This series of essays has been rewritten from a Master's thesis defended at Temple University in 1970.

The Philosophical Foundations of Human Cognition (Section IV)

©2004 Edward G. Rozycki

Part 4: The Things We Recognize (Continued)

RETURN
edited 11/29/10

CONTENTS

(Section I) --------------

Introduction

PART 1: THE CONDITIONS OF KNOWLEDGE?

knowa and knowe

The Truth Condition

Enabling a Knowledge Claim

PART 2 : EPISTEMIC FUNDAMENTALS

Epistemically Fundamental Verbs

Direct Reference

Epistemic Substitutes and Epistemic Sources

The Possibility of Illusion

Primitives

Section Endnotes

(Section II) ------------

PART 3: RECOGNITION AND KNOWING

Contrasting 'recognize' and 'identify'

 

 

Recognition and Recall

The Primacy of Recognition

Conflicts of Recognition and Identification

Cognition is Recognition

(Section III) -----------

PART 4: THE THINGS WE RECOGNIZE

Confrontable Characteristics

Recognition Equivalence

Goodman's Identity Theory

Systematizing the r/e-class

Goodman's Theory Continued

Knowing What a Thing Looks Like

Abstraction

Dimensions of Individuation

 

(Section IV) ------------

Multi-leveled Individuation
The relativity of the paradigm

NIE's and Classes
Old wine in new bottles?

Physical Objects as NIE's
A universe of constructs

The Act as NIE
Why action is not behavior

Following a Rule
A dimension of act-individuation

Recognizing Revisited

Goodman's Theory -- Conclusion

The Application of Concepts
Identity is embedded in narrative

To Conclude

Section Endnotes

REFERENCES

PART 4: THE THINGS WE RECOGNIZE (Continued)

Multi-Leveled Individuation (The relativity of the paradigm)

Suppose we have a watch, a paradigm of its kind 24, and someone steps on it. It is broken. Are the characteristics of a paradigm watch now a smashed crystal, a broken winding stern and bent hands? Previously such a broken watch would be considered a deviant; is it now a paradigm? And is a good watch now a deviant? In general, do we by virtue of changing the confrontable characteristics of a paradigm object effect a change in the relations between what was deviant and what, paradigm?

Being a paradigm is not a confrontable characteristic although something is specified a paradigm by virtue of its confrontable characteristics. A paradigm is an ideal, specified by some custom or tradition of practice. A paradigm is not individuated at the object level where we distinguish between this particular watch and that one. One might, in another idiom, say that it exists in a different manner from the physical objects which instantiate it. 25 But it is a matter of our common - although not naive - experience that such entities exist and we even come to be able to recognize them, e.g. patterns, melodies, types, musical works, pictures, etc. All of these are -- at what we would call the object or event level (the dimension of object- or event-individuation) -- non-individuated.

Any Y of which it can be said, "This X is a copy (replica) of Y" I will call object-non-individuated. This is because in individuating one object, copy A of Y, from another object, copy B of Y, we do not thereby individuate Y from some Z in the same dimension of individuation as Y. Y is a non-individuated entity, abbreviated "NIE," at the physical object level. Rembrandt's Night Watch is an NIE at the physical object level, although the original Rembrandt's Night Watch is not. If a copy, or even the original, Night Watch should be damaged, say, by a vandal who paints a blue stripe down the middle, we would not accept this as creating a new work of art, i.e. The New Night Watch. Neither would we say that Night Watch now has a blue stripe and a good copy of it must show this stripe.

Any Y of which it can be said, "This X is a repetition of Y" I will call event-non-individuated. NIE's at the event level are musical works, acts, spoken words, and -- to reiterate an earlier made point -- physical objects.

Relating these NIE's back to the notion of r/e-class, we can see that each r/e-class defines an NIE, its paradigm - distinguishing now between a paradigm and a paradigm case, which is an object or event which circumstances might change from paradigm to deviant. We can consider the NIE to exist at least in a universe of discourse about the particular r/e-class and in the interaction between ourselves and the objects that count as belonging to the r/e-class.

A photograph which we see as a kind of object, is no more than a varicolored sheet of material to the untutored eye of a different culture. The melodies and themes we hear as events weaving through symphony are but unstructured noise to those not trained to hear them. What is garbled vocalization to a foreigner is speech to a student of the language and humor or sarcasm to a native. The distinction between object and object-NIE, or event and event-NIE seems unsubtle. Only consider how much of our experience is of NIE's -- how solid, how there, how objective they are! In this sentence there are thirteen NIE's -- counting the acronym as one word.

When we talk about something - in general - we are talking about NIE's. Any statement that we make about, say, horses in general, that doesn't hold for a particular horse, H, is explained by particular characteristics of H said to interfere with paradigm characteristics, and H is deviant to this extent. We might say, for example, that horses have uncleft hooves, but find out that Old Paint does indeed have cleft hooves. We explain this deviance by identifying Old Paint as a horse with a particular history, i.e. this was the horse so-and-so tried to disguise as a cow. Old Paint's historical characteristics interfere with the paradigm characteristics of horses.

With the example of horses and Old Paint the language used seems unduly technical. In the next example it is more depictive.

Consider Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It is an NIE at the event level. A performance of it is an event. Now, performance A may be perfect but interrupted in the middle. Performance B may be complete but full of mistakes; performance C , technically perfect and complete. We would not want to take the characteristics of the individual performances and predicate them of the work. We would not say, respectively, that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - as a symphony - was, or is, perfect but interrupted, complete but full of mistakes, or technically perfect and complete. In talking about the symphony as a symphony, individuating it from other symphonies, we may talk about it in the present tense. In talking about a performance we must use tense appropriate to the time relationship between us and that performance. "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was interrupted" is a true statement about past performance. It is a false one about the symphony. A mistake in the performance of Beethoven's Ninth interferes with presentation of the characteristics of the symphony. However, contra Goodman such interference cannot count as disestablishing the identity of that being performed, just as a beheading may interfere with but cannot disestablish the identification of a man as a man.

NIE's and Classes (Old wine in new bottles?)

A non-individuated entity is not a class, although a class may be a kind of non-individuated entity. The predicates appropriate to an NIE are appropriate to and true of non-deviant members in the related r/e-class. They are not applicable to the class as a class. Thus the Ninth has a choral section, as do non-deviant members - and some deviant members - of the class of performances of the Ninth. But the class of performances of the Ninth does not have a choral section. But it does have members and more members than the class of performances of Brahms' Naenie. But the Ninth doesn't have members, therefore not more members than Naenie which has no members also. Also, a performance of the Ninth is not a member of the Ninth .

Physical Objects as NIE's. (A universe of constructs)

To know what an X looks like is to know what it looks like through some range of conditions in which X might confront the viewer. We might imagine that at any given point in time the X is describable in terms of the stimuli it presents to the observer. The X is at any point in time describable as a "stimulus-bundle". One might be further tempted - continuing in the metaphor - to analyze a physical object as a temporal sequence of stimulus-bundles. This would be mistaken. For given a stimulus-bundle at time t1 and another at time t 2 the characteristic they must share in order to establish the "objectivity" of the sequence is that they derive from the same source. But this is not a confrontable characteristic of a particular stimulus-bundle. Being a physical object is having a particular kind of history and having a history of any kind is not a confrontable characteristic.26 The physical object is stimulus-non-individuated.

One may succumb to another temptation here - in light of the immediately preceding discussion - and that is to try to argue the ontological primacy of events with respect to objects. The argument might go somewhat to the effect that stimulus-bundles are events, and physical objects are NIE with respect to stimuli, therefore, this particular kind of event is ontologically more basic, just as a performance is ontologically more basic than the work it is a performance of. What is overlooked is that -- epistemologically -- a stimulus bundle is derivative of physical objects and dependent on them for identification. Theoretically, we spoke of the stimuli presented to an observer at a time t by an object as a stimulus bundle. But it is our recognition of physical object S that enables the appropriate "bundling" and time t is not recognizable in and of itself. The "immediately given" may be apprehended, so to speak, but not recognized, for in either sense recognition is inconceivable where there is neither persistence nor reoccurrence.

