172
investigate how scientists accomplish connections between specific research documents and their underlying realities.
"good enough"
Methodological issues
methodological horrors!!
craft-based skills of laboratory work (not trying to deceive anyone)
173
amorphous metal alloys, metallic glasses
issues of chrystallization
spin melting
174
monitor electrical resistance:
isothermal annealing and heating at a constant rate
setting up the experiment
175
pen chart recorder - pen traces changes int he resistance of the alloy ribbon
other talk going on
talk about graph as it develops
178
indexical relations
so, what emerges is shaped by what has come and will shape what will come.
differential significance to past events
time... "stockpile scence"
refer to past procedures to figure out what is going on with abberations (tagging up)
179
abandon certain traces (poor electical contacts)
captions - tell relevant features of the past - but is constructed
issues of foreign matter - establishment of a family of traces - so what is foreign ?
180
constructs of histories of the moment
persons interacting, but not being accounted for final results.
181
lots of utterances and other semiotics that interact with each other to make knowledge
most are unaccounted for in reports
chart recorder is just one part of the conversations
"character of a document is an occasioned accomplishment"
182
many artifacts "speaking"
183
reading temperature - chains of "unquestioned connections"
"assumptions of adequecy permits short cuts"
185
bump on the graph
reflective - report what is seen
- idea widely differing perceptions of the same phenomenon are commonplace to argue that the reflective view is untenable
meditative - alternative social, historical, psychological & other factors intercede between phenomenon and its description. (depends on implicit realism)
constitutive: no phenomena independent of its description
the way in which such versions gain, sustain and lose their corrigibility is the focus of inquiry
186
states of "upness" and "flatness"
meditative - up has been constructed (social expectations) - interpretive flexibility of connections
so - researcher has to concoct the presence and nature of social circumstances
constitutive - upness is result of "interaction betwen participants, and the document on the chart recorder"..."up" quality intrinsic to the curve... up is matter which could be determined in the face of various intervening social and historical circumstances" (186-187)
consider 1st and 2nd analytical positions
187
Better test - different participants independently produce same characteristics
flat and shape
188
189
judicious juxtaposition of documents
tee gee - modify or elaborate "up" - reflexive relationship
tee gee/ up - independence? accomplish independent objectivity
190
up moves to next new development
tee gee = functions - interactional closure on the described state of the trace
documents frame the trace's current shape...
191
referential - what has become fact?
putting together present and past slopes
192
what has become an artifact of something else?
193
195
document as a part of already established affairs
other/ collectivity
197
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Lynch The externalized retina
201
selection and mathematization
"Selection concerns the way scientific
methods of visualization simplify and schematize objects of
study. Mathematization concerns how such methods attribute
mathematical order to natural objects."
visual analysis - lacking?
visual an important part of scientific fact
202
Visuals -
They are essential to how scientific objects and orderly
relationships are revealed and made analyzable.
"To appreciate
this, we first need to wrest the idea of representation from an
individualistic cognitive foundation, and to replace a preoccupation
with images on the retina (or, alternatively 'mental images'
or 'pictorial ideas') with a focus on the 'externalized retina' of
the graphic and instrumental fields upon which the scientific
image is impressed and circulated?"
"For sociological purposes, the
"real" object is the representation in hand, e.g., the visual display,
and not the invisible phenomenon or abstract relationship "out
there. ''3 Furthermore, we need to recall that visual documents
are used at all stages of scientific research. A series of representations
or renderings is produced, transferred, and modified as research
proceeds from initial observation to final publication."
" The first collection consists of 'split-screen' juxtapositions of
photographs, diagrams, and sometimes 'models,' each of which
proposes to represent 'the same thing.' The split-screen format
enables us to discuss procedures of selection or simplification by
examining how diagrams transform photographic depictions."
"The second collection consists of illustrations which display how
a natural terrain is turned into a graphic field. These illustrations
will be analyzed for how they identify substantive properties of
depicted 'objects' with the mathematical parameters of a graph."
"Published
illustrations are not self-sufficient descriptions of research
processes. 4 They do not directly reveal how researchers produce
and utilize visual documents during laboratory projects."
203
illustrations - parasite
" The way documents are
used in natural science texts thus converges with their analytic
use here; my discussion parasitizes properties of the documents it
analyzes. Foremost among these parasitized properties is that of
how the illustration is an autonomous surface that is nonetheless
contained within a text, and which can be used in various ways by
the text's discourse to invite a reader to 'see what is being said."
"Instead of using pictures as evidence for naturalistic
claims about objective entities or relationships, I will use them
as evidence of methodic practices, accomplished by researchers
working together in groups, which transform previously hidden
phenomena into visual displays for consensual 'seeing' and 'knowing.'"
204
selective perception
ordering
way we select something
"Selection is responsible for the constancy-phenomena:
rhythm into a monotonous succession of sonorous strokes,
it groups dispersed dots into rows, figures, and constellations.
Whatever organization may be found in experience is bestowed
upon it by the mind working on the 'primordial chaos of sensation.'
(Gurwitsch, 1964:28)"
Research teams use laboratory
practices to transform invisible or unanalyzed specimens into
visually examined, coded, measured, graphically analyzed, and
publically presented data.
filters to make manageable data
205
issues with filters:
"The idea of selectivity or simplification serves adequately as a
starting point, as a sensitizing notion that motivates a sociological
interest in how scientific research constitutes objects of study.
I will claim here, however, that the metaphor of filtering fails to
address significant aspects of research practice. To support that
claim, and, more importantly, to point to characteristics of the
research process that are missed by the notion of selectivity, I
will discuss a series of figures chosen from various scientific texts."
" I will use
the illustrations to argue that the notion of simplification is too
simple, and that it glosses over features of transformational practices
which, when examined in their own right, do not seem to be
matters only of filtering or selection. While a few published illustrations
will not give access to the lively complexities of laboratory
work, and of the in situ work of transforming specimens into
"facts," they are adequate for the purpose of reexamining the idea
of selection or simplification in scientific 'perception.'"
208
"The diagram is a schematic representation of what
can be seen in the photograph. The members of the pair have a
directional relationship to one another: each is an independent
representation, but they are not equ.ivalent. One depends upon
the other: the diagram operates upon what is shown in the photograph
(unlike, for instance, two different technical renderings of
a same thing, 8 such as can be seen in comparisons between x-ray
and optical photographs of a distant galaxy or nebula). Although
the diagram can be seen as a schematic version of the photograph,
the photograph is not to be taken as a schematic representation
of the diagram."
sequence - directionality
" Relative to the diagram, the photograph appears
to be more "original" material," whereas the diagram is more
evidently analyzed, labeled, and 'idealized.'"
the photo is not more "true"
209
filtering - things disappear, we don't know why
uniforming - show less variation than the original photo
upgrading - Shapes, and divisions between distinct surfaces are
made more definite. Dim differences become clear differences of
structure, and identifying features are more clearly distinguished
against their backgrounds.
Defining - Entities are not only made more like one another, they are more
clearly distinguished from unlike entities. Sensual qualities of the
image work in concert with linguistic labels and pointers to code
and categorize entities. What counts as likeness or distinctness
depends upon the analytic purposes of the text in which the
figures appear.
210
" In Figure 2, the lines and textures of the diagram adjust the
sensual qualities of what is shown to more clearly 'respond' to
the labels connected by the pointers."
eidetic images - icon!!
What I wish to argue is that, relative to the photograph, the
diagram is an emetic image 11 and not merely a simplified image.
I emphasize this relativity because it could also be argued that
relative to what would be seen in the microscope the photograph
is an eidetic image, or that relative to the original specimen the
stained and otherwise prepared slide in the microscope is an
eidetic image (note how the caption in Figure 1 states that the
ribosome in the micrograph is "defined by an outline of the salt
of a heavy metal"). By "eidetic image" I mean an icon of what
Heidegger (1967:101 - 102) calls "the mathematical" in the sense
of mathesis universalis: the theoretical domain of pure structure
and universal laws which a Galilean science treats as the founda
211
215
Tracings
In addition to merely synthesizing particular representations,
certain models (such as Figure 5) are drawn in such a way as to
'expose' internal or underlying 'mechanisms' that serve further to
analyze or to explain visible anatomical features.
216
The concrete representation of the
anatomical entity begins to crystallize not only what can be seen
of it in various micrographs at a comparable level of magnification,
but also what can be claimed about its biochemical structure;
a structure which could not possibly be viewed by the same
means as the anatomical outlines. Note how the cut-away view of
the cristae (Figure 5) seemingly exposes an abstract geometrical
arrangement in its inner mechanism. This juxtaposes anatomical
context and explanatory geometrics within an integrated visual
account; a visual image that nowhere could be seen or photographed
in a unified way with currently available techniques other
than through the artful assembly of such a diagram.
216
The model does not necessarily simplify the diverse representations,
labels, indexes, etc., that it aggregates. It adds theoretical
information which cannot be found in any single micrographic
representation, and provides a document of phenomena which
cannot fully be represented by photographic means.
217
Illustrations in scientific texts seldom merely depict specimens,
they integrate the individual and aggregate properties of specimens
with mathematical operations. Tables and graphs abound in
scientific publications. These visual documents integrate the substantive,
mathematical, and literary resources of scientific investigation,
and create the impression that the objects or relations they
represent are inherently mathematical.
