Validity ~ A Key Standard of Scientific Research

Validity ~ A Key Standard of scientific Research

By Prof. Mauri Yambo

(1996; updates: 2004, 2006, 2015)

INTRODUCTION

Nine key standards, or principles, of scientific research can be gleaned from texts on research method. As I see them, they are:

1. Universality

2. Replicability

3. Control
4. Measurability
5. Validity
6. Reliability (Pending)

7. Objectivity (Pending)

8. Ethics 

9. Representativeness.

I say something about each of the nine standards in separate posts, as shown in the links above. What I want to briefly talk about here is the validity standard. 

Validity means the applicability, genuineness, appropriateness or truthfulness of the methods, instruments, tools, measures (or indicators), or arguments used in the quest for knowledge, or search for answers to vexing questions – and therefore of the conclusions arrived at.  

CLICK HERE To Access the Full Text of "Validity ~ A Key Standard of Scientific Research"


























[CSO 302, CSO 501]

Milestones in the Evolution of Mass Media, Up to the World Wide Web

Milestones in the Evolution of Mass Media, Up to the Wide World Web

                                      By Prof. Mauri Yambo

In 1999 I first put together, from various sources, a tabular chronology of milestones in the global evolution of mass media. The timeline covers a hugely long period, from c. 1,490,000 BC to the advent of the Internet (AD 1969) and the Wide World Web (AD 1990). In-between those temporal 'boundaries', many amazing things, many inventions, happened in the domain of human communication; sometimes, when we look back now, in slow-motion intervals, and often in relatively quick successions.

[Click on the heading above to see the chronology]

Consider this: Without the Internet, there would have been no World Wide Web. Without both, and without the telephone, there would be no Google or Facebook, no Twitter or YouTube. There would be no email or WhatsApp or Instagram or SMS. There would be no credit card and ATM, and no M-Pesa. There simply would be no life as we have come to know it here on earth.

New evidence, come upon since that 2003 tabulation, suggests that verbal communication, or speech -- made possible by a mutation in the FOXP2 gene, also known as the language gene -- in fact became possible nearly 1.25 million years later than suggested in the table. That's only 250,000 years or so ago!


PS: You can also find the milestones on pp. 21-22 at this link



READ: Jolie O'Dell (2011) "The History of Social Media"








[CSO 403, CSO 501]

On the Foundations and Evolution of Research Method and Knowledge-Creation ~ CSO 302, CSO 501, CSO 589

(Or The Origins of the Methods by which we Acquire the Knowledge of what we Know)

By Mauri Yambo

[Note: What follows is an excerpt of a much longer manuscript] 

There are, throughout history, essentially four foundations – four origins –of the methods by which humans have acquired knowledge of what they know – or believe they know. Let us first mention them, and then briefly interrogate their historical connections. The four foundations are:

1.     Naturalistic/Ontological/Existential

2.     Theological (Religio-Cultural Belief Systems)

3.     Metaphysical/Philosophical/Speculative

4.     Positivist/Scientific.

Anchored on three of these foundations are what one may call the Holy Grails of scientific knowledge generation (the fourth foundation, the theological, is excluded on rationalistic grounds):

From ‘mainstream’ Philosophy:

i.                 Deductive and Inductive Reason/Methods

ii.               Dialectics

iii.             Rationalism/Reason.

From Marx: Materialistic Conception of History (or Dialectical Materialism).

From Positivist (or Social) Philosophy and Natural Science: Positivism-cum-Empiricism -- that is, the Scientific Method.

What is the basis of the four classes of origins listed above? It is, certainly for us in Sociology, the helping hand of Auguste Comte (1798-1857). There must be other routes back to the same origins, of course. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979)[1], for example, has more recently interrogated the evolutionary universals presumably characteristic of all societies, but more on this a little later. And Comte himself owed a great debt of scholastic gratitude to his precursors in the natural sciences – particularly physics.

Widely known as a/the founding father of Sociology, Comte developed a Law of Three Stages. This Law stated that all knowledge, all scientific disciplines, societies as a whole, and even the individual mind, pass through three immutable stages as they grow from infancy to maturity, namely: Theological, Metaphysical and Positivistic. Rather obliquely, the law suggests one more thing: that the three stages also track the dialectical progression of method as we know it generically to-day. But the law ignores the first of the four stages that I have listed above. This is something the more ‘evolutionist’ Parsons is in principle not guilty of, in view of his emphasis on continuities between modern humans and the ancestors of the homo-sapiens family. That evolutionary connect is sufficient for present purposes to posit the first stage which Comte did not see, but which materialist Marx was all too aware of: the naturalistic/ontological/existential stage.

We can add this, however: if dialectics be the template for the evolution of method, and for what Foucault termed “The Order of Things”, then, contrary and superior to Comte’s arrangement, ontology is the antithesis of nothingness, and theology the synthetic result. Ontology thus predates theology, and is the first foundation of knowledge and method Theology is then followed by the metaphysical stage, and the metaphysical by the positivistic. Thus, there are not three stages/foundations in the development of method, but four.

Parsons’ notion of evolutionary universals suggests that societies evolve through a fairly consistent pattern of stages marked by distinct sets of universals. The first set – which, following his own reasoning, I have rearranged in terms of dialectical priority of emergence as: kinship, technology, communication (through language) and religion – is consistent with the notion, already touched on, that ontology precedes theology. This is particularly so when we consider the likelihood of a considerable time/“cultural” lag between the last two. Doesn't Aristotle’s ontology, too, portray being qua being as precedent to spiritual life?

1. Naturalistic/Ontological/Existential Foundations:

Naturalistic or ontological or existential foundations of research method, and of knowledge, evoke the circumstances of that earliest period of human existence when all that could be known was known, and all the data that could be gathered was gathered, only (and only directly) through the senses – because nature gave no other options, and the technology with which to extend the reach of the senses was still in the unimagined future. In view of how human nature and culture were to evolve in the millennia that followed, it was truly a paleo-empirical world -- in which the sense of sight, “the gaze”, was already sovereign (to repeat Foucault’s emphasis). As Parsons (1964: 340) has imagined, “Vision, whatever its mechanisms, seems to be a genuine prerequisite of all the higher levels of organic evolution.” However, the other senses were also crucial to evolution, and most probably helped to trigger the language gene[2]’[3].

We can extend the commentary a little more, to say this. Philosophy did not create the reality of things which ontology speaks to. It merely gave it a name with, the wisdom of empirical hindsight The ontological basis of method – and the ontological content of human knowledge – were both, in the beginning, weaved out of truly elemental, down-to-earth, presences, dispositions and ‘acts’ of disparate individuals and groups, along the following lines:

 

1.1.Observing (‘Sense Perception’)

At the start, reality – nature, people, made-up-things, stumbled-upon things, things seen, things heard, things touched, things tasted, and things smelt (before anyone could “smell a rat”) – was and could be ‘apprehended’ only because, and insofar as, it was and could be seen, heard, touched, tasted and/or smelt – with the ‘naked’ sense-organ. It could be ‘apprehended’ because it could be observed – naturalistically. But such ‘apprehending’ was without doubt little more than intuitive, instinctive and sub-conscious in the beginning. Yet that was a vital start. It took a substantial while for the apprehension to evolve a narrative structure (that is, form and content), and for the narrative to become, in the language and the thought-process in which it was couched, coherent. [Marx and Engels (2000: 3) couch this ontological imperative of the human condition in terms of "The first premises of all history" and the "first fact"]

So what we now call ‘naturalistic observation’ is clearly the front-runner and pathfinder among the observational methods which humans have used throughout the ages to gain knowledge. It has evolved variants such as astronomy, participant observation (or ethnography), surveillance, monitoring (including CCTV monitoring), surveying and “intelligence”.

