All right, and hello everybody and welcome to our first session of Thinking Fictions, Topias and Inventions. I'm Tony Yannick and here with me is Ben Woodard, and Ben is in France. You're a pap right now, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, Ben Woodard. We've been teaching at the New Center since its inception and we've been sort of running this project, looking at the different, our various conceptual worlds, weird fiction, science fiction, hyperstition, ontology, and looking at these worlds and seeing where the play between fiction, reality, possibility, impossibility, like utopia, dystopia, which
we'll discuss a lot in this session, or in these sessions. And really, the distinction between, or the relationship between fiction and philosophy is one of our main questions. So I kind of will, I think we'll be bringing up a lot of the main themes that we want to bring up throughout the course, throughout the sessions. We set the four sessions up in order to be able to investigate certain questions that have been brought up during our project. One of them being, one of them being how to define fiction, another being what is an invention,
and an invention is related closely with also properly defining what world is, what a conceptual world is, and these sorts. So a lot of times we'll be bringing up these questions a lot over and over again. So what we'll do without spending too much time, I just want to give you the brief schematic of which I've already emailed to you, but some people are new in the class, but the brief schematic is that today we'll have Anne Francois Schmid come in. She'll come in in about an hour. So we want, first we'll discuss the fictionalism, or the Waringer text, and
then the fictionalism text. We'll take a short break, we'll bring in Anne, and then we'll discuss her work. And she's prepared a short talk, and then we can have a discussion at the end. Also, feel free to interrupt at any point. Ben and I both are not really lecturer, kind of, we don't structure it very much as lecturers, so we prefer for them to be conversational. Yeah, I guess so that would be, that's the general introduction. I guess I can introduce I can introduce my background. I'm a current PhD student at Buffalo University, Buffalo, SUNY.
I'm doing a PhD in media practice. I have a background also in robotics and machine learning, a master's degree, and also a master's degree in philosophy and comparative lit. And so then, yeah, I'll let Ben introduce himself. And then basically, really quickly, if I can get everybody just to kind of, like, introduce themselves and say, I don't know, one of their interests that's in relation to the police, that would be nice, or like a research project that they're working on. So Ben? Yeah, thanks, Tony. So hi, everyone. I'm Ben Hoodard, and just quickly, my background is gender and sexuality studies in English, and then media and philosophy
and then sort of focused more and more on philosophy on conceptual philosophy and especially issues of idealism and naturalism and pragmatism and how they relate to one another, which is why I'm sort of interested in this question of fictions and the stuff that I'm working on with Tony yeah I guess that's probably good enough alright thank you we have a lot of people so we'll do it very quick I'll go left or right on my screen so Ash can you hear me okay? yes
My name is Ashley Gordon and I'm a first year PhD student at the University of Glasgow in English Literature. And my PhD thesis is provisionally titled The Thing That Should Not Be. It's on theory fiction and the fictionality of theory. the idea for which came from reading Resnagar's Stani's Cyclonopedia which I assume many, if not all of you are probably already familiar with but particularly it's claimed to be a work of theoretical fiction which got me thinking about the precise nature of the relationship between theory and fiction, obviously a very
important question for a contemporary literature student but particularly thinking about it in terms of the last the last 20 or 30 years or so in which there's been this sort of endless litany of pronouncements on the death of theory or the claims that we are now after theory or post-theory which always seemed to me to amount to an art theory had lost touch with reality or that it was never in touch with reality, that it's essentially always been just fiction so I wanted to try and respond to those claims by ascending to them in a way and taking the process of the death of theory to be one which unveils its inherent fictionality of the corpus of theory, of critical theory, or the corpse if you like, as a peculiarly
20th century form of fiction, or perhaps even the definitive 20th century mode of fiction, which I'm trying to do by thinking about it against the backdrop of what Ray Brassier borrowing from Wilford Stellaris describes as a situation in which the manifest image of the human has come under increasing, even accelerating pressure from the scientific image of the human, which is constantly unveiling it as a kind of speculative theoretical fiction itself which I'm postulating presents this with the possibility of fiction as first philosophy. So I was really excited to read
Anne-Francoise's essay which seemed to be saying very similar things and felt very validating because often people look at me like I'm a bit mad when I start saying these things so it was very encouraging so I'm really looking forward to this. So yeah, that's that basically. Did everyone hear that okay? Yeah, very well. It seems like the general structure of your PhD, it's basically what we've been investigating, so I'll have to send you our old seminars and stuff. We did go through Cyclonopedia as well in the first session. Derek, do you mind introducing yourself briefly? I know you're not a bio person, but... Sorry, you just caught me slightly off guard.
I thought you were going in the other direction. Oh, no, I'm going left or right, my screen, sorry. OK, OK. My name's Derek Hales. I'm currently a PhD student at the World College of Art. My background is in architecture. I'm researching at the moment I guess the link between invention and fiction in speculative and radical design, so I'm moving backwards and forwards in time I guess between at least the 1960s and science fiction in relation with engineering and innovation and more recently
with speculative design and speculative culture, I guess more broadly conceived. So, yeah, that's why I'm interested in what's been going on in these seminars. I missed the very first one that Tony and Ben ran but audited that and then joined the second session, the second hypersticcions session, which is great. So back again for another session with you guys. Thank you. And if all of you might be interested, Derek just, well, he had it for a long time, but we just published a translation
that Derek looked on for, he translated it for his own work. And it has a lot to do with kind of the things that we're talking about now. It's sort of like talking about fiction. So I'll post it on the side here on the website. Yeah, great. Thanks for doing everything that you did for me there, Tony. The next on my list is Dylan. Yeah, hey, I'm Dylan. I guess I'm a media artist of sorts. I finished undergrad about a year ago. I'm starting an MFA in Digital Art and New Media at UC Santa Cruz in the fall.
I've been spending the past year and a half trying to catch up on texts around urbanomic, accelerationism, that type of stuff. I also started with Stepanopedia. And I guess right now, honestly, I've just been trying to get some art skills under my belt before my MFA coming up and just like trying to remember how to make art. The more I read about art, the less I can make it. So that's a thing. But yeah, I think I audited some of the earlier classes. I think I watched the CCRU class. And yeah, this looks pretty cool. So it's nice to be here. Okay. Thank you, Brian. We have...
I don't know if you want to come in and say, because you are here, so if you want to say hi. If not, it's okay. Hi. Hi, we are here. Yes, we have both of you. Yes. Hey, Tony. Hey, Ben. Hello. We're happy to join. Yes. Okay, great. Thanks. it's what was good are them here low I guys I'm 10 here yet on three are yeah and
LA just finished my MFA at Cal Arts yesterday I and the artists musician background is in music and experimental music and art what not on this are a BDR as well I think go I'll think what the overlap for interest with this class is maybe a general you know and I feel those scholars and researchers there looking at a precision and what not I'll I'm interested in time and time travel how time relates with music and also in in the scope of like media text understanding and receiving you know I guess a different way of communicating
a potentially yeah and I think I see some parallels yet between fiction and philosophy and also how maybe music and art really and and also the some of cognition hyper cognition and whatnot so we'll be at that but maybe just new ways of understanding and reading to you to yeah looking forward to class thanks to are actually I'm there are the let's look at me but I was with the purpose to do is this part of your MFA project I was yeah it became that way so I didn't plan on it at first I was like just
really bombarded with a lot information you know being an MFA program and I'm also in a integrated media program at CalArts which is really a cost-reaching solica real program program but I'll the I'll through a lot of theory at us you know a lot of stuff res a res actually came to CalArts this semester you know so you like really close away obviously but I'll I'll and so I just started taking a lot of notes and the notes turned into videos and the people started liking them thanks I'll and yes so it kinda became a hit and then that sort of bubble into a bit of a thesis and I we it my partner and I built the time machine for our thesis project and it consisted of like for guess five walls and so it's like wall one wall two or three wall four
and all four walls were having these videos projected on the walls and you know you guys you I know like you know the fourth wall being like in person or whatever like so just kinda playing with the dimensions and time and also like proceeding and then we kinda toyed around with the fifth wall as well I would we made our teacher the fifth wall you know this is like I think the fifth walls used in theater loosely and about like something to do with like a criticism and analysis or whatever I'm you guys might know better I'll but yeah So I'm interested in different dimensions and stuff like that, and so Afrofuturism or any kind of fictional, philosophical kind of like dealings I think is super interesting.
Okay, cool. Thanks. Yeah, I just wanted to fix some of the videos. Kayla's, you can say hi if you want. She's also a Soviet pop in and out. Sure. Sure. I'll say a short hi. Hi, everybody. My name's Kayla. I'm an artist and writer and sometimes curator based in Chicago. But I'm really interested in, I guess, how fiction and nonfiction are used in art, but also intersections of art and philosophy and speculative design. So I'm super interested in everything everyone has said so far in their introductions, and I can't wait to find out more about your work.
