In a recent opinion piece, Denis Duboule has claimed that the increasing shift towards systems biology is driving evolutionary and developmental biology apart, and that a true reunification of these two disciplines within the framework of evolutionary developmental biology may easily take another 100 years. He identifies methodological, epistemological, and social differences as causes for this supposed separation. Our article provides a contrasting view. We argue that Duboule’s prediction is based on a one-sided understanding of systems biology as a science (...) that is only interested in functional, not evolutionary, aspects of biological processes. Instead, we propose a research program for an evolutionary systems biology, which is based on local exploration of the configuration space in evolving developmental systems. We call this approach—which is based on reverse engineering, simulation, and mathematical analysis—the natural history of configuration space. We discuss a number of illustrative examples that demonstrate the past success of local exploration, as opposed to global mapping, in different biological contexts. We argue that this pragmatic mode of inquiry can be extended and applied to the mathematical analysis of the developmental repertoire and evolutionary potential of evolving developmental mechanisms and that evolutionary systems biology so conceived provides a pragmatic epistemological framework for the EvoDevo synthesis. (shrink)

The etymologic root of two Greek words (σωμόβουβλ/, ὠμοβουβλ(ίνου)) is soup (ζωμός). Number 2 holds the until now skipped latin signature of the notary Ioshf.

This article argues that Werner Herzog's 2010 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams both enacts and undermines a desire for origins that was characteristic of 20th century modernist discourse. I argue that the aim of the film is literally to embody the origin of cinema, as figured in the recurring motif of projected light playing across the darkened walls of Chauvet Cave, the earliest known site of prehistoric painting. Drawing on texts by Wilson Harris, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy, and (...) Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, this article demonstrates that the phenomenology of the film's cave scenes and of its archaeological reconstructions produces not a straightforward self-presence at the scene of origins, but rather an “anachronic” or split temporality that links an imagined state of primordiality to the contemporary moment in a way that eludes the problematic modernist criterion of psychological authenticity. By failing to produce an immersive illusion of prehistoricity, the film is constantly thrown back onto its own simple act of “monstration”, or showing, without any transcendental ground. Instead of revealing a moment of origin, then, Cave of Forgotten Dreams plays the shifting role of what I describe, following the art historian Whitney Davis, as an ever-displaced “Figure 1” in an imaginary history of cinema. (shrink)

At the heart of the cinema of Werner Herzog lies the vision of discordant and chaoticnature – the vision of anti-nature. Throughout his work we can trace a constant fascinationwith the violence of nature and its indifference, or even hostility, to human desires andambitions. For example, in his early film Even Dwarfs Started Small we have therecurrent image of a crippled chicken continually pecked by its companions.2Here theviolence of nature provides a sly prelude to the anarchic carnival violence (...) of the dwarfs’revolt against their oppressive institution. This fascination is particularly evident in hisdocumentary filmmaking, although Herzog himself deconstructs this generic category. Inthe ‘Minnesota Declaration’ 3on ‘truth and fact in documentary cinema’ he radicallydistinguishes between ‘fact’, linked to norms and the limits of Cinéma Vérité, and ‘truth’ asecstatic illumination, which ‘can be reached only through fabrication and imagination andstylization’ 2002, 301). In particular he identifies nature as the site of thisecstatic illumination – in which we find ‘Lessons of Darkness’ – but only through the lack ofany ‘voice’ of nature. While Herzog constantly films nature he films it as hell or as utterlyalien. This is not a nature simply corrupted by humanity but a nature inherently ‘corrupt’ in itself; Herzog’s vision of nature is a kind of anti-vitalism, a horror at the promiscuous vitality of nature. (shrink)

