genera in Barok 2014


B

It can be said that research, as inquiry into a subject-matter, consists of
discrete queries. A query, such as a question about what something is, what
kinds, parts and properties does it have, and so on, can be consulted in
existing documents or generate new documents based on collection of data [in]
the field and through experiment, before proceeding to reasoning [arguments
and deductions]. Formulation of a query is determined by protocols providing
access to documents, which means that there is a


word, another to cluster them, and yet
another to abstract[generalize] the subject-matter of each of these clusters.
Needless to say, this is a craft of a few and these criteria are rarely being
disclosed, despite their impact on research, and more generally, their
influence as conditions for production[making] of a so called _common sense_.

It doesn't take that much to reimagine what a dictionary is and what it could
be, especially having large specialized corpora of texts at hand. These can
also se


roblems from which arguments/deductions start.
These are a definition (όρος), a genus (γένος), a property (ἴδιος), and an
accident (συμβεβηϰόϛ). Porphyry does not explicitly refer _Topics_ , and says
he omits speaking "about genera and species, as to whether they subsist (in
the nature of things) or in mere conceptions only"
8(http://www.ccel.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/porphyry_isagogue_02_translation.htm#C1),
which means he avoids explicating whether he talks about


ver, the work sparked confusion, as
the following passage [suggests]:

> "[I]n each category there are certain things most generic, and again, others
most special, and between the most generic and the most special, others which
are alike called both genera and species, but the most generic is that above
which there cannot be another superior genus, and the most special that below
which there cannot be another inferior species. Between the most generic and
the most special, there are others which are alike both genera and species,
referred, nevertheless, to different things, but what is stated may become
clear in one category. Substance indeed, is itself genus, under this is body,
under body animated body, under which is animal, under animal rational animal,
under


.org/ccel/pearse/morefathers/files/porphyry_isagogue_02_translation.htm#C2))

Porphyry took one of Aristotle's ten categories of the word, substance, and
dissected it using one of his four rhetorical devices, genus. Employing
Aristotle's categories, genera and species as means for logical operations,
for dialectic, Porphyry's interpretation resulted in having more resemblance
to the perceived _structures_ of the world. So they began to bloom.

There were earlier examples, but Porphyry was the most infl


nd, but
should try t o find out what significance they had in the writer's mind.
Second, I realized that all functional or grammatical words (which in my mind
are not 'empty' at all but philosophically rich) manifest the deepest logic of
being which generates the basic structures of human discourse. It is .this
basic logic that allows the transfer from what the words mean today t o what
they meant to the writer.

>

> In the works of every philosopher there are two philosophies: the one which
he consci


actice of searching the web. It is a mechanism not
dissimilar to thought process involved in retrieving particular information
online. And search engines have it built in their indexing algorithms as well.

There is a paper proposing attaching words generated by tf-idf to the
hyperlinks when referring websites 14(http://bscit.berkeley.edu/cgi-
bin/pl_dochome?query_src=&format=html&collection=Wilensky_papers&id=3&show_doc=yes).
This would enable finding the referred content even after the link is de


genera in Mars & Medak 2017


involved Tomislav
Medak. Marcell’s and Tomislav’s recent works are closely related to arts, so I
requested Ana Kuzmanic’s input in these matters. Since the beginning of the
conversation, Marcell, Tomislav, Ana, and I occasionally discussed its generalities
in person. Yet, the presented conversation took place in a shared online document
between November 2015 and December 2016.
NET.CULTURE AT THE DAWN OF THE CIVIL SOCIETY

