Method

Anil Mitra PhD © September, 2009, Revised March 21, 2010

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Although this remains very rough I am rather pleased because it has all the content I want it to have; because the rest has been eliminated; and because it contains the essence of what I want to write on method

I am also please because this has been difficult in two ways (1) Getting my thoughts on method clear after so much powerful development in content—Intuition, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Objects, Cosmology, Local Disciplines e.g. sciences and humanities and art, Journey in transformation—prior to this more or less formal focus has been difficult because it has required re-focus and perspective, and (2) This has and continues to be a difficult time for me… and I’m still not sure what it is—whether personal issues are getting in the way or whether it is a pure case of writer’s / thinker’s block

Plan

Content

Sources documents: concepts, details-old

Because validation and creation

Note that creation is important in validation; and vice versa

Put the strict elements of validation in validation

All other elements in creation

Combine sections

Formatting

Footnote the details

Various kinds of footnote… and endnote

Plan for the document

When this is done enter to talk; eliminate all temporary (e.g. XXXXXXXX) files

Occasion

The idea of method is, roughly, how to do something. As an activity becomes routine, method diminishes in significance

The essential aspects of method are creation and validation

In Journey in being, primary concern is with knowing and transformation. We have been concerned with this development and its means

There is a tradition of thought regarding the method or methods by which knowledge develops and is validated

In this chapter, the fist focus is on the how of the development of my thought. This naturally began by deriving from the tradition. In the growth of knowledge, there is ever present though not always explicit occupation with the ‘how’ of development. Because my work has been ‘at the edge’ I found myself sustaining explicit concern with traditional methods, especially of the establishment of knowledge and of inference. As development progressed, I found that I was critiquing traditional epistemology and being required to go beyond it

Thus the first focus is the problem of clarifying and articulating what I have learned regarding method

The second focus is a natural consequence of the first, it is development of implications for the tradition—in general and for a selection of specific disciplines. The form of such implication includes integration with the tradition

My thought

In the development of its foundation, of the Universal metaphysics itself, and its elaboration and application… in Intuition through Being, I began to ask questions of content—What am I doing? … questions of method—How am I doing this?… and questions of value—Why and to what end am I doing this?

The tradition is of course suggestive and useful but I began to find it inadequate:

1.      To the present context—to the breadth, depth and certainty of the Universal metaphysics, to the re-conception of the disciplines r/t their approach and ad hoc elements, and to the integration of the metaphysics and the disciplines

2.      In being rigid—i.e. although the variety of views reveals multi-valence, the individual views tend to be univalent and so there is no view that covers the present hierarchies of certainty over the range of disciplines covered here

3.      In terms of the received separation of content and method and the as-if a priori character of inference and method

Anecdotal

The insight to study—develop—the Void and its properties was more or less simultaneous with the first and perhaps most significant insight that resulted from the insight: that the Void contains no Law implies that from the Void must emerge being without limit (any limit would be a Law of the Void)

The insight was pivotal in the development of an entire metaphysics and its sequelae and foundation[1] as presented in Intuition through Being and, now, in Method (and, next, in Contribution)

Initially, existence of the Void was an implicit assumption. I later realized that existence should be demonstrated and therefore demonstration was given. The demonstration turned out to require precise and careful precise definition of the concept of ‘Universe’… as well as justification of the choice of definition. All this now seems trivial; the process was multi-faceted and did not seem obvious during development

When I saw that being without limit must emerge from the Void, I saw more or less immediately that such emergence could not involve contradiction e.g. an apple that is simultaneously red and not red[2]^{, [3]}

This thought would culminate in conceptualization of Logic but that outcome was remote from the initial thought. Note—I have said ‘conceptualization’ rather than ‘reconceptualization’ because, as argued, until this time logic has not been truly conceptualized

Experimental and systematic

While the present development occasions and consequently enables developments in method, it simultaneously exemplifies experiments in method, and consequently enables (some, perhaps to the extent though not the detail possible) systematization of method

Purpose

Collect, articulate, generalize the present developments; work out relations with and implications for the tradition—for method, its nature, potential, and application

The idea of method

In general but limited to ‘how to’ and not stylized uses and so on… Here we focus on knowledge and transformation

Very brief allusion to examples—science… history of ‘method’… add to ‘Significance’ shortly below

In general method is a guide… but it is important to not be dogmatic since we have seen important examples of certainty

After The idea of method, below, some themes regarding method are introduced. The themes are elaborated or justified in later sections

The idea of method

The idea of a method is the idea of how to do something

There are specialized uses but here we focus on the how, especially as it relates to knowledge and transformation (including though not limited to action, technology, and goal directed behavior)

Significance

1.      Confidence in the elements of culture—knowledge, action…

2.      Understanding of the elements

Creation and validation

…imagination and criticism

If I want to achieve some goal I may conceive some means or path of action to the goal; this may involve creativity

Generally, I will not know whether the means will be effective; I may have or devise conceptual schemes to estimate effectiveness but, generally, such schemes will not be perfect—the means may not achieve the outcome that was intended… or, if the goal is not explicit or definite, there may be some question whether the goal was met. The concerns of this paragraph may be labeled ‘validation’

Suppose the goal had been to formulate a final physical theory (a ‘theory of everything.’) In view of the twentieth century revolutions in science, a philosophy that has arisen and is associated with the thought of the philosopher Karl Popper, is that since a theory can potentially be shown to be invalid or incomplete by new observations, universal scientific theories can never be fully validated. In other words, the theories that we accept as scientific are those that are predictive and explanatory of all the relevant data so far but the theories that we accept must be falsiable (applicable, testable) in principle but that have survived the test of all or most observations so far (‘most’ because disagreement between theory and observation may be due to one or at most a few faulty observations.) Still, I use the word ‘validation’ because (1) In the case of the theories of science it may have the sense of effective validation—and this is especially pertinent to sciences such as biology that are effectively local to our world and (2) As we have seen there is via abstraction the fact—and therefore the trivially obvious possibility—of the Universal metaphysics