When Werner Herzog states, in his famous Minnesota Declaration, “[fa]cts create norms, and truth illumination”, he not only opposes his own idea of truth as spiritual experience to the notion of factual truth based on a seemingly unmediated representation of reality and purely rational principles. He also points to a societal problem inherent to such hegemonic attributions of veracity as advocated by the representatives of what he calls “Cinema Vérité”: their “truth of accountants” generates a normative perception and (...) understanding of reality. Instead of producing peculiar images that trigger the imagination, they (re)produce benchmarks, fixed values and stereotypes. Thus, they are perfectly in line with the ideology of the “administered society” (Horkheimer and Adorno, e.g. in Dialectic of Enlightenment). Based on the identity principle, this society produces standardized, consumer-friendly forms precluding the individuals from making their own, singular experiences. Films that rely purely on facts instead of seeking for “deeper strata of truth” are thus, for Herzog, not only boring, but also instruments of domination in the service of the status quo. However, Herzog neither avoids the administered society in order to search for an archaic truth beyond or underneath it, nor does he address political issues frontally in the films analyzed in this article. Critique of society rather transpires through particular configurations, notably in moments of confrontation between the “normal” society and the marginalized, “useless”, or otherwise rejected characters (as Kaspar Hauser’s encounter with representatives of the “good society, Strozeck’s misfortune, Woyzeck’s condition as the guinea pig for the sake of scientific progress, or the extravagant setting depicted in Even Dwarfs Started Small). Rather than focusing on the problematic situation of exclusion as such, Herzog emphasizes the very singularity of his protagonists in a dialectical tension with their environment, thus providing an access to the poetic truth which springs out of their individual ways of experiencing as opposed to the normative reality-principle. This is also true for many of Herzog’s documentaries: for example, Walter Steiner’s deep pleasure in ski-flying and the strange beauty of the slow-motion pictures showing him in the air highly contrast with the public pushing him to take dangerous risks and the bloody images presented in the media (The Great Ecstasy of the Woodcarver Steiner). By juxtaposing Steiner’s sensory experience and its singularized image with the societal logic of competition and its stereotyped representation, Herzog discloses the heterogeneous layers of a material truth that escapes factual accuracy. This article aims to approach Herzog’s notion of ecstatic truth by unfolding the dialectical tension between sensory, perceptual and spiritual experiences on the one hand, and the administrated society on the other. -/- . (shrink)

Richardson’s study on Carnap’s early philosophy culminating in Der logische Aufbau der Welt of 1928 ,presents a comprehensive and sustained effort at understanding it as deeply rooted in neo-Kantian patterns of thought: thus it belongs to a more recent tradition of viewing the emergence of Carnap’s thought, alternative to the older approach of interpreting it against the background of empiricist themes, and well deserves to be labelled the most thoroughgoing expression this more recent tradition has been given until now.

Legendary director, actor, author, and provocateur Werner Herzog has incalculably influenced contemporary cinema for decades. This essay collection by professional philosophers and film theorists from around the globe offers a diversity of perspectives on how the thinking behind the camera is revealed in the action Herzog captures in front of it.

Werner Herzog’s films often have characters that are on spiritual journeys that take transgressive turns. These quests are also existential in nature, for what the characters often seek is transcendence. Because transgression is a sociological, philosophical, and theological entity, Herzog’s films are demanding because his outsider characters are often not easy to admire. Still, because they take on very personal self-examinations in their search for transcendence, we can respect their tragic, horrific, or painful excursions. Herzog’s protagonists (...) are almost always outsiders in some form. Whether “being on the outside” quite literally or figuratively, protagonists like Nosferatu, Kasper Hauser, or Aguirre somehow eschew societal norms and become figures of empathy, fear, or disgust. Even the characters of his documentary work, like Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man , are people who somehow do not fit in with society, and so seek escape through crossing boundaries or intense trials of will and perseverance. As outsiders, they are shunned, but the way they handle this is sometimes different: through madness (Aguirre), spirituality (Kasper Hauser), or rebellion (the cast of Even Dwarves Started Small ). These characters are in constant conflict with others, society, and themselves. I want to argue that one of the main reasons Herzog makes both artful, meditative films and ones that challenge spectators’ expectations, is due to the recurrence of the theme of spiritual transformation—or transcendence—that often is transgressive. Such Herzog heroes as Aguirre, Stroszek, Fitzcarraldo, or even the entire cast of Heart of Glass push beyond the limits of sanity, freedom, and societal restrictions in order to transgress or “pass” into a different mental state. Furthermore, such moves are spiritual in nature, since the characters become individual disciples of their own imaginings, their own beliefs, and their own codes of behavior. Both physically and psychically, these characters undertake journeys that allow us to see how difficult, yet ultimately manageable, these passages to transcendence are. I will discuss several Herzog films and characters that exemplify this tendency, including, Even Dwarfs Started Small , Aguirre, the Wrath of God , and Grizzly Man .  . (shrink)

The German filmmaker Werner Herzog controversially associates “truth” and “reality” in film with Kant’s notion of the sublime by explicitly treating the sublime as a key element in developing his notion of ecstatic truth. I critically examine Herzog’s interpretation of Kant’s sublime and the relations he establishes between the sublime and his own key aesthetic notion of ecstatic truth. I examine how the sublime in Herzog’s films arises from encounters with the overwhelming force and power of (...) nature experienced by his characters in the feature films and participants in the documentaries. I question whether Kant’s conception of the sublime is the one that best aligns with Herzog’s aesthetic aims and I contrast Kant’s transcendental sublime with what I describe as the physiological sublime of Edmund Burke. I draw some conclusions about the moral dimension of the sublime in the context of the relationship between humans and nature within the frame of contemporary ecological concerns. (shrink)

