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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 5 (view source)
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=====5.2.11.2. The Initial Description of Inquiry=====
=====5.2.11.2. The Initial Description of Inquiry=====
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In order to form a more cogent sense of the direction I must take from this point on, I need to make a concise review of the questions that have been raised and the assumptions that have been laid down so far. I can begin this review with the question of the "criterion", and after developing a critical theme that connects it with its antecedent topics, work backward to the questions of the "problem" and the "method".
Under the question of a "criterion" (S 1.1.3) a critical assumption was taken to serve as a guiding hypothesis for this inquiry and to provide a tentative model for its conduct:
According to my current understanding of inquiry, and the tentative model of inquiry that will guide this project, the criterion of an inquiry's competence is how well it succeeds in reducing the uncertainty of its agent about its object. (S 1.1.3, page 4).
It is time to examine this hypothesis a bit more carefully, to review the bearing it has on inquiry and the role it has in an inquiry into inquiry. In this regard, the guiding model elected here needs to be interrogated under the twin lights of how it can apply to inquiry in general while it continues to ply itself fully subject to a specific inquiry into inquiry. In its most general implications, the question is: How can any principle profess to master all inquiry whatsoever, and how can the use of such a rule pretend to serve any inquiry at all, at least, so long it waits on the outcome of its own examination and has to operate under a cloud of suspicion that is pursuant to a particular inquiry into inquiry?
To me it seems "intuitively certain" (IC) that the purpose of inquiry is to reduce the uncertainty of its agent about its object, and that it does this by increasing the clarity of the signs that the agent possesses with respect to the object. For future reference, let me detach the predicate of this observation and refer to it as the "initial description" (ID) of inquiry.
ID: The purpose of an inquiry is to reduce the uncertainty of its agent about its object, and it does this by increasing the clarity of the signs that the agent possesses with respect to the object.
This ID depicts inquiry in general in terms of its object in general and it allows for more specific inquiries to have more particular objects. And yet, as if by a manner of reflective reflex, no sooner do I express this insight in the form of an "intuitively certain hypothesis" (ICH) than I begin to suspect it, to have doubts about the certainty of its truth, and to worry about the clarity of its expression.
On reflection, the ID of inquiry, for all the quality of an ICH that once affected it, at least enough to make me identify with it, starts to find itself in another light, much less IC and much more H, and it begins to appear to me as a nearly indifferent object of contemplation, something else to think about, nothing more. The text of its expression, that I took the time to weave its carefully picked signs into, presents itself to my view as an alien object, composed of almost senseless characters, as if designed to ensnare my mind in a medium of false images rather than to liberate my thinking by means of a clear and distinct truth.
This array of doubts, suspicions, and worries is not so much due to the ID of inquiry itself, that I continue to maintain my sympathies with and to preserve my own recognizance of, as it is on account of and for the sake of the other notions that it raises, whose certainty and clarity it cannot rise above, or so it seems. In other words, whatever "certainty" and "clarity" may be, it seems sure that the certainty and the clarity of the ID of inquiry cannot be greater than the certainty and the clarity, respectively, of the notions of agency, certainty, clarity, objectivity, and significance that the ID of inquiry invokes, involves, and implicates. But how do I know this, and, indeed, do I really know this?
But, like a man who walks alone, and in the dark, I resolved to go so slowly, and to use such caution in all things that, even if I went forward only very little, I would at least avoid falling.
Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, [Des1, 39]
If the ID of inquiry marks a step that I plan to take in an inquiry into inquiry, then I need to raise the following questions about it. How can I tell if it is a step in the right direction? Expressed in other ways: How can I test the utility of this step with the information that I find available to me at my present state of knowledge, or within reach of it? How can I come to know, short of rashly staking my whole enterprise on its trustworthiness, whether it establishes a foothold on a viable path, not just marking a point on a feasible path of investigation, but lying a discrete and reasonable distance in the direction of its goal, and thus being capable of leading toward a state that is "ultimately certain" (UC) as to what it represents about inquiry?
If all the themes are aptly initialized, then the end of inquiry is met when a condition of equanimity, balance, or harmony is achieved between the facts IC and the facts UC, in other words, when everyone sees the point that each one is trying to make and when everyone understands the line that each one is meant to get across.
If the simple entertainment of a simple hypothesis is enough to change the course of an inquiry in an irremediable, irreversible, or irrevocable way, and in a manner that makes a pragmatically significant difference to the outcome, then all hope is lost of discovering a robust method or developing a self corrective procedure for inquiry, and thus of giving to inquiry an adaptive and evolving form. This means that inquiry is not a feasible endeavor for agents of a fallible sort unless they are capable of taking up a flexible attitude and maintaining the following sorts of stance: (1) To contemplate a diversity of hypotheses with a reasonable measure of immunity against their actual effects, that is, while remaining moderately well insulated from the consequences these hypotheses would have in execution; (2) To entertain a wildly incorrect but still corrigible guess with a respectable level of impunity, that is, while preserving the overall ideals of a reparable harmony in their own systems of belief and while operating without loss of ultimate geniality in the community of inquiry at large. Still, it is best not to play on forms of dissonance that do not come tempered with at least an idea of how to atone for themselves in time.
