Frederik Stjernfelt: Diagrammatical reasoning and natural propositions

The talk will present Peirce's notion of diagrammatical reasoning. The core idea is that all deductive reasoning takes place by means of diagrams, explicitly or implicitly. Everyday examples include the use of maps, schemata, charts, pictures, gestures, language; scientific examples include reasoning with specially constructed diagrams, algebras, formalisms, etc. An important implication is that reasoning also involves a perceptual-observational aspect. Reasoning takes you from one proposition to another - so another implication is that diagrams and pictures may be used in the expression of propositions. Peirce's functional definition of propositions thus extend their scope beyond human language, to non-linguistic semiotics as well as animal communication.


Giuseppe Longo: The constitution of meaning: from mathematical structures to organisms (e ritorno)

Mathematics delineates the contours of the objects of the world, cuts them from their background, structures them with strong and stable physico-mathematical meanings. This historical constitution of the meaning of the inert has limits with regard to the description of living processes; the informational alternative diverts the understanding of biology into a meaningless dissipation of the organism, a partially programmed bag of molecules. The search for the organicity of knowledge and of the object of knowledge is the challenge that confronts us, especially with regards to the new interactions we have with the ecosystem. What interface between disciplines can contribute to this research program for a meaningful unity yet to be constructed, with the world?

Free entrance on reservation at reservation@leslaboratoires.org and +33 153 561 590

Monday, September 29, 7pm
Seminar #1: Andrée C. Ehresmann (mathematician), The Glass Bead Game revisited: weaving emergent dynamics with the Memory Evolutive Systems methodology and Olivia Lucca Fraser (philosopher), Artificial Intelligence in the age of sexual reproduction: sketches for xenofeminism.
 
Wednesday, October 1, 7pm
Seminar #2: Martin Holbraad (anthropologist), Anthropology, metaphysics, art: ethnographic aporia at the limit and Franck Jedrzejewski (philosopher, mathematician, musicologist), Ontological fields: a categorification of space.
 
Friday, October 3, 7pm
Seminar #3: Frederik Stjernfelt (philosopher), Diagrammatical reasoning and natural propositions and Giuseppe Longo (mathematician, logician, epistemologist), The constitution of meaning: from mathematical structures to organisms (e ritorno).