¿Cómo problematiza el cine la relación humano-animal? Este artículo desarrolla esta pregunta a través del análisis de la película La cueva de los sueños olvidados (2010). En este filme, el cineasta alemán Werner Herzog (1942-) se interna en uno de los descubrimientos más fascinantes de todos los tiempos: el del arte rupestre de la cueva de Chauvet (30.000 a 32.000 AP). El texto propone que, por medio del involucramiento físico del público espectador, del foco en los afectos y (...) del entrelazamiento de la realidad y la ficción, el documental desarrolla un campo de intensidades que permite vislumbrar un devenir animal a través del cine. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

Proceedings of an international conference held at the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbèuttel in 2009.

En las páginas siguientes, inspirados por el concepto sartreano de mirada y el concepto foucaultiano de panóptico , analizamos el papel de la mirada y de la observación panóptica en la película Aguirre, la cólera de Dios, de Werner Herzog. Ponemos el foco en cómo los cuerpos de los compañeros del conquistador Lope de Aguirre son dominados por éste; cómo, mediante esta relación, son transformados; y, finalmente, discutimos el significado y naturaleza de la película, más relacionado con la (...) representación del individuo sublime que con la mera narración de la Conquista.In the following pages, inspired by Sartre's concept of "regard" and Foucault's concept of "panopticon," we consider the role of regarding and of panoptical watching in the film Aguirre, God's Wrath , by Werner Herzog. We point out how the bodies of Aguirre's fellow conquistadors are dominated by him; how, by this relation they are transformed; and, finally, we discuss the meaning and nature of the film, which is more linked with the representation of a sublime individual than with a mere story about the American Conquest. (shrink)

The history of the sublime within aesthetics has tended to focus on the natural world. Within this history, the sublime has been a category reserved for awe-inspiring and overwhelming experiences, in which the finite subject is dwarfed by a more expansive force. Despite subjectivity being foremost in this topic, what has been overlooked, is the role the body plays in being the centre of aesthetic experience. In this paper, I will turn the tide on this omission and thematize the role (...) of the body within the experience of the sublime. My plan for reconsidering this movement is to unite Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God with the late thought of Merleau-Ponty, especially his enigmatic notion of "flesh". In both Herzog and Merleau-Ponty, a philosophy of nature exists which challenges the dichotomy between the autonomous self encountering the objective realm of wilderness. In each case, an ambiguity undercuts the idea of wilderness existing "there" while human subjectivity remains placed "here." I will "read" the film as an instant of the chiasmatic relation between nature and humanity. Doing so, I will suggest that the reversibility between the body and the environment can be seen as an amplification of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of "wild being". (shrink)

Die Möglichkeitsspekulation des Duns Scotus (1266-1308) gehört zu den bemerkenswertesten metaphysischen Konstruktionen des späteren Mittelalters. Im vorliegenden Buch unternimmt der Verfasser den Versuch, anhand der systematischen Entfaltung der beiden Möglichkeitsstufen (logische und reale Möglichkeit) nachzuweisen, dass hier eine «Philosophie der Endlichkeit» vorliegt, die sich selbst transzendiert, gleichsam von selbst in Metaphysik übergehen muss. Das Ergebnis ist eine originelle und weit vorausweisende Begründung kontingenten, endlichen Seins.

Karma and Teleology. A problem and its solution in Indian philosophy. Johannes Bronkhorst. The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Advanced Studies, Tokyo 2000. iii, 142 pp. ISBN 4-906267-44-0.

In this article I examine the role of attention as a defining aspect of photography and documentary film. When we pay attention to how the world looks it might sometimes surprise us. It might perhaps show us that we are too set in our ways of seeing and that the world can reveal things unknown, or as Stanley Cavell remarks: “how little we know about what our relation to reality is, our complicity in it”. This is, I claim, the task (...) in which the documentary image can guide us. In order to arrive at this conclusion I will start by examining how the documentary image adheres to knowledge, without falling back on a generic epistemological or representational framework. I start by discussing the final scene in Werner Herzog's film Echoes from a Somber Empire as an example of the aspect of documentary film, that aids us in refraining from projecting our preconceptions on the uncanny. I continue by discussing Nietzsche's understanding of knowledge as a process... (shrink)

