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<div class="nonumtoc">__TOC__</div>
 
<div class="nonumtoc">__TOC__</div>
  
==Work Area 1==
+
=Facebook Discussion=
  
===3.2. Reflective Inquiry===
+
&hellip;
  
====3.2.1. Integrity and Unity of Inquiry====
+
=Fragments and Other Drafts=
  
<pre>
+
==5. Interlude : The Medium and Its Message==
One of the very first questions that one encounters in
 
the inquiry into inquiry is one that challenges both the
 
integrity and the unity of inquiry, a question that asks:
 
"Is inquiry one or many?"  By this one means two things:
 
  
1. Concerning the integrity of inquiry:  How are the components and
+
===5.1. Reflective Writing===
    the properties of inquiry, as identified by analysis, integrated
 
    into a whole that is singly and solely responsible for its results,
 
    and as it were, that answers for its answers in one voice?  These
 
    qualities of unanimity and univocity are necessary in order to be
 
    able to speak of an inquiry as a coherent entity, whose nature it
 
    is to have and to hold the boundaries one finds in or gives to it,
 
    rather than being an artificial congeries of naturally unrelated
 
    elements and features.  In other words, this is required in order
 
    to treat inquiry as a systematic function, that is, as the action,
 
    behavior, conduct, or operation of a system.
 
  
2. Concerning the unity of inquiry:  Is the form of inquiry that
+
====5.1.1. Casual Reflection====
    is needed for reasoning about facts the same form of inquiry
 
    that is needed for reasoning about actions and goals, duties
 
    and goods, feelings and values, guesses and hopes, and so on,
 
    or does each sort of inquiry -- aesthetic, ethical, practical,
 
    speculative, or whatever -- demand and deserve a dedicated and
 
    distinctive form?  Although it is clear that some degree of
 
    modulation is needed to carry out different modes of inquiry,
 
    is the adaptation so radical that one justly considers it to
 
    generate different forms, or is the changeover merely a matter
 
    of mildly tweaking the same old tunes and draping new materials
 
    on the same old forms?
 
  
If one reflects, shares the opinion, or takes the point of view
+
=====5.1.1.1. Ostensibly Recursive Texts=====
on experimental grounds that inquiry begins with uncertainty,
 
then each question about the integrity and the unity of
 
inquiry can be given a sharper focus if it is re-posed
 
as a question about the integrity and the unity of
 
uncertainty, or of its positive counterpart,
 
information.
 
  
Accordingly, one is led to wonder next:  Is uncertainty one or many?
+
=====5.1.1.2. Analogical Recursion=====
Is information one or many?  As before, each question raises two more:
 
one that inquires into the internal composition of its subject, or the
 
lack thereof, and one that inquires into the external diversity of its
 
subject, or the lack thereof. This reflection, on the integrity and
 
the unity, or else the multiplicity, of uncertainty and information,
 
is the image of the earlier reflection, on the facts of sign use.
 
Once more, what appears in this reflection is so inconclusive
 
and so insubstantial that there is nothing else to do at
 
this point but to back away again from the mirror.
 
  
To rephrase the question more concretely:  Is uncertainty about
+
====5.1.2. Conscious Reflection====
what is true or what is the case the general form that subsumes
 
every species of uncertainty, or is it possible that uncertainty
 
about what to do, what to feel, what to hope, and so on constitute
 
essentially different forms of inquiry among them?  The answers to
 
these questions have a practical bearing in determining how usefully
 
the presently established or any conceiovable theory of information
 
can serve as a formal tool in different types of inquiry.
 
  
Another way to express these questions is in terms of a distinction between
+
=====5.1.2.1. The Signal Moment=====
"form" and "matter". The form is what all inquiries have in common, and the
 
question is whether it is anything beyond the bare triviality that they all
 
have to take place in some universe of inquiry or another. The matter is
 
what concerns each particular inquiry, and the question is whether the
 
matter warps the form to a shape all its own, one that is peculiar
 
to this matter to such a degree that it is never interchangeable
 
with the forms that are proper to other modes of inquiry.
 
</pre>
 
  
====3.2.2. Apparitions and Allegations====
+
=====5.1.2.2. The Symbolic Object=====
  
<pre>
+
=====5.1.2.3. The Endeavor to Communicate=====
Next I consider the preparations for a phenomenology.
 
This is not yet any style of phenomenology itself but
 
an effort to grasp the very idea that something appears,
 
and to grasp it in relation to the something that appears.
 
I begin by looking at a sample of the language that one
 
ordinarily uses to talk about appearances, with an eye
 
to how this medium shapes one's thinking about what
 
appears. A close inspection reveals that there are
 
subtleties issuing from this topic that are partly
 
disclosed and partly obscured by the language that
 
is commonly used in this connection.
 
  
An "apparition", as I adopt the term and adapt its use to this context,
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=====5.1.2.4. The Medium of Communication=====
is a property, a quality, or a respect of appearance. That is, it is
 
an aspect or an attribute of a phenomenon of interest that appears to
 
arise in a situation and to affect the character of the phenomenal
 
situation. Apparitions shape themselves in general to any shade
 
of apperception, assumption, imitation, intimation, perception,
 
sensation, suspicion, or surmise that is apt or amenable to be
 
apprehended by an animate agent.
 
  
An "allegation", in the same manner of speaking, is any description or
+
=====5.1.2.5. The Ark of Types : The Order of Things to Come=====
depiction, any expression or emulation, in short, any verbal exhalation
 
or visual emanation that appears to apprehend a characteristic trait or
 
an illuminating trace of an apparition.
 
  
The terms "apparition" and "allegation" serve their purpose in allowing
+
=====5.1.2.6. The Epitext=====
an observer to focus on the sheer appearance of the apparition itself,
 
in assisting a listener or a reader to attend to the sheer assertion
 
of the allegation itself. Their application enables an interpreter
 
to accept at first glance or to acknowledge at first acquaintance
 
the reality of each impression as a sign, without being forced to
 
the point of assuming that there is anything in reality that the
 
apparition is in fact an appearance of, that there is anything
 
in reality that the allegation is in deed an adversion to, or,
 
as people commonly say, that there is anything of substance
 
"behind" it all.
 
  
Ordinarily, when one speaks of the "appearance" of an object, one tends
+
=====5.1.2.7. The Context of Interpretation=====
to assume that there is in reality an object that has this appearance,
 
but if one speaks about the "apparition" of an object, one leaves more
 
room for a suspicion whether there is in reality any such object as
 
there appears to be. In technical terms, however much it is simply
 
a matter of their common acceptations, the term "appearance" is said
 
to convey slightly more "existential import" than the term "apparition".
 
This dimension of existential import is one that enjoys a considerable
 
development in the sequel.
 
  
If one asks what apparitions and allegations have in common, it seems to be
+
=====5.1.2.8. The Formative Tension=====
that they share the character of signs. If one asks what character divides
 
them, it is said to be that apparitions are more likely to be generated by
 
an object in and of itself while allegations are more likely to be generated
 
by an interpreter in reaction to an alleged or apparent object. Nevertheless,
 
even if one agrees to countenance both apparitions and allegations as a pair
 
of especially specious species of signs, whose generations are differentially
 
attributed to objects and to interpreters, respectively, and whose variety
 
runs through a spectrum of intermediate variations, there remains a number
 
of subtleties still to be recognized.
 
  
For instance, when one speaks of an "appearance" of a sign, then one is
+
=====5.1.2.9. The Vehicle of Communication : Reflection on Scene and Self=====
usually talking about a "token" of that type of sign, as it appears in
 
a particular locus and as it occurs on a particular occasion, all of
 
which further details can be specified if required. If this common
 
usage is to be squared with calling apparitions a species of signs,
 
then talk about an "appearance" of an apparition must have available
 
to it a like order of interpretation. And thus what looks like
 
a higher order apparition, in other words, an apparition of an
 
apparition, is in fact an even more particular occurrence,
 
specialized appearance, or special case of sign. At this
 
point I have to let go of the subject for now, since the
 
general topic of "higher order signs", their variety and
 
interpretation, is one that occupies a much broader
 
discussion later on in this work.
 
  
Any action that an interpreter takes to detach the presumed actuality of
+
=====5.1.2.10.=====
the sign from the presumed actuality of its object, at least in so far as
 
the sign appears to present itself as denoting, depicting, or describing
 
a particular object, remains a viable undertaking and a valuable exercise
 
to attempt, no matter what hidden agenda, ulterior motive, or intentional
 
object is conceivably still invested in the apparition or the allegation.
 
If there is an object, property, or situation in reality that is in fact
 
denoted or represented by one of these forms of adversion and allusion,
 
then one says that there is a basis for acting on them, a justification
 
for believing in them, a motivation for taking them seriously, a reason
 
for treating them as true, or a foundation that is capable of lending
 
support to their prima facie evidence.
 
  
Once the dimension of existential import is recognized as a parameter
+
=====5.1.2.11.=====
of interpretation, for example, as it runs through the spectrum of
 
meanings that the construals of "apparitions" and "appearances"
 
are differentially scattered across, then there are several
 
observations that ought to be made about the conceivable
 
distributions of senses:
 
  
1. In principle, the same range of ambiguities and equivocalities
+
=====5.1.2.12. Recursions : Possible, Actual, Necessary=====
    affects both of the words "apparition" and "appearance" to the
 
    same degree, however much their conventional usage tilts their
 
    individual and respective senses one way or the other.
 
  
2. Deprived of its existential import, the applicational phrase
+
=====5.1.2.13. Ostensibly Recursive Texts (Again?)=====
    "appearance of an object" (AOAO) means something more akin to
 
    the adjectival or analogous phrase "object-like appearance" (OLA).
 
    Can it be that the mere appearance of the preposition "of" in the
 
    application "P of Q" is somehow responsible for the tilt of its
 
    construal toward a more substantial interpretation, one with
 
    a fully existential import?
 
  
3. Interpreting any apparition, appearance, phenomenon, or sign
+
=====5.1.2.14.=====
    as an "appearance of an object" is tantamount to the formation
 
    of an abductive hypothesis, that is, it entertains the postulation
 
    of an object in an effort to explain the particulars of an appearance.
 
  
4. The positing of objects to explain apparitions, appearances, phenomena,
+
=====5.1.2.15. The Freedom of Interpretation=====
    or signs, to be practical on a regular basis, requires the preparatory
 
    establishment of an "interpretive framework" (IF) and the concurrent
 
    facilitation of an "objective framework" (OF).  Teamed up together,
 
    these two frameworks assist in organizing the data of signs and
 
    the impressions of ideas in connection with the hypotheses of
 
    objects, and thus they make it feasible to examine each
 
    "object-like appearance" and to convert each one that
 
    is suitable into an "appearance of an object".
 
  
At this point it ought to be clear that the pragmatic theory of signs
+
=====5.1.2.16. The Eternal Return=====
permits the "whole of phenomenal reality" (WOPR) to be taken as a sign,
 
perhaps of itself as an object, and perhaps to itself as an interpretant.
 
The articulation of the exact sign relation that exists is the business of
 
inquiry into a particular universe, and this is a world whose existence,
 
development, and completion are partially contingent on the character,
 
direction, and end of that very inquiry.
 
  
The next step to take in preparing a style of phenomenology, that is,
+
=====5.1.2.17.=====
in acquiring a paradigm for addressing apparitions or in producing an
 
apparatus for dealing with appearances, is to partition the space of
 
conceivable phenomena in accord with several forms of classification,
 
drawing whatever parallel and incidental lines appear suitable to the
 
purpose of oganizing phenomena into a sensible array, in particular,
 
separating out the kinds of appearances that one is prepared to pay
 
attention to, and thus deciding the kinds of experiences that one
 
is ready to partake in, while paring away the sorts of apparitions
 
that one is prepared to ignore.
 
  
It may be thought that a phenomenology has no need of preparation or partition,
+
=====5.1.2.18. Information in Formation=====
that the idea is to remain openly indiscriminate and patently neutral to all
 
that appears, that all of its classifications are purely descriptive, and
 
that all of them put together are intended to cover the entire range of
 
what can possibly show up in experience. But attention is a precious
 
resource, bounded in scope and exhausted in detail, while the time
 
and the trouble that are available to spend on the free and the
 
unclouded observation of phenomena are much more limited still,
 
at least, in so far as it concerns finite agents and mortal
 
creatures, and thus even the most liberal phenomenology is
 
forced to act on implicit guidelines or to put forward
 
explicit recommendations of an evaluative, a normative,
 
or a prescriptive character, saying in effect that if
 
one acts in certain ways, in particular, that if one
 
expends an undue quantity of attention on the "wrong"
 
kinds of appearances, then one is bound to pay the
 
price, in other words, to experience unpleasant
 
experiences as a consequence or else to suffer
 
other sorts of adverse results.
 
  
This observation draws attention to the general form of constraint
+
=====5.1.2.19. Reflectively Indexical Texts=====
that comes into play at this point. Let me then ask the following
 
question:  What is the most general form of preparation, partition,
 
or reparation, of whatever sort of disposition or structure, that
 
I can imagine as applying to the whole situation, that I can see
 
as characterizing its experiential totality, and that I can grasp
 
as contributing to its ultimate result?  For my own part, in the
 
present situation, the answer appears to be largely as follows.
 
  
As far as I know, all styles of phenomenology and all notions of science,
+
=====5.1.2.20.=====
whether general or special, either begin by adopting an implicit recipe
 
for what makes an apparition worthy of note or else begin their advance
 
by developing an explicit prescription for a "worthwhile" appearance,
 
a rule that presumes to dictate what phenomena are worthy of attention.
 
This recipe or prescription amounts to a critique of phenomena, a rule
 
that has an evaluative or a normative force. As a piece of advice, it
 
can be taken as a "tentative rule of mental presentation" (TROMP) for
 
all that appears or shows itself, since it sets the bar for admitting
 
phenomena to anything more than a passing regard, marks the threshold
 
of abiding concern and the level of recurring interest, formulates
 
a precedence ordering to be imposed on the spectra of apparitions
 
and appearances, and is tantamount to a recommendation about what
 
kinds of phenomena are worth paying attention to and what kinds
 
of shows are not worth the ticket -- in a manner of speaking
 
saying that the latter do not repay the price of admission
 
to consciousness and do not earn a continuing regard.
 
  
The issue of a TROMP ("tentative rule of mental presentation") can appear
+
=====5.1.2.21.=====
to be a wholly trivial commonplace or a totally unnecessary extravagance,
 
but realizing that a choice of this order has to be made, that it has to
 
be made at a point of development where no form of justification of any
 
prior logical order can be adduced, and thus that the choice is always
 
partly arbitrary and always partly based on aesthetic considerations,
 
ethical constraints, and practical consequences -- all of this says
 
something important about the sort of meaning that the choice can
 
have, and it opens up a degree of freedom that was obscured by
 
thinking that a phenomenology has to exhaust all apparitions,
 
or that a science has to be anchored wholly in bedrock.
 
  
If it appears to my reader that my notion of what makes a worthwhile
+
=====5.1.2.22.=====
appearance is tied up with what I can actually allege to appear, and
 
is therefore constrained by the medium of my language and the limits
 
of my lexicon, then I am making the intended impression. One of the
 
reasons that I find for accepting these bounds is that I am decidedly
 
less concerned with those aspects of experience that appear in one
 
inconsistent and transient fashion after another, and I am steadily
 
more interested in those aspects of experience that appear on abiding,
 
insistent, periodic, recurring, and stable bases. Since I am trying to
 
demonstrate how inquiry takes place in the context of a sign relation,
 
the ultimate reasons for this restriction have to do with the nature
 
of inquiry and the limited capacities of signs to convey information.
 
  
Inquiry into reality has to do with experiential phenomena that recur,
+
=====5.1.2.23.=====
with states that appear and that promise or threaten to appear again,
 
and with the actions that agents can take to affect these recurrences.
 
This is true for two reasons:  First, a state that does not appear or
 
does not recur cannot be regarded as constituting any sort of problem.
 
Second, only states that appear and recur are subject to the tactics of
 
learning and teaching, or become amenable to the methods of reasoning.
 
  
There is a catch, of course, to such a blithe statement, and it is this:
+
=====5.1.2.24.=====
How does an agent know whether a state is going to appear, is bound to
 
recur, or not?  To be sure, there are hypothetically conceivable states
 
that constitute obvious problems for an agent, independently of whether
 
an instance of them already appears in experience or not. This is the
 
question that inaugurates the theoretical issue of signs in full force,
 
raises the practical stakes that are associated with their actual notice,
 
and constellates the aspect of a promise or a threat that appears above.
 
