The Challenges of âComparative Urbanismâ in Post Fordist Cities: The cases of Turin and Detroit

Philosophy

In 1947, the U.S. Secretary of State, George C. Marshall announced that the USA would provide development aid to help the recovery and reconstruction of the economies of Europe, which was widely known as the âMarshall Planâ. In Italy, this plan generated a resurgence of modern industrialization and remodeled Italian Industry based on American models of production. As the result of these transnational transfers, the systemic approach known as Fordism largely succeeded and allowed some Italian firms such as Fiat to flourish. During this period, Detroit and Turin, homes to the most powerful automobile corporations of the twentieth century, became intertwined in a web of common features such as industrial concentration, mass flows of immigrations, uneven urban sprawl, radical iconography and inner-city decay, which characterized Fordism in both cities. In the crucial decades of the postwar expansion of the automobile industries, both cities were hubs of labor battles and social movements. However, after the radical decline in their industries as previous auto cities, they experienced the radical shift toward post-Fordist urbanization and production of political urbanism. This research responds to the recent interest for a comparative (re)turn in urban studies by suggesting the conceptual theoretical baseline for the proposed comparative framework in post-Fordist cities. In better words, it develops a âtheoryâ on the challenges of comparative urbanism in post-Fordist cities.

Journal for interdisciplinary research in architecture, design and planning contourjournal.org | September 15, 2019 | DOI https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 1 RESEARCH ARTICLE COMPARING HABITATS The Challenges of "Comparative Urbanism" in PostFordist Cities: The cases of Turin and Detroit AUTHORS Asma Mehan 1 AFFILIATIONS 1 CITTA Research Center for Territory, Transports and Environment. University of Porto UP . Portugal CONTACT firstname.lastname@example.com ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 2 Abstract In 1947, the U.S. Secretary of State, George C. Marshall announced that the USA would provide development aid to help the recovery and reconstruction of the economies of Europe, which was widely known as the 'Marshall Plan'. In Italy, this plan generated a resurgence of modern industrialization and remodeled Italian Industry based on American models of production. As the result of these transnational transfers, the systemic approach known as Fordism largely succeeded and allowed some Italian firms such as Fiat to flourish. During this period, Detroit and Turin, homes to the most powerful automobile corporations of the twentieth century, became intertwined in a web of common features such as industrial concentration, mass flows of immigrations, uneven urban sprawl, radical iconography and inner-city decay, which characterized Fordism in both cities. In the crucial decades of the postwar expansion of the automobile industries, both cities were hubs of labor battles and social movements. However, after the radical decline in their industries as previous auto cities, they experienced the radical shift toward post-Fordist urbanization and production of political urbanism. This research responds to the recent interest for a comparative (re)turn in urban studies by suggesting the conceptual theoretical baseline for the proposed comparative framework in post-Fordist cities. In better words, it develops a "theory" on the challenges of comparative urbanism in post-Fordist cities. Keywords: post-Fordist Cities, Comparative Urbanism, Motor (Auto) Cities Introduction In the early part of the twentieth century, the dominant industrialization paradigm of the developed countries of North America, Europe and Japan, led to a system of mass production that came to be known as Fordism, the system formulated in Henry Ford's automotive factories. However, with technological changes, global market competition and organizational revolution that took place after the 1980s, Fordism was mainly replaced by post-Fordism, which is more reflective of self-organization, economic globalization, mass customization, decolonization of corporate headquarters within the downtown core, decentralization and devolution of authority, ad-hoc assemblage, selective gentrification of the inner city and the expanded mobility of the factors of production. In the 1950s and 1960s, a number of transnational trends connected Turin (part of the famous industrial triangle in northern Italy along with Milan and Genoa) and Detroit (American Motor City) such as similar patterns of growth, depopulation of the city center, industrial decentralization, demographic changes and territorial equilibrium. These cities of the automobile industry provided much of the radical iconography of their respective countries. The most famous events were the 1930 Sit-down strikes against General Motors in Detroit that led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry or the 1919 Biennio Rosso (the two red years) in Turin and the wave of strikes and marches that gripped the area starting from 'Fiat Mirafiori' Plant during the 'Hot Autumn 1969' in Turin which continued with the massive occupations of public ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 3 housing that occurred throughout the early 1970s and peaked in 1974. In both Post-Fordist cities, the intense conflicts over public housing, service costs, and urban plans were dramatic. In 1982, Paolo Ceccarelli used the term 'Città Fragili' (fragile cities) to characterize Detroit and Turin as the examples of how such modern cities should not be built [1]. However, Nicola Pizzolato in his book 'Challenging Global Capitalism' [2] called Turin "the Italian version of Detroit" and argued that Fordism had brought the opportunity to Meridionali (southern Italians), in Turin, and African-Americans in Detroit (two groups heavily represented in the automobile factories of these cities in the 1960s), who had exposed how 'fragile' the motor cities were. In response to a growing conflict in ways of promoting an agenda for the definition of post-Fordist cities, Comparing Turin and Detroit as prototypical forms of the post-Fordist Cities represents an approach which can help to advocate and develop new understandings of the expansion of automobile cities and urbanization processes, building one's theory from different North American and Italian contexts. Considering the fact that a viable urban theory includes the complex dynamics of social life and urban form, the comparative approach in urbanism emphasizes the commonalities across all types of cities and the organizational processes that shaped them. In the context of this research, three concepts are placed under debate: Post-Industrialism, post-Fordism, and Post-Modernism. This research aims to respond to the following questions: are these concepts partially synonymous? Are they actually used, in the field of history and theory of urbanism, referring to the same cities? The cases of Detroit and Turin are relevant to answer both these questions and to some necessary, complementary questions such as: what similarities can be identified between Detroit and Turin, two former Auto Cities from the point of view of the industrial system and the industrial production (= car)? Do these similarities correspond to the characters of the Fordist city and Fordist Urbanism as theorized by historians of urbanism, and urban sociologists? In this regard, comparing the urban features of Automobile Cities can define a framework for other Auto Cities like Stuttgart, Hannover and Wolfsburg in Germany, Cordoba in Spain, Toyota in Japan as well as Turin and Detroit, in which the automotive industry has been the dominant industry in the city. Transnational radical motor cities: Turin and Detroit In the post-war period, FIAT indirectly fueled an estimated 80 percent of the industrial economy in Turin's metropolitan area [3] (p.77). In Detroit, the whole market can be seen to be controlled by the 'Big ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 4 Three': General Motors, the Ford Motor Company and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US. Moreover, during the 1940s and 1950s in Detroit, a massive wave of immigration had recomposed the working class. In 1960s, African Americans constituted the majority of Automobile plants workers in the Detroit area [4] (p.97). Similarly, in 1972, 40 per cent of the car workers in Turin were southern Italians [3] (p.92). As the result of the mass migration to the city from southern parts of Italy, the Turin metropolitan area experienced a dramatic shift in its population, from around 800,000 residents in 1955 to some 1200,000 in 1974 [5]. Concurrently, the lack of public housing, poor residential conditions and the tendency of real estate brokers to specialize the modern residential building for the bourgeoisie became posed major concerns in terms of growth [6] (p.172). These demographic changes deriving from the Auto industry's decisions fueled competition for housing and resources between newcomers and locals compounded by ethnic and racial prejudices [7] (p.20). Starting from the 1950s, groups of labor radicals such as 'Correspondence' in Detroit and 'Quaderni Rossi' as the representative of autonomist Marxism in Turin, circulated ideas that challenged Capitalism and the Fordist system in a drastic way. These groups criticized the capitalist structure and urged workers to develop possible autonomist working class activity [7] (p.14). By 1980, the two motor cities became representative of the decay of the Fordist System paradigm. As a result, both cities experienced rapid industrialization, relocation of automobile plants, deficient public infrastructures, high unemployment rates and uneven urban growth that followed workers' insurgency. Fig 1. Turin's Manufacturing System. Source: Giaccaria, 2007 ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 5 Fig 2. The industries of Turin in 1914. Source: Gabert, 1964, p. 132&133 ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 6 Post-Fordist Urbanism To counter the negative representations that had been attributed to the Fordist