217
for-granted mathematical sciences. From that
contemporary starting point he programmatically outlined the
problem of how the things encountered in a pre-scientific praxis
were measured by, and identified with, the limit forms of geometry:
First to be singled out from the thing-shapes are surfaces -
more or less "smooth," more or less perfect surfaces; edges,
more or less rough or fairly "even"; in other words, more or less
pure lines, angles, more or less perfect points; then, again,
among the lines, for example, straight lines are especially preferred,
and among the surfaces the even surfaces, straight lines,
and points are preferred, whereas totally or partially curved
surfaces are undesirable for many kinds of practical interests.
Thus the production of even surfaces and their perfection
(polishing) always plays a role in praxis. (Husserl, 1970:376)
The limit forms of geometry, initially used as points or lines of
reckoning for guiding constructive action, were cognitively transformed
into the basis for a Galilean physics; a physics that posited
mathematical order to be the essential underlying nature of the
empirical world.
218
It is possible to read Husserl's account as a description, not of
a once-and-for-all historical movement from proto-science to
science, but as an account of what scientists do every time they
prepare a specimen for analysis in actual laboratory work. Starting
with an initially recalcitrant specimen, scientists work methodically
to expose, work with, and perfect the specimen's surface
appearances to be congruent with graphic representation and
mathematical analysis.14
219
The details of laboratory work, and of the
visible products of such work, are largely organized around the
practical task of constituting and "framing" a phenomenon so that
it can be measured and mathematically described. The work of
constituting a measurable phenomenon is not entirely separate
from the work of measurement itself, as we shall see.
Mathematization is embodied in the graph. The graph has
become an emblem of science which even popular advertisements
exploit. Graphing a phenomenon identifies the thing or
relationship with the analytic resources of mathematics. Just as
significantly, it places an account of the thing on paper, or prepares
the phenomenon with a practical and social universality;
not the cognitive universality of mathematics, but the mundane
durability, iterability, and invariance of a textual impression, is
224
Scientists sometimes speak of "natural laboratories;" unusual
circumstances which permit controlled observation, comparison,
and experimentation to be performed on fields, objects, or relationships
which usually occur in more confounding circumstances.
224
...select and isolate purportedly "natural" features of their
specimens that facilitate controlled observation. For instance,
areas of the brain which exhibit a "stratified" anatomy are dissected
for analysis instead of regions where the spatial arrangement
of cells does not distribute into relatively uniform regions. '9
In other words, there is a preference for specimen materials that
exhibit approximate geometricity, not because geometric form
by itself is of interest, but because such form provides a convenient
basis for specific practical actions. Figure 6, "Dr. Goring's
test objects," illustrates an early case in microscopy of a collection
of objects which exhibited unusual linearity and regularity
of magnified details. The details were not so much of interest
in themselves, as they were as naturally occurring grids for elucidating
the optical accuracy of the instruments used to examine
them."
225
leads to upgrading and framing
228
Each
lane identifies an individual specimen, and each row identifies a
specific "molecule" analytically isolated from the specimens.
Molecular identity is visible as nothing more than the two dimensional
size of the spots and their graphic distribution. Although
more substantial than points, the "molecules" are also highly
abstract, taking the form of opaque spots identified with graphic
codes.
Variations on the commonplace organization of the graph are
endless: Are points plotted on paper 'by hand' or are they meant
to identify substantive properties of specimen residues (such as
in Figure 10)? Do lines and scales originate from the designs of
instruments (Figure 10), or do they claim a material relation to
anatomical strata (Figures 6 and 8)? Hybrid graphic features can
be viewed as relatively abstract or concrete; as originating through
literary representation or 'hands off' instrumental transfers from
'world' to paper (such as with a seismograph).
selection and mathematization
"Selection concerns the way scientific
methods of visualization simplify and schematize objects of
study. Mathematization concerns how such methods attribute
mathematical order to natural objects."
visual analysis - lacking?
visual an important part of scientific fact
202
Visuals -
They are essential to how scientific objects and orderly
relationships are revealed and made analyzable.
"To appreciate
this, we first need to wrest the idea of representation from an
individualistic cognitive foundation, and to replace a preoccupation
with images on the retina (or, alternatively 'mental images'
or 'pictorial ideas') with a focus on the 'externalized retina' of
the graphic and instrumental fields upon which the scientific
image is impressed and circulated?"
"For sociological purposes, the
"real" object is the representation in hand, e.g., the visual display,
and not the invisible phenomenon or abstract relationship "out
there. ''3 Furthermore, we need to recall that visual documents
are used at all stages of scientific research. A series of representations
or renderings is produced, transferred, and modified as research
proceeds from initial observation to final publication."
" The first collection consists of 'split-screen' juxtapositions of
photographs, diagrams, and sometimes 'models,' each of which
proposes to represent 'the same thing.' The split-screen format
enables us to discuss procedures of selection or simplification by
examining how diagrams transform photographic depictions."
"The second collection consists of illustrations which display how
a natural terrain is turned into a graphic field. These illustrations
will be analyzed for how they identify substantive properties of
depicted 'objects' with the mathematical parameters of a graph."
"Published
illustrations are not self-sufficient descriptions of research
processes. 4 They do not directly reveal how researchers produce
and utilize visual documents during laboratory projects."
203
illustrations - parasite
" The way documents are
used in natural science texts thus converges with their analytic
use here; my discussion parasitizes properties of the documents it
analyzes. Foremost among these parasitized properties is that of
how the illustration is an autonomous surface that is nonetheless
contained within a text, and which can be used in various ways by
the text's discourse to invite a reader to 'see what is being said."
"Instead of using pictures as evidence for naturalistic
claims about objective entities or relationships, I will use them
as evidence of methodic practices, accomplished by researchers
working together in groups, which transform previously hidden
phenomena into visual displays for consensual 'seeing' and 'knowing.'"
204
selective perception
ordering
way we select something
"Selection is responsible for the constancy-phenomena:
rhythm into a monotonous succession of sonorous strokes,
it groups dispersed dots into rows, figures, and constellations.
Whatever organization may be found in experience is bestowed
upon it by the mind working on the 'primordial chaos of sensation.'
(Gurwitsch, 1964:28)"
Research teams use laboratory
practices to transform invisible or unanalyzed specimens into
visually examined, coded, measured, graphically analyzed, and
publically presented data.
filters to make manageable data
205
issues with filters:
"The idea of selectivity or simplification serves adequately as a
starting point, as a sensitizing notion that motivates a sociological
interest in how scientific research constitutes objects of study.
I will claim here, however, that the metaphor of filtering fails to
address significant aspects of research practice. To support that
claim, and, more importantly, to point to characteristics of the
research process that are missed by the notion of selectivity, I
will discuss a series of figures chosen from various scientific texts."
" I will use
the illustrations to argue that the notion of simplification is too
simple, and that it glosses over features of transformational practices
which, when examined in their own right, do not seem to be
matters only of filtering or selection. While a few published illustrations
will not give access to the lively complexities of laboratory
work, and of the in situ work of transforming specimens into
"facts," they are adequate for the purpose of reexamining the idea
of selection or simplification in scientific 'perception.'"
208
"The diagram is a schematic representation of what
can be seen in the photograph. The members of the pair have a
directional relationship to one another: each is an independent
representation, but they are not equ.ivalent. One depends upon
the other: the diagram operates upon what is shown in the photograph
(unlike, for instance, two different technical renderings of
a same thing, 8 such as can be seen in comparisons between x-ray
and optical photographs of a distant galaxy or nebula). Although
the diagram can be seen as a schematic version of the photograph,
the photograph is not to be taken as a schematic representation
of the diagram."
sequence - directionality
" Relative to the diagram, the photograph appears
to be more "original" material," whereas the diagram is more
evidently analyzed, labeled, and 'idealized.'"
the photo is not more "true"
209
filtering - things disappear, we don't know why
uniforming - show less variation than the original photo
upgrading - Shapes, and divisions between distinct surfaces are
made more definite. Dim differences become clear differences of
structure, and identifying features are more clearly distinguished
against their backgrounds.
Defining - Entities are not only made more like one another, they are more
clearly distinguished from unlike entities. Sensual qualities of the
image work in concert with linguistic labels and pointers to code
and categorize entities. What counts as likeness or distinctness
depends upon the analytic purposes of the text in which the
figures appear.
210
" In Figure 2, the lines and textures of the diagram adjust the
sensual qualities of what is shown to more clearly 'respond' to
the labels connected by the pointers."
eidetic images - icon!!
What I wish to argue is that, relative to the photograph, the
diagram is an emetic image 11 and not merely a simplified image.
I emphasize this relativity because it could also be argued that
relative to what would be seen in the microscope the photograph
is an eidetic image, or that relative to the original specimen the
stained and otherwise prepared slide in the microscope is an
eidetic image (note how the caption in Figure 1 states that the
ribosome in the micrograph is "defined by an outline of the salt
of a heavy metal"). By "eidetic image" I mean an icon of what
Heidegger (1967:101 - 102) calls "the mathematical" in the sense
of mathesis universalis: the theoretical domain of pure structure
and universal laws which a Galilean science treats as the founda
211
The figures above show more of a
continuum
of representations modifying the
products of previous
observations and representations.
