| • |
Chapter 4: “Printing and the Rupture of Classification”
|
| p. 88 |
here and throughout the book, Hobart & Schiffman
remind us of our “immersion in typographic culture” and the constitutive
nature of that immersion
|
| 89 |
one of the strongest symptoms of their
Whiggish, teleological approach to history (although they clearly
know better) is their constant and unexamined evocation of the rhetoric
and ideology of “advancement,” e.g., their unquestioned participation
in the narrative of Renaissance “advancement” and of “invention”
implicitly and explicitly (and see pp. 96 and 98), they mistakenly
dismissive rhetoric as merely persuasive – other views include the
recognition that rhetoric involves the formation and maintenance
of communities
|
| 90 |
the animating idea behind this second section of their
book is that the spread of printing marks “a divide separating the
classificatory view of the world characteristic of literacy from an
analytical vision born of numeracy”
|
| 91 |
good note of the codex and its facilitation of random
access
|
| 92ff |
theirs is a very useful discussion of the glossed manuscript and
the summa
as noted in the earlier study guide, beware of their constant use
of the content/conduit distinction
|
| 96 |
one of the ironies of the book is their defense of rhetoric here,
despite their underestimation of its use and value
their discussion of Aristotle suggests how it is that our somewhat
naïve concept of the supposed “marketplace of ideas” developed –
the concept is naïve especially insofar that it ignores power and
the limitation of the kinds of voices that can participate
appallingly, they dismiss the Romans as a “people of simple peasant
origin” – how patronizing and how blind they are to their own Hellenic
biases!
|
| 98 |
their discussion of commonplaces, while somewhat limited,
is very useful for demonstrating the power of rhetoric for the formation
of audience and community
|
| 101 |
primarily because of their lack of training in the
social sciences, Hobart & Schiffman refer a bit too easily to
the concept of “relativism” and give their reader no indication of
the maelstrom revolving around it
|
| 103 |
a useful paragraph on the development of page numbers,
indexes, and the like
|
| 105 |
here they use the term “thick description,” primarily
identified with anthropologist Clifford Geertz; such description is
essential for understanding any community and is based on empirical,
holistic, ethnomethodologically-grounded observation. Nardi and O’Day
(1999), the other textbook, rely on the technique, as do most social
scientists who study information technologies.
|
| 106 |
their use of the locution “[a] mind thus incarcerated”
in discussing Montaigne evokes the subject/object dichotomy based
in, among other things, the Greek and Pauline denigration of the physical
and a belief that personhood involved some essential “self” trapped
in a body.
|
| 107 |
Hobart & Schiffman’s description of Montaigne’s
search for a secure base for knowledge recalls a discussion in research
methods that, despite the modernist claim to the contrary, there is
no Archimedean Point from which the social observer can pretend not
to be part of that which is observed. This point is a major epistemological
controversy in modern scientific methods, and readers should be reminded
of it.
|
| |
BE (pp. 283-285)
|
| 283f |
the history of printing is essential to our field – if you have
not yet seen the sources they cite, take the time to do so during
your program at GSLIS. Eisenstein is especially useful. Those
of you interested in the topic, not just those with special interest
in more “humanist” topics, should take one of Don Davis’ courses
in the history of our field.
Here and throughout, their use of the term “effects” is more than
a bit troublesome. While the concept has real explanatory merit,
it tends to support a view that we are passive recipients of technologies
and that local circumstance does not have a defining influence on
the use, adaptation, and integration of technologies. Again, this
point will surface in Nardi and O’Day a bit more explicitly.
|
| • |
Chapter 5: “Numeracy, Analysis, and the Reintegration
of Knowledge”
|
| 113ff |
perhaps the most fundamental aspect of Hobart &
Schiffman’s argument in this middle section of the book is their description
of Descartes’ proposal for a new sort of abstract thinking, based
on mathematics and mathematical reasoning
|
| 115 |
the strongest tool of this mode of thought
was the symbolic language of the emerging mathematics we now recognize
as modern
as noted in the first study guide, Hobart & Schiffman put a
misplaced emphasis on the turning away from experience that literacy
and computation supposedly support
|
| 116ff |
the concepts of correspondence (cardinal principle
or “nomination”) and recurrence (ordinal principle or rank) are quite
useful and are among the strengths of this section of the book – in
your studies you will encounter these principles again, if you have
not already, in the discussion of levels of measurement
|
| 121 |
similarly with the concept of positional counting or place-holding
– although their claim that it might be the “’most successful intellectual
innovation ever made on our planet’” (Barrow, Pi in the Sky,
1992, p. 92) is overblown – what about language, writing, reading
. . .?
the concept of zero is similarly fundamental
|
| 122 |
pay special attention to the status of “algorithmic techniques”
and “algorithm” in Hobart & Schiffman’s argument generally as
well as in this particular chapter and section of the book
focus as well upon the discussion of the (often obscure) origins
and diffusion of mathematical symbols
|
| 123 |
their evocation of the differences between modern,
abstract mathematics (“’relation mathematics’”) and pre-modern, concrete
mathematics (“’thing-mathematics’”) is especially worth considering.
