1. No category

SEMIKOLON
Artefakter
Artifacts
T i d s s k r i f t f o r I d é h i s t o r i e , S e m i o t i k o g F i l o s o f i ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5
Semikolon har som semikolon i skriftsproget funktion af at være et
både-og tegn; både afhængigt af historien, der gik forud, men samtidigt (og vigtigst) peger det frem og vil noget mere. Et ; indstiller
således opmærksomheden på det, der kommer efter. Og følgelig giver
tegnet ikke mening i sig selv men kræver en sammenhæng at blive set i.
Som sådan er tegnet kun den halve sandhed, idet sandheden og
semantikken først udfoldes i interpretationen. Tidsskriftets intention
er derfor ikke at være dogmatisk og monologisk sandhedspostulerende, men i stedet dialogisk, ”it takes two to do research”, hvilket
igen vil sige at tilvejebringe et åbent forum. Dette forum skabte en
flok studerende ved idéhistorie, semiotik og filosofi – alle ved Århus
Universitet, da de i sommeren 2000 grundlagde tidsskriftet Semikolon.
Målet er – i form af artikler, oversættelser, interviews, faglig kritik,
polemik og boganmeldelser – indenfor emnerne idéhistorie, semiotik og
filosofi at skabe og udbrede en kritisk tværvidenskabelig dialog mellem
studerende og forskere på højere læreanstalter i Danmark og Norden. At
Semikolon er tværvidenskabeligt betyder, at vi ikke ønsker at præsentere
verden vha. en bestemt metodisk tilgang eller vidensstrategi. Vi ønsker at
præsentere verden gennem så mange forskellige tilgange som muligt, for
at afdække verden og tilgangene, og for at skabe dialog. Det eneste krav
i en sådan dialog er, at der tales ud fra et minimum af fælles forståelse.
Semikolon nr. 28
Artefakter
”[…] but now that i had finished, the
beauty of the dream had vanished, and
breathless disgust and horror filled my
heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the
being i had created […]”
(Frankenstein - Mary Shelley 1818)
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 3 - 5
Vi er omgivet af dem, bruger dem hver dag
og bær dem på vores krop. Men hvor ofte
stopper vi op og overvejer, hvad de betyder
for os, ikke enkeltvis men som overordnet
kategori, af - ja af hvad? Kan man bare nøjes
med at kalde det ting og sager? Livløse genstande? Mærkværdigt at vi har et ord som
klassificerer disse både brugbare men til
tider også upåfaldende ting. Vi nærer et så
tæt forhold til disse genstande at vi sjældent
overvejer deres betydning og langt fra deres
filosofiske betydning. Nogle fag beskæftiger sig dog med det historiske aspekt af
disse genstande. Teknologiske spring som
for alvor rykker i vores verdensopfattelse.
Stanley Kubrick bruger i hans film ”2001:
A Space Odyssey” den visuelle metafor med
en stor sort monolith til at beskrive disse
teknologiske spring. I en af de første scener
i filmen møder en gruppe aber denne
monolith. I dette møde sker der noget
uforklaret med disse aber, men man ser
senere en af aberne passere forbi resterne
af et nu afdødt dyr. Inden længe studser
vores hovedperson over dyrets lårbensknogle, der ligger blandt de afdøde rester.
Efter lidt prøven sig frem, bliver der gjort
en erkendelse. Lårbensknoglen viser sig at
være en genstand med stor drabelig effekt!
Aben begynder i lyset af denne erfaring til Richard Strauss’ monumentale ”Also
sprach Zarathustra” - i en blodrus, med
voldsomme sving af lårbensknoglen at tilintetgøre resterne af det afdøde dyr. Denne
scene er forvarslende for, hvad teknologisk
udvikling potentielt kan gøre ved subjekter. Kubrick illustrerer her en interessant
pointe for vores forhold til ”brugstøj”. Før
erkendelsen af lårbensknoglens nytte som
våben, havde knoglerne ingen værdi for
aben, dets eksistens var ligegyldig og kunne
mest af alt betragtes som værende i vejen.
På et eller andet tidspunkt i sin forbipassage bliver abens relation til denne genstand drastisk forandret, og dermed også
abens psykologiske tilstand - til skræk og
rædsel for aberne af den rivaliserende flok.
Side 4
Redaktionen
Knoglens fysiske realitet er ikke at benægte.
Den lå der inden aben tog fat i den og
ændrede ikke sin fysiske form. På trods
af det ændrede den sig drastisk i mødet
med aben. Den blev til noget mere - til
en anden type genstand. Den blev ”genopdaget” på ny, som noget andet end det,
det var forinden. Denne genstand gik altså
fra en udefineret epistemisk status til at
være det vi (i aristotelisk forstand) kalder
et ”artefakt”. En brugs-genstand som er
blevet lavet til et bestemt formål, noget
som har en ”forfatter” eller skaber, selvom
skabelsen blot bestod i at aben realiserede
dens destruktive potentiale.
På samme måde nærer mennesker relation til genstande omkring dem, nogle
genstande opstår slet ikke i vores ”erkendelsesfelt”, andre træder konstant frem, mens
en helt tredje kategori er en forlængelse af os
selv og hermed bliver en del af os. Artefakter er en klasse af genstande, som optræder
for os i dagligdagen; ”hvor er min bærbar”,
”det er koldt jeg bør tage en jakke på”, men
samtidigt er det genstande vi sjældent påtaler og deres epistemologiske og ontologiske
status i verdenen er alt for sjældent gransket.
En simpel udredning af artefaktens fysiske
karakteristika dækker på ingen måde dens
betydning og indflydelse på subjektet.
Min relation til min lommeregner kan
på den ene side forstås som relationen til en
brugsgenstand, men er også en udvikling i
den måde jeg forholder mig til matematik
og det at regne. ”Unge mennesker læser
og regner dårligere end nogensinde”, nogle
mener at et sådant udtryk misforstår relationen unge har til lommeregnere, computere
og lignende. Vi lever i en tid, hvor artefakterne indlejret i den teknologi vi omgives
med påvirker os på mange måder. Nogle
teoretikere vil endda gå så langt som til at
hævde, at de ikke blot påvirker men er med
til at skabe og forme os til de mennesker vi
er i dag. Det at vi blev i stand til at skrive
noget ned, formede menneskeheden og de
mennesker, der var involveret. På samme
måde står vi i dag med internettet og de
sociale medier som en formende genstand.
Den er med til at forme den måde vi er
sociale på, den måde vi forholder os til andre
mennesker på og hvordan vi fremtræder.
Men dette er naturligvis kun én bestanddel af det menneskelige virke i det enogtyvende århundrede. Robot-teknologien
buldrer derudaf og flere og flere arbejdsopgaver bliver udskiftet med maskiner. Artefakterne indtager vores arbejdsopgaver, ja
selv krigsførelse, som nu bliver udført med
ubemandede droner. Snart måske også varetagelsen af de syge, og måske også socialt
samvær, når vi er ensomme? Hvordan bliver
vores forhold til det kropslige påvirket af
denne udvikling? En distancering mellem
det fysiske og det sociale hvis yderste konsekvens måske er en afvikling af fysisk nærvær
eller en kompensation i form af mekaniske
venner og kærester?
Hvis det er rigtigt at den teknologi, der
omgiver os og som vi gør brug af og som er
en så stor del af vores liv vitterligt er med til
at forme os som mennesker, hvad siger det
så om os som mennesker? De genstande og
ting, som vi tager for givet og som gør vores
liv så nemt. Er de ”unaturlige” og dermed
også forkerte? Eller er denne påvirkning
blot noget vi skal være opmærksomme på,
uden at der behøves at drages drastiske normative slutninger på denne baggrund?
Denne udgave af Semikolon har som
tema Artefakter i bred forstand, vi inviterer
hermed læseren til eftertanke i vores selvskab om de genstande i vores liv som ikke
umiddelbart lader til at have filosofisk gods,
men som ved nærmere granskning viser sig
at have stor betydning.
Leder
tionerne forbundet med brugen af disse
sindsudvidende artefakter.
Vi er subjekter i den senmoderne tid.
Grundet dette hævder Nis Primdahl i
nummerets fjerde artikel, at vi er indlejret i dennes strukturelle tidslighed. Dette
udmøntes i samfundet som en konstant
samfundsmæssig acceleration ikke mindst
påvirket af de artefakter, vi omgives af. I
denne artikel undersøger forfatteren hvilken
indflydelse disse artefakter har på vores kontrol over vores tid og hvorvidt vi er i stand
til at øge eller sænke den. Kan vi på nogen
måde undgå denne acceleration eller er
denne tanke også blot afledt af en ideologisk
modvægt til den senmodernes tidslighed?
I nummerets næstsidste artikel bearbejdes det besynderlige danske overgangsritual
for børn, hvor sutten hænges på et træ for
at markere en overskridelse af barnets behov
for sutten. Som udvekslingsstuderende studser Natalia Hoffmann over denne noget
egenartede praksis og giver i denne artikel
sin beskrivelse af den som den rituelle handling det er udtryk for. Hendes fokus er på
artefakterne, både sutten men også træets
symbolske dimensioner.
Hvad er musik og hvorfor har vi den?
”genstanden” musik tjener ingen nytte
evolutionært set, så hvorfor har den så stor
betydning for mennesker og hvor kommer
den fra? Allesandro Miani undersøger i
nummerets sidste artikel de evolutionære
faktorer relevante for menneskets erhvervelse
af musikken som artefakt og dens betydning
for os. Prænatale indflydelser fra forældrenes stemmer gang og lignende viser sig at
have stor indflydelse på udviklingen af den
musikalske sans og at musik har langt større
fordele på neurovidenskabens præmisser end
evolutionsteorien umiddelbart vil tyde på.
God fornøjelse med Semikolon nr. 28!
Side 5
Artiklerne i dette nummer af Semikolon
Temaets første artikel tager René Descartes i forsvar imod et af de mest hyppige
anfægtelser gjort imod ham. Her tales
om antagelsen om, at kroppen blot er en
mekanisk, afskåret ”klump” som ikke har
noget med ”os” at gøre. Det der naturligvis
menes med ”os” er ”sjælen”, som så er placeret i koglekirtlen i hjernen. Christoffer
Basse Eriksen gennemgår denne påståede
position hos Descartes og viser os at det
måske ikke er helt så sort/hvidt, som det
ofte foregives af hans kritikere.
Juan Olvido undersøger i temaets anden
artikel, hvordan vi skal forstå vores forhold
til brugen af ulovlig cannabis og dens plads
i vores samfund. I undersøgelsen ser han
på de relevante sociale og kulturelle faktorer og overvejer deres indflydelse på vores
brug af de korresponderende artefakter.
De sociokulturelle-artefaktskabende elementer ved brugen af disse ulovlige midler
viser sig at transcendere nationale grænser
og støtter en form for subkultur centreret
omkring cannabis. Men samtidigt forekommer der også et normaliserende effekt
af cannabis brug via en bredere eksponering i de kulturelle produkter.
Vores brug af verdslige genstande kan
hurtigt blive til forlængelse af os selv. Vores
hukommelse sidder i telefonen: telefon
numre, datoer på fødselsdage eller hvornår vi skal aflevere næste opgave. Det at
vi uddelegerer kognitive egenskaber ud i
verdenen er blevet teoretiseret omkring af
Chalmers og Clark som ”Extended mind”.
Dette emne tager Kevin Crowley op i nummerets tredje artikel. Her kigger han kritisk og oplysende på, hvordan omverdenens
artefakter fungerer som en forlængelse af
vores kognitive kapaciteter. Med interessante eksempler fra historiefortællinger som
Homer fortæller forfatteren om implika-
C A L L F O R PA P E R S
S E M I KO LO N N R. 2 9
Kærlighed
Forestil dig, at man kunne kureres for kærlighed. Slippe for hjertesorg og længsel
efter den som ikke vil have en. Hos de fleste
opstår straks en stærk modvilje mod denne
tanke. Men hvorfor egentlig? Der er nemlig
et lommefilosofisk aksiom, at kærlighed er
årsagen til vores eksistens. Så denne modvilje kan måske have mere på sig end som så?
Kierkegaard mente, at kærlighed var en
egenskab givet af Gud; trangen til at elske
og blive elsket. At kaste sin kærlighed på en
anden er en frihedshandling, som hverken er
forudbestemt eller nødvending, ja nærmest
tilfældig; forelskelsen sker bare. Men for de
elskende er det bestemt ikke tilfældigt, det
er et ganske bestemt andet menneske, man
elsker. Kærligheden kan både skabe relationer af en ganske særlig slags og en voldsom
intensitet og glæde. Men også stor smerte,
hvis man ikke ved, om den anden gengælder
følelserne, og mere smerteligt forekommer
det, da forelskelsen kan være lunefuld og
kan forsvinde så hurtigt, som den opstod.
Kærlighed deles ofte op i to dele: Eros og
agape. Eros kender vi som den kødlige lyst
og forelskelsen, modsat agape som handler
om en næstekærlighed der i bibelske termer
’ikke søger sit eget’. Denne næstekærlighed
er af en dobbelt natur. For den kræver ikke
blot, at man er en gud hengiven, men den
kræver en selvhengivenhed overfor vores
næste. Den næste dækker dog over alle mennesker også ens fjender og de syndige. Denne
relation er i stærk kontrast til den ’bestemte
anden’ og fordrer nogle helt andre ting af
en; fx tilgivelse i stedet for hengivenhed.
Men kærlighed kan også være rettet mod
andet end mennesker, det kan nemlig være
rettet mod ens profession. En sådan lidenskab for ens værk kan vi kalde passion. Mere
klassisk kan sådan en passion relateres til en
kærlighed for viden eller philo(kærlighed)sophia(viden). Der hvor drivkraften i ens
bestræbelser ikke grunder i et håb om lønforhøjelse eller et håb om salg af produkter,
men i stedet et mere grundlæggende hengivenhed for et højere gode, om det så er
kærligheden for viden, kunsten eller noget
helt tredje. En sådan kærlighed kan nemt ses
som en besættelse. Hvorfor bliver mennesker
på denne måde besat af andre mennesker
eller af projekter som kunst og videnskab?
Er det blot hjernens kemi, der driver denne
galskab, eller er der noget andet?
Semikolon efterspørger derfor i dette
nummer artikler, som kan belyse denne af
livets gåder. Under fanen kærlighed søger vi
artikler, som gransker menneskers passion,
til hinanden, Gud, deres værk mm. Hvad
forklarer vores ofte så irrationelle handlinger? Bør det overhovedet forklares? Måske
er det bedste, vi kan gøre, blot at beskrive
og fortolke det i håb om, at andre kan fange
intuitionen. For er det overhovedet muligt
at forstå, hvad kærlighed er, hvis man aldrig
selv har elsket? Er det et qualia? Eller er det
blot neurologiske/kemiske input fra vores
hjerne, der sørger for, at vi reproducerer?
Deadline er 14 maj 2015
Skrivevejledning og afleveringsformalia findes bagerst
i dette nummer samt på www.semikolon.au.dk
C A L L F O R PA P E R S
S E M I KO LO N N R. 2 9
Love
Imagine that you could be cured of love.
Get rid of heartache and longing for the one
that does not love you back. Most people
immediately have a strong aversion for this
thought. But why? It’s sort of a commonsense axiom that love is the answer to our
existential problems. Maybe this aversion
has root much deeper than a simple commonsense idea.
Kierkegaard believed that love is a faculty
given by God: The need to love and be loved.
To cast your love upon another person is
an act of freedom that is neither predestined nor necessary; it’s almost random – it
just happens. But for the people in love, it
certainly isn’t random; it’s a certain person
that your love is directed against. Does that
mean that love is a special kind of relation?
And why is it so intense – both in positive
and negative terms? If a great love turns
sour, the intense feelings of joy and euphoria can turn to equally intense feelings of
hate and resentment in an instance.
Love is traditionally divided into two
categories: eros and agape. Eros is lust, and
agape is about selfless neighborly love and
charity. In biblical terms, this charity has a
dual nature. Not only does it dictate that
you are devoted to your friends, it also
demands that you are nice to, or even love,
your enemy and the sinful. This relation is
in stark contrast to love of “a certain other”,
and demands different things, such as forgiveness instead of devotion.
But love can also be directed against
activities like a hobby or profession. Love
directed towards creation, we call passion.
In a classical sense, this passion could be
directed towards knowledge: philo- (love)
sophia (wisdom). This sort of passion is
not fuelled by ambitions of pay raise or
profit, but by a more basic devotion to a
higher good, may it be wisdom, art or other
self-contained goods. Passion can also be
understood as an obsession or madness.
Why does humans get obsessed by things
and projects like art or science? What is
the purpose of the brain chemistry driving
this madness? Is there a semiotics of love?
Or more than one?
Semikolon is looking for articles that
can solve these kind of riddles. Under the
umbrella “love” we want to discuss people’s
love for each other, God, their work etc. Is
it even possible to explain the (often irrational?) behavior of people under the spell of
love? Is it possible to understand, what love
is, if you have never experienced it yourself?
Is it a “qualia”? Or a basic instinct for reproduction and advance?
Deadline is 14th of May 2015
Find Semikolons Article Submission Guidelines at
www.semikolon.au.dk
C A L L F O R PA P E R S
S E M I KO LO N N R. 3 0
Tillid
I Danmark tager vi ofte tillidsrelationer
for givet. Vi mistænker generelt ikke vore
omgivelser for at have bagtanker med deres
handlinger. Vi antager, at de taler sandt og
ikke er ude på at gøre os fortræd.
Dette er dog ikke en selvfølge. I samfund, der ikke er velfungerende, opstår der
en frygt blandt mennesker, hvilket er ødelæggende for tilliden. Vi tænker sjældent
over, hvad der faktisk kræves for at opretholde et velfungerende samspil mennesker
imellem. Ifølge K. E. Løgstrup er tillid et af
de grundlæggende kriterier for dette. Han
hævder, at vi ikke kan undgå i enhver social
akt at udlevere os selv til ’den anden’. Denne
udlevering er en tillidserklæring, hvor vi
giver andre magt over os.
Tillidsrelationen brydes, når denne
udlevering bliver udnyttet, hvilket resulterer i, at man bliver bange for at udlevere sig igen. Mistillid nedbryder det, man
på samfundsplan kalder social kapital –
samhørighed mellem individer – hvilket
hævdes at være årsagen til, at Danmark
er verdens lykkeligste land. Men kan man
sætte lighedstegn mellem tillid og social
kapital, eller er der andre ting, der spiller
ind? Robert Putnam mener, at jo større den
samlede sociale kapital er i et samfund, jo
mere sammenhængskraft er der. Men ikke
alle personer/sociale grupper nyder lige
stor social kapital. Er tillid nødvendigvis
noget, man gør sig fortjent til, eller kan det
være et udtryk for symbolsk magt? Stoler
man automatisk mere på folk fra bestemte
samfundslag, etniske baggrunde eller med
gode netværk?
I dette nummer af Semikolon efterspørger vi artikler, som belyser dette interpersonlige forhold. Hvordan opstår tillid
mellem mennesker? Kan man måle og
dermed forøge det? Gør vi noget aktivt,
når vi stoler på nogen? Eller er det kognitivt
set en ”default mode”? Hvordan ser tillidens semiotik ud, og hvordan bruger brands
denne forskning til deres fordel?
Tilliden eksisterer i en form for spænding, hvor den kun kan forekomme, når
den ikke er garanteret. Men en sådan uvished kan nemt medføre en frygt for, hvorvidt
den overholdes. Hvordan skal man forholde
sig til en sådan nødvendighed af usikkerhed? Fordrer det ikke magtesløshed? Er
det bedre at have tillid end at have kontrol?
Deadline er 9. oktober 2015
Skrivevejledning og afleveringsformalia findes bagerst
i dette nummer samt på www.semikolon.au.dk
C A L L F O R PA P E R S
S E M I KO LO N N R. 3 0
Trust
In Denmark we often take trustful relations for granted. In general, we don’t expect
other people to have ulterior motives. We
assume that they speak the truth, and that
they won’t purposely hurt us.
However, this is not a given. In societies
that don’t function well, fear and distrust
can arise between citizens. We rarely think
about, what is actually needed to keep a
well-functioning interplay in a society.
According to K.E. Løgstrup, trust is a basic
criterion in this matter. He claims that we
can’t avoid to surrender ourselves to ‘the
other’ in any social action. This surrendering is a declaration of trust, where we grant
the other person power over us.
The relation of trust is broken, if it is
taken advantage of, which leads to difficulty
in surrendering yourself in the future.
Distrust breaks down, what we in sociological terms call ‘social capital’ – cohesion
between individuals – which is claimed to
be, what makes Danes the happiest people
in the world. But does trust equal social
capital, or are there other things at play?
Robert Putnam believes that the larger the
total amount of social capital there is in a
society, the more solidarity there is. But
not all people/social groups enjoy the same
amount of social capital.
Is trust necessarily something you earn,
or can it rather be a question of symbolic
power? Do we automatically trust people
from certain layers of society, ethnical
backgrounds, with better networks more
than others?
In this issue of Semikolon, we are looking for articles that shed some light on this
interpersonal relation; a relation we often
take for granted. How does trust arise between people? Can we measure it and thereby increase it? Is trusting an active act? Or
is it cognitively the “default mode”? What is
the semiotic of trust, and how does brands
exploit this research?
The concept of trust exists in a field
of tension, where it can only exist, if it is
not guaranteed. But this uncertainty can
easily create a fear that it will not be fulfilled. How should one relate to this built-in
uncertainty? Does it entail helplessness? Is
it better to trust than to control?
Deadline is 9th of October 2015
Find Semikolons Article Submission Guidelines at
www.semikolon.au.dk
ANNONCÉR
Synes du også de andre læsere skal kende
den forening eller virksomhed du er en del af?
