A critical exegesis of large language models, like ChatGPT, and recent advances in artificial int... more A critical exegesis of large language models, like ChatGPT, and recent advances in artificial intelligence. Included here are the Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter 6 from a new book published by Prickly Paradigm Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/L/bo238320279.html
A natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times. With particular attention to affect, t... more A natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times. With particular attention to affect, temporality, worlding, and the anthropocene.
The first part of this article lays out what ontologies are and how they should be studied -- in ... more The first part of this article lays out what ontologies are and how they should be studied -- in ways that precede, supersede, and otherwise route around not just the "ontological turn" but also its critics. The second part of this article offers an anthropological critique of Quine's influential account of ontological commitment and a Quinean critique of certain anthropological commitments as to the existence and nature of possible worlds. As will be seen, we rework Quine's metaontological dictum, "to be is to be the value of a variable," into a more modest and ethnographically manageable form: to be is to become a value.
What counts as too close for comfort? How can an entire room suddenly
feel restless at the immine... more What counts as too close for comfort? How can an entire room suddenly feel restless at the imminence of a yet unknown occurrence? And who decides whether or not we are already in an age of unliveable extremes? The anthropology of intensity studies how humans encounter and communicate the continuous and gradable features of social and environmental phenomena in everyday interactions. Focusing on the last twenty years of life in a Mayan village in the cloud forests of Guatemala, this book provides a natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times, through a careful analysis of ethnographic and linguistic evidence. It uses intensity as a way to reframe Anthropology in the age of the Anthropocene, and rethinks classic work in the formal linguistic tradition from a culture-specific and context-sensitive stance. It is essential reading for not only anthropologists and linguists, but also ecologically oriented readers, critical theorists, and environmental scientists.
Notes on the relation between Marx's theory of capitalism and Shannon's theory of communication; ... more Notes on the relation between Marx's theory of capitalism and Shannon's theory of communication; and hence on the connection between labor and noise, fidelity and profit, entropy and parasites.
This slim volume showcases, reworks, and extends some of the core resources anthropologists, and ... more This slim volume showcases, reworks, and extends some of the core resources anthropologists, and like-minded scholars, have developed over the past 200 years or so for thinking about value. Rather than theorize value head on, I offer a careful (but punchy and non-ponderous) interpretation of a Mayan text (about an offering to a god that lamentably goes awry), its telling, and the conditions of possibility for its original publication.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2020
This article is about four aspectual adverbs in Q’eqchi’ (Maya), which may be loosely glossed as ... more This article is about four aspectual adverbs in Q’eqchi’ (Maya), which may be loosely glossed as ak ‘already’, maaji’ ‘not yet’, toj ‘still’, and ink’a’ chik ‘no longer’. The author shows the presupposition and assertion structure of these forms in unmarked usage (as sentential operators acting on imperfective predicates) and argues that they constitute a dual group in the tradition of Loebner (1989), who worked on similar operators in German. The author shows the wide range of other functions such forms serve in more marked usage and the ways they may co-occur in the same clause (and thereby “double”). The article offers a semantics that accounts for the multiple functions of all such constructions, highlighting the ways these forms are similar to and different from their German and Spanish counterparts.
On the tense and traumatic coupling between the interpretive grounds of humans and the algorithmi... more On the tense and traumatic coupling between the interpretive grounds of humans and the algorithmic models of machines.
The meaning of already, no longer, not yet, and still. * The nature of too much and not enough. *... more The meaning of already, no longer, not yet, and still. * The nature of too much and not enough. * Thresholds in the Anthropocene. * Topology in linguistic anthropology. * Chronotopes in political ecology. * Intensity.
Tobias Rees's After Ethnos calls for a reformulation that: (1) ignores a large amount of what is ... more Tobias Rees's After Ethnos calls for a reformulation that: (1) ignores a large amount of what is already done; (2) represents a significant reduction in the current scope/richness in the field; (3) doesn't make a strong case why such a reduction-cum-reformulation is worth it; and (4) doesn't seem particularly knowledgeable about the empirical fields that have long treated its main topic: thought (qua semiosis/cognition) modulo social relations. In this commentary, I summarize, and then critique, each of its key claims.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2019
This essay analyzes the history and usage of degree modifiers and comparative constructions in Q'... more This essay analyzes the history and usage of degree modifiers and comparative constructions in Q'eqchi' (Maya). It focuses on the role of mas (< Sp. más) and the function of the modern comparative construction (long thought to be a calque of its Spanish equivalent). In contrast to previous analyses, it shows that Q'eqchi' mas does not function as a comparative (unlike Spanish más), but rather as a degree modifier, indefinite quantity, and differential operator (like Spanish muy and mucho). It shows that the comparative construction doesn't require mas, but only the positive form of a gradable predicate, along with the adposition chiru (before, in the face of) to mark the standard. It shows that mas came into Q'eqchi' during the late 1800s and seems to have functioned this way from the beginning. And it offers reasons for this shift in meaning, and its frequent misanalysis by linguists.
