Dear Gary R., Ben, Gary F.
sorry for my delayed response. My brain is so slow in thinking in english.
Gary, yes you are right. There was no resentment (i just used the german
word) in Bens post. It was more a kind of pawlowian reflex on my side. I
have been discusing these things so often with pseudo social
constructivists and with critics of this pseudo social constructivism.
I'll try to explain:
From my point of view there are three types of constructivism. There is
the radical constructivism in the tradition of Piaget, von Foerster,
Glasersfeld etc., the tradition of Berger and Luckmann with their book
"The Social Construction of Reality" (SCoR) and a pseudo social
constructivism which has its roots in postmodern literature criticism.
Berger and Luckmanns book gave (as far as i konow) the child its name
"social constructivism" and SCoR is a classic text of the sociology of
knowledge. Therefore social constructivism and sociology of knowledge
are the same for me. Now, within the sociology of knowledge there is the
subbranch "sociology of scientific knowledge" aka science studies.
Within the science studies there is the french part arround Latour and
the british part with Woolgar, Bloor etc. And certainly there is
Foucault as a class of its own.
As pseudo social constructivism i coin everything influenced by
(literature) theories with the semiology of Saussure in the version of
Bally and Sechehaye under the hood. These ones see all people trapped in
a language cage (Ben mentioned it) which is impossible to escape. The
main difference between the social constructivism and pseudo
constructivism is that the former assumes a kind of relationism like i
tried to explain in my other mail to Ben whereas the latter assumes a
strong form of relativism.
Now, it is not so that in the field of sociology of knowledge something
like Stans position was or is something like common sense. To the
contrary Fleck and Latour are the exceptions who come closest to Stans
position. Positions similar to Stans were and are attributed to science
studies intentionally by "naive realists" who see their power position
as uncritzicable experts in danger and unintentionally by the uninformed
who use the word in its now mainstream usage. The Sokal affair did the
rest to produce a mishmash and also the sociology of scientific
knowledge was a collateral damage of it.
My problem with the mainstream usage is like "pragmatism is the american
merchants philosophy which is only interested in the cash value of
things". Would this not trigger a pawlowian reflex in you?
Coming to the "not trying to understand" i think we have to make a
destinction between why people criticize science and what they say to
criticize it. I share most of Bens critique of Stans position and after
Bens last post i also wouldn't say he does not understand the motives.
But i also share the original impetus of postmodern thought and of
science studies against science-as-it-is (but i am not sure if this is
also Stans impetus). When we look at the societal role scientists became
as experts since WWII and how scientist function as legitimators of
politics with the sword of objectiveness and truth in their hand then
critique of science was and is needed. And therefore we shouldn't lump
together honest critics and those who enjoy the meaning-mary-go-round on
the academic carnival.
Thanks for your plea for clarification!
But what is the obvious, "which has been frequently discussed here and
elsewhere"?
Best
Stefan
Am 23.09.14 22:19, schrieb Gary Richmond:
Gary F, Stefan, lists,
Stefan does appear to offer a balanced approach. Still, I have some
questions.
Firstly, I didn't (and I don't recall Cathy) strongly approving Ben's
post on any other basis than that it argued against, as I put it, "a
constructivist epistemology," something which Stefan argues against as
well.
And I don't see any "resentiment" in Ben's post in question (I'm not
sure whether or not Stefan is purposefully using Nietzsche's
expression in his post or simply meant "resentment"), but rather a
sense that Stan's stance is indeed a "radical" one, what Stefan termed
"solipcism/relativism/culturalism." Stefan writes that Ben's post (and
a later post) "doesn't try to understand Stans (sic) position",
whereas I think Ben understands it perfectly well and argues against
/it /perfectly well. The present problem is, as Stefan puts it, that
"Stan mixes up the epistemological and the sociological perspective
and thinks we can conclude from the sociology of knowledge to
epistemology."
On the other hand, from Stefan's post it would seem that, even while
some sociologists are moving away from it, certain prominent
researchers in this field have assumed something like Stan's position.
My question is: why continue to conflate /sociology of knowledge /with
/social constructivism /by seemingly assigning what seems to be a
rather excessively large role to the later within the former, for
example, Stefan's writing "social constructivism/sociology of
knowledge" (note the slash, rather than a comma in his writing "From
my point of view social constructivism/ sociology of knowledge and
pragmatism are complementary")?
