The Power of Distributed Perspectives

Günter Abel, Martina Plümacher, Günter Abel, Martina Plümacher

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9783110492101
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía política

How do people and institutions manage to bring their different perspectives into an effective and productive interplay? How can we overcome obstacles for the creative potentials of distributed perspectives? Traditionally, the perspectives of people and institutions are considered to be fixed and isolated points of view. In such a picture, the perspectives seem determined in advance by positions and persons seem trapped within their perspectival horizons. In contrast, the new approach of this volume's contributions focuses on the simple but fundamental fact that people (in their perceiving, speaking, thinking, and acting) always already refer to fellow human beings and coordinate their own perspectives with those of other persons and institutions. The contributions of the present volume concentrate on the structures, mechanisms, and dynamics of the interplays of different perspectives of interacting, communicating, and cooperating persons and institutions. The volume focuses on how the creative potentials as well as the organizational effectiveness of distributed perspectives can be set free.

Part I: Structures

Martina Plümacher

Distributed Perspectives in Perceiving, Thinking, and Acting

Abstract: Life in social contexts requires people to be able to orient and position themselves in a variety of different perspectives. These abilities essentially characterize the social cognition of human beings. How do people orient themselves in their interactions within distributed perspectives? The article describes processes of understanding the structures of distributed perspectives, i.e. different perspectives related to each other. Structures become clear in the reflection on the respective viewpoints of perspective, interests, social roles and functions, including the current requirements of action, and the assumed commitments. The paper focuses on structures of distributed perspectives that emerge in the course of divisions of tasks and labor. It illustrates challenges regarding the coordination of perspectives and the evaluation of perspectives – challenges that play a crucial role in our social life and for the designing of social and political processes.

In their perceiving, thinking, and acting, people refer to their fellows in multiple ways. They share their perceptions with other persons, think and act in cooperative ways, and take part in the happiness and sorrow of others. They are moved by what other people say and by the attitudes they act with. They precisely observe how other persons perceive them, judge them, and act towards them. They anticipate in their thinking and acting the reactions of their fellows and try to act while taking into account their interests and sensitivities. However, not only cooperating, but also arguing and competing persons refer to each other. Not only their own perspectives, but also the perspectives of others matter to people. In this extensive and fundamental sense, people think and act in distributed perspectives. Their different perspectives are related to each other and interconnected. They constitute the network of distributed perspectives.

It depends on grasping, understanding, and appreciating other people’s perspectives whether communication and cooperation are successful. A conversation, e.g., can break off if the conversational partner feels that he or she is not being taken seriously. A lively interplay of perspectives, on the other hand, inspires the conversational partners in their thinking, intensifies their dialogue, and motivates them to joint activity.

Starting from descriptions on how people, in their perceiving, thinking, and acting, refer to other people’s perspectives (e.g., how they capture them, rethink them, include them in their considerations), structures of distributed perspectives will be illustrated in what follows. Taken as a basis is a term of perspective that captures and highlights “how thinking takes its objects into account”,1 i.e., how it individuates, categorizes, accentuates them, and which relations it puts them into. In this sense, the term ‘perspective’ means more and also something different than perceiving that is dependent on location. It rather highlights what I would like to call ‘epistemic perspectivity’.

Therefore, this paper starts with a clarification of the term ‘perspectivity’. Based on this it will be explained how people consider distributed perspectives in their actions and in what sense structures of distributed perspectives are discussed. Following this, structures of distributed perspectives that arise as a result of task sharing and labor division will be explicated. The paper specifies requirements for cooperative acting and illustrates the importance of acknowledging distributed perspectives. It argues for the thesis that the social cognition of human beings lies in their ability to perceive, think, and act within distributed perspectives.

