Language
(reconstructing its origins)
and Accountability
reconsidering its Cybernetics
Klaus Krippendorff
Gregory Bateson Professor for Cybernetics, Language and Culture
The Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
kkrippendorff@asc.upenn.edu
Workshop on Language 2007.11.19 in Vienna
Plan
• Questioning some assumptions of second-order cybernetics
• Coordination
• Bootstrapping conceptions
• Accountability
• Discourse
• Discourse of (second-order) cybernetics
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
• The role of the observer
• Abstractions
• Fundamentalizing any one discourse
• Theories of language
• Reconsidering (second-order) cybernetics
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
A Mind produces subjective representations of the objective world
outside Descartes
B The experiential world is a platform to reach the world
outside Husserl
C Human beings are born into an environment and rely on equipment,
nature and present others. They need to construct uses Heidegger
All evidence of human cognition is extracted from language use or
constituted in language.
Is radical constructivism radically cognitivist?
Proceeding as in B? Why not C?
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
• The role of the observer
Knowledge during the enlightenment became what detached
observers, spectators, could describe, explain and theorize
Second-order cybernetics insists on entering the observer in the
observed, calling for descriptions of processes of observation von Foerster
If language performs constructed or created reality, descriptions and
explanations become problematic accounts
What would happen if we were to shift to how-to knowledge as a
criterion for understanding? The knowledge of one’s ability to make
something happen, including generating data by scientific experiments?
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
• The role of the observer
• Abstractions
Abstractions like “THE observer” cannot be observed, does not exist as
such but resides primarily in language (and only secondarily in
cognition)
Experiments in category theory suggests super-ordinate categories are
not imaginable Rosch (1978)
Need to consider all concepts as embodied somewhere
concepts in the language used by speakers / writers
actions as performed by someone
governments do not speak, people do
cybernetics does not do anything, cyberneticians do
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
• The role of the observer
• Abstractions
• Fundamentalizing any one discourse
There are numerous discourse communities seeking superior status –
physics, economics, biology – claiming to be more fundamental than
others
To understand languaging, its history of embodiments in generations of
users is important. No discipline is more important than the process of
human engagement with the world
For example, autopoiesis (Maturana’s theory) is not required for living systems
to live. It is a construction in language and important in the discourse of
biology. Yet in everyday life, language use constitutes the very
phenomena described: “This is the 3rd Heinz von Foerster conference”
Questioning some assumptions
• Cognitivism
• The role of the observer
• Abstractions
• Fundamentalizing any one discourse
• Theories of language
Abstract/objectivist – medium of representation Vološinov (1929)
Individual/subjectivist – medium of expression Vološinov (1929)
Hermeneutic/interpretivist – medium of rearticulation von Glasersfeld (1983)
Constructive/constitutive – medium of being in language
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Con-sensual coordination
• Coordination theory
• Coordination and conversation
• Language games
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Coordination = co-ordination = jointly worked out dynamics, relation R
• Subordination according to a principle R or authority
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Con-sensual coordination
Language is the consensual coordination of consensual coordination
of action Maturana (1988)
Consensual = jointly sensed (not by consensus
= con-sensual
Implicit aboutness from representational notions of language ?
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Con-sensual coordination
• Coordination theory
Newcomb(1953)
Minimally two individuals A, B and a jointly seen object X
I obs [A-B-X]
I obs [A obs (B-X) and B obs (A-X)]
I obs [A coordinates with B re X]
I obs [A obs (B obs (A-X)-X) with B obs (A obs (B-X) re X]
coordination = acquiescence on not conflict
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Con-sensual coordination
• Coordination theory
• Coordination and conversation
In A-B-X,
The co-sensed object X migrates to the topic X
Bateson’s distinction Watzlawick et al. (1967)
Content = co-sensed object X or topic X jointly attended to
Relationship = tacit languaging R between A and B
Coordination
• Coordination vs. subordination
• Con-sensual coordination
• Coordination theory
• Coordination and conversation
• Language games
Wittgenstein (1953)
Categorizing coordinations R
• Constitutive rules assign meanings to (speech) acts also Searle (1969)
• Regulative rules specify when to use which (speech) acts
Conversations do not require rules
Rules are created when tacit participation breaks down
(see accountability below)
Bootstrapping conceptions
• A theory of metaphor
• From kinesthetic metaphors to interpersonal metaphors
• Social constructions and metaphor use
Bootstrapping conceptions
• A theory of metaphor Lakoff and Johnson (1980)
Analogy: A is to B as C is to D
Metaphor: • Vocabulary from a familiar domain and a present domain
• Superficial resemblance between the two domains
• Entailments from the familiar domain change the
perception of the present domain
Bootstrapping conceptions
• A theory of metaphor
• From kinesthetic metaphors to interpersonal metaphors Johnson (1987)
Examples of early coordinations of vocabularies with experiences
up – down
in(side) – outside (not inside)
push – pull
can – cannot
doings – happenings
objects – actions
Examples of later uses of metaphors
head of the household
collecting data (facts)
war on drugs
diseased neighborhood
road rage
Bootstrapping conceptions
• A theory of metaphor
• From kinesthetic metaphors to interpersonal metaphors
• Social constructions and metaphor use
Coordination of the entailments of metaphors (vocabulary use)
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
• Responsibility – assumed, assigned, declared
• Languaging, performative language, speech acts
• Accounts
• Ethics embodied in interactions or a proposed universal?
