Expandend Cognition. On diagrammatic signs as embodied means of thinking

这项研究的动机是对图解表示的迷恋：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，并且可以通过实验和投影来实现，作为一种操纵的提供。但是，在图解符号的操作性象似性中揭示的这种感性和理解的耦合的可能性的条件是什么？该研究的假设是，在图解表征中起作用的与其说是结构的形象性和可视化，不如说是身体的空间性或其时空方向（感觉运动功能），作为意义在我们环境上的基本投射：投射到二维表面上的空间类别，如内/外、上/下、左/右、上/下等，作为图解表征的基本功能出现。它们提供了直观的概述，并展示了各自图解标志的操作方式。图解学话语的这种延伸使其与当前认知科学的立场相联系，包括认知语义学或关于具身和扩展思维可能性的激烈辩论。然而，扩展也需要一个关键的组成部分，以避免这项工作对图解符号的效率和有效性的简化限制。如果只考虑它们的时空或物理操作模式及其形式表征的合理性，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）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琐碎人工制品的具体功能，并考虑到这些表征的文化偏见：即使是来自貌似理性的自然科学的貌似正式的图表表示，也不是在描绘现象，而是以某种受技术、文化和社会变量（或偏见）影响的方式来表示现象。这种对科学中视觉主义的物质条件的扩展视角——将现象转移到可见领域的需要——使得扩展解释学成为必要，它可以发挥重要作用，特别是在图解学中。本作品的第三部分基于之前的扩展，将强有力的图解概念应用于图解理论和实践的一个特殊案例：vil<s:1>姆·弗卢瑟的“技术图像”概念，至少根据我的一篇论文，这与他自己的图解素描实践有关。在最后一部分，在强有力的图解概念的支持下，这些联系得以解决，从而打开了弗卢瑟作品中尚未探索的维度。

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.