Reference:
Review Excerpts 'What is involved when we say what people are doing and why they
are doing it? An answer to that question is the subject of this book. The
book is concerned with the basic forms of thought which, in accordance
with the nature of the world as all men necessarily experience it, are
exemplified in the attributing of motives' (xv).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | nature | thought |
world |
'We shall use five terms as generating principle of our investigation.
They are: Act, Scene, Agent, Agency, Purpose. In a rounded statement
about motives, you must have some word that names the act
(names what took place, in thought or deed), and another that names the
scene (the background of the act, the situation in which it
occurred); also, you must indicate what person or kind of person (
agent ) performed the act, what means or instruments he used (
agency ), and the purpose . Men may violently disagree
about the purposes behind a given act, or about the character of the
person who did it, or how he did it, or in what kind of situation he acted;
or they may even insist upon totally different words to name the act itself.
But be that as it may, any complete statement about motives will offer
some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act),
when or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it
(agency), and why (purpose)' (xv).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | agency |
agent |
investigation |
name |
purpose |
scene |
situation |
statement |
thought |
word |
'In our original plans for this project, we had no notion of writing a
"Grammar" at all. We began with a theory of comedy, applies to a
treatise on human relations. Feeling that competitive ambition is a
drastically over-developed motive in the modern world, we thought this
motive might be transcended if men devoted themselves not so much to
"excoriating" it as to "appreciating" it. Accordingly, we began taking
notes on the foibles and antics of what we tended to think of as "the
Human Barnyard"' (xvii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | comedy |
grammar |
notion |
theory |
thought |
world |
writing |
'We sought to formulate the basic stratagems which people employ
in endless variations, and consciously or unconsciously, for the outwitting
or cajoling of one another. Since all these devices had a "you and me"
quality about them, being "addressed" to some person or to some
advantage, we classed them broadly under the heading of a Rhetoric.
There were other notes, concerned with modes of expression and
appeal in the fine arts, and with purely psychological or psychoanalytic
matters. These we classed under the heading of Symbolic'
(xvii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | expression |
quality |
rhetoric |
'We had made still further observations, which we at first strove
uneasily to class under one or the other of these two heads, but which we
were eventually able to distinguish as the makings of a Grammar. For
we found in the course of writing that our project needed a grounding in
formal considerations logically prior to both the rhetorical and the
psychological. And as we proceeded with this introductory groundwork, it
kept extending its claims until it had spun itself from an intended few
hundred words into nearly 200,000 of which the present book is revision
and abridgment' (xvii-xviii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | grammar |
writing |
'Theological, metaphysical, and juridical doctrines offer the best
illustration of the concerns we place under the heading of Grammar; the
forms and methods of art best illustrate the concerns of Symbolic; and
the ideal material to reveal the nature of Rhetoric comprises
observations on parliamentary and diplomatic devices, editorial bias,
sales methods and incidents of social sparring. However, the three fields
overlap considerably. And we shall note, in passing, how the Rhetoric
and the Symbolic hover about the edges of our central theme, the
Grammar' (xviii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | grammar |
nature |
rhetoric |
theme |
'A perfectionist might seek to evolve terms free of ambiguity and
inconsistency (as with the terministic ideals of symbolic logic and logical
positivism). But we have a different purpose in view, one that probably
retains traces of its "comic" origin. We take it for granted that, insofar as
men cannot themselves create the universe, there must remain
something essentially enigmatic about the problem of motives, and that
this underlying enigma will manifest itself in inevitable ambiguities and
inconsistencies among the terms for motives. Accordingly, what we want
is not terms that avoid ambiguity, but terms that clearly reveal
the strategic spots at which ambiguities necessarily arise' (xviii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | ambiguity |
logic |
positivism |
problem |
purpose |
universe |
'Since no two things or acts or situations are exactly alike, you
cannot apply the same term to both of them without thereby introducing a
certain margin of ambiguity, an ambiguity as great as the difference
between the two subjects that are given the identical title' (xix).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | ambiguity |
difference |
margin |
term |
'Pragmatists would probably have referred the motivation back to a
source in agency . They would have noted that our hero escaped
by using an instrument , the file by which he severed his bonds;
then in this same line of thought, they would have observed that the hand
holding the file was also an instrument; and by the same token the brain
that guided the hand would be an instrument, and so likewise the
educational system that taught the methods and shaped the values
involved in the incident. True, if you reduce the terms to any one of them,
you will find them branching out again; for no one of them is enough'
(xxi).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agency |
brain |
source |
system |
thought |
'As we shall see later, it is by reason of the pliancy among our terms
that philosophic systems can pull one way and another. The margins of
overlap provide opportunities whereby a thinker can go without a leap
from any one of the terms to any of its fellows. (We have also likened the
terms to the fingers, which in their extremities are distinct from one
another, but merge in the palm of the hand' (xxii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | reason |
'The titular word for our own method is "dramatism", since it invites
one to consider the matter of motives in a perspective that, being
developed from the analysis of drama, treats language and thought
primarily as modes of action. The method is synoptic, though not in the
historical sense. A purely historical survey would require no less that a
universal history of human culture; for every judgment, exhortation, or
admonition, every view of natural or supernatural reality, every intention
or expectation involves assumptions about motive, or cause. Our work
must be synoptic in a different sense: in the sense that it offers a system
of placement, and should enable us, by the systematic manipulations of
the terms, to "generate" or "anticipate" the various classes of
motivational theory. And a treatment in these terms, we hope to show,
reduces the subject synoptically while still permitting us to appreciate its
scope and complexity' (xxii-xxiii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | analysis |
culture |
drama |
history |
intention |
judgment |
language |
method |
perspective |
reality |
scope |
system |
theory |
thought |
universal |
word |
'It is not our purpose to import dialectical and metaphysical
concerns into a subject that might otherwise be free of them. On the
contrary, we hope to make clear the ways in which dialectical and
metaphysical issues necessarily figure in the subject of motivation. Our
speculations, as we interpret them, should show that the subject of
motivation is a philosophic one, not ultimately to be solved in terms of
empirical science' (xxiii).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | empirical |
figure |
purpose |
science |
'It is a principle of drama that the nature of acts and agents should
be consistent with the nature of the scene' (3).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | drama | nature |
scene |
'From the motivational point of view, there is implicit in the quality of
a scene the quality of the action that is to take place within it. This would
be another way of saying that the act will be consistent with the scene.
