source
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
'The religion of capital'
"Now, then, the only religion that answers the need of the moment is the religion of Capital. ... Capital is the true, only, omnipotent God. He manifests Himself in all forms and guises. He is found in glittering gold and in stinking guano; in a herd of cattle and in a cargo of coffee; in brilliant stores that offer sacred literature for sale and bundles of pornographic etchings; in gigantic machines, made of hardest steel, and in elegant rubber goods. Capital is the God whom the whole world knows, sees, smells, tastes, He exists for all our senses. He is the only God that has yet to run into an atheist."
-The Religion of Capital by Paul Lafargue (1887)
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Friday, July 17, 2015
John Dewey - Democracy and Education
- Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:5
- Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life.
- Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:7
- Men live in a community in virtue of the things which they have in
common; and communication is the way in which they come to possess things
in common. What they must have in common in order to form a community
or society are aims, beliefs, aspirations, knowledge--a common understanding--likemindedness
as the sociologists say. Such things cannot be passed physically from
one to another, like bricks; they cannot be shared as persons would
share a pie by dividing it into physical pieces. The communication which
ensures participation in a common understanding is one which secures
similar emotional and intellectual dispositions--like ways of responding
to expectations and requirements.
- Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:8-9
- Not only is social life identical with communication, but all communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience....The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated. The formulate requires getting outside of it, seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. Except in dealing with commonplaces and catch phrases one has to assimilate, imaginatively, something of another's experience in order to tell him intelligently of one's own experience. All communication is like art. It may be fairly said, therefore, that any social arrangement that remains vitally social, or vitally shared, is educative to those who participate in it. Only when it becomes cast in a mold and runs in a routine way does it lose its educative power.
- Democracy and Education, 1916; MW 9:20
- things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action
*Post-viva Reflections 2
After giving a brief summary of the dissertation in a previous post (and a bit of scurrying around to finish some other work, applying for jobby jobs, and instead of doing the virtuous deed in building academic capital of working on a journal article, I decided to come back to the blog and rethink one of the questions and gain a better sense of what I actually did).
So, the project itself raises several issues about the commensurability between disciplines. Not least between philosophy and the social sciences but also between the social sciences themselves. The disputes between psychology, anthropology, and sociology seem to be grounded in their respective methodologies, inferences, and underlying philosophical presuppositions. In simplified terms, social and cultural anthropology places its emphasis on fieldwork - to situate one's self within a particular context, participate, observe, and inquire into "things" by engaging with the people. Sociology also engages in qualitative methods through interviews but also conducts analysis through quantitative statistical methods on data obtained from questionnaires and surveys. Anthropology and sociology in this regard are truly sister disciplines both of which draw significant influence from Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and other social theorists such as Karl Marx. Psychology, by contrast, is modelled after the hard sciences in establishing experimental settings and the parameters of a study with a hypothesis, dependent and independent variables, and constructs itself such that studies may be reproduced and confirmed or falsified. As critical thinkers tend to do, each discipline has its criticisms of each other and most scholars within these disciplines, if, as they say, are "worth their salt" will have substantive criticisms of their own discipline as well. However, it's not my intention to cover their respective criticisms or internal critiques. Only noting their respective differences.
What I would like to address here is the question between anthropological and philosophical methods. As noted above, social and cultural anthropologists build their premises based on fieldwork, observations in context, participation, interviews, discussions, and developing a rapport with "informants" about the environment and the experience of situations. In this regard, if the brief summations/straw-men are correct, then anthropology develops a bottom-up approach. That is, by participating, observing, and interacting with persons, premises and inferences are made to develop theory. (*Fully acknowledging that there are sub-disciplines of anthropology and that biological or evolutionary anthropologists will conduct their investigations differently from social anthropologists.)
Similarly, there are different methodologies and styles of philosophical investigations. Many like to carve up a distinction between analytical and continental philosophers. While the actual distinctions and historical divisions are somewhat lost on me, and I am certainly no expert on this subject, what tends to stand out are their differences in styles of analysis. Although I have my criticisms of what is typically called analytical philosophy, I must admit that I use an epistemological distinction within this style of thought. More specifically, I draw on the distinction made between belief and acceptance. I do not discern between belief and knowledge nor do I make any claims about rationality or irrationality. Both knowledge and rationality are further wrought with semantic baggage that entails dealing with an ethnocentric perspective and historical messiness involved with colonialism, racism and various forms of imperialism with regard to "truth". One of the concerns with philosophy is its top-down approach. In other words, there are certain presuppositions and premises that are given from which conclusions are drawn. This raises the question about the extent to which philosophical presuppositions are based on some tradition of thought that may be implicated in past colonial dispositions of determining knowledge.
