[FRIAM] Nick's monism kick

[Eric Charles]

Two preliminaries:
1) For what it's worth, I am trying to back Nick into a different corner
than the one Mike thinks I am.... but Mike is correct in seeing that I
don't want to let Nick weasel out of the confrontation. It is perfectly
valid for Nick to point out that he is proud of any student who takes
*anything *from one course to another, but that doesn't speak to whether he
would be happy or not seeing this particular interaction play out due to
the effects of his teaching.

2) Both Mike and Nick want to read into the lab tech something I was
exactly excluding from the lab tech's reaction - a sophisticated
understanding of the situation that matches what they would like to have a
student glean from their classrooms. In the email I am currently replying
to, Nick says something like "I don't recognize the student as saying what
I would say" and to that I reply "Exactly!" The student isn't a stand in
for you, they are a person your teachings have significantly influenced.
The student, *like you*, doesn't see the role that "real" or "fact" play in
the conversation, and *like you* any hint of "essentialism", especially
connected with something that sounds like a crude "materialism", makes her
scoff.

The basics of the initial scenario are:
A lab tech is giving a safety warning. The student, rather than complying
with that warning, tries to initiate a conversation about how the words
used in the warning make it seem like maybe the lab tech could learn a
thing or two about philosophy from Dr. Thompson (a typical
sophomoric-sophomore way to respond). The lab tech doesn't give a shit
about any of that, and reiterates the safety warning, elaborating it in
ways that make sense *to him* by adding in words like "fact" and "atoms".
The student scoffs even harder now, because this poor fellow can't even
understand that she is trying to help him learn how to think better. As you
listen in the hall, the student's responses might not be *exactly* what you
would say in her place, but it is obvious that she is *trying* to do the
type of conversation you modeled in your class, and that what is happening
is due to your influence as an instructor. The culmination of the back and
forth is that, because the student is doing everything other than complying
with the warning, the lab tech - in his role as the person charged with
maintaining lab safety - kicks her out of the chemistry lab.

And the basic questions to Nick were:
How do you feel witnessing that? Proud, worried, confused? Does it sound
like the student was getting the message you intended, or has the intended
message gone awry?

In the second version, I tried to make the culmination of the interaction
even more extreme, so that the key aspect of the interaction - that the
student was responding to a safety warning by talking philosophy - was even
more obvious. As the conversation continues, the increasingly exasperated
lab tech brings in more and more potentially-irrelevant terms and concepts
for the student to smugly nit pick, until eventually the
thing-being-warned-about actually occurs and several people are grievously
injured.

How was I hoping Nick would respond? I was hoping it would look something
like this:
1) No, I would *not *be happy if I overheard that interaction.
2) She misunderstood X and/or she apparently didn't grok the part where I
explained Y.
3) If I had done a better job in the classroom, she would have cared about
understanding what his warning meant in terms of practice. (And I imagine
anything that Nick adds to illustrate this point would lines up pretty well
with Mike's dialog.)

If Nick has finally wrapped his head around the scene being played out, I
still want to hear from him what X and/or Y are. GIVEN that the student
seems to have a reasonable - if imperfect - understanding of the
conversational side of things, i.e., given that the student is saying
things to the Lab Tech that are very close to what you (Nick) would say in
the student's place, what exactly is it that she failed to appreciate about
the point of view you were presenting?
<echarles at american.edu>