1.2.Doing

Observing could go, and typically went, hand-in-hand with doing. One could observe the doing – on the go. And one could likewise do what one observed in another’s or others’ doings. Those tentative, prehistoric acts were the precursors of practices and habits and experimentation – as well as the ancestors of the habits, customs, cultures, professions and disciplines – that have made the motley world what it has become. Doings are the building-blocks of culture and social structure. Ontologies, doings and happenings are thus the starting points of all our narratives, all our hermeneutic postures, and all history.

1.3.Experiencing (Feeling)

Experience is, at root, existential. We experience states of being and emotional states , happenings and doings, which we or others come to narrate in whatever way for immediate purposes, and sometimes for deep posterity – which will thus know us but which we will really never know. Feeling happy, sick, angry, fearful/afraid, safe, good – these are emotions and conditions we are driven to take stock of, observing clumsily or with varying degrees of clarity, depth, understanding, and even eloquence. Experiencing pain, grief, defeat, victory – and breakthrough – is all ingrained in the human condition, which we try to make sense of and articulate lessons from.

1.4.Telling

Telling is a re-enactment or codification in narrative form of that which we or others have observed, done and/or experienced. It is thus the summation, of sorts, of all of ontology’s four manifestations, including itself, and of all that ontology means and makes possible. Often, we interrogate in order to narrate, and do tell (and thus affirm) by way of an interrogation. A good telling is a “closing of the loop”, and a hard thing to do. Fast-forward and you realize that, in a sense, ethnomethodology is a wonderful kind of telling. So is thick description. So is mythology and poetry and drama and the novel. History is a telling, in its dialectical as well as chronological renditions and traditions. The epic and all the sagas of the world are a telling. Music and painting are a telling, and so is sculpture. Monuments are a telling, too. And thus all stories are by definition already told. 

2. ‘Theological’ Foundations

When was the theological stage predominate? From the moment in antiquity that the memes of the maker (of things out of ontological things) and the creator (of Being out of Nothingness, if I may rephrase Marcuse) entered and sufficiently seized the human mind, all the way up to the Age of Reason (the Enlightenment Age) in the 16^th to 18^th Centuries. This brief answer adds to the overall weight of evidence which, as earlier indicated, shows that Comte’s Law of Three Stages did not capture the sequence of stages of interest as discretely (or correctly) as it so emphatically suggested. In other words, his three ‘stages’ displayed, and continue to display, considerable and even overwhelming temporal overlaps – and sequence distortions. ‘Theology’, or more correctly religion, did emerge prior to philosophy, but has had a long history of co-presence, and a rich symbiotic relationship, with philosophy. It has not ceased to be, even in the positivistic stage. So it is safer to see the stages as more-or-less localized periods of dominance, even though the term dominance can itself be disputed on certain persuasive grounds.

The crucial point here is this: During a very long period of human existence, the template or prism through which humans observed, interpreted and explained their experiences in the world was theological. That is to say, God (and the gods) were the ultimate causality – the necessary and sufficient source of all happenings (as well as all causes and all effects), and the anchor of all explanations and all unquestionable beliefs.  The dominant world-view was dogmatic. Over time, however, contrarian narratives and reason emerged, fuelled by the desire for a more persuasive truth – a desire born in part at least by accumulating contradiction between ontology or experience and the body of knowledge that one was called upon to believe unquestioningly.

3.Philosophical/Metaphysical Foundations

This stage overlapped in at least two phases with the Theological Stage. The first phase represents the age of the great Greek philosophers and their successors – from around 470 BC to 322 BC – which found itself implanted in a still overwhelmingly religious, Delphi-leaning,  epoch . Thus:

n  Socrates: 470-399 BC

n  Plato: 428/6-348/7 BC

n  Aristotle: 384-322 BC.

The second phase – the Age of Reason or The Enlightenment – ran from the 16^th Century to the 18^th. This was the age of Rousseau, Voltaire, Hegel and their contemporaries. It was the age of the French Revolution. Religion might have already begun to cede ground, in a very palpable way, to Reason, but could not be shaken off.

Leedy (1980: 41), who is by no means a giant in the field, makes the memorable observation that:

“In all of mankind’s long history, we have devised only two ways to seek the unknowable [I prefer to say, “the unknown”]. One of these is by means of deductive logic, the other is by means of inductive reasoning, or what is familiarly called the scientific method.” [Here is an excerpt of the 1974 edition of Leedy's book]

Only two ways! All of humankind! That is the kind of remark which, if taken at face value or uncritically, appears like a great revelation. But the truth is that the two ways that Leedy has in mind are only the classical philosopher’s; and we will see momentarily that the Deduction-Induction twins just may have a distant relative – that is, Abduction – representing a third way.

Rottenberg (1994: 207)[4] credits Aristotle with being “the first” to give “formal expression” through his treatises (some 2,500 years ago) to the process by which humans reason – that is, the “reasoning process.” Aristotle, she notes , suggested that there were two types of reasoning – inductive and deductive. We use these two types of reasoning as the alternative ways to discover Truth. In other words, we use them to observe the world, select impressions, make inferences and generalize (see Rottenberg, 1994: 207). But Aristotle was aware that neither of these two approaches was error-free. At certain stages in the “reasoning process,” we are prone to error.

Deductive (Aristotelian) Logic:  

Here are some definitions to clarify the deductive method:

Deduction = “The principle [procedure] of reasoning from general principles to particular instances” (Theodorson and Theodorson, p. 104). [In deductive reasoning, “specific hypotheses or predictions are derived from broader theoretical principles” T & T, ibid). [This happens a lot, as is to be expected, in literature review; especially the review of theoretical literature]

Deductive Reasoning = Reasoning by deducing, or inference from general to particular; a priori reasoning (see Oxford Dictionary, 1964). [A priori = self-evident, unfettered by the rule of empirical proof]

Deductive Learning: “commences with the rule or principle (theory) which is subsequently applied by the learner” (Cole, 1997: 266); or “where the individual works forward from some hypothesis or other, tests it in practice and obtains results – new experiences” (Cole, 1995: 143).

Deductive Argument = “A deductive argument proceeds from a general statement that the writer assumes to be true to a conclusion that is more specific” (Rottenberg, 1994: 219). [Rottenberg (1994: 212) believes, moreover, that unlike induction which “attempts to arrive at the truth, deduction guarantees sound relationships between statements...called premises.”]

Deduction (Ghosh, 1985: 47) = “the process of drawing generalisation, through a process of reasoning on the basis of certain assumptions which are self-evident or based on observation. In deduction, we deduce generalisations from universal to particular...The main task of deductive logic is to clarify the nature of [the] relation between premises and conclusions in valid arguments.”

The deductive approach is said to have been dominant up to the time of Renaissance. Leedy (1980: 41), for example, notes that “Up to the time of the Renaissance, insight into most problems was sought by means of deductive logic...It relied upon logical reasoning and began with a major premise. This was a statement, similar to an axiom, which seemed to be a self-evident and universally truth: Man is mortal; God is good; the earth is flat.” But the danger is that this major premise may be a “pre-conceived idea” or “preconceived conclusion” (Leedy, 1980: 42) – a ‘dogmatic’ statement – which does not turn out to be true (or grounded) in fact, in which case the conclusions arrived at will be invalid (see Leedy, 1980: 41).

In its simplest form, a deductive argument [a syllogism] has three parts: A major premise, a minor premise and a conclusion. Where each premise is true, then “the conclusion must be true. Unlike the conclusions from induction, which are only probable, the conclusions from deduction are certain” (Rottenberg, 1994: 212). [SYLLOGISM = “a formula of argument consisting of three propositions”: the major premise, the minor premise and the conclusion (see Rottenberg, 1994:213, quoting a dictionary)]

Remember: such a deductive conclusion is deemed to be “certain.” It is considered to be “valid” – that is, to derive from a valid “reasoning process” or a valid form of argument. It is “logically consistent because it follows necessarily from the premises. No other conclusion is possible” (Rottenberg, 1994: 212). However, a form of argument may be valid but the “argument itself” may not satisfy [and will not be indisputable] “if the premises are not true” (Rottenberg, 1994: 212). Thus, “The deductive argument is only as strong as its premises” (Rottenberg, 1994: 213).

Ghosh (1985) had earlier made a similar argument, as follows: The logical validity (“implication”) of an argument “does not depend upon the material [i.e. factual] truth of the premises. The premises may be materially false, but yet the reasoning may be correct” (Ghosh, 1985: 47). [For example (adapted from Ghosh (1985: 48): Democracies have no kings or queens. Britain is a democracy. Therefore, Britain has no king or queen]. However, the truthfulness/validity of a conclusion depends on the “material truth of the premises.”

Inductive Reasoning:

Here, once again, are useful definitions:

Induction = “a process of reasoning whereby we arrive at universal generalisations from particular facts. Induction gives rise to empirical generalisations, and is opposite to deduction. Induction involves a passage from observed to unobserved. Induction involves two processes – observation and generalisation” (Ghosh, 1985: 48).

Induction = “the form of reasoning in which we come to conclusions about the whole on the basis of observations of particular instances” (Rottenberg, 1994: 208). Rottenberg (1994: 211) adds that “An inductive argument proceeds by examining particulars and arriving at a generalization that represents a probable truth.” Moreover, in inductive reasoning, “the reliability of your conclusion depends on the quantity and quality of your observations (Rottenberg, 1994: 208).

Induction = “the process of reasoning from individual instances to general principles” (Theodorson and Theodorson, Dictionary of Sociology, p.199). That is to say, induction means generalization from specific facts; from individual occurrences to general cases. Thus, the experimental method is inductive, since general conclusions derive from individual observations (p. 199). Indeed, T & T observe that “Most sociological studies are” inductive in orientation (p. 200). [But remember that sociological methodology insists that, for such generalizations to hold (to be valid), the sample of individual cases to which empirical attention is paid during both data collection and analysis must be representative (that is, as a totality, a microcosm) of the ‘general cases’ (that is, the population or ‘parameters’ to which the sample refers). One seeks to ensure this at the sampling stage]

Inductive Learning:“the process in which the learner experiences an event or stimulus and draws a conclusion from it, for example some rule or guiding principle” (Cole, 1997: 266); or “where the individual experiences an event, attempts to puzzle it out, and then draws conclusions about it, perhaps in terms of a guiding rule or principle” (Cole, 1995: 142-3).

Abductive Reasoning/Method:

In his Collected Papers, Charles Peirce (1934/1935: 106), who coined the term, defines abduction as "the process of forming an explanatory hypothesis" and adds, importantly, that "every single item of scientific theory which stands established today has been due to abduction." Much has since been written about abduction, which is nowadays commonly characterized as "inference to the best explanation."

For three useful readings on abduction, and its wide application-potential as well as nearness to induction, click on these links:

1. Douven, Igor, "Abduction", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition)
2. Thagard. Paul and Cameron Shelley (1997) "Abductive Reasoning: Logic, visual thinking and coherence"

3. Anonymous Author Wikipedia, A characterization of abduction that I find to be close to Anonymous Author's is to be found in the 'preliminary version' of Hector J. Levesque's article titled "A Knowledge-level account of abduction".

Douven’s (2011) definition of abduction is hard to pin down in a quick quote, but the illustrations in his “General Idea” do clarify the abductive process for those just coming upon the concept. 

Thagard and Shelley (1997), in their densely-argued and well-referenced article, define abductive reasoning as "reasoning in which explanatory hypotheses are formed and evaluated." At the heart of abductive reasoning, they argue, "is the goal of assembling a set of hypotheses (causes) that provide good explanations of the data (effects)." Viewing abductive reasoning that way, they see its applicability in many "important kinds of intellectual tasks, including medical diagnosis, fault diagnosis, scientific discovery, legal reasoning, and natural language understanding." 

According to an Anonymous Author in the Wikipedia link above, abduction is “a form of logical inference that goes from observation to a hypothesis that accounts for the reliable data (observation) and seeks to explain relevant evidence.” On the other hand, abductive reasoning is seen to have the quality of a logical fallacy – the fallacy of attributing an effect (which may be there for all to see) to one’s preferred cause, which not everyone may accept as true, or which may be countervailed by more robust explanations for the “effect” observed by all. Thus, abduction:

“allows inferring a as an explanation of b. Because of this inference, abduction allows the precondition a to be abduced from the consequence b. Deductive reasoning and abductive reasoning thus differ in the direction in which a rule like ‘a entails b’ is used for inference. As such, abduction is formally equivalent to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent (or Post hoc ergo propter hoc) because of multiple possible explanations for b” (Anonymous Author, Wikipedia)

According to Business Dictionary, abduction is “The type of reasoning whereby one seeks to explain relevant evidence by beginning with some commonly well known facts that are already accepted and then working towards an explanation.” 

In sum, abductive reasoning is the kind of logic which tends to yield a backward-looking conclusion (about the cause of an effect) that is – more often than not, perhaps – not necessarily true or valid [Instead of backward-looking, Shanahan (I have just noted) uses the term "backwards projection (explanation)"]. But abduction often makes valid inferences as well, just as weather forecasting aka predictive deduction does. In weather forecasting, next fortnight’s actual weather may be predicted (explained?) – a prediction/ explanation which turns out to be more or less accurate – on the basis of a juxtaposition of elements of the looming (“over the horizon”) weather on past patterns or trends recorded in a ‘big’ database (which is typically not accessible or explained to the general public), and inferring (or finding) a match[5]. Q: When you predict the weather, are you engaged in explanation or simply deduction?

