First draft of a paper for
the Symposium: ACreating Actionable Knowledge@, at the Academy of Management Conference in New
Orleans, 21st August 2004
EXPRESSING AND LEGITIMATING >ACTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE=
FROM WITHIN >THE
MOMENT OF ACTING=
John
Shotter
ABSTRACT:
As living, embodied beings, we cannot not be responsive in some fashion to the
expressions of others (spoken, written, or otherwise), and to other kinds of
events, occurring in our immediate surroundings. Communication begins in, and
continues with, our living, spontaneous, expressive-responsive (gestural),
bodily activities that occur in the meetings between ourselves and the
others and othenesses around us. It is by our 1st-person expressions
that we influence the actions of others. Our tellings are much more
important that our reportings. Thus, as I see it, abstract and general
theories are of little help to each of us in the unique living of our unique
lives together, either as ordinary people, or as professional practitioners, or
as action researchers. While the specific words of another person, uttered as a
>reminder= at a
timely moment as to the character of our next step within an ongoing practical
activity, can be a crucial influence in its development and refinement B a point of central relevance for action research.
Thus in this paper, I outline a distinction between >withness-> and >aboutness-talk/writing=: Aboutness
(monologic)-talk, however, is unresponsive to another=s expressions; it works simply in terms of a thinker=s >theoretical pictures= B but, even when we >get
the picture=, we still have to interpret it, and to decide,
intellectually, on a right course of action. While withness (dialogic)-talk
is a form of reflective interaction that involves coming into living contact
with an other=s living being, with their utterances, their bodily
expressions, their words, their >works=. It gives rise, not to a >seeing=, for what is >sensed= is invisible; nor to an interpretation, for our
responses occur spontaneously and directly in our living encounters with an
other=s expressions; but to a >shaped= and
>vectored=
sense of our moment-by-moment changing placement in our current surroundings B engendering in us both unique anticipations as to
what-next might happen along with, so to speak, >action-guiding
advisories= as to what-next we might do.
Keywords: Action research,
expression, responsiveness, dialogue, >withness=-talk, practitioners.
A(If I
had to say what is the main mistake made by philosophers, including Moore, I
would say that it is when language is looked at, what is looked at is a form
of words and not the use made of the form of words)@ (Wittgenstein,1966, p.2, my emphases).
ACan only
logical analysis explain what we mean by the propositions of ordinary language?
Moore is inclined to think so. Are people therefore ignorant of what they mean
when they say >Today the sky is clearer than yesterday=? Do we have to wait for logical analysis here? What a
hellish idea!@ (Waismann, 1979, pp. 129-130).
There are a number of
interlinked topics I want to discuss in relation to the production of Aactionable knowledge:@ In
particular, I want to discuss what we might call the inner, psychological
dynamics of two quite different styles of talking and writing, what I will call
for short >withness=(dialogical)-talk
and >aboutness=(monological)-talk
B that is, I want to discuss the influence of these two
styles of writing and talk in terms, not of the information they provide, but
of their influence in orienting us toward taking certain lines of
action, in generating a certain attitude of mind within us to do with
how we organize or >orchestrate= our
ways of relating ourselves to our surroundings. In other words, I want to
discuss the difference between talk that >moves= us, and talk that leaves us >unmoved=. This
discussion, however, entails the discussion of a number of other general
issues. I will list them in turn: The issue of how we can create between us, in
our dialogical or conversational involvements both with each other and with our
surrounding circumstances, a shared >terrain=, >landscape=, or >inner world= of
practical understandings that will enable us, in practice B knowing how we are >placed= in such a world in relation to everything around us B to interact with each other and with our
circumstances in a flowing, unconfused, and unproblematic manner. There is also
the issue of how, in the creation of such shared >worlds=, everyone=s voice can play a part, can count; that is, how can
the >world= created in our dialogical exchanges be accounted by
everyone within it as >my world=, the >world-I-am-at-home-in=, rather
than as an alien world, the world of >those
others=. To this we must add the issue of how we can give
voice to these issues B and in particular, of the part played by our
responsiveness to other peoples= envoiced activities within them B in such a way that we do so simply as just one of the
envoiced bodies participating in such a shared world, without tending to
privatize or to appropriate its resources to our own ends. While
finally, with regard to action research, and the use of various, linguistically
expressed claims within it, I want to discuss how people making such claims can
be responsibly accountable for their actions to the others around them, that
is, how they can justify their intellectual legitimacy B for, as I see it, what is distinctive about action
research is, that it must deal with the particular circumstances in which it is
situated, not in terms of its similarity to other situations, but in terms of
its uniqueness. As Palshaugen (2001) puts it, in action research, researchers
have to express their understandings and knowledge Aby entering into the language games of the
practitioners... This is not simply a question of >simplifying= or >popularising=. It
also requires the linguistic competence
to recreate the researcher=s
knowledge in a way which >makes it work at work= B that is, in a way that make it useful to the
practitioners@ (p.209). The solutions to action research problems
are to be found in particular concrete details, not abstract generalities.
Two
example accounts
Let me begin straightaway
with an example of two quite different styles of talk/writing. Almost everyone
is familiar with Oliver Sacks=s (1985) account of Dr P. B the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Sacks has
developed a quite distinctive style of speaking/writing, not unconnected with
science fiction, in an attempt to express the uniqueness of the
afflicted people he depicts. About them he says: AWe may
say they are travelers to unimaginable lands B lands
of which otherwise we would have no conception. This why their lives and
journeys seem to me to have a quality of the fabulous... [and] I feel compelled
to speak of tales and fables as well as cases. The scientific and romantic in
such realms cry out to come together B [and my
friend] Luria liked to speak here of >romantic
science=@ (Sacks, 1985, p.xi). So this is Sacks=s task in his writing: not only to depict >unimaginable lands B lands
of which we otherwise have no conception=, but to
do it in such a way that we ourselves can get a sense of what it would be like
for us to inhabit such a land. Wow! What a task! Yet, to an extent, as those
who have read his work I=m sure will agree, he succeeds in doing it. How?
Before I turn to my two examples, let me set the scene: Dr P. was a musician of
distinction. He came to visit Sacks, however, as he began to make odd visual
mistakes, for example, not recognizing students by their face, but only by
their voice. After his initial consultation with Sacks, Sacks went to visit Dr
P. in his home, taking with him a collection of test materials, among them, the
Platonic solids. Dr P. had no visual trouble with them at all: a cube, a
dodecahedron, and Adon=t bother with the others,@ he said, AI=ll get the eikosihedron too=. The Sacks then presented him with a rose. Here is
one account (of my devising) of what happened next:
I
had a rose in my buttonhole, so I now removed it, and gave it to him to study.
