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| | that is constructed through hypothesis and deduction must still be | | that is constructed through hypothesis and deduction must still be |
| | tested in experience to see if it serves any purpose to maintain it. | | tested in experience to see if it serves any purpose to maintain it. |
| − | </pre>
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| − |
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| − | =====1.3.5.5. A Formal Account=====
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| − |
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| − | <pre>
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| − | | Form, species, law, idea, purpose -- in all these cases the same error
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| − | | is made of giving a false reality to a fiction, as if events were in
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| − | | some way obedient to something -- an artificial distinction is made
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| − | | in respect of events between that which acts and that toward which
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| − | | the act is directed (but this "which" and this "toward" are only
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| − | | posited in obedience to our metaphysical-logical dogmatism:
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| − | | they are not "facts").
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| − | |
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| − | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 521, 282).
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| − |
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| − | In this Section (1.3.5), I am considering the step of formalization that
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| − | takes discussion from a large scale informal inquiry to a well-defined
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| − | formal inquiry, establishing a relation between the implicit context
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| − | and the explicit text.
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| − |
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| − | In this project as a whole, formalization is used to produce formal models
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| − | that represent relevant features of a phenomenon or process of interest.
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| − | Thus, the formal model is what constitutes the image of formalization.
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| − |
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| − | The role of formalization splits into two different cases depending on
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| − | the intended use of the formal model. When the phenomenon of interest
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| − | is external to the agent that is carrying out the formalization, then
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| − | the model of that phenomenon can be developed without doing any great
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| − | amount of significant reflection on the formalization process itself.
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| − | This is usually a more straightforward operation, since it can avail
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| − | itself of automatic competencies that are not themselves in question.
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| − | But when the phenomenon of interest is entangled with the conduct of
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| − | the agent in question, then the formal modeling of that conduct will
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| − | generally involve a more or less difficult component of reflection.
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| − |
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| − | In a recursive context, a principal benefit of the formalization
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| − | step is to find constituents of inquiry with reduced complexities,
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| − | drawing attention from the context of informal inquiry, whose stock
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| − | of questions may not be grasped well enough to ever be fruitful and
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| − | the scope of whose questions may not be focused well enough to ever
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| − | see an answer, and concentrating effort in an arena of formalized
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| − | inquiry, where the questions are posed well enough to have some
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| − | hope of bearing productive answers in a finite time.
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| | </pre> | | </pre> |