I.e. two aspects to method—to goal oriented activity—are creation and validation or, in the words of Hans Reichenbach, the context of discovery and the context of justification

Some modes of education emphasize validation as though every process of problem solving proceeds inexorably and algorithmically from premise to conclusion. The student is then surprised to discover, first, that the foregoing is by far the exceptional case and, second, that the forefront of knowledge and many other non-trivial contexts are characterized by essential ignorance of truth (conclusions) and therefore a first step is hypothesis / creation / guess

Some philosophical thought has emphasized the separation between discovery and justification. It is inherent to progress, the argument goes, to have the phase of guessing but this must be followed by strict justification. As we have seen, however, there are contexts where no strict justification is possible. Additionally, this is, at least apparently, not the actual process of progress. Consider the general theory of relativity of Einstein. In the months leading up to the final formulation, completed in November 1915, Einstein labored intensely for days to get the equations and his thinking about these equations right: it was a give and take process between hypotheses, reason, and realism (consequences of the equations.) Thus, in effective thought, the creative phase of hypothesis is guided by the critical thinking and reason of the thinker (entirely unstructured ‘creativity’ would be far to random for there to be any reasonable likelihood of effective hypotheses.) The separationist (of creation and validation) may now argue that there must be a phase of pure validation—the conceptual critiques and the experimental tests of the general theory. However, we may assert that the general theory is not complete in itself (and not only because it does not incorporate the forces other than gravitation) and the process of alternation between and integration of creation and validation that preoccupied Einstein continued after him in the experimental phase and continues today with various ongoing proposals to modify the original theory. Perhaps the idea of separation of validation from creation is an approximation. We have seen various ways in which validation is never complete even in logic. Perhaps in an ideal and very limited world where all knowledge has been achieved, there is a separate and final phase of validation. In this world there may be no ultimate separation of validation from creation; there is of course, following the introduction of a potentially new or useful theory, the necessity of intense phases of validation of experiment and concept. We may think, then, and recorded history may be written that the theory has been validated. And indeed, in its domain, it (often) is validated. This is validation. But, in science if not in logic, this validation, it appears, is never final. A limited theory fits the separationist paradigm but knowledge as a whole does not

Percept and concept

Primary concern here is with knowledge and transformation. Transformation is possible via knowledge and experiment and therefore presents no essential distinction from the case of knowledge although the attitude toward knowledge and the kind of action emphasized may be different

There are two sources of knowledge—observation / perception and inference / conception (here concept is used in the restricted sense of the higher concept that may be created rather than effectively given)

Therefore method concerns both observation / experience / perception / data as well as conception / inference / law / theory

Method and content

No a priori… or substance in epistemology… this is where the no substance discussion shall go—possibly consider another section

What is the significance of substance in epistemology? The elimination of substance from metaphysics has been seen but what is it in relation to knowing (epistemology)? It means non-uniformity of judgment with regard to possibility and faithfulness of knowledge with regard to kind. Especially, it means that since the notion of the concept carries with it no faithfulness to its apparent Object, it does not follow that faithfulness cannot be concluded by means particular to some class of Objects (this should be trivially obvious but the conclusion is often tacit and occasionally made explicitly by both experts and beginners)

Bio --> Science / E.g. Physics / E.g. Meaning / E.g. Institutional purity / E.g. The disciplines including philosophy and science

We have seen in the present development the simultaneous concern with method and content—insights emerged that enabled talk of metaphysics where metaphysics has, in the modern tradition, been regarded as impossible and system where system has been regarded as merely speculative, an ultimate metaphysics that revealed without reference to substance a Universe whose variety has no limit but still finds the occurrence of our cosmological system and its patterns to be necessary (the sense of which is explained earlier.) The talk that emerged concerned both perception and inference, especially Logic. It emerged that from the depth of content, where I might have thought that the great systems of inference would be all the tools of thought that I might need, instead, I had occasion to be concerned with observation and inference. Thus it was that, by slow degrees, the ideas of intuition-abstraction and Logic as a concept arose… and, then by reflection and conceptual experiment though with anchoring in experience an articulate system, the Universal metaphysics and its elaboration, arose. System was not sought for its own sake—its emergence, too, was natural. Of course, once a glimmer of these things had been seen it became reasonable to cultivate them so as to see to whether and to what degree they might be capable of development

Perhaps in small communities, there is always such simultaneous concern

In our larger society with its specialization of function and preservation but only partial preservation of a record of development of thought, method, e.g. logic, becomes separated from content e.g. application of logic

However, at the forefront, again there must be the dual concern with method and content, e.g. with logic and its use

Perhaps method is at its most vibrant and powerful when developing alongside content

Method is a form of content because thought and reasoning about the world, being logical regarding the form and process of the world, and observing the world are in the world

The Object of method is content and therefore (a) While there are generalities of method, e.g. validation and creation, there are fine and in some cases not so fine distinctions of method according to kind of content. However, method is a kind of content and therefore (b) Method is an Object: there may be and are approaches to the study of method itself, (c) Consequently method does not lie in the realm of the a priori even though it may be received and (d) Method has an empirical aspect in addition to any effectively a priori side that may result from its remote and perhaps opaque origin in evolution, practice, antique trial and error, and tradition

And just as the empiricism varies from one science to another, so the empiricism of Method and logic are not as the primary empiricism of science but concern experience and experiment with symbols, concepts, observation and instruments. We are in effect thinking of the ‘logic of method’ or, perhaps method of method (reflexivity in relation to method)

