Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Digest for ifets-discuss@topica.com, issue 6
dnardi@math.ucla.edu
Date: Wed 31 May 2000 - 23:21:42 MEST
From: dnardi@math.ucla.edu Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Digest for ifets-discuss@topica.com, issue 6 Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 14:21:42 -0700
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In response to Rick Parkany's e-mail essay/personal attack on Bob (though I
know niether Rick nor Bob, just being a reader and now a writer here.)
My response to Rick is: why are you so emotionally engaged in your
response? It sound's very important to you. In fact, I believe it is you
Rick who has made the biggest blunder for yourself, because you are
confusing the object of discussion (post-modernism and/or science) with
people's values about what they want and how they want to do things. We can
discuss whether or not science is more or less objective or subjective, or
kinds of science, and/or we can discuss scientist's values of engaging in
work in a way that makes it as objective as possible, and kinds of values.
(I am taking about the process of doing something, as opposed to classify.)
Your statements, Rick, about culture's role in science go ignored by hard
science not because the ideas are wrong (I think they are pretty
self-evident when discussed) but because the people you are taking to don't
care about what you're saying. As a scientist:
a) why would I want to make my work and work life more "subjective" if I
value trying to make things objective (Whether or not this goal is possible
is irrevelevent, and whether you believe in objective or subject is also
irrevelent, since this is MY model of the world, and if you don't honor my
values then why would I want to listen to you?)
b) how does considering cultural effects change my daily process of doing
science? understanding culture doesn't solve the technical program I am
having with one of my C++ programs. And In fact, I write psychology books
too and do a lot of experimental social science as well as the hard science
stuff. There is a lot more to consider, and flow charts or computer
programs don't model it, but that doesn't mean I can't try to be more
objective because that's what I want. Your process is NOT my process.
Of course there is the ethics of what I do with my/others creations, but
then that is why I am engaging/following this discussion!
I think you take for granted that people are even listening to
post-modernism. From a purely pragmatic point of view, post-modern is not
needed to do hard science, and I suspect that systems notions are
sufficient in most scientists eyes to handle social science.
Now, I suppose I am arguing in a post-modernist way, so if I am then you
must accept some version of what I am saying, and if you disagree then
post-modernism is rejected (a nice double binds.) And this discussion is
not hard science, it is an interaction covered by social science, so
ironically, you are taking an objective stance about the primacy of
non-objectivity in social science!
Now, if you believe what other people want is wrong for them to want it, or
that my values to make/keep things more objective is wrong, or you disagree
with me entirely, then... well, that's your problem. My life goes on
unaffected. ;-) Good luck with your values, and the values of those around
you!
D. Anthong Nardi
>------------------------------
>
>From: Rick Parkany <rparkany@borg.com>
>Subject: Re: Objectivity and Postmedernism
>
>
>Well, Bob, after reading a few of your latter postings, I see that you
seem to
>have committed a fallacy in most of your thinking and argumentation. As a
>fallacy, it seems to be an assumption that you don't state that makes many of
>your accounts seem so striaghtforward and sensible. You commit the fallacy
that
>between positive and physical sciences and the social sciences there is a
>theoretic or paradigmatic continuum.
>
>I keep before me a simple manner in which I often remind myself of the
>distinction between the two *sciences* and the focus of each inquiry. In a
word,
>the physical sciences deal with non-interactive data, the social sciences
deal
>with data that *talks back*--that is, this natural data *speaks* in the same
>language as the inquirer, in second order logic that includes
self-referential,
>reflexive propositions. Kurt Goedel, in his studies of second order logic
>metamathematically, once and for all broke this assumption of yours
concerning
>the continuum of the *object* of scientific inquiry that positive science had
>struck under the agenda of the Vienna Kreiss. HIS refutation of this
continuity
>came even from the positive tradition, so it has much more weight as a
refutation
>than it would have had coming from a Neitsche, Heidegger, or a Weber.
>
>Here, in discussing the *data that talks back with the inquirer*, yea,
even data
>that collaborates with the inquirer, I'm not talking about the thoeretic
modeling
>of experience in which flow charts are drafted and all sorts of loops and
spirals
>enter into the picture and display what appears to be itterative,
interactive, or
>even, *complex*, *chaordic*, or *self-adaptive* organicity. I'm talking
about the
>semiotics of our experience and the role it plays in social and cultural
inquiry.
>
>You commit the positivist fallacy that assumes a continuity between the
physical
>and the cultural without at all exhibiting any *proof* or *demonstration*
that
>such a contunuity exists. This same fallacy underwrites much confounded
thinking,
>as well, that assumes that *meaning* is somehow to be equated with
*knowledge*.
>On the other hand, to *postulate* such an extensiveness and then to
investigate
>accordingly may be a better rhetorical tack while discussing these issues,
rather
>than to make it appear that those who don't accept this unstated
assumption of
>yours are in some way thinking clearly, or even, that they are *naturalists*.
>But, then again, that just what the Vienna Circle HAD indeed postulated and,
>indeed, what Goedel refuted in 1931-33. Therefore...
>
>Come to think of it, the cultural dimension in our experiences, including the
>scientific, is quite an overwhelming consideration. Where would we be, for
>example, had western science been more concerned with moral improvement
rather
>than material? or what if Greece had no slave society underpinning its
oligarchy?
>would we be *seeing* moral issues with the same apparent refinement that we
>presently *see* sub-atomic particles? Indeed, Bob, physical sciences are NOT
>culturally free (just reflect upon the funding protocol for research
priorities
>w/i your own Uni! how scientific are THOSE deliberations that do as much to
>prdict future evolution of science as any DeChardin would ever, my friend?),
>constructivism does NOT have to refute gravity in order to demonstrate that
>*sense* is different from *knowledge* being different from *information*,
that
>*meaning* is as important (or more so) than *models* or *facts*.
>
>In fact (pardon the play on words), all science has a moral dimension, morals
>have to do with amelioration and improvement (betterment of the good) of the
>human condition, and, therefore, we are all *naturalists* (after
DeChardin) in
>that our science progresses not apart from the flesh and blood of those of us
>creating it. All science is teleological, having to do with evolution and
>progress. Accordingly, what *is* is due to where we have looked and how we
have
>been biased while looking. I'm afraid it all comes down to ontology, Bob,
despite
>Bill Clinton's shibboleth--it all depends on what *is* is... ;-} rap.
>
>
>
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