Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 15, No. 485.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
<http://www.princeton.edu/~mccarty/humanist/>
<http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/>
[1] From: "Al Magary" <al@magary.com> (30)
Subject: Re: 15.481 tools
[2] From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@acm.org> (6)
Subject: Re: 15.481 tools
[3] From: Willard McCarty <w.mccarty@btinternet.com> (73)
Subject: argument, tools, metaphors -- and a mascot
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 09:47:48 +0000
From: "Al Magary" <al@magary.com>
Subject: Re: 15.481 tools
I found it convenient that Patrick Durusau littered his reply to the list
moderator's musings with
<snip>
for I read each tag as a header for a snippy comment rather than a marker
for an excision from the original post.
The Moderator, for example, reached for a metaphor for computer-as-tool:
"One metaphor to hand, as it were, is prosthesis..." To which the
Commentator snipped or snapped, "Why do I need a metaphor to describe
humanities computing? Why isn't our work like that of Cain in Genesis 4:7
'If you do well, will you not be accepted?'"
I snip in response, why do I need biblical guidance any more than a
metaphorical guide to further thought? The Moderator was not engraving his
metaphor on a tablet and handing it down from on high. I'd guess it was ad
hoc whimsy, a little flash in cyberspace. If the Commentator wants to quote
Genesis, that can be done without displacing someone else's momentary figure
of speech, which gave shape to the next paragraphs.
The Commentator's scissor-like sniping appears to have been set in motion by
the Moderator's setup for his metaphor: "...some years ago I had to deal
with a now somewhat quaint sounding sneer, that the computer was 'just a
tool'..." Which the Commentator seems to believe is the Moderator's own ad
hominem attack on "our peers (in the sense of other academics, not
necessarily computing humanists)."
I'm a computing humanist of a sort (historical researcher) but not an
academic peer, but just the same can do without the Commentator's
supersensitivity to unintended insult in an anecdote about computing that
probably dates back to 1985 or so. His ad hominem reaction was not just
gratuitous but jarring in this thoughtful forum.
Snappishly,
Al Magary
(lurker)
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 09:48:37 +0000
From: "Mary Dee Harris" <mdharris@acm.org>
Subject: Re: 15.481 tools
My vote for mascot would be the snipe! Hard to find, of course, but that
also might be appropriate!
MD
Mary Dee Harris, Ph.D.
www.cs.utexas.edu/users/mdharris
mdharris@acm.org
mdharris@cs.utexas.edu
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 09:54:21 +0000
From: Willard McCarty <w.mccarty@btinternet.com>
Subject: argument, tools, metaphors -- and a mascot
How my remarks in Humanist 15.477 about the 'quaint sounding sneer, that
the computer was "just a tool"' could have been interpreted as ad hominem
escapes me. As I understand the rhetorical term, an "ad hominem" remark or
argument is directed, as a literal translation would suggest, at an
individual. (Like a spear thrown, it may not reach him or her, but the
intention is definitely to injure the person.) In other words, the attack
is personal. We all agree, I hope, always to go after the sins we perceive
rather than the sinners. But I would think that an important part of
getting the development of our field right is to argue over particular
ideas as they arise, change and resurface -- which will sometimes mean
attacking ones we think are dead wrong.
The conversation's the thing, isn't it? -- the moving, changing dialogue in
which we are always challenging what we think we know, asking how we know
it, even exaggerating something so that others are provoked to look at it.
Indeed, this means knowingly taking the risk of being wrong so that the
conversation may proceed. In a sense the main function of my editorial
persona is to take such risks so that certain ideas and opinions may be
tested, but this should not be especially notable in an intellectual
environment where everyone understands that being right is not the point,
rather getting it right. Which is and always will be sometime in the future.
Patrick Durusau raises another important point by arguing that we'll be
known by our ability to do good work -- by which I think he means get good
scholarly results -- despite our view of ourselves or others. One function
of Humanist is certainly to exchange news, information and techniques
toward better results (which are never obtained on Humanist itself), but
since the beginning another has been to reflect on the activity of
humanities computing and what we think about it -- to make ourselves
smarter about our professional/intellectual selves. With respect to this
second function, we're observers and commenters on what is said and done in
the application of computing to the humanities; we stand in relation to
good (and bad) scholarly results obtained with the computer as the
philosopher to the products of humankind as a whole. I'm not claiming we do
our job especially well -- too few of us are granted the time for such
self-reflective thinking -- but over time, the necessary critical thinking
happens, in dribbs and drabbs, communally, in exchanges such as this one.
All I'm saying here is, perhaps, that we should recognise what in fact is
taking place.
I think the point to be made about tools is that they mediate the knowledge
we make or have through them. I'd argue then that the terms "tool" and
"medium" are two tightly interrelated if not inseparable aspects of what we
do when we're using computers in our work. (I recently came up with the
formulation that the tool is an effecting medium, a medium is an affecting
tool.) As Wendell Piez suggested some days ago, when we internalise
tool-use the mediation becomes very difficult to see, but we need to remain
aware of it -- esp those of us whose professional lives are chiefly in
humanities computing. I suppose that, for example, if I search the web for
"amoxicillin AND food" because I need information my pharmicist did not
think to supply, I am using my computer consciously only to answer an
urgent question, utterly unconcerned or even aware of such mediation. But
it is another thing entirely to say that the machine thus instantiated is
having no effect on when and how I ask questions. We are students of this
mediation.
There are, I suppose, two points about metaphors. One is that the metaphor
of prosthesis, for example, is in the literature quite a popular way of
talking about computers. This metaphor leads the mind in certain directions
and brings with it a certain amount of intellectual baggage. Is it not
important that we look at the metaphor for its adequacy, question whether
these assumptions are ones we want to make? The second point is that
metaphorical or more generally figurative language is language fully
realised -- i.e. powerful, unavoidable, and yes, potentially misleading. If
the computer is worth our attention, then the struggle to develop adequate
imaginative language for it is imperative, I would think.
Comments?
Yours,
WM
PS We have in fact had a mascot since 1989. It may be discovered, and the
history of it subsequently unearthed, by starting at the Humanist homepage.
Thoroughness and persistence are rewarded.
WM
Dr Willard McCarty, Senior Lecturer,
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London,
Strand, London WC2R 2LS, U.K.,
+44 (0)20 7848-2784, ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/wlm/,
willard.mccarty@kcl.ac.uk, w.mccarty@btinternet.com
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