Infinite families of finite string rewriting systems and their confluence

International audienceWe introduce parameterized rewrite systems for describing infinite families of finite string rewrite systems depending upon non-negative integer pa- rameters, as well as ways to reason uniformly over these families. Unlike previous work, the vocabulary on which a rewrite system in the family is built depends it- self on the integer parameters. Rewriting makes use of a toolkit for parameterized words which allows to describe a rewrite step made independently by all systems in an infinite family by a single, effective parameterized rewrite step. The main result is a confluence test for all systems in a family at once, based on a critical pair lemma classically based on computing finitely many overlaps between left- hand sides of parameterized rules and then checking for their joinability (which decidability is not garanteed)

Mosaics of the self : Kantian objects and female subjects in the work of Claire Goll and Paula Ludwig

In this thesis, I use poetic texts by two German women Expressionist authors, Claire Gull and Paula Ludwig, to examine questions of selfhood, aesthetics and sexual difference within a Kantian philosophical frame. The thesis is structured in two parts. In Part One, I situate the project via a critical examination of Lyotard's reworking of the Kanlian sublime. I argue that Lyotard closes down the gaps within Kant's system that feminist philosophy could usefully exploit and explore. I then position German Expressionism as an alternative mode of post-Kantianism. I argue that although the male Expressionist poets break down the Kantian subject-object distinction, they continue to position woman as the "other". There follows a brief bridging section, in which I outline work by some of the key women Expressionists, and argue that the theoretical frameworks used in Expressionist scholarship are inherently gendered. In Part Two of the thesis, I explore texts by both Go!! and Ludwig in detail. I argue that whilst the male Expressionists are concerned with dissolving male subjecthood, these writers can be read as subverting Kantian space-time to produce alternative modes of female selfhood and of the sublime. In chapter 4,! examine Goll's disruptive exploration of a mode of embodied selfhood generated through productive play and movements of relationality. Chapters 5 and 6 extend the theme of relationally generated selfhood by tracing the subversive use of neoplatonic and Orphic elements in a short story by Goll. In chapter 7, I show how Ludwig radically reconfigures the limits of\ud both body and self to produce identities no longer constructed via oppositional boundaries in the manner of the Kantian subject. I conclude by arguing that the work of these authors provides feminist philosophy with productive models for rethinking immanent transcendence and relationally generated selfhood which can incorporate both difference and change

Enacting Enaction-Enaction Enacted: Experiments With and Through Enactive Ontologies

Over the last three decades the enactive approach to life, mind and nature has exerted an impressive amount of influence across a broad range of disciplines and varied research topics. At the core of the enactive approach is a thorough rejection of a number of modernist ideals and tenets; from anthropocentrism, determinism and reductionism to a host of deeply entrenched dualisms found across academia and beyond. This work brings this rejection of certain modernist tenets – qua ‘enactive matters of concern’ – into dialogue with Bruno Latour’s analysis of modernity. This is done primarily as a means to explore, to think-with and through, how and where certain enactive theorists not only reject these modernist tenets but also often reproduce them. Drawing from work in science and technology studies (STS), feminist science studies and anthropology, this work then attempts to ‘bring to light’ the different contrasting worlds enacted by certain enactive theorists. It explores how, in and through the development of ‘autopoietic enactivism’, these contrasting worlds are enacted in relation to key aspects of modernist thought and practice

A Shine of Truth in the "universal delusional context of reification" (Theodor W. Adorno)

