Hi
On Thu, 29 Mar 2001, Michael Sylvester wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, jim clark wrote:
> > I certainly don't wish to be identified as someone who "obviously
> > know little about what they are teaching," but I think we need to
> > be very cautious here about not undermining the rightful validity
> > of scientific approaches to understanding. Just a couple of
> > observations.
> But Science is unable to understand musical compositions,artistic
> creations and other affairs of the heart and internal sensibilities.
> This emphasis on scientic approaches is quintessentially
> Eurocentric and fails to account for the other ways of knowing.
1. Scientifically-minded psychologists do indeed study and
attempt to understand music and art appreciation, affairs of the
heart, and the like. And surely internal sensibilities are a
major focus of psychological research. So I am not sure what
science you are referring to here, unless you do not include
psychology as a science.
2. Words like "know" and "understand" are ambiguous. They can
refer to the scientific sense of having an explanation for
something, understanding the processes behind, and the like.
But they can also refer to the empathic sense of appreciating how
someone is feeling. Good literature, art, music, and similar
endeavors can instill in people experiences that they think are
like what people in such circumstances would experience. But
such feelings may or may not be helpful in furthering our
scientific understanding. The feelings that the artist decided
to communicate may not in fact be an accurate reflection of what
people experience in such situations; scientific study would be
necessary to determine that. Or the feelings may be misleading
about the actual determinants of how people are behaving (i.e.,
correlation instead of causation); again science would provide an
answer. To conflate scientific and literary or artistic
understandings, and indiscriminatly label them both alternative
"ways of knowing" does a disservice to science and perhaps even
to the arts if it is expected to provide more than is possible
given its non-scientific methods. Would artists want their work
evaluated by such criteria as validity, for example?
3. Rather than treating science as Western hegemony, at least
some people from other cultures appreciate that science is
liberating for all peoples. For a good example of this, read M.
Nanda's "The epistemic charity of the social constructivist
critics of science and why the third world should refuse the
offer" in M. Koertge (1998), _A house built on sand: Exposing
postmodernist myths about science_. New York: Oxford University
Press. I am constantly amazed at how quickly some people will
glorify achievements of other cultures and then trash perhaps the
grandest achievement of our culture. Of course, this grand
achievement was possible in large part because of our willingness
to incorporate useful ideas from myriad different cultures and
groups, which makes the labelling of science as Eurocentric,
sexist, classist, or whatever, ironic in multiple ways.
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9757
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L05D
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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