| Line 373: |
Line 373: |
| | 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>
| |
| − |
| |
| − | =====1.3.5.5. A Formal Account=====
| |
| − |
| |
| − | <pre>
| |
| − | | Form, species, law, idea, purpose -- in all these cases the same error
| |
| − | | is made of giving a false reality to a fiction, as if events were in
| |
| − | | some way obedient to something -- an artificial distinction is made
| |
| − | | in respect of events between that which acts and that toward which
| |
| − | | the act is directed (but this "which" and this "toward" are only
| |
| − | | posited in obedience to our metaphysical-logical dogmatism:
| |
| − | | they are not "facts").
| |
| − | |
| |
| − | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 521, 282).
| |
| − |
| |
| − | In this Section (1.3.5), I am considering the step of formalization that
| |
| − | takes discussion from a large scale informal inquiry to a well-defined
| |
| − | formal inquiry, establishing a relation between the implicit context
| |
| − | and the explicit text.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | In this project as a whole, formalization is used to produce formal models
| |
| − | that represent relevant features of a phenomenon or process of interest.
| |
| − | Thus, the formal model is what constitutes the image of formalization.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | The role of formalization splits into two different cases depending on
| |
| − | the intended use of the formal model. When the phenomenon of interest
| |
| − | is external to the agent that is carrying out the formalization, then
| |
| − | the model of that phenomenon can be developed without doing any great
| |
| − | amount of significant reflection on the formalization process itself.
| |
| − | This is usually a more straightforward operation, since it can avail
| |
| − | itself of automatic competencies that are not themselves in question.
| |
| − | But when the phenomenon of interest is entangled with the conduct of
| |
| − | the agent in question, then the formal modeling of that conduct will
| |
| − | generally involve a more or less difficult component of reflection.
| |
| − |
| |
| − | In a recursive context, a principal benefit of the formalization
| |
| − | step is to find constituents of inquiry with reduced complexities,
| |
| − | drawing attention from the context of informal inquiry, whose stock
| |
| − | of questions may not be grasped well enough to ever be fruitful and
| |
| − | the scope of whose questions may not be focused well enough to ever
| |
| − | see an answer, and concentrating effort in an arena of formalized
| |
| − | inquiry, where the questions are posed well enough to have some
| |
| − | hope of bearing productive answers in a finite time.
| |
| | </pre> | | </pre> |