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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 6 (view source)
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===6.14. Issue 3. The Status of Variables===
===6.14. Issue 3. The Status of Variables===
Another issue on which the three styles of usage diverge most severely is with respect to a crucial problem about the status of variables. Often this is posed as a question about the ''ontological status'' of variables, what kinds of objects they are, but it is better treated as a question about the ''pragmatic status'' of variables, what kinds of signs they are used as. In this section, I try to accommodate common practices in the use of variables in the process of building a bridge to the pragmatic perspective. The goal is to reconstruct customary ways of regarding variables within a overarching framework of sign relations, while disentangling the many confusions about the status of variables that obstruct their clear and consistent formalization.
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Variables are the most problematic entities that have to be dealt with in the process of formalization, and this makes it useful to explore several different ways of approaching their treatment, either of accounting for them or explaining them away. The various tactics available for dealing with variables can be organized according to how they respond to two questions: Are variables good or bad, and what kinds of things are variables anyway? That is: (1) Are variables a good thing to have in a purified system of interpretation or a target formal system, or should variables be eliminated by the work of formalization? (2) What sorts of things should variables be construed as?
Variables are the most problematic entities that have to be dealt with in the process of formalization, and this makes it useful to explore several different ways of approaching their treatment, either of accounting for them or explaining them away. The various tactics available for dealing with variables can be organized according to how they respond to two questions: Are variables good or bad, and what kinds of things are variables anyway? That is: (1) Are variables a good thing to have in a purified system of interpretation or a target formal system, or should variables be eliminated by the work of formalization? (2) What sorts of things should variables be construed as?