Cities and Automobile Cities at the peak of their industrial powers as boring coke towns barely worth a visit, the new urban image in the post-Fordist cities has been represented. In 1961, Jane Jacobs in her book 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities' criticized Detroit at the height of its economic power: "Virtually all of Detroit is as weak on vitality and diversity as the Bronx. It is ring super-imposed upon ring of failed gray belts. Even Detroit's downtown itself cannot produce a respectable amount of diversity. It is dispirited and dull, and almost deserted by seven o'clock in the evening" [8]. Thus, Detroit offers the most legible indictment of Fordist patterns of urbanization. As Jacobs mentioned about the notion of the modern city, monotony and lack of diversity are the typical 'ills' or 'failures' of the industrial cities. Similarly, Charles Jencks in his book 'The Language of Post-Modern Architecture' described Detroit's deepest crisis as the "death of Modern Architecture" [9]. However, the force behind the emergence of postmodern architecture and urbanism must be found on the socio-economic level. Postmodern cultural production coincides with the historical crisis in the system of mechanical mass-production, first developed by Ford in Detroit [10]. In new Detroit, large buildings, offices, schools, train stations, and vast urban territories have been abandoned. The new model of postFordist Urbanism re-inhabited the historic city as a necessary communication hub for the new economy [11] (p.48). The origins of the post-Fordist tendencies can be found in several concurrent socioeconomic transformations such as: shifting commodity markets, increasing electronic control of production, decreasing state regulation, increasingly global capital markets, and weakening labor relations [11] (p.53). So, the new socio-economic logic of postFordism offers a reading of the current prospects of Detroit and other cities in the dynamic of global economic restructuring. Post-Fordist production paradigms are increasingly organized around principles of decentralization, horizontality, transparency, fluidity, and rapid mutability. Concurrently, the possibilities for post-Fordist urbanism are among the many interesting questions raised by Detroit. In this regard, the post-Fordist landscape is marked with polycentric spatiality and decisive re-colonization of corporate headquarters within the downtown core. In addition, revival of the central business district and selective gentrification of the inner city, including recreational and pseudo-historic tourist events, caters to a suburban population. Similarly, the works of the cultural Geographer Edward Soja offer an extensive analysis of the coming post-Fordist urbanism. Soja's exploration of postmodern urbanization focuses on the Los Angeles which plays the role of Detroit, once declared as the 'most thoroughly modern (Fordist) city in the world'. In his book 'Postmodern Geographies' [12], he described the contemporary post- ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 7 Fordist patterns of urbanization as: 'seemingly paradoxical but functionally interdependent juxtapositions are the epitomizing features.... One can find in Los Angeles not only the high technology industrial complexes of the Silicon Valley and the erratic sunbelt economy of Houston, but also the far-reaching industrial decline and bankrupt urban neighborhoods of rust-belted Detroit or Cleveland. There is Boston in Los Angeles, a lower Manhattan and a South Bronx, a São Paulo or Singapore. Soja's 'Spread City' is best described as "an amorphous regional complex that confounds traditional definitions of both city and suburb" [12] (p.212). Comparative Urban Features of Post-Fordist Cities In some countries, post-Fordist urbanism is linked with rapid evolution of civic policies for conducting urban redevelopment, renewal and regeneration as well as emergence of the new models of urban governance. Current narratives focused on depicting Turin as a city capable of fighting its industrial decline and reinventing itself through a balanced association of the old and the new [13] (p.167). In 1995, the new master plan for Turin focused on the regeneration of former industrial sites of Turin. In this plan, the spatial structure of Turin defined by the central backbone that was a modern representation of Turin's spatial structure in the Baroque period [14]. At the same time, the strategic approaches to preservation of some of the royal castles and palaces of the Savoy period such as the Castle of Rivoli and the Palace of Veneria, tries to redefine Turin as a city shaped by the 'Royal House of Savoy'. Holding international events, music festivals and national celebrations like Luci d'artista, the Turin Jazz Festival and the Turin Film Festival in the famous Piazzas of Turin like Piazza Castello were instrumental in transforming the urban identity of the postindustrial city. Starting from 1961, the new buildings erected in the southern part of Turin, such as Palazzo del Lavoro and Palazzo a Vale placed the emphasis on the emergence of modernity in the city [15]. The new slogans like "Turin, on the move" to introduce an innovative, dynamic and balanced city image were on the top of the city's advertising campaigns. For depicting Turin as a city capable of fighting its industrial decline, preservation of cultural heritage has been an important urban strategy. Consequently, Turin's Baroque studies by a growing number of Italian architectural historians brought the city to the forefront of international researches [16]. As the result of these new urban trends, the Strategic Plan of Turin, was signed by a large number of public and private actors in the year 2000 [13]. Enhancing place identity and promoting urban branding is a concept referring to both visitors and residents in the postmodern city [17] (p.312). In the process of creating new urban image, the ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 8 representation of Turin as a city of "culture, tourism, commerce and sport" was a strategic goal declared in the first Strategic Plan of city. The modern Turin marked its new urban identity by organization of great events like the 2006 Winter Olympic Games and tourism promotion strategies especially in the historic center of the city, in an attempt to provide a comprehensive answer to the crisis of Turin's Fordist pattern. Hence Turin represented itself as the former Automobile City, the Capital of Baroque, the Capital of the Savoy, the city of cafés and museums. In 1908, Henri Ford introduced the model T automobile and opened his first assembly line production in Detroit [18]. Ford's assembly line efforts to Americanize the 'immigrant workers' became models for 'welfare capitalism' and coined the term 'Fordism', to describe Detroit's distinctive contribution to the labor-intensive and highly productive form of modern industrial production. For describing Detroit as 'total industrial landscape', the dependence of towns like Toledo, Ohio, and Flint, Michigan, on the auto industry led to a common adage: "When Detroit gets a cold, the whole Midwest gets pneumonia" [19]. As Joachim Hirsch stated 'Fordism as the Taylorist organizational method was an answer to the international crisis of 1929-30 which lasted until the mid-1950s' [20] (p.28). In 1950, during the postwar economic boom in Detroit, a poster summoned the residents of a white neighborhood to an "emergency meeting" to respond to an "invasion" of the city by black workers [18] (p.230). In Detroit, post war tensions, the growing difficulties of American Auto industry and the destruction of the 1967 riots led to a decline in the city's population. As a result, entire sections of inner city of Detroit have been depopulated, leaving a hash of abandoned buildings, vacant or overgrown lots, and crumbling infrastructure [21]. Moreover, starting from 1970 with the rise of international competition especially from Japan and Germany, Detroit's image had been completely transformed. Metropolitan Detroit was completely abandoned by decades of disinvestment, depopulation and urban shrinkage. The city's urban problems were further compounded because of the relocation of Detroit's major automobile manufactures. While there are many identified brownfields within Detroit, many potentially contaminated are still likely to be in need of some form of remediation. The Detroit Strategic Framework Plan (DFC Strategic Framework) establishes a set of policy directions and actions designed to improve the quality of life for all Detroiters and support the fiscal sustainability for the city. This shared vision for Detroit asserts that by 2030, the city will have a stabilized population and twice the number of jobs currently available to residents. The DFC Strategic Framework horizon aims for Detroit to regain its position as one of the most competitive cities in the nation, the top employment center in the region, and a global leader in technology and innovation, creating a healthy and sustainable jobs-to-resident ratio and economic opportunities for a broad range of residents. As such, the city should be well on its way to implementing innovative, ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 9 21st-century systems of infrastructure and transportation, storm water management, power, and waste management to support new growth. Fig 3. 