Consider a flash of lightning, event E occurring at time t. Suppose a person who has never seen a flash of lightning before and has no vocabulary in terms of which to categorize the event sees the lightning. He obviously cannot recognizer it. Can he recognizea it? He has no categories with which to classify it so he cannot recognizea E as some Y. But to recognizea X as a Y was to acknowledge an identification of X as a Y henceforth i.e. from the time of the recognition. But our man has neither the categories to recognizea E as something nor does E exist any more. But of course, E is not confrontable, although it was once confronted. So E is not recognizabler. Had someone said to our man "That was a flash of lightning" in circumstances such that the reference was clear, we might be prepared to allow that E was recognizeda, namely, as a flash of lightning. Such recognitiona might show up now as speech behavior -- our man makes reference to a flash of lightning he saw, etc. His acquisition of the proper concepts enables him to identify where he can no longer recognizer.

Only persistently confrontable entities can enable recognition.

The Act as NIE (Why action is not behavior.)

It is our common experience that we often cannot tell what a person is doing by just looking. Standing, refraining from sitting, and maintaining one's standing position are not necessarily differentiated in terms of overt behavior. If we were to use 'behavior' merely to indicate overt behavior, and 'action' or 'act' to indicate a dimension of individuation in terms of which refraining from sitting and maintaining one's standing position could be differentiated, we could come up with the neat formulation that acts are behavior-non-individuated. Going a step further we could postulate that act-individuation is in terms of intention 27 i.e. intention provides a dimension of act-individuation.

The analysis offered above becomes hard to relate to our common usage inasmuch as we do talk about intentional behavior and almost any description of a human being engaged in a change of position carries with it an implication of intention. We might be tempted to say that all notions pertaining to human activity are "intention-contaminated".

Given the presumption that a person, A, could avoid (have avoided) or refrain (have refrained) from V-ing where V is some verb, that A is now V-ing is taken to be an indication that A is intentionally V-ed or that A intended to be V-ing now. For example, if Dr. Forster is walking to Gloucester, on the presumption that he could avoid so doing we attribute to him the intention of so doing. If Dr. Forster is moving toward Gloucester in a balloon, he is not moving intentionally unless he has control over the balloon. However, on the presumption that Dr. Forster knows that this particular balloon in certain circumstances -- which now obtain -- floats toward Gloucester and that he could have avoided boarding the balloon, that he is now moving toward Gloucester is what he intended.

To speculate a bit, I offer that intentionless behavior is a more sophisticated notion than that of intentional behavior. Genetically speaking, the most primitive notion is that all motion is successful enactment of intention, be it the motion of human beings, animals or objects. Will is primal. The development of thought away from the magical toward the scientific is a development away from the universal attribution of intention. Describing X's motion as a consequence of states of affairs in conformity to natural law rather than as the volition of gods or demons is in effect to deny the validity of the presumption that X could refrain from or avoid moving so. The primitive mind - and I think anthropological studies bear this out - takes everything to mean something. Looked at from this angle certain problems of meaning in the philosophy of language are significantly transformed, e.g. "How does certain behavior come to have meaning?" becomes " How does meaning become restricted?"

But what is intention per se, as when one says, "It is my intention to..." Since this is speculation I make bold as to offer a metaphor (from chemistry) rather than an analysis: an intention is an act precipitate. It is isolable from its act matrix (comes out of solution) in conditions of performance infelicity, e.g. future performance, performance interfered with, beyond the actual ability of the performer, etc.

Let us return to our pre-speculation discussion. We can make a primary distinction between intentional and unintentional behavior in terms of the validity of the presumption that the behavior could be (could have been) avoided or refrained from. But other factors are relevant also, for example whether one knows how to avoid doing something. Another complication is that 'intention' is ambiguous, some intentions presuppose or override others. And it is often the case that although something is done intentionally, it was not the actor's specific intention to do it. In searching for a runaway pet I may cross the street intentionally, though inadvertently, although it was not my specific intention to cross the street. There are important hierarchical interrelationships between intentions, purposes, and motives. which it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore. However, I will attempt to relate and compare purpose and intention with respect to our need for dimensions of act individuation and assessment.