Accordingly, the vital utility of signs is tied up with questions about
 
persistent appearances, predictable phenomena, contingently recurrent
 
states of systems, and ultimately patterned forms of real existence
 
that are able to integrate activity with appearance.
 
  
In asking questions about integral patterns of activity and appearance,
+
=====5.1.2.25. The Discursive Universe=====
where the category of action and the category of affect are mixed up in
 
a moderately complicated congeries with each other and stirred together
 
in a complex brew, it is helpful on a first approximation to "fudge" the
 
issue of the agent a bit, in other words, to "dodge", "fuzz", or "hedge"
 
any questions about the precise nature of the agent that appears to be
 
involved in the activities and to whom the appearances actually appear.
 
This intention is served by using the word "agency" in a systematically
 
ambiguous way, namely, to mean either an individual agent, a community
 
of agents, or any of the actions thereof. In this vein, the following
 
sorts of questions can be asked:
 
  
1. What appearances can be recognized by what agencies to occur
+
=====5.1.2.26.=====
    on a recurring basis?  In other words, what appearances can
 
    be noted by what agencies to fall under sets of rules that
 
    describe their ultimate patterns of activity and appearance?
 
  
2. What appearances can be shared among agents and communities that are
+
=====5.1.2.27.=====
    distributed through dimensions of culture, language, space, and time?
 
  
3. What appearances can be brought under the active control of what agencies
+
=====5.1.2.28.=====
    by observing additional and alternative appearances that are associated
 
    with them, that is, by acquiring and exploiting an acquaintance with
 
    the larger patterns of activity and appearance that apply?
 
  
There is a final question that I have to ask in this preparation for a
+
=====5.1.2.29.=====
phenomenology, though it, too, remains an ultimately recurring inquiry:
 
What form of reparation is due for the undue distribution of attention
 
to appearance?  In other words, what form of reform is called on to
 
repair an unjust disposition, to remedy an inadequate preparation,
 
or to adjust a partition that is not up to par?  Any attempt to
 
answer this question has occasion to recur to its preliminary:
 
What form of information does it take to convince agents that
 
a reform of their dispositions is due?
 
  
As annoying as all of these apparitions and allegations are at first,
+
=====5.1.2.30.=====
it is clear that they arise from an ability to reflect on a scene of
 
awareness, and thus, aside from the peculiar attitudes that they may
 
betray from time to time, they advert to an aptitude that amounts to
 
an inchoate agency of reflection, an incipient faculty of potential
 
utility that the agent affected with its afflictions is well-advised
 
to appreciate, develop, nurture, and train, in spite of how insipid
 
its animadversions are alleged to appear at times. This marks the
 
third time now that the subject of reflection has come to the fore.
 
Paradoxically enough, no increment of charm appears to accrue to
 
the occasion.
 
  
A good part of the work ahead is taken up with considering ways to formalize
+
=====5.1.2.31.=====
the process of reflection. This is necessary, not just in the interest of
 
those apparitions that are able to animate reflection, or for the sake of
 
those allegations that are able to survive reflection, but in order to
 
devise a regular methodology for articulating, bringing into balance
 
with each other, and reasoning on the grounds of the various kinds
 
of reflections that naturally occur, the apparitions that arise
 
in the incidental context of experience plus the allegations
 
that get expressed in the informal context of discussion.
 
Later discussions will advance a particular approach to
 
reflection, bringing together the work already begun in
 
previous discussions of "interpretive frameworks" (IF's)
 
and "objective frameworks" (OF's), and constructing a
 
compound order or a hybrid species of framework for
 
arranging, organizing, and supporting reflection.
 
These tandem structures will be referred to as
 
"reflective interpretive frameworks" (RIF's).
 
  
Before the orders of complexity that are involved in the construction
+
=====5.1.2.32.=====
of a RIF can be entertained, however, it is best to obtain a rudimentary
 
understanding of just how the issues associated with reflection can in fact
 
arise in ordinary and unformalized experience. Proceeding by this path will
 
allow us to gain, along with a useful array of moderately concrete intuitions,
 
a relatively stable basis for comprehending the nature of reflection. For all
 
of these reasons, the rest of this initial discussion will content itself with
 
a sample of the more obvious and even superficial properties of reflection as
 
they develop out of casual and even cursory contexts of discussion, and as
 
they make themselves available for expression in the terms and in the
 
structures of a natural language medium.
 
</pre>
 
  
====3.2.3. A Reflective Heuristic====
+
===5.2. Reflective Inquiry===
  
<pre>
+
====5.2.1. Integrity and Unity of Inquiry <big>&#10004;</big>====
In a first attempt to state explicitly the principles by which reflection
 
operates, it helps to notice a few of the tasks that reflection performs.
 
In the process of doing this it is useful to keep this figure of speech,
 
where the anthropomorphic "reflection" is interpreted in the figure of
 
its personification, in other words, as a hypostatic reference that
 
personifies the reflective faculty of an agent.
 
  
One of the things that reflection does is to look for common patterns
+
====5.2.2. Apparitions and Allegations <big>&#10004;</big>====
as they appear in diverse materials. Another thing that reflection
 
does is to look for variations in familiar and recognized patterns.
 
These ideas lead to the statement of two aesthetic guidelines or
 
heuristic suggestions as to how the process of reflection can
 
be duly carried out:
 
  
  Try to reduce the number of primitive notions.
+
====5.2.3. A Reflective Heuristic <big>&#10004;</big>====
  
  Try to vary what has been held to be constant.
+
====5.2.4. Either/Or : A Sense of Absence====
  
These are a couple of "aesthetic imperatives" or "founding principles"
+
====5.2.5. Apparent, Occasional, and Practical Necessity====
that I first noticed as underlying motives in the work of C.S. Peirce,
 
informing the style of thinking that is found throughout his endeavors
 
(Awbrey & Awbrey, 1989).  It ought to be recognized that this pair of
 
imperatives operate in antagonism or work in conflict with each other,
 
each recommending a course that strives against the aims of the other.
 
The circumstances of this opposition appear to suggest a mythological
 
derivation for the faculty of reflection that is being personified in
 
this figure, as if it were possible to inquire into the background of
 
reflection so deeply as to reach that original pair of sibling rivals:
 
Epimetheus, Defender of the Same; Prometheus, Sponsor of the Different.
 
  
Aesthetic slogans and practical maxims do not have to be consistent in all
+
====5.2.6. Approaches, Aspects, Exposures, Fronts====
of the exact and universal ways that are required of logical principles,
 
since their applications to each particular matter can be adjusted in
 
a differential and a discriminating manner, taking into account the
 
points of their pertinence, the qualities of their relevance, and
 
the times of their salience. Nevertheless, the use of these
 
heuristic principles can have a bearing on the practice of
 
logic, especially when it comes to the forms of logical
 
expression and argumentation that are available for
 
use in a particular language, specialized calculus,
 
or other formal system. Although one's initial
 
formulations of logical reasoning, in the shapes
 
that are seized on by fallible and finite creatures,
 
can be as arbitrary and as idiosyntactic as particular
 
persons and parochial paradigms are likely to make them,
 
a dedicated and persistent application of these two heuristic
 
rudiments, whether in team, in tandem, or in tournament with each
 
other, is capable of leading in time to forms that subtilize and
 
universalize, at the same time, the forms initially taken by thought.
 
</pre>
 
  
==Work Area 2==
+
====5.2.7. Synthetic A Priori Truths====
  
<pre>
+
====5.2.8. Priorisms of Normative Sciences <big>&#10004;</big>====
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
  
Priorisms of Normative Sciences
+
====5.2.9. Principle of Rational Action <big>&#10004;</big>====
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
====5.2.10. The Pragmatic Cosmos <big>&#10004;</big>====
  
| Document History
+
====5.2.11. Reflective Interpretive Frameworks====
|
 
| Subject:  Inquiry Driven Systems:  An Inquiry Into Inquiry
 
| Contact:  Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
 
| Version:  Draft 8.75
 
| Created:  23 Jun 1996
 
| Revised:  10 Jun 2002
 
| Advisor:  M.A. Zohdy
 
| Setting:  Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
 
| Excerpt:  3.2.8 (Priorisms of Normative Sciences)
 
|
 
| http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
Note 1
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
3.2.8.  Priorisms of Normative Sciences
 
 
 
Let me start with some questions that continue to puzzle me,
 
in spite of having spent a considerable spell of time pursuing
 
their answers, and not for a lack of listening to the opinions
 
expressed on various sides.  I first present these questions as
 
independently of the current context as I possibly can, and then
 
I return to justify their relevance to the present inquiry.
 
 
 
The questions that concern me concern the relationships of identity, necessity,
 
or sufficiency that can be found to hold among three classes of properties or
 
qualities that can be attributed to or possessed by an agent, and conceivably
 
passed from one agent to another.  The relevant classes of properties or
 
possessions can be schematized as follows:
 
 
 
    T.  "Teachings", learnings, lessons, disciplines, doctrines, dogmas,
 
        or things that can be taught and learned, transmitted and received.
 
 
 
    U.  "Understandings", articles of knowledge, items of comprehension,
 
        bits of potential wisdom that form the possession of knowledge.
 
 
 
    V.  "Virtues", aspects of accomplished performance, attainments of
 
        demonstrated achievement, qualities of accomplishment, completion,
 
        excellence, mastery, maturity, or relative perfection, "grits" or
 
        integrities that form the exercise of art, justice, and wisdom.
 
 
 
The category of "teachings", as a whole, can be
 
analyzed and divided into two subcategories:
 
 
 
    1.  There are "disciplines", which involve elements of action, behavior,
 
        conduct, and instrumental practice in their realization, and thus take
 
        on a fully evaluative, normative, prescriptive, or procedural character.
 
 
 
    2. There are "doctrines", which are properly restricted to realms of attitude,
 
        belief, conjecture, knowledge, and speculative theory, and thus take on
 
        a purely descriptive, factual, logical, or declarative character.
 
 
 
The category of "virtues" can be subjected to a parallel analysis, but here it is
 
not so much the domain as a whole that gets divided into two subcategories as that
 
each virtue gets viewed in two alternative lights:
 
 
 
    1.  With regard to its qualities of action, execution, and performance.
 
  
    2. As it affects its properties of competence, knowledge, and selection.
+
=====5.2.11.1. Principals vs. Principals=====
  
The reason for this difference in the sense of the analysis that applies
+
=====5.2.11.2. The Initial Description of Inquiry=====
to each is that it is one of the better parts of virtue to bring about
 
a synthesis between action and knowledge in the very actuality of
 
the virtue itself.
 
  
At this point one arrives at the general question:
+
=====5.2.11.3. An Early Description of Interpretation=====
  
    What is the logical relation of virtues to teachings?
+
=====5.2.11.4. Descriptions of the Mind=====
  
In particular:
+
=====5.2.11.5. Of Signs and the Mind=====
  
    a. Does one category necesarily imply the other?
+
=====5.2.11.6. Questions of Justification=====
  
    b. Are the categories mutually exclusive?
+
=====5.2.11.7. The Experience of Satisfaction=====
  
    c. Do they form independent categories?
+
=====5.2.11.8. An Organizational Difficulty=====
  
Are virtues the species and teachings the genus, or perhaps vice versa?
+
=====5.2.11.9. Pragmatic Certainties=====
Or do virtues and teachings form domains that are essentially distinct?
 
Whether one is a species of the other or whether the two are essentially
 
different, what are the features that apparently distiguish the one from
 
the other?
 
  
Let me begin by assuming a situation that is plausibly general enough,
+
=====5.2.11.10. Problems and Methods=====
that some virtues can be taught, V & T, and that some cannot, V & ~T.
 
I am not trying to say yet whether both kinds of cases actually occur,
 
but merely wish to consider what follows from the likely alternatives.
 
Then the question as to what distinguishes virtues from teachings has
 
two senses:
 
  
    1. Among virtues that are special cases of teachings, V & T,
+
===5.3. Reflection on Reflection===
        the features that distinguish virtues from teachings are
 
        known as "specific differences".  These qualities serve to
 
        mark out virtues for special consideration from amidst the
 
        common herd of teachings and tend to distinguish the more
 
        exemplary species of virtues from the more inclusive genus
 
        of teachings.
 
  
    2Among virtues that transcend the realm of teachings, V & ~T,
+
Before this discussion can proceed any further I need to introduce a technical vocabulary that is specifically designed to articulate the relation of thought to action and the relation of conduct to purposeThis terminology makes use of a classical distinction between ''action'', as simply taken, and ''conduct'', as fully considered in the light of its means, its ways, and its ends.  To the extent that affects, motivations, and purposes are bound up with one another, the objects that lie within the reach of this language that are able to be grasped by means of its concepts provide a form of cognitive handle on the complex arrays of affective impulsions and the unruly masses of emotional obstructions that serve both to drive and to block the effective performance of inquiry.
        the features that distinguish virtues from teachings are aptly
 
        called "exclusionary exemptions".  These properties place the
 
        reach of virtues beyond the grasp of what is attainable through
 
        any order of teachings and serve to remove the orbit of virtues
 
        a discrete pace from the general run of teachings.
 
  
In either case it can always be said, though without contributing anything of
+
Once the differentiation between sheer activity and deliberate conduct is comprehended on informal grounds and motivated by intuitive illustrations, the formal capabilities of their logical distinction can be sharpened up and turned to instrumental advantage in accomplishing two further aims:
substance to the understanding of the problem, that it is their very property
 
of "virtuosity" or their very quality of "excellence" that distinguishes the
 
virtues from the teachings, whether this character appears to do nothing but
 
add specificity to what can be actualized through learning alone, or solely
 
through teaching, or whether it requires a nature that transcends the level
 
of what can be achieved through any learning or teaching at all.  But this
 
sort of answer only begs the question.  The real question is whether this
 
mark is apparent or real, and how it ought to be analyzed and construed.
 
  
Assuming a tentative understanding of the categories that I indicated
+
# To elucidate the precise nature of the relation between action and conduct.
in the above terms, the questions that I am worried about are these:
+
# To facilitate a study of the whole variety of contingent relations that are possible and maintained between action and conduct.
  
    1.  Did Socrates assert or believe that virtue can be taught, or not?
+
When the relations among these categories are described and analyzed in greater detail, it becomes possible forge their separate links together, and thus to integrate their several lines of information into a fuller comprehension of the relations among thought, the purposes of thought, and the purposes of action in general.
        In symbols, did he assert or believe that V => T, or not?
 
  
    2Did he think that:
+
It is possible to introduce the needed vocabulary, while at the same time advancing a number of concurrent goals of this project, by resorting to the following strategyI inject into this discussion a selected set of passages from the work of C.S. Peirce, chosen with a certain multiplicity of aims in mind.
  
        aknowledge is virtue, in the sense that U  => V ?
+
# These excerpts are taken from Peirce's most thoughtful definitions and discussions of pragmatismThus, the general tenor of their advice is pertinent to the long-term guidance of this project.
 +
# With regard to the target vocabulary, these texts are especially acute in their ability to make all the right distinctions in all the right places, and so they serve to illustrate the requisite concepts in the context of their most appropriate uses.
 +
# Aside from their content being crucial to the scope of the present inquiry, their form, manner, sequence, and interrelations supply the kind of material needed to illustrate an important array of issues involved in the topic of reflection.
 +
# Finally, my reflections on these passages are designed to illustrate the variety of relations that occur between the POV of a writer, especially as it develops through time, and the POV of a reader, in the light of the ways that it deflects its own echoes through a text in order to detect the POV of the writer that led to its being formed in that manner.
  
        b.  virtue is knowledge, in the sense that U <=  V ?
+
The first excerpt appears in the form of a dictionary entry, intended as a definition of ''pragmatism''.
  
        c.  knowledge is virtue, in the sense that U <=> V ?
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
 
 
    3.  Did he teach or try to teach that knowledge can be taught?
 
        In symbols, did he teach or try to teach that U => T ?
 
 
 
My current understanding of the record that is given to us
 
in Plato's Socratic Dialogues can be summarized as follows:
 
 
 
At one point Socrates seems to assume the rule that
 
knowledge can be taught (U => T), but simply in order
 
to pursue the case that virtue is knowledge (V => U)
 
toward the provisional conclusion that virtue can be
 
taught (V => T).  This seems straightforward enough,
 
if it were not for the good chance that all of this
 
reasoning is taking place under the logical aegis
 
of an indirect argument, a reduction to absurdity,
 
designed to show just the opposite of what it has
 
assumed for the sake of initiating the argument.
 
