Book review: 'Categories: A Study of a Concept in Western Philosophy and Political Thought'

Categories

 

To - Edinburgh University Press. 

Many thanks for this book -

O’Sullivan L. Categories: A Study of a Concept in Western Philosophy and Political Thought. Edinburgh University Press; 2024.

Requested in May, your response was quick. So, my apologies for the delay in picking this up. In mitigation, what I have been learning since, will help my reading of O'Sullivan's text.

As readers of W2tQ will have realised, there is a built in bias to my reading of any text. In short: It's all about the model. 

Categories was spotted in Foyles on a visit to London. It recommended itself instantly: title, Venn diagrams, sets and all.

A larger format paperback of 335 pages, the print quality, font and design match the values and usual care of the publisher. 

Given the subject, there are appropriately distinct indices of subjects and proper names.

At pages 2-3, I have already succumbed (my emphasis):

'As a result, there is widespread contemporary recognition that categories are both important and problematic. A non-exhaustive list of academic fields and disciplines in which issues to do with categories arise includes anthropology, critical theory, cultural studies, feminist studies, history, linguistics, philosophy, political science, political theory, post-colonial studies, post-modernism, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, psychology, rhetoric and sociology. It is clear, moreover, that this recognition reflects the situation in society at large. Popular authors articulate a pervasive feeling that "Things are in the wrong place. Religion is in the box where science used to be. Politics is on the shelf where you thought you left science the previous afternoon." Categorical worries have penetrated public as well as academic discourse.' pp.2-3.

But how did Luke O'Sullivan know? On page 3 having given us the informal uses of the word 'category':

'These, moreover, are only the informal uses; there are also formal, logical and mathematical, senses which we shall largely have to pass over.^'13

For me it is a disappointment that the formal aspects will be passed over. It is also a relief. 

For a model that is situated, as far as nursing theory, and models of nursing/care were concerned in 1997-8; Hodges' model had been left on the shelf - gathering dust.

I recognised a slide from a Youtube video this past week, care of Cheng I think? I'll share soon.

More to follow.

13 Eugenia Cheng, Cakes, Custard, and Category Theory Easy Recipes for Understanding Complex Mathematics (London: Profile Books, 2015) provides an introduction to mathematical category theory.

Information Design and Sense-Making c/o Dervin

'Information Design: Something New, Something Old

... I want in this chapter to challenge the central idea that information design is a new idea. Reducing the issues briefly to a polarity, it is useful to start by considering two ways to conceptualize information. One way, implicit in the above assumptions, is that information is something that describes an ordered reality and has some knowable, or at least idealized, isomorphic relationship to that reality (i.e., it represents in an identical way the form and content of reality). In short, information instructs us, this assumption says, about the nature of the world we live in: its history, its future, its functioning, our place in it, our possible
actions, and the potential consequences of those actions.' p.35.

[My emphasis.]

Brenda Dervin. Chaos, Order, and Sense-Making: A Proposed Theory for Information Design (chapter 3) In R. Jacobson (Ed.), Information Design (pp. 35-57). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press

Previously: Information design: Tufte & Raskin 

Is it? Can it be? An elevator pitch!

How many times have people asked me?

"If you were to explain Hodges' model as an elevator pitch what would you say?"

So, what would it be?

I wrote this on twitter and think it's a step in the right direction - domains: 

There is -

              *Person, self, individual ..

*Other(s), collective, pop.. 

      (a) person has MIND & BODY (for now!) 

(a) person is supported by ALL Others 

We call this Humanity

For the majority all bridges *cognitively* accessible:

  https://hodges-model.blogspot.com 

n.b. Politicians, policy makers

Frayn's - shared 'Home Address'

Frequently I've made the point that 'person-centred' means placing the individual, patient, carer ... whatever the context, at the centre of Hodges' model. At the same time this is of course an idealisation:

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

What is your 'home' address?

