Hope A Olson - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Hope A OlsonSchool of information studiesUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 

Hegel’s

Epistemograph

, Classification, and

Spivak’s

Postcolonial ReasonSlide2

ConceptsTeleology – linear progression toward a goalEpistemograph, “a graduated diagram of the coming-into-being of knowledge, …”

Gayatri

Chakravorty

Spivak

,

A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present

(1999, p.41)

Classification as a structure of human knowledge

Apparent in everyday life in:

Academic disciplines

DDC, UDC, or LCCSlide3

Why Hegel?Hegel “a world-historical metonym” Spivak (1999, p.47)

Indirect, but clear, influence on Dewey

Hegelian faculty at Amherst College

William Torrey Harris

St Louis Hegelian, leader in US Hegelian movement

St Louis Public School Library Classification applied Hegel

Wiegand

(1998)Slide4

Main Classes - Epistemographs

Bacon

Reason

Imagination

Memory

←

Philosophy

PoetryHistoryHegelIdeaNotionEssenceBeing←HarrisScience (Philosophy)Art (Poetry)HistoryDewey100200300400500600700800900Phil & PsychRelSocSciLangNat sci & mathTechArtsLit & RhetGeog & Hist

Progression toward a goal of higher knowledgeSlide5

Bacon Hegel

Memory/History

Self-experienced knowledge

Imagination/Poetry

Imagination processes memory into poetry

Reason/Philosophy

Reason analyzes & classifies memory to produce philosophy

Being (Sein)“what is there before us”“simple immediacy”Essence (Wesen)From reflection on BeingMediated knowingNotion/Idea (Begriff)Notion synthesizes Being and EssenceIdea is unattainable truthBaconian Links to Hegel’s EpistemographSlide6

Hegel’s Dialectic as Progression

Being



+

(thesis)

Knowledge of what is primary & true based onobservationEssence Becoming(antithesis )Mediation of the immediate through self reflection“negative simplicity”Notion/Idea(synthesis)“Sublation” of Being & EssenceSublate =To preserve, maintainTo put an end toSlide7

Foundation of Hegel’s EpistemographHegel gives two definitions for “to sublate” which “means to preserve, maintain, and equally it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to.” (v.1, bk.1, s.185)

Being is preserved, but set aside as knowing progresses to Essence and Essence is preserved, but set aside as knowing progresses to Notion

“Each thing arises in the course of divine self-knowledge and is a step in the revelation of God.”

William Torrey Harris on Hegel (1895, p.145)Slide8

Hegel’s Teleology“The progress of culture generally, and of the sciences in particular, gradually

brings to light higher relations of thought

, or at any rate, raises these relations to greater generality, and thereby attracts to them more attentive consideration.”

Hegel’s

Science of Logic

Logic

leads Thought to the

Absolute TruthSlide9

Time as LawProgression implies a time factorDevelopmental model Progression

over

time

through a series of

predefined

stages to reach some advanced state of knowledge

“Time graphed as Law manipulates history seen as timing [actual lived sequence of events] in the interest of cultural political explanations, both in Hegel and the high Hindu contexts.” (

Spivak 1999, p. 43) Slide10

Postcolonial critical approach

“Postcolonial criticism bears witness to the unequal and uneven forces of

cultural representation

involved in the contest for political and

social authority

within the modern world order. Postcolonial perspectives ... intervene in those ideological discourses of modernity that attempt to give a hegemonic ‘normality’ to the

uneven development and the differential, often disadvantaged, histories of nations, races, communities, peoples.” – Homi K. BhabhaSlide11

Spivak on timing, Time, and history“timing” is “[o]ne common way of grasping life and ground-level history as events happening to and around many lives …”

“timing” fleshes out the events making time a “sequential process.”

“Time” starts with the structure while “timing” starts with the events.

“Time graphed as Law” reshapes the events of history to fit into a predetermined structure – an

epistemograph

.”

Spivak

(1999, p.44)Slide12

Hegel and the SrimadbhagavadgitāHegel found the Gitā

“extremely monotonous, and on the whole empty and wearisome.”

His

Lectures on the Aesthetic

in

Spivak

1999, p.44

Hegel is measuring with a culturally specific standardThe Gitā does not fit Hegel’s epistemographHistoricalDoes not follow a progressionSlide13

Spivak Deconstructs Hegel and the Gitā

“… the often unexamined opposition between colonizer and colonized …”

Spivak

1999, p. 46

Both Hegel and the writer of the

Gitā

“dramatize most successfully [her] thesis that Time graphed as Law manipulates history seen as timing in the interest of cultural political explanations …” but each in his own way

Spivak 1999, p.43Difference between Hegel and the writer of the Gitā is constructed; similarities are ignoredSlide14

Hegel as Epistemic BullyHegel’s Science of Logic is made up of dialectics nested in dialectical strings that force a certain conclusion

Like Plato’s dialectical triumph over the Sophist in

Theatetus

“… because Hegel places all of history and reality upon a diagram, everything fits.”

Spivak

, 1999, p. 39

Hegel is operating within a western philosophical discourseSlide15

What Does This Mean to Us?“The mainstream has never run clean, perhaps never can. Part of mainstream education involves learning to ignore this absolutely, with a sanctioned ignorance.” Spivak

, 1999, p. 2

If we do, we will never be able to understand more than the mainstream with the result being ignorance and injusticeSlide16

Legacy of Hegel’s EpistemographContinuation under DDC and UDC in particularOther classifications in the same mode

Facets a potential tool if we subvert consistent citation order such as UDC allows

So far we have not subverted main classes

Globalization spreads the western discourse

Standards for sharing risk homogenization

From Hegel to Harris to Dewey to the world

Efforts to ameliorate DDC and UDC are laudable, but cannot address the fundamental mainstream nature of the schemes

Perpetual expansion of OCLC & ubiquity of WorldCat make dissemination saturating and instant – watch the ticker http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/newgrow.htm Slide17

Within Western culture:Hegel’s Gender Views

Women associated with

Being

Particularity

Immediacy

Naturalness

Substantiality

Men associated with Essence, NotionMediacyUniversalityFreedomSubjectivity Seyla Benhabib (1996, p.29)Slide18

A Quick Example:The Blackwell guide to feminist philosophy (2007) LC classified in 305.4201 social groups. role and status of women and the women’s movement. philosophy

Feminist philosophy is in the social sciences – the Notion

Not quite philosophy

Philosophy is in the ultimate category – the IdeaSlide19

How to deconstruct our classificatory practiceHarris started by reversing the teleological sequenceHarris and Dewey place 500 Science and 600 Technology contiguously

Pragmatic in linking the two across the Being/Essence boundary or

Enacting the unity of Being/Essence into Becoming

Hegel & Bacon had a rationale for the main classes

000 General works is certainly not the Absolute Truth of the

Idea

Is it now just a convention that we can ignore?Slide20

Should classification reinforce the mainstream?Classifications are founded on a particular concept of knowledge

May not fit a global context any better than Hegel’s

epistemograph

fit Indian art

Vital to understand our epistemic underpinnings if we will understand our current standards and practicesSlide21

Hope A Olsonholson@uwm.edu

Thank you