Maatukathe I Session 8

Maatukathe I 

Session 8 (?)

Minutes: Chaitra Mathighatta 

 Comparative Science of Cultures

• Social Sciences – is investigating society. I.e. where and when do we demarcate one society from another? There are three approaches to investigate societies.  They are

1.       Customs and worldviews

2.       Focus on production (technologies) and relations of production (political and legal structures)

3.       Capabilities, Institutions, text discourses and traditions

These approaches more are less use meta-level categories to deal with object level – questions

• Societies are not self enclosed. How do we recognize a society and what are the purposes for which we do that? Is one of the crucial issues and an idea of the historical growth of the study of society would probably help us in making aware of why such a question is being asked.

• First approaches to study societies begin in 18^th century. This can be study of societies in European traditions. It starts with the study of customs and worldviews. These approaches were also helpful in facilitating the smooth administration of colonial bureaucracy. It can also be said that study of customs and worldviews were initiate to administer people of the colonies and many of the scholars who studied these societies were themselves administrators. The idea of “worldview” comes from Bible and it was thought that Church is the institution which facilitates the formation of worldviews amongst people. Genesis in Bible was the basis for the worldview. European scholars were keen on finding similar things about India.

• The second approach to study society was using “production relations”. This approach began to gain momentum with the wake of industrialization. It was embedded in the notion of production (technology) as a means to satisfy the needs of people. (Ex. Europe had a feudal mode of production and India had Asiatic mode of production)

• Third approach, which needs to be established properly, is “capability” approach. Here capabilities are much larger conceptions than mode of production. It involves capabilities, institutions and text – traditions (It must not be confused with Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s “capabilities” as they are more or less contractual obligations. It is different from capabilities to study societies). Here say “custom” serves as a concept to investigate an object level question. In this approach, if we try building an idea of how to study society, following logical mode of investigation can be built.

Let us ask a question, what colour Indians wear when they mourn?

• This question is an observant level question and not a participant level one. Therefore we must begin with ideas from Europe.

1.       Black is the colour of mourning in Europe

2.       What is the colour of mourning in India?

3.       “X” is the colour of mourning in Europe

In this case “X” – is subject of predicate, “X” – is variable

• Let us take some topic now to move further like Subject and Friendly. Chetan is Friendly – in this case “Chetan” is subject and “Friendly” is Predicate. One can now ask, what is subject? Here it is “Chetan”. One can ask whether it is “Person” (Chetan) or the “term”. Subject and Predicate must be treated as the identifying and differentiating expressions.

• “Variable”:

Chetan is friendly

         X is friendly

         X is variable

• Definite and Indefinite descriptions: Let us examine some sentences

A Bangalorean is friendly – means someone is a Bangalorean and he is friendly 

The Bangalorean is friendly – There is one definite person, he is a Bangalorean and he is friendly.

• Definite and Indefinite descriptions as identifying expressions:

A Bangalorean is friendly – There is X, X is a Bangalorean and X is friendly

Bangaloreans are friendly – can be quite indefinite

-          Any Bangalorean is friendly

-          If X is a Bangalorean, X is friendly

The Bangalorean is friendly

-          There is one definite person, he is a Bangalorean and he is friendly

-          There is one definite X (There is only one X), X is a Bangalorean and X is friendly

Here Bangalorean are friendly does not have existential significance as it refers to a class. One really do not assume that there is such a class. To make it clear further, Bangaloreans are friendly defines a class, but does not assume that there are member who belong to the class called Bangaloreans. It is a property definition of a class called Bangaloreans.

• Let us get back to Colour of Mourning – What is the colour of mourning in India?

“Black” is the “colour of mourning” in Europe

“X” is the “colour of mourning” in Europe

“X” is the “Y” (Here “X” is variable and “Y” is predicate)

“X” is the “colour of mourning” in “Y” (“colour of mourning” is predicate and X & Y are variables)

• Object V/s meta predicate (can refer back to previous class)

Example: “Truth” is a Meta – predicate because it is attributing a quality to a statement or a description. Similarly “exists” is also a Meta – predicate.

