19.246 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 246.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: "Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett" <bkg_at_nyu.edu> (39)
         Subject: RE: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

   [2] From: lachance_at_origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois (23)
                 Lachance)
         Subject: Re: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

   [3] From: DrWender_at_aol.com (21)
         Subject: Re: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

   [4] From: "Yuri Tambovtsev" <yutamb_at_mail.cis.ru> (16)
         Subject: your ideas on taxonimies are profound

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:06:12 +0100
         From: "Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett" <bkg_at_nyu.edu>
         Subject: RE: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

Has anyone been looking at folksonomies, tagging, and social bookmarking? -b

-----Original Message-----
From: Humanist Discussion Group [mailto:humanist_at_Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty
<willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>)
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 1:42 AM
To: humanist_at_Princeton.EDU

                 Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 240.
         Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                     www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                          www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                       Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

           Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:04:38 +0100
           From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
           Subject: many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth S Vrba, in "Exaptation -- A Missing Term in
the Science of Form", Philosophy of Biology, ed. Hull and Ruse, p. 52, write
that,

>Taxonomies are not neutral or arbitrary hat-racks for a set of >unvarying
concepts; they reflect (or even create) different theories >about the
structure of the world.

Does it not then follow that we must beware of cementing particular
taxonomies of the world, or bits of it, into our computing systems? Of
course there are taxonomies so basic to how we think over a long period of
time that we cannot but structure our systems in accordance with them if
they are to be useful to us. But in the shorter term, for those structures
of which we are the conscious makers, it would seem to me of highest
priority that we devote our attention as computing humanists to rendering
our taxonomies as mutable as possible. Markup, our flavour of the decade,
seems to promote an excessive tendency to cement in whatever we know how to
describe. We've got to move on. But how?

Comments?

Yours,
WM

[NB: If you do not receive a reply within 24 hours please resend] Dr Willard
McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the Humanities | King's
College London | Kay House, 7 Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44
(0)20 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:10:19 +0100
         From: lachance_at_origin.chass.utoronto.ca (Francois Lachance)
         Subject: Re: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded

Willard

I'll bite.

You wrote:

> possible. Markup, our flavour of the decade, seems to promote an
> excessive tendency to cement in whatever we know how to describe.
> We've got to move on. But how?

Before we move on, can we move back? Just what evidence informs the
perception that markup promotes seemingly or otherwise "a tendency to
cement whatever we know how to describe"? If anything play with markup
makes one sensitive to questions of parsing. And so inspired by parsing,
here's a set of questions:

What edifice is the "whatever we know how to describe" being cemented in
to?

I take it that it is not the describing that is being cemented. The what
we describe could be a different set than the what we know how to
describe? Is it possible we describe more than we know how (explicity) to
describe?

Why pick on markup now?

-- 
Francois Lachance, Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance/jardin
Skill may be the capacity to manipulate perceptions of knowledge.
Magic is.
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:10:46 +0100
         From: DrWender_at_aol.com
         Subject: Re: 19.240 many taxonomies vs the massively encoded
In einer eMail vom 01.09.05 08:05:12 (MEZ) - Mitteleurop. Sommerzeit
schreibt willard_at_LISTS.VILLAGE.VIRGINIA.EDU:
 >for those structures of which we are the conscious makers, it would
 >seem to me of highest priority that we devote our attention as
 >computing humanists to rendering our taxonomies as mutable as
 >possible.
The statement looks like a computist's fallacy, it lacks a bit of
historical awareness (? historisches Bewusstsein): Look at the
indices of Goethe's scientific journals or at the index ior glossary
n the back stuff of a sociological book from the 1950's - these means
was useful in their time, and the goal of initial studies in the
humanities is to prepare students to handle the gap between implied
taxonomies in works from earlier time and the taxonomies in flavor today.
In editing historical works it is always desirable to preserve the
categorizations of their time; in preparing documents for actual use,
if an index in a book is no more up to date, probably the content of
the book it is also. The question then is not to build an adaptive
index 'movin with time', but to write a new book with appropriate
index, I mean.
Yours,
Herbert Wender
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 07:11:19 +0100
         From: "Yuri Tambovtsev" <yutamb_at_mail.cis.ru>
         Subject: your ideas on taxonimies are profound
Dear Willard, thank you very much for expressing your profound ideas
on taxonimies after reading that paper on biology. Actually, language
taxonimies and classifications are rather outdated, but there is no
interest among the majority of linguists on these problems. In fact,
many linguists are quite happy to solve minor linguistic problems.
Dr. Angela Markantonio who wrote a book revising the affinity of the
Uralic languages, received the negative criticism without any logical
foundations. This is why, I think the discussion of her book is most
welcome, but the unbiased views must be in action. From her letters
to me, I understood that now is is working on ruining the family of
the Indo-European languages, which also be a coloss on the weak legs.
I think some natural science scholar should reconsider the language
classifications since their outlook may be fresh and logical. Looking
forward to hearing from you soon to
<mailto:yutamb_at_hotmail.com>yutamb_at_hotmail.com Remain yours sincerely
Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia