thank you Ken,

I read this and it will certainly take some time to digest it...but
please allow me to ask you something about the way you approach the
new knowledge/philosophy:


Do you find that the "history of ideas" -approach (my nickname for
the way you process stuff in the message) is helping you to see the
new philosophy more clearly, or is it confusing? Are you doing it
because you are specifically interested in the history and
development or are you doing it because you want to arrive at this
new concept with their help?

I mean that the "old categories" etc. seem to me often obscure
relationships that may be more evident if you do not have other
structures in the way.

I think that a lot of the complexity of the human culture comes from
the need and practice to build on the existing world as opposed to
trying to do things in a reasonable, smart or efficient way.
Especially in software design you notice this. First you build
patches and patches on old stuff, because you don't know what the
requirements for a new more comprehensive structure are, and because
there is little practical or paying need. The patchwork continues and
grows, and becomes soon very expensive and hard to maintain.
Eventually one needs to scrap old structures, and at some point a
completely new structure replaces the old one. But the more of the
world relies on the old structures, the harder it becomes to replace
them, and eventually you end up living with many systems at the same
time. And yet more complexity. But because the software world evolves
quickly, old structures often do eventually become practically
extinct.

Making a theory is also design, I think...although it may be also
thought of as revealing its already existing design. Something like
the "bringing forth" and "revealing" Heidegger talks about.

cheers - kh

...

At 00:20 +0100 25.11.2001, Ken Friedman wrote:
>Dear Rosan and Kari-Hans,
>
>Your two posts raise interesting issues. Some are historical, some
>philosophical. I have been thinking about Kari-Hans's November 3 post
>all month, and thinking on the way that it points to a synthesis of
>important issues.
>
>(1) Practicing philosophy and philosophical practice
>
>I have been wrestling with some of these issues for a long time. The
>ancient Greeks distinguished between two kinds of knowledge, sophia,
>and techne. It is my view that there is today possible a new kind of
>knowledge that synthesizes these two. This new kind of knowledge may
>also involve some new issues that neither involves.
>
>This can be stated in terms of Dick Buchanan's distinctions among the
>kinds of universities. Sophia was pursued in the paleoteric
>university. Techne was originally the province of the guilds, and not
>a university matter at all. When technical institutes attained
>university status, techne entered the university under the terms of
>sophia, and the technical schools generally frame education in the
>shape of the paleoteric university. The new kind of knowledge would
>be found in the neoteric university. This new kind of knowledge does
>not yet have a name, certainly not a Greek name.
>
>In past papers and again during these last few weeks, I have managed
>to wrestle come earlier distinctions into shape. I have not yet found
>a description of the new knowledge that satisfies me.