Changes

To be specific, I restrict my discussion at first to ''propositional'' or ''sentential'' models of POVs, and I examine a particular type of logical strategy that allows agents operating within this framework to describe the constitutions of a broad class of POVs.  If this strategy turns out to be flexible enough, it can permit agents to reflect on the bases and the biases of their POVs and those of others, at least, to some degree.

To be specific, I restrict my discussion at first to ''propositional'' or ''sentential'' models of POVs, and I examine a particular type of logical strategy that allows agents operating within this framework to describe the constitutions of a broad class of POVs.  If this strategy turns out to be flexible enough, it can permit agents to reflect on the bases and the biases of their POVs and those of others, at least, to some degree.

<pre>

This circumscription of expressions with a double meaning properly constitutes the hermeneutic field.

Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations, [Ric, 13]

<p>This circumscription of expressions with a double meaning properly constitutes the hermeneutic field.</p>

| align="right" | Paul Ricoeur, ''The Conflict of Interpretations'', [Ric, 13]

Even with its meaning duly circumscribed, "reflection" retains the dual senses of an " ionized" word, referring to both a process and a result.  As such, it is already on its way to becoming a highly charged term in this investigation.  Even though a complete analysis of inquiry, from the top to the bottom of its putative hierarchy, is yet to be made available, the tendency to invoke "reflection" at every step and stage of inquiry is already apparent.  This is clear from the fragmentary and scattered, but steadily mounting evidence of the word's textual circumstances that is currently piling up at the level of inquiry's most primitive details.

Even with its meaning duly circumscribed, &ldquo;reflection&rdquo; retains the dual senses of an &ldquo;-ionized&rdquo; word, referring to both a process and a result.  As such, it is already on its way to becoming a highly charged term in this investigation.  Even though a complete analysis of inquiry, from the top to the bottom of its putative hierarchy, is yet to be made available, the tendency to invoke &ldquo;reflection&rdquo; at every step and stage of inquiry is already apparent.  This is clear from the fragmentary and scattered, but steadily mounting evidence of the word's textual circumstances that is currently piling up at the level of inquiry's most primitive details.

In other words, the constant invocation of "reflection" as an auxiliary to inquiry is apparent from the elementary syntactic fact that the charge of "reflection" is found in the mission statements of so many processes that are already noted to be involved in inquiry.  In this connection, any time one senses the need to add the adjective "reflective" to the title of an agent, process, or faculty, then it speaks to the suspicion that the simple carrying out of actions and the perfunctory execution of procedures is not enough for the sake of composing intelligent conduct, but that there is an obligation to adjoin a component of reflection to whatever else is going on.

In other words, the constant invocation of &ldquo;reflection&rdquo; as an auxiliary to inquiry is apparent from the elementary syntactic fact that the charge of &ldquo;reflection&rdquo; is found in the mission statements of so many processes that are already noted to be involved in inquiry.  In this connection, any time one senses the need to add the adjective &ldquo;reflective&rdquo; to the title of an agent, process, or faculty, then it speaks to the suspicion that the simple carrying out of actions and the perfunctory execution of procedures is not enough for the sake of composing intelligent conduct, but that there is an obligation to adjoin a component of reflection to whatever else is going on.

The elliptic nature of the discussion in this subsection, touching on topics that must be left in the forms of questions, raising issues that cannot be answered or even fully addressed until later sections of this project, lighting on a range of promontories in a field of problematic icebergs, and glancing up against problems that stay largely submerged and keep barely connected only through a medium of chance associations constantly in flux — all of this makes it advisable for the writer to come up with a device for continually warning the reader of the text's approaching discontinuities.

The elliptic nature of the discussion in this subsection, touching on topics that must be left in the forms of questions, raising issues that cannot be answered or even fully addressed until later sections of this project, lighting on a range of promontories in a field of problematic icebergs, and glancing up against problems that stay largely submerged and keep barely connected only through a medium of chance associations constantly in flux &mdash; all of this makes it advisable for the writer to come up with a device for continually warning the reader of the text's approaching discontinuities.

In view of these requirements, the text proceeds by highlighting a number of thematic points that find themselves to be reinforced in prior stages of its own construction, not all of which stages survive erasure enough to be explicitly marked in the text, and all in all continuing to develop as if by a pattern of constructive and destructive interference.  It is hoped that this can reveal significant aspects, however partial and confounded, of its subject, its medium, and the forms that shape them.

In view of these requirements, the text proceeds by highlighting a number of thematic points that find themselves to be reinforced in prior stages of its own construction, not all of which stages survive erasure enough to be explicitly marked in the text, and all in all continuing to develop as if by a pattern of constructive and destructive interference.  It is hoped that this can reveal significant aspects, however partial and confounded, of its subject, its medium, and the forms that shape them.

A few words need to be spent in advance on the status of these points.  Most of them are no longer controversial from my current POV, indeed, they partially constitute that POV.  However, I recognize that some of them are likely to be controversial from the perspective of other POV's.  Thus, these points are not intended to be taken as self-evident axioms, the kinds of logistical supports on the basis of which one customarily and confidently marches forward to the conquest of ever more powerful theorems.  It is true that one of the best ways of testing these points is to take them up as premisses and to reason forward from them as far as one can.  But the main reason for pointing them out in an explicit form of expression is so that their meanings, their logical implications, and their practical consequences can be examined in a circumspect light.

A few words need to be spent in advance on the status of these points.  Most of them are no longer controversial from my current POV, indeed, they partially constitute that POV.  However, I recognize that some of them are likely to be controversial from the perspective of other POVs.  Thus, these points are not intended to be taken as self-evident axioms, the kinds of logistical supports on the basis of which one customarily and confidently marches forward to the conquest of ever more powerful theorems.  It is true that one of the best ways of testing these points is to take them up as premisses and to reason forward from them as far as one can.  But the main reason for pointing them out in an explicit form of expression is so that their meanings, their logical implications, and their practical consequences can be examined in a circumspect light.

In short, none of the points to be staked out here is taken as evident or proven, and nothing of final certainty can be proved from them, but a demonstration can be made from them in the sense of an illustration, showing and testing their strength, trustworthiness, and utility for organizing an otherwise overwhelming complexity and depth of material.  This process of examination and clarification, just as often as it has to reason forward, in the direction of the contingent theorems, also has to reason backward, to interrogate the mediately obvious principals and to ask whether more basic points can be discerned, as if lurking within the points already noted and secretly required to shore them up.

In short, none of the points to be staked out here is taken as evident or proven, and nothing of final certainty can be proved from them, but a demonstration can be made from them in the sense of an illustration, showing and testing their strength, trustworthiness, and utility for organizing an otherwise overwhelming complexity and depth of material.  This process of examination and clarification, just as often as it has to reason forward, in the direction of the contingent theorems, also has to reason backward, to interrogate the mediately obvious principals and to ask whether more basic points can be discerned, as if lurking within the points already noted and secretly required to shore them up.

Out of this material I need to develop a method of inquiry, one that is extensible to its self-application.  As an adjunct, or in adjutant fashion, I need to develop a justification of this method that can lend support to the justification of inquiry in general, and in its turn help to justify the application of inquiry to itself.  Accordingly, the prospective aim to be sighted through the series of points ahead, and the line of survey to be projected through the elliptic text that charts it, are directed toward an effective theory of sign relations, one that is capable of resolving some of the subtleties it discerns in discourse, on occasions when a resolution is what is called for.

Out of this material I need to develop a method of inquiry, one that is extensible to its self-application.  As an adjunct, or in adjutant fashion, I need to develop a justification of this method that can lend support to the justification of inquiry in general, and in its turn help to justify the application of inquiry to itself.  Accordingly, the prospective aim to be sighted through the series of points ahead, and the line of survey to be projected through the elliptic text that charts it, are directed toward an effective theory of sign relations, one that is capable of resolving some of the subtleties it discerns in discourse, on occasions when a resolution is what is called for.

====5.3.4. Points Forward====

====5.3.4. Points Forward====