On Sat, 4 May 1996, Quetzil Castaneda wrote:
> read bruno latour (and related literature; HAraway, Michael Fischer, etc)
> about how scientists are "linguists" as you want to claim -- not my
> statement -- whose scientific practices of constructing realities through an
> apparatus of scriptural practices is very effective. they are in the
> business of producing meanings about reality that pass under the name of a
> nonlinguistically constructed real.
>
OK so maybe I did have a bit of a grump on. I'm feeling more cheerful
now (coming down off a pill or two),
yes scientists do construct meanings, and yes, almost entirely through
language (in particular mathematical language but also other 'langages').
But as someone else said, unlike other meanings, these work. That doesn't
mean they're true, except on their own terms as it were. But the very
complex linguistic constructs they use are, ultimately, practically
effective, and (more contentiously) they are effective in
producing non-linguistic events. I would argue that an atomic explosion
could be seen as an 'ideal-type' of such an event. Of course after an
event/ before it/ simultaneous with it there are meanings through which
we understand the event: environmental destruction/ act of barbarity/
justified act of war/ symbol of the C20 etc. But I don't think one can
deny that things happen on a non-discursive level as well as a discursive
one.
If I were doing philosophy I would spend a lot more time on this argument
and have deeper worries with it. As it is I gave up thinking about such
things when I realized that philosophers wrote books like 'Parts and
Wholes'. Or alternatively incomprehensible continental rubbish. So I
remain like Levi-Strauss 'intimately convinced of [much] the same beliefs I
held at the age of 15'. I feel a coherent philosophy is only one of many
possible bases for social theory.
Right, I'm off to read about globalization. Sorry if I offended anyone,
more so if I've bored them.
Dave Hugh-Jones
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'Yes, that's my mother all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know.'
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dash2@xxxxxxxxx
> read bruno latour (and related literature; HAraway, Michael Fischer, etc)
> about how scientists are "linguists" as you want to claim -- not my
> statement -- whose scientific practices of constructing realities through an
> apparatus of scriptural practices is very effective. they are in the
> business of producing meanings about reality that pass under the name of a
> nonlinguistically constructed real.
>
OK so maybe I did have a bit of a grump on. I'm feeling more cheerful
now (coming down off a pill or two),
yes scientists do construct meanings, and yes, almost entirely through
language (in particular mathematical language but also other 'langages').
But as someone else said, unlike other meanings, these work. That doesn't
mean they're true, except on their own terms as it were. But the very
complex linguistic constructs they use are, ultimately, practically
effective, and (more contentiously) they are effective in
producing non-linguistic events. I would argue that an atomic explosion
could be seen as an 'ideal-type' of such an event. Of course after an
event/ before it/ simultaneous with it there are meanings through which
we understand the event: environmental destruction/ act of barbarity/
justified act of war/ symbol of the C20 etc. But I don't think one can
deny that things happen on a non-discursive level as well as a discursive
one.
If I were doing philosophy I would spend a lot more time on this argument
and have deeper worries with it. As it is I gave up thinking about such
things when I realized that philosophers wrote books like 'Parts and
Wholes'. Or alternatively incomprehensible continental rubbish. So I
remain like Levi-Strauss 'intimately convinced of [much] the same beliefs I
held at the age of 15'. I feel a coherent philosophy is only one of many
possible bases for social theory.
Right, I'm off to read about globalization. Sorry if I offended anyone,
more so if I've bored them.
Dave Hugh-Jones
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
'Yes, that's my mother all right, but my mother's the Virgin Mary, you know.'
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
dash2@xxxxxxxxx