Thus, when the curtain rises to disclose a given stage-set, this stage-set
contains, simultaneously, implicitly, all that the narrative is to draw out as
a sequence, explicitly. Or, of you will, the stage-set contains the action
ambiguously (as regards the norms of action)- and in the course
of the play's development this ambiguity is converted into a
corresponding articulacy . The proportion would be: scene is to
act as implicit is to explicit' (6-7).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | action |
ambiguity |
implicit |
narrative |
quality |
scene |
'The logic of the scene-agent ratio has often served as an
embarrassment to the naturalistic novelist. He may choose to "indict"
some scene (such as bad working conditions under capitalism) by
showing that it has a "brutalizing" effect upon the people who are
indigenous to this scene. But the scene-agent ratio, if strictly observed
here, would require that the "brutalizing" situation contain "brutalized"
characters as its dialectical counterpart. And thereby, in his humanitarian
zeal to save mankind, the novelist portrays characters which, in being as
brutal as their scene, are not worth saving. We could phrase this
dilemma in another way: our novelist points up his thesis by too narrow a
conception of scene as the motive-force behind his characters; and this
restricting of the scene calls in turn for a corresponding restriction upon
personality, or role' (9).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | conception |
effect |
logic |
phrase |
ratio |
role |
scene |
situation |
thesis |
'The principles of consistency binding scene, act, and agent also
lead to reverse applications. That is, the scene-act ratio either calls for
acts in keeping with scenes or scenes in keeping with acts- and similarly
with the scene-agent ratio' (9).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | agent |
consistency |
principles |
ratio |
scene |
'The maxim, "terrain determines tactics", is a strict localization of
the scene-act ratio, with "terrain" as the casuistic equivalent for "scene"
in a military calculus of motives, and "tactics" as the corresponding "act"'
(12).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | maxim |
ratio |
scene |
'As for "act", any verb, no matter how specific or how general, that
has connotations of consciousness or purpose falls under this category. If
one happened to stumble over an obstruction, that would be not an act,
but a mere motion. However, one could convert even this sheer accident
into something of an act if, in the course of falling, one suddenly
willed his fall (as a rebuke, for instance, to the negligence of the
person who had left the obstruction in the way)' (14).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | category |
instance |
purpose |
verb |
'Though we have inspected two ratios, the five terms would allow for
ten (scene-act, scene-agent, scene-agency, scene-purpose,
act-purpose, act-agent, act-agency, agent-purpose, agent-agency,
agency-purpose). The ratios are principles of determination'
(15).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | determination |
principles |
'Both act and agent require scenes that "contain" them. Hence the
scene-act and scene-agent ratios are in the fullest sense positive (or
"positional"). But the relation between act and agent is not quite the
same. The agent does not "contain" the act, though its results might be
said to "pre-exist virtually" within him. And the act does not
"synecdochically share" in the agent, though certain ways of acting may
be said to induce corresponding moods or traits of character. To this
writer, at least, the act-agent ratio more strongly suggests a temporal or
sequential relationship than a purely positional or geometric one. The
agent is an author of his actis, which are descended from him, being
good progeny of he is good, or bad progeny if he is bad, wise progeny if
he is wise, silly progeny of he is silly. And, conversely, his acts can make
him or remake him in accordance with their nature' (15-6).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | agent |
author |
nature |
ratio |
relation |
temporal |
writer |
'Ordinarily, the scene-act and scene-agent ratios can be extended
to cover such cases. Thus, the office of the Presidency may be treated
as a "situation" affecting the agent who occupies it' (16).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agent | situation |
'This group of concerns will be examined in due course. Meanwhile,
we should be reminded that the term agent embraces not only all words
general or specific for person, actor, character, individual, hero, villain,
father, doctor, engineer, but also any words, moral or functional, for
patient, and words for the motivational properties or agents, such as
"drives", "instincts", "states of mind"' (20).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | actor | agent |
mind |
patient |
term |
'There is a set of words comprising what we might call the Stance
family, for they all derive from a concept of place, or placement. In the
Indo-Germanic languages the root for this family is sta , to stand
(Sanscrit, stha ). And out of it there has developed this essential
family, comprising such members as: consist, constancy, constitution,
contrast. destiny, ecstasy, existence, hypostasize, obstacle, stage, state,
status, statute, stead, subsist, and system. In German, an important
member of the Stance family is stellen , to place, a root that
figures in Vorstellung , a philosopher's and psychologist's word
for representation, conception, idea, image' (21).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | concept |
conception |
family |
idea |
image |
representation |
state |
status |
system |
word |
'The most prominent philosophic member of this family is
"substance". Or at least it used to be, before John Locke greatly
impaired its prestige, so that many thinkers today explicitly banish the
term from their vocabularies. But there is cause to believe that, in
banishing the term , far from banishing its functions one
merely conceals them. Hence, from the dramatistic point of view, we are
admonished to dwell upon the word, considering its embarrassments
and its potentialities of transformation, so that we may detect its covert
influence even in cases where it is overtly absent. Its relation to our five
terms will become apparent as we proceed' (21).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | family | influence |
prestige |
relation |
substance |
term |
word |
'First we should note that there is, etymologically, a pun lurking
behind the Latin roots. The word is often used to designate what some
thing or agent intrinsically is , as per these meanings in
Webster's: "the most important element in any existence; the
characteristic and essential components of anything; the main part;
essential import; purport". Yet etymologically "substance" is a scenic
word. Literally, a person's or a thing's sub-stance would be something
that stands beneath or supports the person or thing' (21-2).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agent | substance |
word |
'The same structure is present in the corresponding Greek word,
hypostasis , literally, a standing under: hence anything set under,
such as stand, base bottom, prop, support, stay; hence metaphorically,
that which lies at the bottom of a thing, as the groundwork,
subject-matter, argument of a narrative, speech, poem; a starting point, a
beginning. And then come the metaphysical meanings (we are consulting
Liddell and Scott): subsistence, reality, real being (as applied to mere
appearance), nature, essence. In ecclesiastical Greek, the word
corresponds to the Latin Persona , a Person of the Trinity (which
leads us back into the old argument between the homoousians and the
homoiousians, as to whether the three persons were of the same or
similar substance). Medically, the word can designate a suppression, as
of humours that ought to come to the surface; also matter deposited in
the urine; and of liquids generally, the sediment, lees, dregs, grounds.
When we are examining, from the standpoint of Symbolic, metaphysical
tracts that would deal with "fundamentals" and get to the "bottom" of
things, this last set of meanings can admonish us to be on the look-out
for what Freud might call "cloacal" motives, furtively interwoven with
speculations that may on the surface seem wholly abstract. An
"acceptance" of the universe on this plane may also be a roundabout
way of "making peace with the faeces"' (23).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | abstract |
argument |
narrative |
nature |
reality |
structure |
substance |
universe |
word |
'But returning to the pun as it figures in the citation from Locke, we
might point up the pattern as sharply as possible by observing that the
word "substance", used to designate what a thing is , derives
from a word designating something that a thing is not .
That is, though used to designate something within the thing,
intrinsic to it, the word etymologically refers to something outside
the thing, extrinsic to it. Or otherwise put: the word in its
etymological origins would refer to an attribute of the thing's context
, since that which supports or underlies a thing would be a part of the
thing's context. And a thing's context, being outside or beyond the thing,
would be something that the thing is not' (23).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | context |
pattern |
substance |
word |
'Contextual definition might also be called "positional", or
"geometric", or "definition by location"' (26).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | definition |
'There is another strategy of definition, usually interwoven with the
contextual sort, yet susceptible of separate observation. This is the
"tribal" or "familial" sort, the definition of a substance in terms of ancestral
cause....The Aristotelian genus is originally not a logical, but a
biological, concept' (26).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | concept |
definition |
observation |
strategy |
substance |
'In sum, contextual definition stresses placement, ancestral definition
stresses derivation' (28).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | definition |
derivation |
'The process of transcendence may, of course, be reversed. Then
the ultimate abstract Oneness is taken as a source, a "first"; and the
steps leading up to it are interpreted as stages emanating from it. Or
terms that are contextual to each other (such as Being and Not-Being,
Action and Rest, Mechanism and Purpose, The One and the Many) can
be treated as familially related (as were Being to be derived from
Not-Being, Action from Rest, Mechanism from Purpose, the Many from
the One)' (34-5).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | abstract |
action |
purpose |
source |
'Hence , Pure Personality would be the same as No Personality:
and the derivation of the personal principle from God as pure person
would amount to its derivation from an impersonal principle. Similarly, a
point that Hegel made much of, Pure Being would be the same as
Not-Being; and in Aristotle, God can be defined either as "Pure Act" or
as complete repose, a rest that is "eternal, unchangeable, immovable".
And Leibniz was able to propose something pretty much like
unconscious ideas in his doctrine of the "virtual innateness of ideas".
(We might point up the oxymoron here by translating "unconscious ideas"
as "unaware awarenesses")' (35).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | derivation |
doctrine |
'In theological and metaphysical works, we can recognize the
paradox of the absolute readily enough. Often, in fact, it is explicitly
discussed. But in historicist writings it more easily goes unnoticed. Yet
the paradox may be implicit in any term for a collective
motivation, such as a concept of class, nation, the "general will," and the
like. Technically, it becomes a "pure" motive when matched against
some individual locus of motivation. And it may thus be the negation
of an individual motive.... What we are here considering formally, as
a paradox of substance, can be illustrated quickly enough by example. A
soldier may be nationally motivated to kill the enemies of his
country, whereas individually he is motivated by a horror of killing
his own enemies. Or conversely, as a patriot he may act by the motive of
sacrifice in behalf of his country, but as an individual he may want to
profit' (37).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | absolute |
act |
collective |
concept |
implicit |
nation |
paradox |
substance |
term |
Such histories can be imagined in an endless variety of details.
What we are suggesting here is that they all embody a grammatical
form in accordance with which we should not expect a dualism of
motives to be automatically dissolved, as with those apologists of
science who believe that in a scientific world ethics become
unnecessary. However, to consider these possibilities further, we should
move into the areas of Symbolic, involving modes of transubstantiation,
rituals of rebirth, whereby the individual identifies himself in terms of the
collective motive (an identification by which he both is and is not one with
that with which and by which he is identified). At present it is enough to
note in a general way how the paradox of the absolute figures
grammatically in the dialectic, making for a transcending of none term by
its other, and for the reversed ambiguous derivation of the term from its
other as ancestral principle' (38).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | absolute |
collective |
derivation |
dialectic |
dualism |
form |
paradox |
science |
term |
world |
'Stated broadly the dialectical (agonistic) approach to knowledge is
through the act of assertion, whereby one "suffers" the kind of
knowledge that is the reciprocal of his act' (38).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | knowledge |
'But to consider an act in terms of its grounds is to
consider it in terms of what it is not, namely, in terms of motives that, in
acting upon the active, would make it a passive, We could state the
paradox another way by saying that the concept of activation implies a
kind of passive-behind-the-passive; for an agent who is "motivated by his
passions" would be "moved by his being-movedness", or "acted upon by
his state of being acted upon"' (40).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | active |
agent |
concept |
paradox |
passive |
state |
'All gods are "substances", and as such are names for motives or
combinations of motives. Polytheistic divinities, besides their
personalistic aspects, often represent decidedly geometric, or scenic,
kinds of motivation. Indeed, we may even think of local divinities as
theological prototypes of contemporary environmentalist, or geographic
motives. For to say that a river is a different "god" than a mountain is to
say, within the rules of a polytheistic nomenclature, that a river calls for a
different set of human actions than a mountain. Whereas the
"enlightened" have too often been content to dismiss the pagan gods
merely as instances of animistic superstition, the fact is that the complex
of social behavior centering about a given "god" was often quite correct,
in the most realistically biological sense. Thus, insofar as adequate
modes of planting and harvesting and distribution are connected with the
rites of a given divinity, its name would be the title for a correct
summation of motives. However, such concepts of motivation are usually
developed to the point where their original reference is obscured, being
replaced by motivational concepts peculiar to a specialized priesthood
and to the needs of class domination' (43-4).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | content |
correct |
distribution |
name |
reference |
'But we would also recognize that monotheisms (in which we would
include any secular title for a universal spring of action, such as "nature"
or "the profit motive") can prevail only insofar as they are "incipiently"
polytheistic, containing motivational terms ("saints") that break down the
universality of the motive into narrower reference' (44-5).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | nature |
reference |
universal |
'The socialist revolution is designed first to reverse the state (during
the "dictatorship of the proletariat") and next to abolish it, or let it "wither
away". But our grammar would lead us to doubt whether a "state" can
ever really "wither away", and least of all in a complex industrial society.
