Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 182.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2025-10-24 10:47:28+00:00
From: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.181: theory and fashionable dogma
I mostly listen in to these interesting discussions but usually refrain from
commenting. But since I'm so strongly inclined to Manfred’s view here (and to
views more largely) I would like to say something.
Primarily I’m focused on “tool” and the “wielding of a tool”. Since our animate
bodies are our initial toolset, I think it’s clear that one must make some
distinctions about tools. Art and engineering and even philosophy are not tools
but practices/experiences that involve the use of tools. I don’t think “coding”
is a tool in the usual sense but you can’t code without tools. The brain is a
toolset and in that sense it is a general tool. But we’ve only the loosest
ideas about what specific tools a person is using when she/he codes, or what
tools “a body with a skin of brain” (so to speak) is using, or how exactly.
So as to wielding tools, distinctions again are called for. It’s pretty obvious
that coding tools are used differently by different users, and differences in
“expertise” etc are legion. Most really good coders that I’ve known have very
little interest in “theorizing” what they do, or are any good at it, But IN
GENERAL, is you go about theorizing the kind of engineering we’re talking about
and have no practical experience of the work, you’ll be behindhand not only in
your thinking but in what you’re actually doing.
So finally I think that everybody, even the most expert in tool-building and
practice-theorizing, will fall short (“make mistakes”, not see some things etc).
That’s what John Unsworth was getting at when he spoke of “the importance of
failure”.
And as the smart ship grew
In stature grace and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the iceberg, too.
Which might be theorized as (so to speak) a proverb like this: experience always
outruns conception.
“No no” one might say. Think of the great innovators who boldly went thinking
where no one had gone thinking before: or as that famous advertisement for a
starry-eyed toy of recent memory had it, “To Infinity and Beyond”.
Alas, experience I think always does outrun conception “in the long run”. It’s
told in the old tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, and retold recently in the
tales that modern scientists tell themselves and pass along to the engineers
and then on to everybody else who will be living them, "for all the good (and
evil) that will do”.
The Modern theory of Energy and the ancient theory of Reason have a lot to
answer for — way too much, I should say, so I think that if and when one crosses
the bar and faces that theoretical Creature Judgment/God, one might plausibly
plead: "God, judge not lest ye be judged". It would be wisest, I suppose, to
keep judgement on this side and proceed carefully.
Everybody makes a mess of things and others have to clean up after them, as best
we/they can. Do some people create a hell on earth? I think so. Should their
sins be forgiven?
Jerry
From: Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
Date: Friday, October 24, 2025 at 1:51 AM
To: Mcgann, Jerome (jjm2f) <jjm2f@virginia.edu>
Subject: [Humanist] 39.181: theory and fashionable dogma
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 181.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
Hosted by DH-Cologne
www.dhhumanist.org<http://www.dhhumanist.org>
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2025-10-23 13:55:30+00:00
From: Manfred Thaller <manfred.thaller@uni-koeln.de>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 39.179: theory and fashionable dogma
Dear Willard,
thanks very much for the pointer to 'Mandarin Modernism: “Photography
Until Now”'. Given my own obsessions, a paper where the sentence
summarizing the critique (second from last) is: "... the task of
thinking about the medium in historical terms is perpetually deferred
...", implying that thinking about media outside their historical frame
is pointless, cannot meet anything but unadulterated enthusiasm! And the
observation / criticism, that before 1945 for Szarkowskievery kind of
photograph is art, while after 1945 - that is, within the context which
for him is contemporary, aka understood - only a small slice of
photographs are accepted as "art" is brilliant. I am also enthusiastic
about the new topic of your post: "theory AND fashionable dogma" somehow
indicating, at least for me, that the border line between a theory and
"fashionable dogma" is quite fleeting. If a discipline is guided by a
universally accepted, understood and explicitly formulated theory, you
never need to justify its implicit use; if the tenor of your writing
rhymes with what everyone else writes, you do not justify it either.
Nevertheless, the two cases are not <emph>quite</emph> the same. Forgive
my enthusiasm for what you may consider side issues. Back to your main
point.
