OBSERVATIONAL LANGUAGE
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2338 ▶ |
| Object type | Human sciences, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
The descriptive and interpretive language a culture uses during some period of its evolution to connect itself with reality.
This concept has been established and discussed by G. de ZEEUW, who describes it as a set of rules which state constraints in the way the observations are done, registered, ordered in some coherent mental frame of reference and communicated among members of the culture (1992).
Of course “… the observational language limits itself…by imposing models on the actors in an interaction, that is, imposing criteria for interaction” (Ibid.,p.1077).
As a result, no observational language gives an unrestricted access to reality and always leads to the impossibility to observe certain situations. As no language is perfectly transparent, there always some measure of “invisibility” (de ZEEUW's terminology).
de ZEEUW states that the observational language evolves through time, generally under the pressure of new necessities. He argues that we find ourselves in such a period of transformation of the observational language, in relation to the emergence of numerous new features in science and cultures.
The same point what made in a quite different way by the French philosopher M. FOUCAULT (1966).
The slow shift of observational languages, of which we are generally unaware, is probably universal and permanent.