– Kontakt os og find ud af hvor let det er at reklamere:
[email protected]
Selv
en
lille
annonce
bliver
læst
i
Semikolon!
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Er kroppen blot
en maskine?
– Minutiøs materialitet hos René Descartes
René Descartes beskriver flere steder i sin filosofi kroppen som en maskine,
men hvor bogstaveligt skal dette udsagn tages? Er den levende krop
at sidestille med et artefakt? Gennem en læsning af Descartes’ værker
og breve argumenterer jeg for, at Descartes reserverede en plads til
den levende krop i sit mekaniske system og at han kvalificerede denne
plads ved at pege på, hvad jeg her kalder en minutiøs materialitet. Jeg
viser, at Descartes sammenkoblede det levende og det minutiøse og
at han på den måde skaber en epistemologisk åbning for 1600-tallets
mikrobiologiske program. Descartes udraderede ikke den levende krop,
men bekymrede sig om den.
kunne skelnes fra hinanden. Dette skulle
have hylet en skibskaptajn så meget ud, da
han en nat på en overfart over det Hollandske hav opdagede dukken i Descartes‘ kiste
(han var åbenbart en nysgerrig kaptajn), at
han smed den overbord. Descartes har selvfølgelig aldrig haft en mekanisk pigedukke,
der hed Francine. Historien blev fortalt for
første gang i det tidlige 18. århundrede,
halvtreds år efter Descartes‘ død og i et
intellektuelt Frankrig, som provokeret specielt af udgivelsen af La Mettries L‘Homme
Machine i 1747 var travlt beskæftiget med
at bringe mekanisk-materialistisk fysiologi
og antropologi i miskredit. De incestuøstseksuelle undertoner i historien må siges
at være et smart træk fra propagandisterne.
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 1 1 - 2 0
Som indledning til sin intellektuelle biografi om den franske filosof René Descartes
(1596-1650), en biografi der blot bærer
titlen Descartes, fortæller idéhistorikeren
Stephen Gaukroger en røverhistorie. Den
går sådan her: Siden 1700-tallet har der
floreret en historie om Descartes, der gik
på at han altid, når han var ude at rejse
medbragte en dragkiste, hvori han havde
en life-size mekanisk pigedukke af egen
konstruktion. Angiveligt skulle han have
konstrueret dukken for at bevise, at ’dyr
kun er maskiner og at de ingen sjæl har’.
Dukken hed Francine, opkaldt efter
Descartes‘ uægte datter og i nogle versioner
af historien hedder det endda, at dukken
var skabt i datterens billede, at de to ikke
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Side 12
Den bærende stemning i historien er en
frygt for det mekaniske. Francine er uncanny,
unheimlich, uhyggelig. Hvorfor kastede kaptajnen Francine-dukken overbord, hvorfor
blev han forfærdet? Fordi den var obskøn,
pervers, klam. Jeg forestiller mig, at tankerækken i hans hoved, da han efter at have
sneget sig ind i den sovende filosofs kahyt,
åbnet dragkisten lige så stille fandt den
lille Francine liggende der, også sovende
(eller måske uhyggeligt smilende med åbne
øjne?), må have været nogenlunde denne:
Tror denne filosof, at han er Gud? Eller tror
han, at Gud blot er en snild håndværker?
Tror han, at denne dukke er levende? Eller
tror han, at vi alle sammen blot er mekaniske dukker? Det var nok det sidste spørgsmål, der fik kaptajnen til at kaste dukken fra
sig med en klam smag i munden. Det var
da han begyndte at spejle sig i dukken, at
det blev for meget for ham, det var da han
så sig selv: mennesket, en maskine.
Men mens historien om Francine nok
er propaganda, som bruger overdrivelsen
som litterært våben, er der stadig noget over
denne tale om kroppen som en maskine.
Hør blot følgende citater fra Descartes‘
værker: I sit modne værk Principles of Philosophy (1644) sidestiller han den naturlige
krop med artefaktet: “For I do not recognize
any difference between artefacts and natural
bodies” (CSM I: 288), i den tidlige, posthumt udgivne Treatise on Man beskriver
han mennesket som “the statue or machine
made of earth” (CSM I: 99), mens han i
et brev til sin ven Marin Mersenne fra 30.
august 1640 skriver:
Speaking as a metaphysician, one might
well build a machine that supports itself in
the air like a bird, because birds, at least
according to me, are such machines.
(AT III: 163-164)
På trods af disse meget klare formuleringer vil jeg i det følgende lade forholdet stå
som et åbent spørgsmål: Er kroppen blot
en maskine? Først vil jeg vise, hvordan ny
Descartes-forskning har beskrevet, hvordan
Descartes faktisk giver en privilegeret plads
til den menneskelige krop, når han taler om
medicin og menneskets helbred. Et fokus,
der stiller store spørgsmål ved den mekaniske
filosofis grad af universalitet, idet Descartes
i disse diskussioner nærmer sig teleologiske
formuleringer. Derefter undersøger jeg ikke
den menneskelige krop, men den levende
krop generelt og ikke for at lede efter fejl i
Descartes‘ mekaniske system, men for at se,
om der, de bastante formuleringer om kropmaskine-ligheden til trods, skulle være en
anden slags materialitet, en minutiøs materialitet, på spil i Descartes‘ forståelse af den
levende krop. Slutteligt argumenterer jeg for,
at Descartes med sin sammenkædning af liv
og det minutiøse leverer en epistemologisk
åbning for det mikrobiologiske program,
der udvikledes i løbet af det 17. århundrede.
To ambitioner ligger latente under
denne undersøgelse af forholdet mellem den
levende krop og maskinen i Descartes‘ tænkning. For det første vil jeg gerne præsentere
en anden Descartes end den, vi normalt
bliver præsenteret for, nemlig rationalisten,
erkendelsesteoretikeren og tvivleren Descartes, der primært var optaget af at garantere
verdens og sin egen eksistens. Vi skal selvfølgelig ikke blot kaste Meditationerne over
bord, men vi er nødt til at tage den indledende kommentar om, at den metodiske
tvivl er en engangsforestilling seriøst. Det
store fokus på Descartes‘ epistemologi har
mere at gøre med en filosofihistorisk tradition, som har været beskæftiget med at klargøre, hvad rationalisme overhovedet er og så
forresten modstille denne med empirismen
for at en fin dynamisk historie kunne opstå,
Er kroppen blot en maskine?
end den har været interesseret i Descartes‘
eget projekt. Et projekt, som der er masser
af tekstuelt bevis for i hovedsagen var naturfilosofisk, dvs. et projekt som beskæftigede
sig med hvad vi i dag i Descartes‘ tilfælde
vil kalde astronomi, optik, matematik, fysik,
fysiologi og psykologi.
For det andet vil jeg gerne give et historisk eksempel på, at der ikke er nogen nødvendig modsætning mellem et mekanisk
verdensbillede og et blik for det levende. Disse
to fænomener, nemlig et mekanisk system
og hævdelsen af det levendes særegenhed
bliver ofte omtalt som gensidigt udelukkende. Det er selvfølgelig rigtig nok, hvis
man med det levendes særegenhed mener
en hård vitalisme, der hævder at mekaniske
forklaringsmodeller må give fuldstændig op,
når det vil beskrive det levende (en organisme, den levende natur), men dette er,
historisk set, sjældent tilfældet. Et eksempel
kunne være Kants heuristiske model for sameksistensen af mekanisme og organicisme
fra anden del af Kritik af dømmekraften, et
andet kunne være Leibniz‘ beskrivelse af de
“guddommelige maskiner” fra Monadologien
og andre steder i hans forfatterskab og breve.
Pointen er den, at mekanisme ofte bliver
beskrevet som død, fattig eller i andre nedgørende termer. Ved at vise, at også Descartes,
den mekaniske filosofis fader, havde et blik
for det levende mener jeg at kunne vise, at
disse beskrivelser er overfladiske og affektive
domme lignende historien om Francine, der
har alt andet som deres projekt end at forsøge
at forstå, hvad mekanisk filosofi var og er.
First of all, I would have wished to explain
what philosophy is, beginning with the
most commonplace points. For example,
the word ‚philosophy‘ means the study of
wisdom, and by ‚wisdom‘ is meant not only
prudence in our everyday affairs but also a
perfect knowledge of all things that mankind is capable of knowing, both for the
conduct of life and for the preservation
of health and the discovery of all manner
of skills. (CSM I: 179, min kursivering)
Ligeledes er medicinen en del af det meget
berømte videnstræ, som Descartes beskriver
i samme forord:
Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree.
The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the
trunk are all the other sciences, which may
be reduced to three principal ones, namely
medicine, mechanics and morals
(CSM I: 186)
Læst i samklang med Descartes‘ breve ville
en fortolkning kunne lyde, at metafysikken
eksisterer for fysikkens skyld og at fysikken
eksisterer for mekanikkens, medicinens og
moralens skyld.
Side 13
Helbred som formål: Den menneskelige
krops privilegerede status
I et brev til markisen af Newcastle fra oktober 1645 skriver Descartes ”the preservation
of health has always been the principal end
of my studies” (CSMK: 275). Den samme
ambition afslører Descartes i sin korrespondance med prinsesse Elisabeth fra
samme periode for hvem Descartes fungerer som assisterende livlæge pr. brev. Nu
skal man selvfølgelig altid passe på med at
tage filosoffers udtalelser om deres egne
ambitioner for gode varer (især når de korresponderer med magtfulde og meget rige
prinsesser og mæcener!), men Descartes‘
diskussioner af medicinens betydning synes
ikke at være en overfladisk interesse. I forordet til hovedværket Principles of Philosophy skriver han fx:
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Side 14
De seneste 15 år har en række forskere
betonet Descartes‘ fokus på fysiologien og
medicinen. Dennis Des Chene viser i sine
arbejder om Descartes, specielt Spirits and
Clocks (2001), hvordan Descartes, når han
forklarer organernes funktioner falder tilbage til et aristotelisk sprogbrug, som når
han taler om “the office of the liver” og når
han bruger begreberne actio, functio og usus.
Disse begreber er aristoteliske og de holder
simpelthen op med at give mening, hvis de
ikke forstås teleologisk. Når Descartes taler
om leverens embede (officium) må det forstås sådan, at leveren udfører sit arbejde med
et formål, nemlig det formål at opretholde
en harmoni eller stabilitet i kroppen – at
opretholde kroppens helbred.
Dette skurrer dog i forhold til Descartes‘ andre bemærkninger om, hvordan
kroppen fungerer. I sine beskrivelser af den
menneskelige krop (mest udtalt i Treatise
on Man) er Descartes meget opmærksom
på at beskrive alle kropslige funktioner kun
ud fra, hvad de gør og ikke ud fra hvad
formålet er med deres handling. Dette skal
forstås i forlængelse af Descartes‘ angreb
på den aristoteliske idé om den tredelte
sjæl og den hippokratisk-galeniske idé om
de fire kropsvæsker (som igen svarer til
de fire elementer). For Descartes findes
kun én slags stof ligesom der kun findes én
sjæl, en sjæl der dog intet har at gøre med
kroppens opretholdelse af sig selv. Her fra
Discourse on Method:
I supposed, too, that in the beginning God
did not place in this body any rational soul
or any other thing to serve as a vegetative
or sensitive soul, but rather that he kindled
in its heart one of those fires without light
which I have already explained, and whose
nature I understood to be no different from
that of the fire which heats hay when it
has been stored before it is dry, or which
causes new wine to seethe when it is left to
ferment from the crushed grape.
(CSM I: 134)
Bemærk, at Descartes ikke går fra afvisningen af de aristoteliske sjæle til res cogitans,
men i stedet til at pege på et rent fysisk fænomen, nemlig “the fire without light”, der
igen er et problematisk begreb, fordi Descartes aldrig ekspliciterer, hvad det præcis
dækker over. Her forstås, at kroppen ikke
er noget specielt, som skal beskrives med
specielle love, men at de mekaniske principper virker lige så godt her som i beskrivelsen
af resten af den naturlige verden. Og fordi
kroppen ikke er noget specielt er det ikke
muligt ud fra en rent mekanisk betragtning
at vurdere kroppens helbred, for kroppen
adlyder naturlovene i lige så høj grad, når
den er syg, som når den er rask. I den sjette
Meditation formulerer Descartes dette præcist i en diskussion af urets ’helbred‘:
A clock constructed with wheels and
weights observes all the laws of its nature
just as closely when it is badly made and
tells the wrong time as when it completely
fulfills the wishes of the clockmaker. In the
same way, I might consider the body of a
man as a kind of machine equipped with
and made up of bones, nerves, muscles,
veins, blood and skin in such a way that,
even if there were no mind in it, it would
still perform all the same movements as it
now does in those cases where the movement is not under the control of the will
or, consequently, of the mind.
(CSM II: 58)
Vurderet rent mekanisk er uret altså lige så
velfungerende, når det ikke viser tiden korrekt, som når det gør. Det er først, når vi
Er kroppen blot en maskine?
vurderer uret i forhold til et formål og anviser, at dets formål er at vise tiden korrekt, at
det kan fejle. Ligesådan med kroppen; det
er kun, når vi sætter et eksternt formål op
for kroppen, nemlig at den skal være rask,
at den kan opfylde dette formål.
Men på trods af dette taler Descartes
altså om den menneskelige krops (men
ikke dyrets) helbred. I sin artikel ”The
Health of the Body­Machine?” fra 2003
sætter Lisa Shapiro dette op som et generelt
problem: Helbred er et inhærent normativt
begreb og kan ikke forstås uden henvisning
til formål og formulerer problemstillingen
som følgende:
The problem stems from the conflict of two
principles: first, the natural world is to be
conceived non-teleologically; and second,
the norms that constitute our concept of
health are essentially teleological.
(Shapiro 2003: 424)
Selvbevægende og levende maskiner
Vi bevæger nu undersøgelsen væk fra den
menneskelige krop og hen mod den levende
krop i det hele taget idet vi spørger: Er der
noget specielt ved den levende krop? Et
godt bud ligger i det adjektiv, der her har
sneget sig ind: nemlig levende. Hvis målet
er at finde den forskel i Descartes‘ system,
der adskiller den levende krop fra maskinen,
kunne en løsning være at den levende krop
er speciel netop fordi den er levende. Men
denne løsning er ikke så ligetil som den
måske synes, for liv er også et meget problematisk begreb i Descartes‘ filosofi. Descartes
bruger begrebet flittigt, idet han taler om et
“principle of life”, et princip som vi uden
alt for mange problemer kan henføre til tilstedeværelsen af hjertevarme (cardiac heat)
samt en gruppe af livsfunktioner som fx fordøjelse, ernæring, lokomotion (bevægelse)
samt forplantning. Descartes‘ livs-begreb er
dog ikke et stærkt ontologisk begreb, men
snarere et begreb, som han bruger ad hoc,
intuitivt og lettere pragmatisk. I et brev til
Henricus Regius fra juni 1642 kommenterer Descartes meget direkte på forholdet
mellem liv og mekanik. Her skriver han:
On page 66 you seem to make a greater
difference between living and lifeless things
than there is between a clock or other automaton on the one hand, and a key or sword
or other non-self-moving appliance on the
Side 15
Der synes ikke at være en umiddelbar løsning i Descartes‘ system, der på den ene
side kan tillade ham at tale om menneskets
helbred som et mål, men samtidig ikke
giver køb på det universelle, ikke-teleologiske mekaniske system. Shapiro peger på én
mulighed, nemlig at menneskets specielle
status som dualistisk væsen, hvor krop og
sjæl er forenede, ville kunne forklare, at
mennesket indtager denne specielle plads,
hvor formål findes. Men det er ikke en
overbevisende løsning, for det ville implicere en stor del aristotelianisme, da forbindelsen mellem krop og sjæl kommer til at
virke som en form for hylomorfisme, hvor
sjælen til en vis grad informerer kroppen,
noget, som Descartes, som vi har set, tager
så stor afstand fra. Modsat Kant, der løser
antinomien mellem det mekaniske og det
ekstra-mekaniske heuristisk, så diskuterer
Descartes ikke problemet. Den menneskelige krop får lov at stå som noget mere end
en maskine, men på en måde, der stiller
flere spørgsmål til Descartes‘ naturfilosofiske system end det giver svar. Derfor er
henvisningen til den menneskelige krops
særegenhed et utilfredsstillende, omend
interessant, svar på vores ledende spørgsmål,
nemlig om kroppen blot er en maskine.
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Side 16
other. I do not agree. Since ‘self-moving’ is
a category with respect to all machines that
move of their own accord, which excludes
others that are not self-moving, so ‘life’ may
be taken as a category which includes the
forms of all living things (CSMK: 214)
Citatet her er sjovt, fordi Descartes‘ selvsikkerhed overstiger hans præcision med
mange længder. Én ting står dog fast:
Spørgsmålet om liv er ikke af lige så
fundamental ontologisk betydning som
spørgsmålet om de selv-bevægende apparater (automater). Descartes skriver, at
distinktionen mellem apparater, der har et
internt bevægelsesprincip og de, der har et
eksternt bevægelsesprincip inkluderer alle
maskiner (inklusiv de levende maskiner),
mens liv er en kategori, der inkluderer alle
levende ting. Gruppen ’levende maskiner‘
er altså nødvendigvis inkluderet i gruppen ’automater‘, mens det omvendte ikke
nødvendigvis er tilfældet (omend det kan
være). At være levende er underordnet at
være selvbevægende –­­­­­ det er altså spørgsmålet om det mekaniske forhold, der er det
centrale for Descartes.
Dette er det primære indhold i brevet
til Regius og det er her, Descartes‘ primære
interesse ligger. Men der er også et sekundært indhold. Uden at specificere det yderligere får Descartes nemlig nævnt, at der
findes en anden gruppe, nemlig gruppen
af ‚levende ting‘, omend han ikke definerer præcist hvilke ting, der er inkluderede
i denne gruppe.
Lad os nu se, om vi ikke kan specificere
denne gruppe af levende ting yderligere ved
at læse nogle flere af Descartes‘ sekundære
betragtninger frem. Disse betragtninger må
nødvendigvis være sekundære, for, som vi
lige har set, er det primære projekt altid
for Descartes den mekaniske beskrivelse af
naturens fænomener. Og for at være præcis:
Jeg hævder ikke, at Descartes forpligter sig
strengt på kategorien ’levende kroppe‘ - jeg
hævder ikke, at Descartes er en form for
skabs-vitalist. Mit mål er i stedet at betone,
at den levende krop eksisterer i Descartes‘
mekaniske system. Den er ikke fast defineret og det er ikke en central kategori, men
den levende krop er ikke a priori ekskluderet fra det mekaniske verdensbillede.
Livsånder, artefakter og naturlige kroppe
Jeg vil nu udvikle denne idé om at Descartes levner en plads til den levende krop, en
plads der bliver beskrevet af en materialitet,
som jeg vil kalde minutiøs materialitet. Med
begrebet minutiøs materialitet peger jeg på
det forhold, at der synes at være en korrelation mellem tilstedeværelsen af minutiøse dele (minute parts) og liv i Descartes‘
beskrivelse af de levende, naturlige kroppe.
Svagheden af dette argument forstærkes
af det faktum, at Descartes ikke opererer
med forskellige slags stof eller materie. I
stedet er al stof det samme for Descartes,
idet det har den minimale definition at
være udstrakt i “length, breadth and depth”
(CSM I: 210). Stof differentieres altså kun
i kraft af sin specifikke udstrækning, dvs.
størrelse og figur, omend Descartes inddeler stof i tre grupper, nemlig stof af det
første, andet og tredje element i grader af
størrelse og agitation, hvoraf det første er
mindst, mens det tredje er størst. Forskellige fænomener udgøres da af de tre forskellige typer af stof:
The sun and fixed stars are composed of the
first element, the heavens from the second,
and the earth with the planets and comets
from the third.
(CSM I: 258)
Er kroppen blot en maskine?
Det er netop stof af det første element, det
mest minutiøse, hurtige og varmeste (idet
varme er defineret som agitation), der korrelerer med de naturlige kroppe.
Et eksempel på denne korrelation findes
i de specielle korpuskler, som Descartes i
forlængelse af en lang skolastisk tradition
kalder livsånder (esprits animaux, animal
spirits). Navnet er her misledende, for der
er intet spirituelt i betydningen immaterielt ved disse livsånder, hvad Descartes også
bemærker i et brev til Adolph Vorster fra
juni 1643, hvor han skriver, at han er
very surprised that anyone denies the existence of spirits in animals, unless he is
questioning the name, and objects to the
term ‘spirits’ being applied to particles of
terrestrial matter that are separated from
each other and driven about at great speed.
(CSMK: 226)
I Principles fremføres den samme pointe:
For what I am calling ‚spirits‘ here are
merely bodies: they have no property other
than that of being extremely small bodies
which move very quickly, like the jets of a
flame that come from a torch.
(CSM I: 331-332)
In order to explain these functions, then, it
is not necessary to conceive of this machine
as having any vegetative or sensitive soul
or other principle of movement and life,
apart from its blood and its spirits, which
are agitated by the heat of the fire burning
continuously in its heart – a fire which has
the same nature as all the fires that occur
in inanimate bodies.
(CSM I: 108)
Typisk for den måde, Descartes behandler
emnet på indleder han her med at afvise
eksistensen af de aristoteliske sjæle, hvorefter han peger på den levende krops specificitet som værende “its blood and its spirits”,
der er varme og agiterede, men alligevel ikke
substantielt anderledes end andre former for
ild. Descartes‘ frem-og-tilbage-argumentation er et perfekt eksempel på, hvad jeg
mener med, at han har et svagt ontologisk
begreb om den levende krops specificitet:
Han udpeger den som værende speciel, men
afviser, at der gælder specielle love for den.
