Olson 1994 - Revision history

Wtrettien: /* A History of Reading: From Spirit of the Text to Intentions of the Author */

2010-09-24T18:21:47Z

A History of Reading: From Spirit of the Text to Intentions of the Author

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	with focus on literal meaning, the verbal form of the text becomes important; "new concern with and respect for the original wording of the text" (151)		with focus on literal meaning, the verbal form of the text becomes important; "new concern with and respect for the original wording of the text" (151)

	clear conception of literal ~~meanign occures~~: Maimonides' ''Guide for the perplexed'', Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologica''; divine "author" expressed the events that human authors then relate -- "Aquinas thereby granted a complete autonomy to the text and its literal meaning" (153), naturalizing interpretation without getting rid of God		clear conception of literal meaning occurs: Maimonides' ''Guide for the perplexed'', Thomas Aquinas' ''Summa Theologica''; divine "author" expressed the events that human authors then relate -- "Aquinas thereby granted a complete autonomy to the text and its literal meaning" (153), naturalizing interpretation without getting rid of God

	Luther: takes his theory of reading from Aquinas; "significance of Luther's move was to treat written texts as autonomous representations of meaning" (154)		Luther: takes his theory of reading from Aquinas; "significance of Luther's move was to treat written texts as autonomous representations of meaning" (154)

Wtrettien: /* What Writing Represents */

2010-09-24T18:19:07Z

What Writing Represents

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	:"We need not assume that these early writers were conscious of or had a model of language as consisting of words ordered by a syntax which they tried to get their script to represent. Rather we can explain the relation between language and script by saying that '''a script with a syntax provides, for the first time, a suitable model for speech'''" (74)		:"We need not assume that these early writers were conscious of or had a model of language as consisting of words ordered by a syntax which they tried to get their script to represent. Rather we can explain the relation between language and script by saying that '''a script with a syntax provides, for the first time, a suitable model for speech'''" (74)

	death of "word" magic or "name" magic; words no ~~logner emblims~~ but "now distinguished from both things and from names of things" (75)		death of "word" magic or "name" magic; words no longer emblems but "now distinguished from both things and from names of things" (75)

	:"Rather than viewing writing as the attempt to capture the existing knowledge of syntax, writing provided a model for speech, thereby making the language available for analysis into syntactic constituents, the primary ones being words which then became subjects of philosophical reflection as well as objects of definition. Words became things." (76)		:"Rather than viewing writing as the attempt to capture the existing knowledge of syntax, writing provided a model for speech, thereby making the language available for analysis into syntactic constituents, the primary ones being words which then became subjects of philosophical reflection as well as objects of definition. Words became things." (76)

Wtrettien: /* Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity */

2010-09-18T16:55:03Z

Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity

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	== Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity ==		== Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity ==

			ability to recognize oneself and others as intentional -- ''theory of mind''

			Greek invention of the concept of mind; Homer represents mental states as bodily states, no development of mind as organ for desire, belief, intention (239); by the Classical period, mind becomes storehouse of thoughts, ideas (240)

			literate source for concepts of the mental: "words become distinguished from ideas, waht is said is distinguished from what is thought, the thing from the idea or representation of a thing, and the mind from the body" (241)

			Descartes: establishing the autonomy of the mental (243); eventually allows for independence of ideas, which allows for development of theoretical (''how is this different from Platonic idealism?'')

			== The Making of the Literate Mind ==

			"writing provides a set of categories for thinking about language" (259)

			# "writing was responsible for bringing aspects of spoken language into consciousness, that is, for turning aspects of language into objects of reflection, analysis and design" (258)
			# "no writing system, including teh alphabet, brings all aspects of what is said into awareness" (260)
			# "what the script-as-model does not represent is difficult, perhaps impossible, to bring into consciousness" (260-1)
			# "once a script-as-model has been assimilated it is extremely difficult to unthink that model" (262)
			# "the expressive and reflective powers of speech and writing are complementary rather than similar" (264)
			# "an important implication of literacy derives from the attempt to compensate for what was lost in the act of transcription" (265)
			# "once texts are rrad in a certain new way, nature is 'read' in an analogous new way" (268)
			# "once the illocutionary force of a text is recognized as the expression of a personal, private intentionality, the concepts for representing how a text is to be taken provide just the concepts necessary for the representation of mind" (270)