Thinker and self are in the world. Therefore, again, method is a form of content. This might be interpreted as psychologism—the idea that method, e.g. deduction, follows from laws of psychology or the workings of mind. However, this claim is not made. Consider the question of the nature of deduction. It is governed by the laws of logic—which preserves a property (truth) among abstract Objects (propositions.) It was seen in Objects that all Objects are in the Universe. Since (we think) we work with such Object-systems (which are also Objects) we may enquire What constitutes the knowledge that we think we have of these Objects? Effectively, for us, logic is a system of relations on paper or in the brain (augmented by external memory such as paper and computer memory.) There is no claim, of course, that everything that goes on in a brain is logic but only that, effectively, logic is a subset or subnet of brain relation-processes

Metaphysics and Logic are identical (have identity)

The putative a priori character of method

… and on all these accounts may arise the putative a priori character of method

And the thought of its apparent necessity where it is not

Which is underlined by the slower development of method relative to primary content

Guide versus definitive

As seen and as will be emphasized, method is in general no more than a guideline

We have also seen immense phases of knowing where method is definitive

Hierarchies of certainty

It is important to underline the hierarchies of certainty. The logics are perhaps the highest of certainties. The logics have empirical content in that they refer to symbolic systems. The forms within Logic have empirical content

It is substance thought manifested in epistemology to think that the world of thought is divided into two absolutely distinct domains—the contingent and the necessary, the empirical and the a priori

Method

Knowledge and the nature of knowledge

Holism and embedding

Significance

With examples (brief)

Kinds of knowledge

The distinctions are introduced to emphasize them as a continuum

Emphasize that to call ‘adaptation’ etc. knowledge is, at outset, to either stretch meaning or use analogy

Fixed adaptation

In fixed adaptation we think of fixed development—morphological including neural, gross and fine

There is probably no absolutely fixed development although there probably more or less fixed ranges called norm of reaction… it is probable that fixedness is a relative term

Even rather fixed development requires environmental exposure—in the uterus or egg, and, for perception, the proper kind of stimulus at the appropriate stage of development

Adaptability—flexible according to organism-environment

The following are arranged from gross to fine

Gross morphological adaptive flexibility

Fine morphological adaptive flexibility—neural, endocrine…

Generalized conception—i.e., including perception—and memory

Combine most of the following discussion of know how / that into the next section

Know how, e.g. knowing how to walk or how to recognize a face which is normally done without conscious attention or effort or knowing how to repair a car which requires conscious attention and effort but for which textbook knowledge is insufficient

Knowing that or, simply, knowing something, e.g. I know that the earth has one moon or I know by rote how to prove the theorem of Pythagoras. If I did not know how to prove a theorem by rote, some know how of theorem proving might be necessary and knowing that and knowing how merge at least at their boundaries

Knowing how versus knowing that

Knowing how—there are levels of knowing how to do something. We are not taught to walk. Learning how to talk is largely a process of experience and absorption by an organism that comes with the ability to learn how to talk without explicit instruction; but there may be explicit instruction in talking well. We may be taught a trade but that is possible because we are human; another animal or a rock cannot learn human trades and we cannot learn to hunt as a lion does. Absorption of the trade and expertise in it, however, are not entirely explicit

Note in the following paragraph and earlier that the distinction perception / free conception is the source of the sources of knowing that: perception / conception or observation / theory or experience / inference

Knowing or knowing that—perception; free conception, symbolic, knowing of… There is a relation between knowing how and knowing that: how we know that is a result of explicit instruction and knowing how. When we seek foundation for our knowledge we are typically seeking foundation for knowing that, e.g. the disciplines such as physics in which (we think) we know the content of physics. Without foundation, such knowledge remains enmeshed with the unfounded level of know how (which does not need and may be incapable of explicit final foundation.) In this narrative we have used a concept of intuition that is close to the idea of knowing how. We brought all knowing under the umbrella of intuition but not because we think that all knowing is incapable of foundation. Instead, the objective was to relinquish all claim to foundation to see what knowledge (that) was capable of foundation and, according to the specific field, to what degree

Prospect

Having introduced distinctions in kinds of knowledge as a continuum, the following treatment of the nature of knowledge in the case of the concept may be generalized by a loosening of interpretation

Knowledge and its nature

In knowing that, we think of a concept that corresponds to an Object

The first thought is that the concept corresponds to—is a replica--of the Object

The essential gap between concept and Object—in fact and, as far as we know at outset, in kind—and the restitution of a meaning to and degrees of faithfulness from rough to necessary and exact has been taken up in Intuition and resolved in Metaphysics. Also, it is not necessary to repeat commentary on some degree of net and implicit faithfulness from adaptation or, in the case of useful knowledge such as science, from pragmatic considerations (which do not exclude the finer meaning of faithfulness)

Of course in using the words replica and correspondence, there is no implication of geometrical and or temporal congruence (although rough temporal congruence seems likely.) What is meant is that there is some kind of mapping as, for example, in that a Fourier transformation does not resemble the original function but contains all the information of the function (the concept corresponds then as the transform corresponds to the function except that filtering and distortion may be present; it is further emphasized that this is intended as analogy even though it may in some sense be more than analogy.) In the case of symbolically expressed concepts, whose base is in intuitive-perception, any thought of congruence becomes remote even when faithfulness, in some sense, is excellent

Alternatively, we may think of correspondence in the following sense. When I see a physical pyramid as a pyramid, it is because it resembles other physical pyramids or rendered drawings of them. In this case correspondence is a kind of coherence. Now even though we think of vision as precise, visual perception may be rough and in for the other senses it may be quite rough. However, in adaptation, we negotiate the world; the experimenter armed with experience, instruments, and theory for interpretation seems to render quite precise correspondence

Returning, however, to the philosophical concern with these issues, it remains that, whatever view of knowing and correspondence we take, the concept is not the Object. That the concept is not the Object, that we allow for an essential gap between concept and Object, is a positive mode of expression of Cartesian doubt and this positive expression permits and encourages a resolution that includes the Cartesian resolution as a limited and special case. This issue has of course been addressed in this essay for a range of kinds (explicit versus implicit, rough replication by transformation versus precise replication by abstraction of detail) and degrees (rough to precise to perfect) faithfulness. What has been learnt is collected, articulated and reassessed in the section Elements of method below