• Transition from object to Meta level

“Flying Horse” exists – the sentence asserts that the description or predicate “Flying Horse” exists. Here the Flying horse alone does not mean anything but it exists means an assertion. In this case the existence is parasitic on something (flying horse here) and therefore “exists” becomes a meta-predicate.

Cultures vary variously:

Generating meta-predicates of different sorts as search tools in enquiry of different (other) cultures is a challenge. For example in case of mourning one can formulate following problems

-          If there is mourning, are there colours to represent it?

-          If there is a death in a family, what other alternative features than mourning be represented by wearing of black can be found?

These tools lead to profoundly different descriptions of the world of Indian rituals for example. Following case can illustrate a different story with wearing different colour cloths.

-          Wearing white is a sign of leading a life of renunciation in the face of death of near one

-          All auspicious acts/rituals are done with wearing white

Now with the above example, we can go back to the question of cultures. If cultures vary variously, can “religion” be one of the factors absent in other cultures.

This is completely different from the regular questions of sociology. This is not what other religions than Christianity governs the life of people in other cultures?

It is all about, what are the ways other tha religion can be found as generative of practices in other cultures?

Maatukathe I Session 7

Minutes of Session 7? : 30.03.2013

• Brief outline of previous session
  • Knowledge is a cooperative activity, the stress is on making something together
  • Knowledge requires and implies institutions at the macro and micro level
    • Institution building happens at various levels: Notation (formalising)- reciting mantras, making music; logistics- spatio temporal coordinating; and modes of initiation and mentoring
    • Institutions require cultivating Intellectual virtues: the constant problem for Indian institutions is cultivation of such virtues. most institutions here lack systematization, coordination and the correct identification of resources
      • Its not useful to make a distinction between moral and intellectual virtues (ethos involves a moral notion as well)
  • Capabilites and World views
    • Capabilities are constituted by skills and disciplines, their modes of organisation are not always visible
    • One has the task of conceivig ways to investigate them, make them evident: For instance to ask in what ways capabilities and world views present themselves; whether or in what way world views are weaved into institutions
    • Marxists have focused on 'forces of production' but they have often ignored institutions and capabilities that sustain such forces of production
    • The task of development is to do things in such a way that suffering is reduced and capabilities are restored
  • Writing/ Reading as an institution
    • writing as a deed or an act
    • attention is needed to its composition, not just communication
    • Requires institutions of apprenticeship and initiation - to be aware of standards, to cultivate appreciation for certain texts
  • Reading is a mode of conversation
    • it is a reflective action- thinkingly doing something
    • It is talking to someone from a different time and place with a different focus than one's immediate concerns
    • It must make the text yield some answers to your questions
    • Its important to sift what the main worry of the text is in order to arrive at significant distinctions
  • There are two modes of apprehending institutions and its accompanying discourse
    • I. Narration II. Social Sciences
• Some remarks on Ancient Greece and its Institutions
  • Aristotle's notion of 'zoon politikon' contains implications that man forms associations by nature and tries to live well.
  • In his Cratylos, Plato raises a question about law and speech- are they founded on agreement or in nature? Are they conventional or generated?
  • Plato argues that language is not merely setting conventions, but generating a system of definitions or rules.
  • In the Greek notion community was divided into 3 spheres: Oikos (household)- the sphere of necessity, Polis( city council)- sphere of freedom, and thus space for deliberation, and Agora (public square) - place for gathering, for markets, festivals and discussions
  • It also had institutions like the symposium, and many schools which taught rhetoric and dialectic
• Dworkin on 'Is Law a system of Rules? - Discussion I
  • Dworkin takes on the positivist view of law in this essay. Positivists deal with only that which is positively observable. For instance scientific theories are a summation of observations. In the case of law such observables are rules
  • Dworkin asking if the positivist view of law as a system of rules best captures law as a practice; for instance how do you observe the functioning of law in a perfectly well behaved community?
  • The basic tenet of positivist conception of law by Austin is that society forms certain rules and it is enforced by a sovereign, or some person who has the power to enforce such rules. He sorts such rules into legal, moral and religious
  • Where is the source of Austin's idea that the authority commands law?
    • Medieval christian theologians worked with categories received from Aristotelian scholarship. but for the Greeks, ruling the world was techne not episteme
    • The christian theologians transformed the city into the 'city of God' - polis became cosmopolis, and thus law becomes command
    • Austin conceptually goes back to the Natural Law but by rejecting the idea of natural law (as rooted in the sovereign and his commands)
  • H.L.A Hart introduces a refinement in Austin's theory with what he calls rules of recognition.
  • At a given point of time standard of behaviour can be understood and the deviation from it can be seen
  • Dworkin makes a further distinction between rules and principles- by which he means standards other than rules. principles cannot be seen as right or wrong, while rules are absolute with exceptions.
  • An example of standards operating can be seen in the activity of literary criticism. Literary criticism does not show us judgements in itself, but shows the process of arriving at certain distinctions.
  • Law always speaks to the society’s, people’s conception of a good life, and expands notions of standards. It keeps the society;s good and intuitions of justice alive. Law is not an arbitrary doing and making, but in the process of legal practice something more than rules are discovered.
  • Rules can be condified, while principles are intuitions of society, that which is in excess of rules
  • Law works on interpretations, but principles are more than rule interpretation

