Framed as a consideration of the other contributions to the present volume of the Journal of Indian Philosophy, this essay attempts to scout and characterize several of the interrelated doctrines and issues that come into play in thinking philosophically about the doctrine of svasaṃvitti, particularly as that was elaborated by Dignāga and Dharmakīrti. Among the issues thus considered are the question of how mānasapratyakṣa (which is akin to manovijñāna) might relate to svasaṃvitti; how those related doctrines might be brought to (...) bear with respect to some problems addressed with reference to the further doctrine (also closely related to svasaṃvitti) concerning pramāṇaphala; and the distinctiveness of Dharmakīrti’s sahopalambhaniyama argument for svasaṃvitti. A question recurrently considered throughout the essay has to do with whether (following Akeel Bilgrami) svasaṃvitti reflects a perceptual or a constitutive understanding of self-awareness. (shrink)

In this thesis I outline a view of primary legislation from a systems perspective. I suggest that systems theory and, in particular, autopoietic theory, as modified by field theory, is a mechanism for understanding how society operates. The description of primary legislation that I outline differs markedly from any conventional definition in that I argue that primary legislation is not, and indeed cannot be, either a law or any of the euphemisms that are usually accorded to an enactment by a (...) parliament. I cite two reasons for such a conclusion. The primary reason for my conclusion is that I see primary legislation as being an output of a particular subsystem of society, while the law is the output of another subsystem of society. I argue that these outputs are the discrete products of separate subsystems of society. I argue that primary legislation should be viewed as a trinity. The first state of this trinity is that, upon enactment, primary legislation is a brute fact in that it is but a thing and the only property of this thing is that of being a text. The second state of this trinity is that following the act of enactment, the thing enacted will be reproduced and this reproduction is a separate thing that will sit in some repository until used. The third state of this trinity is that, upon use, this thing that is primary legislation will be transformed into an object and the user will attribute such functions and attributes to that object as are appropriate to the context within which the object is used. The thing has therefore become an object and an institutional fact. The second reason for my conclusion that primary legislation is not a law relates to the fact that the thing that is primary legislation is a text and the only function of a text is that it is available to be read. That is to say, of itself, a text is incapable of doing anything: it is the reader who defines the status of the text and attributes functions and attributes. Upon use, primary legislation thus becomes a censored input for future action and one of these actions may be some statement by a court of law. I assert that the view of primary legislation that has been accepted within the body politic is the product of the discourse of a particular subsystem of society that I have designated 'the legal practice', and I outline why and how this has occurred. Outlining a view about primary legislation also necessitates outlining a view as to the nature of the law. I assert that the law is a myth and I see this myth as a product of the discourse of the legal practice. I have asserted that although it is the judges that state the law, such statements flow from the discourse of those who practise the law. (shrink)

Elements of notation are variables and sentences are sequences of different variables. Both listening and reading are processes, which makes a sentence a stream of variations of a single variable. Thus, a simple sentence is a one-dimensional object, measured along the stream of variation. A sentence with coordinated or subordinated material effectively encodes multiple streams which makes a complex sentence a two-dimensional object with that second dimension measured across the multiple streams. A single symbol does not vary and is therefore (...) a zero-dimensional object. Processes exist in time and the dimensions of notation are therefore abstract dimensions. (shrink)

This thesis considers the practice of Bible translation from the perspective of contemporary translation studies and provides a fresh translation and accompanying commentary of aspects of Paul's Letter to the Romans. The emergence of functionalism, particularly skopos theory, in the latter part of the 20th century is seen as a key moment in the development of translation theory. The thesis argues that it has significant advantages over source text orientated approaches which have traditionally dominated Bible translation practice. An essential history (...) documents this evolution of theoretical developments in translation study. The advantages of skopos theory over equivalence-based approaches are discussed with particular reference to Bible translation theory and the work of E. A. Nida. The functionalist approach increases the range of possible translations, with this thesis adopting a foreignising purpose in a new translation of Romans 1:1-15, 15:14-16:27. The foreignising approach owes its origins to F. Schleiermacher and involves rendering a text so as to preserve or heighten the sense of otherness of the source text, thereby retaining something of the foreignness of the original. An accompanying commentary is provided to explain the translator's choices. (shrink)