			'''reading''' "is a matter of recovering or inferring authorial intentions by means of recognition of graphic symbols" (272)

			'''literacy''' as "both a cognitive and a social condition, the ability to participate actively in a community of readers who have agreed on some principles of reading, a hermeneutics if you will, a set of texts to be treated as significant, and a workin gagreement on the appropriate or valid interpretation(s) of those texts" (274-5)

			:"Our modern conception of the world and our modern conception of ourselves are, we may say, by-products of the invention of a world on paper." (282)

Wtrettien: /* Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts */

2010-09-18T16:07:58Z

Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts

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	:"representing the properties of motion in the form of geometric proofs and algebraic equations was not merely putting down what was known. Rather it was to reconstruct those properties in terms of the structures available in formalized, written languages. The thinking is done by means of the representations; the product of those computations is then compared to the observed facts." (221)		:"representing the properties of motion in the form of geometric proofs and algebraic equations was not merely putting down what was known. Rather it was to reconstruct those properties in terms of the structures available in formalized, written languages. The thinking is done by means of the representations; the product of those computations is then compared to the observed facts." (221)

			:"Only when drawing was coordinated with scientific description, as in the work of the Swedish botanist Linnaeus in the eighteenth century, did botanical drawings become diagrams and did botany become a science." (226)

			learning to see plants "scientifically" "reveal[s] a pattern in the world, it is a kind of analysis that ties these patterns to the naemable and the depictable, ignoring all differences that do not fall on to the selected dimensions" (227) -- pictured flower in botany book becomes "conceptual entity in terms of which real flowers are perceived and classified" (227)

			:"Scientific discourse relies on just such a factual reporting style which lays its meanings open for all to see, a kind of literal meaning of signs, chosen to represent the world precisely. Fiction exploits the same kind of literal representational discourse, but now employed in a non-representational context." (230)

			writer/artist goes from an orator persuading to a reporter showing us what would be there if were were present ourselves (231)

			paper world din't just accumulate/store what everyone already knew, but "a matter of inventing the conceptual means for coordinating the bits of geographical, biological, mechanical, and other forms of knowledge acquired fro many other sources into an adequate and common frame of reference," which became a "theoretical model into which local knowledge was inserted and reorganized" (232)

			== Representing the Mind: The Origins of Subjectivity ==

Wtrettien: /* Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts */

2010-09-18T15:52:32Z

Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts

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	Italian Renaissance, art used as mnemonics to retrieve well-known themes; Dutch art of c17, attack on interpretive tradition -- images ''describe'' (198-9); Italian painters moved away from individuality to general human traits (saw portraiture as lesser art), Dutch privileged portraiture for its individuality (202)		Italian Renaissance, art used as mnemonics to retrieve well-known themes; Dutch art of c17, attack on interpretive tradition -- images ''describe'' (198-9); Italian painters moved away from individuality to general human traits (saw portraiture as lesser art), Dutch privileged portraiture for its individuality (202)
	* "close correspondence with the assumptions of the Early Modern Scientists, with their strict attention to the appearance of things, their descriptions of the visible surfaces of things" (202)		* "close correspondence with the assumptions of the Early Modern Scientists, with their strict attention to the appearance of things, their descriptions of the visible surfaces of things" (202)

			goes through history of mapping: Ptolemy, mappaemundi, portolan charts, Mercator projections, globes

			Galileo, geometry -- not just metaphors for motion, but representations of it (220)

			equations representing Newton's laws actually written 60 years after Newton by Euler; Newton himself represented time/space in ratios, Euler made them multiplicable/dividable properties

			:"representing the properties of motion in the form of geometric proofs and algebraic equations was not merely putting down what was known. Rather it was to reconstruct those properties in terms of the structures available in formalized, written languages. The thinking is done by means of the representations; the product of those computations is then compared to the observed facts." (221)

Wtrettien: /* Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts */

2010-09-18T15:19:37Z

Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts

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	== Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts ==		== Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts ==

			Jan Krul, c17 Dutch artist -- "The notion of a paper world was used by Krul in 1644 for a collection of writings and drawings" (Alpers, ''Art of Describing'', 193).

