Abstract
In Chapter 7 we suggested that the structure and stability of a network is a function of its workability. One that is subject to change is, correspondingly, one that has proven unsatisfactory in practice. There is, in other words, a strong relationship between network structure and utility and this relationship is usually tested in the course of action. Networks are not idly created. They have some practical relevance — they are used by human beings to guide their interactions with the environment — including the social environment.
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Endnotes
This point will be intuitively obvious to anyone who has ever watched a baby intent on acquiring control of its hands in order to grasp an object. What the adult, or for that matter the one year old, does effortlessly, is unambiguously hard work for the four-month old. He looks at the object he wishes to grasp, moves his hand to within his field of vision and looks to and fro between his hand and the object. Then, monitoring the former, he attempts to move his hand to grasp the latter — though he also has to learn to co-ordinate grasping with the arrival of his hand at its goal. Many of the advances made by the small child are probably epigenetic in nature, but this does not undermine, indeed it emphasises, the role of learning. See T. R. G. Bower, Human Development (Freeman & Company, San Francisco, 1979).
Harry M. Collins, ‘The TEA set: tacit knowledge and scientific networks’, Science Studies, 4 (1974), pp. 165–85.
Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge; Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1972).
J. Ravetz, Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1971).
For an example of this kind of learning in science, consider the case of particle-size analysis in sedimentology — a technique that is reputed to be very easy to learn. See John Law, ‘Fragmentation and investment in sedimentology’, Social Studies of Science, 10 (1980) pp. 1–22.
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© 1984 John Law and Peter Lodge
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Law, J., Lodge, P. (1984). The Acquisition of Social Coherence Conditions: Manipulation. In: Science for Social Scientists. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17536-9_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17536-9_10
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