New Publication on Pragmatism

My latest publication is now out.  This paper is a version of the first chapter of my (hopefully) forthcoming book Pragmatism as Transitionalism.  As argued here, the book attempts to deploy themes of historicity and temporality found across the pragmatist tradition in order to, among other things, reconcile the ‘primapragmatism’ of James and Dewey with the ‘neopragmatism’ of Rorty and Brandom.  “Language is a Form of Experience: Reconciling Classical Pragmatism and Neopragmatism” in Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, v43n4, Fall 2007: 694-727.  You can find it online here (subscription through your library is required): http://muse.jhu.edu.oca.ucsc.edu/journals/transactions_of_the_charles_s_peirce_society/v043/43.4koopman.pdf.

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‘Open Source Study’ now available

I participated in a graduate seminar in anthropology offered by Paul Rabinow this past quarter. Part of my work there involved a collaborative research project on ‘open source’ and ‘open content’ initiatives. Though in many ways this research is still very much in progress, the seminar is now over, and we turned something in, and so we have also posted it to SSRN. You can find it here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1069067.

Working Definition of Problematization

I have now been working with the methodological or analytical device of problematization for long enough that I am comfortable offering a (merely tentative!) ‘definition’ or ‘specification’ of this device of inquiry.

Problematizations are formed by congeries of conceptually-specified vectors which intersect one another in such a way as to create tensions and instabilities that both render old practices problematic and provide bases for the elaboration of new practices.
– Problematizations are thus complexes.
– Problematizations are thus formed by tensions between different vectors or levels, e.g. power and knowledge.
– Problematizations are thus objects with dual functionality in that they both render problematic and provoke solutions.
– Problematizations are thus hinges of historical emergence and descent.