			Italian Renaissance, art used as mnemonics to retrieve well-known themes; Dutch art of c17, attack on interpretive tradition -- images ''describe'' (198-9); Italian painters moved away from individuality to general human traits (saw portraiture as lesser art), Dutch privileged portraiture for its individuality (202)
			* "close correspondence with the assumptions of the Early Modern Scientists, with their strict attention to the appearance of things, their descriptions of the visible surfaces of things" (202)

Wtrettien at 15:05, 18 September 2010

2010-09-18T15:05:14Z

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	:"Modern prose is a specialized form of language; it is specialized, I suggest, in that it is the form of language in which the textual/sentence meaning may be ''taken'' as the intended meaning." (191)		:"Modern prose is a specialized form of language; it is specialized, I suggest, in that it is the form of language in which the textual/sentence meaning may be ''taken'' as the intended meaning." (191)

			== Representing the World in Maps, Diagrams, Formulas, Pictures and Texts ==

Wtrettien at 14:51, 18 September 2010

2010-09-18T14:51:22Z

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	= Demythologizing Literacy =		== Demythologizing Literacy ==

	assumptions about literacy:		assumptions about literacy:
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	failure of earlier theories: focus on ways of writing (form of the script); Olson focuses on ways of reading -- problems of interpretation rise from what texts fail to represent; wants to show "how our understanding of the world, that is our science, and our understanding of ourselves, that is, our psychology, are by-products of our ways of interpreting and creating written texts, of living in a world on paper" (19)		failure of earlier theories: focus on ways of writing (form of the script); Olson focuses on ways of reading -- problems of interpretation rise from what texts fail to represent; wants to show "how our understanding of the world, that is our science, and our understanding of ourselves, that is, our psychology, are by-products of our ways of interpreting and creating written texts, of living in a world on paper" (19)

	= Theories of Literacy and Mind: From Levy-Bruhl to Scribner and Cole =		== Theories of Literacy and Mind: From Levy-Bruhl to Scribner and Cole ==

	Scribner and Cole, ''The Psychology of Literacy'' (1981); laid to rest arguments of Toronto School by showing no cognitive effects from introduction of script into a society		Scribner and Cole, ''The Psychology of Literacy'' (1981); laid to rest arguments of Toronto School by showing no cognitive effects from introduction of script into a society
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	:"Literacy in Western cultures is not just learning the abc's; it is learning to use the resources of writing for a culturally defined set of tasks and procedures." (43)		:"Literacy in Western cultures is not just learning the abc's; it is learning to use the resources of writing for a culturally defined set of tasks and procedures." (43)

	= Literacy and Conceptual Revolutions =		=== Literacy and Conceptual Revolutions ===

	two major conceptual revolutions: ancient Greece c5-3BC and European Renaissance, c12-17;		two major conceptual revolutions: ancient Greece c5-3BC and European Renaissance, c12-17;
	what if any role did writing have in these revolutions? (45-6)		what if any role did writing have in these revolutions? (45-6)

	== Greek literacy ==		=== Greek literacy ===

	Havelock: alphabet allowed Greeks to become literate culture; W. Harris: no mass literacy in Greek culture, though by 70AD ~20% literacy among males in urban settings (47)		Havelock: alphabet allowed Greeks to become literate culture; W. Harris: no mass literacy in Greek culture, though by 70AD ~20% literacy among males in urban settings (47)
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	compared with Chinese at the same time -- very different attitudes toward writing (51-2); "any understanding of literacy will have to pay attention to the structure of the culture into which it is introduced" (52)		compared with Chinese at the same time -- very different attitudes toward writing (51-2); "any understanding of literacy will have to pay attention to the structure of the culture into which it is introduced" (52)

