Archive for November, 2009

  • Heuristic

    Date: 2009.11.07 | Category: Glossary, Unit SSK12 | Response: 0

    Glossary
    Unit: SSK12
    Week: 10
    Date: 07 November 2009

    Word: heuristic adj.
    Context: Heuristic is used by Avruch in his treatment of culture: “…this assertion great heuristic value…” Heuristic is also mentioned in the definition of reification in The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought: “stressed for heuristic purposes”.
    Definition: The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought defines heuristic as being “Concerned with ways of finding things out or solving problems”. Then explains that it is “a procedure for searching out an unknown goal by incremental exploration, according to some guiding principle which reduces the amount of searching required”. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy adds, “In modern logic, a heuristic procedure aims at problem solving, but offers no guarantee of proof. In this sense, heuristic contrasts with proof.
    Word in Use: Leanne took a heuristic approach to statistical problem.

    Avruch, Kevin. 2002. Part 1: Culture. In Culture and Conflict Resolution, 5-7; 14-17. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press.

    Bullock, A., and Trombley, S., eds. 2000. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. 3rd ed. London: Harper Collins.

    Bunnin, N., and Yu, J., eds. 2009. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.

  • Reification

    Date: 2009.11.07 | Category: Glossary, Unit SSK12 | Response: 0

    Glossary
    Unit: SSK12
    Week: 7 (in Week 10)
    Date: 07 November 2009

    Word: reification n.
    Context: Avruch (2002) in his chapter on culture uses the word in the following contexts: “The reification of culture…” and “a series of short (cognitive) steps from shorthand to metonymy to reification”.
    Definition: The authors of The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought provide an easy to understand definition of reification when they write, “The act of regarding an abstraction as a material thing”. When making an analysis of relationships a process of simplification takes place “through a set of abstractions” breaking down a given “phenomenon” to help us understand it. Reification is the “endowment” of one of these abstractions with “a material existence” of its own. Karl Marx also used the term with a special meaning and a particular purpose.
    Word in Use: Daniel claimed ethnicity was choosing his partners, his reification of ethnicity was evident as he attributed intention to that concept.

    Avruch, Kevin. 2002. Part 1: Culture. In Culture and Conflict Resolution, 5-7; 14-17. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press.

    Bullock, A., and Trombley, S., eds. 2000. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. 3rd ed. London: Harper Collins.

  • a priori

    Date: 2009.11.07 | Category: Glossary, Unit SSK12 | Response: 0

    Glossary
    Unit: SSK12
    Week: 7 (in Week 10)
    Date: 07 November 2009

    Word: a priori adj.
    Context: A priori appears in Grant’s (1997, 104) article: “The a priori Cartesian mind/body dualism…”. It also appears in The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (2000) definition of proposition: “as a priori or empirical…”
    Definition: The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought explains that knowledge is a posteriori when it is dependent upon evidence or our experience, while in contrast a priori knowledge is not bound by this dependence. It is commonly said that a priori is necessary and a posteriori is contingent (or dependent). Although there is much debate as to whether this is necessarily true, and that in fact there are cases of contingent knowledge, which can be called a priori and vice versa. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy (2009) adds: “The proponents of a priori knowledge usually claim that we have a faculty of intuition by which we may ascertain the truth of a priori propositions”. It is in this sense that Grant is contrasting the intuitively produced mind/body and the discursively produced body/subject.
    Word in Use: If only women can have babies, and I am not a woman, then the a priori is that I cannot have babies. On the other hand, the statement that my ex-wife (i.e. a woman) is pregnant is a posteriori because I cannot confirm or deny this from logic alone.

    Bullock, A., and Trombley, S., eds. 2000. The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. 3rd ed. London: Harper Collins.

    Bunnin, N., and Yu, J., eds. 2009. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. West Sussex, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Grant, Barbara. 1997. Disciplining students: the construction of student subjectivities. British Journal of Sociology of Education 18(1): 101-114.