That the concept is not the Object leads to immense understanding and the removal of many confusions from the tradition, the source of the idea is in the correspondence / replica notion of knowing

There is a deeper place where knowing is simply some small rough but adequate conformal relation between a primitive organism and its world and where there is no separation of the degree that we know between our awareness and the world

We come from that place and before. The discreteness of (the discrete parts of) our knowing originates in a holism of relations

And our actual state as well as those who used to be thought of as primitive is one that lies in the range defined by absolute separation and identity of concept and Object

It is interesting to apply doubt to itself—i.e., to the ‘principle’ of doubt. It implies, perhaps, that doubt is not invariably the—best—approach to knowing or acting, for example (1) After extended critical restraint or perhaps (2) As an experiment in judgment and action. Let us reflexively apply the positive form of doubt (The concept is not the Object) to itself. It is convenient to consider a modified form The concept is not equivalent to the Object. The italicized statement is a concept and the Object is the relation between concepts and their—intended—Objects in general. The conclusion of the reflexive exercise is that self-contradiction may be avoided if we regard the principle as not entirely universal. Neither reasoning nor conclusion is deep—the latter is often ignored by the enthusiastic skeptic—skepticism is healthy as is skepticism about skepticism. The reason for the insertion of the phrase ‘equivalent to’ may now be clear: it seems that the concept should never be the Object; but self application would suggest that the concept can be the Object, i.e. concept and Object as one (which is distinct from a concept being its own Object.) In this narrative I distinguish concept from Object but philosophies can be imagined in which the distinction is at least diminished, e.g. we can imagine a development with the initial thought that the concept is a relationship between knower and known and is therefore the ‘real thing.’ Alexius Meinong’s Theory of Objects or Gegenstandstheorie (Untersuchung zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie, 1904) comes close to a position of this kind. (The reader who is familiar with Meinong’s work will notice similarities and differences between his thought and the ideas of this essay. It seems to this writer, however, that Meinong was struggling in a certain direction is one of the threads of this essay and, in fact, a thread that is here given a resolution that, since the concept of the Universe has been realized as being without limit, is in that way final. It may also be noted that while Meinong had insight into the variety of kinds of Objects, e.g., thing versus concept, he did not rationalize such Objects or find their common ground)

Generalization

Work this out

Action

We saw that for the necessary Objects, the concept is perfectly faithful. In the general case, the meaning of ‘Object as thing-in-itself’ is not clear. The Object lies at the (projective) intersection of knower and known but functions as thing; the precision of this functioning depends on the case; even in cases of precision, however, such precision may be limited to a realm or domain of phenomena; such domains may, as in the case of physical science, be vast in relation to the immediate human world but are themselves very local, even infinitesimal, in comparison to the Universe

Except in the case of the necessary Objects, there remains an essential interaction of concept and Object. This is perhaps the primordial origin of knowledge—the state of the organism in interactive relation to the state of the environment. We have not and shall not entirely emerged from this state (perhaps that statement should be evaluated for overstatement, absolutism, and dogma) but, structure and distinction has permitted and occasioned degrees of separation from the elementary state in which we have degrees of faithfulness and degrees of independence, even necessary and perfect faithfulness, but these remain within the outer boundary of interaction and may, even in distinction, continue to perform, also, the original function… and perhaps over sufficiently long times necessarily amount effectively to the same function

Elements of method

Include Applied metaphysics / Worlds… the disciplines

>> the following requires hard editing

>> integration is an element

>> no distinction of discovery / creation / hypothesis / reflex vs. justification / validation / testing >> all falls under reflex?

>> reflexivity does not mean everything interacts with everything simultaneously

>> in knowledge the essential elements are observation and inference

>> include elements for transformation?

General

Validation and creation—interactivity and separability

Evaluate. Since the number of people doing the most creative work is small and, perhaps, because the rest need to rule or be ruled, formal method appears to take precedence over creation

Validation

Creation has a role

Intuition—the bringing of all knowing under intuition (preliminary to analysis)

Neutrality with regard to the faithfulness of concepts to Objects

Doubt may be regarded as falling under neutrality—and, again, reflexivity is pertinent

The occasion for doubt is pertinent. The same concept may be applied confidently in practical situations but placed under doubt or scrutiny when advance or conceptual clarity is needed

Identifying and Naming what is most basic and given. Being is what is there

The question about givenness then becomes What has being? or, more precisely, To what concepts do there correspond Objects? A second concern is How is the chosen concept known to be most basic?

Attention to and analysis of meaning is pivotal in the development of the metaphysics. Since the metaphysics develops via experiment with concept (incorporating experience,) there is an exploration in meaning space

Intuition and abstraction found and ground the abstract metaphysics in the body of being

Three faithful ‘modes’ or ways of abstraction (1) Elimination of detail that may be distorted, (2) Qualitative description, and (3) Knowledge of

Concept selection and development and Development of articulated systems of concepts

Faith and hypothesis

Revaluation of fundamentals—especially of the nature of knowledge

Deployment of the fundamental principle of metaphysics in its various formulations are pivotal in providing foundation for such topics as Objects, Cosmology, and, Worlds

Elements of creation in ideas

Since the number of individuals doing the most creative work is small and, perhaps, because the rest ‘need’ to rule or be ruled, formal method appears to take precedence over creation (and this is enhanced by the apparent remoteness of the origins of formal method.) However it is basic both that imagination and criticism are essential. It is therefore perhaps without epistemic significance to ask whether creation is more or less important than criticism

Reflexivity as anything goes individually; at all levels; interactively among all elements