But I've missed most of the sessions of all of these things because I also work a full-time job as an archivist. So I'm happy this one's on a Saturday to be joining in. But anyway, so I'll be here even if my screen is off. Okay. Thank you. Konstantinos. Hey, everyone. Hey everyone, I'm Konstantinos. My background is in architecture and currently I'm a certificate student in the New Centre in Critical Philosophy programme. So I guess my thoughts exist in a strange and generic terrain between architecture and philosophy and I find this class really
interesting because I believe in the speculative nature, let's say, of architecture and design. So I guess I could consider and think about many questions but on what topic to follow. But I guess I will try to articulate in the next sessions probably. Thank you. JOHN MUELLER- Yeah, from what I know from Constantino's work as well, like he does speculative architecture that also is, in a way, there's also linguistic elements to it. He's very much a concept engineer inside of these architectural worlds.
So yeah, you can share your work if you want as well. Thank you. So we have . Sorry, this is just the first. We'll only do this once and then we'll go through. Laura. Yeah, can you hear me now? Yes, you can. Yes, hello everybody. So I'm an artist and a film editor, and I've been recently interested in the act of writing, going from philosophy, literature, filmmaking, coding, and finance also.
And I'm very happy to join. Finance? As well, yes. Okay, thank you. Samir, and then, yeah, we have two more. Samir and then Shili. Samir, are you with us or not? Yeah, kind of. Hi, everybody. I'm Samir. I'm writing a PhD in literature, so I'm interested in questions of fiction, fiction naturally. I think I have a lot, so I don't think I have to say that much in the moment. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you for being quick.
Sheila? Last. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hi. Hi. I'm Sheila, and I'm a doctor of literature and poetry and poetics. I'm currently living in Bangkok and teaching writing, and I'm interested in the intersection of imagined space and real space. And I thought something might come out of this for that. All right, great, thanks. All right, so we have, like most of these classes,
they're always very diverse group. So we try to keep everything in a very interdisciplinary and comparative function. So if we're doing some, like, don't get, If some people are turned off by the heavy philosophy, if they feel like they're not a philosopher, they don't. We're all going to be exploring these texts as. And I like taking the approach that we're all sort of all novices inside of this text. I will, because Ben and I tend to sometimes assign a lot of reading. We're going to assign one main reading, and then we always assign a lot of other readings.
And this seminar, since we have a lot of people, I was thinking of trying to figure out a way that we can organize close reading groups as well outside of these sessions. So that is a way of doing these texts as well. But so we'll spend the next half an hour, I guess, have Ben introduce fictionalism, which will, that fictionalism text nests Baringer's text inside of that, so we can explore Baringer's text as well while we read the fictionalism text. And Ben's just going to give the basics of the schematics. I'm not, like, this is the fictionalism sort of element
is not something that we're going to just do in a half an hour and be done with. We will be, this is something that we hope to kind of like keep in the back of our minds is sort of a theoretical construct that we might start bringing out throughout all the sessions. So just because this will be a short introduction of these texts doesn't mean we'll be done with them And it's okay if you have not finished them because we'll be returning to them. So, yeah, the first text will be The Fictionalism, one by Arthur Fine. And, Ben, you mute your, I don't know if you're gonna do your, deep behind the wall, but yeah, okay. Okay.
So I can just, before I was going into the text, Specifically, I can just talk about what fiction is, because Fine doesn't really talk about it so much, other than it's a kind of anti-realism generally. He doesn't kind of talk about it as a tradition, so it's something that's important, not just for the text and for talking about Vahanger, but something that's important to understand for the whole course. so fictionalism generally is something that started to become popular in analytic circles starting in the 80s but really popping up more in the 90s and this is analytic philosophy so this is quite different
than what a lot of people are familiar with in this group I'm guessing so fictionalism was generally taken as a response to the work of David Lewis and a lot of people have heard of David Lewis, even who don't do an elic philosophy because he wrote a book on possible worlds and its relationship to logic. So, and what Lewis kind of argued is that Lewis and people before him also were interested in modality or modal statements. Like, when you talk about a sentence, you talk about claim making a sentence, this is going to happen or this could happen,
or when you make a statement, how can you analyze the kind of contingencies within the statement that are not obvious? So like one example is, you know, I couldn't leave the room because the door was locked, which is I couldn't leave the room because, you know, my aunt was talking to me or something like this. That, you know, that when it's hard to logically mark the differences between these kinds of contingencies without adhering to something in the content beyond the logical structure. So Lewis wanted a way to do this, to talk about how to understand modality, how to understand these contingencies. So he wanted to say that everything that could happen
in these statements and all the different variations of these statements are all equally, that they're all real, that they all occur, but just not all of them occur in our world. So I kind of wanted to say there's all these possible worlds where all these different things occur, and they're real, and the question is, you know, why, you know, some happen in the world we're in, and some don't. This was kind of a notoriously controversial theory at first, but more and more people adhere to it. Since he wrote the text, I won't go into that so much, but basically fictionalism is a response to Lewis partially in that a group of thinkers such as Gideon Rosen and Steven Yablo and Yaki Sawa and a bunch of people wanted to say,
wanted to say, okay, how can we talk about modal statements? How can we talk about contingencies in speech that doesn't need all these worlds, that doesn't need to be, you know, this baggage that Lewis had? And so one way of doing this is to talk about fictions, and to talk about the fictional state of speech or the fictional state of the things that we talk about, right? So in general, fictionalism is this kind of philosophy and I think throughout the course we'll want to push this harder and do more of it than the fictionalists would want. Generally fictionalism and its various flavors, there's like different kinds of it, has to do with either studying that the domain, the place where speech is happening makes it fictional,
or the speaker's commitment to it makes it fictional, or it's about the object being spoken about, which makes it fictional. So just to give a quick rundown of these, of like four common versions of this. One is, and a lot of these appear in the broader text, and it finds description in different ways. So one example is this instrumentalism or the instrumental use of fictions. So the idea is that we use a fiction in order just to help us try to understand and explain something. So we pretend to assert it, we pretend that it's real, but we know it's not. And so that's about the speaker, the person talking.
So then there's the kind of meta function of fiction, this idea that the speaker really means what they're saying, but it's in a fictional domain. So you're saying it's really the case that Harry Potter did this. No, it's really the case that unicorns have one horn. It's understood that the domain, you're talking about a fictional place and not saying that's actually existing in the real world the same way that people talking are. The third kind is object fictionalism, which is that the speaker actually means what they're saying, and the fictionalism lies in the object. That we can sort of understand as we talk to one another whether the things we're talking about are real or not.
And the most recent form is this thing called figuralism, like a figure of speech, which is Stephen Yablos talked about this. and this idea that we really mean what we say, we're not saying, we talk about fictional things, we actually mean it, but we're not sure how real the thing is we're talking about. And that's something that we have to work out in conversation over time. So we draw a figure that we can all kind of gather around, and then we make it more real as we discuss it collectively. There's always kinds of variations of this, And this is the kind of, in the Fine text, people that read it, in trying to resuscitate Wahanger and his as if, to talk to the as if.
Fine and others who have used Wohunger's work see this as something important in analytic philosophy and in relationship to science and scientific discourse especially. This idea that how real or how fictional are mathematical objects. When you do an experiment, you have a model and an experiment, how real or fictional is that? There's a hypothesis, the same thing as a fiction. These kinds of things. So this is, when Klein thinks it's important to resuscitate Vahengar as a figure, because he's writing in the late 1900s and saying that these kinds of questions aren't just questions about fictions, it's that how much do fictions kind of invade this very basic practice,
not only doing philosophy, but doing science, talking about the arts, so on and so forth. And Tony, do you want to start talking about the Vahengar, or should I say more about Fein or? Well, I guess this is a good chance to kind of, I guess, to come in and say that Fein's position is sort of like a weak version of what Biringer is actually proposing in philosophy of as if. And it's this giant systematics work in Biringer where in the end everything is fiction. everything ends up being reduced or becomes some sort of fictional construct in this giant taxonomy of different fictions.
Now, it's not to say that just to say everything is fiction, everything is illusionary. He's not, you know, being like this reductive because he's very specific on determining the difference between fiction and I guess what we can consider scale. So like the scale of its fictivity or whatever. So Varangir will make an absolute distinction between hypothesis and fiction. But however, they have very similar structures. And so one of the major issues that he finds is he starts in this work with looking at science, and he says, okay, well, we're looking at mathematics. And he says, okay, mathematics is founded on many different kinds of fictions.
You have imaginary numbers. You have things impressively small. like these things are our fictions because they don't exist in the real world but they push us further into actually acting practically so you know in a way he'll talk he'll make these make this term this terminology as like a useful fiction so useful fiction or a hero and then which is very similar to what he's considering like a heuristic function. So fictions, and so a heuristic fiction functions much like a hypothesis, and that it leads us to determining some new real state.
However, the major distinction that he finds between a hypothesis and a fiction is that a fiction doesn't demand experimentation. It doesn't demand to be made real. whereas when you propose a hypothesis, your hypothesis is that you will eventually determine this to be real. So there's a causal set of links, and a hypothesis is a bridge between these links. There's some sort of missing or broken relation inside of the circuit. Hypothesis bridges them in the real, Whereas if fiction might function similarly, we don't believe it to be something that needs to be proven real.