Dr
P. described the flower in geometric, abstract terms.
I
asked him to tell me what it was, and he said that he found it difficult to
say.
He
made some rather off-target suggestions which, when I asked him to confirm
them, he did.
I
asked him to smell it, and then he said that it was a rose.
I
concluded that he was visually deficient in perceiving shapes other than
geometrical forms.
Here is Sacks=s (1985) account:
AI had
stopped at a florist on my way to his (Dr P.=s)
apartment and bought myself an extravagant rose for my buttonhole. Now I removed
this and handed it to him. He took it like a botanist or morphologist given a
specimen, not like a person given a flower.
>About six inches in length=, he commented, >A
convoluted red form with linear green attachment=.
>Yes= I said encouragingly, and what do you think it is,
Dr P.?=
>Not easy to say=. He
seemed perplexed. >It lacks the simple symmetry of the Platonic solids,
although it may have a higher symmetry of its own... I think is could be an
infloresence or flower.=
>Could be?= I queried.
>Could be,= he
confirmed.
>Smell it,= I
suggested, and again he looked somewhat puzzled, as if I has asked him to smell
a higher symmetry. But he complied courteously, and took it to his nose. Now,
suddenly, he came to life.
>Beautiful!= he
exclaimed. >An early rose. What a heavenly smell!= He started to hum >Die
rose, die Lille...= Reality, it seemed, might by conveyed by smell, not
by sight... Visually, he was lost in a world of lifeless abstractions... He
could speak about things, but did not see them face-to-face@ (pp.12-13).
What=s the difference? Well, at the purely surface level (I
will introduce a much >deeper= level in a moment), Sacks=s account is longer; it contains many more
(irrelevant?) scene-setting details; more metaphorical talk (of >like= and >as if=); more evaluative talk (>extravagant=; >perplexed=, >courteously=, etc.);
more >possibility=-talk (>it seemed=, >might=, etc.); more direct speech and dialogical exchanges.
It makes clear that he is issuing requests and invitations to Dr
P., not commands. Furthermore, Sacks expresses his evaluative
judgments in relation to Dr P., i.e., how he stands in relation to Dr P.=s responses, in a metaphorical, poetic fashion B >he was was lost in a world of visual abstractions...
he did not see [things] face-to-face=. And at
a perhaps less obvious level B when compared with my account, in which I present a
sequence of facts like >beads on a string= B his account has a rhythm to it, its is >paced=, it gives rise to emphases and pauses B in short, as we read each utterance within it, a
fairly specific expectation is responsively aroused in us as to what might
happen next (Tannen, 1989)[i].
Whereas, with my contrived account, while we might, so to speak, >get the picture= quite
accurately, it arouses very few such specific directional expectations. In
short, my account is essentially a 3rd-person report, while
Sacks=s is a 1st-person telling.
But
what is the functional or operative difference between these two ways of
talking/writing? How is it that Sacks, by the use of allusive, evocative,
gestural, and emotionally expressive forms of talk and text, achieves (at least
in my opinion) a greater intellectually legitimate account of Dr P.=s >reality= than I
do? B a legitimacy present in the way it provides us with Aactionable knowledge,@ i.e., orients
or directs us toward the next >right
step= to take in practice in Dr P.=s treatment, in a way that my account does not.
To
emphasize this last point, consider voicing the utterance: AThe cat sat on the mat, the mat was red, the cat was
black.@ Again, we can get the picture quite clearly, but B ASo what?@ How
might we act in relation to such an account? If it arouses any expectations at
all, they are so vague and non-specific that they lack any action-guiding
force. But if the utterance is voiced in the following manner: AThe cat...(pause)... sat... (pause)... on the mat,...
(pause)... the mat... (pause)... was RED!? (emphatic intonation)...(pause)...
the cat was (...) BLACK!@ Then, is it the beginning of a ghost story, or of a
murder story, or of a mystery to do with black cats and red mats? Whatever it is
the beginning of, we feel it is the beginning of something we might like
to follow further, we feel engaged by it, >arrested= or >struck= by it.
At
the end of the consultation at Dr P.=s home,
Dr P. said to Sacks:@Well, Dr Sacks... Can you tell me what you find wrong,
make recommendations?@ AI can=t tell you what I find wrong,@ Sacks replied, Abut I=ll say what I find right. You are a wonderful
musician, and music is your life. What I would prescribe, in a case sch as
yours, is a life which consists entirely of music. Music must become the
center, make it the whole, of your life@ (p.17).
Sacks=s thought in relation to Dr P. was this: AVisually, he was lost in a world of lifeless
abstractions. Indeed he did not have areal visual world, as he did not have a
real visual self. He could speak about things, but he did not see them
face-to-face@ (p.13, my emphasis). In other words, Dr P. had lost
that capacity to respond to living movement expectantly, i.e., in terms
of expectations of what should come next. The visual flow of things thus expressed
nothing to him. Instead of in terms of visual anticipations and expectations,
he held the flow of his life together musically, in terms of a rhythmic
flow of sound.
This
failure of Dr P. suggests a distinction to us, a distinction between >withness-> and >aboutness-thinking/talking/writing=: Withness (dialogic)-thinking is a form of
reflective interaction that involves coming into living contact with an other=s living being, with their utterances, their bodily
expressions, their words, their >works=. It gives rise, not to a >seeing=, for what is >sensed= is invisible; nor to an interpretation, for our
responses occur spontaneously and directly in our living encounters with an
other=s expressions; but to a >shaped= and
>vectored=
sense of our moment-by-moment changing placement in our current surroundings B engendering in us both unique anticipations as to
what-next might happen along with, so to speak, >action-guiding
advisories= as to what-next we might do. While aboutness
(monologic)-thinking, however, is unresponsive to another=s expressions; it works simply in terms of a thinker=s >theoretical pictures= B but, even when we >get
the picture=, we still have to interpret it, and to decide,
intellectually, on a right course of action.
About
this kind of writing, Palshaugen (2001) very correctly notes: Ait might seem that the activity of writing has
this inherent tendency towards generalisation, while the spoken word B the >living word= B is inherently specific and anchored in the practical.
