It is difficult for us to open our eyes and not see objects (as a conscious act), but as Dreyfus (2008) makes clear in Heideggerian fashion, most of the time, we do not see objects.107
105 There is of course the opposition between the recipe and the cake, which suffers from the same defect, but requires a different treatment in order to sort out.
106 One very potent consequence that requires greater attention than what is possible here is that hyphenated theoretical approaches such as socio-materiality, material-discursive, actor-network theory, and human-computer interaction as well as the anti-representational cognitive theories treated in this article run the risk of setting up precisely those dichotomies in bringing together disparate phenomena without explaining their relation, i.e., the hyphen.
107 He writes: “[I]n our most basic way of being, – that is, as skillful copers, – we are not minds at all but one with the world” (Dreyfus, 2008, p. 14, emphasis in original). This goes against the idea that the thing is a fundamental and inescapable condition of our epistemological make up, a thought that Grosz (2009) puts this
161 Moreover, there are many formats that do not require the world ordered into things in order to be intelligible. This third part takes the example of the theory-praxis dichotomy as a way of exemplifying problems generated by applying the thing format to phenomena that would be better suited with a different format. It also offers a sketch of how to switch formats.
The above explanation differs only slightly from its performative or enactive origins. The difference is the emphasis that there is no “of,” that is, there is not a “performance of” or
“enactment of” something. For instance, Dreyfus uses the terms “skilled activity” and
“situation” to illustrate the point that “in our skilled activity we are drawn to move so as to achieve a better and better grip on our situation” (p. 16). The point is well taken, but the wording suggests that “skilled activity,” what I have termed process, and “situation,” what I have termed pattern are not only separate but connected or coupled in a relation. The trouble is that the situation as it unfolds is skilled activity. The same problem is found in the theory of autopoiesis that differentiates between system and environment (Maturana & Varela, 1980). The crucial insight that a system does not act upon information received from the outside environment is termed “operational closure”; it states that our nervous system is in fact a network of active components “in which every change of relations of activity leads to further changes of relations of activity” (p. 164). Thus, the system acts upon impulses from itself and affects further impulses to itself. The question arises from the term itself “closure from what?” The environment reenters in the form of “perturbations” or stimuli or triggers as something “out there.”108
Figure 12 (6 in article). A visual metaphor for the error committed in correspondence problems
Figure 6 is an attempt at visualizing the mismatch that occurs. The top row (triangle and circle) represents the two disparate phenomena (patterns) that one can find when looking at, say, a brain (circle) and a tree (triangle) captured in the particular format of things. The two waves underneath represent the process (instructions) that we may identify the phenomena as (patternings). Speaking of activities and introducing things into the equation are signified way: “The thing is what we make of the world rather than simply what we find in the world, the way we are able to manage and regulate it according to our needs and purposes (even if not, as James suggests above, at will or consciously. We cannot but perceive the world in terms of objects. We do not do so as a matter of will).
The thing is an outlined imposition we make on specific regions of the world so that these regions become comprehensible and facilitate our purposes and projects, even while limiting and localizing them. Things are our way of dealing with a world in which we are enmeshed rather than over which we have dominion. The thing is the compromise between the world as it is in its teeming and interminable multiplicity [...] and the world as we need it to be or would like it to be...” (p. 126).
108 “The concept of cognitive self-reference describes perception and representation as perception of relations.
Stimuli are mere peripheral energetic conditions (i.e., perturbations P) for a semantically closed and self-organizing cognitive system. The structure of the cognitive system determines which structural configurations of its surrounds are perturbations of the system, and which are not. The idea is that the cognitive system is in dynamical equilibrium. This means that the perpetually acting components of the system (e.g., neurons) respond solely to the activity of other components” (Peschl & Riegler, 1999, p. 10, my emphasis).
