Abstract
“Either we know what something is, or we do not. If we do, then there is no point in searching for it, if we do not, then we will not know what to search for.”
“g[…] If knowledge is not to be identified with its object, knowledge is a matter of constructing, using and coordinating symbols.”
This article argues for a radical perspectivity shift in cogitating the urban, which involves an approach to infrastructures not solely in terms of functionality, but predicated on the pre-modern philosophical terms of capacities and capabilities. Characterizing infrastructures as technological means of maintaining a steady supply of existential basics poorly recognizes the peculiar space of potentiality they maintain and provide along with consolidation of steadiness. The advent of global logistics and media networks not only dramatically enlarged that infrastructurally maintained space of potentiality, but democratized it as well. This space of potentiality is transversal to the nature-culture dichotomy, and can be comprehended as an infrastructural component of urbanity. Thinking in philosophical terms of capacities and capabilities in relation to infrastructures entails the secularization of certain noetic figures related to technics, motion, and power that had a strictly metaphysical connotation while they were connected to cosmological or natural frames of reference. This article makes suggestions along the lines of how to conceptualize the triad of information, virtuality, actuality, which today ubiquitously accompanies, and is secularized by, socalled media reality and related technoscience—itself rather urban than natural or cultural—without the triad losing, in the process, the differentiation capacity of its metaphysical past, while being alive to its profanization.
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References
Ernest Nagel, “Formal Logic and Geometry”, in; Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science. Columbia University Press, New York 1979, p, 255.
For a discussion of this fault-line from a historical perspective cf. Bernhart Siegert, Die Possage des Digitalen, Zeichenpraktiken der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaften 1500–1900, Brinkmann & Bose, Berlin 2003
The main idea behind any hylomorphism is: “matter provides the potentialities which are actualized by the form”, cited in Istvan Bodnar, “Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy”, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/aristotle-natphil.
Cf. for an introduction to Aristotelian thinking particularly from this perspective: Ludger Jansen, Tun und Können. Ein systematischer Kommentar zu Aristoteles’ Theorie der Vermögen im neunten Buch der“Metaphysik”. Dr, Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Deutsche Bibliothek der Wissenschaften, Frankfurt a.M. 2002.
James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. Pantheon Books, New York 2011.
Gregory Bateson,Ökologie des Geistes, Anthropologische, psychologische, biologische und epistemologische Perspektiven. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 1999 /1981, p. 582.
Michel Serres, “Motoren. Vorüberlegungen zu einer allgemeinen Theorie der Systeme”, in; Hermes IV. Verteilung, Merve, Berlin 1992, pp. 43–91
Immanuel Kant, “Die Architektonik der Reinen Vernunft”, in: Werke in zwölf Bänden, vol. 4, Frankfurt a.M. 1977, pp. 695–709. What is less well-known today is that some years before Kant, Lambert had already published his book on an architectonics of thought. Cf. Johann Heinrich Lambert, Anlage zur Architektonik oder Theorie des Einfachen und Ersten in der philosophischen und mathematischen Erkenntnis, 2 vols, 1771.
Cicero, Gespräche in Tusculum. Translated into German by Ernst A. Kirfel, Reclam Verlag, Ditzingen 1997, 5.4.10.
Already in antiquity was there a vast dispute around the relation between geometry and arithmetics, relating to the notion of finitude and delineation. A science of physics needs to defend itself against the assumption of infinity in order to be systematic. In order to get a general idea of how in antiquity, the comprehension of a finite cosmos was sought after, cf. the short text by Archimedes: “Über schwimmende Körper und die Sandzahl”, in: Ostwalds Klassiker der exakten Wissenschaften, 213, Leipzig 1925.
Especially for the discourse around the theory of relativity in the first half of the 20th century, cf.: Albert Einstein, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”. In; Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 17,1905, pp. 891–921; Herrmann Minkowski,“Raum und Zeit”. Jahresberichte der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung, Leipzig 1909. The postulates of special relativity are undisputed today and have, e.g. via quantum electrodynamics, become the ordinary fundamentals in the design of computer chips.
