The Data Sensorium Davide Panagia
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The Return of Vitalism: Canguilhem and French Biophilosophy in the 1960S
The Return of Vitalism: Canguilhem and French Biophilosophy in the 1960s Charles T. Wolfe Unit for History and Philosophy of Science University of Sydney [email protected] Abstract The eminent French biologist and historian of biology, François Jacob, once notoriously declared ―On n‘interroge plus la vie dans les laboratoires‖1: laboratory research no longer inquires into the notion of ‗Life‘. Nowadays, as David Hull puts it, ―both scientists and philosophers take ontological reduction for granted… Organisms are ‗nothing but‘ atoms, and that is that.‖2 In the mid-twentieth century, from the immediate post-war period to the late 1960s, French philosophers of science such as Georges Canguilhem, Raymond Ruyer and Gilbert Simondon returned to Jacob‘s statement with an odd kind of pathos: they were determined to reverse course. Not by imposing a different kind of research program in laboratories, but by an unusual combination of historical and philosophical inquiry into the foundations of the life sciences (particularly medicine, physiology and the cluster of activities that were termed ‗biology‘ in the early 1800s). Even in as straightforwardly scholarly a work as La formation du concept de réflexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (1955), Canguilhem speaks oddly of ―defending vitalist biology,‖ and declares that Life cannot be grasped by logic (or at least, ―la vie déconcerte la logique‖). Was all this historical and philosophical work merely a reassertion of ‗mysterian‘, magical vitalism? In order to answer this question we need to achieve some perspective on Canguilhem‘s ‗vitalism‘, notably with respect to its philosophical influences such as Kurt Goldstein. -
The Hierarchically Mechanistic Mind: a Free-Energy Formulation of the Human Psyche
JID:PLREV AID:1045 /REV [m3SC+; v1.294; Prn:28/01/2019; 9:15] P.1(1-18) Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Physics of Life Reviews ••• (••••) •••–••• www.elsevier.com/locate/plrev Review The hierarchically mechanistic mind: A free-energy formulation of the human psyche ∗ Paul B. Badcock a,b,c, , Karl J. Friston d, Maxwell J.D. Ramstead d,e,f a Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 3052, Australia b Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 3010, Australia c Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Melbourne, 3052, Australia d Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, WC1N3BG, UK e Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2T7, Canada f Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 1A1, Canada Communicated by Prod Felix Schoeller Abstract This article presents a unifying theory of the embodied, situated human brain called the Hierarchically Mechanistic Mind (HMM). The HMM describes the brain as a complex adaptive system that actively minimises the decay of our sensory and physical states by producing self-fulfilling action-perception cycles via dynamical interactions between hierarchically organised neurocog- nitive mechanisms. This theory synthesises the free-energy principle (FEP) in neuroscience with an evolutionary systems theory of psychology that explains our brains, minds, and behaviour by appealing to Tinbergen’s four questions: adaptation, phylogeny, on- togeny, and mechanism. After leveraging the FEP to formally define the HMM across different spatiotemporal scales, we conclude by exploring its implications for theorising and research in the sciences of the mind and behaviour. -
Delirium: Presentation, Epidemiology, and Diagnostic Evaluation (Part 1)
IDENTIFYING AND MANAGING PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCIES Delirium: Presentation, Epidemiology, and Diagnostic Evaluation (Part 1) COLIN J. HARRINGTON, MD; KALYA VARDI, MD 18 23 EN ABSTRACT state, acute brain dysfunction, acute brain failure, acute Delirium is a highly prevalent and complex neuro- organic brain syndrome, ICU psychosis, and metabolic en- psychiatric disorder marked by attentional dysfunction, cephalopathy, amongst others. The term delirium is derived disturbances in multiple cognitive domains, and changes from the Latin roots de (translated “away from”) and lira in motor behavior, perception, sleep, and thought pro- (translated “furrow of a field”) thus suggesting that one is cess. Delirium results from diverse toxic, metabolic, in- derailed from the plowed or straight path.11 fectious, and structural etiologies and is associated with The term encephalopathy is often employed in place of or a number of adverse outcomes. Delirium pathophysiol- alongside delirium and allows for the proper grouping togeth- ogy involves perturbation of multiple neurotransmitter er of delirium and dementia as cognitive disorders – while systems. Behavioral presentations of delirium are com- also providing for the longitudinal course-based distinction mon and are often misattributed to primary psychiatric between delirium and dementia, as acute and reversible, and processes. Diagnostic assessment of delirium includes chronic and progressive forms of encephalopathy, respec- thorough physical examination, careful cognitive test- tively. Use of this terminology also allows for description ing, appropriate metabolic and infectious studies, re- of the intermediate syndrome of sub-acute encephalopathy view of medications, and structural brain imaging and where cognitive dysfunction is often less obvious and electroencephalography as indicated. Pharmacologic and neuropsychiatric symptoms predominate. -
