Cite as:
Françoise Balibar, ‘What Is a Thing?’, lecture presented at the workshop Chaos et jugement infini: Chaos und unendliches Urteil / Chaos and infinite judgment, ICI Berlin, 26 June 2009, part 1, video recording, mp4, 28:56 <https://doi.org/10.25620/e090626-1>
Lecture
26 Jun 2009
26 Jun 2009
What Is a Thing?
By Françoise Balibar
Martin Heidegger characterized modern science as the discovery that mathematics “touches upon things”, and does not simply provide a means for representing them. It would seem that this characterization has become more and more appropriate, and this talk will describe how contemporary physics characterises its objects through mathematical concepts of symmetry related to nineteenth-century discoveries of group theory (Galois, Klein, Weyl) and non-Euclidean spaces (Riemann).
Physical objects are now defined through their symmetries, and even theories themselves are now built in order to satisfy specific invariance conditions and symmetries. Symmetry has thus become the main way of accessing the world as it is built in physics.Françoise Balibar is a historian of science and professor emerita of physics at the Université Denis Diderot, Paris VII. She has published numerous works on Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity, and on the history and epistemology of physics.
Physical objects are now defined through their symmetries, and even theories themselves are now built in order to satisfy specific invariance conditions and symmetries. Symmetry has thus become the main way of accessing the world as it is built in physics.Françoise Balibar is a historian of science and professor emerita of physics at the Université Denis Diderot, Paris VII. She has published numerous works on Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity, and on the history and epistemology of physics.
Venue
ICI Berlin(Click for further documentation)
Organized by
ICI BerlinVideo in English
Part 1
Format: mp4Length: 00:28:56
First published on: https://www.ici-berlin.org/events/francoise-balibar/
Rights: © ICI Berlin
Part of the Workshop
Chaos et jugement infini: Chaos und unendliches Urteil / Chaos and infinite judgment
Thursday, 19:30 Lecture
Monique David-Ménard:
Der Begriff des Urteils bei Deleuze und in der Psychoanalyse
Monique David-Ménard:
Der Begriff des Urteils bei Deleuze und in der Psychoanalyse
Friday, 10:00 – 18:00 Closed Workshop
10:00 – 11:00
Marcus Coelen:
Chaotische Urteile und Unendlichkeiten der Literatur
11:00 – 12:00
Françoise Balibar:
Relativité et contingence
12:15 – 13:15
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky / Christoph Holzhey:
Kampf gegen das Chaos, Kampf gegen die Meinung.
Intensive Größe und Empfindung bei Gilles Deleuze und Hermann Cohen
13:30 – 14:45 Lunch break
14:45 – 15:45
Monique David-Ménard:
Das unendliche Urteil bei Kant und seine Lektüre bei Gilles Chatelet in ‘Les enjeux du mobile’ (Paris 1993)
15:45 – 16:45
Ali Benmakhlouf:
Chaos, indétermination et mouvement du monde
17:00 – 18:00
Final discussion
Friday,19:30 Lecture
Françoise Balibar:
What is a Thing?
Venue
ICI Berlin(Click for further documentation)
With
Françoise BalibarAli Benmakhlouf
Marcus Coelen
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky
Monique David-Ménard
Christoph Holzhey