Just a short quick note about the word ‘identify’ or maybe I mean the practice of identification.  I want to put it here as it is an understanding I have gained from the stream of posts on the course forum, and, well, I just don’t want to lose it.

In a world of objects, identify seems to be about pointing out, labelling and naming.  It assumes tangible-ness.

So how does the practice of identification work with systems?

The debate started when I expressed my concern that an activity on the course was asking me to ‘identify’ a system.  This felt like it had a built in assumption that the system had an ontological status and in identifying it I was going to reify it.  I said that on the forum.

A tutor (Jitse) helpfully pointed out that identify could mean ‘making a boundary judgment or distinction’.  That really helped.  It reminded me of the phrase ‘bringing forth’ that we covered in Part 2.

So note so self – when using systems as an epistemic device, think of identify (a system) as bringing forth (a system of interest) from the situation.