Panel Proposal: the Necessity of Critique II Organizer: Darryl Cressman, Maastricht University
Panel Proposal: The Necessity of Critique II Organizer: Darryl Cressman, Maastricht University Functionalization and the World – Causality, Culture, and Planetary Technology Jochem Zweer University of Twente My contribution focusses on Feenberg’s recent rearticulation of his widely discussed instrumentalization theory, in which the pairing of primary and secondary instrumentalization is addressed in terms of causal and cultural functionalization. First, I show how this conceptualization of functionalization aligns with existing approaches in contemporary philosophy of technology and STS inasmuch as it departs from technological artefacts, but contrasts with such approaches inasmuch as it attends to how such artefacts reveal a world, which is to say a political world of formal biases, operational autonomy, and democratic potential. Secondly, in following Feenberg’s explicit association of philosophy of technology and environmental thought, I inquire after his understanding of the technological world as an outcome of social conditions. Via a phenomenological interpretation of the Anthropocene and associated planetary functionalization, I argue that Feenberg’s treatment of causal functionalization tends to reduce to cultural functionalization. While the resulting critical constructivist account of is both urgent and worthwhile in light of today’s ecological emergency, I suggest that it does not exhaust the implications of the advent of the Anthropocene. I therefore conclude by discussing causal functionalization in light of the analysis of causality that Heidegger develops in the Question concerning Technology, thereby drawing attention to the ontological conditioning of functionalization. I suggest that attending to such ontological conditioning must have a place in the critical constructivist project of uncovering the biases of contemporary functional rationality. -
Psychology and Mental Health in Contemporary Art
arts Article Neglect and the Kaleidoscopic Mind: Psychology and Mental Health in Contemporary Art Marcos Lutyens 1,* and Leonardo Christov-Moore 2 1 Independent Artist, Los Angeles, CA 90065, USA 2 Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, 3620A McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 9 January 2020; Accepted: 26 March 2020; Published: 8 April 2020 Abstract: This paper seeks to explore the broad question of whether and how art can be applied to medical therapeutic practices. As part of this research, the paper outlines an ongoing project, exemplifying this combined approach, which seeks to improve function in stroke patients. We reviewed previous collaborations between art and psychology dating back to the 1960s, employing methods ranging from simple, analog, haptic interfaces to the contemporary potential of machine learning to improve brain function. We then outline an ongoing project employing machine learning and multisensory stimulation to improve function in stroke patients, which are being run in collaboration with Klinik Lippoldsberg, Germany. We discuss the possibility that these same approaches may also be applied to healthy people as an open-ended inquiry into consciousness and mental optimization. It is hoped that these approaches will be beneficial to the medical community, but also equally broaden the reach and context of contemporary art, which is so often marginalized within institutions that are not readily accessible to or in communication with other disciplines. Keywords: stroke; art; healing; neuroscience; AI; machine learning; therapy; medicine 1. Background This paper stems from a collaboration called “Symmetries of the Mind”, with Klinik und Rehabilitationszentrum Lippoldsberg, located in the Wahlsburg area of central Germany. -
Print This Article
Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of Information An Interview with Jean-Hugues Barthélémy Jean-Hugues Barthélémy Andrew Iliadis Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française, Vol XXIII, No 1 (2015) pp 102-112. Vol XXIII, No 1 (2015) ISSN 1936-6280 (print) ISSN 2155-1162 (online) DOI 10.5195/jffp.2015.679 www.jffp.org This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. This journal is operated by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is co-sponsored by the UniversityJournal of Pittsburgh of French and Press Francophone Philosophy | Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française Vol XXIII, No 1 (2015) | www.jffp.org | DOI 10.5195/jffp.2015.679 Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of Information An Interview with Jean-Hugues Barthélémy Jean-Hugues Barthélémy Centre international des études simondoniennes Andrew Iliadis Purdue University Jean-Hugues Barthélémy is a French philosopher and a leading authority on the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989). Barthélémy is Director of the Centre international des études simondoniennes (CIDES – MSH Paris-Nord), Professor of philosophy, Doctor in epistemology of the University Paris VII – Denis Diderot, Editor and Director of Cahiers Simondon, and Research Associate at the University Paris Ouest – Nanterre La Défense. He is the author of Penser l’individuation. Simondon et la philosophie de la nature (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), Penser la connaissance et la technique après Simondon (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005), Simondon ou l’encyclopédisme génétique (Paris: P.U.F., 2008), and Simondon (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014 – translation forthcoming: Bloomsbury, 2016). -
