “in” which objects float. There is no environment distinct from objects. There is no Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality). There is no world, if by world we mean a kind of “rope” that connects things together.12 All such connections must be emergent properties of objects themselves. And this of course is well in line with post-Einsteinian physics, in which spacetime just is the product of objects, and which may even be an emergent property of a certain scale of object larger than 10?¹?cm).13 Objects don't sit in a box of space or time. It's the other way around: space and time emanate from objects. How does this happen? OOO tries to produce an explanation from objects themselves. Indeed, the ideal situation would be to rely on just one single object. Otherwise we are stuck with a reality in which objects require other entities to function, which would result in some kind of undermining or overmining. We shall see that we have all the fuel we need “inside” one object to have time and space, and even causality. We shall discover that rather than being some kind of machinery or operating system that underlies objects, causality itself is a phenomenon that floats ontologically “in front of” them. In so doing, we will move from the notion of autonomy and begin approaching a full exploration of the notion of zone , which was promised at the outset of this essay. Since an object is withdrawn, even “from itself,” it is a self-contradictory being. It is itself and not-itself, or in a slightly more expanded version, there is a rift between essence and appearance within an object (as well as “between” them). This rift can't be the same as the clichéd split between substance and accidents , which is the default ontology. On this view, things are like somewhat boring cupcakes with somewhat less boring sugar sprinkles on them of different colors and shapes. But on the OOO view, what is called substance is just another limited slice of an object, a way of apprehending something that is ontologically fathoms deeper. What is called substance and what is called accidence are just on the side of what this essay calls appearance. The rift (Greek, chorismos ) between essence and appearance means that an object presents us with something like what in logic is known as the Liar: some version of the sentence “This sentence is false.” The sentence is true, which means that it is a lie, which means that it is false. Or the sentence is false, which means that it is telling the truth, which means that it is true. Now logic since Aristotle has tried desperately to quarantine such beasts in small backwaters and side streets so that they don't act too provocatively.14 But if OOO holds, then at least one very significant thing in the universe is both itself and not-itself: the object. An object is p ? ¬p. To cope with this fact, we shall need some kind of paraconsistent or even fully dialetheic logic, one that is not allergic to dialetheias (double-truthed things). Yet if we accept that objects are dialetheic, p ? ¬p, we can derive all kinds of things easily from objects. Consider the fact of motion. If objects only occupy one location “in” space at any “one” time, then Zeno's paradoxes will apply to trying to think how an object moves. Yet motion seems like a basic, simple fact of our world. Either everything is just an illusion and nothing really moves at all (Parmenides). Or objects are here and not-here “at the same time.”15 This latter possibility provides the basic setup for all the motion we could wish for. Objects are not “in” time and space. Rather, they “time” (a verb) and “space.” They produce time and space. It would be better to think these verbs as intransitive rather than transitive, in the manner of dance or revolt . They emanate from objects, yet they are not the object. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (Yeats).16 The point being, that for there to be a question, there must be a distinction—or there must not be (p ? ¬p).17 It becomes impossible to tell: “What constitutes pretense is that, in the end, you don't know whether it's pretense or not.”18 In this notion of the emergence of time and space from an object we can begin to understand the term zone . Zone can mean belt , something that winds around something else. We talk of temperate zones and war zones. A zone is a place where a certain action is taking place: the zone winds around, it radiates heat, bullets fly, armies are defeated. To speak of an autonomous zone is to speak of a place that a certain political act has carved out of some other entity. Cynically, Tibet is called TAR, the Tibetan Autonomous Region, for this very reason. In this phrase, Region tries to emulate zone : it sounds as if the place has its own rules, but of course, it is very much under the control of China. What action is taking place? “[N]ot something that just is what it is, here and now, without mystery, but something like a quest…a tone on its way calling forth echoes and responses…water seeking its liquidity in the sunlight rippling across the cypresses in the back of the garden.”19 If as suggested earlier there is no functional difference between substance and accidence; if there is no difference between perceiving and doing; if there is no real difference between sentience and non-sentience—then causality itself is a strange, ultimately nonlocal aesthetic phenomenon. A phenomenon, moreover, that emanates from objects themselves, wavering in front of them like the astonishingly beautiful real illusion conjured in this quotation of Alphonso Lingis. Lingis's sentence does what it says, casting a compelling, mysterious spell, the spell of causality, like a demonic force field. A real illusion: if we knew it was an illusion, if it were just an illusion, it would cease to waver. It would not be an illusion at all. We would be in the real of noncontradiction. Since it is like an illusion, we can never be sure: “What constitutes pretense…” A zone is what Lingis calls a level . A zone is not entirely a matter of “free will”: this concept has already beaten down most objects into abject submission. Objects are far more threateningly autonomous, and sensually autonomous, than the Kantian version of autonomy cited in the first paragraph of this essay. A zone is not studiously decided upon by an earnest committee before it goes into action. One of its predominant features is that it is already happening . We find ourselves in it, all of a sudden, in the late afternoon as the shadows lengthen around a city square, giving rise to an uncanny sensation of having been here before. Objects emit zones. Wherever I find myself a zone is already happening, an autonomous zone. It is the nonautonomous zones that are impositions on what is already the case. Or rather, these zones are autonomous zones that exclude and police. They are brittle. Every object is autonomous, but some objects try to maintain themselves through rigidity and brittleness, like (and such as) a police state. Paradoxically, the more rigidly one tries to exclude contradiction, the more virulent become the dialetheias that are possible. I