Metaphysical Organs from Leibniz to Marx

Metaphysical Organs from Leibniz to Marx Leif Weatherby Catriona MacLeod, supervisor This dissertation locates and treats the Early German Romantic project of finding or creating an organ for metaphysics. The Romantics derived their sense of Organ from a spectrum of meanings and etymological developments of the Greek organon, instrument. Simultaneously physiological and metaphysical, what I call Romantic organology was meant to bridge the critical gap between thought and being, and to provide a transition from the speculative to the political. What resulted was a kind of technological imagination forming a major moment in modern metaphysics. The term Organ had conceptual and metaphorical origins in German in the late 18th century--in biology, but also in the works of Leibniz, Kant, and Herder, it was always present but never semantically fixed. Indeed, its modern meaning ( functional part of a living being ) was established in the German public sphere only in the 1790s. Aristotelian scholasticism had long described logic a set of tools for philosophy, an organon. The organon\u27s etymological sibling, the organ, had a primarily physiological heritage ( sense-organ, internal organ ). Intentionally conflating the medical and logical notions, the Romantics imagined their literary-philosophical efforts as the construction of an ideal yet concrete tool. This project has until now been missing from the intellectual historiography of the period (and especially from the important works of Hans Blumenberg and Michel Foucault). Hölderlin, Schelling, and Novalis shared the project of determining what sort of knowledge can count as metaphysical in a world filled with antinomies created by the political and technological upheavals of the 18th century. A new metaphysics, they reasoned, would need a determinate means, and they exploited the term Organ\u27s newness and attendant ambiguity to underpin their aesthetic and philosophical pretensions. Hölderlin used it to found a metaphysics of tragedy; Schelling to bridge gaps between epistemology, natural science, and theology; and Novalis to lend weight to his universal encyclopedia. Goethe and Marx, I argue, both inherited this project indirectly, revising the Romantic project for their own metaphysical and political programs. Organology is at the basis of a surprising metaphysical legacy of Romanticism, which the dissertation reconstructs both systematically and contextually

The Profiling Potential of Computer Vision and the Challenge of Computational Empiricism

Computer vision and other biometrics data science applications have commenced a new project of profiling people. Rather than using 'transaction generated information', these systems measure the 'real world' and produce an assessment of the 'world state' - in this case an assessment of some individual trait. Instead of using proxies or scores to evaluate people, they increasingly deploy a logic of revealing the truth about reality and the people within it. While these profiling knowledge claims are sometimes tentative, they increasingly suggest that only through computation can these excesses of reality be captured and understood. This article explores the bases of those claims in the systems of measurement, representation, and classification deployed in computer vision. It asks if there is something new in this type of knowledge claim, sketches an account of a new form of computational empiricism being operationalised, and questions what kind of human subject is being constructed by these technological systems and practices. Finally, the article explores legal mechanisms for contesting the emergence of computational empiricism as the dominant knowledge platform for understanding the world and the people within it

Metaphysical organs from Leibniz to Marx

This dissertation locates and treats the Early German Romantic project of finding or creating an organ for metaphysics. The Romantics derived their sense of Organ from a spectrum of meanings and etymological developments of the Greek organon, instrument. Simultaneously physiological and metaphysical, what I call Romantic organology was meant to bridge the critical gap between thought and being, and to provide a transition from the speculative to the political. What resulted was a kind of technological imagination forming a major moment in modern metaphysics. The term Organ had conceptual and metaphorical origins in German in the late 18th century—in biology, but also in the works of Leibniz, Kant, and Herder, it was always present but never semantically fixed. Indeed, its modern meaning ( functional part of a living being ) was established in the German public sphere only in the 1790s. Aristotelian scholasticism had long described logic a set of tools for philosophy, an organon . The organon\u27s etymological sibling, the organ, had a primarily physiological heritage ( sense-organ, internal organ ). Intentionally conflating the medical and logical notions, the Romantics imagined their literary-philosophical efforts as the construction of an ideal yet concrete tool. This project has until now been missing from the intellectual historiography of the period (and especially from the important works of Hans Blumenberg and Michel Foucault). Hölderlin, Schelling, and Novalis shared the project of determining what sort of knowledge can count as metaphysical in a world filled with antinomies created by the political and technological upheavals of the 18th century. A new metaphysics, they reasoned, would need a determinate means, and they exploited the term Organ\u27s newness and attendant ambiguity to underpin their aesthetic and philosophical pretensions. Hölderlin used it to found a metaphysics of tragedy; Schelling to bridge gaps between epistemology, natural science, and theology; and Novalis to lend weight to his universal encyclopedia. Goethe and Marx, I argue, both inherited this project indirectly, revising the Romantic project for their own metaphysical and political programs. Organology is at the basis of a surprising metaphysical legacy of Romanticism, which the dissertation reconstructs both systematically and contextually

The Metaphysics of Data Capital

This talk traces the origins of data capital to the work of cybernetics founder Warren McCulloch and economist Friedrich Hayek, who borrowed heavily from German Idealism in providing the basis for the new economy. When data is capital, dialectics becomes the form of capitalism - and issues a challenge to rethink the work of critique.Non UBCUnreviewedFacult

Metaphysical organs from Leibniz to Marx

This dissertation locates and treats the Early German Romantic project of finding or creating an organ for metaphysics. The Romantics derived their sense of Organ from a spectrum of meanings and etymological developments of the Greek organon, instrument. Simultaneously physiological and metaphysical, what I call Romantic organology was meant to bridge the critical gap between thought and being, and to provide a transition from the speculative to the political. What resulted was a kind of technological imagination forming a major moment in modern metaphysics. The term Organ had conceptual and metaphorical origins in German in the late 18th century—in biology, but also in the works of Leibniz, Kant, and Herder, it was always present but never semantically fixed. Indeed, its modern meaning ( functional part of a living being ) was established in the German public sphere only in the 1790s. Aristotelian scholasticism had long described logic a set of tools for philosophy, an organon . The organon\u27s etymological sibling, the organ, had a primarily physiological heritage ( sense-organ, internal organ ). Intentionally conflating the medical and logical notions, the Romantics imagined their literary-philosophical efforts as the construction of an ideal yet concrete tool. This project has until now been missing from the intellectual historiography of the period (and especially from the important works of Hans Blumenberg and Michel Foucault). Hölderlin, Schelling, and Novalis shared the project of determining what sort of knowledge can count as metaphysical in a world filled with antinomies created by the political and technological upheavals of the 18th century. A new metaphysics, they reasoned, would need a determinate means, and they exploited the term Organ\u27s newness and attendant ambiguity to underpin their aesthetic and philosophical pretensions. Hölderlin used it to found a metaphysics of tragedy; Schelling to bridge gaps between epistemology, natural science, and theology; and Novalis to lend weight to his universal encyclopedia. Goethe and Marx, I argue, both inherited this project indirectly, revising the Romantic project for their own metaphysical and political programs. Organology is at the basis of a surprising metaphysical legacy of Romanticism, which the dissertation reconstructs both systematically and contextually

SYMPHILOSOPHIE 3 (2021) - Science and Early German Romanticism

This third 2021 issue of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" contains a main dossier of new research articles guest edited by Leif Weatherby (New York University) and devoted to the topic of early German romanticism and science. In addition to the papers of this main section issue number 3 of SYMPHILOSOPHIE includes translations of primary sources and book reviews. All contents are freely available online