Feel free to distribute this announcement to anyone who might be interested. You are hereby invited to the fourteenth seminar in our new interdisciplinary series on <http://ecco.vub.ac.be> Evolution, Complexity and Cognition (ECCO):
Deixis and Truth from Aristotle to Poincaré. Karin Verelst (FUND, CLEA, VUB) Abstract: The French linguist Emile Benvéniste investigated the category of "les déictiques" in language in a series of articles from the 1930's onwards. At the hart of natural, spoken language is the "je-tu"(I-you)-relationship, in which the "présent instance du discours" - denoted by the act of pointing, by the word "I", or by verbal modality - structures denotation and reference - hence truth - as well as spatio-temporal relationships - hence existence - literally around him. The functioning of deictica is therefore exactly opposite as to how it is generally presented in more recent literature on "indexicality". I will show that deixis --- thus conceived --- is crucial (though often unnoticed) to a proper understanding of issues central to both philosophy and science, and will demonstrate this by an analysis of Aristotle's conception of truth in Metaphysica gamma and Poincaré's notion of "l'espace restreint", which is at the basis of his first formulation of the Principle of Relativity in 1904. The deictical world-centre or sphere of being established by every-body moreover allows for a straightforward interpretation of logical modality as it operates in Kripke-semantics, without being forced into incomprehensible "possible worlds". Finally, an outline of a potentially non-arbitrary ontological perspective on ethics is provided via Buber's conception of the dialogical relationship ``Ich und Du". When? This Wednesday 23rd May, 2-4 pm. Where? The seminar room is B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences computer rooms), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek. Coffee and drinks are available. Free entrance: everybody welcome! _____ Seminar Program for next week: 30 May Francis Heylighen Stigmergy: a fundamental mechanism of cognition, cooperation and self-organization Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/node/2623> More informations about the ECCO seminars: See http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1666 for the up-to-date page. Best regards, Clément Vidal. _________________________________ <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com/> http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com Evolution, Complexity and Cognition research group, Free University of Brussels. Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium. +32 (0) 2 640 67 37