Samme argumentationsform og samme
udpegning af den minutiøse materialitet
finder vi i konklusionen til Principles of
Philosophy, hvor Descartes diskuterer,
hvordan vi kan dømme klart og distinkt,
dvs. med sikkerhed, om ting, der er så små,
at de ikke kan ses. Efter at have konkluderet, at der ingen forskel er mellem artefakter og naturlige kroppe, giver han en
interessant undtagelse:
For I do not recognize any difference between artefacts and natural bodies except
that the operations of artefacts are for the
Side 17
Begge steder betones livsåndernes specifikationer som ild-lignende, dvs. at de består af
meget minutiøst materiale, nemlig stof af
det første element. Livsåndernes funktion
i Descartes‘ fysiologi er meget kompleks,
idet de både er ansvarlige for kroppens
rent fysiologiske opretholdelse, ligesom
de har stor betydning for den udveksling,
der finder sted mellem kroppen og sjælen
overalt i kroppen, men mest i koglekirtlen. Descartes beskriver specielt dette i det
sene værk The Passions of the Soul, men her
skal blot bemærkes tilstedeværelsen af disse
livsånder samt det faktum, at de er korrelerer med den levende krop.
Dette kommer eksemplarisk til udtryk i
de sidste linjer af Treatise of Man:
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Side 18
most part performed by mechanisms which
are large enough to be easily perceivable by
the senses – as indeed must be the case if
they are to be capable of being manufactured by human beings. The effects produced in nature, by contrast, almost always
depend on structures which are so minute
that they completely elude our senses.
(CSM I: 288)
To forskelle mellem artefaktet og den naturlige krop bliver her klare. For det første er
artefaktet skabt af mennesket, mens den
naturlige krop er skabt af “the supreme
craftsman” (CSM I: 289), nemlig Gud.
Og i forlængelse af denne forskel betoner
Descartes, at artefaktet altid har virkende
dele, der er store nok til at blive erkendt af
mennesket, mens de naturlige kroppe, derimod, har dele, der er så små, at de ikke kan
erkendes af det menneskelige sanseapparat.
Som vi så tidligere er også den levende, eller
naturlige, krop mekanisk og i sidste ende en
maskine, idet den virker ved at forskellige
dele yder indflydelse på hinanden og kan
beskrives rent mekanisk. Men samtidig er
den naturlige krop en maskine, der har en
mikrostruktur, dvs. at de dele, der indvirker
på hinanden er så minutiøse, at de ikke kan
erkendes af mennesket og derfor heller ikke
skabes af mennesket. Vi skal huske, at også
artefaktet selvfølgelig har minutiøse dele,
dvs. at også artefaktet består af korpuskler
(som alt gør), men at det er på et funktionelt plan, at forskellen opstår. Artefaktets
funktionerende dele er nødvendigvis store
nok til at blive ‚grebet‘ af mennesket, mens
den naturlige krop har minutiøse funktionerende dele, som fx livsånderne.
Denne svage distinktion er også tydelig i det brev til Mersenne fra 30. august
1640, som jeg citerede i indledningen. Her
skriver Descartes:
Speaking as a metaphysician, one might
well build a machine that supports itself
in the air like a bird, because birds, at
least according to me, are such machines;
but not speaking as a physicist or a moral
philosopher, because that would require
springs that are so intricate [subtils], and
jointly so strong, that humans wouldn’t
know how to make them.
(AT III: 163-164)
Metafysisk anskuet er dyr altså maskiner,
men fysisk anskuet kan vi ikke behandle
dem under ét, idet dyret er langt mere sofistikeret, eller minutiøst, end maskinen.
Guddommelige maskiner
og det mikrobiologiske program
Afslutningsvis vil jeg gerne fremhæve
endnu et brev, som Descartes sender til
Henri Regnier (1593-1639), men hvis
rette modtager er Alphonse Pollot (16021638). I brevet fra april eller maj 1638 har
Descartes en fabelagtig passage over et par
sider, hvori han gennem en fiktiv historie
argumenterer for at dyr ingen sjæle har.
Men ligesom det er tilfældet i de andre
teksteksempler, jeg har bragt, så sker der
langt mere i passagen end hvad Descartes primært har for øje. I brevet fortæller
Descartes en fiktiv historie om en mand,
der aldrig har set et dyr, men som er optaget af maskiner og bygger automater, der
forestiller både dyr og mennesker. Descartes beder nu Pollot forestille sig, hvad der
ville ske, når denne mand så de dyr, vi har,
og om han ville gå ud fra, at de havde sjæle.
Det interessante fra vores synspunkt er,
at Descartes gør meget ud af at differentiere
mellem automaterne, som manden laver og
naturlige dyr, som Gud har skabt. De naturlige dyr er automater, som er “incomparably
more accomplished than any of those he had
Er kroppen blot en maskine?
previously made himself” (CSMK: 100), og
denne perfektion beskriver Descartes i en
diskussion af planter således:
Nature has packed plants with an infinity
of tiny invisible ducts through which certain juices gradually ascend to the ends of
the branches, where they intermingle and
combine and dry out in such a way as to
form leaves and flowers and fruits.
(CSMK: 99, min kursivering)
Notes
1 Jeg parafraserer her fra Gaukroger (1995: 1-3.)
2 For diskussioner af de her berørte temaer i Kants
‚biologi‘, se Robert Richards: The Romantic Conception of Life (2002) og Timothy Lenoir: The Strategy
of Life (1989). For en diskussion af Leibniz‘ mikrobiologiske filosofi, se Justin E. H. Smith: Divine
Machines (2011).
3 I Descartes-forskningen er der lige nu stor diskussion om livs-begrebet i Descartes‘ fysiologi.
Se specielt Ablondi (1998), Des Chene (2001),
Shapiro (2003), Distelzweig (forthcoming). En
stærk sammenfattende diskussion af emnet findes
i Hutchins (forthcoming), der argumenterer for at
Descartes ikke har et fast begreb om liv, men at han
i stedet bruger begrebet pragmatisk.
4 I sjette Meditation skriver Descartes: “I am not
merely present in my body as a sailor is present in
a ship” (CSM II: 56) og argumenterer derved for,
at sjælen føler hvad kroppen føler og ikke kun i
koglekirtlen, men over hele kroppen.
Side 19
Her ser vi igen, hvordan Descartes peger
på tilstedeværelsen af en mikrostruktur, når
han skal kvalificere, hvad der adskiller artefaktet fra den naturlige krop, her planten.
I en avanceret dobbeltfiktion beder
Descartes Pollot forestille sig, at manden
ved, at hvis der fandtes “automatons made
by God or nature” (ibid.) ville de være mere
perfekte end menneskeskabte automater.
Selv i denne dobbeltfiktion opretholder
Descartes sin skelnen mellem dyr og automater, sådan at den underlige skabning
en guddommelig automat kan opstå. Den
guddommelige automat fungerer som forklaring af, hvad dyret er, men den gør det
analogisk, dvs. at Descartes ikke siger at
dyret er en guddommelig automat, men i
stedet at hvis vi vil forestille os, hvad et dyr
er i strikt mekaniske termer, så gør vi det
bedst ved at forestille os en automat lavet
af Gud eller naturen.
Gennem denne sammenkædning af
begreberne liv, det minutiøse samt idéen
om guddommelige maskiner gennemfører
Descartes en epistemologisk åbning for det
mikrobiologiske program, som intensiveres
i løbet af det 17. århundrede i takt med at
mikroskopet perfektioneres. Den bærende
idé i det mikrobiologiske program, som det
gennemføres af mikroskopisterne Marcello
Malpighi, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Jan
Swammerdam og Nicolaas Hartsoeker er,
at det kendetegnende for livet skal findes i
den mikroskopiske struktur. Derfor findes
så mange teoretiske objekter, der har en
diminutiv form som fx Pierre Gassendis
idé om flammulen, den flammelignende,
materielle sjæl, teorien om vermiculen, den
grundlæggende biologiske entitet, der har
ormens form, Leeuwenhoeks opdagelse af
animalculet i mikroskopet, sædcellen, som
Leibniz udvikler en hel mikrobiologisk filosofi om, samt selvfølgelig molekylet, som
senere i Georges Buffons hænder bliver til
det organiske molekyle, et vitalistisk-materialistisk grundelement.
Hvis vi vil have en ordentlig idéhistorisk
forståelse af dette videnskabelige program,
der var så essentielt i udviklingen af biologien som videnskab, er vi nødt til at forstå
den mekaniske filosofi, som blev udviklet
af René Descartes og huske på, at Descartes
ikke udraderede den levende krop, men at
han bekymrede sig om den.
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
5 Peter Gallison diskuterer analogien og sammenligningens funktion i Descartes‘ perceptionsteori
i sin artikel “Descartes‘s Comparisons: From the
Invisible to the Visible”. Gallison fastslår også, at
det er vigtigt at huske at sammenligningerne (fx
menneskemaskinen i Treatise on Man) er værktøjer
for erkendelsen og ikke virkelige entiteter. Kort
sagt: Gallison minder os om, at Descartes anvender
litterære strategier i sine tekster, en simpel, men
meget vigtig pointe.
Litteratur
Side 20
Ablondi, Fred (1998): “Automata, living and nonliving: Descartes‘ mechanical biology and his criteria for life”, Biology and Philosophy 13, pp. 179-186
Des Chene, Dennis (2001): Spirits & Clocks: Machine
& Organism in Descartes, Cornell University Press,
Ithaca, NY
(CSM) Descartes, René (1984, 1985): The philosophical writings of Descartes, red. og oversat af John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch,
2 bind, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
(CSMK) Descartes, René (1991): The philosophical
writings of Descartes: The correspondence, red. og
oversat af John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff,
Dugald Murdoch and Antony Kenny, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge
(AT) Descartes, René (1996): Oeuvres de Descartes,
red. af C. Adam, P. Tannery, 11 bind, J Vrin, Paris
Distelzweig, Peter (forthcoming): ‘The Uses of Usus
and the Function of Functio: Teleology and its
Limits in Descartes’ Physiology’, Journal of the
History of Philosophy
Gallison, Peter (1984): “Descartes‘s Comparisons:
From the Invisible to the Visible” i Isis, pp. 311-326
Gaukroger, Stephen (1995): Descartes - An Intellectual
Biography, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Hutchins, Barnaby (forthcoming): “Descartes and the
dissolution of life”
Lenoir, Timothy (1989): The Strategy of Life: Teleology
and Mechanism in Nineteenth-Century Biology, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Richards, Robert (2002): The Romantic Conception of
Life, University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Shapiro, Lisa (2003): “The Health of the BodyMachine? or Seventeenth Century Mechanism and
the Concept of Health” i Perspectives on Science,
pp. 421-442
Smith, Justin E. H. (2011): Divine Machines - Leibniz
and the Sciences of Life, Princeton University Press,
Princeton
Juan Olvido
Sociogenesis and stability of
artifacts in cultural practices of illegal cannabis use
Introduction
This article will use the cognitive semiotics
approach to characterize the emergence
and stability of artifacts as a particular
kind of cultural form (following Saxe &
Esmonde, 2005). To do this, I will look
into a set of cultural practices that has been
profiled in the criminological literature as
“illegal cannabis use” (“ICU” from now
on). I will draw from Tylén et al.’s (2013)
dynamical account of linguistic meaning
making that identifies four main sources
of stability in linguistic forms. I will argue
that the same model can be used to account
for the emergence and stability of artifacts.
The reasons behind the choice of artifacts
in ICU are the following: a) the legal status
of cannabis makes the social dynamics operating behind ICU strongly resemble those
dynamics on which Tylén et al. build their
assumptions (i.e., local interaction scale, cf.
Tylén et al., 2013); b) the core aspects of
the sub-cultural practices revolving ICU are
well-documented (Zimmerman & Wieder,
1977); c) I believe that a full-fledged analysis of this kind can contribute significantly
to the ongoing criminological discussion
between normalization theory and subculture theory. As I will discuss below, the
sketch I present in this article already points
at the importance of ecological factors in the
stability of cultural forms revolving ICU.
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 2 1 - 2 8
In this article I will suggest that recent developments in subculture
theory facilitate a cognitive semiotic analysis of the study of cultural
practices of illegal cannabis use. I will sketch one such analysis, focusing on the role that artifacts have in structuring interactions according
to a cultural script. Specifically, I will adapt Tylén et al.’s (2013) account
of the emergence and stability of linguistic forms to understand the
emergence and stability of recurrent types of artifacts such as “joints”
or “pipes” in the specific context of illegal cannabis use.
I will conclude that the stability of cultural forms in illegal cannabis use
(reported by supporters of subculture theory to ground their claims)
can be partially explained by looking at key socioeconomic factors
that have remained largely the same since the introduction of cannabis in Western societies, contributing to the stability of cultural forms
(and, in turn, the values that these represent).
Side 22
Juan Olvido
I already mentioned that I will consider
artifacts as a kind of cultural form, as defined by Saxe & Esmonde (2005). Thus, by
cultural forms I refer to any intentful physical manipulations of personal or environmental matter, the outcome of which will
approximate the intention of one or more
agents. These forms are cultural because
their occurrence can be more or less circumscribed to cultural populations (in fact
defining them, as I will expand on below).
In this very broad conception of “cultural
forms” we can find then the results of verbal
behavior (words), nonverbal bodily behavior (gestures, facial expressions, full blown
rituals, etc.), or intentful manipulations of
matter (artifacts). In this view, the main difference between artifacts and other cultural
forms is the amount of time that these are
publicly accessible. Words, gestures, rituals,
etc., tend to “fade” more rapidly (cf., “rapid
fading” in Hacket, 1960) than those entities we tend to categorize as “artifacts”. The
precise metaphysics or ontological status of
these “cultural forms” are not the focus of
the present paper, so I encourage the reader
to overlook particularities and try to do
with the present description.
Furthermore, my definition could be
characterized as cybernetic because I will
place an important emphasis not on the
physical affordances of artifacts involved
in ICU but, rather, in how they provide a
common perceptual ground that help interactants constrain their interaction. Additionally, I will focus on how constraints
(Bateson’s “restraints” in Bateson, 1967)
allow for the emergence of distinctive
forms, instead of pointing at causal forces
that directly force them into being. As such,
artifacts involved in ICU (typically joints,
or pipes) become nodes around which ritualized behavior revolves.
Therefore, crucial to my approach, will be
the assumption that there is nothing in the
shape, color, weight, or any combination
of perceived properties of a joint or pipe
that conveys the norms around its usage,
according to the rites consistently observed
in ICU in naturalistic settings, or as inferable by indirect means (i.e. interviews).
So, whereas one could possibly infer after
long consideration that one extreme of the
pipe is intended to burn marihuana, and
another to suck the air into the lungs, the
chances that one would conclude that the
pipe has to be passed around (as is customary in ICU, cf. Zimmerman & Wieder,
1977) are insignificant if one were to base
this conclusion on the formal properties of
the artifact alone. As it happens, the norms
around the consumption of cannabis in
ICU are passed on mainly through local
interaction (because legal constraints and
subsequent stigma have hindered its public
access), even though an increasing public
discussion must also be acknowledged and
considered in any comprehensive analysis
of ICU as it is today.
Sandberg’s take on subculture theory
facilitates a cognitive semiotic analysis
Illegal cannabis use in the criminological
literature has been subject to a certain conceptual controversy regarding its current
significance in contemporary Western culture. On the one hand, subculture theory
understands illegal use of cannabis as a cultural act of resistance performed by people
who see themselves as oppressed, or who
do not share values with their perceived
majority. On the other hand, the thesis of
normalization maintains that the approach
of subculture theory is inadequate because
it fails to capture the greater heterogeneity
in the population that, today, use cannabis
Sociogenesis and stability of artifacts...
illegally, as well as failing to account for its
greater social acceptance.
Traditionally, subculture theory has
maintained that marginalized groups in a
broader social context have formulated an
alternative set of values from that held by
the dominant culture they are embedded
in. In this view, the illegal consumption of
cannabis is in itself constitutive of a wider
set of values that set apart smokers (subculture) in an act of cultural resistance against
the non-smoking majority. More recently,
and mainly on the basis of statistical data
showing an increase in the consumption
of illegal drugs during the 1990s (and of
cannabis in particular), some authors put
forward the thesis of normalization.
Supporters of the thesis of normalization
claim that the subculture revolving ICU is
rapidly losing its relevance, and ground this
claim on the observation of five points that,
on their view, point towards the normalization of illegal drug use:
increased availability and access; increased
drug trying rates; increased drug-usage
rates; accommodating attitudes towards
‘sensible’ recreational drug use (especially by
non-users); and a degree of cultural accommodation to illegal drug use”
(Parker et al., 2002 in Sandberg, 2013)
[...] a collection of rituals, stories and symbols [that] revolve around certain perceptions of the world and are often linked to
general cultural currents in society. To a
greater or lesser extent, people and groups
internalize and embody parts of the subculture. They also exploit the subculture in
creative portrayals of themselves.
By doing this, Sandberg takes cultural
practices (enacted in actual interactions)
as the minimal unit to be analyzed, which
allows for an in-between groups coverage
of practices of ICU.
This shift from groups of people to culturally modulated interactions as the object of
study facilitates the application of semiotic
analyses such as the one Tylén et al. (2013)
developed in order to account for the dynamic emergence and stability of linguistic
forms. In what follows, I will briefly introduce Tylén et al.’s dynamic account of the
emergence and stability of linguistic forms,
and explain why I think it is suitable for
the study of artifacts. Then, I will sketch an
analysis of typical artifacts in ICU as material nodes structuring cultural interaction,
pointing at how ecological factors play an
important role in their structural stability.
A dynamic account of the emergence
and stability of artifacts in ICU
By referring to a series of studies in experimental pragmatics and semiotics, Tylén
Side 23
The pivotal criticism of normalization
theory against subculture theory can be
understood as a methodological one - subculture theory attempts to delineate groups
of people that oppose mainstream values by
enacting ICU. But if we intended to group
all cannabis users under a single social
group, the label for that group would serve
no practical or theoretical purpose beyond
the tautological category of “illegal users of
cannabis”, which would hardly constitute
a marginalized minority today (as pointed
out by normalization theory), much less a
distinctive social group.
In his paper (2013), Sandberg makes an
ingenious move in order to save subculture
theory from this criticism. Instead of focusing on groups of people in his study, he
uses the term “subculture” to refer to
Juan Olvido
Side 24
et al. (2013) identify four sources of stability that motivate the emergence of shared
meaning in linguistic structures. These are
characterized as follows (adapted from Tylén
et al., 2013, emphasis added):
••1st Source of stability: “our biological
makeup constrains our sensorimotor
engagements with the world. Though
subject to great plasticity, there are limits
to our perceptual sensitivity (e.g., the
range and resolution of our perception,
etc.) and our motor engagements with
the environment that naturally constrain
the way we can conceive of the world”.
••2nd Source of stability: “our physical/
material world has stable structure
affording (but not determining) certain
categorical and conceptual distinctions
rather than others. This physical world
encompasses both “natural” and “enculturated” properties and objects since a
long history of human intervention has
profoundly shaped our material world
into a hybrid of natural objects and
artifacts”.
••3rd Source of stability: “our immersion in
specific socio-cultural and linguistic practices puts profound normative pressure on
the way we perceptually attend to and
realize the multiple structural affordances of the material environment. This
gives local lingual-cultural variations to
the structural affordances realized in different languages”.
••4th Source of stability: “the local history
of successful communicative interactions
constitutes another set of social affordances that, through processes of reciprocal alignment of perspectives and
profilings, scaffold the stabilization of
linguistic meaning”.
The four sources of stability identified by
Tylén et al. are also relevant to understand
artifacts. In fact, according to their own
terms, the only difference between artifacts
and linguistic forms are the constraints
of the different materials in which they’re
respectively instantiated (2nd source of stability). Interestingly, the fact that artifacts
such as pipes, joints, and other variations
of cannabis cigarettes are intended for
consumption gives a new dimension to
the 1st source of stability (our biological
makeup) in that it is precisely by virtue of
the chemical effects that cannabis has in
our bodies that the substance acquires its
relevance as a drug.
If these four sources of stability were actually
involved in the outcome of artifacts as cultural forms, we should see variation in said
cultural forms there were there was variation
in the sources of stability. I am convinced
that this is the case, and will briefly illustrate
this point with some actual examples by
referring to Tylén et al.’s sources of stability. Whereas a full-fledged analysis of ICU
should, in my view, include a comprehensive account of the chemical effects of the
drug in interactants (which would entail the
interaction between the 1st and 2nd sources
of stability), this will be omitted for the
purposes of the present paper.
1st, our biological makeup
One of the most interesting aspects in this
respect would be studying the effects of
cannabis in ongoing interactions to see how
they contribute (or hinder) the transmission of subcultural values represented by
the enactment of cultural practices of ICU.
Joints, spliffs, pipes, bongs, etc., administer
different quantities of cannabis, in different
intervals and are sometimes mixed in different concentrations with other substances
Sociogenesis and stability of artifacts...
(ie., tobacco). It would therefore be interesting to further explore the precise effect of
these changes in the way people experience
the enactment of these practices. For the
moment being, however, I will just work
under the assumption that our biological
makeup (and therefore the “general” effect
of cannabis on humans) is by and large the
same as it was when certain subcultures
introduce the drug in Western communities
(Sandberg, 2013), so this source of stability
has remained nearly identical.
