also
at: http://www.blueberry-brain.org/winterchaos/RoulettiInChina.htm
Commentary: Operational Definitions: Triage and Social Significance
By:
Frederick
David Abraham, Director, Blueberry Brain Institute (USA) and Occasionally
Visiting Professor, Silliman University (Philippines): Research in psychology,
brain & behavior, systems theory, and interests in philosophical
hermeneutics, postmodernism, scientific and social philosophy, cosmology,
epistemology, history, skiing, kayaking, and jazz. (see www.blueberry-brain.org).
The
following comments are also mirrored at:
http://impleximundi.com/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=17#comments
1.
Prefatory Comment: Roulette has asked me to
critique in an effort to sharpen his essay, to which I humbly and reluctantly
submit despite a lack of qualifications. Nonetheless, while its virtues are
abundant and self-evident and need no comment from me, in an effort to satisfy
his request, I focus on two related issues that concern me. The first deals
with the difficulty of providing operational definitions for “common sense” and
many of the other terms used, and the second deals with the potential social
significance of his definition of “common sense”.
First Issue: Operational Definitions:
Difficulty for “Common Sense”?
2.
Before
turning to Roulette’s definition, perhaps I could briefly review some uses of
the concept of “common sense” (based and quoted from Wikipedia).
(a) Various sense information is integrated into a perceptual
experience (Aristotle, Ibn Sina, and Locke).
(b) Thomas Reid, founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, in Inquiry
and in Intellectual Powers, states ‘principles of common sense are
believed universally’. He borrowed the term “sensus communis” from
Cicero, a Latin term that Roulette could add to his dictionary of linguistic
synonyms; this use is a condition of Roulette’s definition of “common sense”.)
Reid was trying to establish a grounding for rational action, and thus was on a
program similar to Roulette’s, although with a concern for philosophy more than
everyday action.
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Thomas Reid From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reid/ Courtesy (there) of the |
(c) As a fault rather than a
virtue. E.g., Einstein, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired
by age eighteen.”
(d) As a virtue rather than a
fault, by designating rationality, reason, logic, and common agreement as a
basis for designating a correct choice of action. (Similar to b, and pretty
much equivalent to being an implication of Roulette’s definition.)
(e) Thomas Paine’s arguments against British rule in his pamphlet Common
Sense.
3.
For
the first use, I quote the ideas of the Islamic scholar, Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn
Sina (aka Avicenna), on the rational self as presented by Rizvi (2006).
“This
rational self possesses faculties or senses in a theory that begins with
Aristotle and develops through Neoplatonism. The first sense is common sense (al-hiss
al-mushtarak) which fuses information from the physical senses into an
epistemic object. The second sense is imagination (al-khayal) which
processes the image of the perceived epistemic object. The third sense is the imaginative
faculty (al-mutakhayyila) which combines images in memory, separates
them and produces new images. The fourth sense is estimation or prehension (wahm)
that translates the perceived image into its significance. The classic example
for this innovative sense is that of the sheep perceiving the wolf and
understanding the implicit danger. The final sense is where the ideas produced
are stored and analyzed and ascribed meanings based upon the production of the
imaginative faculty and estimation. Different faculties do not compromise the
singular integrity of the rational soul. They merely provide an explanation for
the process of intellection.”
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Ibn Sina, and the Canon of Medicine (al-Qanun fi’l-Tibb). |
Note that his first sense is used in the Aristotelian-Lockian sense of
3-a above, and is quoted here in part because it gives Roulette another
language (Arabian I presume as most of Ibn Sina’s writing was in Arabic, a few
in Farsi) for his dictionary of ‘common sense’ language equivalents. The
remainder could be considered as parts of the psychological processes that lead
to an act that Roulette might consider as possessing “common sense” or the lack
thereof. At any rate, Avicenna deserves more attention from us, and from having
an interest in the 11th Century scholar, Bernardis Silvestris, I
know that he had a great impact on the transformation of High Medieval scholarship
(which I consider essentially the beginning of the Enlightenment; it included
Roger Bacon, one of the originators of modern empiricism. Abraham, 2001).
4.
Turning
now to the first concern I have with Roulette’s essay, that of operational
definitions, I note that it is mentioned in Stanley Krippner’s commentary [C2]:
"Now what you need is an operational definition of common sense. {cf. 84,
89} To start, couldn't you say that "common sense" is the ability to
make decisions (that are functional for the individual as well as for his/her
social group) based on experience and past learning?"
5.
Since
I concur with this need for operational definitions, I might mention some
proposals for criteria for a definition of ‘operational definition’.
(a) Percy Bridgman (1928): “. . . in general, we mean by any concept
nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous with the
corresponding set of operations.”
(b) Smitty Stevens (1939): “1.
