http://www.marksussman.org/2008/03/28/units/ "On errands of life, these letters speed to death." Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:03:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 http://www.marksussman.org/2008/03/28/units/comment-page-1/#comment-9 mark sussman Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:14:09 +0000 http://www.marksussman.org/2008/03/28/units/#comment-9 I think I go to irreducibility because I want to think of the unit as a material(ish) constituent of other things, rather than a principle of containment or sets. So an atomic theory - which, so yeah, Wittgenstein for sure. The sociological thing seems interesting to me, and it also reminds me of the good old "network of signification," maybe because that conjures up images of interstitial nodes that would determine the network's structure. But nodes aren't quite units -- maybe Poovey's "History of the Modern Fact" has something to say ... I think I go to irreducibility because I want to think of the unit as a material(ish) constituent of other things, rather than a principle of containment or sets. So an atomic theory – which, so yeah, Wittgenstein for sure. The sociological thing seems interesting to me, and it also reminds me of the good old “network of signification,” maybe because that conjures up images of interstitial nodes that would determine the network’s structure. But nodes aren’t quite units — maybe Poovey’s “History of the Modern Fact” has something to say …

]]> http://www.marksussman.org/2008/03/28/units/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Roque Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:41:48 +0000 http://www.marksussman.org/2008/03/28/units/#comment-8 wow your questions zoom out to super-meta status really quickly! Wittgenstein's Tractatus (hah as opposed to Spinoza's?) was the first thing that jumped to mind when I read this post; there you seem to have irreducibility as a major if tacit element of his whole epistemic program: units of language corresponding to units of the world/reality; of course the dude later realized the formalization of that unit-to-unit relationship != the end of philosophy; but hell I bought it; the irreducible unit for some reason makes me think of social isolation which makes me think of monads and anomie; I suppose an association with Gödel (and by extension Hilbert) enters my mind too; maybe the theory of the unit will be emerge in the endgame of some sociological/epistemological Langlands program in the future wow your questions zoom out to super-meta status really quickly! Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (hah as opposed to Spinoza’s?) was the first thing that jumped to mind when I read this post; there you seem to have irreducibility as a major if tacit element of his whole epistemic program: units of language corresponding to units of the world/reality; of course the dude later realized the formalization of that unit-to-unit relationship != the end of philosophy; but hell I bought it; the irreducible unit for some reason makes me think of social isolation which makes me think of monads and anomie; I suppose an association with Gödel (and by extension Hilbert) enters my mind too; maybe the theory of the unit will be emerge in the endgame of some sociological/epistemological Langlands program in the future

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