3rd, our immersion in
specific socio-cultural and
artifact-manufacturing practices
This point must be crucially extended if
we want to account for the nature not only
of artifacts involved in ICU, but also if
we want to understand the set of practices
that so consistently accompany it. A clearly
determinative factor to take into account
Side 25
2nd, our physical world
Regarding aspects relative to the material
world in which cultural practices of ICU
are embedded (2nd source of stability), I
could venture that the general availability of
cannabis (as a function of ease of access and
price) is today higher than it was during the
60s and 70s. Sadly, I cannot refer to specific
data supporting this claim. I can, however,
make reference to synchronic changes in
current ICU in as typified in different geographical regions to claim that the material properties of the world around us are a
source of stability for the cultural forms that
inhabit practices of ICU.
In Southern Spain specially (and Europe
in general), the consumption of hash is
much higher relative to that of America,
where dried marijuana is the most widespread form of cannabis (Gamella & Jiménez, 2008). Given the physical properties of
these two substances (a thick, sticky paste
in the case of hash, and a somewhat crackly
and dry herb covered in fine, sticky dust in
the case of marijuana), it would follow that
different forms would arise in order to incorporate them in cultural practices of ICU.
That is indeed the case - whereas pipes,
bongs and spliffs (cigarettes containing only
marijuana) seem to be most common in
America, joints (cannabis with tobacco)
seem to be the preferred method of consumption in most of Europe, a more
accentuated trend the closer we get to the
countries where hash is imported to. In fact,
hash can only be smoked by itself in long,
thin pipes such as those used in the Rif
mountains. Furthermore, within European
boundaries, hand-rolled filters also vary in
shape and nature according to the most
available forms of cannabis. That is, some
widely available materials and shapes seem
to be favored over others when manufacturing filters depending on the form of cannabis that is being smoked.
Another comparison could illustrate this
last point - whereas it is common in Southern Spain to find “moras” (filters with
tobacco in them, that prevent the passing
of small particles such as tobacco or small
pieces of hash), this form of filter is hardly
found in other European regions where
marijuana is more common - many users
would see the finer granularity of “mora”
filters as a waste because much of the smoke
would remain in the filter. Most filters for
“joints” with marijuana (and not hash)
are thus elaborated by rolling a piece of
cardboard into an empty cylinder that lets
through all of the smoke, while providing
structural support for the joint to be held
between the lips, and indicating that the
joint is “finished”.
Side 26
Juan Olvido
is the legal status of cannabis. I will extend
on this issue in the section below, as I hold
the opinion that this aspect is essential if we
want to understand the social dynamics of
cultural practices revolving ICU.
Within illegal users of cannabis, different sets of assumptions in their respective subcultures give rise to various local
cultural forms. This, again, is reflected in
artifacts. Cultural groups that share a dislike for tobacco will recur to “spliffs” or
“pipes” rather than “joints”. These dynamics will surely interact with those elicited
by other sources of stability, giving rise to
more stable forms over time. As interactions
involving ICU become typified, interactants will enact them according to their
own intentions and goals - as such ICU
might be a more conversational experience
in communities where the quantity, concentration, and frequency of use are lower,
whereas it might lead to other interpersonal
dynamics in other communities (i.e., where
it is smoked in high quantities).
It is very important to note that there
seems to be a core set of practices common
to all western illegal users of cannabis, and it
seems to me that this is the adequate section
to discuss them in more detail. This core set
of practices is manifested with parametric
variations in different social, aesthetic, or
linguistic communities, but its principles
still respond to the description by Zimmerman & Wieder (1977) that a) everyone
who has cannabis is expected to share, b)
the joint or pipe is passed round to all those
present, and c) smoking cannabis together
obliges one to further social interaction
(adapted from Sandberg, 2013). This is the
“stable” culture that supporters of subculture theory refer to, as it can still be observed in illegal users of cannabis today. The
assumption of sub-culture theorists is that
this set of practices survives as an expression
of values (ie., sharing) that were shared by
the communities that first brought ICU to
Western cultures “en masse”.
However, it is also clear that aspects such
as the legal status of cannabis must have a
big impact in these practices. For example,
principles a) and b) (Zimmerman &
Wieder, 1977) described above could - and
in my view, do - respond to an expression
of generosity or collective property while, at
the same time, maximizing its pervasiveness
in cultural communities by involving everyone present in the cultural practice. Thus,
not only is there a general sense of belonging
and in-group (hypothesized by some social
scientists to underlie much of what goes
on in human social dynamics, cf. Alford &
Hibbing, 2004) but, on top of that, no one
in the group would be liable to accuse others
of doing something illegal without risk of
putting herself in danger because she would
have also taken part in ICU.
4th, the local history of
successful interactions
Cultural practices of ICU are rich, varied
and respond to minimal changes in the purposes for which it is enacted as well as the
constraints imposed on them by the sources of stability at discussion. As extensively
noted by researchers that affiliate with a
subcultural approach (Sandberg 2013), it is
not strange to find a richness of shared local
terms, rituals, symbols, stories associated
with ICU. These cultural forms, however,
are heavily ostracized in that their public
accessibility is much more reduced than
those of collective cultural practices such
as going to the cinema, cooking, bowling,
drinking alcohol, etc. Normalization theory
does well in pointing at a progressive shift
towards acceptation, but it cannot overlook
Sociogenesis and stability of artifacts...
the fact that, as it happens, cannabis is still
illegal in much of the Western world.
If the public accessibility of these practices is so reduced (presumably because of
the risk it would supposed to enact them
openly), how, then, can we explain the
existence of a “core set” of practices that
extends well beyond national and continental boundaries, and manifests itself regardless
of the language spoken by the interactants?
It would appear as if the main means of
transmission for this kind of practice is its
enactment - that is, “the local history of successful interactions”. Thus, in the absence of
public channels (public spaces, mass media)
in which cultural practices of ICU could be
enacted, these practices become conventionalized and acquire structural stability
through reiterated enactment.
In an online survey I published thanks
to the generosity of the administrators of
the erowid website, I had cannabis smokers of a varied background answer where
they acquired their knowledge (expressed
in lexical terms) about different forms of
cannabis, marijuana cigarettes, etc. Out
of 1085, 903 answered that they learned
these things “while smoking”. This contrasts
starkly with the 113 that answered that they
acquired this knowledge from cultural material (comic books, films, tv-series, internet)
and supports my claim. It is not hard to
conclude that this dynamics is heavily influenced by the legal status of cannabis.
Bibliography
Alford, J. R., & Hibbing, J. R. (2004). The origin of
politics: An evolutionary theory of political behavior. Perspectives on Politics, 2(04), 707-723.
Bateson, G. (1967). Cybernetic explanation. American Behavioral Scientist,10(8), 29-29.
Gamella, J. F., & Jiménez, M. L. (2008). Multinational export–import ventures: Moroccan hashish
Side 27
Discussion
The conclusions I extract from my brief
analysis of artifacts as a subtype of cultural
forms in cultural practices of ICU is that
the stability of cultural forms depends not
only on the need for individuals to define
themselves against a majority of people by
enacting “marginalized” practices - crucially,
it is also ecological socioeconomic factors
that have favored stability in the cultural
forms. The stability of these cultural forms
might have, in turn, reinforced the values
they represent, which would support the
claims of subculture theory.
For normalization theory, the reasoning
goes the other way: as long as the dynamics
of ICU are modulated by the same set of
constraints as they were in its origins in
Western practitioners, its cultural forms
(and therefore its expressive value) are likely
to remain stable and unchanged. Biological,
physical, but also human factors constrain
cultural practices of ICU. Laws could be
seen as a factor promoting the stability of
denormalization today.
However, we must not disregard the
claims made by normalization theory - the
amount of cultural references to ICU in
mass media is increasingly bigger and less
covert. This can be seen as trends by referring to tv-series such as South Park, The
Simpsons, Futurama, How I Met Your Mother
in which punctual references are more or
less covert, or That 70’s Show, Smiley Face or
the Spanish Malviviendo in which cannabis
becomes a central leitmotif around which
the narrative is structured. These are only
some of the cultural products that I have
consumed as an enculturated Westerner.
They are part of an increasing body of publicly accessible (through the internet) mass
cultural products, so their influence should
not be underestimated.
Juan Olvido
Side 28
into Europe through Spain (). EMCDDA MONOGRAPHS, 263.
Hackett, C. F. (1960). The origin of speech. Scientific
American, 203, 88-96.
Parker, H., Williams, L., & Aldridge, J. (2002). The
Normalization of ‘Sensible’Recreational Drug
Use Further Evidence from the North West England Longitudinal Study. Sociology, 36(4), 941964.
Saxe, G. B., & Esmonde, I. (2005). ARTICLES:
Studying Cognition in Flux: A Historical Treat-
ment of Fu in the Shifting Structure of Oksapmin Mathematics.Mind, culture, and activity,
12(3-4), 171-225.
Tylén, K., Fusaroli, R., Bundgaard, P. F., & Østergaard, S. (2013). Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making.
Semiotica,2013(194), 39-62.
Zimmerman, D.H. & Wieder, D.L. (1977) You can’t
help but get stoned: Notes on the social organization of marijuana smoking. Social Problems
25(2): 198–207.
Kevin Crowley
Extended Mind,
Shrinking Memory
Intro: Our symbiotic relationship
with technology
The mind is not bound by our brain, according to David J. Chalmers and Andy Clark.
In their pivotal essay “The Extended Mind”,
they cut at the heart of the meaning of cognition and thereby challenge our preconceived notions of the concept of “mind”.
In the essay, they ask us first to consider
three problem-solving cases. Each case is a
simple task of fitting the right shape in the
socket, the kind we have experience doing
as kindergarteners, except on a computer.
In one case, a person is asked to mentally
rotate the objects to find the right fit. The
second case, a person can change the orientation of the shapes by pressing a rotate
button on the computer. The third case is a
more hypothetical futuristic option, where
a person is hooked to a neural implant and
can actually rotate the shapes immediately
by just thinking about it. They then ask,
”How much cognition is present in each of
these cases?”. To Chalmers and Clark, each
case is of a similar nature. The only difference is that the act of physically pressing
the button to rotate the shape in case two is
simply a physical manifestation of the same
cognitive process. In such a case, we have
effectively extended the operationalization
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 2 9 - 3 7
Our mind is not only in our heads. It is all around us. At least, that is
the base presumption of the Extended Mind theory, developed by
David J. Chalmers and Andy Clark (1998). They argue that humans
are linked with external entities (i.e. tools and technology) in a coupled
system that effectively extends our cognition beyond the borders of
skin and skull. They claim, as humans rely on these external entities to
help us with tasks, our mind is extended to those entities. But what are
and has been the consequences of this extension? Socrates warned
against one such mind extending technology—writing, insisting that
“...this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who
learn to use it” (Plato, Phaedrus 274c, translated by Fowler 1925). To
what degree is Socrates right? In this critical essay, we will examine the
main points of the extended mind thesis and consider how the theory,
although clearly a boon in many ways, with unchecked technological development, can also turn into a bane for mankind and why we
should be cautious.
Side 30
Kevin Crowley
to a part of the body. They further point to
other common cases where this extension of
a cognitive process occurs. Their examples
include: solving a math problem with paper
and pen, the physical rearrangements of
letters in the game of Scrabble, and even
the use of language, through any of its
mediums, are seen as a mechanism of mind
extension via environmental supporters.
Certainly, the example of language seems to
fit nicely with the theory of image schemas,
in that babies and toddlers are suspected of
deriving meaning through interaction with
their environment which enables them to
develop schematic associations that eventually become coupled with language (Mandler 1992). Further, it has been shown in
adults as well through a matching task of
sentence and image (i.e. subjects shown “the
eagle is flying”, but showing an eagle with
its wings folded), with mismatch sentenceto-image trials resulting in slower responses,
suggesting perceptual symbols are activated
in language comprehension (Zwaan et al.
2002). Thus, if this pre-linguistic structure
aids the conceptual metaphor mapping
that we establish when language is formed,
then even the acquisition of language has its
roots in the physical world.
So then, what could the possible benefits
of relegating mental tasks to physical mediums? In line with their hypothetical shaperotation cases, they refer to a study where
it is calculated how long it takes to rotate
shapes in the game of Tetris versus doing it
mentally. It was found that it takes significantly longer to do it mentally than by the
normal button-pressing method (300ms
vs. 1000ms) (Chalmers & Clark, A. 1998).
These kinds of actions are referred to as epistemic actions, which change the world in
order to aid and augment cognitive practices, which are contrasted with what is called
pragmatic actions, a physical change done
for a desirable outcome (i.e. hedging the
bushes for aesthetic appeal) (Chalmers and
Clark 1998). Thus they claim that epistemic
action is inherently a coupled system: the
mind and physical environment both, being
linked in an interactive two-way system.
This process, they claim, is an active process
involved in the here and now. They write:
Because they [external features] are coupled
with the human organism, they have a
direct impact on the organism and on its
behavior. In these cases, the relevant parts
of the world are in the loop, not dangling
at the other end of a long causal chain.
(Chalmers & Clark 1998)
And this, what they call active externalism,
is what is behind the online execution of
mental tasks, where if it were not involved,
as the Tetris timed task example illustrates,
our performance or competency of such
tasks would diminish. Thus we use environmental resources as an epistemic action
because it enhances the execution of those
tasks. In other words, we get better and
faster at them.
Chalmers, in his TED Talk about the
extended mind, uses the idea of an extended body as a comparable analogy, eliciting
such examples as prosthetic limbs, canes
for blind people, or even cars, bicycles, and
musical instruments (Chalmers, D. 2011).
In all of these examples, each tool or technology enhances a function that we would
not be able to do as well otherwise (i.e. to
see if you are blind; run as fast as a bicycle/
car). Similarly, he invokes a very presentday example of the iPhone and how it and
other smartphones are mitigating the role
of our brain in everyday mental activities.
He outwardly admits:
Extended Mind, Shrinking Memor y
It’s basically started taking over a whole bunch
of the functions of my brain.
(Chalmers, D. 2011)
Surely, anyone who has experience with
a smart-phone probably has noticed this
themselves. Remembering phone numbers, spatial navigation (GPS), schedule
planning, and suggestions for consumer
purchases are just some of the functions
smartphones can do for us, and that we can
become reliant upon. And most of us have
probably experienced the “Let’s ask Google”
panacea as either a debate breaker or to find
some piece of information you might have
at the tip of your tongue, but just cannot
seem to wait for your memory to grasp it.
Interestingly, while smart-phones, which
most have experience with nowadays, provides the most relatable example of the
extended mind thesis, it also provides the
most poignant example of a technology
which comes with some striking negative
side effects. While Chalmers, in that TED
Talk, mentions some of the downsides of
the extended mind, he seems to only scrape
the surface, insisting on speaking of it in a
positive tone. With the iPhone-mind takeover he spoke about in mind, let us now
look further into the negative consequences
of a mind exponentially extending.
Memory and cognition before writing
The negative consequences of an extended
mind where articulated well by Plato, in the
book of Phaedrus, concerning the ramifications of one such extension technology
– writing:
The cynical words of Socrates, a person
who had his pupil Plato scribe his speeches,
against ’writing’ still ring true to this day.
While some people see his warning as a
failed prophecy about the bane of writing,
the invention of writing actually did change
a lot in memory and cognition. Of course,
before the invention of writing, information was still passed down from generation to generation, but was done so orally.
Even during the advent of writing and up
until the mass production of books, (starting from the Gutenberg printing press),
reading and writing was not a common
practice. Instead it was the privileged upper
class of society that were literate throughout
much of civilized history. The majority of
people had no skill to read or write, yet
they maintained to pass their cultures down
to the succeeding generations. How was
this feat accomplished for so many millennia? How do oral societies pass down their
knowledge and what effects do they have on
our memory and cognition?
The two epic stories which have been
well studied are Homer’s two classics, The
Illiad and The Odyssey. Before these stories
were put into written form they are commonly thought to have been created by
Side 31
For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to
use it, because they will not practice their
memory. Their trust in writing, produced
by external characters which are no part
of themselves, will discourage the use of
their own memory within them. You have
invented an elixir not of memory, but of
reminding; and you offer your pupils the
appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom,
for they will read many things without
instruction and will therefore seem to
know many things, when they are for the
most part ignorant and hard to get along
with, since they are not wise, but only
appear wise.
(Plato, Phaedrus 274c,
translated by Fowler 1925)
Side 32
Kevin Crowley
a bard named Homer, although they are
uncertain whether this was one person
or several. (Parry 1987; West 1999). But
what is certain is that despite whoever its
creator was, the stories could not have
survived without many capable poet-bards
that would retell the story over and over
until it was written down. And so regardless of whoever the epic poem’s original
maker was, if looked upon as a result of
successive transmissions, it is without a
doubt a product of numerous individuals. Interestingly, what made this successive transmission possible was the style in
which Homer’s works were told, namely in
a poetic, rhythmic, and prosodic style. The
use of dactylic hexameter verse, a metrical
line composed of six parts with each part
consisting of one long syllable followed by
two short syllables, helped guide the structure of its retelling and put the poem into
chunks, thus making it easier to remember.
Homer also uses epic-style similes, using
vivid analogous description of an event,
and also using relatable word-picture associations (Rambo 1932). Homer’s stories’
are also full of clichés and strong characters,
and furthermore only uses concrete examples of abstract concepts such as heroism,
wisdom, and justice, thus further utilizing
mnemonic devices (Rubin 1997). One
scholar of the transition from oral societies
to writing societies, Walter J. Ong, agrees
in that ”Colorless personalities cannot survive
oral mnemonics” (2002).
In the same vein, one common modern
mnemonic device is to associate a target
item with something that is unique, violent, unusual, absurd, or extraordinary
(Lorayne 1985,p.17-20). This is also sometimes called “the slap in the face principle”,
using the analogy that someone would not
forget being slapped in the face. And it
stands to reason that this technique would
afford memorization better than a mundane
action, as epic poetry’s utilization of this
principle also illustrates.
So, without writing, it appears that
certain styles that afford memorization
were necessary in order to be successfully
passed down. Rather than ink, in oral tradition, mnemonic tools are the medium of
choice. Those styles that were ill-adapted for
memorization did not survive and were lost
to the ages. To me, it seems to be a testament to the greatness not only of Homer’s
epic poems, but of the styles that developed
in the pre-writing ancient world that were
necessary for the survival of the story; it can
be viewed as a sort of Darwinian survival of
the fittest of oral tale.
Of course, this type of transmission
is not without its faults. Much like the
telephone game, where a group whispers
along a sentence down a line, and by the
end it is altered significantly (sometimes
hilariously so), so too oral traditions cannot
escape this error that is inherent in the
system of oral transmission.
Memory is a dynamic social process.
Memory systems do not preserve or reproduce cultural knowledge without sometimes altering, shaping, or even inventing it,
either consciously or unconsciously.
(Goucher , LeGuin, & Walton 1998)
However, due to the style that developed
in oral tradition, which essentially embedded mnemonics into its structure, it has
made transmission error free more than
one would expect. Through oral tradition’s
multiple constraints, it made it so that oral
texts need not be remembered verbatim.
Each time Homer’s stories were performed,
the text was reconstructed, held together
Extended Mind, Shrinking Memor y
recitable and accessible to the audience by
using common ’type scenes’ of the time.
This aspect of a ’shared consciousness’
is suspected to be one of the effects of oral
societies on the mind. Not only are formulae and type scenes aiding the storyteller’s memory, but also living through the
character’s lives as the story unfolds, as a
poet would animately sing the tale, creates an inescapable vicariousness for both
reciter and audience. Listeners would be
entrenched, as if in a trance, as the story
comes alive in the present moment during
the performance (Neel 1988). Story, poet,
and listener would be bonded supposedly
greater than what we can presently relate
to in the world of print or computer text.
Further touching upon the effects on
cognition, Walter J. Ong, who was briefly
mentioned before, was one of the leading
scholars on the psychological effects of
the transition from oral culture to writing
culture. In his book Orality and Literacy
(1982), he claims that writing fundamentally changed the way people think, feel,
and interact with one another. Orality is
fundamental to humanity in that it affords
community in the immediate moment
with another person. On the other hand,
writing is what stemmed from that rich
oral culture, and in the end corrupted it,
losing its intersubjectivity in the process
and becoming a pipeline of sender and
receiver. Of course this is not limited to
writing, rather Ong points the finger at all
type of media that is uni-directional, from
television to radio. From this one directional way of communicating, he claims our
personal psychology has changed from holistic, shared-group thinking and communication, to an interiorized consciousness,
withholding knowledge to the self and thus
greater individuation (1982).
Side 33
by the dactylic hexameter, rhyme patterns,
and mnemonic-riddled structure. The main
point of oral epic-poem storytelling was
to transmit the main features of the story,
while the way in which the poem is told the
story was left up to the transmitter.
This way of structuring oral stories is not
only a characteristic of Homer or of other
ancient epics, but also supported by research
of more modern oral societies. Two famous
scholars of this topic, Harvard University
professors Milman Parry and his student,
Albert Lord, visited the southern part of
former Yugoslavia from the years 1933 to
1935, and studied a then-present-day oral
tradition in the Serbian-Croatian language.
They luckily found a master storyteller
named Avdo Međedović who could perform
a story in a very similar manner and length
as the Illiad, as many as 12,000 lines (Nagy
2013). Through their research of a live oral
tradition, they discovered that poets are able
to store formulas, similar to the chunks we
have learned in fairy-tales (ie. Once upon
a time; In a galaxy far far away), but to a
much greater degree and complexity. Thus,
where in normal discourse people have
stored words and some chunks of words
(i.e. idioms, maxims, etc.) and a speaker has
relative freedom to arrange their sentences,
epic storytellers, on the other hand, have
these chunks organized and structured on
a higher level, which are known as theme
or type scene (Foley 1966). Basically, these
themes are stereotypes of scenes that are
remembered not only in the mind of the
story reciter, but also in the social conscious mind. This oral-formulaic theory shows
how long epics can be memorized using
such formulas that are not only in one mind
or in the mind of previous story tellers, but
the structure also makes it possible for storytellers to improvise in order to make it
Kevin Crowley
Side 34
In this way, it seems that there are some
intriguing effects of the entities that our
mind is extended to, and conversely, what
minds are extended to us. But what further
evidence is there for this effect? Let us now
examine a few recent studies of technology
affecting our mind.