Petar Jandrić & Ana Kuzmanic (PJ & AK): In 1999, you established the
Multi


ts! The Open
Society Institute provided us with a grant to adapt a former downtown leather-shop
in the state of disrepair and equip it with latest technology ranging from servers to
DJ decks. These resources were made available to all members of the general
public free of charge. Immediately, many artists, media people, technologists, and
political activists started initiating own programs in MaMa. Our activities ranged
from establishing art servers aimed at supporting artistic and cultural projects on


only a few weeks later, MaMa accepted a $100 000 grant from the German
state – and this provoked a wide public debate (Razsa, 2015; Kršić, 2003; Stubbs,
2012).
Now that the heat of the moment has gone down, what is your view to this
debate? More generally, how do you decide whose money to accept and whose
money to reject? How do you decide where to publish, where to exhibit, whom to
work with? What is the relationship between idealism and pragmatism in your
work?
MM & TM: Our decision seems justifi


n the dispossession and
247

CHAPTER 12

plunder of the Iraqi economy. Therefore, it was unconscionable to continue
receiving money from them. In light of its moral and existential weight, the
decision to return the money thus had to be made by the general assembly of our
association.
People who were left without wages were part and parcel of the community that
we had built between 2000 and 2003, primarily through Otokultivator Summer
Camps and Summer Source Camp (Tactical Tech Collective, 2016). The


This story is written in canonical computing history books such as The
Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of
Technical Expertise. There, Nathan Ensmenger (2010: 14) writes: “the term
computer boys came to refer more generally not simply to actual computer
specialists but rather to the whole host of smart, ambitious, and technologically
inclined experts that emerged in the immediate postwar period.”
Very few canonical computing history books cover other histories. But


in the struggle between
proponents of proprietary software and the Free Software Movement.
MM & TM: That was the time before Internet giants such as Google, Amazon,
eBay or Facebook built their empires on top of Free/Libre/Open Source Software.
GNU General Public Licence, with its famous slogan “free as in free speech, not
free as in free beer” (Stallman, 2002), was strong enough to challenge the property
regime of the world of software production. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley
experimented with vario


pertaining to
liberal capitalist democracies, is increasingly at pains to explain what has become
evident with the creeping commercialization and concentration of market power in
digital networks. Information technologies are no different from other generalpurpose technologies on which they depend – such as mass manufacture, logistics,
or energy systems.
Information technologies shape capitalism – in return, capitalism shapes
information technologies. Technological innovation is driven by interests


dresses this issue in two freedoms: “Freedom 1: The freedom
to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish,” and
“Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
(and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community
benefits” (Stallman, 2002: 43). Please situate the relationship between access and
learning in the contemporary context.
MM & TM: The relationships between digital technologies and education are
marked b


xplaining functioning of capitalist
domination and exploring ways of building workers’ own autonomous culture
(Johnson, 1988). These defining revolutionary moments have instituted two
principles underpinning the functioning of public libraries: a) general access to
knowledge is fundamental to full participation in the society, and b)
commodification of knowledge in the form of book trade needs to be limited by
public de-commodified non-monetary forms of access through public institutions.
In spite of


Within
the world of arts, alternatives to existing social sensibilities and realities can be
260

KNOWLEDGE COMMONS AND ACTIVIST PEDAGOGIES

articulated and tested without paying a lot of attention to consistency and
plausibility. Whereas activism generally leaves less room for unrestricted
articulation, because it needs to produce real and plausible effects.
With the generous support of the curatorial collective What, How and for Whom
(WHW) (2016), the Public Library project was surprisingly welcome


trends can be found in various
occupations such as journalism and arts. What are the main consequences of the
new (power) dynamics between professionals and amateurs?
MM & TM: There are many tensions between amateurs and professionals.
There is the general tension, which you refer to as “the inherent feature of the
263

CHAPTER 12

digital world,” but there are also more historically specific tensions. We, amateur
librarians, are mostly interested in seizing various opportunities to politicize an


nd acceptance. The new disciplines (and their respective professions),
in order to become acknowledged by the scientific community as legitimate, had to
264

KNOWLEDGE COMMONS AND ACTIVIST PEDAGOGIES

repeat the same boundary-work as the science in general once had to go through
before.
The moral of this story is that the best way for a new scientific discipline to
claim its territory was to articulate the specificity and importance of its insights in a
domain no other discipline claimed. It could ach

 

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