1Concepts of perspectivity

When speaking of a person’s ‘perspective’, e.g. their ‘view’ on an occurrence, we mean their specific location dependent perception on the one hand and their comprehension of this occurrence on the other hand. The expression ‘perspective’ has been used in this perception as well as comprehension and cognition including sense in Europe since the 18th century.2

However, it is helpful to distinguish both types of perspectivity – spatial perspectivity in perception and epistemic perspectivity – in order to further determine and describe the distributed perspectives of interacting persons. For it is possible for two people to have the same approximate visuo-spatial perspective and yet have different epistemic perspectives. The opposite can be the case, as well: They can have the same epistemic perspective while their spatial perspectives of perception diverge.

Imagine, for example, two people, Elsa and Paul, who are standing next to each other at a riverside, watching a row of houses on the other side of the river. If their location and direction of view are approximately the same, Elsa and Paul have about the same visuo-spatial perspective. However, while looking at the house facades, they can be interested in different objects and aspects. Elsa, for example, admires the color of the setting sun’s rays of light reflected by the windows. Paul, who is an architect, wonders how the architectural overall impression could be improved. Elsa and Paul differ regarding what they focus their attention on. The epistemic perspective manifests itself in the point of view of observation by means of which specific objects and aspects move to the focus of attention. The term of epistemic perspective generally marks a person’s specific relation to an object. This includes the perceptive focusing of a sensual datum as well as the individuation, categorization, and assessment of an object.

Two persons who have the same epistemic perspective do not also have to share the same visuo-spatial perspective. This is, e.g., the case when people who are locally far apart from each other coordinate on something with each other (e.g. via telephone) and at the same time focus their view on their respective surroundings.

The concept of epistemic perspectivity deployed here can be used in a broad and in a narrow sense. In the broad sense, it captures a person’s directed interest through which certain objects and aspects of objects move to the focus of attention while other objects and aspects of objects remain excluded. In formal terms, the general form of this concept is: person p faces object x in terms of aspect a. This broad sense of the concept comes into play, e.g., when we make a first assessment of distributed perspectives. For being able to orient oneself in distributed perspectives requires examining which objects are important to whom first.

However, we are not only interested in what objects and details other persons focus their attention on, but also in the reasons and motives that lead them to do so. For different persons can turn to the same objects for different reasons. In order to conceptually capture this aspect, the concept of epistemic perspectivity has to be specified and the above-mentioned general form of the concept has to be extended: Person P faces object x in terms of aspect a, motivated by y.

By adding ‘motivated by y’, the circumstances and conditions of the respective cognition and comprehension move to the focus of attention, for example the person’s specific attitudes or goals.3 Paul (to stick with the above example) is, due to his occupation, specifically aware of architectural shapes. He notices details that non-professionals may overlook. His fondness of minimalism in architecture directs his view to components that he finds unnecessary and interfering.What he finds sensually appealing, what attracts his attention, and what he thinks of it is influenced by his occupational experience as well as his interest in a specific architectural style.

The narrow concept of epistemic perspectivity is useful especially for the fine-grained description and analysis of perspectives.4 It is important in sciences, arts, and professions wherever not only the perspectives of persons but also the perspectives of projects (e.g. research projects) need to be comprehended and described more precisely. We try, for example, to comprehend how a project’s objective suggests a specific concrete focus; how the respective focus is further specified by presentations of problems and questions as well as presuppositions, premises, and hypotheses; how models and the choice of materials, media, methods, and procedures function in a focusing way; how reference to other projects (e.g. by connecting or excluding and distinguishing them) affects what moves to the focus of interest and what does not.5

The narrow concept of perspectivity is related to different factors of perspectivation in perception, cognition, speech, and action, and it can open up the view on the interrelationship among these factors. Goals and aims, e.g., specifically orient perception, cognition, and action. They can be a source of questions and problems that further specify a perspectivation. The search for answers to questions and for solutions to problems affects the choice of methods and procedures. Methods and procedures on the other hand draw attention to what is relevant within their framework. At the same time, other objects and aspects shift away from the focus of attention. Methods and procedures limit what is supposed to be recognized or practically produced. Furthermore, attitudes, presuppositions, expectations, and premises form the specific ‘positions’ in light of which the respectively perceived and practically produced is understood.

