Topological Ontology and Logic of Qualitative quantity

Bauman’s frequent use of metaphors contributed not only to the ornamentation of
sociological knowledge, but also to the humanization of time and space in liquid modernity.
Bauman believes in the so called humanization through metaphors.
It is interesting to relate the mode of Bauman’s metaphors, build on the dualities with the
third element that we could express as something “between”. With this betweennes we
could mark the unknown unknowns of Bauman’s Liquid Modernity, reminding about the
phenomenon of Liquid crystals are a state of matter that have properties between those of a
conventional liquid and those of a solid crystal. For instance, an liquid cristal may flow like
a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a crystal-like way. This analogy highlights one
of the important notion of Bauman’s thought – the Ambivalence. In his discussions on
Modernity, Bauman fully acknowledges the ambiquity of ambivalence and contributes to
the sociological understanding of Ambivalence.
The aim of sociological hermeneutics is to defamiliarize the familiar – defamiliarization of
the common sense. This job is heretical and iconoclastic because examine what is taken for
granted. The task of sociological hermeneutics is suitable for strangers as Bauman used to be
itself as intellectual émigré from the East Camp of Socialism in Europe.
Social institutions are not immune to hermeneutical analysis. Social facts are perfectly
available to the interpretative understanding. What Bauman offers with his sociological
hermeneutics is the interpretative understanding of sociality in the time and space of liquid
modernity.
Bauman’s sociological hermeneutics (“Hermeneutics and Social Science: Approaches to
Understanding” (1978) does not offer the illusion of theoretical knowledge that has rights
answers for social problems.
According to Bauman, social sciences are based on the “secondary hermeneutics”, they are
never-ending interpretations of human lives and social experiences. In the past social
sciences supported the illusion that they are solid signs and the only genuine guidance to
modern social life and its changes. In the postmodern liquid conditions, the arrogance and
falsity of this rationalistic illusion have been unmasked. The role of the critical theory and
sociology needs to be reconsidered.
In his discussions on Derrida, Bauman uses the metaphor of putting antifreeze in the care’s
radiator before winter. For Bauman the role of critical theory is to avoid the situation in
which all scientific and social knowledge would be considered “frozen” and final.
Critical sociology and hermeneutics should protect us against solid interpretations and
understanding.
Bauman praises the title of Gadamer’s work “Truth and Method” as deeply ironic because
there is no method leading us towards the objective notion of truth. For Bauman Gadamer’s
hermeneutics is an attempt at redefining the task of philosophy.
Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of Liquid Modernity and his method of sociological
hermeneutics are suitable grounds for application of the topological approach of Modernity
and Post-modernity, based on the Actor-Network Theory initiated by Bruno Latour and John
Law, in particular John Law and Annemarie Mol’s proposal for Social Topology with the
three components – regions, networks and fluids.
Conventional wisdom aligns mathematics with the “hard” sciences like physics and
chemistry. Within the “solids” of the modern mathematics, seventy years ago with the work
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