Dr. Sorin Adam Matei's List: com600

• [The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word.
   Opere Il Saggiatore p. 171.
• To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. ... if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds.

• The digital nature of knowledge starts with Galileo - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2008-05-20

• 3) Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.    

    (4) A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of theory (as people often think) but a vice.
• (2) The actual procedure of science is to operate with conjectures: to jump to conclusions-often after one single observation (as noticed for example by Hume and Born).

• Every genuine scientific theory then, in Popper's view, is  prohibitive, in the sense that it forbids, by implication, particular events or occurrences. As such it can be tested and falsified, but never logically verified.

• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting.
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting.
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting
• I will further restrict this paper to analyzing the interesting component of those theories that Kant has called "synthetic a posteriori propositions" — assertions that refer to the empirical world and are not merely matters of definition.
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting
• A theorist is considered great, not because his theories are true, but because they are interesting
• • You cannot be a complete contrarian, you need to be a moderate iconoclast.
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• • In essence, interesting is that which breaks the routine, that stands out and makes us to reconsider our core assumptions...
• engaging the attention
• Where was the attention before it was engaged by the interesting
• interesting is that it stands out in their attention in contrast to the routinized taken-for-granted world of their everyday lives,
• a new theory will be noticed only when it denies an old truth (proverb, platitude, maxim, adage, saying, commonplace, etc.).
• (1) The author articulates the taken-for-granted assumptions of his imagined audience by reviewing the literature of the particular sub-tradition in question ("It has long been thought . . ."). (2) He adduces one or more propositions that deny what has been traditionally assumed ("But this is false . . ."). (3) He spends the body of the work proving by various methodological devices that the old routinely assumed propositions are wrong while the new ones he has asserted are right ("We have seen instead that . . ."). (4) In conclusion, he suggests the practical consequences of these new propositions for his imagined audience's on-going social research, specifically how they ought to deflect research onto new paths (Further investigation is necessary to . . .).
• • And this, here, my friends is all that research is about.... Reviewing the past progress, contradicting the existing literature and attempting to prove that you have a better way of doing it...
• leave the interesting to the inspired
• An interesting proposition was one that first articulated a phenomenological presumption about the way a particular part of the world had looked, and then denied this phenomenological presumption in the name of truth, that is, in the name of a more profound, more real, more ontological criterion.

  • Now, this is deep and extremely important. However, we can refine it in a more concise manner by saying: Dear friends, what appers to be blueberries are in fact poisonberries, and if you taste them you will see what I mean....
• • The thrust of the explanation here is that the social scientist is in search of structuration, of finding patterns...
• Mead's critique of Watsonian Behaviorism.

  • Mead as disruptive theorist--why is this so?
• Max Weber's assertion in Economy and Society that the stratification system, which was considered at the time he wrote to be monolithic, is in fact composed of the three independent variables of economic class, status prestige, and political power.

  • Weber, a true genius, shows that class can be the product of money, snobbery or political connections, which are independent of each other.
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• Their profound insight is considered especially interesting when these theorists also assert that the fundamental nature (depth structure) of the phenomenon contradicts the surface impression, as, for example, the seemingly continuous appearance of a table is contradicted by the discrete molecules of which it is actually composed
• More generally, we may say that those who assert Type (ii)a propositions are disciples of the Platonic Tradition in which interesting propositions are generated by finding simplicity in the apparently complex; whereas those who assert Type (ii)b propositions are disciples of the Aristotelian Tradition in which interesting propositions are generated by finding complexity in the apparently simple.

  • Very, very important distinction.... Which can be applied to as many theories and ideas as you can name
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• Emile Durkheim's assertion in Suicide that suicide, which was considered at the time he wrote to be a behavior characteristic of an individual, is in fact (more crucially) a process characteristic of a society

  • Brilliant example, which will make a lot of sense for those who have read Suicide...
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• transforming the American assumption-ground and accustoming Americans to expect that many social phenomena would have a psychological basis

  • Can you believe, there was a time when the American public did not believe in the power of the almighty psyche to explain it all, for all time and all people
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• This type of proposition asserts that the real locus of human phenomena is neither the individual level nor the social level, but rather some intermediate social-psychological level. A social-psychological explanation of a phenomenon will be found interesting, however, only when the phenomenon has already been explained both psychologically and sociologically, and the dispute between those who uphold each of these explanations has grown heated.