This is indeed a too hasty conclusion. The point is rather that the process of
writing makes it particularly clear to us that when the words used are not
about that practical context within which the linguistic expressions are
made, the meaning of the words becomes >theoretical=. In other
words, the meaning of the words used derives from some other phenomenon than
the practical context in which the words are being used. The meaning is so to
speak created >out of context=. In
contrast, a language game which takes place within the very same practical
situation as that language game is about, gains B by dint
of the very interplay between the actors use of words and the practical
circumstances B a kind of specificity which a language game >out of context= is not
capable. In this sense, there seems to be a kind of inherent force towards
generality B towards theory B in
writing, in the written word@ (p.210).
It
is in being able to >move= us, to elicit from us, creatively, responses not
previously expressed, that >withness= styles
or forms of talk/writing can do what >aboutness= styles cannot. They can work both to >deconstruct=-in-practice
our current practices, and enable us to re-construct them selectively. And they
can do this by guiding us toward eliminating previously unnoticed misleading
tendencies, and by directing our attention toward ones of a more enhancing
kind. To repeat: their force in practice, is that they can bring previously
unnoticed, alternative, intrinsic possibilities to our attention. As George
Steiner (1989) puts it:AThe authentic experience of understanding, when we are
spoken to by another or by a poem, is one of responding responsibility. We are
answerable to the text... morally, spiritually, and psychologically (a
threefold accountability)... those who are not executants can be respondents:
answers in action... all new possibilities are in their creation in a sense
implicitly critical: they say that things might have been otherwise... they are
also critical in the sense that, in being articulated the writer, painter,
musician selects and rejects possible forms of expression, measuring them up
against an inner, felt sense of a >something= that is there needing expression... they are also
critical in the sense that in their formation the writer brings their the >real presence= of
their other >textual friends= to bear
in such articulations... in their practice, they reject, alter, omit, elaborate
aspects of their >friends= work...
we read each other through the rival refractions of both others and our own
inventions... the critical motion or movement in one=s practice...@
(pp.6-11, my emphases). In short, what the voices of others can do for us that
we cannot do for ourselves, is that their A>otherness= which enters into us makes us other@ (p.188) B they
can arouse a dialogically-structured response in us, they can
create possibilities for change within us that we cannot create within
ourselves alone.
But
how is this possible? Sacks=s practical recommendation to Dr P., one that Dr P.
could put into the practice of his everyday life, clearly arose as a result of Sacks=s >withness=-thinking,
and relied on the >withness=-thinking
still available to Dr P. in the musical sphere for Dr P. to grasp how to apply
it. But how did Sacks know that this was the right thing to say to Dr
P.?[ii]
Bakhtin
and the dialogical
It is at this point, that I
must turn toward issues of a more general kind: Especially crucial to the
routine, taken-for-granted flow of our everyday activities is our immediate and
spontaneous understanding of the meanings of other people=s utterances within that ongoing flow of activity. The
work of two people in particular is relevant to our gaining an understanding of
how our use of language works within this flow, and the part played in
it by our spontaneous, living, expressive and responsive, bodily activities:
those two are Wittgenstein and Bakhtin, although many others B e.g., Garfinkel, Goffman, Mead, and Merleau-Ponty B are of great importance also.
To
turn to Bakhtin=s (1986) contribution first: He introduces us to the
idea of a previously unnoticed kind of understanding spontaneously occurring
within our ongoing involvements in our ordinary, everyday, practical
activities, a relationally-responsive understanding, that can contrasted
with the representational-referential forms currently more familiar to
us. As he puts it: AAll real and integral understanding is actively
responsive, and constitutes nothing more than the initial preparatory stage of
a response... And the speaker himself is oriented precisely toward such an
actively responsive understanding. He does not expect passive understanding
that, so to speak, only duplicates his or her own idea in someone else=s mind (as in Saussure=s model
of linguistic communication...). Rather, the speaker talks with an expectation
of a response, agreement, sympathy, objection, execution, and so forth (with
various speech genres presupposing various integral orientations and
speech plans on the part of speakers or writers)@ (p.69,
my emphasis). In other words, what Bakhtin is emphasizing here, is our Aactionable=
understanding of another=s speech. Saussure=s
passive account in terms of inner mental representations, in terms of >getting the picture=, is no
use to us in guiding us, say, toward an appropriate answer to a question.
Bakhtin=s (1986) focus on what is presupposed in the various speech
genres open to us in our daily exchanges with those around us, and the dialogically-structured
character of those exchanges, confront us with some very tricky epistemological
problems, if we are asked to characterize what it is that people must know
if they are to perform skillfully and unproblematically in the many everyday
settings in which they live out their lives. For, to be an autonomous agent,
able to act freely in accord with one=s needs
and desires in a person=s society, the person must be able if challenged to
give good reasons for their actions, they must be able to account for
them within the Avocabulary of motives@ that
currently has >currency= within
their society (Mills, 1940; Scott and Lyman, 1968). As Garfinkel (1967) puts
it, people=s everyday activities reflexively contain within
themselves methods (ethno-methods) for making those selfsame activities Avisibly-rational-and-reportable-for-all-practical-purposes,
i.e., >accountable=, as
organizations of commonplace everyday activities@
(p.vii), and a part of what it is for children to grow into the social life of
those around them, is to gain both as sense of the relevant norms, and the
ethno-methods by which they instantiate them in their conduct.
We
ask a child: ADo you know your name?@ The
child answers: AYes.@ AThat=s not what I meant,@ we say,
ACan you tell me it?@ AYes,@ the child answers again. Exasperated, we say: AWill you tell me your name?@ ANo,@ the child says. Finally, we command him to tell us: ATell me your name.@ AJohn,@ he says. There is, of course, an implicit ethics at
work in our questioning, and we usually phrase them in terms of requests
and invitations rather than commands as we do not want to violate
a person=s right to privacy and autonomy. Indeed, in presenting
a request, speakers/actors give up their autonomy, while recipients of the
request retain their=s in being given the opportunity to grant or refuse
the request (see Goffman, 1972). I raise these issues here, not because I
particularly want to go into ethical details, but just to show in general the
nature of the detailed complexity waiting in the background to be exhibited in
misunderstanding and confusion in even the simplest of exchanges, if one does
not respond to them in normally expected ways. What is wrong with the child=s responses here, is that he is not responding accountably,
he is not responding, so to speak, with any Asense of
occasion.@ He lacks the orientational understanding that
could give him a sense of his place in a larger scheme of things.
