RE: [Fis] 'Locale' Knowledge

Dear Rafael and colleagues,

The question of the perspective is very central to the sociological
enterprise. The sociologist moves in a "double hermeneutics" (Giddens).
The formulation in terms of the need of choosing a perspective was
already available in Max Weber's work. He published in 1904 an important
essay about the objectivity of sociological knowledge. The analytical
quality of the sociological inference is dependent on the reflexivity of
the researcher about these two roles.

In the sociological analysis one expects different perspectives which
increasing can be expected to distinguish themselves among one another
by becoming more orthogonal. I elaborated on this in a paper entitled
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/commsoc.htm> The Non-linear Dynamics of
Sociological Reflections, International Sociology 12 (1997) 25-45. Just
a few days ago I finished and uploaded a draft provisionally entitled
"The biological metaphor of a <http://www.leydesdorff.net/kybernetes>
(second-order) observer and the sociological discourse," which you may
find also interesting in this context.

The issue about the increasing orthogonality among competing discourses
can also be demonstrated in economics, but there it is less reflected in
the discourse than among sociologists. For example, neo-classical
economists are most interested in tendencies towards equilibria at
specific moments in time. This leads to comparative statics.
Neo-evolutionary economists are interested in change over time, e.g.,
along trajectories. Thus, the two communities take an orthogonal
perspective and find themselves locked-in into an incommensurability.
 
These are interesting questions. As you see, they are very dear to me.
But perhaps we should be more obedient to the agenda of this list.
 
With kind regards,
 
Loet
  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/

 
 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ; <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society