However, it has agency in the world. So this is where it gets sort of convoluted and why he has to make all these different distinctions on different kinds of fictions. Like aesthetic fictions, poetic functions, he makes the distinctions with these. I guess when we're talking about fiction, he comes up with the four main characteristics of fictions, right? So the first one is that they include a contradiction with reality, or they internalize a self-contradiction. Two is that the fiction has to be fundamentally provisional, so it has to disappear later on or be logically eliminated. That's what I was trying to describe the difference between hypothesis and fiction,
is that a hypothesis will causally function towards the real, whereas a fiction heuristically will do the same thing, but will disappear when the real emerges. So it's more practical than causal logic. Three, the awareness of fictivity has to be expressively stated. And so this is similar to the fictionalism that Ben was stating. And for the fiction, it has to be expedient. Just a few notes from these basic concepts that I think will be important that he talked about here.
is other kinds of fictions are social or what he calls conventional fictions or polite fictions, which are based on moral tact, whereas habatis are based on logical tact. And aesthetics, there's an aesthetic tact, a moral tact, a logical tact. And these are the different scales, I guess, that we can consider in fiction. with the relationship of fiction. So he says here, which I think this is probably the most standout quote in the piece that I sent out that I think relates to us, is that the importance of our theory for practical philosophy is obvious.
All the nobler aspects of our life are based upon fictions. We have already contended that a pure ethic can only be established by the recognition of its fictional base. So here's a very utopian, fictional statement made by him. It's the recognition of its fictivity and the fact that a pure ethic or utopia is, I mean, often. It can only be established by recognizing its fictivity. Quickly... Because fiction in his sense is heuristic or practical, it relates to practical life, thus his theory is clearly leading towards a practical view and not like the ordinary or common view of reality.
So what can be practically... What is useful to us in order to act in the world is sort of like where he finds fiction to be most useful and most apparent. Another interesting thing that I think relates back to our previous course when we were talking about possible worlds, which Ben mentioned, when he's describing the distinction between hypothesis and fiction as well. He says, in the case of a number of hypotheses, all equally possible, the most probable one is always selected. Now, on the other hand, in the case of a number of equally possible fictions, the most expedient
one is chosen. So again, this is a distinction with the way that we should approach the hypothesis versus the fiction. And again, this is interesting in relation to possible worlds theory and fictionalism when you're trying to distinguish between the two. He gives the example of Goethe as well, where Goethe invents the animal archetype, which which at the time is a schematic fiction, he calls it schematic fiction, another taxonomy of his fictions. And this is that Goethe was saying that he creates this fictional archetype that he didn't even have, it's not something that he faithfully believes in.
He knows it's imaginary, he's creating it as an imaginary. But he's functioning as all animals should be regarded as if they were a modification of this archetype. And Varinger says, the fictional element in a fiction of this kind is that we are invited to proceed as if such an animal could have existed. Now the hypothetical element for it is a semi-fiction being, semi-fiction-being, the statement that all animal forms are reducible to a single type. So from Goethe's schematic fiction, we can then produce a hypothesis. So there's always this convoluted relationship that he constantly is coming back for.
And this is where he brings just a few questions. What are the norms in these discussions? You can always interrupt at any point. I'm sorry if I missed them. Do you have a question? Because right now I'm just going over my reading notes. Sorry, yes, I have a question. Just in terms of the relation between, I'm really interested in these three aspects of tact, the moral, logical and aesthetic, and I'm very curious as to how these become separated or parsed out from each other, maybe in terms of different
methodologies in fictionality. And I'm wondering how these three texts come together. And then I also missed something, maybe I need more elaboration on expediency. So two questions. reaction. Two in one. Okay, so, let me go back to where he's talking about this. Alright, so when he's talking about aesthetic tech, Baringer is talking about
religion and mythology, and he says, after he goes over the mythological functions of fiction like Pegasus and these sort of mythological characters, he really then says that they have this close relation to what is the aesthetic. And so the aesthetic is a poetic adaptation of what would be a mythological or religious fiction in his opinion. But in part, the aesthetic are invented, they're newly created. So whereas mythology has some sort of like...
And this is going to be a problem with us, with our method of invention, but whereas Pegasus is this mythological creature, he's a horse, so there's this combination of existence of real objects, and aesthetic function, or aesthetic fiction is some sort of invention, and he doesn't really exactly, I guess, convince me of this, but he says the aesthetic fictions not only include all similes, all metaphors and comparisons, but they are those ideational forms that deal even more freely with reality. So, the aesthetic fiction is kind of more detached from reality, whereas the science fiction is closer to reality.
So again, I guess this is what I was trying to say. distinction between these texts are based on scale and based on practicality. Because for him it's very much practical philosophy or a practical theory that he's trying to develop. So because social contracts, fictions that we sort of use in social or polite mechanisms, forms of speech and things that are purely formal or unreal that we use just to make social interactions easier is based on what he is close to really close to resemble to
what he considers moral tact. Moral tact also is closely related to the religion, the religious fictions but but he says these conventional fiction social fictions in which we know something to be unreal but it just makes talking with you easier these are a matter of moral relationship aesthetic is the poetic functions the Goethe function novels literature arts and then the logical tact is is is is mathematics and science. So I think this is a scale, a determination of scale. Is that OK?
Yeah, thank you. That was very clarifying. OK. And then expedient is very simple in this sense. And again, it just is a repetition of what we already discussed. But expedient for him is practical. So what is practical at the time is what is... So in a sense, if we have a hypothesis where we want to, like, we have all these different possible worlds that we hypothesize, the one in which is most logical we're going to pick, or the most, you know, whereas in, yeah, whereas in the sense of possible fictional worlds, we take the one that is most useful, the one that is most practical for our means, is what he means by expediency. Yeah, of course, this is...
He's post-Kantian, so there is no absolute truth. This is why everything is then fundamentally a fiction. He says, it is an error to suppose that an absolute truth... It is an error to suppose that an absolute truth, an absolute criterion of knowledge and behavior can be discovered. The higher aspects of life are based upon noble delusions. Thus, our theory clearly leads to a practical view of the world, but very different from the ordinary one. And I think what I wanted to pull out of this is that at the end, and this is probably the last thing that I want to mention, is at the end of this hundred pages or whatever, he says,
Sorry. OK, I'm just going to paraphrase, and then I will come back to it. I will also provide these citations after the class that I've pulled out. It'd be useful for everybody to sort of like also add, so we can make sort of like an annotated citation for each text. But where was I? Sorry, too much.
All right, so... Oh, okay, so the next thing he brings up that I thought was interesting in his distinction between hypothesis and fiction is that a hypothesis is natural and discovered whereas fiction is invented. So you have also this distinction between discovery and invention. So this is another way that he separates the difference between hypothesis and fiction. Um... Yeah, provisional. It's like this 100 pages is basically very circular,
going back and forth between distinguishing, and we could probably create a chart that would basically separate them. And then I think there was, bear with me, there was one last quote that is towards the end that I think relates to the overall structure of our course as well, about the agency of fiction or the hyperstitial elements of fiction. He says, It is unquestionable that not even the most ordinary assertions can be made without the creation of fiction, such, for example, as the very categories and general ideas without which no proposition can be asserted. Though in the course of time they have become so matter-of-fact
that their fictional nature no longer is recognized, In reality, they are fictions that daily justify themselves anew by the services which they render. So I guess the last final thing that I mention out of this quote is that fictions always call for justification, whereas hypothesis can be causally, logically proven, whereas we're always looking for the sort of justification I think he says. And then at this point then he starts just listing the linguistic elements of fiction,
like all of the different, all of the different, the semantic domain basically of fiction. All the terms you can think of. Invention, conceits, figments, of the brain, fantasies, fantastic ideas, imagination, imaginary ideas, quasi-things, quasi-ideas, das, dingas, dingas, auxiliary concepts, auxiliary formulas, devices, and he goes over like hundreds and hundreds of these. So, yeah, I guess this is sort of like, oh, the left, yeah, so this is sort of like where I pulled from these texts.
I don't know if anybody did read this text, if there was anything that they found interesting. If not, we are at 11.30 and we can basically bracket this and return to it at the end of the discussion. Maybe we can try to bridge it with Ann. But I think if we want to have a good time with Ann, we can bring her in very soon. Maybe just one thing, Tony. Yeah, so I think this practical framework really produces some very astonishing distinctions or ideas. And I'm sorry that I can't find my notes, so I only remember one in the moment,
which, for example, is when he says, if I remember right, that fictions are there to calculate. I'm sorry, I read it in German, so I'm not sure if the terminology is right. but fictions are there to calculate the world, whereas hypotheses are there to understand the world. And we would, like, common sense, I think we would agree or would think that it's the other way around. Like, hypotheses are there to calculate something. Fictions are there to understand. So I thought that that would be an interesting take on the text, maybe to look through it, how this practical approach creates some kind of slightly different ideas about what fictions are. Yeah, and this is interesting too because I think he also talks about Leibniz and mathematics,
right, when he's talking about differential calculus, and differential calculus for him is a fiction. So, we're thinking about in this terms, and also a heuristic function is a method of calculation as well. Whereas hypothesis is given, and this also brings back to the discovery invention distinction, Because hypothesis is to understand the world as it is now, is that we discover what is in the real, whereas, I don't know if I, but the invention, so I get it from that half,
but I don't know how to dialect it. It's sort of like the calculation leads us to new things or new ways of perceiving or inventing the world. I don't know if this works, but it's something to return to. I think it's interesting. So can I ask something? What could be the place of a dogmatic, let's say, attitude? Can the dogma be considered as a trajectory of some kind of fiction that is quite stubborn, let's say? Yeah, so Varinger also discusses this, the difference between the psychic and the material and the mental and the relations between these.
