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Archaeology of the postphotographic image: Photogrammetry, photometry, and the post-optical regime (in nineteenth century astronomy)
No full textThis essay focuses on a key aspect of contemporary, or algorithmic, photography: its auton-omy with respect to human vision. This characteristic pertains as much to the photographic gesture, in the latest devices increasingly less based on disciplining the eye, as to the very nature of the created image which, due to the algorithms employed, no longer corresponds to the perceived, the instantaneous, the singular. The article traces a possible genealogy of this apparently unprecedented version of the photographic, by reconstructing the moment 196 abstracts in which photography disengages itself from the act of seeing. This took place in the context of late Nineteenth century astronomy, in which an already “digital” practice of the ana-logue trace succeeded, first with photogrammetry and then, thanks to the labour of women “computers”, with photometry and spectrometry. The film negative was here construed as an archive of non-optical data which was nonetheless useful for the creation of maps or diagrams. These iconic acts – production of icons in Peirce’s terms – not corresponding to visual acts, but still indexical for their existential link with the celestial bodies, may also represent the semiotic model of contemporary technical images, for which, consequently, the label of post-photography can be reinstated.Questo saggio si concentra su un aspetto chiave della fotografia contemporanea, o algoritmica: la sua autonomia rispetto alla visione umana. Questa caratteristica riguarda tanto il gesto fotografico, nei dispositivi più recenti sempre meno basato sul disciplinamento dell'occhio, quanto la natura stessa dell'immagine creata che, a causa degli algoritmi impiegati, non corrisponde più al percepito, all'istantaneo, al singolare. L'articolo traccia una possibile genealogia di questa versione apparentemente inedita della fotografia, ricostruendo il momento 196 astratti in cui la fotografia si svincola dall'atto del vedere. Ciò avviene nel contesto dell'astronomia di fine Ottocento, in cui una pratica già “digitale” della traccia ana-logica si afferma prima con la fotogrammetria e poi, grazie al lavoro delle donne “calcolatrici”, con la fotometria e la spettrometria. Il negativo della pellicola era qui interpretato come un archivio di dati non ottici, ma comunque utili per la creazione di mappe o diagrammi. Questi atti iconici - produzione di icone nei termini di Peirce - non corrispondenti ad atti visivi, ma pur sempre indicali per il loro legame esistenziale con i corpi celesti, possono anche rappresentare il modello semiotico delle immagini tecniche contemporanee, per le quali, di conseguenza, può essere ripristinata l'etichetta di post-fotografia
History of the Earth, Laboratory of Revolutions
No full textWith the exception of the astronomical and cosmological debates of the 16th and 17th centuries, Geology is the scientific discipline that, in early modern and modern European history, seems to be most entangled with politics and authority—possibly the one in which some of the most anti-authoritarian stances of the 18th century were held. It is also the field in which (in an anticipated homage to Reinhard Koselleck’s famous remarks) for the first time the meaning of ‘revolution’ seemingly changed from circularity to linearity.
Keywords: History of geology, Earth History, Revolutions in Geology, d’Holbach, Kosellec
The Standard Pāli scheme on breath meditation (ānāpānasatisamādhi) and the Pāli Buddhābhiseka scheme
No full textA complete standard mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation development schema, ānāpānasatisamādhi, appears throughout the Pāli Canon and classical Pāli commentaries, such as the Visuddhimagga (Vism VIII 266-293), etc. The ānāpānasatisutta (M III 82) seems to contain not only a detailed textual interpretation of this practice, but it also explicates how this practice enables the practitioner to advance in a gradual way towards personal liberation. The development schema of ānāpānasati also appears in other places in the Pāli Canon, such as the ekadhammasutta (S V 311), girimānandasutta (A V 111) and mahārāhulovādasutta (M I 425), etc. Most of these textual elaborations on breath meditation appear in the teacher-to-practitioner form, or as a third person explanation. However, two Pāli Buddhābhiseka (Ba) texts in palm-leaf manuscript present an abbreviated formula in the first person in which the historical Gotama Bodhisatta himself elaborates upon the practice just before the stages of jhānic absorption. The Buddhābhiseka, apparently paraphrases the standard schema on the development of the ānāpānasati meditation as if the historical Gotama Bodhisatta was speaking, which also suggests that the copyist(s) may have potentially intervened in the text critical-editing. In the regular text, the schema includes 16 stages of mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation. The Buddhābhiseka schema is concise yet still presents all sixteen stages of breath meditation. This paper attempts to present the Buddhābhiseka version of ānāpānasati meditation development as it appears in the two palm-leaf manuscripts, and compares it with the standard application of mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation as handed down in the Pāli Canonical material. The two Buddhābhisekas present the exact same text, except that fact there are some occasional orthographical variations and some accidental text omissions. The paper discusses the editorial intervention in mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation textual schema made by Siamese Pāli experts and also discusses briefly the Buddhābhiseka text and intentions of its composition