It
is this vast background of ceaselessly ongoing, spontaneously expressive and
responsive, living bodily activity B the
background against which all our more self-conscious and deliberately conducted
activity takes place and is made sense of and judged B that has until recently gone unnoticed in all our
previous philosophies. Descartes (1637/1968), for instance, completely ignored
it. Following Galilieo=s claim B that
the book of Nature Ais written in the language of mathematics, and its
characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures without which
it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it@ B he suggested that our thinking was merely a matter of
calculating: AThere can be nothing so distant that one does not
reach it eventually, or so hidden that one cannot discover it by those long
chains of reasonings, quite simple and easy, which geometers are accustomed to
using to teach their most difficult demonstrations@ (p.41). To such a calculating-agent, our surroundings
are completely action-neutral, so to speak; we must first do our inner calculations
on the basis of certain assumptions B some
perhaps ethical and political, as well as others of a more factual kind B and then act according to the results we obtain. But,
as Wittgenstein(1981) notes B and here I suggest you imagine yourself driving at
speech along a multi-lane interstate highway B AWhat determines our judgment, our concepts and
reactions, is not what one man is doing now, an individual
action, but the whole hurly-burly of human actions, the background against
which we see an action@ (no.567). For, whatever it is that we do to cope with
driving in such conditions, the one thing we don=t do, is
to turn our attention away from the road while we think what next to do;
we peer even more intently ahead (and into the rearview mirror), and as we peer
this way and that, we judgmentally evaluate the options available to us for >going on= with
our journey B a relational-dynamics, so to speak, is at work
in helping us gain a sense, while in motion, of where to go next.
To
put this issue B to do with the kind of thinking (and knowing)
involved in judging and evaluating while in motion the best movements next to
make B into the context of our language intertwined
exchanges with others, we can return to Bakhtin. Let us take two utterances,
Bakhtin (1984) takes the two utterances: >Life
is good=, >Life is not good=. About
them, he remarks: ABetween these two judgements there exists a specific
logical relation: one is the negation of the other. But between them there are
not and cannot be any dialogical relationships; they do not argue with one
another in any way... Both these judgments must become embodied, if any dialogic
relation is to arise between them and toward them..@ (p.184). He then goes on to take two identical
utterances: >Life is good=. >Life is good=. Here,
he notes, that if they might be Aone
singular judgment written (or pronounced) by us twice... But if this
judgment is expressed in two utterances by two different subjects, then
dialogic relationships arise between them (agreement, affirmation)"
(p.184).
But
what is a dialogic relationship compared with all the other kinds
of relationship already familiar to us. Bakhtin (1984) insists that dialogic
relationships exist only between utterances of different voices, that is, in
the unfolding activity of responsive speaking; they Aare reducible neither to logical relationships nor to
relationships oriented semantically toward their referential object... They
must clothe themselves in discourse, become utterances, become positions of
various subjects expressed in discourse, in order that dialogic relations might
arise among them@ (p.183). Thus, we might say, following Bakhtin
(1984), just as Alanguage lives only in the dialogical interaction of
those who make use of it@ (p.183), and does not have (pace Linguistics)
a separate, self-contained existence as an intellectual object outside
of it, so we might also say that Adialogic
relations live only in the unique unfolding of unique verbally informed
interactions as they occur, in time,@ and
they also cannot be classified in static, pre-established categories at all.
Living
movements and living relations
In other words, we are beginning
here to limn out a novel account of thinking, a kind of thinking that takes
place, not like geometric reasoning, not in episodic moments in terms of
static, spatially arrayed shapes and forms, not in terms of measuring spatial
like up against spatial like to achieve a correspondence or not B a style of thought that, metaphorically, is not best
described as a kind of >seeing=. But a style of thought that only takes place in
motion, that works in terms of felt, living, inner, expressive-responsive >movements=
unfolding in time B abobe, I have called it >withness=-thinking
to contrast it with our more usual style of >aboutness=-thinking. Clearly, Steiner=s (1989) account above articulates something of this
sense when he notes that Athe writer, painter, musician selects and rejects
possible forms of expression, measuring them up against an inner, felt sense of
a >something= that is
there needing expression... [and] in their practice, [people] reject, alter,
omit, elaborate aspects of their >friends= work... we read each other through the rival
refractions of both others and our own inventions... [these are] the critical motion
or movement in one=s practice@ (p.11).
But
if we are to understand what Steiner is gesturing toward here in more than a
superficial, metaphorical fashion, we must delve more deeply into the nature of
living movement and change. The kinds of changes available in and to dead
mechanisms are all simply either what might be called locomotive
changes, i.e., changes of place or position in space, or configurational
changes, i.e., changes of rearrangement among a constant set of self-contained
components. While the kinds of changes relevant to living, growing, and
developing beings are quite different. First, it is important to note that even
the most complex of >man-made=
mechanisms, computers, for instance, are constructed piece by piece from objective
parts; that is, from parts which retain their character unchanged irrespective
of whether they are parts of the system or not. In other words, all such
assemblages are sustained as unified structures by all the parts being joined
by third entities (such as glue, nails, etc.) into unified structures B just as an automobile is welded or nut and bolted
together. We can say that the parts in all such structures are externally
related. But living beings are certainly not constructed piece by piece in this
way. On the contrary, they grow into existence as third forms of
life from, initially, a special kind of meeting between two other such forms.
And they then develop from simple individuals into richly structured ones in
such a way that their >parts= at any one moment in time owe not just their
character, but their very existence both to one another and to their dynamic
relations with the >parts= of the system at some earlier point in time B that is, their directional history is just as
important as the >logic= of their relations in their growth. Because of this,
it is impossible to picture, i.e., represent, living wholes in terms of spatial
diagrams, for such wholes contemplated at a given moment are always incomplete.
They are always on the way to being other than they are. In other words, they
necessarily have both a temporal as well as a spatial aspect and thus, by their
very nature, >point= both from a past and toward a possible future (see
Shotter, 1984, pp.42-43). We can call the >parts= in such dynamically related structures participant
parts; and unlike the self-contained parts of mechanical systems, they exist
only in terms of the internal relations between themselves and other
participant parts.