On Tue, Sep 27, 2022 at 11:51 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Friends,
>
>
>
> Eric has prompted me to wade into this thread, but I confess I have not
> well understood the issues, even from the start.   So much of subsequent
> characterization of my position feels so foreign to me that I don’t now how
> to
>
> relate it to what I believe.   As understand the three of us, Mike is
> trying to represent the True Peirce, I am trying to represent the Peirce
> position insofar as it is a monist position, and Eric is trying to
> understand Peirce insofar as he agrees with James.  But I cannot even
> follow those usual themes through the present discussion.
>
>
>
> Even the original hypothetical was confusing to me.  Of course the web of
> terms employed by the lab tech, Pragmatically viewed, encapsulates a broad
> network of knowledge concerning when things explode.  And I suppose,
> therefore, Mike might see me as anti-Pragmatic (and merely pragmatic) when
> I stress the relation between mixing THESE flasks under THESE CIRCUMSTANCES
> and bad consequences.  I accept that criticism, but I don’t really see him
> making it.
>
>
>
> Lab tech: What? I'm talking about a real danger, and I need you to be
> careful so it doesn't happen.
> Student: Yes, exactly, you believe that those experiences will follow if
> certain experiences happen now.
> Lab tech: Huh? No. I'm telling you how the physical atoms work. I mean...
> yes... the part about the explosion is something that would happen under
> certain circumstances in the future, *but the chemical reaction and the
> damage it could cause are well known facts.*
>
>
>
> I never really understood how the words real and facts are working in this
> hypothetical and why the Labtech thinks that their safety, in the instant,
> is better guaranteed by knowing about atoms, than by knowing to keep the
> two flasks separate.
>
>
>
> As for the rest, I am completely lost.  I really need to pull it out into
> a single document and study the damn thing.  I am torn between an impulse
> to capitalize on Mike’s participation and the fact that I have much else on
> my plate right now.
>
>
>
> Are we perhaps writing something here?   If so, I will  try to do my best
> to put aside everything else and pitch in.
>
>
>
> I love you guys, honest!
>
>
>
> Nick
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> *From:* Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 30, 2022 12:47 PM
> *To:* Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* M. D. Bybee <mikebybee at earthlink.net>; Jon Zingale <
> jonzingale at gmail.com>; friam at redfish.com
> *Subject:* Re: Nick's monism kick
>
>
>
> I am at the moment living in a remote colony of rich peoples shacks, Hence
> no Internet.
>
>
>
> But I like the question so well I am forwarding it to the list. I will get
> back to you when I do not have to thumb my answer.
>
> N
>
> Sent from my Dumb Phone
>
>
> On Aug 30, 2022, at 11:27 AM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 
>
> Nick,
>
> You have been asking for "an assignment", and I think I finally thought of
> a good one for you. (And I think it might spur some interesting discussion,
> which is why others are copied here.)
>
>
>
> Imagine that you are still teaching at Clark, and that you have been
> tentatively including your current monism more and more in some of the
> classes. When walking by the Chemistry labs, you recognize the voice of an
> enthusiastic student you had last quarter,, and you start to ease drop. The
> conversation is as follows:
>
> Lab tech: Be careful with that! If it mixes with the potassium solution,
> it can become explosive, we would have to evacuate the building.
> Student: What do you mean?
> Lab tech: If the potassium mixes with chlorides at the right ratio, then
> we are *probably* safe while it is in solution, but if it dries up, it is a
> hard-core explosive and it wouldn't take much to level the whole building.
> We would have to take that threat seriously, and evacuate the building
> until I made the solution safe.
> Student: Oh, a predictions about future experiences, I like those!
> Lab tech: What? I'm talking about a real danger, and I need you to be
> careful so it doesn't happen.
> Student: Yes, exactly, you believe that those experiences will follow if
> certain experiences happen now.
> Lab tech: Huh? No. I'm telling you how the physical atoms work. I mean...
> yes... the part about the explosion is something that would happen under
> certain circumstances in the future, but the chemical reaction and the
> damage it could cause are well known facts. Look, man, if you aren't here
> to learn how to be safe with the chemicals, then maybe you should just
> leave.
> Student: Wait, seriously? You aren't some kind of *materialist* are you?!?
> You know anything we could talk about are *just* experiences, right? It's
> experiences all the way down!
>
> Listening in, you can tell that the student is taking this line based on
> your influence, because it sounds like things they were kinda-sorta
> starting to grock in your class.
>
> How do you feel hearing that? Proud, worried, confused? Does it sound like
> the student was getting the message you intended, or has the intended
> message gone awry? Would you have said something similar to the Lab Tech
> under the same circumstances?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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