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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry Driven Systems : Part 6 (view source)
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| Indeed it is a strange-disposed time;
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| But men may construe things after their fashion,
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| Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
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| colspan="2" align="right" | ''Julius Caesar'': Cicero—1.3.33–35
| align="right" | ''Julius Caesar'': Cicero—1.3.33–35
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An inquiry at such a point of development that it cannot entirely grasp its ongoing process of inquiry as an object of thought, namely, as the ''process that inquires'', can at least try to capture a representative sample of the signs that record its ''process of inquiring''. Speaking metaphorically and with the proper apology, every thus generated and thus collected ''text of inquiry'' (TOI) can be addressed as a partial reflection of the generative process of inquiry. Moreover, it is not irredeemably illegitimate to say that a TOI can partly describe itself, since this merely personifies the circumstance that a process of inquiry can describe itself partly in the form of a TOI.
An inquiry at such a point of development that it cannot entirely grasp its ongoing process of inquiry as an object of thought, namely, as the ''process that inquires'', can at least try to capture a representative sample of the signs that record its ''process of inquiring''. Speaking metaphorically and with the proper apology, every thus generated and thus collected ''text of inquiry'' (TOI) can be addressed as a partial reflection of the generative process of inquiry. Moreover, it is not irredeemably illegitimate to say that a TOI can partly describe itself, since this merely personifies the circumstance that a process of inquiry can describe itself partly in the form of a TOI.
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| O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible
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| As a nose on a man's face or a weathercock on a steeple.
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| My master sues to her, and she hath taught her suitor,
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| He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
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| O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better? —
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| That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter.
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| align="right" | ''Two Gentlemen of Verona'': Speed—2.1.127–132
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<pre>
<pre>
When I write out my thinking in the form of a text, a critical thing happens: It faces me as the thought of another, and I start to think of what it says as though another person had said it. Almost unwittingly, a critical process comes into play. In regarding the text as expressing the thought of another, I begin to see it from different POVs than the one that led to its writing. As I find my own inquiry reflected in one or another TOI, it addresses me afresh as the question of another and I encounter it again as a novel line of investigation. This time around, though, the topic of concern and the style of expression become subject to directions of criticism that would probably not occur to me otherwise, since the angles of attack permitting them do not open up on their own, neither on first thinking nor ever, most likely, while merely speaking. This can be the beginning of critical reflection, but it can also stir up destructive forms of interference that inhibit and obstruct the very flow of thought itself.
When I write out my thinking in the form of a text, a critical thing happens: It faces me as the thought of another, and I start to think of what it says as though another person had said it. Almost unwittingly, a critical process comes into play. In regarding the text as expressing the thought of another, I begin to see it from different POVs than the one that led to its writing. As I find my own inquiry reflected in one or another TOI, it addresses me afresh as the question of another and I encounter it again as a novel line of investigation. This time around, though, the topic of concern and the style of expression become subject to directions of criticism that would probably not occur to me otherwise, since the angles of attack permitting them do not open up on their own, neither on first thinking nor ever, most likely, while merely speaking. This can be the beginning of critical reflection, but it can also stir up destructive forms of interference that inhibit and obstruct the very flow of thought itself.