{"updated":"2026-10-15T16:31:54Z","content_md":"Somebody on another forum mentioned [m\u00e9tis](https:\/\/ammdi.hyperphor.com\/m\u00e9tis) so I tuned up my page on the subject. I noticed it subsumes two of [Meaningness](https:\/\/ammdi.hyperphor.com\/Meaningness)'s pet topics: situated action and metarationality. I wonder if he ever talks about it explicitly.\n\n![[5kx1ctyhjytstck6y4fe26x8em]]","changelog":[{"version":1,"at":"2026-10-14T23:19:33Z","note":null},{"version":2,"at":"2026-10-15T16:31:54Z","note":null}],"transclusions":[{"id":"5kx1ctyhjytstck6y4fe26x8em","version":1}],"created":"2026-10-14T23:19:33Z","page":"f\/4kd0k6vqaxkn3rbtpkj253ec12\/","content_hash":"sha256:68ff709ddf9558bd4952fcdcf788efd1e300d4318683f436e29a176e0be9e149","id":"4kd0k6vqaxkn3rbtpkj253ec12","kind":"thread","origin":"https:\/\/ammdi.hyperphor.com\/blyg\/","content_html":"
Somebody on another forum mentioned m\u00e9tis<\/a> so I tuned up my page on the subject. I noticed it subsumes two of Meaningness<\/a>'s pet topics: situated action and metarationality. I wonder if he ever talks about it explicitly.<\/span><\/div>
Ask Claude<\/span>
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  • The search hit the Meaningness site's abstract-emergent<\/code> page, which is promising. Let me look more carefully at that and also search specifically for whether David Chapman (Meaningness) mentions m\u00e9tis by name.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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    • The site:<\/code> searches didn't find m\u00e9tis on either domain directly. Let me check the Meaningness page on situated cognition and the metarationality.com page on abstract\/emergent reasoning more carefully, and also search for David Chapman's writing on practical knowledge or phronesis.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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      • This is very useful. Chapman cites Seeing Like a State<\/i> and calls it "meta-rational," but doesn't use the word m\u00e9tis<\/i> explicitly in what's indexed. Let me now fetch the specific Substack piece where he discusses Scott, and also check whether any of Chapman's pages on situated cognition or reasonableness use the term.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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        • Now I have a thorough picture. Let me synthesize this carefully.<\/li><\/ul>
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          • Based on a thorough search of both meaningness.com and metarationality.com, here's the situation:<\/li><\/ul>
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            • *The short answer: Chapman engages heavily with the same conceptual territory as m\u00e9tis, and cites James C. Scott's <\/i>Seeing Like a State* (the book most responsible for popularizing the concept in contemporary discourse), but he does not appear to use the word m\u00e9tis<\/i> explicitly.**<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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              • Here's how the overlap breaks down:<\/li><\/ul>
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                • On situated action:<\/b> <\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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                  • Chapman's 1986 paper (republished on metarationality.com) argues that "computation in this internal world is just like computation in the real one; it is just as concrete and situated." He frames this as part of "a century-long conversation that re-thinks meaningness and what it is to be human."<\/li><\/ul>
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                    • The paper is a direct ancestor of the "E-word" (embodied, enactive, extended, embedded, ecological) movement, and Chapman notes that he developed this framework in 1986, thirty years before the embodied cognition literature rediscovered it.<\/li><\/ul>
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                      • This is precisely the AI\/cognitive science face of m\u00e9tis \u2014 the critique of abstract, plan-first rationalism in favor of routine, situated, world-responsive activity.<\/li><\/ul>
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                        • On metarationality and Seeing Like a State<\/i>:<\/b> Chapman directly and explicitly engages with Scott's book, which is the central modern source for m\u00e9tis. <\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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                          • He calls Seeing Like A State<\/i> "meta-rational" and discusses how it examines cases where "oblivious rationalism that ignored context, purpose, and nebulosity" caused scientific agriculture to fail, sometimes producing mass famines.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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                            • In "Seeing like a Good King," he borrows Scott's framework directly, noting that Scott's "seeing" is metaphorical and "includes all perception, but also any means of gaining information, knowledge, and understanding."<\/li><\/ul>
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                              • He uses Scott's villager\/state distinction to build toward the idea of a "Good King" who can hold both concrete local knowledge and abstract systemic vision simultaneously \u2014 which is almost a literal gloss on m\u00e9tis vs. techne.<\/li><\/ul>
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                                • The gap:<\/b> Despite all this, the word m\u00e9tis<\/i> itself doesn't appear to surface in his published work. <\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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                                  • Scott himself introduces the term in chapter 9 of Seeing Like a State<\/i>, contrasting "practical knowledge" (m\u00e9tis, from classical Greek, denoting "the knowledge that can come only from practical experience") with formal epistemic knowledge.<\/span><\/li><\/ul>
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                                    • Chapman cites Scott extensively but seems to prefer his own vocabulary \u2014 "circumrational," "reasonableness," "situated activity," "nebulosity" \u2014 rather than adopting Scott's Greek term.<\/li><\/ul>
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                                      • So: the concept is deeply present in Chapman's work, the primary modern source (Scott) is cited and called "meta-rational," but the word m\u00e9tis<\/i> itself appears to be absent. If you find it anywhere, it would likely be in his Substack posts (some of which are paywalled) or in unpublished\/in-progress book sections.<\/span><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/span><\/div><\/blockquote><\/div>","version":2,"media":[],"blyg":"0.3"}