The Structure of Things

I wondered if I might be in the wrong class after reading Rosemary Huisman’s Narrative concepts.  The section on Rhetorical figures, where Huisman explained synecdoche, metaphor, and metonymy in terms of things and then switched to speak in terms of signs, made me question my ability to read the English language.  I was quite sure Huisman was going to leave me behind when she introduced structuralism and post-structuralism, but to my surprise, she made me see how this class will be critical to my further studies.

Huisman helped me develop thoughts on epistemology.  I’ve been thinking about the foundations of learning theories lately.  I’ve struggled to understand the positivists and the interpretivists orientations on knowledge.  The idea and beauty of an external objective reality we struggle to discover seems intuitive.  I’ve always seen a natural beauty in math, gravity, and patterns.  Have I been too focused on the object that I neglected to properly consider the subject?

Growing up with an appreciation for math provided me with an appreciation for Saussure’s dualism of la langue and la parole.  When Huisman explained that structuralist studies of narrative are useful, but lack the objective status they had in their heyday, I started to think about how little math I use at my job.

What is the interpretivists orientation good for?  Interdependently discovering truth when there is more than one right answer.

And the positivists orientation? Independently discovering truth when there is one right answer.

Why do we need both?  Sometimes the world is interconnected with a complex grammar.