can get around “This sentence is false” by imagining that there are metalanguages that explain what counts as a sentence. Then I can decide that this isn't a real sentence. This is basically Alfred Tarski's strategy, since he invented the notion of metalanguage specifically to cope with dialetheias.20 For example we might claim that sentences such as “This sentence is false” are neither true nor false. But then you can imagine a strengthened version of the Liar such as: “This sentence is not true”; or “This sentence is neither true nor false.” And we can go on adding to the strengthened Liar if the counter-attack tries to build immunity by specifying some fourth thing that a sentence can be besides true, false, and neither true nor false: “This sentence is false, or neither true nor false, or the fourth thing.” And so on.21 It seems as if language becomes more brittle the more it tries to police the Liars of this world. Why? I believe that this increasing brittleness is a symptom of a deep fact about reality. What is this deep fact? Simply that there are objects, that these objects are withdrawn, and that they are walking contradictions. This means indeed that (as Lacan put it) “there is no metalanguage,” since a metalanguage would function as a “middle object” that gave coherency and evenness to the others.22 Since there is no metalanguage, there is no rising above the disturbing illusory play of causality. This may even have political implications: no global critique is therefore possible, and attempts to smooth out or totalize are doomed to fail. To think the zone is to think the notion of temporary , which we shall now begin to discuss in greater detail. The zone is not in time: rather it “times.” But because a zone is an emanation of an object, it is based on a wavering fragility, since objects are p ? ¬p. When an object is born, that means that it has broken free of some other object. An object can be born because it and other objects are fragile. If not, no movement would be possible. Objects contain the seeds of their own destruction, a dialetheic sentence that says something like “This sentence cannot be proved.” Kurt Gödel argues that every true system of propositions contains at least one sentence that the system cannot prove. In order to be true, the system must have a minimum incoherence. To be real, it has to be fragile. Imagine a record player. Now imagine a record called I Cannot Be Played on This Record Player . When you play it on this record player, it produces sympathetic vibrations that cause the record player to shudder apart. No matter how many defense mechanisms you build in, there will always be the possibility of at least one record that destroys the record player.23 That is what being physical is. An object is inherently fragile because it is both itself and not-itself. When the rift between appearance and essence collapses, that is called destruction, ending, death. When an object breaks, several new objects are born. An opera singer sings a loud note in tune with the resonant frequency of a wine glass. (See the movie included below.) The singing is a zone, an autonomous level of intensity, opening a rift between appearance and essence. The glass ripples—for a moment it is nakedly a glass and a not-glass—almost as if it were having an orgasm, a little death. It is caught in the rift of the singing. Then its structure can't handle the coherence of the sound waves, and it breaks. It is incoherence and inconsistency that is the mark of existence, not consistency and noncontradiction. When things break or die, they become coherent. Essence disappears into appearance. I become the memories of friends. A glass becomes a dancing wave. Instantly, there are glass fragments, new temporary autonomous zones. The fragments have broken free from the glass. They are no longer its parts, but emanate their own time and space, becoming perhaps accidental weapons as they bury themselves in my flesh. Thus Hakim Bey's instructions on creating temporary autonomous zones oscillate disturbingly between performance art and politics, circus clowning and revolution. To play with the aesthetic is to play with causality, to rip from the sensual ether emanating from things new regions, new zones. Anarchist politics is the creation of fresh objects in a reality without a top or a bottom object, or for that matter a middle object: Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard. … There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin—your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.24 Bey imagines that this is because chaos is a primordial “undifferentiated oneness-of-being.” A Parmenides or a Spinoza or a Laruelle would read this a certain way. Individual objects, or decisions to talk about this rather than that, are just maggot-like things crawling around on the surface of the giant cheese of oneness.25 Yet he also describes chaos as “Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultraviolet than any mythology.” This image is of an inconsistent object, not of an undifferentiated field. An object, indeed, that can be distinguished from other things. If not, then the first part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , subtitled “The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism,” is a kind of onto-theology. Onto-theology proclaims that some things are more real than others. Bey, however, is writing poetically, and thus ambiguously. We are at liberty to read “undifferentiated oneness-of-being” as something like the irreducibility of a thing to its parts and so forth (undermining and overmining). This certainly seems closer to the language in the following paragraph: “There is no becoming … already you're the monarch of your own skin.”26 On this view, there is no difference between art and politics: “When ugliness, poor design & stupid waste are forced upon you, turn Luddite, throw your shoe in the works, retaliate.” Since Romanticism this has been the war cry of the vanguard artist.27 To say to is to fall prey to the tired axioms of the avant-garde, and we think we know how the game goes. But OOO is not simply a way to advocate “new and improved” versions of this shock-the-bourgeoisie boredom. Bey's text is certainly full enough of that. Rather, since causality as such is aesthetic, and since nonhumans are not that different from humans, the new approach would be to form aesthetic–causal alliances with nonhumans. These alliances would have to resist becoming brittle, whether that brittleness is right wing (authoritarianism) or left wing (the endless maze of critique). No “ism,” especially not the ultimate forms, nihilism and cynicism, is in any sense effective at this point. All forms of brittleness are based on the mistaken assumption that there is a metalanguage and that therefore “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” I will not be listing any approaches here, as Bey does. Such lists and manifestos belong to the vanguardism that no longer works. Why? Not because of some marvelous revolution in human consciousness, but because nonhumans have so successfully impinged upon