The issue is further clouded by the circumstance
 
that the full context of the argument most likely
 
extends over several Dialogues, not all of which
 
survive, and the intended order of which remains
 
in question.
 
 
 
At other points Socrates appears to claim that knowledge and virtue are
 
neither learned nor taught, in the strictest senses of these words, but
 
can only be "divined", "recollected", or "remembered", that is, recalled,
 
recognized, or reconstituted from the original acquaintance that a soul,
 
being immortal, already has with the real idea or the essential form of
 
each thing in itself.  Still, this leaves open the possibility that one
 
person can help another to guess a truth or to recall what both of them
 
already share in knowing, as if locked away in one or another partially
 
obscured or temporarily forgotten part of their inmost being.  And it is
 
just this freer interpretation of "learning" and "teaching", whereby one
 
agent catalyzes not catechizes another, that a liberal imagination would
 
yet come to call "education".  Therefore, the real issue at stake, both
 
with regard to the aim and as it comes down to the end of this inquiry,
 
is not so much whether knowledge and virtue can be learned and taught
 
as what kind of education is apt to achieve their actualization in the
 
individual and is fit to maintain their realization in the community.
 
 
 
How are these riddles from the origins of intellectual history, whether
 
one finds them far or near and whether one views it as bright or dim,
 
relevant to the present inquiry?  There are a number of reasons why
 
I am paying such close attention to these ancient and apparently
 
distant concerns.  The classical question as to what virtues are
 
teachable is resurrected in the modern question, material to the
 
present inquiry, as to what functions are computable, indeed,
 
most strikingly in regard to the formal structures that each
 
question engenders.  Along with a related question about the
 
nature of the true philosopher, as one hopes to distinguish
 
it from the most sophisticated imitations, all of which is
 
echoed on the present scene in the guise of Turing's test
 
for a humane intelligence, this body of riddles inspires
 
the corpus of most work in AI, if not the cognitive and
 
the computer sciences at large.
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
Note 2
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
3.2.8.  Priorisms of Normative Sciences (cont.)
 
 
 
| Reason alone teaches us to know good and bad.
 
| Conscience, which makes us love the former and
 
| hate the latter, although independent of reason,
 
| cannot therefore be developed without it.  Before
 
| the age of reason we do good and bad without knowing
 
| it, and there is no morality in our actions, although
 
| there sometimes is in the sentiment of other's actions
 
| which have a relation to us.
 
 
|
 
|
| Rousseau, 'Emile', or 'On Education', [Rou_1, 67].
+
<p>'''Pragmatism.''' The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension:  "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have.  Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.2, 1878/1902).
 +
|}
  
Aesthetics, ethics, and logic are categorized as "normative sciences"
+
The second excerpt presents another version of the ''pragmatic maxim'', a recommendation about a way of clarifying meaning that can be taken to stake out the general POV of pragmatism.
because they pursue knowledge about the ways that things ought to be,
 
their objects being beauty, justice, and truth, respectively.  It is
 
generally appreciated that there are intricate patterns of deep and
 
subtle interrelationships that exist among these subjects, and among
 
their objects, but different people seem to intuit different patterns,
 
perhaps at different times.  At least, it seems that they must be seeing
 
different patterns of interrelation from the different ways that they find
 
to enact their insights and intuitions in customs, methods, and practices.
 
In particular, one's conception of science, indeed, one's whole approach
 
to life, is determined by the "priorism" or the "precedence ordering"
 
that one senses among these normative subjects and employs to order
 
their normative objects.  This Section considers a sample of the
 
choices that people typically make in building up a personal or
 
a cultural "priorism of normative sciences" (PONS).
 
  
For example, on the modern scene, among people trained to sport
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
all of the modern fashions of scientific reasoning, it is almost
 
a reflex of their modern identities to echo in their doctrines,
 
if not always to follow in their disciplines, those ancients who
 
taught that "knowledge is virtue".  This means that to know the
 
truth about anything is to know how to act rightly in regard to
 
it, but more yet, to be compelled to act that way.  It is usually
 
understood that this maxim posits a relation between the otherwise
 
independent realms of knowledge and action, where knowledge resides
 
in domains of signs and ideas, and where action presides over domains
 
of objects, states of being, and their changes through time.  However,
 
it is not so frequently remembered that this connection cuts both ways,
 
causing the evidence of virtue as exercised in practice to reflect on
 
the presumption of knowledge as possessed in theory, where each defect
 
of virtue necessarily reflects a defect of knowledge.
 
 
 
In other words, converting the rule through its contrapositive yields
 
the equivalent proposition "evil is ignorance", making every fault of
 
conduct traceable to a fault of knowledge.  Everyone knows the typical
 
objection to this claim, saying that one often knows better than to do
 
a certain thing while going ahead and doing it anyway, but the axiom is
 
meant to be taken as a new definition of knowledge, ruling overall that
 
if one really, really knows better, then one simply does not do it, by
 
virtue of the definition.  This sort of reasoning issues in the setting
 
of priorities, putting knowledge before virtue, theory before practice,
 
beauty and justice after truth, or reason itself before rhyme and right.
 
 
 
It is not that reason sees any reason to disparage the just deserts that
 
it places after or intends to diminish the gratifications that it defers.
 
Indeed, it aims to give these latter values a place of honor by placing
 
them more in the direction of its aims, and it thinks that it can take
 
them up in this order without risking a consequential loss of geniality.
 
According to this rationale, it is the first order of business to know
 
what is true, while purely an afterthought to do what is good.
 
 
 
It is not too surprising that reason assigns a priority to itself in its
 
own lists of aims, goods, values, and virtues, but this only renders its
 
bias, its favor, its preference, and its prejudice all the more evident.
 
And since the patent favoritism that reason displays is itself a reason
 
of the most aesthetic kind, it thus knocks itself out of its first place
 
ranking, the ranking that reason assumes for itself in the first place,
 
by dint of the prerogative that it exercises and in view of the category
 
of excuse that it uses, from then on deferring to beauty, to happiness,
 
or to pleasure, and all that is admirable in and of itself, or desired
 
for its own sake.  This self-demotion of reason is one of the unintended
 
consequences of its own argumentation, that leads it down the garden path
 
to a self-deprecation.  It is an immediate corollary of reason trying to
 
distinguish itself from the other goods, granting to itself an initially
 
arbitrary distinction, and then reflecting on the unjustified presumption
 
of this self-devotion.  This condition, that reason suffers and that reason
 
endures, is one that continues through all of the rest of its argumentations,
 
that is, unless it can find a better reason than the one it gives itself to
 
begin, or until such time as it can show that all good reasons are one and
 
the same.
 
 
 
So the maxim "knowlege is virtue", in its modern interpretation,
 
at least, leads to the following results.  It makes just action,
 
right behavior, and virtuous conduct not merely one among many
 
practical tests but the only available criterion of knowledge,
 
reason, and truth.  Sufficient criterion?  If a conceptual rule
 
is the only available test of some property, then it must be an
 
essential criterion of that property.  This conceives the essence
 
of knowledge to lie in a conception of action.  This maxim can
 
be taken, by way of its contrapositive, as a pragmatic principle,
 
positing a rule to the effect that any defect of virtue reflects
 
a defect of knowledge.  This makes truth the "sine qua non" of
 
justice, right action, or virtuous conduct, that is, it makes
 
reason the "without which not" of morality.  Since virtuous
 
conduct is distinguished as that action which leads to what
 
we call "beauty", "beatitude", or "happiness", by any other
 
name just that which is admirable in and of itself, desired
 
for its own sake, or sought as an end in itself, whether it
 
is only in the conduct itself or in a distinct product that
 
the beauty is held to abide, this makes logic the sublimest
 
art.  (Why be logical?  Becuase it pleases me to be logical.)
 
 
 
| It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.
 
 
|
 
|
| President William Jefferson Clinton, August ?, 1998
+
<p>Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows:  Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have.  Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.438, 1878/1905).
 +
|}
  
Of course, there is much that is open to interpretation about the maxim
+
Over time, Peirce tried to express the basic idea contained in the ''pragmatic maxim'' (PM) in numerous different ways.  In the remainder of this work, the gist of the pragmatic maxim, the logical content that appropriates its general intention over a variety of particular contexts, the common denominator of all of its versionary approximations, can be referred to with maximal simplicity as &ldquo;PM&rdquo;.  Otherwise, subscripts can be used in contexts where it is necessary to mention a particular form, for instance, referring to the versions just given as &ldquo;PM<sub>1</sub>&rdquo; and &ldquo;PM<sub>2</sub>&rdquo;, respectively.
"knowledge is virtue".  In particular, does the copula "is" represent a
 
necessary implication ("=>"), a sufficient reduction ("is only", "<="),
 
or a necessary and sufficient identification ("<=>")?
 
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
Considered side by side like this, any perceptible differences between PM<sub>1</sub> and PM<sub>2</sub> appear to be trivial and insignificant, lacking in every conceivable practical consequence, as indeed would be the case if both statements were properly understood.  One would like to say that both variants belong to the same ''pragmatic equivalence class'' (PEC), where all of the peculiarities of their individual expressions are absorbed into the effective synonymy of a single operational maxim of conduct.  Unfortunately, no matter how well this represents the ideal, it does not describe the present state of understanding with respect to the pragmatic maxim, and this is the situation that my work is given to address.
  
Priorisms of Normative Sciences
+
I am taking the trouble to recite both of these very close variants of the pragmatic maxim because I want to examine how their subsequent interpretations have tended to diverge over time and to analyze why the traditions of interpretation that stem from them are likely to develop in such a way that they eventually come to be at cross-purposes to each other.
  
01http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04264.html
+
There is a version of the pragmatic maxim, more commonly cited, that uses ''we'' and ''our'' instead of ''you'' and ''your''At first sight, this appears to confer a number of clear advantages on the expression of the maximThe second person is ambiguous with regard to number, and it can be read as both singular and plural, since the &hellip;
02http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04265.html
 
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to translate ''our concept of the object'' into ''the meaning of a concept''.  This displacement of the genuine article from ''the object'' to ''the meaning'' obliterates the contingently indefinite commonality of ''our'' manner of thinking and replaces it with the absolutely definite pretension to ''the'' unique truth of the matter // changing the emphasis from common conception to unique intention.  This apparently causes them to read ''the whole of our conception'' as ''the whole meaning of a conception'' &hellip; // from ''thee'' and ''thy'' to ''the'' and ''our'' //
</pre>
 
  
==Work Area 3==
+
The pragmatic maxim, taking the form of an injunctive prescription, a piece of advice, or a practical recommendation, provides an operational description of a certain philosophical outlook or ''frame of reference''.  This is the general POV that is called ''pragmatism'', or ''pragmaticism'', as Peirce later renamed it when he wanted more pointedly to emphasize the principles that distinguish his own particular POV from the general run of its appropriations, interpretations, and common misconstruals.  Thus the pragmatic maxim, in a way that is deliberately consistent with the principles of the POV to which it leads, enunciates a practical idea and provides a truly pragmatic definition of that very same POV.
  
<pre>
+
I am quoting a version of the pragmatic maxim whose form of address to the reader exemplifies a second person POV on the part of the writer.  In spite of the fact that this particular variation does not appear in print until a later date, my own sense of the matter leads me to think that it actually recaptures the original form of the pragmatic insight.  My reasons for believing this are connected with Peirce's early notion of ''tuity'', the second person character of the mind's dialogue with nature and with other minds, and a topic to be addressed in detail at a later point in this discussion.
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
  
Principle of Rational Action
+
By way of a piece of evidence for this impression, one that is internal to the texts, both versions begin with the second person POV that is implied by their imperative mood.
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
Just as the sign in a sign relation addresses the interpretant intended in the mind of its interpreter, PM<sub>2</sub> is addressed to an interpretant or effect intended in the mind of its reader.
  
| Document History
+
The third excerpt puts a gloss on the meaning of a ''practical bearing'' and provides an alternative statement of the pragmatic maxim (PM<sub>3</sub>).
|
 
| Subject:  Inquiry Driven Systems:  An Inquiry Into Inquiry
 
| Contact:  Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
 
| Version:  Draft 8.75
 
| Created:  23 Jun 1996
 
| Revised:  10 Jun 2002
 
| Advisor:  M.A. Zohdy
 
| Setting:  Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
 
| Excerpt:  3.2.9 (Principle of Rational Action)
 
|
 
| http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
 
  
3.2.9.  Principle of Rational Action
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
 
 
| Knowledge systems are just another level within this same hierarchy,
 
| another way to describe a system.  ...  The knowledge level abstracts
 
| completely from the internal processing and the internal representation.
 
| Thus, all that is left is the content of the representations and the goals
 
| toward which that content will be used.  As a level, it has a medium, namely,
 
| knowledge.  It has a law of behavior, namely, if the system wants to attain
 
| goal G and knows that to do act A will lead to attaining G, then it will do A.
 
| This law is a simple form of rationality -- that an agent will operate in its
 
| own best interests according to what it knows.
 
 
|
 
|
| Allen Newell, 'Unified Theories of Cognition', [New, 48-49].
+
<p>Such reasonings and all reasonings turn upon the idea that if one exerts certain kinds of volition, one will undergo in return certain compulsory perceptionsNow this sort of consideration, namely, that certain lines of conduct will entail certain kinds of inevitable experiences is what is called a "practical consideration". Hence is justified the maxim, belief in which constitutes pragmatism;  namely,</p>
 
 
How does this ancient issue, concerning the relation of reason, to action,
 
to the good that is overall desired or intended, transform itself through
 
the medium of intellectual history onto the modern scene?  In particular,
 
what bearing does it have on the subjects of artificial intelligence and
 
systems theory, and on the object of the present inquiry?  As it turns out,
 
in classical cybernetics and in systems theory, and especially in the parts
 
of AI and cognitive science that have to do with heuristic reasoning, the
 
transformations of the problem have tarried so long in the vicinity of
 
a singular triviality that the original form of the question is nearly
 
unmistakable in every modern version.  The transposition of the theme
 
<Reason, Action, Good> into the mode of <Intelligence, Operation, Goal>
 
can make for an interesting variation, but it does not alter the given
 
state of accord or discord among its elements and does nothing to turn
 
the lock into its key.
 
 
 
How do these questions bear on the present inquiry?  Suppose that
 
one is trying to understand something like an agency of life, a
 
capacity for inquiry, a faculty of intelligence, or a power of
 
learning and reasoningFor starters, "something like" is a
 
little vague, so let me suggest calling the target class of
 
agencies, capacities, faculties, or powers that most hold
 
my interest here by the name of "virtues", thereby invoking
 
as an offstage direction the classical concepts of "anima"
 
and "arete" that seem to prompt them all.  What all of these
 
virtues have in common is their appearance, whether it strikes
 
one on first impression or only develops in one's appreciation
 
through a continuing acquaintance over time, of transcending or
 
rising infinitely far beyond all of one's attempts to construct
 
them from or reduce them to the sorts of instrumentalities that
 
are much more basic, familiar, mundane, ordinary, simpler, in
 
short, the kinds of abilities that one already understands well
 
enough and is granted to have well under one's command or control.
 
For convenience, I dub this class of abilities, that a particular
 
agent has a thorough understanding of and a complete competency in,
 
as the "resources" of that agent.
 
 
 
The language of "virtues" and "resources" gives me a way to express the
 
main problem of this inquiry, indeed, the overriding challenge that is
 
engaged in every round of effective analysis and functional modeling.
 
I emphasized the "apparent transcendence" of virtues because the hope
 
is often precisely that this appearance will turn out to be false, not
 
that the virtue is false in any of the properties that it seems to have,
 
but that the awesome aspect of its unapproachability can be diminished,
 
and that a way opens up to acquire this virtue by means of the kinds of
 
gradual steps that are available to a fallible and a finite agent.
 
  
If I had my own choice in the matter I would proceed by using the words
+
<p>In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception;  and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception.</p>
"knowledge" and "understanding" as synonyms, deploying them in ways that
+
|-
make them refer to one and the same resource, roughly corresponding the
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.9, 1905).
Greek "episteme", and thus guaranteeing that the faculty they denote is
+
|}
teachable.  But others use these terms in ways that make one or the other
 
of them suggest a transcendental aptitude more akin to "wisdom", and thus
 
amounting to a virtue extending in the intellectual direction whose very
 
teachability is open to question. Keeping this variety of senses and
 
understandings in mind, it is advisable to be flexible in one's usage.
 