Each of these representations
selects from a prior
representation, while exhibiting a dependency
on pre-established formations
visible in the prior and at the same
time 'upgrading' the orderliness
and utility of those formations.
Order is not simply constituted, it
is exposed, seized upon, clarified,
extended,
coded, compared, measured, and subjected to mathematical operations.215
Tracings
In addition to merely synthesizing particular representations,
certain models (such as Figure 5) are drawn in such a way as to
'expose' internal or underlying 'mechanisms' that serve further to
analyze or to explain visible anatomical features.
216
The concrete representation of the
anatomical entity begins to crystallize not only what can be seen
of it in various micrographs at a comparable level of magnification,
but also what can be claimed about its biochemical structure;
a structure which could not possibly be viewed by the same
means as the anatomical outlines. Note how the cut-away view of
the cristae (Figure 5) seemingly exposes an abstract geometrical
arrangement in its inner mechanism. This juxtaposes anatomical
context and explanatory geometrics within an integrated visual
account; a visual image that nowhere could be seen or photographed
in a unified way with currently available techniques other
than through the artful assembly of such a diagram.
216
The model does not necessarily simplify the diverse representations,
labels, indexes, etc., that it aggregates. It adds theoretical
information which cannot be found in any single micrographic
representation, and provides a document of phenomena which
cannot fully be represented by photographic means.
217
Illustrations in scientific texts seldom merely depict specimens,
they integrate the individual and aggregate properties of specimens
with mathematical operations. Tables and graphs abound in
scientific publications. These visual documents integrate the substantive,
mathematical, and literary resources of scientific investigation,
and create the impression that the objects or relations they
represent are inherently mathematical.
217
for-granted mathematical sciences. From that
contemporary starting point he programmatically outlined the
problem of how the things encountered in a pre-scientific praxis
were measured by, and identified with, the limit forms of geometry:
First to be singled out from the thing-shapes are surfaces -
more or less "smooth," more or less perfect surfaces; edges,
more or less rough or fairly "even"; in other words, more or less
pure lines, angles, more or less perfect points; then, again,
among the lines, for example, straight lines are especially preferred,
and among the surfaces the even surfaces, straight lines,
and points are preferred, whereas totally or partially curved
surfaces are undesirable for many kinds of practical interests.
Thus the production of even surfaces and their perfection
(polishing) always plays a role in praxis. (Husserl, 1970:376)
The limit forms of geometry, initially used as points or lines of
reckoning for guiding constructive action, were cognitively transformed
into the basis for a Galilean physics; a physics that posited
mathematical order to be the essential underlying nature of the
empirical world.
218
It is possible to read Husserl's account as a description, not of
a once-and-for-all historical movement from proto-science to
science, but as an account of what scientists do every time they
prepare a specimen for analysis in actual laboratory work. Starting
with an initially recalcitrant specimen, scientists work methodically
to expose, work with, and perfect the specimen's surface
appearances to be congruent with graphic representation and
mathematical analysis.14
219
The details of laboratory work, and of the
visible products of such work, are largely organized around the
practical task of constituting and "framing" a phenomenon so that
it can be measured and mathematically described. The work of
constituting a measurable phenomenon is not entirely separate
from the work of measurement itself, as we shall see.
Mathematization is embodied in the graph. The graph has
become an emblem of science which even popular advertisements
exploit. Graphing a phenomenon identifies the thing or
relationship with the analytic resources of mathematics. Just as
significantly, it places an account of the thing on paper, or prepares
the phenomenon with a practical and social universality;
not the cognitive universality of mathematics, but the mundane
durability, iterability, and invariance of a textual impression, is
224
Scientists sometimes speak of "natural laboratories;" unusual
circumstances which permit controlled observation, comparison,
and experimentation to be performed on fields, objects, or relationships
which usually occur in more confounding circumstances.
224
...select and isolate purportedly "natural" features of their
specimens that facilitate controlled observation. For instance,
areas of the brain which exhibit a "stratified" anatomy are dissected
for analysis instead of regions where the spatial arrangement
of cells does not distribute into relatively uniform regions. '9
In other words, there is a preference for specimen materials that
exhibit approximate geometricity, not because geometric form
by itself is of interest, but because such form provides a convenient
basis for specific practical actions. Figure 6, "Dr. Goring's
test objects," illustrates an early case in microscopy of a collection
of objects which exhibited unusual linearity and regularity
of magnified details. The details were not so much of interest
in themselves, as they were as naturally occurring grids for elucidating
the optical accuracy of the instruments used to examine
them."
225
leads to upgrading and framing
228
Each
lane identifies an individual specimen, and each row identifies a
specific "molecule" analytically isolated from the specimens.
Molecular identity is visible as nothing more than the two dimensional
size of the spots and their graphic distribution. Although
more substantial than points, the "molecules" are also highly
abstract, taking the form of opaque spots identified with graphic
codes.
Variations on the commonplace organization of the graph are
endless: Are points plotted on paper 'by hand' or are they meant
to identify substantive properties of specimen residues (such as
in Figure 10)? Do lines and scales originate from the designs of
instruments (Figure 10), or do they claim a material relation to
anatomical strata (Figures 6 and 8)? Hybrid graphic features can
be viewed as relatively abstract or concrete; as originating through
literary representation or 'hands off' instrumental transfers from
'world' to paper (such as with a seismograph).
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Latour visualization and cognition
Thoughts - Fukishima? water.
2
Goody - unexpected divides
cool:
"These quick reversals prove that !the
divide between prescientific and scientific culture is merely a border —like! that between
Tijuana and San Diego. It is enforced arbitrarily by police and !bureaucrats, but it does
not represent any natural boundary."
Why are dichotomies maintained?
avoid relativism
so, science has done much
absurdity of not seeing this new activity of science (differences in effects)
3
So, where do we go?
“Materialist” explanations often! refer to deeply entrenched phenomena,
of which science is a superstructure !(Sohn-Rethel, 1978). The net result of this strategy is
that nothing is empirically !verifiable since there is a yawning gap between general
economic trends and the !fine details of cognitive innovations. Worst of all, in order to
explain science we !have to kneel before one specific science, that of economics. So,
ironically, !many “materialist” accounts of the emergence of science are in no way
material !since they ignore the precise practice and craftmanship of knowing and hide
from !scrutiny the omniscient economic historian.
avoid materialist and mentalist
It seems to me that the most powerful explanations, that is those that generate! the
most out of the least, are the ones that take writing and imaging craftmanship !into
account. They are both material and mundane, since they are so practical, so !modest, so
pervasive, so close to the hands and the eyes that they escape !attention. Each of them
deflates grandiose schemes and conceptual dichotomies! and replaces them by simple
modifications in the way in which groups of people! argue with one another using paper,
signs, prints and diagrams. Despite their! different methods, fields and goals, this strategy
of deflation links a range of very! different studies and endows them with a style which is
both ironic and! refreshing2.
4
his own experience of observing "transcriptions"
similar to
those to which Goody refers. When !these resources were lacking, the self same scientists
stuttered, hesitated, and! talked nonsense, and displayed every kind of political or cultural
bias. Although !their minds, their scientific methods, their paradigms, their world-views
and !their cultures were still present, their conversation could not keep them in their!
proper place. However, inscriptions or the practice of inscribing could.
writing as an aside of the scientific revolution? or cause of it? (manifestation or cause -- uprisings in middle east?
new ground, old marsh in terms of writing facilitating intellecutal ability?
5
binocular - hold steady focus visual / cognitive
La Perouse - map and scale
what caused the creation of this artifact?
To say it !in yet
other words, we do not find all explanations in terms of inscription equally !convincing,
but only those that help us to understand how the mobilization and !mustering of new
resources is achieved.
The essential
characteristics of inscriptions cannot be defined in terms of !visualization, print, and
writing.
it's not the writing itself, but the situation into which the writing is placed.
mobilization
7/8
a. optical consistency - perspective to create - 2 way avenues
freeways
perspective to create hybrids
9
b. visual culture
ways in which eyes are used in certain cultures to "see" - discipline:
The new precise
scenography that results in a world view defines at once what is science,! what is art and
what it is to have a world economy. To use my terms, a little! lowland country becomes
powerful by making a few crucial inventions which allow people to accelerate the
mobility and to enhance the immutability of! inscriptions : the world is thus gathered up
in this tiny country.
maps - power in holland
c. new way of accumulating time and space
Because she considers the printing press to be !a mobilization device, or, more exactly, a
device that makes both mobilization !and immutability possible at the same time.
Eisenstein does not look for one !cause of the scientific revolution, but for a secondary
cause that would put all the !efficient causes in relation with one another. The printing
press is obviously a !powerful cause of that sort. Immutability is ensured by the process of
printing !many identical copies ; mobility by the number of copies, the paper and the!
movable type.
print shapes a world (Eisenstein)
so what happens when text can shift quickly?
12
print is an assmeblage of ideas?
graven image - to "advance" a field
how is this stuff fact? well, what is engraved becomes fact! new ways of discoursing!
