thinking through theoretical things�

Presentation at MLA 2013

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Geoffrey Rockwell

geoffrey.rockwell@ualberta.ca

theoreti.ca

“The Miniature Train” from “Request for Good Relationship” (Brown U Library)

http://library.brown.edu/cds/perry/scroll7_Forkin.html

Outline

• 1.0 Why things matter
• 2.0 How might things be theoretical
• 3.0 Two things that can bear theory
• 4.0 Reading a thing
• 5.0 Designing the theory in

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Pannapacker

Amid all the doom and gloom of the 2009 MLA Convention, one field seems to be alive and well: the digital humanities. More than that: Among all the contending subfields, the digital humanities seem like the first "next big thing" in a long time, because the implications of digital technology affect every field.

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“The MLA and the Digital Humanities”, Chronicle, 2009

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/The-MLAthe-Digital/19468

Baird

Part of the reason instruments have largely escaped the notice of scholars and others interested in our modern techno-scientific culture is language, or rather its lack. Instruments are developed and used in a context where mathematical, scientific, and ordinary language is neither the exclusive vehicle of communication nor, in many cases, the primary vehicle of communication. Instruments are crafted artifacts, and visual and tactile thinking and communication are central to their development and use.

Thing Knowledge (p. XV)

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Plato

This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves.

Phaedrus

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Orrery

Joseph Wright of Derby: A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery,

in which a Lamp is put in place of the Sun

Methods Commons

http://digitalhumanities.org/humanist/MethodologicalCommons.JPG

Key Word In Context (KWIC)

KWIC

The underlying principle of the KWIC index is that words instead of concepts can be used for indexing. Keywords - i.e., catchwords or essential words- can be extracted from the title, abstract, or text, and can be used effectively in the index. The context about a keyword helps to define or explain its use, in order to lead the index user to the exact article, paper, or other bit of information he desires.

Fischer, “The KWIC Index Concept: A Retrospective View” p. 122

Busa in 1956

www.corpusthomisticum.org/it/

Features of Theoretical Things

• They display their workings
• They can be manipulated
• They are embedded in a theoretical context
• They are supplemented
• They are designed to resist or interrupt transparent use
• They fail

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Thanks

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Geoffrey Rockwell

geoffrey.rockwell@ualberta.ca

theoreti.ca

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Game & Watch

Heidegger “The Age of the World Picture”

From an inner compulsion, the researcher presses forward into the sphere occupied by the figure of, in the essential sense, the technologist. Only in this way can he remain capable of being effective, and only then, in the eyes of his age, is he real. Alongside him, an increasingly thinner and emptier romanticism of scholarship and the university will still be able to survive for some time at certain places. (p. 64)

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From Off the Beaten Track, trans. by Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes.

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