AN EPISTEMIC PERSPECTIVE ON DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY

by F Richard Singer III         edition date 11/07/07

website: www.conceptualstudy.org      email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net

Overview: My paper, The Potential Impact of Descriptive Psychology, has two themes. I have revised these as separate papers. Both are written for those already familiar with Descriptive Psychology. The other paper, A Wider Recognition of Descriptive Psychology can be read without reference to this present paper. This present paper uses some epistemic concepts to indicate a perspective on descriptive psychology and its relationship to conceptual philosophy. Various types of study are conceptualized, primarily by indicating conditions on parameters for describing the behavior involved in these types of study. Conceptual study is characterized by conditions on the want and performance parameters. Conceptual study is classified as pre-paraceptual or as purely conceptual, depending on conditions placed on the significance parameter. Other conditions on these parameters are used to characterize other types of study. My use of the significance parameter only includes what else the person is intentionally doing in doing X. Outcomes may occur that are not related to the significance X has for the person. These would be indicated in an extended achievement parameter.

Conceptual Focus: Since I am not explicating pre-existing concepts in a public conceptual net, many of my statements are purely conceptual from within the net that I am proposing for conceptual philosophy. These statements may also indicate how terms are used within this net. I use an all caps verb when I want to stress the conceptual nature of a statement.

Conceptual Philosophy: A net IS a network of related concepts and conceptual distinctions that persons can use to think and communicate about some realm of interest. The focus of conceptual philosophy IS on a net for our ubiquitous concepts. Doing conceptual philosophy INVOLVES a type of activity during which the want parameter is to enhance the understanding of or to develop or expand such a net. A conceptual philosophy IS any net or subnet that results from such study. Ontics IS the subnet of conceptual philosophy that focuses on a purely conceptual study of reality concepts. Its main concern is on the categories that might be useful in thinking about reality. Epistemics IS the subnet that focuses on a purely conceptual study of understanding. Enactics IS the subnet for doing. This is the most important subnet, for the very concept of a person is centered on what a person does.

I consider the reality concepts from PNDP as the core of ontics, and in A Net for Conceptual Philosophy. I integrated them with other concepts to the extent that I am not inclined to go beyond the ontics in that workfile. Altho this includes all the vital ontic subcepts that I have thought about, others might want to go further. More work can always be done on the concepts most directly supported by the subconcepts.

Enactics is the one that relies most heavily on concepts from PNDP. The utility of PNDP for this purpose is due to the fact that the person concept is central to PNDP, and this concept is linked to the concept of deliberate action. A Net for Doing goes beyond the current concepts because of concerns that may be of very little interest to others, altho one strand that could be of general interest is the net for human ethics that is partially developed in Chapter 4.

The epistemic subnet relies heavily on the conceptual clarification devices from PNDP. However, except for linguistic concepts, the epistemic portion of PNDP is not extensive enough for my purposes. One epistemic topic that I have considered is a parametric perspective on concepts. Chapter 2 of A Net for Conceptual Philosophy and all of A Net for Understanding gives an overview of the other epistemic strands I would include. The concept of understanding is my most vital epistemic subconcept.

Realms: The concept of a realm of interest is broad. It includes anything that any person might be interested in thinking about or doing something about. A casual tennis match could be a realm of interest for a few people, altho probably not a lasting one. Some realms have been studied enough that we have named them as areas of study. For example, biology is an area of study. Areas of study focus on a realm that may be called a world. A realm IS a world if it is both extensive and largely self-contained.

Nets and Persons: The person concept is vital for the above concepts, for without the concept of a person the concept of a net makes no sense. First and foremost, a net is characteristic of the power type, and so the manifest concept of a net IS that of a net for some person. Since nets are normally acquired thru social practices involving nets of other persons, it also useful to have a more remote public net concept. Loosely speaking, a public net IS one that is used in similar ways by a community. Since Descriptive Psychology is such a net, I refer to it as PNDP (Public Net for Descriptive Psychology).

