Focusing upon the five books of his early Hermes series, this article argues that Michel Serres furnishes an accomplished, unconventional philosophical account of communication and mediation-a structuralist epistemology designed to comprehend the sciences in their complexity and plurality-that, even decades after its first publication, has significant value for media theory. Two key themes within this pentalogy are highlighted: firstly, its emphasis upon motifs of communication, transport, and circulation, attempting to grasp the scientific field in topological terms, as a kind of (...) networked encyclopaedia; and secondly, its attempt to account for the intricate relationship between the formal and the empirical in all theorization. (shrink)

In modernity, the distinction between nature and artifice disappears, so that machines made by men become privileged models for the explanation of natural bodies, as can be observed in Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, among others. This new relationship between nature and artifice is correlated with the mechanization and refutation of finality in nature, insofar as the adoption of mechanics as a model of nature’s explanation is associated to the rejection of the use of final causes in physics and to the conception (...) that bodies are devoid of immanent principles of movement or of any incorporeal principle that predisposes them to a process of change teleologically structured and oriented. Leibniz also conceives nature as artifice and organic bodies as automata, but his conception of natural bodies as artificial machines goes even further, to the point of characterizing the natural beings as those which carry the character of artificial rather than the artificial things themselves. However, unlike Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes, Leibniz uses the analogy of nature as a machine and deepens it precisely to argue that nature is teleologically structured and that the difference between the machines made by men and the natural (divine) ones lies in the fact that while those have a purely extrinsic finality, these have an immanent finality inscribed in each of their parts to infinity. (shrink)

O verdadeiro infinito, afirma Leibniz em seus Novos ensaios, não é um modo da quantidade, é anterior a qualquer composição e não é formado pela adição de partes. O infinito, para Leibniz, é atual e é propriedade de todas as coisas. Como criaturas finitas conhecem o infinito? Neste artigo, investigamos que tipo de relação pode ter o infinito matemático, quantitativo, para o conhecimento da infinitude divida e do infinito atual que existe no mundo. A ordem ideal da matemática instrui sobre (...) a ordem real do mundo? E quais os limites da ordem ideal na explicação do infinito atual que caracteriza Deus e o mundo? (shrink)

Topology is integral to a shift in socio-cultural theory from a linguistic to a mathematical paradigm. This has enabled in Badiou and Žižek a critique of the symbolic register, understood in terms of pure conceptual abstraction. Drawing on topology, this article understands it instead in terms of the figure. The break with the symbolic and language necessitates a break with form, but topologically still preserves a logic of the figure. This becomes a process of figuration, indeed a process of `deformation'. (...) Badiou/Žižek will then presume a break with the symbolic for `the real'. But topology entails the centrality of not the real but the imaginary. With Castoriadis, this imaginary is understood as productive and social, and with Sloterdijk as spatial. In our times this is a self-organizing socio-technical imaginary. For Niklas Luhmann these socio-technical systems engage in coupling. They structurally couple with other social imaginaries. Their self-organization, going beyond pure functionality, operates through semantic excess: an excess that organizes the system and is their structure. Such structural coupling entails semantic exchange, consisting of not just information but also of images. (shrink)

Contemporary capitalism is becoming increasingly metaphysical. The article contrasts a ‘physical’ capitalism – of the national and manufacturing age – with a ‘metaphysical capitalism’ of the global information society. It describes physical capitalism in terms of (1) extensity, (2) equivalence, (3) equilibrium and (4) the phenomenal, which stands in contrast to metaphysical capitalism’s (1) intensity, (2) inequivalence (or difference), (3) disequilibrium and (4) the noumenal. Most centrally: if use-value or the gift in pre-capitalist society is grounded in concrete inequivalence, and (...) exchange-value in physical capitalism presumes abstract equivalence, then value in contemporary society presumes abstract inequivalence. The article argues that the predominantly physical causation of the earlier epoch is being superseded by a more metaphysical causation. This is discussed in terms of the four Aristotelian causes. Thus there is a shift in efficient cause from abstract homogenous labour to abstract heterogeneous life. Material cause changes from the commodity’s units of equivalence to consist of informational units of inequivalence. Formal cause takes place through the preservation of form as a disequilibriate system through operations of closure. These operations are at the same time information interchanges with a form’s environment. Final (and first) cause becomes the deep-structural generation of information from a compressed virtual substrate. This may have implications for method in the social and human sciences. The article illustrates this shift with a brief discussion of global finance. (shrink)