There is evidently both good and bad abduction, as Charles Sanders Peirce suggested. Good abduction is uncertainty-reducing, for sure. Bad abduction may be the source of much anguish, as we have consistently seen in the Kenyan and US political arenas in both 2012 and 2013. The challenge is how to consistently avoid bad abduction in lay and scientific conversations.

4.Positivistic Foundations of Method:

The Positivistic era had its roots in the Copernican Revolution of the 16^th century, deep inside the metaphysical stage, which in principle preceded it. Like the Copernican Revolution itself, Positivism took some 2 to 3 centuries to take hold; that is, up to the early 19^th century.

Before the 19^th century, the process by which humans discovered knowledge/truth was, generally, dominated by religious and cultural dogma – and by DEDUCTIVE reasoning. The dogma tended to invalidate the DEDUCTION, but not so, conceivably, among the Bushmen (Kung) of the Kalahari. In the 19^th century, positivism emerged as a key aspect of social philosophy and social theory (Giddens, 1976)[6].

Let us return briefly to what we were saying about inductive reason, in order to underscore in this section its connections with positivism and science.

Inductive Reasoning “begins, not with a preconceived conclusion – a major premise – but

with an observation” (Leedy, 1980: 42). He (1980: 42) adds that “Renaissance man began

seeking truth by looking steadfastly at the world around him. He started asking questions of

Nature. And Nature responded in the form of observable fact.”

In other words, as Leedy (1980: 42) suggests, the intellectual appeal of inductive reasoning during the Renaissance period was fuelled by “an interest in humanism” and by a pragmatic or empiricist orientation toward “this world and ... its phenomena” – both of which were characteristic of that period. Thus:

:

“Renaissance man soon found that when facts are assembled and studied dispassionately, they frequently suggest hitherto undiscovered truth. Thus, was the scientific method born; and the words mean literally ‘the method that searches after knowledge’ (scienta = L. knowledge, from scire, L. to know)” (Leedy, 1980: 42)

This scientific method (and methodology) underwent considerable development in the 16^th century as a result of the work of a number of scholars/thinkers, including: Leonardo, Copernicus, Galileo, Vesalius and Vittorino da Feltre (Leedy, 1980: 42).

Back to positivism:

By positivism Giddens understands:

1.         The view that all knowledge derives from, or pertains to, a reality which we can apprehend or confirm [ontologically] only through the senses [of touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste].

2.         The view that the methods and logic of science, as exemplified by "classical physics", are equally applicable to the study of human society (Giddens, 1976: 130).

Giddens further notes that:

"In the writings of Comte [1798-1857] and Marx [1818-1883] alike, the science of social life was to complete the freeing of the human spirit from religious dogmas and the customary, unexamined beliefs men had about themselves" (Giddens, 1976: 130).

Thus, Western science differs from most types of religious and magical practices [or even lay epistemologies] in the following three ways, among others [But one may pose a 'counter-question': Is Western science a homogeneous worldview characteristic of the entire West? If so, what are its key characteristics? If not, in what specific ways do given non-western cosmologies differ from leading or specific versions or traditions of Western science?]:

1.         Science treats observed phenomena in 'nature' as the manifestations ('outcome') of impersonal forces -- not the "personalized gods, spirits or demons" characteristic of "most" non-western religious and magical systems (Giddens, 1976: 139).

2.         Science institutionalizes the process by which theory is formulated and scientific observations conducted; and, moreover, makes a "public display" of the whole process. That is to say, scientific work is, ideally, legitimated through "free debate and critical testing" (Giddens, 1976: 139). This legitimating characteristic of science (at the core of which is critical, public scrutiny) is lacking in most religious doctrines, argues Giddens (1976: 139).

3.         Science does not involve, as religion and magic often do, “...forms of activity that are alien to western science: including worship in regularized ceremonial, propitiation and sacrifice” (Giddens, 1976: 139)[7].

But Giddens recounts how, following the erosion (in the early 20th century) of faith in scientific knowledge “as exemplar of all knowledge,” there emerged two contesting philosophical camps[8] in the 1920s and 1930s: [1] the logical positivists, who championed the cause of natural science (“scientific rationalism,” scientific knowledge); and [2] the phenomenological and linguistic philosophers who saw natural science's “claims to knowledge [as] secondary to, and dependent upon, ontological premises of the natural attitude” (Giddens' words, emphasis MY's) [Natural attitude = "authority of common sense", ibid].  Anthropologists were at the forefront of this change, touting the merits of the natural attitude. A natural attitude toward knowledge, it was argued, was the most important way to uncover the truth.

It can be argued, then, that the tilt (or re-tilt) toward the natural attitude, which is the bedrock of Qualitative Research Methodology, was the result of a SWOT analysis of the scientific attitude (or “scientific rationalism”) – with its quantitative orientation.

Around the same time as this theoretical debate was going on, moreover, the practice of qualitative research was in vogue in the United States (see, for example, W.I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki The Polish Peasant in America and Europe). [For a vey recent (2008) example of qualitative analysis, see Malcolm Gladwell’s account (in Outliers) of an Italian community in early 20^th century Pennsylvania, USA: It is an account of how the community’s health profile was documented (see “The Roseto Mystery”, pp. 3.12). 

So, one Rationality or Many Rationalities?

[The ‘rationality of science’ (or the ‘scientific attitude’) versus the ‘rationality of

commonsense’ (or the ‘natural attitude’)]

The ‘Rationality of Science’ (or of the ‘Scientific Attitude’): One Rationality

This is the perspective adopted in Weber's study of rational action, which suggests that there is but one standard of rationality. It uses specific means-ends criteria – such as the operational definition of concepts, the representativeness of cases/samples, universality and generalizability of claims – to explain social phenomena. And it explains motivated action using the observer's criteria, and, contrary to the lay actor’s approach to observed reality, entails “the suspension of the belief that things are as they appear” (Giddens, 1976: 35).

The ‘Rationality of Commonsense’ (the ‘Natural Attitude’): Many Rationalities

According to Garfinkel, and Giddens, there are many common-sense rationalities which pertain to the daily rhythm of lay life – as opposed to the demands of social science (Giddens, 1976: 35-36). Reality is socially constructed, as Berger and Luckman suggested.

The concept and practice of ethnomethodology are undergirded by the view that, to paraphrase Giddens (1976: 36), the way that people organize and live their everyday lives is identical to the way that they understand and explain their life experiences; that is, identical to the procedures that they use to explain to themselves and even to others what they see and experience.

Consequently, the differences between Sociology and Natural Science can be highlighted as follows, as suggested by Giddens (1976: 146):

1.         Sociology uses the inductive conclusion with more tact, greater laterality of vision and thinking, as well as the acknowledgment of precursors, unlike natural science which relies entirely on narrowly defined reason

2.         Unlike natural science, Sociology “stands in a subject-subject relation to its ‘field of study,’not a subject-object relation”

3.         Sociology, adopting ethnomethodology’s stance, strives to understand and interpret a world that is already “pre-interpreted… by active subjects … [whose pre-interpretations feature materially in the] …the actual constitution or production of that world”]

4.         Social theory construction, like the general apprehension of social reality “involves a double hermeneutic”[9] – which is not seen in other disciplines (Giddens, 1976: 146).

5.         Sociological generalizations are by definition more nuanced and at great variance with the laws of natural science.

---

[1] http://www.jstor.org/stable/2091479?seq=1

[2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1004_TVlanguagegene.html

[3] http://www.abstractsonline.com/Plan/ViewAbstract.aspx?sKey=bf075c49-672f-464d-abd1-79a9a3870d4d&cKey=b7ebb279-721a-4fb8-8bc9-cc7662e7cad4&mKey={8334BE29-8911-4991-8C31-32B32DD5E6C8}

^[4] Annette T. Rottenberg (1994) Elements of Argument: A Text and Reader. Fourth Edition. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press.

[5] This sounds like a tautology!

^[6] Anthony Giddens. 1976. New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of Interpretative Sociologies. London: Hutchinson.

^[7] For a detailed discussion of the differences between science and religion/magic see Horton, Robert and Ruth Finnegan. 1973. Modes of Thought. London: Faber.

[8] The two camps have been likewise labeled by Giddens as: The Rationality of Science v. the Rationality of Common Sense

[9] Double Hermeneutic = Double Interpretation. In Double Interpretation, the Observer interprets the words/behavior/actions of the Observed/Respondent, who likewise interprets the Observer’s “seduction” [MY] – and so on.

CSO 403: Sociology of Knowledge -- Course Outline

UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

CSO 403: SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE

LECTURER: Prof. Mauri Yambo SEMESTER: October ’06-Jan 2007

COURSE OUTLINE

COURSE OBJECTIVES

To expose students to the social construction of knowledge, and to answer certain fundamental questions: What is knowledge? How do we know? How do we know that we know? [And: What difference does that make?]

COURSE DESCRIPTION/CONTENT

Various forms of knowledge in traditional and contemporary society are discussed, including: symbolic/semiotic, instrumental, scientific/technical, mythological and faith/belief. A distinction is made between subjective and objective bases of knowledge, myth and reality, propaganda and truth. Major conceptual, theoretical and empirical perspectives on knowledge are examined, for example: symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, semiology, dialectics and informatics. The main source of knowledge: family, community school/university, laboratory, church, government, the media, "bush telegraph" and thought-and-practice (or learning-by-doing); patterns and instruments of knowledge/information processing, transmission, reception, storage and retrieval in traditional and contemporary society; uses to which knowledge is put: socialization, education, training, social mobilization, conversion, diffusion of innovation and entertainment; linkages between knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP); and concomitants of knowledge and behaviour change: social differentiation and change, technical change, and changes in the quality of life.

[Famous Question: “What did he know, and when did he know it?”]

I. INTRODUCTION: KNOWLEDGE AND EPISTEMOLOGY -- SOME KEY CONCEPTS AND TYPOLOGIES

– Epistemology

– Variations/Meanings of Knowledge

– The Seven Fundamental Questions at the Root of All Knowledge

– A Selection of Key Concepts:

– Concept and Idea, Fact and Fiction, Truth and Belief and Faith

– Reality v. Myth [Check: “Reality Check”, “Reality TV”, Virtual Reality]

– Perception, Fantasy, Illusion and Hallucination

– Norms and Values

– Information v. Knowledge

– Scientific Knowledge Claim.

– Simple Knowledge Structure.

II. BEING, THINKING AND KNOWING

– The Senses and the Environment

– Thought: Its Locus, Subject-Matter and Consequences

– The Role of Culture (and the Special Place of Language)

– Self (including self knowledge), Identity and Otherness

– Knowledge and Human Interests

– Bodies of Knowledge and Knowledge Gaps.

– Uses of Knowledge.

III. LEARNING: EDUCATION, TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE

– The Main Sources of Knowledge:

– Experience – “the best teacher”

– Family, Community, “Church”, Peers, Wazee

– School/College/University, Laboratory, Library, Archive

– The Work-Place

– The Media and “Bush Telegraph” or Grapevine

– Thought (Reflection, Study, Meditation) v. Practice (Learning-By-Doing)

– The Learning Curve and the Curve of Forgetting

– Transfer of Learning

– Education versus Training; Patterns of Access.

IV. SELECTED THEORIES AND MODELS OF KNOWLEDGE

– Social Learning and Socialization Theories

– Diffusion and Communication Theories

– The KAP Model

– Kuhnian Model of Scientific Revolutions.

– Semiotics (Study of Signs, Symbols and symptoms): Art, Metaphor, Simile, Totem, Body Language

– Toward a Theory of the Memetic Sphere.

V. PATTERNS OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN TRADITIONAL AND 21ST CENTURY SOCIETY

– In Traditional Society [Contexts: The traditional village; the local community (Comte, Toennies)]

– In the 21st Century Society [Context: The global village]:

– North-South Variations in the Production, Processing and Distribution of Information and Knowledge

– The Digital Divide:

– The Problem of Access to Digitized Information and Information Resources: Barriers Specific to Technology and Social Structure [incorporating Gender, Educational Level, Age, Income, Race and Geography/Locale (Rural-Urban, North-South)]

– On The Right to Know and The Need to Know [Transparent Governance, Corporate Governance, Human Rights, Cultural Rights, Gender Rights, Religious Rights, and Social and Environmental Impact Issues]

– The Role of ICTs in the Generation, Transmission and Storage of Information/Knowledge and Culture:

– The Social Significance of Digital and Mobile Communication

– Trading in News, Information

– The Global Media [CNN, BBC, Reuters, Sky News, Time Magazine, Bloomberg, CNBC, Dstv]: Link between subscription and information

– E-Commerce: B2B, B2C and C2C Communication [E-Banking, eBay, Amazon, Sambaza, Breaking News, Ringtones, Music and Video Downloads, Online Library]

– Television Broadcasting in East Africa

– Computer-Based Communication, Data Search and Commerce:

– 24/7 Connectivity, E-Mail Communication, E-Learning, Web Access: Link between advertising and free online access

– Search Engines and Data Mining Techniques [Google].

VI. THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

– The Five Disciplines:

– Characteristics of the Learning Organization: Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision, Team Learning, Systems Thinking

– “Microworlds: The Technology of the Learning Organization” (Senge)

– Intellectual Capital [Intellectual Property]

– Knowledge Ecology and Knowledge Management.