50-year land use scenario reflects the long-term vision for a city of diverse neighborhoods, employment districts, and productive landscapes. Source: Detroit Future City Report, DWPLTP Planning Team Discussions As Jan Nijman emphasized 'the essence of comparative urbanism must revolve around investigations of difference and commonalities among cities and urban processes. In this way, the particularities of places like Turin and Detroit must be read in 'dialectal dialogue with theoretical understandings'. Moreover, comparisons must be questiondriven, theoretically and empirically embedded and cases must be specifically selected [22](p.183-184). In this way, the theoretical foundations of comparative urbanism are about research design, methodology, observation and analyses. In addition, regarding the fact that city-state relations and the processes of urbanization have formed a constant critical dimension in the evolution of cities since ancient times, a broad political economy perspective can define comparative urbanism [23]. Nowadays, Turin and Detroit have become ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 10 the laboratory of new forms of political mobilization based on Industrial Heritage conservation, urban regeneration, improving urban quality of life and urban branding policies which improves marketing of the city image in various ways by converting the visual image of the city into a new image [24, 25, 26]. For attracting the external resources to these post-Fordist cities, organizing great international events were seen as special occasion to foster the new urban image. In terms of sociopolitical theory, the transition from the industrial Fordism of mass production to postFordism can be interpreted as the transition from the national welfare state to the global and neoliberal state [27] (p.119). In this respect, neoliberal restructuring of cities based on globalization narratives emphasized that the processes of the construction and destruction of capitals are always situated in time and space [28,29]. In the context of this research, the economic structure of the two cities has definitely been similar for decades. That meant that, apparently, also the social structure was similar, the immigration process and challenges as well. They were cities for the working class organized around the industry and its polarized but solid social structure, working times, services and housing needs. But the successive post-Fordist phase has highlighted and made the differences which were behind the main economic forces come to the surface: in the case of Turin a more inertial social and spatial structure emerged than in Detroit where there was rapid and massive depopulation, based on a pattern of highly diversified ethnical and racial opportunities, and abandonment of large parts of the physical city (against strong differences in the property and real estate market structure). The way the leaderships reacted in the two cities was also quite different: Turin had the opportunity to react reasonably quickly thanks to a great capacity of the wider local leadership of the mid 90s to explore and build a discourse, confidence and a concrete strategic approach towards a new vision of a more diversified city (the whole literature on the strategic plan: culture, events, heritage, attractiveness, urban regeneration, infrastructure, etc.) Moreover, Turin's municipality could access significant investment (such as EU, national, regional, local and private). However, the process in Detroit was quicker and more dramatic, with much fewer social parachutes than in Italy, less inertia on the spatial configuration, and that reaction in Detroit came slightly too late, with no support from the national State. Now of course Detroit is making up for lost time in a very original way, in a way probably much more bottom-up and led my other actors and can become a model again. Focusing on the connections of cities without concerns for hierarchies of power, researchers highlighted the multiple spatialities of placemaking, networking, and sociopolitical relationships, which echoes the re-emerging recognition of the comparative logic of urban studies. To address the challenge of comparative urbanism, Ward called for a "relative comparative approach" to urban studies that incorporates ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 11 transnational studies and understands cities as "strategic nodes of financial flows, migration, policy formation and the practice of state power" [30] (p.408). Similarly, Robinson has developed a new phase of comparative urban research by offering ways to recast the methodological foundations of a comparative approach to urban studies by analysis of 'topological spatialities and power relations' [31] (p.2). McFarlene believes that "the comparative city" should be studied as a mode of thought that informs how urban theory is constituted [32] (p.726). Based on Brenner's reading on Lefebvre, "the local, regional, the national and the global imply one another", in the sense of being mutually constituted and constituting [33] (p.135). In the 1980s and 1990s, based on the world cities hypothesis, 'global' or 'world' cities were attributed to European or American cities [34]. At the same time, some other scholars discussed other ways of categorizing cities such as 'post-industrial', 'postFordist', 'post-modern' and 'capitalist' metropolis [35, 36]. In the case of Turin and Detroit, the multiple spatialities of place-making, networking, and sociopolitical relationships reflect the theoretical basis of the comparative logic in the process of spatial transformation of both cities. However, current narratives depicted an image of complex neoliberal socio-political relations as cities capable of fighting their industrial decline and reinventing themselves through a balanced association of the old and the new. In this interpretation, the exact definition of three concepts of postindustrial, post-Fordist and postmodern urbanism can represent a theoretical framework for comparative studies in urban theory that can define a framework to other former Motor Cities as well. Acknowledgements. The author would like to thank Mrs. Anna Prat (director at Torino Strategica), Professors Carlo Olmo, Sergio Pace and Filippo De Pieri from Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) of the Turin Polytechnic (Italy) for their detailed comments and insightful suggestions. The author would also like to thank Professor Elena Cogato Lanza and Dr Dario Negueruela del Castillo for editing the manuscript and organizing the Comparing Habitats International PhD Seminar at the Laboratory of Urbanism (EPFL) in Lausanne (Switzerland) where an earlier draft of this paper was presented. ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 12 References 1. Ceccarelli, P. Due città fragili: Detroit e Torino. Ovvero, come non si dovrebbe costruire la città moderna. In: Il Mulino XXXII. 1983 no. 1: 17–3 2. Pizzolato, N. Challenging Global Capitalism. Labor Migration, Radical Struggle, and Urban Change in Detroit and Turin. Palgrave Macmillan 2013. 3. Musso, S. Il lungo miracolo economico. Industria, economia e società (1950–1970). In Storia di Torino. IX Gli anni della Repubblica, by Nicola Tranfaglia, 49–100. Turin, 1999. 4. Sugrue, T. J. The Origins of the urban crisis. Princeton, 1996. 5. Levi, F, and Maida B. La città e lo sviluppo. Crescita e disordine a Torino 1945-1970. Milano: Franco Angeli, 2002. 6. De Pieri, F. La ferrovia nella città: progetti, cantieri, dibatti. In Torino, reti e trasporti. Strade, veicoli e uomini dall' antico regime all' età contemporanea, by Paola Sereno, 191-227. Torino: Archivio Storico della Città, 2009. p.172 7. Pizzolato, N. Transnational Radicals: Labour Dissent and Political Activism in Detroit and Turin (1950–1970). International Review of Social History 56, no. 1. 2011: 1-30. p.20 8. Jacobs, J. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961. 9. Janckes, C. The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. London, 1977. 10. Harvey, D. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford, 1989. 11. Schumacher, P, and Rogner C. After Ford. In Stalking Detroit, edited by Georgia Daskalakis, Charles Waldheim and Jason Young, 48-56. 2001 12. Soja, E. Beyond Postmetropolis. Urban Geography 32 (2011): 451–469.Soja, Edward W. Postmodern Geographies. London, 1989.p. 13. De Pieri, F. Eventfully Preserved: Turin's historic heritage in the policies for urban regeneration of the last twenty years. Revista di Scienze del Turismo, 2010: 167-180. p.169 14. De Pieri, Filippo. La ferrovia nella città: progetti, cantieri, dibatti. In Torino, reti e trasporti. Strade, veicoli e uomini dall' antico regime all' età contemporanea, by Paola Sereno, 191-227. Torino: Archivio Storico della Città, 2009. 15. Chiorino C., Rosso M., and Pace S. Italia 61: The Nation on Show.	The personalities and legends heralding the centenary of the Unification of Italy. Torino: Allemandi, 2006. ASMA MEHAN | September 15, 2019 | https://doi.org/10.6666/contour.v0i4.92 13 16. Pozzolo, L., and Benete M. Baroque: 300 Years Old and as Young as Ever. Torino: Allemandi, 2008. 17. Gospodini, A. Portraying, classifying and understanding the emerging landscapes in the post-industrial city. Cities (Elsevier) 23, no. 5 (2006): 311–330. p.312 18. Sugrue, T.J. The Origins of Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. 19. Sugrue, T. J. Motor City: The Story of Detroit. History Now on American Cities, 2007. 20. Hirsch, J. Wird Staat privat? Theoretische Implikationen der Internationalisierung des Staates in Informationszentrum 3. (Welt) 2000. p.28. 21. Smith, Michael. Just how comparative is comparative urban geography? A perspective from archaeology. Urban Geography 30, no. 2 (2009): 113-117. 22. Nijman, Jan. The Theoretical Imperative of Comparative Urbanism: A Commentary on 'Cities beyond Compare? by Jamie Peck." Regional Studies 49, no. 1 (2015). p.183-184. 23. Mumford, L.The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects. Harcourt, Brace & World; 1961. 657 p. 24. Mehan, Asma. Urban branding Politics in Post-Fordist Cities: The Case of Turin, Italy." Valletta: The Valletta 2018 Foundation, 2017; 25. Repellino, Maria Paola, Laura Martini, and Asma Mehan. 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Prostitution: You Canât Have Your Cake and Sell It

Philosophy

I offer an unorthodox argument for the thesis that prostitution is not just a normal job. It has the advantage of being compatible with the claim that humans should have full authority over their sexual life. In fact, it is ultimately the emphasis on this authority that leads the thesis that prostitution is a normal job to collapse. Here is the argument: merchants cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they transact with on the basis of factors like the ethnicity or the religion of their client; but if prostitutes are âsex merchantsâ, then they cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they have sex with on the basis of these factors. Yet everyone should have the full discretionary power to refuse to have sex under any circumstances.