Maatukathe I Session 2

Minutes of Session 2: 24.02.2013

• The dynamic of Knowledge and ignorance
  • Knowledge as a skill to make distinctions between things
  • Knowing the "ignorance of ignorance"
  • Acquiring the 'range of knowledge' of ignorance
• The idea of an educated man
  • How to shape the intellectual abilities of individuals?
  • How to shape the intellectual landscape we live in?
  • Distinction between intellectual virtues and moral virtues: Although some say that intellectual virtues implies moral virtues our intuitive tendency would be to doubt it.
  • The distinction between 'individual' and 'community'
    • An individual is constituted by relations and and these include internal and external relations
    • Social Contract theories explain the relationship between individuals using an external-relationships model (of utility, interest and so on)
    • The good life constitutes a habitat
      • Family, jaati
      • Community (geographical, confessional etc)
      • State, nation-state
    • The general question for building a habitat includes the question of nation-building
      The idea of citizenship and its implications
      • What is it? Is it needed? If yes, why?
        • Nationalism could be seen as a response to the French Revolution. Whereas, the French Revolution was made in the name of the "Rights of Man", nationalism, especially in its German variety, emphasizing the idea of the volk culture as against the court culture (represented by the French Aristocracy), was made in the name of the "Rights of the People". the assumption here was that every volk, every people have a special characteristic realized in its language, literature and customs. Citizenship defined in terms of rights now becomes a semi-ethnic characteristic
• Sketching an intellectual landscape
  • What role is assigned to writers? What do they write about?
    • They recreate experience which involves the capacity to take another perspective
    • Novel: Reconstruction of a plausible view of a cross-section of lived experience or a life experience-able
  • Idea of Reconstruction
    • Making of an individual involves
      • the shape of the ethos
      • the gestalt of the competencies available
      • making links between different institutions during a time: a history of an epoch
    • An Aristotelian distinction
      • The made versus the generated
      • Artifact versus nature
      • Is the City 'made' or 'generated' and similarly, is an individual 'made' or 'generated'?
        • The idea of shaping one's life as an artwork
    • Every doing has a co-relative aspect of happening
      • Doing and encountering happening
      • Skill is the ability to control the happening aspect so as to serve one's aim
    • The distinction between artisanal and artistic ability in making things
      • What kind of attitude should we instill in an individual?
      • Relationship between a personality and his times
      • Reconstruction of nature: assumes that nature is an artisanal product of the Great Artisan
    • The relationship between history and fiction: the question is not quite what characteristics define the one as against the other form but when is it judged as one or the other
      • based on one's criteria of truth
      • by our mode of reading, i.e., what we bring to it as an attitude
      • not by its textual features alone but by what features we attend to
    • 
      
• Discussion on the making of Gandhi
  • The importance of the social network in bringing about the social revolution of Gandhi
  • The international currency of ideas from which Gandhi borrows
  • What is the kind of intellectual network that Indian national movement provided for intellectuals? How is it different from a network today? Would a similar social network like the one put together by Gandhi be conceivable today?
  • Today networks seem to be transformed into associations (like language associations and caste associations) providing a semblance of a cultural motive and 'interest' which may not be the case with the networks of the Gandhian era.