Science, as we find it, is a set of empirical propositions agreed upon by members
of society.” 2. Only those propositions based upon operations which are public
and repeatable are admitted to the body of science. 5. A term denotes something
only when there are concrete criteria for its applicability, and a proposition
has empirical meaning only when the criteria of its truth or falsity consist of
concrete operations which can be performed upon demand.” (#s 3,4,6,&7
omitted here.) Note that these imply repeatability, reliability and validity.
(c) Wikipedia: “An operational
definition is a showing of something — such as a variable, term, or object
— in terms of the specific process or set of validation tests used to determine
its presence and quantity. Properties described in this manner must be publicly
accessible so that persons other than the definer can independently measure or
test for them at will. An operational definition is generally designed to model
a conceptual definition. The most basic operational definition is a process for
identification of an object by distinguishing it from its background of
empirical experience.” I quote this because “common sense” involves, with which
Roulette starts his essay, conscious experience, within which “common sense” is
embedded. There are ways that psychologists have dealt with in objectifying
experience. Thus I add mention of some such treatments.
(d) W. Robinson: “In survey
research, the responder often must create and apply the operation if one is not
included in the question . . .” Besides questionnaires, one might add,
interviews, text analysis, qualitative research, action research, and so on.
These may produce results, which seem to meet the criteria of reliability, but
not necessarily of validity, i.e., the contents of conscious experience
(Roulette [1,2,3]).
6.
We
now turn to Roulette’s definition [7, footnote], and then Stanley’s comment
[C2] on the need for operational definitions.
Roulette:
“Lacking common sense, having no common sense, and aberrant common sense all
are terms referring to persons’ ways of thinking that differ from the ways of
thinking in their cultures, groups or herds. In other words, aberrant common sense
involves personalized styles of “sense” and “sense-making” which do not comport
with common heuristics, patterns, and styles of “sense” and “sense-making” used
by peers, within herds or other groups. Copyright © 2007 by Roulette William Smith, Ph.D. –
All rights reserved.”
Stanley: “Now what you need is
an operational definition of common sense. {cf. 84, 89} To start, couldn't you
say that "common sense" is the ability to make decisions (that are
functional for the individual as well as for his/her social group) based on experience
and past learning? [cf. 89]”
7.
Stanley
makes the important point in suggesting the need for an operational definition
of “common sense”, but I am not sure that treating the behaviors as
“functional” or not, just moves the difficulties for operational definitions
due to ambiguities involved onto the new word “functional” which is fraught
with very similar ambiguities. Those ambiguities involve not only specifying
what the conditions for classifying behaviors and experience might be, but also
on the need for a consensus. This is inherent in that the “experience and past
learning” are as he points out, dependent on both the “individual as well as
his/her social group”. Like “common sense” these may depend of shifting and
differing views of the behavior and the context in which the behavior occurs.
Also, there is difficulty in specifying the individual’s social group. The need
for hermeneutics remains.
8.
It
might be mentioned that many of the terms Roulette employs suffer from the same
difficulties (and some of circularity), such as awareness, belief
and (vs) reality, uknowing neediness, worried wellness,
and others, although some case may be made for “face validity”, a catch-all
phrase designed to escape operational definition.
9.
Now
let us imagine a typical operational definition for “common sense” as a
traditional personality psychologist might approach it. You make some kind of
demographic specification of the “social group” and specify the procedures for
selecting a sample from that group. Then you take some of Roulette’s cartoons,
or other examples of behavior, and then have the experimental participants rate
the behavior as to their degree of common sense. The least set of ratings would
be like a triage or 3-point Likert scale: lacking, possessing, or ambiguous or
non-definable in terms of common sense. First is the likelihood that the
uncertain category would likely be the most chosen for all except the most
contrived situations. Second, the situations would likely be so specific that
the results might be very limited as to generalizability. I see the experiment
as having reliability problems, that is, replicability with other situations,
behaviors, and groups of subjects. Also validity problems. Even if you have
replicability, will you be measuring “common sense”? You may mainly be
measuring common social conventions, and certainly very little of the
subjective experience that produces the behavior for either the ‘participants’,
or anyone faced with a behavioral issue that is possessing or lacking in common
sense.
10.
But
Stanley and I may be unjust in asking for scientific criteria of Roulette, who
is not making a case for a scientific basis for his thesis. If he develops a
body of thought which can help people avoid the kinds of pitfalls with which he
is concerned, as well as avoid the costs to individuals and societies from
behaving foolishly or dysfunctionally, especially for those with “unknowing
neediness” [4], “worried wellness” [5], or “aberrant scientific common sense”
[80].
11.