> -----Original Message-----
> From: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es
> [ <mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es>
mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Rafael Capurro
> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 11:12 AM
> To: fis-listas.unizar.es; jlrchand@erols.com
> Cc: hans@diebner.de
> Subject: Re: [Fis] 'Locale' Knowledge
>
>
> Dear Loet, Pedro, Jerry, Koichiro and all,
>
> as you know the word Chemistry has its origin in Arab:
> 'al-kimiya' which means the art of transforming metals
> (particularly into gold). Chemists are in some way experts in
> metallic 'trans-lations' (= Latin 'transl-latere'= to bring
> from one (local) place into another one and so (!) to change
> its properties).
>
> There is in some way a chemistry of language, i.e., the art
> of translations and sometimes we dream from a meta-language
> (the language of unified science, as was called in Vienna at
> the beginning of the past century), and some of us might
> think this is indeed mathematics and nowadays: the
> 'im-presssion' or 'in-formation' of the dual code 0/1 into
> the electromagnetic medium. Therefore we may also think today
> that we have understood something in its being when we have
> grasped it in a digital way (also in case we grasp 'material'
> things or whatever). I call this perspective our present
> 'digital ontology' which does not mean that we think (in a
> New-Pythagorean way) everthing IS digital, this would be
> digital metaphysics, which is in some way the view taken by
> Italo-Oxford philosopher Luciano Floridi with his philosophy
> of information, see also his book (ed.): The Blackwell Guide
> to the Philosophy and Information" 2004) and particularly his
> fascinating essays on this subject in his website. What I
> mean is less dramatic (or metaphysic) it 'just' means that we
> take (in everyday life but also in science) a (mostly
> implicit) perspective about the meaning of being in order to
> grasp things in their being, and that this perspective (which
> is then more epistemological than metaphysical) is
> characterized today by digital technology.
>
> This is, so to speak, our (historical) 'local' perspective
> and... we always have a local perspective, as we are
> 'beings-in-time' (animal rationale et mortale). This is where
> Koichiro's thinking in/about time joins, if we make this kind
> of 'trans-lation' the realm of (scientific) thinking out of
> what happens in/with molecules. Instead of looking for a kind
> of meta-language of science we are looking now, under timely
> conditions, for different kinds of 'trans-lations' from one
> (scientifc) idiom into the other. Ghis question of
> translation was also thematized for instance by Quine and
> other in the last century.
>
> We could also say, that we cannot grasp anything from all
> kinds of perspectives at once due precisely to the fact that
> we are 'in' time. We have to make our choices, but reality is
> alwas 'as a whole' there. So when we try to 'imitate'
> something (I join now the discourse and theory on the nature
> of the artificial as developed by Massimo Negrotti, Univ. of
> Urbino) we have to make our choices (concerning its substance
> and/or processes). What we get is something artificial with
> regard to something considered to be 'original' (not:
> natural, Negrotti criticizes the classic distinction
> natural/artificial). In some sense this is also what happens wenn we
> ('chemically') trans-late from one language/place to the
> other. We have sometimes the (mad) idea (or illusion), we
> could translate everything (every language) into 'our own'
> (our so called 'mather tongue'), but halas, we 'dis-cover'
> (with time, in time, timely?) that it is much more
> 'realistic' (and thrilling!) to 'trans-late' ourselves (and
> our Selves) to other places (and idea developed by Heidegger
> in some of his late writings and not far away from late
> Wittgestein's 'Sprachspiele') to other 'places'. This means
> also to take this 'metamorphic' (beyond forms) condition of
> language not as something we should or could avoid (by
> creating a super-language), but something we can profit from
> as it allows us not only to change (ontological)
> perspectives, but also to grasp beings in their specific
> appearence. This is, I believe, what Jerry tells us with
> regard to the language of Chemistry as grasping the phenomena
> (of substance structures and their possible transformation)
> less with mathematics that with graphs: not that we could not
> also look mathematically at substances, but then we loose a
> specific 'chemical' perspective.
>
> If we take this view with regard to the process itself of how
> scientific theories (and other kinds of responses to reality
> such as religions, art
> etc.) develop, we can conclude (and this was one intention of
> my mail on the historical origins of today's digital
> ontology) that some transformations happen (and other do not)
> and that we are not the absolute 'masters' of this process,
> i.e., we think and in some way 'are thought' or 'co-respond'
> (give an answer together with....) to what phenomena through
> our own theories and practices tell us they are/can be. In
> some way we can give reasons for this process, historical
> ones (context of discovery) as well as systematic ones
> (context of justification), but it is amazing, I think, that
> we respond to some perspectives or 'messages' (as we can call
> them) and not to others. What are the reasons for our own
> theoretical and practical preferences? Why do we 'believe'
> (or 'take for granted') in one message and not on the other?
> Why Newton and not Goethe? Why Galileo and not the Bible? Why
> Jesus and not Mani? why...? What are the 'conditions of
> credibility' (to speak in a Kantian idion) of messages? (and
> we live more and more in a 'message society' where this
> process is becoming extremely complex...) There are of course
> a lot of possible reasons for these preferences, but in some
> way they (or at least some of them) remain a 'mystery' in the
> sense that there is a chaotic process of trans-mission (also
> in the sense of a 'mission' with regard to a 'message) that
> is not only a question of geographical 'location' (and
> trans-location or trans-lation) but also what local
> expectations (related many times to pragmatic aspects of
> survival). This was the background of my short mail on the
> origin(s) of today's digital ontology going back to Greek
> speculations on mathematics (numbers and points as separated
> from their 'natural' place in 'natural' beings = physei
> onta), through Logics (Scholastic), Lull etc.etc. Just very
> shortly the question of etymology: it is at the opposite of
> the programm of a unified and univocal (and universal and
> meta-local or
> meta-physical) language (of 'science'). No question:
> searching for the 'true' meaning (=etymon) of words does not
> solve any problems but it might help to weaken the strong
> illusion of a super-stable language (of course we need in
> science clear concepts and univocity, but as in physics,
> sometimes we take our wishful thinking for the whole of
> reality and... we loose the possibilities offered by
> 'relativity'). In this sense 'etymological' speculations
> (playing with language and its often absurd and/or joyful,
> ridicoulous, laughable...aspects: but it is in fact the our
> own 'human'
> medium!....) if we grasp them ironically that might helpf us
> to make solluble (as in Chemistry) what seems to be hart and
> for ever. Our mis-understandings often at the origin of our
> best (and, worst) ideas (and actions)!
>
> Cheers
>
> Rafael
>
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Received on Wed Jan 21 21:49:36 2004