Pretentious Crap
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
In fact, I've already hit up against this here in trying to critique racist attitudes in the U.K.
Since I don't live there, and have never been there, all I could go on was the newspaper articles I've read and a couple of TV clips I've seen, and so I could only talk in a sort of generalization that didn't ring true to people who live in the U.K.
Now I'm not saying that the criticism was totally invalid, because the articles and clips really do exist, but really I was not in the best position to talk about that subject, and it showed.
Since I don't live there, and have never been there, all I could go on was the newspaper articles I've read and a couple of TV clips I've seen, and so I could only talk in a sort of generalization that didn't ring true to people who live in the U.K.
Now I'm not saying that the criticism was totally invalid, because the articles and clips really do exist, but really I was not in the best position to talk about that subject, and it showed.
Nobody here is in a position to decide very much. One issue that Dissensus has, as yet, no executive control over is the ethical codes binding scientists.
At least for me, the question concerns the problem of a faith in science, raised to the Nth power, as ultimate authority over human affairs. This is a dogmatism which Bruno Latour, whom you (characteristically) seem to have misunderstood in the course of your earlier (splenetic) ranting, has critiqued very acutely. His own master, Michel Serres, has been even sharper. Here is a relevant passage from their dialogue:
BL ...it seems to me that there is a double test---first you link Baal and the Challenger, then they have to exchange their properties in a symmetrical fashion. We are supposed to understand the Carthaginians' practice of human sacrifice by immersing ourselves in the Challenger event, but, inversely, we are supposed to understand what technology is through the Carthaginian religion.
MS Yes, the reasoning is more or less symmetrical...We could construct a kind of dictionary that would allow us to translate, word by word, gesture by gesture, event by event, the scene at Cape Canaveral into the Carthaginian rite, and vice versa...the respective cost of the operation, comparable for the two communities, the immense crowd of spectators, the specialists who prepare it and who are apart from the rest, the ignition, the state-of-the-art machinery in both cases, given the technology of the two eras, the organized or fascinated rehearsal of the event, the death of those enclosed in the two statues, whose size dominates the surrounding space, the denial...--"No those aren't humans, but cattle," cry even the fathers of the incinerated children in Carthage; "No," we say "it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't a sacrifice, but an accident," inevitable, even calculable, through probabilities....The series of substitutions functions exactly like stitches, like mending a tear, like making a nice tight overcast seam...Each term of the translation passes on a piece of thread, and at the end it may be said that we have followed the missing hyphens between the two worlds. Baal is in the Challenger, and the Challenger is in Baal; religion is in technology; the pagan god is in the rocket; the rocket is in the statue; the rocket on its launching pad is in the ancient idol---and our sophisticated knowledge is in our archaic fascinations."
(159-160).
BL "But you are always tripping up your readers; you are always operating simultaneously on two opposing fronts. When they think they are reading about collective society, you bring them back to things, and then, when they think they are reading about the sciences, you bring them back to society. They go from Baal to the Challenger and then from the Challenger to Baal!"
MS "Its a magnificent paradox, which I savor. To walk on two feet appears to mean tripping everyone up. Is this proof, then, that we always limp?" (142)
MS "All around us language replaces experience. The sign, so soft, substitutes itself for the thing, which is hard. I cannot think of this substitution as an equivalence. It is more of an abuse and a violence. The sound of a coin is not worth the coin; the smell of cooking does not fill the hungry stomach; publicity is not the equivalent of quality; the tongue that talks annuls the tongue that tastes or the one that receives and gives a kiss." (p. 132)
MS "There is no pure myth except the idea of a science that is pure of all myth." (p. 162)
At least for me, the question concerns the problem of a faith in science, raised to the Nth power, as ultimate authority over human affairs. This is a dogmatism which Bruno Latour, whom you (characteristically) seem to have misunderstood in the course of your earlier (splenetic) ranting, has critiqued very acutely. His own master, Michel Serres, has been even sharper. Here is a relevant passage from their dialogue:
BL ...it seems to me that there is a double test---first you link Baal and the Challenger, then they have to exchange their properties in a symmetrical fashion. We are supposed to understand the Carthaginians' practice of human sacrifice by immersing ourselves in the Challenger event, but, inversely, we are supposed to understand what technology is through the Carthaginian religion.
MS Yes, the reasoning is more or less symmetrical...We could construct a kind of dictionary that would allow us to translate, word by word, gesture by gesture, event by event, the scene at Cape Canaveral into the Carthaginian rite, and vice versa...the respective cost of the operation, comparable for the two communities, the immense crowd of spectators, the specialists who prepare it and who are apart from the rest, the ignition, the state-of-the-art machinery in both cases, given the technology of the two eras, the organized or fascinated rehearsal of the event, the death of those enclosed in the two statues, whose size dominates the surrounding space, the denial...--"No those aren't humans, but cattle," cry even the fathers of the incinerated children in Carthage; "No," we say "it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't a sacrifice, but an accident," inevitable, even calculable, through probabilities....The series of substitutions functions exactly like stitches, like mending a tear, like making a nice tight overcast seam...Each term of the translation passes on a piece of thread, and at the end it may be said that we have followed the missing hyphens between the two worlds. Baal is in the Challenger, and the Challenger is in Baal; religion is in technology; the pagan god is in the rocket; the rocket is in the statue; the rocket on its launching pad is in the ancient idol---and our sophisticated knowledge is in our archaic fascinations."