This article begins with Werner Herzog's programmatic statements on new images and deep truth and connects it to ideas of Nietzschean aesthetics, mainly the Apollonian image and the Dionysian horror. My main argument is that Herzog contributes to the literary and aesthetic tradition of new mythology within the medium of film by developing a distinct visual language that tries to express non-rational truth claims. In a first step I explore how Nietzschean aesthetics influenced the debates about the (...) mythic image and total cinema in classic film theory and visual studies. More importantly I show how the desire to create new mythic images not only influenced Herzog's discourse on film, but his actual aesthetic practice. In my analysis of his 1971 documentary Land of Silence and Darkness I show how the dynamic between Apollonian veil and Dionysian Urbild is effective in the construction of what Herzog calls “deep truth”. This article attempts to shift t... (shrink)

Lo que me interesa en este escrito es explorar el rendimiento explicativo del concepto «naturalismo» del antropólogo y filósofo francés Philippe Descola, adaptándolo al análisis cinematográfico de la obra de Werner Herzog. Este experimento interdisciplinario en el que se cruzarán la filosofía con el análisis cinematográfico y la historia del arte tiene por intención primera poner en evidencia un pensamiento expresado en imágenes, sobre la relación entre dos conceptos que, de acuerdo con Descola, constituyen la base de todo (...) esquema experiencial, a saber, la propiedad y la otredad. La comprensión de lo otro como otredad radical es el rasgo característico del naturalismo. Después de una exposición sobre qué es lo que hay que entender por naturalismo a partir de Descola, me dedicaré a explorar tipos de imágenes del cine del director bávaro en donde me parece que pueden leerse formas de instanciarse el esquema naturalista bajo el modo de la otredad radical e inhóspita de la naturaleza. Por último, intentaré mostrar que al interior del naturalismo de Herzog puede encontrarse una interrupción a la radical separación entre lo propio y lo otro. El posible cese del naturalismo reside en la inversión que se opera en la mirada del espectador al contemplar la obra del cineasta. (shrink)

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The Two Traditions of Meditation in Ancient India. Johannes Bronkhorst. Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden GmbH, Stuttgart 1986. xii, 145 pp. DM 36.00.

This article articulates a dialogue between Werner Herzog’s films and Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to illuminate human dwelling. In the light of Heidegger’s ideas of dwelling, thrownness, they-self, authenticity, abyss and being-towards-death, I look into the abyss of society as represented by Herzog, considering dwelling with humans in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) and Into the Abyss (2011) as dwelling through language and dwelling in proximity to death. This article’s primary purpose is to redress society’s overly negative (...) connotation as monstrous and unhomely in Herzog and, against the predominant critical interpretations and Herzog’s self-commentary, discover the homely therein. Specifically, this film-philosophy dialogue will shed important light on both Herzog and Heidegger. Heidegger’s philosophical thought enables a creative and insightful reading of overlooked yet significant aesthetic forms in Herzog’s films: the motif of tears in Kaspar Hauser and the jump cuts and close-ups in Abyss. Meanwhile, Herzog’s films work out Heidegger’s paradoxical and etymological wordplay of the abyss that also grounds. Not only do the films affectively effectuate and interrogate the terror and promise of human dwelling in artistic terms, but Abyss also breaks the Heideggerian category of mortality and gestures towards Hannah Arendt’s idea of natality. (shrink)

Documentary film is that genre of filmmaking that lays bare the fact of all film, which is that it presents "a world past" (Cavell, The World Viewed). This fact of film seems to point to a paradox of time in our experience of movies: we are present at something that has happened, something that is over. But what if we were to take this fact to show that film has the power to place us outside our ordinary, unreflective relation to (...) time? In this essay I examine three pre-cinematic descriptions of relations to time – in Emerson, Thoreau, and Weil – that anticipate the paradox of time inherent in film. I then put that examination to use in a reading of Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a film ostensibly about prehistoric cave paintings but whose achievement is its declaration, not to document some past time, but to liberate the present moment. (shrink)

The paper undertakes to analyze the specificity of Gilles Deleuze’s concept of crystal-image in two films: The Structure of Crystal/ Struktura krysztalu (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1969) and Heart of Glass/ Herz aus Glas (Werner Herzog, 1976). The crystal-image offers an insight into the amorphous abyss of consciousness, but it also represents the natural culmination of image in the history of modern cinema. Whereas in Zanussi the crystal of time depicts the figure of the visionary that sees the self-castration of (...) time, the non-actor of Herzog, with a hypnotic gaze and a heart of glass, is the only one capable of seeing the inner being of a landscape. (shrink)