ONT Inquiry
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤
Stan Salthe wrote (SS):
Jon Awbrey wrote (JA):
SS: This process [of inquiry] I call development.
JA: That sounds bound to confound biologist and psychologist alike,
but if you wished to retro-sociate to "research" then it might
be apt enough to slip by cerber and sensor alike.
SS: Not only them, but economists too. I am developing a general theory of development,
applicable to all material systems because it is cast in very general (thermodynamic,
information theoretic) terms. The canonical mode of development is from more vague
to more definite; from hot to cool.
I have occasionally used the term "differentiation" for this process:
| What is inquiry and how is it related to the theory of signs?
|
| We examine the structure of inquiry as articulated by Peirce and Dewey. In this model,
| inquiry begins with a surprising phenomenon or a problematic situation. Whether felt as
| pleasant wonderment or as painful bewilderment, we feel driven to some activity that will
| return us to our prior equilibrium. This may issue in a search for explanation that reduces
| the surprise or for a plan of action that resolves the problem. The ensuing activities share
| a common form, the differentiation of a pattern. In our consternation, we recognize a variety
| of features, some of which can be varied as part of our capacity for free choice. The problem
| or surprise is present because of its difference from something. As a surprise, what happens
| is different from what we habitually expect. As a problem, what happens is different from
| what we hopefully intend. To change the systematic expectation against which background
| a surprising phenomenon originally figured, we must discover some freedom to change what
| generated that expectation, and so to modify our personal model of the world.
|
| Jon Awbrey & Susan Awbrey,
|"Interpretation as Action: The Risk of Inquiry",
|'Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines",
| Volume 15, Number 1 (Autumn 1995), Pages 40-52.
|
| http://www.chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/awbrey.html
JA: How is this relevant to ontology? Well, because you might say
that inquiry is the process by which ontologies come into being.
SS: Just so, and how they become stabilized as well (in senescence --
from which they can be readily perturbed).
SS: In a process of construction.
JA: Loose or Strict?
SS: Both
JA: So it can have the sense of "construal", that is, "interpretation"?
SS: Yes, as in the social construction of knowledge.
Copacetic!
SS: My attitude is that [vagueness] is generative, and
therefore of keen interest in understanding the world.
Unfortunately, a result of this disdain by logicians is
that there is hardly a logic of vagueness, which Peirce
slightly pointed to. Fuzziness is partly OK, but the
sets are crisp. Second order fuzziness is better, but ...
JA: Well, there is much discussation to be pondered here.
I am still not sure if we use "vaguity" the same way.
I will dig up some choice quotes from Peirce on this
so we can compare and contrast. Roughly, "general"
is extensional while "vague" is intensional.
SS: An interesting point. This allows 'vague' to be generative
by incorporating more descriptors into its sentence as further
and further qualifiers. In contrast, 'general' can but extend
its hegemony.
Yes, I think so, at least, provisionally. It was with (lack of exhaustive) respect
to these dual notions, dichotomies and dualities being anathematic to Peirce, and so
with trying to compound their synthesis or to discern their tertium quid that Peirce
first came to the shores of what he named the "Theory of Information" (TOI), around
about 1865, by the evidence of his Harvard University and Lowell Institute Lectures.
More To Come ...
Jon Awbrey
¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