'Science, it turns out, is in this respect simply an extension of all the other means we have found of representing the world. As with pictures and narratives, the world is unimaginable without the focus of a viewpoint. To understand the world in any way whatsoever scientifically, historically, artistically, anecdotally, imaginatively we find ourselves compelled to assume a potential point of convergence from which everything is  viewed, measured, and recounted. About the entity that defines this point we know only that it is by definition invisible to us. And since the instruments of science, of logic and mathematics, and of art, are all products of this invisible entity, they will not serve to represent or explain it to us. Anything in the world, or out of it, can be perceived or thought about, or both, and represented in our various codes. The only thing that systematically eludes us, whichever way we turn, is the something upon which everything else depends. The conscious subject that gives meaning to the objective universe cannot give meaning to itself. Without it nothing can be understood; about it nothing can be said.  'The point of convergence . . .' And already we've gone wrong. The self isn't a point, in any remotely geometrical sense, but a complex organisation; and the consciousness that it generates, and by which it is animated, is a complex phenomenon.' pp.401-402. (my emphasis)

Frayn, Michael (2006). The human touch: our part in the creation of a universe. 'Home Address', Chapter 5. London: Faber & Faber. 

A final post from my paperback copy, next - off to a good secondhand home. Previously: 'Frayn'.

Dramatherapy 2 - Personal identity

'Dramatherapy helps make sense of the world. Just as Goffman (1971) regards society as dramaturgically constructed, for the social presentation of selves, so Kelly (1955) describes a process in which individuals 'try on for size' various views of themselves as perceived by other people, in order to select the ones which allow them to carry on social relationships with one-another. Understanding of the other person is achieved by the process of construing his or her world, or 'construct system'. Kelly uses the notion of constructs and construct systems to describe cognitive structures. A construct is basically way of registering the degree to which an idea is present in relation to other ideas:

A construct is like a reference axis, a basic dimension of appraisal, often unverbalised, frequently unsymbolised, and occasionally unsignified in any manner except by the elemental processes it governs. Behaviourally it can be regarded as an open channel of movement, and a system of constructs provides each man with his own personal network of action pathways, serving both to limit his movements and to open up to him passages of freedom which otherwise would be psychologically non-existent.
(Kelly, 1955:199)' p.164.

'The multifarious ingredients of dramatherapy, like those of a theatrical event, are not haphazard. They are closely related, either by similarity or difference, to one another. Where there is confusion, this too is distinguished: it is confusion as opposed to order. Structure is employed in a conscious or intentional way, in order to reveal its true identity as the means by which we perform the fundamental action of relating things, in order to plot our movements in the world we live in. By allowing us to distinguish from, structure permits us to relate to. Certainly, the mechanism of perception performs this action without any conscious intention on our part; drama, and dramatherapy, is consciously contrived to assist it in its critical function, helping it to achieve a particular kind of clarity, by providing it with the raw material for involvement with the objects of perception.'
p.167-168.

EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF DRAMATHERAPY ON THOUGHT-DISORDER

Construct Theory rests upon the proposition that ideas hang together in a trustworthy way because people's behaviour is basically consistent. If people behave inconsistently, the thinking which they induce will lose its articulation, because the sense we make of life demands continual validation from the people and events we base it on. Thus, confused experience of relationship is, at its most fundamental level, the same thing as confused thinking; when our ideas begin to lose their coherence this is because, for us, other people have begun to come apart'. When they no longer fit the model we have of reality, the model itself loses its precise definition. At this point, Kelly suggests, we make our model more vague in order to preserve its identity as a model of reality: reality is blurred, so our model is imprecise. Unfortunately, it may become too inexact to function as a means of communication with the world of people and events it is intended to represent. The task of therapy is to provide evidence of the world's conformity to the individual's model, thus validating that individual's constructs. Because a person's disordered thinking is primarily concerned with the way they construe people, it must be done personally; because it is the result of experience over a considerable time, it must be done systematically, or 'serially`.
pp.171- 172.

Note to self: 'It is' :: 'It is - as if ?'. p.166.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

I	I
Greek theatre masks	Institutional masking

Grainger, R. Dramatherapy and thought-disorder. Chapter 11. In Jennings, S. (Ed.), (1992) Dramatherapy. Theory and Practice 2. London: Routledge.

(Apologies, punctuation in the above may not be accurate, and I no longer have the text.)