Though it may take strategically new forms, we expect the logic of the
actus-status pair to continue manifesting itself. The selection of the
proletariat as the vessel of the new act that transcends the bourgeois
state may or may not be correct as a casuistry, but it violates no law of
"grammar". The belief in the withering away of the state, however, does
seem to violate a law of grammar. For no continuity of social act is
possible without a corresponding social status; and the many different
kinds of act required in an industrial state, with its high degree of
specialization, make for corresponding classifications of status'
(45-6).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | correct |
grammar |
logic |
state |
status |
'Indeed, we can take it as a reliable rule of thumb that, whenever,
we find a distinction between the internal and the external, the intrinsic
and the extrinsic, the within and the without, (as with Korzybski's
distinction between happenings "inside the skin" and happenings
"outside the skin") we can expect to encounter the paradoxes of
substance' (47).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | distinction |
rule |
substance |
'One of the most common fallacies in the attempt to determine the
intrinsic is the equating of the intrinsic with the unique. We recall an
instance of this nominalist extreme in an essay by a literary critic who
exhorted his fellows to discern the quality of a given poet's lines by
finding in exactly what way they were distinct from the lines of every other
poet (somewhat as advertisements recommending rival brands of the
same product play up some one "talking point" that is said to distinguish
this brand from all its competitors). Yet the intrinsic value of a poet's lines
must also reside, to a very great degree, in attributes that his work
shares with many other poets. We cannot define by differentia alone; the
differentiated also has significant attributes as members of its class'
(48).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | instance |
literary |
quality |
value |
'We may even go a step further and note that one may say "it is
substantially true" precisely at a time when on the basis of the evidence,
it would be much more accurate to say, "it is not true"....What handier
linguistic resource could a rhetorician want than an ambiguity whereby
he can say "The state of affairs is substantially such-and-such," instead of
having to say "The state of affairs is and/or is not such-and-such"?'
(52).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | ambiguity |
basis |
evidence |
state |
'Positivists who would discard the category of substance assert that
the only meaningful propositions are those which are capable of
scientific proof; and having thus outlawed the conveniences of a
substantive rhetoric they next blandly concede that the scientific proof is
not always possible actually, but must be possible "in principle" -which
would leave them pretty much where they began, except that their
doctrine won't allow them to admit it' (52).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | category |
doctrine |
rhetoric |
substance |
'Such tactics of entitling are as legitimate as any other, once the
irony has been made explicit. Indeed, philosophies are never quite
"consistent" in this sense. All thought tends to name things not because
they are precisely as named, but because they are not quite as named,
and the name is designated as a somewhat hortatory device, to take up
the slack' (54).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | hortatory |
irony |
name |
thought |
'From such ambiguity is derived that irony of historical development
whereby the very strength in the affirming of a given term may the better
enable men to make a world that departs from it. For the affirming of the
term as their god-term enables men to go far afield without sensing a
loss of orientation. And by the time the extent of their departure is
enough to become generally obvious, the stability of the new order they
have built in the name of the old order gives them the strength to
abandon their old god-term and adopt another' (54).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | ambiguity |
irony |
name |
orientation |
term |
world |
'Contemporary scientific theory, in proposing to abandon the
categories of substance and causality, has done speculation a good
turn. For it has made clear wherein the difference between philosophic
and scientific terminologies of motivation resides. Philosophy, like
common sense, must think of human motivation dramatistically, in terms
of action and its ends. But a science is freed of philosophic taints only
insofar as it confines itself to terms of motion and arrested motion
(figure, structure). This convention, almost Puritanical in its severity
(surely we should not be far wrong in calling it a secularized variant of
Puritanism) has brought about such magnification of human powers that
any "objection" to it would have about as much force as an attempt to
"refute" Niagara Falls. But such results, however spectacular, do not
justify an attempt to abide by the same terminological conventions when
treating of human motives. For one could confine the study of action
within the terms of motion only by resigning oneself to gross
misrepresentations of life as we normally experience it. Though we here
lay great stress upon the puns and other word play in men's ideas of
motivation, we do not thereby conclude that such linguistic tactics are
"nothing but" puns and word play' (56).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | convention |
difference |
figure |
philosophy |
science |
structure |
study |
substance |
theory |
variant |
word |
'Men have talked about things in many ways, but the pentad offers a
synoptic way to talk about their talk-about. For the resources of the five
terms figure in the utterances about motives, throughout all human
history' (56).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | figure | history |
pentad |
'The design on a piece of primitive pottery may be wholly symbolic
or allegorical. But a drawing that accurately reproduces this design in a
scientific treatise would be not symbolic or allegorical, but realistic. And
similarly, even when statements about the nature of the world are
abstractly metaphysical, statements about the nature of these
statements can be as empirical as the statement, "This is Mr.