But,
as if this was not complicated enough, we must say more about the nature of
living growth and change. For it is important to accept that there is always a
kind of developmental continuity involved in the unfolding of all living
activities, such that earlier phases of the activity are indicative of at least
the style of what is to come later. In other words, all living
activities, it seems, give rise to what we might call identity preserving
changes or deformations. Just as acorns only grow into oak trees and not rose
bushes, and eggs only produce chickens and not rabbits, so there is a
characteristic >style= to every aspect of their unfolding in time B indeed, their possible ends are already >there= in their beginnings. In other words, as Wittgenstein
(1953) puts it, Ameaning is a physiognomy@
(no.568). That is, not only are the changes signifying meaning dispersed
throughout a dynamic whole, in its total aspect, not centered in any particular
part of it, but to the extent that meaning is signified in the >look= of things, on their >face=, we can look to what the look is looking at, what it
is being responsive to, what it is expressive of, what it is related to, and so
on. Thus, in having internal rather than external relations to
their surrounding circumstances like this, they have an indicative or mimetic,
i.e., a gestural, relation to them (even if their surroundings are
invisible to those witnessing only the activities) B in other words, rather than simply an >add-on= extra, they are always participant parts in a larger
whole. This is a point of paramount importance. For it means that meaning as
such is always immanent in all such relations. For all our spontaneous,
expressive-responsive bodily activities, including our words in our uttering of
them, >point beyond=
themselves, both toward events or aspects in their surroundings, and toward a
limited set of possibilities in the future.
However,
all such immanent meanings are only realized in the meetings between two
or more living beings. As Mead (1934) puts it: AThe
mechanism of meaning is present in the social act before the emergence of
consciousness or awareness of meaning occurs. The act or adjustive response of
the second organism gives to the gesture of the first organism the meaning it
has@ (pp 77-78). But consider the special nature of the
inter-activity in such meetings. In being spontaneously responsive to each
other in such meetings, instead of one person first acting individually and
independently of an other, and then a second
replying by also acting individually and independently of the first, we
act jointly, as a collective-we. In being responsive while speaking to their
listener=s facial expressions, intakes of breath, and other
signs of understanding or not, they act also as co-listeners, while in issuing
these expressions of understanding listeners act as co-speakers. And we do this
bodily, spontaneously, in a >living= way, without having first >to work out= how to
respond to each other. But this means that when someone acts, their activity
cannot be accounted as wholly their own activity B for a
person=s acts are partly >shaped= by the acts of all the others around them. Thus,
because the overall outcome of any exchange cannot be traced back to the
intentions of any of the individuals involved it, the >dialogical reality or space= constructed between them is experienced as an >external reality=, a >third agency= (an >it=, a >something=) with
its own (ethical) demands and requirements: AThe word
is a drama in which three characters participate (it is not a duet, but a trio)@ (Bakhtin, 1986, p.122) B in
other words, it is as if this third agency, this something, has a >voice= of its own to which dialogue participants must also
respond. This is where all the strangeness of the dialogical begins[iii].
Let
us explore this strangeness further: Firstly, we perhaps need to note that such
inter-activity cannot be simply described as a sequence of actions (for it
is not done by individuals; and cannot be explained by giving people=s reasons), nor can it be simply described as behavior
(as it cannot be explained in terms of causal principles either); it
constitutes a distinct, third sphere of dynamically intertwined activity, sui
generis, with its own distinctive properties. It involves a special kind of
nonrepresentational, sensuous or embodied form of practical-moral
(Bernstein, 1983) understanding, which, in being constitutive of people=s social and personal identities, is prior to and
determines all the other ways of knowing available to us. What is produced in
such dialogical exchanges is a very complex >orchestration= of not wholly reconcilable influences B as Bakhtin (1981) remarks, both >centripetal=
tendencies inward toward order and unity at the center, as well as >centrifugal= ones outward
toward diversity and difference on the borders or margins. Their complex
intertwined nature makes it very difficult for us to characterize them: they
have neither a fully orderly nor a fully disorderly structure, neither a
completely stable nor an easily changed organization, neither a fully
subjective nor fully objective character. As a complex dynamic >orchestration= of many
different kinds of influences, they lack specificity, they are only partially determined:
they are just as much material as mental; just as much felt as thought; in
being >spread out= amongst
all those participating in them, they are >non-locatable=; they are neither >inside= people, but nor are they >outside= them;
they are located in a >dialogical space= where >inside= and >outside= are,
seemingly paradoxically, one. Due to their living continuity, they do not allow
for the spatialization of time into a sequence of events each with a separate >before= and >after= (Bergson), nor do they allow for separable agencies
or effects; they consist only in meaningful wholes which cannot divide
themselves into separable parts.
Indeed,
it is precisely their lack of any pre-determined order, and thus their openness
to being specified or determined by those participating within in them
in practice (while usually remaining quite unaware of having done so), that is
their central defining feature. And this, I suggest, is the nature of
our everyday social realities. They have, as Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, and
Heidegger all say, a primordial nature, where by that they mean, not
that we must orient ourselves toward primitive times back in history to
understand human communication aright, but that, Merleau-Ponty (1968) puts it, Aphilosophy... must recommence everything, reject the
instruments reflection and intuition had provided themselves, and install
itself in a locus where they have not yet been distinguished, in experiences
that have not yet been >worked over=, that
offer us all at once, pell-mell, both >subject= and >object=, both existence and essence, and hence give
philosophy resources to redefine them. Seeing, speaking, even thinking (with
certain reservations, for as soon as we distinguish thought from speaking
absolutely we are already in the order of reflection), are experiences of this
kind, both irrecusable and enigmatic... the insistent reminder of a mystery as
familiar as it is unexplained, of a light which, illuminating the rest,
remains at its source in obscurity@ (p.130)[iv].
And this is precisely what makes this sphere of activity interesting to us, for
at least the two following reasons: 1) to do with in situ practical
investigations, i.e., action research, into how people actually do in fact
manage to >work things out=
effectively between themselves, and the part played by the ways of
talking/writing we interweave into them in so doing; but also 2) for how we
might refine and elaborate these spheres of talk intertwined activity, and how
by an appropriate use of such talk, we might extend them into novel
spheres as yet unknown to us. I can now usefully turn to a discussion of action
research and the nature of actionable knowledge.
