Mike and Arthur I went to Jan Derry's website where she has listed a number of her publications. Mike, I noticed she co-authored an article with you that was published in an edited book by Robert Sternberg & D. Preiss. [see attached if anyone is interested] There is a section of the article, starting on page 5, exploring the differentiating of artifacts into "primary", "secondary" and "tertiary" artifacts. As I read this section I was linking the ideas to Charles Taylor's differentiating various "ethical orientations" embedded in social practices as constituted within particular historical periods. Taylor is exploring the "ideality" aspect of social practices but as Mike & Jan's article makes clear "ideality" & "materiality" are SIMULTANEOUSLY forming. I read this position as suggesting neither "ideality" or "materiality" is PRIMARY [and therefore neither "ideality" or "materiality" is DERIVED from the other] If my reading of the article suggests that "ideality" must be engaged as deeply as "materiality" THEN Taylor's reflections on "ethical stances" has a place in explorations of the "artifactually constituted" con-text. Mike and Jan on page 5 quote D'Andrade to make this point about "secondary artifacts" [social forms of organizing action which enable the preservation and transmission of modes of action using primary artifacts] "Typically such schemes [secondary artifacts] portray SIMPLIFIED worlds, making the appropriateness of the terms that are BASED on them dependent on the degree to which THESE schemes fit the actual worlds of the artifacts being categorized. Such schemes portray NOT ONLY the world of physical objects and events, BUT ALSO more abstract worlds of social interaction, discourse, and even word meaning"[D'Andrade] This secondary level therefore is a more INCLUSIVE con-text for using primary artifacts. Mike and Jan then suggest there is an even more inclusive "tertiary" level of artifacts They quote Wartofsky to describe these special KINDS of artifacts as ones in which "the FORMS of representation themselves come to constitute A WORLD (or 'worlds') OF IMAGINATIVE PRAXIS" [Wartofsky, 1979] allowing an arena for the playing out of broader intentions AND AFFECTIVE NEEDS. How are these various levels of artifacts linked? Mike and Jan suggest "Although EACH KIND of artifact may be considered independently of others, each, with its own mixtures of materiality and ideality arises from and ACTS BACK ON the other. It is in THIS way that human beings bootstrap the means of their own cognition" (p. 6) This section of the article, exploring secondary and tertiary artifacts, may be the process that Taylor is exploring in his response to Brandom. Taylor is asking us to notice that tertiary artifacts always EXPRESS an ethical stance towards the world and to situate the use of primary and secondary artifacts within tertiary artifacts is to ORIENT to these KINDS of artifacts within a particular ethical perspective OF the world. From this vantage point "the giving and asking for reasons" may be a particular TYPE of language game played out within an IMAGINATIVE ethical orientation within "tertiary" con-texts. Larry
Attachment:
SEPTEMBER 2 2011 COLE MICHAEL & DERRY JAN We Have Met Technology and it is Us.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca