objectual practice, Karin Knorr Cetina

 objectual practice, Karin Knorr Cetina

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In this, KKC makes the case for what she calls an epistemic object, which she ends up equating with Lacan's object petit a. KKC aims to distinguish epistemic objects from certain kinds of practice, practices that are habitual, routine, and procedural. By contrast, while it doesn't really make sense to say that epistemic objects are relational, she smooshes epistemic objects with the relational, and distinguishes that coupling from the performative and habitual. I'm not sure I get the contrast exactly, but as usual it has to do with Bourdieu. And apparently Dreyfus too. 

Epistemic practice as sustained by object relations

A number of suggestions about how epistemic practice might be conceived have been implicit in the discussion so far. I now want to address these more directly and systematically. I limit myself to two features of epistemic practice: its underlying relational dynamic and the lateral branching out of this practice. The first feature pertains to a kind of practice that is dynamic, constructive (creative), and perhaps conflictual. As indicated before, contemporary accounts favor a conception of practice in terms of habits and routines. As a consequence, these authors seek to explain practice (understood as practices) by an appeal to the embodied acquisition of preferences, perceptual schemes and dispositions to react, and by an appeal to shared tacit rules. The former is more the Bourdieu and

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Dreyfus line of thinking; in the latter case, the nature of the rules, and their exact relation to practical activity, lies at the core of controversies (see Bourdieu 1977; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986; Lynch 1993; Turner 1994; Rouse 1996b; Schatzki 1996). In both cases, practice requires participants to have learned something which they subsequently deploy or enact in concrete situations. In contrast, I see epistemic practice as based upon a form of relationship (see also Knorr Cetina 1997; Greenberg and Mitchell 1983) that by the nature of its dynamic transforms itself and the entities formed by the relationship. 

There was that one topology part too. This sounds kind of like the part I was looking for, but not quite. It also sounds exactly like how Stormer described his research too. 

It remains for me to add a note about the lateral and angular branching off of strands of practice. The notion of unfolding when applied to practice can easily be understood as a forward-pointing sequence of steps driven by the interlocking dynamic of a structure of lacks and wantings. However, this would ignore the frequent splitting of activities into different strands, and the possible displacements of one strand by another. Such lateral shifts imply the transference of wants and relational substance from one chain of objectual involvements to another. As the study of science shows, processes of inquiry rarely come to a natural ending of the sort where everything worth knowing about an object is considered to be known. The idea of a structure of wanting implies a continually renewed interest in knowing that appears never to be fulfilled by final knowledge. But it also implies that interest may turn elsewhere, that it jumps the rails of one line of practice and continues on a different track in a somewhat different direction. The angularity of epistemic practice, its continual lateral divergence from itself, needs further discussion which I cannot offer here. Suffice to say that angular splitoffs add a disruptive element to the conception of practice I advocate, an element of conflictual breaks not generally recognized in current conceptions of practice. 

I think this was it actually. 

I have characterized the objects involved (which may be natural things, instruments, scientifically generated objects, etc.) in terms of their unfolding ontology, the phenomenon that they may exist simultaneously in a variety of forms, and their meaning-generating connective force. These ideas also suggest a notion of practice that is more dynamic, creative, and constructive than the current definition of practice as rule-based routines or embodied skills suggests. 

Sounds weird. 

Let's see. You forgot the knowledge society part. What does that have to do with it? There was (a) the structure of wanting or desire (b) objects (c) the knowledge society (d) experts (e) relationality (f) emotion (g) verstehen. 

Let's do the Verstehen part, which KKC did not use in this. Not the word anyway, but she did use the idea. 

This is literally an entire section. 

The relational undergirding of epistemic practice

I now want to begin to describe this practice, starting with the observation of the dissociative dynamic that comes into play when practice ceases to be a procedural routine. As indicated before, the dissociation relevant here is that between subject and object. What do we mean by this dissociation? How does it come about, and why is it important? The separation between subjects with mental states and independent objects is common to all areas of everyday life. To take an example, a car and its driver are distinct entities in our perception and in much of our experience. Nonetheless, while I am driving, my car becomes what Heidegger calls ‘ready-to-hand’ and transparent (Heidegger 1962:98ff.): it has the tendency to disappear while I am using it. In other words, the car becomes an unproblematic means to an end rather than an independent thing to which I stand in relation. It becomes an instrument that has been absorbed into the practice of driving, just as I, the driver, have been absorbed into the practice of driving—I, too, become transparent. When I engage in this practice, I am oriented to the street, the traffic, the direction I have to take. I am not oriented to the car— unless it malfunctions and temporarily breaks down. Nor am I thinking of myself as separate from the immediate activity.

