[ Forum Central | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Curt Kearney (CF-Kearney@govst.edu)
Date: 7/25/98
Well, I just got off the phone with a friend who was raving about Intersubjectivity Theory. I don't know much about it, but he turned me on to Kohut, so I hit the web to find out more, and here I am. I've read through some of the stuff here, and as very much part of my education is to jump into diaologue of a fairly visceral sort, and see what develops from there, here goes:
Any Simpsons fans out there? You know the episode where Bart takes karate lessons? Well, one reaction I've had to reading the stuff on this web site is, to paraphrase Bart: "I already know how to not know." To be more specific, I've often had the reaction, reading or going over "deconstructionist," "Post-Modern," (pick your term...) stuff that the writers are -- viewed cynically -- basing an acedemic career on writing about common sense, and making it seem like radical, new views.
My major critique of what I've read is not that I've disagreed with it, but I'm left with a familiar, uncomfortable feeling: "These ideas are not new. Where are the references to older views? [We get Wittgenstein and Leibniz, still in the same small clique of deconstructionist-apprived sources.] Why is the tone of this that these ideas are so brand-spanking new?" Something seems fishy. Some older sources for this stuff? Well, that's kind of my point: it's hard to talk academically about common sense. (Yeah, I know I'm leaving myself wide open -- especially in a deconstructionist forum -- to use the words "common sense," but whad'll ya do?) To kind of undermine my own point -- these are exotic, not common, sources -- but there's the Buddhist idea of "mutual, co-dependent arising," and the even older idea of the Net of Indra: a sort of spider web with drops of dew at intersections of the web, each dew drop reflecting all the others.
Also, the article cited "dynamic or nonlinear systems theory," discussing "Emergent structure formation." Well, I'd like more of a caveat on using other sciences as anything but analogies for psychology, but that said, I think we could even say that the analogy chosen is perhaps telling: From my understanding of studies of emergent order, primarily in information theory and complexity theory, the thing that blows me away is not that order and structure occur in relationship (not to be rude, but: "Duh!"), but that the order that emerges is not the result of blank-slate, free-form interaction, but that there seem to be structuring principles. Emergent order does not seem to be free, but damn-interestingly controlled. For example, even with extremely intense pressure in laboratories, there has yet to be a single species created. Fruit flies have been mutated in lots of ways, but they always stay the same species or cannot produce viable offspring. I'll play my last card here and give myself away: If we were going to try to apply studies of emergent order to psychology, I think we'd be looking _both_ at something like the Intersubjectivity stuff, along with -- dare I say it! -- Jung's archetypes: sort of a priori structuring principles.
'Nough said, I'm off to write the paper that's due Monday AM.
Feel free to e-mail responses or whatever. Like I said initially, I see this kind of post as a point in a dialogue more than an absolute point (something I more learned from Friere and Dostoyevsky, without ever hearing of Intersubjectivity Theory [insert annoying Internet smiley text "art" here]).
Curt.
[ Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]