[lit-ideas] Re: Practical Logic
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:42:10 +0900
On Dec 26, 2007 12:40 AM, Torgeir Fjeld <phatic@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It may be that Bourdieu using the term 'practical logic' to address was
> what he elsewhere termed the modus operandi of practitioners in a field.
> Bourdieu's point is often that in order to understand how a field works the
> researcher needs to take stock of the limited number of available positions
> in that field and their range of possible operations. With such an approach
> it may be possible to put together an account of the practical (as opposed
> to apriori analytical) operations of a field. This account could then be
> assembled from within the field rather than from above or without -- it is
> participatory rather than the product of observation from behind a one-way
> mirror. The advantage of this kind of approach is that it may be possible to
> account for operations that appear contradictory or self-defeating when
> utilizing the analytical method.
>
Torgeir,
Thank you. It may be worth adding that in _The Logic of Practice_ Bourdieu
is concerned with the relationship between two modes of theorizing in the
social sciences: objectivist approaches which assume that human behavior
directly reflects objective laws and phenomenological approaches that assume
that human behavior should be understood from the perspective(s) of the
human beings in question. He has, however, no interest in discrediting one
or the other or replacing both with an idealized alternative. He writes
(Introduction, p. 27) that,
"This critical reflexion on the limits of theoretical understanding is not
intended to discredit theoretical knowledge in one or another of its forms
and, as is often attempted, to set in its place a more or less idealized
practical knowledge; but rather to give it a solid basis by freeing it from
the distortions arising from the epistemological and social conditions of
its production."
I do not wish to argue here that Bourdieu succeeds in his project. I would,
however, point out that it is only one of a number of serious efforts to
describe the production of knowledge and what that knowledge consists of
across a variety of fields, e.g.
*behavioral economics
*general systems theory and its applications in soft systems management
*psychological research, e.g., by Gary Klein, on recognition-primed decision
making
*The various research skeins woven together by George Lakoff in _Women,
Fire, and Dangerous Things_
*studies of legal reasoning, clinical inference, consumer behavior
What these studies have in common is not the rejection of modus ponens (if p
then q, p is true, therefore q) or the definition of validity specific to
logic. It is, rather, the recognition that in most practical situations
(including most forms of scholarly research), the proposition "if p then q"
is itself problematic. "p" is one observation, "q" another. In the best
cases, the observations are measurements, using widely accepted and
replicable methods. More often, they are "eye-witness" testimony, subject to
all the distortions to which the human senses and brain are prone. They may
be nothing more than uncritical assimilation of incoming information to
existing categories.
Then, even when the observations are reliable, the relationship between them
may fall anywhere between 1 and 0, not just on an infinite number of points
but on an infinite number of curves. The upshot is, as general systems
theorists point out, that, in practical terms, what we call knowledge can be
divided into three zones: (A) a small zone in which mechanical theories
work, and modus ponens can be invoked with little risk of contradiction; (B)
a somewhat larger zone in which statistical inference works, and modus
ponens can be modified to read "if p then q with probability x"; and (C)
most of what we claim to know, where relations are complex and the best we
can do is parse the evidence within a limited domain and reach conclusions
that only in rare cases survive the lawyer's test of "beyond a reasonable
doubt," where we lack formalized procedures for deciding what a reasonable
doubt is and fall back, for better or worse, on familiar heuristics--in
other words, the dispositions that Bourdieu calls a habitus.
Why does one care about this stuff? So long as we are safe in ivory towers
and can focus our attention on the students who will be our successors, we
can choose to behave as if all knowledge were (A) or (B) and reject (C) as
beyond the pale. If we see ourselves and our students as people who want to
make a difference outside the ivory tower's walls, we need to equip
ourselves and them to approach (C) with greater sophistication than "Not
(A), not (B), therefore nonsense" provides.
Now, putting on my flameproof suit....
Best wishes to all.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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