Volume 45, 1998
Theory of Knowledge
Andrei Rodin
Pages 217-221
Event and Milieu
I consider how the notion of event is used in such important branches of twentieth-century thought as relativity, quantum mechanics, Marxist sociology and psychoanalysis. I show that in each case there is the same concept of event as of a series of communications. It is also shown that this new concept of event corresponds to traditional concepts of historical events. I analyze the difference between the concept of event and that of fact. Since a fact presupposes "an external observer" it is impossible to deal with an event without being involved in it. Since a fact presupposes its permanent logical form as a necessary condition of knowledge about it, any condition of knowledge about an event appears to be empirical itself. I show that the division between history and prehistory has the same basis as that between event and fact. The crucial question is how knowledge about an event is possible. The problem is that the concept of identity applicable to fact appears to be inapplicable to event. However, it appears possible to define an identity of event with an identity of media or "places" of communication. An open system of such "places" we call "milieu." A language is a paradigm for it. However, I suppose that unlike "the linguistic paradigm," the "paradigm of milieu" should refute the idea of the exceptional status of human language.