The algorithm has become an increasingly important concept in understanding human behavior in recent years. In the case of sport, human bodies are seen as superficial to the driving force of the algorithm, whether it be genetic, behavioral or surveillance-technological algorithms (Harari Citation2015, 2020; Zuboff Citation2019). However, the French mathematician and philosopher Michel Serres (1930–2019) structurally relate algorithms to sports and bodily experience at multiple places in his oeuvre. According to Serres, sport actually enables us to reprogram and rewrite our (...) behavior, moods and thoughts, and therefore modifies our algorithmic status (Serres Citation1999, Citation2019). Against deterministic conceptions of the body, Serres argues that human bodies possess a ‘metamorphic’ nature that is similar to the procedural character of computer programs. This paper investigates the relationship between the algorithm and bodily existence through a reading of both Harari and Serres on sport. It will be argued that, against deterministic conceptions of the algorithm, the algorithm can actually broaden an understanding of the role of sports and physical activity. (shrink)

This paper examines the Leibnizian influence in Deleuze's theory of the spatium. Leibniz's critique of Cartesian extension and Newtonian space leads him to a conception of space in terms of internal determination and internal difference. Space is thus understood as a structure of individual relations internal to substances. Making some Nietzschean corrections to Leibniz, Deleuze understands the spatium in terms of individuating differences instead of individual relations. Leibnizian space is thus transformed into a genetic space producing both extension (quantity) and (...) quality. (shrink)

Em Androides sonham com ovelhas elétricas?, Philip Dick recria a visão divina dos infinitos mundo possíveis a partir da perspectiva das criaturas, isto é, a partir da visão dos mundos extintos que lhe aparecem no momento de hesitação garantido pelo livre arbítrio. Minha hipótese é que a passagem dos mundos possíveis no intelecto divino à forma que assumem na indiferença da vontade das criaturas tem uma dimensão geométrica. Pensar a curva do mundo atual a partir da série dos mundos menos (...) perfeitos do Deus leibniziano é pensá-la a partir de suas infinitas retas tangentes, a partir, portanto, de suas distopias, que não são uma contradição em relação a esse mundo, mas tocam-no em algum ponto, são seu máximo desvio a partir de uma mínima diferença. (shrink)

In the fourteenth chapter of The Philosophy of Information, Luciano Floridi puts forth a criticism of ‘digital ontology’ as a step toward the articulation of an ‘informational structural realism’. Based on the claims made in the chapter, the present paper seeks to evaluate the distinctly Kantian scope of the chapter from a rather unconventional viewpoint: while in sympathy with the author’s doubts ‘against’ digital philosophy, we follow a different route. We turn our attention to the concept of construction as used (...) in the book with the hope of raising some additional questions that might contribute to a better understanding of what is at stake in Floridi’s experimental epistemological response to digital ontology. (shrink)

É amplo o estudo sobre Leibniz hoje: conhecemo-lo como o filósofo metafísico de tendências religiosas, como opositor de Descartes, como vitalista, matemático etc.; mas a pergunta que orienta nossa pesquisa busca deslindar novos horizontes: é possível encontrar elementos em sua metafísica que nos permitam pensar o cenário social contemporâneo? A partir das ferramentas conceituais criadas pelo filósofo pensamos que a resposta seja positiva.

In this paper I will examine what Blaise Pascal means by “infinite distance”, both in his works on projective geometry and in the apologetics of the Pensées’s. I suggest that there is a difference of meaning in these two uses of “infinite distance”, and that the Pensées’s use of it also bears relations to the mathematical concept of heterogeneity. I also consider the relation between the finite and the infinite and the acceptance of paradoxical relations by Pascal.

"Consacrée dans des intitulés de cours, mobilisée dans les nomenclatures des organismes internationaux, prometteuse de débroussaillages très vites décevants ou de synthèses faussement structurantes, l'appellation objectivante communication internationale ne présente aucune valeur scientifique, sinon en tant qu'objet de recherche. Pour autant, la référence produit des effets de sens, qu'il est urgent de mettre en perspective, tant elle prête le jeu à des constructions discursives à géométrie variable, en fonction des intérêts croisés et souvent masqués d'acteurs de plus en plus nombreux (...) à l'échelle planétaire, et des espaces politico-culturels de diffusion de ces productions tactiques. La première option de repérage éclairant passe par le fil conducteur d'une discipline, académiquement reconnue. Précisément, la constitution depuis la France des sciences de l'information-communication en 1978 ouvre à un corpus d'approches théoriques et de questionnements épistémologiques déjà signifiant, même ainsi territorialisé. Prenant acte, -- quel que soit le continent cette fois -- des productions et des collaborations scientifiques transfrontières multiples et parfois concurrentes, l'interrogation croisée révèle des inflexions épistémologiques, théoriques, conceptuelles et méthodologiques justificatives d'un état, provisoire, de la recherche. Alors, la Communication-monde, esquissée par Armand Mattelart et érigée dans l'ouvrage au rang de concept structurant, permet de lire les enjeux communicationnels planétaires à l'aube du troisième millénaire, jusqu'à provoquer le décentrement contre les risques permanents d'ethnocentrisme de la pensée."-- Fourni par l'éditeur. (shrink)