It should be plain that scientific practice, when it is routine or habitual, corresponds to this description. To give an example, consider the following comments of a researcher in a molecular biology laboratory whom I asked about her usage of laboratory protocols (for details see Knorr Cetina 1999: Chapter 4):

DS: You asked about protocols. We not only work with protocols, we think in terms of them. When I am doing the protocol, pipetting say, I don’t really think about the objects I am dealing with. When it’s a routine, there is, for me, no differentiation between the bacteria that I am using there, and the DNA that I’ll extract and the enzyme that I am placing on to cut the DNA. ‘A

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thing to do’ is more a protocol than dealing with DNA, it is more in the procedure than in the material.

Or consider another molecular biologist in the same laboratory, who described the practice of cloning in the following terms (see Knorr Cetina 1999: Chapter 6):

HB: Cloning is perhaps one level below what one calls exciting in the lab. You sit down, you think about a particular construct, and then you clone it. That’s not very different from deciding to dig a hole in the ground and then to dig it—it’s about that exciting.

This sort of practice can perfectly well be described in a performative idiom that conceptualizes it, in Wittgenstein’s terminology, as an ‘ungrounded way of acting’ (Wittgenstein 1969: nos. 110, 17e; see also Dreyfus 1995:155). Yet it appears equally clear that major portions of knowledge-centered work those that best epitomize epistemic practice—are not adequately described in just these terms. These portions of scientific practice are not, in the above terms, ‘routine procedures’; they occur when problems arise, or when work is new to a researcher. Consider again an example, the first researcher’s response, at a later point in our conversation, to a question about the protein she was working on:

KKC: What about your protein?

DS: Well, the protein, because it has previously been a problem, the protein is

a bit more moody. I think about it, I get more visual, I treat it differently, in one word, I pay more attention to it, it’s more precious. I don’t handle it routinely yet.

KKC: How do you visualize it?

DS: I see the protein in a certain size in front of me. I visualize why it is

precipitating, then I visualize the solution and I visualize the falling out and the refolding process. I also visualize the protein denaturing, streched out and then coming together, and I visualize how it is being shot into the solution and what it is going through when it starts to fold. With the expression, I visualize the bacteria when they grow in a more anthropomorphic way, why are they happy? I try to visualize them shaking around, I visualize aerobic effects, the shaking, how much they tumble around and what could have an effect.

In this second case, the object (e.g., the protein) is no longer ‘invisible’ and undifferentiated, an undistinguishable part of an activity script. Instead, it becomes enhanced and in fact enlarged through the researcher’s strategy of visualizing it and its environment and behavior under various circumstances. It is important to note not only the subject-object differentiation this entails, but also the researcher’s active usage of the means we have to overcome subject-object separation—her deployment of relational resources. Not onlydoes this researcher experience herself as a conscious subject that relates to epistemic

objects, she draws upon resources that are entailed in ‘being-inrelation’ in everyday life to help define and continue her research. I take these relational resources to include taking the role or perspective of the other; making an emotional investment (taking an interest) in the other; and exhibiting moral solidarity and altruistic behavior that serves the other person. In the present case, DS can be said to take the role and perspective of the protein and of her bacteria; she also imagines the latters’ emotions, engaging in what is perhaps a form of empathy. In the following comment on her protein, DS indicates her own emotional involvement:

KKC: Is it [the protein] like a person? Someone you interact with?

DS: No, not necessarily a person. It takes on aspects of some personality,

which I feel, depending on if it has been cooperative or not. If it’s cooperative then it becomes a friend for a while, then I am happy and write exclamation marks in my book. But later it becomes material again, it goes back to being in a material state. When it stops doing what I want, then I see a personal enemy and think about the problems.

From the subject-object differentiation and the relational definition of the situation DS reaps, one imagines, insights, clarity about next moves, epistemic dividends. In other words, DS uses relational mechanisms as resources in articulating and ‘constructing’ an ill-defined, problematic, nonroutine and perhaps innovative epistemic practice.