(159-160).
BL "But you are always tripping up your readers; you are always operating simultaneously on two opposing fronts. When they think they are reading about collective society, you bring them back to things, and then, when they think they are reading about the sciences, you bring them back to society. They go from Baal to the Challenger and then from the Challenger to Baal!"
MS "Its a magnificent paradox, which I savor. To walk on two feet appears to mean tripping everyone up. Is this proof, then, that we always limp?" (142)
MS "All around us language replaces experience. The sign, so soft, substitutes itself for the thing, which is hard. I cannot think of this substitution as an equivalence. It is more of an abuse and a violence. The sound of a coin is not worth the coin; the smell of cooking does not fill the hungry stomach; publicity is not the equivalent of quality; the tongue that talks annuls the tongue that tastes or the one that receives and gives a kiss." (p. 132)
MS "There is no pure myth except the idea of a science that is pure of all myth." (p. 162)
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Yes, there's always the very general level of critique where you can analyze the function of systems analysis as a sort of work as it relates to a larger socio-political/cultural environment.
But I think that philosophy and theory has that level covered, right?
vimothy
yurp
A political economy of systems analysis, a sociology of finance, an anthropology of education, an ecology of institutional knowledge...
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
What is "faith" in science?
I didn't misunderstand anything. You are, as you often do, trying to "summarize" a philosopher's work and in doing so you're wildly off the mark and missing the point entirely.
Bruno Latour sees science as a sort of cultural praxis, one that is, yes, subject to ideology (my words not his exactly). This is hardly the most interesting part of Latour's work, though. What's interesting is his ontology. For Latour, nothing is reducible to anything else, hence science is unable to explain everything (or explain anything away). Things are all actants, power is not an extrinsic force that things tap into, or that acts on things, but all things in existing exert a force/power, and often in doing so exert power over other things.
In "We Have Never Been Modern", Latour accuses the moderns of over "universalizing" science, and I agree with him on this point. But I also think the moderns are all dead and he's talking about people who don't exist anymore. He proposes a Copernican "counter-revolution" in which we learn to properly think our situation and our hybrids and most of all, get rid of relativism.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Latour would probably classify Zhao as an "antimodern", too, based on the descriptions in WHNBM. He's not a big fan of those, either.
Latour is poised to become the new darling of academia, how could he not be pretentious?
Latour is poised to become the new darling of academia, how could he not be pretentious?
"Bruno Latour sees science as a sort of cultural praxis, one that is, yes, subject to ideology (my words not his exactly). This is hardly the most interesting part of Latour's work, though. What's interesting is his ontology. For Latour, nothing is reducible to anything else, hence science is unable to explain everything (or explain anything away). Things are all actants, power is not an extrinsic force that things tap into, or that acts on things, but all things in existing exert a force/power, and often in doing so exert power over other things.
In "We Have Never Been Modern", Latour accuses the moderns of over "universalizing" science, and I agree with him on this point. But I also think the moderns are all dead and he's talking about people who don't exist anymore. He proposes a Copernican "counter-revolution" in which we learn to properly think our situation and our hybrids and most of all, get rid of relativism."
**
Could you try and write that again, in a non-pretentious crap form?
I am sure that Latour will pleased to hear that an esteemed thinker like yourself agrees with him on one of his points.
I also confused as to why you think Latour wants to "get rid of relativism." If anything, the opposite is true.
In "We Have Never Been Modern", Latour accuses the moderns of over "universalizing" science, and I agree with him on this point. But I also think the moderns are all dead and he's talking about people who don't exist anymore. He proposes a Copernican "counter-revolution" in which we learn to properly think our situation and our hybrids and most of all, get rid of relativism."
**
Could you try and write that again, in a non-pretentious crap form?
I am sure that Latour will pleased to hear that an esteemed thinker like yourself agrees with him on one of his points.
I also confused as to why you think Latour wants to "get rid of relativism." If anything, the opposite is true.
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nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Are you for real? That was far less pretentious than the book, which is full of references to Heidegger, Hobbes, and Heraclitis--and very watered down comparatively.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Nope, wrong again.
He's into the full-turn, "relativist relativism", here's the passage:
"But if we are to understand the task of measuring, we need to reinforce the noun with the adjective 'relativist', which compensates for the noun's apparent foolishness. Relativist relativism restores the compatibility that was assumed to have been lost. To be sure, relativist relativism has to abandon what constituted the common argument of the universalists as well as the earliest cultural relativists--that is, the word 'absolute.' Instead of stopping midway, it continues to the end and rediscovers, in the form of work and montage, practice and controversy, conquest and domination, the process of establishing relations. A little relativism distances us from the universal; a lot brings us back, but it is a universal in networks that has no more mysterious properties."
pg 113 (if you keep reading from there he goes on to explain more about this)
An important distinction!