On Cosmotechnics: for a Renewed Relation Between Technology And
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology ISSN: 1091-8264 21:2–3 (2017): 1–23 DOI: 10.5840/techne201711876 On Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Relaton between Technology and Nature in the Anthropocene Yuk Hui Abstract: This article aims to bring forward a critical refection on a renewed relation between nature and technology in the Anthropocene, by contextualizing the question around the recent debates on the “ontological turn” in Anthropology, which attempts to go beyond the nature and culture dualism analysed as the crisis of modernity. The “politics of ontologies” associated with this movement in anthropology opens up the question of participation of non-humans. This article contrasts this anthropological attempt with the work of the philosopher Gilbert Simondon, who wants to overcome the antagonism between culture and technics. According to Simondon, this antago- nism results from the technological rupture of modernity at the end of the eighteenth century. This paper analyses the differences of the oppositions presenting their work: culture vs. nature, culture vs. technics, to show that a dialogue between anthropology of nature (illustrated through the work of Philippe Descola) and philosophy of tech- nology (illustrated through the work of Simondon) will be fruitful to conceptualize a renewed relation between nature and technology. One way to initiate such a conversa- tion as well as to think about the reconciliation between nature and technology, this article tries to show, is to develop the concept of cosmotechnics as the denominator of these two trends of thinking. Key words: ontological turn, Gilbert Simondon, Philippe Descola, cosmotechnics, modernity Introducton It is scarcely deniable that the Anthropocene, beyond its obvious signifcation as a new geological era, also represents a crisis that is the culmination of two- Yuk Hui, Institut für Kultur und Ästhetik Digitaler Medien, Leuphana University, Scharnhorststraße 1, 21335, Lüneburg, Germany; [email protected]. -
Simondon: Investigating the Pre-Organizational
Fichier auteur. Une version ultérieure est parue : Letiche Hugo & Moriceau Jean-Luc, 2017, "Simondon. Investigating the pre-organizational", Culture and Organization, Vol. 23, n°1, pp.1-13; Doi: 10.1080/14759551.2016.1240358. Simondon: Investigating the Pre-Organizational 1 2 Hugo Letiche & Jean-Luc Moriceau 1 The University of Leicester School of Business, Leicester UK; 2 Institut Mines-Télécom / Télécom Ecole de Management, France. Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989) was a radical process thinker; forms of relatedness and not objects were his focus. This is all the more remarkable as he was not a vitalist prioritizing Gaia or autopoesis. He based his thought on analyses of technology / technics and communication / cybernetics, and in both cases rejected the perspective of the machine or message as in-itself objectifiable. Life objects, machines and societies, according to Simondon, individuate; that is, they are self-evolving, self-generating, and self-differentiating in what he calls processes of ‘transduction’. Simondon, in fact, is more a thinker of transindividuation than of individuation. His is a theory of how the pre-individual leads to the transindividual, without the individual ever really playing much of a role. The motor of change and activity is 'transduction' – or a force of form taking that operates on the pre- individual level. Transduction is, thus, the life-force of Simondon’s becoming. It is the energy that propels action, change, event and occurrence. No one in particular is the subject of transduction; transduction is the pre-individual manifestation of an all-encompassing process of genesis. Simondon attends to the genesis of the person, society, information, collective, technology, organization, whatever. -
The Clinical Presentation of Psychotic Disorders Bob Boland MD Slide 1
The Clinical Presentation of Psychotic Disorders Bob Boland MD Slide 1 Psychotic Disorders Slide 2 As with all the disorders, it is preferable to pick Archetype one “archetypal” disorder for the category of • Schizophrenia disorder, understand it well, and then know the others as they compare. For the psychotic disorders, the diagnosis we will concentrate on will be Schizophrenia. Slide 3 A good way to organize discussions of Phenomenology phenomenology is by using the same structure • The mental status exam as the mental status examination. – Appearance –Mood – Thought – Cognition – Judgment and Insight Clinical Presentation of Psychotic Disorders. Slide 4 Motor disturbances include disorders of Appearance mobility, activity and volition. Catatonic – Motor disturbances • Catatonia stupor is a state in which patients are •Stereotypy • Mannerisms immobile, mute, yet conscious. They exhibit – Behavioral problems •Hygiene waxy flexibility, or assumption of bizarre • Social functioning – “Soft signs” postures as most dramatic example. Catatonic excitement is uncontrolled and aimless motor activity. It is important to differentiate from substance-induced movement disorders, such as extrapyramidal symptoms and tardive dyskinesia. Slide 5 Disorders of behavior may involve Appearance deterioration of social functioning-- social • Behavioral Problems • Social functioning withdrawal, self neglect, neglect of • Other – Ex. Neuro soft signs environment (deterioration of housing, etc.), or socially inappropriate behaviors (talking to themselves in -