A dialect type of Eastern first-layer Maghrebi Arabic
No full textThe present paper, building on the availability of new data concerning so-far undescribed varieties of Eastern Maghrebi Arabic, hypothesizes the existence of a dialectal sub-grouping of first-layer dialects stretching from Libya to Tunisia. New data from Libyan and Tunisian Judeo-Arabic varieties, in fact, present shared isoglosses that breach the traditional boundaries between Libyan and Tunisian Arabic. Most of such isoglosses, moreover, are also shared with Mahdia Muslim Arabic, a variety that so far represented an oddity in the panorama of Tunisian first-layer dialects. The hypothesized dialectal group would represent an older layer of sedentary Maghrebi Arabic, lacking some of the innovations that characterize urban dialects of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco
Gianni Vattimo y la debilidad de la política
No full textThis article develops the thesis that, from the text published in Spanish in 1996 Hermeneutics, democracy and emancipation, the weakness of politics is thought by Gianni Vattimo from the relationship between philosophy and democracy. That is, that philosophy fails to think politics because by using its categories with metaphysical bases it ends up, consciously or unconsciously, by uncritically accepting liberal democracy which, as some Italian philosophers have suggested (Agamben and Esposito), hides the danger of authoritarianism and which, as we know, Vattimo will call democratic fundamentalism. The weakness of politics, however, does not imply for Vattimo to renounce projects of emancipation, on the contrary, it means rather a way out in which hermeneutics, leaving its condition of neutrality, can, weakly, found a revolutionary ontology
Ripensare il pensiero debole
No full textThe paper offers an updated analysis of Vattimo’s weak thought. The first aim is to dispel possible misunderstandings concerning the underlying notions of truth, reality, rationality (Section 1). The second aim is to stress the consequent meaning of “weakness”, with special attention to its impact and relevance for the current practice of philosophical logic (Section 2)
Schemata Isagogica. Osservazioni sui prologhi di alcuni commenti logici del XII secolo a Isagoge e Categorie
No full textThe literary culture of late antiquity established a list of questions to be answered before studying an author or a text. Among other types of introductory sets, we find the six didascalica used by Boethius in his commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon. Twelfth-century commentaries inherited these requirenda, although each master felt free to modify and rearrange traditional elements. Within the logical commentaries, the Abelardian commentaries Logica ingredientibus and Logica nostrorum petitioni sociorum show some peculiarities, such as the modus tractandi; this feature is interestingly similar to the Notae Dunelmenses. With regard to Alberic and his school, we have, on the one hand, the information preserved in the H17 commentary and, on the other, the commentaries on the Categories of the Mont Sainte-Geneviève school. The authors of these commentaries were not mere executors of the master’s will, but their texts show an internal coherence in the presentation of the elements causa/utilitas/finis; moreover, they inherited Abelard’s modus tractandi. The most widespread element of all twelfth-century logical commentaries, however, is the entry materia; its origin is not rooted in Boethius’s commentaries, but it is typical of the literary tradition of the accessus
Una tarda critica a Cartesio e Gassendi di un tomista dei primi del ’700: la Dissertatio de modis sciendi iuxta Chartesii et Gassendi discipulos
No full textThis paper discusses an anonymous manuscript Dissertatio against Descartes’s and Gassendi’s theories of knowledge, dating from the first half of the eighteenth century and now preserved in the Biblioteca Forteguerriana in Pistoia. It is probably the result of Jesuit pedagogy, stemming from the lectures in which Aristotle’s works were commented on, drawing heavily on the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas
Le lettere di Quintino Sella (1827-1884) a Giovanni Capellini (1833-1922) nella Biblioteca dell’Archiginnasio a Bologna (1861-1884) - The Correspondence by Q. Sella to (1827-1884) to G. Capellini (1833-1922) at the Archiginnasio Library in Bologna
No full textThis is a business correspondence mainly devoted to two major items of scientific policy and organization. The one is concerned with the Geological Mapping of Italy at large scale as a new unite State, and the other with the updating of the ancient and glorious Accademia dei Lincei in Rome 1603. The second was fulfilled in the 1870s by Sella also with the help of Capellini well acquainted at the level of scientific organizers worldwide. The first, instead, failed dramatically for both inadequate investments and basic management disagreements between the pre-existing Mining Engineers Corp of the Savoia Kingdom and the geologist community assembled following the dissolution of the formers small Italian States. Sella and Capellini were good friends through their life, but enjoyed antithetic characters, thus benefiting almost complete integration which glimpse also from the correspondence