  
Virtue involves, not just knowing what is the case and knowing what can be done
+
The fourth excerpt illustrates one of Peirce's many attempts to get the sense of the pragmatic POV across by rephrasing the pragmatic maxim in an alternative way (PM<sub>4</sub>).  In introducing this version, he addresses an order of prospective critics who do not deem a simple heuristic maxim, much less one that concerns itself with a routine matter of logical procedure, as forming a sufficient basis for a whole philosophy.
in each case, but knowing how to do each thing that can be done, knowing which
 
is the best to do in a given case, and finally, having the willingness to do it.
 
  
What are the features that are really at stake in the examination of these
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
admittedly paradigmatic and even parabolic examples?  There are two ways
 
that virtues appear to transcend the limitations of effectively finite
 
and empirically rational resources and thus appear to distinguish
 
themselves from teachings and understandings, that is, from the
 
orders of disciplined conduct and doctrinal knowledge that bind
 
themselves too severely to the merely mechanical ritual and the
 
purely rote recitation.
 
 
 
1.  In their qualitative aspect, virtues appear to combine characters of act and
 
    will that appear to be lacking in the simple imputations of knowledge alone.
 
    In particular, virtues appear to display qualities of persistent action,
 
    efficient volition, the will to actually do the right thing, and the
 
    willingness to keep on doing the right thing on each occasion that
 
    arises.  Thus, virtues appear to possess a live performance value
 
    that is not guaranteed by simply knowing the right thing to do and
 
    to say, indeed, they appear to have a unique and irreproducible mix
 
    of qualities that goes beyond the facts circumscribed by any name and
 
    thus that goes missing from the ordinary interpretation of its meaning.
 
 
 
2.  In their quantitative aspect, virtues appear to be infinitely far
 
    beyond the grasp of discrete, finite, and even rational resources.
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
Principle of Rational Action
 
 
 
01.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04266.html
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
</pre>
 
 
 
==Work Area 4==
 
 
 
<pre>
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
Pragmatic Cosmos
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
| Document History
 
|
 
| Subject:  Inquiry Driven Systems:  An Inquiry Into Inquiry
 
| Contact:  Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
 
| Version:  Draft 8.75
 
| Created:  23 Jun 1996
 
| Revised:  10 Jun 2002
 
| Advisor:  M.A. Zohdy
 
| Setting:  Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
 
| Excerpt:  Section 3.2.10 (The Pragmatic Cosmos)
 
 
|
 
|
| http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
+
<p>On their side, one of the faults that I think they might find with me is that I make pragmatism to be a mere maxim of logic instead of a sublime principle of speculative philosophy.  In order to be admitted to better philosophical standing I have endeavored to put pragmatism as I understand it into the same form of a philosophical theoremI have not succeeded any better than this:</p>
 
 
3.2.10.  The Pragmatic Cosmos
 
 
 
This Section outlines the general idea of a "priorism of normative sciences" (PONS)
 
and it presents the particular PONS that I will refer to as the "pragmatic cosmos".
 
This is the precedence ordering for the normative sciences that best accords with
 
the pragmatic approach to inquiry, incidentally framing and introducing the order
 
of normative sciences that I plan to deploy throughout the rest of this work.
 
From this point on, whenever I mention a PONS without further qualification,
 
it will always be one or another version of a pragmatic PONS that I mean to
 
invoke, all the while taking into consideration the circumstance that its
 
underlying theme still leaves a lot of room for variation in the carrying
 
out of its live interpretation.
 
 
 
Roughly speaking, in regard to the forms of human aspiration that are
 
exercised in normative practices and studied in the normative sciences,
 
the study of states or things that satisfy agents is called "aesthetics",
 
the study of actions that lead agents toward these goals or these goods
 
is called "ethics", and the study of signs that indicate these actions
 
is called "logic".  Understood this way, logic involves the enumeration
 
and the analysis of signs with regard to their "truth", a property that
 
only makes sense in the light of the actions that are indicated and the
 
objects that are desired.  In other words, logic evaluates signs with
 
regard to the trustworthiness of the actions that they indicate, and
 
this means with respect to the utility that these indications exhibit
 
in a mediate relationship to their objects.  As an appreciative study,
 
logic prizes the properties of signs that allow them to collect the
 
scattered actions of agents into coherent forms of conduct and that
 
permit them to indicate the general courses of conduct that are most
 
likely to lead agents toward their objects.
 
 
 
From this "pragmatic" point of view, logic is a special case of ethics,
 
one that is concerned with the conduct of signs, and ethics is a special
 
case of aesthetics, one that is interested in the good of actual conduct.
 
Another way to approach this perspective is to start with the "good" of
 
anything and to work back through the maze of actions and indications
 
that lead to it.  An action that leads to the good is a good action,
 
and this puts the questions of ethics among the questions of aesthetics,
 
as the ones that contemplate the goods of actions.  A sign that indicates
 
a good action, that shows a good way to act, is a good sign, and this puts
 
the domain of logic squarely within the domain of aesthetics.  Moreover,
 
thinking is a sign process that moves from signs to interpretant signs,
 
and this makes thinking a special kind of action.  In sum, the questions
 
that logic takes up in its critique of good signs and good thinking are
 
properly seen as special cases of aesthetic and ethical considerations.
 
 
 
The circumstance that the domain of logic is set within the domain of ethics,
 
which is further set within the domain of aesthetics, does not keep each realm
 
from rising to such a height in another dimension that each keeps a watch over
 
all of the domains that it is set within.  In sum, the image is that of three
 
cylinders standing on their concentric bases, telescopically extending to a
 
succession of heights, with the narrowest the highest and the broadest the
 
lowest, rising to the contemplation of the point that virtually completes
 
their perspective, just as if wholly sheltered by the envelope of the cone
 
that they jointly support, no matter what its ultimate case may be, whether
 
imaginary or real, rational or transcendental.
 
 
 
Logic has a monitory function with respect to ethics and aesthetics,
 
while ethics has a monitory function solely with respect to aesthetics.
 
By way of definition, a "monitory function" is a duty, a role, or a task
 
that one discipline has to watch over the practice of another discipline,
 
checking the feasibility of its intentions and its proposed operations,
 
evaluating the conformity of its performed operations to its intentions,
 
and, when called for, reforming the faith, the feasance, or the fidelity
 
of its acts in accord with its aims.  A definite attitude and particular
 
perspective are prerequisites for an agent to exercise a monitory role
 
with any hope or measure of success.  The necessary station arises from
 
the observation that not all things are possible, at least, not at once,
 
and especially that not all ends are achievable by a fallible creature
 
within a finite creation.  Accordingly, the agent of a monitory faculty
 
needs to help the agency that is involved in the effort or the endeavor
 
it monitors to observe the due limits of its proper arena, the higher
 
considerations, and the inherent constraints that force a fallible and
 
finite agent to choose among the available truths, acts, and aims.
 
 
 
To recapitulate the pragmatic "priorism of normative sciences" (PONS):
 
 
 
Logic, ethics, and aesthetics, in that order, cannot succeed in any of
 
their aims, whether they turn to contemplating the natures of the true,
 
the just, and the beautiful, respectively, for their own sakes, whether
 
they turn to speculating on the certificates, the semblances, or the more
 
species tokens of these goods, as they might be utilized toward a divergent
 
conception of their values, or whether they convert from the one forum to the
 
other market, and back again, in an endless series of exchanges, that is, unless
 
their prospective agents possess the initial capital that can only be supplied by
 
competencies at the corresponding intellectual virtues, and until they are willing
 
to risk the stakes of adequately generous overhead investments, on orders that are
 
demanded to fund the performance of the associated practical disciplines, namely,
 
those that are appropriate to the good of signs, the good of acts, and the good
 
of aims in themselves.  In sum, the domains and the disciplines of logic, ethics,
 
and aesthetics, in that order, are placed so aptly in regard to one another that
 
each one waits on the order of its watch and each one maintains its own proper
 
monitory function with respect to all of the ones that follow on after it.
 
 
 
Why do things have to be this way?  Why is it necessary to impose
 
a PONS, much less a pragmatic PONS, on the array of goods and quests?
 
If everyone who reflects on the issue for a sufficient spell of time
 
seems to agree that the Beautiful, the Just, and the True are one and
 
the same in the End, then why is any PONS necessary?  Its necessity is
 
apparently relative to a certain contigency affecting the typical agent,
 
namely, the contingency of being a fallible and finite creature.  Perhaps
 
from a "God's Eye View" (GEV), Beauty, Justice, and Truth all amount to
 
a single Good, the only Good there is.  But the imperfect creature is
 
not given this view as its realized actuality and cannot contain its
 
vision within the "point of view" (POV) that is proper to it.  Even
 
if it sees the possibility of this unity, it cannot actualize what
 
it sees at once, at best being driven to work toward its realization
 
measure by measure, and that is only if the agent is capable of reason
 
and reflection at all.
 
 
 
The imperfect agent lives in a world of seeming beauty, seeming justice,
 
and seeming truth.  Fortunately, the symmetry of this seeming insipidity
 
can break up in relation to itself, and with the loss of the objective
 
world's equipoise and indifference goes all the equanimity and most of
 
the insouciance of the agent in question.  It happens like this:  Among
 
the number of apparent goods and amid the manifold of good appearances,
 
one soon discovers that not all seeming goods are alike.  Seeming beauty
 
is the most seemly and the least deceptive, since it does not vitiate its
 
own intention in merely seeming to achieve it, and does not destroy what
 
it reaches for in merely seeming to grasp it.
 
 
 
Monitory functions, as a rule, tend to shade off in extreme directions,
 
on the one hand becoming a bit too prescriptive before the act, whether
 
the hopeful effects are hortatory or prohibitory, and on the other hand
 
becoming much too reactionary after the fact, whether the tardy effects
 
are exculpatory or recriminatory.  In the midst of these extremes, that
 
is, within the scheme of monitory functions at large, it is possible to
 
distinguish subtler variations in the nuances of their action that work
 
toward the accomplishment the same general purpose, but that achieve it
 
with a form of such gentle urging all throughout the continuing process
 
of gaining a good, that affect a promise of such laudatory rewards, and
 
that afford an array of incidental senses of such ongoing satisfaction,
 
even before, while, and after the aimed for good is effected, that this
 
class of moderate measures is aptly known as "advisory functions" (AF's).
 
 
 
In the process of noticing what is necessary and what is impossible,
 
and in distinguishing itself from the general run of monitory functions,
 
an AF is able to adapt itself to get a better grip on what is possible,
 
to the point that it is eventually able to make constructive suggestions
 
to the agent that it monitors, and thus to give advice that is both apt
 
and applicable, positive and practical, or usable and usefulIf this
 
is beginning to sound familiar, then it is not entirely an accident.
 
As I see it, it is from these very grounds that the facility for
 
"abductive simile" or the faculty of "abductive synthesis" (AS)
 
first arises, to wit, just on the horizon of monitory observation
 
and just on the advent of advisory contemplation that an agent of
 
inquiry, learning, and reasoning first acquires the "quasi" ability
 
to regard one thing just as if it were construed to be another and
 
to consider each thing just inasmuch as it haps to be like another.
 
 
 
In the abode of the monitor I thus discover the first clues I can grasp
 
as to how the "abductive bearing" (AB) of hypothetical reasoning can be
 
bound together from the primitive elements of the most uncertain states
 
that the mind can ever know.  To my way of thinking, this derivation of
 
AB's from the general conduct of monitory duties and the specific ethos
 
of advisory roles, all as pursuant to the PONS, seems to strike a chord
 
with the heart of wonder beating at the core of every agent of inquiry,
 
and accordingly to fashion an answer to the central query, in the words
 
of Wm. Shakespeare: "Where is fancy bred?"  Beyond the responsibility
 
to continue driving the cycle of inquiry and to keep on circulating the
 
fresh communication of provisional answers, this form of speculation on
 
the origin of the AB points out at least one way whence these faculties
 
of guessing widely but guessing well can lead me from the conditions of
 
amazement, bewilderment, and consternation that the start of an inquiry
 
all but constantly finds me in.
 
 
 
The anchoring or the inauguration of an "abductive bearing" (AB) within
 
the operations of an "advisory function" (AF), and the enscouncement or
 
the installation of this positively constructive advisory, in its turn,
 
within the office of an irreducibly negative monitory function, one that
 
watches over the active, aesthetic, and affective aspects of experience
 
with an eye to the circumstance that not all goods can be actualized at
 
once -- this array of inferences from the apical structure of the PONS
 
ought to suffice to remind each agent of inquiry of how it all hinges
 
on the affective values that one feels and the effective acts that
 
one does.
 
 
 
In principle, therefore, logic assumes a purely ancillary role in regard
 
to the ethics of active conduct and the aesthetics of affective values.
 
On balance, however, logic can achieve heights of abstraction, points of
 
perspective, and summits of reflection that are otherwise unavailable to
 
a mind embroiled in the tangle of its continuing actions and immersed in
 
the flow of its current passions.  By rising above this plain immersion
 
in the dementias swept out by action and passion, logic can acquire the
 
status of a handle, something an agent can use in its situation to avoid
 
being swept along with the tide of affairs, something that keeps it from
 
being swept up with all that the times press on it to sweep out of mind.
 
By means of this instrument, logic affords the mind an ability to survey
 
the passing scene in ways that it cannot hope to imagine while engaged in
 
the engrossing business of keeping its gnosis to the grindstone, and so it
 
becomes apt to adopt the attitude that it needs in order to become capable
 
of reflecting on its very own actions, affects, and axioms.
 
 
 
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
</pre>
 
 
 
==Work Area 5==
 
  
<pre>
+
<p>Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood.</p>
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.18, 1903).
 +
|}
  
Reflection on Reflection
+
I am including Peirce's preamble to his restatement of the principle because I think that the note of irony and the foreshadowing of comedy intimated by it are important to understanding the gist of what follows.  In this rendition the statement of the principle of pragmatism is recast in a partially self-referent fashion, and since it is itself delivered as a "theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood" the full content of its own deeper meaning is something that remains to be unwrapped, precisely through a self-application to its own expression of the very principle it expresses.  To wit, this statement, the form of whose phrasing is forced by conventional biases to take on the style of a declarative judgment, describes itself as a "confused form of thought", in need of being amended, converted, and translated into its operational interpretant, that is to say, its viable pragmatic equivalent.
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
The fifth excerpt, PM<sub>5</sub>, is useful by way of additional clarification, and was aimed to correct a variety of historical misunderstandings that arose over time with regard to the intended meaning of the pragmatic POV.
  
| Document History
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
|
 
| Subject:  Inquiry Driven Systems:  An Inquiry Into Inquiry
 
| Contact:  Jon Awbrey <jawbrey@oakland.edu>
 
| Version:  Draft 8.75
 
| Created:  23 Jun 1996
 
| Revised:  10 Jun 2002
 
| Advisor:  M.A. Zohdy
 
| Setting:  Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA
 
| Excerpt:  Subdivision 3.3 (Reflection on Reflection)
 
 
|
 
|
| http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm
+
<p>The doctrine appears to assume that the end of man is action &mdash; a stoical axiom which, to the present writer at the age of sixty, does not recommend itself so forcibly as it did at thirty. If it be admitted, on the contrary, that action wants an end, and that that end must be something of a general description, then the spirit of the maxim itself, which is that we must look to the upshot of our concepts in order rightly to apprehend them, would direct us towards something different from practical facts, namely, to general ideas, as the true interpreters of our thought.</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).
 +
|}
  
3.3.  Reflection on Reflection
+
If anyone thinks that an explanation on this order, whatever degree of directness and explicitness one perceives it to have, ought to be enough to correct any amount of residual confusion, then one is failing to take into consideration the persistence of a ''particulate'' interpretation, that is, a favored, isolated, and partial interpretation, once it has taken or mistaken its moment.
  
Before this discussion can proceed any further I need to introduce a
+
A sixth excerpt, PM<sub>6</sub>, is useful in stating the bearing of the pragmatic maxim on the topic of reflection, namely, that it makes all of pragmatism boil down to nothing more or less than a method of reflection.
technical vocabulary that is specifically designed to articulate the
 
relation of thought to action and the relation of conduct to purpose.
 
This terminology makes use of a classical distinction between "action",
 
as simply taken, and "conduct", as fully considered in the light of its
 
means, its ways, and its ends.  To the extent that affects, motivations,
 
and purposes are bound up with one another, the objects that lie within
 
the reach of this language that are able to be grasped by means of its
 
concepts provide a form of cognitive handle on the complex arrays of
 
affective impulsions and the unruly masses of emotional obstructions
 
that serve both to drive and to block the effective performance of
 
inquiry.
 
  
Once the differentiation between sheer activity and deliberate conduct is
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
comprehended on informal grounds and motivated by intuitive illustrations,
 
the formal capabilities of their logical distinction can be sharpened up
 
and turned to instrumental advantage in accomplishing two further aims:
 
 
 
1.  To elucidate the precise nature of the
 
    relation between action and conduct.
 
 
 
2.  To facilitate a study of the whole variety
 
    of contingent relations that are possible
 
    and maintained between action and conduct.
 
 
 
When the relations among these categories are described and analyzed in
 
greater detail, it becomes possible forge their separate links together,
 
and thus to integrate their several lines of information into a fuller
 
comprehension of the relations among thought, the purposes of thought,
 
and the purposes of action in general.
 
 
 
It is possible to introduce the needed vocabulary, while at the same time
 
advancing a number of concurrent goals of this project, by resorting to the
 
following strategy.  I inject into this discussion a selected set of passages
 
from the work of C.S. Peirce, chosen with a certain multiplicity of aims in mind.
 
 
 
1.  These excerpts are taken from Peirce's most thoughtful definitions
 
    and discussions of pragmatism.  Thus, the general tenor of their
 
    advice is pertinent to the long-term guidance of this project.
 
 
 
2.  With regard to the target vocabulary, these texts are especially
 
    acute in their ability to make all the right distinctions in all
 
    the right places, and so they serve to illustrate the requisite
 
    concepts in the context of their most appropriate uses.
 
 
 
3.  Aside from their content being crucial to the scope of the present
 
    inquiry, their form, manner, sequence, and interrelations supply
 
    the kind of material needed to illustrate an important array
 
    of issues involved in the topic of reflection.
 
 
 
4.  Finally, my reflections on these passages are designed to
 
    illustrate the variety of relations that occur between the
 
    POV of a writer, especially as it develops through time, and
 
    the POV of a reader, in the light of the ways that it deflects
 
    its own echoes through a text in order to detect the POV of the
 
    writer that led to its being formed in that manner.
 
 
 
The first excerpt appears in the form of a dictionary entry,
 
intended as a definition of "pragmatism".
 
 
 
| Pragmatism.  The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up
 
| by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of
 
| apprehension:  "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have
 
| practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. 
 
| Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception
 
| of the object."
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.2, 1878/1902).
+
<p>The study of philosophy consists, therefore, in reflexion, and pragmatism is that method of reflexion which is guided by constantly holding in view its purpose and the purpose of the ideas it analyzes, whether these ends be of the nature and uses of action or of thought. &hellip;</p>
  
The second excerpt presents another version of the "pragmatic maxim",
+
<p>It will be seen that pragmatism is not a Weltanschauung but is a method of reflexion having for its purpose to render ideas clear.</p>
a recommendation about a way of clarifying meaning that can be taken
+
|-
to stake out the general POV of pragmatism.
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.13 note 1, 1902).
 +
|}
  
| Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows: 
+
The seventh excerpt is a late reflection on the reception of pragmatismWith a sense of exasperation that is almost palpable, this comment tries to justify the maxim of pragmatism and to reconstruct its misreadings by pinpointing a number of false impressions that the intervening years have piled on it, and it attempts once more to correct the deleterious effects of these mistakesRecalling the very conception and birth of pragmatism, it reviews its initial promise and its intended lot in the light of its subsequent vicissitudes and its apparent fateAdopting the style of a ''post mortem'' analysis, it presents a veritable autopsy of the ways that the main truth of pragmatism, for all its practicality, can be murdered by a host of misdissecting disciplinarians, by its most devoted followers.  This doleful but dutiful undertaking is presented next.
| Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you
 
| conceive the objects of your conception to haveThen, your conception
 
| of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.
 
|
 
|(Peirce, CP 5.438, 1878/1905).
 
 
 
Over time, Peirce tried to express the basic idea
 
contained in the "pragmatic maxim" (PM) in numerous
 
different ways.  In the remainder of this work, the
 
gist of the pragmatic maxim, the logical content that
 
appropriates its general intention over a variety of
 
particular contexts, the common denominator of all of
 
its versionary approximations, can be referred to with
 
maximal simplicity as "PM"Otherwise, subscripts can
 
be used in contexts where it is necessary to mention a
 
particular form, for instance, referring to the versions
 
just given as "PM_1" and "PM_2", respectively.
 
 
 
Considered side by side like this, any perceptible differences between
 
PM_1 and PM_2 appear to be trivial and insignificant, lacking in every
 
conceivable practical consequence, as indeed would be the case if both
 
statements were properly understoodOne would like to say that both
 
variants belong to the same "pragmatic equivalence class" (PEC), where
 
all of the peculiarities of their individual expressions are absorbed
 
into the effective synonymy of a single operational maxim of conduct.
 
Unfortunately, no matter how well this represents the ideal, it does
 
not describe the present state of understanding with respect to the
 
pragmatic maxim, and this is the situation that my work is given
 
to address.
 
  
I am taking the trouble to recite both of these very close variants
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
of the pragmatic maxim because I want to examine how their subsequent
 
interpretations have tended to diverge over time and to analyze why the
 
traditions of interpretation that stem from them are likely to develop in
 
such a way that they eventually come to be at cross-purposes to each other.
 
 
 
There is a version of the pragmatic maxim, more commonly cited,
 
that uses "we" and "our" instead of "you" and "your".  At first
 
sight, this appears to confer a number of clear advantages on the
 
expression of the maxim.  The second person is ambiguous with regard
 
to number, and it can be read as both singular and plural, since the ...
 
 
 
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to translate "our concept of the object"
 
into "the meaning of a concept".  This displacement of the genuine article from
 
"the object" to "the meaning" obliterates the contingently indefinite commonality
 
of "our" manner of thinking and replaces it with the absolutely definite pretension
 
to "the" unique truth of the matter // changing the emphasis from common conception
 
to unique intention.  This apparently causes them to read "the whole of our conception"
 
as "the whole meaning of a conception" ...  // from 'thee' and 'thy' to 'the' and 'our'//
 
 
 
The pragmatic maxim, taking the form of an injunctive prescription, a piece
 
of advice, or a practical recommendation, provides an operational description
 
of a certain philosophical outlook or "frame of reference".  This is the general
 
POV that is called "pragmatism", or "pragmaticism", as Peirce later renamed it
 
when he wanted more pointedly to emphasize the principles that distingush his
 
own particular POV from the general run of its appropriations, interpretations,
 
and common misconstruals.  Thus the pragmatic maxim, in a way that is deliberately
 
consistent with the principles of the POV to which it leads, enunciates a practical
 
idea and provides a truly pragmatic definition of that very same POV.
 
 
 
I am quoting a version of the pragmatic maxim whose form of address to
 
the reader exemplifies a "second person" POV on the part of the writer.
 
In spite of the fact that this particular variation does not appear in
 
print until a later date, my own sense of the matter leads me to think
 
that it actually reacaptures the original form of the pragmatic insight.
 
My reasons for believing this are connected with Peirce's early notion
 
of "tuity", the second person character of the mind's dialogue with
 
nature and with other minds, and a topic to be addressed in detail
 
at a later point in this discussion.
 
 
 
By way of a piece of evidence for this impression, one that is internal
 
to the texts, both versions begin with the second person POV that is
 
implied by their imperative mood.
 
 
 
Just as the sign in a sign relation addresses the interpretant intended
 
in the mind of its interpreter, PM_2 is addressed to an interpretant or
 
effect intended in the mind of its reader.
 
 
 
The third excerpt puts a gloss on the meaning of a "practical bearing"
 
and provides an alternative statement of the pragmatic maxim (PM_3).
 
 
 
| Such reasonings and all reasonings turn upon the idea that if one exerts
 
| certain kinds of volition, one will undergo in return certain compulsory
 
| perceptions.  Now this sort of consideration, namely, that certain lines
 
| of conduct will entail certain kinds of inevitable experiences is what
 
| is called a "practical consideration".  Hence is justified the maxim,
 
| belief in which constitutes pragmatism;  namely,
 
|
 
| In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should
 
| consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity
 
| from the truth of that conception;  and the sum of these consequences will
 
| constitute the entire meaning of the conception.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.9, 1905).
+
<p>This employment five times over of derivates of ''concipere'' must then have had a purpose.  In point of fact it had two.  One was to show that I was speaking of meaning in no other sense than that of intellectual purport.  The other was to avoid all danger of being understood as attempting to explain a concept by percepts, images, schemata, or by anything but concepts.  I did not, therefore, mean to say that acts, which are more strictly singular than anything, could constitute the purport, or adequate proper interpretation, of any symbol.  I compared action to the finale of the symphony of thought, belief being a demicadence.  Nobody conceives that the few bars at the end of a musical movement are the purpose of the movement.  They may be called its upshot.</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).
 +
|}
  
The fourth excerpt illustrates one of Peirce's many attempts to get the sense
+
There are notes of emotion ranging from apology to pique to be detected in this eulogy of pragmatism, and all the manner of a pensive elegy that affects the tone of its contemplation.  It recounts the various ways that the good of the best among our maxims is "oft interrèd with their bones", how the aim of the pragmatic maxim to clarify thought gets clouded over with the dust of recalcitrant prepossessions, drowned in the drift of antediluvian predilections, lost in the clamor of prevailing trends and the shuffle of assorted novelties, and even buried with the fractious contentions that it can tend on occasion to inspireIt details the evils that are apt to be done in the name of this précis of pragmatism if ever it is construed beyond its ambition, and sought to be elevated from a working POV to the imperial status of a Weltanshauung.
of the pragmatic POV across by rephrasing the pragmatic maxim in an alternative
 
way (PM_4)In introducing this version, he addresses an order of prospective
 
critics who do not deem a simple heuristic maxim, much less one that concerns
 
itself with a routine matter of logical procedure, as forming a sufficient
 
basis for a whole philosophy.
 
  
| On their side, one of the faults that I think they might find with me is that
+
The next three elaborations of this POV are bound to sound mysterious at this point, but they are necessary to the integrity of the whole work.  In any case, it is a good thing to assemble all these pieces in one place, for future reference if nothing else.
| I make pragmatism to be a mere maxim of logic instead of a sublime principle
 
| of speculative philosophy.  In order to be admitted to better philosophical
 
| standing I have endeavored to put pragmatism as I understand it into the
 
| same form of a philosophical theorem.  I have not succeeded any better
 
| than this:
 
|
 
| Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible
 
| in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose
 
| only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding
 
| practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in
 
| the imperative mood.
 
|
 
|(Peirce, CP 5.18, 1903).
 
  
I am including Peirce's preamble to his restatement of the principle
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
because I think that the note of irony and the foreshadowing of comedy
 
intimated by it are important to understanding the gist of what follows.
 
In this rendition the statement of the principle of pragmatism is recast
 
in a partially self-referent fashion, and since it is itself delivered as
 
a "theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood"
 
the full content of its own deeper meaning is something that remains to
 
be unwrapped, precisely through a self-application to its own expression
 
of the very principle it expresses.  To wit, this statement, the form of
 
whose phrasing is forced by conventional biases to take on the style of
 
a declarative judgment, describes itself as a "confused form of thought",
 
in need of being amended, converted, and translated into its operational
 
interpretant, that is to say, its viable pragmatic equivalent.
 
 
 
The fifth excerpt, PM_5, is useful by way of additional clarification,
 
and was aimed to correct a variety of historical misunderstandings that
 
arose over time with regard to the intended meaning of the pragmatic POV.
 
 
 
| The doctrine appears to assume that the end of man is action —-
 
| a stoical axiom which, to the present writer at the age of
 
| sixty, does not recommend itself so forcibly as it did at
 
| thirty.  If it be admitted, on the contrary, that action
 
| wants an end, and that that end must be something of a
 
| general description, then the spirit of the maxim itself,
 
| which is that we must look to the upshot of our concepts
 
| in order rightly to apprehend them, would direct us towards
 
| something different from practical facts, namely, to general
 
| ideas, as the true interpreters of our thought.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).
+
<p>When we come to study the great principle of continuity and see how all is fluid and every point directly partakes the being of every other, it will appear that individualism and falsity are one and the same. Meantime, we know that man is not whole as long as he is single, that he is essentially a possible member of society.  Especially, one man's experience is nothing, if it stands alone.  If he sees what others cannot, we call it hallucination.  It is not "my" experience, but "our" experience that has to be thought of;  and this "us" has indefinite possibilities.</p>
 
+
|-
If anyone thinks that an explanation on this order, whatever
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.402 note 2, 1893).
degree of directness and explicitness one perceives it to have,
+
|}
ought to be enough to correct any amount of residual confusion,
 
then one is failing to take into consideration the persistence
 
of a "particulate" interpretation, that is, a favored, isolated,
 
and partial interpretation, once it has taken or mistaken its
 
moment.
 
 
 
A sixth excerpt, PM_6, is useful in stating the bearing of
 
the pragmatic maxim on the topic of reflection, namely, that
 
it makes all of pragmatism boil down to nothing more or less
 
than a method of reflection.
 
  
| The study of philosophy consists, therefore, in reflexion, and pragmatism
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
| is that method of reflexion which is guided by constantly holding in view
 
| its purpose and the purpose of the ideas it analyzes, whether these ends
 
| be of the nature and uses of action or of thought.  ...
 
|
 
| It will be seen that pragmatism is not a Weltanschauung but is a
 
| method of reflexion having for its purpose to render ideas clear.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.13 note 1, 1902).
+
<p>Nevertheless, the maxim has approved itself to the writer, after many years of trial, as of great utility in leading to a relatively high grade of clearness of thought. He would venture to suggest that it should always be put into practice with conscientious thoroughness, but that, when that has been done, and not before, a still higher grade of clearness of thought can be attained by remembering that the only ultimate good which the practical facts to which it directs attention can subserve is to further the development of concrete reasonableness;  so that the meaning of the concept does not lie in any individual reactions at all, but in the manner in which those reactions contribute to that development. &hellip;</p>
  
The seventh excerpt is a late reflection on the reception of pragmatism.
+
<p>Almost everybody will now agree that the ultimate good lies in the evolutionary process in some way. If so, it is not in individual reactions in their segregation, but in something general or continuous.  Synechism is founded on the notion that the coalescence, the becoming continuous, the becoming governed by laws, the becoming instinct with general ideas, are but phases of one and the same process of the growth of reasonableness.</p>
With a sense of exasperation that is almost palpable, this comment tries
+
|-
to justify the maxim of pragmatism and to reconstruct its misreadings by
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).
pinpointing a number of false impressions that the intervening years have
+
|}
piled on it, and it attempts once more to correct the deleterious effects
 
of these mistakes.  Recalling the very conception and birth of pragmatism,
 
it reviews its initial promise and its intended lot in the light of its
 
subsequent vicissitudes and its apparent fate.  Adopting the style of
 
a "post mortem" analysis, it presents a veritable autopsy of the ways
 
that the main truth of pragmatism, for all its practicality, can be
 
murdered by a host of misdissecting disciplinarians, by its most
 
devoted followers. This doleful but dutiful undertaking is
 
presented next.
 
  
| This employment five times over of derivates of 'concipere' must then have
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
| had a purpose.  In point of fact it had two.  One was to show that I was
 
| speaking of meaning in no other sense than that of intellectual purport.
 
| The other was to avoid all danger of being understood as attempting to
 
| explain a concept by percepts, images, schemata, or by anything but
 
| concepts.  I did not, therefore, mean to say that acts, which are
 
| more strictly singular than anything, could constitute the purport,
 
| or adequate proper interpretation, of any symbol.  I compared action
 
| to the finale of the symphony of thought, belief being a demicadence.
 
| Nobody conceives that the few bars at the end of a musical movement
 
| are the purpose of the movement.  They may be called its upshot.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).
+
<p>No doubt, Pragmaticism makes thought ultimately apply to action exclusively &mdash; to conceived actionBut between admitting that and either saying that it makes thought, in the sense of the purport of symbols, to consist in acts, or saying that the true ultimate purpose of thinking is action, there is much the same difference as there is between saying that the artist-painter's living art is applied to dabbing paint upon canvas, and saying that that art-life consists in dabbing paint, or that its ultimate aim is dabbing paint. Pragmaticism makes thinking to consist in the living inferential metaboly of symbols whose purport lies in conditional general resolutions to act.</p>
 
+
|-
There are notes of emotion ranging from apology to pique to be detected
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).
in this eulogy of pragmatism, and all the manner of a pensive elegy that
+
|}
affects the tone of its contemplationIt recounts the various ways that  
 
the good of the best among our maxims is "oft interrèd with their bones",
 
how the aim of the pragmatic maxim to clarify thought gets clouded over
 
with the dust of recalcitrant prepossessions, drowned in the drift of
 
antediluvian predilections, lost in the clamor of prevailing trends
 
and the shuffle of assorted novelties, and even buried with the
 
fractious contentions that it can tend on occasion to inspire.
 