“A Shine of Truth in the ‘universal delusional context of reification’ (Theodor W. Adorno)” comprend sept chapitres, un prologue et un épilogue. Chaque partie se construit à deux niveaux : (1) à partir des liens qui se tissent entre les phrases contiguës ; et (2) à partir des liens qui se tissent entre les phrases non contiguës. Les incipit des paragraphes forment l’argument principal de la thèse. Le sujet de la thèse, Schein (apparence, illusion, clarté) est abordé de manière non formaliste, c’est à dire, de manière que la forme donne d’elle-même une idée de la chose : illusion comme contradiction imposée. Bien que le sujet de la thèse soit l’illusion, son but est la vérité. Le Chapitre I présente une dialectique de perspectives (celles de Marx, de Lukács, de Hegel, de Horkheimer et d'Adorno) pour arriver à un critère de vérité, compte tenu du contexte d’aveuglement universel de la réification ; c’est la détermination de la dissolution de l’apparence. Le Chapitre II présente le concept d’apparence esthétique—une apparence réversible qui s’oppose à l’apparence sociale générée par l’industrie de la culture. Le Chapitre III cherche à savoir si la vérité en philosophie et la vérité en art sont deux genres distincts de vérités. Le Chapitre IV détermine si l’appel à la vérité comme immédiateté de l’expression, fait par le mouvement expressionniste du 20e siècle, est nouveau, jugé à l’aune d’un important antécédent à l’expressionisme musical : « Der Dichter spricht » de Robert Schumann. Le Chapitre V se penche sur la question à savoir si le montage inorganique est plus avancé que l’expressionisme. Le Chapitre VI reprend là où Peter Bürger clôt son essai Theorie de l’avant-garde : ce chapitre cherche à savoir à quel point l’oeuvre d’art après le Dada et le Surréalisme correspond au modèle hégélien de la « prose ». Le Chapitre VII soutient que Dichterliebe, op. 48, (1840), est une oeuvre d’art vraie. Trois conclusions résultent de cette analyse musicale détaillée : (1) en exploitant, dans certains passages, une ambigüité dans les règles de l’harmonie qui fait en sorte tous les douze tons sont admis dans l’harmonie, l’Opus 48 anticipe sur Schoenberg—tout en restant une musique tonale ; (2) l’Opus 48, no 1 cache une tonalité secrète : à l'oeil, sa tonalité est soit la majeur, soit fa-dièse mineur, mais une nouvelle analyse dans la napolitaine de do-dièse majeur est proposée ici ; (3) une modulation passagère à la napolitaine dans l’Opus 48, no 12 contient l’autre « moitié » de la cadence interrompue à la fin de l’Opus 48, no 1. Considérés à la lumière de la société fausse, l’Allemagne des années 1930, ces trois aspects anti-organiques témoignent d’une conscience avancée. La seule praxis de vie qu’apporte l’art, selon Adorno, est la remémoration. Mais l’effet social ultime de garder la souffrance vécue en souvenir est non négligeable : l’émancipation universelle.“A Shine of Truth in the ‘universal delusional context of reification’ (Theodor W. Adorno)” defends Adorno’s aesthetics as a theory of advanced, or avant-garde, artworks. Its seven chapters show that aesthetic experience implies liberation from illusion (Schein). Chapter I engages a dialectic of viewpoints to explain how different dialectical thinkers (Marx, Lukács, Hegel, Horkheimer, Adorno) have contributed to a criterion of truth adequate to today’s total delusional context of reification—determinate negation of illusion. Chapter II introduces the concept of artistic aesthetic illusion—a reversible illusion opposed to the social illusions of mechanical musical reproduction and of the culture industry. Chapter III examines the question of whether truth in philosophy is a different kind of truth than truth in art. Chapter IV considers whether truth in twentieth-century Expressionism is a new truth based on immediate expression, in light of an important precedent for Expressionism in Robert Schumann’s “Der Dichter spricht.” Chapter V determines whether inorganic montage is more advanced than Expressionism. Chapter VI takes up a parting suggestion of Peter Bürger: to treat artworks after Dada and Surrealism on the model of “prose” in Hegel’s aesthetics. Chapter VII pursues the idea that Dichterliebe, op. 48, (1840) by Robert Schumann is a true artwork. Three results emerge from this close musical analysis: (1) exploiting, on occasion, an ambiguity in the rules for figuration that permits all twelve tones in the harmony, Schumann anticipates Schoenberg; (2) Op. 48, No. 1 is in a hidden key: to all appearances, its key is either A major or F-sharp minor, but its secret key is the Neapolitan region applied to C-sharp major; (3) the other “half” of the cadence with which Op. 48, No. 1 breaks off suddenly may be found in a brief applied-Neapolitan passage in No. 12. The thesis argued is that the antiorganicity in such a work is advanced with regard to the false reality of 1930s Germany and the place of organicity therein. According to Adorno, the only life-praxis afforded by art is remembrance. But the social effect of remembering social suffering is considerable when the Here-and-Now is its own justification