This 2005 essay argues that the pervasive twentieth century understanding of meaning — a sign sta... more This 2005 essay argues that the pervasive twentieth century understanding of meaning — a sign stands for an object — is incorrect. In its place, it offers the following definition, which is framed not in terms of a single relation (of standing for), but in terms of a relation (of correspondence) between two relations (of standing for): a sign stands for its object on the one hand, and its interpretant on the other, in such a way as to make the interpretant stand in relation to the object corresponding to its own relation to the object. Using this definition, it reanalyzes key concepts and foundational arguments from linguistics so far as they relate to anthropology and psychology.
A critical exegesis of large language models, like ChatGPT, and recent advances in artificial int... more A critical exegesis of large language models, like ChatGPT, and recent advances in artificial intelligence. Included here are the Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter 6 from a new book published by Prickly Paradigm Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/L/bo238320279.html
A natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times. With particular attention to affect, t... more A natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times. With particular attention to affect, temporality, worlding, and the anthropocene.
The first part of this article lays out what ontologies are and how they should be studied -- in ... more The first part of this article lays out what ontologies are and how they should be studied -- in ways that precede, supersede, and otherwise route around not just the "ontological turn" but also its critics. The second part of this article offers an anthropological critique of Quine's influential account of ontological commitment and a Quinean critique of certain anthropological commitments as to the existence and nature of possible worlds. As will be seen, we rework Quine's metaontological dictum, "to be is to be the value of a variable," into a more modest and ethnographically manageable form: to be is to become a value.
What counts as too close for comfort? How can an entire room suddenly
feel restless at the immine... more What counts as too close for comfort? How can an entire room suddenly feel restless at the imminence of a yet unknown occurrence? And who decides whether or not we are already in an age of unliveable extremes? The anthropology of intensity studies how humans encounter and communicate the continuous and gradable features of social and environmental phenomena in everyday interactions. Focusing on the last twenty years of life in a Mayan village in the cloud forests of Guatemala, this book provides a natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times, through a careful analysis of ethnographic and linguistic evidence. It uses intensity as a way to reframe Anthropology in the age of the Anthropocene, and rethinks classic work in the formal linguistic tradition from a culture-specific and context-sensitive stance. It is essential reading for not only anthropologists and linguists, but also ecologically oriented readers, critical theorists, and environmental scientists.
Notes on the relation between Marx's theory of capitalism and Shannon's theory of communication; ... more Notes on the relation between Marx's theory of capitalism and Shannon's theory of communication; and hence on the connection between labor and noise, fidelity and profit, entropy and parasites.
This slim volume showcases, reworks, and extends some of the core resources anthropologists, and ... more This slim volume showcases, reworks, and extends some of the core resources anthropologists, and like-minded scholars, have developed over the past 200 years or so for thinking about value. Rather than theorize value head on, I offer a careful (but punchy and non-ponderous) interpretation of a Mayan text (about an offering to a god that lamentably goes awry), its telling, and the conditions of possibility for its original publication.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2020
This article is about four aspectual adverbs in Q’eqchi’ (Maya), which may be loosely glossed as ... more This article is about four aspectual adverbs in Q’eqchi’ (Maya), which may be loosely glossed as ak ‘already’, maaji’ ‘not yet’, toj ‘still’, and ink’a’ chik ‘no longer’. The author shows the presupposition and assertion structure of these forms in unmarked usage (as sentential operators acting on imperfective predicates) and argues that they constitute a dual group in the tradition of Loebner (1989), who worked on similar operators in German. The author shows the wide range of other functions such forms serve in more marked usage and the ways they may co-occur in the same clause (and thereby “double”). The article offers a semantics that accounts for the multiple functions of all such constructions, highlighting the ways these forms are similar to and different from their German and Spanish counterparts.
On the tense and traumatic coupling between the interpretive grounds of humans and the algorithmi... more On the tense and traumatic coupling between the interpretive grounds of humans and the algorithmic models of machines.
The meaning of already, no longer, not yet, and still. * The nature of too much and not enough. *... more The meaning of already, no longer, not yet, and still. * The nature of too much and not enough. * Thresholds in the Anthropocene. * Topology in linguistic anthropology. * Chronotopes in political ecology. * Intensity.
Tobias Rees's After Ethnos calls for a reformulation that: (1) ignores a large amount of what is ... more Tobias Rees's After Ethnos calls for a reformulation that: (1) ignores a large amount of what is already done; (2) represents a significant reduction in the current scope/richness in the field; (3) doesn't make a strong case why such a reduction-cum-reformulation is worth it; and (4) doesn't seem particularly knowledgeable about the empirical fields that have long treated its main topic: thought (qua semiosis/cognition) modulo social relations. In this commentary, I summarize, and then critique, each of its key claims.
