Seminars
February
The Singular, part I
Tuesday 05 February 2008
15:00 Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
March
The Singular, part II
Tuesday 04 March 2008
15.00 h Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
April
The Singular, part III
Tuesday 01 April 2008
14:00 h Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
May
The Dual, part I
Tuesday 06 May 2008
14:00 h Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
June
The Dual, Part II
Tuesday 03 June 2008
14:00h Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
July
The Dual, Part III
Wednesday 02 July 2008
14:00 auditorium
September
The Multiple, Part I
Tuesday 09 September 2008
17h30 room 204
November
The Universal, Part I
Tuesday 04 November 2008
15:00 h Auditorium, Jan van Eyck Academie
December
Versus Laboratory 2008 final triple session: Alliez, Riha, multiple, universal
Monday 01 December 2008 - Sunday 02 November 2008
Auditorium
January
Versus Laboratory 2009 Presentation - Matter Matters
Thursday 15 January 2009
13h45 Jan van Eyck Academie
February
Negation/Consistency 1
Thursday 05 February 2009
1030h-1230h auditorium
March
Negation/Consistency 2
Wednesday 11 March 2009
1030h-1230h auditorium
April
Negation/Consistency 3
Thursday 09 April 2009
1030h-1230h auditorium
May
Matter/Knowledge 1
Thursday 21 May 2009
14h-16h RM 204
June
Imagination/Dialectic 1
Sunday 14 June 2009
14h-18h RM 204
September
Imagination/Dialectic 2
Thursday 03 September 2009
14h-15h Auditorium
October
Stasis/Rupture 1
Thursday 08 October 2009
14h Auditorium
November
Stasis/Rupure 2
Thursday 05 November 2009
14h
December
Stasis/Rupture 3
Tuesday 01 December 2009
14h
February
Historical contingency/Subjective necessity
Wednesday 03 February 2010
10h30-12h30 Auditorium
April
Index, Suject, Form of Life
Thursday 08 April 2010
14h Auditorium
May
Sociological reflexivity/Philosophical reflexivity
Thursday 27 May 2010
14h Auditorium
Negation/Consistency 2
Wednesday 11 March 2009
1030h-1230h auditorium
The second session of Versus Laboratory will remained focused on the issue of mathematics and epistemology but from a different perspective. As we have argued during the opening week, the contemporary situation of materialism undoes itself by positing the object of “matter” in a naturalized or ideological manner of the reception of a “given” in received experience. One way to provide an interrogation of this philosophical situation is to take up an investigation of the abstract-concrete gap in knowledge. In this, the interrogation of materialism is perhaps most pointed in the critique of the underlying mathematical nature of the access of knowledge to reality. Since Galileo, the interpretation of mathematics as the grammar of nature has guided the normativity of scientific discourse whether this fell under the dogmatic accounts of the cosmos in Descartes and Leibniz or the critical apparatus of Kant’s rectification of scientific knowledge. In Marx’s appreciation of Hegelian dialectics, this normative standard is reorganized under a temporal configuration of knowledge’s inherent sociality. What does this reinterpretation of the conditions of knowledge deliver for rethinking materialism caught in the gap between the practice of science and politics?
After a short intervention by Tzuchien Tho, our guest, Emmanuel Barot, will present his current research on the issue of post-’68 conceptions of subjectivity and theoretical practice (focusing on the insights of Sartre and Althusser) in the domain of the objectivity of mathematics. In this, he will take up the issue of the inertia of practice and the criteria of science in order to point a way forward into a dialectical response to the problem of mathematical objectivity. Against the tide led by Badiou and Meillassoux, among others, who place the articulation of a rationalist materialism on the side of the absoluteness of mathematics, Barot attempts to put mathematics itself under the condition of a rethinking of the subjectivity and historicity of scientific practice itself. By taking the gap between the abstract and concrete in mathematical objectivity, Barot invites us to consider the way forward in a critique of not only the objectivity of mathematics but also the subjectivity from which this condition is engendered. How does this look at mathematics penetrate the underlying social and historical conditions of thought? How does this unveil the materialist conditions of scientific thinking today?
Readings:
Excerpts from Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism. link (text taken from the web archive marx2mao.com where the full text is avaliable)
Excerpts from Jean-Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason. link (text taken from marxists.org)
Paper:
Emmanuel Barot's presentation in French link in English link (presentation will be in English)