Let us reconsider the formulation that acts are behavior-non-individuated. So as to indicate our departure -- where it occurs -- from common usage of the word 'behavior' we will indicate our special usage with quotation marks, i.e. "behavior", "behavioral", etc. "Behavior" is so to speak mere behavior, overt behavior, individuated in terms of confrontable characteristics. This is not to say that "behavior" is determined since the concept, so limited, cannot be modified with 'avoidable', i.e. avoidable "behavior" is unformulable - a potential wellspring of confusion - ; rather, in speaking of "behavior" we will discount as relevant intentional distinctions.

The formulation, "An act is 'behavior'-non-individuated" is somewhat tautologous, i.e. "That which is individuated via intention is non-individuated by that for which intentions are not a relevant dimension of individuation." The tautology can still be useful though since it is "behavior" which is recognizabler since intentions are non-confrontable. Thus we may have two "behavioral" sequences that are recognizably distinct - we may go so far as to put them into different r/e-classes - but which in terms of act-sequence analyses are equivalent. For example, a noticeably longer stride does not warrant a recategorization of what was heretofore called walking. Similarly we may have two "behaviorally" indistinguishable activity sequences which are act-analyzed as distinct, e.g. John's grinning as opposed to John's grimacing.

Following a Rule. (A dimension of act-individuation)

A rule -- like a proposition -- is statement-non-individuated, since restatement does not effect a new rule, nor translation into a different language change the rule. Also, the same rule may be stated in different ways in the same language. How then do we individuate rules? Usually by whom they are addressed to and the purpose they serve. But since we can imagine two rules which are the same but for the people they are addressed to, it is purpose which remains as critically individuating.

What's the difference between a proposition and a rule? A proposition "expresses" a fact or falsehood - let us concede - whereas a rule enjoins one to or from certain acts. If A is following rule, but B is not; they may be "behaving" the same way, but they are indeed acting differently. To say that A Is following rule x is to say something about his intentions; and it is intentions which individuate acts.

But an intention is hard to grab - you can't kick it around. But once stated 28 it gives us a means for judging deliberate from unthinking, purposive from inadvertent, effective from ineffective behavior (no quotes) and action. A rule provides a dimension of act-individuation and assessment.

An interval of "behavior" may be amenable to many different act-sequence analyses. An overriding purpose, such as following a rule, provides us the logical means for choosing among the several possible act-sequence analyses. Picking a particular act-sequence enables us to judge particular behavior -- not "behavior" - as inadvertent, ineffective, mistaken to the point, etc.

To say that A is following rule x, whereas B is not, is to say first of all that A is not following rule y, different from rule x, unless he can do so compatibly 29 (There may be two formulations of the same rule (see note 28) but there cannot be a formulation for rule x which is identical to a formulation for rule y. This is an unallowable deviation.) But that A happens to not be breaking rule z in the process of following rule x does not mean he is following rule z. To allow the contrary would render "following rule " incapable of individuating an act series, since there is for any rule x, a multitude (an infinitude?) of compatible rules.

This is Goodman's problem. In his theory, giving a performance of W might just as well be giving a performance of Z as long as the scores are compatible, i.e. notationally identical. And if we allow that deviant performances define new works, the predicate "is a performance of Y" is totally non-individuating, i.e. informationless, since given any score there is a possible infinity of new works generable via minor changes in the score and then minor changes in the changed scores.

Now, if A is following rule whereas B is not, then we can expect A to agree with us -- within limits of deviation -- in our judgments of what he is doing, whether it is appropriate, effective (to the limits of his knowledge), inadvertent, mistaken or incorrect. B, on the other hand, will not accept an act analysis of his behavior in the same terms; nor would we, knowing that he is not following rule x , consider such an analysis appropriate. That someone is following a certain rule serves as a justification for our assessments of his behavior and the particular identification of his acts.

We may, and do, of course, reverse the procedure and attribute rule-following behavior to individuals even though the individual may not be aware that he is following a rule, or even in cases where we would be loathe to say he could be aware that he is following a rule, e.g. with animals. If we identify specific behavior as certain acts and assess it in certain "obvious" ways, then attribution of rule-following behavior -- and concommitantly, intention -- is the linguistically simplest device to communicate "what we have seen him ( the actor) do" or "what he is doing."30

Recognizinga Revisited

In an analysis presented early in this paper, 'recognizer' was broken-down into 'recognizea' + memory as justification. The paradigm offered for 'recognizea' was that of recognizing John as the king despite his having heretofore been a peasant. In such a context we could substitute 'acknowledge' for 'recognizea '. But when we recognizer objects we are not conscious of recognizinga as the same and justifying this performative recognition in terms of our memory. Of course we do not justify to ourselves but presume that our memory serves us well. But if we could we not justify the claim to recognizer the object we would not speak of ourselves as recognizingr the object.