"immutable mobiles"
13
favoring things that show movement
"mind is still being domesticated -- what the hell?!
Inscriptions
capital of "showing" someone
14
Dogonet - chemistry and the modern world
small changes...make huge leaps in understanding
Foucault - panopticon - emerge as science from files...
optical consistency in geology
15
" An asymmetry is created because we create a space and a time in which we place
the other cultures, but they do not do the same. For instance, we map their land, but
they have no maps either of their land or of ours ; we list their past, but they do not ; we
build written calendars, but they do not. Fabian’s argument, related to Goody’s and also
to Bourdieu’s critique of ethnography (1972) is that once this first violence has been
committed, no matter what we do, we will not understand the savages any more. Fabian
however, sees this mobilization of all savages in a few lands through collection, mapping,
list making, archives, linguistics, etc. as something evil."
knowing?
16
importance of making points in 2 dimensional shapes
objects (reminds me of drone victims)
Archives, or representations of collections!!
So, the phenomenon we are tackling is not inscription per se, but the cascade of ever
simplified inscriptions that allow harder facts to be produced at greater cost. For
example, the description of human fossils which used to be through drawings, is now
made by superimposing a number of mechanical diagrams on the drawings. The
photographs of the skies, although they produce neat little spots, are still much too rich
and confusing for a human eye to look at ; so a computer and a laser eye have been
invented to read the photographs, so that the astronomer never looks at the sky (too
costly), nor even at the photographs (too confusing).
17
increased dissention via interpretaton - cascades of inscriptions
concept of "stage" - Pasteur
earlier science - more attention to setting vs. inscription
18
What contributed to Brahe's insights?
sky - works - contradictions
19
IV capitalizing inscriptions...
9 advantages (p. 20)
21
The mobilization of many resources through space and time is
essential for domination on a grand scale. I proposed to call immutable mobiles these
objects that allow this mobilization to take place. I also argued that the best of these
mobiles had to do with written, numbered or optically consistent paper surfaces. But I
also indicated, though without offering an explanation, that we had to deal with cascades
of ever more simplified and costlier inscriptions. This ability to form a cascade has now
to be explained because gathering written and imaged resources in one place, even with
two-way connections, does not by itself guarantee any superiority for the one who gathers
them. Why ? Because the gatherer of such traces is immediately swamped in them.
Galilelo - geometry and physics
22
Galileo - holding 3 domains
we arrive at ideas by different paths
23
assembling allies
conservation - piaget - shift in indicators...good point!
24
we believe more in inscriptions than in other types of evidence
25
paperwork
industrial drawing
26
Realms of reality that seem far apart (mechanics, economics, marketing, scientific
organization of work) are inches apart, once flattened out onto the same surface. The
accumulation of drawings in an optically consistent space is, once again, the “universal
exchanger” that allows work to be planned, dispatched, realized, and responsibility to be
attributed16.
"connective quality for what can be written" - but in life, too, is it not connected?
27
power through filing.
even large "entities" are created through this
domination via records
scale itself is possible to understand through recording.
concepts of metrology - stable measurements!!
money - fascinating
code
map - state of affairds
29
says we can't use capitalism to describe science. oh brother.
money useful when combined with other things.
30
There is not a history of
engineers, then a history of capitalists, then one of scientists, then one of mathematicians,
then one of economists. Rather, there is a single history of these centers of calculation. It
is not only because they look exclusively at maps, account books, drawings, legal texts
and files, that cartographers, merchants, engineers, jurists and civil servants get the edge
on all the others. It is because all these inscriptions can be superimposed, reshuffled,
recombined, and summarized, and that totally new phenomena emerge, hidden from
the other people from whom all these inscriptions have been exacted.
manipulation of inscriptions = power
2
Goody - unexpected divides
cool:
"These quick reversals prove that !the
divide between prescientific and scientific culture is merely a border —like! that between
Tijuana and San Diego. It is enforced arbitrarily by police and !bureaucrats, but it does
not represent any natural boundary."
Why are dichotomies maintained?
avoid relativism
so, science has done much
absurdity of not seeing this new activity of science (differences in effects)
3
So, where do we go?
“Materialist” explanations often! refer to deeply entrenched phenomena,
of which science is a superstructure !(Sohn-Rethel, 1978). The net result of this strategy is
that nothing is empirically !verifiable since there is a yawning gap between general
economic trends and the !fine details of cognitive innovations. Worst of all, in order to
explain science we !have to kneel before one specific science, that of economics. So,
ironically, !many “materialist” accounts of the emergence of science are in no way
material !since they ignore the precise practice and craftmanship of knowing and hide
from !scrutiny the omniscient economic historian.
avoid materialist and mentalist
It seems to me that the most powerful explanations, that is those that generate! the
most out of the least, are the ones that take writing and imaging craftmanship !into
account. They are both material and mundane, since they are so practical, so !modest, so
pervasive, so close to the hands and the eyes that they escape !attention. Each of them
deflates grandiose schemes and conceptual dichotomies! and replaces them by simple
modifications in the way in which groups of people! argue with one another using paper,
signs, prints and diagrams. Despite their! different methods, fields and goals, this strategy
of deflation links a range of very! different studies and endows them with a style which is
both ironic and! refreshing2.
4
his own experience of observing "transcriptions"
similar to
those to which Goody refers. When !these resources were lacking, the self same scientists
stuttered, hesitated, and! talked nonsense, and displayed every kind of political or cultural
bias. Although !their minds, their scientific methods, their paradigms, their world-views
and !their cultures were still present, their conversation could not keep them in their!
proper place. However, inscriptions or the practice of inscribing could.
writing as an aside of the scientific revolution? or cause of it? (manifestation or cause -- uprisings in middle east?
new ground, old marsh in terms of writing facilitating intellecutal ability?
5
binocular - hold steady focus visual / cognitive
La Perouse - map and scale
what caused the creation of this artifact?
To say it !in yet
other words, we do not find all explanations in terms of inscription equally !convincing,
but only those that help us to understand how the mobilization and !mustering of new
resources is achieved.
The essential
characteristics of inscriptions cannot be defined in terms of !visualization, print, and
writing.
it's not the writing itself, but the situation into which the writing is placed.
mobilization
7/8
a. optical consistency - perspective to create - 2 way avenues
freeways
perspective to create hybrids
9
b. visual culture
ways in which eyes are used in certain cultures to "see" - discipline:
The new precise
scenography that results in a world view defines at once what is science,! what is art and
what it is to have a world economy. To use my terms, a little! lowland country becomes
powerful by making a few crucial inventions which allow people to accelerate the
mobility and to enhance the immutability of! inscriptions : the world is thus gathered up
in this tiny country.
maps - power in holland
c. new way of accumulating time and space
Because she considers the printing press to be !a mobilization device, or, more exactly, a
device that makes both mobilization !and immutability possible at the same time.
Eisenstein does not look for one !cause of the scientific revolution, but for a secondary
cause that would put all the !efficient causes in relation with one another. The printing
press is obviously a !powerful cause of that sort. Immutability is ensured by the process of
printing !many identical copies ; mobility by the number of copies, the paper and the!
movable type.
print shapes a world (Eisenstein)
so what happens when text can shift quickly?
12
print is an assmeblage of ideas?
graven image - to "advance" a field
how is this stuff fact? well, what is engraved becomes fact! new ways of discoursing!
"immutable mobiles"
13
favoring things that show movement
"mind is still being domesticated -- what the hell?!
Inscriptions
capital of "showing" someone
14
Dogonet - chemistry and the modern world
small changes...make huge leaps in understanding
Foucault - panopticon - emerge as science from files...
optical consistency in geology
15
" An asymmetry is created because we create a space and a time in which we place
the other cultures, but they do not do the same. For instance, we map their land, but
they have no maps either of their land or of ours ; we list their past, but they do not ; we
build written calendars, but they do not. Fabian’s argument, related to Goody’s and also
to Bourdieu’s critique of ethnography (1972) is that once this first violence has been
committed, no matter what we do, we will not understand the savages any more. Fabian
however, sees this mobilization of all savages in a few lands through collection, mapping,
list making, archives, linguistics, etc. as something evil."
knowing?
16
importance of making points in 2 dimensional shapes
objects (reminds me of drone victims)
Archives, or representations of collections!!
So, the phenomenon we are tackling is not inscription per se, but the cascade of ever
simplified inscriptions that allow harder facts to be produced at greater cost. For
example, the description of human fossils which used to be through drawings, is now
made by superimposing a number of mechanical diagrams on the drawings. The
photographs of the skies, although they produce neat little spots, are still much too rich
and confusing for a human eye to look at ; so a computer and a laser eye have been
invented to read the photographs, so that the astronomer never looks at the sky (too
costly), nor even at the photographs (too confusing).
17
increased dissention via interpretaton - cascades of inscriptions
concept of "stage" - Pasteur
earlier science - more attention to setting vs. inscription
18
What contributed to Brahe's insights?
sky - works - contradictions
19
IV capitalizing inscriptions...