human social, psychic and aesthetic space. It is the time after the end of the world. That happened in 1945, when a thin layer of radioactive materials was deposited in Earth's crust. Geology now calls it this era the Anthropocene . Ironically, this period, named after humans, is the moment at which even the most thick headed of us make decisive contact with nonhumans, from mercury in our blood to manta rays to magnesium. Richard Dawkins, Pat Robertson and Lady Gaga all have to deal with global warming and mass extinction, somehow. We now live in an Age of Asymmetry marked by a skewed, spiraling relationship between vast knowledge and vast nonhuman things—both become vaster and vaster because of one another and for the same reasons.28 This means that coming up with the perfect attitude or the perfect aesthetic prescription just won't work any more. Even the most hardened anthropocentrist now has to pay through the nose for basic food supplies, and has to use more sunscreen. Whether he knows it or acknowledges it, he is already acting with regard towards nonhumans. There is nothing special to think, no special critique that will get rid of the stains of coexistence. The problem won't fit into the well-established modern boxes, which is why the “mystical,” “spiritual” quality of Bey's prose is welcome. Of course, when I put it this way, you may immediately close off and decide that I am talking about perfect attitudes after all, or something outside of politics, or other ways that the radical left marshals to police its thinking of the nonhuman. Because that is what is really at stake in all this: the nonhuman in its coexistence with the human—bosons, gods, clouds, spirits, lifeforms, experiences, the sunlight rippling across the cypresses. Bey begins to get at this in a Latour litany in the second part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , “The Assassins”: Pomegranate, mulberry, persimmon, the erotic melancholy of cypresses, membrane-pink shirazi roses, braziers of meccan aloes & benzoin, stiff shafts of ottoman tulips, carpets spread like make-believe gardens on actual lawns—a pavilion set with a mosaic of calligrammes—a willow, a stream with watercress—a fountain crystalled underneath with geometry— the metaphysical scandal of bathing odalisques, of wet brown cupbearers hide-&-seeking in the foliage—“water, greenery, beautiful faces.”29 This will be conveniently dismissed as orientalism. If we're never allowed to escape the crumbling prison of modernity for fear of imperialism there is truly no hope. In a similar way, the fear of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism is very often staged from a place that just is anthropocentrism .30 Critique turns into ressentiment . An object radiates a zone that is aesthetic and therefore causal. Because objects “time” they are temporary. Not because they exist “in” time that eventually gets the better of them. Their very existence implies the possibility of their non-existence. Since objects are not consistent, they can cease to exist. But nothing, no one, will ever be able to insert a blade between appearance and existence, even thought there is a rift there. Now that's what I call autonomy. NOTES 1. John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), 96. 2. P. B. Medawar and J. S. Medawar, The Life Science: Current Ideas in Biology (London: Wildwood House, 1977), 8. 3. David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 5. 4. Antony Colynet, A True History of the Civil Warres in France (London, 1591), 480. 5. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1996) 62–71. 6. Graham Harman, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (Peru, IL: Open Court, 2002). 7. Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991). 8. Graham Harman, The Quadruple Object (Ripley: Zero Books, 2011), 7–18. 9. This is not the place to get into an argument about quantum theory, but I have argued that quanta also do not endorse a world that I can't speak about because it is only real when measured. This world is that of the reigning Standard Model proposed by Niels Bohr and challenged by De Broglie and Bohm (and now the cosmologist Valentini, among others). See Timothy Morton, “Here Comes Everything: The Promise of Object-Oriented Ontology,” Qui Parle 19.2 (Spring–Summer, 2011), 163–190. 10. John Donne, Holy Sonnets 15, in The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons , ed. John Carey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 11. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998). 12. Martin Heidegger, What Is a Thing? (Washington: Regnery, 1968), 243. 13. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (London: Penguin, 2006); Petr Horava, “Quantum Gravity at a Lifshitz Point,” arXiv:0901.3775v2 [hep-th]. 14. Graham Priest, In Contradiction (Oxford University Press, 2006), passim: the most notable recent quarantine officers have been Tarski, Russell, and Frege. 15. Priest, In Contradiction , 172–181. 16. William Butler Yeats, “Among School Children,” Collected Poems , ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1996). 17. Paul de Man, “Semiology and Rhetoric,” Diacritics 3.3 (Autumn, 1973), 27–33 (30). 18. Jacques Lacan, Le seminaire, Livre III: Les psychoses (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1981), 48. See Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 206. 19. Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 29. 20. Priest, In Contradiction , 9–27. 21. See Graham Priest and Francesco Berto, “ Dialetheism ,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. 22. Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection , tr. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1977), 311. 23. The analogy can be found at length in Douglas Hofstadter, “Contracrostipunctus,” Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 75–81. 24. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 25. This is closest to the language of François Laruelle in Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-Philosophy (New York: Continuum, 2011) 179. 26. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 27. Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 28. For further discussion see Timothy Morton, “From Modernity to the Anthropocene: Ecology and Art in the Age of Asymmetry,” The International Social Science Journal 209 (forthcoming). 29. Bey, “ The Assassins ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 30. Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 75–76. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizaremos el rol de la autobiografía en Tiempo y narración, intentando comprender los motivos por los que este género literario no tiene tanta relevancia en la obra de Ricoeur. En lo referente a su relación con la identidad narrativa,sostendremos que, a pesar de lo que se podría suponer, la identidad narrativa es una derivación del análisis de la autobiografía y no a la inversa. Invertido este vínculo, nuestro segundo paso consistirá en deslindar el tipo de relación (...) que tienen las ficciones literarias y los relatos de vida en la identidad narrativa. (shrink)

