Scepticism and the Sociology of Knowledge

1
All my course outlines and PowerPoint slides
can be downloaded from http//www.freewebs.com/
mphk2/
2
LECTURE 7 Practice Stephen Turner, The
Social Theory of Practices Tradition, Tacit
Knowledge, and Presuppositions, University of
Chicago Press, 1994
3
Preliminaries I Practice
1 Wittgenstein practice vs.
isolated actions, individualism,
rules
4
Preliminaries I Practice
1 Wittgenstein practice vs.
isolated actions, individualism,
rules 2 Marxism Althusser practice
vs. theory, subject
5
3 Phenomenology, Hermeneutics practice vs.
subject
6
3 Phenomenology, Hermeneutics practice vs.
subject 4 Bourdieu, Giddens practice vs.
structure/agency
7
3 Phenomenology, Hermeneutics practice vs.
subject 4 Bourdieu, Giddens practice vs.
structure/agency 5 Ethnomethodology
practice vs. theory
8

• Preliminaries II Marcel Mauss (1872-1950)
• MM studied philosophy and comparative religion.
  
• MM practiced later what today would be called
  anthropology.
• Chair in History of Religion and Uncivilized
  Peoples at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes
  
• Defended and developed the views of Durkheim.

9

• Most important work The Gift
• What power resides in the object given that
  causes its recipient to pay it back?
• the objects are never completely separated
  from the men who exchange them
• To not reciprocate means to lose honour

10

• Mauss distinguishes between three obligations
• 1 giving, the necessary initial step for the
  creation and maintenance of relationships

11

• Mauss distinguishes between three obligations
• 1 giving, the necessary initial step for the
  creation and maintenance of relationships
• 2 receiving, for to refuse is to reject the
  social bond

12

• Mauss distinguishes between three obligations
• 1 giving, the necessary initial step for the
  creation and maintenance of relationships
• 2 receiving, for to refuse is to reject the
  social bond
• 3 reciprocating in order to demonstrate
  ones own liberality, honour and wealth

13

• Mauss distinguishes between three obligations
• 1 giving, the necessary initial step for the
  creation and maintenance of relationships
• 2 receiving, for to refuse is to reject the
  social bond
• 3 reciprocating in order to demonstrate
  ones own liberality, honour and wealth
• Inalienability of the gift from the givers,
  loaned rather than sold and ceded.

14

• Preliminaries III Jakob Burckhardt
• 1818-1897
• Studied in Basel and Berlin, taught in Basel
  from 1858
• The father of cultural history
• Main work
• The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy
  (1860)

15

• Focus the cultural patterns of transition from
  the medieval period to the awakening of the
  modern spirit and creativity of the Renaissance.

16

• Focus the cultural patterns of transition from
  the medieval period to the awakening of the
  modern spirit and creativity of the Renaissance.
• Main point transition from a society in which
  people were primarily members of a class or
  community to a society that idealised the
  self- conscious individual.

17

• both sides of human consciousness the side
  turned to the world and that turned inward
  lay, as it were, beneath a common veil, dreaming
  or half awake. The veil was woven of faith,
  childlike prejudices, and illusion
• It was in Italy that this veil first melted
  into thin air there arose the subjective man
  becomes a self-aware individual and recognises
  himself as such.

18

• Practices as Hidden Entities (Turner, 1994)
• Turners term practice covers
• practice,
• background,
• tacit knowledge,
• tacit rules,
• tradition,
• paradigm,
• worldview,
• ideology, etc.

19

• Sometimes these concepts refer more to hidden
  premises (unconscious intentional states),
• sometimes more to embodied knowledge
  (unconscious and non-intentional).

20
Practices have two elements an individual
element (a.k.a. habit) and a
historical-collective element. A habit has
both an internal and a behavioral element.
21

• Social scientists often use these concepts as
  explanatory concepts that refer to theoretical
  entities (cf. observational vs. theoretical).

22

• Social scientists often use these concepts as
  explanatory concepts that refer to theoretical
  entities (cf. observational vs. theoretical).
• These entities are thought to be needed to
  explain
• agreement in behaviour (including linguistic
  behaviour), or
• the inability to understand others.

23

• No problems arise as long as we use these
  concepts in a descriptive, i.e. observational
  way

• The use of the term practices in a
  descriptive
• way in historical writing to designate patterns
  of behaviour that seem to us to be similar and
  may be said to have been passed along among
  persons who live together seems like an
  innocuous use. (117)

24

• There is always a problem with
  under- determination when we ascribe habits.

25

• There is always a problem with
  under- determination when we ascribe habits.
• Moreover, habits are typically identified
• only by contrast with a familiar social
• phenomenon the Mauss Problem (19).

26

• There is always a problem with
  under- determination when we ascribe habits.
• Moreover, habits are typically identified
• only by contrast with a familiar social
• phenomenon the Mauss Problem (19).
• This can make one feel unsure about their
  objectivity and causal powers.

27

• Practices are often conceptualised
  presuppositions
• One shows that a person presupposes some-
• thing by showing that, if one or more of the
• persons beliefs were made the conclusion of an
  explicit logical argument, premises in addition
  to those explicitly avowed by the reasoner would
• be required to make the argument valid. (29)

28

• Practices are often conceptualised
  presuppositions
• P1 P1
• P2 P2
• --- P3 Presupposition
• C ---
• C
• Invalid Valid

29

• But The same conclusions may be drawn from
  arguments with different premises ... (30)
• And we cannot be sure that individuals with the
  
• same public beliefs hold these because of the
• same sets of presuppositions.
• Here too we have again the Mauss Problem.

30

• Social scientists often postulate practices
• as explanatory entities when they find an
  unanticipated orderliness.
• But such orderliness is again relative to a
• perspective.
• This is the Burckhardt Problem.