International Journal of American Linguistics, 2019
This essay analyzes the history and usage of degree modifiers and comparative constructions in Q'... more This essay analyzes the history and usage of degree modifiers and comparative constructions in Q'eqchi' (Maya). It focuses on the role of mas (< Sp. más) and the function of the modern comparative construction (long thought to be a calque of its Spanish equivalent). In contrast to previous analyses, it shows that Q'eqchi' mas does not function as a comparative (unlike Spanish más), but rather as a degree modifier, indefinite quantity, and differential operator (like Spanish muy and mucho). It shows that the comparative construction doesn't require mas, but only the positive form of a gradable predicate, along with the adposition chiru (before, in the face of) to mark the standard. It shows that mas came into Q'eqchi' during the late 1800s and seems to have functioned this way from the beginning. And it offers reasons for this shift in meaning, and its frequent misanalysis by linguists.
This 2005 essay argues that the pervasive twentieth century understanding of meaning — a sign sta... more This 2005 essay argues that the pervasive twentieth century understanding of meaning — a sign stands for an object — is incorrect. In its place, it offers the following definition, which is framed not in terms of a single relation (of standing for), but in terms of a relation (of correspondence) between two relations (of standing for): a sign stands for its object on the one hand, and its interpretant on the other, in such a way as to make the interpretant stand in relation to the object corresponding to its own relation to the object. Using this definition, it reanalyzes key concepts and foundational arguments from linguistics so far as they relate to anthropology and psychology.
Using a Peircean theory of meaning, agency may be theorized in terms of flexibility and accountab... more Using a Peircean theory of meaning, agency may be theorized in terms of flexibility and accountability, on the one hand, and knowledge and power, on the other. In this theory, residential agency, which is closest to notions such as "power" and "choice," is the degree to which one can control the expression of a sign, compose a sign-object relation, and commit to an interpretant of this signobject relation. Representational agency, which is closest to notions such as "knowledge" and "consciousness," is the degree to which one can thematize a process, characterize a feature of this theme, and reason with this theme-character relation. Agency, as a kind of social and semiotic facility, is thereby theorized as multidimensional, graduated, and distributed. This theory allows one to analyze, as concomitant phenomena, the longue durée processes that underlie relatively perduring institutions and the real-time practices that support relatively fleeting interactions. Finally, it highlights the theoretical and empirical terrain shared by linguistic anthropology, science and technology studies, political economy, and critical theory.
A review, synthesis, and extension of various theories of agency (understood as flexible and acco... more A review, synthesis, and extension of various theories of agency (understood as flexible and accountable causality), with a focus on its distributed nature.
A core idea of twentieth-century social theory is relations between relations, which is an insigh... more A core idea of twentieth-century social theory is relations between relations, which is an insight into how various systems, themselves involving disparate kinds of meaning or value, are organized. While this phrase was fi rst introduced by Evans-Pritchard (1969 [1940]) in the conclusion of his classic study on Nuer social relations, the concept goes back to Aristotle's discussion of various forms of justice in the Nicomachean Ethics (2001a). In particular, Aristotle argued that equivalence of value should turn on geometric ratios. (See .1.) For example, if we are engaged in a system of redistribution (say, what kinds of people should be given what proportion of goods from the collective share), then the following relation between relations should hold: as my status is relative to yours (e.g., you are a knight and I am a knave), so should my share be relative to yours (e.g., you receive ten jugs of wine and I receive one). Aristotle generalized this logic of equivalence to forms of exchange more akin to reciprocation than redistribution and to forms of value turning on discipline and punishment (e.g., an eye for an eye or a Hail Mary for an impure thought) as much as utility and price (e.g., how many bottles of wine for a pair of shoes or how much wage for how much work). Building on Aristotle, Marx (1967 [1867) characterized value in similar terms, but with a focus on capitalist economies in which the people were (formally) equal and the goods were (qualitatively) different. In particular, value was a relation between people (say, different kinds of roles within a division of labor) mediated by a relation between things (say, different kinds of commodities within a market). (See 2.) Marx, of course, was not just interested in where value comes from or why people strive for it, but also in how the systematic misrecognition of the origins of value is both cause and effect of the very relationality that mediates it. 1 The idea of relations between relations was not just crucial to understanding value in the sense of what someone strives for, it was also crucial for understanding meaning in the sense of what something stands for. Saussure (1983Saussure ( [1916), for example, famously introduced this idea with regard to linguistic structure: within a given language, the relation between any particular linguistic form and its meaning OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF -FIRST-PROOF, 07/23/12, NEWGEN 02_Kockelman_Ch02.indd 12 7/23/2012 9:25:25 PM Biosemiosis, Technocognition, and Sociogenesis
This article has three key themes: ontology (what kinds of beings there are in the world), affect... more This article has three key themes: ontology (what kinds of beings there are in the world), affect (cognitive and corporeal attunements to such entities), and selfhood (relatively reflexive centers of attunement). To explore these themes, I focus on women's care for chickens among speakers of Q'eqchi' Maya living in the cloud forests of highland Guatemala. Broadly speaking, I argue that these three themes are empirically, methodologically, and theoretically inseparable. In addition, the chicken is a particularly rich site for such ethnographic research because it is simultaneously self, alter, and object for its owners. To undertake this analysis, I adopt a semiotic stance towards such themes, partly grounded in the writings of the American pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and George Herbert Mead, and partly grounded in recent and classic scholarship by linguists, psychologists, and anthropologists.
