RE: [Fis] 'Locale' Knowledge

> re Pedro's posting below: In my view, natural science (and
> some of social science as well) is an attempt to find general
> rules (laws), and then to see how these influence affairs at
> individual locales. Individual local configurations add
> informational constraints to the general rules, which also
> are informational constraints. (That is, the most general
> laws of nature can be viewed as being unique -- historcal --
> products of this particular Big Bang.) So, following Pattee,
> we can distinguish dynamics (the form of an equation) from
> the constraints upon them (the values of constants in an
> equation). Dynamics can be viewed as the attempt to promote
> energetic equilibrium in the Universe, while various
> constraints can be viewed as arrangements to promote this project.
>
> STAN

Dear Stan,

In this case, there seems not much room for "local" knowledge from this
perspective. In the social sciences, however, we have in addition to
globalized discourses, the knowledge of the local participant-observers.
One sometimes distinguishes between the "emic" and the "etic"
perspective. Reflexivity about this difference of perspectives is very
crucial to the analytical quality of the research design.

Thus, the status of observations changes with this "double hermeneutics"
and therewith--I agree with Jerry in this respect--the ontology.
However, it is not so easy to see the equivalent concepts for molecules
and chemistry, isn't it? One would need Maturana's fine distinctions of
first-order and second-order observers spanning semantic and linguistic
domains, respectively. However, these distinctions need further
elaboration in the social sciences because the meta-observer can also
change roles with the observer. I brought a draft paper on-line entitled
"The biological <http://www.leydesdorff.net/kybernetes/observer.pdf>
metaphor of (second-order) observers and the sociological discourse" at
http://www.leydesdorff.net/kybernetes/observer.pdf for those interested
in these further elaborations. Of course, I can use comments in this
stage of the process.

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

>
>
>
> >The term 'local' applied to science may create problems and
> a suspicious >proximity to the postmodern criticisms (that I
> do not share, or perhaps at >a very long distance). But the
> same would happen in my opinion with the >term 'global', and
> it is even worse because of the load of dogmatic
> >self-deception that it so easily conveys. Maybe 'locales'
> used as an >adjective could be more adequate to what I was
> trying to convey. > >Therefore, scientific knowledge would
> partake a retinue of 'locale' >attributes or tags
> concerning, for instance, the author, the communication
> >vehicle, the institution, the 'school', the culture, the
> epoch, the >'discipline'... The particular pieces of
> knowledge we may individually >produce would gain their
> credibility, respectability and currency by >getting caught
> in an unending circulation among the other locales: other
> >authors, schools, disciplines (eg, 'references',
> 'citations', personal and >doctrinary influences,
> interdisciplinary extensions, 'imperialism' of >disciplines,
> etc.). > >In actuality, we scientists, at least in most
> fields of natural science, >are taking locality very
> seriously, and are continuously struggling to >transcend it
> as much as possible. Precisely, the monumental effort we are
> >collectively making to transcend it becomes an important
> aspect that >distinguish our profession from other modes of
> human experience: artistic, >religious ones, etc. (where
> circulation is deprived of almost all of the >tough
> conditions of logical rigor, experiment, and repeatability we
> put in >our scientific exchanges). But those very stringent
> conditions also >'alienate' ourselves from those quite
> subtle realms of human experience. > >The absences and
> needs we feel along our personal participation in that
> >unceasing collective circulation of knowledge mosaics might
> underlie some >of the ideas recently discussed by Viktoras
> (cultural distortions and >unified views), Luis (science and
> humanities breach), and Jerry's system >taxonomy (that could
> contains several problems: at least, extending the
> >peculiarities of our knowledge and information flows towards
> other >inanimate realms, as I understand from 'knowing'
> molecules 'exchanging >information', may be confusing for
> our efforts of clarifying the >foundations of info
> phenomena) and the 'be' in Loet's approach.
>
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Received on Thu Jan 15 11:51:18 2004