Arien Mulder, Joke Brouwer (eds), Dick Raaymakers, A Monograph. V2_ Publishing, Rotterdam 2008 p, 10 [134]
In this context, it is important to define “formal potential” explicitly as it differs from some other concepts that might easily be confused with it. First, we do not mean that which is commonly referred to as “potential energy”. In physics, potential energy is a complement to kinetic energy, and in that combination led to the physical measure of work, related to die conservation of a momentum or force, which as a measure proved to be much more useful than Leibniz’ initial assumption to the same end, that of a vis viva. By mentioning here electricity’s potential of being converted into any form of energy, we are not calling either for a revival of the concept of vis viva, such as Helmholtz was tempted to do when wondering about the electromotive force in the 19th century. Our interest here is not primarily the physical conservation of specific potential, but formal conversion of the pre-specific potential. The assumption of primary abundance allows us to make this distinction. The indefinite potential we have in mind for electricity, is a purely formal potential and not in need of a physical constant behind it; this is also where it differs from Daniel Bernoulli’s principle of Virtual Work and from the d’Alembert Principle, which together form the core of analytical mechanics worked out by Lagrange—to which we will turn in a moment. For a historical overview of the evolution and interconnections of these concepts, cf.: Jennifer Coopersmith, Energy, the Subtle Concept The Discovery of Feynman’s blocks from Leibniz to Einstein, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, especially the chapter “A Hundred and One Years of Mechanics: Newton to Lagrange”, pp. 91–147.
Peter Greenaway, especially: The Tube Luper Suitcases, 2004, consisting of different films, exhibitions, books, websites, among other formats. In this project, Greenaway presents a history of the 20th century as a biography of Uranium, which of course can only appear in a multitude of forms and formats (this, at least, is one of Greenaway’s narratives around this project).
Michael Kober, “Die Funktion des Begriffs der Lebensform bei Wittgenstein”, lecture held at the DFG-Rundgespräch “Lebenswelt in Wissenschaft, Ethik und Politik”, organized by Felix Mühlhölzer and Julian Nida-Rümelin 11–13 October 2006 at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation in Munich, The manuscript is available online at: http://www.nida-ruemelin.de/docs/vortr_kober.pdf (16 June 2011)
Among his concepts for speaking about these topics, one finds for example notions like “galaxies”, “polycentric nets”, “lacework nets”, “alternating nets”. Cf, Kevin Lynch,[A Theory of] Good City Form, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1981.
David Graham Shane, Recombinant Urhanism. Conceptual Modeling in Architecture, Urbanism and City Theory. Wiley, Chichester, West Sussex 2007, p.7.
Henri Lefebvre, La révolution urbaine, Gallimard, Paris 1970.
Henri Lefebvre, La production de l’espace, 4th edition, Anthropos, Paris 2000. For an interesting discussion of his theory of the production of space cf. Fernand Matthias Guelf, “La révolution urbaine”, Henri Lefebvres Philosophie der globalen Verstädterung. PHD thesis, Berlin University of Technology 2010, available online: http://opus.kobv.de/tuberlin/volltexte/2010/2537/ (16 June 2011).
Henri Lefebvre, Métaphilosophie. Editions de Minuit, Paris 1965, here cited from the German translation: Metaphilosophie. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a.M. 1975, p. 43 [orig. p. 50].
Aristotle, in the second book, third chapter of his Physics, distinguishes four causes for a causality theory (material, efficient, formal, and final), These four causes are not to be taken dissociatedly, they “effect together”, inseparably. For an introductory overview, cf. the article in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Andrea Falcon, “Aristotle on Causality”, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/aristotle-causality/ (16 June 2011).