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
Determinism is the proposition that events, including human cognition
and behavior, decision and action, are determined by prior occurrences
Structural determinism is the proposition that events within organisms
are determined by the structure of that organism, not by the structure of
its environment
There are many determinisms: causal, logical, cognitive, environmental
Agency is the capacity of human beings to choose among actions that
have consequences for self and others in the world
It presupposes a space of possibility and entails accountability
Determinism and agency offer incompatible explanations
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
• Responsibility – assumed, assigned, declared
Responsibility
can be assumed for the well-being of others (in need of protection)
(assuming leadership or authority)
Responsibility
can be assigned by an authority to someone to do something
(accepting the assigning authority)
Responsibility
can be declared for a valuable contribution or failure
Responsibility is often entangled with authority (authorship)
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
• Responsibility – assumed, assigned, declared
• Languaging, performative language, speech acts
Languaging entails choices
Four theories of language:
Medium of representation – determined by truths
Medium of expression
– determined by internal states
Medium of interpretation – determined by social norms
Medium of being in language = performing speech acts
Speech acts Searle (1969) (too simple)
Assertives
– commit a speaker to the truth of a proposition
Commissives – commit a speaker to future acts
Expressives – express a speaker’s attitude toward an X
Directives
– command a hearer to perform an act
Declaratives – change reality in accord with a declaration
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
• Responsibility – assumed, assigned, declared
• Languaging, performative language, speech acts
• Accounts
Accounts are
• requested
• given or denied.
If denied:
• accepted or rejected. If rejected:
or acquiesced
Kinds of accounts: Mills (1940), Scott (1968), Buttny (1993)
• Explanations – coordination of understanding
• Excuses
– denying agency (invoking acceptable reasons to)
• Justifications – appealing to virtues
Accountability
• Agency vs. determinism
• Responsibility – assumed, assigned, declared
• Languaging, performative language, speech acts
• Accounts
• Explanations
• Excuses
• Justifications
• Ethics embodied in interactions or a proposed universal system?
Accounts invoke a radically distributed ethics, one whose propositions
emerge when acts are perceived as incomprehensible, irresponsible or
immoral.
Practicing accountability makes universal systems of ethics dispensable
Discourse
Conversation recap:
• Is embodied in the languaging by its constituents – presentness
• Constituents create spaces for each other – practice agency –
assure dialogical equality
• Is self-organizing – creates its own con-sensual history and a
continuously evolving identity
• Preserves the possibility of its continuation – assures belongingness
Conversations degenerate into discourses when any one or more of the
above are violated
Discourse
Conversations degenerate into discourses when
• Constituents are less important than what they are expected to produce
• Agency is confined to institutionalized spaces – rational, functional
• Organization is confined by assigned purposes
• Participants claim unequal powers and access to reality (hierarchies)
• Certainties and conclusions are valued
Discourse
A discourse is a constrained conversation
• surfaces in texts, the objects it constructs
• is kept alive by a discourse community
• institutes its recurrent practices
• maintains its boundary
• justifies itself to outsiders of the discourse
It
Discourse
A discourse is a constrained conversation
It
• surfaces in texts, the objects it constructs
What does the discourse of physics construct?
A consistent universe that is observable and theorizable by trained
physicists in causal terms. It excludes observing physicists and cannot
understand how it is being studied
What does the discourse of medicine construct?
Bodily injuries and illnesses that are treatable by medical professionals
What does the discourse of biology construct?
Living organisms that can be described as structure determined
systems (using functional explanations that generalize observations
which are incomprehensible by these organisms)
Discourse
A discourse is a constrained conversation
It
• surfaces in texts, the objects it constructs
What does the discourse of sociology construct?
There are two schools
Objectivists construct disembodied social systems as determined
within their own variables e.g., Luhmann. Individual constituents do not play
a role in such systems – except in the aggregate (statistics)
Constructivists construct social systems that constitute themselves in
descriptions of them, either by their own constituents or by their
theorists.
What does a design discourse construct?
Proposals for artifacts (devices, practices, texts) that enable
stakeholders to realize something that would not come about naturally
Discourse
A discourse is a constrained conversation
• surfaces in texts, the objects it constructs
• is kept alive by a discourse community
• institutes its recurrent practices
• maintains its boundary
• justifies itself to outsiders of the discourse
It
Discourse of (second-order) cybernetics
• Cybernetics is a discourse, an organized way of languaging
• Cyberneticians constitute a discourse community, dedicated to
advancing its core ideas – circularity, process, information, participation
(involvement) in the world
• Cyberneticians construct artifacts – linguistic, computational or material
– that open new possibilities for their users
• As an interdiscipline, cybernetics is not privileging materiality, it can work
with disciplines compatible with its core ideas
• Cyberneticians consider themselves accountable to those affected by
what they bring forth – knowingly or not
(Second-order) cybernetics is the discourse of participation in
systems under continuous construction by its constituents