This essay is about the relation between meaning and materiality. It offers careful and coherent,... more This essay is about the relation between meaning and materiality. It offers careful and coherent, albeit noncanonical, readings of particular themes in Aristotle, Marx, Heidegger, and Peirce. And it does this in order to draw together some classic understandings of value: use value, in particular, but also exchange value, truth value, and moral value ðand much else besidesÞ. Originating as a series of lecture notes offered to students interested in theoretical archeology, it culminates in a theory of embedded interpretants ðas opposed to enminded, embodied, or entextualized interpretantsÞ, with an emphasis on semiotic grounds ðas opposed to semiotic processesÞ. It is meant to offer a relatively accessible summary, synthesis, and extension of four seemingly disparate, and often quite difficult, theorists.
On bondage in Minecraft.
On the interpretive grounds of archeology and astrophysics.
And also a ... more On bondage in Minecraft. On the interpretive grounds of archeology and astrophysics. And also a critique of Deleuze-inspired accounts of virtuality (such as those produced by Massumi and DeLanda). And much else besides.
What is the relation between wishes and witches, between Grice and Freud, between political repre... more What is the relation between wishes and witches, between Grice and Freud, between political repression and scientific rendering? What is the relation between ideational and affective phenomena (such as desire and jealousy) and material processes (such as particle scattering and diffusion barriers)? This article demonstrates the broad similarities underlying conversational implicature and dream interpretation, focusing on the use of communicative intentions and repressed wishes as grounds for motiving inferences. It describes a variety of other hermeneutics that evince a similar logic, albeit with different grounds— witch trials among the Azande, and taboo-reckoning among the Maya—and it details the intimate relation between such hermeneutics and the techniques scientists use to produce and interpret laboratory phenomenon, and thereby render the real. It foregrounds the affective nature of such processes: the pleasures and pains of laboring in productively constrained, and phenomena-creating, inferential spaces.
This article is about intensity and causality. Focusing on the multiple processes that mediate pe... more This article is about intensity and causality. Focusing on the multiple processes that mediate people's understandings of landslides in a Mayan village in highland Guatemala, it shows the ways causal and comparative grounds relate to physical forces and phenomenological experience, as much as to communicative practices and social conventions. More generally, though less explicitly, this article is about four topics that underlie the Anthropocene: "gradients" (the way qualities vary in their intensity over space and time, and the ways such variations relate to causal processes), "grading" (the ways agents assess and alter such intensities, and experience and intervene in causal processes), "degradation" (the ways highly valuable variations in qualitative intensities are lowered or lost), and "grace" (the way agents work to maintain gradients, care for those whose lives have been degraded, and value those agents who work and care in such ways).
The self may be understood in many different ways. As an ensemble of social relations and as a si... more The self may be understood in many different ways. As an ensemble of social relations and as a site of social relatedness. As a mutually implicated set of skills, tools, goals, and roles, and as that to which such a set is assigned. As possessions, and as possessor. As the site in which rights and responsibilities adhere, and as where discipline and punishment is applicable. As that which knits together intention, action, realization, and responsibility, and as that which unravels in the face of experience, desire, satiation, and guilt. As auto-aestheticizing, or able to give its own existence a coherent frame, and as error-induced, grounded in parapraxis rather than praxis, or fallor ergo sum rather than cogito ergo sum . As auto-nomic, or self-suffi cient, self-grounding, and autonomous, and as auto-gnomic, or daemon, Id, onion-skin, mask, and cipher. As auto-thematic, or both fi gure and ground of reference, speaker and fi gure linked by the pronoun "I," and as auto-tarchic, or continuous in time, cohesive in space, center of initiative, and recipient of impressions. As a relatively refl exive center of enclosure and disclosure, and thus as self-enclosing and self-disclosing. As ontologizing and ontologized. As autotechnic, or using itself as means, and as autotelic, or having itself as ends. As the embodiment of zoe , or bare life shared by all living things, and as the personifi cation of bios , or the "good life," characteristic only of human beings. As life-frame and frame-oflife. As self-refl exive, or caring for itself, and as self-refl ective, or knowing itself. As that which orientates to value, both measuring and measured, and as that which is beyond measure and incommensurable. As a soul, plus or minus the stakes, and as that for the sake of which one would go to the stake. As uniquely identifi able across all possible worlds (here, there, and in the hereafter), and as utterly undefi nable through any fi nite combination of words.
Stance may be understood as the semiotic means by which we indicate our orientation to states of ... more Stance may be understood as the semiotic means by which we indicate our orientation to states of affairs, usually framed in terms of evaluation (e.g., moral obligation and epistemic possibility) or intentionality (e.g., desire and memory, fear and doubt). Using data from Q'eqchi'-Maya and English, stance is operationalized in terms of complement-taking predicates and the grammatical category of status. Using frameworks from Goffman and Jakobson, it is argued that these lexical and grammatical domains disambiguate principals from animators (here called the commitment event and the speech event, respectively). It is argued that stances may be cross-linguistically grouped and ordered as a function of the degree to which the commitment event subsumes, or coincides with, the narrated event. And it is argued that " subjectivity in language " is not the issue; rather, research should focus on the intersection of a cross-linguistic account of commitment events and community-specific understandings of a speaker's contribution to event construal.
This essay is about meaning and measurement, with particular emphasis on the relation between sem... more This essay is about meaning and measurement, with particular emphasis on the relation between semiotic technologies and temporal reckoning. It begins by theorizing four ways of framing time. Temporality as metricality focuses on the repetition of tokens of common types. Temporality as performativity focuses on the roots and fruits of a given event. Temporality as reckoning focuses on how one determines when an event occurred or how long an event lasted. And temporality as worldview focuses on the ways a given community (genre, public, discipline, philosophy, register, etc.) frames the nature of time. Temporality as reckoning is then used to question some entrenched claims about temporality as worldview. In particular, the claim that modern modes of temporality are 'abstract' (in comparison to so-called premodern, traditional, or everyday modes of temporality) is called into question. In place of pre-theoretical notions like abstraction (and similarly inadequate concepts, such as 'commensuration', 'quantification', and 'objectification') a set of fine-grained analytic distinctions is introduced. These may be used to theorize the conditions for and consequences of a technology being relatively portable: its meaningfulness being widely applicable and/or contextually independent. Reflexively, while this essay draws its examples and methods from the domain of time, its general claims are meant to be portable to other domainsfrom velocity and price to temperature and information.
This paper explores the relation between replacement (or substitution) and ‘lived time’. To do th... more This paper explores the relation between replacement (or substitution) and ‘lived time’. To do this, I offer five different ways of framing temporality (as repetition, irreversibility, roots and fruits, reckoning, and worldview); and I show how replacement may be figured through each of these frames. Along the way, I show how entities caught up in replacement are different from other items of value, such as singularities and commodities; and I offer an entity–centered, as opposed to event–centered, framing of time.
This essay is about the relation between social statuses, mental states, and material substances;... more This essay is about the relation between social statuses, mental states, and material substances; the indexical signs used to infer such underlying kinds; the conditions for and consequences of the ontologies that license such inferences; and the potentially reflexive and transformative relations individuals bearing such identities have towards each other and themselves. While it begins with what may be called 'the Huckleberry Finn Test' (inferring gender in face-to-face interaction), it concludes with the Turing Test (deciding between human and computer in teletype-mediated communication). It argues that most thought about the Turing test has focused on a very limited type of inference. And it shows four other important ways our indexical encounters with others can both transform, and be transformed by, our ontologies. �
This chapter asks two questions: What are some of the secrets of networks? And what might constit... more This chapter asks two questions: What are some of the secrets of networks? And what might constitute their poetics--an aesthetic means of revealing their secrets? To answer the first question, it leverages the relation between codes and channels, delving into two topics that link them: degrees of freedom and secrets. By degrees of freedom, is meant the number of independent dimensions needed to specify the state of a system. Such a notion, along with related ideas like frames of relevance and scales of resolution, is shown to be essential not only to highly analog systems but also to digital ones, and to underlie physicists’ understanding of materiality as much as philosophical understandings of the uncanny. This chapter argues that even relatively commensurate systems, which have identical degrees of freedom, can have different secrets--understood as inherent symmetries that organize their sense-making capacities. In some sense, all this is a way of reinterpreting the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that is, the idea that the language one speaks affects the way one thinks); and it is a way of generalizing such a hypothesis such that it can be usefully applied to media more generally (i.e., interfaces, applications, programming languages, channels, and so forth). To answer the second question, this chapter reviews different understandings of secrets, and shows how channels as well as codes can have inherent secrets (in addition to their ability to keep and reveal secrets in more stereotypic ways). By extending the notion of poetics, it shows how such systems can be made to reveal their secrets. Priming the reader for later chapters, it points to the fundamental relation between poetics as such, and phenomena which are often labeled as ‘virtual’. And the conclusion draws out the relation between Heidegger’s understanding of references, Agamben’s notion of homo sacer, and Google’s page rank algorithm.
This essay carefully reviews and further develops some overlooked theories of information, ground... more This essay carefully reviews and further develops some overlooked theories of information, grounding them in a more general theory of meaning. And it argues that information is best understood as the enclosure of meaning: an attempt to render a highly messy and stereotypically human process relatively formal, quantifiable, and context-independent. It highlights the ideas of Donald MacKay in relation to those of Claude Shannon, and it foregrounds the semiotic framework of Charles Sanders Peirce in relation to cybernetics (and the then-incipient discipline of computer science). It shows how Katherine Hayles and Mark Hansen, two influential theorists of new media, misread MacKay in their attempt to put the 'human' (as well as affect, meaning, the body, and so forth) back into a theory of information. And it thereby shows that the framework these theorists seek was, in some sense, already well developed before cybernetics even entered the scene. It offers two alternative definitions of information, one focusing on interaction (individuals and practices) and the other focusing on institutions (collectivities and structures), that effectively mediate between relatively quantitative theories of information and relatively qualitative theories of meaning. 1 ; and see Bernstein and Kockelman 2013) takes up the notion of enclosure in a more general and developed sense. In particular, the other modes of enclosure discussed there should be understood as applicable to information (meaning), computation (interpretation), and infrastructure (interaction) as well. Reasons of space prohibit the pursuit of this more general framing here.
This essay outlines some common properties of channels, infrastructure, and institutions. It anal... more This essay outlines some common properties of channels, infrastructure, and institutions. It analyzes the tense relation between channels and codes, on the one hand, and circulation and interpretation, on the other. It compares the assumptions and interventions of three traditions: cybernetics (via Claude Shannon), linguistic anthropology (via Roman Jakobson), and actornetwork theory (via Michel Serres). By developing the relation between Serres's notion of the parasite and Peirce's notion of thirdness, it theorizes the epi-function served by the menagerie of entities who live in and off infrastructure: enemies and noise, meters and sieves, pirates and exploits, catalysts and assassins. By extending Jakobson's duplex categories (shifters, reported speech, proper names, metalanguage) from code-sign relations to channel-signer relations, it describes four reflexive modes of circulation that any network may involve: source-dependent channels, signer-directed signers, self-channeling channels, and channel-directed signers. And it relates the commensuration of value to the enclosure of disclosure. [media, infrastructure, circulation, translation, enclosure.]j ola_1077 406..421 C lassic theories of channels, infrastructure, and institutions are eerily convergent. Each is understood as a kind of bridge that delimits a landscape, facilitates a passage, and forestalls a loss. For example, channels relate speakers to addressees, enabling the interpretation of meaning as much as its signification (Malinowski, Shannon, Jakobson). Infrastructure relates producers to consumers, enabling the realization of value as much as its creation (von Thünen, Marx, Marshall). Institutions relate selves to others, enabling the recognition of identity as much as its performance (Hegel, Mead, Goffman). Facilitating passage, each allows displacement in space, through time, between persons, and across possible worlds. Delimiting landscape, each helps constitute the poles so related: speakers and addressees, producers and consumers, selves and others. Finally, forestalling loss, each ensures that some medium endures-that words won't fade, that goods won't spoil, that personas won't wither.
This article undertakes the anthropology of an equation that constitutes the essence of an algori... more This article undertakes the anthropology of an equation that constitutes the essence of an algorithm that underlies a variety of computational technologies—most notably spam filters, but also data-mining tools, diagnostic tests, predictive parsers, risk assessment techniques, and Bayesian reasoning more generally. The article foregrounds the ways ontologies are both embodied in and transformed by such algorithms. And it shows the stakes such ontological transformations have for one particularly widespread and powerful metaphor and device—the sieve. In so doing, this inquiry shows some of the complex processes that must be considered if we are to understand some of the key relations linking semiosis and statistics. Reflexively, these processes perturb some core ontological assumptions in anthropology , science and technology studies, and critical theory.
This essay unfolds the critical and conceptual implications of a particular metaphortheorizing va... more This essay unfolds the critical and conceptual implications of a particular metaphortheorizing value in terms of the relation between maps, terrains, and travelers. It synthesizes some ideas from Charles Sanders Peirce, Max Weber, Martin Heidegger, and Charles Taylor. In particular, a terrain turns on social relations and cognitive representations. A map figures such a terrain in terms of differentially weighted origins, paths, and destinations. And the traveler's interpretations of such a map are equivalent to charting a course through such a terrain. Such a metaphor is used to reframe various evaluative techniques by which we weigh the relative desirability of possible paths through a given terrain -from instrumental values (turning on graded and contoured landscapes) to existential values (turning on prototypic and exemplary paths). And this framing of value is used to theorize the relation between agency and identity.