Volume 5, Issue 2 Prostitution: You Can't Have Your Cake And Sell It 77 Prostitution: You Can't Have Your Cake and Sell It SImon-PIerre CHevarIe-CoSSette University of Oxford 2017 oxford UeHIro PrIze In PraCtICal etHICS Honorable mentIon abStraCt I offer an unorthodox argument for the thesis that prostitution is not just a normal job. It has the advantage of being compatible with the claim that humans should have full authority over their sexual life. In fact, it is ultimately the emphasis on this authority that leads the thesis that prostitution is a normal job to collapse. Here is the argument: merchants cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they transact with on the basis of factors like the ethnicity or the religion of their client; but if prostitutes are 'sex merchants', then they cannot (both legally and morally) discriminate whom they have sex with on the basis of these factors. Yet everyone should have the full discretionary power to refuse to have sex under any circumstances. 1. IntrodUCtIon You have made it thus far: the wedding preparation is almost over. You enter your local bakery, cheekily anticipating the moment when you'll order a wedding Journal of Practical Ethics SIMON-PIERRE CHEVARIE-COSSETTE78 cake for 'John & John'. but to your dismay, the baker turns you down because your marriage goes against his 'Christian beliefs'. this is a true story and it is a recurrent one. In 2013, administrative law Judge robert n. Spencer found the owner of masterpiece Cakeshop guilty of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.1 the decision was then maintained by the Colorado Civil rights Commission2 and again by the Court of appeal3. the Supreme Court of Colorado refused to reconsider the case.4 analogous situations have occurred in texas and in northern Ireland. discrimination occurs, unfortunately, much more frequently than homosexual weddings. thus it has been the object of laws around the globe. for instance, the article that Spencer invokes reads: It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful for a person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, colour, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry, the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services [...]. (Colorado AntiDiscrimination Act: 24-34-601, (2) (a)) In 24-34-601, discriminatory practices are defined in the context of trade within a business establishment or a public institution, but other similar laws5 apply to all trade indistinctly. Sometimes discrimination is allowed. for instance, on safety grounds, a dwarf may be denied access to a rollercoaster and a leper may be refused a chiropractor's massage. With this qualification in mind, we can introduce the following principle: Non-Discrimination: a tradesman has the enforceable obligation not to refuse goods or services to clients on the basis of their disability, religion, sexual orientation, etc., unless this trait makes it dangerous for them to receive the service or possess the good. 1. See Craig & mullins vs masterpiece Cakeshop Inc. & Phillips; Cr 2013-0008, december 2013. 2. See the Colorado Civil rights Commission's decision, Cr2013-008, may 2014. 3. See Court of appeals no. 14Ca1351, august 2015. 4. See Supreme Court Case no. 2015SC738, april 2016. 5. See, for instance the equality act 2010 of british law or ch. I, 1., 10-12. of Québec's Charter of Human rights and freedoms. Volume 5, Issue 2 Prostitution: You Can't Have Your Cake And Sell It 79 thereby the State should intervene, were it to recognise relevant discrimination. this seems plausible: discrimination can directly cause severe harm to individuals- harm they could not resist on their own. allowing discrimination might also indirectly harm other individuals by giving rise to a toxic social environment. Surprisingly, the cake story teaches us a lesson about prostitution: if the Court's ruling is correct, then prostitution is not a job like any other.6 this conclusion follows from the inclusion of sex in the list of 'goods and services' mentioned in NonDiscrimination together with some equally plausible principles. §2 describes why some have taken prostitution to be a normal job. §3 argues against this from Non-Discrimination and addresses some objections. §4 concludes. 2. tHe debate over ProStItUtIon Why should prostitution be recognised as a job and prostitutes as sex workers? transactions should be legal if (and only if7): 1. the transaction is voluntary; 2. the transaction does not directly harm people who are not parties to it8; 3. the transaction does not cause an unacceptable kind or degree of harm to any of the parties of the transaction. Call liberalism about prostitution the view that sex transactions involved in prostitution satisfy or could in principle satisfy these three criteria. liberals about prostitution argue as follows. firstly, people often get involved voluntarily in prostitution. When the sexual transactions are involuntary, this is 'rape' or 'human trafficking', not 'prostitution'. Secondly, no one else is involved in the sex transaction: it is a service delivered by an individual to another, in a private environment. thirdly, the harm of prostitution to the prostitute is comparable to the harm of many other stressful jobs 6. after the completion of this paper, the author discovered that a comparable approach was taken in a blogpost to defend a similar claim (Watson 2014). 7. although it seems reasonable to add 'only if', it is not strictly necessary for my argument. 8. differently put, those who do not consent should not be directly harmed (cf. Saunders 2016, 1111). of course, what counts as direct harm needs to be strictly limited: for instance, the man who engages in a voluntary sexual transaction with his wife's friend may harm his wife in one sense. Journal of Practical Ethics SIMON-PIERRE CHEVARIE-COSSETTE80 (nussbaum 1999, 288–97). voluntary activities that fail to satisfy the third criteria are very rare (e.g. cannibalistic transactions9) and do not include prostitution. the liberal about prostitution then normally claims something along the following line. If the transactions that make up a job meet conditions (1), (2), and (3), then this is sufficient for a job being a normal job in the sense that it should be legalised and regulated according to the general rules of trading goods and services10. therefore, liberals about prostitution endorse: Normal Job: Prostitution is a job like any other, i.e. it should be legalised and regulated, in general, in accordance with the rules of trading goods and services. It is important to note that Non-Discrimination is not only one of these rules; it is a crucial rule of trading goods and services. by contrast, there may be non-crucial rules of trading goods and services which need not apply for some normal jobs. non-liberals about prostitution normally object to Normal Job on the grounds that prostitution does not satisfy (2) and (3). they firstly argue that the transaction harms people outside of the sexual transaction because it transforms the nature of non-market sexual relationships (e. anderson 1993, 154–55), for instance by representing women as sexual servants of men (Satz 1995, 78). non-liberals secondly argue that selling sex is extremely harmful to the prostitute because it expresses a lower social status and a loss of identity (Pateman 1988, 207) or because it limits the prostitute's autonomy (S. a. anderson 2002, 386). the disagreement over (2) turns principally on which harms should be recognised as such by the State. for instance, if I hurt my wife by kissing another woman, it is not the State's business. liberals think that the same goes for the sexist symbols conveyed by prostitution. for our purpose, I will leave this question aside. the disagreement over (3) turns on whether sexuality is special to human integrity. Selling sex is degrading, claims the non-liberal. the liberal disagrees: it is up to anyone to determine the meaning of sex in their life. State intervention only worsens the lives of prostitutes. more generally, the liberal endorses: 9. See the case of detlev Günzel (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32146031). 