This dissertation is situated within the field of media studies, with a particular focus on the "materialities of communication." The concept of "materialities" is oriented to the underlying conditions that allow communication to take place: the places, carriers and modes of communication that serve to shape and even alter meaning. My dissertation asks how this "material turn" can usefully be applied to and help develop the study of theatre.

This article addresses the subject of the ekphrastic description of experiencing music. It shows the main differences between ekphrasis and commonly used analysis in music theory and musicology. In approaching the problem of ekphrasis with what is called pure music, I emphasize its ancient understanding, thus differing from Lydia Goehr (2010) and Siglind Bruhn (2000, 2001, 2019). The ekphrastic analysis of the first movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 conducted in this article uses the methodology developed (...) by Gottfried Boehm (2014) and Georges Didi-Huberman (2005, 2015, 2017, 2018) in the discipline of art history. This article aims to delineate a new way of researching the art of music, an essential feature of which is the combination of the traditions of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. (shrink)

We discuss the role of linguistic metaphors as a cognitive frame for the understanding of genetic information processing. The essential similarity between language and genetic information processing has been recognized since the very beginning, and many prominent scholars have noted the possibility of considering genes and genomes as texts or languages. Most of the core terms in molecular biology are based on linguistic metaphors. The processing of genetic information is understood as some operations on text – writing, reading and editing (...) and their specification (encoding/decoding, proofreading, transcription, translation, reading frame). The concept of gene reading can be traced from the archaic idea of the equation of Life and Nature with the Book. Thus, the genetics itself can be metaphorically represented as some operations on text (deciphering, understanding, code-breaking, transcribing, editing, etc.), which are performed by scientists. At the same time linguistic metaphors portrayed gene entities also as having the ability of reading. In the case of such “bio-reading” some essential features similar to the processes of human reading can be revealed: this is an ability to identify the biochemical sequences based on their function in an abstract system and distinguish between type and its contextual tokens of the same type. Metaphors seem to be an effective instrument for representation, as they make possible a two-dimensional description: biochemical by its experimental empirical results and textual based on the cognitive models of comprehension. In addition to their heuristic value, linguistic metaphors are based on the essential characteristics of genetic information derived from its dual nature: biochemical by its substance, textual (or quasi-textual) by its formal organization. It can be concluded that linguistic metaphors denoting biochemical objects and processes seem to be a method of description and explanation of these heterogeneous properties. (shrink)

In his lecture course on Hölderlin's hymn “The Ister,” Heidegger makes a striking claim about translation which implies that the paradigm of translation can never be encapsulated by a passive substitution of one linguistic signifier for another, for what is involved is no less than the stance the translator takes within his original language as unconcealment, and how he ex-sists toward the other language as the site of another revelation. If the human being and Being belong together by the happening (...) of Ereignis in the way beings presence through language, the hermeneutical event of translation as unfolding, not only within history but also toward that which opens up historical understanding, grounds his entire authentic comportment toward this unconcealment. This article will argue that translation provides a useful correlative through which we can understand Ereignis as appropriative event. (shrink)

This article argues that the translation of books may be fruitfully understood as constituting a cultural world-system. The working of this system, based on a core-periphery structure, accounts for the uneven flows of translations between language groups as well as for the varying role of translations within language groups. The final part outlines how this general sociological model may be further developed.

