Sound Research WIKINDX
Sound Research WIKINDX |
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| Gumbrecht, H. U. (2004). Production of presence: What meaning cannot convey. Stanford: Stanford University Press. |
  
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| Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 08/11/2023, 06:46 | |
| "What this book ultimately argues for is a relation to the things of the world that could oscillate between presence effects and meaning effects. Presence effects, however, exclusively appeal to the senses." | |
| Gumbrecht states: "What is "present" to us (very much in the sense of the Latin form prae-esse) is in front of us, in reach of and tangible for our bodies." | |
| "Cartesian cogito made the ontology of human existence depend exclusively on the movements of the human mind." | |
| "For the assumption that the phenomena have their inherent meanings woud not yet change on the threshold between medieval and early modern culture (interpretation would not be understood, broadly, as an attribution rather than as an identification of meaning until the nineteenth century)." | |
| Argues that, because presence-cultures have the body as a self-referent, "space, that is, that dimension that constitutes itself around bodies, must be the primordial dimension in which the relationship between different humans and the things of the world are being negotiated. Time, in contrast, is the primordial dimension for any meaning culture, because there seems to be an unavoidable relationship between consciousness and temporality [...] Above all, however, time is the primordial dimension of any meaning culture, because it takes time to carry out those transformative actions through which meaning cultures define the relationship between humans and the world." | |
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Gumbrecht gives an example of medieval (in this case Catholic) conception of presence in the Eucharist: Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and the wine, they "become tangible as substances in the "forms" of bread and wine" (p.28).
Such thinking derives from the Aristotelian concept of the sign. Whereas today's semiotics views a sign as comprised of signifier and signified (i.e. material surface and a depth that is meaning), this concept comprises a substance ("that which is present because it demands a space" (p.29)) and a form ("that through which the substance becomes perceptible" (p.29)). "There is no "immaterial" meaning detached from a "material signifier"" (p.29). Thus, bread and wine were easily conceived of as the forms making the substance (of Christ) present and perceptible. Protestant theology changed this into the concept of an "evocation of Christ's body and blood as "meanings"" (p.29). That is, the bread and wine were not actually body and blood but rather meant or signified the body and blood. Gumbrecht connects this change in the concept of signs to the emergence of historicity – "in modern understanding, signs at least potentially leave the substances that they evoke at a temporal and spatial distance" (p.30). |
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| Equates his concept of presence with Heidegger's concept of Being. | |
| Luhmann, N. (1995). Social systems. J. Bednarz Jr. & D. Baecker, Trans. Stanford: Stanford University Press. |
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| Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 01/05/2008, 13:15 | |
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Luhmann understands autopoiesis as transferring "self-reference from the level of structural formation and structural change to that of the constitution of elements." This does not mean that autopoietic systems lack reproductive operations -- these processes may only be used internally. |
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| For Luhmann, self-organizing systems ask the question what are "the particular conditions under which the repetition of a similar action or the expectation of the repetition of a similar experience is likely." Self-organizing systems are defined by their structures and structural formations. Conversely, autopoiesis, defined by the constitution of elements, asks: "How does one get from one elemental event to the next? [...] the basic problem lies not in repetition but in connectivity." | |
| Interpenetration is "an intersystem relation between systems that are environments for each other [...] the behavior of the penetrating system is co-determined by the receiving system [...] the receiving system also reacts to the structural formation of the penetrating system. [...] This means that greater degrees of freedom are possible in spite (better: because!) of increased dependencies. This also means that, in the course of evolution, interpenetration individualizes behavior more than penetration does." | |
| "One can speak of interpenetration only if the systems that contribute their own complexity are autopoietic systems. Interpenetration is thus a relationship between autopoietic systems." | |
| "Because a social system (like all other temporalized systems, including life) exists as elements that are events, it is confronted at every moment with the alternative of ceasing or continuing. It's "substance" continually vanishes so to speak, and must be reproduced with the help of structural models. [...] Autopoietic reproduction presupposes structural models, but it can innovatively or deviantly emerge from a situation if action remains communicable, meaningfully comprehensible, and capable of connection." | |
| "Autopoiesis is not simply a new word for existence or life. Because one must bring time into consideration, precise constraints on the conditions of possibility result. A system must not simply maintain "itself", it must maintain its "essential variables" (Ashby). This includes the interdependence of dissolution and reproduction despite constantly vanishing elements. Functionally, this means sufficient structures to guarantee connectivity." | |
| Autopoietic reproduction is confined to the elements defined in the system -- systems comprised of events reproduce only events. |