VII. KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

– Certification and Credentialism, Title and Performance, Experts and Expatriates

– Professional v. Expert, Expertise and Technocracy, Knowledge Workers

– The Uses of Information/Knowledge: Socialization (Transmission of Culture, Integration, Social Competence, Physical and Spiritual Survival), Education and Training, Mobilization (Propaganda, Diffusion of Innovation, Empowerment (Social, Cultural, Political, Economic), Entertainment, Enlightenment

– Intellectual Property, Patents, Copyrights, Copycats

– Expert Systems

– The Price and Advantage of Expertise (or “Buying Expertise”): Patterns of Global Migration and Competition.

VIII. POWER AND KNOWLEDGE

– Revisit Knowledge and Class/Human/Corporate Interests

– Reading Foucault: The Archaeology of Knowledge(1972) and Power/Knowledge (1980).

IX. THE SHELF-LIFE OF KNOWLEDGE (Or Knowledge and its Preservation)

– The Shelf-life of Internally Preserved Knowledge:

– Knowledge as Memory (as Remembrance) and Learning as “Committing To Memory”

– Culture as Collective Memory

– The Problem of Entropy: The Fading of Memory over Time

– The Shelf-life of Externally Preserved Knowledge:

– Artifacts/Cultural: Still Pictures, Paintings, Murals, Sculptures, Drawings; Museums, Galleries, Shrines, Monuments

– Writing/Typographic: In Books, Manuals, Journals, Newspapers, Diaries, Letters, CDs, E-mail; Libraries

– Video: Motion Pictures (Celluloid, Video Discs and Cassettes, Digital)

– Audio: Audio-Cassettes, CDs

X. PRACTICALS: CLASS APPLICATION OF ICTs

– Accessing Specified Websites, and Mining Specified Data

– Sending, Receiving and Printing E-mail (With and Without Attachments)

– Using Search Engines on the Internet, and Downloading Files

– File Sharing

– Online Research

– Developing Databases.

[All Students are Required to Have E-Mail Addresses and to be Able to Send and Receive Mail from Class Members]

READING LIST

I. INTRODUCTION

Abel, Theodore. 1974. “The Operation Called Verstehen,” pp. 40-69, in Marcello Truzzi, Ed. 1974. Verstehen: Subjective Understanding in the Social Sciences. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing. [See Murray L. Wax's article, listed below, for a reply to Abel. Those interested may read the whole of Truzzi's book. Note also that Giddens, in New Rules... (p. 126 and 150-51) also touches on the concept]

Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckman. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books

Cohen, Bernard P. 1989. Developing Sociological Knowledge: Theory and Method. Second

Edition. Chicago: Nelson-Hall [In particular, read about scientific knowledge claim and simple knowledge structure]

Giddens, Anthony. 1989. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press [An introductory text. Read selectively]

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press [Read in particular the passages touching on trust and expert systems. This will give you and angle on the concept of expertise; and on reflexivity and the hermeneutic circle]

Grünwald, Ernst. 1970. “Systemic Analyses,”pp. 187-236, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers. [An extended attempt to analyze, to "clarify", the ambiguities that surround the fundamental concept of the Sociology of Knowledge – whose "object" is meaning, and "appropriate method" understanding – namely, the "connectedness of knowledge {or cognition} and social being"]

Habermas, Jürgen. 1972. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972 [You will get good ideas here about hermeneutics, and about how knowledge is embedded in human interests – in just the same way as human interests are embedded in knowledge. So much so that there is a matrix of knowledge typologies and interest typologies]

Hartung, Frank E. 1970. “Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge” pp. 686-705 in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences [Read selectively]

Lakatos, Imre and Alan Musgrave, Eds. 1970. Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1970. “Concerning the Production of Consciousness,” pp. 97- 108, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Parsons, Talcott. 1970. “An Approach to the Sociology of Knowledge,” pp. 282-306, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Soyinka, Wole. 1990. Myth, Literature and the African World. [Canto Edition] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [originally published in 1976]. [Soyinka delves into the complexity of “the African self-apprehended world in myth and literature.” In the essays on drama he seeks more specifically to delineate the African world-view – that is, "to transmit through analysis of myth and ritual the self-apprehension of the African world." This is a world-view that, he argues, is far from ossified ("stagnant," tradition-bound) – immersed as it is in three worlds: of the ancestor, the living, and the unborn]

Speier, Hans. 1970. “The Social Determination of Ideas,” pp. 263-281, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers

Wanderer, Jules J. 1970. “An Empirical Study in the Sociology of Knowledge,” in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers. [Proposes an alternative to identifying or examining intellectual systems substantively, that is to say, in terms of their subject matter. In "certain" cases, he argues, we may do so by establishing "the manner in which their proofs are structured." That is to say, via "underlying structural dimensions."]

Wax, Murray L. 1974. "On Misunderstanding Verstehen: A Reply to Abel," pp. 70-82, in Marcello Truzzi, Ed. 1974. Verstehen: Subjective Understanding in the Social Sciences. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing.

Woherem, Evans E. 1993. Information Technology in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. Nairobi: ACTS Press; and Maastricht: Research Institute for Knowledge Systems (RIKS), 1993.

II. BEING, THINKING AND KNOWING

Ardrey, Robert. 1975. The Territorial Imperative. New York: Dell Publishing.

Berger, Peter L. 1970. "Identity Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge," pp. 373-384, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckman. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. [The thrust of their argument, captured in the title, is that reality is socially constructed; and that, of all realities, the reality of everyday life, intersubjectively revolving around the 'here' and the 'now', is the reality par excellence – a self-evident reality "taken for granted as reality." As a socially constructed reality, they add, society has both an objective and a subjective dimension]

Currie, Ian D. 1970. "The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis," pp. 403-421, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers. [The Hypothesis interrogates the dialectic between language and thought; language and world views; and language and perceptions of the objective world]

Giddens, Anthony. 1989. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Read selectively]

Habermas, Jürgen. 1972. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston: Beacon Press.

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

Larrain, Jorge. 1979. The Concept of Ideology. London: Hutchinson & Co.

Marx, Karl. 1966. Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. See excerpts (pp. 169-196) in Erich Fromm. 1966. Marx's Conception of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing. [The excerpt critiques Hegel's dialectic and general philosophy, and in particular gives a sampling of Marx's ideas about knowledge, consciousness, self-consciousness, being (for-self and as such) and alienation]

Marx, Karl. 1966. German Ideology. See excerpts (pp. 197-216) in Erich Fromm. 1966. Marx's Conception of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing. [The excerpt is a sampling of Marx's ideas about the dialectical link between the material base and the superstructure – between material conditions ("productive forces") and ideas/thinking/consciousness. This dialectic leads, in his terms, to an inescapable factuality – that of "ruling ideas" being invariably those of the "ruling class"]

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1970. "Concerning the Production of Consciousness," pp. 97- 108, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Merton, Robert. 1970. "Paradigm for the Sociology of Knowledge," pp. 342-372, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Morley, David and Kevin Robbins. 1995. "Cultural Imperialism and the Mediation of Otherness", Chapter 10, pp. 228-250, in Akbar Ahmed and Chris Shore, eds. 1995. The Future of Anthropology: Its Relevance to the Contemporary World. London and Atlantic Highlands: Athlone. [Focuses on the interplay between culture, the media and Otherness -- one of the consequences of which is cultural hybridity]

Mudimbe, V.Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; and London: James Curry. [See pp. 44-97 for his commentary on "The Missionary Discourse and Africa's Conversion", and pp. 135-141 for a critique of Tempels' Bantu Philosophy]

Soyinka, Wole. 1990. Myth, Literature and the African World. [Canto Edition] Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [originally published in 1976]. [Soyinka delves into the complexity of "the African self-apprehended world in myth and literature." In the essays on drama seeks more specifically to delineate the African world-view – that is, "to transmit through analysis of myth and ritual the self-apprehension of the African world." This is a world-view that, he argues, is far from ossified ("stagnant," tradition-bound) – immersed as it is in three worlds: of the ancestor, the living, and the unborn].