Tradition—moving forward

Comprehensive—selective

Reflexivity refers, initially, to the application of a principle to itself

(Initially, in a related sense—especially in the study and sciences of mind and society, it may also refer to the mutual influence of observer-analyst or ‘Subject’ and observed or ‘Object;’ from the conventional viewpoint of science, this is a weakness; however, in accepting it, it may become a strength (see participant-analysis in other writing and the literature. In all areas of knowing, even those considered necessarily Objective, there is a level or mode at which participation is essential: this is one motive for engaging in Journey in being and, consequently, the label ‘Journey in being”)

Consider the ‘principle’ There are no absolutes. Is that not an absolute? In this case the reflexive application is resolved by changing the statement of the ‘principle’ to There are few absolutes or There are no absolutes of certain kinds. Even though this example and it resolution are trivial, it illustrates that the reflexive application of the principle is effective and works by interaction (in this case that of an assertion with itself)

A generalized notion of reflexivity is to seek the formal and suggestive or analogical interaction of concepts and principles among all elements of study

General and specific examples—wide ranging study and experience, validation-creation, intuition(esoteric)-formal; bio--> necessity of indeterminism… and is biological process special or physics +

Some development…

Perception and judgment—fluidity as occasioned by external and internal circumstances of perceptive and judgmental attitudes may be seen as an example of non a priori or non substance thinking. As the development of the narrative has shown, in being perceptive in attitude an occasion may emerge where judgment emerges, i.e. it is true knowledge rather than mere judgment or, put another way, perceiving has raised itself to the level of judging. Similarly, in wanting to judge we revert to the perceptive attitude

These and the corresponding attitudes do interact and the interaction may be seen as an example of reflexivity; additionally reflexive considerations may occasion such interaction

A personal comment—I used to say and think I have always been perceptive over judging. Certainly there is truth to that in my attitudes to the world and to ideas. However, the perceiving attitude to the world (of course not altogether 100%) may have had origin in empathetic feeling and or in reaction to living in a society that I saw as judgmental (as well being subject to incessant judgment by my father.) And, the perceptivity in knowing—was that innate or a reaction to wanting to know, i.e. a judgment that knowledge is of intrinsic value and therefore important in itself and or a judgment born of experience that in order to know I would need to withhold judging? These factors are not entirely separate as far as I see. There may well be innate (not nurture) differences between people but such differences may be nudged in one way or another by circumstances external and internal. I think I was more judgmental than I used to think I was but I continue to think I was perceptive in my attitude to a fairly if not marked degree. Since 2002, judgment has been emerging. But is that just a change of attitude, is it across all aspects of knowing, is it hardening of the arteries in the brain, a calcification of neural pathways… is it the simple knowledge that I have lived probably more that 66% of my life and that judgment is needed for product and closure… or is it the raising of perception to the level of being able to judge without being judgmental (I think it is this plus the 66% concern but the two concerns apply to different areas; perception to judging applies to my knowledge endeavors… 66% concerns the rest of my life… and of course the two overlap…)

I find myself again entering a realm of perception with the continuation of my ‘great project’ into experiments… But the point is to integrate perception and judgment interactively, responsively to internal and external circumstances and trends

Application to a variety of endeavors

Shorten. Include implications of the Universal metaphysics

Show. To understand what a discipline is, is to know its method; use the example of art to illustrate this

Show. Not only do method and content arise together, the significance of method is primarily in doing (just as the primary importance of content is application. Explain. It might seem that this discounts appreciation; this is not the case for appreciation and doing enhance one another what is meant by the foregoing. This does not discount, e.g., pure mathematics for that is application to in an abstract world. Note that in the doing, method may be tacit / have become part of intuition / have become institutionalized

Science

A scientific theory is a system of concepts that describes phenomena—the language of science is a language of concepts

The laws of physics and the explanatory systems of biology are both concepts. The theories of these sciences are concepts

We will compare and contrast science and philosophy as an approach to understanding both

Science is practically different from philosophy in ways that include the following characteristics of science. (1) Particularity and immediate applicability, (2) Closeness to empirical data, (3) Practical and approximate faithfulness over conceptual clarity and (as an ideal) perfect faithfulness, (4) As universal, scientific theories are ideally replaceable (philosophical understanding is practically replaceable but it is an important philosophic ideal to be faithful and therefore ideals of replace-ability in philosophy are those of breadth and depth rather than revolution)

Scientific theories may be viewed in one of two rather equivalent ways— (1) As laying claim to universality and therefore tentative, testable (falsiable,) and replaceable… and (2) As factual over a domain that is limited (but significant) domain

Method

Briefly, scientific method is hypothesis and test

Although there is a tendency to minimize the role of concept formation, science is highly conceptual. Hypothesis formation, an essential step in scientific method is highly conceptual. Generally there is no necessary inference from data to hypothesis. A law is not a necessary fit to data. In the beginning there are concepts. The development of laws and explanatory systems is often incremental but occasionally significant. Since many theories invoke multiple hypotheses, consistency is a necessary consideration and could be considered to be a part of testing even though ‘test’ may evoke the idea of experiment (a test for consistency may be seen as a conceptual test or experiment)

Here is an example. Galileo noted the uniform acceleration under the earth’s gravitational field (acceleration is uniform only when gravity is uniform, i.e. not too far from earth’s surface… and provided friction is negligible.) Newton was able to generalize this to all motion; the generalization is not directly inferential but (1) Involves generalization from Galileo’s simple case—from straight line motion of a single body or ‘particle’ under constant force to general motion, multiple bodies, arbitrary and multiple forces that may vary and may or may not be in the direction of motion—and (2) Additional ‘rational’ hypotheses as necessary to permit detailed working out of consequences, and (3) Universal gravitation and other kinds of force (whose effect is determined solely by the magnitude and direction of their ‘vector’ sum

Thus conceptualism is an essential aspect of science. Science is not inherently mathematical even though physics without mathematics would hard to imagine and significantly less useful (the philosopher and logician W. V. O. Quine held that the sciences that were significantly mathematical (i.e. in the expression of their fundamental laws) were superior to the other sciences)

