Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/652

Browse

Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Philosophy) by Subject "Badiou, Alain"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Potential economies : complexity, novelty and the event
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2011-12) Human, Oliver; Cilliers, Paul; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The primary concern of this dissertation will be to understand under what conditions novelty arises within a system. In classical philosophy, the notion of novelty is usually said to arise out of an event. However, the notion of an event often carries with it metaphysical and conservative implications. Therefore, part of the concern of this dissertation is to begin to develop an approach to novelty which is not dependent upon the event. This approach is developed through the insights offered by Critical Complexity and post‐structuralist philosophy. In social science the model of the frame has dominated how to think about the limitations to the context specific nature of knowledge. Instead of the analogy of a frame, this dissertation argues that it is better to adopt the notion of an ‘economy’. This is due to the fact that the notion of an economy allows social scientists to better theorize the relationships which constitute the models they create. The argument for an economy is made by exploring the connections between the work of Jacques Derrida, the complexity theorist Edgar Morin and Georges Bataille. However, when using the notion of an economy, one must always take the excess of this economy into consideration. This excess always feeds back to disrupt the economy from which it is excluded. Using terms developed in complexity theory, this dissertation illustrates how a system adapts to the environment by using this excess. Due to this there can never be a comprehensively modelled complex system because there are always facets of this system which remain hidden to the observer. The work of Alain Badiou, whose central concern is the notion of novelty arising out of an event, is introduced. The implications of depending on the event for novelty to arise are drawn out by discussing the affinities between the work of Derrida and Badiou. In this regard, Derrida’s use of the term ‘event’ much more readily agrees with a complexity informed understanding of the term in contrast to the quasi‐religious definition which Badiou uses. This complexity‐informed understanding of the event illustrates that what the event reveals is simultaneously a dearth and wealth of possibilities yet to be realized. Therefore the event cannot be depended upon to produce novelty. However, the notion of the event must not be discarded too quickly; classical science has traditionally discarded this idea due to its reductive approach. The idea of process opens up an understanding of the radical novelties produced in history to the possibility of the event and to a new understanding of ontology. This dissertation proposes that one can begin to think about radical forms of novelty without the event through the notion of experimentation. This approach allows one to engage with what exists rather than relying upon an event to produce novelty. This argument is made by following Bataille, who argues that through an engagement with non‐utilitarian forms of action, by expending for the sake of expenditure, the world is opened up to possibilities which remain unrealized under the current hegemony. In this light, this dissertation begins to develop a definition of novelty as that which forces a rereading of the system’s history.