Weber, Max. 1970. "Asceticism and the Spirit of Capitalism," pp. 387-402, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers. [Here, Weber explores the "religious-cultural" roots of capitalism's core ideas and practices]

Yambo, Mauri. 1995. "Random Access Power: The Promise and the Pitfalls" (Pp. 163-181) In Heidi Willer, Till Forster and Claudio Ortner-Buchberger (Eds.), Macht der Identitat – Identitat der Macht: Politische Prozesse und Kulturelle Wandel in Afrika (The Power of Identity - The Identity of Power:...). Munster: LIT Verlag.

Yambo, Mauri. 2005. “Toward a Theory of the Memetic Sphere” Hekima: Journal of the

Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. III, Number 1 (pp. 143-154). [Earlier draft written in 1999].

III. LEARNING: EDUCATION, TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE

Agochiya, Devendra. 2002. Every Trainer’s Handbook. New Delhi: Sage Publications. [A book with very useful insights. It has chapters on, inter alia: 1. The broad theme of training, focusing on underlying concepts, the scope of training, training purposes, stakeholders, and on-the-job training. 2. The learning process per se and in relation to training programmes, characteristics of adult learners, and participants’ learning styles. 3. An integrated approach to learning, in the context of a training programme. 4. Steps in designing a training programme. 5. The practicalities of managing/‘delivering’ an actual training programme. 6. Selected training techniques (including pre-requisites, requisite arrangements, procedures and/or support materials), in particular: lectures, case study, role-play, management games, laboratory training, practical assignments for individuals and groups, group discussion, panel discussion, brainstorming, placement, field trip and demonstrations. 7. The characteristics and dynamics of the training group. 8. Trainers’ roles, functions, styles and dilemmas. 9. Training evaluation: principles and procedures.]

Armstrong, Michael. 2004?. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 9th Edition. London: Kogan Page. [A useful source for many concepts, such as: competence, competency, performance, performance competency, competence analysis, workshop, leadership, the PEST approach to scenario planning, performance management, 360-degree feedback, the learning curve (or EWS), learning organization, self-directed learning, planned/systematic training, training needs assessment/analysis, training gap, coaching, action learning, just-in-time training, and training evaluation]

Cole, G.A. 1997. Personnel Management: Theory and Practice. London: Letts Educational. [See

Chapter 24, pp. 254-261, on theories of learning; Chapter 25, pp. 262-270, on the learning organization]

Giddens, Anthony. 1989. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Read selectively]]

Sifuna, Daniel N. 1990. Development of Education in Africa: The Kenyan Experience.

Nairobi: Initiatives Ltd.

Yambo, Mauri. 1986. Technical Training and Work Experience: Tracer Study of YP and HIT Leavers. [Research Report to DANIDA]

IV. SELECTED THEORIES AND MODELS OF KNOWLEDGE

Akers, Ronald L., Marvin D. Krohn, Lonn Lanza-Kaduce and Marcia Radosevich. 1982. " Social Learning and Deviant Behavior: A Specific Test of a General Theory," pp. 636-655, in American Sociological Review. 1982. Vol. 44.

Andrews, Kenneth and Denise Kandel. 1979. "Attitude and Behavior: A Specification of the Contingent Consistency hypothesis". American Sociological Review 1979, Vol. 44, pp. 298-310. [This is relevant to KAP]

Blau, Peter M. 1968. "Interaction: Social Exchange" in International Encyclopedia of the

Social Sciences, vol. 7. New York: Macmillan

Boisot, Max. 1987. Information & Organizations: The Manager as Anthropologist. London: Fontana Paperbacks

Cherry, Colin. 1966. On Human Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press

Dawkins, Richard. 1989. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [See pp.189-201 for a discussion of memes]

Giddens, Anthony. 1989. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Read selectively. He touches on Semiotics, Socialization and Symbolic Interactionism, for example]

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. New Rules of Sociological Method: A Positive Critique of

Interpretative Sociologies. Cambridge: Polity Press [Read his thoughts on symbolic interactionism (p. 22), and on paradigms, relativism, hermeneutic analysis and Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (pp. 142-146)]

Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. 1984. The Messages of Tourist Art: An African Semiotic System in Comparative Perspective. New York: Plenum Press. [Touches on the semiology of money, etc.]

Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd Edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Focus on paradigms and the process through which a "paradigm shift" occurs to signal a scientific revolution. That's the whole thing, really, but you can do it quickly]

Larrain, Jorge Larrain. 1979. The Concept of Ideology. London: Hutchinson & Co.

Mannheim, Karl. 1970. "The Sociology of Knowledge," pp. 109-130, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Read Mead for Symbolic Interactionism. Or read others who have commented on Mead's ideas, such as Giddens, in Sociology; or Arnold Rose, in "A Summary of Symbolic Interaction Theory"]

Rogers, Everett M. and F. Floyd Shoemaker. 1971. Communication of Innovations: A Cross- Cultural Approach.2nd Edition. New York: The Free Press [Read this for "Diffusion" Theory]

Rose, Arnold. 1974. “A Summary of Symbolic Interaction Theory,” pp. 139-151, in Denisoff, Callahan and Levine, eds. 1974. Theories and Paradigms in Contemporary sociology. Itasca, Il.: F.E. Peacock Publishers.

V. PATTERNS OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE IN TRADITIONAL AND 21ST CENTURY SOCIETY

Boisot, Max. 1987. Information & Organizations: The Manager as Anthropologist. London: Fontana Paperbacks

Cherry, Colin. 1966. On Human Communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press

Cole, G.A. 1997. Personnel Management: Theory and Practice. 4th Edition. London: Letts Educational. [See pp. 94-96, which touch on the impact of IT in offices]

Doob, Leonard. 1961. Communication in Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press

Kaplinsky, Raphael. 1984. Automation: The Technology and Society. Harlow: Longman [See especially Chapters 5 and 6 (pp. 77-107) which cover "Automation in the Coordination Sphere" and "Inter-Sphere Automation -- The 'Factory of the Future' "]

McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Mentor Books. [Discusses at the place of the "electric galaxy", successor to the Gutenberg Galaxy, in society]

Senge, Peter M. 1994. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.

