Panel: UNITY AND DIFFERENTIATION. INQUIRING NON-DUALISM AS INTERDISCIPLINARY PARADIGM



644.6 - UNFOLDING MANIFESTATION: NON-DUALIST ARCHITECTURES FOR AN EPISTEMIC MEETING GROUND

AUTHORS:
Giampieri G. (University of Bologna ~ Bologna ~ Italy)
Text:
From the structuralist gaze in physics, scientific knowledge shifts away from the description of substances toward the articulation of relational constraints, with objectivity grounded in structural invariance and symmetry rather than appealing to the positivity of entities. Within this framework, physical magnitudes can be understood as invariant structures that persist beyond material realizations and ensure the coherence of their transformations and conservation. Structures and substances thus become distinct: the latter belong to manifestation, while structures pertain to a prior epistemological level. This ground-breaking disciplinary gesture in physics mirrors what semiotics has already witnessed in its inquiry into sense-making, showing that behind material signs lies a dimension of immanent, differential, and non-ontic structures that allows continuity of meaning and intersemiotic transformations despite substantive heterogeneity. However, if invariants and symmetries frame physics as structural conservation unfolding continuous material transformations, a prior topological epistemic space emerges as a condition for articulation, capable of holding together conservation and identity through change. In order to inquire into the location and function of such a dimension, the paper investigates how non-dualist metaphysics can suggest a sound epistemological architecture. Kashmir Shaivism, in particular, establishes an integrated hierarchy of immanent unfolding, interpreting the apparent dualism operating at the phenomenal level (Māyā) as the result of a tiered and pervasive syntax of non-dualistic dimensions (Śuddhādhvā) providing a compelling and comparable perspective on the dynamics and conditions of manifestation in physics and semiotics.