wallpaper dinding

A musical interlude in my exploration of knowledge... In thinking about semiotics, I've been rethinking my interest  in semiotic approaches to music. The core of these approaches is a two-stage approach to looking at the notes: a syntagmatic analysis (which is basically looking at the distribution of regular patterns over time), and a paradigmatic analysis, which is identifying the higher-level...

Much of this thinking about knowledge has been drawn from Gregory Bateson's idea of 'double description': that 'two descriptions are better than one' (for example, binocular vision). The process of identifying the difference between descriptions was closely associated with a process of 'abduction' (a term he took from Peirce), where the significance of something (it's meaning) was connoted, not denoted....

There's something a bit unsatisfying about the concept of language games because clearly there are aspects of those games which are not linguistic in a formal sense. It strikes me that it is the 'game' that counts, and a term which sees language games in the same light as other games (for example, ping-pong) is useful. All utterances in a language game are forms of agency, just as hitting a ping-pong...

What happens to disciplines if we see them morphologically - that is, to see them as accounting for insight into structures and processes of change and development of forms, rather than seeing them as accretions of categorised phenomena? Categorised phenomena are fine - if we can agree on the categories. Then there can be some sort of coordinated activity. But in social science particularly (and very...

Looking now at the knowledge within the institution, lets see how the 4 forms of knowledge I have discussed map.Institutions produce knowledge in various content-forms: strategies, validation documents, personnel files, student records, etc. Such content-forms of knowledge have implicit within them some sort of 'purpose-form' - "we have a strategy because..." - some codification of institutional values....

Whilst all the stuff around inter-disciplinarity is interesting, we tend to study subjects: maths, physics, chemistry, music, geography, drama, etc. It's always struck me that different types of people are attracted to different types of subjects, and that the 'feel' of the study of different subjects is different too. The choice of subject may be biologically, psychologically or socially determined.Is...

Let's assume that the 'goodness' or 'badness' of teaching is objective (the opposing argument that it's relative gets lots of attention - and may be a bit pernicious!)The objection to bad teaching fundamentally must be ethical: there are good and bad ways of treating people - waterboarding is bad for example (whatever George Bush thinks). Indeed the 'simulated drowning' induced by waterboarding has...

Talking about different forms (or maybe dimensions?) of knowledge as 'person-form', 'content-form', 'tool-form' seems rather like Aristotelian causality, where cause has a material-aspect, a formal-aspect, an agency-aspect and a purpose-aspect. Do these relate? If they do, then there's a line of thinking we can go down...maybe:1. agency-aspect of causation   <==> person-form of knowledge...

I'm thinking about the ways knowledge exists in people and the material forms it takes: Educational resources (open or not) are examples of that material form. But we might say that technologies also carry knowledge as well. For example, a Greek vase carries knowledge - explicitly in this case because is contains images of people making music.What's the difference between the knowledge contained in...

Is there something that institutions do which directly relates to the nature of knowledge? Would we talk about physics, chemistry, philosophy, etc if it weren’t for the continued existence of institutions? Do institutions merely produce knowledge or are they tied up in the mechanisms of its existence? If institutions disappeared, would knowledge disappear?Grounds that might give us reason to think...

I remember by predominant desire and expectation of going to university was that I would be thrilled by insight and intelligence. I was lucky - I studied music (the most important discipline on the curriculum!) and I had a wonderful professor, Ian Kemp, whose biography of Michael Tippett I had read prior to going. "The only thing we expect of you is that you like music" he said in his welcome to us....

Engaging in a Learning Activity is a special type of concernful action. Rather in the way we might play a game, we submit to rules and constraints. In fact the game metaphor is useful with regard to learning activities. They demand the somewhat restricted exercise of particular skilled performances (linguistic, maybe technical) in a language game. At its most basic, a teacher asks a question and the...

What happens between our perceptions and our communications? One way of thinking about it is to think of a transducer which converts perceptions into communications (the 'T' in the middle is a transducer)But what does 'amplification' and 'attenuation' mean in the context of perception? Luhmann talks of a 'perception system' (or a psychic system) and a communication system, and how the two relate through...

It is not unusual for things to go wrong in education. Indeed, most things that we try tend merely to 'sort of' work (depending on who you talk to), or conversely 'sort of' not work. And when things go badly wrong, it's tempting to blame things.. or people. But when we 'blame' things we mistakenly think we are identifying the cause. But blame and cause are not the same. Blame is tied up with personal...

I had a thoughtful response from Graham Attwell (see http://www.pontydysgu.org/2010/11/learning-and-instiutions/) after yesterday's post. He said that I "seem to think institutions exist outside social, political and cultural forces in society". Of course I don't - in fact the very opposite. I ought to say, however, that I used to be more sympathetic to Graham's position than I am now, having done...

There is a misconception that pedagogy is about psychology (thanks to Oleg for this insight!). Learning concerns psychology; pedagogy is about the sociology of educational organisation, institutions, etc. For to teach on a one-to-one basis is entirely different than to teach 1 to 100. The pedagogy reflects the organisational situation. It occurs to me that this misconception has deep implications....

Rationality is probably all we've got. But in a world of confusing surface phenomena, where so much sparkles at us and demands our attention, critical rationality can sometimes find itself passed over in favour of a 'this is cool! live in the moment' philosophy. At its most pernicious, such a philosophy will ground itself in a gently or event delightfully confused relativist philosophy, which embrace...