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The Talking Papers are a graphical and literary treatise on faith without dogma. They explore a domain that has been the subject of study of thinkers such as Maimonides, Lull, Della Mirandola, Blake, Santayana, and Yeats. Lara coincides with C. S. Peirce in the conviction that the life of thought and science coincides with the life inherent in symbols, i.e. that language is important for thought precisely because it is part of its essence. Arbitrary authoritarianism is rejected in the Papers, whereby an interlocking system of symbolic graphics and written texts is deployed such that each symbol is, literally speaking, conceived of as a living entity. In his investigation into the nature of symbols and semiotic systems, Lara reconizes at least three Universes, distinguished by the mode of existence of their constituent elements. Firstly, i.e. ultimately, Lara posits the Universe of ideas, consisting of entities subject to no knowable law, not even that of the principle of contradiction. Secondly, events, qualities, reactions, causes, effects, and so forth consort with, by, and through their objects in the Universe of facts. Thirdly, the knowable universe is perceived and understood through the use of reason and logic, insofar as the latter is an implementation of ethics. For those whose thought process unfolds through the use of symbolic forms other than the written word, the Papers present alternatives that hark back to the origin of human language, art, and science, i.e. to the birth of civilization and culture. It is appropropriate to note that three translators collaborated on the texts of the Talking Papers, all friends of the artist. The Israeli psychologist Galia Ankori contributed Hebrew versions, R. L. Mix, English, and the French physical anthropologist Tannia Delabarde, French. The original publication (July 31, 2000) was hosted at Webnexus.com until late 2004, when a server crash resulted in destruction of the verlang.com site. The present version is, unfortunately, incomplete. All of the .gif files of G. Ankori's Hebrew versions were lost, and T. Delabarde's French renderings cover Papers 1-33 only.
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