Re: Inquiry Driven Systems

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3.2.  Reflective Inquiry.  Note 3

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3.2.2.  Apparitions and Allegations

Next I consider the preparations for a phenomenology.
This is not yet any style of phenomenology itself but
an effort to grasp the very idea that something appears,
and to grasp it in relation to the something that appears.
I begin by looking at a sample of the language that one
ordinarily uses to talk about appearances, with an eye
to how this medium shapes one's thinking about what
appears.  A close inspection reveals that there are
subtleties issuing from this topic that are partly
disclosed and partly obscured by the language that
is commonly used in this connection.

An "apparition", as I adopt the term and adapt its use to this context,
is a property, a quality, or a respect of appearance.  That is, it is
an aspect or an attribute of a phenomenon of interest that appears to
arise in a situation and to affect the character of the phenomenal
situation.  Apparitions shape themselves in general to any shade
of apperception, assumption, imitation, intimation, perception,
sensation, suspicion, or surmise that is apt or amenable to be
apprehended by an animate agent.

An "allegation", in the same manner of speaking, is any description or
depiction, any expression or emulation, in short, any verbal exhalation
or visual emanation that appears to apprehend a characteristic trait or
an illuminating trace of an apparition.

The terms "apparition" and "allegation" serve their purpose in allowing
an observer to focus on the sheer appearance of the apparition itself,
in assisting a listener or a reader to attend to the sheer assertion
of the allegation itself.  Their application enables an interpreter
to accept at first glance or to acknowledge at first acquaintance
the reality of each impression as a sign, without being forced to
the point of assuming that there is anything in reality that the
apparition is in fact an appearance of, that there is anything
in reality that the allegation is in deed an adversion to, or,
as people commonly say, that there is anything of substance
"behind" it all.

Ordinarily, when one speaks of the "appearance" of an object, one tends
to assume that there is in reality an object that has this appearance,
but if one speaks about the "apparition" of an object, one leaves more
room for a suspicion whether there is in reality any such object as
there appears to be.  In technical terms, however much it is simply
a matter of their common acceptations, the term "appearance" is said
to convey slightly more "existential import" than the term "apparition".
This dimension of existential import is one that enjoys a considerable
development in the sequel.

Jon Awbrey

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