Smith", made when introducing Mr. Smith in the accepted manner'
(58).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | empirical |
nature |
statement |
world |
'In sum: we are discussing the Creation not as a temporal event, but
as the logical prototype of an act. Indeed, even if one believed it literally,
one would hardly be justified in treating it as a temporal event, since it
was itself the positing of time; it was the act that set up the conditions of
temporal development; hence a terminology that reduced it to terms of
time would lack sufficient scope. Thus, even a literal believer would have
to treat it in terms that placed it, rather, at an intersection of time and the
timeless- a point at which we place ourselves when we discuss it in
terms of those non-temporal firsts called "principles"' (64).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | event |
literal |
principles |
scope |
temporal |
terminology |
'We are reasoning as follows: we are saying that, to study the nature
of the term, act , one must select a prototype, or paradigm of
action. This prototype we find in the conception of a perfect or total act,
such as the act of "the Creation". Examining this concept, we find that it
is "magic", for it produces something out of nothing. This enables us to
equate magic with novelty - and leads us to look for a modicum of magic
in every act to the extent that the act possesses a modicum of novelty.
This consideration also admonishes us, however, to make a distinction
between "true" and "false" magic. "False" magic is a quasi-scientific
ideal that would suspend the laws of motion , as in the attempt to
coerce natural forces by purely ritualistic means. "True" magic is an
aspect not of motion but of action' (66).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | action |
aspect |
concept |
conception |
distinction |
nature |
paradigm |
reasoning |
study |
term |
'However, it is not the purpose of our Dramatism to abide strictly by
any one system of philosophic terms that happens to exemplify the
dramatist pattern. Rather, it is our purpose to show that the explicit and
systematic use of the dramatist pentad is best designed to bring out the
strategic moments of motivational theory. Accordingly, at this point, we
are more concerned to illustrate the Grammatical scruples than to select
one particular casuistry as our choice among them. Philosophies again
and again have got their point of departure precisely by treating as a
distinction in kind what other philosophies have treated as a distinction
in degree, or v.v.' (67-8).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | distinction |
pattern |
pentad |
purpose |
system |
theory |
'There are two primary generalizations that characterize the quality
of motives: freedom and necessity. And whenever they appear, we may
know that we are in the presence of "God-terms", or names for the
ultimates of motivation. Doctrines wherein Creator and Creation are not
ontologically collapsed into a unity give us a kind of double genesis for
motives. Consideration in terms of the Creation leads to
"necessity" when, in accordance with the logic of geometric substance,
all the parts of nature are treated as necessarily related to one another in
their necessary relationship to the whole. For "necessity" names the
extrinsic conditions that determine a motion and must be taken into
account when one is planning an action. And consideration in terms of
the Creator leads to "freedom" when, in accordance with the
logic of tribal substance, men "substantially" derive freedom (or
self-movement) from God as its ancestral source. This double genesis
allows for free will and determinism simultaneously, rather than
requiring a flat choice between them' (74-5).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | logic |
nature |
quality |
source |
substance |
'We might sum up the matter thus: Theologically , nature has
attributes derived from its origin in an act of God (the Creation), but God
is more than nature. Dramatistically , motion involves action, but
action is more than motion. Hence theologically and/or dramatistically,
nature (in the sense of God's Creation) is to nature (in the sense of
naturalistic science) as action is to motion, since God's Creation is an
enactment , whereas nature as conceived in terms of naturalistic
science is a sheer concatenation of motions. But inasmuch as the
theological ration between God (Creator) and Nature (Creation) is the
same as the dramatistic ration between action and motion, the
pantheistic equating of God and Nature would be paralleled by the
equating of action and motion. And since action is a personal principle
while motion is an impersonal principle, the pantheistic equation leads
into the naturalistic position which reduces personalistic
concepts to depersonalized terms' (76-7).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | action |
concatenation |
nature |
science |
'When "defining by location", one may place the object of one's
definition in contexts of varying scope. And our remarks on the scene-act
ratio, for instance, suggest that the choice of circumference for the
scene in terms of which a given act is to be located will have a
corresponding effect upon the interpretation of the act itself. Similarly, the
logic of the scene-agent ratio will figure in our definition of the individual,
insofar as principles of dramatic consistency are maintained'
(77).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | consistency |
definition |
effect |
figure |
instance |
interpretation |
logic |
principles |
ratio |
scene |
scope |
'Now, it seems undeniable, by the very nature of the case, that in
definition, or systematic placement, one must see things "in terms of..."
And implicit in the terms chosen, there are "circumferences" of varying
scope. Motivationally, they involve such relationships as are revealed in
the analysis of the scene-act and scene-agent ratios whereby the quality
of the context in which a subject is placed will affect the quality of the
subject placed in that context' (77-8).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | analysis |
case |
context |
definition |
implicit |
nature |
quality |
scope |
'We cherish the behaviorist experiment precisely because it
illustrates the relation between the circumference and the circumscribed
in mechanistic terms; and because the sharpest instance of the way in
which the altering of the scenic scope affects the interpretation of the act
is to be found in the shift from teleological to mechanistic philosophies.
