NATURAL VS SOCIAL KLNDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL VOCABULARY

In the philosophical literature, the term 'natural kinds' is used to indicate the (referents of) a wide range of natural language substantives, e.g., water, lemon, chair, house. Quine (1969) points out that for some

natural kinds, e.g., water, lemons, there exists a scientifically accepted procedure of identification. For instance, chemistry defines water as the molecular compound H20, botany (I think) has a criteria1 definition for lemons or a t least for lemon trees.

I t is generally recognized that scientific explanation is ultimately a matter of social convention that changes as new theories are proposed (Kuhn 1862). We no longer accept the 'ether' as the basic substance of the universe. Likewise, it's conceivable (though not likely) that the scien- tific conception of water might change with further discoveries in particle physics.

But scientific explanation is a unique type of social convention in that it is authoritatwe. What science accepts, the world accepts. H20 is accepted as the definition of water because chemistry says so. Our infor- mal conception of water includes water plus other impurities, though if disagreements arise, we generally accept the chemistry explanation as the criteria1 definition of 'pure' water.

This is not to say that all people who use the term 'water' understand its chemistry. Obviously, only a few do. Rather the semantics of this term rely on a social cooperation that leads ultimately to certain scientu- ically qualified individuals. A similar semantic cooperation exists in the common understanding of 'lemon,' which leads backwards from consu-

Chapter 4 mer, to supermarket, to farmer, to botanist.

The above remarks need quahfication. Not all scientific paradigms are international in scope. Physics is, economics isn't. Further, even within a given society, the various scieatific disciplines have differing epistemological status. For example, physics and chemistry seem to have more social credibility than psychology and sociology. This has important linguistic consequences for without this credibility our infor- mal usage of terminology can have a different denotation than the scien- tific usage. For example, we accept as (pure) water exactly that which a chemist analyzes as H z O However, we do not for instance accept the meaning of 'anxiety' as what psychometrics measures using Galvanic s h n response.

Very roughly, there seems to be an hierarchy of epistemological con- fidence w i t h the physical sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, astronomy) in uppermost status followed by the biological sciences (biology, botany, medicine), followed perhaps by psychology and then the social sciences (sociology, economics, political science).

The difiiculty (Thom 1975, Berlinski 1976) is in the structural stabil- ity that can be assumed of the phenomena under study. We are comfort- able with the assumption that physical phenomena are time/space invari- ant. Water is water whether on earth or on moon, in the eons past or those to come. Biological sciences have to consider evolutionary factors:

fruit flies vary from one continent to another, bacterial diseases can evolve in a matter of months. The social sciences have an ever weaker claim to structural stability. Culture and social organizations obviously have enormous geographic and temporal variation. Psychology,

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acknowledging the effect of social context, suffers similar epistemological uncertainties. Indeed, even the presumed constancy of cerebral speciali- zation may be culturally dependent (Sibatani 1980).

The importance cf these observations here is in their linguistic consequences. The semantics of a given term is clearly a matter of social convention. However, that doesn't take us very far unless we can get some insight into the relevant socio-linguistic mechanisms. One of these mechanisms is the authority granted to scientific theories as defining the referents to certain of our terms.

As was suggested, the semantic problems of database translation and the verification of inference are Likely to be least difficult for predicate terms that have a basis in the natural (physical, biological) sciences.

More semantic instability is to be expected for t,erms sigdying social

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artifacts. Consider again the term 'chair'. It seems doubtful that there can ever be a scientific explanation for this concept. Indeed, there are furniture design companies whose marketing strategy is to change our current conception of this term.

With respect to organizational databases, the vocabulary we are con- cerned about might relate to any of the scientific areas just mentioned.

For example, databases relating to engineermg, production or inventories may include terms based in chemistry (e.g., petroleum derivatives), phy- sics (e.g., electronics engineering), and botany (e.g., agricultural inven- tories).

With respect to the vocabulary originating in these scientific discip- lines, there is fairly wide semantic consensus and stability. The rate of

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linguistic change is likely to be slow relative to the time frame of the organization. Then consider the terminology relating to technological applications. In these areas the rate of hguistic change is much more rapid. It is, nonetheless, a fairly organized evolution. For example, trade journals and industry wide meetings and exhibitions help to standardize usage. To enable compatibility between products and processes, industry standards are eventually developed. This too helps to standardize usage.

However, a great deal of the vocabulary in organizational databases relates to socially defined phenomena. The relevant factor here is the social scope of the organization's interactions. An example is the rela- tionship 'marriage.' In most cases, t h s can be accepted as a stable con- cept, relative to the interests of the organization. In other cases, e.g., the census bureau or crosa-cultural organizations, Linguistic variations have to be considered.

A more fundamental point is that the organization itself defines a social context and creates its own social artifacts. Prominent among these is its product offering, which, to be successful, is intentionally dif- ferentiated from related products in the marketplace. This product offering is furthermore dynamic, the effect of product development and marketmg efforts. While the attendant lmguistic change is managed within the organization, serious difficulties arise for e.g., regulatory, taxa- tion, and consumer protection agencies.

The structure of the orgmzation is itself a social artifact. T h s includes the identification of organizational substructures (divisions, departments, committees), organizational roles (manager, clerk), pro- cedures., rules, standard documents, etc. These are described in a rich,

Chapter 4 locally defined, organizational vocabulary

As the organizational structure and processes evolve in response to changes in the environment, t h s vocabulary must correspondingly evolve. If this vocabulary is used only for informal communications within the organization, this evolution continues naturally. However, as more and more of t h s vocabulary becomes embedded in the organization's structured intormation system, this linguistic evolution, hence the organization's adaptability, becomes restrained.

The ditiiculty follows from the remarks on the semantics of formal languages made in the last chapter. The design of a formal language depends on Frege's 'Principle of Compositionality'. That is, the semantics of a compound expression are constructed from the semantics of its syn- tactic constituents., Database queries and higher level inferences depend on this consistency for their validity. If the assumption of semantic sta- bility is removed, the deductions provided by the information system can no longer be trusted. This issue 'is re-considered in the final chapter.

T h i s p a p e r was o r i g i n a l l y p r e p a r e d u n d e r t h e t i t l e " M o d e l l i n g f o r Management" f o r p r e s e n t a t i o n a t a N a t e r R e s e a r c h C e n t r e

(U.K. ) Conference on " R i v e r P o l l u t i o n C o n t r o l " , Oxford, 9 - 1 1 A s r i l , 1979.

CHAlTEX 5: THE SEXANTICS OF

CONTENTS

A. NUMBERS IN DATABASES