Imagine that an agent begins in a state of almost complete ignorance or near total uncertainty about inquiry, such as might be associated with the mere possession of the name "inquiry" or reflected by an encounter with another type of nominal pointer to the topic of inquiry in general. Against this background of "original sinescience" and relative to this condition of initial innocence, the ID of inquiry does indeed appear to give an impression of saying something more definite about inquiry, and thus it does seem to increase the agent's knowledge in some measure, whether in certainty, clarity, or distinctness I cannot say for sure at this point. But how can an agent tell if this appearance is real?
How can I address the array of questions "how?" that I raise as I reflect on the ID of inquiry? The only response I can think of that answers the arraignment of all these challenges is simply to continue with the inquiry itself. The ID of inquiry has something to say about the "how" of inquiry, expressing its suggestions in terms of the phrase that concerns itself with "increasing the clarity of the signs that the agent possesses with respect to the object". But the implicit charge of this ID, to "clarify the signs that the agent has of the object", is not entirely unambiguous in and of itself, and until it can be rendered free of ambivalence in its own right it is difficult to entertain an effective action on its behalf. On further reflection, it becomes apparent that the charge to clarify signs contains the potential of being interpreted in at least two ways, and thus, for the purposes of effective action, requires a further clarification. Consequently, toward the end of action on the charge yet another inquiry and yet another clarification, this time concerning the character of the charge itself, becomes due.
In accord with this analysis of inquiry as a process of clarification, and of clarification in turn as a process that operates on sign relations, the next few paragraphs consider various interpretations of the clarification task, initiating the process of comparing and contrasting their elements, and ultimately seeking to classify their variety. This discussion notices one general feature that all types of clarification process appear to have in common and it discerns another general feature that splits the genus of clarification processes into a couple of broad moieties or species.
Inquiry, considered as a process of clarification, is the chief way that a sign relation can grow and develop in service to the life of its agent. If not assured as the principal way, at least, while the jurisdictions of automatic adaptation, oblique evolution, and random ramification are yet uncharted and unassessed, it is probably still the most principled way that sign relations have of adapting and evolving to meet the objectives of interpretive agents in their given environments of needs and objects. By way of a general comparison, then, all reasonable interpretations of the clarification task involve the augmentation of sign relations by the addition of "elementary sign relations", that is, ordered triples of the form <o, s, i>.
Treating the process of clarification as one that affects the growth and development of a sign relation, even if constrained to the medium of its syntactic domain, there is, of course, an overwhelming diversity of ways that one can imagine an arbitrary sign relation as growing through time. No matter whether it restrains its labors to the monotonic annexation of ever more triples <o, s, i> to the masses of data already accumulated or whether it liberates the full deliberations of a discursive process, thus invoking the ebb and flow of corrective, editorial, reflective, remedial, and reversible processes, not every mode of growth or development that can occur in a sign relation has a bearing on reducing the uncertainty of an agent about an object or has the effect of promoting the clarity of the given signs.
With regard to inquiry as clarification, and clarification in turn as the evolution of a sign relation, it does not matter whether one views it as a process of exploration and discovery, taking place in a preconceived cartesian space OxSxI and seeking to find clearer signs for each known object, or whether one views it as a process of creation and invention, staking out the syntactic parts of elementary sign relations <o, s, i>, following the directions of transient clarity to the signs of maximal achievable clarity, making and testing novel combinations with an eye toward present objects, and picking out the clearest indications for inclusion in one's current sign relation.
To review: Inquiry depends on clarification, and clarification depends on the augmentation or the evolution of sign relations in various ways. In order to stay within the realms of possibility that are accessible to computational processes and covered by computational models, it is best to look for varieties of clarification process that are tantamount to recursive forms of development in sign relations, those that one can contemplate being carried out by a recursively defined growth process. Even working under these constraints, there is still an amazingly large variety of different ways that the "eking out" of initial sign relations and the "imping out" of fledgling sign relations can proceed.
To expand: Inquiry depends on clarification, and clarification depends on the augmentation or the evolution of sign relations in directions that serve the interests and help to achieve the intentions of their agents. If this is true then it must be possible to say something about the ways that sign relations figure into the interests and intentions of agents. In this connection, the desire to relate sign relations to the objectives of interpretive agents touches on the topics of what are normally called the "normative sciences", namely: aesthetics, ethics, and logic. Since the style of pragmatic thought that I am using puts a distinctive twist on the way that these three disciplines are regarded in relation to each other, it is necessary for me to attach a slight gloss on this point. Along the way, related concerns about the topic of "justification" make a natural appearance, and this allows me to set down some initial thoughts about the "forms of justification" (FOJ's) that I contemplate using in this work.
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=====5.2.11.3. An Early Description of Interpretation=====
=====5.2.11.3. An Early Description of Interpretation=====