Christian theology, in stressing the rational, personal, and purposive
aspects of the Creation as the embodiment of the Creator's pervasive
will, had treated such principles as scenic, That is, they were not merely
traits of human beings, but extended to the outer circumference of the
ultimate ground. Hence, by the logic of the scene-act ratio, they were
taken as basic to the constitution of human motives, and could be
"deduced" from the nature of God as an objective, extrinsic principle
defining the nature of human acts. But when the circumference was
narrowed to naturalistic limits, the "Creator" was left out or account, and
only the "Creation" remained (remained not as an "act", however, but as
a concatenation of motions)' (79).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | concatenation |
ground |
instance |
interpretation |
logic |
nature |
objective |
principles |
ratio |
relation |
scope |
'Though we have stressed the contrast between theology and
behaviorism because it so readily illustrates the "circumferential logic"
(that is, the effect of scope in a given terminology of motives), we
should note that a writer's vocabulary is usually set somewhere between
these two extremes. His aims are usually less thoroughgoing, more
"monographic", as with the selection of some "thesis"' (85-6).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | effect | logic |
scope |
terminology |
thesis |
vocabulary |
'It may often be the works of wider circumference that give us the
faultiest interpretation of a particular motivational cluster. People tend to
think that when they speak of "the Universe", they are actually speaking of
the Universe - yet "world views" can easily be the narrowest of all in
circumference, possibly ... in accordance with a law of formal logic
whereby "concepts become poorer in contents or intension in proportion
as their extension increases, so that the content zero must
correspond to the extension infinity"' (87).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | content |
infinity |
interpretation |
logic |
universe |
world |
'So far as we can see, this matter of circumference is imbedded in
the very nature of terms, and men are continually performing "new acts",
in that they are continually making judgments as to the scope of the
context which they implicitly or explicitly impute in their interpretations of
motives. To select a set of terms is, by the same token, to select a
circumference' (90).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | context |
nature |
scope |
'Integral to the concept of scope is the concept of reduction .
In a sense, every circumference, no matter how far-reaching its
reference, is a reduction. A cosmology, for instance, is a reduction of the
world to the dimensions of words; it is the world in terms of
words. The reductive factor becomes quite obvious when we pause to
realize that any terminology of motives reduces the vast complexity of life
by reduction to principles, laws, sequences, classifications, correlations,
in brief, abstractions or generalizations of one sort or another. And any
generalization is necessarily a reduction in that it selects a group
of things and gives them a property which makes it possible to consider
them as a single entity . Thus, the general concept of "man"
neglects an infinite number of particular differences in order to stress
certain properties which many distinct individual entities have in
common. Indeed, any characterization of any sort is a reduction. To give
a proper name to one person, or to name a thing, is to recognize some
principle of identity or continuity running through the discontinuities that,
of themselves, would make the world sheer chaos. To note any order
whatever is to "reduce". To divide experience into hungry and sated
moments, into the pleasant and unpleasant, into the before and after, into
here and there - even distinctions as broad as these translate the world's
infinite particulars into terms that are a reduction of the world; in fact, as
per the equating of infinity and zero, terms of such broad scope are
perhaps the most drastically reductive of all' (96).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | concept |
identity |
infinity |
instance |
name |
principles |
reduction |
reference |
scope |
terminology |
world |
'In sum, we have first the reduction of the non-verbal to the verbal'
(96).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | reduction |
verbal |
'Next, within the verbal, there is the reduction of one terminology to
another. Any word or concept is a reduction in this sense. One reduces
this to that by discussing this in terms of that' (96).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | concept |
reduction |
terminology |
verbal |
word |
'But this brings us to the third sense of reduction, as a lowering, a
lessening, a narrowing - the difficult spot today, since purely technical
conceptions of lowering, lessening, and narrowing can here easily
become confused with moral ones. In most recent years, the most drastic
manifestation of reduction in this third sense ... has been the "debunking"
movement, which could be said in general to treat "higher" concepts in
terms of "lower" ones' (97).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | reduction |
'A scientist might happen to believe in a personal God, and might
even pray to God for the success of his experiments. In such an act of
prayer, of course, he would be treating God as a variable . Yet,
when his prayer was finished, and he began his experiments, he would
now, qua scientist, treat "God" as an invariant term, as
being at most but the over-all name for the ultimate ground of all
experience and all experiments, and not a name for the particularities of
local context with which the scientific study of conditions, or correlations,
is concerned' (98).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | context |
ground |
name |
study |
term |
'It is always a matter of casuistry to decide whether you will treat the
modification of a principle as an "extension of" the principle or a
"deviation from" it' (104).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | deviation |
'According to Aristotle, Thales believed that "all things are full of
Gods". For our purposes this could be interpreted as a recognition of the
fact that in everything there is a power, or motive, of some sort. That is,
we would interpret it in a broader sense than the notion that "soul is
intermingled in the whole universe", though Aristotle in his De Anima
says this is what Thales "probably" meant' (118).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | notion | power |
recognition |
soul |
universe |
'And we should infer that the original conception of the powers of
motives in things is not exactly animistic. The evidences of animism
which nineteenth-century anthropologists found so profusely among
primitive tribes are, to our way of thinking, mainly indications of how
thoroughly most of such anthropologists were imbued with the terms
typical of nineteenth-century idealist philosophy, so that they saw
things in these terms. We should expect, rather, that the basic
perception of motives is a perception of things not as possessing the
souls and personalities of agents , but as being essentially
active. That is, they were not felt to be people ; they were felt
to be actions' (118-9).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | active | animism |
conception |
perception |
philosophy |
thinking |
'In strict logic, perhaps, the "love" and "knowledge" are simply in
different planes, rather than being in opposition to each other. But as
regards matters of Symbolic, since words have also incantatory effects,
inviting men to make themselves over in the image of their imagery, the
purely logical implications of reductionist terminologies take on new
attributes, when translated into their equivalents in the realm of the
imagination' (123).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | image | knowledge |
logic |
'We noted that the areas covered by our five terms overlap upon
one another. And because of this overlap, it is possible for a thinker to
make his way continuously from any one of them to any of the others. Or
he may use terms in which several of the areas are merged. For any of
the terms may be seen in terms of any of the others. And we may even
treat all five in terms of one, by "reducing" them all to the one or (what
amounts to the same thing) "deducing" them all from the one as their
common terminal ancestor. This relation we could express in temporal
terms by saying that the term selected as ancestor "came first"; and in
timeless or logical terms we could say that the term selected is the
"essential", "basic", "logically prior" or "ultimate" term, or the "term of
terms", etc.' (127).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | relation |
temporal |
term |
'For the featuring of scene , the corresponding philosophic
terminology is materialism . Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | agency |
agent |
purpose |
scene |
terminology |
'Whenever in philosophy I see two terms, of opposite and equal
importance, being merged into a third term that will somehow contain the
nature of both, I always ask myself: "Which of the two equal terms was
foremost?" For I will expect the genius of this term to weight the third
term (as Schelling's third term, "subject-object", supposedly "indifferent"
to the two terms "subject" and "object" which it combines, is more
"subjective" than "objective", even though he would further complicate
matters by distinguishing between a "subjective subject-object" and an
"objective subject-object")' (140).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | nature | objective |
philosophy |
term |
'I am suggesting that "variability" allows for two quite different
meanings, as with the two meanings for "fillability", one referring to a
cause ab extra and the other to some internal principle of
motion. It stands pliantly at the point where scene overlaps upon agent'
(158).
