Sally, List, Thanks, Sally, for this very helpful introductory post, and especially for emphasizing late in it how the discipline/professional/institutional issues which JR considers are eminently relevant today, for example, in your own discipline of anthropology. It seems to me that scientists as individuals acting together and to common purposes, ought to come more and more to function as communicational communities. Peirce seems to strongly suggest that the advance of authentic science, not to mention the evolution of consciousness itself, depend on it. Perhaps the greatest impediments to this development of scientific community, at least in Peirce's opinion, were hubristic ego, especially expressed as a lack of humility, perhaps including not even sufficiently acknowledging the impact of the work of others on his own, or misrepresenting it as, for example, so many "thieves of Peirce" have done; or this putative scientist-philosopher hasn't a real desire to learn the truth, in other words, he has some other motive, like advancing his career, acquiring fame & fortune, etc. Peirce famously says that logic is rooted in the social principle, tantamount to saying, at least in one sense, that reason and reasonableness, philosophical and scientific accomplishment necessarily require the creation of 'communicational communities'. Joe had always hoped that peirce-l would become an exemplary kind of one of these in the context of the opportunities for communication opened up by the internet. Do we feel like a scientific communicational community here? In any event, these are my very first thoughts (I haven't reread Joe's paper in a while, but will do so ASAP; thanks also for reposting the links). I hope to find time to participate in this slow read when I am back in NYC this coming week after a Cape Cod holiday (with less than ideal e-communication opportunities). But the new academic year approaches, so who knows. . . Good luck with the slow read: it appears to me that you are off to a good start! Best, Gary
Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York ``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` 718 482-5700 >>> Sally Ness <[email protected]> 8/22/2011 5:56 PM >>> Initial post Dear List, With a humble heart and a spirit of most sincere gratitude toward those who have preceded me in such exemplary manners, I now commence as the next emcee for this slow read of Joseph Ransdell's (JR's) papers. The paper on which I focus is entitled, "Sciences as Communicational Communities." It can be found online at: http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/physics.htm The version we will consider was completed on November 21st, 1998. However, the original version on which it is based was delivered as an oral presentation on October 28th, 1995. Gary F and Gary R have both followed plans in their slow reads that are somewhat similar in form. I will attempt to follow their lead as closely as possible. This post will serve as an introductory email. It provides some background on Daniel Lee Kleinman--the "academic politician" cited in this paper-- and on the American Physical Society, the organization (or a local chapter thereof) to whom the paper is addressed. It also provides a bit information on the how the kind of controversy on which the paper dwells has recently manifested in my home discipline of anthropology. First, however, I will give a listing of some sectional divisions that I will be using that organize the series of posts I will make for the slow read of this paper. After this initial post, I plan to make 5 more posts that each summarize a section or two of the paper and pose a few questions relevant to them. In my reading, this paper divides into 6 sections: three relatively long segments followed by three short ones. I summarize them as follows: 1) Paragraphs 1-6: JR frames the debate between scientists and academic politicians, stating that Peirce is useful to the scientist side of it. He sets a two-part agenda for the rest of the essay, announcing that he will be speaking "in the spirit of Peirce" as he proceeds through it. He seeks 1) to convey some idea of what is actually involved in scientific practice and 2) how this relates to the "strategies of argumentation" academic politicians use against scientists. 2) Paragraphs 7-11: JR characterizes false images of scientific method and communication and, in order to counter these, calls for inquiry into the norms that govern scientific communication which are obvious but typically go unnoticed. 3) Paragraphs 12-17: JR focuses on scientific publication in order to identify said norms, characterizing it as driven by its "subject matter"; he then attacks the "sociologist of knowledge" perspective on scientific practice, characterizing it as paradoxical (either ignorant of scientific practice, or unable to remain sociological once engaged in a given scientific practice). 4) Paragraphs 18-21 [the crux of the paper]:JR lays out what scientific communication must entail if it is to cohere, sustain itself, grow, and maintain its subject matter orientation; he then contrasts the scientist and the academician identities, acknowledging that the latter in practice does integrate with the former (to the detriment of the former), but only in a non-normative manner. 5) Paragraphs 22-23: JR focuses on the concept of truth, defining scientific assertions of truth as subject-specific communicational acts. 6) Paragraphs 24-25: JR concludes with the recommendations that scientists respond to academic politicians by 1) refusing to react to politicians' interventions on the politicians' own terms and 2) developing public relations communications that express authentically what science as a human activity is actually like (in addition to its character as a technologically productive activity). As mentioned above, I will be posting every few days with a more detailed summary and set of questions related to each of these sections. Moving on, now, to background information, for those who might be interested in reading the opinion piece by Kleinman against which JR frames his own position (I found it interesting), the article is entitled, "Why Science and Scientists are Under Fire." It can be found online at: http://chronicle.com/article/Why-ScienceScientists-Are/95766/ Kleinman was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Georgia Institute of Technology when JR (relatively senior in status to Kleinman at the time) responded to his article in 1995. Kleinman is currently Professor and Chair of Community & Environmental Sociology in the College of Agricultural & Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For the purposes of this slow read, it might be worth noting that Kleinman has conducted research on the biological, not the physical sciences. His work, since the time he wrote the opinion piece, has focused on documenting the informal and indirect ways and means by which commercial industries have affected the practice of laboratory work on university campuses. More detailed information about Kleinman's research interests can be found online at:http://www.dces.wisc.edu/faculty/kleinman/index.php. With regard to the context for this paper's original presentation, it was delivered at a local meeting of the American Physical Society (APS), In Lubbock Texas. For those who may not be familiar with this organization, the APS is the leading professional organization for the advancement of physics in the United States. It currently has around 46,000 members. (website address is:http://www.aps.org/). Given the mission and character of this organization, it seems likely that the audience JR was addressing for this presentation was composed mainly of people connected in some way with the Physics Department of Texas Tech University. If this was the case, the audience (judging by the department's current composition) was probably fairly diverse in terms of age, somewhat diverse in terms of ethnicity, and nearly, if not entirely, all male. I speculate to this degree on such features of the audience's character, as it might seem to have some bearing on some of the rhetorical choices JR made in this paper. With regard to the question of whether or not the issues raised in this 1998(1995) paper remain timely, there is evidence (for better and for worse) from as recently as January of this year that, at least as far as anthropologists in the United States are concerned, they definitely are still alive and kicking. A case in point: in late 2010, the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association approved a new overview statement (to be used in organizational publicity materials) answering the question, "What is Anthropology?" The statement did not include the term "science" at any point in its wording. The furor that broke out within the organization over the erasure of "science" in this statement is documented in The Chronicle Review, January 9, 2011, in an article by Hugh Gusterson (http://chronicle.com/article/What-if-They-Had-a-Science-War/125828/). Some of the terminology is different from that used by JR and Kleinman, but the characterization of the relation between scientists and those who allegedly threaten to undermine their work remains much the same. If times have changed, the changes have been relatively subtle--at least in my own neck of the woods. For those who have had the patience to read this far down the email, your interest in this paper is much appreciated. I think it offers an opportunity to reexamine a number of topics on which previous threads in the slow read have focused, particularly those concerning the practice and the definition of science. I hope to read posts from you all as we proceed through this paper. Best wishes and looking forward, Sally (The "long-time lurker") --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected]
