Patrick Meredith

The Relativity of Categories

This chapter discusses the relativity of categories. Directly or indirectly, all metal qualities are so related to each other that any attempt to give an exhaustive description of any one of them would make it necessary to describe the relations existing between all. It is the congregation of such activities within the nervous system that may be considered the physiological basis of consciousness, and this congregation cannot legitimately be dissected into its components. The following characteristics are observed in context to the relativity of categories. (1) It normally involves a fusion of information from several different sensory modalities. (2) It is essential to any consecutive and coherent verbalization of experience. (3) It directly contributes to any subsequent reasoning concerning the experience. (4) Any structural analysis of concepts resulting from the sensory experience necessarily relies on categorical distinctions. These categories are social achievements and are logically perfect.

Towards Formal Epistemics.

In the communication of scientific concepts the nature of instruction is such that the instructor must frequently be more explicit than the scientist himself. The naive questions of students often raise problems of fundamental semantic and philosophical importance ignored by scientists. Many of the epistemic problems so raised require a clarification of the relations between space and time. The present paper discusses the empirical conditions for this clarification.

Physics and Epistemics

This chapter provides an overview of physics and epistemics. To judge by their present preoccupations twenty years may be an optimistic underestimate of the time needed to interest many psychologists in such apparently diverse and remote subjects as astronomy and semantics. This would only emphasize the need for an autonomous science of epistemics. Epistemics differs from epistemology in its empirical and inductive character. Epistemics arose out of experiments in educational psychology in which an impasse had been reached. It was clear that no general conclusions could ever emerge from any of these experiments because of the entirely arbitrary character of the educational material that, in such experiments, serve as psychological stimuli. Instruments and languages as mediators between materials and men constitute the theme of epistemics. These considerations give the key to one of the guiding principles of epistemics that is in marked contrast to what appears to be one of the guiding principles in the philosophy of science. In epistemics, the search is always for diversifying factors.

On Association and Communication

This chapter provides an overview of association and communication. Although verbal language is by no means the only type of communication, there are many reasons for giving it pride of place. It is the most subtle type for influencing human behavior and, thus, tends to control the application of other types. Communication, in the sense intended throughout this book, is not simply a process of transmitting messages. It is a process of sharing experiences and in the particular case of rational communication, it results in a shared understanding. To achieve this, the two parties need two initial factors in common. There must be common facts to which each can refer, and there must be a common language. But a little reflection will convince anyone that these two conditions are far too broad to guarantee the success of particular cases of communication. The process must be contrived so that both parties view the facts in the same way and also accept the same style of presentation. Thus, communication depends on a common view of facts and a common usage of language. And if these conditions are to be satisfied reliably and continuously, a common logic is required.

The Syntax of Mathematics

This chapter presents the syntax of mathematics. To arrive at a realistic syntax of mathematics, taking account of what mathematicians actually say (as distinct from their dreams of heaven), one must avoid four traps, two subjective and two objectives. What one may call the world of mathematics, that is, what its propositions are all about is not either of the following four realms considered in isolation: (1) the dreams or thoughts of mathematicians (subjective), (2) the sensory experiences of counting or cutting. (subjective), (3) the pebbles and rulers, used in counting and measuring (objective), and (4) the signs used in writing mathematics (objective). Any subjective or any objective identification of the reference of mathematics always sets in motion a counter-tendency. Every mathematical proposition, when analyzed, and when the definitions of its terms are displayed, with further definitions of the terms used in the first definitions always leads both inwards and outwards, humanly speaking. There are two aspects to mathematics that are termed as contemplative and calculative. The logical constants AND, OR, and NOT are the means by which the tautology of foundation statements on mathematics can be demonstrated, but they cannot of themselves define such logical concepts as terms, classes, relations, propositions, functions, or variables.