The contention is that philosophical and anthropological approaches may be incompatible or incommensurable in their foundations. When this question was raised, I argued that anthropological thought and inquiry also draws on previous schools of thought as well as insights from leading scholars in the field. In other words, although theories are indeed constructed from a bottom-up inductive approach (B, C, and D are observed to be true therefore A may be true) these theories are again drawn upon by other scholars for their own work. We can look to theories of gift, kinship, habitus, structure, myth and ritual. Each of these theoretical concepts have been applied in many different ways, either in support of data as a way of analysis/interpretation or as a way of contrast in illustrating the inadequacies of the theoretical construct - a method that can be akin to Popper's model of falsification. In this regard, I don't see too much difference in the use of theory from philosophy. Although the means by which philosophers come to their methodological distinctions is quite different from the anthropologist, in that philosophers use quite a bit of their own introspection, examples/thought experiments, and case studies to justify their distinctions, they too draw - in some sense - from a bottom-up approach (although a bit self-centred and subject to the w.e.i.r.d criticism). Nevertheless, much like illustrating the inadequacies of theoretical concepts in anthropology, philosophical distinctions are subject to the same. For example, when Kant draws on Newtonian physics to make deductive inferences (if A is true, then B, C, and D are true) what happens when Newtonian physics is inadequate or insufficient? How does it account for Quantum physics or Einstein's theory of relativity? I am not one to answer these questions nor am I entirely certain that these are the best questions to ask regarding the implications of an evolving science of physics. The point remains. If philosophers grounded certain assumptions on certain formulations of science of certain theological presuppositions, what happens when they change?
For anthropology, we can look to the theoretical developments of Malinowski, Boas, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and so on and how they've developed their theoretical bases and how their thinking has influenced the social sciences and contemporary practices. In this sense, my argument would be that although the methodology in accruing data and making inferences may differ, we can go back to a philosophy of science and make parallels in their underlying theoretical assumptions. To this extent, I do not necessarily see an incompatibility between philosophy and the social sciences. It is not uncommon to see references to Foucault, Aristotle, Kant, Rousseau and other contemporary philosophers in social science research. The former three have been occurring quite a bit in my readings on the anthropology of morality and ethics.
I suppose my argument is then that in both philosophy and social science, in their respective theoretical and methodological assumptions, the distinction between inductive and deductive methods of inference is not a strong line in the sand but rather one that is in continuous oscillation. This not only gives significance to positivist approaches (though we should not forget Foucault's criticism as well as the post-colonial critique of noting that previous approaches are subject to implicitly coloured lenses, discursive practices, and that it is important to expose such implicit assumptions from time to time for evaluation), methods of falsification, and in greater hopes, potential Kuhnian revolutions of understanding. Of course, both philosophy and the social sciences have their issues with each of these but I am, at least at this stage of my thinking, reluctant to concede to a position of incommensurability between philosophy and the social sciences.
(*and of course, given the nature of the thesis, I have to take this position)
So, the project itself raises several issues about the commensurability between disciplines. Not least between philosophy and the social sciences but also between the social sciences themselves. The disputes between psychology, anthropology, and sociology seem to be grounded in their respective methodologies, inferences, and underlying philosophical presuppositions. In simplified terms, social and cultural anthropology places its emphasis on fieldwork - to situate one's self within a particular context, participate, observe, and inquire into "things" by engaging with the people. Sociology also engages in qualitative methods through interviews but also conducts analysis through quantitative statistical methods on data obtained from questionnaires and surveys. Anthropology and sociology in this regard are truly sister disciplines both of which draw significant influence from Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and other social theorists such as Karl Marx. Psychology, by contrast, is modelled after the hard sciences in establishing experimental settings and the parameters of a study with a hypothesis, dependent and independent variables, and constructs itself such that studies may be reproduced and confirmed or falsified. As critical thinkers tend to do, each discipline has its criticisms of each other and most scholars within these disciplines, if, as they say, are "worth their salt" will have substantive criticisms of their own discipline as well. However, it's not my intention to cover their respective criticisms or internal critiques. Only noting their respective differences.