10. When it is explicitly laid out, this premise may sound unacceptable to some liberals about prostitution. this does not however prevent them from often making the claim that prostitution is just a normal job, which is the main thesis under evaluation. Volume 5, Issue 2 Prostitution: You Can't Have Your Cake And Sell It 81 Liberal Sexuality: the State is permitted to prevent, or punish one of the parties to, a sexual transaction if and only if this transaction is or was involuntary. this principle enshrines the absolute discretionary power that each has over their sex life. 3. dISCrImInatIon of ClIentS: Sex and Cake liberalism about prostitution gives us an appealing picture thus far: because it involves voluntary transactions which do not directly harm others and which are not unacceptably harmful, prostitution is a normal job. this claim is prima facie coherent with our intuition that the State has no business in regulating voluntary sexual transactions. nevertheless, this picture is incompatible with the lessons of the cake story. Consider again: Normal Job: Prostitution is a job like any other, i.e. it should be legalised and regulated, in general, in accordance with the rules of trading goods and services. Non-Discrimination: a tradesman has the enforceable obligation not to refuse goods or services to clients on the basis of their disability, religion, sexual orientation, etc., unless this trait makes it dangerous for them to receive the service or possess the good. Liberal Sexuality: the State is permitted to prevent, or punish one of the parties to, a sexual transaction if and only if this transaction is or was involuntary. these three principles are jointly untenable. Normal Job and Non-Discrimination together entail that prostitutes have an enforceable obligation not to refuse service to clients on the basis of their disability, religion, etc. now assume that a prostitute refused a sexual service to a client on such a basis. the prostitute might find it sickening to sleep with a married man; she might detest having sex with a fundamentalist; whatnot. according to Non-Discrimination, the state may intervene (to require that Journal of Practical Ethics SIMON-PIERRE CHEVARIE-COSSETTE82 she stop discriminating and compensate the client). but Liberal Sexuality tells us that the State may not intervene because there has not been an involuntary sexual transaction. the prostitute is free to refrain from having sex regardless of her reasons. to avoid this contradiction, I suggest that we abandon Normal Job. a natural response to this argument is, for those who refuse to amend Normal Job, to insist that the State intervention in such a case is not strictly speaking about sex. the State does not force the prostitute not to discriminate, but rather not to discriminate if she wants to keep her job. the object of the enforced obligation is thus not sexual. It reads: 'If you want to keep being a prostitute, then ...'. thereby, Normal Job, Non-Discrimination, and Liberal Sexuality are compatible. this reply at best defers the refutation of Normal Job. In a word, if the three principles are true, it allows the State to create some exploitative situations, which is absurd. Consider two additional principles: Exploitation: one's being forced either to have sex with someone whom one does not want to have sex with or to quit one's job is a case of an exploitative situation.11 and Role of State: the State should never create exploitative situations. Role of State is minimal: most liberals think that the State should not only refrain from creating but also fight (directly or indirectly) exploitative situations. Exploitation is also difficult to deny. It warrants our judgement that teachers and bosses should generally not have sex with their students or their employees. this is because there is a high risk for a person in authority of putting her subordinates in an exploitative situation or in a situation that is perceived as such. note that if a prostitute in the situation described in Exploitation decided to have sex nonetheless, without changing her mind about what she wanted, she would act intentionally, but not voluntarily. If I decide to hand in my wallet to a burglar because I do not want to risk my life, I do so intentionally but involuntarily (Hyman 2015, 87-91). 11. I do not wish to rely on a specific account of exploitation here. Yet, that exploitation turns out true is seemingly an important desideratum of any satisfactory account of exploitation. Volume 5, Issue 2 Prostitution: You Can't Have Your Cake And Sell It 83 Exploitation, Role of State, Non-Discrimination, Liberal Sexuality, and Normal Job are jointly contradictory. Here is how. a prostitute who would discriminate on the basis of her client's sex, religion, etc. would infringe her enforceable obligations (by NonDiscrimination and Normal Job). at this point, the State cannot directly intervene to force the prostitute to have sex (by Liberal Sexuality). rather, it may send the message to the prostitute: 'have sex against your will or abandon your job'. the State has thus created an exploitative situation (by Exploitation). but the State should never do so (by Role of State). to avoid this contradiction, I suggest that we abandon Normal Job, for it is the weakest link of the reasoning. Importantly, my argument does not assume that there are voluntary sexual interactions that the State should recognise as degrading. the argument simply maintains that the State should intervene when the interaction is involuntary; it says nothing about undesired, unemotional, non-committal sex. as such, it is compatible with Liberal Sexuality. (note that the argument does not assume the opposite either, i.e. that there are no voluntary sexual interactions that the State should recognise as degrading. the argument remains neutral on this general topic.) this becomes clearer once we distinguish the claim that voluntary sex is a special good (which the liberal denies) and the claim that involuntary sex is a special wrong (which everyone should admit). You do not need to think that sex is particularly transcendent to agree that being forced to choose between unemployment and sex with an individual that you do not want to transact with is exploitative. Some might point out that Exploitation should also be applied to similarly harmful tasks. I fully agree: if prostitution were just like some normal jobs, it would mean that these jobs were exploitative. 4. ConClUSIon I am aware that my argument might look contrived to people who are concerned with the serious injustices of the sex trade. Clients who are discriminated against are certainly not the actual victims of this system. but this was not the point: I rather wanted to show the tension amongst liberal tenets on prostitution and discrimination. If we think that one should retain the absolute power to refrain from having sex and if we agree with the Court of Colorado's enforcement of civil rights, we should resist the idea that prostitutes are normal tradesmen. If prostitution is not a normal job, what should the liberal say about sexual transJournal of Practical Ethics SIMON-PIERRE CHEVARIE-COSSETTE84 actions? on the one hand, the liberal may admit that sexual transactions should be directly or indirectly outlawed. It follows that either sex transactions do not satisfy (1), (2), and (3) (the alleged conditions for legalisation) or these criteria are insufficient. on the other hand, the liberal may insist that sexual transactions be legalised. for instance, individuals may trade sex, but it does not make them normal traders. Prostitutes could be protected workers, but who do not have legal duties regarding discrimination. this would make it a very special job indeed.12 referenCeS anderson, elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, mass ; london: Harvard University Press. anderson, Scott a. 2002. "Prostitution and Sexual autonomy: making Sense of the Prohibition of Prostitution." Ethics 112 (4): 748–80. assemblée nationale du Québec. 1975. Charte Des Droits et Libertés de La Personne. bbC news. 2015. 'Germany "Cannibal" trial: former Policeman Is Sentenced', april 1. http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32146031 [accessed november 2017]. Hyman, John. 2015. Action, Knowledge, and Will. oxford: oxford University Press. nussbaum, martha Craven. 1999. Sex & Social Justice. oxford: oxford University Press. Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. Satz, debra. 1995. 'markets in Women's Sexual labor'. Ethics 106 (1): 63–85. Saunders, ben. 2016. "reformulating mill's Harm Principle." Mind 125 (500): 1005–32. the Parliament of the United kindgom. 2010. Equality Act 2010. the State of Colorado. n.d. Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. Watson, lori. 2014. 'Why Sex Work Isn't Work'. http://logosjournal.com/2014/watson/ [accessed november 2017]. 12. further work needs to be done on comparing prostitution with other 'special jobs'. for instance, a Catholic priest can refuse to conduct a funeral service for a Protestant without breaking the law, and a mohel can refuse to circumcise a non-Jew even though they may charge a fee for their service. but perhaps such exception is justified by the fact that religious organisations are recognised as non-profit organisations. as a matter of fact, discrimination is sometimes allowed – or rather, some exclusions are sometimes not considered discriminatory. for instance, article 20 of the Quebec Charter of Human rights and freedom reads, 'a distinction, exclusion or preference based on the aptitudes or qualifications required for an employment, or justified by the charitable, philanthropic, religious, political or educational nature of a non-profit institution or of an institution devoted exclusively to the well-being of an ethnic group, is deemed non-discriminatory'. Clearly, article 20 is not relevant to prostitution. Should there be additional restrictions analogue to those mentioned in article 20 which would deal with prostitution? this may be the liberal's best avenue.


