Changes

===Note 15===

===Note 15===

'''Obstacles to Applying the Pragmatic Maxim'''

Obstacles to Applying the Pragmatic Maxim

No sooner do you get a good idea and try to apply it

No sooner do you get a good idea and try to apply it than you find that a motley array of obstacles arise.

than you find that a motley array of obstacles arise.

It would be good if we could in practice more consistently

It would be good if we could in practice more consistently apply the pragmatic maxim to the purpose for which it was purportedly intended by its author.  That aim would be the clarification of concepts, that is, intellectual symbols or mental signs, to the point where their inherent senses, or their lacks thereof, would be rendered manifest to suitable interpreters.

apply the pragmatic maxim to the purpose for which it was

purportedly intended by its author.  That aim would be

the clarification of concepts, that is, intellectual

symbols or mental signs, to the point where their

inherent senses, or their lacks thereof, would

be rendered manifest to suitable interpreters.

There are big obstacles and little obstacles to applying the pragmatic maxim.

There are big obstacles and little obstacles to applying the pragmatic maxim. In good subgoaling fashion, I will merely mention a few of the bigger blocks, as if in passing, but not really getting past them, and then I will get down to the details of the problems that more immediately obstruct our advance.

In good subgoaling fashion, I will merely mention a few of the bigger blocks,

as if in passing, but not really getting past them, and then I will get down

to the details of the problems that more immediately obstruct our advance.

Obstacle 1.  People do not always read the instructions very carefully.

'''Obstacle 1.''' People do not always read the instructions very carefully. There is a tendency in readers of particular prior persuasions to blow the problem all out of proportion, to think that the maxim is meant to reveal the absolutely positive and the totally unique meaning of every preconception to which they might deign or elect to apply it.  Reading the maxim with an even minimal attention, you can see that it promises no such finality of unindexed sense, but ties what you conceive to you. I have lately come to wonder at the tenacity of this misinterpretation. Perhaps people reckon that nothing less would be worth their attention. I am not sure.  I can only say the achievement of more modest goals is the sort of thing on which our daily life depends, and there can be no final end to inquiry nor any ultimate community without a continuation of life, and that means life on a day to day basis.  All of which only brings me back to the point of persisting with local meantime examples, because if we can't apply the maxim there, we can't apply it anywhere.

There is a tendency in readers of particular prior persuasions to blow

the problem all out of proportion, to think that the maxim is meant to

reveal the absolutely positive and the totally unique meaning of every

preconception to which they might deign or elect to apply it.  Reading

the maxim with an even minimal attention, you can see that it promises

no such finality of unindexed sense, but ties what you conceive to you.

I have lately come to wonder at the tenacity of this misinterpretation.

Perhaps people reckon that nothing less would be worth their attention.

I am not sure.  I can only say the achievement of more modest goals is

the sort of thing on which our daily life depends, and there can be no

final end to inquiry nor any ultimate community without a continuation

of life, and that means life on a day to day basis.  All of which only

brings me back to the point of persisting with local meantime examples,

because if we can't apply the maxim there, we can't apply it anywhere.

===Note 16===

===Note 16===