eric, i'm gonna unpack your last message a bit, because it is a distilled
example of why your posts sometimes make me nervous :-)
you say:
>Second, your use of the term current trend is a prime example of the crisis
>Laszlo is referring to. Without the objectivity a Natural Science paradigm
>offers we end up with subjective assessments based on the current trend of
>the time.
i say:
there are two assumptions embedded in your use of the concept of 'natural
science.' the first assumption is that there is indeed some natural
science that is capable of transcending trends and other situated
understandings. i grant you that such a possibility does exist. the
second assumption is that we have access already to that understanding and
practice of natural science. that is the problem. what we call 'natural
science' is an evolving and situated and socioculturally shaped set of
beliefs that we use as our current approximation of what such an ideal
natural science might look like.
do you realize that the very 'subjective-objective' dichotomy that you
reify in this post is another example of this sort of situated striving
toward understanding? your use of this dichotomy is grounded in
enlightenment forms of understanding, which ultimately led to positivistic
models.
you say:
I of course do not advocate a categorization of people based
>purely on an IQ score but the one great asset it offers is an objective
>measure comparable across populations. Furthermore, I by no way advocate
>the
>current WISC or Stanford-Binet tests as the best examples of how to measure
>people's intelligence in an unbiased manner, but once again both of these
>instruments do provide scientific measures of our intellectual abilities.
i say:
here, you reinforce your positivistic leanings by dipping into scientism.
if you want to be positivistic, thats okay, but you need to realize that it
is a position to hold, not a transcendental position, as your words seem to
indicate.
you say:
>Also, if we as a society would like to provide social services for people in
>unfortunate circumstances; I for one (as a taxpayer) would like to have a
>scientific method included as part of the process for measuring the
>specifics
>of why one person's circumstances qualify them for services and why another
>person does not.
i say:
do you think that it is just some historical accident that positivism,
scientism, and capitalism are all inter-twined? the deadly mix of these
three are what are squeezing the life out of american education, imho. for
those of us who seek to use concepts and tools like chat to break through
the pseudo-transcendentalism of scientistic capitalistic social positivism,
following your path is nothing less than admitting that the struggle for a
more humane and sophisticated understanding of the process of studying the
sociocultural world is over...
gary
shank@duq.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 01 2001 - 01:02:19 PDT