Bourdieu. Pierre Bourdieu.

sus

sus

Moderator
I think the thing about fields is they have these originating frames, dichotomies, questions that become the foundation for everything after

Because there's this demand that things be tied into the canon—that's what makes something "part of the field" in a sense, especially in the social sciences

E.g. economics, psychology, sociology, ethnomethodology are all about the same thing, human behavior. But they have different canons and canonical approaches

And even when someone rejects or subverts some canonical frame, it's like... they are still playing ball? They're still stuck in the same frame? There's some way that the history deterministically lays out the path of possible futures, what can be meaningfully said, what constitutes and interesting and worthwhile "move" in the field's discourse
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
suspendedreason said:
I think the thing about fields is they have these originating frames, dichotomies, questions that become the foundation for everything after

Because there's this demand that things be tied into the canon—that's what makes something "part of the field" in a sense, especially in the social sciences

E.g. economics, psychology, sociology, ethnomethodology are all about the same thing, human behavior. But they have different canons and canonical approaches

And even when someone rejects or subverts some canonical frame, it's like... they are still playing ball? They're still stuck in the same frame? There's some way that the history deterministically lays out the path of possible futures, what can be meaningfully said, what constitutes and interesting and worthwhile "move" in the field's discourse
Click to expand...
Do you think that each field, or the canon of each field, has objective "depths" that are populated by only the savviest of spelunkers? Or would you argue that such things are not objective? Perhaps intersubjective is a better word than objective here - but it seems like the "edges" or depths of fields are comprised of the less elaborated, and harder-to-elaborate, discourse.

The goal, then, would be to figure out a means of, essentially, speed-spelunking down into the depths of a variety of disciplines, depths that would otherwise take decades to reach, and to build bridges, teleporter relays, or "northwest passages" between them. All of it would be in the interest of mapping out a morphology of fields, a morphology that, seemingly, can only be appreciated by those who understand the depths of a variety of fields - which is obviously, at least to our traditional approaches, almost impossible.

I hadn't considered fields as having canons, but that really helps - both in terms of "canon" being a well-fitting word, as well as the concepts that come along with it being useful. But I had considered, and have been attempting with little success to elaborate, the differences in approach across fields, and how these different approaches apply to different topics, or apply to the same topic. I guess it can be called a differential epistemology, in as far as each field has a different epistemics.

And I like your mention of appendages, because I think it is a useful way of visualizing the growth of these things (admittedly I am heavily inclined toward the visual and the spatial).
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Can you give an example of what you mean by a "depth," e.g. in a field you know well?
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Maybe autopoiesis in biology/evolutionary-biology?

In philosophy, much of the stuff we talk about here, such as Deleuze. Schizoanalysis? CCRU?

In cybernetics, maybe second-order cybernetics?

Not sure how good those example are. By depth I mean the content of a field that is esoteric not because it is held as secret, but because it is comparatively difficult to understand. Sort of naturally esoteric. Also, I don't have much to testify to, aside from maybe philosophy - seeing as this whole project would largely be considered philosophical.

Edit: that is, I can hardly claim to know biology well, or even cybernetics, beyond their philosophical capacities. But I do think one can cherrypick from the depths - it just means you are trafficking through discourse which you do not understand the fundamentals of.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
"Depth" in philosophy feels like tracing back to Plato/Socrates and being like, what the fuck did these guys do to our tradition

In this case, they fucked it up royally with some conceptual analysis bullshit
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Like, "what are the core founding assumptions"

I dunno anything about Fanged Noumena other than reading that great cracked out memoirish essay about being high on meth and hallucinating a radio rock show (which—amazing poast, no hate)

but whether or not there are even noumena in the first place seems a "deep" philosophical problem that's framed the discipline since the beginning, and animated Kant, Plato, whothefuckever

If you were able to dissolve the question and show it was incoherent, then you'd really be getting into it
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Yeah maybe "depths" isn't the best word for it - because don't just mean fundamentals. I can see where CCRU can be seen as a sideshow, I think, but I'd hardly consider it trivial - which I understand isn't what you said. I could be unnecessarily skeptical here, but I'm afraid that, in centering an inquiry around the age-old topics/problems, I may risk reifying a certain orthodoxy, or getting too close to the picture to actually see the whole thing - hence the inclination toward the fringe.