In this article we will show the process that allowed Ricœur to apply the Aristotelian ontology of actuality and potentiality to his hermeneutics, and how this development ended up providing him with a speculative solution to the aporetics of time. We will distinguish two alternative solutions: the poetic solution, given in Time and Narrative and the speculative one, developed in Memory, History, Forgetting. Despite the importance of the existential analytic, we believe that the introduction of the Spinozian conatus was decisive (...) for Ricoeur’s change of perspective. (shrink)

En el presente artículo abordaremos el desarrollo de la cuestión pedagógica entre en la obra de Heidegger entre 1928 y 1930. Al comparar las consideraciones pedagógicas de este período con sus textos previos, especialmente Ser y tiempo, observamos un profundo cambio en su tratamiento. Consideramos que éste se debe a la reconsideración de la relación entre la visión de mundo y la filosofía, basada en el giro metontológico que se propone al final del curso sobre lógica de 1928. Asimismo, rechazaremos (...) la existencia de un programa pedagógico platónico en este período, y que, durante estos años, la defensa de la tradicional Bildung universitaria se apoyará en los planteos kantianos de la “arquitectónica de la razón pura.”. (shrink)

RESUMEN El objetivo del presente artículo será sostener que la memoria impedida, carente de una dimensión simbólica y ‘sustraída del tiempo', tratada en "La memoria, la historia, el olvido" plantea un límite originalmente no contemplado a la solución narrativa de la aporía del tiempo presentada en "Tiempo y narración". Sin embargo, observamos varios elementos que llevan a desdibujar la diferencia entre la memoria impedida y la manipulada. Nuestra hipótesis es que el recurso a la metapsicología freudiana, y específicamente, su concepto (...) de trabajo, le impiden a Ricoeur desarrollar cabalmente este límite. Recurriremos a las tesis de Certeau acerca de la escritura histórica como gesto sepultural, para ahondar en este límite y determinar las vías para superarlo. ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to argue that an impeded memory, devoid of a symbolic dimension and "subtracted from time", treated in "Memory, History, Forgetting" poses a limit not originally contemplated in the narrative solution of the aporia of time, as presented in "Time and Narrative". However, we find several elements that lead to blur the difference between impeded and manipulated memory. Our hypothesis is that by resourcing to Freudian metapsychology, and specifically its concept of work, prevents Ricoeur from fully developing this limit. We turn to Certeau's theses about historical writing as a sepulture gesture, to develop this limit and determine the ways to overcome it. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizaremos la propuesta neokantiana dePaul Ricoeur de articular la memoria y la historia. El primer paso consiste entomar el concepto de representación como modo de volver comparables ambosmodos de referirse al pasado. En el siguiente, se articulan estos dos tipos derepresentaciones retrotrayéndose a la ontología temporal de Heidegger. Entre lasconsecuencias de esta fundamentación se desprende que las posibilidades delos actores pasados pueden ser reinterpretadas en el presente. Esta situaciónlegitima la imposibilidad de establecer reglas fijas para articular (...) la relación entrememoria e historia. Se concluirá discutiendo si el filósofo no cae en una suertede falacia de la parte por el todo, en el sentido en que su descripción se basaen un tipo específico de hacer historia y sus prescripciones parecieran tener unalcance general. (shrink)

The analysis of Dasein’s modes of being (authentic, inauthentic and original) shows us that originality has a close relation with authenticity. Originality is not an ontological dimension in opposition to authenticity and inauthenticity which are ontical dimensions, but the ontological beingtowards- death and the authentic and ontic resoluteness composes it. If that is the fact, then temporality cannot be conceived as an original and indifferent phenomenon that explains the movement from inathenticity to authenticity and the other way round. Our hypothesis (...) is that this movement can only be explained by speech, i.e. vocation and ‘temptation’, but that Heidegger despised this fact, due to his methodological goal of having only one phenomenon, time, as sense of being. (shrink)

Este artículo propone una lectura ética de La memoria, la historia, el olvido . Se recurre al testimonio del Holocausto, en tanto acontecimiento injustificable, como instancia de reflexión ética originada en la historia. En estos términos, la respuesta de Ricoeur al Debate de los Historiadores adquiere una importancia capital. Nuestra hipótesis es que esta respuesta es el producto de una larga reflexión sobre las consideraciones de Jean Nabert con respecto a la relación entre la dimensión fáctica y la ética.