Or, putting it a somewhat differently, what exactly is the extent of
the role of social constructivism in sociology of knowledge if
"pragmatism delivers the right epistemology for the sociology of
knowledge," that is, besides the obvious, which has been frequently
discussed here and elsewhere?
It is possible that these questions may seem naive to Stefan and Stan,
and indeed I have not read deeply in the contemporary literature of
the sociology of knowledge. But I /am /curious, while I think that it
would be helpful to clarify further some of the distinctions implicit
and explicit in the discussions occurring in this thread.
Best,
Gary R.
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690 <tel:718%20482-5690>*
On Tue, Sep 23, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca
<mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca>> wrote:
Stefan, I think you have a well-balanced position here, and I’m
copying your post to the biosemiotics list, because I think it
contributes a lot to a discussion that’s been going round and
round on the biosemiotics list for years. The same goes for Ben’s
contributions, but he’s already posted them on the biosemiotics
list. (One of them included your post that I’m copying here, but
some might have missed it.)
Your concluding point, about pragmatism, is especially important.
Taking Stan’s snake example, if two cultures construct different
“mythologies” around the snake, but the difference makes no
difference to their habitual interactions with that snake on
either side, then from a pragmatic point of view, there is no
difference in /meaning/ between the two “mythologies”. And yes,
pragmatism delivers the right epistemology for the sociology of
knowledge, i.e. for /inquiry/ into the subject (as opposed to
construction of competing mythologies about it), because it is the
right “epistemology” for inquiry in general.
gary f.
*From:*sb [mailto:peirc...@semiotikon.de
<mailto:peirc...@semiotikon.de>]
*Sent:* 23-Sep-14 5:21 AM
*To:* Gary Fuhrman; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
<mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
*Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:6912] Re: Natural
Propositions,
Gary F., Ben, List,
yes, it is an extremist position. Ludwik Fleck in some of his
texts about the /Denkkollektive/ (thought collectives) comes close
to this point. But his microbiological bench research maybe
prevented him to fall prey to such solipcism. Also Latours (maybe
polemic) can be read this way, but even he says now, facing the
threat of climate change deniers, that he has gone to far. Apart
from these two (and alleged epigones of social constructivism of
different strives) i would say this is a crude misrepresentation
of social constructivism.
Yes, you may be right that you and Ben are just responding, but i
have the imression that Stans polarization fell on just too
fertile ground. Maybe it activated an already existent
resentiment?! Now when Gary and Cathy applaud Bens post, i would
follow them if it was not under the label of social
constructivism. If we call it solipcism/relativism/culturalism i'd
be fine. Nevertheless i feel uncomfortable with Bens post since it
doesn't try to understand Stans position.
Stan braught up the example "one must not tease certain snakes".
If you tease the snake, it bites you, injects enough poison and
there are no lucky circumstances that safe you, then you will die!
These are the plain facts. But there can be different
mythologies/theories arround this snake type. At this point i
always remember the end of Ecos "Name of the Rose" when Adson and
William discuss retrospective what has happend. Adson says to
William: "Over the whole investigation we had the false premisses
and the false hypothesis' but we came up with the right
conclusion". Important in this example is now that they start with
predjudice which turns out to be false. In the same manner
scientists start with personaly, socially or tradionally
conditioned predjudices.
All scientific theories have a social import which is not forced
upon us by reality. E.g. Fleck shows in his book that until the
20th century and the discovery of the Wassermann-reaction the
syphillis research was influenced by the religious idea of the
syphillitic blood as a punishment of god. In an enlightment
perspective it is important to understand and explore such
imports. Ben argues in his response only from an epistemological
standpoint and ignores the importance of the sociologcal view Stan
brings in. Sociologically the "claim of truth" as "truth" and the
will to act upon this truth is a interesting phenomenon. At the
same time Stan mixes up the epistemological and the sociological
perspective and thinks we can conclude from the sociology of
knowledge to epistemology. Once again, i do follow Bens critique,
but it should also pick up the sociological perspective.
Science is not only brought forward by empirical research and new
theories, it is also brought forward by the critique of its own
social boundedness. Sure, the sociological is from a different
sphere but since it is from a different sphere it could and should
inform science. From my point of view social constructivism/
sociology of knowledge and pragmatism are complementary, means
pragmatism delivers the right epistemology for the sociology of
knowledge.
Best
Stefan
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