162 by the left wave and triangle, both marked in red. The “proper” way of bringing in the triangle would be in wave form. This would allow us to see that what we mean to signify by introducing the triangle is a shift in pattern. However, because we now identify the shift with the triangle “out there,” we have to identify the former pattern with the circle “in here.”
What gets lost is that in activity terms, there is no inside or outside. When we speak of activity, there are only changes (processes). There is no particular reason to place it in any specific location. When we speak of things, there are only patterns. Mixing activities and things is a way of crossing the wires and getting the instructions confused. As a further consequence of this mixing, we are prone to associate other dichotomies – e.g., language has a form level (syntax) and a content level (semantics) – so the brain can be identified with processing at a form level and the result is a meaningful environment (lifeworld).
Conversely, if meaning is identified with the brain, then matter (the world) becomes the amorphous substrate upon which that meaning is thrust. In other words, concepts that apply equally well to either side are suddenly reserved for one side only.
The example of theory-praxis
The article opened with Wallace’s (1978) insightful comments on differences between linguistic and non-linguistic modes of thinking. In a different passage, he points directly to the powerful position that language has in how we communicate and what we regard as knowledge:
Thinking visually and tactilely has an inherent disadvantage, however, in comparison with thinking in language. Those who think in words— on subjects which are thought about effectively in words— can think a sentence and then utter it for others to hear. If one visualizes a piece of machinery, however, and wishes to communicate that vision to others, there is an immediate problem. Speech (and writing) will provide only a garbled and incomplete translation of the visual image. One must make the thing— or a model, or at the least a drawing— in order to ensure that one’s companion has approximately the same visual experience as oneself. (Wallace, 1978, p. 238)
The perceived disadvantage of thinking visually is that it does not translate well into language. Thus, the disadvantage of the image is that it is not text. Why, therefore, is it not an equal disadvantage for a text that it is not an image (after all, the translation into speech was deemed garbled and incomplete)? The philosopher Davis Baird (2004 p. 5) called this a text bias, which Ong (2002, p. 5) refers to as the tendency of scholars to “think of writing as the basic form of language.” Baird provides the example of Michael Faraday who invented the first electromagnetic motor. Upon introducing his invention, not only did he publish text and diagrams as per the usual academic format, “[h]e made and shipped ‘pocket editions’ of his newly created phenomenon to his colleagues” (p. 3). This was a very tangible way of circumventing the problem of trying to express something in a format unsuited to the purpose, however, it did not solve the problem. I suspect that in the eyes of many, Faraday neither “communicated” by sending his pocket editions, nor did he send “knowledge” as much as he sent the result of knowledge or something to that effect.
163 If we allow the above analysis to be applied to the dichotomy of theory and praxis, then their positioning vis-à-vis each other is an error. Theory, understood as process, is instructions on how to see. This, of course, corresponds with the etymological origin of theory, theoros, which means spectator.109 Praxis, understood as pattern, does not simply mean an act or an execution of a prior plan or intention110 but bears with it all the connotations of skill connected to craft and art (see Ingold, 2001). Insofar as the two capture different ways of informing (as in “giving form” or patterning) skilled activity, there is no particular reason to place and identify knowledge with the paper that the theory is written on or the materiality that the praxis traverses. Nonetheless, we differentiate between theory and applied science, abstract knowledge and hands-on knowledge, episteme and techne (see Parry, 2014). We can infer – when we look for signs of knowledge – that the image of knowledge is text. Just as in the case of what was seen to be “direct” perception and instruction in Figure 5, text is seen as closer to knowledge through chains of metonymy: text is seen (theoros); vision is the head; the head is knowledge. Antithetically, the body thus becomes the speechless mirror image or carrier of knowledge. Wallace (1978) is on point when he makes the assumption that an image does not constitute knowledge before it has been translated into words:
In the Western world, an effect of this special problem in communicating technological information has tended to be the growing isolation of those who think in mental pictures… Indeed, it has become conventional to assume that thought itself is merely a kind of internal speech and to disregard almost completely those kinds of cognitive processes that are conducted without language, as though they were somehow more primitive, and less worthy of intellectual attention. (p. 238)
Once the dichotomy is in place, those who fight to leave room for praxis in how we perceive knowledge are waging a lost battle. Since the format decides what is meaningful and takes place in a given modality, nothing left undescribed can take place. All other modalities are held to the logically impossible standard of having to be or become linguistic in order to qualify as knowledge.111 The format is given, and therefore, what goes on in praxis was always already given as text (a prior plan or intention) or, at a minimum, has to be reconstructed as text (interpretation) in order to be understood.