The word net was chosen instead of a word like system or structure because it is suggestive of the flexible nature of conceptual relationships. Altho we could think of concepts as basic building blocks for a net, they are more like interwoven strands. Concepts do not exist as independent entities. They support each other and some net, which also supports them. Understanding of a concept can only occur in relation to its place within some net. As indicted by a PNDP maxim, a person acquires concepts by using them, and I would stress that this involves using them in the context of other concepts.

To say that P has a net for baking indicates a state of affairs involving P. It says that P has conceptual tools for thinking about this realm. It is in this sense that a net is a person characteristic of the power type. Since only P can directly access this net it IS a private net. If Q also has a net for baking, it will be similar in many ways. For instance, most persons who bake will have a concept of an oven and a concept of temperature. If they differ about what the heat should be for baking a meat loaf, this is unlikely to be due to conceptual problems. In this sense, they are using public concepts of oven and temperature.

One way to make the concept of a public net more precise is to note that being able to communicate about a wide variety of matters within in a community is a state of affairs that involves having similar nets. We could conceptualize a public net for this community as this state of affairs. Alternatively, we could recognize this state of affairs as a pre-condition for having a public net and conceptualize a public net as a conceptual object invented to help think about this state of affairs. Various ways could be used. A descriptive Psychologist might identify it as the net used by the imaginary standard normal person in the community. A mathematician identify it a set of similar nets, much as an element in the ring of integers modulo n can be conceptualized as an equivalence class of integers. I prefer merely to conceptualize it as a conceptual invention without recourse to such devices.

Descriptive Psychology: In spite of its name, the realm of interest for PNDP is unbounded, going far beyond considerations usually associated with the term ‘psychology’. I discuss this in Chapter 0 Section 2 of A Net for Understanding. That the realm of interest for PNDP is unbounded can be briefly indicated by the passage below from Persons, Behavior, and the World, (Shideler page 180).

As a pre-empirical conceptual system, Descriptive Psychology provides us with the resources to bring together science and art, religion and the behavioral sciences, history and law, fairy tales and everyday living. It does so in a way that preserves the uniqueness of every domain and individual yet does not leave them isolated from one another. Because it is reflexive and recursive, it is unlimited in its scope and precision. Because it is content-free, it is not culture-bound in the usual sense, and is non-committal with respect to anything empirical: to repeat, it does not “preempt the answers to any questions that could be settled empirically”. It is a resource designed to increase our behavior potential, not a way to limit it by imposing a set of theories or a sequence of behaviors, like answers at the back of the book.

This perspective is so radical that it is difficult for most people to appreciate or even realize what has potentially been accomplished. It is hard for them to understand that PNDP does not constitute a psychological theory or a theory of any type. As indicated, it is a net, and thus theory neutral. In this it resembles another theory neutral net, namely PNCM (public net for contemporary mathematics). Currently, these may be the only extensive nets not entangled with a multitude of other considerations. Altho the potential scope of PNDP is much wider than that of PNCM, PNDP has not evolved over many centuries from the work of a large number of people. Hopefully, this will be the future of PNDP.

Ordinary Nets: P’s ordinary net IS the net containing all of the concepts that P routinely uses in everyday activities or in the pursuit of interests that P would not classify as highly specialized. The core of P’s ordinary net is an implicit part of all of the nets P uses for particular realms of interest. The public ordinary net for a community IS what is largely common to most members’ ordinary nets.

Subconcepts and Vital Concepts: In a net some concepts may be so basic that they provide a substrate supporting each other and all the other concepts in the net, altho often only implicitly. Since these concepts lie submerged and since they implicitly support a significant part of the meaning of other concepts used, I refer to them as subconcepts. A concept that is so basic that it is part of a substrate supporting many other concepts in a net IS a subconcept for the net. This is not intended to be a sharp or precise distinction. Being a subconcept is a matter of degree.