Domains: Under construction |
'I refer to the fact that the Latin word for the Carthaginians is
Poeni , while the Latin word for the goddesses of vengeance is
Poenae . In the dative and ablative forms, the two would be exactly
the same, Poenis . And the word is thus used in Lucretius: Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | ablative |
ambiguity |
dative |
literal |
meaning |
reference |
word |
'The unadulteratedly idealistic philosophy starts and ends in the
featuring of properties belonging to the term, agent' (171).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agent | philosophy |
term |
'Dialectically, any conflict between two concepts of justice can be
removed by the adoption of a remoter term broad enough to encompass
both, as a distinction between farmhouse and palace can be resolved in
classing them both as "dwellings"' (173).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | distinction |
term |
'Justice in such an over-all sense would obviously serve the ends of
unification. And insofar as the law courts would "ideally" serve this same
role, in aiming at a kind of justice that mediated among the differing
ways of differing classes, we can see how the profuse development of
law invites to idealistic philosophy. Materialist "debunkers" of such legal
idealism can then interpret the "ideal" in terms of its "betrayal"; for
"unification" is not unity, but a compensation for disunity - hence,
any term for "ideal" justice can be interpreted as a rhetorical
concealment for material injustice , particularly when the actual
history of legal decisions over a long period can be shown to have
favored class justice in the name of ideal justice' (173).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | history | name |
philosophy |
role |
term |
'We here sum up briefly a position for which Berkeley argues with
considerable thoroughness. One must consult the original if he would do
justice to the various steps in the exposition. But whether or not one is
convinced by Berkeley's arguments, one must agree that they are
statements saying what can be said about "matter" (that is, scene
) when considered in terms of "ideas" (that is, agent )'
(179).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agent | exposition |
scene |
'By utilizing a function of our term agent , we can transform
this problem into a solution. Namely: we can say that people interpret
natural sequences in terms of cause and effect not because of
something in the natural scene requiring this interpretation, but
because they are the sort of agents that see things in terms of necessary
relations . In this view we do not derive our ideas of cause and effect
from experience; all that we can derive from experience is the
observation that certain happenings seem likely to follow certain
happenings. But our ideas of cause and effect are derived from the
nature of the mind' (187).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | agent | effect |
function |
interpretation |
mind |
nature |
observation |
problem |
scene |
term |
'I believe the true mettle of a philosopher is shown in what he can
say about nothing. Any tyro can talk about something. But it takes a really
profound thinker to say profound things about nothing. And I hasten to
admit that my own five terms are all about nothing, since they designate
not this scene, or that agent, etc. but scene, agent, etc. in general)'
(189).
Domains: Under construction |
'If then, you would talk profoundly and intelligently about the
conditions of the possibility of the knowledge of nothing, what do you
have that you can talk about? You have the knower . You can
say, for instance, "Whatever an object in general may or may not look
like, you can be sure that when you do come across one you are going to
have to encounter it in terms of space and/or time". And since you can't
here be talking about an object (if you are, what is it?) what you must
be talking about is the nature of your own mind' (189).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | instance |
knowledge |
mind |
nature |
'But look where we now are. We have described intellectual
synthesis as "active". Yet what kind of "act" is this? The empirical scene
has derived its character from the nature of the agent; but though we
have called this action of the mind "spontaneous" and "original", we
might just as well have called it "inevitable". It is compulsory ,
lacking the elements of freedom necessary for action. The mind cannot
see otherwise than in terms of the categories. To observe is an act, in
that one can choose either to observe it or not to observe it. But to
observe in terms of the categories is not an act in this sense,
since we must consider it in such terms, whether we choose to
observe it or not. Conversely, though the sensibility is "passive", we find
space and time called the "forms" of sensibility. And in the tradition from
which Western philosophy stems, "form" is the act word par excellence.
So the "passive" begins to look as active as the avowedly active'
(190).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | action |
active |
agent |
empirical |
form |
mind |
nature |
passive |
philosophy |
scene |
synthesis |
western |
word |
'The great departures in human thought can be eventually reduced
to a moment where the thinker treats as o pposite, key terms
formerly considered a pposite, or v.v. So we are
admonished to be on the look-out for those moments when strategic
synonymizings or desynonymizings occur. And, in accordance with the
logic of our ratios, when they do occur, we are further admonished to be
on the look-out for a shift in the source of derivation, as terms formally
derived from different sources are now derived from a common source,
or v.v.' (192).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | derivation |
key |
logic |
source |
thought |
'We have thus arrived at the transcendent realm as a realm of things
"in themselves" (that is, with whatever nature they may have intrinsically,
not as they are determined by the terms in which we see them). Whereat
we might profitable pause to consider the grammar of the intrinsic. It is
the puzzle we encountered when discussing the paradox of substance.
As soon as one considers things in relation to other things, one is
uncomfortably on the way to dissolving them into their context, since their
relations lead beyond them. A thing in itself for instance can't be "higher"
or "heavier" than something or "inside" or "outside" something, or
"derived from" something, etc. For though such descriptions may apply
to it, they do not apply to it purely as a thing in itself ; rather, they
are contextual references, pointing beyond the thing'
(193).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | context |
grammar |
instance |
nature |
paradox |
relation |
substance |
'Since we began our enterprise with all respect for the requirements
of empirical science, we have defined knowledge by empirical tests.