En los últimos años, la relación entre la filosofía de la Ilustración y el cinismo ha logrado atraer la atención de los especialistas. En ese marco, los críticos suelen identificar las filosofías de Diógenes y Diderot. El objetivo del presente trabajo es revisar el vínculo que existe entre ambos con el fin de demostrar que el mismo es problemático y que, por esa razón, desborda las interpretaciones que se han presentado hasta el momento. Esto, por otra parte, arrojará luces sobre (...) la relación entre el materialismo de Diderot y su teoría ético-política. In recent years the relationship between the philosophy of the Enlightenment and cynicism has managed to attract the attention of scholars. In this framework, critics often identify Diogenes and Diderot's philosophy. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between Diderot and Diogenes in order to demonstrate that it is a problematic relationship that goes beyond the interpretations that have been presented so far. This, on the other hand, will shed light on the relationship between Diderot's materialism and his ethical and political theory. (shrink)

This paper studies the way in which Ricoeur and de Certeau conceives the relationship between historical narration and past. Its hypothesis is that there has been a change in Ricoeur's position between Time and Narrative and Memory, History and Oblivion. In the first book the articulation between historical narration and past is articulated by the plot. In the second one, the concept of event makes his analysis more similar to de Certeau's. We discuss Ricoeur's critic to de Certeau in Time (...) and Narrative and sustain that Memory, History and Oblivion. is not affected by this critic thanks to the concept of representation.El presente artículo compara el modo en que Ricoeur y de Certeau conciben la relación entre el escrito histórico y el pasado. Se sostiene que existe una importante modificación en el pensamiento de Ricoeur sobre esta cuestión en el período comprendido entre Tiempo y narración y La memoria, la historia, el olvido. En el primero, la articulación entre narración histórica y pasado se produce en la puesta en intriga mientras que la segunda vuelve a una concepción de la historia basada en el acontecimiento, cambio que acerca al filósofo al pensamiento de Certeau. Seguidamente, matizamos la crítica que el filósofo le realizara a de Certeau en Tiempo y narración acerca de su tesis acerca de que la narración histórica es distinta del pasado. Por último, concluimos justificando nuestra tesis de que el desarrollo de La memoria, la historia, el olvido logra salvarse de esta crítica gracias al uso que Ricoeur hace del concepto de representación. (shrink)

Normal 0 21 false false false ES-CO X-NONE X-NONE El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en sostener que ha habido una evolución en el concepto de testimonio de Paul Ricoeur y que incluso su primera definición jurídica se diferencia de otras de la misma raíz. Para establecer este último punto se compara su definición con de C.A.J. Coady. Se intentará dar cuenta de los motivos, implicaciones y limitaciones de sus diferencias. Seguidamente, se afirma que en La memoria, la historia, el (...) olvido el filósofo abandona el concepto jurídico de testimonio, caracterizado como una declaración enmarcada en un debate, para inclinarse por otro que lo define como una institución natural dialógica. Nuestra hipótesis es que dicho cambio fue debido no a causas fenoménicas sino contextuales. (shrink)

El presente artículo correlaciona el temple de ánimo utilizado por Heidegger en su análisis ontológico en Ser y tiempo y en el curso sobre Los conceptos fundamentales de la metafísica y la caracterización de la temporariedad que surge de él. Nuestra hipótesis es que la diferencia de su caracterización se debe fundamentalmente a la desaparición en el curso de 1929-30 del comprender y del aislamiento al que conducía la angustia. Aunque el planteo temporal de este curso quede trunco, el contraste (...) con Ser y tiempo aporta elementos de valor para desentrañar la lógica interna de esta obra, así como también para poner de manifiesto de qué modo la caracterización que la analítica existencial hace del Dasein, incide en la caracterización del tiempo. (shrink)

Varios intérpretes han reconocido la importancia de la imaginación productiva en la obra de Ricœur, aunque la mayoría de ellos ha dedicado sus investigaciones a las obras del filósofo francés de las décadas de los setenta y ochenta. En lo que sigue quisiera sostener que la imaginación también tiene un papel central en La memoria, la historia, el olvido. Mi hipótesis es que esta facultad articula los distintos momentos de esta obra, fundamentalmente los relacionados con la fenomenología de la memoria (...) y la epistemología de la historia. Asimismo quisiera relativizar parcialmente la tesis de que a partir de Tiempo y narración Ricœur enfatiza el carácter sintético de la imaginación, y así mostraré que en la obra que abordo hay una fuerte presencia de la función libre. Several interpreters have recognized the importance of productive imagination in Ricœur's work, but most of them have focused their research on his works of the 1970s and 1980s. I want to argue that imagination has also a central role in Memory, History, Forgetting. My hypothesis is that this notion articulates the different moments of the work, mainly those related to phenomenology of memory and epistemology of history. I also wish to relativize the argument that after Time and Narrative Ricœur emphasized synthetic imagination, by showing the presence of free imagination in Memory, History, Forgetting. (shrink)

