David Rose On Theory As Theological

David Rose wrote to asflanet on 18 Feb 2024, at 12:36:

Theories are also constellations of icons that adherents affiliate around (thanks Michelle Z and Ken Tann). Basil Bernstein recognised the roots of secular theories in medieval theology, following Durkheim (‘the fundamental categories of science are of religious origin’, 1915:418) and Max Weber (the original ‘legitimation’ theorist). Here’s BB in 2000...

The religious field is constituted by three positions which stand in various relations of complementarity and opposition. In the religious field, we have the prophets, we have the priests, and we have the laity. The rule is that one can only occupy one category at a time. Priests cannot be prophets, and prophets cannot be priests, and the laity cannot be either. There is a natural affinity between prophets and laity, and there is a natural opposition between prophets and priests. These are the lines of opposition structuring the religious field.

If we look at the structure of the pedagogic field, we also have basically three positions that provide analogues to the prophets, priests and laity. The ‘prophets’ are the producers of the knowledge, the ‘priests’ are the recontextualisers or the reproducers, and the ‘laity’ are the acquirers. Thus, we have the structure of the pedagogic field.

Icons like immanence and transcendence are borrowed directly from theological beliefs about the relation of spirit to matter, for which adherents could be excommunicated or worse :-( Bateson’s metatheorising was explicitly theological, rebadging god as ‘mind’ which he believed was immanent in the ‘supreme cybernetic system’. In Lexie’s quote below, he is concerned with the theological question of ‘truth’.* In contrast, Lemke is more interested in the ‘usefulness’ of theories, or as MAKH would call it, ‘appliability’.

* Distinct from philosophical argumentation about truth value of propositions, which is closer to Chris’ yes/no questions of ‘validity’ here.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, this is sociology: a model of human behaviour. It doesn't distinguish theories (metaphenomena) from favourite football teams, favourite tennis players, favourite pop stars or favourite gurus (phenomena). Nor does it distinguish academics from sports fans, pop music fans or devotees of gurus. That is, it is a model of behaviour with no regard for the intellect and reasoning behind the behaviour.

[2] Synonyms of 'adherent' include:

follower, supporter, upholder, defender, advocate, disciple, votary, partisan, friend, member, stalwart, fanatic, zealot, believer, worshipper, attender, fan, admirer, enthusiast, devotee, lover, addict, aficionado, hanger-on, groupie, buff, freak, fiend, nut, maniac, booster, cohort, rooter, janissary, sectary

[3] To be clear, not theology and not mediæval. Not theology, because theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective. Not mediæval, because, as the comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell points out, science fulfils the cosmological function of mythology, and because mythology involves the use of lexical metaphor to reconstrue meaning construed of experience, this dates back to the beginning of metaphor which, according to Halliday was made possible by the stratification of the content plane, which he claims turned Homo … into Homo sapiens (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 25).

[4] To be clear, this a sociological model of the social structure of a pedagogic field. That is, it is a model of teachers and teaching, not of the semiotic process of theorising.

[5] To be clear, from an epistemological perspective, 'immanence' and 'transcendence' are orientations to meaning in Western thinking. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 415, 416):

We can identify two main traditions in Western thinking about meaning (see Halliday, 1977):

(i) one oriented towards logic and philosophy, with language seen as a system of rules;

(ii) one oriented towards rhetoric and ethnography, with language seen as resource. …

The two orientations towards meaning thus differ externally in what disciplines they recognise as models. These external differences are associated with internal differences as well.

(i) First, the orientations differ with respect to where they locate meaning in relation to the stratal interpretation of language:

(a) intra-stratal: meaning is seen as immanent — something that is constructed in, and so is part of, language itself. The immanent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the rhetorical-ethnographic orientation, including our own approach.

(b) extra-stratal: meaning is seen as transcendent — something that lies outside the limits of language. The transcendent interpretation of meaning is characteristic of the logico-philosophical orientation.

[6] Rose's interpretation of Bateson is rejected by an expert on Bateson's work. See here. 

[7] To be clear, Ptolemy's Earth-centred model of the known Universe in terms of epicycles was appliable but invalid. Copernicus's Sun-centred model was less appliable, but more valid. Appliability is no guarantee of theoretical validity.

The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's geocentric model, developed in the 2nd century CE, served as the basis for preparing astrological and astronomical charts for over 1,500 years. The geocentric model held sway into the early modern age, but from the late 16th century onward, it was gradually superseded by the heliocentric model of Copernicus (1473–1543), Galileo (1564–1642), and Kepler (1571–1630). There was much resistance to the transition between these two theories. Some felt that a new, unknown theory could not subvert an accepted consensus for geocentrism.

[8] This is very misleading indeed. On the one hand, the truth value of propositions is the concern of the logico-philosophical tradition, not the rhetorical-ethnographic tradition in which SFL is located. On the other hand, validity is not simply a question of whether propositions are true or false. Validity is a matter of whether conclusions follow from premises. For example,

Given these epistemological assumptions, is this theory valid?

Given this theoretical model, is this application of the theory valid? 

∞

See also The Culture Of 'Faith' In The SFL Community.

David Kellogg On Viewers Of Cave Paintings Not Requiring Language

David Kellogg wrote to sys-func on 5 Dec 2023, at 00:17:

Implicit in Halliday's last two sentences is either:

a) Prelinguistic infants are not engaged in human semiosis, or.

b) Language exists from birth.

It seems to me that both of these are clearly false.

Instead of Mondrian, consider the attached cave painting. Imagine that the floor of the cave preserves the footprints of the artists who made this mural.

1. The involuntary meaning of the footprints of the artists who made the mural. This seems no different from the meaning that deer tracks convey to a non-human predator. 

2. The intentional meaning of the picture of the herdsmen (hunters?) recording their labor. This seems very different, as it invites (because its intention is to allow) the viewer to "reverse engineer" the story, for amusement or profit. 

3. The strategically placed hand print done in red ochre. This too seems different again: although it resembles 1) in form and 2) in intension, it probably signals authorship and in that sense has a textual as well as an interpersonal function.

None of these seem to me to require the Hallidayan assumption that the viewer possesses language. All of them merely require the Vygotskyan assumption that the object (or "objective") can be inferred from the remains of the object-oriented action.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the last two sentences in the quote (Halliday 2003: 4) were:

All that needs to be said in the present context is that other human semiotics are dependent on the premise that their users also have language. Language is a prerequisite; but there is no need to insist that language can mean it all.

[2] To be clear, neither of these propositions are implicit in the quote, since Halliday's 'present context' is a discussion of human 'post-infancy' semiotic systems.

[3] This is true, as demonstrated by Halliday's extensive work on human protolanguage.

[4] To be clear, the observation of deer tracks by a non-human predator is, according to Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group Selection, simply perceptual categorisation on value. No linguistic meaning is involved. The observation of footprints by humans is the construal of experience as the first-order meaning of language.

[5] To be clear, according to comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, cave paintings are expressions of mythic symbolism, and mythic symbolism is the use of (lexical) metaphor to adapt consciousness to its physical and social environments, which requires that the participants had language — as does the fact that the painting is, at most, only about 13,000 years old.

[6] To be clear, the cave painting is to be found in The Cave Of Hands, in Argentina, and since, according to comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, such sites were used for male initiation rites in hunter-gatherer societies, the great number of hand images in this cave might be taken to suggest that they identify the initiates in those rituals. Again, this demonstrates that the participants had language.

[7] As the above demonstrates, this is the exact opposite of what is true. All three require that the human participants had language, and the dating of the cave art provides corroborating evidence.