It gives us some specific insight into how we think, especially about
dynamic, process-oriented ways, but it still falls prey to the book’s
dismissive attitude to our cultural forebears and to Hobart &
Schiffman’s rather naïve empiricist epistemology
|
| 124ff |
the remarkable role that François Viète played in the
development of symbolized algebra is worth a close look
|
| 125 |
chief among his contributions was the combination of
geometric and algebraic methods
|
| 126 |
as elsewhere, Hobart & Schiffman use the inexplicable
“container talk” to describe mathematical symbols – why they do not
say symbols are signs or representations is well beyond me ;~)!!!
|
| 127 |
of course, Descartes went farther still
than Viète by uniting Euclidean geometry and symbolic algebra through
the development of coordinate geometry, what we colloquially call
graphs with x- and y-coordinates (and sometimes more) – also note
their mention of Pierre de Fermat
read the material about ordered pairs closely – it is of importance
in and of itself, of course, but it also sets up the latter stages
of their argument about the calculus, maps, and sub-atomic physics
|
| 136f |
make note of their mention of the Cartesian tree of
knowledge, shared by the French philosophes, and its subsequent
utility for the encyclopedic project
|
| |
BE (pp. 285-287)
|
| 285 |
Hobart & Schiffman say that “[t]o date there exists no major
study that interprets numeracy and mathematics as information technology
in the manner we have adopted” – why? What does that say about
the strengths and weaknesses of their approach?
They identify many of the major works in the history of numeracy
and mathematics – although there is not as much controversy about
this topic as there is about the meaning of literacy, it, too, is
characterized by radically different schools of thought and factions
|
| 286 |
the concept of a mechanical, numerically-describable
cosmos is central to the modern perspective and the basis of the post-modernist
reaction to it. Hobart & Schiffman are especially useful in giving
us insight into the constituent parts of the modernist point of view
– read them carefully and follow their citations as your interests
and expertise allow
|
| • |
Chapter 6: “The Analytical World Map”
|
| 147 |
unfortunately, they invoke the concept
of the “discovery” of the calculus – there is a fundamental and
radical rift among intellectual and cultural historians about whether
mathematics is developed or discovered. Hobart & Schiffman
cannot simply pass over this rift without doing their reader a major
disservice.
Further, here as elsewhere, they use a particularly impoverished
idea of information: “the content of our exchanges with the outer
world.” As should be clear from the other study material, this
supposed definition of information is inadequate in at least two
major ways: (1) how can exchanges have “content”? and (2) it presumes
an absolute dichotomy between the self and the “outside world.”
Hobart & Schiffman’s epistemological and methodological clumsiness
is much too strong at times – this is one of them.
|
| 148ff |
the discussion of Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert is
crucial to their argument and should be part of the ordinary knowledge
of any information professional. While we may quibble with elements
of their discussion, it is quite valuable.
Recall the power and limitations of the metaphor of the tree of
knowledge, for the encyclopedists as well as for Descartes
|
| 149 |
spend some time considering the hierarchic nature of
encyclopedic arrangement and the other encyclopedic metaphor of the
map of knowledge
|
| 151 |
Leonard Euler is a pivotal figure in the history of
mathematics, especially his convention for denoting a function, i.e.,
y = f(x)
|
| 151ff |
one of the most important concepts that you can take
away from this section of the book is its emphasis on the calculus
as a dynamic system able to compare variations in rates of change
– this is a remarkable and pivotal achievement.
|
| 154 |
here and elsewhere, be certain to take the time to read
the argument and integrate the text with the figures – it’s well worth
your time.
|
| 155 |
Their mention of determining the rate of change at a
given moment is, of course, evocative of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty
(or Indeterminacy) Principle. It also encapsulates the dilemma of
observation: how to describe a changing, dynamic phenomenon.
|
| 159 |
this and related concepts are brought together in the
notion that symbols in the calculus and modern mathematics “stand
for procedures, not merely things or objects.” A superb point, but
also remember the warning about their dismissive attitude toward earlier
cultural expressions that, according to them, were too tied to things.
|
| 160 |
for Hobart & Schiffman (and many others), the two
“critical components of the analytical vision and of the modern information
age” are formulas and algorithms.
|
| 162 |
as throughout this chapter, the reductive vision of
the modern, analytical point of view is emphasized
|
| 166 |
a good reminder that the bases of analysis also grounded
the encyclopedic vision and that the philosophes believed that
“these principles issued from the faculties of the human soul or mind”
– especially important are reduction and analysis
|
| 171 |
reductionism was important because it “provided closure
to the process of exhaustive information gathering”
|
| |
BE (pp. 287-288)
|
| 287 |
Hobart & Schiffman use the term “Whiggish”; as I
noted in the study guide to the first section of the book and on p.
89 above, they exhibit many of the symptoms of a Whiggish approach
to history – with their tone of inevitability and teleology.
|
| 288 |
be certain to put all of this section’s discussion,
especially that in Chapter 6, into the overall context of the Enlightenment
and its history. As many of you realize, the Enlightenment has been
one of the major intellectual battlegrounds of the past several decades,
especially in the development of post-modernist perspectives. |