New York: Currency Doubleday. [Paperback Edition] [See Chapter 18: "Microworlds: The Technology of the Learning organization," pp. 313-338)

Senge, Peter M., Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross, Bryan J. Smith and Art Kleiner. 1994. The

Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday. [Read Senge’s and his colleagues’ ideas about “infrastructure for learning” on pp. 32-47]

Woherem, Evans E. 1993. Information Technology in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities.

Nairobi: ACTS Press; and Maastricht: Research Institute for Knowledge Systems (RIKS). [Read especially pp. 29-35 and 69-83]

Yambo, Mauri. 2003. Television Broadcasting in East Africa: Airtime Allocation to Local and Foreign Programmes. Nairobi: Development Through Media.

Yambo, Mauri. 2005. "Toward a Theory of the Memetic Sphere" Hekima: Journal of the

Humanities and Social Sciences. Vol. III, Number 1 (pp. 143-154).

[Use Search Engines to Get Additional Information from the Internet on, for example, the Digital Divide, Citizens’ Rights to Information, E-Commerce, B2B, B2C and E-Learning]

VI. THE LEARNING ORGANIZATION

Hicks, Linda, "The Nature of Learning", Chapter 10 in Laurie J. Mullins. 1999. Management and Organisational Behaviour. 5th Edition. London: Financial Times Pitman Publishing

Malhotra, Yogesh. 1998. "Knowledge Management for the New World of Business," pp. 1-5, at www.brint.com/km/whatis.htm [Article previously published in Asia Strategy Leadership Institute Review, Vol. 6, 1998 (Special Issue on Knowledge Management). For more on-line articles on Knowledge Management, visit http://www.brint.com/km/

Malhotra, Yogesh. 1998. "Knowledge Management, Knowledge Organizations & Knowledge Workers: A View from the Front Lines," (Interview with Maeil Business Newspaper of February 19, 1998). Copy available on-line at http://www.brint.com/interview/maeil.htm

Senge, Peter M. 1994. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday. [Invaluable resource for team learning and the learning org.]

Senge, Peter M., Charlotte Roberts, Richard B. Ross, Bryan J. Smith and Art Kleiner. 1994. The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization. New York: Currency Doubleday. [Read Senge's and his colleagues' ideas about "infrastructure for learning" on pp. 32-47; also covers team learning and the learning organization].

Stewart, Thomas A. 1994. “Your Company's Most Valuable Asset: Intellectual Capital,”

pp. 28-33, in Fortune. October 3, 1994.

[Use Search Engines to Get Additional Information from the Internet on, for example, Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management]

VII. KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

Berger, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A

Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books, 1967

Crane, Diana. 1970. "The Gatekeepers of Science: Some Factors Affecting the Selection of Articles for Scientific Journals," pp. 488-503, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Dibble, Vernon K. 1970. "Occupations and Ideology," pp. 434-451, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press [See pp. 21- his discussion of knowledge application processes, expert systems, disembedding mechanisms, trust in expertise, and, paradoxically, the institutionalization of doubt under the conditions of modernity]

Kaplinsky, Raphael. 1984. Automation: The Technology and Society. Harlow: Longman [See especially Chapters 5 and 6 (pp. 77-108) which cover "Automation in the Coordination Sphere" and "Inter-Sphere Automation -- The 'Factory of the Future' "; see also pp.139-149 on the impact of automation on employment -- including the employment of highly skilled HR]

Rogers, Everett M. and F. Floyd Shoemaker. 1971. Communication of Innovations: A Cross- Cultural Approach.2nd Edition. New York: The Free Press

VIII. POWER AND KNOWLEDGE

Crane, Diana. 1970. "The Gatekeepers of Science: Some Factors Affecting the Selection of Articles for Scientific Journals," pp. 488-503, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Dibble, Vernon K. 1970. "Occupations and Ideology," pp. 434-451, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language.

London: Tavistock

Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other Writings, 1972-1977. (Edited by Colin Gordon). New York: Pantheon Books.

Habermas, Jürgen. 1972. Knowledge and Human Interests. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972 [You will get good ideas here about hermeneutics, and about how knowledge is embedded in human interests -- in just the same way as human interests are embedded in knowledge. So much so that there is a matrix of knowledge typologies and interest typologies]

Marx, Karl. 1966. German Ideology. See excerpts (pp. 197-216) in Erich Fromm. 1966. Marx's Conception of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing. [The excerpt is a sampling of Marx's ideas about the dialectical link between the material base and the superstructure – between material conditions ("productive forces") and ideas/thinking/consciousness. This dialectic leads, in his terms, to an inescapable factuality – that of "ruling ideas" being invariably those of the "ruling class"]

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. 1970. "Concerning the Production of Consciousness," pp. 97- 108, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Morley, David and Kevin Robbins. 1995. "Cultural Imperialism and the Mediation of Otherness", Chapter 10, pp. 228-250, in Akbar Ahmed and Chris Shore, eds. 1995. The Future of Anthropology: Its Relevance to the Contemporary World. London and Atlantic Highlands: Athlone. [Focuses on the interplay between culture, the media and Otherness -- one of the consequences of which is cultural hybridity]

Mudimbe, V.Y. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press; and London: James Curry. [See pp. 1-23 for his commentary on "Power and Knowledge of Otherness"]

Seeman, Melvin. 1970. "Intellectual Perspective and Adjustment to Minority Status," pp. 452- 467, in James E. Curtis and John W. Petras, eds. 1970. The sociology of knowledge: A Reader. New York: Praeger Publishers. [Explores the potentiality in marginal status, and more specifically "adjustment to marginality", to become the mother of intellectual "perspective and creativity in the realm of ideas"]

IX. THE SHELF-LIFE OF KNOWLEDGE (Or Knowledge and its Preservation)

DeGregori, Thomas R. 1985. A Theory of Technology: Continuity and Change in Human

Development. Ames: Iowa State University. [See his contribution to the debate on the beneficial impact of printing on the preservation of knowledge]

Koestler, Arthur. 1971. The Ghost in the Machine. Chicago: Gateway. [See pp. 299-301 for a discussion of entropy, and of humankind's nearly hopeless struggle to accumulate knowledge on a continuous basis]

McLuhan, Marshall. 1969. The Gutenberg Galaxy. New York: Mentor Books. [Discusses at length the impact of typography on human civilization]

Sagan, Carl. 1977. The Dragons of Eden. New York: Ballantine Books. [See pp. 234-36, on the benefits of writing as a tool for preserving knowledge]

Toulmin, Stephen and June Goldfield. 1965. The Discovery of Time. London: Hutchinson. [See pp. 26-39, on the origins of writing]

X. PRACTICAL: CLASS APPLICATION OF ICTs

– Create your own annotated list of what you consider to be the 20 most interesting websites for this course in terms of relevance of content, data search, file-sharing and downloading opportunities, data banking and database management, and online research in general.

[YOU ARE NOT EXPECTED TO READ ALL THE TEXTS, BUT THE LIST WILL HELP YOU TO CHOOSE WHAT TO READ FOR EACH SECTION – AND TO MONITOR REFERENCES MADE IN CLASS]