I guess the question can be restated as: is there a way to expedite the development of one's familiarity with a given field? What core material must one understand in order to "unpack" from it the bulk of the field, intuitively? Do you think this has to do with catering to the traditional/fundamental questions of the field? Do you think it requires one to explore the fringes, even the sideshows, of a field, in case one may find there some critical component of how the field, as a whole, works?

Your point about dissolving these central/fundamental questions: I can strongly agree with this. Do you think this is how fields are "deepened"? But I also think that the means of dissolving the central questions can be found along the fringes, which may justify attending a few sideshows, no? That is, by searching for alternative logics or approaches, the central questions may not appear as absolute or insurmountable. Like the question of God, is there or isn't there one? To me, this question poses a dichotomy that is only irreconciliable from certain perspectives, certain approaches, certain semantics.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
What's interesting about the fringe is it's almost where a potentially new field is birthed, right? Like maybe CCRU is philosophy on the face of it, but is also sorta cultural studies and media studies. I could imagine something new being born out of it

Incidentally, a friend of mine John Nerst has been trying to jumpstart "erisology," the "study of disagreement" that combines rhetoric, philosophy, psychology, media studies into understanding what leads reasonable people to enter intractable disagreements
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
suspendedreason said:
What's interesting about the fringe is it's almost where a potentially new field is birthed, right? Like maybe CCRU is philosophy on the face of it, but is also sorta cultural studies and media studies. I could imagine something new being born out of it

Incidentally, a friend of mine John Nerst has been trying to jumpstart "erisology," the "study of disagreement" that combines rhetoric, philosophy, psychology, media studies into understanding what leads reasonable people to enter intractable disagreements
Click to expand...

Fascinating, I'm a junkie for a good neologism. I take it the M.O. of erisology would be to reconcile disagreements? Or would it be more removed than that?

And I think you're right about the fringe giving rise to new fields, but I'm not sure I would extend that to say that new fields are exclusively born there. Again, I understand that isn't what you are saying. But I might argue that the fringe is more fertile, in terms of new fields, than the center. Seeing as the investment of cogintive capital/energy into the center serves, seemingly, to reinforce or strengthen the field, and that the energy invested in the fringe serves to redefine the field or, if the redefinition would be too radical, christen new fields.

To be clear, the center represents, to me, compliance with the underlying assumptions of the field, while the fringe represents challenge, heresy, etc.

But then again, we could also say that the center represents the topics that have been most thoroughly elaborated, while the fringe represents the topics that haven't been understood or pinned down as well.

Not sure which one would be more useful here - but perhaps there is a way to synthesize these two.

But perhaps that would be excessively programmatic/schematic, which admittedly rarely stops me.

Also, in a way, the examples I gave for the "depths" of certain fields are almost the opposite of fundamentals, in that they are "higher up" along the construct that is the field, if we imagine the field as a building or something. Perhaps the examples I gave were not good examples, but in a way I was trying to give examples of things that were farthest removed from the fundamentals. I'd like your thoughts on this.

edit: sorry to be so long winded and wordy about all this.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
I guess, re your penultimate comment (I had to do some work, boss called) I'd wonder what you're trying to do with understanding a core field

I feel like the components are : 1) founding texts (i.e. canon), 2) current animating dichotomies, 3) the soft gossamer of rumor and watercooler talk that sorta situates how people feel about #1 & 2
 
sus

sus

Moderator
I really should start a thread about erisology

I've been working in that area a bit myself, building out terms and phenomena

There's a lot of social phenomena that lead people into term confusion, such that they think they're disagreeing when they're actually just talking about wildly different phenomena
 
constant escape

constant escape

winter withered, warm
Can you help me through this? I've read through it, and I have trouble following it. I have my own understanding of autotelos, and I eagerly await comparing it to yours, but I have trouble understanding the points you make - and I think its on me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top