Frayn - on maths

"Pure arithmetic is not about particular things but about particular relations between things. Algebra preserves an even loftier detachment from the world. It is not about relations between things - it about relations between relations. Numbers are variables that can be quantified in the physical world. Algebraic terms are variables that can be quantified in the world of numbers." pp.154-155.

Frayn, Michael (2006). The human touch: our part in the creation of a universe. 'Fingerhold', Chapter 5. London: Faber & Faber. pp.139-170.

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

human	TOUCH
... human human  human  human human ...	Don't you dare! Yes, please do!

body & soul - Book: Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy

Near the end now of Braga & Carvalho's (2021) Philosophy of care on page 318 I came across:

"When we come up against the demon of acedia, then with tears let us divide the soul and have one part offer consolation and other receive consolation. (Pr. 27)."

Individual

|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

soul	body

- and a footnote (42):

"The generally accepted treatment for depression, with or without pharmaceutical intervention, is gentleness. Eat well, avoid stress, do not feel guilty; be kind to yourself, seek quiet but real amusement, rest a lot. But such a regime would find little sympathy with the spiritual directors of those afflicted with accidie. The classic cure for accidie is penance, a strict 'rule' of life, self-discipline and hard work" (Maitland, 2008: 113).

Maitland, Sara. 2008. A Book of Silence. London: Granta.

Interesting, the similarity between afflicted and affected?

A lot more to follow ...

Carvalho, C.A.S. Acedia and Its Care. In J. Braga & M. Santiago de Carvalho (Eds.), Philosophy of care: New approaches to vulnerability, otherness therapy. Springer. pp.297-323.

Abbrev. (Pr. 27) Evagrius of Pontus. 1971. Praktikos. ...

With thanks to Springer for hard copy - helps greatly. 👀

Buses, Eddie Stobart, Lego and Laughing Boy

Individual
|

   INTERPERSONAL   :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

person - personality personal duty of care emotional care experience	buses - Eddie Stobart - Lego space - time 1-day Physical care  Another day the sound of laughter

Source: Twi/X + image:

Whistlestop London visit for @JSTheatre #LaughingBoy, a complete must watch. So lovely to meet the cast and behind the scenes magicians, and see so many #JusticeforLB’ers in the flesh.

Bought a copy of @BylineTimes to read on train home, also @RoseUnwin @sarasiobhan play text 👊 https://t.co/VjLJbBt7M0 pic.twitter.com/A1CrzHliGL

— GeorgeJulian (@GeorgeJulian) April 26, 2024

Hodges' model: An architectonic sense-making tool

"Translation by architectonic map is a sense-making tool inspired by Peirce's use of the term, architectonic, to describe the systematic form of a body of knowledge. Theorists create a structure around which their approach to understanding human conduct is built. Familiarity with the overall structure facilitates generalized discourse among those interested in the framework. An architectonic map identifies all the major components of a scientific text or canon, including its assumptions, concepts, propositions, and theories, and the paths connecting these components. Mapping architectonics is an intersemiotic (across two different types of sign systems) translation process when the translation product is a diagram, and an intralingual process when the product is a narrative." p.111. (My emphasis)

"Models employ symbols (terms and their meanings), but also have an iconic function (a design meant to represent a object or process in important ways) and an indexical function (notation indicating and pointing to persons, processes, relationships, organizations)." p.112. 

Individual
|

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

person concepts critical thinking	person maps framework
languages dialogue - narrative shared understanding social worlds* anthropology	organisations communities of practice professions, scope of practice *translation here too: policy, power, status ...

Forte, J. A. (2009). Interactionist Practice: A Signs, Symbols, and Social Worlds Approach. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 32(1), 86–122. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23263237

"Rational Concepts" 1977 by Norman Dilworth

"Rational Concepts" 1977 by Norman Dilworth. Tate
© Norman Dilworth

Hodges' model: seeking rational* concepts to deliver person-centred, integrated care and make sense of subjective and objective realities.