When Heidegger analyzed our instrumental being-in-the-world as a form of un-self-conscious but nontheless goal-directed employment of equipment in its referential context he also pointed out what happens when equipment becomes problematic (Heidegger 1962:98ff.): then we go from ‘absorbed coping’ to ‘envisaging,’ ‘deliberate coping’ and to the scientific stance of ‘theoretical reflection’ on the properties of entities. This characterization recaptures the ones I have given, with perhaps one difference. Heidegger came to characterize knowledge in terms of a theoretical attitude that entails a’withholding’ of practical reason. He gave an important characterization of how the project of science appears derivative of the primordial stance of taking things for granted in everyday life. But, at the same time, his characterization provided less than an adequate account of knowledge processes—in which the presence of equipment is massive, instrumentality prevails, and theorizing rather appeals to us as being itself a form of practice. With the notion of a theoretical attitude, Heidegger brought back into the picture the subject-object differentiation which he had wanted to drive out of the philosophical discourse with his definition of ‘Dasein’ as a form of concerned coping (‘Self and world belong together in the single entity, Dasein. Self and world are not two entities, like subject and object’: cf. Dreyfus 1995:67ff.). But perhaps as a consequence of his larger project, Heidegger never quite gave situations of subject-object distantiation the same consideration andattention that he gave to concerned coping. Theoretical knowledge, for Heidegger, remained a form of ‘thematizing’ that objectifies

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objects from a position of detachment. Heidegger did not develop the idea that this ‘detachment’ simultaneously makes possible relationships in which one can dwell and which can be extended and unfolded through relational mechanisms and resources. I take the position that Heidegger’s detachment should rather be recast in terms of the notion of differentiation (between subject and object); that differentiation entails the possibility of a nexus between differentiated entities which provides for our integration in the world (for a form of being-inthe- world); and that this form of being-in-relation also defines a form of ‘practice’— in particular, it defines epistemic practice. 

Before you forget, don't forget about planning and the whole Boerne thing. The epistemic object almost sounded like a very...John Ackerman, map, map in the future, future, unrealized future state kind of thing. 

Is a plan an epistemic object?

Not an answer to that question. 

There are other characteristics. Epistemic objects frequently exist simultaneously in a variety of forms. They have multiple instantiations, which range from figurative, mathematical, and other representations to material realizations. Take the case of a detector in a high-energy physics experiment. ‘It’ continually circulates through a collaborating community of physicists in the form of partial simulations and calculations, technical design drawings, artistic renderings, photographs, test materials, prototypes, transparencies, written and verbal reports, and more. These instantiations are always partial in the sense of not fully comprising ‘the detector.’ ‘Partial objects’ stand in an internal relation to a whole. The instantiations I have listed should not be conceived of as a halo of renderings and preparatory materials anticipating and representing another object, ‘the real thing.’ It is ‘the real thing’ itself that has the changing ontology which the partial objects unfold. But do physicists not mean, by a detector, the physical machine after it has been built and when it is complete and running? Is the object not always an intended, an imagined whole? [I wonder if this speaks to CHAT at all ie. intention] My point here is simply that as an intended object, a detector is an endlessly unfolding project consistent with the above circumscription of an epistemic object as marked by a lack in completeness of being. We should also consider that the boundaries of a technical instrument such as a ‘running detector’ are still highly problematic: only parts of the instrument tend to be operational at any one time, the physical machine will not run without remote controls, without computers and other equipment connected to it, and the instrument exists for most practical purposes mainly in the form of detector (component) measurements, representations, and simulations (it is literally put behind lead walls and inaccessable while it is running). Finally, even when such an instrument is officially declared ‘finished’ and ‘complete,’ the respective experts are acutely aware of its faults, of how it ‘could’ have been improved, of what it ‘should’ have become and did not. 

Kind of sounds like Mol a little bit. But also ethnomethodology insofar as the transience and singularity. There is no thing called, say, writing, it only exists relationally in certain actions. Kind of like the teaching thing. You can be a teacher without being a teacher. Calling parents is a teacher thing. Giving kudos to a parole officer. Just being in the room doesn't necessarily count. 

Still can't find the Ackerman quote yet. But I found this. 

When Heidegger analyzed our instrumental being-in-the-world as a form of un-self-conscious but nontheless goal-directed employment of equipment in its referential context he also pointed out what happens when equipment becomes problematic (Heidegger 1962:98ff.): then we go from ‘absorbed coping’ to ‘envisaging,’ ‘deliberate coping’ and to the scientific stance of ‘theoretical reflection’ on the properties of entities. This characterization recaptures the ones I have given, with perhaps one difference. Heidegger came to characterize knowledge in terms of a theoretical attitude that entails a’withholding’ of practical reason. He gave an important characterization of how the project of science appears derivative of the primordial stance of taking things for granted in everyday life. But, at the same time, his characterization provided less than an adequate account of knowledge processes—in which the presence of equipment is massive, instrumentality prevails, and theorizing rather appeals to us as being itself a form of practice. 

