ATHEROSCLEROSIS AND ITS VERSIONS. CIRCULATING REFERENCE, PERSPECTIVISM, AND ONTOLOGICAL FRACTIONALITY (Arterioskleroza i jej wersje Krazaca referencja, perspektywizm i ontologiczna frakcyjnosc)

The article refers to the concept of circulating reference, previously presented in 'Zagadnienia Naukoznawstwa'. The main question is then: what happens when there is more than one network of circulating reference? Traditionally, philosophy explained such a situation in terms of multiple competing pictures (representations) of a single object. It is offered then an epistemological perspectivism as a plausible explanation. Following the works of a Dutch philosopher, Annemarie Mol, the authors argue that the very problem should be posed as an ontological one, and not as epistemological, since what is crucial here are practices and material interventions in the 'pieces of the world' instead of just cognitive representations. The argument is build around the case of atherosclerosis of lower limbs. Multiplied atherosclerosis should be then viewed as an 'object' which is more than one, and less than many. To grasp this unclear situation, one may speak, referring to John Law, about an object and its fractions.