What I would like to address here is the question between anthropological and philosophical methods. As noted above, social and cultural anthropologists build their premises based on fieldwork, observations in context, participation, interviews, discussions, and developing a rapport with "informants" about the environment and the experience of situations. In this regard, if the brief summations/straw-men are correct, then anthropology develops a bottom-up approach. That is, by participating, observing, and interacting with persons, premises and inferences are made to develop theory. (*Fully acknowledging that there are sub-disciplines of anthropology and that biological or evolutionary anthropologists will conduct their investigations differently from social anthropologists.)
Similarly, there are different methodologies and styles of philosophical investigations. Many like to carve up a distinction between analytical and continental philosophers. While the actual distinctions and historical divisions are somewhat lost on me, and I am certainly no expert on this subject, what tends to stand out are their differences in styles of analysis. Although I have my criticisms of what is typically called analytical philosophy, I must admit that I use an epistemological distinction within this style of thought. More specifically, I draw on the distinction made between belief and acceptance. I do not discern between belief and knowledge nor do I make any claims about rationality or irrationality. Both knowledge and rationality are further wrought with semantic baggage that entails dealing with an ethnocentric perspective and historical messiness involved with colonialism, racism and various forms of imperialism with regard to "truth". One of the concerns with philosophy is its top-down approach. In other words, there are certain presuppositions and premises that are given from which conclusions are drawn. This raises the question about the extent to which philosophical presuppositions are based on some tradition of thought that may be implicated in past colonial dispositions of determining knowledge.
The contention is that philosophical and anthropological approaches may be incompatible or incommensurable in their foundations. When this question was raised, I argued that anthropological thought and inquiry also draws on previous schools of thought as well as insights from leading scholars in the field. In other words, although theories are indeed constructed from a bottom-up inductive approach (B, C, and D are observed to be true therefore A may be true) these theories are again drawn upon by other scholars for their own work. We can look to theories of gift, kinship, habitus, structure, myth and ritual. Each of these theoretical concepts have been applied in many different ways, either in support of data as a way of analysis/interpretation or as a way of contrast in illustrating the inadequacies of the theoretical construct - a method that can be akin to Popper's model of falsification. In this regard, I don't see too much difference in the use of theory from philosophy. Although the means by which philosophers come to their methodological distinctions is quite different from the anthropologist, in that philosophers use quite a bit of their own introspection, examples/thought experiments, and case studies to justify their distinctions, they too draw - in some sense - from a bottom-up approach (although a bit self-centred and subject to the w.e.i.r.d criticism). Nevertheless, much like illustrating the inadequacies of theoretical concepts in anthropology, philosophical distinctions are subject to the same. For example, when Kant draws on Newtonian physics to make deductive inferences (if A is true, then B, C, and D are true) what happens when Newtonian physics is inadequate or insufficient? How does it account for Quantum physics or Einstein's theory of relativity? I am not one to answer these questions nor am I entirely certain that these are the best questions to ask regarding the implications of an evolving science of physics. The point remains. If philosophers grounded certain assumptions on certain formulations of science of certain theological presuppositions, what happens when they change?
For anthropology, we can look to the theoretical developments of Malinowski, Boas, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and so on and how they've developed their theoretical bases and how their thinking has influenced the social sciences and contemporary practices. In this sense, my argument would be that although the methodology in accruing data and making inferences may differ, we can go back to a philosophy of science and make parallels in their underlying theoretical assumptions. To this extent, I do not necessarily see an incompatibility between philosophy and the social sciences. It is not uncommon to see references to Foucault, Aristotle, Kant, Rousseau and other contemporary philosophers in social science research. The former three have been occurring quite a bit in my readings on the anthropology of morality and ethics.
I suppose my argument is then that in both philosophy and social science, in their respective theoretical and methodological assumptions, the distinction between inductive and deductive methods of inference is not a strong line in the sand but rather one that is in continuous oscillation. This not only gives significance to positivist approaches (though we should not forget Foucault's criticism as well as the post-colonial critique of noting that previous approaches are subject to implicitly coloured lenses, discursive practices, and that it is important to expose such implicit assumptions from time to time for evaluation), methods of falsification, and in greater hopes, potential Kuhnian revolutions of understanding. Of course, both philosophy and the social sciences have their issues with each of these but I am, at least at this stage of my thinking, reluctant to concede to a position of incommensurability between philosophy and the social sciences.
(*and of course, given the nature of the thesis, I have to take this position)
Rosaldo on Culture and Practice
"Culture is, then, always richer than the traits recorded in ethnographers' accounts because its truth resides not in explicit formulations of the rituals of daily life but in the practices of persons who in acting take for granted an account of who they are and how to understand their fellows' moves. Thus, for ethnographers in the field, a set of rules that tells them what the natives do can never show them how and why a people's deeds make psychological sense because the sense of action ultimately depends upon one's embeddedness within a particular sociocultural milieu."
