Revolution! Something is happening – but what? Castro pounds the table. Then silence. He looks up... more Revolution! Something is happening – but what? Castro pounds the table. Then silence. He looks up, furrows his brow, and declaims: The advantages of socialism are truly tremendous if one wants to take advantage of them. [Pounds on table.] I think that some of these programs that we have been mentioning – interest circles, schools, agromarkets, central markets [Mercadoconcentrado], terminals – are all inconceivable in capitalism. If socialism has all these advantages, then why not take advantage of them? (Castro 1989)
This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change.... more This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change. In particular, it focuses on models that emphasize novelty and sudden transformation. To this end, the works of Thomas Kuhn, and the debates surrounding his celebrated modeling of the paradigm, are explored. Having established – at least in an illustrative fashion – the role of novelty in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, we then look more briefly at the mid-career work of Michel Foucault (his Order of Things and the Archaeology of Knowledge), and the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard to find (in Foucault’s case) analogies with the earlier models and debates surrounding Popper and Kuhn, and then (in the Habermas/Lyotard discussion), to see how revolutionary and reactionary status count in assigning value to models of knowledge. In all these inquiries, we seek less to criticize particular theorists (that has already been done) than to understand a dominant strand of understanding of knowledge and knowledge-change in the contemporary academy.
Nietzsche was the last atheist and René Girard his first reader. Yet even Girard’s reading has be... more Nietzsche was the last atheist and René Girard his first reader. Yet even Girard’s reading has been passed over in such silence that it appears as if Nietzsche’s books really were too good, that he really was too wise - and his anthropological science too full by far of human vim for us to bear. His books, if anything, seem to have become even more unreadable than they were at the time of their publication
This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change.... more This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change. In particular, it focuses on models that emphasize novelty and sudden transformation. To this end, the works of Thomas Kuhn, and the debates surrounding his celebrated modeling of the paradigm, are explored. Having established – at least in an illustrative fashion – the role of novelty in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, we then look more briefly at the mid-career work of Michel Foucault (his Order of Things and the Archaeology of Knowledge), and the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard to find (in Foucault’s case) analogies with the earlier models and debates surrounding Popper and Kuhn, and then (in the Habermas/Lyotard discussion), to see how revolutionary and reactionary status count in assigning value to models of knowledge. In all these inquiries, we seek less to criticize particular theorists (that has already been done) than to understand a dominant strand of un...
Generative Anthropology is the most promising form of cultural studies today. Those who read Anth... more Generative Anthropology is the most promising form of cultural studies today. Those who read Anthropoetics already know this, even if what they do travels under different disciplinary names. The contribution of Generative Anthropology to knowledge about ...
Revolution! Something is happening – but what? Castro pounds the table. Then silence. He looks up... more Revolution! Something is happening – but what? Castro pounds the table. Then silence. He looks up, furrows his brow, and declaims: The advantages of socialism are truly tremendous if one wants to take advantage of them. [Pounds on table.] I think that some of these programs that we have been mentioning – interest circles, schools, agromarkets, central markets [Mercadoconcentrado], terminals – are all inconceivable in capitalism. If socialism has all these advantages, then why not take advantage of them? (Castro 1989)
This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change.... more This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change. In particular, it focuses on models that emphasize novelty and sudden transformation. To this end, the works of Thomas Kuhn, and the debates surrounding his celebrated modeling of the paradigm, are explored. Having established – at least in an illustrative fashion – the role of novelty in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, we then look more briefly at the mid-career work of Michel Foucault (his Order of Things and the Archaeology of Knowledge), and the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard to find (in Foucault’s case) analogies with the earlier models and debates surrounding Popper and Kuhn, and then (in the Habermas/Lyotard discussion), to see how revolutionary and reactionary status count in assigning value to models of knowledge. In all these inquiries, we seek less to criticize particular theorists (that has already been done) than to understand a dominant strand of understanding of knowledge and knowledge-change in the contemporary academy.
Nietzsche was the last atheist and René Girard his first reader. Yet even Girard’s reading has be... more Nietzsche was the last atheist and René Girard his first reader. Yet even Girard’s reading has been passed over in such silence that it appears as if Nietzsche’s books really were too good, that he really was too wise - and his anthropological science too full by far of human vim for us to bear. His books, if anything, seem to have become even more unreadable than they were at the time of their publication
This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change.... more This article traces certain rhetorics of knowledge-change as well as a few models of such change. In particular, it focuses on models that emphasize novelty and sudden transformation. To this end, the works of Thomas Kuhn, and the debates surrounding his celebrated modeling of the paradigm, are explored. Having established – at least in an illustrative fashion – the role of novelty in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, we then look more briefly at the mid-career work of Michel Foucault (his Order of Things and the Archaeology of Knowledge), and the debate between Jürgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard to find (in Foucault’s case) analogies with the earlier models and debates surrounding Popper and Kuhn, and then (in the Habermas/Lyotard discussion), to see how revolutionary and reactionary status count in assigning value to models of knowledge. In all these inquiries, we seek less to criticize particular theorists (that has already been done) than to understand a dominant strand of un...
Generative Anthropology is the most promising form of cultural studies today. Those who read Anth... more Generative Anthropology is the most promising form of cultural studies today. Those who read Anthropoetics already know this, even if what they do travels under different disciplinary names. The contribution of Generative Anthropology to knowledge about ...
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