The mind stretched thin
Going beyond how writing has affected
human memory, it turns out recent technology has further impacted our memory
capabilities. Aside from the numerous personal anecdotes we all likely have experience with our smart-phones or computers,
such as no longer remembering phone
numbers, being slower at mental math,
and forgetting how to spell words (thanks
to spell-check), what other effects on our
memory and cognition might there be
from high-technology societies?
Since computers and the internet have
made it possible to read text, humans have
now made accessing another person’s mind
even easier than its now-primitive ink and
paper counterpart. And since the launch
of Kindle, tablets, and other eReaders,
whole books can now be consumed with
relative ease. But can this easy access to the
written word also affect our memory? It
appears it can. In a recent study, 72 tenthgraders in Norway were split in two and
one half asked to read a story in print;
and the other half were asked to read the
same story in PDF form. The students
were given a comprehension test afterward
about what they had read and the group
who read the print version scored significantly higher (Mangen, et. al 2013). The
experiment was done again a year later,
this time using the Kindle, and similar
results were found. While Mangen and
company suspect a tactile feature which is
at lost when holding a book and turning
the pages that may be responsible for the
poorer comprehension, she also says:
Research shows that the amount of time
spent reading long-form texts is in decline,
and due in large part to increasing digitization, reading is becoming more intermittent and fragmented overall.
(Mangen 2014)
In concurrence with this opinion, I believe people who read on digital mediums
can remember less partly because of those
people’s fragmented reading habits, but I
will go further in saying that the cause of
those habits stems from the innate capability of E-readers which allow quick access
to the text. The brain’s memory faculty has
no need to hold onto whatever it knows
it can access quickly. This is further supported by another recent study seeing
how photographs can affect our memory
retrieval. In this study, subjects were
asked to tour through a museum, half of
them taking photos of objects, the other
half just looking. It was found that there
was a photo-taking-impairment effect as
participants who used the camera could
remember fewer objects and details than
those who did not use a camera. However,
when certain details were zoomed in on
by some subjects, there was not an effect,
but interestingly their recall was just as
good as the no-camera’s memory of the
zoomed-in detail (Henkel 2014). Thus,
similar to eReaders, the brain can more
readily let go of information it knows it
can retrieve in the physical world, thus
creating an impairment of what our brain
is actually capable of remembering.
When our body is extended physically, as
in a car to enhance our traveling capabili-
Extended Mind, Shrinking Memor y
ties, the cost of not using your legs as much
would mean the muscles would atrophy to
some degree and we would not be as strong
or healthy as a person who walked all of
the time. And so, too, when our mind is
extended to a physical object, the cost is
our mind not being to perform the task
as well as it could as a person who can do
the task without the tool. And this effect
is shown even more so when the object is
relied upon heavily or allows its use to be
instantaneous. Forebodingly, it might serve
us well to carefully consider the implications of augmented reality devices even more.
The flexible mind and sociological effects
What this investigation shows us is the
incredible flexibility of the mind. Its ability to spread knowledge to other minds
is an incredible phenomenon in of itself.
Through this spread of human thought, first
by voice, reaching those in your immediate
circle, then by writing, touching the lives
of any who have access, and now by computers, smart-phones, and the internet, we
have been able to express and hold onto the
thoughts of others. We have made it possible to share, collaborate, and work together.
To some extent, this extension has been
invaluable, continuously and exponentially
enhancing human life. This extension of
mind cannot only be held by other minds,
but by the artifacts that surround us. Tools
that we use to save information or do calculations can have a very positive effect on
our way of life, and at the same time have
a very negative effect on our own mind’s
capability of doing it without aid. As men-
Side 35
The socially extended mind
As we live in a reading and writing culture, it may seem strange to us how the
technology we all have grown up with
and accustomed to could be hindering the
potential of our memory’s capacity, and
even perhaps even more bizarre of how
it can affect our consciousness. After all,
this technology has enabled us to spread
information farther and to more people
than ever before. However, it appears to
be because of this extension that we are
apt at letting go of memories we know
can be retrieved by something, or even
someone else. It is well known trope that
senior citizens rely on each other for retrieval of information. Even Chalmers himself
used the old couple stereotype as one of his
examples of how another person can act as
their memory, which he calls the socially
extended mind. (2011). Two good friends
or lovers finishing each other’s’ sentences,
or social networking, and crowd-sourcing
are all other good examples of this social
mind. But as Chalmers also warns in his
talk, as our mind is extended more, the
more vulnerable to harm there is when that
object that our mind is extended to is lost
(i.e. when you lose your iPhone, your hard
drive dies, or worse still, your friend or lover
passes). Thus, while extension of mind is
inevitable, to what, whom, and how we
extend to makes a difference. As social creatures, humans cannot expect to give up this
extension in the social realm, nor would
it be healthy to. After all, as mentioned
before, this social interconnectedness is the
foundation of human culture. However,
if due to social networking, for example,
our mind is extended to too many people,
there might be richness lost in our social
interactions as our mind is stretched thin.
Likewise, if the mind is extended to our
GPS navigational system, for example, were
one to be lost or the navigational system
malfunctioned, one might not have the
cognitive resources to find their way.
Kevin Crowley
tioned, there is probably no person without
a story of how some technology has made
it harder for them to do a task without its
use. Not that this is always a bad thing.
Relegating tasks to our tools can free up
cognitive resources so that it can attend to
other things. This is why those tools, such
as calculators and writing, were invented
in the first place. When we can focus less
on how to solve a complicated formula,
for instance, the more time we can spend
doing other things like solving the issue at
hand. And this is the true hallmark of progress: when technology makes certain tasks
easier, we can move on and address novel
problems, and advance technology.
Yet there is still nagging feeling that I
and others have. German author and poet,
Hans Magnus Enzensberger, in his essay In
Praise of Illiteracy, extols the virtues of an
illiterate mind, writing:
Side 36
I envy the illiterate his memory, his capacity for concentration, his cunning, his
inventiveness, his tenacity, his sensitive ear.
Please don’t imagine that I am speaking
not about romantic phantoms but about
people I have met. I am far from idealizing
them. I also see their narrow horizons, their
illusions, their obstinacy, their quaintness.
(Enzensberger & Lipson 1986)
Likewise, there seem to be something about
the human condition that we have lost by
becoming literate, forgoing communal storytelling, vivid vicarious experiences, and
therefore a bond with human brethren that
we might never again know. It is also possible by forgoing such experiences, there is
a lack of spiritually internalizing knowledge,
and instead we use knowledge in a utilitarian fashion, copying and pasting knowledge where it suits us best.
Enzensberger (1986) also brings up another
problem with literate society, or rather the
literate society which developed since the
18th century. From the second half of
that century, many of today’s first world
nations underwent a systematic project of
making the general populace literate. Many
of those nations succeeded, achieving less
than 1% illiteracy of the population. But
simultaneously, according to Enzensberger,
indoctrination and homogeneity accompanied this education. A byproduct of this
education which we have all grown up in is
what he calls a second-order illiterate, one
who can read for practical matters, whose
concentration lacks, yet considers himself
well-informed. This is the perfect type of
citizen who can be swayed easily to be a
good consumer in a capitalist society.
Furthermore, one other sociological
phenomenon that is worthy of mention is
the change of our value of intelligence. As
one author poignantly points out:
The externalization of memory not only
changed how people think; it also led to a
profound shift in the very notion of what
it means to be intelligent. Internal memory
became devalued. Erudition evolved from
possessing information internally to knowing how and where to find it in the labyrinthe world of external memory.
(Foer 2011)
Of course to some degree people still cherish and admire those who can tell a good
story or have the gift of gab. However, since
writing, and more recently with the internet, internal knowledge has been evermore
subverted and relegated to a needless skill.
Now, with the world’s knowledge at our
fingertips, it has been an equalizing force in
a way, with knowledge being accessible to
Extended Mind, Shrinking Memor y
all. But as people consume more and more,
it appears we end up remembering less and
less. There may be a ceiling for constructive
consumption in the human mind after all.
It is very possible that modern erudition
could be turning students into (using Socrates’ term) “empty vessels”.
Conclusion
While it is not my purpose to advocate illiteracy in this article, nor any Luddite-like
halting of technological progress and mind
extension technologies, it behooves us to
be aware of the implications of an extended
mind, especially in the domains of writing,
high-tech gadgets, and social networking,
and the pitfalls that may accompany them
if left unchecked. Chalmers mentions that
since the mind is flexible, we can be positive
about the future, reassuring that mankind
may make the right decision. But it is also
very possible, as he admits, that this mind
extension, just like technology itself, can
be used for bad as well. Let us hope we do
not, as Plato said, create an elixir of reminding, but rather strive toward wisdom as
our minds extend and interconnect.
References
Side 37
Enzensberger, H.M & Lipson M, (1986). “In Praise
of Illiteracy.” Grand Street 5, no. 4 (1986): 88. doi:10.2307/25006902.
Foer, J. (2011). Moonwalking with Einstein, Penguin
Press HC. ISBN 978-1-59420-229-2
Foley, J. M. (1966). Oral-Formulaic Theory and
Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1985.
p. 42.; Foley cites ”The Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry” Publications of the Modern Language Association 81, 334–41
Goucher, C. L., Le Guin,C.A, and Walton, L.A.
(1998). In the Balance: A Thematic Global History,
Vol. 1 and 2. Boston, Mass.: Mcgraw-Hill College.
Henkel, L. A. (2014). “Point-and-Shoot Memories: The Influence of Taking Photos on
Memory for a Museum Tour.” Psychological Science 25, no. 2. February 1: 396–402. doi:10.1177/0956797613504438.
Lorayne, H. (1985). Harry Lorayne’s Page-a-Minute
Memory Book. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Ong, W. J.(2002). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Routledge.
Mandler, J.M. (1992) On the Birth and Growth of
Concepts. Philosophical Psychology Vol. 21, No. 2, April 2008, pp. 207–230
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The Collected Papers of Milman Parry, Clarendon
Press, Oxford.
Nagy, G. (2013). The Ancient Greek Hero in 24
Hours. Harvard University Press.
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in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9, translated by Fowler, H.N. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press;
London, William Heinemann Ltd. http://
www.perseus.tufts.edu)
Rambo, E.F. (1932).On Homer’s Similes.The Classical
Journal, Vol. 28, No. 1., pp. 22-31.
Rubin, D. C. (1997). Memory in Oral Traditions: The
Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and Counting-Out Rhymes. Oxford University Press.
West, Martin (1999). ”The Invention of Homer”.
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Zwaan, R. A., Stanweld, R. A., & Yaxley, R. H. (2002).
Language comprehenders mentally represent t
he shapes of objects. Psychological Science, 13(2),
168–171.
Nis Langer Primdahl
A r t e f a k t, m o d e r n i t e t
– social acceleration
Artiklen diskuterer relationen mellem det tekniske artefakt og senmodernitetens strukturelle tidslighed. Er det muligt for det senmoderne
subjekt løbende at veksle mellem henholdsvis langsom og hurtig tid
ved at vælge ting fra eller til? Hvordan skal subjektets relation til det
tekniske artefakt fortolkes i et samfund præget af social acceleration?
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 3 8 - 4 6
The logic of the cabin deserves to be globalized
(Eriksen 2001: 157)
Med dette diktum betoner den norske
socialantropolog Thomas Hylland Eriksen,
hvordan det afsondrede rum i fjeldet med
plads til stille dvælen bør udbredes. I hytten
hersker langsommelig tænkning; i hytten
står selvet i et særligt forhold til tiden. Modsætningen til denne hyttens tidslighed er
den hurtige tid, ’øjeblikkets tyranni’, der
har indfundet sig i det senmoderne samfund. At samfundsudviklingen sker med
forøget hastighed har været en integreret del
af fortællingen om moderniteten, ligesom
sondringen mellem det moderne og det
senmoderne har impliceret en ændring i
vores forhold til tiden. Spørgsmålet bliver
da, hvorvidt diskrepansen mellem en hurtig
og langsom tidslogik, som subjektet ifølge
Hylland Eriksen veksler i mellem, kan
anvendes som kritik af det senmoderne
samfunds tidslighed? Som jeg vil vise, er
dette tvivlsomt, fordi relationen mellem
subjekt, social acceleration og det tekniske
artefakt er af en sådan karakter, at ligevæg
ten mellem det hurtige og langsomme udviskes – kun det hurtige gør sig gældende.
Det interessante og problematiske ved
begrebet om en specifik, langsommelig
tidslig logik i hytten, er at en sådan logik
implicerer, at subjektets forhold til tiden
er betinget af både hytten som afsondret
sted uden for højhastighedssamfundet, og
af det fravær af tekniske artefakter, lokaliteten ligeledes indebærer. Implikationen
af denne udlægning hos Hylland Eriksen
er, at tingen og min relation til tiden er
forbundet således, at et fravær af tingen
bevirker en overgang fra hurtig til langsom
tid; jeg kan slukke min telefon, tage mit
armbåndsur af, koble e-mailpåmindelser fra
og derved overgå til en stemning præget af
langsommelig dvælen. Subjektets tidslighed
er altså bundet til det tekniske artefakt, og
et midlertidigt eller varigt brud på denne
relation gør det samtidig muligt at springe
fra et hverdagsliv i høj hastighed tilbage ind
i langsommeligheden.
A r t e f a k t, m o d e r n i t e t
Modernitet og strukturel tidslighed
Relationen mellem det tekniske artefakt,
tiden og moderniteten tematiseres i det
20. århundredes filosofiske og socialvidenskabelige tradition på forskellig vis. I den
klassiske sociologi er Max Weber, Émile
Durkheim og Karl Marx kritiske over for
den forøgelse af hastighed, som industrialiseringen, bureaukratiet og den moderne
kapitalisme medfører, og de peger alle på
en grundlæggende forøgelse ikke blot af
hastigheden i samfundets funktionelle elementer, men på den tendens i det moderne,
at selve tiden begynder at gå hurtigere
(Elias 2007: 156).1
Hos Nicklas Luhmann findes en bemærkelsesværdig formulering, der mere aktuelt
tematiserer forholdet mellem modernitet og
strukturel tidslighed:
Mit dem Aufkommen der bürgerlichen
Gesellschaft [hat sich] die Struktur der Zeit
drastisch in Richtung auf höhere temporale Komplexität verändert [..., deshalb]
müssen wir davon ausgehen, dass diese
Umstrukturierung auf jede soziale Struktur und jeden Begriff einwirkt. Nichts
wird seinen früheren Sinn behalten.
(Luhmann 1990: 122)2
Side 39
Der peges her på en række facetter af
forholdet mellem modernitet og tid. For
det første anfører Luhmann, at der ved
det moderne borgerlige samfunds begyndelse finder en restrukturering af måden,
hvorpå de tidslige strukturer indvirker på
sociale strukturer, sted. Der er altså tale
om, at den gensidige, strukturelle relation
mellem tid og samfund træder ind en ny
fase, implicerer en ny definition af begreberne og indstifter en ny tid. En fortolkning af modernitetens epoke må på den
måde indeholde en udlægning af denne
epokes tidslighed, altså måden hvorpå
strukturerne er tidsligt betingede. For det
andet knyttes udviklingen til en forøgelse
af den samfundsmæssige kompleksitet, en
udvikling der som nævnt allerede hos tidlige sociologiske tænkere som Marx, Durkheim og Weber er i spil. Endeligt påpeger
Luhmann, at denne forandring har implikationer, der er mere vidtgående end den
semantiske ændring af de anvendte begreber. Det bemærkelsesværdige viser sig altså
i måden, hvorpå de forskellige dimensioner
af relationen mellem tidslighed og modernitet på både et strukturelt, et udviklingsteoretisk og et begrebsligt niveau og gøres
til genstand for en videre undersøgelse.
Ovenstående tematik befinder sig inden
for de seneste tre årtiers aktualisering af
tidslighedsbegrebet som grundbegreb i en
analyse og kritik af samfundet.3 Opkomsten af samfundsanalyser baseret på begreber som acceleration, hastighed og fart
udtrykker, hvad man kunne betegne en
temporal-diagnostisk tilgang, der tager
kritisk afsæt i forskellige former for strukturel tidslighed. Spørgsmål om eksempelvis
klasse, identitet, kultur og modernitet indeholder et tidsligt aspekt og derfor kan de
kun besvares på baggrund af en afdækning
af disse determinerende og underliggende
tidsstrukturer. Endvidere betyder dette, at
enhver kritisk tidsdiagnose kun kan gennemføres som en diagnose af en tids eller
given epokes strukturelle tidslighed.
Nyere sociologiske forsøg på en rekonceptualisering af det moderne enten som
’ufuldendt projekt’ (Habermas 1983) eller
som sen modernitet, der løber løbsk (Giddens 1990), som individualisering præget af
fleksibilitet (Sennett 1999), som flydende
strukturer (Baumann 1994), øjeblikkets
tyranni (Hylland-Eriksen 2001) eller bevægelse mod ikke-tid (Castells 2000) baserer
Nis Langer Primdahl
Side 40
sig i mere eller mindre udtalt grad på forskellige forestillinger om en moderne eller
senmoderne tidslighed. Disse kan opdeles i
to paradigmatiske perspektiver på modernitetsprocessen: modernitet som proces
præget af kontinuitet (Habermas 1983),
hvor den samme fundamentale dynamik,
gør sig gældende eller modernitet som
en proces af brud med radikale indbyrdes forskelle (Sennett 1999). Eksempelvis
kan der i henhold til sidstnævnte perspektiv sondres mellem en klassisk og en sen
modernitet – moderniteten forstås således
i faser eller epoker, bestemt af en eller flere
grunddynamikker. Med sit begreb om social
acceleration forsøger den tyske socialfilosof Hartmut Rosa i en begrebsramme, der
ligger i forlængelse af den kritiske teori, at
problematisere det moderne begreb om
acceleration ved at stille spørgsmålet om,
hvordan accelerationen grundlæggende har
ændret karakter i det senmoderne samfund;
går tiden hurtigere i det senmoderne samfund og i så fald, hvilke konsekvenser har
dette for det sociale subjekts måde at forstå
sig selv og sin tid på?
Tidslighed og acceleration
I bred forstand defineres termen ’acceleration’ som en forøgelse af hastighed pr.
tidsenhed. En båd kan siges at accelerere,
hvis sejlhastigheden er højere nu, end den
var før, og lavere end den vil være om
lidt. I en sociologisk kontekst kan nævnes
arbejdslivsstudier, hvor der anvendes en
operationalisering af tidsbegrebet i ’hurtig
tid’, hvor små arbejdsopgaver løses, og
’langsom tid’, hvor større projekter skabes
(Holt et al. 2013: 35). Her bliver acceleration et parameter for forøgelsen af antallet
af momenter i en given tidsperiode; antallet af små arbejdsopgaver kan således være
accelererende. Social acceleration udlæg-
ges her som en betegnelse for en bestemt
form for dynamik, der på den ene side gør
sig gældende som konstitutivt træk ved
alle modernitetens faser, men som på den
anden side samtidig ændrer tempo i bølger
og derved gør en epokal opdeling mulig,
eksempelvis mellem præmodernitet, klassisk modernitet og senmodernitet. Der er
altså forskel på accelerationens intensitet,
hvilket gør det muligt at bruge begrebet
instrumentelt i en analyse af det klassisk
modernitet over for senmoderniteten.
Også i nyere systematiske teorier
omkring moderniteten spiller denne forøgelse af alle momenters hastighed en
væsentlig rolle. Gleick (1999) betoner,
hvordan det moderne samfund på alle
områder ikke blot er præget af fart, men
ligefrem på fetichistisk maner er optaget
en effektivisering af enhver proces på både
mikro- og makroplan (Gleick 1999: 55,
Tomlinson 2007). Udlægninger baseret
på, at modernitetsprocessen er knyttet til
en form for grundlæggende acceleration, at
samfundet udvikler sig hurtigere og hurtigere, har siden 1980’erne været en tendens i sociologiske teorier. Koselleck taler
om, at acceleration udgør et væsenstræk
ved moderniteten (Koselleck 2004: 11).
Moderniteten indvarsler en ny måde at
erfare tiden på. Denne forandring konstituerer en ny form for moderne tidslighed,
hvilket har konsekvenser for andre samfundsmæssige strukturmomenter. Acceleration får dermed hos Koselleck status af
en overskrift for skellet mellem modernitet
og en præmodernitet. I den tidlige modernitet opstår ifølge Koselleck en ny form for
tidslig bevidsthed for så vidt, at historien
bliver tidslig, og det moderne sættes ind
i en tidslig ramme med en fortid, nutid
og fremtid (Koselleck 2004: 11). Hvis vi
skal bestemme, hvordan moderniteten kan
A r t e f a k t, m o d e r n i t e t
siges at accelerere, danner denne tidslige
bevidsthed en forudsætning for en sådan
bestemmelse, ved at acceleration som
strukturel dynamik kun er meningsfuld,
hvis historiens varierende faser kan sammenlignes med fortidige eller fremtidige
tilstande eller i en sociologisk kontekst,
samfundsmæssige konfigurationer.4
Paul Virilios teori og problematisering
af senmoderne samfundsstrukturer med
afsæt i fartbegrebet og den teknologiske
acceleration har ligesom Kosellecks teori
haft stor indflydelse for senmoderne samfundsteorier og teknologikritik, der tager
afsæt i tidslighed. Termen ’dromologi’, der
betegner hastighedens logik, og forestillingen om dromologiske revolutioner, hvor
produktionsprocesserne indtræder i en ny
fase5, har desuden indvirket på kritiske
perspektiver på teknologisk udvikling
(Virilio 1986).