In this paper we intend to show that in Memory, History, Forgetting, Paul Ricœur articulates memory and history through imagination. This philosopher distinguishes two main functions of imagination: a poetical one, associated with interpretation and discourse, and a practical and projective one that clarifies and guides our actions. In Memory, History, Forgetting, both functions of imagination are present, but are associated with different aspects of memory. The first one is present especially in the phenomenology of the cognitive dimension of memory; (...) the second one is developed in the analysis of the abuses of artificial memory, while their convergence is described in the section on the abuses of natural memory. Besides the similarities in the way these functions of imagination operate in Oneself as Another and in Memory, History, Forgetting, we will show some important differences between these two works and we will propose reasons for these differences. Keywords: Poetical Imagination, Practical Imagination, Abused Memory, Ideology, Utopy. Résumé Dans cet article nous souhaiterions montrer que, dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, l’imagination productrice est ce qui permet d’articuler la mémoire et l´histoire. Ricœur distingue deux principales fonctions de l’imagination: l’une, poétique, associée à l’interprétation et au discours ; l’autre pratique et projective, qui éclaire et oriente nos actions. Dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, ces deux fonctions de l’imagination sont présentes mais elles sont associées à des aspects différents de la mémoire. La première est surtout présente dans la phénoménologie de la dimension cognitive de la mémoire, la seconde apparaît dans l’analyse des abus de la mémoire artificielle, et l’articulation entre ces deux fonctions se trouve enfin décrite dans la section concernant l’abus de la mémoire naturelle. Outre les similitudes dans la façon dont ces fonctions de l’imagination opèrent dans Soi-même comme un autre et dans La mémoire, l’histoire, l’oubli, nous essaierons de montrer qu’il existe cependant certaines différences importantes entre ces deux œuvres en tentant d’en expliciter les raisons. Mots-clés: Imagination poétique, imagination pratique, mémoire abusée, idéologie, utopie. (shrink)

The concept of “abused collective memory” gathers two of Ricœur’s main lines of concern: history and psychoanalysis. The article aims to explain how this convergence was possible, especially, when the transposition of the Freudian metapsychology from the individual to the collective level was hindered by the Ricœurian emphasis on the Freudian libidinal economy. Our hypothesis is that this convergence required two intermediate steps. The first one gathered psychoanalysis and history within the larger framework of otherness as flesh. The second step (...) was a transcendental turn, which would lead Ricœur to inquire about the structures of collective existence that make it possible to apply psychoanalytic categories at that level, rather than considering how this transposition can be done. By taking this turn Ricœur found that a phenomenology of the capable human being was the condition of possibility of a temporal ontology, and then, could describe this ontology as the condition of possibility of his phenomenology. (shrink)

En Ser y tiempo encontramos posiciones inconsistentes acerca la génesis de la ciencia y la homogeneización del espacio. Sobre la primera es manifiesto el contraste entre un modelo de carácter privativo, caracterizado como un proceso de desmundanización que permite aprender la realidad en su sustancialidad y otro, proyectivo que presenta a la matematización como un modo positivo de tematización. En el presente artículo quisiéramos sostener que estas diferencias estarían asociadas a el hecho de que en esta obra Heidegger opera con (...) dos definiciones de mundo diferentes, y el contraste entre la prescripción de una fundamentación fenomenológico trascendental del sentido ontológico-categorial por el sentido ontológico-existencial y las descripciones históricas sobre los procederes inversos que derivaban el sentido ontológico-existencial del ontológico-categorial. (shrink)

Pese al rol clave que cumple la imaginación en Kant y el problema de la metafísica, este concepto dejó de ser objeto de análisis. El objetivo del presente artículo es explicar los motivos de su auge y desaparición. Consideramos que su auge se debió a que, con este concepto, Heidegger logró llevar a cabo una ontología positiva de la personalitas trascendentalis kantiana y articularla con la personalitas moralis. Su desaparición, en cambio, se dio porque esta imaginación es ontológicamente espontánea, y (...) por lo tanto, inconsistente con el concepto de finitud receptiva que se irá afianzando en esta obra. En otras palabras, esta desaparición se encuentra asociada con el replanteamiento de la finitud del Dasein. (shrink)

En el presente artículo presentaremos algunos de los aspectos centrales del concepto ricoeuriano de hermenéutica crítica a partir de lo que se desprende de su análisis y discusión con las obras de Althusser y Habermas. En términos generales, mientras que las investigaciones históricas del primero apuntan a poner de manifiesto las estrategias de la reproducción de los sistemas de poder, el segundo propone un proyecto liberador basado en una construcción utópica independiente de la historia. El uso que hacen Althusser y (...) Habermas del psicoanálisis nos acercará tangencialmente al vínculo de Ricoeur con esta disciplina. Concluiremos señalando al concepto de “memoria feliz”, desarrollado en La memoria, la historia, el olvido, como un ejemplo de utopía y muestra de que Ricoeur mantendrá algunos aspectos centrales de esta propuesta hasta el final de su vida. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to show the evolution of the concept of testimony in PaulRicoeur’s writing. In the paper “Herméneutique du témoignage” given at theConference of Castelli in 1972 Ricoeur defined “testimony” in legal terms, as atestimony given in the frame of a dispute. In contrast, in “La Mémoire, l’Histoire,l’Oublie”1Ricoeur split testimony from the legal frame and characterized it as adialogical “natural institution.” My first hypothesis is that, even though in the1972 conference he recognized the legal origin of testimony, (...) his definition is notquite the standard one. In order to establish this hypothesis, I will compareRicoeur’s definition with C.A.J. Coady’s understanding of the term to showwhere the differences are and explore the implications of each. Next, I willdiscuss the limitations of the legal definition, and how the concept of testimonywas changed in order to overcome them. I will then show how Ricoeur’s conceptof testimony works in MHO so as to associate memory with history. Finally, Iwill focus on Ricoeur’s revised notion of testimony in his last book Parcours dela reconnaissance, and argue that some of the changes in the definition had anargumentative and not a phenomenological reason. (shrink)

