In this chapter we briefly describe the facts of Ben Wright’s professional career as a physicist and psychologist. We also make some perspective-setting remarks on the strengths and range of his accomplishments, on the nature of his engaging and sometimes-challenging personality, as well as on his perspicacity and forward-looking view on the roles of measurement in the scientific world. In doing so, we ask some questions about his career and work that we hope (and expect) are illuminated by the succeeding chapters of the volume. Of particular interest are the ways in which Wright drew from his deep experiences in physics, mathematics, computers, and psychoanalysis to set the stage for new advances in qualitative theory and quantitative precision in measurement science, advances that are proving to span a wide range of fields not limited to psychology and the social sciences. We also give some details of the original Conference that was the generator of many of the chapters in the Volume.

Introduction to Benjamin Wright and His Contributions to Measurement Science

Introducion of technology always creates new meanings. As the feminist scientist Karen Barad puts it, with the scientific and technological intra-actions new material-semiotic boundaries and objects are placed into the world, new entities into cyberspace. Here we focus on vocabulary and speech working in material-semiotic way into, from and through computing and IT. The metaphoric usage of everyday terms serve in order to understand abstract concepts or innovative items, thereby changing their meanings. But also computer terms have migrated into the public sphere with extended meanings, e.g. the term "algorithm". Big Data with its AI methods is a relatively new field of creating meaning through scooping from an infinitely growing sea of utterances. All these three categories can linguistically be summarized as transcriptions. One goal of this text is to hint to the danger to believe in an assumed objectivity of AI- and machine learning systems.

IT-driven transcriptions: about gender and ethically relevant usage of speech and metaphors in computing and IT

Characteristics of Scientific and Technical Texts in the Engineering Field of Modern English

A Critical Pragmatic Account of Prosaic and Poetic Metaphors

In his essay, "Poesie et pensee abstraite," the French Symbolist poet Paul Valery describes poetry as a pendulum swinging between the philosophical ideas expressed ("la Pensee") and the sonorous qualities of language ("la Voix") : "Entre la Voix et la Pensee, entre la Pensee et la Voix, entre la Presence et l'Absence, oscille le pendule poetique" (1333). The same oscillation occurs in critical writing on poetry, with some critics paying closer attention to the ideas explored in the poems, and others focusing on the linguistic expression of these ideas, on such devices as rhythm, assonance, and alliteration, as well as on the use of figurative language. While, for Valery, the swinging of the poetic pendulum between sound and meaning ("son" and "sens") unifies these two aspects of language that are separated in everyday discourse, for critics of Rilke's poetry the pendulum of criticism has swung unevenly towards the side of ideas. Since Martin Heidegger's 1946 essay, "Wozu Dichter?" the tendency has been to interpret Rilke's poetry in a philosophical context. While Heidegger's essay shows great sensitivity to Rilke's poetic voice in attempting to determine the place of poetry in the modern world,1 some critics have taken this philosophizing tendency to a greater extreme, believing that Rilke can be interpreted without reference to the original German, i.e., that the sonorous qualities of the language are incidental and not an integral part of the poetry's meaning. Even when Rilke's poetry is read in German, critics have tended to "translate" his dense metaphors into philosophical language.2 Paul de Man noted this tendency and, in Allegories of Reading, attempted to move the pendulum of criticism towards the linguistic dimension of Rilke's poetry (25). Since then, some critics have followed his lead in emphasizing this aspect of Rilke's poetry and prose works.3 Others have turned the philosophical mode of criticism in a more literary direction by focusing on Rilke's links with such movements as Romanticism, Symbolism, and Modernism.4 De Man's readings introduced a new direction into Rilke studies. He argues that the poetry's overt assertions are contradicted by its linguistic structure. Thus, the "promise" of finding significance in poetry coexists with the "lie," or "loss of referentiality" in figural language (47-55). For de Man, Rilke's notion of "Figur" differs from a traditional metaphor, which suggests "the potential identification of tenor and vehicle" (46). Rilke's "Figuren," on the other hand, are characterized by the renunciation of stable meaning (47).5 My reading differs from de Man's in that it demonstrates how metaphor escapes the very dichotomy of "promise" and "lie" on which de Man bases his analysis. Recent work on metaphor by linguists, philosophers, and literary critics has suggested that this trope eludes such categories entirely: to speak or write metaphorically is to make a statement that is neither literally true nor false.6 Metaphors cannot be characterized as lies, but they can possibly change the way in which we view human beings, concepts, or relationships.7 I argue that it is this potential of metaphor to simultaneously bring together and separate two terms (objects, persons, concepts) that is highlighted and expanded in Rilke's poetry.8 He expands this potentiality through the use of the subjunctive mood in his metaphors and similes and thus creates a mode of existence outside the categories of truth and falsehood, presence and absence, being and non-being. While Rilke employs the subjunctive as well as other modes that escape the dichotomies of truth and falsehood, such as the imperative and the interrogative, throughout his poetry, they are most noticeably present in his Duitteser Elegien. Many critics have remarked, in passing, on Rilke's use of these modes;9 however, an analysis of the function and effect of these distinctively Rilkean linguistic features in conj unction with metaphor is still lacking. …

The Pendulum of Poetry: Metaphor and Mediation in Rilke's Duineser Elegien

Metaphor and Thought: More about metaphor

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Metaphor and Thought: More about metaphor

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Citations

Introduction to Benjamin Wright and His Contributions to Measurement Science

IT-driven transcriptions: about gender and ethically relevant usage of speech and metaphors in computing and IT

Characteristics of Scientific and Technical Texts in the Engineering Field of Modern English

A Critical Pragmatic Account of Prosaic and Poetic Metaphors

The Pendulum of Poetry: Metaphor and Mediation in Rilke's Duineser Elegien

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