Virilio forsøger i en teknologikritisk
retning at problematisere den moderne
fartsyge, og jeg vil derfor ikke bevæge mig
nærmere ind i denne problematik. Det
teoretiske greb, der er til stede her, er ligeledes baseret på accelerationens konsekvenser for samfundets forskellige strukturelle
niveauer og er relevant i nærærende sammenhæng, fordi denne ansats anvendes
af Rosa som teoretisk springbræt. Det
væsentlige i sammenfatningen af accelerationen og modernitetsdynamikken hviler
hos Rosa på en antagelse om, at accelerationen står i en bestemt relation til andre
afledte sociale strukturer og dermed udgør
et væsentligt element i samfundsmæssige
transformationsprocesser:
Det strukturalistiske træk ved Rosas bestemmelse af acceleration bliver her åbenbart,
når det begrundes, hvorledes denne dynamik fungerer som fundamentalt socialt
vilkår for samfundets subjekter og altså
ikke differentieres på tværs af eksempelvis
klasse. Her fremgår altså det, jeg vil betegne
accelerationens social-ontologiske position,
hvormed det understreges, at accelerationen udgør en mere fundamental, strukturel dynamik end eksempelvis andre sociale,
økonomiske eller individorienterede strukturer, som subjekterne potentielt kan være
ekskluderet fra på forskellig vis.
Der opereres hos Rosa ud fra et tidsligt
perspektiv, hvori den centrale dynamik
for moderniteten bestemmes som accelererende. Som beskrevet har denne dynamik flere niveauer og står i en gensidigt
afhængig relation til forskellige afledte
samfundsdynamikker på flere niveauer.
Dog er det endnu ikke klart, hvad begrebet
i mere konkret forstand dækker, herunder
eksempelvis i hvilken forstand forbindelsen mellem den teknologiske acceleration,
artefaktet og subjektets oplevelse af tidsmangel skal forstås. I det følgende analyseres, hvordan accelerationen mere specifikt
indvirker i forskellige sociale dimensioner,
hvilket leder frem mod en klarlægning af
dette i en modernitetskontekst.
Side 41
If the main hypothesis of this work is that
acceleration phenomena are fundamental
to the cultural and structural development
of modern society, it is not refuted by a
demonstration that large groups within
the population are excluded by the identified phenomena of acceleration because
they are, say, unemployed, sick, without
rights, or marginalized in some other way.
Insofar as they are excluded from precisely
those social spheres that are decisive for
social development their importance for
the structural and cultural transformation of society remains limited regardless
of their quantity.
(Rosa 2013a: 27)
Side 42
Nis Langer Primdahl
Accelerationens tre momenter
Hartmut Rosa skelner mellem tre former
for acceleration, en teknologisk, en samfundsmæssig og en individorienteret (Rosa
2009: 82). Den teknologiske accelerationsform er baseret på udviklingsdynamik,
hvormed teknologiske artefakter og vores
interaktion med disse udvikler sig. Som det
både anføres hos Marx og Weber, så eskalerer udviklingshastigheden på både producerede varer og produktionsmidler ved
industrialiseringens begyndelse, en udviklingstendens, der fortsætter op gennem
moderniteten frem til nutidens telemedier,
elbiler og høreapparater (Rosa 2013a: 71ff).
Som Rosa beskriver: ”This is the form of
acceleration that can be easily measured
and demonstrated […]”, altså en form for
acceleration kan der kvantificeres og således er direkte erfarbar; min bil kan køre
hurtigere, mere stille og mere miljøvenligt
end for 5 år siden, den nærmeste lufthavn
kan håndtere flere fly med samme antal
landingsbaner som tidligere etc. Teknikken
er et redskab, der udvikler sig drevet af en
bagvedliggende kapitalbaseret motor (Rosa
2013a: 49) Her lægger Rosa sig ligeledes
i forlængelse af Marx og Weber, når den
materielle, kapitalmotiverede udviklingsproces indsættes som et determinerende
element i accelerationsbegrebet. Men Rosa
er ikke blot teknologikritiker, og han ser
i modsætning til andre teknologikritikere
som Heidegger, Marcuse og Hylland Eriksen ikke accelerationsproblematikken som
udelukkende funderet i teknikken. Teknikken er således ikke oprindelse til en lang
række patologiske konsekvenser, men skal
i lige så høj grad ses som et forsøg på at
løse disse, eksempelvis har mange tekniske
foranstaltninger en tidsbesparende funktion. Dette paradoks vender jeg tilbage til.
Dermed defineres denne accelerationsform
som ”the intentional acceleration of goaldirected processes” (Rosa 2013a: 74).
Den anden form for acceleration
betegner Rosa accelerationen af sociale
forandringer (Rosa 2013a: 74). Denne
accelerationsform henviser til hastigheden,
hvormed organisationsmåden i samfundet
ændrer sig. I relation til den teknologiske
acceleration handler det om, hvor hurtigt
teknologiske landvindinger implementeres i samfundet på et praktisk plan. Med
henvisning til at det nutidige øjeblik, dvs.
det tidsrum, der står til rådighed for sociale
aktører til at udføre en handling lige nu,
formindskes parallelt med accelerationen,
definerer Rosa denne accelerationsform
som determinerende i forhold til denne
indsnævring (Rosa 2013a: 76). Den senmoderne vidensarbejder har mindre tid til
at træffe det samme valg mellem de samme
valgmuligheder end tidligere, og i den forstand sker indsnævringen af det øjeblik
eller den begivenhed, inden for hvilken
en social handling skal udføres både på et
politisk, økonomisk og personligt plan.
Der sker herved en reduktion i varigheden
af de tidsperioder, der omgiver og bestemmer praksisser hos sociale aktører på både
et individuelt og institutionelt plan: ”(…)
social acceleration means that past and
future must be rewritten in the various
areas of society at even shorter intervals”
(Rosa 2013a: 77). Den sociale acceleration
forøger kravet om synkronisering mellem
sociale aktører, hvilket danner bro til den
tredje og sidste form for acceleration, accelerationen af hverdagslivet eller livstempoet
[pace of life].
En sådan acceleration af hverdagslivet
bygger på forestillingen om en indsnævring
af nuet relation til subjekternes hverdagsliv.
Ifølge Rosa finder en art tidslig intensivering af dagliglivet sted for det enkelte sub-
A r t e f a k t, m o d e r n i t e t
jekt, en intensivering, der besidder både en
objektiv og en subjektiv side. På det objektive plan sker en afkortning af den tid, jeg
som handlende subjekt bruger på en given
handling; en indkøbstur tager kortere tid
end for 30 år siden, min kalender har flere
aftaler end mine forældres kalendere, da de
selv var studerende, og jeg er i større grad
end tidligere generationer i gang med flere
aktiviteter på én gang – jeg ’multitasker’
(Rosa 2013a: 78).
Since the heightening of the pace of life
should be understood as a result of the
scarcity of time resources, which means
that the increase of the quantity of actions exceeds the technical enhancement of
the speed of performance, subjectively it
is expressed in the growing sense that one
lacks time or is pressed for time and in a
stressful compulsion to accelerate as well
as in anxiety about ‘not keeping up’. The
acceleration and condensation of action
episodes then represents an obvious reaction
to these perceptions. (Rosa 2013a: 79)
Acceleration rises up from this regular and
equable basis. Acceleration is constrained
only by current technological capacity,
technological levels of development and,
importantly, the prevailing economic and
political tangencies. Acceleration is an
open-ended effect, but the clock remains
the overall (and underlying) coordinating,
organizing, rationalizing and scheduling
principle. The clock generates the necessary
uniformity, predictability and planning
capacity without which a dynamic economic and productive system based on pure
and unbridled competition would quickly
degenerate into chaos and collapse.
(Hassan 2009: 63)
Som Hassan her pointerer, er accelerationsdynamikken i den klassiske modernitet
baseret på uret. Den rationaliseringsproces
som Weber opererer med samt idéen om
arbejdsdelingen og den heraf afledte forøgelse af kompleksiteten, som vi finder
Side 43
Som subjekter er vores hverdag i stigende
grad præget af en erfaring af mangel på
tid, der ikke nødvendigvis stemmer overens med et objektivt mål for dette.6 Denne
oplevelse har patologiske konsekvenser
(udbrændthed etc.), når den slår over i en
tilstand, hvor fremtiden som mulighedsrum lukker sig.7 Det væsentlige er dog
at de tre niveauer, hvor accelerationen
gør sig gældende, betinger forståelsen og
selvforståelsen for både samfundet på et
makro-sociologisk plan og den personlige
identitet på mikro-planet. Accelerationen på de tre niveauer indgår i det Rosa
betegner som et accelerationskredsløb, der
kan bestemmes som en form for positiv
feedback-mekanisme, hvor de specifikke
accelerationsdynamikker på hvert deres
niveau understøtter hinanden (Rosa 2013b:
43ff). Eksempelvis fordrer accelerationen af
hverdagslivet og det heraf stigende behov
for rådighedstid, at vi anvender tekniske
instrumenter (f.eks. opvaskemaskinen) til
at spare tid. Den sociale acceleration gør, at
den tidsmængde vi umiddelbart sparer ved
disse redskaber i stedet bruges instrumentelt
på arbejde eller selvoptimering.
Man kan stille spørgsmålet om, hvordan disse ændringer i accelerationsstrukturerne kan sættes i relation til den klassiske
modernitet og den standardiserede tidslighed, der opstår i den klassiske modernitet.
Den klassiske modernitet implicerer ifølge
Robert Hassan en form for acceleration,
der er forskellig fra den form, der gør sig
gældende i senmoderniteten:
Nis Langer Primdahl
Side 44
hos Durkheim, tematiseres her i henhold
til accelerationsbegrebet. Standardiseringen af tiden vha. kalender og ure bliver
således et redskab til at tøjle accelerationen, at ordne og at udnytte den. Institutionerne i den klassiske modernitet består
og udvikler sig, fordi de er stand til skematisere den grundlæggende udviklingsdynamik. Dette viser sig på flere planer.
På det institutionelle plan effektiveres
de administrative processer ved hjælp af
standardiseringen af eksempelvis sprog,
tid og lovgivning, som på det individuelle plan knytter sig til både den rumlige
og tidslige sondring mellem arbejdstid og
fritid, der vinder frem ved det industrielle
samfunds begyndelse indtil midten af det
20. århundrede (Rosa 2009: 103). Der er
samtidig et skisma mellem orden, altså
evnen til at kontrollere og bemægtige sig
accelerationen og dens modsætning, den
fleksibilitet, der gør det muligt for institutionerne at følge med tiden. Derved bærer
accelerationen i sig selv en risiko for, at
de afledte samfundsmæssige konfigurationer og udviklingstendenser ’ikke kan følge
med’ og dermed bliver bremseklodser for
accelerationen. Det afgørende er, ifølge
Rosa, at der i accelerationen er en latent,
iboende dialektisk spænding, som i den
klassiske og sene modernitet manifesterer
sig på forskellige måder, dvs. som en accelerationens dialektik. Rosa beskriver denne
dobbelthed i accelerationen:
(…) social acceleration always carries its
own paradoxical countertendency within
itself: social rigidity. Therefore the central
question for an understanding of the statics and dynamics of modernity is how to
conceive social acceleration and societal
crystallization together on both cultural
and structural levels. Only an analysis that
is capable of giving an account of this can
claim to do theoretical justice to the historical formation of modernity.
(Rosa 2013a: 60ff)
I den klassiske modernitet forekommer
altså en spænding mellem rigide strukturer,
eksempelvis organisationsstrukturer eller
institutioner og en stadig differentiering eller
udkrystallisering, der fordrer en høj grad af
fleksibilitet. Og det er denne ramme, som
det accelererende artefakt skal sættes ind i.
Artefaktet som accelerator
Artefaktet indgår som del i en dynamisk
helhed og er tilstede på alle tre niveauer,
der betinger den sociale acceleration. Rosa
forsøger at besvare spørgsmålet om, hvorfor
individet ender med mindre rådighedstid,
når formålet med teknologien er at frigive
mere tid til rådighed for individet. Eksempelvis er det at opgradere sin telefon forsøget på at forøge individets rådighedstid,
sådan at jeg kan udføre en række handlinger, som jeg før var fem timer om, på
to timer. I stedet ender jeg med at bruge
telefonen i flere sammenhænge og dermed
øge forbruget af den til seks timer. Dette
paradoks, at artefaktet, her telefonen, reducerer individets tid i stedet for at frigive
den, er velkendt. Men hvor Rosas udlægning, der indskriver artefaktet i en større
helhed af accelerationsstrukturer, gør det
muligt både at forklare, hvordan dette paradoks opstår, og hvorfor man ikke kan håbe
på den løsning, som Hylland Eriksen taler
for, altså at afsondre sig eller fraskrive sig
brugen af disse tekniske hjælpemidler. Det
væsentlige er her, at artefaktet er indlejret i
så grundlæggende samfundsmæssige accelerationsstrukturer, at en afkobling af telefonen netop også vil medføre en afkobling
fra samfundet som sådan. Tekniske gen-
A r t e f a k t, m o d e r n i t e t
senmoderne acceleration og giver eksempler på udveje og strategier til at undslippe
samfundets fokus på forøgelse af hastigheden, hvilket kulminerer i det indledende
diktum: “The logic of the cabin deserves to
be globalized” (Eriksen 2001: 157).
Den tilstand vi oplever i den isolerede
fjeldhytte, altså en tilstand uden distraktioner og krav om fart, skal ifølge Hylland Eriksen udbredes til andre livssfærer.
Spørgsmålet er dog om grænsen for det
fleksible menneskes fleksibilitet, som også
Sennett beskriver, kan sættes her? De senmoderne accelerationsstrukturer er tvingende på en måde, der umuliggør en flugt
til hytten, og som Rosa også meget rigtigt
påpeger, så ser vi et stort antal af disse
coping-strategier, der mere eller mindre
selv-terapeutisk forsøger at myndiggøre
individet, sådan at det frit kan vælge, i hvor
høj grad og hvornår, det ’deltager’ i accelerationen. Det langsommelige udgør på
den måde ikke en modvægt til accelerationen, men fungerer snarere som ideologisk
skinmulighed afledt af accelerationen, der
foregiver, at ’slow-living’ er en reel valgmulighed for det senmoderne individ.
Noter
1 Jf. desuden Marx 1971, Durkheim 1984, Heidegren 2014.
2 ”[…] that with the rise of bourgeois society the
structure of time has changed drastically in the
direction of higher complexity, then we must
expect that this change will have its impact on every
social structure and on every concept. Nothing will
retain its old meaning.” (Luhmann 1976: 133-134)
3 Eksempelvis (Virilio 1986), (Heidegren 2014),
(Adam 1990), (Castells 2000), (Nowotny 1994),
(Harvey 1990), (Eriksen 2001) (Rosa 2013a)(Rosa
2013b)
4 Jf. desuden Rosa 2013a: 48
Side 45
stande og redskaber befinder sig i en form
for lukket negativt feed-back-kredsløb,
hvor den teknologiske dynamik, hvori nye
objekter - f.eks. ure eller telefoner – frembringes, på den ene side bygger på et ønske
om at bremse accelerationen og spare mere
tid, men på den anden side ender med at
forøge accelerationen af vores hverdagsliv.
Man kan altså tale om den tekniske genstand som en form for ’accelererende artefakt’. Det fleksible menneske, som Sennett
taler om, er således ikke mere fleksibelt,
end at en frigørelse fra de genstande, der
i stigende grad muliggør dette ’fleksible’
hverdagsliv, er umulig.
Hvis man godtager at Rosas begreb om
social acceleration og dette begrebs strukturelle betydning kan forklare, hvorfor en
tro på udbredelsen af hyttens logik netop
bygger på en reduktiv måde at anskue relationen mellem tekniske artefakter, modernitetsstrukturer og tid, melder spørgsmålet
sig, om Rosas accelerationsbegreb i mere
bred forstand kan tilskrives kritisk potentiale? Med sit begreb om acceleration
inkorporerer Rosa det tidslige perspektiv
som nøgleelement i sin generelle teori om
samfundets udvikling i moderniteten. Det
tidslige perspektiv besidder således umiddelbart stor forklaringskraft, idet forandringer i moderniteten, både på mikro- og
makroplan kan forklares ved henvisning til
denne grunddynamik. Derved vil jeg argumentere for, at indsættelse af det tekniske
artefakt i en teoretisk helhed, baseret på
ideen om social acceleration, underbygger
og ekspliciterer det tidslige perspektiv på
moderniteten på en sådan måde, at teoriens deskriptive gyldighed styrkes i forhold
til Sennetts og Hylland Eriksens teorier.
Særligt sidstnævnte teoretiker forsøger i sit
værk om øjeblikkets tyranni at kritisere den
Nis Langer Primdahl
5 Virilio anfører den industrielle revolution og den
virtuelle revolution i det 20. årh. Se desuden Beniger
1986: 196ff for en uddybning af fartens betydning.
6 Se f.eks. Holt 2013 for empiriske studier i en dansk
kontekst af denne erfaring af accelerationen.
7 Det står dog klart, at disse patologier indeholder et
klart element af tidslighed, den stressede ’mangler
tid’, ’fremtiden lukker sig’ for den deprimerede.
Jf. Rosa 2013a: 214. Ligeledes kan den senmoderne optagethed af langsommelighed anskues som
coping-strategier for subjekter i det accelererede
samfund , f.eks. populariteten af aktiviteter som
mindfulnes, ’slow-living’, retreats og yoga.
Litteratur
Side 46
Adam, Barbara (1990): Time and Social Theory,
Temple University Press, Philadelphia
Beniger, James (1986): The Control Revolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Castells, Manuel (2000): The Rise of Network Society,
Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, Malden, Mass.
Durkheim, Emilé (1984 [1893]): The Division of
Society, Macmillan, London
Elias, Norbert (2007): An Essay On Time, University
College Dublin Press, Dublin Press
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (2001): Tyranny of the
Moment: Fast and Slow Time in the Information
Age, Pluto Press, London
Giddens, Anthony (1990): The Consequences of
Modernity, Stanford University Press, Stanford
Gleick, James (1999): Faster: The Acceleration of just
about everything, Pantheon Books, New York
Habermas, Jürgen (1983): “Det Moderne – et ufuldendt projekt”, Det Moderne, Forlaget Modtryk
Harvey, David (1990): The Condition of Postmodernity, Blackwell, Cambridge, Mass.
Hassan, Robert (2009): Empires of Speed, Brill, Leiden
Heidegren, Carl-Göran (2014): Tid – Sociologiska
perspektiv, Liber, Stockholm
Holt, Helle et al. (2013): Et arbejdsliv i acceleration
– tiden og det grænseløse arbejde, Roskilde Universitetsforlag, Frederiksberg
Koselleck, Reinhart (2004)[1979]: Futures Past,
Columbia University Press, New York
Koselleck, Reinhart (2009): “Is there an Acceleration
of History?” i Rosa, H., High Speed Society: Social
Acceleration, Power and Modernity, Pennsylvania
State University Press, University Park, Pa.
Luhmann, Niklas (1976): “The Future Cannot Begin:
Temporal Structures in Modern Society”, Social
Research, nr. 1, årg. 43, spring 1976, 130-152, The
New School, New York
Luhmann, Niklas (1990): “Die Zukunft kann nicht
beginnen. Temporalstrukturen der modernen
Gesellschaft” i Slojterdijk, P., Vor der Jahrtausendwende: Berichte zur Lage der Zukunft, Suhrkamp,
Frankfurt am Main
Marx, Karl (1971): The Grundrisse,Harper & Row,
New York
Nowotny, Helga (1994): Time – the Modern and
Postmodern Experience, Blackwell, Cambridge
Rosa, Hartmut (2009): “Social Acceleration: Ethical
and Political Consequences of a Desynchronized
High-Speed Society” i High Speed Society: Social
Acceleration, Power and Modernity, Pennsylvania
State University Press, University Park, Pa.
Rosa, Hartmut (2013a): Social acceleration: A New
Theory of Modernity, Columbia University Press,
New York
Rosa, Hartmut (2013b): Beschleunigung und Entfremdung: Entwurf einer Kritischen Theorie
spätmoderner Zeitlichkeit, Suhrkamp, Berlin
Sennett, Richard (1999): Det fleksible menneske eller
arbejdets forvandling og personlighedens nedsmeltning, Hovedland, Højbjerg
Tomlinson, John (2007): The Culture of Speed: The
Coming of Immediacy, SAGE, Los Angeles:
Virilio, Paul (1986): Speed and Politics: An Essay on
Dromology, Columbia University, New York
Weber, Max (1995): Den protestantiske etik og kapitalismens ånd, Nansensgade Antikvariat, København
Natalia Hoffman
The Suckling Tree
In the following article I discuss the ritual of rite of passage, and more
specifically, I consider the peculiar Danish phenomenon of hanging
children’s pacifiers on trees. Taking a semiotic perspective presently
enriched by the anthropologist’s Arnold van Gennep’s theories of rites
of passage; I focus on the symbolic dimension of pacifiers as ritualsanctioning artefacts.
ties, which are performed in a sequestered
place, in a particular situation and with
adherence to specific, typically rigid rules
and manner.1 Rituals arise and wither, yet,
despite obvious differences across cultures
and times, they constitute an invariably
common feature of all known human societies, past and present. This in turn indicates some intrinsic need for ritualization
and symbolic actions. And although their
investigation through the lens of evolutionary and cognitive sciences is beyond the
scope of this paper, it is noteworthy that
the scientific advances of the last decade
have shifted the point of inquiry towards
uncovering how rituals become impacted,
shaped and conditioned by human biology
and environment. The scope of consideration has thus expanded beyond cultural
evolution alone in an effort to bridge the
gap between social, cognitive and biolo-
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 4 7 - 5 2
The connection between artefacts and
rituals is easy to draw, if only for the fact
that many rituals depend on artefacts for
their enactment and execution – with
items becoming enhanced with symbolic
(often sacred) signification in the course
of the ceremony. From this perspective an
opportunity for novel semiotic analysis
arises every time specific objects become
chosen and appropriated by a community,
assigned a function in a ritual’s performance and granted symbolic dimension.
