Durant wrote:
>
> ...
> > This lady has discovered that while, at
> > home, children adapt to develop a certain modus-vivendi with their
> > parents, with their peers they develoop a completely different
> > personality structure, and the two are completely "split" (<--that
> > word again). This is a bit "off the subject", but insofar as
> > it is true, it well fits in with all the other splitting that
> > goes on in our so-called "society", where -- to return to the
> > subject --, e.g., wha scientists *do* and what they *think
> > they are doing* need have no logical intersection (the
> > union of what one does and what one thinks one does may be
> > the null set).
> >
>
> Do you mean that individuals adapt different roles in different
> groups? Gee, I thought that was "discovered" a very long time ago...
Yes, "games people play" became a cliche after the pop-psych
book by Eric Berne. What I'm concerned about is that persons
do not *integrate* these different roles, and the different
aspects within a single role. For a "brain worker" to
slavishly work overtime seems to me incongruous. But, instead
of the "brain worker" thinking: "I think, and thinking is an
activity which requires leisure", and "I work enforced overtime
to produce more stuff, which is an attribute of the addembly line",
and *putting the two together and saying: This doesn't add up",
the "brain worker" (1) uses his or her brain, *and* (2) works
the overtime, but doesn't try to conceptually integrate the
two. I call that *splitting* (multiple personality disorder).
>
> > It sure isn't something "the American [or other] people" do. Most
> > people believe in atoms these days for no better reasons than
> > their ancestors believed in God. Both "atoms" and "God" can
> > explain everything.
> >
>
> Beg your pardon, but we have somewhat more convincing
> evidence for atoms. This evidence is even comprehendable
> by the average student in any secondary school level chemistry class.
> By the way, I suppose I am a scientist as I am a BSc(Hon) in
> chemistry. And I work in a research laboratory... I have never really
> considered myself as a "scientist"...
>
Who has the evidence for the atoms? Scientists may. Advanced
university science students may. You say you are one of the latter,
so you may. But most people *believe* in atoms, just like they
used to believe in God. Ask the ordinary man in the street for
proof that the earth goes around the sun. He doesn't even have
access to a telescope to gather the evidence, and he wouldn't
know what to do with the telescope of someone lent it o him.
>
> >
> ...
> > I have no desire to denigrate "science", but only to *situate*
> > scientific praxis in the overall horizon of human existence,
> > wherein alone there is anything and it is anything at all,
> > or at least, "if there is anything else, whatever that might
> > mean", we can, on principle, have no more access to it than
> > we can experience anything we do not experience (or not
> > experience anyting we do experience).
> >
> ...
>
> Are you sure that this paragraph makes sense?
> Could I have some concise English, please?
> I can only assume fuzzy ideas if it looks like
> fuzzy ideas.
It's a long story, but the material universe
constructed by the activity of scientists has
come to be believed by people to be "real" apart
from the activity of doing science which builds
and keeps in circulation this world view. Thus
we get such nonsensical ideas as that all
human behavoir is causally determined because
we detach the activity of science (explaining
how things are causally determined, etc.) from the
human activity -- the meaningful choices -- in
which that activity is grounded. What is
really real is not the *results* of science,
but the *doing of science, including what
scientists do with the results of their work*.
If we focus on that human activity "as a whole",
we see a very different "reality" than if
we disconnect the results of the activity and
say that those results are reality "Uberhaupt"
(The wohle thing). The net of such a shift in
our relation to science would not be to stop
scientists from doing experiments (although
some scientists, esp. pschologists, might change
the kinds of experiments they do and the sense they
make of their results!). The net of such a
shift would be to bring a political discourse about
the activity of doing science and that activity's
connections with the rest of life into the center
of what w think of as "reality" (displacing
the "physical universe" from that role).
Technics would become politicized not in the
sense of meddling with what experiments
are allowed to be done, but rather in the sense
that we would focus in depth on what happens when
scientists do whatever it is they believe right
to do. Thinks like "ecology", "engineering ethics",
"environmental impact studies", etc. all are
small steps toward this kind of wholistic
self-understanding of science in social life.
Is that any clearer? I'm willing to
try again.
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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