Maatukathe I Session 1

Minutes of Session 1: 17.02.2013

Some preliminary considerations about thinking and intellectual inquiry

• Do questions have assumptions behind them?
  • They do, but most often the assumptions are not clear. Bringing those assumptions to the fore is the task of critical thinking. So, for example, the question "who created the universe?" assumes that someone should have created it. To answer why this question cannot be asked in that way is to understand the assumptions behind it. 
• Our explanations and questions are in fact specific models of the relevant parts of the world which they examine. Identifying such a model involves going into the history of the model. Therefore, understanding the assumptions behind our inquiry has, for this reason, a necessary historical aspect to it. And all history-writing involves some element of construction and reconstruction of facts, domains, ideas, causalities and so on. this implies that we need to attend to the process of this construction. Since this construction is in and through language, it is important to attend to the linguistic aspect of such a history. Our language use is not innocent. It is already overlaid with different kinds of assumptions and different preferences for cutting the world up in one or the other shape. This is not necessarily an error, but an issue to be attended to. Our word-use is dependent significantly on other words and no isolated use of worlds is possible. Our words form a semantic web where every element alters the configuration of the whole system. This is the crucial difference between artificial languages and natural languages: in artificial languages connectors (relational terms like: and, if, then, or, not, iff) have well-defined meanings whereas in natural languages these meanings are not well-defined. Most often words are used assuming the stability of meaning of other words surrounding those words.
• Therefore, the provisional definition of philosophical reflection
  • an attentive and mindful use of those very terms and concepts we routinely use or take for granted in our everyday practice.
    • 
      
  • which involves identifying vagueness and underlying assumptions behind our language use
    • 
      
  • in which becoming aware of our questions in the very process of questioning is part of the philosophical enterprise.

• What is this course not about?
  • Research methodology
  • Topics in the discipline of philosophy of science (for example, causality, explanation, induction, deduction etc)
  • Introduction to any specific research programme
• The General Problematic
  • An intuitive distinction between 'a good life widely desire' versus 'a good life worthy of desire'
    • Leading us to ask and inquire about the true nature of good life which might even transcend our immediate life, here and now, and could include a sense of the 'Nachwelt', as something involving the considerations of posterity
• General Questions of the course
  • What are the enabling conditions for leading a life of learning?
  • What are the ways of cultivating the ethos of seeking knowledge together?
  • Under what conditions is the social activity of knowledge as also its enhancement is possible?
  • What kind of institutions are required for it to operate?
  • How to generate a milieu of discussion on conditions required to lead a life of learning?
• Presuppositions
  • There is a social dimension to "swaadhyaaya" (individual studiousness) which involves more than personal discipline, conscientiousness etc. Some social processes help and others hinder this process.
  • The idea of "art" (understood in its older sense as disciplinary knowledge)can be collectively improved. The question is 'how' and 'under what conditions'.
  • Knowledge or art seen in this sense is a social disposition and not expertise about a given data-set. Such a disposition is available in common and is improvable by social cooperation.
  • An "ethos", an institutional setting, which will prevent individual interests from harming the progress of a discipline.
  • Reflective conversation on experiences undergone and mistakes committed by the individuals so as to enrich the collective experience of the community
• Our metaphors of knowledge and its implications
  • Like a building
    • Some concepts and premises are foundational and are basic to other concepts and premises in a structured hierarchy
  • Like a web
    • Concepts are interlinked in a seamless network
  • Like a snowball
    • Repetition is not redundant but helps in reworking the understanding
• Outline of the educational landscape of India to assess sites of learning outside the formal system
  • Tourism, museums, sports, monasteries, temples etc
    • Seeing such institutions and activities as educational sites enables us to ask how can it be made better? By what standards and to what ends. So, for example, seeing sports as education for health and not merely as training for athletic competitions enables one to reorient our discussions about sports

Maatukathe II Session 3

Maatukathe II

Session3

6.4.2014

Minutes of Meeting

Words, or attending to words forms a very important aspect of our activity in Matukate. Our instruments as well as materials worked upon are both words. The session started with taking up two terms, conversations and workshop.