ARTIST Norman Dilworth 1931 – 2023 [Born in Orrell, Wigan]
MEDIUM Screenprint on paper
DIMENSIONS Image: 600 × 600 mm
COLLECTION Tate
ACQUISITION Purchased 1981
REFERENCE P07424

[NOT ON DISPLAY]

Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dilworth-rational-concepts-p07424

*Irrational too.

I sketched Dilworth's image on 5th March at Tate Liverpool, the exhibition: "Keywords. Art, Society and Culture in 1980s Britain" from 28 Feb 2014 to 11 May 2014.

Being Reflective and Reflexive

INDIVIDUAL

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

"Benner suggested five levels of practice, from the rule-bound novice or beginner who nurses literally 'by the book', following non-contextualised rule-governed procedures, to the expert who: 'with an enormous background of experience, now has an intuitive grasp of each situation and zeroes in on the accurate region of the problem without wasteful consideration of a large range of unfruitful, alternative diagnoses and solutions.'" (Benner 1984) p.22. "A moral agent is any being who is capable of thinking, deciding, and acting in accordance with moral standards and rules. A moral agent may not always fulfill the requirements of a moral standard or rule; that is, he need not be morally perfect. But he must have the capacity to judge himself on the basis of such criterion and to use it as a guide to his choice and conduct." (Taylor 1975, p.6).

"When the practitioner reflects in action in  a case he perceives as unique, paying attention to the phenomena and surfacing his intuitive understanding of them, his experience is at once exploratory, move testing, and hypothesis testing. The three functions are fulfilled by the very same actions. And from this fact follows the distinctive character of experimenting in practice." (Schon 1987). p.27. "When someone reflects-in-action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique, but constructs a new theory of the unique case . . . because his experimenting is a kind of action, implementation is built into his inquiry."  (Schon 1983) p.28.

Transforming Nursing Through Reflective Practice

"This approach approach represents a new call for the: '.. integration of reason and emotion, the personal and the political, the public and the private. In moral theory ... this is part of a general effort to reverse the segregation of intellectual inquiry from personal experience in moral deliberation.'" (Lauritzen 1996,p.6) p.37. "Greene (1998) noted: 'To become [different] is not simply to will oneself to change. There is the question of being able to accomplish what one chooses to do. It is not only a matter of the capacity to choose; it is a matter of the power to act to attain one's purposes. We shall be concerned with intelligent choosing and, yes, humane choosing, as we shall be with the kinds of conditions necessary for empowering persons to act on what they choose." (p.3) p.52.

Johns, C. and Freshwater, D. (eds). (1998). Transforming Nursing Through Reflective Practice. London: Blackwell Science. [1st edition.]

Chapter 2 Rolfe. Reflective and Reflexive Nursing Practice. pp.21-31.

Chapter 3 Ferrell. Customary vs Reflective Morality. pp.32-42.

Chapter 5 Johns and Hardy. Voice as a Metaphor for Transformation. pp.51-61.

Book review ii "Human Landscapes: Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology"

When I have a book to review I need a hard copy - too much screen already - and while I hope the review is worth the author's and publisher's kind engagement my purpose includes gathering insights and evidence to support the project here.

Back in July I lost this book (OK I fessed up). I've searched ... and must have left it somewhere! This is a great loss.*

Human Landscapes

Thankfully, Roberta forwarded an early pdf, and I'm enjoying an informed and challenging read:

The author's task:

"... only a few scholars have sought to outline a philosophical anthropology through a pragmatist lens." p.8.

Distracted, as ever, I'm making progress and can see an author who is:

- embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended (p.7) - in this subject matter.

I'm going backwards from post i, but I commented on this:

"Even if Michael Quante’s proposal is not grounded in Pragmatism, I agree with his claim that, in order to be pragmatistic, a philosophical anthropology should assume that each concept or theory requires questions like: “How is this related to human action? What place does it have in the context of our
actions? (2018, 22)." p.15.

In the context here, this is precisely the role of Hodges' model, at the conceptual level - placement in the care domains, and in theory, care approach (context), philosophy. I like Dreon's focus on evaluation too, and the fact that an example is the impact of COVID on education and the resort and reliance of online learning.

