Please distribute to others who may be interested... You are hereby invited to a seminar in our twelfth interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108> (ECCO 2016-2017) <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marjoriikka_Ylisiurua>
Time: Friday March 31, 14h-16h Place: *room * *D.1.07*, building D, VUB ------------------------------ Consequences of the Symbolic-Imaginary for Big History *Cadell Last <https://cadelllast.com/>* *Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)* Abstract: Big history is the most ambitious theoretical study today because it attempts to ground a grand unified narrative (story/symbolic) within a total vision of reality (picture/imaginary). However, the dominant form of contemporary big historical discourse remains committed to scientific narratives and visions presented within the foundation of physical naturalist universality. In this paper it is argued that this approach to universality prevents big history from developing as a field capable of generating a novel research program and reflexively incorporating the symbolic-imaginary domain of observational interpretation into big historical theory itself. Consequently, in this analysis big history theory is first deconstructed in relation to its grounding in first-order physical naturalist complexity science and cosmic evolutionary maps. Secondly, this analysis proposes the first steps towards a big historical reconstruction project that takes on the structure of an inversion of standard theory that is still capable of approaching universality. This is achieved by fundamentally grounding analysis in the phenomenal perception of subjective multiplicity in-itself overdetermined by big historical grand narrative structures and totalizing visionary frames that move within a higher-order domain of meaningful virtual spaces. The truth value of these grand narrative structures and totalizing visionary frames is not legitimized by their correlation (or lack of correlation) with physical reality (i.e. scientific knowledge of the object) but rather with their ability to structure the motion of subjectivity and effect the becoming of the historical process itself in relation to actual social world transformations (i.e. historical truth of the subject). From this analysis the study of big history becomes grounded in the domain of historicity and is capable of approaching the way big histories function for individuals and social systems in scientific, religious, political, artistic, and other thought communities within a dialectic structured by mortality and finitude. Consequently, the "consequence" of inscribing the domain of symbolic-imaginary observational interpretation into big historical study is to focus attention on the subjective structuring properties and effectiveness of big histories (grand narratives, totalizing visions) in relationship to the historical and future becoming of humanity. ------------------------------ Upcoming Seminars *April 7th* Orion Maxted THE MACHINE (pt. 1) *April 14th* Sharon Wohl TBA *April 21st* Tjorven Harmsen Acceptance and Commitment Theory See also the ECCO/GBI calendar <https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=azMyN252aWluM2JoMnU3MXY5OGt2ZzliOGdAZ3JvdXAuY2FsZW5kYXIuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ> . You can add this calendar to your calendar application through here <https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/k327nviin3bh2u71v98kvg9b8g%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics> More info about the ECCO seminar program: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108 <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/108> -- Cadell ECCO Group (VUB) <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/?q=node/1> Email: [email protected] Website: https://cadelllast.com
