Discourse and Theosophy, by George McNamara

4. The Dispositive

The Dispositive is an idea that there is one system of knowledge which links:-

The Dispositive provides a link between discourse and physical plane events and objects. It is one of those all-embracing concepts which can include almost everything there is. Other examples of this type of concept are the soul, anima mundi, the mental plane, and prakriti. The dispositive may relate to these concepts, but does it have practical uses ? Does the dispositive gain over these ideas from world religions ?

In my food and farming case study, the dispositive reveals gaps in the coherence of collective thoughts - an example of this is the BSE crisis, where my summary of this crisis using the dispositive is - A familiar discourse (industry) was applied to a new area of knowledge (food production). This gave rise to several events (BSE, Foot and Mouth disease), but also to cheaper food supplies.

I would add that the dispositive can also be applied to the physical products from the food industry. These are often marketed and packaged in ways which maintain a fantasy in the mind of the buyer about the way they are produced - they appear to be rural rather than industrial products. This shows a gap in the dispositive between discourses and products.

We also use the dispositive (instinctively) in personal terms - if there is a deep mismatch between a persons thoughts, words and actions, then we lose trust in them. Because we all select which of our thoughts to put into words, we accept some simplification from others, but we still expect a reasonable level of correlation and honesty.
The dispositive may be useful in its implication that discourse, objects and events are deeply intertwined, and bound together by varieties of knowledge, and that this should be coherent. Any lack of coherence (or cracks in the structure) will generally show that the discourses are not adequate to describe reality.