The commodity is analyzed from a semiotic stance. Rather than systematically unfold a subject-obj... more The commodity is analyzed from a semiotic stance. Rather than systematically unfold a subject-object dichotomy (via Hegel's history as dialectic), it systematically deploys a sign-object-interpretant trichotomy (via Peirce's logic as semiotic). Rather than conflate economic value and linguistic meaning through the lens of Saussure's semiology, it uses Peirce's semiotic to provide a theory of meaning that is general enough to include commodities and utterances as distinct species. Rather than relegate utility and measure to the work of history (as per the opening pages of Marx's Capital), these are treated as essential aspects of political economy. And rather than focus on canonical 19th-century commodities (such as cotton, iron, and cloth), the analysis is designed to capture salient features of modern immaterial commodities (such as affect, speech acts, and social relations). The conclusion details the relation between neoliberalism, semiosis, governmentality, and commensuration.
This 2007 article theorizes the relation between speech acts and financial contracts, and between... more This 2007 article theorizes the relation between speech acts and financial contracts, and between economic circulation and ethical detachment. To do this, it puts Goffman and James in dialog with Marx and Polanyi. More broadly, it examines the relation between economic and ethical value by attending to practices that stand at the intersection of meaning (signification and interpretation) and modality (rights and responsibilities, credits and debts). And it uses such practices to reframe classic understandings of the relation between subjectivity, temporality, modernity, and accountability.
This paper examines the work that measures and values do in policy in the context of an epochal c... more This paper examines the work that measures and values do in policy in the context of an epochal change in the relations between knowledge and policy in Australia. I tell a story of successive attempts to rehabilitate a dying Australian river. The first attempt employs policy as the application of theoretically justified natural knowledge about rivers and their environs. The second attempt occurs after the evidence-based policy era has dawned in Australia. The contrast shows that measures, values and facts about the dying river justified by epistemic practices have been displaced. In an era of evidence-based policy and governance through market mechanisms, measures and values speak to policy through designs that can be bought and sold. In order to be able to better describe this shift I develop an analytic vocabulary to give an account of the intensive properties of what I call enumerated entities, and link the shift to the move from a disciplinary to a control society.
This essay is about meaning and measurement, with particular emphasis on the relation between sem... more This essay is about meaning and measurement, with particular emphasis on the relation between semiotic technologies and temporal reckoning. It begins by theorizing four ways of framing time. Temporality as metricality focuses on the repetition of tokens of common types. Temporality as performativity focuses on the roots and fruits of a given event. Temporality as reckoning focuses on how one determines when an event occurred or how long an event lasted. And temporality as worldview focuses on the ways a given community (genre, public, discipline, philosophy, register, etc.) frames the nature of time. Temporality as reckoning is then used to question some entrenched claims about temporality as worldview. In particular, the claim that modern modes of temporality are 'abstract' (in comparison to so-called premodern, traditional, or everyday modes of temporality) is called into question. In place of pre-theoretical notions like abstraction (and similarly inadequate concepts, such as 'commensuration', 'quantification', and 'objectification') a set of fine-grained analytic distinctions is introduced. These may be used to theorize the conditions for and consequences of a technology being relatively portable: its meaningfulness being widely applicable and/or contextually independent. Reflexively, while this essay draws its examples and methods from the domain of time, its general claims are meant to be portable to other domainsfrom velocity and price to temperature and information.
A brief overview of classic senses of enclosure--beyond dispossession, deterritorialization, and ... more A brief overview of classic senses of enclosure--beyond dispossession, deterritorialization, and primitive accumulation--insofar as they intersect with modes of disclosure.
This essay analyses the grammatical category of inalienable possession by examining the interacti... more This essay analyses the grammatical category of inalienable possession by examining the interaction of morphosyntatic forms, semantic features, pragmatic functions, and discourse frequencies. Using data from Q’eqchi’-Maya, it is argued that inalienable possession may be motivated relative to two dimensions: (1) whatever any person is strongly presumed to possess (identifiability); (2) whatever such personal possessions are referred to frequently (relevance). In regards to frequency, inalienable possessions are compared with possessed NPs, and possessed NPs are compared with all NPs, in regards to grammatical relation, information status, animacy rank, and semantic role. In regards to identifiability, it is argued that inalienable possessions are like deictics and prepositions in that they guide the addressee’s identification of a referent by encoding that referent’s relation to a ground; and inalienable possessions are different from deictics and prepositions in that the ground is a person and the referents are its parts or relations.
In the New Organon (2000 [1620]), Francis Bacon made his fateful distinction between knowledge an... more In the New Organon (2000 [1620]), Francis Bacon made his fateful distinction between knowledge and power: if the task of knowledge is to fi nd for a given nature the source of its coming-to-be, the task of power is to super-induce on a given body a new nature. In making this distinction, Bacon offered his vision of an empirical science of material substance, itself grounded in the inferential processes of the human mind and the normative practices of an epistemic community. And he theorized the range of "idols"-from human-specifi c capacities to culture-specifi c practices-that could both guide and mislead such modes of inquiry.