It details the evils that are apt to be done in the name of
 
this précis of pragmatism if ever it is construed beyond
 
its ambition, and sought to be elevated from a working
 
POV to the imperial status of a Weltanshauung.
 
  
The next three elaborations of this POV are bound to sound mysterious
+
The final excerpt touches on a what can appear as a quibbling triviality or a significant problem, depending on one's POV.  It mostly arises when sophisticated mentalities make a point of trying to apply the pragmatic maxim in the most absurd possible ways they can think of. I apologize for quoting such a long passage, but the full impact of Peirce's point only develops over an extended argument.
at this point, but they are necessary to the integrity of the whole work.
 
In any case, it is a good thing to assemble all these pieces in one place,
 
for future reference if nothing else.
 
  
| When we come to study the great principle of continuity
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
| and see how all is fluid and every point directly partakes
 
| the being of every other, it will appear that individualism
 
| and falsity are one and the same.  Meantime, we know that man
 
| is not whole as long as he is single, that he is essentially a
 
| possible member of society.  Especially, one man's experience is
 
| nothing, if it stands alone.  If he sees what others cannot, we
 
| call it hallucination.  It is not "my" experience, but "our"
 
| experience that has to be thought of;  and this "us" has
 
| indefinite possibilities.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 2, 1893).
+
<p>There can, of course, be no question that a man will act in accordance with his belief so far as his belief has any practical consequences. The only doubt is whether this is all that belief is, whether belief is a mere nullity so far as it does not influence conduct. What possible effect upon conduct can it have, for example, to believe that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with the side? &hellip;</p>
  
| Nevertheless, the maxim has approved itself to the writer, after
+
<p>The proposition that the diagonal is incommensurable has stood in the textbooks from time immemorial without ever being assailed and I am sure that the most modern type of mathematician holds to it most decidedlyYet it seems quite absurd to say that there is any objective practical difference between commensurable and incommensurable.</p>
| many years of trial, as of great utility in leading to a relatively
 
| high grade of clearness of thought.  He would venture to suggest that
 
| it should always be put into practice with conscientious thoroughness,
 
| but that, when that has been done, and not before, a still higher grade
 
| of clearness of thought can be attained by remembering that the only
 
| ultimate good which the practical facts to which it directs attention
 
| can subserve is to further the development of concrete reasonableness;
 
| so that the meaning of the concept does not lie in any individual
 
| reactions at all, but in the manner in which those reactions
 
| contribute to that development...
 
|
 
| Almost everybody will now agree that the ultimate good
 
| lies in the evolutionary process in some way.  If so, it
 
| is not in individual reactions in their segregation, but
 
| in something general or continuous.  Synechism is founded
 
| on the notion that the coalescence, the becoming continuous,
 
| the becoming governed by laws, the becoming instinct with
 
| general ideas, are but phases of one and the same process
 
| of the growth of reasonableness.
 
|
 
|(Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).
 
  
| No doubt, Pragmaticism makes thought ultimately apply to action exclusively -—
+
<p>Of course you can say if you like that the act of expressing a quantity as a rational fraction is a piece of conduct and that it is in itself a practical difference that one kind of quantity can be so expressed and the other not.  But a thinker must be shallow indeed if he does not see that to admit a species of practicality that consists in one's conduct about words and modes of expression is at once to break down all the bars against the nonsense that pragmatism is designed to exclude.</p>
| to conceived action.  But between admitting that and either  saying that it
 
| makes thought, in the sense of the purport of symbols, to consist in acts, or
 
| saying that the true ultimate purpose of thinking is action, there is much the
 
| same difference as there is between saying that the artist-painter's living art
 
| is applied to dabbing paint upon canvas, and saying that that art-life consists
 
| in dabbing paint, or that its ultimate aim is dabbing paint.  Pragmaticism makes
 
| thinking to consist in the living inferential metaboly of symbols whose purport
 
| lies in conditional general resolutions to act.
 
|
 
|(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).
 
  
The final excerpt touches on a what can appear as a quibbling triviality
+
<p>What the pragmatist has his pragmatism for is to be able to say:  here is a definition and it does not differ at all from your confusedly apprehended conception because there is no practical differenceBut what is to prevent his opponent from replying that there is a practical difference which consists in his recognizing one as his conception and not the other? That is, one is expressible in a way in which the other is not expressible.</p>
or a significant problem, depending on one's POVIt mostly arises when
 
sophisticated mentalities make a point of trying to apply the pragmatic
 
maxim in the most absurd possible ways they can think of. I apologize
 
for quoting such a long passage, but the full impact of Peirce's point
 
only develops over an extended argument.
 
  
| There can, of course, be no question that a man will act
+
<p>Pragmatism is completely volatilized if you admit that sort of practicality.</p>
| in accordance with his belief so far as his belief has any
+
|-
| practical consequences.  The only doubt is whether this is
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.32&ndash;33, 1903).
| all that belief is, whether belief is a mere nullity so far
+
|}
| as it does not influence conduct.  What possible effect upon
 
| conduct can it have, for example, to believe that the diagonal
 
| of a square is incommensurable with the side?  ...
 
|
 
| The proposition that the diagonal is incommensurable has stood in the textbooks
 
| from time immemorial without ever being assailed and I am sure that the most
 
| modern type of mathematician holds to it most  decidedly.  Yet it seems
 
| quite absurd to say that there is any objective practical difference
 
| between commensurable and incommensurable.
 
|
 
| Of course you can say if you like that the act of expressing a quantity as a
 
| rational fraction is a piece of conduct and that it is in itself a practical
 
| difference that one kind of quantity can be so expressed and the other not. 
 
| But a thinker must be shallow indeed if he does not see that to admit a
 
| species of practicality that consists in one's conduct about words and
 
| modes of expression is at once to break down all the bars against the
 
| nonsense that pragmatism is designed to exclude.
 
|
 
| What the pragmatist has his pragmatism for is to be able to say:  here is
 
| a definition and it does not differ at all from your confusedly apprehended
 
| conception because there is no practical difference.  But what is to prevent
 
| his opponent from replying that there is a practical difference which consists
 
| in his recognizing one as his conception and not the other?  That is, one is
 
| expressible in a way in which the other is not expressible.
 
|
 
| Pragmatism is completely volatilized if you admit that sort of practicality.
 
|
 
|(Peirce, CP 5.32-33, 1903).
 
  
Let me just state what I think are the three main issues at stake in this passage,
+
Let me just state what I think are the three main issues at stake in this passage, leaving a fuller consideration of their implications to a later stage of this work.
leaving a fuller consideration of their implications to a later stage of this work.
 
  
1Reflective agents, as a price for their extra powers of reflection, fall prey
+
#<li value="1">Reflective agents, as a price for their extra powers of reflection, fall prey to a new class of errors and liabilities, any one of which might be diagnosed as a ''reflective illusion'' or a ''delusion of reflection'' (DOR).  There is one type of DOR that is especially easy for reflective agents to fall into, and they must constantly monitor its swings in order to guard the integrity of their reflective processes against the variety of false images that it admits and the diversity of misleading pathways that it leads onto. This DOR turns on thinking that objects of a nature to be reflected on by an agent must have a nature that is identical to the nature of the agent that reflects on them.</li>
    to a new class of errors and liabilities, any one of which might be diagnosed
 
    as a "reflective illusion" or a "delusion of reflection" (DOR).  There is one
 
    type of DOR that is especially easy for reflective agents to fall into, and
 
    they must constantly monitor its swings in order to guard the integrity of
 
    their reflective processes against the variety of false images that it
 
    admits and the diversity of misleading pathways that it leads onto.
 
    This DOR turns on thinking that objects of a nature to be reflected
 
    on by an agent must have a nature that is identical to the nature
 
    of the agent that reflects on them.
 
  
An agent acts under many different kinds of constraints,
+
An agent acts under many different kinds of constraints, whether by choice of method, compulsion of nature, or the mere chance of looking outward in a given direction and henceforth taking up a fixed outlook.  The fact that one is constrained to reason in a particular manner, whether one is predisposed to cognitive, computational, conceptual, or creative terms, and whether one is restrained to finitary, imaginary, rational, or transcendental expressions, does not mean that one is bound to consider only the sorts of objects that fall into the corresponding lot.  It only forces the issue of just how literally or figuratively one is able to grasp the matter in view.
whether by choice of method, compulsion of nature, or the
 
mere chance of looking outward in a given direction and
 
henceforth taking up a fixed outlook.  The fact that one
 
is constrained to reason in a particular manner, whether
 
one is predisposed to cognitive, computational, conceptual,
 
or creative terms, and whether one is restrained to finitary,
 
imaginary, rational, or transcendental expressions, does not
 
mean that one is bound to consider only the sorts of objects
 
that fall into the corresonding lot.  It only forces the
 
issue of just how literally or figuratively one is able
 
to grasp the matter in view.
 
  
To imagine that the nature of the object is bound to be the same
+
To imagine that the nature of the object is bound to be the same as the nature of the sign, or to think that the law that determines the object's matter has to be the same as the rule that codifies the agent's manner, are tantamount to special cases of those reflective illusions whose form of diagnosis I just outlined.  For example, it is the delusion of a purely cognitive and rational psychology, on seeing the necessity of proceeding in a cognitive and rational manner, to imagine that its subject is also purely cognitive and rational, and to think that this abstraction of the matter has any kind of coherence when considered against the integrity of its object.
as the nature of the sign, or to think that the law that determines
 
the object's matter has to be the same as the rule that codifies the
 
agent's manner, are tanatamount to special cases of those reflective
 
illusions whose form of diagnosis I just outlined.  For example, it
 
is the delusion of a purely cognitive and rational psychology, on
 
seeing the necessity of proceeding in a cognitive and rational
 
manner, to imagine that its subject is also purely cognitive
 
and rational, and to think that this abstraction of the
 
matter has any kind of coherence when considered
 
against the integrity of its object.
 
  
2The general rule of pragmatism to seek the difference that
+
#<li value="2">The general rule of pragmatism to seek the difference that makes a difference has its corollaries in numerous principles of indifference.  Not every difference in the meantime makes a difference in the end.  That is, not every  difference of circumstance that momentarily impacts on the trajectory of a system nor every difference of eventuality that transiently develops within its course makes a difference in its ultimate result, and this is true no matter whether one considers the history of intertwined conduct and experience that belongs to a single agent or whether it pertains to a whole community of agents.  Furthermore, not every difference makes a difference of consequence with respect to every conception or purpose that seeks to include it under its "sum".  Finally, not every difference makes the same sort of difference with regard to each of the intellectual concepts or purported outcomes that it has a bearing on.</li>
    makes a difference has its corollories in numerous principles
 
    of indifference.  Not every difference in the meantime makes
 
    a difference in the end.  That is, not every  difference of
 
    circumstance that momentarily impacts on the trajectory of
 
    a system nor every difference of eventuality that transiently
 
    develops within its course makes a difference in its ultimate
 
    result, and this is true no matter whether one considers the
 
    history of intertwined conduct and experience that belongs to
 
    a single agent or whether it pertains to a whole community of
 
    agents.  Furthermore, not every difference makes a difference
 
    of consequence with respect to every conception or purpose
 
    that seeks to include it under its "sum".  Finally, not
 
    every difference makes the same sort of difference with
 
    regard to each of the intellectual concepts or purported
 
    outcomes that it has a bearing on.
 
  
To express the issue in a modern idiom, this is the question of whether
+
To express the issue in a modern idiom, this is the question of whether a concept has a definition that is ''path-dependent'' or ''path-invariant'', that is, when the essence of that abstract conception is reduced to a construct that employs only operational terms.  It is because of this issue that most notions of much import, like mass, meaning, momentum, and number, are defined in terms of the appropriate equivalence classes and operationalized relative to their proper frames of reference.
a concept has a definition that is "path-dependent" or "path-invariant",
 
that is, when the essence of that abstract conception is reduced to a
 
construct that employs only operational terms.  It is because of this
 
issue that most notions of much import, like mass, meaning, momentum,  
 
and number, are defined in terms of the appropriate equivalence classes
 
and operationalized relative to their proper frames of reference.
 
  
3The persistent application of the pragmatic maxim, especially in mathematics,
+
#<li value="3">The persistent application of the pragmatic maxim, especially in mathematics, eventually brings it to bear on one rather ancient question.  The issue is over the reality of conceptual objects, including mathematical "objects" and Platonic "forms" or "ideas".  In this context, the adjective "real" means nothing other than "having properties", but the import of this "having" has to be grasped in the same moment of understanding that this old schematic of thought loads the verb "to have" with one of its strongest connotations, namely, that nothing has a property in the proper sense of the word unless it has that property in its own right, without regard to what anybody thinks about it.  In other words, to say that an object has a property is to say that it has that property independently, if not of necessity exclusively, of what anybody may think about the matter.  But what can it mean for one to say that a mathematical object is "real", that it has the properties that it has independently of what anybody thinks of it, when all that one has of this object are but signs of it, and when the only access that one has to this object is by means of thinking, a process of shuffling, sifting, and sorting through nothing more real or more ideal than signs in the mind?</li>
    eventually brings it to bear on one rather ancient question.  The issue is
 
    over the reality of conceptual objects, including mathematical "objects"
 
    and Platonic "forms" or "ideas".  In this context, the adjective "real"
 
    means nothing other than "having properties", but the import of this
 
    "having" has to be grasped in the same moment of understanding that
 
    this old schematic of thought loads the verb "to have" with one of
 
    its strongest connotations, namely, that nothing has a property in
 
    the proper sense of the word unless it has that property in its own  
 
    right, without regard to what anybody thinks about it.  In other words,
 
    to say that an object has a property is to say that it has that property
 
    independently, if not of necessity exclusively, of what anybody may think
 
    about the matter.  But what can it mean for one to say that a mathematical
 
    object is "real", that it has the properties that it has independently of
 
    what anybody thinks of it, when all that one has of this object are but
 
    signs of it, and when the only access that one has to this object is
 
    by means of thinking, a process of shuffling, sifting, and sorting
 
    through nothing more real or more ideal than signs in the mind?
 
  
The acuteness of this question can be made clear if one pursues the
+
The acuteness of this question can be made clear if one pursues the accountability of the pragmatic maxim into higher orders of infinity. Consider the number of "effects" that form the "whole" of a conception in PM<sub>1</sub>, or else the number of "consequences" that fall under the "sum" in PM<sub>2</sub>.  What happens when it is possible to conceive of an infinity of practical consequences as falling among the consequential effects or the effective consequences of an intellectual conception?  The point of this question is not to require that all of the items of practical bearing be surveyed in a single glance, that all of these effects and consequences be enumerated at once, but only that the cardinal number of conceivable practical bearings, or effects and consequences, be infinite.
accountability of the pragmatic maxim into higher orders of infinity.
 
Consider the number of "effects" that form the "whole" of a conception
 
in PM1, or else the number of "consequences" that fall under the "sum"
 
in PM2.  What happens when it is possible to conceive of an infinity of
 
practical consequences as falling among the consequential effects or the
 
effective consequences of an intellectual conception?  The point of this
 
question is not to require that all of the items of practical bearing be
 
surveyed in a single glance, that all of these effects and consequences
 
be enumerated at once, but only that the cardinal number of conceivable
 
practical bearings, or effects and consequences, be infinite.
 
  
Recognizing the fact that "conception" is an "-ionized" term, and so can
+
Recognizing the fact that "conception" is an "-ionized" term, and so can denote an ongoing process as well as a finished result, it is possible to ask the cardinal question of conceptual accountability in another way:
denote an ongoing process as well as a finished result, it is possible
 
to ask the cardinal question of conceptual accountability in another way:
 
  
What is one's conception of the practical consequences that result by
+
What is one's conception of the practical consequences that result by necessity from a case where the "conception" of practical consequences that result by necessity from the truth of a conception constitutes an infinite process, that is, from a case where the conceptual process of generating these consequences is capable of exceeding any finite bound that one can conceive?
necessity from a case where the "conception" of practical consequences
 
that result by necessity from the truth of a conception constitutes an
 
infinite process, that is, from a case where the conceptual process of
 
generating these consequences is capable of exceeding any finite bound
 
that one can conceive?
 
