Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 8

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• Contents • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8 • Appendices • References • Document History •

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8. Overview of the Domain : Interpretive Inquiry

Interpretive Stance, Initial Theory, Concrete Examples

8.1. Interpretive Bearings : Conceptual and Descriptive Frameworks

In this section I review the conceptual and descriptive frameworks that I will deploy throughout this work. In passing, I explain my overall attitude toward the use of any theoretical outlook (scaffold or catwalk), namely, that it needs to be as flexible and as reflective as possible.

8.1.1. Catwalks : Flexible Frameworks and Peripatetic Categories

In order to have a term that expresses both the conceptual and the descriptive aspects of these perspective standpoints, I have chosen to call them "interpretive frameworks". When analyzed in depth and fully formalized they might be recognized as "theoretical frameworks". But not every manner of intuition (or slant on the world) can survive the reflective process and persist under examination as a viable style of interpretation. And I need a term to underscore the fact that these heuristic frameworks are already in operation, shunting attention and shifting selection on an automatic and informal basis, long before anyone thinks to articulate their axioms in theory or to criticize their biases in action.

The reason I refer to interpretive frameworks rather than "ontologies" is to emphasize that many of the categories listed in these systems are inclusive or overlapping in their scopes. Thus, the circumstance that the same object can be contemplated under several different headings of the framework is not of necessity intended to say anything substantive about the object itself.

The reason I refer to interpretive frameworks rather than "hierarchies", even though I will often settle on a standard sequence for considering the attributes of a contemplated object, is that there is in general no uniquely best order for taking up these properties.

This may seem like a trivial point, taken for granted by everyone as a part of understanding the use of language, but it serves to highlight an important issue, one still lacking in universal agreement.

I will say that a logical distinction is "interpretive" to mean that it depends on the choice of an interpreter to determine how anything is classified with respect to it. This does not mean that every option of consideration will always be found equally fitting, but only that it is possible to contemplate the alternatives in a form of mental experiment.

As much as possible I will try to exploit the available degrees of interpretive freedom to view all conceptual and descriptive distinctions as being in relation to a framework of interpretation. For ease of discussion, if not for any more substantive reason, interpretive frameworks are often depicted as enacted by interpretive agents or embodied by interpretive communities, all of which conditions of practice can be summed up in a parametric reference to a single "interpreter".

8.4. Discussion and Development of Objectives

8.4.3. Objective 1c : Interpretation and Authority

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• Contents • Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8 • Appendices • References • Document History •

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