I argue that modal epistemology should pay more attention to questions about the structure and function of modal thought. We can treat these questions from synchronic and diachronic angles. From a synchronic perspective, I consider whether a general argument for the epistemic support of modal though can be made on the basis of modal thoughs’s indispensability for what Enoch and Schechter (2008) call rationally required epistemic projects. After formulating the argument, I defend it from various objections. I also examine the (...) possibility of considering the indispensability of modal thought in terms of its components. Finally, I argue that we also need to approach these issues from a diachronic perspective, and I sketch how to approach this task. (shrink)

It is a matter of philosophical debate whether Jonathan Israel’s assessment of Spinoza’s notion of ‘state religion’ can be interpreted as an atheistic and Marxist reading of Spinoza. Contrary to the widely accepted view, Spinoza has a peculiar understanding of religion; and thus, his views cannot, simply, be equated with atheism. By relying on this fact, in this article, I am going to shed light on the issue and try to show to what extent Israel’s interpretation goes beyond what Spinoza (...) himself claims and whether or not Spinoza’s views can make him an atheist. Another concern of the text will be elucidating Marx’s critique of Bruno Bauer’s argument for the abolition of religion and laying bare if there is any continuity between Marx and Spinoza on the problem of religion. After Israel’s interpretation is restated, both Spinozistic view of religion, as he puts forward in the Theological-Political Treatise [Tractatus Theologico- Politicus, 1670] and Political Treatise [Tractatus Politicus, 1676] and Marx’s arguments on the same issue in “On the Jewish Question” [in Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, 1844] will be examined in detail. Depending on these investigations, it will be argued that what Israel defends in his text Radical Enlightenment [2001] does not make Spinoza an atheist; on the contrary, although Spinoza is not an advocate of the commonsensical view of religion, he defends his own understanding of religion—which causes him to be regarded, prejudicedly, as an atheist. Furthermore, it will be pointed out that Israel’s interpretation cannot be a Marxist interpretation either because Marx’s critique of religion is generally misunderstood and mistaken with that of Bruno Bauer. Neither Spinoza’s views on religion nor that of Marx are completely compatible with what Israel defends in Radical Enlightenment; nevertheless, this does not mean that Israel tries to make an atheist or Marxist out of Spinoza through his appropriation of the philosopher. (shrink)

In this paper, translation engages not only with metaphors, but the ‘consistent multiplicity’ (Alliez & Feher 1986: 41) of figures of speech that intersemiotically animate Australian artist Brett Whiteley’s (1939-92) verbal and pictorial language. The aim is to address some ‘formative questions […] concerning language, medium and meaning’ (Harrison 2004: 5) by studying the rhetoric devices featuring in two texts: a letter written by Whiteley to his mother in 1979, and the painting Art, life and the other thing (1978). The (...) letter and the painting intersect in a series of hypertextual links, and map language nomadism across words and images. The comparative analysis of Whiteley’s painting and letter displays that the translating process is deeply influenced and sometimes completely transformed by the concurrence of heterogeneous elements. Pictures and words relate to each other: when translation enters, the text is completed. (shrink)

The concept of an 'assumption' is discussed, and it is suggested that the psychological model implied by normal usage is misleading. A new model is proposed which distinguishes between 'assumptions', as constraints upon the thinking process, and 'postulates', as corresponding potential or actual propositional vocalizations. Some evidence for this model is provided, and its implications, particularly for the process of assumption identification, are discussed. It is suggested that assumption identification requires lateral thinking, and needs to be separated from problem-solving. The (...) discussion is offered as an instance of an appropriate type of fusion of psychological and informal-logical approaches. (shrink)

Translation theory and the philosophy of language have largely gone their separate ways (the former opting to rebrand itself as “translation studies” to emphasize its empirical and anti-theoretical underpinnings). Yet translation theory and the philosophy of language have predominately shared a common assumption that stands in the way of determinate translation. It is that languages, not texts, are the objects of translation and the subjects of semantics. The way to overcome the theoretical problems surrounding the possibility and determinacy of translation (...) is to marry the philosopher of language's concern for determinacy and semantic accuracy in translation with the notion of a “text-type” from the translation theory literature. The resulting text-type conception of semantics (TTS) is a novel alternative to the salient positions of Contextualism and Semantic Minimalism in the contemporary philosophy of language. (shrink)

