Dear Ken,

I can agree with much of what you write - my one concern that might be of interest to others is the simple account of maths as "inhuman". The affect of the knower of mathematical knowledge is a most particular one - just like the affect of the knower (experiencer of) the Cartesian Cogito. This is why Aristotle supports maths and Sartre supports the Cogito.

We also need to recall that the words "maths" simply means, in Greek, "knowledge". Hence a "polymath" is a person who knows many things. The Greek philosophers, at the time of the Academy, saw "true" knowledge as that kind of knowledge found in what we now call "maths".

We can duplicate, as an experience, the event of the slave, in the Meno, who discloses the knowledge of how to double a square. I experienced such a moment in my youth when Euclidean geometry opened up to me, as a disclosure that meant I was suddenly able to solve problems in geometry without any instructions.

We can read Descarte as an experiment/experience and do what he asks us to do. Then we can experince the moment of the Cogito. I did this when I was a young adult. The affect was transforming.

All knowing is human.

keith russell
OZ newcastle.

>>> Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> 09/17/03 19:26 PM >>>
Dear Norm,

Thanks for your recent notes. I have been following the thread with
great interest. For the last five days, I have been trying to write
up a reasonably short note summarizing the central questions.

Here, I would like to respond briefly to your fine post.

In existential terms, false consciousness has little to do with
reliability in a scientific sense. For Kierkegaard, the imperative
aspect of working through false consciousness has to do with
self-understanding and existential commitment.

One of Kierkegaard's books addresses the dialectical relationship
between reliability in the scientific sense and existential issues.
This is the Concluding Unscientific Postscript of 1846.

Kierkegaard reflects deeply on the different natures of truth. In
religious and feeling issues, he examines historical and rational
speculative approaches to find them inadequate. He does not reject
the correspondence theory of truth of the possibility of
contradiction. Rather, he sets it aside as inappropriate to the task
of religious and existential life.

He then goes on to discuss how we know what we know in subjective and
existential terms. Here, he clarifies a form of ethical and religious
thought linked to Socratic inquiry as distinct from the abstract
scientific thinking of modern rationalism. This is why the book is
labeled unscientific. The designation is intended to make clear what
it is that we work with when we work in a philosophical or
psychological frame.

This relates to the first of your two postulates, "No methodology
is, or can ever be free from the multiplex of human errors."

Johan Olaisen and I have wrestled with this issue in terms of its
appropriate application to research. Some years ago, Johan coined a
term "clarified subjectivity," that addresses exactly the kinds of
issues that are appropriate to the human sciences. If we cannot be
free of error or free of subjectivity, we must ask how we can best
use our abilities to understand the issues we consider. This is where
Johan began with his early work on clarified subjectivity. We have
taught doctoral seminars in information science based on this
approach, and I have been adapting some of this to design research.
(We presented a paper on clarified subjectivity at La Clusaz. It is
in the proceedings.)

Your second postulate deserves reflection in two dimensions.

You write, "the elimination of the human condition from research is
dangerous because it produces an inhuman science." This is true. More
important, some forms of science are and SHOULD BE inhuman.

Mathematics is inhuman. So is physics. So are vast areas of biology,
chemistry and many of the logical and natural sciences. Most of these
sciences have human subfields linked to or located within them.
Mathematics education and some branches of applied mathematics would
be examples of this, along with the history and philosophy of
mathematics. Mathematics itself is inhuman.

In contrast, the human and behavioral sciences cannot be inhuman.
They address and involve human understanding, human behavior, human
perceptions, and human feelings. At the same time, some of these
fields may have inhuman subfields linked to or located within them.
Econometrics and statistical modeling theory would be examples of
this, as would the purely abstract study of many research methods.

It is up to us as thinkers and doers to distinguish between episteme
and phronesis and to make use of that distinction. To know something
that is inhuman in an abstract and objective sense does not commit us
to inhuman actions based on our knowledge.