This essay outlines some common properties of channels, infrastructure, and institutions. It anal... more This essay outlines some common properties of channels, infrastructure, and institutions. It analyzes the tense relation between channels and codes, on the one hand, and circulation and interpretation, on the other. It compares the assumptions and interventions of three traditions: cybernetics (via Claude Shannon), linguistic anthropology (via Roman Jakobson), and actornetwork theory (via Michel Serres). By developing the relation between Serres's notion of the parasite and Peirce's notion of thirdness, it theorizes the epi-function served by the menagerie of entities who live in and off infrastructure: enemies and noise, meters and sieves, pirates and exploits, catalysts and assassins. By extending Jakobson's duplex categories (shifters, reported speech, proper names, metalanguage) from code-sign relations to channel-signer relations, it describes four reflexive modes of circulation that any network may involve: source-dependent channels, signer-directed signers, self-channeling channels, and channel-directed signers. And it relates the commensuration of value to the enclosure of disclosure. [media, infrastructure, circulation, translation, enclosure.]j ola_1077 406..421 C lassic theories of channels, infrastructure, and institutions are eerily convergent. Each is understood as a kind of bridge that delimits a landscape, facilitates a passage, and forestalls a loss. For example, channels relate speakers to addressees, enabling the interpretation of meaning as much as its signification (Malinowski, Shannon, Jakobson). Infrastructure relates producers to consumers, enabling the realization of value as much as its creation (von Thünen, Marx, Marshall). Institutions relate selves to others, enabling the recognition of identity as much as its performance (Hegel, Mead, Goffman). Facilitating passage, each allows displacement in space, through time, between persons, and across possible worlds. Delimiting landscape, each helps constitute the poles so related: speakers and addressees, producers and consumers, selves and others. Finally, forestalling loss, each ensures that some medium endures-that words won't fade, that goods won't spoil, that personas won't wither. In short, these three terms have been traditionally conceptualized by means of a single trope: the metaphor of a bridge that gathers the banks of a river around it. This is somewhat ironic because nothing seems to fit this metaphor more perfectly than codes, and representations more generally-those cognitive, social, and technological bridges that gather together what otherwise seem to be the most ontologically unbridgeable of banks: signifier and signified, sign and object, mind and world, experience and event. Framed as such, channels and codes, or circulation and interpretation more generally, seem to partake of the same substance.
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Recent by Paul Kockelman
feel restless at the imminence of a yet unknown occurrence? And who
decides whether or not we are already in an age of unliveable extremes? The
anthropology of intensity studies how humans encounter and communicate the continuous and gradable features of social and environmental
phenomena in everyday interactions. Focusing on the last twenty years of
life in a Mayan village in the cloud forests of Guatemala, this book provides
a natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times, through a careful
analysis of ethnographic and linguistic evidence. It uses intensity as a way
to reframe Anthropology in the age of the Anthropocene, and rethinks
classic work in the formal linguistic tradition from a culture-specific and
context-sensitive stance. It is essential reading for not only anthropologists
and linguists, but also ecologically oriented readers, critical theorists, and
environmental scientists.
Books by Paul Kockelman
Life by Paul Kockelman
feel restless at the imminence of a yet unknown occurrence? And who
decides whether or not we are already in an age of unliveable extremes? The
anthropology of intensity studies how humans encounter and communicate the continuous and gradable features of social and environmental
phenomena in everyday interactions. Focusing on the last twenty years of
life in a Mayan village in the cloud forests of Guatemala, this book provides
a natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times, through a careful
analysis of ethnographic and linguistic evidence. It uses intensity as a way
to reframe Anthropology in the age of the Anthropocene, and rethinks
classic work in the formal linguistic tradition from a culture-specific and
context-sensitive stance. It is essential reading for not only anthropologists
and linguists, but also ecologically oriented readers, critical theorists, and
environmental scientists.
On the interpretive grounds of archeology and astrophysics.
And also a critique of Deleuze-inspired accounts of virtuality (such as those produced by Massumi and DeLanda).
And much else besides.
inalienable possession may be motivated relative to two dimensions: (1) whatever any person is strongly presumed to possess (identifiability); (2) whatever such personal possessions are referred to frequently (relevance). In regards to frequency, inalienable possessions are compared with possessed NPs, and possessed NPs are compared with all NPs, in regards to grammatical relation, information status, animacy rank, and semantic role. In regards to identifiability, it is argued that inalienable possessions are like deictics and prepositions in that they guide the addressee’s identification of a referent by encoding that referent’s relation to a ground; and inalienable possessions are different from deictics and prepositions in that the ground is a person and the referents are its parts or relations.