Dreon concentrates on the organism and the environment (a key debate) from across the literature, and discusses concepts that are notoriously problematic, terms like, sensibility, and human nature.

"The situation is particularly complex because, evidently, this is not a merely
theoretical issue; rather, it has serious existential implications, both moral
and political." p.17.

Reading, I instantly thought of the social determinants of health [SDoH], moving away from reductive explanations. But the SDoH are precarious in the extent to which they will affect policy, and give rise to specific metrics - similarly to the sustainable development goals [SDGs]. These have a pragmatic and clearly anthropocentric quality about them. As Dreon notes the oppositions and dichotomies (very quickly as per post i) these policies 'light up' the humanistic domains. As health professionals and educators we can shout, warm, warmer, colder ... to the policy makers (and currently the 'purse' holders).

A 'good' book reassures you about what you've read - Whorf, time, Hopi; but also points to what you might like to read:

"In his entry for the Encyclopaedia, Dewey claims that isolating
the allegedly native and original constitution of human nature is possible
only through the assumption of a static point of view on it, for example,
by privileging features at birth over traits characterizing the intrauterine
past or the organism’s future development and adulthood." p.19.

Bubbles: Spheres I by Peter Sloterdijk, Wieland Hoban (Translator) - my emphasis above.

My .pdf copy is littered with comments where I (inevitably) read evidence in support of h2cm. I don't want to dilute Dreon's purpose, which is comprehensive (for me) in referencing and critical analysis of the latest thought. But if Roberta and Suny Press will (please) forgive me for losing the hard-copy hopefully they can see why I draw attention to the following:

"Grene was very careful to avoid reducing the relationship between biological factors and culture to causal dependence: she preferred to speak of a widespread dependence of sociocultural life on biophysical reality and to consider the relation as an “anthropological circle” (Peterson 2010)." p.24.

 INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

sustainable mindset (volunteered - incentivised)	"biophysical reality"
"sociocultural life"	circular economy

There are many circles, not just at work, but circles that need to work.

More to follow - as I pick up speed ...

Dreon R. (2022) Human landscapes. Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology. Suny Press, Albany.

https://sunypress.edu/Books/H/Human-Landscapes

*Looking at the photo, the table looks like a Booths cafe? I have phoned them and elsewhere - no joy. :-(

Book review - "Human Landscapes: Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology"

'After Ethnos', a previous book review was an enjoyable challenge. As a nurse, you are, to a certain extent several disciplines all rolled into one, sociologist, psychologist, diplomat, anthropologist ... but After Ethnos and now Dreon's 'Human Landscapes' bring their own demands.

If it was experiment that attracted me to Tobias Rees's book, Dreon's title works on two levels.

Hodges' model anticipates different 'landscapes'. The model also provides a lesson in pragmatism (another post) with pragmatism identified as a method to research Hodges' model.

On health care education programmes, how often do we write of human nature, cognition, or cognitive processes, qualitative and quantitative, subjective and objective? How quickly do we present ourselves, and the readers of assignments with dichotomies, dualities, and polarities?

Just 40 pages in they are here in expected and welcome abundance. I clearly have some reading to do [ that's why it's a review! :-) ] and from reading, much to critique in my differentiation between phenomena and as concepts presented here on W2tQ.

"... the conceptual framework for my approach to human nature is represented by cultural naturalism— that is, a nonreductive form of naturalism that assumes culture to be continuous with nature, rooted in the very organic and environmental conditions of human life, and yet irreducible to the mere association of preexisting resources." p.23

Human landscapes

"Nonetheless, even if we wish to focus on a theoretical analysis of the concept, the idea of human nature seems to display a tangle of problems, punctuated by distinctions that could be useful when treated as functional and connected to specific contexts, but which are actually turned into dogmatic oppositions. One first form of dualism concerns the opposition between the innate and the acquired, between the allegedly innate equipment existing on the genetic or neural level and the properties and ways of behaving this is assumed to give rise to. To give but one example, based on Chomsky’s influential hypothesis, the idea of a neural program for producing grammar encoded in our genes has been assumed to be an efficient (and sometimes sufficient) cause for specific linguistic practices. From this point of view, nurture, culture, and institutions seem to be something completely different from nature, since they supervene on an already fixed material substratum as an adjunct." pp.17-18.