The failures of understanding that arise from this lead away from,
rather than closer to realizing our human qualities. For example, it
has been a post-modern fashion to blame the terrible deeds of the
twentieth century on the Enlightenment as though the existence of
technological possibilities requires us to use those possibilities.
The argument becomes thin when we fail to recognize that the
Enlightenment also led to the concept of universal human rights, and
the theory of democratic participation and enfranchisement for all
human beings. Enlightenment science offered the scientific
foundations for a technology that can commit mass murder.
Enlightenment philosophy states that we are free not to employ this
technology. The challenge of human and inhuman science is that the
same inquiry and principles that create beneficial technologies are
often linked with adverse technologies.

Some of the things we know may be inhuman. This raises no problems at all.

In contrast, we should not be inhuman in our thinking and our use of
what we know. The attempt to become inhuman or the attempt to act as
if we are inhuman leads to great problems.

All possibilities are open in some sense. We are ethically obliged to
employ phronesis - wisdom, good judgment, and prudence - in deciding
which possibilities to pursue.

The technical and scientific information, knowledge, and skill
required for wise choices are often the same information, knowledge,
and skill involved in evil choices. A scalpel can be used for surgery
or murder. A hammer can build a house or crack a skull. We do not
prohibit these tools based on the possibility of improper use. We
restrict the ways in which they may be used.

Returning to Kierkegaard, this is where the issues of consciousness
and false consciousness become significant.

Kierkegaard's project involved knowing ourselves, understanding what
is worth doing, making an existential commitment to what is best in
life. This is the Socratic quest. While this involved religious
dimensions in Kierkegaard, the existential framework outside
religious commitment involves a self-awareness that probes the layers
and levels of consciousness.

It is here that relation of the states and conditions of
consciousness becomes important and valuable.

In terms of Kierkegaard's approach, inquiry into consciousness and
the effort to win through over false consciousness is important for
the reasons given in Norm's two postulates. The examination of
consciousness and a reflective existential commitment to virtue and
wise action is only possible when we acknowledge fallibility and seek
to act in humane (and appropriately human) ways.

In my view, the issues that Terry raises pose no conflict with Norm's
view. Stating that we face the problem of unreliability in reflective
research is another way of stating what Norm states in stating that
no method is or can ever be free from the multiplex of human errors.
Speaking for myself here - and not for Terry - I'd say this is
exactly why it is vital to reflect on and work through the many
layers of consciousness in any research that requires using the self
as an instrumental part of research inquiry.

One can never transcend the self, at least not while we remain
embodied. This, in effect, is a principle of the sophisticated
psychology developed centuries ago by Buddhists philosophers and
theologians. To be embodied and woven into the web of human
experience is also to be partially trapped by the chains of illusion
(maya) and fate (karma).

What is new in the late twentieth century is the understanding of how
embodiment contributes to thought, to wise cognition, to better
philosophy and to better science. This is the central point in a
major stream of research undertaken by such figures as Antonio
Damasio, author of Descartes' Error, or George Lakoff and mark
Johnson, authors of Philosophy in the Flesh.

As I will propose in a later note, awareness of consciousness and
inquiry into false consciousness helps us precisely in addressing the
issues Norm brings up. Understanding how to do that wisely involves
some of the problems and questions that have been posed by Klaus
Krippendorff. I will try to address these when I finish a note that
is taking me some time.

Thanks, Norm, for this fine contribution. Your two postulates have
helped me to crystallize thoughts and make progress.

Warm wishes,

Ken



Norm wrote:

-snip-

You said ... anything to do with sense of self, ego, feelings, self
perception of cognition, confidence and certainty is unreliable ...

I have doubt about these issues because it seems to me that there is
an enormous amount of myth building and self-deception at the core of
this dilemma. This is evident to me through the manner that some
social domains prompt people engaged within certain research
paradigms to come to perceive and then believe that they and their
work are immune from these essentially human attributes ... and then
propose that their immunity from humanity fallibility is an asset.

I want to make two comments on this now

1. No methodology is or can ever be free from the multiplex of human errors

2. The elimination of the human condition from research is dangerous
because it produces an inhuman science

I will return to this a bit later but I hope my comments draw some responses

-snip-

--

Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Leadership and Organization
Norwegian School of Management

Visiting Professor
Advanced Research Institute
School of Art and Design
Staffordshire University