Back to this quote again. "There are other characteristics. Epistemic objects frequently exist simultaneously in a variety of forms. They have multiple instantiations, which range from figurative, mathematical, and other representations to material realizations." Seems kind of like the object in CHAT. Can I say that? like people are all working together but in different ways and with different things?

Oh I think this is the quote I was looking for.

The ‘finished,’ working detector, then, is itself always incomplete, is itself

simply another partial object. The notion of an imagined object captures the

ontological difference between current instantiations and a possibly more

complete ideal, or in another sense extended object. The imagined object might

itself be instantiated in design drawings that project a future or hidden state. In this

sense a concrete, imagined object is also a partial object, albeit one that stands in

relation to an available, occurrent object state as an object that marks the

difference to this state. As historical studies show, scientists sometimes map out

ideal objects in publications even when current techniques are not able to produce them (e.g. Borck 1997:6)

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To return now to the partial object: I do not conceive of it as a gliding replacement for any presumed ‘real’ object in the sense of a referent. Partial objects, like epistemic objects in general, do not derive their immediate practical significance from the real. The point I want to draw attention to is the signifying force of (partial) epistemic objects by virtue of the internal articulation of these objects. Consider a transparency containing a curve which indicates the increasing ‘downtime’ of, say, a computer over its lifetime. The curve does not just ‘represent’ the unspecific experience that the instrument needs repairs over time. It specifies the exact way in which repair incidences accumulate. It may show that there is a small but steady increase of such incidences in the first years, followed by a steep and bumpy downtime increase during midlife, and a slow increase in a generally high incidence of repair shutoffs during older age. From the curve, one can try to decide at what points to replace the instrument. This will make apparent the need for further information, for example about the level of downtime that is acceptable to a project—the curve is telling, but not (ever) telling enough. What one can decide is what points of the curve to explore further to obtain the missing information. For example, one can calculate the cost of data losses through downtime before and after a steep decline in repair incidences. The signifying force of partial objects (of epistemic objects in general) resides in the pointers they provide to possible further explorations. In this sense these objects are meaning-producing and practice-generating; they provide for the concatenation and constructive extension of practice. One can also say the significance of these entities resides in the lack they display and in the suggestions they contain for further unfolding (for a more complicated theoretical physics example, see Merz and Knorr Cetina (1997:918)).

Thus in creative and constructive practice, (partial) epistemic objects have to be seen as transient, internally complex, signifying entities that allow for and structure the continuation of the sequence through the signs they give off of their lacks and needs. Their internal articulation is important for the continuation of epistemic practice; not just their differe(a)nce to other objects, as in a Saussurean linguistic universe. I do not see partial epistemic objects as elementary units into

produce them (e.g. Borck 1997:6). But imagined objects can also split and divert current practice by projecting a new possible object, one that calls into question current concerns or simply departs from them in lateral ways. This is how current practice often gets constructively extended into new strands. 

The "... even when current techniques are not able to produce them (e.g. Borck 1997:6)" part reminded me of the Parsons distinction between energy and ideas. Low in energy high in ideas I think? 

Why does that matter though?

You need to go back and do the knowledge society thing but you're stuck on the difference between B & T and CHAT. Yes, cycle::test. But what about object? what is the object of OOW? Justice seems too easy. Yes, I don't think OOW would be polymotivational, but... You were also thinking of Mind or cognition. There's certainly no cognition or Mind in OOW. But how would that play out? You should reanalyze a Spinuzzi article for SIGDOC, using the same data to show how you'd differently interpret it... Again, there would have to be some kind of object. Look at the article where they're trying to figure out how to pay people ethically and equitably. There's a common goal there. Yes, synching would seem to be different in CHAT, CHAT is less inclines to synch. Oh, is it because of the expansiveness of learning. OOW is not expansive. It's contractive. I don't think you're going to get there today, but this was a good review...

Back to the knowledge society. 

The advantage of Giddens’s use of the notion expert ‘system’ is that it brings into view not only the impact of isolated knowledge items or of scientific- technical elites but implies the presence of whole contexts of expert work. These contexts, however, continue to be treated by him and others as álien elements in social systems, elements that are best left to their own devices. Knowledge society arguments consider knowledge as a productive force that—in a postindustrial society—increasingly plays the role that capital and labor played in industrial society. These viewpoints also emphasize the role of experts, of technology and its associated risks, and of electronic information structures (see also Lash and Urry 1994). But the transition to knowledge societies involves more than the presence of more experts, more technological gadgets, more specialist rather than participant interpretations. It involves the presence of knowledge processes themselves—in the terms chosen here, it involves the presence of epistemic practice. 

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