I kind of love this topic. How about when people say, "you know what I'm saying" and "obviously, blah blah blah is like blah blah blah." I think both those cases demonstrate that people conjure the assumed rather than actually believing in it a lot of times. -George
I echo George in thinking this is a really intriguing blank. Are you thinking of talking about how assumptions operate in sciences? I remember back to my days in high school physics when we would start every problem with "Let it be assumed" what is the power of the "let it be assumed"? What do you think is the opposite of the supposed--is it the proven? The verified? Is the "let us assume" in a clinical trial a kind of "already"?
Also, are you thinking of talking about the assumed in terms of deception, like an assumed name, in which case you also get into its inverse, the "real" the "authentic" the "actual."
One phrase regarding the scientific/mathematic use of assumed that might be useful to look into is "assuming all else equal." It can connect to inductive logic, axioms, tautology, and all sorts of commentary on the assumptions that have allowed for the progression of science.
I also remember hearing about an interesting study on the use of the phrase "maybe you had to be there." There's a certain social dynamic in which we people are asked to indulge someone and take them at their word, which is an assumption of trust. I'm having trouble finding any sources relating to that, though.
It took me a few minutes to realize something that has probably been apparent to you, but there is the other us of 'assume' being the taking on of something. I assume power, you have an assumed name, etc. This makes an assumption not only something that makes an ass of u and me, but also a sort of forcible procurement of a physical or conceptual good, or property.
A possible theoretical text might be Louis Althusser's _Reading Capital_. His notion of a "problematic" as the unasked or assumed question that the produced knowledge answers might be useful in theorizing how the assumed functions.
An interesting secondary meaning of assumed: the Virgin Mary, "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary
Commodities, fetishes, souvenirs, relics, rubbish. What theories help us think about things? In this course we will read Victorian travelers on West African "fetish," Michael Taussig on his imagined cocaine museum, Susan Stewart on longing and souvenirs, Freud on shiny noses, Marx on tables, Annette Weiner on the similarities between gift and commodity exchange, Mary Douglas on dirt, D.W. Winnicott on string, and Arjun Appadurai on the idea of the social lives of things. The singularization of things, the ways in which history and memory are stored in real and imagined objects, the commodification of the human body, the animation of the inanimate, utopian recycling, gleaning, found objects as art and craft: we will consider a broad range of theoretical issues in our readings and in projects that put them to quirky use.
4 comments:
I kind of love this topic. How about when people say, "you know what I'm saying" and "obviously, blah blah blah is like blah blah blah." I think both those cases demonstrate that people conjure the assumed rather than actually believing in it a lot of times.
-George
I echo George in thinking this is a really intriguing blank. Are you thinking of talking about how assumptions operate in sciences? I remember back to my days in high school physics when we would start every problem with "Let it be assumed" what is the power of the "let it be assumed"? What do you think is the opposite of the supposed--is it the proven? The verified? Is the "let us assume" in a clinical trial a kind of "already"?
Also, are you thinking of talking about the assumed in terms of deception, like an assumed name, in which case you also get into its inverse, the "real" the "authentic" the "actual."
Also Mary's Assumption?
--Andrew
One phrase regarding the scientific/mathematic use of assumed that might be useful to look into is "assuming all else equal." It can connect to inductive logic, axioms, tautology, and all sorts of commentary on the assumptions that have allowed for the progression of science.
I also remember hearing about an interesting study on the use of the phrase "maybe you had to be there." There's a certain social dynamic in which we people are asked to indulge someone and take them at their word, which is an assumption of trust. I'm having trouble finding any sources relating to that, though.
It took me a few minutes to realize something that has probably been apparent to you, but there is the other us of 'assume' being the taking on of something. I assume power, you have an assumed name, etc. This makes an assumption not only something that makes an ass of u and me, but also a sort of forcible procurement of a physical or conceptual good, or property.
-Crow Jonah Norlander
A possible theoretical text might be Louis Althusser's _Reading Capital_. His notion of a "problematic" as the unasked or assumed question that the produced knowledge answers might be useful in theorizing how the assumed functions.
An interesting secondary meaning of assumed: the Virgin Mary, "having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary
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