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| | inquiry, where the questions are posed well enough to have some | | inquiry, where the questions are posed well enough to have some |
| | hope of bearing productive answers in a finite time. | | hope of bearing productive answers in a finite time. |
| − | </pre>
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| − |
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| − | =====1.3.5.6. Analogs, Icons, Models, Surrogates=====
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| − |
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| − | <pre>
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| − | | One should not understand this compulsion to construct concepts, species,
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| − | | forms, purposes, laws ("a world of identical cases") as if they enabled us
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| − | | to fix the real world; but as a compulsion to arrange a world for ourselves
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| − | | in which our existence is made possible: -- we thereby create a world which is
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| − | | calculable, simplified, comprehensible, etc., for us.
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| − | |
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| − | | (Nietzsche, 'The Will to Power', S 521, 282).
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| − |
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| − | This project makes pivotal use of certain formal models to represent the
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| − | conceived structure in a "phenomenon of interest" (POI). For my purposes,
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| − | the phenomenon of interest is typically a process of interpretation or a
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| − | process of inquiry, two nominal species of process that will turn out to
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| − | evolve from different points of view on the very same form of conduct.
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| − |
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| − | Commonly, a process of interest presents itself as the trajectory
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| − | that an agent describes through an extended space of configurations.
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| − | The work of conceptualization and formalization is to represent this
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| − | process as a conceptual object in terms of a formal model. Depending
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| − | on the point of view that is taken from moment to moment in this work,
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| − | the "model of interest" (MOI) may be cast as a model of interpretation
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| − | or as a model of inquiry. As might be anticipated, it will turn out
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| − | that both descriptions refer essentially to the same subject, but
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| − | this will take some development to become clear.
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| − |
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| − | In this work, the basic structure of each MOI is adopted from the
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| − | pragmatic theory of signs and the general account of its operation
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| − | is derived from the pragmatic theory of inquiry. The indispensable
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| − | usefulness of these models hinges on the circumstance that each MOI,
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| − | whether playing its part in interpretation or in inquiry, is always
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| − | a "model" in two important senses of the word. First, it is a model
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| − | in the logical sense that its structure satisfies a formal theory or
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| − | an abstract specification. Second, it is a model in the analogical
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| − | sense that it represents an aspect of the structure that is present
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| − | in another object or domain.
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| | </pre> | | </pre> |