The (an) other aspect of scientific method is its empiricism. Data suggest but do not determine theories; theories make predictions which may be compared against experience or suggest experiments which test the theory

The ‘two step’ approach above is often drawn out into a larger number of steps. Creativity and criticism are omnipresent—what predictions to make, how to test—conceptual-logical as well as experimental, how we arrive at hypotheses (imagination, intuition and various suggestive but not at all necessary guides such as Ockham’s razor, aesthetics, incubation…)

Logic

Discuss logic and certainty

The idea of logic begins, perhaps, as the theory of inference. Also sometimes thought of as the theory of argument, there is a distinction. If the idea of argument is to ‘win’ then argument may include inference, appeal to emotion and other non-inferential elements such as the character of the arguer. In fact inference may also appeal to emotion but not for the process of inference but, for example, as guiding selection of topic to study; character or ability of the arguer may be a valid influence in some argument or debate when inference is incomplete—especially when action is necessary

However, logic itself may be regarded as concerned with inference proper. Inference is generally regarded as being of two kinds—deduction or necessary inference and induction or reasonable inference including probable inference and generalization. The development of knowledge may be seen as having two aspects—inference and experience (including observation and experiment.) Science deploys experience (observation, experiment, data,) induction (hypothesis formation, imagination, and, occasionally, making weak prediction when deduction is difficult) and deduction (making predictions)

Today, logic refers almost exclusively to deduction. There really is no method for induction in the way that we think logic is ‘methodical’

As deduction, there are two ways to view logic. In the first, logic is the sequence of steps in logical deduction. In the second, perhaps equivalent way, logic is the system of necessary relations among truths

Method

But what is the method of logic?

What we think of as the step by step deductive inference in logic is methodical in that deduction can be examined for logical necessity after the fact. Coming up with the sequence may require imagination (creativity.) This aspect to method, therefore, has both discovery and validation

The application of logic just derived is analogous to prediction in science which is, simply, the derivation of conclusions about some configuration of material elements in the world on the basis of the laws (for application and test.) That is part of scientific method; the other part is hypothesis formation

What is the corresponding function in logic? Since the conclusions of logical process are regarded as necessary, we do not generally think to test them. However, there is an implicit test: we do not know that logic is perfect and it is possible that even while following given logical principles faithfully we might still come up with a contradiction (whose source might lie in premises / axioms or in the principles of ‘logic’ itself)

So, in analogy to theory formation in science, how do we come up with the principles of logic? In part, since the principles of logic are time honored we think of them as a priori. However, there is an empirical component which is not the empiricism of science which is empirical with regard to the world but an empiricism over symbolic systems—as, e.g., in the predicate calculus. As we have seen, logic itself is subject to hypothesis formation and testing (in the simpler parts, e.g. sentence calculus and the syllogism of Aristotle but not in axiomatization of predicate calculus or set theory, the simplicity of the models make examination of consistency transparent)

Thus in relation to logic there are two aspects of method. As inference, logic is a method. We have seen that it is not certain but perhaps the highest of our certainties. This leads into the second aspect of method for logic—what is the derivation of the principles of logic. Clearly there is and probably can be no logical derivation. The process is one of drawing into intuition, laying out Logic and developing the logics within that framework and that development includes hypothesis and test

We see, then, that the apparent a priori character of logic is significantly due to its remoteness and its necessity in trivial cases; it is also due to the fact that logic has become concerned with symbol systems. In fact logic is empirical in a special sense and hypothetical (that it is empirical implies that it is testable and tested even if implicitly; initial empiricism lies in the coding of experience into the principles)

We also see method and content overlapping in logic

And we see also Logic as the only universal law (limit on concepts)

Mathematics

There is a variety of views on the nature of mathematics but here I limit discussion to ‘realism.’ However, a number of other views such as Intuitionism, Constructivism, Embodiment of mathematics in mind, and Fictionalism have interpretations within the present framework. It is reasonable to think that the origin of mathematics was empirical—numbers in counting, geometry in relation to plane and three dimensional figures that arise in practice… It may alternatively be thought that mind is able to perceive mathematical Objects with some degree of fidelity but this is not truly distinct from the empirical which would then be regarded as the adaptive or evolutionary source of the ability of mind. Today however, the Objects of mathematics are regarded as abstract; and mathematical systems—whatever their status in intuition—are typically specified axiomatically in terms of undefined terms, postulates, and axioms…

In Euclid’s elements, the notions of straight line and point are taken as given—i.e. they are not defined but not undefined because certain intuitively ‘obvious’ properties are assigned to them (later Hilbert supplied the missing foundation,) angles, triangles, right angles and so on are defined in terms of the not defined terms, the postulates are Euclid’s famous five, and the axioms are general truths ‘things equal to the same thing’ are equal to one another… Today, the distinction between axiom and postulate is not regarded as clear cut but it seems that the axioms are logical whereas the postulates are specific to the field. Theorems are demonstrated starting with the postulates via the logical axioms

Therefore, the system is developed via logic. There is a close relation between mathematics and logic

It used to be thought that mathematical truth and mathematical provability are the same. However, Gödel showed the contrary—for sufficiently complex theories, e.g. anything that contains elementary arithmetic, it is possible to show that, provided the theory is consistent, there is a statement G which is a statement of the theory (T) which can be shown to be true but unprovable within T[4]

What is the significance of this?

