What are Metalanguages for? On Interdisciplinarity, Literary Translation and the Role of the Humanities

Metalanguages —that is, those that are about other languages— have some interesting properties: in the effort to create second-order languages —such as bridge languages between two mother tongues or between two disciplines— the way in which particular languages approach the world, and their particular materiality and historicity, is foregrounded. This point of view helps us understand the inherent difficulties in both interdisciplinary cooperation and literary translation. An important aspect of work in the humanities is the creation of metalanguages in the context of what Heidgger calls “disclosing”, that is, the constituting of the world according to a certain ontology —which carries a certain ethical weight, in that it profoundly impacts the way of life of a community that discloses in this or that manner—. If the role of the humanities towards human languages is understood, their role and educational importance becomes clear, the humanities facilitate dialogue between disciplines, and between worldviews, and they empower individuals and communities to articulate new ways of disclosing, new ways of answering the age-old philosophical question: how are we to live?  Los metalenguajes —lenguajes que tratan de otros lenguajes— tienen algunas propiedades interesantes. En el esfuerzo de crear lenguajes de segundo orden —tales como lenguajes puente entre dos idiomas o dos disciplinas— se pone de relieve la manera particular que tiene un lenguaje de abordar el mundo, así como su materialidad e historicidad. Esta perspectiva facilita la comprensión de las dificultades que entrañan tanto la colaboración entre disciplinas científicas como la traducción literaria. Un aspecto importante del trabajo en humanidades es la creación de metalenguajes, en el contexto de lo que Heidegger llama el “desocultar”; esto es, el constituir el mundo según cierta ontología —al tener esta constitución un peso ético, o sea, que impacta profundamente la forma de vida de la comunidad que desoculta de esta o esta otra manera—. Si se comprende lo que hacen las humanidades respecto a los lenguajes humanos, se comprende mejor su papel y su importancia en la educación, la forma en que facilitan el diálogo entre disciplinas y entre visiones de mundo, la forma en que empoderan a los individuos y las sociedades para articular nuevas formas de desocultar nuevas respuestas a la antiquísima pregunta filosófica: “¿cómo se debe vivir?”

Towards a non-trivializing education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a model of education that is non-reproductive; that is, productive of non-trivial machines. The reason for this is the postulate that society’s main problems are second-order deficiencies, which cannot be fixed by doing what we do better or more intensely, but rather by changing what we do. Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes several guidelines for non-reproductive education based on Von Foerster’s concept of a non-trivial machine and of legitimate questions, and Ashby’s law of requisite variety. The ideas presented are corollaries and the result of a philosophical fleshing-out of said concepts and laws. Findings – In order to have a non-reproductive education, it is necessary to limit the role of central control and promote self-evaluation in education at every level of recursion: that is, in the relationship between state and educational institutions, educational institutions and teachers, teacher and students and students as evaluators of themselves. Originality/value – First, the concept of genuine self-evaluation is proposed, to distinguish this from what is currently called self-evaluation; which, it is shown, is not truly so. Second, the concept of authentic research is proposed, as distinguished from original research. This is useful for seeing how legitimate questions work at all levels of education. Third, a number of relationships between cybernetics and philosophical thought are established. Fourth, a model for non-reproductive education is proposed