[Fis] Answer to Mark. Phenomenology and Speculative Realism

Sat Aug 1 21:01:40 CEST 2015

Dear Mark,

Thank you for this note, which points correctly to the fact that there was something missing in the debate. Intersubjectivity is a good word for it, but phenomenology in general is probably no longer the answer, if it ever was. Check out the new book by Tom Sparrow, The End of Phenomenology, Edinburgh, 2014; Sparrow is a key player in a new 'movement' called Speculative Realism which is proposed as a replacement. 

What does this have to do with information? I think a great deal and worth a new debate, even in extremis. The problem with Husserlian phenomenology is that it fails to deliver an adequate picture of reality, but speculative realism is too anti-scientific to do any better. What I think is possible, however, is to reconcile the key insights of Heidegger with science, especially, with information science. This places information science in a proper intersubjective context where its utility can be seen. For discussion, I hope.

Best,

Joseph
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Johnson 
  To: fis 
  Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2015 1:18 PM
  Subject: Re: [Fis] Answer to Mark

  Dear Fernando,

  Without wanting to spawn a new debate, I think it might be useful to flag something up about the 'phenomenology' that you mention. I understand Joseph's reaction to what to you say and I agree. However, phenomenology is a rich a complex topic, and few scholars have the tenacity to delve deeply into the difficult and detailed thinking of Husserl, Heidegger, Schutz, tracing it's evolution in French existentialism, hermeneutics, or from Schutz to Berger, Luckmann, Parsons and then Luhmann. At the very least there is the division between Husserlian transcendental phenomenology with its "transcendental ego" to which Heidegger and many others objected, and the existential phenomenology of everyday experience which Heidegger developed instead. Husserl, for his part thought Heidegger had completely misunderstood him. To say he might have been right is not to take away the genius of Heidegger's own insights.

  The point is, when we say "phenomenology", what do we mean?

  Joseph's concern relates (I think) to what appears to be a missing account of "intersubjectivity" in your paper. But of course, intersubjectivity was a central concern for Husserl, and his ideas on it were much refined by Schutz, who seems to me to be a critically important figure (I'm grateful to Loet for pointing me in Schutz's direction!). To be 'phenomenological' does not preclude intersubjectivity. However, if you are Heideggerian, then I think it is true that Heidegger's understanding of human relations is rather weak (interesting to reflect on this in relation to Heidegger's politics!)

  I suspect that the phenomenological literature and its history is of considerable relevance to current debates about information. 

  Best wishes,

  Mark

  On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 9:17 AM, Fernando Flores <fernando.flores at kultur.lu.se> wrote:

    Dear Mark

    Thanks for your commentaries. Our use of the term “foundational” is more philosophical than practical. You are right; the term contradicts in some sense our intentions which are “very” practical. (This is a term which we could leave behind without hesitation.) In fact, we have no intentions in “instituting” a new concept of “information”. Our work is “foundational” only in one aspect, and that is in searching for methods to measure the informational value of collective acts in everyday life. We found that it was necessary to classify human acts in such a way that their informational value could be “operative” (useful in practical tasks); we did that, grouping the acts in types depending on their complexity. We found that these acts could also be distinguished in relation to their consequences on the everyday world. We noticed that the movement from the very complex acts to the simplest acts follows a reduction of the surrounding world and that the human body is the natural reference in the understanding of this reduction. We knew that we could express informational value in relation to probabilities and found in the von Mises/Popper frequency series a possible and easy solution (an accessible mathematics). We insist; we have been working only with practical problems and we have not been thinking so much of which concept of information we are using; we believe that cybernetics does not address the practical problems we confront. However, we are sure that if we succeed, some cybernetic theorem will explain our success. The question is that the state of knowledge we have today is insufficient to understand the simplest informational problems in our surrounding world. Informational theory and cybernetics have been developed in the world of Physics; instead, we try to develop solutions that work in everyday life. If you understand as “variety” the measure of the “states of a system”, the series of von Mises/Popper could be our kind of variety, but we are not sure. You are certain, our “acts” are neither “actions” nor “events”, but they are not the hybrids of Latour either. Our acts are phenomenological; they are intended to be congruent with concepts as “work”, “money”, “culture”, “thing”, “market”, and the like. The concept “informational value” for example, is very close to the concept of “information” without meaning exact the same. 

    Fernando Flores PhD

    Associate Professor

    History of Ideas and Sciences

    Lund University

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  Dr. Mark William Johnson
  Phone: 07786 064505

  Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
  Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com 

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