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MagicAccordingToFrank 17 - 03 Feb 2008 - Main.TheodoreSmith
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Eben alluded to us not quite getting the meaning of "magic" according to Frank. Let's use this space to work it out.
-- AdamCarlis - 02 Feb 2008 | | | To say "X is Y" (rule-faith is magic), you're just saying, "X meets the necessary and sufficient conditions for Y." It's not a way of defining "magic," Christopher -- it's a way of defining "defining!"
-- AndrewGradman - 02 Feb 2008 | |
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- I mean, it is a way to define "defining," but I think it might be a little confusing for people who haven't taken philosophy. For example, one might assert that reading Frank is both necessary and sufficient to understanding "magic." Even if this is true, the statement that therefore reading Frank is the same as understanding magic is not really in line with most people's understanding of equivalence. =) -- TheodoreSmith - 03 Feb 2008
| | | In response to Jesse: I read Frank differently with respect to the relationship between magic, science and law. I don't think Frank would agree that "magic and science stand anthropologically in opposition to each other." Rather than a bright, distinctive line between the two, I think his analysis lends itself more to a spectrum. Magic in the Frankian sense is very science-like. It lies on the opposite end of the spectrum from so-called hard sciences, but they are both creatures of the same species. Both describe activities that developed as responses to practical problems. Both are somewhat technological; Magic is “essentially mechanistic, involving a manipulation of the external world by techniques and formulas.”
So imagine we’ve got this spectrum. On the one end are hard, empirical sciences and on the other end is superstitious, primitive magic. Almost every human discipline can be placed somewhere along the line – from mathematics and computer science to law and history; from economics and psychology, to religion, esthetics and superstition. The spectrum essentially describes all human methods of problem-solving, measured in degrees of conjecture and predictability. | | |
-- JuliaS - 03 Feb 2008 | |
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Julia and Jessie - I loved your analyses. I think they go really well together.
As has perhaps been implied, Andrew (or Daniel?) may be oversimplifying with the statement that "technology relies on science (experience); magic on hope."
I don't know whether Frank would agree with this, but it seems as though the type of magic Frank is referring to is not completely cut off from the casual realm. Empirical science is based (to some degree) on our ability to differentiate and reduce. We are able to divide systems into component elements and investigate causes on an increasingly subtle level.
With magical thinking, it seems as though we are simply refusing to reduce the system past a certain point. In law and social science, I think this reluctance is generally due to the extreme interrelated complexity of the system. If you look at a judicial decision as a Cohen-esque nexus of social forces, a logical and scientific reduction becomes about as meaningful as an attempt to uncover the "purpose" of a single neuron in the brain.
This is not to say that the scientific system necessarily has the "truth" advantage over magic. To unwisely extend Godel's terminology, both systems are almost certainly both incomplete and inconsistent. I don't think Frank has a problem with magic, so much as our tendency to pretend that it is science.
All this said, I do not know how it gets at the question that I feel like Frank is dancing around - given that truth in the judicial system is constrained by the limitations of human ability, and will likely always contain some element of magic, how do we approach reform of the system? Do we continue to 'science-ify' the system in order to encourage public confidence, or do we throw off the trappings of "mechanical jurisprudence" to expose the magic and conjecture behind the institution?
"He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature." - George Bernard Shaw
-- TheodoreSmith - 03 Feb 2008 | | | |
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