November 29, 2023, a theoretical seminar "Penelope's Weaving: Subject and Observer in Event Theory" was held at the Institute of Philosophy and Law of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Speaker: Golovashina Oksana Vladimirovna, Doctor of Philosophy, Associate Professor, Leading Researcher at Ural Institute of Humanities (UrIH), Ural Federal University
Summary:
A social event occurs in the field of the social and constitutes this field. The main ambition of social event theory is that it describes social reality in general, and social order represents the order of unequal probability of events. The event is interpreted as a semantic complex, meaning a unity related to the act of observation, associated with the accomplishment in space and time. The report focuses on two problematic issues in the theory of events: the constitution of an event by the observer and the position of the subject within the event. It is the observer, using the system of distinctions known to him and the language of description, who thus strives to integrate the observed into the structure known to him, and often it is these structures (and not the person) that define the event as something. The event itself is ontologically indefinite, but the work of various actors - observers, observers of observers, information, technical and so on objects creates a certain logical image of the event. Such an interpretation allows us to think about social action in terms of the passivity of the acting subject, but the subject himself, living the event, is outside it. The time within an event can be characterized as waiting time. Filling it with any actions does not make sense, since only a completed event can have meaning. As a product of structural inequality, waiting time renders the subject vulnerable. The interpretation of the event proposed by observers is perceived uncritically, and is subsequently broadcast as their own. The consequence of appropriation, as well as a special temporal regime within an event, can be changes in the qualities of the subject or their manifestations.