Frederik Ruysch and his Thesaurus Anatomicus: A Morbid Guide

hegemonic idea of science as merely objective and blinded by empirical research. Instead, he insists on science’s rootedness and amazement and hypothetical reasoning—two forms of fundamental modesty–and thus its possible links with what is at stake in the human experience of scale. For Scale Theory, scale is essentially transformative. Part One of the book explains the major aspects of this transformation with the help of some scalar daily life experiences, which are then enlarged via a certain number of thought experiments. First, scale reconfigures what we observe: What appears on scale A becomes invisible on scale B, which can be bigger or smaller than A, and vice versa. The difference in resolution between these domains is marked by what the authors calls thresholds of observation (a typical mistake of nonscalar reading of scale differences appears for example when we directly link what we observe on scale A with what we observe on scale B). To reveal the transformative power of scale an object or a singular unit must be fundamentally differentiated: The objects we observe are also part of smaller as well as larger objects we do not observe at the same time, but which are not nonexistent for that reason. Second, the differentiated view of the objects does not relate to the object itself (when we look from further away and no longer see the trees of a forest, that does not mean that the trees themselves have changed) but to the distance between the observing eye or the observing apparatuses and the object: “Scale is created only by the relationship between . . . two very different perspectives” (p. 29). Technically speaking, “scale is the relation between one ‘over there’ and another ‘over here’ ” (p. 32). This difference has major consequences for the experiencing subject, who ceases to be a single unit; the “I” can no longer identify with one of the two scalar perspectives; instead, the “I” must identify with both (if not, the scalar experience degenerates into a nonscalar one). Third, the scalar experience also has a powerful cognitive dimension that helps move beyond the limited range of the single Homo sapiens experience. The scale experience can be scaled itself, so to speak; it produces forms of knowledge that can be stored, memorized, taught, interpreted, and so on, and therefore supersede any immediate empirical observation, scalar or nonscalar. The result of this cognitive dimension of the scale experience further complicates the possible relationships between object(s) and subject(s). Part Two of the book covers a more philosophical approach to the basic notions of scale theory: subject, object, and of course the shifting relations between them. Quite logically, given the nondual horizon of his scalar thinking, DiCaglio relies here and in other parts of the book as much on non-Western as on Western concepts and ways of thinking, which he not only confronts and contrasts, but brings together in such a way that their differences become less apparent and important than their similarities. He fluently moves back and forth between Western metaphysics and Buddhist philosophy, for instance, clearly stressing how various thinkers and traditions have tried to come to terms with the scalar experience, each with their own concepts, their own illuminations, and their own limitations. Of particular interest here is the critical reading of posthumanism and transhumanism, which fall within the scope of scale theory, but are not always free of certain forms of nonscalar pars pro toto reasoning. Of similar interest is the discussion on scaling as an expression of power (cartography is a case in point, which DiCaglio subtly rereads as a form of paradoxically nonscalar thinking, given the pervading role of the “meter scale,” the difficulty of acknowledging questions of unknowability and multiplicity), and the difficulties one may have in conceptualizing the way in which scalar objects, subjects, and relations interact at various levels. The author frequently questions easy posthuman identifications between levels and scales, while also being very critical of exaggerated constructivist approaches of science and facts. At the same time, and this is not a surprise either, DiCaglio pays close attention to the mystical writings of Philip K. Dick, a part of Dick’s oeuvre that is often considered quasi-nonsense, or at least largely uninteresting in comparison with his fictional writing. Part Three addresses questions of communication, rhetoric, and representation of the scalar experience (we should not forget that the author is a professor of English and well trained in rhetoric). Central to this part is the problem of the (relative) impossibility of communicating the uniqueness and specificity of such an experience, which raises the double problem of, on the one hand, the limits of representation, in language as well as through other media, and, on the other hand, the role and status of rhetoric. Here, DiCaglio zooms in on Plato, the allegedly supreme enemy of all things rhetoric. The close reading of parts of Plato’s work help the author bring to the fore a more nuanced interpretation, which underlines the positive aspects of words and language. The horizon of Scale Theory is however neither scale nor theory. If scale is the object under scrutiny and theory the chosen perspective on that object, DiCaglio’s major concern is unquestionably “mystical,” in the broad and open sense hinted at above. Not in the perhaps somewhat naïve (nonscalar) way of dissolving the boundaries between “I” and the “universe,” but nevertheless with a strong ethical and political call to reconsider our place and role in that universe.