This article questions the aptness of ‘discourse analysis’ as a label for our field, and prefers the less reductionist concept of ‘Discourse Interpretation’. It does this through drawing on ideas from the field of philosophical hermeneutics – the theory and practice of interpreting texts. It operationalizes and adapts the construct of the Interpretive Arc from the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur in order to address issues that are central to discourse work, including that of how we warrant the validity of our (...) textual interpretations. The Interpretive Arc consists of six inter-linked phases, which the article presents and exemplifies through discussion of a single text – the story of Babel. Phase 1 of the arc defines readers as being in a state of Estrangement before the text because of the distancing created by its written or technological form. Phase 2 is that of Pre-view, the state of opinion or knowledge that readers bring to a text. At phase 3, a first reading forms readers’ Proto-understanding, their initial ‘guess’ at what the text means. Then processes of Analysis test and evidence the validity of alternative readings, limiting the interpretations which can plausibly be taken from a text. Three byways of interpretive analysis are challenged and discarded: the dominance of author intention, structuralist analysis and limitless polysemy. Analysis then leads into 5, the phase of informed Understanding of the matter or injunction of the text, of what is disclosed or unfolded before the text. The Interpretive Arc is completed in phase 6, Ownership. Here, through processes of critique of their own and the text’s ideologies and of fresh listening, readers are led to a new self formed by the matter of the text. There is a dialectic amongst Analysis, Understanding and Ownership, with each informing and modifying the other. The approach emphasizes interpretation as the heart of discourse work. The 3000-year-old narrative of Babel is a subject as well as an object here. It contributes to the matter of the article and its interpretation is interwoven with the theoretical substance. The story is shown to be an integrated narrative abounding in sophisticated linguistic techniques which show a delight in language. The traditional Christian and Western interpretation of Babel – as an affront to God which results in the curse of multilingualism – is challenged. A re-constructed interpretation informed by intertextual evidence reads the fault of Babel to be the people’s refusal to spread through the earth. Babel can be interpreted as a manifesto against the monolingual and monocultural impetus of empires ancient and contemporary. The multilingual outcome is a positive affirmation of sociocultural and linguistic diversity. (shrink)

Researchers studying Flusser’s work are faced with two apparently distinct periods: in the first period, while he lived in Brazil, Flusser developed his theory of language; in the second period, after his return to Europe, his theory of the media and post-historical society. In this paper, I intend to explore some of the connections between those two periods of Flusser’s thought, and point to some possible ways Flusser’s view on language and translation can be applied to his conception of post-historical (...) society. Flusser's reflections suggesting that writing is coming to an end are analyzed here in an effort to identify the place occupied by translation in a world where history and writing are losing ground to technological images. In this context, this work emphasizes the crucial role assigned by Flusser to translation: that of building bridges, not only between different languages and cultures, but also between different fields and models of knowledge. (shrink)

This dissertation responds to a recent zeitgeist and climate of controversy surrounding issues of "virtuality" and "simulation" Such terms are treated as problematic and essentially contested when framed in reference to notions of a fixed observable "reality" rather than considered in terms of socially constructed facts, relationships and identities. The concept of the "virtual stage" advanced in this thesis, refers to the current historical moment in communications technology development as well as to the dramaturgical perspective which informs the theoretical approach (...) and argument. (shrink)

The present study investigates and thematizes the interrelation between face masking, concealment, and deceit. It starts from the premise that the significance of disguise and deceit in the history of ideas should be reversed as these methods of the management of human appearance are not only regarded as coercive methods to manipulate and exert power over others but also as tactics skillfully used by the weak in order to outmaneuver those who are in a position of power. The study traces (...) the matrix of simulation and dissimulation as forming the structure of deceit, it reviews some of the main theories of disguise within the field of semiotics, and it singles out two main dimensions of disguise, one geared upon dynamism and the other based on the static features of the face. This study suggests that classifications of masks elaborated in semiotic theory hitherto are useful but insufficient to encompass the full scope of such phenomenon. For this reason, the study provides a new typology of masks. (shrink)

