Transdisciplinary epistemology of digital technologies for the design of a new tool and format for collaborative categorization to be integrated in interpretation tools for research, education and publishing – EPISTEME

Since our project started, interest in the epistemological issues raised by the digital is growing in all disciplines. On the occasion of the New Industrial World Forum but also in the Digital Studies international network we have been able, beyond astrophysics and history, to discuss this issue with researchers in biology , mathematics , archeology, linguistics, ... and with all the human and social sciences who question the production of their knowledge beyond the pioneering context of Digital Humanities .

The project has achieved significant theoretical results recorded on the sites of the New Industrial World Forum (http://enmi-conf.org/wp/enmi15/), on the Digital Studies Network web site (http://digital-studies.org/wp/fr/) and as part of associated seminars (Matrix Paris I-INA, C2I2 CEA-PSL-Mines) and soon in book form. Among the major issues addressed: the regime of digital truth in the era of big data and of the «end of theory« announced by Chris Anderson, algorithmic governmentality and machine learning, non-mastering of instruments and the problem of «black boxes«, publication of knowledge and open access, entropy and negentropy of the Web in the age of the Anthropocene, social network and hermeneutical re-decentralization of the Web, ...

In return with these theoretical foundations, several tools were prototyped for: - contributive categorization, annotating images and note-taking
- video annotation using categorization protocols promoting joint production of knowledge within controversies around the series Village Français
- online courses of interpretation in astrophysics or philosophy.

Publications and public events will be organized on an accelerated pace in the second part of the project to converge toward two exemplary experiments :
- A new ExplorNova site on the manufacture of scientific images in collaboration with France Télévisions and ExplorUnivers Mooc (CEA).
- Contributive ??controversy site on the series Village Français with MediaPart .

1. Stiegler, Bernard, La Société automatique : 1. L'avenir du travail, Fayard, mars 2015, 300 p
2. Puig, Vincent ; Pratiques contributives à l’âge des données, p 79, in Carayol Valérie, Morandi Franc, Le Tournant Numérique des Sciences Humaines et Sociales, Pessac, MSHA, novembre 2015

3. Bontems & Minier, Simondon’s cycle of technology and the design of “Image-Objects” in the era of digital culture, in Simondon and Digital Culture (Yuk Hui), submitted

4. Minier, V., Bontems, V. 2016. Statuts, fonctions et valeurs des instruments de l’exploration spatiale, in actes du séminaire Patrimoine contemporain: Science, Technique et Culture et Sociétés, Musée des Arts et Métiers (eds Cuenca, Ballé), Documentation française, p. 111 (publication invitée).

5. Minier, V., Bontems, V., 2016a, Simondon et les innovations dans les machines spatiales de l’astronomie, in Gilbert Simondon et l’invention du futur (ed Bontems), Decade de Cerisy 2013, Klincksieck, p. 147 (publication invitée)

6. Denis Peschanski, Sébastien Ledoux, Alain Dallo, La mémoire historique analysée à partir d’un blog : l’exemple du Village français, Journée d’étude Paris 1, « La toile, l’histoire et l’historien », 6 juin 2016

The goal of this transdisciplinary program is at once to specify the aspects that quintessentially characteristic of the transformation of disciplines (astrophysics, history) summoned by their relationship to their objects under the effects of digital formalization, and to develop instruments for scientific peer-communities, beyond the two disciplines, which facilitate a contributory categorization that engenders debate and controversy—based on the concept of transindividuation—and advocates bottom-up processes of categorization (issued by individual research activities) in addition to the top-down categorization model (that is to say, those produced by discussions within peer-reviewed communities, which are more or less local in a laboratory, specific to a school, peculiar to an entire discipline).


This work will be conducted with a view to functionally articulating the design of digital scientific instruments and publication tools targeted at users and publics from diverse backgrounds (primarily young researchers), and deployed in experimental contexts with high visibility (France Télévisions et Médiapart, Moocs and ehibitions at Saclay and Nantes). The goal is to connect the design of scientific instruments and the questions they support as didactic and pedagogical tools. A first task is dedicated to an epistemology study and to modeling traces.


On this conceptual basis, the central goal of the project is to build a new tool for collaborative categorization based on a new format (hermeneutic Web) articulated with semantic Web and social Web standards.


The backoffice and the data format will be integrated in generic tools even if they are protoyped for two specific disciplines:
1) reflexive and contributive technologies for researchers:
note taking, individual annotation on text, image and vidéo, indexing assisted by semantic tools
tools for managing debates and controversies constructed on an alternative model to general purpose social network for deliberation and certification

2) editorial technologies for researchers paving the way for a new publishing industry fully audiovisual for 3 editorial tools: MOOC, contributive web sites and onsite exhibition displays.


The project, which will be conducted by young researchers, and supervised by experienced researchers, all of whom intend to have a direct impact on the dissemination and evaluation of online knowledge in audiovisual form, will be specifically aimed at designing new forms of editorialization and publishing in partnership with France Télévisions and Mediapart.