9 advantages (p. 20)
21
The mobilization of many resources through space and time is
essential for domination on a grand scale. I proposed to call immutable mobiles these
objects that allow this mobilization to take place. I also argued that the best of these
mobiles had to do with written, numbered or optically consistent paper surfaces. But I
also indicated, though without offering an explanation, that we had to deal with cascades
of ever more simplified and costlier inscriptions. This ability to form a cascade has now
to be explained because gathering written and imaged resources in one place, even with
two-way connections, does not by itself guarantee any superiority for the one who gathers
them. Why ? Because the gatherer of such traces is immediately swamped in them.
Galilelo - geometry and physics
22
Galileo - holding 3 domains
we arrive at ideas by different paths
23
assembling allies
conservation - piaget - shift in indicators...good point!
24
we believe more in inscriptions than in other types of evidence
25
paperwork
industrial drawing
26
Realms of reality that seem far apart (mechanics, economics, marketing, scientific
organization of work) are inches apart, once flattened out onto the same surface. The
accumulation of drawings in an optically consistent space is, once again, the “universal
exchanger” that allows work to be planned, dispatched, realized, and responsibility to be
attributed16.
"connective quality for what can be written" - but in life, too, is it not connected?
27
power through filing.
even large "entities" are created through this
domination via records
scale itself is possible to understand through recording.
concepts of metrology - stable measurements!!
money - fascinating
code
map - state of affairds
29
says we can't use capitalism to describe science. oh brother.
money useful when combined with other things.
30
There is not a history of
engineers, then a history of capitalists, then one of scientists, then one of mathematicians,
then one of economists. Rather, there is a single history of these centers of calculation. It
is not only because they look exclusively at maps, account books, drawings, legal texts
and files, that cartographers, merchants, engineers, jurists and civil servants get the edge
on all the others. It is because all these inscriptions can be superimposed, reshuffled,
recombined, and summarized, and that totally new phenomena emerge, hidden from
the other people from whom all these inscriptions have been exacted.
manipulation of inscriptions = power
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Class notes
class notes -
- directionality - how something moves
- serial arrangement
- lateral representations (lizards - yet another in the series) - an examination of something different, no feedback loop ?
- no feedback
Difference of objects --
intentionality of putting ideas together - juxtaposition - image grammar
ideas about representation without discussion; semiotic potential
How knowledge is constructed - quanitative/ qualitivate - how things come to meet, how they ought to meet. "Rules" for graphic representation
We get, from our readings - how knowledge is constructed...methods by which this work is done
representations of representations of representations...feedback loop -- scientits - where do reflexivity stand...
overview of knowledge construction couched in analysis of representational modes.
Bricolage -
mix bag...linear process? research? system from the bottom up to top down?
Mixed methods
if we switch domains - what does that mean?
Very interesting - Lineaus - taxonomy - based on the reproductive ability of an animal.
so...what happens with the platypus? is difficult to "classify"?
The ideas that we create domains....various examples of contructing domains in time, across time - circumscribing domains.
Specific domains...have consensus about what something "real" is...
Language as mediating tool
"nature"
Emerson - anything that is not part of mind - "not me" - language used to mediate the not me...to mediate nature?
In that nature is the social ... talk is the mediating tool
Is this tied to difference or consensus?
Dialectic - social practice - social context
In Cetina -- the way in which knowledge is made.
Kuhn - talks about politics...why is it important to even look at DNA
Funding -- paying for reasearch - fame/ fortune/ status - all very political
So the idea - that questions that scientists ask are disinterested...not quite
The value of what we are going to look at...
- directionality - how something moves
- serial arrangement
- lateral representations (lizards - yet another in the series) - an examination of something different, no feedback loop ?
- no feedback
Difference of objects --
intentionality of putting ideas together - juxtaposition - image grammar
ideas about representation without discussion; semiotic potential
How knowledge is constructed - quanitative/ qualitivate - how things come to meet, how they ought to meet. "Rules" for graphic representation
We get, from our readings - how knowledge is constructed...methods by which this work is done
representations of representations of representations...feedback loop -- scientits - where do reflexivity stand...
overview of knowledge construction couched in analysis of representational modes.
Bricolage -
mix bag...linear process? research? system from the bottom up to top down?
Mixed methods
if we switch domains - what does that mean?
Very interesting - Lineaus - taxonomy - based on the reproductive ability of an animal.
so...what happens with the platypus? is difficult to "classify"?
The ideas that we create domains....various examples of contructing domains in time, across time - circumscribing domains.
Specific domains...have consensus about what something "real" is...
Language as mediating tool
"nature"
Emerson - anything that is not part of mind - "not me" - language used to mediate the not me...to mediate nature?
In that nature is the social ... talk is the mediating tool
Is this tied to difference or consensus?
Dialectic - social practice - social context
In Cetina -- the way in which knowledge is made.
Kuhn - talks about politics...why is it important to even look at DNA
Funding -- paying for reasearch - fame/ fortune/ status - all very political
So the idea - that questions that scientists ask are disinterested...not quite
The value of what we are going to look at...
Amann Cetina
85
consensus forming - acceptance of fact
"sense data" - test theories through experiments
underdetermination - data can never prove or disprove a particular theory
"evidence" cannot serve to as an "arbiter" - as it itself is contested
problematics of data?
natural sciences...evidence "embodied in visibility"
"seeing" and truth - we assume it is "truth-transporting"
86
Kuhn - ways of seeing - shared paradigms "correct" - grounded in research traditions
"What you see depends on where you sit" vs. "nothing is more difficult than to know exactly just what we do see"
"perceptual grammars" as shaping agents - what 'counts' as evidence?
"sense data" are constructed..."end product of socially organized procedures of evidence fixation"
87
"To "see an object is to recognize and at the same time to linguistically identify an object"
issue - "visually flexible phenomena -- boundaries at stake? good point for environmental systems!
translations - solidification of translations
DNA
88
data in labs/ evidence in scientific papers
"activity" in lab work
1. "enhancement"
2. "data" - separated out
3. evidence - data shared
- of note - tinker - to create 1.
- local relevance of pictures created
90
problems with "enhancements" serve as controls - unproblematic
data - act as a "basis for sequences of practice vs. observation at a glance
image as "working place" - "seeing as work"
machinery of seeing
ethnographic --
language evolves from images (contextualized)
language vs. conversational talk (interactive) - beyond translation of semiotics
dialogical/ interactive structure
92
machinery of seeing is talk - image analyzing -
1. Attached to object - - about and with an object
"the objects addressed by participants are also manipulated during these exchanges"
-- further complement the utterances
talk organized by documents inspected "documentary organization of talk"
2. embedded in series of exchanges - interconnected - series of displasy
image that integrates a series of exchanges...mediates it? - recursive, repeated visits to a problem
93
transactions - interactional talk - film
4. "reading" the film
94
asking questions - role of questioner/"author" of a film
95
interactional dissolution:
authors of film - informational advantage
1. opening sequence - summons
2. information gathering/ question answer sequence
96
3. evaluative sequence
4. resolve/ performance recommendation
fragments
97
side sequences
98
Conversational devices employed in image analyzing exchanges
A. question - "which access and make public indexical information from eyewitnesses of a phenomenon
- author - questioned in iterative, stepwise fashion as a "living archive"
followed by conclusion in form of interpretation.
100
5.2 Optical induction
socializing, interpreting
101
discussions of levels, etc.
exchange building the probes
102
oppositive patterns of interaction - feed upon or overlay other conversational patterns
Build an argument!
103
104
- disagreement to create new knowledge
Preference for disagreement
106
107
analyizability
109-110- issues of mix ups, manipulation & apparatus problems
consensus forming - acceptance of fact
"sense data" - test theories through experiments
underdetermination - data can never prove or disprove a particular theory
"evidence" cannot serve to as an "arbiter" - as it itself is contested
problematics of data?
natural sciences...evidence "embodied in visibility"
"seeing" and truth - we assume it is "truth-transporting"
86
Kuhn - ways of seeing - shared paradigms "correct" - grounded in research traditions
"What you see depends on where you sit" vs. "nothing is more difficult than to know exactly just what we do see"
"perceptual grammars" as shaping agents - what 'counts' as evidence?
"sense data" are constructed..."end product of socially organized procedures of evidence fixation"
87
"To "see an object is to recognize and at the same time to linguistically identify an object"
issue - "visually flexible phenomena -- boundaries at stake? good point for environmental systems!
translations - solidification of translations
DNA
88
data in labs/ evidence in scientific papers
"activity" in lab work
1. "enhancement"
2. "data" - separated out
3. evidence - data shared
- of note - tinker - to create 1.
- local relevance of pictures created
90
problems with "enhancements" serve as controls - unproblematic
data - act as a "basis for sequences of practice vs. observation at a glance
image as "working place" - "seeing as work"
machinery of seeing
ethnographic --
language evolves from images (contextualized)
language vs. conversational talk (interactive) - beyond translation of semiotics
dialogical/ interactive structure
92
machinery of seeing is talk - image analyzing -
1. Attached to object - - about and with an object
"the objects addressed by participants are also manipulated during these exchanges"
-- further complement the utterances
talk organized by documents inspected "documentary organization of talk"
2. embedded in series of exchanges - interconnected - series of displasy
image that integrates a series of exchanges...mediates it? - recursive, repeated visits to a problem
93
transactions - interactional talk - film
4. "reading" the film
94
asking questions - role of questioner/"author" of a film
95
interactional dissolution:
authors of film - informational advantage
1. opening sequence - summons
2. information gathering/ question answer sequence
96
3. evaluative sequence
4. resolve/ performance recommendation
fragments
97
side sequences
98
Conversational devices employed in image analyzing exchanges
A. question - "which access and make public indexical information from eyewitnesses of a phenomenon
- author - questioned in iterative, stepwise fashion as a "living archive"
followed by conclusion in form of interpretation.