The subconcepts in an ordinary net CONSIST of intimately intertwined conceptual strands that permeate thinking and mediate all experience. A subconcept IS vital for P if P’s ordinary net would not make sense without it. This does not mean that a vital concept cannot be modified. Nor does it mean that it must be explicitly recognized. It only means that without some implicit version of this concept it would be impossible for P to make sense of anything. The concept of doing is one of my most vital concepts. If I had no idea of what it meant to do something then I would be incapable of deliberate action. Thus some version of the concept of doing is vital for any person. The concept of understanding is a closely related vital concept. Intertwined with these are the vital concepts of a concept and a conceptual distinction. Without these, I cannot imagine deliberating. The PNDP reality concepts are also among my vital concepts, and I suspect that at least some version of them would be vital for any person.

Using the language above conceptual philosophy IS the conceptual study of vital concepts, with an additional focus on the other concepts these most directly support.

Conceptual vs Paraceptual: That a navy captain outranks a marine captain is information about the relationship between concepts used in our public net for military ranks. Such information is conceptual, since it is independent of any state of affairs. That a specific person is a marine captain uses this net to give information about a state of affairs that this net is intended to help us understand. Such information is paraceptual in relation to this net. The concept of paraceptual information includes information that is called empirical, but I will use the term empirical in a narrower manner that relates to verification. Specifically empirical information is paraceptual information that has been explicitly checked and reasonably verified by observation or study of some non-conceptual realm.

¨ Conceptual information is about concepts and relationships between concepts in some net, and which is known by working within the net.

¨ Paraceptual information presupposes some net, but is about some particular state of affairs that the net is intended to help access.

Paraceptual Information: Information about concepts can be paraceptual. Consider the statement that a person is an individual with a history of deliberate action. It can be used as a paraceptual proposition to inform someone about how the person concept is used in PNDP. However using it as a prelude to making a judgement about some behavior description, it would be a conceptual proposition. The difference is that in one case we are providing information about the net to someone who is not thinking from within the net. In the other case, we would be speaking from within that net to anyone who is also using that net.

Understanding: Various types of knowledge and comprehensions ARE components of understanding. Propositional knowledge is the kind of knowledge that can be expressed by propositions. It INCLUDES any information that P reasonably finds believable and that P is willing to use as a basis for some type of action. Process knowledge and realm knowledge ARE also components of understanding. Process knowledge is the type of knowledge that is acquired thru practice and that enables an actor to implement various processes. It INCLUDES the cognitive aspects of P’s action capabilities, or the cognitive aspect of P’s competence. Realm knowledge IS the knowledge of a realm that is obtained by living within that realm. It INCLUDES propositional and process knowledge as components but is much broader. It cannot be reduced to a set of component parts. It is the kind of knowledge that we have in mind when we say that a reporter really knows city hall. It is the basis needed for powerful understanding of concepts for a realm. Relational comprehension INVOLVES understanding relationships between concepts. It is essential to having well integrated concepts. Relational comprehension also INVOLVES an understanding of relationships in various states of affairs that are not purely conceptual, such as understanding the relationship between nutrition and health. Unlike propositional knowledge, which can often be expressed using simple propositions, relational comprehension can vary from minimal to extremely sophisticated. All of these concepts are developed in A Net for Conceptual Philosophy and in A Net for Understanding.

A Realm of Certainty: The concept of a realm of certainty is central to understanding the epistemic significance of PNDP and conceptual philosophy. There is a great deal that each of us takes for granted. I take it for granted that I have never been on Mars. I take it for granted that the computer I am now using is not a mirage. I take it for granted that physical objects continue to exist when no one is observing them. I take it for granted that I can count in a reliable manner. Etc. The total collection of such beliefs, whether explicit or implicit, IS P’s realm of certainty. Elements in a P’s realm of certainty may be manifest and trivial. They may be remote and ubiquitous in scope. They may be anything between. The concept of a realm of certainty for a person can be extended in an obvious way to a public realm of certainty for any community. It is what is common to most members’ realm of certainty.