But what about not being aware that we are recognizinga the object as one we saw before? This is amenable to the same sort of treatment as one's following a rule not being aware of it. To acknowledge or recognizea X to be Y is to treat X as one treated Y, however that was. To say of a person that he recognizesa X to be (a) Y is to say that he deals with X in the manner that he dealt with (a) Y, which is to say that this formulation is a succinct way of providing a dimension of act individuation and act assessment for that person's interaction with X.

Goodman's Theory of Identity - Conclusion

By way of reiteration: We have W, the score of work W; d(W), the derivative score of a deviant performance of W; V, the score of work V; and d(V) the derivative score of a deviant performance of V. We suppose that d(W) and d(V) are notationally equivalent. Goodman insists that d(W) cannot count as a score of work W -- and consequently the performance from which d(W) derived cannot count as a performance of the work W -- lest we lose the distinction between work W and work V.

To test this assertion we performatively recognized d(V) as V and d(W) as W. We presumed Goodman's criterion: If two scores are notationally identical they are the same score, i.e. the score of the same work. But d(V) and d(W) are notationally the same by supposition. So - Goodman would argue- since d(V) is identical to V, by the transitivity property of identity, d(W) is identical to V. But since d(W) Is identical to W, again, by the transitivity property of identity, W is identical to V. The obvious move is to deny the validity of the move made by reference to the transitivity property of identity.

There are -- as we pointed out above two kinds of identity; indistinguishability -- recognitionr equivalence -- and interchangeability -- recognitiona equivalence. Now indistinguishability implies, as we saw, interchangability within a notational system. But interchangeability does not imply indistinguishability -- although that two instances of a character are distinguishable, is irrelevant in a notational system. And Goodman's maneuver, as we have seen, is to select a criterion of identity based solely and entirely on the musically notatable characteristics of performances. So within Goodman's system the two kinds of identity are reducible to one and the transitivity relation holds.

But outside of Goodman's system, i.e. using some other criterion besides the identity of musical scores to judge the identity of the work performed, the transitivity of identity breaks down. It just does not follow that if d(V) is recognizablyr identical (indistinguishable) to d(W) and d(W) is recognizablya identical to W, that d(V) is recognizablya identical (obviously it need not be recognizablyr identical) to W.

The justification by which d(W) is identified as a deviant W is not necessarily a justification by which d(V) can be identified as a deviant W. Indeed, that d(V) is already identified as a deviant V rules out its identification as a W of any sort. Recognitionr identification using deviants cannot be allowed in the process of individuating r/e-classes. One doesn't use a deviant as a model for sight or listening comparison or identification. What Goodman overlooks is that we can -- and must --recognize deviants and allow them identity: they are treated as deviants and not used as standards.

Why must we recognize deviants and allow them identity? Because otherwise we would sacrifice certain processes of judgment, certain ways of speaking, that are very important to us: we could not talk about attempting to play a work; we could not possibly make a mistake because there are no works with mistakes; we could not talk of the beginning of a performance of a work - nor of the end; we could not distinguish between the playing of a work -- as on a tape recorder -- and the performing of a work by an instrumentalist.

Goodman's system is internally consistent. I will consider in detail below some of its drawbacks. However the strongest statement I will make against it is taken from Goodman himself, though of course not in reference to his own theory:

"..antecedent classification stands as a license and touchstone for a notational system ...Where a pertinent antecedent classification is lacking or flouted, a notational language effects only an arbitrary, nominal, definition of 'work', as if it were a word newly coined." (Languages of Art , page 197) 31

Goodman's choice of criterion - based entirely on the musically notatable characteristics of performances - in effect dispenses with score, work and performance distinctions as we normally make them. What counts a performance of a musical work? My playing it on a tape recorder? Or an orchestra's playing it? It would seem that given any sound event B, if using musical notation one can derive a score which matches the score of some work W, B counts as a performance of W. And if you say that the instruments are specified in the score - they may be. What if they are? Are the names of instruments part of the notational system? Not by Goodman's criteria. But allow these names anyway. How am I to identify the means by which sound event B is being produced? Recognize the instruments of production? But can I rely on my recognition? After all, I recognize many pieces being played but cannot identify them by Goodman's criterion. Should I perplex and inconvenience myself using Goodman's identity criterion only to ignore it when it causes its author problems?

