Jim, I'm very interesting in pursuing what I think you're saying. If I'm
listening, the following is attempting to use ordinary language which is
still capable of "operational definitions" for experiment and logical
development (thought experiments). Using "name" is to use a word which is
ordinary, empirical and adds nothing not needed. This usefulness becomes
clearer when you develop "proposition" a similarly ordinary word with
similar possibilities.
It may be a "huge and poetic" extension but poetry and such use of
language is available also in ordinary language useage.
>
> Trying to translate your terms into those I habitually use to address
> these kinds of issues, I find a strong tendency to map your
> "epistemes/paradigms" into my "names/propositions".
The deconstruction of "paradigm" that follows reveals the ordinary
language operations that can use to get back to simple sources.
>
> I think the basis for my second observation,
> associating "paradigm" with "proposition", is that a paradigm (in your
> usage as well as that of this group generally, myself included) is a kind
> of model, or an image functioning metaphorically to represent the
> structure of some complex system. The paradigm is simpler than what it
> represents -- that's what it's for -- but it's _NOT_ logically primitive.
> It has "parts". If we try to analyse the paradigm, whether for the
> purpose of questioning it, rejecting it, understanding or changing it, we
> wind up dealing with it in some set of propositions.
Now we are dealing with "a set of propositions" that can be shared,
manipulated, experimented with and not something exclusive to a domain of
experts. We can bring "paradigm" into the operational world or everyday
affairs.
If this is what's being developed, I would like to extend the
conversation. I'd also like (from Kent?) to be aware of what might be
done to the integrity of the ideas and what the cost is likely to be if we
continue to develop this approach in action.
>
> I responded in another post to this same thread. I hope it's valuable
> (the whole thread, I mean) to the group -- it connects bigtime with an
> earlier thread (the one that persuaded me in fact to subscribe) on models
> and metaphor and paradigm.
>
--
Mike McMaster <Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk>
"Postmodern society is the society of computers, information, scientific
knowledge, advanced technology, and rapid change due to new advances in
science and technology." Postmodern Theory, Best & Kellner