  • This is another way to say that some phenomena or theories can be explained relationally...
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• Karl Mannheim's assertion in Ideology and Utopia that the ideological limitation and distortion of thought processes, which was considered at the time he wrote to effect only the bourgeois class, in fact effects all social classes.

  • This is an important disctinction, which we do not hear very often and deserves to be discussed over and over again
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• the common tendency today of such divergent sociological schools as ethnomethodology and survey research, as well as Anglo-American anthropology, is to localize assertions and emphasize sub-group variation

  • This is an important distinction. In essence it tells us that the dominant tendency today is to explain everything in terms of particulars, of here and now and to deny the extension of these ideas to great/broad swaths of reality
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• A theorist makes an interesting generalization when he asserts that some property that everyone knows to characterize one social category also characterizes another social category where its existence was not suspected. Freud, for example, tried to show that the sexual impulse was a major influence not only on the behavior of adults (which was fairly obvious), but also on the behavior of children (which was not so obvious).

     

  A theorist makes an interesting localization when he asserts that some property, that is thought to characterize everybody — to be part of human nature — belongs merely to one social category and not others. Edward Hall, for example, tried to show that many problems in inter-cultural contact stem from those in one society believing those in all other societies attach the same meaning to spatial features as they do; whereas in fact the interpretation of crucial aspects of the spatial dimension varied considerably in different societies.

   

  • Interesting generalization vs. localization
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• The New Left historical sociologists, for instance, assert that American society, which was considered at the time they wrote to have been held together in the past by a basic value consensus, has in fact had a long history of disruption, conflict, violence, and incipient disintegration

  • Excellent example of a statement that deal witht the issue of instability of apparent stability. Here, however, the issue is still to be settled. American society was, indeed, extremely stable and very resistant to communist and socialist agitation, despite the great leeway these movements had in America.
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• Example: R. D. Laing's assertion in The Politics of Experience that schizophrenia, which was considered at the time he wrote to be a bad thing, is in fact a good thing.

     

  b. What seems to be a good phenomenon is in reality a bad phenomenon.

     

  Example: Fried rich Nietzsche's assertion in On the Genealogy of Morals that Christian morality, which was considered at the time he wrote to be a good thing, is in fact a bad thing.

  • These are the best two examples of this article....
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• Merton's discussion of manifest and latent functions (1957) is the classic statement of a methodological technique specifically designed to generate interesting propositions. His approach is similar to the one presented here, though confined only to one type of interesting proposition (Type (vi)).

  • Notable, very important to remember.... Merton is a scholar you should definitely read... In fact, we will try to read his work in this class later in the semester...
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• Thus, if a social theorist wishes to counter his audience's appraisal of American Society as great or as awful, he need merely select, to serve as his indicators of the moral worth of American Society as a whole, those of its aspects that are generally considered bad (like pollution, pockets of poverty, materialism, etc.) or those of its aspects that are generally considered good (like technology, average income, abundant consumer goods, etc.)

  • Although this sounds cynical, it only indicates that this exercise can be used for abusing the idea of violating the generally held ideas of the multitudes.
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• Change the standard of comparison and the evaluation of the phenomenon is also likely to change

  • Again, the point here is not that this is what you should do, but that this is what some people can do... And it is awfully easy to do as well...
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• Type (vi)b propositions have radical political implications: one should try to change a seemingly successful social institution that in reality has destructive consequences. In other words, the social theorist claims that a certain social institution, of which his audience is known to approve, actually has consequences, of which his audience is known to disapprove. Popular examples of Type (vi)b propositions would be "Jails really turn out criminals", "Schools really make children stupid", and "Mental hospitals really make people mentally ill."

  • In other words, radical sociology relies on the idea that even when things seem to work the should, they are in fact failing to serve us, due to their hidden, repressive agendas.
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• (Notice that all disputes about the moral worth of American Society as a whole are actually disputes about what aspects of American Society are to be used as indicators for this evaluation and what comparison baselines are to be used to evaluate them. In fact, disputes about the moral worth of all social phenomena can be reduced to disputes involving these same two factors.)