> 'theory without experience'. ... [regarding] "any activity for which use of a
tool is essential"
Let me rephrase the question (and contradict me, please, if I have
misunderstood): Can you theorize about the results of the application of
a tool, without being able to wield the tool yourself? Let me take one
step back and ease it first to: Can you appreciate the results of the
application of a tool, without being able to wield the tool yourself?
Yes. Everybody does, when being confronted with an artistic utterance.
This is not the same as: Can you appreciate the quality of the results
of the application of a tool, without being able to wield the tool
yourself? This, too, is possible for everybody as long as you translate
"quality" as "conformance to a specific value set". (Whether such a
value set is a "theory" or a "fashionable dogma" at this stage seems to
me to be immaterial.) If you translate "quality" as "maximum
exploitation of the possibilities of a tool" or "difficulty of achieving
the observable result" it seems to me to be doubtful. Not strictly
impossible; but I believe the expertise obtained by passively observing
the possibilities of a tool without wielding it yourself will in most
cases be more costly (measured in the time needed to acquire) than
getting a basic experience of handling the tool. If you rephrase the
question slightly further, towards: Can you appreciate the potential of
the application of a tool, without being able to wield the tool
yourself? Well - I doubt it.
I am deeply convinced that the intellectual scope of Ted Nelson's model
of interconnected data / information is incomparably superior to
Berners-Lee's. Xanadu became a joke. The WWW lives. Berners-Lee was able
to code. Ted Nelson was not.
This may seem to some muddling "theories" and "applications". The
original problem was, though:
Can you theorize about the results of the application of a tool, without
being able to wield the tool yourself? So my thesis, mirroring the
Xanadu-WWW paragraph: A theory of the application of a tool, which is
not understood, will always run heads on into the stonewall of reality.
A theory of the application of a tool, which is understood, works.
Sometimes.
Kind regards, Manfred
PS: The following two paragraphs stood originally in front of the Nelson
vs. Berners-Lee comparison. I was afraid, the might keep some people
from reading the more serious following argument as being to flippant.
Some other people might enjoy. So:
At some stage in the lensmen series of E.E."Doc" Smith, one of the most
prolific space opera SF authors of the forties, it becomes necessary
that humanity finds the twenty most intelligent people in the galaxy.
The solution is obvious: A small army of clerks feeds a few trillion
punched cards through card sorting machines. (How exactly Smith's
engineers, given that level of technology, needed only twenty minutes to
analyze a "ray" sufficiently completely, to develop a "counterray" in
the middle of a space battle, always did beat me.)
The number of references to mobile phones in SF, before their invention,
is quite small. The closest prediction of reality I remember is a scene,
where the hero, a slightly confused professor, forgets to mute his
communication device and it goes of during a pianissimo passage of a
classic concert. (Sorry, cant remember the reference.)
Am 23.10.25 um 08:57 schrieb Humanist:
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 39, No. 179.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org<http://www.dhhumanist.org>
> Submit to:humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2025-10-23 06:48:10+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty<willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: theory and fashionable dogma
>
> My thanks to Manfred for spotting the absurdity of an unqualified
> dismissal of 'theory without experience'. I did attempt to qualify mine by
> saying that it concerned "any activity for which use of a tool is
> essential". The case I had in mind but omitted mentioning was that of
> Solomon-Godeau's 1990 attack on curator John Szarkowski's work as
> Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (see 'Mandarin
> Modernism: “Photography Until Now”', Art in America 78). Szarkowski's
> project struck home for me because I've been wanting closely tool-based
> instruction in an art I love with all amateurish enthusiasm, and because I
> am convinced we all badly need the same in practicing the art of computing in
> the humanities.
>
> Beware, I say, of being blown off course by the strong winds of
> theorising that are so easy to surrender to, so difficult to navigate
> productively!
>
> Comments more than welcome.
>
> Yours,
> WM
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
> Editor, Interdisciplinary Research in the Arts,
> Sciences and Humanities (Berghahn); Humanist
> www.mccarty.org.uk<http://www.mccarty.org.uk>
--
Prof.em.Dr. Manfred Thaller
formerly University at Cologne /
zuletzt Universität zu Köln
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