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PHD-DESIGN  February 2019

PHD-DESIGN February 2019

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Subject:

Re: 'Indigestible' food for thought on cognition and culture

From:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 12 Feb 2019 10:41:16 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

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text/plain (61 lines)

Dear Jinan,

You ask,

“This is similar to the way in Sanskrit there is a word for cultural distortion. That is Prakruti meaning Nature, Sanskruti meaning Culture and vikruti to indicate cultural distortion. I wonder why there is no equivalent for Vikruti in English. Does that mean that there is no cultural distortion? Is anyone aware of an equivalent word in any other language?”

There are English-language words for this concept, though not necessarily a single word. Languages work in different ways, and concepts that some languages express in one word require several words in other languages.

You will find this concept in several disciplines, and it has a significant role in several fields. These include anthropology, social anthropology, social psychology, psychology, sociology, political science, linguistics, philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics and cognitive science. There may be others. 

To understand how each field works with the concept of cultural distortion requires a study of the literature. You haven’t explained here how different fields treat the concept in Sanskrit or what specific meanings the word “vikruti” has in different contexts. You’ve simply given a two-word translation along with the suggestion that because you know of no single word in English, the concept may therefore not exist. This is a category confusion. You know of no single word in English to represent the Sanskrit word “vikruti.” First, it is not clear that this is the case — it is merely the case that you don’t know of such a word. Second, whether or not a single English-Language word represents this concept, the concept exists and it is widely used by English-language writers and researchers.  

It may be that there is a single word or technical term for this concept in some fields. I don’t know. But I know that the concept exists. To understand the concept from the perspective of different fields requires study, and it requires understanding how different fields frame and sort this concept and related concepts.

There is a concept in Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy that applies to this question. 

It appears in Plato’s Phaedrus where Socrates speaks of understanding categories and concepts in a fruitful way. Socrates describes “Being able to cut things up again class by class according to their natural joints rather than trying to break them up as an incompetent butcher might.” Socrates later adds, "I am enamoured of these divisions and collections, Phaedrus, because I want to be good at speaking and thinking and if I think anyone else is capable of discerning a natural unity and plurality I follow ‘hard on his heels as if he were a god’.”  (Plato 2002: 55-56).

The concept also exists in Taoist thought. “Good chefs know the importance of maintaining sharp knives in the kitchen. What’s their secret? A well-worn Taoist allegory offers some advice. The king asks about his butcher’s impressive knife-work. ‘Ordinary butchers’ [the chef] replies ‘hack their way through the animal. Thus their knife always needs sharpening. My father taught me the Taoist way. I merely lay the knife by the natural openings and let it find its own way through. Thus it never needs sharpening.”  (Slater and Borghini 2011: 46).

The story is told as “The Cook Carves up a Cow” in Tsai Chih Chung's Zhuangzi Speaks. The Taoist sage Zhuangzi concludes by saying,

“The complexities of life are like the skeletal structure of the cow, and those who don’t understand how to approach them end up running in circles, wasting all their energy” (Zhuangzi 1992: 29-30).

It’s a mistake to assume that there is no use of this concept among Anglophones because you don’t personally know a single English word for the single Sanskrit word “vikruti.” This seems to me an example of cultural distortion. You’re trying to bring both a word and concept from Sanskrit without attending to the cultural distinctions of the target language or the target disciplines. 

First, it’s useful to define and explain the concept and context of “vikruti” with care. This may involve more than two words. At that point, a literature search for the concept in the fields noted here will yield plenty of material. As always, literature search takes time. Time is the price we pay to find answers to the questions we ask.

If you carve this food for thought at the joints and cook it carefully, you’ll find it digestible.

Yours, 

Ken

References

Plato. 2002. Phaedrus. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Robin Waterfield. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Slater, Matthew H., and Andrea Borghini 2011. “Introduction : Lessons from the Scientific Butchery” 2011. Carving Nature at Its Joints. Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science. Campbell, Joseph Keim, Michael O’Rourke, and Matthew H. Slater, eds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

Zhuangzi. 1992. Zhuangzi Speaks. The Music of Nature. Adapted and illustrated by Tsai Chih Chung. Translated by Brian Bruya. Afterword by Donald J. Munro, pp. 29-30.

--
--

Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 







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