ah well - words words words eh? clearly many of us think of different ways
for the same words to be mobilized for explaining practice in the contexts
of the academe - genevieve, your descriptions
of how you work in research provide an other way of thinking about how
to practice as a scientist,
- that gives me hope, certainly.
in terms of the relations with science and empathy,
i was thinking more along the lines of how we "do" these - to practice
scientific methods,
in the ways you refer provides the descriptions of multiple positioning,
the scientist-as-person -
the methods, themselves, by the same token, require that you practice a
particular
activity that can be repeated by anyone, in ways that will produce the
same results:
this, i understand, to be the objective structure, the specific methods do
not require empathy,
in fact, if the methods did require empathy, then the results would be
quite unrepeatable, yes?
to be an empathetic person when working in research contexts with others
is certainly a crucial
piece of what social "science" ought to provide,
but by the same token, if that is a criteria, then it isn't "science" -
because empathy is a quality of
emotional capacities, yes?
so, i would still think the scientific methods are specifically designed
to ensure that any person
could reproduce the results of an "experiment" - the analysis,
interpretive work, again,
slide into other areas, hermeneutics, for example, again, not specifically
a part of the scientific method - interpretation is not specifically
scientific, rather the methods for producing what will be interpreted, are
-
the most gentle neurosurgeon must still be able to practice the methods
of rigour and detachment
in order to produce an understanding of neurological activity, and if she
is interested in, say, addictions,
she may be empathetic to the condition,
but that is not necessary, by the same token, for her to produce
scientific procedures than can explicate
the brain's activities in-relation to chemical substances -
i perhaps misrepresented my understanding of objectivity as unfeeling - i
understand it to be
a methodology that is distinct from a person's emotional capacities - one
can be weeping and still
sort linguistic data - the sorting activity isn't connected to how anyone
feels, but is connected to
a series of procedures that, technically, anyone could do, whether they
cared about people or not.
objective-subjective dualisms, hmm, these don't account for
inter-subjective, intra-subjective, or how we might understand the
objectivity of a person-as-subject, or the subjective positions of two
psuedo-detached perceptions,
so, i don't think of 'objectivity' as the opposite of subjectivity, or
vice versa, but rather
'objectivity' is a methodology particular to practices that require
manipulations with kinds of information,
or data: what one does with the results, of course, varies - how one
gathers their information,
of course, varies, why one gathers particular kinds of data and not
others, of course, varies -
but the specific activity of
sorting-classifying-measuring-correlating-testing and so on,
these are objective in that emotional activity is not structured into the
procedures -
empathy, i understand, to be an emotional activity, an ability cultivated
in-relations with others,
a desire to enter into an emotional space with others, a willingness to
extend the self into emotional space,
feel-in-concert with an other, feel-in-connectedness with others - a
social activity that is expressed or muted,
depending on how comfortable a person is with emotional activity -
my little story about paleolithic arts was hinting at the ways our
emotional activities are
socio-historical: in our histories of representation, the process has
changed from reproducing external states (seeing the
portables/re-presenting these/narrating the meanings of these encounters
with others) to
the more perplexed activity of representing internal states, emotional
activity increasingly finding its
place in narrative and arts
(writing-performance-painting-sculpting-theatre-music-etc)
as industrial societies increasingly suppress the spaces where emotional
activity is 'acceptable' -
and increasingly suppress the ways emotional activity defines our
relations with others:
i am not sure i could say i think science is 'bad' or that statistics have
no place in western culture -
as nate points out, science itself is a cultural practice, intricately
woven into social consciousness,
impossible to differentiate where it is or isn't or how it participates in
social activity: but to do scientific practice,
i would still maintain, requires a kind of emotional detachment or
suppression,
just as AIDS research can involve all kinds of empathy, the activity of
the research itself does not.
as for the paper on paleolithic arts, i'm afraid i can't provide it (for
somewhat complicated reasons)
however, there is a website-paper on the subject that i can provide, later
today.
thanks for complicating the question.
forever irrational!
diane
**********************************************************************
:point where everything listens.
and i slow down, learning how to
enter - implicate and unspoken (still) heart-of-the-world.
(Daphne Marlatt, "Coming to you")
***********************************************************************
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction
==================== ==================== =======================
university of colorado, denver, school of education
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