Ryan+on+Practice

WORK IN PROGRESS

Key Words:

noun • the customary, habitual, or expected procedure of something //: current nursing practice// | //modern child-rearing practices.//
 * practice ** |ˈpraktəs|
 * 1** the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use //: the principles and practice of teaching | he// **//put//** //his self-defense training// **//into practice//** //by helping police arrest the armed robber.//

//society, in which knowledge is of increased// //relevance to the economy and other areas of social life.//
 * //knowledge based society://**

Practice vs. Object

//Modern Concepts of practice tend to be more focused on the habitual and rule governed aspects, where as Cetina tries to explore and develop incepts aimed at the affective areas of science where practice is "creative and constructive". Cetina states that "…most authors seem to agree that practices should be seen as a recurrent processes governed by specifiable schemata of preferences and prescriptions".//

//This notion does not include the potential for change within the area of practice, or at least it is not stressed. The current system focuses on the fact that the definition of objects and consciousness of problems are force fed through a process which may not account for the association of human conscious thought and the object which is in question. This creates what Cetina calls a "dissociation between self and work object".//

//Knowledge Centered Practice:// //"The notion of a knowledge society suggests that knowledge-centered practice// //focused on epistemic objects becomes a prominent part of all areas of social life".// //The recent source of this awareness// //is Daniel Bell (1973),for whom the immediate impact of knowledge was on the// //economy, where it resulted in such widespread changes as shifts in the division of// //labor, the development of specialized occupations, the emergence of new// //enterprises and sustained growth.//

Giddens, arguing that we live in a world of increased reflexivity mediated by expert systems, extends the argument to the self, pointing out that today’s individuals engage with the wider environment and with themselves through information produced by specialists which they routinely interpret and act on in everyday life (e.g., 1990). Knowledge

society arguments consider knowledge as a productive force that—in a postindustrial society—increasingly plays the role that capital and labor played in industrial society. These viewpoints also emphasize the role of experts, of technology and its associated risks, and of electronic information structures (see also Lash and Urry 1994). But the transition to knowledge societies involves more than the presence of more experts, more technological gadgets, more specialist rather than participant interpretations. It involves the presence of knowledge processes themselves—in the terms chosen here, it involves the presence of epistemic practice.

//Main characterization of knowledge centered practice that assumes. "creative and constructive practice—the kind of practice that// //obtains when we confront nonroutine problems—is internally more differentiated// //than current conceptions of practice as skill or habitual task performance suggest"//

//the notion of ‘object’ relevant to knowledge activities, defined by their lack of completeness of being and their nonidentity with themselves.// //The lack of completeness of being of knowledge objects goes hand in hand// //with the dynamism of research. Only incomplete objects pose further questions,// //and only in considering objects as incomplete do scientists move forward with// //their work//

//Heidegger (knowledge centered pac)//