The Science of Conceptual Systems - and Hodges' model

Wallis, S.E. The Science of Conceptual Systems: A Progress Report. Found Sci 21, 579–602 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-015-9425-z

From the conclusion:

'The approaches presented here do not provide a ‘‘map’’ for advancing the sciences. Indeed, none is available because we are advancing across that new terrain. What it does provide is a compass suggesting a new and potentially exciting direction to travel. Historically/traditionally, scholars have travelled about the countryside of the social/behavioral land making useful observations and gathering interesting data. They have often staked claims regarding the importance of their terrain. They could not advance more purposefully because they were guided only by intuition. So, they did not know what direction was ‘‘forward’’ although it seemed to have something to do with empirical analysis. Today, with the creation of a new science, we have a new direction.

When we do have a choice between theoretical maps, generally, and metaphorically, this paper suggests that we should choose to create and use roadmaps with many dots connected by many lines; not maps with few disconnected dots.' p.594.

There is also a glossary [pp.594-599] that includes:

'Integral thinking

Understanding (or attempting to understand) the world from a transdisciplinary perspective where those many perspectives are interrelated'

'Integrative propositional analysis (IPA)

Combined processes of qualitative and quantitative analysis involving rigorous hermeneutic deconstruction of propositions found in formal texts including the rigorous reintegration of propositions from those texts following a structured methodology. Also a process of meta-analysis for investigating conceptual systems to determine the Complexity of conceptual systems (diversity of concepts) and the Systemicity of the conceptual system (connectedness between concepts)'

'Mental model 

A representation within one’s mind about how the world works. Useful for understanding and engaging the world and for making predictions'

'Parsimony 

Generally, the understanding that a theory is better when it is smaller. Or, as small as possible while including ideas that are necessary or useful. Ockham’s Razor is a common example'

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

GROUP

more SUBJECTIVE	more OBJECTIVE
QUALITY	QUANTITY

'Reflexive dimensional analysis (RDA) 

A process for creating a unified conceptual system from multiple conceptual systems through a process of categorization, abstraction, dimensionalization, and the identification of causal connections'

'Theory 

An ordered set of assertions. Weick (1989, p. 517. Drawing on Southerland)'

Cited above: 

Weick, K. E. (1989). Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 516–531.

Previously:

terrain : landscape : line-of-sight (with overlap; of interest in itself)

"Mapping Beyond Cartography" - to Situated Cognitive Maps

"... the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities has been partially overtaken by an ‘object turn’ in which relations between things are not primarily considered in spatial terms." pp. 53-54.

Individual
|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

Group

"Tuters (2010), for example, calls for ‘post-locative practices’ that move beyond a ‘mannerist situationism’ to emphasize ‘situated’ rather than located media. This requires replacing ‘the concept of geographic location as the core concept of locativity, with the more relational notion of proximity, not only in relation to place but also in relation to matters-of-concern’ (2012: 275). This shift is advantageous in that it allows that locative media (or some successor form of it) might address relations and phenomena that are not fixed to terra firma, but it also suggests that space has become completely irrelevant, that geographic maps might, as Tuters suggests, be replaced by cognitive maps (2012: 274). p.63.

"... even in a world without the surefooted sense of grip that cartography once provided, I want to suggest that there are other ways by which to find some sense of orientation. In unfamiliar territory and without a map, the wayfarer draws on the tales of travellers who have gone before, surveys the shape of the landscape with an eye for landmarks, builds cairns where there are none, and eventually learns how to triangulate between them and make some kind of map –whether cognitive, sketched or plotted. In a situation in which the maps we increasingly inhabit subject us to a form of colonization, there seems no alternative but to ‘map or be mapped’." p.383.

"For Edward Tufte, computer-generated visualizations of data are simply the latest iteration of a brand of ‘cognitive arts’ that includes maps, alongside mathematical projects, scientific charts and diagrams, and even MRI scans (1990: 40)." P.173.

"Indeed, for Fredric Jameson, post-modernity’s ‘un-map-ability’ is its key defining characteristic: ‘this latest mutation in space—postmodern hyperspace—has finally succeeded in transcending the capacities of the individual human body to locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable external world (1991: 83). This crisis of representation in cartography calls for new kinds of maps; for Jameson, a form of ‘cognitive mapping’ that might allow the individual to locate themselves not just spatially, but economically, culturally and politically." p.82.

Daniel James Frodsham, April 2015. Mapping Beyond Cartography:The Experimental Maps of Artists Working with Locative Media. PhD thesis. University of Exeter. https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10871/19185/FrodshamD_TPC.pdf

Book review: "After Ethnos" ii

COVID and the increased frequency with which the 'collective' has entered our discourse resonates for me, as this disrupts, crystallizes the INDIVIDUAL-GROUP axis of Hodges' model. It is clearer now.

There is an important take-away in: "Ethnology emerged as the "science" of the people without history.." p.9. 

There is an elephant in this book. You hear it in the distance, far away - as in anthropologically, ethnographically in fieldwork. When premoderns and moderns are discussed, colonial attitudes and beliefs of peoples far-away.

Good to see Latour p.12 and leaving the index unwrapped there was a surprise to follow. Which came first I wondered, medical sociology or medical anthropology? There are - inner-disciplinary developments. In the late 1980s - early 90s several anthropologists conducted fieldwork in "domains that were formerly believed to be beyond the scope of anthropological expertise, or interest ... medicine, science, and technology." p.11.

After Ethnos

I related readily to Rees's scene-setting and history on the arrival of 'culture' (1770s) and how the human is conceptualized. Yes, in the age of anthropogenic climate change, would you really want to be a cultural anthropologist? p.14.

Time, really is messed up. The developed majority have opted-in to record history in carbon, not just as it has always been. The future is being written now. 

Anyone familiar with Hodges' model will understand my enthusiasm in reading of 'spaces of being', 'disciplinary significance', and the 'house of knowledge' (yes!). The key to the book overall, Rees calls for a philosophically inclined (another line?) anthropology (after ethnos). p.14.

"To be a philosophically inclined anthropologist is to orient oneself in thinking by way of thinking* - in order to find out if, and if, then in what concrete ways venues of thinking/being are coming into existence." p.16 (with ref.)

*meta-cognition?

Rees devotes chapter 3 on fieldwork, the major expeditions that helped shape anthropology and ethnography. In terms of orientation there is a stage even before the journey to the hinterlands. I have interpreted Hodges' model as a conceptual periplus, a map of the coastline of an unknown land, the foundation and (literal) framework of the house of knowledge, be that, a situation, person, family, a discipline, or culture.

Reading, you appreciate the need for anthropology to revise its intellectual toolkit. 

Yes, as an 'open situation' anthropology is situated, but then so is all humanity (and h2cm)?

 individual 

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

person, self, individuated	SCIENCES, TECHNOLOGY, MEDICINE time - distance - place
people, family, other(s), myths, rituals, magic, history(?), society	a philosophically inclined anthropology APPLY HERE!

 

More to follow ... 

and thank you to Duke University Press for the review copy.

Book review: "After Ethnos" i 

Book review: "After Ethnos" iii

 

Book review: "After Ethnos" iv

 

After Ethnos - acknowledgements