Sociology has long sought to find out how acting in a situation and
observing that situation may differ and nevertheless belong to a
single kind of social operation. George Spencer-Brown's "Laws of
Form" (1969) provides one way to conceive of such an operation. The
present book is the first to make sociological use of his
mathematical calculus of form, which has been extensively applied
to cybernetics, systems theory, cognitive science, and mathematics.
Spencer-Brown's theory states that any action or communication is
always an operation that makes a distinction. Not only does this
operation take place, but it can be observed as indicating what it
is interested in, and as leaving unmarked what it is not.
Distinctions thereby entail a logic of inclusion and exclusion that
is subject to social debate and conflict. In social situations
there is no action that does not at the same time execute,
maintain, or cross a distinction.
Thus the observer is part of the situation he or she observes. The
essays in this volume use this idea to describe different social
"forms" as consisting of action observed by further action. A
"form" here is understood to be the two sides of a distinction and
its dividing line, taken together. All social action, therefore,
consists of three values: marked side, unmarked side, and an
operation separating the two. If one watches the third value, one
ends up observing the observer drawing the distinction--an observer
who, of course, may be oneself.
In this collection, more general essays study the consequences of
such an understanding of form for our conceptions of literature,
paradox, sign, play, and language. Other essays focus on the
observations necessary to construct such forms as money, the
university, the state, a career, or sickness. All the essays share
an interest in problems ensuing from the fact that though one can
observe the form of a distinction and become aware of its
arbitrary, contingent, and discriminatory nature, one nevertheless,
when trying to act or communicate, must choose a distinction. The
essays show how social situations deftly veil the arbitrariness of
the distinctions that constitute their forms.
General
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