Re: Pragma, Pragmata, Pragmatitude❢

Peircers and Others ...

The sections of my project on Inquiry Driven Systems where I introduce
the use of Objective Frameworks (OFs) may be of use in the discussion
of objects, pragmata, purposes, etc., so here is a copy of the first
installment.  Anyone who wishes to read ahead may find this among
my work in progress at the InterSciWiki (ISW) site:

☞http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_:_Part_1
☞http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_:_Part_1#1.3.4.12._Objective_Plans_and_Levels

1.3.4.12. Objective Plans and Levels
====================================

In accounting for the special characters of icons and indices that arose in previous discussions, it 
was necessary to open the domain of objects coming under formal consideration to include unspecified 
numbers of properties and instances of whatever objects were initially set down.  This is a general 
phenomenon, affecting every motion toward explanation whether pursued by analytic or synthetic 
means.  What it calls for in practice is a way of organizing growing domains of objects, without 
having to specify in advance all the objects there are.

This subsection presents the ''objective project'' (OP) that I plan to take up for investigating the 
forms of sign relations, and it outlines three ''objective levels'' (OLs) of formulation that guide 
the analytic and synthetic study of interpretive structure and regulate the prospective stages of 
implementing this plan in particular cases.  The main purpose of these schematic conceptions is 
organizational, to provide a conceptual architecture for the burgeoning hierarchies of objects that 
arise in the generative processes of inquiry.

In the immediate context the objective project and the three levels of objective description are 
presented in broad terms.  In the process of surveying a variety of problems that serve to instigate 
efforts in this general direction, I explore the prospects of a particular ''organon'', or 
''instrumental scheme for the analysis and synthesis of objects'', that is intended to address these 
issues, and I give an overview of its design.  In interpreting the sense of the word ''objective'' 
as it is used in this application, it may help to regard this objective project in the light of a 
telescopic analogy, with an ''objective'' being “a lens or system of lenses that forms an 
image of an object” (Webster's).

In the next three subsections after this one the focus returns to the separate levels of object 
structure, starting with the highest level of specification and treating the supporting levels in 
order of increasing detail.  At each stage, the developing tools are applied to the analysis of 
concrete problems that arise in trying to clarify the structure and function of sign relations.  For 
the present task, elaborations of this perspective are kept within the bounds of what is essential 
to deal with the example of <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math>.

My use of the word ''object'' derives from the stock of the Greek root ''pragma'', which captures 
all the senses needed to suggest the stability of concern and the dedication to purpose that are 
forever bound up in the constitution of objects and the institution of objectives.  What it implies 
is that every object, objective, or objectivity is always somebody's object, objective, or objectivity.

In other words, objectivity is always a matter of interpretation.  It is concerned with and 
quantified by the magnitude of the consensus that a matter is bound to have at the end of inquiry, 
but in no way does this diminish or dismiss the fact that the fated determination is something on 
which any particular collection of current opinions are granted to differ.  In principle, there 
begins to be a degree of objectivity as soon as something becomes an object to somebody, and the 
issue of whether this objective waxes or wanes in time is bound up with the number of observers that 
are destined to concur on it.

The critical question is not whether a thing is an object of thought and discussion, but what sort 
of thought and discussion it is an object of.  How does one determine the character of this thought 
and discussion?  And should this query be construed as a task of finding or a task of making? 
Whether it appeals to arts of acquisition, production, or discernment, and however one expects to 
decide or decode the conduct it requires, the character of the thought and discussion in view is 
sized up and riddled out in turn by looking at the whole domain of objects and the pattern of 
relations among them that it actively charts and encompasses.  This makes what is usually called 
''subjectivity'' a special case of what I must call ''objectivity'', since the interpretive and 
perspectival elements are ab initio operative and cannot be eliminated from any conceivable form of 
discernment, including their own.

Consequently, analyses of objects and syntheses of objects are always analyses and syntheses to 
somebody.  Both modes of approaching the constitutions of objects lead to the sorts of approximation 
that are appropriate to particular agents and able to be appropriated by whole communities of 
interpretation.  By way of relief, on occasions when this motive of consistency hobbles discussion 
too severely, I will resort to using chimeras like ''object-analytic'' and ''object-synthetic'', 
paying the price of biasing the constitution of objects in one direction or another.

In this project I would like to treat the difference between construction and deconstruction as 
being more or less synonymous with the contrast between synthesis and analysis, but doing this 
without the introduction of too much distortion requires the intervention of a further distinction. 
  Therefore, let it be recognized that all orientations to the constitutions of objects can be 
pursued in both ''regimented'' and ''radical'' fashions.

In the weaker senses of the terms, analysis and synthesis work within a preset and limited regime of 
objects, construing each object as being composed from a fixed inventory of stock constituents.  In 
the stronger senses, contracting for the application of these terms places a more strenuous demand 
on the would-be construer.

A radical form of analysis, in order to discern the contrasting intentions in everything construed 
as an object, requires interpreters to leave or at least re-place objects within the contexts of 
their live acquaintance, to reflect on their own motives and motifs for construing and employing 
objects in the ways they do, and to deconstruct how their own aims and biases enter into the form 
and use of objects.