For an elaborate overview of the reintroduction of the energy notion in modern science, cf.—although no reference is made to the Aristotelian legacy of the concept—Cooper-smith, Energy, ibid., especially also chapter 14 entitled “The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat”, pp. 246–263
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, “Treatise on Nomadology—the War Machine”, in: A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia II.Trans. Brian Massumi. Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis 1988, pp. 351–423, especially p. 412ff.
For a historical account of Leonhard Filler’s symbolical strategies for coming to terms with an “algebra of seeing”, cf. Wladimir Velminski, Form, Zahl, Symbol—Leonhard Eiders Strategien der Anschaulichkeit, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2009. Velminski sums up what is at issue in Euler’s algebra of seeing: “Die Gestalt des Auges wird zum variablen Verfahren, um durch symbolische Operationen experimentelle Praktiken—eine Algebra des Sehens—zu erfinden. Und da Algebra die Kunst ist, aus unbeständigen Gleichungen, Ungleichungen und Identitäten Schlüsse zu ziehen, setzt Euler für Variable Zahlen ein, mit denen er den Vorgang des Sehens fokussiert”, p. 229. For a mathematical history of imaginary numbers and their applications, cf. Paul J. Nahin, An Imaginary Tale: The Story of i [the square root of minus one], Princeton University Press, Princeton 2007.
cited in: Leo Corry, “The Development of the Idea of Proof up to 1900”, in: Tim Cowers (ed.), The Princeton Companion to Mathematics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2008, pp. 129–142
Nietzsche defined his notion of “Will to Power” as that element from which simultaneously emerge the quantity differences between related forces, and the quality that applies to each of the forces respectively, as long as they are within the established relation. Cf.
Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche und die Philosophie. EVA, Munich 1976 [orig, 1962], p. 56ff.
Louis Hjelmslev, Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Trans. Francis J. Whitfield. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1961, Cf. the adaptation of this noetic figure by Deleuze and Guattari; “The first articulation concerns content, the second expression. The distinction between the two articulations is not between forms and substances but between content and expression, expression having just as much substance as content and content just as much form as expression, […] There is never correspondence or conformity between content and expression, only isomorphism with reciprocal pie-supposition. The distinction between content and expression is always real, in various ways, but it cannot be said that the terms pre-exist their double articulation. It is the double articulation that distributes them according to the line it draws in each stratum; it is what constitutes their real distinction. (On the other hand, there is no real distinction between form and substance, only a mental or modal distinction: since substances are nothing other than formed matters, formless substances are inconceivable, although it is possible in certain instances to conceive of substanceless forms.)” Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, “The Geology of Morals”, in: A Thousand Plateaus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia II, Trans. Brian Massumi. Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis 1988, pp. 39–74, here p. 44.a
They do not themselves call it this, but refer to the aspect of relative invariances within what they call “a function of stratification”. Their interest is to think about variance and variability in away that does not rely on any identity notion. Cf. for example: “Even though it is capable of invariance, expression is just as much a variable as content. Content and expression are two variables of a function of stratification. They not only vary from one stratum to another, but intermingle, and within the same stratum multiply and divide ad infinitum. Since every articulation is double, there is not an articulation of content and an articulation of expression—the articulation of content is double in its own right, and constitutes a relative expression within content; the articulation of expression is also double and constitutes a relative content within expression. For this reason, there exist intermediate states between content and expression, expression and content: the levels, equilibriums, and exchanges through which a stratified system passes.” The Geology of Morals, ibid., p. 44; or more straightforwardly: “A stratum always has a dimension of the expressible or of expression serving as the basis for a relative invariance”, The Geology of Morals, ibid., p. 43.
Which they develop in another chapter of the same volume: Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, “Treatise on Nomadology—the War Machine”, in: A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia II, Trans. Brian Massumi. Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis 1988, pp. 351–423.
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Bühlmann, V. (2013). Primary Abundance, Urban Philosophy — Information and the Form of Actuality. In: Bühlmann, V., Hovestadt, L. (eds) Applied Virtuality Book Series Printed Physics — Metalithikum I. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1485-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-1485-8_3
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