There are hardly any limits to the kind
of artefacts that can be incorporated into
ceremonial practices. So is the case with
rituals at large – there seems to be no constraint to the form they take, the purpose
they serve nor to benefits they offer to the
participant. In a scholarly attempt at their
systematization, rituals have been tentatively held to encompass sequences of activi-
Natalia Hoffman
gical approaches to human existence. A
fully integrated formal approach is yet to
be developed, while behind the walls of the
Academia, collective life follows its own
independent rhythm.
In the city where I live, in the forest
I cycle through, grows a suckling tree
(Danish: suttetræ). At its core, the suckling
tree is just like any other tree, and indeed
more than one sapling has in time borne
that title. But on the outside, what distinguishes it from the surrounding forest is
the mere presence and the sheer number of
pacifiers that embellish its branches, as if
they were leaves of the non-deciduous kind.
Side 48
(Picture taken by N. Hoffman,
November 2013)
New pacifiers sprout up every time a local
kid learns how to curb his or her sucking
reflex. At that point, the family ventures
to dispose of pacifiers by hanging them
on the lower branches of the suckling tree.
Sometimes whole bags full of them are
hung, often with a damp personal letter
included. It is noteworthy, that rather than
chucking the pacifiers away together with
other kinds of unnecessary garbage the
families should choose to make such an
effort and statement. By extension, instead
of having this plastic and rubber decompose somewhere in the deep sea or inconspicuously poison the earth elsewhere; it
becomes quite proudly incorporated into
a natural setting. From a semiotic perspective, two things seem to be at play here.
Firstly, the perseverance of this phenomenon grants insight into the forming of,
and indeed the need for, ritualized actions.
The suckling tree marks a rite of passage.
Like any other rite of passage ritual, the
hanging of pacifiers signifies a transition in
a person’s life; here a transition from toddler to more fully fledged human who can
control his or her reflexes. Ancient Israel
had a beautiful custom;2 every time a child
was born, a tree was planted to honour
and commemorate the event and to bear
witness to the growth of life. But modern
life forgoes such customs as city-dwelling
makes planting of trees (and carrying
out of any other ceremonies that would
endorse nature at its raw) impractical for
most people. So what better way to reflect
on and follow the development of a personhood than to occasionally venture back
to the suckling tree, marvel at how much it
has grown, and try to spot a once-familiar
pacifier amongst the many that have been
attached to the tree in recent years. It is
not unlikely, that having others hang their
children’s pacifiers on the same tree can
foster an expansive feeling of belonging
to a community of like-minded urbanites.
It may also reassure one that delighting
in public displays of your child’s develop-
The Suckling Tree
detach oneself from the fixed point in the
social structure – e.g. shaving off hair upon
joining the army), liminal rites (or ‘rites
of transition’ which presuppose a stage of
ambiguity, where the very structure of one’s
personhood and social standing are temporarily suspended; one’s sense of identity
dissolves to some extent, bringing about
disorientation but also new perspectives
– e.g. during civil uprising), postliminal
rites (otherwise described as ‘rites of incorporation’ which mark either reversion to
the old order upon failed transition - e.g.
newly released jailbirds return to prison, or
else incorporation into a new, presumably
more advanced social group).5 Although
this three-fold structure of rituals differs
across cultures in manner of execution, it
was thought by van Gennep to form a pattern inherent to all ritual passages, and as
such – universal. It is noteworthy that by
suggesting the universality of the tripartite
sequence (and of rites of passage at large),
van Gennep made a bold claim – one that
not many anthropologists make, as they
tend to expose cultural diversity, while
shying away from universality.
The phenomenon of the suckling tree
concedes with van Gennep’s observations of
rites of passage and their structure in every
single aspect. It requires a child to leave
the old habit behind in a symbolic action
of parting with the pacifier, it involves the
stage of passing through a threshold – where
the child masters this new type of maturity
while the reversal to suckling reflexes is discouraged by the parents who act as authority and masters of ceremony, it ultimately
awards the child a place in a social group
with more refined habits. In other words,
hanging pacifiers on trees becomes a link
in some transition phase. Although peculiar
(and arguably exaggerated for what it boils
Side 49
ment is as normal as it gets. On the other
hand, this imagined community that the
tree represents can conveniently be referred
to in conversations encouraging the child
to give up the pacifier. (“When you’re a
big boy/big girl and don’t need a pacifier
anymore, we can hang yours on the tree.”)
It’s conceivable that the parent would typically try to involve the child in the drafting
of a parting letter and in hanging of the
pacifier – in this manner avowing the riteof-passage-dimension of the deed. These
letters would no doubt reveal more of the
parents’ projected feelings than the child’s –
while the departed beloved one is but a bit
of rubberized maternal connection, and the
loss voluntary, probably the loss is no less
real, even occasionally traumatic.3
The concept of rite of passage taps into
the general theory of socialization (formed
at the beginning of the last century by the
anthropologist Arnold van Gennep) and
refers to the milestones in an individual’s
life when one’s social status is altered. Van
Gennep’s analysis of ritual behaviours in
relation to the dynamics between individual
and group life brought him considerable
fame in anthropological circles, his theoretical formulations, however, have failed
to reach other branches of social sciences.
I will here briefly introduce van Gennep’s
observations, for I find them enlightening
and their application to semiotics of the
suckling tree – fairly obvious.
According to van Gennep, rites of
passage, which mark, guide or celebrate
individual or collective transitions in the
cycle of life and nature, are common to
every culture and share a specific tripartite
sequence.4 It consists of preliminal rites
(or ‘rites of separation’ – whereby a person
carries out symbolic behaviours in order
to renounce the current social status and
Side 50
Natalia Hoffman
down to), this ritual and the conspicuousness of its execution facilitates the understanding, supports the change and marks
the recognition of a child’s development.
In the semiotic microclimate of the
suckling tree, the symbolic action tied to
the ceremony is the most gratifying to investigate. The meaning of pacifiers as artefacts
extends beyond the items’ practical use as a
result of literally removing pacifiers from
their prescribed context and placing them
in a hugely incongruous setting: a tree – and
comes to connote the tender relationship
between parent and child, the pride connected to a healthy maturing of one’s offspring, and for the child the idea of a certain
achievement. The sight of families conspicuously tying these objects to the branches
af the trees, or the sight of them already
hung there, cannot possibly be mistaken for
an ordinary or mundane occurrence.
It becomes clear that as the pacifiers
stand for something else, they take on
the function of a metaphor; they serve to
explain and illustrate the somewhat abstract
and difficult-to-grasp notion of the passage
of time in more familiar and tangible terms.
At the same time, the suckling tree itself not
only serves as an emblem of growing up,
but it also acquires a mythical dimension.
It brings to mind the primal sacrifice of the
breast, of the action of sucking in order
to obtain the life-sustaining nutrients. In
this way, the tree embellished with pacifiers
resembling leaves, buds or fruits, symbolizes
the source of weaned nourishments, which
the child no longer depends on for survival (for the transition from dependence to
autonomy has been accomplished).
Van Gennep formed his theories over
a century ago. In the light of the suckling
tree ritual corresponding them so perfectly,
it is noteworthy that this variant of rite
of passage is relatively recent and scholastically unexplored. There are almost no
articles on the topic. One dictionary states
that the word ‘suttetræ’ came into popular use in the 90s,6 another source reports
the practice originated thirty years ago.7
Admittedly, it might not be a long time
for a ritual to fully crystalize and acquire a
status of ‘tradition’, however its widespread
character (spanning all major Danish cities)
suggests that hanging pacifiers on trees has
become a cherished custom. Additionally, it
appears to be unique to Denmark – I have
not seen or heard of such practice anywhere
else in the world and my extended research
in this area has been to no avail.
Given van Gennep’s assertions about
the universality of similar ceremonies, it
is also interesting to note that the need for
discussed here ritualised/symbolic action
is so strong, that no amount of resistance
on the side of vandals can suppress it.
Indeed, the moment one suckling tree gets
knocked over or cut down;8 another one
springs in its place. Well, not quite springs
– a tree right next to it gets assigned by
eager parents to bear the weight and the
meaning of the pacifiers. As a consequence,
a reigning suckling tree stands surrounded
by toppled trunks of fading significance.9
And so the second issue of semiotic
analysis concerns the role these trees play
in urban landscape and design. The status
of a suckling tree as living sculpture is
reflected in ditto peculiar collective and
amateur design, wherein new elements are
continually added, sustaining its validity.
It is quite remarkable that although a tree
embellished with pacifiers shows a complex even perplexing interplay between
form and meaning – its function and use
are plainly communicated and readily
graspable. To be certain, the phenomenon
The Suckling Tree
Notes
1 Merriam-Webster dictionary for the entry “ritual”
2 Cohen, online
3 It bears mentioning that in laboratory experiments
conducted by Aronson and Mills (1959) severe
inductions have been reported to trigger in initiates
the state of cognitive dissonance (psychological
discomfort caused by simultaneously holding conflicting beliefs, ideas, or values), which in turn reinforced their commitment to the rite of passage and
strengthen the appeal of the group they had just
joined. This has not been the case for participants
who underwent a mild to no initiation in joining
a group. In other words, upon experiencing cognitive dissonance, one is compelled to reduce it and
regain internal consistency by finding justification
for the compliance with the unpleasantness of the
initiation and the effort exerted to gain admission
to the new social group. Conceivably, in a child’s
eyes, the somewhat demanding and displeasing
parting with a pacifier will cause distress but also
contentment (further encouraged by the parent)
at personal achievement. To resolve this emotional disparity, children could either downplay the
unpleasantness of the initiation or raise the value
of the decision to give up on a pacifier. In consequence, this ritual might just boost the will to
further act in accordance with the decision already
taken, as to stay satisfied with the deed.
4 van Gennep, 1961
5 ibid
6 in Den Danske Ordbog: Modern Dansk Sprog,
online
7 in Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, online
8 Glasius for Jyllands-Posten Aarhus, online
9 It would likely prove revealing to investigate how
the relationship between Danish parents and their
toddlers differ from corresponding relationships in
other Western countries (if at all) as to result in this
particular phenomenon.
Bibliography
Bell, Catherine (1997): Ritual: Perspectives and
Dimensions, Oxford University Press
Cohen, Treasure for Ritualwell: Tradition and Innovation, Tree-Planting Ritual, http://www.ritualwell.
org/ritual/tree-planting-ritual Revised 20-10-2014
Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, Træer fortæller
historier, http://www.dn.dk/Default.aspx?ID=8733
Revised 20-10-2014
Side 51
of a suckling tree would not be endorsed
and cherished, if the symbolism and the
metaphorical bearing which sanction its
existence were not easily comprehensible or
conceptually justifiable. The success of the
suckling tree’s spontaneous (and spreading
across the country) design lies then in its
straightforward appeal and general accessibility – it is for everybody to use and for
everybody to partake in constructing by
simply imitating what others have done.
At last, given that pacifiers serve as a
metaphor for both the passage of time (on
a conceptual level), but also the tree’s leaves
etc. (on an aesthetic level), it is understandable that people tend to distribute the
pacifiers evenly on the branches (as if those
indeed were leaves, buds or fruits). It can
be argued that people crave balance and
symmetry in general, but it must also be
recognized that this craving is intrinsically
linked to our perceptual experience of symmetry in the natural world – by extension of
trees having evenly distributed leafage etc.
On a final note, the very nature of the
suckling tree sanctions the issue of saliva
itself – the residue lingering on pacifiers,
lending the suckling tree its nickname of a
‘saliva tree’. To be frank, every time I cycle
by it, I get slightly disgusted and almost
wish the vandals succeeded in abolishing
this urban ritual once and for all. To me
(who don’t have any children) the choice of
pacifiers as a symbolic object – as opposed
to, say, a rattle – cannot be detached from
the thought of saliva and the troublesome
fact that once the saliva gets out our mouths,
it becomes estranged and alien – few of us
would ever welcome it back. But perhaps
this is precisely where the strength of this
semiotic system lies; once the rite of passage
has been marked – there is no turning back
and we have something to remind us of it.
Natalia Hoffman
Side 52
Den Danske Ordbog: Modern Dansk Sprog http://
ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=suttetræ Revised
20-10-2014
Glasius, Maria Juel for Jyllands-Posten Aarhus, Børnenes suttetræer er fældet, http://jyllands-posten.
dk/aarhus/politiretsvaesen/ECE4683850/boerne-
nes-suttetraeer-er-faeldet/ Published 01-05-2012.
Revised 20-10-2014
Merriam-Webster Dictionary http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/ritual Revised 20-10-2014
Van Gennep, Arnold (1961): The Rites of Passage,
University of Chicago
Alessandro Miani
Musical beings:
is music an artefact?
Do we have musicality, or are we musical? To what extent is music an
artefact and how much does it shape us? It is suggested that our first
musical experience is in the mother’s womb, that we result from an
accurate selection by ancestral women towards ’musicians’, and that
music affects our brain, cognition and mood. It will be concluded that
the inseparability of humans from music makes us musical beings.
Introduction
Music is:
This statement reached such an impressive
amount of – reasonable – quotes that now
is a praxis quoting him to start a paper on
music. One can argue that even if music
was a cheesecake, then it should be noted
that sugar has an important rewarding
value, which also “solve[s] the adaptive problems of survival and reproduction” (Kanazawa 2001: 1143). Philip Tagg (2014)
estimated that our daily dose of music is
about 4 hours. Still, if music is not important for our life, then, why do we spend so
much time listening to it?
S e m i k o l o n ; n r. 2 8 , å r g . 1 5 , 2 0 1 5 ; s . 5 3 - 6 2
[...] auditory cheesecake, an exquisite confection crafted to tickle the sensitive spots
of at least six of our mental faculties. [...]
As far as biological cause and effect are
concerned, music is useless.
(Pinker 1997: 528-534)
Taking apart cheesecakes, music has an
unquestionable value in human life: for
example, the Pirahã culture, whereby language does not consider numbers, colours,
and even recursive mechanisms (Everett
2005), does have music (Patel 2008).
However, it is shocking for me that in more
than 700 pages regarding human evolution,
culture, and emergence of language, Tomasello (1999; 2008; 2014) never mentioned
music. Thus, by reviewing some studies on
the role of music in our life and the potentiality to shape our biology, I will raise the
following, perhaps provocative question: to
what extent is music a human artefact and
how musical are humans? Who made what
and what made whom? And lastly, do we
have musicality, or are we musical being?
By taking phylogenetic, cultural, and ontogenetic perspectives, in the first part it will
be addressed the issue of “music made by
humans”, namely, music as a trivial but
Alessandro Miani
Side 54
ancient artefact and its role in sexual selection. The issue of being selected for musical
abilities paves the way for the second part,
that is, the “humans made by music” argument, which concerns the music’s property
to affect the brain, cognition, and mood.
Music made by humans
Trivial but ancient
Steinbeis and Koelsch (2009) presented
atonal musical sequences to subjects with
the cues that the music was either written
by a composer or generated by a computer.
Results revealed that the cortical network
for mental state attribution – the anterior
medial frontal cortex – was activated solely
when the music was supposed to be written
by a composer. Paraphrased in an aesthetic
fashion, such results indicate what music
is: music is above all a man-made activity.
However, music is an activity that does
not serve direct useful purposes (see e.g.
Goodman 1968). Although the Kantian
idea of art fits well the aesthetic needs in
attempting to grasp the ineffable, it raises –
one more time – an obvious dilemma: why
do we do art if we do not need it? On the
lack of direct and evident gains obtained
by music, John Sloboda (1985) proposed
a parallel with sex: an individual can clearly
live without sex, but what then about the
entire species? Well, if nobody mates, then
species would obviously disappear. With
no doubt music is not as crucial for species
as sex is, yet music is a pervasive activity:
in fact, although having few universals –
mostly related to psycho/biological constraints (there is a wide literature, see e.g.
Brown & Jordania 2011), – music itself is
a universal activity among humans, and is
traced across all cultures in the world.
Music is an artefact. Evolutionary speaking,
it appears that there is a strong connection
between human’s bipedalism and artefacts.
Scientists (Mithen 2005: 144 and references therein) assert that bipedalism emerged in two stages: firstly, as a consequence
of the frugivorous diet, it permitted them
to use both hands in searching for fruits;
secondly, as a consequence of the climatic
changes in the African savannah, it forced
them to “stay tall and stay cool”. Bipedalism triggered intelligence and language,
which resulted from the new sensorimotor
demands due to the more unstable center of
gravity. It follows that the larger brain could
have been used for other complex tasks,
and the enhanced sensorimotor control
entailed a better dexterity for tool-making,
which, in turn, contributes to the expansion
of the cerebral cortex (Stout et al. 2008).
Evidence shows that at least 2.5 million
years ago (Mya) hominids used to produce
tools from broken animal bones and accurately select stones (Semaw et al. 2003); this
remained the finest human technology until
the hand-axes appeared 1.4 Mya. Yet, it is
surprising that those butchering artefacts
show a high degree of symmetry. Hence,
Kohn and Mithen (1999; Mithen 2005)
proposed the “sexy hand-axe hypothesis”:
females were attracted by such tools because
tool-making is a reliable indicator of cognitive, behavioral and physiological traits,
therefore an index of reproductive success.
Cues of ornamental objects (painted shells)
are dated 82,000 years BP (Bouzouggar et
al. 2007), while the discovery of abstract
representations (on pieces of ochre) appeared at least 70,000 years BP (Henshilwood
et al. 2002). These archeological records
are important in the way they attest the
emergence of the symbolic thought and so
the music- and language-ready brain.
Although it still nowadays to understand
whether the music or language emerged
Musical beings
before or simultaneously (Cross et al 2013;
Brown 2000), it has been advanced that
music preceded the artistic tools (Mithen
2005) even though musical artefacts appeared relatively late – voice does not fossilize (!). The unearthing of a well-preserved
bone flute (Conard et al. 2009), which
undoubtedly is not a “hyena’s lunch”, and
a mammoth-ivory Venus (Conard 2009)
attested that at least 35,000 years BP music
and figurative art were already habitual
practices among modern humans. Moreover, Cross and colleagues (2002) attested that lithophones were in use at least
40,000 years BP. Again, music is apparently useless, but ubiquitous and very
ancient; so, what was music for?
he did have sexual liaisons with hundreds
of groupies, maintained parallel long-term
relationships with at least two women, and
fathered at least three children in the U.S.,
Germany, and Sweden. (Miller 2000)
Consistently, the peak of music-interest during life-span is reached in young
adulthood, during the period of most
intense courtship (Miller 2000), and an
analysis conducted on Facebook revealed that a man who holds a guitar in the
Side 55
Sexual Selection
Since Darwin, pages have been written on
songbird’s courtships and peacock’s tails;
with particular emphasis, the latter has
been the most representative and quoted
case. The peacock’s tail is an honest signal,
the best tail reflects the best partner to
have offspring with (Miller 2000): its
size requires a certain degree of physical
effort, and the best plumage mirrors the
well-being of the bird. However, its colours
make the bird extremely noticeable for predators. Females, are picky because the costs
of reproduction is higher for them than for
males and they have less chances to produce offspring than the counterpart, they
are attracted by these “useless” ornements
since the energy the peacock spends to keep
its tail healthy is an index of well-being
for the reason that there are energies to be
spent on luxury “items”. Similarly, in the
contemporary society, elaborated houses
and hundred-thousand-dollar cars display
the faculty of having so much food and
resources that permit a male to waste them
on useless items (Levitin 2006), resembling
the “giant” (30 cm) hand-axes which clearly could not have been used for butchering
(Mithen 2005).
About music, Mithen (2005) is one of
the proposers for the music-as-sexual-selector hypothesis, arguing that (synchronised)
vocalisations had a twofold value for female
interests: on the one hand, the loudness of
the calls is an indicator of abundance of
males and so it does also for resources; on
the other hand, synchronisation is related
to cooperation, hence a display of certain
cognitive abilities. Music making and
creative behaviour in general, is an indicator of good genes: in a study conducted
by Haselton and Miller (2006), women at
different menstrual stages have been asked
to rate attractiveness of men who could
be either creative but poor or uncreative
but rich. Results have shown that at their
peak of fertility women chose the creative
man for a short-term mate. Levitin (2006:
249) reports that “women want to sleep with
rock stars and athletes than to marry them”
indicating that a creative man is good as a
genes provider, but the good dad is who
can economically afford child rearing. In
this regard, it is emblematic the case of
Jimi Hendrix:
Alessandro Miani
photo profile is perceived as more attractive
than who does not (Tifferet et al. 2012).
However, there have been also taken opponent positions: the human’s potential ability
to sing shows an egalitarian distribution
pattern, and
for every Bach with many children there
may be a Beethoven who died childless, and
for every popular conductor or lead guitarist there may be a lonely oboist or bassist.
(Fitch 2006: 201)
Side 56
In addition, Fitch remarks that the malebiased instrumental orchestras are more a
cultural phenomenon rather than a biological constraints, which can explain the 10:1
ratio between albums published by men
compared to those of women (Miller 2000).
