From the issue dated August 15, 2003
|
|
|
Avoiding Problematics in the Production of KnowledgeBy SCOTT McLEMEELike youth subcultures, the military, and organized crime, the academic world has its own distinctive lingo -- expressions that insiders know and use, without ever thinking how odd they might sound to the uninitiated. Not to recognize such an idiom can be a source of potentially severe social awkwardness. Imagine thinking that "hermeneutics" means the same thing as "heuristics"! It would be like realizing, halfway through dinner, that you'd eaten your salad with a soup spoon. The Reference Desk will offer guidance to understanding the slang and commonplace allusions that scholars use when talking among themselves. Definitions will be brief, and not very solemn. The Chronicle is not legally responsible for incidents provoked by outsiders' attempts to blend into academe by using this information. PROBLEMATIC, n. -- Not to be confused with problematic, adjective, referring to a situation involving difficulty or confusion, sometimes with the potential for conflict (e.g., "The faculty-parking situation has become problematic"). From problematique, defined by the French Marxist theorist Louis Althusser as "the particular unity of a theoretical formulation." That is, the gridwork of concepts necessary to make sense of a given idea or question. To understand, say, the disagreement among philosophers over the correct number of places at the table required for the transcendental deduction of the categories of understanding, you need to be familiar with the problematic of Immanuel Kant. Otherwise, it just doesn't come up that often. Extremely useful for academic browbeating. If Smith has criticized the work of Jones, then Jones may reply: "Professor Smith has perhaps failed to grasp the problematics informing my argument." Roughly translated: "I know what I'm talking about, and you can't prove that I don't." PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE -- Synonym for "doing scholarship," but not quite so musty-sounding. Often used by people in literary and cultural studies who prefer to think of their work not as the contemplation of "monuments of unaging intellect" (in William Butler Yeats's phrase), but as a process both rigorous and socially necessary, like work in an auto factory. What rolls off the assembly line, as often as not, are shiny new problematics. Implies that the scholar is doing something new; otherwise, the knowledge would not need to be produced, just shipped over from the warehouse. Because innovation is already under way, continued financing is appropriate. When scholars say they are "engaged in the production of knowledge," it is considered extremely bad form to respond, "Oh yeah? Who's consuming?" http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 49, Issue 49, Page A8
|
Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education