We have said before that conversations are of many kinds: chit chatting, deliberating to take a decision, those oriented towards knowledge gain or cognitively oriented conversations. Our focus will be on the last one, cognitively oriented conversations. The second term workshop, distinguishes our activities together. We are engaged in a workshop model of knowledge gain than a showroom model (say like a conference or museum visit where finished products are displayed for knowledge gain, similar to the display of finished products in automobile showroom). A teaching and learning workshop does not revolve around the idea of a master craftsman. Instead, it implies that persons from different backgrounds, interests, and levels of experience have come together, and each one plays the role of a teacher as well as an apprentice. This also implies initiative and responsibility on the part of each. A further point about a workshop of this kind is that it does not have any particular syllabus or research methodology, nor does it seek to introduce any particular research programme. Its main aim is to increase the breadth and depth of our horizon of thinking.

The end product or objective aimed at in this workshop is cultivating the habit of attending to words, and seeking out important distinctions, such as good life worthy of desire and good life generally desired. This is the nature of concepts: they are words used to distinguish between things and for making distinctions.

Discussion on the article ‘Head Count’ by Elizabeth Kolbert

The article has as its central focus a general concern about population where food is said to grow in arithmetic proportions, while population grows in geometric proportions. The text gives a sense of the relation between scientific discoveries and factors such as agricultural productivity and patterns of consumption.

Something missing. Please fill. Some point about printing press etc. (in addition to the historical chronology we drew up)

Writing social history

Lack of sufficient food production in Europe was one of factors driving the colonial enterprise. The text shows up a distinction between old world and new world. Old world is the Eurasian world, comprising of parts of Rome, Turkey, Africa and India, regions falling within the silk route and so on. The new world is America. The old/new world distinction is used to signify the kind of ecological changes brought about by the Europe-America relations in the 15^th century around the time of Columbus’ discovery of America. We usually have a fair idea of political events but rarely keep track of, or explore, corresponding social changes, or enquire into how certain discoveries or ideologies affected social life. For example, we do not have much of an idea of how the railways changed the life of Indians. This raises a question about what it means to talk about social changes, agreeing that it is not mere recounting of historical events.

At the moment we have two meta-narratives to talk about social history- the Marxist meta-narrative which says all history is a struggle between feudalism and capitalism, and the colonialism and anti-colonialism meta-narrative. Neither of these meta-narratives adequately captures our memories of the last 3-4 decades. Historical research is primarily about memory (in the Indian context there is so much stress on memory through sruti, smriti and purana).  To capture social histories, memories we need other kinds of skills. What are these skills?

What are the salient points in the text?

One, it gives us a sense of scientific discoveries and its impact.

Two, there is an argument which can be derived that social systems depend on a particular picture of the world. Today it looks like the population debate is about immigration and statist political ideologies, while it might always not have been the same. So an alternate question about population explosion would be what kind of social structures sustain a bigger population, and which sustains a smaller one. Three, the discourse about population which began with Malthus led to two responses; one an alarmist sense about the future of the world and the other that this a false fear (perhaps  an extension of the Christian fear in the time of Jesus Christ that the world will come to an end, or Christians will be extinct???). Irrespective of the response it conveys a definitive modern concern about the finiteness of earth’s resources. And a failure of planning has given rise to skepticism. In this larger debate the article observes that synthesized ammonia has some limits, and that has implications for human social life.

Another important aspect of the text is to do with relevant and irrelevant data. We have our regular distrust of big data but that has its uses. For instance, forecasting is an important factor for city planning. One of the big data a state uses is the census, a very crucial data for all state planning. Evolving criteria of judging or sorting of data based on experience leads to certain kind of knowledge.

The text is a systematic piece; it arranges facts systematically but is not primary research. It does not concern itself with the validity of the claims made by the authors of the books being reviewed. Its main purpose is to put out ideas/facts for a public debate.  The text can be seen to be part of educated public discourse. One of the requirements for such a text is that it must not contain too many technical terms, and when they are used they should be explained, not taken for granted.