A radical form of synthesis, in order to integrate ideas and information devolving from entirely 
different ''frameworks of interpretation'' (FOIs), requires interpreters to reconstruct isolated 
concepts and descriptions on a mutually compatible basis and to use means of composition that can 
constitute a medium for common sensibilities.

Thus, the radical project in all of these directions demands forms of interpretation, analysis, 
synthesis that can reflect a measure of light on the initially unstated assumptions of their 
prospective agents.

The foregoing considerations lead up to the organizing conception of an ''objective framework'' 
(OF), in which objects can be analyzed into sets of constituent objects, perhaps proceeding 
recursively to some limiting level where the fundamental objects of thought are thought to rest.  If 
an OF is felt to be completely unique and uniquely complete, then people tend to regard it as 
constituting a veritable ''ontology'', but I will not be able to go that far.  The recognition of 
plural and fallible perspectives that goes with pragmatic forms of thinking does not see itself 
falling into line any time soon with any one or only one ontology.

On the opposite score, there is no reason to deny the possibility that a unique and complete OF 
exists.  Indeed, the hope that such a standpoint does exist often provides inquiry with a beneficial 
regulative principle or a heuristic hypothesis to work on.  It merely happens, for the run of 
finitely informed creatures at any rate, that the existence of an ideal framework is something to be 
established after the fact, at least nearer toward the end of inquiry than the present time marks.

In this project, an OF embodies one or more ''objective genres'' (OGs), also called ''forms of 
analysis'' (FOAs) or ''forms of synthesis'' (FOSs), each of which delivers its own rendition of a 
''great chain of being'' for all the objects under its purview.  In effect, each OG develops its own 
version of an ''ontological hierarchy'' (OH), designed independently of the others to capture an 
aspect of structure in its objective domain.

For now, the level of an OF operates as a catch-all, giving the projected discussion the elbow room 
it needs to range over an unspecified variety of different OGs and to place the particular OGs of 
active interest in a running context of comparative evaluations and developmental options.

Any given OG can appear under the alias of a ''form of analysis'' (FOA) or a ''form of synthesis'' 
(FOS), depending on the direction of prevailing interest.  A notion frequently invoked for the same 
purpose is that of an ''ontological hierarchy'' (OH), but I will use this only provisionally, and 
only so long as it is clear that alternative ontologies can always be proposed for the same space of 
objects.

An OG embodies many ''objective motives'' or ''objective motifs'' (OMs).  If an OG constitutes a 
genus, or generic pattern of object structure, then the OMs amount to its specific and individual 
exemplars.  Thus, an OM can appear in the guise of a particular instance, trial, or 
&ldquo;run&rdquo; of the general form of analytic or synthetic procedure that accords with the 
protocols of a given OG.

In order to provide a way of talking about objective points of view in general without having to 
specify a particular level, I will use the term ''objective concern'' (OC) to cover any individual 
OF, OG, or OM.

An OG, in its general way, or an OM, in its individual way, begins by relating each object in its 
purview to a unique set of further objects, called the ''components'', ''constituents'', 
''effects'', ''ingredients'', or ''instances'' of that object with respect to that ''objective 
concern'' (OC).  As long as discussion remains fixed to what is visible within the scope of a 
particular OC, the collected effects of each object in view constitute its ''active ingredients'', 
supplying it with a unique decomposition that defines it to a degree sufficient for all purposes 
conceivable within that discussion.

Contemplated from an outside perspective, however, the status of these effects as the ''defining 
unique determinants'' of each object under examination is something to be questioned.  The supposed 
constituents of an object that are obvious with respect to one OC can be regarded with suspicion 
from the points of view of alternative OCs, and their apparent status as rock-bottom substantives 
can find itself reconstituted in the guise of provisional placeholders (placebos or excipients) that 
precipitately index the potential operation of more subtly active ingredients.

If a single OG could be unique and the realization of every object in it could be complete, then 
there might be some basis for saying that the elements of objects and the extensions of objects are 
known, and thus that the very ''objects of objects'' are determined by its plan.  In practice, 
however, it takes a diversity of overlapping and not entirely systematic OGs to make up a moderately 
useful OF.

What gives an OG a definite constitution is the naming of a space of objects that falls under its 
purview and the setting down of a system of axioms that affects its generating relations.

What gives an OM a determinate character from moment to moment is the particular selection of 
objects and linkages from its governing OG that it can say it has appropriated, apprehended, or 
actualized, that is, the portion of its OG that it can say actually belongs to it, and whether they 
make up a lot or a little, the roles it can say it has made its own.

In setting out the preceding characterization, I have reiterated what is likely to seem like an 
anthropomorphism, prefacing each requirement of the candidate OM with the qualification ''it can 
say''.  This is done in order to emphasize that an OMs command of a share of its OG is partly a 
function of the interpretive effability that it brings to bear on the object domain and partly a 
matter of the expressive power that it is able to dictate over its own development.

Regards,

Jon

-- 

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