2022
|
“Transformative Transitions: Learning from a Distant Past,”
DirittoPolitecnico.it, 1/2022, pp. 127-139.
See full text
In this paper (supplemented with and editorial by Danila Iacovelli and a commentary paper by Paolo Paolini), the author deals with the concept of "digital discourse" and the new oppurtunities that digitality provides us to better understand and study ancient history. The contribution discusses the historical importance of the birth of language and logical thought, which “marks a radical change in the relationship to nature” (p. 128), and the later "invention" of writing, which is seen as a mean by which “actions and abstract concepts can also be so coded and referenced to” (p. 129). Digitality (and the related digital thought) enables us to further extend our capabilities in knowing and communicating, since it allows to link a fragment of information to a coherent whole by active ("searching") and passive means ("hyperlinks"). In the third section of this paper, the author explains the difference between an "electronic discourse" (e-discourse, which “refers to a human discourse applied to data that are available in electronic format”, p. 134) and a "digital discourse" (d-discourse, which is “a discourse that is in itself structured digitally”, p. 134). In the last section, the author presents his "multi-planar model/argument", which represents “our ability to perceive the whole through an immensely greater univers of fragments” (p. 139), a new approach and methodology which can be applied to websites as a “new 'form' of humanism [which] will truly trans-form our way knowing reality, our epistemology” (p. 139).
[This paper is the result of a conference held on November 16, 2021 at the "Politecnico di Milano" (Italy); the recording of this event can be found at the following link, divided into two parts: Part 1 and Part 2.]
[mDP – August 2022]
|