Humans made by music
Phylogeny, culture, and ontogeny
As birds have wings and they can fly, so
humans have a language- and music-ready
brain (Arbib & Iriki 2013) and they can
speak and sing; birds have been sexually
selected for flight, while humans have
been sexually selected for language and
music. The gene FOXP2 is in a certain way
responsible for language as it is a component of the vocal learning ability (Fitch &
Jarvis 2013), namely, the capacity to learn
vocalisations which are not innate. This
is possible by creating a neural pathway
between the auditory and the motor regions involving the basal ganglia, a structure
responsible for motor control and sequencing (Patel 2008) as well as for processing
temporal patterns in both language and
music (Grahn 2012). Another condition
for the appearance of music and language
is the mirror system, which is a set of neurons (area F5 in monkeys and Broca’s area
in humans) activated both during observation and execution of manual actions;
they are supposed to play a role in both
language (Arbib 2005) and music (Fritz
& Koelsch comment in Juslin & Västfjäll
2008). Anatomically speaking, the lowering
of the larynx – as a consequence of bipedalism — permitted a wider array of sounds,
which, with enhanced sensorimotor system,
enabled humans to produce finer-grained
vocalisations (Aiello 1996).
Interestingly, DNA analysis has shown
that Neanderthals shared with us a variant
of the FOXP2 gene (Krause et al 2007), so
they also were potentially speakers (Dediu
& Levinson 2013) and able to manage
abstract thought (Rodriguez-Vidal et al.
2014). Yet, why did Neanderthals disappear? It may be supposed that they had
not the developed capacity for culture as
modern humans did. It has been suggested, for example, that a complex social
environment pushed the expansion of the
neocortex, since it is required to think
about reputation, social roles and absent
people (Gowlett et al. 2012). Such increase
in size permitted an enhanced capacity for
managing symbols and social interactions,
hence the cumulative cultural evolution,
namely, the effect by which a technology
is being improved without stepping back,
through imitation and innovation, due to
a faithful social transmission (Tomasello
1999). Interestingly, environmental information, like a traumatic odour exposure,
is carried through genetic heritage to offspring (Dias & Ressler 2014); its significance is that behaviour can be genetically
transmitted, in other words, culture may
affect biology. In this regard, the “neuronal
recycling hypothesis” (Dehaene & Cohen
2007) states that a recent technology (e.g.,
reading or mathematics), too recent to be
Musical beings
Short- and long-term effects of music
Once born, babies are still very attracted
by their mother’s voice: singing to infants
optimises their mood, induces sleep by
entering in a trance-like state and contributes to his or her general well-being
(Trehub 2003a); this is a universal phenomenon (Trehub 2003b). Roy and collaborators (2012) linked the soothing effect
of music to an analgesic one. Their findings shown that pleasant-relaxing music
reduces pain perception by inducing positive emotions, concluding that music has
a strong influence on pain.
Another study shows that music also
affects the consumption of sedative. Koelsch
and colleagues (2011) asked patients who
had to receive a regional anaesthesia to listen
to musical stimuli two hours before the
surgery; the same music should have been
played again during the surgery. Results
demonstrated that listening to music induces less stress and less need for sedation.
Music is also great to enhance cognitive
recovery after a stroke. In Särkämö and collaborators research (2008), patients who had
a left or right hemisphere stroke were split in
three groups and asked to listen to linguistic
or musical stimuli for at least one hour a day.
Results revealed that after three months the
music group reported far better performances in terms of verbal memory and focused
attention than the language one and experienced less depressed and confused mood.
Listening to Mozart’s music would
enhance spatial and cognitive abilities
(Rauscher et al. 1993). Despite the appealing “Mozart Effect”, it has been found
difficult to replicate (Chabris 1999), and
it appears depending more on mood and
arousal rather than to his music (Thompson et al. 2001), it is now recognised that
long-term musical training has beneficial
Side 57
involved in evolutionary process, involves
the cortex entailing a structural and functional modification that invades older brain
circuits – viz., how nurture shapes nature.
Ontogenetically, we are born already
musicalised. Music is a reflection of what
happened in the womb. Human sensitivity
to melody and rhythm is a consequence of
prenatal exposure to the mother’s voice,
heartbeat, and footsteps (Parncutt 1989:
50 and references therein), which create
the structured musical habitat. Voice,
because of the rhythmic pattern and frequency range, is the prenatal counterpart
of the postnatal melody: like the musical
passages, speech is often interrupted by
breath, while intonation provides melodic
contour. In the womb, speech occupies the
highest frequency spectrum and is rhythmically irregular, compared to heartbeat
and footsteps, which, in turn, provide
the rhythmic stability for the intrauterine
music. These elements, in addition to the
rhythmic regularity, have the peculiarity
of occupying the lowest part of the frequency spectrum as the rhythmic section
does in many musical cultures. Noteworthy, the rhythmic pattern of footsteps may
bias the postnatal beat perception: as a
matter of fact, due to the asymmetrical
position of the foetus, one mother’s foot
is heard louder than the other. Given such
a rich and structured musical environment,
it is not surprising to find that from the
29th week of gestation foetus exposure to
music can have long-term plastic changes on the developing brain, reflected by a
great ERP activity that correlates with the
amount of time spent listening to music
(Partaken et al. 2013).
Side 58
Alessandro Miani
effects on human brain. Neuroanatomically speaking, professional musicians
have a bigger volume of grey matter (up to
3%) compared to that of non-musicians,
especially in motor, auditory and visualspatial regions (Gaser & Schlaug 2003).
That is because throughout their musical
life, they are constantly involved in translating from visual-spatial to motor domain
receiving auditory feedback. They also have
a bigger corpus callosum (Schlaug et al.
1995; Ozturk et al. 2002), which entails a
better inter-hemispheric communication
and this can be manipulated by only fifteen
months of musical practice also in six-yearold children (Hyde et al. 2009).
The brain, however, is not only anatomically rearranged, but also functionally,
involving, as expected, auditory functions.
Such issue has been reviewed by Kraus and
Chandrasekaran (2010). In general, musical training does not entail an overall gain
effect; rather, it does selective enhancements. For example, musicians are better
to represent meaning from an auditory
input: in verbal domain, American amateur musicians were better than non-musicians in learning a Mandarine-like tonal
language (Wong & Perrachione 2007);
musically-trained children have shown
stronger electrophysiological response to
incongruent sounds in respect to their
native language (Besson et al. 2007), they
also have better verbal abilities, motor
skills, and nonverbal reasoning (Forgeard
et al. 2008). Moreover, despite the effects
are being small, duration of musical training during childhood correlates positively
with IQ and academic achievements, and,
importantly, such improvements are not
limited to a specific set of cognitive abilities and are more generally extendable
(Schellenberg 2004; 2006).
Music and mood
There is no need to read a paper to understand that music induces emotional states
(Westermann et al. 1996). The salience of
the music/emotion couple is evident by the
amount of topics published in the Music
Perception Journal: indeed, a meta-analysis
revealed that emotions were a quasi-pervasive topic (Tirovolas & Levitin 2011). The
emotional power conveyed by music lies
on the fact that emotions are deeply rooted
in music as a – supposed – consequence
of phylogenetic development from apes’
vocalisations. Emotional empathy underlying music exceeds the cultural boundaries. In this regard, Patel (2008) glorified
the magnificent and paradoxical power of
music whereby, though there is the assumed
referential meaning, it can be understood
and appreciated by people who speak different languages. As a matter of fact, when
music chills – i.e., when is pleasurable –, is
accompanied by different physiological reactions and engages the same brain regions
[...] involved in reward/motivation,
emotion, and arousal [which are usually
activated] in response to other euphoriainducing stimuli, such as food, sex, and
drugs of abuse [...]
(Blood & Zatorre, 2001: 11818)
and cheesecakes. This powerful and prelexical capacity to universally communicate
emotions brings humans to the pre-linguistic stage because emotions are processed in the “old brain” , bypassing cultural
aspects; hence they are universally understood for the reason that they are universally expressed in the same way (Fritz et al.
2009). Finally, Steven Mithen maintains
that happiness correlates with helpfulness
and cooperation-- happy people tend to
Musical beings
evaluate others more positively and think
more creatively; he then concluded:
how good it would be if one were always
surrounded by happy people – and if they
were no happy on their own account, how
nice it would be to induce a little happiness into their lives, perhaps by singing
them a happy song. (Mithen 2005: 99)
Conclusions
Following the “romantic” vein adopted by
Mithen (2005), conclusions are as strong
– though opposed – as Pinker’s statement:
we are made of music. The womb is the
first musical “ensemble” we experience,
which in a natural way forges perception
and the way we make music; plausible is
the idea that musicality had played a role
in sexual selection and is still doing so
nowadays; it has positive short- and longterm effects on the brain and is also able
to modulate pain; lastly, happy music may
contribute to create “a better world” made
of helpful and cooperative people.
The “music-made humans” statement
resonates in some respects with the example
provided by David Chalmers’ foreword to
Supersizing the Mind by Andy Clark:
Here, I would like to emphasise a parallel with music. In Clark’s view (2011),
language is an extension of thought, here,
Side 59
The iPhone has already taken over some
of the central functions of my brain. It has
replaced part of my memory […], it harbors my desires, […] I use it to calculate
[…], I make plans […], I even daydream
on the iPhone […]. My iPhone is not my
tool, or at least it is not wholly my tool.
Parts of it have become parts of me.
(Clark 2011: ix-x).
music is an extension of emotions; both are
part of us serving different needs: referencing and expressing. Fortunately, music and
language are more and more often considered as two sides of a unique phenomenon
which considers definite meanings on one
side and affective potency on the other (e.g.,
Cross et al. 2013; Koelsch 2011), not even
to mention the neuroanatomical overlaps
between the two (e.g., Maess et al. 2001;
Patel 2003). Are these two sides of the same
human being-ness? If the lack of language is
dreadful, then what about music?
The consequences of language deprivation are clear, as the (in)famous case of
Genie revealed, while examples of music
deprivation have not been reported – at
least in humans. Again, as for language, the
only possible way to measure the effects of
lack of music would be preventing people
from listening to it, which undoubtedly
entails social isolation and heavy repercussions on an individual’s well-being. Given
our anatomical equipment, we have evolved
for language and music, as birds have done
for flight. Therefore, separating humans
from music is tantamount to prohibiting
birds from flying. In this regard, it is due to
quote Alba, a woman who lost her legs in
a car accident: “How much of your body can
you lose and still recognise yourself?” (Peter
Greenaway, A Zed and Two Noughts,
1985) How much humans we are still without music? If cutting wings prevent birds
from flying, which part of the human body
should be suppressed to prevent musicality?
And lastly, given such inseparability, are we
just musical or we are musical beings?
Levitin (2012) notes that being musical
human beings requires many skills such as
reading, remembering, listening to, and
playing music. Yet, these should be fractioned in many sub-skills: someone is good as
Alessandro Miani
soloist while another as accompanists; there
are composers, performers and improvisers;
there is also some who focalises on rhythm
and some on pitch, and finally, some is
more sensitive than others. What are, then,
the requisites for being a musical being? To
be a healthy musical being is required to
spend some time in the uterus, having the
apt neural equipment, and experiencing
chills when a pleasurable music is played.
In other words, “being a human being” and
“being a musical being” are interchangeable.
Concluding with the Pinker’s cheesecake,
we are not a mere sugar-free surviving animals, but living animals, and music, like
sugar and fat, is an important constituent
of our being musical beings.
Side 60
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Tagg, P. (2014). Music’s Meanings: a modern musicology for non‐musos.New York & Huddersfield: The
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Thompson, W.F., Schellenberg, E.G., & Husain, G.
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FAGLIG KRITIK
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ANMELDELSER
Kasper Vestrup
66 Om Fornuftens Skæbne
Anmeldelse af Kai Sørlander:
Fornuftens Skæbne
Anders Dræby Sørensen
67 Michel Foucaults
idéhistoriske filosofi
Anmeldelse af Anders Fogh Jensen:
Mellem ting – Foucaults filosofi
Side 66
Anmeldelser
Om Fornuftens Skæbne
Kai Sørlander:
Fornuftens Skæbne
Information, 2014;
238 sider; 217 kr.
Kai Sørlander (f. 1944), har med bøger som
”Den endegyldige sandhed”(2002), ”Forsvar
for rationaliteten – religion og politik i filosofisk perspektiv”(2008) og nu ”Fornuftens
skæbne”(2014) erklæret sig, som en fortaler for rationaliteten og fornuftens krav til
menneskets etiske og sociale overvejelser.
Med den menneskelige udvikling som
udgangspunkt, arbejder Sørlander mod en
universel dagsorden for fornuften i bogen
”Fornuftens Skæbne”.
Som sagt er Sørlanders overordnede projekt i ”Fornuftens Skæbne” er at give et bud
på hvilken politisk dagsorden mennesket som
globaliseret samfund skal have for fremtiden.
Sørlanders struktur er tredelt: I første del
udforsker han fornuftens udvikling i historien, fra de tidligste samfund og til nu. For
derefter, i anden del, at diskutere hvilke
problematikker fornuften og rationaliteten
står overfor i det moderne multikulturelle
samfund. De overordnede problemer Sørlander ser i det moderne samfund er racisme
igennem partikularisme, som han historisk
set ser hos nazismen og fascismen, men i
moderne samfund ses i Islam. Andre problematikker det moderne globaliseret samfund
møder er den såkaldte højmoral i moderne
udenrigspolitik og markedsøkonomien.
Mellem de to dele har Sørlander indskudt et såkaldt mellemspil, kaldet ”Det
filosofiske omdrejningspunkt”. I dette mellemspil kommer Sørlander med overvejelser
over sammenhænget mellem demokratiet
og kristendommen og deres rolle i fornuftens udvikling, samt også en kritik af den
moderne kulturrelativisme. Sørlanders kritik
af relativisme er overfladisk, og han fremstiller
relativismen ud fra helt basale logiske kritikker, og igennem dette gør han hverken relativismen eller kritikken af samme nogen ære.
De andre problematikker som Sørlander
berører i anden del, altså Islam, højmoral
og markedsøkonomien kan også kritiseres
på visse punkter. Sørlanders redegørelse
for problematikken ved racisme igennem
partikularismen er godt skrevet og historisk
argumenteret for, sin seriøsitet og farlighed
igennem nazismen. Men at placere moderne
racistisk partikularisme på Islam, er en grov
simplificering og, i min optik, fejlfortolkning
af visse islamiske doktriner. Sørlander har et
glorificeret syn på kristendommens rolle i
den vestlige verdens udvikling og på samme
måde et nedvurderende, fjendebillede i Islam.
Det er ærgerligt for bogen, at dens afslutning
bliver reduceret til teologisk mudderkastning.
I samme omgang er hans kritik af højmoralen i moderne politik, som han især tilskriver
et idealiseret billede på integration og globalisering, en gyldig kritik af den moderne politiske tankegang. Men han kan selv klandres
for en form for højmoral i forbindelse med
hans tolkning kristendommen, hvis praktiske
anvendelighed bliver idealiseret meget.
Kai Sørlander har mange gode analyser af
problematikkerne ved det moderne globaliseret samfund, og politikken og religionens
rolle i samfundets videre udvikling. Man
skal dog ikke som filosof læse Sørlander for
dets filosofiske indhold, hans system er ikke
filosofisk omvæltende som sådan eller nogen
videreudvikling på igangværende filosofiske
diskussioner. På trods af de kritik punkter jeg
har listet op, er Sørlander god til at introducere til problemstillingerne man i politik og
i religion i det moderne samfund.
– Kasper Vestrup
Anders Fogh Jensen
Mellem ting – Foucaults filosofi
(2. reviderede udgave)
THP, 2013;
307 sider; 197 kr.
Side 67
I 1969 bliver Michel Foucault kaldt til en
lærerstol ved den prestigefulde institution
Collége de France i Paris. Jean Hyppolite
er død året forinden, og hans lærerstol i
den filosofiske tænknings historie er derfor
blevet ledig. Foucault får derimod en titel
som professor i tankesystemernes historie.
Ikke mindst på baggrund af hans såkaldte
vidensarkæologiske studier fra 1960’erne.
Foucault bliver oprindeligt uddannet
i filosofi. Han vedbliver med at forstå sin
egen tænkning som filosofisk. Alligevel er
der ikke nogen tvivl om, at han først og
fremmest forstår hoveddelen af sit eget
intellektuelle projekt som en form for
idéhistorie. Om end Foucault i sit værk
Vidensarkæologien fra 1969 også langer
ud efter den idéhistorie tradition fra blandt
andre Arthur Lovejoy. Derfor er det jo i
udgangspunktet også særligt interessant, at
Anders Fogh Jensen har valgt at sætte fokus
på Foucaults filosofi. Det sker dog uden at
kaste idéhistorien på møddingen.
Der findes et utal af indgange til Foucaults omfangsrige forfatterskab. Hvilket
ikke mindst hænger sammen med, at Foucault vedvarende forskyder sit eget fokus
og til stadighed udvikler sin egen metode.
Hvilket ikke udmønter sig i nogen filosofisk teori men derimod i en række konkrete
idéhistoriske undersøgelser. Undervejs
stopper Foucault dog lejlighedsvis op for at
gøre sig nogle metaanalytiske og metodologiske overvejelser. Som for eksempel netop
i det omtalte værk fra 1969, hvor Foucault
på en systematisk måde sammenfatter sine
bestræbelser fra 1960’erne under overskriften vidensarkæologi. Det er det her, som
jeg bestræber mig på, og det er det, som jeg
hele tiden har lavet! For derefter at indlede
1970’erne med nærmest at dreje rundt om
sig selv og italesætte sit eget projekt på ny
under den metodologiske overskrift genealogi. Af selv samme grund vælger de fleste
udlægninger af Foucaults forfatterskab også
at gå nogenlunde kronologisk til værks og
fremstille den vertikale udvikling i det analytiske perspektiv. Jensen har imidlertid
valgt at gå næsten modsat til værks, horisontalt om man vil, for at levere en tematisk indføring i forfatterskabet. På den ene
side vælger Jensen hermed at afvise forestillingen om, at Foucaults forfatterskab
er præget af en række faser, som er adskilt
af forholdsvist radikale forskydninger. For
at syntetisere en gennemgående sammenhæng i forfatterskabet. På den anden side
vælger Jensen ganske interessant alligevel at
udelade den tidlige del af Foucaults forfatterskab i sin introduktion og falder derfor
lidt selv i gryden med faser.
Jensens overordnede ambition er at
vise, at der er en snæver sammenhæng i
Foucaults forfatterskab mellem to hovedaspekter i form af tankesystemer og styresystemer. De er ”én og samme historie” (s.
14). Jensens systemiske fokus peger dels
på en læsning af Foucault som en udpræget poststrukturalist. Der er da heller ikke
nogen tvivl om, at især Foucaults vidensakæologiske værker fra 1960’erne befandt
sig i slipstrømmen af den franske strukturalisme, samtidig med at Foucault netop
afsvor strukturbegrebet. Langt hen ad vejen
til fordel for et fokus på systemerne, omend
dette begreb nærmest forsvinder ud af forfatterskabet i 1970’erne og 1980’erne. I
en snæver sammenhæng med at Foucault
Anmeldelser
Michel Foucaults idéhistoriske filosofi
Anmeldelser
Side 68
ændrer sin metode. Det er derfor lidt af
en tilsnigelse at ville sammenfatte forfatterskabet under en systemisk overskrift.
Når Jensen alligevel gør det, så hænger
det i udpræget grad sammen med, at hans
egen udlægning af forfatterskabet sker i et
systemperspektiv. Vi får altså en meget skematisk fremstilling af temaerne i Foucaults
filosofi. Og enkelte steder bliver fremstillingen desværre enten noget oprensende eller
nærmest så skematisk, at Jensens introduk-
tion bliver mere vanskeligt tilgængelig end
det originale forfatterskab. Til gengæld er
det et prisværdigt og for så vist også originalt forehavende at ville fremstille en
systematisk sammenhæng i forfatterskabet.
Jensens bog er ganske udmærket. Mange
steder er den også ganske letlæselig. Den
vidner om en stor indsigt i Foucault og en
passion for at fremstille hans tanker.
– Anders Dræby Sørensen
KONTAKT INFO
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OM BIDRAGSYDERNE
Kevin Crowley
Juan Olvido
Christoffer Basse Eriksen
Nis Langer Primdahl
Natalia Hoffman
Anders Dræby Sørensen
Alessandro Miani
Kasper Vestrup
Stud. mag. i Kognitiv Semiotik, AU
Ph.d.-studerende ved Institut for
Kultur og Samfund – Idéhistorie, AU
Cand. mag. i Kognitiv Semiotik, AU
Stud. mag. i Kognitiv Semiotik, AU
Stud. mag. i Kognitiv Semiotik, AU
Speciale-studerende i Filosofi og
Sociologi, KU
Forfatter, foredragsholder, mv.
Stud.mag. i Filosofi, AU
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Du finder call for papers for de næste to numre på side 6-7.
Skrivevejledning
Alle indlæg skal overholde følgende formalia:
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c)Artikler indeholder titel og et abstract på maksimalt 400 tegn.
d)Citater sættes i dobbelt anførselstegn og kursiv: ”Den virkelige verden har
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Citat i citat sættes i enkelt anførselstegn: ”Emiles Mentor tilføjer: ’Og
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Kursiv i citater sættes med almindelige typer: ”Den kaldes Den ydre stat.”
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g)Titler på bøger skrives i kursiv, titler på artikler sættes i anførseltegn uden
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h)Noter er slutnoter og skal bruges begrænset.
i) Litteraturhenvisninger er af formen: (Croft 2004)
Ved sidehenvisning: (Nicolaisen 2004: 40)
j) Litteraturlisten er for bøger af formen:
Croft, William (2004): Cognitive Linguistics, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
For tidsskrifter af formen:
Nicolaisen, Nis (2004): “Dommerfilosofi”, Semikolon, nr. 9, årg. 4.
k) Teksten skal være skrevet på dansk, svensk, norsk eller engelsk i henhold til
den seneste retstavning og kommatering.
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