He's into the full-turn, "relativist relativism", here's the passage:
"But if we are to understand the task of measuring, we need to reinforce the noun with the adjective 'relativist', which compensates for the noun's apparent foolishness. Relativist relativism restores the compatibility that was assumed to have been lost. To be sure, relativist relativism has to abandon what constituted the common argument of the universalists as well as the earliest cultural relativists--that is, the word 'absolute.' Instead of stopping midway, it continues to the end and rediscovers, in the form of work and montage, practice and controversy, conquest and domination, the process of establishing relations. A little relativism distances us from the universal; a lot brings us back, but it is a universal in networks that has no more mysterious properties."
pg 113 (if you keep reading from there he goes on to explain more about this)
An important distinction!
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Latour thinks we need to get past these sorts of Zhaoesque arguments about which version of pre-history props up my ideology of choice best, or at least stop thinking that any version of pre-history is going to be able to prop up your ideology.
The act of measuring is relative, yes, but it's not "absolutely relative," as Zhao would have you believe, so that it's only relative insofar as it is relative to his own point of reference (non-violence in pre-history).
Most "relativists" according to Latour are absolute relativists, not relativist relativists.
"Worlds appear commensurable or incommensurable only to those who cling to measured measures. Yet all measures, in hard and soft sciences alike, are also measuring measures, and they construct a commensurability that did not exist before their own calibration."
This is a very challenging proposition. Not just for science.
The act of measuring is relative, yes, but it's not "absolutely relative," as Zhao would have you believe, so that it's only relative insofar as it is relative to his own point of reference (non-violence in pre-history).
Most "relativists" according to Latour are absolute relativists, not relativist relativists.
"Worlds appear commensurable or incommensurable only to those who cling to measured measures. Yet all measures, in hard and soft sciences alike, are also measuring measures, and they construct a commensurability that did not exist before their own calibration."
This is a very challenging proposition. Not just for science.
Agent
dgaf ngaf cgaf
i'll never adopt the post-structuralist view of science, or Foucault's genealogies, because it is disingenuous. Science is more reliable (for what it claims to do, which is observe reality) than religion, or any of the so-called postmodern "myths" or little narratives (constructed logic systems that determine content).
But at the same time science is naive. i like pseudo-science and the paranormal. if you read Sokal he frames Lacan as a crank; Chomsky says the same thing about Derrida and the post-structural linguists. But they seem to miss the point b/c Lacan was a structural psychoanalyst. he wanted to revive psychoanalytic therapy as a method or social technique (something i guess we should be wary of). psychoanalysis is considered pseudo-science, even by the standards of the humanities (sociologists, linguists, etc), but i'm not sure i agree with this.
the analyst-analysand relationship is structural - there's nothing mysterious about it. psychoanalytic interpretation is no more unreliable than a linguistic analysis, since the symptom is always organized syntatically, at least that's the structuralist/Lacanian argument. i agree with Saussure's structuralism, but not his linguistics. i'm not sure if that's self-contradictory, but whatever.
i agree with Foucault that vision, and the philosophical basis for the "idea" of "observation" in science, is constructed historically, aesthetically, etc. but i prefer science to its alternatives for a simple reason: it produces more information. and the post-structural approach is wrong because Saussure's linguistic model (S/s), which brackets the real or relegates it to the margins, is wrong.
But at the same time science is naive. i like pseudo-science and the paranormal. if you read Sokal he frames Lacan as a crank; Chomsky says the same thing about Derrida and the post-structural linguists. But they seem to miss the point b/c Lacan was a structural psychoanalyst. he wanted to revive psychoanalytic therapy as a method or social technique (something i guess we should be wary of). psychoanalysis is considered pseudo-science, even by the standards of the humanities (sociologists, linguists, etc), but i'm not sure i agree with this.
the analyst-analysand relationship is structural - there's nothing mysterious about it. psychoanalytic interpretation is no more unreliable than a linguistic analysis, since the symptom is always organized syntatically, at least that's the structuralist/Lacanian argument. i agree with Saussure's structuralism, but not his linguistics. i'm not sure if that's self-contradictory, but whatever.
i agree with Foucault that vision, and the philosophical basis for the "idea" of "observation" in science, is constructed historically, aesthetically, etc. but i prefer science to its alternatives for a simple reason: it produces more information. and the post-structural approach is wrong because Saussure's linguistic model (S/s), which brackets the real or relegates it to the margins, is wrong.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
Agent just PWND this thread.
nomadthethird
more issues than Time mag
I really think Agent's post is much better than most of mine in this thread, though.
You know how it is, when you're all bogged down in remedial bullshit.
A humble admission.