tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post229181618292208816..comments2023-04-09T05:54:18.997-04:00Comments on Learning Complexity: Essentialism & Connectivismkeith.hamonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-69540877472019182452012-06-02T21:31:01.178-04:002012-06-02T21:31:01.178-04:00Thanks for the references to both Aquinas and Kauf...Thanks for the references to both Aquinas and Kaufman. I will try to follow up with both.<br><br>I particularly appreciate Scott Leslie's connection of essentialism to the heart of Western thought and the heart of Western language. It is very difficult to speak at any length without resorting to essentialist and dualist terms. I think this is one reason Deleuze and Guattari wrote in the strained style they developed for <i>A Thousand Plateaus</i>. Of course, they were also just having fun, but they definitely wanted to avoid essentialist and dualist language as much as possible, and they realized that they could hardly use standard French (or English) to do it.<br><br>So now I'll be silent. :-)Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-52527325271951303432012-05-31T13:54:13.182-04:002012-05-31T13:54:13.182-04:00Can I suggest that the answer is hidden behind you...Can I suggest that the answer is hidden behind your use of the words "I don't think it exists" - you've fallen (as we all always do) back into dualism (something either must be or must not be and can't be both) when what you are describing, emergence and supervenience (look it up), speak to how scale and meaning are pointing us towards non-dualism (something can be both/neither *at the same time*). I highly recommend reading any of Stewart Kaufman's work in this regard (e.g. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman06/kauffman06_index.html is a great introduction.)<br><br>What you call "essentialism" I think of as Aristotle's "law of the excluded middle" - the first piece of logic that went on to define Western thought and its successes. It is so clearly not "wrong" - its results are everywhere around you, and indeed for English speakers especially to think there is anything that doesn't follow this law seems non-sensical. And yet... we are beginning to sense (and I believe this is across many, many disciplines, and isn't that new - has been dawning in the West for at least a 100 years) that it is a way of knowing that constructs identity through division and difference, not relation. And it is not that constructing identity through relation is right where the other is wrong, but it is a different way of knowing that brings different results. Is there a "self"? Of course Hood is right, that we're "output of a multitude of unconscious processes." And of course, his very speaking of this seems laughably wrong. But how can this be? Because they are both equally right/wrong, and if you need to collapse it one way or another (which to act, you do) then you'll get a different set of results. But you can simply hold them, as you say "dancing." <br><br>I appreciate what you are trying to grapple with here. It is very hard to communicate because once we do so in language (surprise!) we're back in dualism. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."Scott Lesliehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06559733363363982228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-79580750638987410192012-05-25T14:21:08.841-04:002012-05-25T14:21:08.841-04:00Something short yet quite insightful into this dis...Something short yet quite insightful into this discussion is chapter 1 of Thomas Aquinas' <i>On Being and Essence</i>. In it, he talks about the broader topic of being and couches his discussion of essence within it. In other words, he understands what a things is (essence) in terms of what is (being). Essence is being in terms of its definition of genus and species (example: the genus of human is animal and the specific difference is rational). Quiddity, which he introduces here as well, is being concerning the same but as related to the intellect. This is not a subjective idea; rather, it is basically what the intellect grasps from the thing in reality, its essence as intellectually held. <br><br>The thing that is hard for us moderns to get about this medieval way of thinking is that for Aquinas, what is in the mind and what is outside the mind is the same thing. The mind does not have a copy of the thing it knows; it possesses the thing itself. You might think, “Isn’t what we have in the mind simply different for everyone under the conventional gui8se of it being the same and therefore becomes an excuse for abuse?” This concern has nothing to do with the quiddity per se; it is rather a moral error of judgment. There are human beings, and we know them as such because we have intellects that can grasp the quiddity of humanness. But how we treat human beings is a matter of imposing or denying them treatment that is becoming to them as human beings. Such behavior is recognized as wrong precisely because we have a firm grasp on their humanity, not in spite of it. We would not even be able to recognize inhumane treatment of others unless we could see them as humans in the first place.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-71699137140674662322012-05-23T08:28:48.719-04:002012-05-23T08:28:48.719-04:00Thanks for reading, Susan, and thanks even more fo...Thanks for reading, Susan, and thanks even more for curating me in <a href="http://www.scoop.it/t/connectivism" rel="nofollow">Scoop.it</a>.<br><br>The connection to McLuhan is just right, I think, and if I had to chose a quote for Connectivism, then it might be something like <i>Knowledge is a network phenomenon</i>.<br><br>It seems to me that most all of the discussion about Connectivism, including Siemens' list of characteristics, connect back to this one insight. But I'm still looking.Keith Hamonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08404376705918243534noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4717220359532645973.post-53498741416493650122012-05-23T05:07:02.216-04:002012-05-23T05:07:02.216-04:00Brilliant thoughts Keith. You certainly have my ne...Brilliant thoughts Keith. You certainly have my neurons busy! <br>I wonder if somehow your message ties into the famous quote of Marshall McLuhan, "The medium is the message".<br>Could we create a similar phrase for Connectivism?Susan Bainbridgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04517712804073312889noreply@blogger.com