  
It is may be helpful to append at this point a few additional comments
+
It is may be helpful to append at this point a few additional comments that Peirce made with respect to the concept of reality in general.
that Peirce made with respect to the concept of reality in general.
 
  
| And what do we mean by the real?  It is a conception
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
| which we must first have had when we discovered that
 
| there was an unreal, an illusion;  that is,  when we
 
| first corrected ourselves.  Now the distinction for
 
| which alone this fact logically called, was between
 
| an 'ens' relative to private inward determinations,
 
| to the negations belonging to idiosyncrasy, and
 
| an 'ens' such as would stand in the long run.
 
| The real, then, is that which, sooner or later,
 
| information and reasoning would finally result
 
| in, and which is therefore independent of the
 
| vagaries of me and you.  Thus, the very origin
 
| of the conception of reality shows that this
 
| conception essentially involves the notion
 
| of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and
 
| capable of a definite increase of knowledge.
 
 
|
 
|
| (Peirce, CP 5.311, 1868).
+
<p>And what do we mean by the real?  It is a conception which we must first have had when we discovered that there was an unreal, an illusion;  that is,  when we first corrected ourselves.  Now the distinction for which alone this fact logically called, was between an ''ens'' relative to private inward determinations, to the negations belonging to idiosyncrasy, and an ''ens'' such as would stand in the long run.  The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you.  Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.311, 1868).
 +
|}
  
| The real is that which is not whatever we
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
| happen to think it, but is unaffected by
 
| what we may think of it.
 
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CE 2:467, 1871).
+
<p>The real is that which is not whatever we happen to think it, but is unaffected by what we may think of it.</p>
 +
|-
 +
| align="right" | (Peirce, CE 2:467, 1871).
 +
|}
  
| Thus we may define the real as that whose characters
+
 
| are independent of what anybody may think them to be.
+
{| align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="90%"
 
|
 
|
|(Peirce, CP 5.405, 1878).
+
<p>Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.</p>
 
+
|-
Having read these exhibits into evidence, if not yet to the
+
| align="right" | (Peirce, CP 5.405, 1878).
point of self-evidence, and considered them to some degree
+
|}
for the individual lights they throw on the subject, let me
 
now examine the relationships that can be found among them.
 
  
These excerpts are significant not only for what they say, but for how
+
Having read these exhibits into evidence, if not yet to the point of self-evidence, and considered them to some degree for the individual lights they throw on the subject, let me now examine the relationships that can be found among them.
they say it.  What they say, their matter, is crucial to the whole course
 
the present inquiry.  How they say it, their manner, is itself the matter
 
of numerous further discussions, a few of which, carried out by Peirce
 
himself, are already included in the sample presented.
 
  
Depending on the reader's POV, this sequence of excerpts can appear to
+
These excerpts are significant not only for what they say, but for how they say it.  What they say, their matter, is crucial to the whole course the present inquiry.  How they say it, their manner, is itself the matter of numerous further discussions, a few of which, carried out by Peirce himself, are already included in the sample presented.
reflect anything from a radical change and a serious correction of the
 
underlying POV to a mere clarification and a natural development of it,
 
all maintaining the very same spirit as the original expression of it.
 
Whatever the case, let these three groups of excerpts be recognized as
 
forming three successive "levels of reflection" (LOR's) on the series of
 
POV's in question, regardless of whether one sees them as disconnected,
 
as ostensibly related, or else as inherently the very same POV in spirit.
 
  
From my own POV, that strives to share this spirit in some measure,
+
Depending on the reader's POV, this sequence of excerpts can appear to reflect anything from a radical change and a serious correction of the underlying POV to a mere clarification and a natural development of it, all maintaining the very same spirit as the original expression of it.  Whatever the case, let these three groups of excerpts be recognized as forming three successive ''levels of reflection'' (LORs) on the series of POVs in question, regardless of whether one sees them as disconnected, as ostensibly related, or else as inherently the very same POV in spirit.
it appears that the whole variety of statements, no matter what their
 
dates of original composition, initial publication, or subsequent revision,
 
only serve to illustrate different LOR's on what is essentially and practically
 
a single and coherent POV, one that can be drawn on as a unified frame of reference
 
and henceforward referred to as the "pragmatic" POV or as just plain "pragmatism".
 
  
There is a case to be made for the ultimate inseparability of all of the issues
+
From my own POV, that strives to share this spirit in some measure, it appears that the whole variety of statements, no matter what their dates of original composition, initial publication, or subsequent revision, only serve to illustrate different LOR's on what is essentially and practically a single and coherent POV, one that can be drawn on as a unified frame of reference and henceforward referred to as the ''pragmatic'' POV or as just plain ''pragmatism''.
that are brought up in the foregoing sample of excerpts, but an interval of time
 
and a tide of text are likely to come and go before there can be any sense of an
 
end to the period of questioning, before all of the issues that these texts betide
 
can begin to be settled, before there can be a due measure of conviction on what
 
they charge inquiry with, and before the repercussions of the whole sequence of
 
reflections they lead into can be brought to a point of closure.  If one accepts
 
the idea that all of these excerpts are expressions of one and the same POV, but
 
considered at different points of development, as enunciated, as reviewed, and
 
as revised over an interval of many years, then they can be taken to illustrate
 
the diverse kinds of changes that occur in the formulation, the development,
 
and the clarification of a continuing POV.
 
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
+
There is a case to be made for the ultimate inseparability of all of the issues that are brought up in the foregoing sample of excerpts, but an interval of time and a tide of text are likely to come and go before there can be any sense of an end to the period of questioning, before all of the issues that these texts betide can begin to be settled, before there can be a due measure of conviction on what they charge inquiry with, and before the repercussions of the whole sequence of reflections they lead into can be brought to a point of closure.  If one accepts the idea that all of these excerpts are expressions of one and the same POV, but considered at different points of development, as enunciated, as reviewed, and as revised over an interval of many years, then they can be taken to illustrate the diverse kinds of changes that occur in the formulation, the development, and the clarification of a continuing POV.
</pre>
 
  
 
==Document History==
 
==Document History==
  
<pre>
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===5.2. Reflective Inquiry (Inquiry List, April 2004)===
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
 
 
 
Inquiry Driven Systems -- Ontology List
 
 
 
3.2. Reflective Inquiry
 
 
 
3.2.1.  Integrity and Unity of Inquiry
 
  
01. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05520.html
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* http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/thread.html#1328
02. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05521.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001328.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001329.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001330.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001331.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001332.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001333.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001334.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001335.html
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# http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001336.html
  
3.2.2.  Apparitions and Allegations
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===5.2. Reflective Inquiry (Ontology List, April 2004)===
  
03. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05522.html
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* http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd1.html#05520
04.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05523.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05520.html
05.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05524.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05521.html
06.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05525.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05522.html
07.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05526.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05523.html
08.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05527.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05524.html
09.  http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05528.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05525.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05526.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05527.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05528.html
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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===5.2.8. Priorisms of Normative Sciences (Ontology List, June 2002)===
  
Inquiry Driven Systems -- Inquiry List
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* http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd25.html#04264
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04264.html
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04265.html
  
3.2. Reflective Inquiry
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===5.2.9. Principle of Rational Action (Ontology List, June 2002)===
  
3.2.1. Integrity and Unity of Inquiry
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* http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd25.html#04266
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04266.html
  
01. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001328.html
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===5.2.10. The Pragmatic Cosmos (Ontology List, June 2002)===
02.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001329.html
 
  
3.2.2. Apparitions and Allegations
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* http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd25.html#04262
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04262.html
  
03. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001330.html
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===5.3. Reflection on Reflection (Ontology List, June 2002)===
04.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001331.html
 
05.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001332.html
 
06.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001333.html
 
07.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001334.html
 
08.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001335.html
 
09.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001336.html
 
  
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o
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* http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd25.html#04226
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# http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04227.html

Latest revision as of 18:24, 8 January 2012

Facebook Discussion

Fragments and Other Drafts

5. Interlude : The Medium and Its Message

5.1. Reflective Writing

5.1.1. Casual Reflection

5.1.1.1. Ostensibly Recursive Texts
5.1.1.2. Analogical Recursion

5.1.2. Conscious Reflection

5.1.2.1. The Signal Moment
5.1.2.2. The Symbolic Object
5.1.2.3. The Endeavor to Communicate
5.1.2.4. The Medium of Communication
5.1.2.5. The Ark of Types : The Order of Things to Come
5.1.2.6. The Epitext
5.1.2.7. The Context of Interpretation
5.1.2.8. The Formative Tension
5.1.2.9. The Vehicle of Communication : Reflection on Scene and Self
5.1.2.10.
5.1.2.11.
5.1.2.12. Recursions : Possible, Actual, Necessary
5.1.2.13. Ostensibly Recursive Texts (Again?)
5.1.2.14.
5.1.2.15. The Freedom of Interpretation
5.1.2.16. The Eternal Return
5.1.2.17.
5.1.2.18. Information in Formation
5.1.2.19. Reflectively Indexical Texts
5.1.2.20.
5.1.2.21.
5.1.2.22.
5.1.2.23.
5.1.2.24.
5.1.2.25. The Discursive Universe
5.1.2.26.
5.1.2.27.
5.1.2.28.
5.1.2.29.
5.1.2.30.
5.1.2.31.
5.1.2.32.

5.2. Reflective Inquiry

5.2.1. Integrity and Unity of Inquiry

5.2.2. Apparitions and Allegations

5.2.3. A Reflective Heuristic

5.2.4. Either/Or : A Sense of Absence

5.2.5. Apparent, Occasional, and Practical Necessity

5.2.6. Approaches, Aspects, Exposures, Fronts

5.2.7. Synthetic A Priori Truths

5.2.8. Priorisms of Normative Sciences

5.2.9. Principle of Rational Action

5.2.10. The Pragmatic Cosmos

5.2.11. Reflective Interpretive Frameworks

5.2.11.1. Principals vs. Principals
5.2.11.2. The Initial Description of Inquiry
5.2.11.3. An Early Description of Interpretation
5.2.11.4. Descriptions of the Mind
5.2.11.5. Of Signs and the Mind
5.2.11.6. Questions of Justification
5.2.11.7. The Experience of Satisfaction
5.2.11.8. An Organizational Difficulty
5.2.11.9. Pragmatic Certainties
5.2.11.10. Problems and Methods

5.3. Reflection on Reflection

Before this discussion can proceed any further I need to introduce a technical vocabulary that is specifically designed to articulate the relation of thought to action and the relation of conduct to purpose. This terminology makes use of a classical distinction between action, as simply taken, and conduct, as fully considered in the light of its means, its ways, and its ends. To the extent that affects, motivations, and purposes are bound up with one another, the objects that lie within the reach of this language that are able to be grasped by means of its concepts provide a form of cognitive handle on the complex arrays of affective impulsions and the unruly masses of emotional obstructions that serve both to drive and to block the effective performance of inquiry.

Once the differentiation between sheer activity and deliberate conduct is comprehended on informal grounds and motivated by intuitive illustrations, the formal capabilities of their logical distinction can be sharpened up and turned to instrumental advantage in accomplishing two further aims:

  1. To elucidate the precise nature of the relation between action and conduct.
  2. To facilitate a study of the whole variety of contingent relations that are possible and maintained between action and conduct.

When the relations among these categories are described and analyzed in greater detail, it becomes possible forge their separate links together, and thus to integrate their several lines of information into a fuller comprehension of the relations among thought, the purposes of thought, and the purposes of action in general.

It is possible to introduce the needed vocabulary, while at the same time advancing a number of concurrent goals of this project, by resorting to the following strategy. I inject into this discussion a selected set of passages from the work of C.S. Peirce, chosen with a certain multiplicity of aims in mind.

  1. These excerpts are taken from Peirce's most thoughtful definitions and discussions of pragmatism. Thus, the general tenor of their advice is pertinent to the long-term guidance of this project.
  2. With regard to the target vocabulary, these texts are especially acute in their ability to make all the right distinctions in all the right places, and so they serve to illustrate the requisite concepts in the context of their most appropriate uses.
  3. Aside from their content being crucial to the scope of the present inquiry, their form, manner, sequence, and interrelations supply the kind of material needed to illustrate an important array of issues involved in the topic of reflection.
  4. Finally, my reflections on these passages are designed to illustrate the variety of relations that occur between the POV of a writer, especially as it develops through time, and the POV of a reader, in the light of the ways that it deflects its own echoes through a text in order to detect the POV of the writer that led to its being formed in that manner.

The first excerpt appears in the form of a dictionary entry, intended as a definition of pragmatism.

Pragmatism. The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension: "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

(Peirce, CP 5.2, 1878/1902).

The second excerpt presents another version of the pragmatic maxim, a recommendation about a way of clarifying meaning that can be taken to stake out the general POV of pragmatism.

Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows: Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.

(Peirce, CP 5.438, 1878/1905).

Over time, Peirce tried to express the basic idea contained in the pragmatic maxim (PM) in numerous different ways. In the remainder of this work, the gist of the pragmatic maxim, the logical content that appropriates its general intention over a variety of particular contexts, the common denominator of all of its versionary approximations, can be referred to with maximal simplicity as “PM”. Otherwise, subscripts can be used in contexts where it is necessary to mention a particular form, for instance, referring to the versions just given as “PM1” and “PM2”, respectively.

Considered side by side like this, any perceptible differences between PM1 and PM2 appear to be trivial and insignificant, lacking in every conceivable practical consequence, as indeed would be the case if both statements were properly understood. One would like to say that both variants belong to the same pragmatic equivalence class (PEC), where all of the peculiarities of their individual expressions are absorbed into the effective synonymy of a single operational maxim of conduct. Unfortunately, no matter how well this represents the ideal, it does not describe the present state of understanding with respect to the pragmatic maxim, and this is the situation that my work is given to address.

I am taking the trouble to recite both of these very close variants of the pragmatic maxim because I want to examine how their subsequent interpretations have tended to diverge over time and to analyze why the traditions of interpretation that stem from them are likely to develop in such a way that they eventually come to be at cross-purposes to each other.

There is a version of the pragmatic maxim, more commonly cited, that uses we and our instead of you and your. At first sight, this appears to confer a number of clear advantages on the expression of the maxim. The second person is ambiguous with regard to number, and it can be read as both singular and plural, since the …

Unfortunately, people have a tendency to translate our concept of the object into the meaning of a concept. This displacement of the genuine article from the object to the meaning obliterates the contingently indefinite commonality of our manner of thinking and replaces it with the absolutely definite pretension to the unique truth of the matter // changing the emphasis from common conception to unique intention. This apparently causes them to read the whole of our conception as the whole meaning of a conception … // from thee and thy to the and our //

The pragmatic maxim, taking the form of an injunctive prescription, a piece of advice, or a practical recommendation, provides an operational description of a certain philosophical outlook or frame of reference. This is the general POV that is called pragmatism, or pragmaticism, as Peirce later renamed it when he wanted more pointedly to emphasize the principles that distinguish his own particular POV from the general run of its appropriations, interpretations, and common misconstruals. Thus the pragmatic maxim, in a way that is deliberately consistent with the principles of the POV to which it leads, enunciates a practical idea and provides a truly pragmatic definition of that very same POV.

I am quoting a version of the pragmatic maxim whose form of address to the reader exemplifies a second person POV on the part of the writer. In spite of the fact that this particular variation does not appear in print until a later date, my own sense of the matter leads me to think that it actually recaptures the original form of the pragmatic insight. My reasons for believing this are connected with Peirce's early notion of tuity, the second person character of the mind's dialogue with nature and with other minds, and a topic to be addressed in detail at a later point in this discussion.

By way of a piece of evidence for this impression, one that is internal to the texts, both versions begin with the second person POV that is implied by their imperative mood.

Just as the sign in a sign relation addresses the interpretant intended in the mind of its interpreter, PM2 is addressed to an interpretant or effect intended in the mind of its reader.

The third excerpt puts a gloss on the meaning of a practical bearing and provides an alternative statement of the pragmatic maxim (PM3).

