Changes

# Finally, it is under the cumulative aims of effective description and systematic dynamics that the utility of sign relations is key.  Sign relations are the minimal forms of models that are capable of compassing all that goes on in thinking along with whatever it is that thinking relates to in all the domains that it orients toward.  The use of sign relations as models, as mathematical descriptions, and as computational simulations of what appears in reflecting on conduct is especially well suited to including in these models a description of what transpires in the conduct of reflection itself.

# Finally, it is under the cumulative aims of effective description and systematic dynamics that the utility of sign relations is key.  Sign relations are the minimal forms of models that are capable of compassing all that goes on in thinking along with whatever it is that thinking relates to in all the domains that it orients toward.  The use of sign relations as models, as mathematical descriptions, and as computational simulations of what appears in reflecting on conduct is especially well suited to including in these models a description of what transpires in the conduct of reflection itself.

The type of phenomenology that is being envisioned here depends on no assured power of introspection but only on a modest power to reflect on conduct and thereby to give it a description.  These descriptions, all the better if they are inscribed in external media, can be examined with increasing degrees of detachment and have their consequences projected by deductive means.  In time, the mass of descriptions that accumulates with continuing experience and persistent reflection on conduct begins to constitute a de facto ''model of behavior'' (MOB).  In common regard this ''prescribed code'' or ''catalog of procedure'' (COP) can range from an empirical standard of comparison, through a provisional regulation, to a tentative ideal for future conduct.  However, the status that a MOB or a COP has when it starts out is not as important as its ability to test its prescriptions, along with their deductive and pragmatic implications, against the corpus of continuing observation, reflection, and description.

The type of phenomenology that is being envisioned here depends on no assured power of introspection but only on a modest power to reflect on conduct and thereby to give it a description.  These descriptions, all the better if they are inscribed in external media, can be examined with increasing degrees of detachment and have their consequences projected by deductive means.  In time, the mass of descriptions that accumulates with continuing experience and persistent reflection on conduct begins to constitute a de facto "model of behavior" (MOB).  In common regard this "prescribed code" or "catalog of procedure" (COP) can range from an empirical standard of comparison, through a provisional regulation, to a tentative ideal for future conduct.  However, the status that a COP or a MOB has when it starts out is not as important as its ability to test its prescriptions, along with their deductive and pragmatic implications, against the corpus of continuing observation, reflection, and description.

Reflection and consciousness no longer coincide.  ...

<p>Reflection and consciousness no longer coincide.  &hellip;</p>

What emerges from this reflection is a wounded cogito, which posits but does not possess itself, which understands its originary truth only in and by the confession of the inadequation, the illusion, and the lie of existing consciousness.

<p>What emerges from this reflection is a wounded ''cogito'', which posits but does not possess itself, which understands its originary truth only in and by the confession of the inadequation, the illusion, and the lie of existing consciousness.</p>

Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations, [Ric, 172, 173]

| align="right" | Paul Ricoeur, ''The Conflict of Interpretations'', [Ric, 172, 173]

It is pertinent at this point to draw a distinction between the power of reflection, that is claimed as a capacity crucial to inquiry, and what is likely to be confused with it, the presumptive power of introspection.  "Introspection", in the sole part of its technical meaning that leads to its being excluded from empirical inquiry, refers to an infallible, and thus incorrigible, power of observation that one is supposed to possess with respect to one's private experiences, matters over which there is imagined to be no higher court of appeal than one's own particular and immediate awareness.  But the horizon of experience that is plotted with regard to this static standpoint fails to reckon with the dynamic nature of an ongoing circumstance, that subsequent experience continually rides a circuit around its antecedents and ever constitutes a higher court for every proceeding and every precedent that falls within its jurisdiction.

It is pertinent at this point to draw a distinction between the power of reflection, that is claimed as a capacity crucial to inquiry, and what is likely to be confused with it, the presumptive power of introspection.  "Introspection", in the sole part of its technical meaning that leads to its being excluded from empirical inquiry, refers to an infallible, and thus incorrigible, power of observation that one is supposed to possess with respect to one's private experiences, matters over which there is imagined to be no higher court of appeal than one's own particular and immediate awareness.  But the horizon of experience that is plotted with regard to this static standpoint fails to reckon with the dynamic nature of an ongoing circumstance, that subsequent experience continually rides a circuit around its antecedents and ever constitutes a higher court for every proceeding and every precedent that falls within its jurisdiction.