Changes

What names can be given to these two orders of conduct?

What names can be given to these two orders of conduct?

=====1.4.1.3  Perils of Inquiry=====

=====1.4.1.3. Perils of Inquiry=====

Now suppose that making a hypothesis is a kind of action, no matter how covert, or that testing a hypothesis takes an action that is more overt.  If entertaining a hypothesis in any serious way requires action, and if action is capable of altering the situation in which it acts, then what prevents this action from interfering with the subject of inquiry in a way that undermines, with positive or negative intentions, the very aim of inquiry, namely, to understand the situation as it is in itself?

Now suppose that making a hypothesis is a kind of action, no matter how covert, or that testing a hypothesis takes an action that is more overt.  If entertaining a hypothesis in any serious way requires action, and if action is capable of altering the situation in which it acts, then what prevents this action from interfering with the subject of inquiry in a way that undermines, with positive or negative intentions, the very aim of inquiry, namely, to understand the situation as it is in itself?

In making a hypothesis or choosing a model, one appears to select from a vaster number of conceivable possibilities than a finite agent could ever enumerate in complete detail or consider as an articulate totality.  As the very nature of a contingent description and the very character of a discriminate action is to apply in some cases but not in others, there is no escaping the making of a risky hypothesis or a speculative interpretation, even in the realm of a purely mental action.  Thus, all significant thought, even thinking to any purpose about thought itself, demands a guess at the subject or a grasp of the situation that is contingent, dubious, fallible, and uncertain.

In making a hypothesis or choosing a model, one appears to select from a vaster number of conceivable possibilities than a finite agent could ever enumerate in complete detail or consider as an articulate totality.  As the very nature of a contingent description and the very character of a discriminate action is to apply in some cases but not in others, there is no escaping the making of a risky hypothesis or a speculative interpretation, even in the realm of a purely mental action.  Thus, all significant thought, even thinking to any purpose about thought itself, demands a guess at the subject or a grasp of the situation that is contingent, dubious, fallible, and uncertain.

If all this is true - if inquiry begins with doubt, if every significant hypothesis is itself a dubious proposition, if the making and the testing of a hypothesis are instances of equally doubtful actions, and if every action has the potential to alter the very situation and the very subject matter that are being addressed - then it leads to the critical question:  How is the conduct of inquiry, that begins by making a hypothesis and that continues by testing this description in action, supposed to help with the situation of uncertainty that incites it in the first place and that is supposed to maintain its motivation until the end is reached?  The danger is that the posing of a hypothesis may literally introduce an irreversible change in the situation or the subject matter in question.  The fear is that this change might be one that too conveniently fulfills or too perversely subverts the very hypothesis that engenders it, that it may obstruct the hypothesis from ever being viewed with equanimity again, and thus prevent the order of reflection that is needed to amend or discard the hypothesis when the occasion to do so arises.

If all this is true — if inquiry begins with doubt, if every significant hypothesis is itself a dubious proposition, if the making and the testing of a hypothesis are instances of equally doubtful actions, and if every action has the potential to alter the very situation and the very subject matter that are being addressed — then it leads to the critical question:  How is the conduct of inquiry, that begins by making a hypothesis and that continues by testing this description in action, supposed to help with the situation of uncertainty that incites it in the first place and that is supposed to maintain its motivation until the end is reached?  The danger is that the posing of a hypothesis may literally introduce an irreversible change in the situation or the subject matter in question.  The fear is that this change might be one that too conveniently fulfills or too perversely subverts the very hypothesis that engenders it, that it may obstruct the hypothesis from ever being viewed with equanimity again, and thus prevent the order of reflection that is needed to amend or discard the hypothesis when the occasion to do so arises.

If one fears that merely contemplating a special hypothesis is enough to admit a spurious demonstration into the foundations of one's reasoning, even to allow a specious demon to subvert all one's hopes of a future rationality and to destroy all one's chances of a reasonable share of knowledge, then one is hardly in a state of mind that can tolerate the tensions of a full-fledged, genuine inquiry.  If one is beset with such radical doubts, then all inquiry is no more comfort than pure enchoiry.  Sometimes it seems like the best you can do is sing yourself a song that soothes your doubts.  Perhaps it is even quite literally true that all inquiry comes back at last to a form of "enchoiry", the invocation of a nomos, a way of life, or a song and a dance.  But even if this is the ultimate case, it does no harm and it does not seem like a bad idea to store up in this song one or two bits of useful lore, and to weave into its lyric a few suggestions of a practical character.

If one fears that merely contemplating a special hypothesis is enough to admit a spurious demonstration into the foundations of one's reasoning, even to allow a specious demon to subvert all one's hopes of a future rationality and to destroy all one's chances of a reasonable share of knowledge, then one is hardly in a state of mind that can tolerate the tensions of a full-fledged, genuine inquiry.  If one is beset with such radical doubts, then all inquiry is no more comfort than pure enchoiry.  Sometimes it seems like the best you can do is sing yourself a song that soothes your doubts.  Perhaps it is even quite literally true that all inquiry comes back at last to a form of "enchoiry", the invocation of a nomos, a way of life, or a song and a dance.  But even if this is the ultimate case, it does no harm and it does not seem like a bad idea to store up in this song one or two bits of useful lore, and to weave into its lyric a few suggestions of a practical character.

Of course, a finite person can only take up so many causes in a single lifetime, and so there is always the excuse of time for not chasing down every conceivable hypothesis that comes to mind.

Of course, a finite person can only take up so many causes in a single lifetime, and so there is always the excuse of time for not chasing down every conceivable hypothesis that comes to mind.

=====1.4.1.4  Forms of Relations=====

=====1.4.1.4  Forms of Relations=====