Such reasonings and all reasonings turn upon the idea that if one exerts certain kinds of volition, one will undergo in return certain compulsory perceptions. Now this sort of consideration, namely, that certain lines of conduct will entail certain kinds of inevitable experiences is what is called a "practical consideration". Hence is justified the maxim, belief in which constitutes pragmatism; namely,

In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception; and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception.

(Peirce, CP 5.9, 1905).

The fourth excerpt illustrates one of Peirce's many attempts to get the sense of the pragmatic POV across by rephrasing the pragmatic maxim in an alternative way (PM4). In introducing this version, he addresses an order of prospective critics who do not deem a simple heuristic maxim, much less one that concerns itself with a routine matter of logical procedure, as forming a sufficient basis for a whole philosophy.

On their side, one of the faults that I think they might find with me is that I make pragmatism to be a mere maxim of logic instead of a sublime principle of speculative philosophy. In order to be admitted to better philosophical standing I have endeavored to put pragmatism as I understand it into the same form of a philosophical theorem. I have not succeeded any better than this:

Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood.

(Peirce, CP 5.18, 1903).

I am including Peirce's preamble to his restatement of the principle because I think that the note of irony and the foreshadowing of comedy intimated by it are important to understanding the gist of what follows. In this rendition the statement of the principle of pragmatism is recast in a partially self-referent fashion, and since it is itself delivered as a "theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood" the full content of its own deeper meaning is something that remains to be unwrapped, precisely through a self-application to its own expression of the very principle it expresses. To wit, this statement, the form of whose phrasing is forced by conventional biases to take on the style of a declarative judgment, describes itself as a "confused form of thought", in need of being amended, converted, and translated into its operational interpretant, that is to say, its viable pragmatic equivalent.

The fifth excerpt, PM5, is useful by way of additional clarification, and was aimed to correct a variety of historical misunderstandings that arose over time with regard to the intended meaning of the pragmatic POV.

The doctrine appears to assume that the end of man is action — a stoical axiom which, to the present writer at the age of sixty, does not recommend itself so forcibly as it did at thirty. If it be admitted, on the contrary, that action wants an end, and that that end must be something of a general description, then the spirit of the maxim itself, which is that we must look to the upshot of our concepts in order rightly to apprehend them, would direct us towards something different from practical facts, namely, to general ideas, as the true interpreters of our thought.

(Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).

If anyone thinks that an explanation on this order, whatever degree of directness and explicitness one perceives it to have, ought to be enough to correct any amount of residual confusion, then one is failing to take into consideration the persistence of a particulate interpretation, that is, a favored, isolated, and partial interpretation, once it has taken or mistaken its moment.

A sixth excerpt, PM6, is useful in stating the bearing of the pragmatic maxim on the topic of reflection, namely, that it makes all of pragmatism boil down to nothing more or less than a method of reflection.

The study of philosophy consists, therefore, in reflexion, and pragmatism is that method of reflexion which is guided by constantly holding in view its purpose and the purpose of the ideas it analyzes, whether these ends be of the nature and uses of action or of thought. …

It will be seen that pragmatism is not a Weltanschauung but is a method of reflexion having for its purpose to render ideas clear.

(Peirce, CP 5.13 note 1, 1902).

The seventh excerpt is a late reflection on the reception of pragmatism. With a sense of exasperation that is almost palpable, this comment tries to justify the maxim of pragmatism and to reconstruct its misreadings by pinpointing a number of false impressions that the intervening years have piled on it, and it attempts once more to correct the deleterious effects of these mistakes. Recalling the very conception and birth of pragmatism, it reviews its initial promise and its intended lot in the light of its subsequent vicissitudes and its apparent fate. Adopting the style of a post mortem analysis, it presents a veritable autopsy of the ways that the main truth of pragmatism, for all its practicality, can be murdered by a host of misdissecting disciplinarians, by its most devoted followers. This doleful but dutiful undertaking is presented next.

This employment five times over of derivates of concipere must then have had a purpose. In point of fact it had two. One was to show that I was speaking of meaning in no other sense than that of intellectual purport. The other was to avoid all danger of being understood as attempting to explain a concept by percepts, images, schemata, or by anything but concepts. I did not, therefore, mean to say that acts, which are more strictly singular than anything, could constitute the purport, or adequate proper interpretation, of any symbol. I compared action to the finale of the symphony of thought, belief being a demicadence. Nobody conceives that the few bars at the end of a musical movement are the purpose of the movement. They may be called its upshot.

(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).

There are notes of emotion ranging from apology to pique to be detected in this eulogy of pragmatism, and all the manner of a pensive elegy that affects the tone of its contemplation. It recounts the various ways that the good of the best among our maxims is "oft interrèd with their bones", how the aim of the pragmatic maxim to clarify thought gets clouded over with the dust of recalcitrant prepossessions, drowned in the drift of antediluvian predilections, lost in the clamor of prevailing trends and the shuffle of assorted novelties, and even buried with the fractious contentions that it can tend on occasion to inspire. It details the evils that are apt to be done in the name of this précis of pragmatism if ever it is construed beyond its ambition, and sought to be elevated from a working POV to the imperial status of a Weltanshauung.

The next three elaborations of this POV are bound to sound mysterious at this point, but they are necessary to the integrity of the whole work. In any case, it is a good thing to assemble all these pieces in one place, for future reference if nothing else.

When we come to study the great principle of continuity and see how all is fluid and every point directly partakes the being of every other, it will appear that individualism and falsity are one and the same. Meantime, we know that man is not whole as long as he is single, that he is essentially a possible member of society. Especially, one man's experience is nothing, if it stands alone. If he sees what others cannot, we call it hallucination. It is not "my" experience, but "our" experience that has to be thought of; and this "us" has indefinite possibilities.

(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 2, 1893).

Nevertheless, the maxim has approved itself to the writer, after many years of trial, as of great utility in leading to a relatively high grade of clearness of thought. He would venture to suggest that it should always be put into practice with conscientious thoroughness, but that, when that has been done, and not before, a still higher grade of clearness of thought can be attained by remembering that the only ultimate good which the practical facts to which it directs attention can subserve is to further the development of concrete reasonableness; so that the meaning of the concept does not lie in any individual reactions at all, but in the manner in which those reactions contribute to that development. …

Almost everybody will now agree that the ultimate good lies in the evolutionary process in some way. If so, it is not in individual reactions in their segregation, but in something general or continuous. Synechism is founded on the notion that the coalescence, the becoming continuous, the becoming governed by laws, the becoming instinct with general ideas, are but phases of one and the same process of the growth of reasonableness.

(Peirce, CP 5.3, 1902).

No doubt, Pragmaticism makes thought ultimately apply to action exclusively — to conceived action. But between admitting that and either saying that it makes thought, in the sense of the purport of symbols, to consist in acts, or saying that the true ultimate purpose of thinking is action, there is much the same difference as there is between saying that the artist-painter's living art is applied to dabbing paint upon canvas, and saying that that art-life consists in dabbing paint, or that its ultimate aim is dabbing paint. Pragmaticism makes thinking to consist in the living inferential metaboly of symbols whose purport lies in conditional general resolutions to act.

(Peirce, CP 5.402 note 3, 1906).

The final excerpt touches on a what can appear as a quibbling triviality or a significant problem, depending on one's POV. It mostly arises when sophisticated mentalities make a point of trying to apply the pragmatic maxim in the most absurd possible ways they can think of. I apologize for quoting such a long passage, but the full impact of Peirce's point only develops over an extended argument.

There can, of course, be no question that a man will act in accordance with his belief so far as his belief has any practical consequences. The only doubt is whether this is all that belief is, whether belief is a mere nullity so far as it does not influence conduct. What possible effect upon conduct can it have, for example, to believe that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with the side? …

The proposition that the diagonal is incommensurable has stood in the textbooks from time immemorial without ever being assailed and I am sure that the most modern type of mathematician holds to it most decidedly. Yet it seems quite absurd to say that there is any objective practical difference between commensurable and incommensurable.

Of course you can say if you like that the act of expressing a quantity as a rational fraction is a piece of conduct and that it is in itself a practical difference that one kind of quantity can be so expressed and the other not. But a thinker must be shallow indeed if he does not see that to admit a species of practicality that consists in one's conduct about words and modes of expression is at once to break down all the bars against the nonsense that pragmatism is designed to exclude.

What the pragmatist has his pragmatism for is to be able to say: here is a definition and it does not differ at all from your confusedly apprehended conception because there is no practical difference. But what is to prevent his opponent from replying that there is a practical difference which consists in his recognizing one as his conception and not the other? That is, one is expressible in a way in which the other is not expressible.

Pragmatism is completely volatilized if you admit that sort of practicality.

(Peirce, CP 5.32–33, 1903).

Let me just state what I think are the three main issues at stake in this passage, leaving a fuller consideration of their implications to a later stage of this work.

  1. Reflective agents, as a price for their extra powers of reflection, fall prey to a new class of errors and liabilities, any one of which might be diagnosed as a reflective illusion or a delusion of reflection (DOR). There is one type of DOR that is especially easy for reflective agents to fall into, and they must constantly monitor its swings in order to guard the integrity of their reflective processes against the variety of false images that it admits and the diversity of misleading pathways that it leads onto. This DOR turns on thinking that objects of a nature to be reflected on by an agent must have a nature that is identical to the nature of the agent that reflects on them.

An agent acts under many different kinds of constraints, whether by choice of method, compulsion of nature, or the mere chance of looking outward in a given direction and henceforth taking up a fixed outlook. The fact that one is constrained to reason in a particular manner, whether one is predisposed to cognitive, computational, conceptual, or creative terms, and whether one is restrained to finitary, imaginary, rational, or transcendental expressions, does not mean that one is bound to consider only the sorts of objects that fall into the corresponding lot. It only forces the issue of just how literally or figuratively one is able to grasp the matter in view.

To imagine that the nature of the object is bound to be the same as the nature of the sign, or to think that the law that determines the object's matter has to be the same as the rule that codifies the agent's manner, are tantamount to special cases of those reflective illusions whose form of diagnosis I just outlined. For example, it is the delusion of a purely cognitive and rational psychology, on seeing the necessity of proceeding in a cognitive and rational manner, to imagine that its subject is also purely cognitive and rational, and to think that this abstraction of the matter has any kind of coherence when considered against the integrity of its object.

  1. The general rule of pragmatism to seek the difference that makes a difference has its corollaries in numerous principles of indifference. Not every difference in the meantime makes a difference in the end. That is, not every difference of circumstance that momentarily impacts on the trajectory of a system nor every difference of eventuality that transiently develops within its course makes a difference in its ultimate result, and this is true no matter whether one considers the history of intertwined conduct and experience that belongs to a single agent or whether it pertains to a whole community of agents. Furthermore, not every difference makes a difference of consequence with respect to every conception or purpose that seeks to include it under its "sum". Finally, not every difference makes the same sort of difference with regard to each of the intellectual concepts or purported outcomes that it has a bearing on.

To express the issue in a modern idiom, this is the question of whether a concept has a definition that is path-dependent or path-invariant, that is, when the essence of that abstract conception is reduced to a construct that employs only operational terms. It is because of this issue that most notions of much import, like mass, meaning, momentum, and number, are defined in terms of the appropriate equivalence classes and operationalized relative to their proper frames of reference.

  1. The persistent application of the pragmatic maxim, especially in mathematics, eventually brings it to bear on one rather ancient question. The issue is over the reality of conceptual objects, including mathematical "objects" and Platonic "forms" or "ideas". In this context, the adjective "real" means nothing other than "having properties", but the import of this "having" has to be grasped in the same moment of understanding that this old schematic of thought loads the verb "to have" with one of its strongest connotations, namely, that nothing has a property in the proper sense of the word unless it has that property in its own right, without regard to what anybody thinks about it. In other words, to say that an object has a property is to say that it has that property independently, if not of necessity exclusively, of what anybody may think about the matter. But what can it mean for one to say that a mathematical object is "real", that it has the properties that it has independently of what anybody thinks of it, when all that one has of this object are but signs of it, and when the only access that one has to this object is by means of thinking, a process of shuffling, sifting, and sorting through nothing more real or more ideal than signs in the mind?

The acuteness of this question can be made clear if one pursues the accountability of the pragmatic maxim into higher orders of infinity. Consider the number of "effects" that form the "whole" of a conception in PM1, or else the number of "consequences" that fall under the "sum" in PM2. What happens when it is possible to conceive of an infinity of practical consequences as falling among the consequential effects or the effective consequences of an intellectual conception? The point of this question is not to require that all of the items of practical bearing be surveyed in a single glance, that all of these effects and consequences be enumerated at once, but only that the cardinal number of conceivable practical bearings, or effects and consequences, be infinite.

Recognizing the fact that "conception" is an "-ionized" term, and so can denote an ongoing process as well as a finished result, it is possible to ask the cardinal question of conceptual accountability in another way:

What is one's conception of the practical consequences that result by necessity from a case where the "conception" of practical consequences that result by necessity from the truth of a conception constitutes an infinite process, that is, from a case where the conceptual process of generating these consequences is capable of exceeding any finite bound that one can conceive?

It is may be helpful to append at this point a few additional comments that Peirce made with respect to the concept of reality in general.

And what do we mean by the real? It is a conception which we must first have had when we discovered that there was an unreal, an illusion; that is, when we first corrected ourselves. Now the distinction for which alone this fact logically called, was between an ens relative to private inward determinations, to the negations belonging to idiosyncrasy, and an ens such as would stand in the long run. The real, then, is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase of knowledge.

(Peirce, CP 5.311, 1868).

The real is that which is not whatever we happen to think it, but is unaffected by what we may think of it.

(Peirce, CE 2:467, 1871).


Thus we may define the real as that whose characters are independent of what anybody may think them to be.

(Peirce, CP 5.405, 1878).

Having read these exhibits into evidence, if not yet to the point of self-evidence, and considered them to some degree for the individual lights they throw on the subject, let me now examine the relationships that can be found among them.

These excerpts are significant not only for what they say, but for how they say it. What they say, their matter, is crucial to the whole course the present inquiry. How they say it, their manner, is itself the matter of numerous further discussions, a few of which, carried out by Peirce himself, are already included in the sample presented.

Depending on the reader's POV, this sequence of excerpts can appear to reflect anything from a radical change and a serious correction of the underlying POV to a mere clarification and a natural development of it, all maintaining the very same spirit as the original expression of it. Whatever the case, let these three groups of excerpts be recognized as forming three successive levels of reflection (LORs) on the series of POVs in question, regardless of whether one sees them as disconnected, as ostensibly related, or else as inherently the very same POV in spirit.

From my own POV, that strives to share this spirit in some measure, it appears that the whole variety of statements, no matter what their dates of original composition, initial publication, or subsequent revision, only serve to illustrate different LOR's on what is essentially and practically a single and coherent POV, one that can be drawn on as a unified frame of reference and henceforward referred to as the pragmatic POV or as just plain pragmatism.

There is a case to be made for the ultimate inseparability of all of the issues that are brought up in the foregoing sample of excerpts, but an interval of time and a tide of text are likely to come and go before there can be any sense of an end to the period of questioning, before all of the issues that these texts betide can begin to be settled, before there can be a due measure of conviction on what they charge inquiry with, and before the repercussions of the whole sequence of reflections they lead into can be brought to a point of closure. If one accepts the idea that all of these excerpts are expressions of one and the same POV, but considered at different points of development, as enunciated, as reviewed, and as revised over an interval of many years, then they can be taken to illustrate the diverse kinds of changes that occur in the formulation, the development, and the clarification of a continuing POV.

Document History

5.2. Reflective Inquiry (Inquiry List, April 2004)

  1. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001328.html
  2. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001329.html
  3. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001330.html
  4. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001331.html
  5. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001332.html
  6. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001333.html
  7. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001334.html
  8. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001335.html
  9. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-April/001336.html

5.2. Reflective Inquiry (Ontology List, April 2004)

  1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05520.html
  2. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05521.html
  3. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05522.html
  4. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05523.html
  5. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05524.html
  6. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05525.html
  7. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05526.html
  8. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05527.html
  9. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg05528.html

5.2.8. Priorisms of Normative Sciences (Ontology List, June 2002)

  1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04264.html
  2. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04265.html

5.2.9. Principle of Rational Action (Ontology List, June 2002)

  1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04266.html

5.2.10. The Pragmatic Cosmos (Ontology List, June 2002)

  1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04262.html

5.3. Reflection on Reflection (Ontology List, June 2002)

  1. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04226.html
  2. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04227.html