practice mind-ed orders

In ch3, practice mind-ed orders, Schatzki talks about the necessity of a concept of mind or cognition for practice.

Two problems of order. "One, the ‘mere’ cognitive problem of order, concerns the formation and maintenance of stable, regular, and predictable patterns of behavior. The second, genuine problem of order asks what holds society together, that is, what ensures relatively stable, nonovertly violent human coexistence." Then, "This second problem, which Parsons dubbed the ‘Hobbesian Problem of Order,’ is certainly an important issue." that sounds like Boltanski, who is into Hobbes too. 

This comes back a lot in this chapter. "In recent decades, however, the assimilation of order and cognition to regularity and its apprehension has come under suspicion." 

• "the inadequacy of the widespread equation of order with regularity."

"a variety of different activities count as games, and in this sense compose an order, even though what in the world corresponds to this state of order is not the uniform repetition of specific features, but a tangle of samenesses and similarities among the activities involved. Observations such as this suggest that there is more both to the ordering of things and to cognition (including scientific cognition) than regularities and their apprehension."I wonder if luxury is an example of this, like in the SkyMall catalogue 

dispositif. "one conception of order that does this while also building upon the complex and variable connections that exist among things, construes order as arrangements. An arrangement is a layout of entities in which they relate and take up places with respect to one another. On the basis of this intuitive conception, social order can be defined as arrangements of people and the organisms, artifacts, and things through which they coexist."

"To proclaim the interrelated meanings and identities of arranged items a key component of social order is to declare being central to order. It is to acknowledge, first, that there are no arrangements that are not arrangements of somethings and, second, that social somethings, perhaps somethings in general, are somethings as parts of arrangements" also not the verb "stand", as in to stand for being. It stands. 

"This latter thesis does not allege that being derives solely from positionality in arrangements. As will be discussed, being also springs from contexts in which arrangements exist." Like in the Taylor. "This thesis simply avers that people (and some organisms) possess identities, and that artifacts, things, organisms, and people bear meanings, as elements of arrangements. To use a familiar Heideggerian example: hammers and nails are tools with which (inter alia) to pound and fasten—relative to one another, as part of a nexus of equipment for building and repairing, and in relation to humans who use or know how to use them thus in carrying out building and repair activities. What is more, people perform acts of hammering, prying, gauging, measuring, and so on, and acquire such identities as handymen, Sunday bumblers, and skilled carpenters, both through their use of such tools when repairing and building things and through relations with other people within these and further family, recreational, and employment activities." Yea but so what? Order. Nonhumans. ... Mind. 

"the order-meaning-being axis"

Charles Taylor, Laclau and Mouffe

Wait, what does the Heidegger example have to do with"the inadequacy of the widespread equation of order with regularity"?

being=?form

positions=?meanings

"For Taylor, by contrast, practices are not simply becoming (activity)"--like they are for L & M, like in the example of "the assistant seizing a slab as a weapon and attacking the builder"--"but in addition a site, or context, where activity occurs."

"Thus, whereas Laclau and Mouffe treat practice as order-transforming activity and tie meaning to concrete orders, Taylor views practices as the site where human activity occurs and ties meaning to an abstract dimension of them."

"Laclau and Mouffe emphasize practice as activity. Moreover, in attributing the transformation of discourses to practice, they declare human activity causally responsible for social orders (as suggested by their references to ‘social forces’ that transform discourses). Taylor, meanwhile, highlights practices as site and not just as activity: Practices are contexts where actions are carried out."

"I agree with Laclau and Mouffe that practices are human activity and that causality in social affairs is centered in such activity. (Artifacts, organisms, and things also make a contribution, though I will not consider this further.) But I also think Taylor is right that practices are the chief context of human activity— and of social orders."

causality

"The first is to specify two types of ‘determination,’ other than the intervention of action in the world,"--"the assistant seizing a slab as a weapon and attacking the builder"--" that are pertinent to social orders."

"I call the state of affairs that action makes sense to someone to do ‘practical intelligibility.’ People almost always, I contend, do what makes sense to them to do; more elaborately, they are almost always performing bodily doings that, in the current circumstances, constitute the actions that make sense to them to perform. I should explain that practical intelligibility is not the same as rationality. What makes sense to people to do is, intrinsically, neither what is nor what seems rational to do."

‘practical intelligibility.’

rationality

I think maybe the point of this chapter is to make the cause for why there needs to be an object in the CHAT sense, like why not do without it?

"As will be discussed in the third section, practical intelligibility is determined by the mental phenomena of teleology and affectivity, by orientations toward ends and by how things matter. Both the pursuit of ends and how things matter can divert a person from doing what is rational. Incidentally, in governing activity practical intelligibility specifies the form of human activity. It thus corresponds to Aristotle’s formal cause, whereas the bodily mechanisms that bring about bodily doings correspond to what he called moving causes (or rather, the later interpretation of these as efficient causes)."

formal case, form

teleology, affectivity

"practices form the chief context of social orders by molding action and meaning—that is, by helping to shape the practical intelligibility that governs activity and by carrying that, in accordance with which the meanings of arranged entities are instituted." It seems like all of these intro essays are trying to specify what practice are, like what is a practice?