There's also Adler, who is a depth psychologist, who is very interested in Varinger's work. And he has a very similar concept called fictional finalism. But, yes, he talks about this. He says this is the reason why we, this is, because the reason at this time in 1911 he finds that there is a hole in the work where there is no real clear distinction of what fiction is. and it is by separating these that we might determine, or we might be able to act in a better way, because to kind of bridge Adler and Varinger's work, if you have sort of like a normal person that can distinguish between what is fiction and what is not, right,
then you can have this distinction. But then there's people who jump straight from the fiction to the dogma. Adler will talk about neurosis, neurotic people. He comes from, and he's coming from Varenger. And Varenger has a triadic function, which is like the process in which a fiction or hypothesis can lead to. It starts in fictional hypothesis and then goes to something and then goes to dogma. So, of course, he has this critique of dogma as well. Ben, do you remember this part or no? No. Shit. I can maybe pull it back for the discussion.
But why not? Let's take a quick 10-minute break. I'll email Anne. I'll bring her in. But if there are any questions or discussions, let's bracket them by putting them in the chat. or writing them down so we can get to them later, because I do want to hear everybody's opinion, at least on maybe this general reading, because it will be important to sort of make these distinctions. Varenger is obviously, this is not a doctrine to take as truth. There are many, many problems. There's obviously a pragmatic critique and many things, but we can discuss that in a bit. So let's do a 10 minute break. We'll come back at, for me it's 11.40 on my clock, but I know my clock's fast.
wants to say anything in that respect so we don't have to just sit here in silence, we could do that as well. And then Laura's having an issue, I think, too. I had a question actually, but it's not really related to the reading. I was just curious, just really simply, like, why... Was it your choice to bring in Anne, or did she want to come, or, like, just before she comes? We invited.
We invited all the guests. However, Ben has worked with Anne at the ISSH New Forms of Realism conference, and I'm a big fan of the work that I can access in English. He will have an English translation of her work coming out on Urbanomic very soon. Actually the text that we have is a Robin translation, so she will be out very soon. She's Francois Labarro's partner, she's a philosopher, they work closely together, so they both have been developing in their own realms this filofictional concept. This is like filofiction was introduced into our project probably, Ben and I introduced
into our project about six months ago or something, so we've been trying to kind of engage with this. So she's like the first person I thought of. Wow. Cool. Sounds really cool. So Anne has some very interesting books on the boundaries between, well, she's, I mean, La Roche's concept of filofiton is taken into this generic epistemology that Anne's project is working on in which it's sort of like a framework that can a framework that abolishes the boundaries between science and philosophy and all these things and it's fiction
that sort of is the element that can transgress boundaries. And it's like what also put this friend's disciplinary methodology is what pushes the fields further. So she prepared in her talk that I know, she prepared like a she prepared something in relation to our course plus she'll talk about the text that we did and then she'll discuss it in her generic a this logical framework as well so we'll get a good overview of everything I'm looking for I'm looking for she's been
just waiting on her no where she is I just spoke with her just before the session Does anybody else have any questions or comments or Ben, do you have anything as well? kind of took up a lot of the... I don't know if anybody knows this image either.
it for the past couple months, been quite interested in it. He's not very... He's not taken very seriously in the philosophical demand of the fictionalism, which is why he chose that aspect. However, he was picked up in the 20th century critical theory in literature, actually. So he's actually more recognized in the Italian lit schools. Yeah, and the kind of...
I think philofiction has a way of kind of doing that. I also feel it's quite creative and productive. Because, I mean, the entire goal of philofiction also is to kind of destroy the reins that of the holds over all things. So it's like to destroy its sort of demand over all domains.
I don't know if you've read, Derek, I don't know if you've read like, like, like photo fiction or anything like that. This text that Ann's doing is like sin fiction or whatever. So it's like a photo fiction kind of thing. we're getting them right now see what's going on up up
It's okay. Most times, actually, Ben doesn't hide behind the camera either. Also, to me, it doesn't matter. It's easier when everybody has their faces.
I have installed Google Hangouts on my computer. I don't think she's under, she's waiting for an invitation. I keep sending you the link. She sends the clicker. Ben, do you want to use this time to talk about the PAF events? Sure. You mean the PS stuff, or just in general?
Just in general, if people don't know about the Performance Arts Forum, because you're there. I mean, you're living, you're there right now, so they'll see you in there. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm organizing a group of events with four other philosophers, which some of you may have known. It's like Lendl Barcelos, Amy Ireland, Matt Hare, and Katrina, who was speaking earlier, actually, asking a question. And so we're just doing a series of events here at PAF, which is a couple hours outside of Paris. And we're doing a series of events to try and build something like a philosophical community here,
so that we have events that are more discussion-based. We invite speakers, but for us, it's more about having a place where people can actually work on stuff long-term and talk about questions ranging from logic to metaphysics to ontology to politics to the relationship between philosophy and art, all kinds of things. but having a space where trying to see if we can have collective philosophical work happen, because that's something that doesn't really happen in academic settings so much. And so the third event, we do events about every three to four months or so.
The third event is the first week of June, which is on the Sonic. And so Kojo Eshun is one of the speakers, as well as Anez. His name I'm forgetting. Last name I'm forgetting. That's bad. Gerard? Gerard? Gerard. Gerard. Gerard. Sorry. And yes, Gerard. And then William Scrimshaw. The three speakers for that event. And yeah, Tony posted the link there. Yeah, I don't know. Tony was here for the last one, I think. It wasn't terrible? It was a lot of fun. So if you're ever traveling in the area,
I recommend going there. The events that they're doing are very interesting. It's communal living, communal eating, so you kind of just spend four days with this entire group, and it's like nonstop conversations and music and dance parties and philosophy. Fun. Plus it's a beautiful compound. It's in the middle of nowhere, so even if you just want to go to get work done, it's really nice to do that as well, which I did a lot of. She's having issues. I'm trying to help her right now.
I apologize. It's okay, Tony. It is not that exhausting because you get a nice big room for very cheap and, you know, you got less drugs than the CCRU though. Yes, definitely. Well, yes. Less LSD going around. Apparently that's what Nick Lamb would just lace everybody's drinks. At least that's like the favorite story that I hear from people when they were around that
time. We did have Sadie Plant here, that was probably the most CCRU it ever was. Oh, you're creating your help, don't you? And Luciano, can you see? Yeah. That's true. I keep forgetting she was here, because it was like, that was before my time. Yeah, the end of June event is the Sonic. It's the Summoness of the Empirical, which is the... Katarina is here with the... Oh, no, the beginning of June is the Sonic, the end of June is elsewhere and otherwise, which is an event that's alternative forms of knowledge. Oh, okay, that's not only their event, sorry. Yeah, that's Valentina Desideri and Daniella Burchaan organized that one.
But yeah, there's information on the website, on the main website also. Is the website back up? Because it was down for a really long time. Yes, it's back up. Tony, I'm just curious about this quote. I don't quite understand it.
I don't know why, maybe because I don't know the context, but it seems like there's a lot of different ideas in here, in here and I'm wondering if you can unpack them a bit. The quote that I'm the Fourier one. Yeah. Sure, yeah, give me one second. I'll find it in context. Thank you.
In Chapter 3 of this work, in the schematic, the paradigmatic utopian type fictions is I'm pretty sure where that is coming from. Or no, it's use of fictions in modern time. So, but if I can bring it into context when he's talking, I have to make sure that Anne's not trying to help. So it's a variety of the schematic function.
He calls it formed by utopian fictions. And he says it derives from utopias more prevalent, or so prevalent in earlier times, such as those depicted by Thomas More and Campanella. Plato's ideal state may be mentioned here as historically the first example of this method. To the same category belongs the fiction of the primeval state was particularly popular in the 18th century and was very popular for and you have that in Du Bois' work when he's talking about civilization. I think he doesn't mention it.
All right, so in the context, it's page 148 of this text, and I'll send you the text if you don't have it. But he goes from talking about like, jurisdiction or legal fictions, which are apparently the most criticized fiction of our interest work that I found. But he says, which is sort of like fictions of contracts. So he says, just to give you a little context, in legal practice, the employment of fiction may lead to benefits and also to the grossest forms of injustice, as when all women were treated as if they were minors.
In legal theory, the fiction was particularly used in the theory of contract. So insofar as the state was regarded as a result of a contract and was treated as a jurisdiction, as a jurisdict person. This fiction, we also think about this as like with corporations. right? So we treat corporations as if they're a person. So this fiction, which was already known but to the ancients, has been very extensively used in recent times. And then this is where he gets to the quote, another favorite method was the ideal or utopian fiction, 19th century, blah, blah, blah, pure poetry. All right, and he says, so after that quote, he says, but this whole group of scientific methods must not be overlooked, though they are neither very important to know that they present any theoretical difficulties.
So with the growth of science, the fiction began to be more extensively employed. So when he's talking about the utopian fiction in this context, is he saying that, is he showing that the way that this was working was that Fourier, other utopian or idealist methods were using, I don't know why he actually transitions there, maybe because he's talking about the state as like place or location, but they were actually talking about this utopian place as if it already existed, right? So it's a fiction, he's just pointing out this fictional practice, he's pointing out
like a fictional practice that basically is realizing it. But then he says, such a method passes very easily over into the realm of fantasy and forms the transition from a scientific treatment to pure poetry. So, yeah, so, I mean, I guess he's taking this for a little bit for granted. it, then Fourier's work is very much rooted in the natural science method, methodologies, from what I know from Fourier's work. But because he is creating this fictional space maybe, and I'm kind of just going off the wing, you guys can all jump in, but he's creating this description of a state that has been realizing these ideas, but they haven't, right,
that if somebody were to read it and take it as fact, that this is the kind of like one of the problems of misconstruing a fiction for fact. So this is when he says it can easily lead into fantasy. And then, I mean, it's a weird transition because he goes from legal theory there, and I guess the distinction here is to say that later 20th century sciences, after natural sciences I guess, there's the, like we have modern mathematics and these things which
is where we start to get more specific or more relational. But I think what the quote is really trying to show is that there's the danger zone between taking a utopian ideal, which he says continually is an ideal ethic. It's not something that is realized. It's always something that is realistic. We always lean towards it, but it never... It's not something that exists. whereas the methodology of saying that it already has existed, people can, you know, construe it as fact. Yeah, sorry, that was long. For me, when I was bringing it up, it was in the context of Constantino's question about
dogmas, and because he talks about a similar thing, the dangers of jumping from fiction to dogma, or taking fiction as dogma. Yeah, I guess I just found the transition in the quote a little confusing, but... Yeah, I mean, I do as well now that you make me take it into context. As if the state that the Fourier is talking about, Derek, the ideas that the utopian state
was, that he was presenting in this utopian world had already been realized. So it was, it's past, what is the tense? I don't know what the tense is, but it's more than the mathematical . I'm not sure if I'm the last sentence, your last sentence. It passed in the mathematical sense. I'm trying to see if he's pulling that out of the text now.
No, it's not. Barrett, do you mind explaining what the last sentence means? More than mathematical was the Euclidean space? Sorry, I'm just thinking that there's so much about the actual, or the construction of the mathematical itself as the kind of fiction, the idea that mathematics is the fiction, and also that the mathematical might be treated as a kind of utopian space through things
like the architectural treaties. things get embedded in ideal forms and kind of diagrams and kind of ideal buildings that then get kind of realised as the kind of city. So the utopian becomes constructed, but it's not the, I mean I'm just sort of, you know, I'm just thinking out loud in a way, but the idea that perhaps he's not referring solely to the Fourierian utopian as an imaginary or possible city,
but also in the sense that Fourier is so involved in science and mathematics. So the utopian relation between mathematics and science, the fictional relation between the utopia of mathematical spaces and scientific spaces and the kind of construction of those through books and diagrams and circulation of those sorts of ideas might be something that you can find in this. I don't know. It's just a... That's actually a better reading than he's giving
because for him, the utopian or the ideal representation, necessity, possibility all of these things are quite obvious and they're obvious that they are taken as an imaginary construct or an ideal thing whereas mathematics the way that he's the way that he's there's a separation from the reality that's at scale differently than what the mathematical fictions do It seems like the mathematical fictions don't... I don't know. No, I don't know.
That's a good point, though. I'm going to note that down and see if I can get to it later. Because right now I'm a little flustered because I'm trying to help. And it seems to be a little confused that she thinks we're on LinkedIn. I don't know. Thank you.
I had a question from Derek, how Tony's busy. I like what you just said, Eric, how you're starting from sort of the imaginary possible, from the abstract going into the tangible, but I wonder, and also what we were talking about dogmas before,
would you see like the actual construction of the books, diagram circulation of ideas and stuff like would that be a dogma of sorts you know when the building is created you know as like serving as a model with which you know we then see we encounter a city or a hotel or something and then we kind of like see this bridge or some kind of architecture. culture. Is there a relative dogma? How do you see that? Is there any relationship of sorts or whatnot? I think it's certainly ideological. That's where this... it's an ideological dogma.
Ideological. Yeah, that's an ideological issue. I'm not quite sure where do you see the dogmatic in this? What's the interest in dogma? I'm just interested because it was previously brought up. I thought it was maybe a hot topic. I was just trying to create conversation while we were there. But also sincere interest in how... I really like your point about, you know, I see that in art a lot, and I guess in many fields where we start with an idea of sorts,
and that it can be real or fictional, maybe depending on how we've defined it thus far, and then at some point it translates into reality. You see a listing for a cup of coffee for $1.50 or something, and then you actually pay the money, and you get a cup of coffee, and you have it right here, and then it's right here. right? And then, but I see maybe dogma as some sort of constancy, like, which is sustained in reality as we know it, which, you know, like, at the end of the lecture or the time, you know, this is still a coffee cup, so it has some sort of sustained realness to it,
you know which is not fictional on and I wonder if it's a too far of a stretch if we can like you know if we compare that are like you know put it alongside architecture I'll and and I don't know very much about that at all but arm just in terms of its if there's like a building that's built that last maybe a hundred years a thousand years or something or pyramids you know think about the Egyptians on can that be like dogmatic Or is there a line with which the absolute dogmatic and maybe the relative or what's in between? How do you see that? I guess I see ideologies embedded in, like I said, the circulation of architectural ideals,
and I guess the birth of architectural theory and the way it constructs, or as this kind of strange reflexive relation between its own fictions and the construction of actual spaces and buildings that people kind of inhabit bodily or something. This starts with the Renaissance, I guess, this sort of documentation, the circulation of these kind of ideas. So, I mean, that's certainly ideological, I would say. And I think it's in that context. that I was just thinking that the mathematical in the philosophy of as if, that kind of,
or that sort of nominalist position. Nominalist? Uh-huh. Okay. Yeah, that mathematical space is the kind of idea, is the ideal, the utopian. So I'm repeating myself now, which I'm prone to do when I'm just making it up as I go along. Oh, that's really good. Yeah, yeah. That's great. I guess this question was opened up because... Oh, excuse me. No, go ahead. Finish the question, though. Because there was this thesis, actually this statement that we behave as if the world matches our models, right?
Yeah. So there are two trajectories from there to follow. The one is that, let's say, a pure existential depression, where you see that your models don't match the world, and you just either go back to defend those models and not change the parameters that you produce those fictions with, right? And I guess the one trajectory is reduction and the other is experimentation. It's like I feel that there are two models that somehow are, let's say, in the same neighborhood. I don't know. That come out at least from this thesis, from the as-if thesis, I guess.
I'm being quite simplistic, though. Yes, for instance, like in mathematics, with the infinitesimally small, you function as if that exists, whereas we don't have proof that that's ever... the infinitesimally small is like a contradiction in itself. But then there's the other elements, like social contracts or other things, where you function as if for practical use and for different sorts of uses. So this is why, again, I think it's really important to discuss scale when you're talking about his work, because otherwise, yes, you can confuse all these different elements. But let's bracket this for now, because we have Ann.
She's here with us. So Ann, can you hear us? I am. Hi. OK. So, very, very glad to have you here. We have, we've basically been just discussing the Baudinger and fictionalism, waiting. We've all prepared your texts that you gave, and so we're waiting to hear from you and then have a discussion with you. So for those of you who are, I sort of gave some of her work that I could find, but just
for a brief introduction, here we have Anne-Francois Schmidt. She's a lecturer at the National Institute of Applied Science in Lyon. And you've been there since, I believe, late 80s, right? Correct? Yes, I think Anne's been since 1988. Her work in general, generic epistemology is sort of what caught my attention. But enough with, we've waited, we've had some things. So, Anne, I know you've prepared some things to say, so I would like to just allow you
to speak to the group. Hi. Hi. Do you want to speak about what you've prepared that you sent me earlier? Yes, I can read a text I have written today for you. It's difficult for me to talk fluid English. You have to pardon to bless me. So I can read my text and after you have some reactions, I think.
yes yes yes yeah pro if you read the fiction the that the the the the fiction are added from the all the people yes I just to be I sense the yeah so Bon, alors, first, on fiction and script. This text, this script, is a command made by Galien Desjans, following by the movies turned by Benoit Maire on objects and works on art,
with four actors, François Laruel and I. You understand? No problem? It's good? Yes, it's good. Sorry, I was doing it. Yes, it's good. The command board first on the script only. The possibility of the writings of the script was a point of externality from the philosophy. Here, the idea of lost film. I think this is a condition for fiction in philosophy. In Philofiction of François L'Arruel,
the point of externality is quantum mechanics because it has no more objects but operator. It is a change of level. It's not a direct relationship between philosophy and point of externality. So, the possibility of fiction is not in the philosophy itself. It is in the relation an indirect one between philosophy and the other. This is a decomposition of philosophy. She is no more in superior stance on the other, the lost feeling,
but she is transformed by it. Here, the essay to introduce in philosophy the effect of color. To paraphrase Kant. There are no more dialectical relations between philosophy and point of externality. It is a drift of philosophy as between continents. Several scripts rest on this idea of the loss of primacy, make philosophy, science, films, and so on. Philosophy is on the same level of the other.