On Understanding Science

This chapter focuses on understanding the fundamentals of science. The basic social fact about the conditions for understanding science is so much taken for granted by experienced scientists that they forget that it is a magic that has to be learned. The design, whether personal or institutional, for understanding science, must make provision for filling out the working context of scientific documents by mixing freely both with those who write them and, whenever possible, with those who make the discoveries. It is not surprising that so many metaphors used for referring to aspects of thinking are derived from vision. Except in projective geometry, the space of the mathematician, and hence of the physicist, is not visual space but is more akin to the space of the blind. For most terrestrial purposes, it is Euclidean. It is a technological and etymological accident that the science of space should have been called geometry—earth-measurement. It is an educational accident that a particular set of Euclidean figures and theorems should have come to be popularly identified as the principal content of this science. Morphology, anatomy, histology, molecular structure, geography, astrographics, and cosmogony belong to the science of space. But it is easier to generalize the reference of geometry than to compel adoption of a neologism. It may seem to have identified the understanding of science with the understanding of physics alone and of the most recondite parts of physics. But there are good reasons for concentrating on the conceptual problems of physics.

On Time and Mechanics

This chapter discusses time and mechanics on the writing of science. In general, there is no conceivable set of observations that can provide enough information about the past of a system to give complete information as to its future. The future is a mathematical construction that can be changed by an observation. Although mechanics is an empirically-grounded science derived from the involved movements of men and matter, the statements of its laws are abstract statements which omit some of the most decisive factors the phenomena. To pinpoint the issue consider an explosion. This is seemingly a mechanical event. The problem of transmitting a continuously varying representation of motion has been solved in at least four different ways, viz., by the cine-film, by the oscilloscope, by Michottes apparatus, and by electroluminescence. These are valuable in conveying sensory impressions of motion but they leave its conceptual analysis untouched.

Thought, Work and Language

This chapter discusses thought, work, and language on forms of representation. Many anthropologists have taken as the two characteristics that distinguish man from all other animals, the use of language and the use of tools. The author suggests that these two are not independent; both are substitutes. There are two outstanding features of the therblig system. The first is its eminent usefulness as demonstrated by motion-study engineers over many years. The second is the apparent lack of any consistent logical criterion in the definitions of the seventeen therbligs. On examining the basic structural properties of language from many points of view, one can scarcely avoid repetition. It is when one makes a conspectus of all the varieties of experience, including not only color or taste, but experiences of movement, of separation, of exertion, of recall, of immediacy, of pastness, of replacement, and so on, that they begin to see the necessity for syntax in the structure of experience.

Semantics and Philosophy

This chapter discusses the semantics and philosophy of science. The degrees of certainty and constancy that characterize scientific knowledge are not comparable to those with which metaphysics has been credited. They rest on social agreement in certain physical conditions. One cannot define the conditions without social agreement and, on the other hand, one cannot reach social agreement without the nonsocial constraints of physical conditions. As conditions change and society changes, science must likewise change. Thus, it cannot and does not claim absolute constancy. The only certainty, which science can allow, is the documentary certainty that a certain range of data has been recorded. This margin of tolerance is the fact. All inference is less certain than this fact. The condition for the working of symbolism is that it must have been previously established. In other words, it requires a socially agreed vocabulary and individually learned skill in using this vocabulary. The use of the vocabulary on a given occasion is for future reference, that is, for making and communicating inferences. Thus, the time-span relevant to symbolism is much longer than that of observation and extends both earlier and later than the fact observed. In seeing human significance in the sour and the dregs, epistemics points to a far-reaching philosophy of dust. This is not a Freudian probing of what the tidy eye would sweep away as offensive to the sight.

The Paradox of Prose

This chapter discusses the paradox of prose. Prose is successfully avoided a good deal of the time. Mathematics is not prose, nor are graphs, diagrams, photographs, or tables. Yet these all contribute a vast amount of information-carrying capacity and are certainly as much a part of the literature as the prose passages on which most of the strictures are passed. The importance of examining the credentials of prose lies in the need to reconsider the status and function of a class of writers who have at present assumed a position of critical importance in the world—the class of scientific writers. If their products are judged by inappropriate criteria they will almost inevitably be deflected from their proper purpose, which is to share understanding, and driven to compete, with dice loaded against them, with writers whose whole tradition is not merely different but incompatible.