European University Institute Library

Documentality, why it is necessary to leave traces, Maurizio Ferraris ; translated by Richard Davies

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Documentality

bibliography

820630199

Maurizio Ferraris ; translated by Richard Davies

Commonalities

why it is necessary to leave traces

"This books ushers in a new way of talking about social phenomena. It develops an ontology of social objects on the basis of the claim that registration or inscription - the leaving of a trace to be called up later - is what is most fundamental to them. In doing so, it systematically organizes concepts and theories that Ferraris's predecessors - most notably Derrida, in his project of a positive grammatology - left in an impressionistic state. Ferraris begins by redefining ontology as a way of cataloguing the world. Before any epistemology can discuss the validity of scientific or nonscientific judgments, one faces a collection of objects, be they natural, ideal, or social. Among these, Ferraris focuses on social objects, elaborating a theory of experience in the social world that leads him to define social objects as "inscribed acts." He then uses this notion to interpret social phenomena, also in light of a systematic discussion of the concept of performatives, from Austin to Derrida and Searle. Moving into considerations of the present technological revolution, Ferraris develops a "symptomatology of the document, " which leads to a consideration of legal systems, finding in them original applications for his theory that an object equals a written act"--provided by publisher

Introduction : marriages and years in jail. -- Catalog of the world. -- Ontology and epistemology. -- Social objects. -- Ichnology. -- Documentality. -- Idioms