The term “translation” has three meanings: the practice of the translator, the textual outcome of this practice, and the relationship it creates between texts and languages. In this article, I would like to draw attention to this third aspect, translation as a relation. To do so, I will first propose a historical overview of the first two meanings, as well as of the normative or descriptive aims associated to them. Secondly, I identify three motives for thinking about translation that are (...) primarily concerned with its relational dimension: the lack of a language to speak about the relationship between languages, i.e. about what’s incomparable and what gets subtracted. I conclude this article with the hypothesis that translation as a relation constitutes a refuge event for the plurality of languages. (shrink)

Professor Parkinson in his lecture on ‘The Translation Theory of Understanding’ discusses two stages in the development of a false but influential tradition which he finds common to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Professor George Steiner's After Babel. He is not, of course, alleging any direct historical influence of the one on the other; neither is he principally addressing Steiner's book as a whole, but rather the account of understanding upon which it appears to be founded. I should like (...) to take his paper as the starting-point for my own, but begin from a somewhat broader view than he does of the legacy of Locke. With Parkinson's constructive position I have no quarrel, and I shall not address myself directly to it. (shrink)

From Herder to Benedict Anderson, language and nation have been at the centre of ideas about community. This hypothesis, however, poses a problem for analysing ideas about Europe. How can we understand “Europe” as a concept or form of identity when language and nationality are considered the foundation of imagined communities and loyalties? This article addresses this difficulty. It uses J. G. A. Pocock’s definition of “sub-languages” to suggest that one can investigate the rhetorical strategies, images and vocabularies with which (...) texts articulate ideas about Europe. These sub-languages evoke imagined communities, most obviously when texts name and identify particular groups of people as “Europeans.” But by using images and rhetorics about Europe, these texts also appeal to a readership that comprehends—even if it does not fully accept—certain assumptions about the continent. In this way, texts evoke an imagined community of readers who purportedly share a similar way of understanding Europe, or who can perhaps be persuaded to think about it in similar terms. These processes are historically particular, and so the article concludes with concrete examples. It focuses on how early-nineteenth-century philhellenes evoked a European imagined community to solicit support for the Greek Revolution. (shrink)

We discuss the role of linguistic metaphors as a cognitive frame for the understanding of genetic information processing. The essential similarity between language and genetic information processing has been recognized since the very beginning, and many prominent scholars have noted the possibility of considering genes and genomes as texts or languages. Most of the core terms in molecular biology are based on linguistic metaphors. The processing of genetic information is understood as some operations on text – writing, reading and editing (...) and their specification (encoding/decoding, proofreading, transcription, translation, reading frame). The concept of gene reading can be traced from the archaic idea of the equation of Life and Nature with the Book. Thus, the genetics itself can be metaphorically represented as some operations on text (deciphering, understanding, codebreaking, transcribing, editing, etc.), which are performed by scientists. At the same time linguistic metaphors portrayed gene entities also as having the ability of reading. In the case of such “bio-reading” some essential features similar to the processes of human reading can be revealed: this is an ability to identify the biochemical sequences based on their function in an abstract system and distinguish between type and its contextual tokens of the same type. Metaphors seem to be an effective instrument for representation, as they make possible a two-dimensional description: biochemical by its experimental empirical results and textual based on the cognitive models of comprehension. In addition to their heuristic value, linguistic metaphors are based on the essential characteristics of genetic information derived from its dual nature: biochemical by its substance, textual (or quasi-textual) by its formal organization. It can be concluded that linguistic metaphors denoting biochemical objects and processes seem to be a method of description and explanation of these heterogeneous properties. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 161-179.