En el siguiente articulo tomaremos los lineamientos expositivos de La memoria, la historia, el olvido, para reconstruir el dialogo que Ricoeur establece entre Heidegger y Husserl. En estas paginas descubriremos que, pese a que esta obra se publico casi veinticinco anos mas tarde que “Fenomenologia y hermeneutica”, en ella se concretizan las premisas acerca del tipo de vinculo que debe haber entre la hermeneutica y la fenomenologia, en el sentido en que, por una parte, la fenomenologia es el presupuesto de (...) la hermeneutica y, por la otra, la fenomenología no puede constituirse a si misma sin un presupuesto hermeneutico. Quisieramos tambien sostener que, pese a que, en La memoria, la historia, el olvido la fenomenologia se identifica con el plano ontico y la hermeneutica con el ontologico, las objeciones a la fenomenologia husserliana de la memoria estan basados en los planteos de Heidegger, y que la categoria con la que se pretende superar a la ontologia heideggeriana, la carne, fue originalmente elaborado por Husserl. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 157-172 [Access article in PDF] Symposium: On Ken Burns's "Jazz" Jazz: America's Classical Music? 1 Lee B. Brown I VIEWERS OF KEN BURNS'S third cultural epic "Jazz" probably fell into one of three categories. 2 Some found it gripping. Some found it grating. Some found it both at once.The series has unforgettable moments: spectacular jitterbug sequences; Jimmy Lunceford's horn men fanning their trumpet bells (...) with hat mutes in sync; the close-up of the whirring cross-hand drumming of Art Blakey; the bitter-sweet glance Billie Holiday and Lester Young exchange in their last filmed appearance together; the occasional marriage of visuals to music. One riveting three minutes comes when the talking heads tune out, a 78-rpm disk of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" is set spinning, and the thrilling notes pour out on a carousel of visual imagery—finally freeze-framing on the face of the young genius himself.On the downside, the series is massively repetitious. As a result of Burns's decision to track two major figures—Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington—from cradle to grave, the same cuts of Armstrong appear again and again, no matter what the time frame. Some of the series' commentators are particularly annoying—the fiddler of Burns's Civil War series, Matt Glaser, for instance, with his fatuous theories [End Page 157] about Louis Armstrong and Albert Einstein. And the documentary's heavy load of social freight—by Wynton Marsalis, and his mentors Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch 3 —threatens to flatten the music.The series is designed as informative entertainment, not Jazz 101. But Burns pays a price here, as he did in his documentary about baseball, in which not even the basics of the game, let alone any of the subtleties, were explained. In "Jazz" we get no explanation of what Jelly Roll Morton did to transform ragtime into jazz. (The series could easily have pressed Morton himself into service. With no sacrifice of his considerable charm, Morton did explain it, beautifully, in his recorded Library of Congress interviews. 4) Although the swing era gets big billing, no attempt is made to explain how swing rhythm actually works, as contrasted with earlier practices. (I have watched swing drummer Panama Francis entertain a packed hall with a brief but riveting illustration of how it works.)As jazz history, the film also has problems. Some legendary figures are resurrected unconvincingly. When Marsalis tells us what the legendary trumpet player Buddy Bolden sounded like, the illustrative off-camera trumpet is Marsalis's, not Bolden's, who embedded not one note in a record groove. Further, we face the tiresomely obvious problem of omissions. We hear nothing of Albert Ayler, Keith Jarrett, Sun Ra, Mildred Bailey, Benny Carter, Lennie Tristano, Erroll Garner, Eric Dolphy, Art Pepper, or Woody Herman. All we learn about Bill Evans—whose influence on jazz piano was huge—is that Miles Davis hired him even though he was white. Omissions are inevitable, of course. But there is a muted pattern to the exclusions. It was impossible for the series to avoid Benny Goodman, given his central role in the swing era. But white figures are too often either ignored or treated as alienated outsiders. We hear New York Times columnist Margo Jefferson opine that Bix Beiderbecke drank himself to death because he wasn't allowed to play with black musicians. In fact, many of the greatest players—white and black—never played with musicians of their own caliber.Most figures covered in the film are treated either with respect or with reverence. But things get nasty when matters turn to avant-gardists. Thus, Branford Marsalis—Wynton's talented brother—singles out the volcanic pianist Cecil Taylor for a particularly hostile attack. 5 Instead of explaining what Ornette Coleman meant by "free jazz," Albert Murray tells us that jazz is, by definition, free music—and by implication, that Coleman's concept must be fatuous. And Wynton has complained [End Page 158] elsewhere about a jazz avant-garde retreat into what he calls "a... (shrink)

It is argued that certain recent advances in the construction of a theory of the collapses of Quantum Mechanical wave functions suggest the possibility of new and improved foundations for statistical mechanics, foundations in which epistemic considerations play no role.