"Taking this or that snapshot of a human could be a useful intellectual expedient in specific circumstances, but “[b]iologically all growth is modification and all organs have to be treated and understood as developments out of something else and as pointing forward to still something else” (Dewey 1985b, 32–33)." pp.19-20.

"I believe that the conceptual opposition between subjective and objective qualities is like a net with too wide a mesh, unable to catch the complexity of our interactions with the world. The problem, I would argue, is that this opposition often involves the idea that qualitative experience is a private, purely first-person experience, consequently posing problems of public access." pp.33-34.

"The section 2 will focus on the Pragmatists’ conception of experience as something broader and richer than cognition—because, in turn, cognition is understood as a specific phase within experience, responding to the needs and problems emerging from qualitative experience and ultimately returning to it. In this approach, perception through the senses and pure sense data are reframed within the context of inquiry, as features that are pointed out, discriminated, and isolated from a more holistic field of experience according to an
idea, namely, the anticipation of the possible consequences of an action or a certain assumption." pp.37-38.

Not sure why, but at one point, reading prompted consideration of: 'lived experience' and the role of peer support workers?

Starting the book, Dreon is (naturally) laying out the scope and structure of the book. Not just a preface but first chapter, and it looks like - the second. As I get more accustomed to Dreon's style (I'm a nurse remember) there are valuable lessons in laying out arguments, with more reward to follow I trust. I have a sense of a wall, not an impenetrable one, but one that is well argued - the blocks shifting into place - even if I cannot grasp their true significance to specialists in this field.

More to follow.

Dreon R. (2022) Human landscapes. Contributions to a pragmatist anthropology. Suny Press, Albany.

Many thanks to Roberta and Suny Press for my copy (confession to follow).

"All in the Mind" (and model): Ambiguous Loss

"Have you ever lost a loved one who was still a part of your life in some way? Did it leave you feeling confused or frozen about how to continue with life? Claudia Hammond examines the distressing phenomenon known as ambiguous loss – the enormous challenge of dealing with a loss when you aren’t sure what’s happened, leaving you searching for answers, unable to move on." 

BBC Radio 4 "All in the Mind" 1st December, 2020 (Available for one year)

 individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

psychological ambiguous loss ambivalence, grief, loss guilt, reality, meaning BOTH-AND thinking -	physical ambiguous loss a body is missing head injury - the impact of dementia on a person

 

Contextual and other forms of Collapse ...

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

"I will get through this."

what is invisible

"Nowadays, digital technology is transforming our lives at an accelerating pace. This sometimes feels wildly liberating. But it is often terrifying too, because cyberspace is so disorientating. More specifically, in the cyberworld there is a constant problem of what anthropologists call "context collapse": it is hard to discern the contours of social interactions because the factors that used to frame our cultural lives are only half-present".

"We will get through this together."

my emphasis


At times such as this - the COVID19 pandemic - we are all trying to maintain the semblance of  "I will get through this." and "We will get through this together"; trying to self-care and in-so-doing care for friends, family, community and the population.

At times when our cultural and personal lives are not even 'half-present', there is an increased need for sense-making, for balance and orientation. While the tool we seek is a vaccine and preparedness for the next one, there are tools to reduce the impact of the several forms of collapse we are presently  experiencing.


Please see also initial post:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2019/10/liminality-in-how-ancient-rituals-help.html

- sourced from and acknowledged Gillian Tett:

Tett, Gillian. 2019, How ancient rituals help us adapt to the digital age. FT Weekend, Magazine, June 29-30, p.46.

Orientation - in The World of Care

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - population

?	Antony Gormley, Lost Horizon I, 2008
?	?

Royal Academy of Arts, Antony Gormley

See also:
Edges, Walls, Boundaries, Faces, Corners, Frames... c/o Antony Gormley

Self-care - Care of other (Mother Earth)

'Maze Maker' by Michael Ayrton

1965, pencil and watercolour on paper 34.9 x25.4 cm

Negotiating the Healthcare Maze

SELF - individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group - POPULATION

*Tate Etc. issue 44: Autumn 2018, p.84.