100
5.2 Optical induction
socializing, interpreting
101
discussions of levels, etc.
exchange building the probes
102
oppositive patterns of interaction - feed upon or overlay other conversational patterns
Build an argument!
103
104
- disagreement to create new knowledge
Preference for disagreement
106
107
analyizability
109-110- issues of mix ups, manipulation & apparatus problems
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
vii
scientists - representations
contstructivist/ etnomethodological
fetishization - scientific "ideas" ; experimental "methodology"
viii - pragmatism
photograph of "reality" - not so
asocial view of practical and communicative actions
representation as contextualized - in science...juxtaposing different represenations
as we move through different activity systems...represention shifts according to activity
ix
representational transparency
Latour- inscription "inscription “refers to all the types of transformations through which an entity becomes materialized into a sign, an archive, a document, a piece of paper, a trace” (Latour 1999, 306)."
2
sociology and science - way words/ ideas constructed
3
4/5
social linkages of "scientific discovery"
nature of "interests"
ethnography of the lab - extracts
inscriptions
represenations - taking on a life of their own
6
serial
rendering
lateral movements
images get taken up -- successively take on meaning
"natural" reality to "abstractions"
serial organization
"chains of representations"
"transferences" - crafting of resemblences - reference point?
7
original/ copy/ resemblences
similitude
8
different types of representation
what are relations between representations?
9
scientists bricolage
scientists - representations
contstructivist/ etnomethodological
fetishization - scientific "ideas" ; experimental "methodology"
viii - pragmatism
photograph of "reality" - not so
asocial view of practical and communicative actions
representation as contextualized - in science...juxtaposing different represenations
as we move through different activity systems...represention shifts according to activity
ix
representational transparency
Latour- inscription "inscription “refers to all the types of transformations through which an entity becomes materialized into a sign, an archive, a document, a piece of paper, a trace” (Latour 1999, 306)."
2
sociology and science - way words/ ideas constructed
3
4/5
social linkages of "scientific discovery"
nature of "interests"
ethnography of the lab - extracts
inscriptions
represenations - taking on a life of their own
6
serial
rendering
lateral movements
images get taken up -- successively take on meaning
"natural" reality to "abstractions"
serial organization
"chains of representations"
"transferences" - crafting of resemblences - reference point?
7
original/ copy/ resemblences
similitude
8
different types of representation
what are relations between representations?
9
scientists bricolage
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Benhabib
Utopian Dimension in Communicative Ethics
Seyla Benhabib (born September 9, 1950) is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. Benhabib is well-known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.
Prior to arriving at Yale, Benhabib taught in the departments of philosophy at Boston University, SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research, and the Department of Government at Harvard University. She is married to well-known author and journalist Jim Sleeper, who is currently also a political-science lecturer at Yale. She also serves on the editorial advisory board for the Ethics & International Affairs. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.[3] In the 2008-2009 academic year, she was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
In 2012 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold-Lucas Prize by the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of theology, intellectual history, historical research and philosophy, as well as the commitment to international understanding and tolerance.[4]
More and more people live in countries which are not their own, as state sovereignty is not as strong as in the past. Benhabib argues that somebody who is stateless is seen as an outcast and is in a way rightless. Current policy still sees national borders as a means to keep out strangers.
Benhabib's cosmopolitan view is inspired by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant’s Perpetual peace concerns three articles which together are key to creating perpetual peace. In the third article Kant says that the rights of world citizens shall be limited to the right of universal hospitality. In Kant's view, every single person has the right to go wherever they like without fear of hostility from their hosts.
Seyla Benhabib takes this right as a starting point which resulted in her thoughts about migration and refugee problems. Seyla Benhabib goes further than Kant, arguing that the human right of hospitality should not apply to a single visit, but in some cases to long-term stays. For example, a country shouldn't send a refugee back when it is not sure whether they are safe in the country of origin. Nations should have obligations to exiles and refugees, these obligations are different from the obligations to immigrants.
Seyla Benhabib (born September 9, 1950) is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. Benhabib is well-known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.
Biography
Born in Istanbul, Benhabib was educated at English language schools in Istanbul. She received a B.A. from the American College for Girls in Istanbul in 1970.[1] She traces her family history back to the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain on the "second reconquista." She has cited Istanbul as reminiscent of "big cosmopolitan centers of, in a way, the old Europe." She left for the United States in 1970.[2] She received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1972 and a Ph.D. from Yale in 1977.[1]Prior to arriving at Yale, Benhabib taught in the departments of philosophy at Boston University, SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research, and the Department of Government at Harvard University. She is married to well-known author and journalist Jim Sleeper, who is currently also a political-science lecturer at Yale. She also serves on the editorial advisory board for the Ethics & International Affairs. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995.[3] In the 2008-2009 academic year, she was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).
In 2012 she was awarded the Dr. Leopold-Lucas Prize by the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in recognition of outstanding achievement in the field of theology, intellectual history, historical research and philosophy, as well as the commitment to international understanding and tolerance.[4]
Democratic theorist
Democratic theorists advocate discussion within cultures and support social change. Seyla Benhabib is a democratic theorist who does not believe in the purity of cultures; she thinks of them as formed through dialogues with other cultures. Human cultures are, according to Benhabib, the constant change of imaginary boundaries. They influence each other and sometimes radicalize or conform as a reaction on other cultures. Benhabib argues that in democratic theory it is assumed that every single person should be able to determine their own life. She argues that pluralism, the existence of fundamentally different cultures, is compatible with cosmopolitanism, if three conditions are fulfilled. These conditions are:- Egalitarian reciprocity: Members of minorities must have equal civil, political, economic and cultural rights as the majority.
- Voluntary self-ascription: When a person is born, it should not be expected that he or she will automatically be a member of a particular religion or culture. The state should not let groups define the lives of individuals. Members of a society have the right to express themselves and it is desirable that adult individuals be asked whether they choose to continue membership in their community.
- Freedom of exit and association: Every individual must be able to exit their group. When group members marry someone from another group, they have the right to be a member. Accommodations must be found for inter-group marriages and the resulting children.
Porous Borders
Seyla Benhabib prefers a world with porous borders. She argues that political boundaries define some as members, but lock others out. She has written: "I think it is possible to have an empire without borders; I don’t think it is possible to have a democracy without borders."More and more people live in countries which are not their own, as state sovereignty is not as strong as in the past. Benhabib argues that somebody who is stateless is seen as an outcast and is in a way rightless. Current policy still sees national borders as a means to keep out strangers.
Benhabib's cosmopolitan view is inspired by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant’s Perpetual peace concerns three articles which together are key to creating perpetual peace. In the third article Kant says that the rights of world citizens shall be limited to the right of universal hospitality. In Kant's view, every single person has the right to go wherever they like without fear of hostility from their hosts.
Seyla Benhabib takes this right as a starting point which resulted in her thoughts about migration and refugee problems. Seyla Benhabib goes further than Kant, arguing that the human right of hospitality should not apply to a single visit, but in some cases to long-term stays. For example, a country shouldn't send a refugee back when it is not sure whether they are safe in the country of origin. Nations should have obligations to exiles and refugees, these obligations are different from the obligations to immigrants.
Benhabib
83
Habermas on Benjamin:
Benjamin regarded the experience of happiness he named
secular illumination as bound up with the rescuing of tradition. The claim to
happiness can be made good only if the sources of that semantic potential we
need for interpreting the world in the light of our needs are not
exhausted."' In the semantic heritage of a cultural tradi-tion are
contained those images and anticipations of a fulfilled life-history and of a
collective life-form in which justice does not exclude solidarity, and freedom
is not realized at the expense of happiness. Certainly, Habermas continues, it
is not possible to achieve freedom and to realize justice without unleasing
(entbinden)th e hidden poten-tials of culture. In that sense, the semantic
unleashing of culture and the social overcoming of institutional repression are
mutually suppor-tive.
Yet the suspicion remains whether "an emancipation without happiness and lacking in fulfillment might not
be just as possible as relative prosperity without the elimination of
repression."
84
“his essay
con-tained a programmatic anticipation of how Habermas proposed to argue not
only against the tradition of counter-Enlightenment (Niet-zsche,
Spengler,Jiinger and Heidegger) but against the messianic uto-pian strand of
critical theory as well - Bloch and Benjamin in par-ticular."”
Increasingly in
recent years, Habermas has pointed to the limits of a theory of practical
discourse which focuses on f"reedom while excluding questions of the good
life; which concerns the validity of normative sentences (Sollsiitze)w
hile ignoring the question of the integrity of values (Werte), which in short,
concerns institutional justice but cannot say much about those quali-ties of
individual life-histories and collective life-forms which make them fulfilling
or unfulfilling.4
It reveals the intimate relation between
"transfiguration" and "fulfillment," between the poles of
utopia and norm within which the discourse of a critical social theory unfolds.
