TRANSPARENCY by Dianne Irene

Transparency's importance as an administrative norm seems self-evident. Prevailing ideals of political theory stipulate that the more visible government is the more democratic, accountable, and legitimate one. The disclosure of state information consistently disappoints, however—there is never enough of it, while it often seems not to produce a truer democracy, a more accountable state, better policies, and a more contented populace. This gap between theory and practice suggests that the theoretical assumptions that provide the basis for transparency are wrong. This essay argues that transparency is best understood as a theory of communication that excessively simplifies and thus is blind to the complexities of the contemporary state, government information, and the public. Taking them fully into account, the essay argues, should lead us to question the state's ability to control information—which in turn should make us question not only the improbability of the state making itself visible, but also the improbability of the state keeping itself secret.

“The transparency essay,” as it is known in schools of architecture around the world, remains required reading in many programs. With it comes the trap of conflating theoretical exegesis and design methodology – a danger that increases in inverse proportion to the age and experience of the audience. As Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky construct a complex relation of ideas expressed with sophisticated and nuanced language they resort to verbal and visual slights of hand – creating an articulate, albeit problematic architectonic frame around the early paintings of Picasso, Leger, Ozenfant, and Le Corbusier. I examine how Rowe and Slutzky tell their story of transparency, the structure of which is fundamentally obtuse and mythic, yet is delivered as if it were the product of a transparent and logical imperative, free from belief systems and subterfuge. To help illuminate this argument I focus on the discourse surrounding the “Modernist” or “Cubist” garden in early twentieth-century France – specifically the work of the architect and garden designer, Gabriel Guévrékian. During the last twenty years, evaluations of Guévrékian’s designs of gardens were criticized and largely discounted, owing to the relatively transparent influence of “the transparency essay.” If the received view of such a relatively obscure figure as Guévrékian can be so substantially manipulated by the undiminished provocations of Rowe and Slutzky’s essay, this suggests the necessity for further exploring how their text has created other modernist myths, that remain concealed behind, what Levi-Strauss called, “a veil of belief.”

The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Institutional Transparency, 2014

The Oxford Handbook of Economic and Institutional Transparency studies transparency in three main economic areas: policy analysis, the corporate sector, and the institutional and regulatory structures surrounding the markets. Chapters present a conceptual framework to unify prominent notions of transparency in the literature and their link through an economy's capital formation process to investment for economic growth. The conceptual framework builds from basic notions of evaluating cost of capital and exchange efficiency to launch discussion on the costs of and gains from transparency. It also introduces the link between maximum efficiency and optimal transparency. The Handbook addresses transparency as a condition for economic efficiency in general, with an emphasis on the significance of transparency for finance and investment decisions. The basic underlying hypothesis is that increased transparency increases the efficiency of resource allocation and raises the level of pote...

1989

Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology

Translucency Definition Transparency/translucency: (a) the degree of visibility of an object through a medium; (b) the property of a material or substance by which objects may be seen through that material or substance. Transparency occurs when objects are clearly perceived through the medium, while translucency occurs when they appear hazy. Very often the term transparency is used instead of translucency.

2008

''Be Articulate: A Pragmatic Theory of Presupposition Projection''is a remarkable paper in at least two respects: First, it is the only broadly Gricean treatment of presuppositions that generates precise and accurate predictions about the pattern of presupposition projection. Schlenker proposes that presuppositions arise as a result of a pragmatic prohibition against using one short construction to express two independent meanings. This basic idea is quite an old one.

2016

What would the Enlightenment era be without a will to transparency? And how would modern communication persist without a similar desire—for openness, for clear channels, for a world without obscurity? Transparency runs the gamut from the macrological demands on political institutions to make their operations public (a la the emergence of the public sphere against the dark recesses of monarchical power) to the micrological exhortations for individuals to speak their desires in amorous relationships. Transparency has been the foundation for a modern subject of knowledge, where seeing (better) equals knowing (better). More communication = more transparency = more good life (namely democracy, healthy relationships, informed health choices, better functioning organizations).

This essay examines suggestions concerning the proper formulation of the argument from transparency as well as criticisms. In contrast to the phenomenological considerations traditionally used by proponents of transparency, the formulation advocated here motivates a general transparency thesis on primarily theoretical grounds. I begin by distinguishing three possible views on the relationship between representational content and proposed non-intentional “qualia”: No Paint, Some Paint, and All Paint. An objection is then presented for Some Paint, claiming that the view must ultimately collapse into a form of No Paint or All Paint. On the basis of difficulties facing All Paint, I conclude that No Paint emerges as the most plausible option of the three.

Global Environmental Politics, 2008

2013