Taking away reason – Nothing left undescribed can take place
Schön (1983) provides a lucid example of the manner in which even those who have championed praxis as an important and fundamentally different type of knowledge are caught up in the dichotomy of theory and praxis. In his masterpiece, The Reflective Practitioner, he provides us with this version of the dichotomy:
109 “Theoros” was of course in ancient Greece the term for the official witnesses to a spectacle. For an account of the migration of the term to philosophy and the modern meaning of theory, see Nightingale (2004).
110 The Wikipedia entry on praxis states that “Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized,” which provides a clear example of the contrast to theory.
111 If a non-linguistic modality succeeds in becoming linguistic, it is no longer non-linguistic and thus no longer itself.
164 In the varied topography of professional practice, there is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing ‘messes’ incapable of technical solutions. (p. 42)
Elaborating on the difference between the two, Schön’s choice of words underscores that the domain of praxis is based on intuition and muddling through while the domain of theory is rigorous and solid:
There are those who choose the swampy lowlands. They deliberately involve themselves in messy but crucially important problems and, when asked to describe their methods of inquiry, they speak of experience, trial and error, intuition, and muddling through. Other professionals opt for the high ground. Hungry for technical rigor, devoted to an image of solid professional competence, or fearful of entering a world in which they feel they do not know what they are doing, they choose to confine themselves to a narrowly technical practice. (p. 43)
The distinction aligns with those of other giants contemplating the relationship between knowledge and action, e.g., Ryle (2000 on knowing-that, knowing-how) and Polanyi (1966 on explicit, tacit), in that a great divide between conscious and unconscious thought is delimited. Often, the unconscious is given the role of a mute, automated, and enormously powerful entity while consciousness is reserved the role of the tiny helmsman handling this mammoth.112 These theories have done much for the study of practices and non-linguistic modalities, but as Baird (2004, p. 18) puts it: “‘Craft knowledge,’ ‘fingertip knowledge,’
‘tacit knowledge,’ and ‘know-how’ are useful concepts in that they remind us that there is more to knowing than saying. But they tend to render this kind of knowledge ineffable.”
Practice is thus made mystical on the basis of intuition, feelings, or sensations. Practical problems are seen as messy, wicked, context-dependent, and situated. The much celebrated study of Csikszentmihalyi (1990) presents our conception of work par excellence, that is, the type of activity where you lose yourself (become unconscious) in an activity, all in the concept of flow.
The problem, of course, is not that the “type” of knowledge in question cannot be captured in the format of “things.” The problem is, as soon as it is captured, a lopsided inversion takes place. Latour and Woolgar (1986) explain in a famous passage that an otherwise abstract hypothetical scientific statement suddenly comes to be seen as originating from reality. They call this phenomenon an inversion.113 In this case, the inversion is turned
112 Lakoff & Johnson (1999) provide an example of this type of thinking: “Conscious thought is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is the 95 percent of all thought – and that may be a serious underestimate. Moreover, the 95 percent below the surface of conscious awareness shapes and structures all conscious thought. If the cognitive unconscious were not there doing this shaping, there could be no conscious thought” (p. 13). The design theorist Christopher Alexander (1964) likewise distinguishes between the unconscious design of primitive people and the enlightened conscious design of the modern day.