I distinguish between two conceptually different kinds of physical space: a space of ordinary material bodies, which is the space of points at which I could imaginably place the tip of my finger, or the center of a billiard-ball, and a space of elementary physical determinables, which is the smallest space of points such that stipulating what is happening at each one of those points, at every time, amounts to an exhaustive physical history of the universe. In all classical physical (...) theories, these two spaces happen to coincide – and what we mean by calling a theory “classical”, and all we mean by calling a theory “classical”, is precisely that these two spaces coincide. But once the distinction between these two spaces in on the table, it becomes clear that there is no logical or conceptual reason why they must coincide – and it turns out that a very simple way of pulling them apart from one another gives us quantum mechanics. (shrink)

A Quantum-Mechanical automation, equipped with mechanisms for the measurement and the recording and the prediction of certain physical properties of the world, is described. It is inquired what sort of empirical description such an automation would produce of itself. It turns out that this description would be a very novel one, one such as was never imagined in the conventional discussions of measurement.

This is a reply to de Sousa's 'Emotional Truth', in which he argues that emotions can be objective, as propositional truths are. I say that it is better to distinguish between truth and accuracy, and agree with de Sousa to the extent of arguing that emotions can be more or less accurate, that is, based on the facts as they are.

In the Netherlands, the policy of supporting the efforts of ethnic-cultural minorities to express and preserve their cultural distinctiveness, is nowadays considered as problematic because it might interfere with their integration into the wider society. The primary aim is now to reduce these groups' unemployment rate and to stimulate their participation in the wider society. In this article I consider how the notion of the intrinsic value of cultures, if sensible, might affect the policy regarding ethnic-cultural minorities. I develop a (...) theory of intrinsic value of culture, as an analogy of the theory of intrinsic value of non-human natural entities. My conclusion is that the dominant cultural group in the Netherlands should preserve clearly deviant minority cultures which have considerable intrinsic value. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Symposium Art and Aesthetic Education in Times of Terror: Negotiating an Ethics and Aesthetics of Answerability Deanne Bogdan University of Toronto Claudia Eppert Louisiana State University Candace Yang Louisiana State University Charlene Morton University of Prince Edward Island The terrorist attacks of 1 1 September 2001 have created a climate of loss and fear among many in the western world. Some educators have maintained that any discussion ofthese (...) events so soon after they have happened threatens to dishonor the memory ofthe victims and is too difficult because ofour emotional unsettlement. These concerns are warranted; any discussion would indeed need to be mindful ofthem. The predominant position ofthis symposium, however, is that these events have created such chaos and uncertainty that we are faced with the immediate challenge not of disavowing or deferring discussion but rather of determining the initial terms of an ethical answerability. Thesymposiumparticipants seek to initiate such a difficult conversation in the hope that aspects of it might offer a productive resource forclassroompracticeanddailylivingas we find our way through grief and moral confusion. Thediscussion centers ontheroleaesthetics and aesthetic education haveplayed and continue to play in responding to these events and their aftermath. In particular, it considers the terms on which the arts might variably serve as a vehicle for consolation and healing, for honoring the victims of this event, and for educating present and future generations about what happened and about the requirements ofpeace. Furthermore, the challengefacedbythearts andaestheticeducation in addressingNorthAmerica's psychic and social needs is increased in recognition that these challenges are occurring in a context heavily infused with senseless violence and nationalist rhetoric. This context makes evident the need for artists and educators to help map an ethical and spiritual terrain for re-evaluating the "American way of life," national identities, and democracy itself. It is amappingthat shouldnot takeplace outsidethe arena ofthe political, but should respond to and intervene in it. It is a mapping, therefore, directed toward helping find"a wayofdevelopingapraxis ofeducational consequence that opens the spaces necessary for the remaking ofa democratic community " (Maxine Greene, The Dialectic ofFreedom [New York: Teachers College Press, 1988], 126). The papers in this symposium were originally presented as a panel discussion at a special session of the Philosophy of Education Society (PES) annualmeeting,Vancouver,BritishColumbia, in April 2002.©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 124-139.... (shrink)

My purpose in this brief paper is to consider the implications of a radically different computer architecure to some fundamental problems in the foundations of Cognitive Science. More exactly, I wish to consider the ramifications of the 'Gödel-Minds-Machines' controversy of the late 1960s on a dynamically changing computer architecture which, I venture to suggest, is going to revolutionize which 'functions' of the human mind can and cannot be modelled by (non-human) computational automata. I will proceed on the presupposition that the (...) reader is familiar with some of the fundamentals of computational theory and mathematical logic. (shrink)

This article introduces the special issue on the brain and processing of nonliteral and other forms of language in which meaning is "stretched" or deviates from expectations. The introduction consists of 2 sections meant to orient the reader to the articles that follow. The first section is a brief review and commentary on recent research and theorizing into the evolution of the human brain, selected brain structures, and implications that arise for nonliteral language and thought. The second section reviews and (...) comments on recent advances in technology in cognitive neuroscience that increasingly are being brought to bear on questions of how we process a range of language forms that deviate from literal usage. I take the evidence as indicating that normal understanding of nonliteral language is highly interactive, involving multiple parts of the brain and, based on temporal processing in the brain, these interactions occur very early in the processing of a trope. (shrink)