  • The overaching lesson of this section that we shoud not use any one-dimensional, absolute measure for judging the worth of a social phenonmena, but that we should use a trade-offs perspective...
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• August Hollingshead's assertion in Social Class and Mental Illness that social class and mental illness, which were considered at the time he wrote to be uncorrelated, are in fact correlated.

  • Excellent example
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• It is the rare computer correlation that draws attention to a surprising relation among phenomena that everyone did not already expect.
• • An interesting thesis also makes a very, very compelling title...
• The intensive interest generated by the dynamic ambiguity of Type (ix)b propositions encourages their use as inspired titles and catch phrases. "The Lonely Crowd", "The Cold War" (i.e., "The Peaceful War"), and "Poverty in the Midst of Plenty" are all actually Type (ix)b propositions in elliptical form.
• Howard Becker's assertion in Outsiders that the peculiar behavior of some individuals, which was considered at the time he wrote to cause other people to label them deviants, is in fact caused by other people labeling them deviants.

  • Now, isn't this interesting...
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• Alexis de Tocqueville's assertion in The Old Regime and the French Revolution that a social groups desire for revolution, which was considered at the time he wrote to decrease as their standard of living goes up, in fact increases as their standard of living goes up.

  • Or, another way to put it, revolutions are more likely to occur when a social class that was formely repressed is ready to get its final reward.
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• We have seen that an audience finds a proposition interesting not because it tells them some truth they did not already know, but instead because it tells them some truth they thought they already knew was wrong.
• Phenomenology is ontology
• Phenomenology is unrelated to ontology. The audience's response to propositions of this type will be: "That's irrelevant!
• Third, an audience will consider a proposition to be non-interesting if, instead of denying some aspect of their assumption-ground, the proposition denies the whole assumption-ground. (E.g.: "Social factors have no effect on a person's behavior.") In effect, the proposition is saying to its audience: Everything that seems to be the case is not the case at all. Everything you always thought was true is really false. Phenomenology is completely contrary to ontology. T he audience's response to propositions of this type will be: "That's absurd!"
• the mediocre in the social sciences (and probably the natural sciences too) can be defined as those who take the textbook rules of scientific procedures too literally and too exclusively

  • Stay away from this, but not when you want to get tenure...
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• Propositions are interesting or uninteresting only in relation to the assumption-ground of some audience.
• Importance is the mother of Interest even if Refutation is the father.
• Systems begin interestingly enough, but there is much logical and sociological necessity for them not to end that way. One must usually choose between being interesting and being systematic. One cannot easily be both.
• Sociology of the Interesting, the Phenomenology of Sociology

  • A phenomenology of sociology is a sociology of the interesting, now this is truly profound
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• The Sociology of the Interesting, on the other hand, has a much less static, much more dynamic orientation. It focuses on the exact point at which one belief-system is being transformed into another belief-system
• to view most scientists as unwilling to make a major change in the accepted conceptual scheme until some concrete anomaly forces them to is to attribute to most scientists a conservatism and lack of personal ambition that surely cannot be that common a personality characteristic even among natural scientists let alone social scientists

  • Davis' take on Kuhn is not only funny but also magisterial... There is no suposed "group" consensus, all scientists are in search for the one and only, their own, explanation
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• Yet one must be careful not to go too far. There is a fine but definite line between asserting the surprising and asserting the shocking, between the interesting and the absurd

  • Absolutely stunning statement... There is a difference between interesting and absurd, between being daring and being foolish
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• This report should be regarded as an introductory investigation of that residual category of 'genius' that separates the great theorists from the mediocre.

53 more annotations...

• Latent function is an essential tool for understanding society and for generating interesting theories - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• Attention, the statements made in this piece about the level of "interest" to be bestowed to various theories is independent of the validity of verifiability of those same theories. - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• Very astute comment about the power of qualitative vs quantitative statements to attract attention - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• Now, this is interesting in and by itself. - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• Isn't this funny! - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• It is not just random statements that make interesting theoretical assertions, but only counterfactual, counterintuitive assertions. - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• Bottom line, interesting or non-interesting is relevant only in relationship to a specific audience... - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20
• QER - Dr. Sorin Adam Matei on 2009-01-20