Snap reaction to J. N. Nielsen's Reflective Equilibrium and Conceptual Naturalness
Reflective Equilibrium and Conceptual Naturalness can be found on my favourite read on the substack platform by J. N. Nielsen, but this is the way I discovered him, he has other sites on other platforms from earlier times. wordpress, tumblr, etc
Anyways, he has been educated me on various
[philosophy|history/\history|philosophy]&time
issues as I read his essays.
As I read Reflective Equilibrium and Conceptual Naturalness I started typing up reactive quotes, which I posted below as a comment on his post, and here with the notice that they were not quite a prediction.
SNAP!
Wrote this as a note as I read --->The "reflective equilibrium" describes an ideal we should world, as well as a description of what we may actual world on a good day. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. \-----> before I read you on from "A first question…" and saw we are saying the same thing! You first--------->
"However, I think there is an equally valid case to be made for reflective equilibrium being a description of how exactly we arrive at a stable body of knowledge—a mechanism in the sociology of knowledge, as it were."
SNAP! If only I had made my note a prediction. If only we could cure history with predictions.
My work here was done before I got here. Joy.
Reading on with interest …. (and here I reflect that all this may help me understand why some enjoy watching others play sport rather than playing it themselves.)(This is also an analogy for " unknown boundary conditions ")
If my worlding thesis is accurate, then the collapse you indicate above of normative & descriptive modes about a method or practice, and even your hesitations about the naturalness of the collapse, is another outcome of the urge we feel when we should things into place and out of which the world emerges and passes into history (of traces, taphonomies and their wary interpretations) wherein we may well seek 'reflective equilibrium' on. I hesitate to call this a point though.