Maps and Reality

Objectives of Lecture

• Reminders (Second part of Hour exam DUE Friday; make up labs)
• The WORK maps do

Muehrcke Chapter 25

What makes maps popular? (an odd question? Is this a popularity contest? perhaps)

• convenient to use
• they simplify
• they are credible
• they have strong visual impact

BUT

• They are NOT mirrors, exact replicas, or "truth"

• [To quote a famous Count: "The map is not the territory"]

• "Missing Essence" (an unfair expectation?)
• Living with limitations (how to read, analyze and interpret)
• Reality "as a map"

Returning to Lecture 2

Field of Semiotics (the study of signs-symbols) distinguishes:

• referent (thing in the world),
• sign (symbolic representation),
• interpretant (the one who makes the connection between the other two?)

Multiple versions of this triangle with each connection emphasized...

• Not necessarily the linear message transmission of communication theory (Shannon & Weaver, telephones, digital transmission, etc.)
• Map MAKER doesn't have to be distinct from map reader (division of labor)
• Some read maps as an expression of political (economic, etc.) power.
• Dennis Wood: Power of Maps - Maps perform work, serve interests, make an argument

Basic agreement:

• Multiple maps can be made of the same place
• Maps can "have" (present, represent...) a point of view
• Readers (users, interpretants) have to pay attention

Good maps:

Maps are simple; Reality is the tough part

or How to avoid a major lecture on the Philosophy of Knowledge

• Hard core realists: It is really REAL, measurement as correspondence
• Anti-realists: Kuhn "paradigms" - measurement is theory laden, we bring a lot of assumptions with us; reality doesn't have a chance to leap into our face...
• Instrumentalists: measurement as serving a purpose
• Constructivists: reality as a social phenomenon, supported by certain practices

Some accomodation for all sides?

"Deflationary realism": sure it is there, but we often get distracted.

Version of 23 February 2000