Professor Parkinson in his lecture on ‘The Translation Theory of Understanding’ discusses two stages in the development of a false but influential tradition which he finds common to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Professor George Steiner's After Babel. He is not, of course, alleging any direct historical influence of the one on the other; neither is he principally addressing Steiner's book as a whole, but rather the account of understanding upon which it appears to be founded. I should like (...) to take his paper as the starting-point for my own, but begin from a somewhat broader view than he does of the legacy of Locke. With Parkinson's constructive position I have no quarrel, and I shall not address myself directly to it. (shrink)

What did it mean to “vulgarize” in Renaissance Italy? Was it simply a matter of translating into the vernacular, or did it mean making a text more accessible to the people – to in some sense popularize it? The answer is far from simple and certainly never one-sided; therefore, each individual case needs to be independently assessed on its own merits. This article seeks to shed some light at least on the major treatments of the theory of vulgarization by the (...) likes of Ludovico Castelvetro, Faustus Longianus, Francesco Robortello, Alessandro Piccolomini, Orazio Toscanella and Girolamo Catena, which were central to the debate from the 1540s onwards. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRicoeur’s proposal to understand the encounter between religions as a practice of ‘linguistic hospitality’ has appealed to many interreligious scholars. Usually, religious texts are at the heart of interreligious hermeneutics, turning Ricoeur’s linguistic hospitality into a practice of interreligious cross-reading. Recently, due to the influence of material and ritual scholars, the textual focus of interreligious hermeneutics has been criticized. Two criticisms are prominent. First, the assumption that understanding religious otherness is best mediated via language and texts leads religious scholars to (...) minimize the ‘non-textual’ practices in religious life. Second, interreligious interpreters mistakenly assume that they can read all meaningful action and ritual performances, especially as texts. This assumption leads to a textualization of the world and does not take into account that there might be other ‘vehicles of intelligibility’ apart from texts. In this article, I explore to what extent the criticisms raised against Ricoeur’s interreligious hermeneutics are fair. I have learned from Ricoeur the importance of mediating between seemingly opposed positions, and I seek to follow his example in this article. (shrink)

Au-delà des frontières des langues, des cultures juridiques et systèmes de droit, conciliant synchronie et diachronie, le Professeur Mattila nous offre une oeuvre riche en couleurs, rencontres illustres et cas d’espèce. Nul doute qu’il s’agit là d’un ouvrage de référence, à la fois au regard de l’introduction d’une approche heuristique et de la cartographie d’un champ de connaissances commun au juriste et au linguiste. Sa vaste étude des interactions terminologiques et conceptuelles des langues et traditions juridiques européennes propose un tableau (...) minutieux, systématique et argumenté de la situation du langage juridique dans cinq langues. Elle offre une réflexion sur le développement de ces langues, notamment sur le plan international. Travail herculéen s’il en est, il ne pouvait être réalisé que par un humaniste accompli. Heikki Mattila, professeur émérite de jurilinguistique à l’Université de Lapland en Finlande, est juriste, spécialiste multilingue du langage juridique, linguiste .. (shrink)

In times of erosion and dissolution of social structures and institutions, described by Bauman as the interregnum, there arises both a need and a possibility of developing alternative approaches to the most fundamental organizational practices. Marketing, a simultaneously tremendously successful and much criticized sub-discipline and practice, is a prime candidate for such a redefinition. Potential prefigurations of future processes of organizing and institutionalizing can be found within dissenting organizations, the alternative organizations built at the fringes of, and in opposition to, (...) the mainstream businesses as reported by Parker et al.. In this paper, we present an exploration of the alternative yet already enacted practice we call earnest marketing. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a number of dissenting organizations in the United Kingdom and Poland, we focus on the radical reconstitution of marketing evidenced in their practice, defined by an attitude of earnestness and dedication to the dissemination and demonstration of their self-defined goodness: ideas and values. As organizations engage in earnest marketing, they also become receptive to reciprocal messages from their environments. We conclude by reflecting on the possibilities of a dissenting management model developing the principles of earnest marketing beyond disciplinary confines. (shrink)