“By "transfiguration" I mean that the
future envisaged by a theory entails a radical rupture with the present, and
that in such a rupture a new and imaginative constellation of the values and
meanings of the present takes place. The concept of fulfillment, by
contrast, refers to the fact that the society of the future executes and
carries out the unfinished tasks of the present, without necessarily forging
new, imaginative con-stellations out of this cultural heritage.” (but how much of this is really based…on
the “golden past”)
Very interesting.
Goes back to de certeau?
“These are concepts which I use to designate an essential
tension in the project of critical theory and which can also be referred to as
"utopia" and "norm" respectively.
Marx – move from
capitalism – abundance for all “This demand did not call into question
the Enlightenment project of combining human freedom and happiness with the
scientific-technologically based pro-gress of productive forces.”
85
“Critical theory
lamented the dialectic of an Enlightenment condemned to leave its own promises
unfulfilled. The project of emancipation was increasingly viewed not as the
fulfillment, but as the transfiguration of the Enlightenment legacy. Their
increasingly esoteric conception of emancipation forced the critical theory of
Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse into a series ofaporias. More and more,
emancipation ceased to be a public project and became a private experience of
liberation achieved in the non-dominating relation with nature and in moments
of revolutionary eros.”
very interesting!!
Habermas –
emancipation back into the public light.
“Habermas has attempted to reestablish the link between
Enlighten-ment and emancipation, and to bring the project of emancipation into
the light of the public by going back to the Enlightenment legacy of practical
reason.” (so, I am less convinced that there is just 1 great mind that can do
this sort of thing)
in past “Universalism” – class/ race issues
Let me ask, there-fore, if the goal of realizing
bourgeois universalism, of making good the unfulfilled promise ofjustice and
freedom, must exhaust itself in a "joyless reformism," or whether,
speaking with Benjamin, one cannot see a Jetztzeit, a moment of
transfiguration, in this very process? I want to suggest that the seventh stage
of moral development postulated by Habermas as a corrective and extension of
the Kohlbergian scheme, that is, the stage of"universalized need
interpretations," has an unmis-takeable utopian content to it, and that it
points to a transfigurative vision of bourgeois universalism.
(totally … the
play between sustainability and resiliency)
86
looks at communicative ethics and “need interpretations”…
then “My thesis is that Habermas, following Mead, restricts moral autonomy
to the standpoint of the "generalized other," and does not do justice
to the utopian dimension in his own project.”
communicative ethics:
“by Habermas also a "cognitivist ethics of
language." The cognitivism of this theory rests with its assumption that
normative statements like "Child molest-ing is wrong," cannot be
translated into a statement like "I dislike child molesting," as the
emotivists claim. The predicate "is wrong" in this statement is to be
understood as a claim that there are good reasons to adopt the rule in our
practices that children ought not be molested. To establish this meta-ethical
premise Habermas develops the concepts of moral rightness and wrongness by
means of a theory of practical argumentation. Basing himself on Stephen
Toulmin's work in The Uses ofArgument, he maintains thatjust as the truth of theoretical
claims can only be established in light of an argument in which they are shown
to be warranted with good gounds, so too the validity of normative claims can
only be established via practical argumentations”
“Arguments
dealing with theoretical truth claims, with statements about what the case is,
or with practical assertions, with statements about what ought to be done, are
named "discourses." Discourses are described as special argumentation
procedures in which both facts about what is the case and norms about what is
right are challenged and no longer taken for granted. In discourses we
"suspend belieP' in the truth of propositions and the validity of
normative claims that we ordinarily take for granted in our everyday
transactions.”
“The aim of discourses
is to generate a "rationally motivated consen-sus" on controversial
claims. The concept of the "ideal speech situa-tion" is introduced in
this context. The "ideal speech situation" spe-cifies the formal
properties that discursive argumentations would have to possess if the
consensus thus attained were to be distinguished from a mere compromise or an
agreement of convenience. The ideal speech situation is a
"meta-norm" that applies to theoretical as well as to prac-tical
reason. It serves to delineate those aspects of an argumentation process which
would lead to a "rationally motivated" as opposed to a false or
apparent consensus.”
87
Ideal speech
situation
“The four conditions
of the ideal speech situation are: first, each par-ticipant must have an equal
chance to initiate and to continue com-munication; second, each must have an
equal chance to make asser-tions, recommendations, explanations, and to
challengejustifications. Together we can call these the "symmetry
condition." Third, each must have equal chances as actors to express their
wishes, feelings, and intentions; and fourth, the speakers must act as zf in
contexts of action there is an equal distribution of chances "to order and
resist orders, to promise and to refuse, to be accountable for one's conduct
and to demand accountability from others."7 Let me call the latter two the
"reciprocity condition."”
While the
symmetry stipulation of the ideal speech situation refers to speecha cts alone
and to conditions governing their employment, the reciprocity condition
refers to existing social interactions and requires a suspension of situations
of untruthfulness and duplicity on the one hand, and of inequality and
subordination on the other.
(reminds me of
frustrations of teaching)
“More significantly,
Rawls and Habermas share the meta-the-oretical premise: the idea of such
rational consensus is to be defined procedurally. Rawls maintains that his
theory of justice provides us with the only procedure of justification through
which valid and binding norms of collective coexistence can be established.
Habermas argues that the "ideal speech situation" defines the formal
properties of dis-courses, by engaging in which alone we can attain a rational
consensus. The fictive collective choice situation devised by Rawls and the
"ideal speech situation" devised by Habermas are normativeju
stificationp ro-cedures serving to illustrate the consensus principle of
legitimacy.”
88
differences between
Rawls and Habbermas
1.” ideal speech
situation”
2. “such
argumentations as take place in discourses continue everyday moral dialogue
with other means. What motivates the transi-tion to discourse is not some abstract decision, but the fact that the
self-explanatory character of our life-world often fails, and requires
clar-ification and mutual reinterpretation.” Discourses are continuous with the questioning, puzzling, explaining,
and negotiating which form the matrix of everyday morality
3. since discourses
are not hypothetical thought-experiments that can be carried out by isolated
moral philosophers but are in-tended to be actual processes of moral dialogue
among real actors, we do not need to predefine theoretically a concept of
the person and the identity of moral actors. Such persons need not stand
behind a veil of ignorance or be ignorant about the specific circumstances of
their birth, ability, psychological make-up, status, and the like.
Discourses only require from moral actors a reflexive attitude which enjoins
them to settle normative controversies in a spirit of cooperative dialogue.
4. it is not
necessary to place any knowledge constraints upon such processes of moral
reasoning and disputation, for the more knowledge is available to moral
agents about the particulars of their society, its place in history, and its
future, the more rational will be the outcome of their deliberations.
Practical rationality
entails epistemic rationality as well, and more knowledge rather than less
leads to a more informed and rational judgment. To judge rationally is not to
judge as if one did not know what one could know, as Rawls maintains, but to
judge in the light of all available and relevant information.
5. Fifth, in such moral discourses agents can also change
levels of reflexivity, that is to say, they can introduce meta-considerations
about the very conditions and constraints under which dialogue takes place, and
they can evaluate its fairness. There is no closure of reflexivity in this
model as there is, for example, in the Rawlsian one, which enjoins agents to
accept certain rules of bargaining before the choice of the principles of
justice.
6. if there are no knowledge restrictions upon such
discourses, if the theory does not idealize the identity of moral agents, if
reflex-ivity is encouraged rather than limited by the theory
then…
89
follows that there is no privileged subject matter of moral
disputation. Moral agents are not only limited to reasoning about primary goods
which they are assumed to want whatever else they want.
III.
Habermas –
As early as the essay on "Theories of Truth,"
we encounter the claim that the appropriate language of morals "permits
determinate groups and persohs, in given circumstances, a truthful
interpretation both of their own particular needs, and more importantly, of
their common needs capable of consensus.""
Kant, Rawls,
Gewrith…this construct would “transgress” the limits of practical discourse
“In Kant's case this would be so, simply because the
requisite universality of morality can only be established by abstracting away
from, indeed by repressing, those very needs, desires and inclinations which
tempt moral agents away from duty.”
The disregard in contemporary deontological theory for
"inner nature" is more complicated, but ultimately, it seems to me,
it is based on the classical liberal doctrine that as long as the public
actions of individuals do not interfere with each other, what they need and
desire is their business. To want to draw this aspect of a person's life into
public-moral discourse would interfere with their autonomy, i.e., with their
right to define the good life as they please as long as this does not impinge
on others' rights to do the same. (focus is still on the individual)
Against this assumption of Kantian moral theories, Habermas
draws upon an insight of Hegel's that has both empirical and normative
relevance: this is the insight that the relation between self and other, I and
thou, is constitutivefo r human self-consciousness. Empirically, this leads
to a conception of the human personality as developing only in interactionw ith
other selves."
Normatively, this conception of identity implies a model
of autonomy according to which the relation between self and other is not
external to the ego's striving for autonomy.
right on.
