Notes on ‘Two modes of thought’
The text I chose for us to read and to lead a discussion of as my student led seminar was Jerome Bruner’s essay, “Two Modes of Thought” (Bruner, 1986). The basic reaction of the class is that this is a very dense text. Fair enough, but narrative is a very dense topic. Some of the more interesting aspects of the article that came out in discussion was that narrative is an iterative process, always changing (after William Faulkner). I raised the question, do we actually encode our experiences in the form of story as Schank & Abelson (1995) have so eloquently argued? This is a controversial theory. The key question that Bruner is challenging us to think about is: how is reality rendered subjective by language? and that story and scientific thinking are two distinct modes of thought, and scientists need to better understand story, which is one of the things that motivated him to write it. It’s valuable to know that Bruner is writing in the context of the cognitive revolution as a reaction to the positivist and reductionist ideas that kicked the wind out of psychology’s sails during a long, dark period dominated by behaviorism. The two modes of thought arrive at truth in different ways, both useful in human affairs. Narrative lies at the heart of what it is to be human and how we keep memories alive. I could write a lot more about this article, but I think what I’d like to say about it is best expressed in Bruner’s own words:
We seem to have no other way of describing “lived time” save in the form of a narrative. Which is not to say that there are not other temporal forms that can be imposed on the experience of time, but none of them succeeds in capturing the sense of lived time: not clock or calendrical time forms, not serial or cyclical orders, not any of these. It is a thesis that will be familiar to many of you, for it has been most recently and powerfully argued by Paul Ricoeur. Even if we set down annales in the bare form of events, they will be seen to be events chosen with a view to their place in an implicit narrative. (Bruner, 2004).
And thus I believe that narrative is a core component of a communication designer’s toolbox and thus an understanding and appreciation of narrative is crucial for doing good design work. Concepts such as modes, transformation, translation, knowledge, subjectivity, and memory all come into play. Time and again many of my favorite writings on design turn out to be those written by psychologists or designers with some psychological training. What, ultimately is design but understanding how our fellow humans function and applying that knowledge to objects, space, and experience?
Here’s a link to the handout that I passed out with the reading: DSt2-BrunerTwoModes.pdf (PDF).
References
Bruner, Jerome (1986). “Two Modes of Thought,” in Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Harvard University Press, pp. 11-43.
Bruner, Jerome (2004). “Life as Narrative,” in Social Research 71:3, Fall.
Schank, Roger & Robert Abelson (1995). “Knowledge and Memory: The Real Story,” in Robert S. Wyer, Ed., Knowledge and Memory, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Tags: design, Essay, Jerome Bruner, Narrative, Psychology, Thought
May 6th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Like poetry, narrative does not seem to have any direct and formulaic means of translation. In trying to delve into the connectedness between a lot of our discussions over the last few weeks, I guess that translation might be the more scientific approach to interpretation … such a deep and fascinating realm to explore … a veritable Pandora’s Wii of delight and conversation ;]
See you soon little Bruner, see you soon …