Expandend Cognition. On diagrammatic signs as embodied means of thinking

这项研究的动机是对图形表示的迷恋：就像可理解的复杂性的界面一样，它们创造了一个光学一致性的表面，通过这个表面，这些复杂性变得可以想象为感性的，并且可以通过实验投射作为操纵的提供。但是，在图示符号的象似性操作中所揭示的感性和知性的这种耦合的可能性的条件是什么呢？该研究追求的假设是，在图形表示中起作用的并不是结构的图画性和可视化，而是身体的空间性或其时空方向（感觉运动功能），作为意义对我们环境的基本投射：投影到二维表面上的空间类别，如内/外，上/下，左/右，上/下等，表现为图形表示的基本功能。它们提供了直观的概述，并显示了相应的图形标志的操作方式。这样一个扩展的心理学话语，使其连接到当前的立场，在认知科学，包括认知语义学或激烈的辩论的可能性，体现和扩展的心灵。然而，扩展还需要一个关键组成部分，以避免简化主义者将这项工作局限于图形标志的效率和效力。如果只考虑它们的时空或物理运作模式以及它们形式表征的合理性，这种危险是显而易见的。出于这个原因，这项工作还建立了与科学和技术研究（STS）的立场的联系，这些研究长期以来一直关注表征作为知识的非平凡人工制品的特定功能，并考虑到这些表征的文化偏见：即使是从表面上理性的自然科学中得到的表面上形式化的图示，也不是描绘现象，而是表现现象，在某种程度上，它受到技术、文化和社会变量（或偏见）的影响。这种对科学中视觉主义的物质条件的扩展视角--需要将现象转移到可见的领域--使得扩展的解释学成为必要，它可以发挥重要作用，特别是在解释学中。本书的第三部分在前面扩展的基础上，将图形学的一个强有力的概念应用于图形理论和实践的一个特定案例：Vilém Flusser的“技术图像”概念，至少根据我的一篇论文，这与他自己的图形素描实践有关。在这最后一部分，在一个强大的概念的主持下，这些连接的制定，从而尚未探索的层面Flusser的工作是开放的。

The study is motivated by a fascination with diagrammatic representations: Like an interface to the complexities of the intelligible, they create a surface of optical consistency through which these complexities become conceivable as sensual, and accessible experimentallyprojectively as an offer for manipulation. But what are the conditions of the possibility of this coupling of sensuality and understanding, which is revealed in the operative iconicity of diagrammatic signs? The study pursues the assumption that it is not so much the pictoriality and visualization of structure that is at work in diagrammatic representations, but rather the spatiality of the body or its spatio-temporal orientation (sensorimotor functions), as the basic projection of meaning on our environment: Projected onto a two-dimensional surface spatial categories such as inside/outside, up/down, left/right, above/below, etc. appear as basic functions of diagrammatic representations. They provide an intuitive overview and show the way the respective diagrammatic signs operate. Such an extension of the diagrammatology discourse makes it connectable to current positions in cognitive science, including cognitive semantics or the heated debate on the possibility of embodied and extended mind. However, the extension also requires a critical component in order to avoid a reductionist limitation of this work to the efficiency and effectiveness of diagrammatic signs. This danger is obvious if one considers only their spatio-temporal or physical mode of operation and the rationality of their formal representation. For this reason, the work also establishes connections to positions from science and technology studies (STS), which have long been concerned with the specific function of representations as non-trivial artefacts of knowledge and also take into account the cultural bias of these representations: Even the apparently formal diagrammatic representations from the apparently rational natural sciences do not depict phenomena, but represent them, in a certain way that is influenced by technical, cultural and social variables (or bias). This extended perspective on the material conditions of a visualism in the sciences – the need to transfer phenomena into the domain of the visible – makes an extended hermeneutics necessary, which can play an important role especially in diagrammatology. The third part of this work applies a strong concept of diagrammatics, based on the previous extensions, to a particular case of diagrammatic theory and practice: Vilém Flusser’s concept of the “technical image”, which is related, at least according to one of my theses, to his own diagrammatic sketching practice. In this last part, under the auspices of a strong concept of diagrammatics, these connections are worked out and thus an as yet unexplored dimension in Flusser’s work is opened up.