Book Sectionhttps://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_01
Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.
Keywords: Aesthetics; aspect seeing; critical thinking; figure of thought; heuristic; knowledge, theory of; multistable figures: multistability; science
Rights: © by the author(s). This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Part of Multistable Figures Containing:
Blurb
Frontmatter
Introduction
KippCity / Christine Hentschel
Aspects and Abstracta / B. Madison Mount
Splitting Images: Understanding Irreversible Fractures through Aspect Change / Luca Di Blasi
The Munchausen Effect: Subjectivity and Ideology / Pascale Gillot
Cognition and Volition: Two Aspects of the Human in the Age of Experimental Systems / Benjamin Dawson
Identity Politics Redux / K. Heintzman
Multiple Temporalities of the Partisan Struggle: From Post-Yugoslav Nationalist Reconciliation Back to Partisan Poetry / Gal Kirn
Figuring Ambivalence, Capturing the Political: An Everyday Perspective / Brigitte Bargetz
Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions: On the Multistable Use of Multistable Figures
Backmatter
Title
Introduction
Author(s)
Christoph F. E. Holzhey
Identifier
https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_01
Description
Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.
Is Part Of
Multistable Figures
Place
Vienna
Publisher
Turia + Kant
Date
2014
Subject
Aesthetics
aspect seeing
critical thinking
figure of thought
heuristic
knowledge, theory of
multistable figures: multistability
science
Rights
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Bibliographic Citation
Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Introduction’, in Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 07–21 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_01>
Language
en-GB
page start
07
page end
21
Source
Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 07–21
Format
application/pdf

References

  • Black, Max, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962)
  • Hesse, Mary B., ‘The Explanatory Function of Metaphor’, in Models and Analogies in Science (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), pp. 157–77
  • Lingua Franca, eds, The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000)
  • Lykke, Nina, ‘The Timeliness of Post-Constructionism’, NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 18.2 (2010), pp. 131–36 <https://doi.org/10.1080/08038741003757760>
  • Pang, Alex Soojung-Kim, ‘Visual Representation and Post-Constructivist History of Science’, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 28.1 (1997), pp. 139–71 <https://doi.org/10.2307/27757789>
  • Rancière, Jacques, La Mésentente: Politique et philosophie (Paris: Galilée, 1995); in English as Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. by Julie Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999)
  • Ricoeur, Paul, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977)
  • Rouse, Joseph, ‘Vampires: Social Constructivism, Realism, and Other Philosophical Undead’, History and Theory, 41 (2002), pp. 60–78 <https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2303.00191>
  • Sokal, Alan and Jean Bricmont, Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science (New York: Picador, 1998) <https://doi.org/10.1063/1.882506>
  • Žižek, Slavoj, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006) <https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/5231.001.0001>

Cite as: Christoph F. E. Holzhey, ‘Introduction’, in Multistable Figures: On the Critical Potential of Ir/Reversible Aspect-Seeing, ed. by Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 8 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2014), pp. 07–21 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-08_01>