	== Renaissance literacy ==		=== Renaissance literacy ===

	Clanchy: increasing use of written documents in English law from Norman conquest (1066) to death of Edward I (1307); Street suggests legal changes had more to do with the political changes -- Normans wanted to establish control over their conquered subjects (55)		Clanchy: increasing use of written documents in English law from Norman conquest (1066) to death of Edward I (1307); Street suggests legal changes had more to do with the political changes -- Normans wanted to establish control over their conquered subjects (55)
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	Carruthers: writing doesn't replace memory for medieval writers, but aids it; no distinction between act of writing on the memory and writing on the surface (61); no strong contrast between writing and speech for medieval writers		Carruthers: writing doesn't replace memory for medieval writers, but aids it; no distinction between act of writing on the memory and writing on the surface (61); no strong contrast between writing and speech for medieval writers

	= What Writing Represents =		== What Writing Represents ==

	from Aristotle to Saussure, we've seen writing as a representation of speech (66)		from Aristotle to Saussure, we've seen writing as a representation of speech (66)
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	:"The scribal inventions dictated a kind of reading which ''allowed language to be seen as composed of words related by means of a syntax.'' Writing thereby provides the model for the production of speech (in reading) and for the introspective awareness of speech as composed of grammatical constituents, namely, words." (77)		:"The scribal inventions dictated a kind of reading which ''allowed language to be seen as composed of words related by means of a syntax.'' Writing thereby provides the model for the production of speech (in reading) and for the introspective awareness of speech as composed of grammatical constituents, namely, words." (77)

	= What Writing Doesn't Represent =		== What Writing Doesn't Represent ==

	writing doesn't well capture illocutionary utterance -- how language is to be taken (93)		writing doesn't well capture illocutionary utterance -- how language is to be taken (93)
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	:"The problem for writing then becomes that of inventing devices, including lexical and syntactical ones, which can compensate for what is lost. And the problem in reading is in mastering those clues and the hermeneutical techniques which provide some indication of how the writer intended the text to be taken." (111)		:"The problem for writing then becomes that of inventing devices, including lexical and syntactical ones, which can compensate for what is lost. And the problem in reading is in mastering those clues and the hermeneutical techniques which provide some indication of how the writer intended the text to be taken." (111)

	= The Problem of Interpretation: The Recovery of Communicative Intention =		== The Problem of Interpretation: The Recovery of Communicative Intention ==

	interpreting vs. having a concept of interpretation (116)		interpreting vs. having a concept of interpretation (116)
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	'''oral hermeneutics''': assigning appropriate illocutionary force to an utterance so that it may be interpreted correctly (140); in oral societies, "interpretation belongs only to particular, marked genre of discourse such as oratory and poetic discourse and ceremonial occasions all of which are characterized by the use of indirect, metaphorical speech and other symbols" (141); consensus more important in assigning an interpretation/meaning		'''oral hermeneutics''': assigning appropriate illocutionary force to an utterance so that it may be interpreted correctly (140); in oral societies, "interpretation belongs only to particular, marked genre of discourse such as oratory and poetic discourse and ceremonial occasions all of which are characterized by the use of indirect, metaphorical speech and other symbols" (141); consensus more important in assigning an interpretation/meaning

	= A History of Reading: From Spirit of the Text to Intentions of the Author =		== A History of Reading: From Spirit of the Text to Intentions of the Author ==

	time of Charlemagne, "actual words or forms are merely the tip of the conceptual iceberg, the real meanings lying far beneath the surface and detectable only by internalization and meditation" (145) -- more like post-modern reading		time of Charlemagne, "actual words or forms are merely the tip of the conceptual iceberg, the real meanings lying far beneath the surface and detectable only by internalization and meditation" (145) -- more like post-modern reading
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	took a long time for medieval readers to warm to concept of a "literal" interpretation" -- first had to have an understanding of audience-directed intentions (156)		took a long time for medieval readers to warm to concept of a "literal" interpretation" -- first had to have an understanding of audience-directed intentions (156)

	= Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science =		== Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science ==

	Cowley on Harvey -- he consults the Book of God's own creatures, the Book of Nature (160)		Cowley on Harvey -- he consults the Book of God's own creatures, the Book of Nature (160)
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	reading Book of Nature in c17 == straightforward application of principles of reading developed in Middle ages; what was new was our ability to judge their accurateness using the senses		reading Book of Nature in c17 == straightforward application of principles of reading developed in Middle ages; what was new was our ability to judge their accurateness using the senses

			== A History of Written Discourse: From Mnemonics to Representations ==

			development of texts that represent, rather than merely remind

			antiquity and middle ages: writing on paper equivalent with writing on the mind; writing as an aid to memory of the event (180-1); "knowledge was in the mind; writing was mnemonic, a reminder" (181)

			written texts allow detachment of the voice from the speaker -- they speak for themselves (183)

			:"Modern prose is a specialized form of language; it is specialized, I suggest, in that it is the form of language in which the textual/sentence meaning may be ''taken'' as the intended meaning." (191)

Wtrettien: /* Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science */

2010-09-18T14:27:59Z

Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science

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	:"To read algorithmically implied that all readers relying on these methods obtain the same reading or interpretation and that they obtain it on every re-reading. the correct interpretation was seen as obtainable because it was grounded openly in the text, apprehensible by the sense." (169)		:"To read algorithmically implied that all readers relying on these methods obtain the same reading or interpretation and that they obtain it on every re-reading. the correct interpretation was seen as obtainable because it was grounded openly in the text, apprehensible by the sense." (169)

			:"Reading nature and writing about it, then, was based on the distinction between what was in the mind as opposed to what was in the world." (174)

			need some "court" to establish the validity of one's readings of the Book of Nature (church rules on scriptural interpretation, church on civil law); the court becomes one's own senses (176)

			reading Book of Nature in c17 == straightforward application of principles of reading developed in Middle ages; what was new was our ability to judge their accurateness using the senses

Wtrettien: /* Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science */

2010-09-18T14:06:26Z

Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science

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	= Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science =		= Reading the book of Nature: Conceptual Origins of Early Modern Science =

			Cowley on Harvey -- he consults the Book of God's own creatures, the Book of Nature (160)

			Reiss: c17 discourse is "analytico-referential"

			Paracelsus: sympathetic medicine, c15-c16; parts of leaves look like the parts of the body they can cure (162); signs and resemblances in everything

			Bacon: "offered an account of how to make language transparent to the world it was to represent" (164); advocated new discourse as a kind of writing, a "literate experience" (his words): "Now no course of invention can be satisfactory unless it be carried on in writing" (Bacon, qtd 164);
			* '''"elaborate analogy between texts and nature"''' (164)
			* alphabet of the world, language of creation
			* not Adamic language, but the language in which natural world was written

			:"Signs are seen as arbitrary only in the Early Modern period when words are seen as having a meaning by reference to ideas rather than directly by reference to things. then the word loses its direct tie to the thing, it is no longer the correct name for the thing but merely represents or stands for the thing." (167)

			:"The accounts we have reviewed focus upon the new understanding of the world, of language, and of ideas. I would reverse the emphasis and suggest that the new attitude to signs, to ideas, and to reality were produced by a new way of reading -- the reading of signs in terms of their surface properties, their literal meanings." (168)

			c17 reading was "algorithmic", "more or less mechanical and ... available to everyone if they followed correct procedures" (168); Olson points out c20 readers would not see reading as algorithmic (''but writing could be? what's the distinction he's making here between reading and writing? is it a hard distinction -- or it collapsing the distinction?'')

			:"To read algorithmically implied that all readers relying on these methods obtain the same reading or interpretation and that they obtain it on every re-reading. the correct interpretation was seen as obtainable because it was grounded openly in the text, apprehensible by the sense." (169)