design for a subjective situationism, including conceptual grounds of business information modeling
Pieter Wisse
Chapter 10 reviews Searle’s first book. It is especially relevant for a historical perspective on information modeling. Even more than Austin’s book examined in Chapter 9, it exemplifies how mainstream schools of analytical philosophy, philosophy of language, linguistics, cognitive science and artificial intelligence have all merged over recent years.
Like Austin, Searle derives his axiomatic system from within language. However, he is more explicit about it. In short, the structure and rules Searle attributes to language are concluded to represent reality through unproblematic, complete correspondence.
It is easy to see why such a view – not only promoted by Searle of course, but by a host of other theorists converging from disciplines such as mentioned above – gained popularity for conceptual information modeling, knowledge representation, artificial intelligence, etcetera. For the structure/-rule configuration that Searle proposes for language, conveniently matches the information handling capacities of available digital technology. And with the language system positioned as the unbiased gateway to reality, applying the straightforward structure and rules indeed makes it seem that reality itself is programmable. It all neatly fits the scheme of traditional symbolic logic. Conceptually, only the minimal space for an intentional parameter needs to be included. The heart of representation remains of course propositional. The idea of truth is merely modified through addition of simple parameter values which are taken to reflect, just as objectively, speech actors’ intentions. The orientation at intentions is why this approach to modeling is called the language action paradigm.
Chapter 10 concentrates on Searle’s introductory chapter. Close reading of only a limited text already raises many questions. As far as consistency is concerned, contradictions are shown between Searle’s own assumptions on the one hand, and his derivations and conclusions on the other. With respect to his proposals being productive, comparisons are drawn with subjective situationism.
Does criticism of the language action paradigm discredit it? It does where it fails to supply the requisite variety. There are also situations where it is still adequate, especially when interests have a, say, mechanical nature. But even then it might be profitable to consider the language action paradigm as a subset of subjective situationism, i.e., with several variables bracketed. By thus framing it, a richer perspective is easier to muster when requirements demand.
Chapter 11 treats mead’s seminal ideas on social psychology and symbolic interaction. Chapter 12 comments on the theory of communicative action in which Habermas joins concepts from Austin’s and Searle’s speech act theory and Mead’s social psychology. Like Chapters 9 and 10, those two chapters do not supply additional ingredients for subjective situationism. The ontological design per se has already been completed with Chapter 6, and its anatomy of meaning is derived in Chapters 7 and 8. What remains in the last four chapters of Part ii is both a critical appraisal and a demonstration of subjective situationism’s advantages.
2002, web edition 2005 © Pieter Wisse
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