Niklas Luhmann Niklas Luhmann (December 8, 1927 – November 6, 1998) was a German sociologist, and a prominent thinker in sociological systems theory. Biography[edit] Luhmann was born in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony, where his father's family had been running a brewery for several generations. In later years, Luhmann dismissed Parsons' theory, developing a rival approach of his own. Two earlier books were retroactively accepted as a PhD thesis and habilitation at the University of Münster in 1966, qualifying him for a university professorship. Works[edit] Luhmann wrote prolifically, with more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects, including law, economy, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. Much of Luhmann's work directly deals with the operations of the legal system and his autopoietic theory of law is regarded as one of the more influential contributions to the sociology of law and socio-legal studies.[5] Systems theory[edit] In Europe In Africa
Cheleby Cymatics Resonance made visible with black seeds on a harpsichord soundboard Cornstarch and water solution under the influence of sine wave vibration Cymatics (from Greek: κῦμα "wave") is the study of visible sound co vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid.[1] Different patterns emerge in the excitatory medium depending on the geometry of the plate and the driving frequency. The apparatus employed can be simple, such as the old Chinese spouting bowl, or Chinese singing fountain, in which copper handles are rubbed and cause the copper bottom elements to vibrate. Etymology[edit] History[edit] On July 8, 1680, Robert Hooke was able to see the nodal patterns associated with the modes of vibration of glass plates. Influences in art[edit] Composer Stuart Mitchell and his father T.J. Influences in engineering[edit]
Autopoiesis 3D representation of a living cell during the process of mitosis, example of an autopoietic system. The original definition can be found in Autopoiesis and Cognition: the Realization of the Living (1st edition 1973, 2nd 1980): Page 78: - An autopoietic machine is a machine organized (defined as a unity) as a network of processes of production (transformation and destruction) of components which: (i) through their interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and realize the network of processes (relations) that produced them; and (ii) constitute it (the machine) as a concrete unity in space in which they (the components) exist by specifying the topological domain of its realization as such a network. [1] Page 89:- [...] the space defined by an autopoietic system is self-contained and cannot be described by using dimensions that define another space. Meaning[edit] Criticism[edit] See also[edit] Notes and references[edit] Further reading[edit] External links[edit]
Bruno Latour Bruno Latour (/ləˈtʊər/; French: [latuʁ]; born 22 June 1947) is a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.[3] He is especially known for his work in the field of science and technology studies (STS).[4] After teaching at the École des Mines de Paris (Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation) from 1982 to 2006, he became Professor at Sciences Po Paris (2006–2017), where he was the scientific director of the Sciences Po Medialab. He retired from several university activities in 2017.[5] He was also a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics.[6][7] Latour's monographs earned him a 10th place among most-cited book authors in the humanities and social sciences for the year 2007.[10] Biography[edit] As a student, Latour originally focused on philosophy and was deeply influenced by Michel Serres. Awards and honors[edit] Holberg Prize[edit] A 2013 article in Aftenposten by Jon Elster criticised the conferment to Latour, by saying "The question is, does he deserve the prize
Actor–network theory Broadly speaking, ANT is a constructivist approach in that it avoids essentialist explanations of events or innovations (e.g. explaining a successful theory by understanding the combinations and interactions of elements that make it successful, rather than saying it is “true” and the others are “false”). However, it is distinguished from many other STS and sociological network theories for its distinct material-semiotic approach. Background and context[edit] ANT appears to reflect many of the preoccupations of French post-structuralism, and in particular a concern with non-foundational and multiple material-semiotic relations. Many of the characteristic ANT tools (including the notions of translation, generalized symmetry and the “heterogeneous network”), together with a scientometric tool for mapping innovations in science and technology (“co-word analysis”) were initially developed during the 1980s, predominantly in and around the CSI. A material-semiotic method[edit] Translation[edit]
Graham Harman Graham Harman (born May 9, 1968) is a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He is a contemporary philosopher of metaphysics, who attempts to reverse the linguistic turn of Western philosophy. Harman is associated with Speculative Realism in philosophy, which was the name of a workshop that also included the philosophers Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Quentin Meillassoux.[2] Biography[edit] Thought[edit] Central to Harman's philosophy is the idea that real objects are inexhaustible: "A police officer eating a banana reduces this fruit to a present-at-hand profile of its elusive depth, as do a monkey eating the same banana, a parasite infecting it, or a gust of wind blowing it from a tree. Harman defines real objects as inaccessible and infinitely withdrawn from all relations and then puzzles over how such objects can be accessed or enter into relations: "by definition, there is no direct access to real objects. Bibliography[edit] See also[edit] References[edit]
Gilles Deleuze Gilles Deleuze (French: [ʒil dəløz]; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by many scholars to be his magnum opus.[2] Life[edit] Deleuze was born into a middle-class family in Paris and lived there for most of his life. Deleuze taught at various lycées (Amiens, Orléans, Louis le Grand) until 1957, when he took up a position at the Sorbonne. In 1969 he was appointed to the University of Paris VIII at Vincennes/St. Deleuze himself found little to no interest in the composition of an autobiography. "What do you know about me, given that I believe in secrecy? Philosophy[edit] [edit] Epistemology[edit] Values[edit]
Rhizome (philosophy) "As a model for culture, the rhizome resists the organizational structure of the root-tree system which charts causality along chronological lines and looks for the original source of 'things' and looks towards the pinnacle or conclusion of those 'things.' A rhizome, on the other hand, is characterized by 'ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.' Rather than narrativize history and culture, the rhizome presents history and culture as a map or wide array of attractions and influences with no specific origin or genesis, for a 'rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.' The planar movement of the rhizome resists chronology and organization, instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus.