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====4.2.2. The Problem of Reflection====
====4.2.2. The Problem of Reflection====
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<p>Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?<br>
<p>Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?<br>
<br>
<br>
No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself<br>
No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself<br>
But by reflection, by some other things.</p>
But by reflection, by some other things.</p>
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| align="right" colspan="3" | — ''Julius Caesar'', 1.2.53–55
| align="right" | — ''Julius Caesar'', 1.2.53–55
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| align="right" | (Aristotle, ''On the Soul'', III.iv.429<sup>b</sup>24–28, p. 169)
| align="right" | (Aristotle, ''On the Soul'', III.iv.429<sup>b</sup>24–28, p. 169)
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Of the two choices, I confess to favoring the application of inquiry to itself, since I know that it is possible for a properly constructed recursive procedure to terminate with a determinate result and thus to render an account of itself that is ultimately well founded in the end. According to this strategy, which operates in the meantime more as a hope or a regulative principle than as an item of certified knowledge, but without which it is impossible to proceed at all, one acts as if the methods of inquiry can themselves be justified on the basis of inquiry. In order for this to be possible, methods of inquiry that come under suspicion need to be subject to examination by means of an inquiry into their workings, and those that are valid need to be validated through a study that compares their actual effects with their intended ends. Whatever the case, it seems that the sheer self consistency of inquiry as a way of life demands that its principles and methods can themselves be the subjects of inquiry, and unless this form of consistency is discovered to be an illusion then it deserves to be pursued.
Of the two choices, I confess to favoring the application of inquiry to itself, since I know that it is possible for a properly constructed recursive procedure to terminate with a determinate result and thus to render an account of itself that is ultimately well founded in the end. According to this strategy, which operates in the meantime more as a hope or a regulative principle than as an item of certified knowledge, but without which it is impossible to proceed at all, one acts as if the methods of inquiry can themselves be justified on the basis of inquiry. In order for this to be possible, methods of inquiry that come under suspicion need to be subject to examination by means of an inquiry into their workings, and those that are valid need to be validated through a study that compares their actual effects with their intended ends. Whatever the case, it seems that the sheer self consistency of inquiry as a way of life demands that its principles and methods can themselves be the subjects of inquiry, and unless this form of consistency is discovered to be an illusion then it deserves to be pursued.