Action
research and the nature of actionable knowledge
I began with a comparison of
two styles of writing: 3rd-person reportings and 1st-person
tellings, a comparison between talk/writing that leaves us >unmoved= with
that which >moves= us. I then went on to discuss the nature of our
living relations to each other in an effort to illuminate the reasons for the
differences between these two styles. Let me now turn to action research, and
to the relation of these two styles of expression to the question of the
creation of Aactionable knowledge:@ While
objective, reporting-style of writing may serve an important authoritative
function in setting the outside limits, so to speak, within which an
institution must function. To the extent that action research has to operate
within the ordinary, ongoing, everyday life activities of organizations,
institutions, businesses, and all the other everyday spheres of worklife, each
unique in its own way, it is the second telling-style that will give rise to
actionable knowledge. While the first style attempts to capture the nature of
life in another world independent of us, it is the second that enables
us to enter into another world, with a life of its own, not independent
of us, but in relation to us B thus to
gain a sense of its movements relative to our=s.
While
3rd-person reports of research, represent important
regularities and de-contextualized universals, i.e., facts, about the groups in
question researched into by outsiders to the groups, 1st-person
tellings work in a different way. They are related to the experiences of
insiders to those groups, and they work so that in their telling they >move= listeners into paying attention to previously
unnoticed particularities within the >world= of the insiders B and it
is in this way, in making the unnoticed noticeable, that, although the cases
described might seem to be utterly unique and particular, they can in their
telling give rise, nonetheless, to transferrable or actionable knowledge.
Let
me now turn to a more detailed account of these two styles. Following Tannen
(1989), we can call the first style, an uninvolved or disengaged
style of writing, while we can call the second style, Sacks=s style, an involved or engaged style.
With Merleau-Ponty=s remark above in mind B about
installing ourselves in a locus where our experiences have not yet been >worked over= B we can note that an uninvolved style of talk/writing
works in terms of finished and fixed categories, and that, furthermore, it does
not >look for= any
special response from its recipients B it is
in the closed style of >the cat sat on the mat=. We get
the picture, but the picture still requires an interpretation if we are
to act upon it. While Sacks=s account works in terms of unfinished, fluid or
flexible varieties of possibilities. And while he leaves it open as to
how Dr P. might respond B for he issues invitations not commands B it is the relation of Dr P.=s unique responses to Sacks=s invitations, that are revealing of the unique nature
of Dr P.=s >world=. Furthermore, in engaging us, Sacks=s style of writing is >moving=, we are >moved= by it in the sense that provides us with a shaped and
vectored sense of Dr P.=s >world=, i.e., a sense of how, practically, to find out >way about= within
it, thus to >go on= with him in practical ways that make sense to him
(Wittgenstein, 1953).
But
we can give an even more detailed account of their in fact very distinctive
natures, an account that brings out into the open their ethics and politics.
Let me turn toward this task by first giving the two styles even more extensive
names. I will call the first style, uninvolved style, a monological-retrospective-objective
style of writing, and the other, involved style, a dialogical-prospective-relational
style of writing (Shotter, 1996).
In
monological-retrospective-objective writing, our official, academic style, we
are talking/writing to other fellow professional academics, about what
happened earlier, when we were involved with those whose activity is now the
topic of our talk. Our task is to provide our fellows with a linguistic
representation of the nature of that activity, but now from outside that
involvement, looking back upon it as a completed process. In separating the
activity from the people whose activity it is, and from its surrounding
circumstances, we would be separating it from the practical part it played in
their lives, its point from them. But this is not our concern. Our
concern is with what logically >can be said= about
the patterning or form of that activity, for our search is for an order
that we can claim to have >discovered= in it[v].
The force of what we say or write in such a style is located in our
professional relationships, and is directed toward identifying that to which we
all, as professionals with a certain set of methodological commitments, should
attend. It is aimed at producing decontextualized explanatory theories,
i.e., representations of states of affairs that enable those in possession of
them to predict and control the events they represent. As Descartes (1968) put
it in outlining methods of Aproperly conducting one=s reason
in the science,@ the purpose (telos) implicit in these methods,
is to Amake ourselves, as it were, masters and possessors of
nature@ (p.78).
In
dialogical-prospective-relational styles of writing, however, we would be
talking/writing to our readers of the character of our ongoing
involvements with certain other people, as if from within that
involvement B while both looking back on what had been achieved so
far, and forward prospectively, toward the possibilities open to us for our
next >steps=. Our concern in such talk/writing would be with
attempting to >show= or >make manifest= to
readers (metaphorically) how they might, justifiably, be able to make
sense of the character of such involvements. What I say or write originates in
the interactive relationships from within which I speak, and is directed toward
instructing readers, as ordinary everyday persons now engaged or involved in
the relationship in some way (perhaps watching a videotape of it, or reading a
transcript, or whatever), in noticing and making within in similar such
connections and distinctions as I made originally as a participant researcher
within it. Where, quite other than my individual mastery and possession of the
topic of my research, the telos in such activity is directed toward all
engaged with it becoming simply participants with a more fully articulated
sensibility B able both to notice what others let pass them by, and
to express both what they notice and its (relational) role in our practices.
Let
me now turn to the issue of action research in the light of these two styles of
expression: Our first monological-retrospective-objective style of writing may
serve an important authoritative function in setting the outside limits,
so to speak, within which the institutions we want, in action research to
study, must function. It clearly links in with >aboutness=-thinking discussed above. However, to the extent that
action research has to operate within the ordinary, ongoing, everyday life
activities of organizations, institutions, businesses, and all the other
everyday spheres of worklife, each unique in its own way, it is the second that
will give rise to actionable knowledge, i.e., to knowledge as to how, in
the course of our particular movements, in the course of our particular actions
within such institutions, a shaped and vectored sense of where next we might
move. While the first style attempts to capture the nature of another life in
another world independent of us, it is the second that enables us to
enter into another=s world, and to get the sense of a >something= with a life
of its own, not independent of us, but in relation to us B that is, to get to know >it= in its own terms rather than in our terms, to let >its voice= be
heard speaking within us. Indeed, as Steiner (1989) outlines above, it is the >real presence= within
us of others=s >voices= that enables us to undertake certain critical motions
or movements in our own practices, i.e., to undertake with the help of
these voices, >with=-ness thinking. But how can we establish such
relations within ourselves, how can we elicit such >moving= expressions from the others and othernesses around
us? This is where Wittgenstein=s (1953) philosophy plays a crucial role.
The
role of Wittgenstein=s (1953) philosophical writings in action research.