113 They explain the idea this way: “Once the statement begins to stabilise, however, an important change takes place. The statement becomes a split entity. On the one hand, it is a set of words which represents a statement about an object. On the other hand, it corresponds to an object in itself which takes on a life of its own.[...]
165 around. Up until the point where the action is not described, it is not considered knowledge.
As soon as it is described, it attains the status of knowledge, but the knowledge no longer originates from the action – the reason being that all descriptions derive from conscious thought. It is thus caught in a vicious double-bind where it is either explicated (and thereby transferred to be part of the language side) or it has to remain unrealized, potential, tacit.
Even proponents of practical embodied knowledge tend to unwittingly overvalue the potency of propositional knowledge and cheapen the value of practical knowledge.
Crawford (2009) draws up a scenario where a mechanic handles the cleaning of a distributor in a motor in two different ways relative to whether the truck has been out in the rain or off-roading in sand. Without any explicit thought on the matter, he chooses either the lubricant or the compressed air, or as Crawford puts it, he “intuits” which one to use:
I say ‘intuit’ rather than ‘conclude’ because he [the mechanic] may not draw any explicit connections in his mind between muddy boots and remedy A, on the one hand, and sandy hair and remedy B, on the other. Rather, he is familiar with typical situations, and their typicality is something of which he has a tacit knowledge. This tacit knowledge seems to consist of recognizing patterns. (p. 166)
The word “conclude” is part of a rational vocabulary, and since no explicit (i.e., conscious thought) knowledge is involved in this case, it has to be tacit. Similarly, Baird (2004, p. 19) writes: “There are, however, important differences between work with theory and work with things. Things are not as tidy as ideas. Plato was exactly right on this point. Things are impermanent, impure, and imperfect.” This of course ignores the many ways in which language (speech and writing) is ambiguous, indexical, imprecise (Chinese whispers), and based on slurred speech, sloppy handwriting, non-sequiturs, bad reasoning, fallacies, and misunderstandings.
This step-motherly handling of praxis is a way of “taking away reason.” Schön (1983) describes how part of his research team at one point analyzed video material and deemed that one boy was not particularly bright. When later it was discovered that his actions were in fact triggered by an error in communication made earlier by someone else, the boy’s efforts were suddenly retrospectively transformed from stupid to rather ingenious. The researchers later spoke of “giving someone reason” (p. 67) to indicate giving someone the benefit of the doubt while interpreting their behavior. In the same way, actions and practices are habitually “deprived of reason” with no other excuse than that they do not belong to a linguistic modality. This is not necessarily a sinister plot, however, the scientific effort to continuously map and describe phenomena seems in itself to create a tendency wherein everything that is based on a different modality is slowly engulfed. Ingold (2011, p. 61) determines the project of technology to revolve around capturing the “the skills of craftsmen or artisans, and to reconfigure their practice as the application of rational principles whose Before long, more and more reality is attributed to the object and less and less to the statement about the object. Consequently, an inversion takes place: the object becomes the reason why the statement was fomulated in the first place.[...] At the same time, the past becomes inverted. [The object] has been there all along, just waiting to be revealed for all to see” (Latour and Woolgar, 1986, p. 176).
166 specification has no regard for human experience and sensibility”; with reference to Carl Mitcham, he specifies this movement as a “desire to transform the heuristics of technique into algorithms of practice” (p. 61). Similarly, Crawford (2009, p. 37) finds that “[t]he dichotomy of mental versus manual didn’t arise spontaneously. Rather, the twentieth century saw concerted efforts to separate thinking from doing.” In the same vein as Ingold, Schmidt (2015) finds the impetus for this drive towards capture in rationalization:
As already noted, since about 1400, ordinary work practices have been subjected to systematic studies for the purpose of describing them for others to be able to emulate established practices as well for the purpose of understanding their rationale: why they
As already noted, since about 1400, ordinary work practices have been subjected to systematic studies for the purpose of describing them for others to be able to emulate established practices as well for the purpose of understanding their rationale: why they