scholarly journals Wittgenstein on 'Imaginability' as a Criterion for Logical Possibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmin Trächtler

Throughout his whole work, Wittgenstein seizes on a distinction between logical and physical possibility, and impossibility. Despite this continuity and although, Wittgenstein brings in this distinction in various contexts and from different vantage points, he often solely brushes over it without elaborating in detail. In the so-called Big Typescript, however, he dedicates himself not only to the distinction between logical and physical possibility but also to the distinction between logical possibility and impossibility in particular investigations. In the course of these investigations, another aspect arises and is tossed and turned repeatedly by Wittgenstein – namely, the place of “imaginability” in these considerations. On the basis of three focussed chapters in the Big Typescript, I argue that “imaginability” as an utterance of the form “being able to imagine ‘what it would be like’” can be allocated the place of a criterion for logical possibility. To this end, I will first outline the chapters 96., 27. and 26. in one section each. Although in these chapters, Wittgenstein only indicates rather than claiming explicitly “imaginability” to be a criterion for logical possibility, I will discuss in the last section how this conclusion can be drawn by combining the results of the previous sections.

Author(s):  
Barbara Gray ◽  
Jill Purdy

Organizations turn to multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) to meet challenges they cannot handle alone. By tapping diverse stakeholders’ resources, MSPs develop the capability to address complex issues and problems, such as health care delivery, poverty, human rights, watershed management, education, sustainability, and innovation. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of MSPs, why they are needed, the challenges partners face in working together, and how to design them effectively. Through the process of collaboration partners combine their differing strengths, vantage points, and expertise to craft innovative responses to pressing societal concerns. The book offers valuable advice for leaders about how to design and scale up effective partnerships and how to address potential obstacles partners may face, such as dealing with the conflicts and power issues likely to arise as partners negotiate with each other. Drawing on three comprehensive cases and countless shorter examples from around the world, the book offers practical advice for organizations embarking on an MSP, as well as theoretical understanding of how partnerships function. Using an institutional theory lens, it explains how partnerships can effect change in institutional fields by reducing turbulence and negotiating a common set of norms and routines to govern partners’ future interactions within the field of concern. Topics covered include: the nature of working collaboratively, why partnerships are needed, types of partnerships, guidelines for partnership design, partnerships and field dynamics, how to deal with conflicts among partners, negotiating across power differences, partnerships for sustainability, collaborative governance, working across scale differences, and how partnerships transform fields.


By the late second century, early Christian gospels had been divided into two groups by a canonical boundary that assigned normative status to four of them while consigning their competitors to the margins. The project of this volume is to find ways to reconnect these divided texts. The primary aim is not to address the question whether the canonical/non-canonical distinction reflects substantive and objectively verifiable differences between the two bodies of texts—although that issue may arise at various points. Starting from the assumption that, in spite of their differences, all early gospels express a common belief in the absolute significance of Jesus and his earthly career, the intention is to make their interconnectedness fruitful for interpretation. The approach taken is thematic and comparative: a selected theme or topic is traced across two or more gospels on either side of the canonical boundary, and the resulting convergences and divergences shed light not least on the canonical texts themselves as they are read from new and unfamiliar vantage points. The outcome is to demonstrate that early gospel literature can be regarded as a single field of study, in contrast to the overwhelming predominance of the canonical four characteristic of traditional gospels scholarship.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 583-600
Author(s):  
Lindsay Ferrara ◽  
Torill Ringsø

AbstractPrevious studies on perspective in spatial signed language descriptions suggest a basic dichotomy between either a route or a survey perspective, which entails either the signer being conceptualized as a mobile agent within a life-sized scene or the signer in a fixed position as an external observer of a scaled-down scene. We challenge this dichotomy by investigating the particular couplings of vantage point position and mobility engaged during various types of spatial language produced across eight naturalistic conversations in Norwegian Sign Language. Spatial language was annotated for the purpose of the segment, the size of the environment described, the signs produced, and the location and mobility of vantage points. Analysis revealed that survey and route perspectives, as characterized in the literature, do not adequately account for the range of vantage point combinations observed in conversations (e.g., external, but mobile, vantage points). There is also some preliminary evidence that the purpose of the spatial language and the size of the environments described may also play a role in how signers engage vantage points. Finally, the study underscores the importance of investigating spatial language within naturalistic conversational contexts.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147447402110354
Author(s):  
Jonathon Turnbull ◽  
Adam Searle

After being captured from the streets of Moscow, Laika was the first living creature to be sent into Earth’s orbit by the USSR in 1957. The 2019 film, Space Dogs, tells the story of Laika’s spectral return to Moscow, and searches for her ghosts in the city’s street dogs 60 years later. Combining archival material with contemporary documentary footage ‘filmed at dog’s level’, the film reanimates Laika’s spectral afterlives. Drawing on a series of in-depth conversations with the film’s directors, writers, and director of photography, we provide critical reflections on filmmaking practice for animals’ geographies. We offer a three-part typology which frames these contributions: attunement, which focuses on the affordances of filmmaking practice for attuning to the lives of nonhuman lifeworlds; perspective, which documents how filmmaking practice allows for more-than-human urban space to be viewed from alternative vantage points; and narration, which enables filmmakers to experiment with affective modes of representing animals’ lives, offering audiences alternative spatiotemporal experiences. Finally, we reflect on the potentials of filmmaking as a fruitful practice, method, and output for animals’ geographers.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0160323X2199163
Author(s):  
Ann O’M. Bowman ◽  
Domonic A. Bearfield ◽  
Stefanie Chambers ◽  
Beverly A. Cigler ◽  
Arnold Fleischmann ◽  
...  

This essay offers a perspective on a new and reinvigorated research agenda for the study of U.S. local governments. It reports on the ideas and reflections of a set of local government scholars with different vantage points and varied substantive interests. Seven paramount themes or directions for a research agenda were identified, all of which contain numerous threads and thrusts: local government finance and economic development, local government management, intergovernmental relations, collaboration, public engagement, social equity, and institutional design. The essay offers some reasons for optimism about the future of U.S. local governments while also identifying cause for concern.


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