Goodman does not recognize deviant performances as performances of W, so he does not have to account for them. But problems are not solved by being legislated out of existence. How do we know what an orchestra is engaged in performing? We recognize what we are hearing as part of particular work. But recognition no longer offers us recourse when we wish to identify; and 'part of' cannot individuate given Goodman's criterion. For 'part of X' may well be 'part of Y' or a work in its own right.

How do we know that a performance of a particular work has started? We hear the music -- assume we have scores to follow -- and seeing that what we have on the score is being played, deviances here and there being attributable to the fact that the musicians are undergrad music majors, knowing that it is the practice of musicians to continue follow their own scores, we normally identify the work as what we have a score of.

There are many assumptions here that are not captured or capturable in musical notation. Suppose it were not the practice of musicians to follow the score they started with; identifying the piece in terms of identifying the beginning of the piece -- by simultaneous translation as it were -- would be no assurance that they were playing the piece. But with Goodman's notion of work, any given work is embeddable in a containing work and any work contains other works. But what about pertinent antecedent classification? It is not flouted by recognizing these new works as works. Goodman's universe is an infinitude of musical works containing in a very small subset those works for which there exist traditional identifications.

Now, exact compliance of performance with the score is the only identification procedure. So we cannot identify the performance until it is finished, for until then a mistake is always possible. But how do we know that the performance has stopped? Can't there be a work with a really long rest? If you say that the score for W shows that the work ends with a certain chord, how is that relevant? What makes you think you have the right score? What makes you think that the sound event you are confronted with should bear relation to the score you have at all?

The Application of Concepts (Identity is embedded in narrative)

The acquisition of a concept begins with our first encounter with deviance. Learning why an X, recognizablyr distinct from U ought still be recognized as a Y, starts us off distinguishing among the characteristics of X that are idiosyncratic characteristics and those that are Y characteristics. We learn how individual characteristics interfere with paradigm characteristics. With words like 'good', 'excellent', 'ideal' 'perfect' we have our paradigms specified for us. We can learn the paradigms even should we encounter no paradigm cases, i.e. " This would be perfect, were it not for these red spots."

To fully understand what a thing is, is to understand what it would be or could be under conditions not actually experienced with the object. Part of understanding what a blue object is, is knowing it would look green under yellow light. We could not cope in this world if all we could do were to recognize paradigm cases under normal conditions. Our everyday concepts are what Vygotsky32 calls "complexes", or, following Wittgenstein, "family names."

In the theory of the r/e-class I have tried to delineate the "family" structure, tracing the origins of kith and kin. Our everyday concepts derive from particulars by idealization brought about by paradigm-deviant contrasts. It is probable that in the majority of cases we work with particulars as particulars rather than as members of certain classes.

But what about the concepts we acquire via language, given to us as full blown abstractions? How do we come to be able to use them? I hypothesize - since this article is already overlong -- that it is somewhat the reverse of the process by which we acquire concepts from particulars. We acquire concepts from particulars by contrasting specified paradigm cases and specified deviants, or contrasting deviants among themselves and codifying these contrasts in language.

We apply concepts acquired in the abstract by comparing the conceptual entity with a paradigm case that instantiates it; then in terms of what we know of the paradigm case as an individual and as a member of this and that class, e.g.; the range and dimension of deviance for each class, we learn to recognize the deviants to which the concept is usefully applied. The artful application of conceptual knowledge is in knowing how and to what extent characteristics of particulars can interfere with manifestations of concept-related characteristics.