While modern philosophy has
seen itself as the handmaiden or under-labourer (John Locke) to science, and by
the use of reason and argument, sought to provide the >foundations= for our
further inquiries in a particular field, Wittgenstein=s (1953) later philosophical writings have a quite
different set of aims: He wants to inquire into the range of possible ways of
making sense open to us in the many different practical activities we share in
our everyday lives together. Indeed, in so doing, he makes use of many of the
self-same methods available to us in daily life for developing and creating our
own ways of doing things. But he writes of these methods in such a way as to
lead us, when in fact involved in the practices he depicts, to attend to what
usually passes us by unnoticed, to attend, we might say, to what is in fact
visible to us, but usually unremarked on explicitly. He thus describes the
nature of his philosophical investigations as follows: AWhat we are supplying are really remarks on the
natural history of human beings; we are not contributing curiosities however,
but observations which no one has doubted, but which have escaped remark only
because they are always before our eyes@
(no.415).
And
he calls the remarks he uses to draw our attention to what is, in fact, already
known to us, >reminders=. For,
as he says: ASomething that we know when no one asks us, but no
longer know when we are supposed to give an account of it [cf. Augustine], is
something we need to remind ourselves of@
(Wittgenstein, 1953, no.89)[vi].
His philosophy, then, is of a practical-descriptive kind. It is a philosophy
without a particular subject-matter, aimed outwards toward helping us to become
more actively related to subtle, previously unnoticed aspects of our
surroundings in the present moment, rather than inwards toward thinking, prior
to any action, as what features we should approach or address in our
inquiries. This, clearly is a very different kind of goal from the theoretical
goals pursued in the classical, metaphysical philosophies of the past. Instead
of providing preliminary theories or models as to the nature of the world
around us and our knowledge of it, his aim is to alert us to what in actual
fact is occurring in our own involvements with each other, and with our
surroundings, which make such theorizing possible. Thus his kind of
philosophy Asimply puts everything before us, and neither explains
nor deduces anything. B Since everything lies open to view there is nothing
to explain. For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us. One might
give the name >philosophy= to what
is possible before all new discoveries and inventions@ (no.126).
But
where and how can Wittgenstein=s new philosophy find its purchase on practical
affairs? Consider in actual practice, a project manager talking to a foreman on
the shop floor: AWhat we need to do is to move those machines
over there (gestures, looks to see if the manager is looking in the same
direction), to here (gestures). Then that (gestures, looks, etc.)
process will be more directly connected to this one (gestures, looks,
etc.). Is that OK? (expectation of a nod, or >uh,
uh=)@ It is in the interweaving of their talk and their
pointing and gesturing, that speakers engage their audience in an imagined
undertaking, in something not yet achieved, and enlist them in
validating it as a feasible undertaking. It is the (gestural) power of people=s embodied living expressions to >call out=
embodied responses from those around them, and in so doing, begin a new style
of relationship, inaugurate a new language-game, that we have failed to take
proper account of previously. Wittgenstein (1980) draws our attention to this
issue thus: AThe origin and primitive form of the language-game is
a reaction; only from this can more complicated forms develop. Language B I want to say B is a
refinement, >in the beginning was the deed= [quoting Goethe]@ (p.31,
my addition). AThe primitive reaction may have been a glance or a
gesture, but it may also have been a word,@ he
notes (Wittgenstein, 1953, p.218). ABut what
is the word >primitive= meant
to say here?@ he asks, (Wittgenstein, 1981). APresumably that this sort of behavior is pre-linguistic:
that a language-game is based on it, that it is the prototype of a way
of thinking and not the result of thought@
(no.541)[vii].
And
his Areminders@ can
serve just this function in our practices, by leading us to focus on novelties,
on new but previously unnoticed possibilities for >going on=
available to us in our present circumstances, but present to us only in
fleeting moments (see also Palshaugen, 2001, on the important function of >reminers=). If we
can allow ourselves to be >struck by= these
novelties, then we can often go on, not to solve what had been seen as a
problem, but to develop new ways forward in which the old problems become
irrelevant. Thus their main point is to do with how we might institute, within
our already existing work practices, new (dialogical or conversational)
practices leading to our own increased awareness or mindfulness of the details
of these practices, thus to elaborate or refine them. The value of his results
is to be found in our being able to conduct our practices B both our everyday practices and those of an academic
kind B in a less confused and misleading manner. This is
where Wittgenstein=s comments quoted above B
concerning the crucial, prototypical role of our expressive-responsive,
bodily reactions to events B are central. For it is not in repetitions or
regularities that we can find the source of change in our daily affairs, but in
Aonce-occurrent events of being@ (Bakhtin, 1993).
Indeed,
it is only in our 1st-person expressions, in our tellings,
that we can teach a practice, can communicate the nature of a practice to
another person. Practices cannot be taught by drilling other people in the rote
learning of rule statements. It is a question of whether our 1st-person
expressions are accurately linked to a mysterious realm of the speaker=s >mental states=, but
the fact that they tell us in their expression what the speakers
anticipations anticipations and expectations are as to how we should >go on= in the current situation, how we respond. We cannot
this kind of teaching by stating rules and principles to each other, Aif a person has not yet got the concepts, [we]
teach him to use the words by means of examples and by practice. B ... I do it, he does it after me; and I influence him
by expressions of agreement, rejection, expectation, encouragement. I let him
go his way, or hold him back; and so on,@ says
Wittgenstein (1953, no.208). ANot only rules, but also examples are needed for
establishing a practice. Our rules leave loop-holes open, and the practice has
to speak for itself@ (Wittgenstein, 1969, no.139) B for it is in >calling
out= particular spontaneous bodily responses from us to,
that they can exert a constitutive influence on us, and >tell= us of the kind of anticipations regulated by
the rules.
Thus,
in teaching someone (a child or an adult) a number series, we say such things
as AHere, >this= is
the >right continuation=, and
here >this=, and
so-on and such-and-such. But Awhat >such-and-such= is I
can only show in examples. That is, I teach him to continue a series...,
without using any expression of the >law
of the series=; rather, I am forming a substratum [i.e., background]
for the meaning of algebraic rules or what is like them. [And within this
substratum or background] he must go on like this without a reason. Not,
however, because he cannot yet grasp the reason but because B in this system B there
is no reason. (>The chain of reasons comes to an end=) And the like this (in >go on like this=) is
signified by a number, a value. For at this level the expression of the
rule is explained by the value, not the value by the rule. For just where one
says >But don=t you see...?
the rule is no use, it is what is explained, not what does the explaining@ (Wittgenstein, 1981, nos.300, 301, 302). In other
words, just as a sport=s coach, piano teacher, or craft skills instructor
succeeds in teaching their pupils a practice, by the use of appropriate
comments or remarks at crucial moments in their pupil=s activity B >Not like THAT, but like THIS! B so Wittgenstein tries to teach us his philosophical
practice, in his style of writing. For crucial in his writing is his appeal to
our capacity to imagine ourselves acting from within various
everyday circumstances. Almost every remark contains the phrase: AImagine a language...,@ AImagine someone...,@ AImagine how one might...,@ or talk of an Aimage@ of some kind. In other words, his writing is
evocative, allusive, or suggestive. As in the involved style of writing I
outlined above, it is expressive of, or gestures toward, either
in an indicative or mimetic way, something other than or beyond itself.