Philosophy

This short paper grew out of an observationâmade in the course of a larger research projectâof a surprising convergence between, on the one hand, certain themes in the work of Mary Hesse and Nelson Goodman in the 1950/60s and, on the other hand, recent work on the representational resources of science, in particular regarding model-based representation. The convergence between these more recent accounts of representation in science and the earlier proposals by Hesse and Goodman consists in the recognition that, in order to secure successful representation in science, collective representational resources must be available. Such resources may take the form of (amongst others) mathematical formalisms, diagrammatic methods, notational rules, orâin the case of material modelsâconventions regarding the use and manipulation of the constituent parts. More often than not, an abstract characterization of such resources tells only half the story, as they are constituted equally by the pattern of (practical and theoretical) activitiesâsuch as instances of manipulation or inferenceâof the researchers who deploy them. In other words, representational resources need to be sustained by a social practice; this is what renders them collective representational resources in the first place.

Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 52 Symbol Systems as Collective Representational Resources: Mary Hesse, Nelson Goodman, and the Problem of Scientific Representation Axel Gelfert, National University of Singapore This short paper grew out of an observation-made in the course of a larger research project-of a surprising convergence between, on the one hand, certain themes in the work of Mary Hesse and Nelson Goodman in the 1950/60s and, on the other hand, recent work on the representational resources of science, in particular regarding model-based representation. When it comes to scientific models, a number of recent authors have emphasized their status as 'concrete artefacts, which are built by various representational means' (Knuuttila 2011, 267), the importance of 'mature mathematical formalisms' which encompass 'locally applicable rules for the manipulation of [their] notation' (Gelfert 2011, 272), and model users' reliance on other ways 'to alleviate the cognitive load and increase the reliability of [their] inferences' (Kuorikoski and Ylikoski 2014, 7). The convergence between these more recent accounts of representation in science and the earlier proposals by Hesse and Goodman consists in the recognition that, in order to secure successful representation in science, collective representational resources must be available. Such resources may take the form of (amongst others) mathematical formalisms, diagrammatic methods, notational rules, or-in the case of material models-conventions regarding the use and manipulation of the constituent parts. More often than not, an abstract characterization of such resources tells only half the story, as they are constituted equally by the pattern of (practical and theoretical) activities-such as instances of manipulation or inference-of the researchers who deploy them. In other words, representational resources need to be sustained by a social practice; this is what renders them collective representational resources in the first place. Symbol Systems and Scientific Representation My main concern in what follows will be with symbol systems as representational resources, examples of which include mathematical formalisms as deployed in particular subdisciplines (e.g., the formalism of creation and annihilation operators in quantum field theory), diagrammatic methods (e.g., the Feynman diagrams of high-energy physics), visual symbol systems (e.g., structural formulas in organic chemistry), numerical notations, and so forth. While a full definition of what constitutes a symbol system is beyond the scope of this paper, typically such systems would require that well-formed arrangements (e.g., marks on paper, figures in a table, etc.) can be registered semantically as instances of a particular character (that is, such systems would be, in Goodman's terminology, 'syntactically articulate'), and that certain other features (such as compositionality) allow for the manipulation and interpretation of expressions within that system. For the limited purposes of this paper, a working knowledge of the general character of symbol systems suffices-whether such general knowledge derives from one's familiarity with natural (or formal) languages, or from specific examples of symbol Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 53 systems in the various sciences. In this sense, my usage of the term 'symbol system' is entirely generic; nothing much in what follows is likely to depend on the finer details of what constitutes a symbol system. In particular, I wish to emphasize that my discussion does not bear on the physical symbol system hypothesis put forward by Allen Newell and Herbert Simon in 1976, which asserts that a physical system that manipulates symbols, such as a digital computer, 'has the necessary and sufficient means for intelligent action' (Newell and Simon 1976, 116). Newell and Simon's thesis implies that by providing a digital computer with suitable symbol-processing capabilities (e.g., by feeding it with an appropriate computer program) would render it capable of intelligent (human-like) action. (Furthermore, Newell and Simon also argued for the reverse: namely, that 'the symbolic behavior of man arises because he has the characteristics of a physical symbol system'; ibid.) The symbol systems referred to in what follows are thoroughly human constructs: students learn them when being educated in their disciplines, scientists routinely deploy them (both individually, and in order to communicate with other scientists), and they are subject to-sometimes gradual, sometimes more radical-changes and modifications. Whether or not machines can be programmed to successfully deploy them is, for the purposes of this paper, of little importance. Hesse on Mathematical Formalisms Best-known for her view of scientific models as analogies (Hesse 1963), Mary Hesse situates her discussion within a broader project of analyzing how science and mathematics relate to one another. In her first major paper on the topic, published as 'Models in Physics' in The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in 1953, Hesse sets out to defend two theses, the second of which is put modestly, in the form of a suggestion: I shall suggest that most physicsts do not regard models as literal descriptions of nature, but as standing in a relation of analogy to nature (Hesse 1963, 201; emphasis original). It is this suggestion-suitably elaborated and qualified, given that Hesse is fully aware of the shifting meanings of the term 'analogy'-that has received considerable philosophical attention over the years. Hesse's work is best understood against the backdrop of a tradition that largely equated scientific models with either material or mechanical models. On this view, which derives from 19th-century scientific usage, a typical scientific model is 'a (real or imagined) concrete, material representation of something' (De Regt, 2005, 215). Obvious examples would include the billiard ball model of an ideal gas, or Maxwell's vortex model of the ether. By the time Hesse embarked on her analysis of models and analogies, the term 'model' had proliferated beyond the realm of the mechanical or 'picturable' to also include, for example, quantum-mechanical models. Indeed, it was partly this proliferation of the use Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 54 of the term 'model'-expressed in the claim that a model can be 'any system, whether buildable, picturable, imaginable, or none of these' (Hesse 1963, 21)-which motivated Hesse's project. Hence, it is not surprising that Hesse's intervention sparked a lively debate about the proposed analogical character of models, in classical as well as in quantum physics. However, Hesse's thesis concerning the analogical character of models is preceded by another thesis, which she puts as follows: Mathematical formalisms, when used as hypotheses in the description of physical phenomena, may function like the mechanical models of an earlier stage in physics, without having in themselves any mechanical or other physical interpretations (Hesse 1953, 199; emphasis original). Hesse here points to the significance of extant (established) mathematical formalisms, which are likened to the way mechanical models were used as tools of inquiry during earlier (presumably less theoretically-unified) stages in physics. Assuming, as seems legitimate, that the parallel with mechanical models is a deliberate one, one can then focus on specific features that both have in common. One common feature is defined by the goal of scientific representation; this, after all, is what models-whether material or mathematical-aim at (which, needless to say, does not preclude that models often serve a variety of other epistemic and non-epistemic goals). Furthermore, mathematical formalisms may be employed in a suppositional mode: they may be 'used as hypotheses in the description of physical phenomena' and, like hypotheses, may only be vindicated in the long run. (Of course, particular choices of mathematical formalisms may also turn out to have been misguided, insofar as they fail to be fruitful.) Hesse subsequently gives a fuller characterization of the contribution of mathematical formalisms to some of the newer scientific developments at the time: The question then arises, what takes the place in these physical theories of the pointers towards further progress which are provided by an easily pictured mechanical model? I shall suggest that what takes their place is provided by the nature of the mathematical formalism itself-any particular piece of mathematics has its own ways of suggesting modification and generalisation; it is not an isolated collection of equations having no relation to anything else, but is a recognisable part of the whole structure of abstract mathematics, and this is true whether the symbols employed have any concrete physical interpretation or not (Hesse 1953, 200). Three points are worth highlighting in this passage. First, Hesse credits mathematical formalism with providing 'pointers towards further progress', not unlike how picturable mechanical models in the past have often been suggestive of new directions of research. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 55 The tentative language is important here: picturable mechanical models as well as mathematical formalisms point towards progress and suggest new steps of modification and generalization, rather than logically entailing them or making them otherwise inevitable. Second, mathematical formalisms do not merely accommodate whatever hypotheses one may already have come up with regarding the target system, but instead also constrain the ways in which a system can be represented. As a 'particular piece of mathematics' each formalism 'has its own ways of suggesting modification and generalisation' (ibid; emphasis added); that is, every choice of a particular mathematical formalism involves a trade-off between certain affordances and constraints. Third, though this is largely implicit, there is an undeniably pragmatic dimension to Hesse's characterization of mathematical formalisms, in that it acknowledges the user (and audience) of such theoretical tools. It falls to those employing mathematical formalisms for representational purposes to employ the right sorts of symbol systems (i.e., those that are fit for the intended purposes), to pick up on promising lines of research, and to recognize the place-as well as the limitations-of the deployed formalisms within both mathematics-at-large and the research programme in question. Goodman on Representational Resources In his seminal book Languages of Art (1976; first published in 1968), subtitled 'An Approach to a Theory of Symbols', Nelson Goodman aimed to bring together previously separate debates about the nature of representation in language, art, and science, by exploring how signs in the different domains allow us to refer to the various target systems. Philosophers, of course, have long distinguished between natural and nonnatural signs. Whereas non-natural signs (e.g. words in a language) acquire their meaning largely arbitrarily, by way of convention, natural signs (e.g., smoke as a likely sign of fire) stand in certain causal relations that connect them to their target. One might ask where we should locate representation along this spectrum ranging from natural to non-natural signs-not least since, surely, we cannot plausibly demand that a representation must be causally dependent on its target. Goodman, for this purpose, introduces the notion of 'denotation' in order to capture an important ingredient in any representational relationship, viz. the fact that a representation 'stands in for' its target. Understood along those lines, denotation frees the representational relationship from the constraints of causality or resemblance, in that it may be entirely stipulative: 'almost anything may stand for almost anything else' (Goodman 1976, 5). It does not follow, of course, that any attempted act of denotation will automatically succeed at representing a target. For one, in order for there to be an instance of denotation, what is being denoted must exist. (I will leave aside Goodman's discussion of how we may nonetheless legitimately speak of representation-types when there are no actual tokens that can be denoted directly.) Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 56 Importantly, though, successful representation-even when the target exists-requires more than mere denotation. While, on occasion, Goodman gives the impression that anything may represent anything else, he is well aware of the fact that successful representation is de facto heavily constrained. Even before issues of faithfulness, accuracy, and truth arise, there is the question of whether a given representation makes relevant information salient and whether it can draw on entrenched denotative practices: 'Representation [...] is apt, effective, illuminating, subtle, intriguing, to the extent that' its originator 'grasps fresh and significant relationships and devises means for making them manifest' (ibid, 32-33). As Goodman remarks, 'there are countless alternative systems of representation and description', which themselves 'are the products of stipulation and habituation in varying proportions': we often find that we inherit established notational systems and representational formalisms, which-though in principle arbitrary-are no longer "up to us". While we have some degree of choice among such systems, given a particular system 'the question whether a newly encountered object is a desk or a unicorn-picture [...] is a question of the propriety, under that system, of projecting the predicate "desk" or the predicate "unicorn-picture" [...], and the decision both is guided by and guides usage for that system' (ibid, 30-31). Representation of a target system thus arises from the interplay of denotation and the various factors that determine whether one thing can successfully 'stand in for' another. While denotation affords considerable (though not unlimited) latitude, the factors that determine the success of one's representation (or attempt at representation) are at least partly external, given that a successful representation must make relevant features of the target system manifest to its user. It might seem natural to interpret Goodman's proposal along individualistic lines, for example by interpreting talk about 'encountering' an object, or about making a 'decision' to prefer some predicates over others, as referring to the autonomous judgments and actions of an individual cognizer. Whether a representation is successful then might seem to be largely a matter of the (individual) user's intentions and epistemic interests. Indeed, this seems to be the preferred view of some recent commentators who insist, as Craig Callender and Jonathan Cohen do, that 'the varied representational vehicles used in scientific settings (models, equations, toothpick constructions, drawings, etc.) represent their targets (the behavior of ideal gases, quantum state evolutions, bridges) by virtue of the mental states of their makers/users' (Callender and Cohen 2006, 75). (For a rebuttal, see Gelfert 2015, chapter 2.) When analyzed more closely, Goodman's position goes far beyond such a 'thin' construal in terms of the user's mental states. While his proposal can accommodate the fact that different users might use the same vehicles for different representational purposes (and that mental states may be what makes the difference), Goodman does not believe that mental states on the part of their users (or makers) are all that matters for representational success. For one, individual decisions are themselves guided by the prior (collective) usage of the requisite system of representation and description. Indeed, our Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 57 representational vehicles depend crucially on there being entrenched symbol systems- such as mathematical formalisms, diagrammatic notations, etc.-along with rules and conventions that set the requisite standards of correctness. Entrenchment of this sort is something that results from repeated successful deployment as part of a progressive research programme. The stability that comes with entrenchment, as Harry Collins puts it, 'is the stability of the forms of life or taken-for-granted practices-ways of going on-in which they are embedded; it is the stability of cultures and their social institutions' (Collins 1985, 18). Catherine Elgin broadly concurs when she notes that, although 'Goodman has not studied the social forces that entrench particular predicates or those that favor one mode of representation over another', not only could such an investigation 'fruitfully take place within the theoretical framework he provides', but-via the centrality of the concept of 'entrenchment'-it may even be said to be 'woven into the fabric of Goodman's epistemology' (Elgin 1991, 90). Mature Symbol Systems as a Form of Cognitive Scaffolding The overall picture that emerges from this discussion portrays representational devices as collective resources that researchers routinely draw on in their attempts to represent reality, convince colleagues of the merits of their models, and generally grasp 'fresh and significant relationships' and devise 'means for making them manifest' (as Goodman puts it). Symbol systems, such as mathematical formalisms, are an important theoretical tool in this process. At the individual level, for those of us who have mastered them, such systems aid us in carrying out inferences and allow us to fixate them in a medium that, when compared with natural language, reduces ambiguity. Indeed, as has been noted by others, '[u]sing a formal language forces the reasoner to explicate implicit assumptions, and makes the comparison of inferences from similar yet different assumptions easier' (Kuorikoski and Ylikoski 2014, 7). Similar considerations apply to the comparison of inferences and results across different reasoners-which is why instruction in the relevant notations and formalisms makes up a large part of technical and scientific training. Hesse's point-that mathematical formalisms provide 'pointers towards further progress' and have their own 'ways of suggesting modification and generalisation'-makes sense only against the backdrop of a scientific community whose members are skilled in applying and modifying models and theories, and which, collectively, is able to arrive at determinations regarding the fruitfulness (or 'progress') of new theoretical proposals. Elsewhere, I have discussed similar points specifically in relation to mathematical modelling, under the heading of mature mathematical formalisms, where this term refers to 'a system of rules and conventions that deploys (and often adds to) the symbolic language of mathematics; it typically encompasses locally applicable rules for the manipulation of its notation, where these rules are derived from, or otherwise systematically connected to, certain theoretical or methodological commitments' (Gelfert 2011, 272). Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 58 While such a 'mature formalism' will typically be set up in such a way that its output will automatically satisfy certain theoretical desiderata, it is not just an application of fundamental theory; indeed, some theoretically permissible scenarios lend themselves more easily to description in terms of a given formalism than others, while some scenarios may even be excluded from it. (Excluding certain types of situations in this way would be yet another way in which substantive theoretical constraints can be 'built into' a formalism.) Neither does a mature mathematical formalism consist in the wholesale application of mathematics-at-large to specific scientific problems: the versatility of mathematics as a 'global' representational resource severely underdetermines the specific rules and notations that govern mature mathematical formalisms such as the operator formalism in quantum mechanics. (In this sense, Hesse's identification of mathematical formalisms with a 'particular piece of mathematics' may still be too global: mature mathematical formalisms also include rules, conventions, and theoretical assumptions that are not themselves part of pure mathematics.) The emphasis on mathematical formalisms as representational vehicles, however, should not obscure the fact that similar considerations also apply to other (e.g. visual or diagrammatic) symbol systems. Consider the case of the notational system of Feynman diagrams, which was developed with the goal of representing a potentially indefinite number of physical processes in quantum electrodynamics. Each Feynman diagram consists of points ('vertices') and arrows (of different orientation) attached to the vertices, representing interacting electrons and positrons, as well as wavy lines signifying photons that may be emitted or absorbed. Enshrined in the formalism of Feynman diagrams are both rules for the construction of new diagrams (e.g., 'At every vertex, conservation of energy and momentum among the interacting particles is required'), as well as for the interpretation of the diagrams thus generated (e.g., 'Lines in intermediate stages in the diagram represent "virtual particles", which may "temporarily" violate the relativistic energy-momentum relation, but which are in-principle unobservable if they do not'). While the formalism of Feynman diagrams was developed on the basis of an overarching theoretical conception-which takes each diagram to represent a contribution to the total amplitude for a (multiply realizable) quantum process-it has taken on 'a life of its own' in certain areas of high-energy physics, where it has developed from a mere shorthand to what one might call a notational lingua franca. If the corresponding Wikipedia entry is any guide to what physicists (or at least those writing on physics) think about the value of Feynman diagrams, then the verdict is clear: Feynman diagrams are credited with 'provid[ing] deep physical insight into the nature of particle interactions', such as scattering processes, 'in addition to their value as a mathematical tool'. The historian of science David Kaiser characterizes the adoption of diagrammatic methods in high-energy physics as a process of 're-tooling' (Kaiser 2005, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 59 163) of the discipline as a whole, and also notes the importance of social practices that led to the acceptance of the new methods. Taking Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in the late 1940s/early 1950s as his preferred example, Kaiser notes that its character as a 'focused yet informal haven for post-docs proved crucial for spreading Feynman diagrams around' (ibid, 162). Though the formalism of Feynman diagrams may have started off as an initially arbitrary notational system, it quickly acquired a degree of social and institutional reality that would shape the behaviour and cognitive processes of theoretical physicists, while at the same time being constituted by their actions and communications. On the Character and Function of Symbol Systems I want to close with a few general remarks about the character and function of symbol systems as collective representational resources, which, I hope, will open up space for discussion. The idea I wish to put forward is that the kinds of mature symbol systems I have discussed serve as a form of 'cognitive scaffolding', which allow their users to 'offload' or 'externalize' cognitive load, to fixate their inferences-both across time and in order to make them available to others-and to draw on a wide range of inferential resources. Mature symbol systems serve as a way of outsourcing inferential work, for example by ensuring that results derived within the formalism satisfy the requisite criteria of validity. This is especially obvious in the case of mathematics, given the truth-preserving nature of logical and mathematical reasoning, but it also applies to physically interpreted formalisms such as Feynman diagrams and the operator formalism in quantum physics, where adherence to certain syntactic rules of the formalism often automatically ensures that certain physical constraints-conservation of energy and momentum, or conformity with Pauli's exclusion principle-will be satisfied. While it would be an exaggeration to say that mature symbol systems 'do the thinking' for their users, the preceding discussion also makes clear that they are by no means simply 'neutral tools' that function as mere conduits for their users' intentions and mental states. There is a close affinity between this analysis of mature symbol systems and recent discussions in philosophy about the concept of extended cognition. In Andy Clark's and David Chalmers's classic thought experiment, Otto, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, always carries with him a notebook to record information for future reference, relying on it much as he would on his memory (if the latter were to be functioning properly). According to Clark and Chalmers (1998), Otto's mind has been extended to include the (external) notebook, given that the latter fulfills the same functional role as the (internal) memory does for a normally functioning cognizers. Thus, the extended mind hypothesis: A human subject's cognitive processes can come to include, at a constitutive level, external artefacts such as a computer or a notebook. An alternative take on extended cognition is offered by Kim Sterelny. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2015 Vol. 4, No. 6, 52-61. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-29f 60 According to Sterelny's scaffolded mind hypothesis, irrespective of whether one accepts Clark's and Chalmers's extended mind hypothesis, this much is clear: 'human cognitive capacities both depend on and have been transformed by environmental resources' (Sterelny 2010, 472). This is true both from an evolutionary perspective, according to which human cognitive competences emerge as part of a process of 'niche construction' and 'depend intimately on the environment being scaffolded to support adaptive decision making' (ibid, 466), and also at the level of individual development and cultural evolution. Unlike the extended mind hypothesis, which is primarily about how external artefacts can be constitutive of human cognition, Sterelny's definition of cognitive scaffolding also includes natural factors and social practices (which cannot easily be 'individualised'). Sterelny explicitly mentions 'language and arithmetical notation', which 'enhance our capacity to think, even when we do not have external resources to hand' (ibid, 471). It is not by chance that these examples-language and arithmetical notation-are paradigmatic instances of collective symbol systems. Whether we are dealing with natural language, simple arithmetical notation, or with the elaborate and complex formalisms of science, symbol systems constitute powerful representational resources, which are resources not just for an individual cognizer considered in isolation, but are entrenched and sustained through collective social practices. Contact details: email@example.com Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Eric Kerr for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. References Callender, Craig and Jonathan Cohen. "There is No Special Problem About Scientific Representation." Theoria 55, no. 1 (2006): 67-85. Clark, Andy and David Chalmers. "The Extended Mind." 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