Understanding the Mental Status Examination with the Help of Videos
Understanding the Mental Status Examination with the help of videos Dr. Anvesh Roy Psychiatry Resident, University of Toronto Introduction • The mental status examination describes the sum total of the examiner’s observations and impressions of the psychiatric patient at the time of the interview. • Whereas the patient's history remains stable, the patient's mental status can change from day to day or hour to hour. • Even when a patient is mute, is incoherent, or refuses to answer questions, the clinician can obtain a wealth of information through careful observation. Outline for the Mental Status Examination • Appearance • Overt behavior • Attitude • Speech • Mood and affect • Thinking – a. Form – b. Content • Perceptions • Sensorium – a. Alertness – b. Orientation (person, place, time) – c. Concentration – d. Memory (immediate, recent, long term) – e. Calculations – f. Fund of knowledge – g. Abstract reasoning • Insight • Judgment Appearance • Examples of items in the appearance category include body type, posture, poise, clothes, grooming, hair, and nails. • Common terms used to describe appearance are healthy, sickly, ill at ease, looks older/younger than stated age, disheveled, childlike, and bizarre. • Signs of anxiety are noted: moist hands, perspiring forehead, tense posture and wide eyes. Appearance Example (from Psychosis video) • The pt. is a 23 y.o male who appears his age. There is poor grooming and personal hygiene evidenced by foul body odor and long unkempt hair. The pt. is wearing a worn T-Shirt with an odd symbol looking like a shield. This appears to be related to his delusions that he needs ‘antivirus’ protection from people who can access his mind. -
The Expanding Field of Sensory Studies (V.1.0) July 2013
The Expanding Field of Sensory Studies (version 1.0 – July 2013) David Howes, Centre for Sensory Studies, Concordia University, Montreal The sensorium is a fascinating focus for cultural studies Walter J. Ong, “The Shifting Sensorium” (1991) In sensory studies, the senses are treated as both object of study and means of inquiry. Sensory studies stands for a cultural approach to the study of the senses and a sensory approach to the study of culture. It challenges the monopoly that the discipline of psychology has long exercised over the study of the senses and sense perception by highlighting the sociality of sensation. History and anthropology are the foundational disciplines of this field. Sensory studies encompasses many other disciplines besides these two, however, as scholars from across the humanities and social sciences have, over the past few decades, successively “come to their senses” and turned their attention on the sensorium. The Senses and Society journal, which launched in 2006, is one manifestation of this convergence. The Sensory Studies website, which went live in 2010, is another (see www.sensorystudies.org), This essay is dedicated to tracing the history of the sensory turn in contemporary scholarship, and pointing to some directions for future research. It starts with an overview of the emergence and development of the history and anthropology of the senses. It goes on (in Part II) to examine how the senses have come to figure as a subject of study and means of inquiry in a range of other disciplines, including, for example, geography, sociology, linguistics, aesthetics and communication studies. In Part III, the focus shifts to how the field of sensory studies can otherwise be conceptualized as made up of visual culture, auditory culture (or sound studies), smell culture, taste culture and the culture of touch. -
Helmholtz's Physiological Psychology1
Helmholtz’s Physiological Psychology1 Lydia Patton [email protected] In Philosophy of Mind in the Nineteenth Century, ed. S. Lapointe (Routledge, 2018) Author’s copy. Published version available at: https://www.routledge.com/Philosophy-of- Mind-in-the-Nineteenth-Century-The-History-of-the- Philosophy/Lapointe/p/book/9781138243965 Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) contributed two major works to the theory of sensation and perception in the nineteenth century. The first edition of the The Doctrine of the Sensations of Tone was published in 1863, and the first edition of the Handbook of Physiological Optics was published in toto in 1867. These works established results both controversial and enduring: Helmholtz’s analysis of mixed colors and of combination tones, his arguments against nativism, and his commitment to analyzing sensation and perception using the techniques of natural science, especially physiology and physics. This study will focus on the Physiological Optics (hereafter PO), and on Helmholtz’s account of sensation, perception, and representation via “physiological psychology”. Helmholtz emphasized that external stimuli of sensations are causes, and sensations are their effects, and he had a practical and naturalist orientation toward the analysis of phenomenal experience. 1 Above all, I would like to thank Sandra Lapointe for her insight into the configuration and promise of this project, for conceiving of this volume, and for astute and perceptive responses to earlier versions, which shaped the project as it stands now. Clinton Tolley read the penultimate version of the paper and contributed invaluable suggestions, including preventing me from making a most consequential error of translation, for which I am grateful.