The film is a conceptual character who, as the subject, is falling. in the cave, in the generic, as a living loss. The origin on philofiction, a matrix between philosophy and quantum, under quantum. There is no more reversibility as in philosophy. Here, a combination of film and philosophy with the method of under-determination. was it the battle of without. But lost films is an idea very compatible with philosophical movement.
The point of exteriority, the lost film, has commons with philosophy. These scripts are in the sense classical. The lost films are lacking, they fail eternally, as said Peggy, and they fall in the immanence of philosophical matter. So, how is that the movie is no more descriptible by philosophical means? It would not have confidence anymore to be identical to its one light and movement. It explains the distinction in the script between films and images, and the contrast between light and obscurity, who are not interchanging.
We have light or we have obscurity that are no passages, and there is an identity of sun and cave. This identity is the death of film. Only the subject X without empirical qualities can pass from obscurity to light and meet colors. The role of fiction in my work. One of my problems is how to think of the multiplicity of rights of philosophies. What is the status of this multiplicity? we are writing philosophies. My problem is not to pass from a philosophy to another,
but to think of their compatibilities in the philosophical act. So, I suppose a generic space for philosophies. A proposition of one philosophy, one particular philosophy, can be decomposed to become compatible with propositions of other philosophies. We can take together logics incompatible to understand philosophies. Example, primacy of terms, as in Russell, or primacy of relations, as in the Leuves. That we can super-tone, alternate, combine.
It's a sort of pragmatism in between the philosophies. I think it is possible to construct a generic space for philosophies, to make decomposition and compatibility between them. It's no more a comparative attitude that stands to analyze philosophy with the hypothesis of the primacy of multiplicity of philosophy on the unity. If it is philosophy, it is a multiplicity of philosophy. It is possible to take a particular philosophy as the point of exteriority, perhaps locally, and another further.
I have, so they say, often used starting with philosophies and not only in a philosophy, which is, I know, very complex. When I meet a philosophy, I know there are in the same time other philosophies. Fiction is a possibility to take in account this implicit knowledge. So the results of decomposition, transversal, a priori empirical, are disjoint and philosophy becomes as an integrative object. So the fiction is necessary as the combination between concepts and propositions of various
philosophies. philosophy can be transformed as a notion of an object and after as a cluster of variables in a matrix. Fiction is an extension of the possibilities of philosophy, but without primacy once over the other. Ensuite, fiction in generic epistemology. Classical epistemology is still recently covered. It turns itself near the path. Mechanics, physical. Example, extract from path of mechanics, physical.
The epistemology collapsed and was replaced by science studies, sociological studies of science. Generic epistemology is turned on the contemporary science with devised to say new phenomena and methods in sciences. It began with an extension.
An epistemology of models is one where models have mediators between theory and experience. All the ingredients of the science had to be liberated of the tension between theory and their own science. It is so an open epistemology. Science is an indirect object because sample of science is not a rule to explain science. As is non-philosophy, it's a change of level. It is possible to see models as fictional devices. It was the first step to introduce fictional epistemology.
But it's lacking the interdisciplinary regime current in sciences. So we invent some conceptual instruments to open a generic space. Integrative objects found without phenomenal distance, without synthesis, and collective intimacy in science. A new mode of exchange between researchers. In this space, there are some operators who permit to combine fragments of scientific and philosophical knowledge on these operators as fiction.
Fiction is one of these operators who open possibilities of articulation or philosophical and scientifical fragments. Fiction combined with fragments of knowledge. Its structure is concept cross knowledge and knowledge. More generally concept and concept cross party of knowledge a cluster of knowledge
the underdetermination is the guarantee of non-reversibility it is explained in the text as the design theory and with underdetermination the The extension of knowledge is based on the suppression by hypothesis of one of the properties of the concept. So we are committed to use new knowledge to understand this concept. We'll install the object. The point of externality is an impossible object deprived of one of its entsocial properties.
So we can combine objects with knowledge of objects. It is to a manner to introduce collective intimacy and the mannerism in science as in art and philosophy. why you're looking our left to look at the book a lot there the other of the you did it uh... we have to be a good and that you okay thank you
Because there was a little delay, I posted the text that you provided me that you were reading so everybody could follow clearly. Could you, before we go into discussion, could you, the last sentence, the other operator in generic epistemology or virtual and future. Could you say a little more about the relationship between fiction and future? Between fiction and? And the operator of future?
Fetcher is an operator who is the possibility of cut at coupure, cut. And virtual is the operator of change of level. Ah, okay. So we have fiction for combining fragments and extend. we have virtual to change the level, not only between theory and fact, but with data, with micro-fidation, etc. And future is a cat who can give extension.
Okay. Thank you. I would open this up to anybody that might have questions. And if we have a problem, Laura, you speak French, so would you mind maybe if there's problems with some of the questions, to speak in French to Anne, if it's needed? Yes. OK. Have you a translator, Tor? Have you a translator among you? I'm sorry, one second. Say it one more time.
OK, thank you, Vila. Oh, she got kicked. Wait for her to come back. A whole bunch of people left. What happened? It says that... And now? Okay, you're back. Can you hear my... Yes. Yes? Mm-hmm. Have you a translator in French and in English? Yes.
Derek? Not me, no. No, but we have Laura. Laura, you're muted, so when you're speaking, I don't... Ah, Laura. Oui, je peux m'occuper de traduire. Ah, c'est gentil. Oui. Vous avez vu que mon anglais n'est pas très fluide. I very much appreciate you being here. I know that personally I have the patience to get through the conversations and it's great that we have Laura in Bordeaux. Ben lives in France,
but I'm not sure, maybe we'll use more. So, yeah, does anybody want to open up with any questions? Ben, as well? Could be from the text that she read, or from the text that we read from her that she provided. I have something, I think. Just before Anne arrived, we were talking about the utopia. And I was wondering if the models and scientific devices of a generic epistemology are utopian.
The models in generic epistemology. Are the models and scientific instruments of a general epistemology utopian or what's the relation between a utopian fiction and a general epistemology? Can you translate exactly? Yes, so he asks, because before you arrived in conversation, he talked about utopia, and I think his question is, what would be the significant differences between the epistemological generics and utopia?
Derek, can you say it again so I'm sure I'm translating it right? Yeah, I'm probably saying it in three different ways each time. But it's a question about the idea of models and scientific instruments of a generic epistemology and our earlier discussion about the idea of the utopian, as if as utopian. Okay. Yes, yes. Anne? Oui. Oui, donc c'est sur la relation entre les modèles
d'épistémologie générique et l'utopie. Yes, very good. If you could extend the question. So, generic epistemology allows you to solve a big contradiction in the interpretation of the models. Okay, let's do it little bit. So, generic epistemology enables a differentiation in interpretation. of the models. Of the models. The models were interpreted
either as an actual interpretation of a theory, or as an abstract from the real. So the models were interpreted as... interpretation of the theory or abstraction of the real. Or as an abstraction of the real. And the two were very opposed.
In France, it was a dramatic situation, not in the USA, I think. But in France, it was scientifically a great debate. Scenario is a model, but with future. with future future and the utopia is a model, an ideal model made for return on the present time so
so the utopia is not the continuity between present and future, but the return of future on present. So it is also a cut, a cut in the present. The model of Ethiopia, contrary to scientific models, are not experienced by measurements and observations. What did you say before observation?
That utopies are not, like in scientific models, related to measurements or observations. So they are not conditioned by measurements and observations as models. So it's a combination from model and Fetcher. It's a combination of model and Fetcher. and future. Thank you.
Does anybody here? Sorry, go ahead. Is for you direct fiction and utopia linked? That's what this... That's what we were talking about just before you arrived. And, yeah, I guess... I mean, I was thinking that the kind of utopian...
the kind of mathematical space was a kind of utopia utopia and the way that it had been described in the Vahenga text that we've been looking at. Oui, est-ce que vous pouvez traduire ? Oui, donc on discutait de ça avant et on parlait du texte de Vahenga as if, comme si. Comme si, voilà, de Vahenga. Yes, and they thought that the maths would be potentially an utopia. Why not? It's a hypothesis that we can follow.
Why not? This can be a hypothesis that we could follow. In the philosophy of the Anglo-Saxon mathematics. In the Anglo-Saxon philosophy of mathematics. There are a lot of articles and books with the term of without. What is mathematics without demonstration, without structure, without object, what is truth without facts, etc. And it is a form of extension, fiction, to understand in other fashion, in other manner, mathematics.
It's very... Redis la fin, la dernière fois. Alors, cette méthode d'essayer de comprendre les mathématiques sans leur propriété principale, soit sans objet, soit sans preuve, sans structure, etc., allows us to complete our mathematics by using knowledge that we didn't have before. For example, that remain implicit. For example, at Leibniz, we see very well the use of mathematics applied to the daily life of music.