Knowledge by definition, then, is the knowledge of conditions and
relations. It is the knowledge of appearances , the knowledge of
objects as they necessarily appear when seen in terms of our human
categories (the categories of the mind in general). So, by definition, the
transcendent realm of the unconditioned things-in-themselves (the scene
that contains the possibilities of freedom) cannot be known .
Hence, we must restrict the claims we can make about it. But whereas it
can't be known , it can be thought about , for we are now
thinking about it' (195).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | definition |
empirical |
knowledge |
mind |
scene |
science |
thinking |
thought |
'If this realm of the things-in-themselves can be thought
though not known , this limitation upon our claims to knowledge
about them applies in reverse to science. Science compels us to admit
that things-in-themselves can't be known; but in putting them outside the
area of scientific knowledge , by the same token we put them
outside the area of scientific refutation or denial . The
sources of morality thus lie beyond the reach of the terms proper to the
physical sciences (which is but another way of saying that, in this
terminology, action cannot be reduced to motion)' (195).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | knowledge |
science |
terminology |
thought |
'To grant that these unknowns can be thought of, however, is further
to allow for a very ingenious verbalism. If they can be thought of, of we
can employ our intelligence on them, let us call them the "intelligible".
Whereupon, lo! whereas empiricism took its start in equating the
intelligible with the sensible, the intelligible is now so named precisely
because it can't be sensed. Beginning in empiricism, making a
line-up that will permit the pursuit of each empirical science in its own
terms, we have nonetheless managed to so wangle things that we make
allowance for terms beyond the scope of empirical science'
(195-6).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | empirical |
intelligence |
science |
scope |
thought |
'Let us, then, put the matter this way: So far as our dramatistic
terminology is concerned, the Marxist philosophy began by grounding
agent in scene , but by reason of its poignant concern
with the ethical, it requires the systematic featuring of act . On the
Symbolic level, it does feature act implicitly but intensely, in having so
dramatic a pattern. On the Rhetorical level, its scientist and
anti-scholastic vocabulary is needed for purposes of political dynamism
(for the use of an ethical terminology would fail to differentiate the
doctrine sufficiently from non-secular ways of salvation). But if, as an
experiment, you try a systematic development of terms generated from
act , the entire system falls quickly into place' (210).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | agent |
doctrine |
level |
pattern |
philosophy |
reason |
scene |
system |
terminology |
vocabulary |
'So we offer such a tentative restatement of the Marxist doctrine, as
formed about the act of class struggle. We are following no particular
text, but are trying to restate the Marxist position in general, as it appears
when translated into the terms of characterization employed in this book.
We freely grant, however, that such a mode of summarization,
characterization, and placement is almost ludicrously inapposite, when
considered from the Rhetorical point of view. For though we manipulate
our terms in keeping with all the important Marxist emphasis upon class
antagonism as the locus of motives, our vocabulary necessarily lacks the
partisan vigor that infuses the Marxist rhetoric, and makes the
Communist Manifesto a masterpiece of challenge' (210-1).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | act | doctrine |
mode |
rhetoric |
text |
vocabulary |
'All told, throughout these pages we have been considering five
major aspects of science: Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | empirical |
knowledge |
name |
problem |
reason |
reduction |
science |
'Our five terms are "transcendental" rather than formal (and are to
this extent Kantian) in being categories which human thought necessarily
exemplifies. Instead of calling them the necessary "forms of experience",
however, we should call them the necessary "forms of talk about
experience". For our concern is primarily with the analysis of
language rather than with the analysis of " reality"' (317).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | analysis |
language |
reality |
thought |
'This work (which would have as its motto Ad Bellum
Purificandum , or Towards the Purification of War) is constructed on
the belief that, whereas an attitude of humanistic contemplation
is in itself more important by far than any method , only by
method could it be given the body necessary for its existence even as an
attitude. We would thus hold at least that an elaborate analysis of
linguistic foibles is justified "in principle". Indeed, the study of linguistic
action is but beginning. And we must be on our guard lest the great need
for an attitude of linguistic skepticism allow us to be content with
too hasty a "policy" as regards the nature of language itself. This is too
serious a matter for such "dissipatory" approaches to the subject as we
find among the contemporary "debunkers". And even serious
approaches are invalidated when formed in keeping with the ideals of an
uncriticized scientism, which is too evasive of the dramatistic to make
even an adequate preparatory description of linguistic forms'
(319).
Domains: Under construction |
Key Terms: | action | analysis |
content |
description |
language |
method |
nature |
study |
Last Modified:
July-11-96 17:6:26
Reply to randy_radney@sil.org
For the featuring of agent
, the corresponding terminology is idealism .
For the
featuring of agency , the corresponding terminology is
pragmatism .
For the featuring of purpose , the
corresponding terminology is mysticism .
For the featuring
of act , the corresponding terminology is realism .
Nominalism and rationalism increase the kinds of
terminology to seven. But since we have used up all our terms, we must
account for them indirectly' (128-9).
ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
a line which,
taken in itself, could be translated, with equal justice, either as "when the
Carthaginians were coming to the attack from all sides" or as "when the
goddesses of Vengeance were coming to the attack from all sides".
There is no doubt that literally the reference is to the Carthaginians. But if
we consider it in keeping with such studies of ambiguity as Empson has
given us, may we not legitimately hear effects even more resonant than
the literal meaning itself?' (165).
'(1) high development of technological
specialization
'(2) involvement with rationale of money
(accountancy)
'(3) progressive departure from natural conditions,
usually saluted in the name of "naturalism"
'(4) reduction of scenic
circumference to empirical limits (the reason why the technological
powers that take us farthest from natural conditions have been called
"naturalistic")
'(5) stress upon the "problem of knowledge" as the
point of departure for philosophic speculation' (214-5).
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