The main objective of this article is to demonstrate that the thought of the French philosopher Blaise Pascal was never unaware of the main metaphysical discussions of the 17th century. The discussion thatwill be explored here is related to the question of infinity, explored with emphasis by the authors of that period. With this objective in mind, we will try to build an argument on the question of infinity in the metaphysics of two 17th century philosophers: Blaise Pascal and Baruch (...) Espinosa. We will try to show that Pascal’s philosophical reflection, on the one hand, resembles that of Spinoza when he assumes that God must be conceived as absolutely infinite, beyond any specific kind of infinity, whether mathematical orspatial, but he distances himself from the Dutch philosopher when he assumes that it is impossible for man to understand the infinite in absolute terms through rationality. (shrink)

Philosophy already has a long history of coming to terms with artificial intelligence. But if the future of the concept is indeed inseparable from artificial languages and ubiquitous computing...

Não há, para Leibniz, separação entre uma esfera ética, na qual seriam consideradas as ações voluntárias dos homens e sua busca pelo bem, e uma esfera epistemológica, pela qual se explicaria a busca pela verdade. Procuramos mostrar, primeiro, em que sentido se pode dizer que o conhecimento é uma ação voluntária; e, segundo, como a ação moral só é verdadeiramente livre se fundamentada no conhecimento do verdadeiro, por isso o modelo de homem livre é o homem sábio.

El objetivo de este trabajo es exponer una aproximación a los puntos de contacto y de divergencia entre el pensamiento de Leibniz y la hermenéutica de Gadamer, en la perspectiva de justificar la actualidad del pensamiento leibniziano desde el punto de vista de la concepción actual de la racionalidad. La hermenéutica propone un concepto de razón “débil” que se funda en la noción de fusión de horizontes, que puede ser interpretado como una forma de perspectivismo. Como contrapartida, se examina el (...) perspectivismo leibniziano desde el punto de vista de la armonía universal y del concepto de expresión como su fundamento. De este modo, la posibilidad de establecer correspondencias y transformaciones entre las diferentes perspectivas constituye un equivalente leibniziano la fusión de horizontes gadameriana. Además, gracias al concepto de “razón simbólica”, se le reconoce la filosofía leibniziana cierta superioridad respecto de la hermenéutica gadameriana. (shrink)

In this article we endeavor to show how the character Harlequin of Michel Serres embodies in his philosophy the conditions for the appearance of the new. In order to show it, we will first introduce Serres as the creator of characters and a philosopher of narrative. Then we will focus on Harlequin as the personification of a “third instruction”, the result of the mixing between humanities and the exact sciences. Last but not least, we will establish the relations between mixing (...) and invention as a condition for the creating of the new. (shrink)

O objetivo desse artigo é fazer uma discussão acerca da concepção de verdade presente no método A Razão dos Efeitos do filósofo francês Blaise Pascal. No opúsculo Do Espírito Geométrico, Pascal constata a presença de limites no âmbito da racionalidade que impedem a apreensão dos princípios da geometria de modo absoluto. Segundo pensamos, o método A Razão dos Efeitos, utilizado na obra Pensamentos, também estaria estruturado a partir desse pressuposto. Nos Pensamentos Pascal, na medida em que se depara com a (...) impossibilidade de apreender o homem de modo absoluto, é levado a assumir uma concepção bipolar de verdade no âmbito do método A Razão dos Efeitos, na qual os dois pólos que constituem a natureza humana, a miséria e a grandeza, são valorizados dentro da óptica do pecado original. Desse modo, tanto no Opúsculo, quanto nos Pensamentos, constatamos a presença de limites, os quais impedem que possamos obter uma concepção absoluta de verdade, seja em sentido teórico ou prático. (shrink)