Music is an unconscious arithmetic. So the usage of the tool of the without, it is to unveil implicit aspects of mathematics, for instance in Leibniz that connects it to daily life and music. Yes. So it is possible to see mathematics as fiction, and Russell, the desire of Russell was to be
platonists, but after they are contradicting and replace platonistic entities of mathematics by fiction. Numbers are fiction. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in a way this is very much a similar response to what we were reading, I think. Could you, would you mind explicating in your opinion or describing in your view the difference
between a fiction and a hypothesis? So, can you come back to the differences between fiction and hypothesis? Ah. So, fiction is an operator. Hypothèse is a possibility to pass from one… State? No, of… Suite… From one theory to another. To another.
Voila. If we made a… …the theory to another. If we made a deduction in mathematics, hypothèse capes with a possibility of enlargement of the reasoning. Can you repeat the last thing you said? In a mathematical reasoning, the hypothesis makes a cut, which is in relation to other aspects of mathematics. Okay. So, in mathematics, the hypothesis makes a cut to relate it to… to relate it to…
In a reasoning, not only mathematics, but in a reasoning mathematic, when we make an hypothesis, it makes a cut in reasoning that allows us to put in relation to the reasoning. So this cut is able to put the argument in relation to other arguments. In the series of demonstrations. Yes, yes, yes. It's an order of propositions linked by rules.
Yes, that's it. And the possibility of... Sorry. This is also the distinction that Waringer makes in the text when he's trying to describe the relationship, the distinction between fiction and hypothesis. Hypothesis Yes, fiction and art. Hypothesis is local, and fiction, hypothesis is very important. In classical epistemology, hypothesis has no status. It is not in the dictionary of philosophical terms, because if it is false, it disappears,
it is truth, so it is empirical law. So the hypothesis has not taken it. When we open classical epistemology, so hypothesis is a fundamental idea, locally important, and will permit to passage a problem to another. It's a very important instrument, and it's an instrument to no confusion between facts and theoretical elements. It's a confusion between facts and theoretical elements, is that what you said?
So it's an instrument of non-confusion between theoretical elements and facts. Yes. In the false theories, I have read a lot of false theories who conduct to conclusions that not arrive in facts. There is always a confusion between facts and hypotheses. Always. A fact becomes a hypothesis, and a hypothesis becomes a fact, and there is no more possibility
of constructing the theory, a scientific theory. But the false theories are very frequent. Feynman and Poincaré underlined this problem. So, generic epistemology gives a status to hypothesis, but it's not the same that fiction, fiction is an operator, is an operator and hypothesis is a fundamental notion. Okay, thank you.
That in many ways actually is much more clear than this 100 pages of Weingar. Il dit que ce que tu viens de dire est bien plus clair que les centaines de pages de de comme si. Ah, de Weingher. De Weingher, oui. Weingher parle dans la philosophie. Weingher is talking inside philosophy. And he has no fine point of externality. Yeah, he has no fine point of externality. Il n'y a pas de point d'externalité.
He used the contradiction, the classical contradiction, to manifest the fiction. The fiction is in contradiction with the text. The fiction is in contradiction with itself. And this is, in my idea, the definition of contrafactual. Contrafactual is not the same as fiction. It's a particular fiction. In a text.
The concept that you provide, what is the… Contrafactuelle. Oui, qu'est-ce que c'est ça? Contrafactuelle, comment est-ce qu'on dit en anglais? Contrafactuelle. Voilà, counterfactuelle. In philosophy, the sample is all the same, and I take a place, right? is on kangurus. If kangurus in a world where kangurus have no ties, they wear the head
on the bottom. It's a sample in analytical theory of the counterfactual. And it is necessary to create, to fiction, another world where the kangaroo has no time. It's an idea in very locally for imagine world where one property is not represented with in a little fiction and it will in the philosophies with a point of externality
There is a comment from Samir who says, it's great. I just thought that the weak point in Weingar is the definition of real fiction as a contradiction, as a contradiction, as a contradiction, as a contradiction,
And what makes a point for philosophy in general. Pardon, it's not very well. Two points. She says actually it's two points. The definition of real questions is... What is two points? Actually, it's two... OK, no, actually, ce sont deux points. Self-contradictory, no good. But for... For Weyinger? Are you Google translating that?
No, well, he speaks French as well, so he could actually probably converse with her. Going into like some French English here, it's getting confused. I'm sorry, I'm not going to speak French. OK. Anne, do you see on your screen what Samir wrote? Sorry, I can't speak, there's too loud. He says. OK. So I see what he wrote.
D'accord, très bien. Ah, I can't see the text. Where is the text? Now. It should be... OK, so... He says, is it possible to consider all the philosophies as if they were fiction in the context of the generic epistemology?
Eric? Alors, ce sont des fictions particulières. It's particular fictions. Because they are very complex. They have knowledge and concepts as in other fiction, but explicitly the link between concepts and the other knowledge. This link is transcendental. And this made philosophy complex because the method, the transcendental method, transformed
the concept with the practice. It was very good explained by Derrida, for example. The notions are confirmed by the practice because there is a knowledge as fact. So, this transformation. L'explicité en français. I didn't get personally the last sentence.
Oui, en français ou en anglais, comme tu préfères. Alors, in philosophy, there are the equivalent of concept. There are the equivalent of knowledge. And plus there is explicitly the link between concepts and knowledge. In science, the link between theories and facts is not explicit. It's very important. It's not weakness, it's a particularity.
In philosophy, we always have the links between the conceptual apparatus and what appears as empirical. And this link is transcendental. We always have the link between the conceptual apparatus and what appears to be empirical experiment. So, philosophy is not only concept and proposition, it's not only empiric, it is the two with a link who transform the notion of philosophy. It is the reason because it is a multiplicity of philosophy.
The method transforms philosophy. The philosophical method transforms philosophy. In science, the method gives us new knowledge, but it transforms not the relation between science and real, because they are external.
In philosophy, philosophy thinks she can have a relation and can determine the real. So the relation between concept, proposition and empiric is very important, not very visible, but it transforms the notion. So philosophy is a fiction with a proportion of two concepts empiric and a transcendental
what is not one. There is a fiction with not two dimensions, not three dimensions. Deleuze Deleuze said, the philosopher boite toujours. Le philosophe boite toujours. Le philosophe boite toujours. Ah, the philosopher boite toujours. How do you say when you cannot walk properly? Oui, c'est toujours inégal. Toc, toc, toc, toc. Or he also says that he has a yellow shirt with one side green and one side yellow.
But it never does the same color. Deleuze says the philosopher has trousers with one sleeve of one color and another sleeve of another color. It's never the same color. And so there's like this, some kind of asymmetric walk. Voilà. C'est toujours une égalité inégale. It's an unequal equality. Unequal equality. Inégalité. It's the reason because in Nietzsche there are, there are, how do you call it?
Limping. Limping, the philosophy is limping. The scientist is not limping, but the philosophy is limping. Oui. Nietzsche wrote aphorism. What's the name of Nietzsche? He wrote aphorism. An aphorism was two, it was two points, with just the difference in the transcendental to articulate these two points. You said the time or the points? P-A-N-S
P-A-N-S If you want, there are two pans in a table, you see, a house table. There are two pans. The aphorism is always in Nietzsche, composed of two pans, with the difference that makes the crepe. Okay. So the... The same philosophy. The aphorisms in Nietzsche, They are always made of two, how do you say, two planes? Or, no, how do you say it? Two aspects, two planes, two. And a third that, um.
Zahia, they are articulated. Articulated by the difference. Two aspects with... These aphorisms are the essence of the fiction in philosophy. Actualism par leur différence. So, when philosophy so thinks that she has some authority on the real, it is impossible
for her to think of herself as fiction. We can think of philosophy as fiction when we You mean what? Suppress the authority of the other philosophy and other sciences, arts, She is not over the other, but she is among the other with the same prerogative.
So, when this authority is lost, so we can decompose philosophy. It is in philosophy, empiric, in two empirics. One, we condemn because it is a precedent philosophy, and the empiric, what is the correlation with the new a priori. So, if we decompose and we have empiric, simply, not too empiric, simply, we have a priori, we have transcendental,
it is possible to combine these elements for fiction in philosophy. But all the notions are so transformed. Are what? And so the notions, empiric, transcendental, a priori, are transformed. They are part of the fiction. So fiction in philosophy is possible under terrible conditions for the classical philosophy.
In her text on page, I don't know, it's just above of mathematics. and you're describing the method of without, and, you know, you ask how does the method work, and you say it is a matter of hypothetically canceling out one of the most essential properties
of that which one studies. Now, I think I've understood in your responses so far, thus far so far that one of the things that must, it's a choice to choose to dismiss one of the things, so in philosophy the transcendental is one of the things that you might dismiss philosophy without the transcendental or is it philosophy without philosophy so the essential property is philosophy I don't know what is the central property that is being dismissed
That's my question. Is that what you want to say, Laura? Yes. In general, it is on the part of your text, the performativity of without. Sorry, Tony, can you rephrase it shortly? Yes. In her text, at the end of the method, she says, it is a matter of hypothetically canceling out one of the essential properties of that which one studies. So my question would be, what does she mean by essential properties?
