Identify

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

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.

Share what you think...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.