31

• The key problem of the practice-family is the
  problem of transmission
• How can a practice be transmitted to a
• (selected) group of individuals?
• How is the same internal hidden entity passed
• on to the members of the group?
• The difficulty is that practice is something
• hidden, invisible behind the visible.

32

• Practices cannot be transmitted through the
• ordinary epistemic routes
• A practice is not a visible or linguistic
  object.
• Our only access to it as inquirers is through
  inference.

33

• Attempted solutions
• a Imitation?
• No, only external behaviour can be imitated.

34

• Attempted solutions
• a Imitation?
• No, only external behaviour can be imitated.
• b Habitualisation?
• Again, only the external part is checked.

35

• Attempted solutions
• a Imitation?
• No, only external behaviour can be imitated.
• b Habitualisation?
• Again, only the external part is checked.
• c Education and discipline?
• Only act on the external behaviour.

36
d On the back of text? Does not solve the
problem either.
37
d On the back of text? Does not solve the
problem either. e Special social
scenarios? Face-to-face, imitation during a
specific age (socialisation), ritual? No
transmission need not deliver sameness.
38
f Identical sub-intentional process?
Not plausible across all meanings and
rules. .
39
f Identical sub-intentional process?
Not plausible across all meanings and
rules. g Tests to check the sameness? Not
available. .
40

• Concepts like tradition and culture face
  additional problems
• .

41

• Concepts like tradition and culture face
  additional problems
• Traditions are invoked to explain the
  persistence
• of public phenomena.
• .

42

• Concepts like tradition and culture face
  additional problems
• Traditions are invoked to explain the
  persistence
• of public phenomena.
• But again, there is the problem of
  under- determination Coincidence? Different
• causes of the persistence?
• .

43

• Concepts like tradition and culture face
  additional problems
• Traditions are invoked to explain the
  persistence
• of public phenomena.
• But again, there is the problem of
  under- determination Coincidence? Different
• causes of the persistence?
• Traditions are also invoked to make sense of
  the difficulty we face when trying to under-
• stand certain texts.
• .

44

• Turners alternative If acting in accordance
  with a tradition is
• acting in accordance with the way of life of
• a community, and if
• the way of life of a community includes
  certain observances, performances and
  activities, and if

45
individual habits and mental habits arise
through engaging in the relevant perform- ances,
nothing need follow with respect to the
causal role or status of practice understood as
a kind of collective fact.
46
All that need follow is this by performing
in certain ways, people acquire habits which
lead them to continue to perform, more or less,
in the same ways. The observances, so to
speak, cause individual habits, not some sort of
collectively shared single habit called a
practice or a way of life,
47
If this is so, the collective or public facts
about traditions or cultural systems of
meaning begin and end with the observances or
public objects themselves. Everything else is
individual there is no collective tacit fact
of the matter at all. (99-100)
48

• Many problems with practice relativism
  disappear once we move to habits.

49

• 2. Habits and Connectionism (Turner 2001, 2002)
• Habits fit well with recent work in cognitive
• science, esp. the idea that the mind is like a
• neural network with its weights, not like a
• rule-book.

50

• 3. Critical Comments (Barnes 2001, Lynch 1997,
  Pickering 1997)
• Pickering insists that there remain legitimate
  uses of practice those that focus only on the
  visible.

51

• 3. Critical Comments (Barnes 2001, Lynch 1997,
  Pickering 1997)
• Pickering insists that there remain legitimate
  uses of practice those that focus only on the
  visible.
• Lynch Turners work threatens work in
  STS/SSK.
• Especially clearly in the case of rules
• tacit rules are stipulated to explain how
• explicit rules are possible.

52

• Barnes
• Turners result is a radical individualism.

53

• Barnes
• Turners result is a radical individualism.
• Riding in formation is more than a cluster
• of individual and private habits.
• A plausible account of riding in formation
• must surely refer to calculation, and even
• creative imagination, on the part of riders
• actively involved in the business of remaining
  coordinated with each other

54
constant adjustment and modification of habit
will be required of them to make this possible.
We must imagine individual riders taking
account of variations in terrain, monitoring the
actions of others and adapting accordingly, even
perhaps imagining future scenarios, for example
the consequences of a possible slow-down at the
front as a slope is encountered, well before
they occur. Only in this way will
coordination be retained and a shared practice
enacted. (23)
55
... a distinction must be marked between the
automatic/habitual and the routine starting the
day with coffee, walking down the stairs to the
street, catching the bus to work, may be daily
routines for an individual, but their
accomplishment will require constant active
modification of what comes automatically or
habitually. Habit actually faces all the
prob- lems identified by Turner as confronting
shared practice.
56

• Turner gives us a false dichotomy
• In the explicitly individualistic view of
  practice
• as diversity, there are so many independent
  individuals moved by habits.
• In the alternative allegedly collectivist
  view of practice as a unity there are so many
  independent individuals moved by a single object
  or essence.
• Neither view can throw light on a simple
  collective routine like riding in formation.

57
What is required to understand a practice of
this kind is not individuals oriented
primarily by their own habits, nor is it
individuals oriented by the same collective
object rather it is human beings oriented to
each other. (24)
58
The Practice Model
Practice

Individuals
Habit1
Habit3
Habit2

Their Behaviour


Behaviour1
Behaviour2
Behaviour3
59
Turners Model
Training
?
Individuals
Habit1
Habit3
Habit2
?
Their Behaviour


Behaviour1
Behaviour2
Behaviour3
60
Barnes Model
?
Individuals
Habit1
Habit3
Habit2
?
Co-ordinated Behaviour
?
?
Behaviour1
Behaviour2
Behaviour3