-'Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling', Michelle Rosaldo(1984)
Friday, July 3, 2015
Manor House (Edwardian Britain)
Couldn't find episode 1 but read description here
It's a version of the Stanford Prison Experiment but in the context of an Edwardian Country House during the turn of the 20th century (1905), in which volunteers talk on the role of Master and Slave or slightly more euphemistically, servants.
" Help me O' Lord, to obey all things lawful of those in authority over me. Grant that I may be respectful, painstaking and honest. Not answering again but with good will doing my work as to the Lord and not to men. May the Lord make our servants dutiful."
Video diaries here
It's a version of the Stanford Prison Experiment but in the context of an Edwardian Country House during the turn of the 20th century (1905), in which volunteers talk on the role of Master and Slave or slightly more euphemistically, servants.
" Help me O' Lord, to obey all things lawful of those in authority over me. Grant that I may be respectful, painstaking and honest. Not answering again but with good will doing my work as to the Lord and not to men. May the Lord make our servants dutiful."
Video diaries here
*Post-viva Reflections 1
So, I am still placed in (w.e.i.r.d.) social situations where I am asked about my thesis. Some have mentioned their surprise that I'm still willing to talk about it; it is a theoretical piece which I suppose makes a bit of a difference. Perhaps, because it is somewhat theoretical and I believe/accept there is potential to develop it into various areas that I am still engaged with the work.
At any rate, I figured I would quickly begin with the first question that came up in the viva: summarize the dissertation in one or two sentences. Over the last year or so, I've come up with several ways to talk about the thesis but have not quite pinned down which does the best work in getting the ideas across. Here are four:
1) The primary thesis argues that the social sciences and philosophy can be mutually complementary; the sub-thesis argues that 'beliefs' can be interpreted as the units of embodiment and cultural history. By engaging with the social sciences (cultural anthropology, social psychology, and some sociology), emergent characteristics can be placed in dialogue with epistemology in thinking about 'belief' and contribute to methodology through the themes of 'crisis' and 'conversion' which the thesis further examines in three case studies.
2) In a way, the thesis is an attempt to combine dual-process theories of cognition with Bourdieu's habitus and the paradigm of embodiment in navigating the tensions between structure and agency. By getting away from 'religious beliefs' and discussing 'beliefs' in general (without distinguishing it from knowledge or rationality), the thesis seeks to provide a view of belief that can be appropriated within religious contexts and proposes that 'belief' can be investigated through the themes of crisis and conversion. Not only does the thesis develop interdisciplinary bridges but proposes the position that beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.
3) Belief is a troublesome concept for the study of religion; issues with the history of Christianity saturating the semantic content for the analytical tool/critical category for the study of religion have been well discussed and continues to raise concerns with language, translation, and expression - especially when conducting studies of non-Christian religious traditions. The task is then to go beyond language in thinking about belief; the thesis further develops the notion of habitus and embodiment through an epistemological distinction between belief and acceptance and the theory of cognitive dissonance to argue, not only that philosophy and the social sciences are commensurable but that, beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.
4) Taking Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of Frazer's Golden Bough, Rodney Needham's call for the abandonment of belief as a tool for analysis, Talal Asad critique of power and historical discursive practises, Malcolm Ruel's analysis of belief's saturated Christian content, and contemporary proposals/approaches to belief in the study of religion, I argue that the paradigm of embodiment (with at least four ways to talk about it) and epistemology can assist in clarifying the murky waters of belief and that the theory of cognitive dissonance (over the course of its history and development) illuminates the issue of inconsistency noted by both philosophers and anthropologists. Given this background, I argue that the themes of crisis and conversion are useful, but not the only, areas of methodology and that the inquiry into belief leads into areas of future research for morality, values, and ethics.
Long sentences.
At any rate, I figured I would quickly begin with the first question that came up in the viva: summarize the dissertation in one or two sentences. Over the last year or so, I've come up with several ways to talk about the thesis but have not quite pinned down which does the best work in getting the ideas across. Here are four:
1) The primary thesis argues that the social sciences and philosophy can be mutually complementary; the sub-thesis argues that 'beliefs' can be interpreted as the units of embodiment and cultural history. By engaging with the social sciences (cultural anthropology, social psychology, and some sociology), emergent characteristics can be placed in dialogue with epistemology in thinking about 'belief' and contribute to methodology through the themes of 'crisis' and 'conversion' which the thesis further examines in three case studies.