While
we may >feel at home=, so to
speak, in talking this way amongst friends and family members, when we must
speak in >official=
contexts amongst strangers, in contexts where we cannot assume a taken-for-granted
background of spontaneously responsive understandings, we find it difficult to
talk in this way. As Palshaugen (2001) notes: APractitioners
will over and over again find themselves in a situation where they in practice
perform a >theoretical= kind of
discourse, even though their theoretical understanding of themselves as
practitioners, makes them blind too see this (theoretical) point@ (p.210). Indeed, after groups within an enterprise
had spent time on discussions of what problems they faced, and deciding
priorities and writing down how each problem might be solved, and who should be
responsible and what should be the time limits. They were very surprised when
told by Palshaugen and his group that this very practically oriented process,
although it Aliterally made a good show on paper, it was
nevertheless a very >theoretical=
approach to practical problem-solving@
(p.211). It did not orient them toward, i.e., remind them, of what in their
current practices they already knew and did well.
Conclusions:
the legitimation of action research >in
the moment of acting=
To relate all of this to
action research and to its legitimation as a >research
science=, we can raise the following question: With what kind
of science should it be contrasted? Hanson (1958) distinguishes between
classical, finished sciences and research sciences. Unlike our everyday life
activities, finished sciences can be conducted wholly within a disciplinary
discourse that can be set out in terms of a theoretical system consisting in a
single system of ordered statements representing changes in an
idealized Asubject matter@ in
terms of momentary configurations. That is, they can be represented in a
stable, pictorial manner in an uninvolved and un-involving style of writing.
Research sciences, however, are more like our everyday activities; they cannot
be conducted within such a strict disciplinary discourse. Speakers do not >regiment= or
sanction each other=s utterances in a research conversation in terms of a
limited set of foundational metaphors or >grammatical
pictures=. To inquire into possibilities not yet actualized,
research sciences must be conducted conversationally.
But
this does not mean that just >anything goes=. What
can be said at any one moment in such conversations cannot be arbitrary. As
with sport=s coaches and music teachers, as with managers and
shop floor foreman, the moment of utterance, or Ainteractive
moment,@ is crucial. For everyone=s utterances must be responsive utterances:
they must be responsive to things and events in the speakers=s surrounding; but they must also be responsive to the
utterances of pervious speakers, and be answerable for, and to, a
speaker=s present position, as well as being addressed to
particular listeners. Only if researchers can participate in a shared, dynamic grammar
of felt, moment by moment changing expectations, that they can >go on= with each other in unconfused ways in researching
into what they nave not yet fully discovered. For, what is possible in
researcher=s conversation (open dialogic) entwined activities, is
precluded within a disciplinary discourse B the
exploration of the multidimensional and detailed richness of uniquely new >things= or >events=.
In
this respect, not only is it more accurate to compare action research with
research sciences than with classical sciences, but action research finds its
legitimacy in the same sphere of human conduct as all the rest of the sciences B in people being responsibly accountable for their own
actions to the others around them. This is because, prior to, and during the
conduct their experimental manipulations and the making of their observations,
a community of scientific researchers must all be able to communicate amongst
themselves in nonmisleading, unconfusing ways about uniquely new
possibilities not yet actualized; and to do this, they need ways of
checking out each other=s claims then-and-there, in the ongoing context of
their employment. Just as in everyday life situations, scientists also must be
able to distinguish between that for which they are responsible, and that which
merely happens, irrespective of their agency. For, only if they can sense, when
acting in accord with their theories of what the world might be like, whether the
results of their actions accords with, or depart from, the expectations
engendered by their theories, can they ever put such theories to empirical
test. People=s sense of their own responsibility for their actions
is, then, at the very basis of science itself. Scientists lacking any sense of
their own participation in events occurring around them would be unable to do
experiments. In other words, scientists in natural scientific research face
communication problems not unlike those faced in action research. So, although
Sacks=s style of writing may seem >anecdotal=, may
seem to be merely about single, peculiar particularities, it is an unavoidable
style of communication that all scientists must indulge in, if they are
to instruct one another in how the categories of their theories should be used
and applied B for the categories of such un-involving, such >non-moving= forms
of talk, do not apply themselves.
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Notes:
[i]. I need to emphasize here that I am drawing more
extensively than is obvious from Tannen=s (1989)
book, in which she outlines the most important concept of what she calls Ainvolvement strategies@ in our
speaking and writing. See also in this connection, Goffman=s (1967, pp.113-136) discussion of Ainvolvement obligations.@
[ii]. And we might add here, how could Sacks definitely
justify to us, if challenged, that he did the right thing?
[iii]. See accounts of Ajoint
action@ in Shotter (1980, 1984, 1993a and b).
[iv]. Wittgenstein (1980) articulates a similar thought in
his remark: AWhen you are philosophizing you have to descend into
primeval chaos and feel at home there@ (p.65).
[v]. It is worth noting here, is the relation between
this style of writing, and the account in Marx and Engels=s (1970), The German Ideology, of the fact that
Athe whole trick of proving the hegemony of the spirit
in history (as Stirner calls it) is thus confined to the following three
efforts. No.1.... separating the ideas of those ruling [from the empirical
conditions in their surroundings]... No.2... bringing an order into this rule
of ideas, prove a mystical connection among the successive ruling ideas...[this
to make the ideas Aself-determining]... No.3. To remove the mystical
appearance of this >self-determining concept= it is
changed into a person or persons]... >thinkers=, >philosophers=, the
ideologists... Thus the whole body of materialistic elements has been removed
from history and now full rein can be given to the speculative steed@ (p.67).
[vi]. AThe work of the philosopher consists in assembling
reminders for a particular purpose@
(Wittgenstein, 1953, no.127).
[vii]. For an account of this aspect of Wittgenstein=s (1953) later philosophy and his focus on the
importance of unique, first-time events, see Shotter (2001).