I know, I think the answer is like the transcendental, but I don't know if it's... So in this part of the test, what do you want to say about the property? What is it? The method cancels out an essential property in which one studies. In essential. and essential. So it is essential. Ah, yes. What are the essential properties you talk about in this text? In the conference. So, it's a method that I saw
in three different domains. It's a method that she saw in three different domains. Philosophy, mathematics, and art. In philosophy, I think of the non-philosophy or the non-standard philosophy of François Laruelle. In philosophy, she thinks of non-philosophy of Laruelle or non-standard. She makes a theory of philosophy. That makes a theory of philosophy. This theory is impossible in classic philosophy.
Because in classic philosophy, if you do a theory of philosophy, it gives a new philosophy. Because in classic philosophy, if you do that, it produces a new theory. A new philosophy, and it is impossible to . So it's impossible to distinguish theoretically philosophy. So to make a theory of philosophy, we have to have a netero point of externality.
And so it is possible for L'Arrel to do a theory and philosophy. in this theory there is some elements these elements can be treated as properties properties and if we we If we delete or suppress an element, a property, so we can add other new knowledge on the object
here, philosophy. And so there is a possibility of heteromodalization of philosophy. So the necessity to have a scientific point of exteriority. And philosophy is expanded, but without this superiority, primacy on the other production. Okay, thank you. There are questions from Samir on the code,
who continues, in saying, How to distinguish between good and bad fiction? How to avoid a too epistemological liberalism where everything is possible? How to measure or value our use of philosophy? Yes, so it was a really very important question. It's a very important question. Yes. So it's a very... In fact, there is one part... They precisely, so they want to say an epistemology too liberal. Yes, yes, I understand. If you want to, when you make a philosophical fiction,
So when you make a philofiction, you suppose that there is a real outside philosophy? Yes. Very, very external. It's a primal supposition. There is a rail. This rail is not changed by philosophy, nor by science, nor by art. It's a point of reality very external. But after, when you
you work on philosophical fiction. There is no only reversibilities, indifferent reversibilities on fictions, on the different fictions. There is, we have to report to the fiction to this real who is not modified by these fiction. This real made that the fiction is not a relativistic space because the real cuts the reversibility
of the indifference. There is an irreversibility of the method. I think it is an important question. The question of Samir is very important. But I have not criteria to distinguish bad and good fiction. I think bad fiction is a fiction who has no continuation, no reaction in between the different domains.
There are fictions very rich. The cat of Schroediger has interpretation in a lot of philosophy, in science, etc. I think fiction would have device to enrich the thing of situation, philosophical or scientific. If she is not enriching, it is a bad fiction.
If it's not enriching, you see, enriching. If it's not enriching, then maybe it's a bad fiction. fiction but that's because it's in movies fiction. Since you've been our translator, is there anything that you would like to ask her?
I don't want to just make you work. Yeah. No, I'm good for now. Okay. I would invite anybody else to try to wrap discussion, and then we could thank Anne for her time. Ben, do you have anything you would like to add? No, the question I had was just answered by her. It was about the real and the external. So... The week is here.
The question was already answered. It's another question there. Yes, the question has been already answered by you. Well. Well, I guess with that, I have practical questions. When will the English translations be published by Urbanomic? Do you know when? Yes, I think soon. It will be published with the numerization of Benoît Maire's paintings.
So, once Robin McKay has the English text, because he has translated it himself, it's a translation of Robin, and when he will have the numeralization of Benoit Maire's paintings, he will put them on the site. I think that's all. So when they will get the digitalization of the paintings of Benoit Maire, they will do it. Okay. Is there any chance of the Boundaries book? I don't know what the book is called in French.
Just know it's Boundaries. The Epistemology of the Frontiers exists in French. The Epistemology of the Frontiers exists only in French. There is no plan to translate it. No, there is a plan to translate the age of epistemology. The age? It's much more fundamental. The age of epistemology. OK, there is a plan to translate the age of epistemology, which is more fundamental, according to that. OK. Well, Anne, thank you very much. There is a great chapter on models. Et quoi?
OK. Et il y a un long chapitre sur les modèles, dans l'epistemologie. OK, long chapter on models. Well, Anne, thank you very much for being with us. I hope it was not too difficult. And there is a... I did not... It was breaking up. I don't know how to say that. Yeah, I also... Could you... ...repeat what you said?
I think there's a problem. Anne, you're there? She's not there, she's not responding. Okay. We'll see if she maybe is just... if she's frozen or not. Something like, it was cool, thanks guys. Okay. Is that what she said? It was cool, thanks guys. Well, let's just... Okay, yeah, she did get kicked. She probably will come back and we can say bye to her. But I mean, extremely...
Laura, thank you very much. for that. I know that doesn't allow you to be distanced enough to engage in but I appreciate the translation and making it easier. I thought that was there's a lot in there. I'm going to go back and transcribe that so we can perhaps try to pick it out and discuss it more as a group. I didn't think, putting, having, this is the day the end could make it. So I was kind of like hoping that it would kind of like
work with the barring or stuff, and actually the kinds of things that we pulled out worked quite well. We are way over time, so I don't want to keep anybody too much longer, but I will say that quickly that there's going to be a Google Classroom. Everybody's going to get NewsCenter accounts because in order to use Google Classroom, it's only built on apps for education. So you'll have an account that you'll have to use to access Classroom. And there we can post questions questions and have like a discussion throughout the seminar there in between these sessions.
And I'll post all the materials and you all can post materials as well. That's a practical thing. I'll send the email out probably the end of the day today. The next session is going to be, Ben, is it the Black Quantum Futurism session? BEN FAUCHERMANN Yeah, Black Quantum Futurism, so Wakandan technologies. That's the name. Yeah. So we'll have many different people who have been investigated. I copied this book. So I recommend that you can get it if you want, but I have a PDF of it now, so I will send out the different essays from this.
But it's a group from Philadelphia who run a program called the Afrofuturist Affair. And they've been doing this project called the Black Quantum Futurism. And this is the second. Hi, Ann. She seems to be back. Yeah, she was asking if everything was good, and I was going to message her back. No problem, and everything is sufficient for the seminar. But I'm glad you came back, so we can all thank you for your time. And we were just saying it was great. Voilà. So thank you very much. Have a good night.
And hopefully be in touch in the future. That's great. Merci, bonne nuit. She might be gone again. It was... Oh. She has a problem with her connection. Yeah. I will just message her. Can we get the PDF for next session, like now? Yeah, I have the PDF.
I'll send it. I can't do the whole book because I have it. I just copied it yesterday, so I'll send those out. But for starting, there is two online texts. I'll grab them right now and I'll post them. One sentence. I'm very slow right now.
I'm sorry. Where is it? Ben, do you have the syllabus up? Can you post those if you do? Yeah, I wanted to post the chat, but it didn't come out right. Hold on. Post the two technology, the Rashida interview? Yeah. Just a sec. Okay, there.
That's one. That's the first one. And there's the second one. The one and two. So that's a good start. This is an interview with... Or actually, is it an interview? No, it's actually written by Rashida Phillips. And she is kind of the curator of Black Quantum Futurism. She'll be with us next week. We'll read one of her texts as well. And then also, Leticia Womack, who's in Chicago. And she also has recently edited an Afrofuturism collection
and has been doing a lot of films. She's a filmmaker and a writer. She has a text in this book as well, so I'll pass around these texts at the end of the day today. But we can start with... So if you need something that you really want to dig into right now, those are those two texts. Yeah, we'll meet, and it will be probably flipped. She'll be in the session first. We'll do the discussion with her, and then we'll break off into more of a discussion. So that's practicality for reading next week. The other thing is two more things. One is because of the quantity of the reading, and I don't want to just leave Varinger aside
or leave the end text aside, is that if anybody wants to meet during the week, we can meet and do reading groups as well. I do think it's sort of one method that I would like to try is actually picking short amounts of text and reading them collectively I think would be really productive. And I would be interested in doing extra sessions with people during the week, which we can organize either in the Facebook chat or in the classroom. And the third practicality is that we want to sort of have some kind of production, something we're going to produce out of this course. So I will give some ideas for things that I think we could do collectively, but also
you don't have to if you want to do something in your own research projects. And I'll pass that around in an email. But yeah, so I know like Tim, those hypertext films, Tim wants to do something similar, I want him to do, he also messaged me. But something similar to a hypertext version of these seminars. And so, yeah, those are the things I want to kind of leave off into what we'll pick up later. And I'll send out an application online app that we can decide what the best times are for this week to do some readings. And we can do some readings together.
Either next week's or the past week. And we can just continue doing that because I really want to do that in this course. Are there any final things before we go? No. Okay. Thank you all for being here. This will be the most dense philosophical part of the course. We hope that's the hardest part. the rest of it we're going to be dealing with interesting fiction and so hopefully we can take a lot of this stuff that's been very packed in and start bringing it along the next sentence so yeah thank you all for being