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From: johnsonr@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Rod Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: interesting groupware reference
Summary: really about language and world
Message-ID: <10518@thor.acc.stolaf.edu>
Date: 11 Jan 90 21:50:05 GMT
References: <10211@zodiac.ADS.COM> <5401@levels.sait.edu.au> <40068@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: rcj@um.cc.umich.edu (R o d Johnson)
Organization: St. Olaf College; Northfield, MN
Lines: 55

In article <40068@ames.arc.nasa.gov> lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Hugh LaMaster) writes:
>In article <5401@levels.sait.edu.au> CCML@levels.sait.edu.au (Martin) writes:
>
>>book 'Understanding Computers and Cognition'.  In this work, Winograd
>>and Flores argue that there is no objective world which can be measured.
>>Rather, that the world is created through the language which we use to
>>communicate.
> 
>Did they *really* say this?  If so, it would be an example of relativism of
>the worst sort.  I thought better of T. Winograd.  It reminds me of Edward
>Abbey's "Test".  If someone says they are a solopsist, throw a brick at
>their head.  It they duck, they are a liar.  Is the brick "created through
>the language which we use to communicate"?  Or is it a real, objective, brick?

Sigh.  It drives me mildly crazy when amateur philosophers sling
around terms like "relativism," as if they were some sort of
pejorative, in lieu of an argument against the position cited.

Hugh, there's more to the world then bricks.  Ideas, social relations,
practices, categories, abstractions like `justice', are all part of
the world that human beings talk about and interact with every day.
As Wittgenstein said, the world is all that is the case.  The world is
not just an assemblage of mute globs of matter--it's matter (and more
than matter) as understood, as classified, as experienced; Husserl's
"life-world," if you will.  Wiser men than you or I have called
attention to how critical the role of language is in the construction
of that life-world.  Bricks, beside the fact that they are a product
of culture, which is mediated by language, are comprise a category
that is delineated through language.

The question of solipsism is simply an irrelevancy in this debate, as
is what you appear to be arguing against, which is idealism.  If by
"relativism" you mean linguistic relativity as propounded by von
Humboldt, Sapir and Whorf, among others, well, there are many
varieties of it, not all of which are at all incompatible with your
seemingly realist viewpoint.  The position that the world is
constructed through language has nothing to say about whether bricks
are real or not--but you have to understand the position before you can
assess that.  Read Winograd before you dump on him--he may live up to
your expectations after all.

(In fairness, I must say that the original poster doesn't give the
best summary of the phenomenological position that Winograd and Flores
are espousing.  To say "there is no objective world" is overly strong
and overly simple, I think.)

(straying from groupware--followups elsewhere?)

--

Rod Johnson             Internet: rcj@um.cc.umich.edu
U Michigan Linguistics       (or: johnsonr@thor.acc.stolaf.edu)   
(in exile in Minnesota)    Phone: (507) 645 9804

*** no connection with St. Olaf except as a grateful guest ***