Note: The realm of certainty concept was suggested to me by the account of some of Wittgenstein’s epistemics in Bob Brill’s thesis. Altho I use a similar concept, due to a difference between Wittgenstein’s interests and mine, there are some conceptual differences and some differences in terminology. Wittgenstein uses the word ‘knowledge’ for information that needs to be validated. He uses the term ‘certainty’ for information that it would not make sense to validate. He would not apply the term ‘knowledge’ to what I will call ‘vital knowledge’.

Basic Reliable Knowledge: A belief in P’s realm of certainty IS basic reliable knowledge to the extent that it is reasonable to take it for granted. This knowledge is a basis that P can rely on without question. The terminology is a reminder of the role such knowledge plays. Basic reliable knowledge is acquired by living, emerging from the experience accumulated by operating within the world. It is grounded pragmatically by the experience that it can reasonably be relied upon.

Certainty is an attitude towards a belief. Attitudes can change. A child does not begin with the basic reliable knowledge he or she will have as an adult. The realm of certainty for P evolves, altho for a normal adult in a stable environment it changes very little. Altho the realm of certainty for a community can also change, for a viable cohesive community it will be extremely stable and will be included in the realms of certainty for members.

P can challenge or consider challenges to parts of P’s basic reliable knowledge. P can look for ways to validate or ground these parts. For most purposes, there is no good reason to challenge or validate such knowledge. Altho I could provide evidence beyond a reliance on memory that I had never been on Mars, I would need to have some unusual reasons to do so. I classify this knowledge as basic reliable knowledge, altho I might never need to rely on it. Much more useful is my basic reliable knowledge about the location of my house. This is so basic and so reliable that in dreams I am tremendously disturbed when it seems to be unreliable. In fact, when this happens, I may even realize that I am dreaming. Still I can imagine questioning this and providing additional evidence to validate it to anyone with doubts. One thing I cannot imagine doubting is that my concept of location is meaningful. What would it be like to claim that all human talk about locations was meaningless? How would you make sense out of such a claim? How would you validate your certainty that the concept of location was meaningful? Imaging a response to someone who said the concept of location is meaningless because spatial relationships do not exist.

Vital Knowledge: P’s vital knowledge IS the basic reliable knowledge that P cannot seriously doubt and still make sense of being a person in the real world. All of P’s other knowledge presupposes P’s vital knowledge (and usually some other certainties). For P to seriously challenge P’s vital knowledge, P must seriously challenge P’s ability to understand anything. To challenge your vital knowledge is to assume that you might be totally incompetent, that your vital concepts are incoherent. This is the ultimate degradation ceremony. For example, that P’s memory is at least somewhat reliable is vital knowledge for P. Even with amnesia, P could not function without the knowledge that the memories being accumulated will be somewhat reliable.

Knowing that we exist in the real world is vital, and I regard Descartes’ argument for this not as a proof but as recognizing that this is vital knowledge. A science fiction book illustrates this. The main character walks beyond a permissible point in the road and finds that the world suddenly ends in nothingness. He later discovers that he is a simulated person in a computer program that is still being written. Try to imagine being this person. Perhaps “brain in a vat” discussions that some philosophers find so interesting are a way to bring a concept of vital knowledge into focus. I suspect not, because it is taken too seriously, so the significance of such discussions escapes me. It also seems to implicitly assume a physicalistic cosmic version, for otherwise why not imagine being a thought in the mind of a metaphysical demon.

PNDP & Ordinary Nets: The area of study for PNDP includes any ordinary net. To do this, PNDP goes beyond them to formulate a net that contains a sophisticated and refined ordinary net along with a net for thinking about any ordinary net as well as the ordinary foundations of any net. It is this feature that makes PNDP reflexive and recursive. Because ordinary nets involve basic reliable knowledge, and because such knowledge is a basis for a person’s behavior in the world, PNDP could be characterized as the branch of conceptual study whose area is that of persons behaving in the world. This entails having person concepts and reality concepts that are clearly formulated and enable descriptions without paraceptual commitments, other than basic reliable ones. To the extent one thinks of psychology as the study of persons, this gives a reason for the name Descriptive Psychology.