As
a final comment on this issue, his suggestion that common sense can be aberrant
in science may invoke some contradiction, for that would imply that scientific
paradigm shifts often involve thinking outside the box, outside the prevailing
views in a given area, and by Roulette’s definition, by not being part of the
scientific social norms, would be aberrant. This paradox is highlighted in the
Horgan-Susskind debate (2005) on the role of common sense in (or versus)
science. This paradox can be kind of an extension of the Einstein quote above,
and of the disparate views of [2 c&d above] and the Reid program for the
evolution of rationality [2 b above]. Of course, thinking outside the box has
provided the basis of positive social change in all cultural spheres, not just science
(West, 1953). “The semiotic [pre-oedipal, chora in Plato’s Timaeus
feminine, non-metric, non-symbolic] overflows its boundaries in those
‘privileged’ moments Kristeva specifies in her triad of subversive forces:
madness, holiness, and poetry.” [can be generalized to avant garde
writers and artists in general] (Sarup, 1993, p. 124.) Kristeva is saying that
these overflows can lead to constructive social bifurcations. This
consideration leads us to the probematique for some social implications.
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John Horgan |
Leonard Susskind |
Verena |
Julia Kristeva |
Plato |
Issue two: Social Implications
12.
This
is the question of whether identifying individuals as aberrant by social
consensus and forces opens doors to their personal liberation and development,
or whether any resulting social control over them limits their individual
liberties and development. The possibility of control and boundaries of
individual development exists despite Roulette’s emphasis on trying to liberate
those children having learning difficulties. [8, 9], an issue dramatized by the
writings of R. D. Laing (1966, 1967, 1969).
13.
This
quandary is emphasized by Roulette’s tendency to biologize the “aberrant”.
E.g., he introduced the term “psychoviruses” to possibly explain the
transmission of non-genetic information leading to the evolution and
development of aberrations in common sense and to other psychosocial disorders
or dysfunctions. [9, see also10, 25, 30, 41, 50, 53, 65, 71] Another example
might be “functional” strokes [78, 91, 92]. Again this point of view is in
contradistinction to those of Laing, and were the foundation of other issues in
the Sociobiological debate (Segerstråle, 2000; Wilson, ). Laing’s views
included that of ‘madness’ being functional from a certain point of view, and
non-biological in its genesis, and he viewed society as constraining individual
freedom, and he portrayed psychiatry as often playing a role in that
repression, a sort of panopticon (Bentham, 1785; Foucault, 1977; Laing, 1967).
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Blueprint of Bentham’s Panopticon (right). Such prisons exist today (below).
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14.
“Foucault
inverts, following Nietzsche, the common sense [my emphasis, for obvious
reasons] view of the relation between power and knowledge. Whereas we might
normally regard knowledge as providing us with power to do things that without
it we could not do, Foucault argues that knowledge is a power over others, the
power to define others. In his view, knowledge ceases to be a liberation and
becomes a mode of surveillance, regulation, discipline.” (Surap, 1993, p. 67.) Surap
also mentions the likeness of Foucault’s panopticon (term from Bentham’s
design for prison surveillance, 1787; see also, ‘Big Brother’ in Orwell, 1949)
to the omniscient Christian god, Freud’s ‘superego’, and “the computer
monitoring of individuals in advanced capitalism”, to which I add the USA
PATRIOT Act (2001).
Conclusions
15.
My
commentary has an apparently schizophrenic aspect. My first issue argues for
rationality in science by advocating adherence to operational principles, but
the second issue shares Foucault’s concern that knowledge and rationality,
which were assumed to liberate individuals, may actually be exercised to
control and limit individual liberties.
While the first is ‘conservative’ scientifically, the second is
‘liberal’ socially, but both points argue for caution, and thus both share a
compulsiveness for care in their respective spheres, and especially in care in
applying scientific principles to social issues. Finding the balance is the
key.
16.
The
problem is increased when specific, discrete biological factors are sought to
explain broad, ambiguous, or fuzzy categories of behavior, especially if they
are difficult to define operationally, and have implications for social
programs. Roulette may well be correct, but we might wish for very clear evidence
for biological components of behavior.
17.
When
dealing with complex systems, including complex social systems, attributing
causality is most difficult, and entails not only the enumeration of the many
variables involved, but also expressing their relationships (system of
differential equations and exploring the value of their coupling constants, or
their equivalent in terms of agent-based modeling and other discrete rules of
change and decision). Without exploring this obvious caveat, it is worth noting
well-studied aspects of social systems theory (Bausch, 2001; Habermas, 1987;
Leydesdorff, 1997; Luhman, 1995; Parsons, 1951.)
18.
None
of this is meant to detract from the value and promise of the brilliant program
upon which Roulette has embarked, and we wish him well in its pursuit. It is
merely to provide an arena of discourse to protect it from any pitfalls of
common sense in its pursuit. He is a friend for whom I have the greatest
admiration.
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Jürgen Habermas |
Niklas Luhmann |
Loet Leydesdorff |
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Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct
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Boston: Beacon.
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Roulette |
Fred |