"causal connections between actions are mediated by what I contend organizes practices, namely, mind" this seems important, like the causal connection between beating the bush and throwing the spear is mind? the making of promises. an animal who makes promises. 

"Stephen Turner (1994) hasrecently mounted arguments against this idea and suggested (p. 117) that the only acceptable use of the expression ‘practices’ is to refer to patterns of behavior. He reaches the latter conclusion in three steps. He first claims that many writers have conceptualized practices as shared, causally effective mental objects such as tacit knowledge and presuppositions (that are hypothesized to lie behind behavior). He next stages arguments against the intelligibility and explanatory power of such shared mental entities. He concludes, finally, that the only thing the term ‘practices’ can designate is patterns of behavior." Turner is back! This guy must have made a stir. 

but note this "the only acceptable use of the expression ‘practices’" so this chapter is trying to be more capacious with the term, trying to extend its remit

"According to this account,3 mental phenomena such as desiring, hoping, feeling, believing, expecting, seeing, and being in pain are not states or processes of either an abstract or a real and underlying apparatus. Rather, they are states of one’s life: ways things stand or are going for oneself in one’s ongoing involvement with the world. For example, desiring chocolate ice cream is chocolate ice cream’s being (to oneself) something to possess (cf. Sartre’s [1962] analysis of emotions). Similarly, believing x is x’s being to oneself the case, just as being annoyed is something’s annoying one. As these formulations suggest, mental states, instead of being objects or processes, are states of affairs that obtain with respect to a person: that such and such is annoying, the case, or something to possess or realize. Such states are how things stand or are going for that person in his or her involvement in the world." there we go, the way things stand or are going. 

"One important feature of mental states so conceived is that they are expressed in behavior, where ‘expressed’ means that behavior manifests or signifies them (as when joy is manifested in crying and belief in God is signified by praying). A second important feature is that these states do not inform activity by causing it. Rather, they inform activity by determining what makes sense to people to do. An end, for instance, can combine with beliefs and emotions to specify a given action as what makes sense to their possessor to do." end, expression, behavior, behaviorism, causality, possessor though? [ something to possess (cf. Sartre’s [1962] analysis of emotions). ]

end

"For instance, receipt of greater parental attention being something to achieve can combine with a brother having received a new train for his birthday and the brother having done a number of annoying things the previous day, to specify breaking the train as the action that now makes sense to a younger brother to perform. (Ceteris paribus, moreover, the younger brother proceeds into action.) I should reiterate that practical intelligibility is not the same as rationality, though the actions singled out as the ones to perform can coincide with those that rationality advocates. If the younger brother believes that he will be punished for destroying his brother’s train, smashing it might not be the rational thing to do. His annoyance at the brother’s earlier escapades might be such, however, that smashing it is still specified as the action to perform. The dictates of practical intelligibility diverge from those of rationality especially (but not only) when emotions, moods, and hopes help determine what makes sense to people to do."

practical intelligibility, rationality, emotions, moods, and hopes

"The upshot of this discussion of mentality is that to attribute mental conditions to someone is not, pace Turner, to declare that certain hidden objects caused this and that phenomenal behavior. Rather, it is to articulate how things stood and were going for this person who performed such and such behaviors in these particular circumstances. Mind, consequently, does not comprise such representational entities as tacit knowledge that cause behavior, but instead consists in practical intelligibility-determining states of affairs that are expressed in behavior." so we're dealing with a razor fine distinction with a lot of implications, but I though that causality was ok? we're trying to unlearn a kind dualism or immaturity, and in doing so we've moved to a kind of wave (versus) particle way of thinking about action, practice, or perhaps even mind, is something you get caught up in rather than something that you cogitate and cause, so the distinction is between caught up in versus cause, the wave didn't cause the surfer to rider to ride it but rather he got caught up in its flow

"a nonsubstantive and noncausal conception of mind." yea I'm really confused as to what is supposed to cause what and what isn't supposed to be a cause, but then again you're stuck at only being able to think, is causality good or bad? and to what does it apply?

"mind is a medium through which the activities that compose a practice are noncausally organized." Oh, like the digital, that's helpful

‘teleoaffective structure.’ 

"Crediting a practical sensibility with the determination of which actions people always or routinely perform is problematic. To begin with, practical understanding is somewhat nonexplanatory. To say that John x-ed in situation z either because he knows how to go on in z or because he has a ‘feel for the game’ played there does not explain why he x-ed." yep, object, motive

". Teleology, as noted, is orientations toward ends, while affectivity is how things matter. What makes sense to a person to do largely depends on the matters for the sake of which she is prepared to act, on how she will proceed for the sake of achieving or possessing those matters, and on how things matter to her; thus on her ends, the projects and tasks she will carry out for the sake of those ends given her beliefs, hopes, and expectations, and her emotions and moods. Practical intelligibility is teleologically and affectively determined."