In this article we want to argue that mission models of inculturation and contextualization are not apt responses to the enlightenment model of mission or colonial mission and that the ‘mission as translation’ model is one way forward. We propose this explorative model of mission by engaging mission studies with translation studies in philosophy of language. The realization that mission studies, with its focus on the gospel text, missionary-interpreter and receptor community, shares structural commonalities with the central categories of translation (...) studies inspires this engagement between disciplines. Our proposal is that mission as translation is necessarily a fusion of these three horizons. Finally, we test this model in the Lotha Naga context, ending with broad implications for mission studies. (shrink)

(1995). Innovation and change in the production of knowledge. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Knowledge (EX) Change, pp. 211-232. doi: 10.1080/02691729508578789.

This article presents Paul Ricoeur's ideas about translation in view of giving some guidelines for the interpretation of cultures. Ricoeur's `hermeneutics of the self', which stresses the creativity of capable human being, has its source in a conviction of the superabundance of sense over the abundance of nonsense. It is the problem of the transmission of meaning from one language to another, from one culture to another that gives impetus to his preoccupation with translation. Ricoeur's radical astonishment before the plurality (...) of languages and cultures and his deep conviction about `communication' among human beings made him realize the urgent `task of translation' that is accompanied by a `task of morning'. If translation is the paradigm of all exchanges, its practice can provide us some guidelines in the dialogue of cultures. First, one must courageously open oneself to the `test' of the Other, to welcome difference and respect it as unsurpassable. Second, one must wager on the possibility of an `equivalence without identity', to take a non-hierarchical view of cultures. Third, one must undertake the `task of mourning', to learn to narrate otherwise, to interpret otherwise. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 181-205.

The ArugmentThis essay answers a single question: what was Robert Hooke, the Royal Society's curator of experiments, doing in his well-known 1665 work,Micrographia?Hooke was articulating a “universal cure of the mind” capable of bringing about a “reformation in Philosophy,” a change in philosophy's interpretive practices and organization. The work explicated the interpretive and political foundations for a community of optical instrument users coextensive with the struggling Royal Society. Standard observational practices would overcome the problem of using nonstandard instruments, while inherent (...) inrepresentation– the interpretive practice championed in the text – were important theological and political meanings. Hooke's kind of experimental philosophy undermined the claims made by “atheists” and “enthusiasts” – the enemies of the restored church and state – while also producing useful knowledge. Equally important, Hooke modeled the community described inMicrographiaupon the classicalres publica, but his community made important concessions to Restoration political realities, especially the growing role of commercial or transactional relationships. (shrink)

Living in several languages encompasses experiencing and constructing oneself differently in each language. The research study on which this article is based takes an intersectional approach to explore insider accounts of the place of language speaking in individuals’ constructions of self, family relationships and the wider context. Twenty-four research interviews and five published autobiographies were analysed using grounded theory, narrative and discursive analysis. A major finding was that learning a new language inducted individuals into somewhat ‘stereotyped’ gendered discourses and power (...) relations within the new language, while also enabling them to view themselves differently in the context of their first language. This embodied process could be challenging and often required reflection and discursive work to negotiate the dissimilarities, discontinuities and contradictions between languages and cultures. However, the participants generally claimed that their linguistic multiplicity generated creativity. Women and men used their language differences differently to ‘perform their gender’. This was particularly evident in language use within families, which involved gendered differences in the choice of language for parenting – despite the fact that both men and women experience their first languages as conveying intimacy in their relationships with their children. The article argues that the notion of ‘mother tongue’ is unhelpful in this process as well as in considering the implications of living in several languages for systemic therapy. (shrink)