To Conclude

How do we come to know what things are? How we come to do anything depends greatly on what it is we come to do. Knowing what things are is being able to perform in a certain way, i.e. to treat things in a familiar manner, justifying such treatment in terms of certain capacities, e.g. senses and memory, -- and most importantly -- in the context of certain presumptions.

The logical prerequisites of an explanation of how we come to know what things are -- setting these out is the philosopher's task; the actual theory, the psychologist's -- :

1) a presumption that some entities persist

2) a presumption that our senses and memory in normal circumstances relate to these entities.

Knowledge of this kind is obviously no "apprehension of the Real"; we have no faculties with which we apprehend that which is. But these conclusions do not warrant despair that all we ever have is at most, say, belief. This misses the point.

Belief and knowledge are -- I would suspect -- differentiated in terms of the manner of justification offered to support certain claims and in the kinds of presumptions that can enable knowledge claims as opposed to statements of belief. That knowledge is of a somewhat more pedestrian nature than it was imagined to be does not warrant the conclusion that there is no knowledge.

The reader has been lead through a circuitous route of argumentation, some of which was merely an exercise of exposition to demonstrate the strength of certain approaches. The structure as a whole may strike one as top heavy - an inverted pyramid, it has been suggested - that threatens to fell should but a few premises give way. This may be so. But then, one learns not only but building to a successful completion, but also -- though less happily -- by observing the way one's construction collapses.

 


SECTION ENDNOTES

24 'watch' designates a conglomerate r/e-class. There are many recognizably distinguishable paradigms for 'watch' specified as different types or styles.

25 I will refrain from continuing in this idiom. Besides causing needless malaise in those who hold that if you can't kick it, it ain 't there, I am not sure it aids clarity.

26 In a different philosophical tradition this would be stated: No perception of qualities justifies an inference as to the existence of substance.

27See D. S. Shwayder, The Stratification of Behavior or T. F. Green,Teaching, Acting and Behaving.

28This is tied up with my "precipitate-theory" of intention. To say what one is doing specifically, one needs language. The statement of what one is specifically doing in one instance individuates it from what one is specifically doing in another if the statement of the latter differs from the statement of the first. (There may be different formulations of the same statement, but there cannot be identical formulations which are individually of two different statements.) If the performance of what one is specifically doing is botched or interfered with, or otherwise suffers infelicity, the intention "precipitates out", i.e. remains in the statement of it.

29 Green's distinction between rule-conforming and rule-following behavior is untenable. At the "behavior" level -- Green has an equivalent notion - they can't be distinguished, i.e. there is no "behavioral" difference between following a rule and conforming to a rule. This is in agreement with Green's theory. But,at the act level, they don't contrast because one cannot intend to conform to rule x as opposed to intending to follow rule x. Also, "conforming to rule z" is non-individuating in and of itself.

30 Edward T. Hall in The Silent Language deals with rules-learning at different levels of awareness as transmission of the complex fabric of culture. He theorizes that there is little indeed of behavior that does not follow some rule,although he conflates the distinction we have observed here between "conforming to a rule" and "following a rule," which makes a difference once intention is consider. Similarly, many other social scientists.

31 In the quote the pertinent classification that Goodman is referring to is the traditional and antecedent identification and individuation among scores. Scores are already in a notational system. Goodman seems to identify the score with the work, so that work identification done in terms of score identification is entirely natural to him. But the work as we normally recognize it is a performance-non-individuated entity. Some people are said to be able to enjoy a piece of music from merely reading the score -- for them the work would be score-non-individuated. But the score itself is object-non-individuated in so far as there are characteristics of the individual sheet of music which could interfere with but not be attributable to the score, e.g. rips and tears, missing pages, etc.

32Vygotsky - from a traditional philosophical bias, I suspect - does not consider complexes to be concepts. Concepts for him have -- in effect -- necessary and sufficient conditions of application. Complexes are groupings where association between objects are made on the basis of similarity of appearance, or of usage, without "intrinsic bonds" (p. 61). Often different criteria are used in classification. Vygotsky's "complexes" are what, in this series of essays, we have called "recognition-equivalence classes."

REFERENCES

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Woozley, A.D. (1967) "Knowing and Not Knowing" in Knowledge and Belief A. Phillips Griffiths (ed.) Oxford Univ. Press

 

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