The reflection on different factors of the perspectivation can be important as soon as we wish to understand more precisely where there are problems in the mutual comprehension of those persons who, e.g. within the framework of interdisciplinary or interprofessional cooperation, pursue differently perspectivated action plans and try to coordinate them with each other. As soon as we plan interdisciplinary and interprofessional cooperation, it is helpful to reflect on the factors of the perspectivation and the specific distribution of attention and interest in order to be able to precisely determine how the activities can reasonably complement each other, where there might be deficits, and how they can be eliminated.

Persons who interact and refer to each other do not unresponsively notice the difference of their perspectives, but include them in their activities and operations. The term ‘distributed perspectives’ refers to this aspect of multiple interconnection of perspectives. Persons who refer to each other and interact do not just perceive objects and occurrences in their own interest but also in view of the meaning it could have for other persons. They think and plan considering the interests and action requirements of other persons. They anticipate agreement as well as conflicts. In joint activities, people coordinate their roles and tasks and communicate what they want to consider within these roles and functions under which aspects. Thus they communicate their different perspectivity regarding the realization of their common goal.

Distributed perspectives are specifically established through labor division and the distinction of social roles and functions. For by taking a task, role, and function, people commit to a perspective that corresponds to this role, function, and task and expect each other to take and maintain it during the work processes and interactions. In everyday family life, within circles of friends, as well as in professional life, people are challenged to communicate the distribution of perspectives with others, to coordinate distributed perspectives, and to acknowledge and appreciate them.

2Distributed locations and views

How do people master distributed perspectives? An answer to this question should start by discussing the interaction of persons when faced with distributed perspectives of perception.

As illustrated above, human perception is perspectival in a twofold way: On the one hand, it depends on the local position of the perceiving person what he or she can perceive. On the other hand, attention and interest are crucial for perceptions. For not everything that can be perceived is actually being perceived. Especially things that arouse a person’s interest move to the focus of attention. Further, a person’s perception also depends on their ability to sensually discriminate objects and to determine facts. A top chef, for instance, is able to taste and identify all the different ingredients of a soup, while a person without cooking experience could probably only identify and name the main ingredients. Also, someone who is an expert at football is more likely to understand the strategic moves of the players than someone who is not interested in football and only occasionally watches a match.

Given the difference of epistemic perspectivity in perception, it is virtually impossible to start a conversation with another person about our perceptions without drawing our conversational partner’s attention to what we want to communicate. We have to inform them about the focus of our perceiving, e.g. say “Listen to that cracking sound over there”, before we can make a guess on what could have caused the noise.6 Furthermore, we usually instinctively assure ourselves if the spatial position of our conversational partner allows them to perceive what we want to talk about. If there is reason to believe that this is not the case (for example when people in the front rows block the view at the theater), we first ask whether he or she, too, can perceive the object of our interest. We then ask, e.g., “Can you see the dancer on the stage?”

Examples from everyday life, like the one above, show that even starting a conversation requires the conversational partners to coordinate their perspectives. The addressed person accepts the invitation to a conversation by adapting to the perspective of the addressing person. When Paul addresses Elsa, for instance, Elsa first of all tries to understand what exactly Paul is referring to and what his intentions are (for example whether he simply wants to share his mood and perception with her, or wants to discuss something with her). Only then can she agree upon a topic with him. Joint orientation on a subject enables conversations about this subject. However, conversational partners by no means have to coincide in their perspectives. On the contrary, the conversation would be over quickly if they were to find such consensus. Conversations are rather kept up by differences regarding the perspectives on a topic. The agreement of the conversational partners on a common conversational topic (e.g. a perceived occurrence) leaves enough room for differences in their perspectivity since one and the same topical matter can be closely examined and analyzed under different aspects. The attraction of a conversation often lies in mutually learning the differences.

In a conversation, people can learn what they overlooked, did not hear, or did not take into consideration. They can notice that details they themselves tho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• To Bernd Mahr
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: Structures
• Part II: Interplays
• Part III: Organization
• Part IV: Dynamics
• Part V: Conflicts
• Index of Persons
• Index of Topics
• Endnotes