New maps of knowledge some animadversions (friendly) on: science (reductionist), social science (hermeneutic), research (unmanageable) and universities (unmanaged)

Abstract

Valedictories are extremely rare at Lancaster University. Persistent questioning eventually extracts an Inaugural from all Professors, but later on they slip away. I felt I wanted to give this lecture and am grateful to the University for giving me the chance to do it. Allow me a personal introduction to start with, though the whole lecture will be a personal retrospect. It can probably be said of Valedictories, as has been said — by Theodor Adorno — of psychoanalysis: ‘only the exaggerations are true’. This lecture is dedicated to the memory of my wife Glenys, who died in 1990. Loving her for the forty-three years I knew her is the best thing that's happened to me in my life; losing her, the worst. Since I lost her, whenever I've faced any dilemma I've asked myself what her advice would have been, and I've always known the answer. Glen had a great sense of style, as the many people here tonight who knew her would affirm. She understood better than most that to live a human life is to exercise a craft skill. It's a shaping skill, and Glen was very good at it. If I had asked her whether I should give a Valedictory she would have said: “Well, you gave a naive Inaugural in which you indicated that you would try to bring the human dimension into Systems Engineering. You've been at it at Lancaster for twenty-nine years. Of course you must give a Valedictory; the aesthetics of the situation require it.”