Of course, as so frequently noted, the role of ingenuity in the development of mathematics. (And the destruction of Hilbert’s program—the second of Hilbert’s 23 problems asks for a proof that arithmetic is consistent and the program, more generally, is the search a complete and consistent set of axioms for all mathematics. Hilbert’s program is perhaps a little on the fantastic side because it seems to ask for axioms for all mathematics, discovered and undiscovered; and, on account of what the theorems presuppose, logicians and mathematicians have argued that consistency proofs may be obtained by ‘alternate’ means and, in fact, Gödel gave one in 1958.) Clearly, even if Hilbert’s program were to be possible, it would require ingenuity. So perhaps the safest conclusion from Gödel’s theorems is a little more ingenuity

Gödel was a Platonist. He held that, as I have read in the secondary / tertiary literature, mathematics describes reality—an abstract reality. However, his theorems suggest the limitations of fixed axiomatic systems. Gödel may have meant, therefore, that this abstract reality may be accessed by mind in process rather than as static (this sounds a little like intuitionism (which permits only proof by construction but not by negation of non-existence which the intuitionist sees as problematic unless the system under consideration is finite)

According to the principle of reference: Subject to Logic, every concept has an Object. Gödel, therefore, seems to imply that a partial concept may implicitly specify an Object. When thinking of the implication of the form of the principle that Logic is the only universal law, we may wonder whether the Universe has the immense freedom that the statement might imply. Here we see that, perhaps, Logic as Law is not as free as it might seem. Alternatively, though, perhaps the partial concept specifies the partial Object and the two are paired in the simultaneous construction of understanding and the real

Method

Trivially, the method of mathematics has this closeness to the method of science—the creative hypotheses are axiomatic systems; the tests are applicability, search for consistency, richness of mathematical structure via derivation of theorems (for which, rather as in the case of science there is no general method of divining or proving)

Non-trivially, it is precisely the questions (1) What counts as a mathematical system, mathematical proof, and mathematical truth? and (2) What are the criteria of ‘valid’ mathematics that are open (even though the richness and application are not in question)

Philosophy

At the dawn of philosophy a distinction between science and philosophy was not made. Today, scholars make this distinction. Wittgenstein insisted on the distinction. Is this an evolution?

It is an evolution but though evolution may be advance, evolution and advance are (obviously) not synonymous. I think the kind of thought initiated by Wittgenstein, an immensely careful analysis of our use of language, is useful and may be advance. I do not think it is all there is to philosophy

If science studies the world and philosophy studies language / concept use, does that cover the disciplinary possibilities for knowing the world—i.e., do philosophy as conceived by Wittgenstein and science exhaust the kinds of conceptual knowledge? As practical, science allows that its concepts may and need not be perfectly faithful. Is there no higher or more abstract level at which both practicality (reference) and faithfulness obtain? Yes, and we have seen the elaboration of such a level in Metaphysics—Cosmology and to some extent in Worlds; and it is a vast world even though we do not have a direct hold (experience of) on it (recall also that the abstraction is only initially of the kind in which detail is suppressed)

Keeping in mind the arguments here and throughout against the preemption of philosophy by the analytic and continental approaches, let us begin to approach the idea of philosophy by comparison with science. Referring to the corresponding comparison in the section on Science, we tentatively suggest (1) A first concern of philosophy shall be of generality and potential applicability (truth before application,) (2) Experience is built into ideas and cannot be escaped but philosophy shall occasionally take leave of experience to focus on concept formation; in the process we may refer to but also interpret experience—intuitively and formally; and, while the goal of reference to the world cannot recede forever, we may be happy to delay that goal until reference may be faithful (given that application is a goal, faithfulness may be somewhat forgone in some disciplines / applications of philosophy but in the general case it is only forgone so as to experiment and improve; this may suggest that outcomes are not guaranteed and that is in fact the case,) (3) Conceptual clarity and perfect faithfulness are (distinct) values (use is important provided that it is understood that conceptual play is a case of use in process,) (4) In the general case universal and faithful understanding of ideas and world is the goal of philosophy (we are describing and idea that has been abandoned but that we have shown is immensely viable… and philosophy may be seen as the label that we apply to this idea… and etymologically this is a good label that, though it has fallen into disuse as a result of recent ‘evolution’ has here been seen to deserve some resurrection) and instead of replace-ability the corresponding philosophic ideals may be clarification of depth and conceptual and experimental working out of the breadth or variety of being

As seen here, philosophy is the root, to which return is immensely viable and developed, from which the modern notion of science and restricted though not empty notion of philosophy derive

Method

In the first place the method of philosophy is that of analysis of concepts and experience as outlined in the developments of method. In the second case it is the various special methods of the various disciplinary applications and divisionary developments of philosophy with interpretation of the special methods and special areas in their own terms taken experimentally and the Universal metaphysics as framework and as outlined earlier in this chapter and in Worlds

Metaphysics

The considerations regarding method that have arisen are at the heart of the possibility and construction of the metaphysics. This need not be further emphasized

It may need to be reemphasized that it is not claimed that we know every detail with perfect faithfulness. This is not claimed and it is with regard to direct knowledge of detail that metaphysics is impossible. However we know depth metaphysics and have implicit knowledge of variety. Within this immense realm there is room for experiment with concept and being

Method

See the corresponding discussion for philosophy, above

Art

It would be ambitious for me to intend to write something instructive on method in relation to art. However, my intent is to see if reflection on the topic may teach me something about the idea of method (and perhaps on art.) I suggested earlier that to know what some activity is entails knowing something of its method (if there is any.) Therefore, before thinking of method in relation to art and whether there are methods in art, I shall, of course ambitiously, reflect on the nature of art

What is art? What does ‘art’ mean to me? What does it do for me?