Debate about the banning of Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus:  An Alternative History

The chain of articles written in response to the banning of the book (Jacob de Roover’s direct response and Nivedita Menon and Sufiya Pathan’s follow up pieces to Roover’s article) show different ways of framing of a debate, posing for us the question about the adequacy of one frame over the other. Roover’s article begins by talking about the hurt sentiments and experiences of the Hindu, Menon’s deals with patriarchy and Sufiya’s with setting a standard of judgement. In response to Menon, Sufiya argues that once you set certain standards in Hinduism studies, the problem of free speech and banning which has become the main bone of contention can be put into context.

Romila Thapar’s article on the same issue alludes to unjust laws and its continuation from the colonial times. While this point is well taken, a critique of this would be to say that laws remain not because they are colonial and people are lazy but because there is no expertise available and no public discourse either. If certain unacceptable laws are prevalent in India sociological analysis is needed to make that evident.  In addition, strategies of discussion, legal discussion are required to change constitutional matters.

The debate puts in perspective some of the problems arising from pitching the arguments as contending narratives of justice- representing Hindu men and Hindu women, and colonial ruler and Indian society. Nivedita Menon’s position contains the assumption that all existence, civilization is about injustice, and social conflicts are a result of such injustices.  We can thus see two ways of looking at the world:

-          A) Social existence as a problem of unjust arrangements

-          B) Social existence as a learnable (as embodied knowledge)

Batra’s problems with the way present Hinduism studies constructs Hindu traditions, customs, texts, has to be reconstructed with a view to the later way. The question then is about the tools required for a sort of history writing which begins from assuming B.

Menon in her article makes a demand of Jacob’s article (like many other academics do), namely that it recognize moral problems of equality, patriarchy, immoral practices before making any further critique. We see from the colonial period onwards that practices which were not a problem, or a source of conflict earlier, becomes so with certain kinds of interpretations and mainly with the constitution of state and law. Historical scholarship of a certain kind has the possibility of becoming inimical to social practice and knowledge about it, but it need not necessarily do so. Texts like Ramayana and Mahabharata are read to get at an interpretation of the Indian society of its time. Sometimes the relation assumed between text and society becomes problematic. Literary texts for instance can be the source of history, but not the records of history. There could be variety of interpretations and that need not undermine the fact that there is such a thing as right and wrong interpretation. 

A necessary requirement for producing reliable accounts or interpretation of social life is to distinguish between participant claim and participant perspective. Participant claim is just that, one among many claims, while participant perspective needs to be understood and rendered meaningful even to the participant. For instance there is an interpretation of the practices of madi mylige which explains it as practices to avoid the spread of infections or diseases. To say this is to make a claim, a form of pseudo-scientific claim which if taken seriously can explain away the practice.

Social conflicts involve conflicts about standard of good/bad actions or conduct. It is possible to ask what the standards of justice are on the basis of which we evaluate social life. Standard setting arises out of the maturity of systems; they are rarely set by having a meeting or committee about standards. They are part of the aspiration to establish a liberal society (liberal as some desirable). An extreme of these concerns is visible when the critique of actions, translate to a rejection of institutions. This sort of summary rejection of institutions is a result of ideology critique (critique dealing with ideas).

Limits of scientific knowledge

Jacob Roover’s article responding to the banning of Wendy Doniger’s book can be seen as a more scientific piece than the ‘Head count’ article. Jacob’s article provides a hypothesis and defends a claim based on expert research, while the head count article does not make a scientific claim in this fashion. Roover’s article is not a certified scientific piece, but it has a scientific nature in so far as it intervenes into a debate, makes a claim and defends it. ‘Head count’ on the other hand is a systematic and revelatory piece of writing. Most of the time social science research is reconstructing phenomena like the ‘Head Count’ text.  Humanities, such as say philology have methods, protocols and accepted modes of enquiry, but not a hypothesis to defend. That has its’ values, so to claim that all good knowledge is or should be scientific in nature is a contentious one. But there are standards to follow. An example is the contemporary debate about the validity of Astrology which casts the central question as one between science and pseudo-science, but the question to pose is what is the experience the practice of Astrology contains, and how does it enrich human life.