2) In a way, the thesis is an attempt to combine dual-process theories of cognition with Bourdieu's habitus and the paradigm of embodiment in navigating the tensions between structure and agency. By getting away from 'religious beliefs' and discussing 'beliefs' in general (without distinguishing it from knowledge or rationality), the thesis seeks to provide a view of belief that can be appropriated within religious contexts and proposes that 'belief' can be investigated through the themes of crisis and conversion. Not only does the thesis develop interdisciplinary bridges but proposes the position that beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.
3) Belief is a troublesome concept for the study of religion; issues with the history of Christianity saturating the semantic content for the analytical tool/critical category for the study of religion have been well discussed and continues to raise concerns with language, translation, and expression - especially when conducting studies of non-Christian religious traditions. The task is then to go beyond language in thinking about belief; the thesis further develops the notion of habitus and embodiment through an epistemological distinction between belief and acceptance and the theory of cognitive dissonance to argue, not only that philosophy and the social sciences are commensurable but that, beliefs are the units of embodiment and cultural history.
4) Taking Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of Frazer's Golden Bough, Rodney Needham's call for the abandonment of belief as a tool for analysis, Talal Asad critique of power and historical discursive practises, Malcolm Ruel's analysis of belief's saturated Christian content, and contemporary proposals/approaches to belief in the study of religion, I argue that the paradigm of embodiment (with at least four ways to talk about it) and epistemology can assist in clarifying the murky waters of belief and that the theory of cognitive dissonance (over the course of its history and development) illuminates the issue of inconsistency noted by both philosophers and anthropologists. Given this background, I argue that the themes of crisis and conversion are useful, but not the only, areas of methodology and that the inquiry into belief leads into areas of future research for morality, values, and ethics.
Long sentences.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Max Weber - 'Science as Vocation'
Weber, almost a hundred years ago, raising the question about science, value, and being a teacher:
"To take a practical political stand is one thing, and to analyze political structures and party positions is another.
...
The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize 'inconvenient' facts--I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence of such facts. I would be so immodest as even to apply the expression 'moral achievement,' though perhaps this may sound too grandiose for something that should go without saying.
...
In practice, you can take this or that position when concerned with a problem of value--for simplicity's sake, please think of social phenomena as examples. If you take such and such a stand, then, according to scientific experience, you have to use such and such a means in order to carry out your conviction practically. Now, these means are perhaps such that you believe you must reject them. Then you simply must choose between the end and the inevitable means. Does the end 'justify' the means? Or does it not? The teacher can confront you with the necessity of this choice. He cannot do more, so long as he wishes to remain a teacher and not to become a demagogue. He can, of course, also tell you that if you want such and such an end, then you must take into the bargain the subsidiary consequences which according to all experience will occur. Again we find ourselves in the same situation as before. These are still problems that can also emerge for the technician, who in numerous instances has to make decisions according to the principle of the lesser evil or of the relatively best. Only to him one thing, the main thing, is usually given, namely, the end. But as soon as truly 'ultimate' problems are at stake for us this is not the case. With this, at long last, we come to the final service that science as such can render to the aim of clarity, and at the same time we come to the limits of science.
Besides we can and we should state: In terms of its meaning, such and such a practical stand can be derived with inner consistency, and hence integrity, from this or that ultimate weltanschauliche position. Perhaps it can only be derived from one such fundamental position, or maybe from several, but it cannot be derived from these or those other positions. Figuratively speaking, you serve this god and you offend the other god when you decide to adhere to this position. And if you remain faithful to yourself, you will necessarily come to certain final conclusions that subjectively make sense. This much, in principle at least, can be accomplished. Philosophy, as a special discipline, and the essentially philosophical discussions of principles in the other sciences attempt to achieve this. Thus, if we are competent in our pursuit (which must be presupposed here) we can force the individual, or at least we can help him, to give himself an account of the ultimate meaning of his own conduct. This appears to me as not so trifling a thing to do, even for one's own personal life. Again, I am tempted to say of a teacher who succeeds in this: he stands in the service of 'moral' forces; he fulfils the duty of bringing about self-clarification and a sense of responsibility. And I believe he will be the more able to accomplish this, the more conscientiously he avoids the desire personally to impose upon or suggest to his audience his own stand.
...
The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.' Precisely the ultimate and most sublime values have retreated from public life either into the transcendental realm of mystic life or into the brotherliness of direct and personal human relations."
-Max Weber 'Science as Vocation' (1917)
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