>From Jerry: "Gene: What is the status of representation in the social
>sciences? Is it either prescinding or abstracting? Or what?"
Dear Jerry,
I think it is fair to say that the social sciences are dominated by
theories of conventional representation and signification. Signification
(communication, meaning, etc.) is usually viewed as conventional, as "social
construction." A lot of echoes of Saussure's structural and conventional
semiology.
One popular example is Pierre Bourdieu's idea of "habitus."
Bourdieu makes interesting analyses of class and class domination, using the
idea of habitus, but his view of what constitutes habit is constricted to
convention and forms of domination, of "implementing schemes."
The broader view of habit as processual conduct proposed by the
original pragmatists allows one to do much more. Habit can be viewed as more
than a means of social distinction, as Bourdieu uses it; it can also be taken
as capable of self-controlled correction, hence as an element of possible
democratic common life. Habit can be taken as living conduct, not simply the
implementation of a pre-existing scheme. As such, a person can be more than the
function of social domination.
The accepted views also tend to ignore other modalities of
signification, as well as the possibilities of natural signification or of
self-correcting sign-habits or conventions.
Gene
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