Saturday, September 11, 2004
Background material on why a National Project is required
Link to: Tutorial on the
Nature of a new Memetic Technology
based on categorical
abstraction and event chemistry
Previous part of this
discussion ( à)
Next communication between
John Benjamins Publishing House and BCNGroup à
Dear Dr Prueitt
I regret that you think that
our conclusion about publication of your work "Foundations of Knowledge Science in the 21st Century"
might be based on 'bias'.
I refer to my email to you
of 26th May in which I have tried to explain some concrete issues that make the
work less publishable as a book within the Benjamins program. One major
consideration is that some of the chapters have already been published and that
our policy is to publish new work.
As I said then, if the
proposed manuscript can be edited and focused for a tangible readership, we can
reconsider its publication.
Thank you for inviting me to
join the discussion with such prominent people on Knowledge Foundations. It is
very tempting for an acquisition editor at an independent publishing house that
has supported innovative research these past 30+ years. However, in my capacity
as editor at Benjamins I have to decline your invitation to join in such a
discussion.
We are well aware of
dramatic changes in Western-world attitudes to Knowledge and the social and
political consequences that are now taking shape, as well as the role of
academic publishing in these developments. We aim to steer a balanced course,
not necessarily in the main stream.
With kind regards
Bertie Kaal
Bertie,
The Online work is merely a means to suggest what might be developed as completely new material.
I am prepared, as I said in correspondence to you, to make a completely new book based on the Internet materials. There is a certain history here that perhaps needs to be told so that the origins of the new information science can be expressed.
The invitation for you to join the BCNGroup discussion would be perhaps important.
There is a feeling that certain types of scholarship are inhibited by peer review, and that this inhibition is self-serving.
In any case, the work that my community is doing is leading to a conference where a number of leading scholars will address the Conjecture on Stratification.
Would you be interested in publishing from that conference?
The conference will focus on issues discussed in this 5 pages position paper:
http://www.ontologystream.com/beads/nationalDebate/115.htm
Regarding the criterion for publication of scientific work.
The criterion needs to be related to publishing material that is not being published by others, but which meets a certain level of scholarship. In some cases, the business case is based on the anticipation of paradigm shifts.
A completely redeveloped Foundation of Knowledge Science would be peer reviewed by a number of scholars and endorsed if a publishing house were to make a commitment to the project.
Why not?
Paul