I look at a picture of a cave drawing and think that it is or might be art because it is in a book, a museum, or a website on art… but I look again, on another day and again in another year, perhaps by chance but the appeal of the drawing has grown upon me. Here, I think, are some of my roots in being and in depicting my world. The drawing is simple and yet it ‘takes me to another time’ and I like that experience. I do not know that I am seeing their world in the cave artist’s way but I am seeing some world in my way; and I like what I see. Those were human beings, I am human, I sense a connection (other species, apparently, do not leave behind such artifacts so for them I may feel a different kind of connection, for example the thought of their physical skill)

There is a painting on a wall in a friend’s house—it is of a tall building, yellow-brown, with colonnade façade, in the distance, by itself, surrounded by a golden desert, all under a pastel sky. Like, the cave drawing, the painting transports me; the recollection of it transports me—I see an outpost of civilization. That picture combines two favorite elements, and implicitly more. Civilization (that’s interpretation,) a building in partial ruin but still magnificent, and nature. Neither civilization, nor nature, nor decay, nor human creation is ascendant. Things in balance. A creation of man and the creation of nature which includes man. I am in the picture, too because it says something of the way I see civilization: not as above nature, but as an island but not a mere island and that is caught by the picture with its suggestion of haze and mist and distance. Of course what I see is at least in part what I read into the painting

Wikipedia says, ‘Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.’ Boring, simplistic, simplistically modern and inward looking. Does art have to be deliberate? Does it appeal only to the senses and emotions? Why does it not appeal also to the intellect, to a feeling of place, to a sense of meaning in the world? Today, as in this narrative, we emphasize the holism of emotion and cognition (which is not to say that they are identical.) Tolstoy is a little better; he says that art must create an emotional link between artist and audience, one that infects the viewer. Again, though, the unnecessary singling out of emotion (which, where it tends to be suppressed, is singled out and paraded as if to say, I am not emotionally deficient.) And does the link have to be between artist and viewer; what of links between the viewer and him or her self, between viewer and world or past of future; what of showing the viewer the world as it is or as it could be; what of showing the viewer another world… The artist, though the creator, could be supremely irrelevant

When the impressionists claimed to show what they see, art historian Ernest Gombrich responded that there is no such thing as seeing as altogether separate from what you know… as far as I can tell he was not against impressionism but only against impressionism as a theory or notion of what all art should be (like)

I could add that perhaps there is no seeing apart from what you know, from what you want to see… But, even though there is that subjective side to the experience of art, there is a definite response which is at the intersection of the viewer and the art. The response changes or augments or subtracts from my view of and experience in the world… and it therefore affects the way I live (even if only incrementally)

Method

There is art; some of the motive to viewing has to do with status of various kinds and to pretension; I think, though, that it is not all pretense. Paul Feyerabend said of method in science something equivalent to ‘whatever works.’ Regarding art itself and perhaps regarding its ‘method’ we may also say ‘whatever works.’ Method is variable—from algorithm to suggestion; in art it is perhaps even beyond suggestion; the method is no method; it is whatever works, whatever survives; it is, as suggested earlier, in the doing (and the capability)

[1] That the insight had powerful implications for metaphysics was immediate; the breadth and depth of the metaphysics (ultimate) was remote; the systematization of the metaphysics (Void, Domain, Universe, Extension-Duration, Logos, implications for form, substance) was not at all immediately apparent; that there were implications for Cosmology was immediately apparent, development of the implications was gradual, first, with regard to realization and, second, with regard to proof and clarity of understanding; development of the theory of Objects—foundation of the nature of the Object in intuition and the metaphysics, unification of the particular and the abstract—was the remote result of criticism of the ongoing development and insight that was perhaps serendipitous; the theory of Intuition was developed later in response to the thought that the metaphysics was in need of foundation / grounding; integration of the study of our world and the various disciplines of study with the Universal metaphysics was gradual and depended on (a) earlier and ongoing studies, extensive and often in depth, of a variety of disciplines (physics, mathematics, evolutionary biology, nature / philosophy of mind and matter, nature / philosophy of religion, philosophy—its nature and main topics since antiquity and under the modern analytic and continental schools as well as some aspects of Indian philosophy, and the nature and breadth of human knowledge and its disciplines were studied and occasionally researched in depth; exposure to the remaining disciplines was an interest and though relatively casual was studied sufficiently to build up a whole picture; and, finally, experience

Experience has not been limited to the academic but included travel, nature and introspection / meditation as catalysts to depth and intuition to match the academic study, university level teaching and research, acute psychiatric and geriatric care, brief involvement in the restaurant business, the normal social involvements, and a degree of ‘wild’ behavior that emerges—that tends to be minimized in my everyday consciousness—that has a certain dissipative effect—that has been immense fun—that has gotten me into trouble of various kinds—but that, somehow, has been a positive complement to what might be seen as the ‘sedate’ side. Looked at another way, the ‘sedate’ side is not so sedate after all, in my incursions into thought / transformation I have drawn immensely and immersed myself in the ancient and modern traditions, have respected them and their norms of rigor and restraint but refused to be bound by them as a matter of following reason and adventure and not as a matter of rebellion and it is this rather than any intention to be ‘different’ that has made my life not just another academic life, my body and mind not just another body and mind spent in the service of society which after all exists as much for the individual as the individual for society. Looked at again, the two sides are manifestations of the one person and I have experienced that, perhaps, both are enjoyment but one is pure enjoyment which is living as much as reason to live and the other is both enjoyment in the moment as well as enjoyment in goals as well as passion that sustains goals in perhaps inevitable times of hesitation and fading energy. I am not sure the extent and manner in which all this has contributed to the present development but I am sure that there is contribution and, in any case, it is all the same individual at work and at play…

[2] … and that this condition is not a real limit for what it really says is that concepts that involve contradiction do not define emergent Objects

[3] The philosopher Alexius Meinong contemplated ‘contradictory Objects.’ Since contradictory concepts have no manifestation, it makes no actual difference whether the corresponding Objects are admitted except, it seems, that a more symmetric theory is obtained

[4] G may be of the form ‘G cannot be proved to be true within T’ from which the truth but unprovability follows. Ingenuity enters in perceiving this point and then in constructing the statement as a statement within the theory by the famous Gödel numbering. The complete statement of this, the first incompleteness theorem is, by the way, Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true,[1] but not provable in the theory (Stephen Cole Kleene, 1967, Mathematical Logic.) The second incompleteness theorem is For any formal effectively generated theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent