Israel Huerta Castillo

This paper analyses Bohr’s complementarity framework and applies it to biosemiotic studies by illustrating its application to three existing models of living systems: mechanistic biology, Barbieri’s version of biosemiotics in terms of his code biology and Markoš’s phenomenological version of hermeneutic biosemiotics. The contribution summarizes both Bohr’s philosophy of science crowned by his idea of complementarity and his conception of the phenomenon of the living. Bohr’s approach to the biological questions evolved – among other things – from the consequences of an epistemological lesson of quantum theory and in light of complementarity of observer as a priori living creature and ex post scientific explanation of the living. In a manifestation of the phenomenon of the living, each model of living system and its description makes accessible – from its own presuppositions, contexts and concepts – some features which are not accessible from the others. Nevertheless, for a general understanding of that phenomenon, incompatible sophisticated approaches are equally necessary. Bohr’s epistemology of complementarity turns out to be a heuristic and methodical framework for testing the extent to which biosemiotics can become one of the special sciences or its potential as a cross-disciplinary branch of study.

The study deals with an existential role of preunderstandings in the works of the leading founders of quantum theory. First, the study introduces Heidegger’s hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to the concept of understanding. Second, this concept is applied to various ways of thinking with which physicists (Planck, Einstein, de Broglie, Rutherford, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrödinger) approached the solutions of scientific puzzles and constructions of new assumptions in the development of quantum theory. The article seeks to contribute to the debate in the methodology and philosophy of science and points out that the role of preunderstandings is still underestimated.

I elaborate on the thesis that there are deep affinities between Plato’s dialogue entitled Protagoras and Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, as propounded in his Philosophical Investigations. After introducing the historical figure of Protagoras and the fictional character developed from it by Plato, a confrontation between the above-mentioned dialogue and Wittgenstein’s work is proposed. The confrontation itself is embedded in some considerations as to the nature and origin of language and the concept of culture and cultural history. The Protagorean metaphor of the closed contour of the human face, criticized forcefully by Socrates, forges links to Wittgenstein’s program of a therapeutical function of the critique of language. Using Stanley Cavell’s proposal to distinguish the voices of temptation and correction as starting-point, I will discuss some comical effects in the writings of Plato and Wittgenstein.

Nous vivons un nouvel air du temps. A la révolte des années d'expansion succèdent aujourd'hui l'indifférence et le narcissisme; à la logique de l'uniformisation succèdent la déstandardisation et la séduction; à la solennité idéologique succède la généralisation de la forme humoristique. Nouvel âge démocratique se traduisant par la réduction de la violence et l'épuisement de ce qui fait depuis un siècle figure d'avant-garde.Avec ce nouveau stade historique de l'individualisme, les sociétés démocratiques avancées sont situées dans l'âge "post-moderne".

Sometimes subjects have sufficient internal and external resources to retrieve information stored in memory, in particular information that carries socially charged content. Yet, they fail to do so: they forget it. These cases pose an explanatory challenge to common explanations of forgetting in cognitive science. In this paper, I take this challenge and develop a new explanation of these cases. According to this explanation, these cases are best explained as cases of norm-induced forgetting: cases in which forgetting is caused by social norms in a relevant sense. These cases draw attention to the normative aspects of the mechanisms of forgetting. This is an important but neglected aspect of cases of everyday forgetting, in particular of those characterized by a social dimension. By investigating some ways in which the psychology of social norms is causally relevant in the mechanisms of retrieval failure, I begin to fill this gap.

Herein, I review the shattering moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world and not in my head, discovering my perspectival center to be literally everywhere. Since awakening to the world takes one beyond thought and language thus also beyond the symbolic construction of time, it is strange to place this event and its aftermath as happening long ago in my life. It is forever present. This fact puts into question the reality of my daily journey from dawn to dusk with all the mundane tasks I must complete. My linear march into aging and death inexorably continues, yet it seems somehow unreal, worth a smile as the inevitable changes ensue. Still, I write of the events leading up to my time out of mind and then review the serious repercussions that followed when I was drawn back into ego only to find I did not have the conceptual tools or the maturity to understand what had occurred. I close by looking back with theories that might explain what happened. I am now ready to allow the memory to sink into peaceful oblivion and reference it from within my mind no more. Ironically, the memory itself with its façade of knowledge may prevent me from a new, unexpected mystical experience. Only by forgetting can I hope to leave a crack in the verbal armament of self, so the world soul may break through and free me once again.