90
Habermas says interpretations
become the subject matter of practical discourse
“From the standpoint of socialization theory, individual
nature, while being "private," is not immutable; individual
need-interpretations and mo-tives carry with them the marks of societal
processes by participating in which alone an individual learns to become an
"I." The grammatical logic of the word "I" reveals the
unique structure of ego identity: every subject who uses this concept in
relation to himself or herself also learns that all other subjects are likewise
"I's." In this respect the ego becomes an I only in a community of
other selves who are also I's. Yet every act of self-reference expresses, at
the same time, the uniqueness and difference of this I from all others.”
(reminds me of Halliday)
“The requirement
that a "truthful" interpretation of needs also be part of discursive
argumentation means that ego autonomy cannot and should not be achieved at the
expense of internal repression. Thus Habermas writes: "Internal nature is
thereby moved in a utopian perspective; that is, at this stage internal nature
may no longer be merely examined within an interpretive framework fixed by the
cul-tural tradition in a nature-like way .... Inner nature is rendered
com-municatively fluid and transparent to the extent that needs can, through
aesthetic forms of expression, be kept articulable or be re-leased from their
paleosymbolic prelinguisticality."''
“Ego autonomy is characterized by a twofold capacity:
first, the individual's reflexive ability to question the interpretive
framework fixed by the cultural tradition - to loosen, if you wish, those
sedimented and frozen images of the good and happiness in the light of which we
formulate needs and motives;”
“second, such reflexive questioning is accompanied by an
ability to articulateo ne's needs linguistically, by an ability to communi-cate
with others about them. Whereas the first aspect requires us to assume a
reflexive distance towards the content of our tradition, the second emphasizes
our ability to become articulate about our own affective and emotional
constitution."”
“In both instances, reflection is to be understood not as
an abstracting away from a given content, but as an ability to communicate and
to engage in dialogue.”
The linguistic access
to inner nature is both a distancing and a coming closer.
91
When we “can name what drives and motivates us, we are
closer to freeing our-selves of its power over us; and in the very process of
being able to say what we mean, we come (harmony…)
If the highest stage of a universalistic ethical
orientation is this open, reflexive communication about our needs and the
cultural traditions in light of which they are interpreted, then a number of
oppositions on which communicative ethics seemed to rest begin to lose their
force: questions of justice merge with questions of the good life;
practical-moral discourses flow into aesthetic-expressive ones; autonomy is not
only self-determination inaccordance with just norms but the capacity to assume
the standpoint of the concrete other as well.
different from Kohlberg’s moral stage 6 (public discourse
about rights) “Neither the needs which drive the actions through which
rights are exercised, nor the concept of entitlement which the ethos of a
right-bearing and invariable adult male implies, are called into question in
such a moral theory.”
Thus, the insistence that "universalizable need
inter-pretations" move into the center of moral discourse is not simply a
further evolutiono f such a perspective; it entails a utopianb reakw ith it, or
what I have named its "transfirguration." "Inner nature is moved
into a utopian perspective," in the sense that its contents, our needs and
affects, become communicatively accessible; in psychoanalytic terms, the
threshold of repression is lowered. The utopia of society in which association
(Vergesellschaftung)is a ttained without domination, namely, justice, and
socialization without superfluous repression, namely, happiness, moves to the fore.
“Discourses in which our needs and the cultural
traditions shaping them are thematized; in which the semantic content of those
inter-pretations defining happiness and the good life are brought to light, and
what is fitting, pleasing, and fulfilling are debated, are named by Habermas
"aesthetic-expressive" ones.•" It is maintained that moder-nity
institutionalizes not only the discursive evaluation of moral and political
questions, but those of aesthetic and expressive subjectivity as well”
92
“On the one hand, it shares with
deon-tological theories like Rawls's the desire to separate the public
dis-course ofjustice from the more private discourse of needs; on the other
hand, inasmuch as it is critical of theories of justice which do not extend to
a critiqueo f consumerista nd possessive-individualistmo des of life, it has to
revert to the critique of needs, false socialization, and the like.”
I want
to suggest that Habermas does not thematize this utopian dimensiona
dequately,fo r,f ollowingG eorgeH erbertM ead,h e assumes the standpoint of the
"generalized other," of rights and entitlements, to represent the
moral point of view par excellence
Mead:
“"In logical terms there is established a universe of
discourse which transcends the specific order within which the members of the
community, in a specific conflict, place themselves out-side of the community
order as it exists, and agree upon changed habits of action and a restatement
of values. Rational procedure, therefore, sets up an order within which thought
operates, that abstracts in varying degrees from the actual structure of
society... It is a social order that includes any rational being who is or may
be in any way implicated in the situation with which thought deals ... It is
evident that a man cannot act as a rational member of society, except as he
con-stitutes himself a member of this wider commonwealth of rational
beings."~'"
Habermas:
Self determination
Self actualization
93
The ideal community
of communica-tion corresponds to an ego identity which allows
self-actualization to unfold oni the basis of autonomous action." ' But whereas the perspec-tive of autonomous
action corresponds to the standpoint of the "gener-alized other,"
what, following Carol Gilligan, I would like to call the standpoint of the
"concrete other," cannot be accommodated within the rather
ego-centered notion of self-actualization. The standpoint of the
"generalized other" requires us to view each and every individual as
a rational being entitled to the same rights and duties we would want to
ascribe to ourselves. In assuming this perspec-tive, we abstract from the
individuality and concrete identity of the other. We assume that the other,
like ourselves, is a being who has con-crete needs, desires, and affects, but
that what constitutes her moral dignity is not what differentiates us from each
other, but rather what we, as speaking and acting rational agents, have in
common. Our rela-tion to the other is governed by the norm of symmetricalre
ciprocity: each is entitled to expect and to assume from us what we can expect
and assume from her. The norms of our interactions are primarily public and
institutional ones. If I have a right to "x," then you have the duty
not to hinder me from enjoying "x," and conversely.
concrete other
94of complementaryre
ciprocity:ea ch is entitled to expect and to assume from the other forms of
behavior through which the other feels recognized and confirmed as a concrete, individual
being with specific needs, talents, and capacities. Our differences in this
case comple-ment, rather then exclude one another. The norms of our interaction
are usually private, non-institutional ones. They are the norms of solidarity,
friendship, love, and care. Such relations require in various ways that I do,
and that you expect me to do in the face of your needs, more than would be
required of me as right-bearing person. In treat-ing you in accordance with the
norms of solidarity, friendship, love, and care, I confirm not only your
humanity but your human individuali-ty.
Says…since Hobbes, the public private divide has been
problematic
The institutional distinction between the public and the
private, between the public sphere ofjustice, the civic sphere of friend-ship,
and the private sphere of intimacy, has also resulted in the incom-patibility
of an ethical vision of principles and an ethical vision of care and
solidarity. The ideal of moral and political autonomy has been consistently
restricted to the standpoint of the "generalized other." while the
standpoint of the "concrete other" has been silenced, I want to
suggest, even suppressed by this tradition.'"
As is evidenced by Kantian moral theory, a public ethics of
prin-ciples entails a repressive attitude towards, "inner nature."
Our needs and affective nature are excluded from the realm of moral theory.
This results in a corresponding inability to treat human needs, desires, and
emotions in any other way than by abstracting away from them and by condemning
them to silence. Institutional justice is thus seen as repre-senting a higher
stage of moral development than interpersonal re-sponsibility, care, love, and
solidarity; the respect for rights and duties is regarded as prior to care and
concern about another's needs; moral cognition precedes moral affect; the mind,
we may summarize, is the sovereign of the body, and reason the judge of inner
nature.
95
“Habermas comes close to subverting this bias of
tradi-tional normative philosophy; but his insistence that the standpoint of
the "generalized other" alone represents the moral point of view
pre-vents this move. It is also inadequate to claim that aesthetic-expressive
discourse can accommodate the perspective of the "concrete other,"
for relations of solidarity, friendship, and love are not aesthetic but
profoundly moral ones. The recognition of the human dignity of the generalized
other is just as essential as the acknowledgement of the specificityof the
concrete other. Whereas the perspective of the general-ized other promises
justice, it is in the relation to the concrete other that those ephemeral
moments of happiness and solidarity are re-covered.”
So this is Berlin!!!
calls for
interaction between two theories
but the necessary interaction and confrontation of these
two perspectives.20 The ideal community of communication corresponds to an ego
iden-tity which allows the unfolding of the relation to the concreteot hero n
the basis of autonomousa ction. Only then can we say that justice without
solidarity is blind and empty.
96
huh?
What is objectionable in this procedure is twofold.
First, who is the "we "in the present such that reconstructions
present a process of development with which all can identify? Why is it assumed
that one is already facing a collective singularity - mankind as stch? This
shift to the language of an anonymous species-subject preempts the expereince
of moral and political activity as a consequence of which alone a genuine
"we" can emerge. A collectivity is not con-stituted theoreticaily but
is formed out of the moral and political struggles of fighting actors.
In the second place, this shift to the language of a
hypostatized sub-ject has as further consequence that the historical process is
naturalized. History begins to appear as the semantic gloss on a structural
process which proceeds with necessity and invariably from one sequence to the
next. But we cannot naturalize the history of the species, forwe have no models
of development to compare it. At this point, a certain antic-ipatory utopia, a
projection of the future as it could be, becomes necessary.
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