Disciplinary Spaces

Abstract Disciplinary spaces are conveniences that satisfy interests or obligations at minimal cost to effort or attention. We glide through them while passing from task to task, wanting efficiency with modest care for detail. These disciplines are orienting; others are productive. Ideas of holism and open societies are ideologies that organize societies in ways they prefigure. Orienting spaces allow alternate ways to satisfy an aim or task. Ideological spaces are prescriptive; we behave as they require. Skeptics doubt the accuracy of our perceptions, though modest efficiency, more than accuracy, is usually the aim of practical life. Inquiry wants truth. Practical life wants it too: in the skills and precision of its crafts, in the casual routine of disciplinary spaces.