creation, element, Gabriel Tarde, Gaston Bachelard, Georg Simmel, Gilles Deleuze, intensiology, manifold, measure, memory, morphogenesis, René Thom, rhythms

On Social Intensiology

Conceptualizing social life through topological folding, braid operators and collapse functions

Out now in Sociological Spectrum

50 free downloads at https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/URI5DF9PCRK4QAUXCVGQ/full?target=10.1080/02732173.2026.2738891

Abstract. Social intensiology is outlined here in its connection to morphogenesis. the latter aims to explain how form come into existence, just as the former seeks to tackle the intensive states of social life. A topological reference model is proposed for conceptualizing how social life operates immanently with saliences and pregnances. The paper starts from the famous Collatz conjecture, and reviews how it has been recently modelled by Danail Valov using braid groups and including thermodynamic irreversibility into the picture. A ‘Valov braid’ can be understood as a manifold, an entity that is, at the same time, individual and collective. Its collective structure can be reconstructed, through its operational logic, as a tensional field. An attempt is made to show how phenomena of memory and measure are intertwined with the braid’s developments, giving rise to a rich present, multi-faceted that lives in non-coincidence. Within such framework, rhythmanalysis is presented as a useful tool for assaying and experimentally improving social life.

Keywords: social theory; social modelling; topology; braid groups; rhythmanalysis

pdf version

inspiration, intensiology, magic

Inspiration-space

Now out in Environment Space Place 17(1): https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/23/article/997503/

Kalliope.001

Abstract. The paper seeks to explore theoretically the relation between space and inspiration. It reviews a series of places, institutions and situations in the light of the notion of inspiration-space, trying to clarify what is at stake in each of them. Inspiration is examined not only from the subjective point of view, but also more amply from a cultural point of view – that is, as a structuring social force. Selectively drawing testimonies from a range of creators, writers, and artists, and engaging in particular Gabriel Tarde’s social theory of imitation and invention and Simondon’s theory of transindividuality, the paper suggests some possible links between inspiration and everyday life, about their complementarity and intermingling.

pdf

commonality, intensiology, morphogenesis, social manifold

The Social Logic of Leadership

Triangle-of-Sadness

A reading of Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness through Fascist and Aberrant Leadership

Abstract. This piece puzzles about the social logic of leadership through the lens of the movie Triangle of Sadness (2022), directed by the Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund. A distinction is introduced between two modes of leadership, here called, respectively, ‘fascist’ and ‘aberrant’. Phenomena of leadership, it is contended, illustrate the workings of social logic ex vivo, and offer exquisite examples of how intensities intervene in social interaction, giving rise to the tensive states in which the local protagonists of interaction are caught. Östlund’s film has noticeable diagnostic power, so that the piece unfolds as a study of the sociological materials it provides, even apart from the narrative plot and the satirical or critical intentions.

Keywords: social theory, social interaction, social logic, social intensities, leadership

Now out in The Journal for Cultural Research : https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/FKVPYAEGKCASAXPCAXRC/full?target=10.1080/14797585.2026.2682597

 

Alex Langer, animals, body, commonality, environment, geo, life, measure, the vegetative stratum, value

On Bioabilities. A new approach for ecological thinking and action

Beaver Dam
source | https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/kZsn7fdLFPgmuJzEB4ntT3-1200-80.jpg

 

(with Carlo Brentari and Federico Comollo)

Out now in Global Social Challenges

Abstract. We propose the notion of bioability as the subjective correlate to biodiversity. Bioability entails the capacity to maximize the forms and patterns of life within given ecosystems. Cutting across the natural and social sciences, the bioability approach opens up a field for research and intervention, which focuses on the imaginational and aspirational dimensions of terrestrial politics. In the context of increased awareness of climate tipping points, developing bioabilities help advancing experimental practices in ecological conversion.

pdf

 

camouflage, fake, intensiology, publicness, transformation, visib, visual

Semblance. The uses of fakery

Abstract. News concerning revelations or allegations of counterfeited identities and racial passing unmistakably stir strong feelings in the public. The domain of semblance is a domain of first impressions, certainly, yet these fulfils major cognitive needs and moral evaluations in social life. The article surveys the domain of semblance as a peculiar social interaction space endowed with its own logic, highlighting the entanglements of strategic and emotional, of rational and gratuitous, that contradistinguish it. To theorize adequately the domain of semblance, it is suggested, we need to proceed through at least three moves: first, focus on how semblance work exceeds rational and strategic behaviour; second, consider the intensive regimes associated with becoming-minority through the deployment of desire and emotions; third, besides acts of mimesis (imitation), also consider the existence of processes of méthexis (participation), whereby semblants coalesce not so much through copying a model but through joining environments.

Keywords: passing; faking; appearances; semblants; social epistemology; social interaction

PDF version

 

transformation, urban

Deptford. Ageing in the City

with Caterina Nirta

 

Abstract. In this article, we conduct an applied territoriology of Deptford, a town in south-East London, to highlight the peculiarities of ageing in place in the context of a changing neighbourhood. We look in particular at the intersection of ageing and public space, devising a phenomenological gaze onto places, with an eager ear towards the stories they tell – and sometimes, conceal. An exercise in trans-scalar thinking ensues, whereby large-scale urban trends are illuminated through the mundane and the ephemeral. The neighbourhood emerges as a ‘fold’ of potentially conflicting but actually coexistent turns, whereby an emplaced ‘generational time’ is crafted.

 

Keywords: ethnography of public space; urban ageing; walking as method; urban transformations; London

 >>> draft available upon request

Adolf Portmann, Charles Sanders Peirce, Gilles Deleuze, intensiology, manifold, morphogenesis, René Thom, surface / depth

Something critical occurs at a fractional dimension between two and three…

A proposal for knitting together semiophysics and biosemiotics

 

NOW OUT in Biosemiotics

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s12304-025-09613-1

 

Abstract. The paper advances a proposal for binding together the insights of biosemiotics and those of semiophysics. The task of achieving an intelligible ontology, in opposition to both mechanical reductionism and metaphysical vitalism, is shared by these two approaches. Yet, there are architectural differences between the two theories. The paper reviews such a differendum, focusing in particular on the difference between Thom’s two-fold construction of saliences and pregnances, and Peircean three-fold categorial construction encompassing firstness, secondness and thirdness. An integrated semiophysical-biosemiotic graph thus encompasses five key categories. This paper suggests to arrange them as a “W” shape to chart their possible dynamical interactions.

Keywords: semiophysics; biosemiotics; theory of meaning; salience/pregnance; firstness/secondness/thirdness

 pdf version

 

 

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