Image: Christie's

*Thanks to Tate Liverpool's Cafe for art magazines for reading...

Too much Information...

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

Perception Stimuli Concentration - 'Noise' - Attention Safety - Salience - Space Anxiety - Disposition - Mood Sense-making Models of Communication TOO MUCH - information - TOO LITTLE "How much do you have?"
	Activism Policy Employment Awareness Employer Engagement Equality Inclusion

My source: Post and image c/o BBC Radio 4 - Digital Human

Scope, Space, Nursing, Informatics: Fusion II (care)

After Paolo Perrotta (see post January 20, 2012):

and Paolo Perrotta, (2010). Metaprogramming Ruby, The Pragmatic Bookshelf. p.75.


Imagine being a care coordinator making sense and sense making (Dervin, 2005) your way through a new health and social care referral: here is the care program(me) approach. You jump from care problem, to strength, to further assessment question ... until the care domain priority is resolved. A decision point. That's the initial scope (and in an urgent / crisis situation this is resolved in an instant).

The scope is not defined in a single program, but several in parallel. This is why health and social care is often described as complex. You find yourself in a complex. At this decision point you are at the center of a range of local variables.

You can see bindings all over the scope. p.75.

There are assumptions, hypotheses and bits of data yet to be fully apprehended. It's hard but vital to be aware of what is objective and what is subjective. Why?

Raise your head, and you see that you're standing within an object,

[ a very special object ]

with its own methods and instance variables; that's the current object, also known as self. p.75.

To your immediate left and forward there are instance variables: beliefs, choices, motivation, aspirations, memories ... and the unique ability of this self to use its methods to communicate and interact with other selves, the world and future. You notice a problem. Many of the methods you might expect are not intact. There is a problem with the capacity of memory. Where there should be several parameters in sequence: there is. One. This may even then be lacking. Reading and writing is a problem here.

To the right and forward there is a monthly weight chart, a medication administration chart, BP and pulse are also recorded. There is a history of falls, a fractured femur, and bruising. There is a diagnosis - an inguinal hernia. Two postcodes have you momentarily perplexed. Ah, one is static 'home'; the other is current location and that's a close to home telecare mediated match.
 
Turning first to your right and over your shoulder there is an issue with care management and wandering at night: a vulnerability for this person. Another instance variable then flags mental capacity for a that hernia which needs repair. Respite care vouchers have been issued, but the year's allocation remain unused.

Next, turning around to your left there are details of next of kin and the fact that the carer involved is under a great deal of stress.

Further away, you see the tree of constants so clear that you could mark your current position on a map. p.75.

You are in fact encircled by a series of official identifiers. First at 10 o'clock two first names - these are the names that are given. The names for the person, the individual who is the focus of the referral. At two o'clock a key event for this individual their DOB - date of birth. At four o'clock the digits of the NHS number and a local case record number are captured. Completing the "Full name" at 8 o'clock you find a surname, the family name. It's double-barreled too. An explicit effort to preserve and extend family history and lineage.

Squint your eyes, and you can even see a bunch of global variables off in the distance. p.75.

Global variables.

What lies behind them?

It sounds strange to describe the person as an object, even if the context alludes to informatics.
To confirm this object is special. When you think about it though this object, the patient, the person, the individual, this self has a partner: the healthcare professional.

When we say that positive, high quality care values are global that makes sense. They should be: globally. To say they are variable seems to invite poor quality care, slack standards, inequality, inequity. Acknowledging that standards do vary can help ensure vigilance and that high quality care remains the key aspiration for new learners and experts alike. Nursing and other values are then a global variable that need constant attention and governance.

"...the most general and greatest concepts..."

But, although they
[i.e., the most general and greatest concepts]
may not have meaning,
they do make sense,
and it is very sensible
to awaken this sense from
time to time.

Robert Musil
Derr Mann ohne Eigenschaften - 'The Man without Qualities'
(first book), 1924
(translation by Jelke van der Pal)