Things are a bit quiet on this list at the moment, so I thought I would
share a few ideas to liven it up.
I have been reading D.C. Dennet's "The Intentional Stance" (A Bradford
Book, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 1987). It is a stimulating read,
clearly written in an unpretentious style from a broadly pragmatic
perspective.
In it he defines and defends the use of the "Intentional Stance", which
is the the strategy of attributing beliefs, desires, intentions etc. to
systems. Those systems for which this is a broadly successful strategy
for the purposes of prediciton he then calls "intentional systems". He
then goes on to defend claims that this is largely objective and a real
attribution (weakly realist).
You can apply this stance to things like thermostats, talking about what
it believes about its environment and wants (a set temperature). You
*can* then use this stance to predict its behaviour successfully (of
course, in this case other stances also predict successfully, if not
more so). For some systems it is the only even vaguely successful
stance (e.g. human systems).
He mention's other possible "stances", e.g. the physical stance (for
predicting a sytem's behviour from the state of its microscopic physical
components), the design stance (for predicting a system's behaviour from
its design) and even the astrological stance (for predicting behviour of
the human environment from the positions of astral bodies).
One could easily imagine many other stances: the constructivist stance,
the evolutionary stance, the cybernetic stance, the philosophical
stance, the reductionist stance, the positivist stance, the
computational stance etc. etc.
Let me make some (maybe controversial) points, which I hope everyone can
agree with: ;-)
1. In practice, *any* stance will have limited applicability. There
will be some areas of application where it is not a successful strategy.
2. These stances will frequently overlap in applicability, e.g. both
the intentional stance and the physical stance can be applied to a
thermostat.
3. Sometimes different stances will give different predictions for the
same class of things (I won't say 'systems' here as that implies the
cybernetic stance). If this happens it *may* be possible to make a
judgement about the relative success of stances for certain classes of
such things over certain ranges of conditions.
4. If different stances give coherent predictions for certain classes,
then the combining of stances is possible (i.e. the
cybernetic-evolutionary stance of PCP). In general the combining of
stances allows for more powerful prediction but for a more restricted
class of things.
5. When talking about "stances", one can not avoid doing so without
doing this from within some (maybe undefined) stance. There is no
stance-free perspective. Of course, this is only a good rule, because I
am using a pragmatic-philosophical stance for this e-mail. (One could
imagine a "absolutist stance" (Platonism?) where, from within this
stance, there were stance-free perspectives. From this pragamtic stance
I would then judge that on its sucess in application to different
classes of things).
6. Some stances, are thus reflective, in having something to say about
other stances and themselves, some are not.
7. In discussing stances, one needs to be aware of which stance one is
talking about these from (says I from this pragmatic-stance-stance!). I
would suggest, however that the scope of of the pragmatic-stance-stance
is broad (of, course I would say that), thus I would suggest that, it is
at least *useful* to be aware of which stance one is using (at least
most of the time).
8. There will be times when reflective stances, applied to themselves,
predict that they will be more successful than an other stance. This
other stance, might do the same thing. In such a case it is probably
futile for each to have a discussion, each doing so only from within
their own stance (mutual lock-out).
Conclusions (from this pragmatic stance):
Since every stance has limitations, a variety of stances can be useful.
Especially if care has been taken to find out about when it might be
applicable. Different stituations might require different stances.
When discussing reflective issues (e.g modelling), it could be helpful
to be-aware-and-declare what stance one is using, and also occasionaly
use other stances for a different outlook on things.
There will also be times when using a framework of stances is not
useful. (rare, of course ;-) ).
Absolute conclusions about what stance is best (for some class) might be
impossible , as one is always limited to makeing such conclusions within
some stance or other (this being a conclusion from this
pragamtic-philosopical-stance stance).
Using such a pragmatic-stance stance could unlock some
holist-reductionist mutual lock-outs and redirection thought and effeort
in more productive directions, e.g. investigations of the conditions of
applicability of stances (this is broadly what my paper "Pragmatic
Holism" http://bruce.edmonds.name/praghol says).
---------------------------------------------------
Bruce Edmonds,
Centre for Policy Modelling,
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Bldg.,
Aytoun St., Manchester, M1 3GH. UK.
Tel: +44 161 247 6479 Fax: +44 161 247 6802
http://bruce.edmonds.name/bme_home.html