KARL JASPERS FORUM

N80 (to N78, Weedon)

CONTEXTS OF INTEREST
by Herbert FJ Müller
11 October 2006, posted 14 October 2006

[1]
Rob Weedon's response (N78) to my note (N69) on built-in conflicts of interest gives a wider context to this question.

[2]
I had pointed out that the needs of a field of knowledge (in science and elsewhere), which always requires critical discussion, often conflict with those of individual authors, who may be happier when critique is omitted, because it could detract from their achievement.

[3]
But it might help to see this conflict as determined by the respective 'kaleidoscopic' contexts, as RW suggests (such as knowledge for all versus individual aims). Structural proposals, after all, are working-tools on trial, not absolutes. Such a change might open the way for a non-acrimonious approach to remedial measures, like systematic discussion efforts involving many authors.

[4]
Perhaps a change in view of this kind could also help to prevent a cessation of discussion, when authors feel that they have to re-tool, and/or in case they abort discussion before it starts. Such help would be desirable, because lack of discussion confines the other(s) to soliloquy.

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Herbert FJ Müller