Objective Transcendental

Gnomon

This discovery has ancient letters: neuter in gender, the word "gnomon", which in the Greek language designated the sundial's axis, signified "that which understands, decides, judges, distinguishes, interprets, yes, that which knows"; as if a thing, already, knew. Intercepting the sunlight, its shadow writes, on the dial itself, a few events of the sky and of the Earth, the solstice, the equinox and the latitude of the site. It functions automatically. "Automatic" means: without the intervention of intention, which is subjective and cognitive.

It can be said of the gnomon that it knows the way it is said that it rains. The gnomon looks like a stylus, but no one holds it in their hand. Some things of the world give themselves to be seen to an object that shows them: entirely objective, theory does without any subject. A thing, the gnomon, intervenes in the world, and the world reads on itself the writing drawn by it. This type of intrahardware software conditions our cognitive performances, like a kind of objective transcendental.

M. Serres

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