Study: For an additional perspective on PNDP, I use some study-related concepts. Study IS a type of activity during which P wants to enhance an understanding of some state of affairs, and that state usually has some place in some realm of interest. Due to the way the want parameter is conceptualized, this implies that P’s performance is guided by that want.

Since study is something that P can do, basic reliable knowledge can emerge from study. This is seldom the want parameter for study, nor is it usually a major part of the significance parameter. In fact, most study does not affect P’s basic reliable knowledge. Instead, study is designed to acquire or enhance a different type of understanding, namely understanding outside of the realm of certainty. Altho basic reliable knowledge is not usually the goal of study, study may be directed towards a refinement of such knowledge. I focus on two types of study, which I call conceptual study and paraceptual study.

Study Episodes: Most of the time when we talk about study we are thinking of a study episode rather than a single action. To say that P studied history last night would normally suggest that P did more than lookup a historical fact in the encyclopedia. However, the concept of study being used includes extremely casual activity. Even watching a game of chess and asking how a pawn is allowed to move qualifies as study, altho perhaps as fleeting study. It is the want parameter and its relationship to the performance parameter that matters. In particular, the achievement parameter is not relevant. In fact, much of a person’s understanding is achieved without study. Study is directed to the acquisition of understanding that does not just accrue by living.

A study episode for P IS a sequence of events with P as actor whose elements are related by the common theme of understanding some realm. This means that not only is the want parameter for much of P’s noteworthy action a desire to understand, but the significance parameter for much of the other thematic action also relates to understanding. P takes a few deep breaths because P wants to relieve tension. This act is not study, but the significance parameter involves the study theme if P is doing this to help focus on where the mistake might have occurred in the last calculation.

Conceptual Study: CS (Conceptual Study) is conceptualized in relation to the concept of a conceptual net. In doing CS, the state being studied is in some realm that is a net and the study is done primarily from within that net. The want parameter is guided by a desire to understand some portion of the net, and often a desire to modify the net. CS also involves a special condition on the performance parameter. In doing CS, the only significant claims are conceptual, i.e. they are made from within the net being studied. Other types of study involve significant paraceptual claims, i.e. claims that apply some portion of a net to some state other than the net. Many study episodes are a mixture of paraceptual study and conceptual study, with the emphasis being on the paraceptual components. Contemporary mathematics is the most prevalent exception in the academic world, with most of the study being conceptual. Of course, CS presupposes some paraceptual knowledge, but to qualify as CS this must only be basic reliable knowledge. Without some such knowledge, P would not even know that P was studying. CS may also use the concepts being studied to makes paraceptual claims or conjectures, as long as it is understood that this is done merely to add a conceptual perspective on these concepts.

Areas of Study: Common names for broad areas of study include physics, chemistry, biology, history, economics, mathematics, etc. More specialized areas may have there own names, such as botany. Names of areas may also directly indicate their relation to a more general area, such as molecular biology, altho the name Descriptive Psychology does not indicate a specialized area within what is usually called psychology. For most areas of study, such as the ones just mentioned, the type of study used can be conceptual or paraceptual or mixed. For most of them, paraceptual study is still predominant, with conceptual study episodes occasionally mixed in. The exception would be any area in which the realm of interest was a net. For such a realm, the study would be mostly conceptual.

Evolution of Conceptual Study for a Realm: The division into the following stages from C0 to C3 is a rough attempt to give some linear order to developments in doing CS in relation to a realm R.

C0: CS episodes are brief and not recognized as such. There is little or no attempt to focus directly on concepts apart from paraceptual applications.

C1: Concepts are examined in their own right, with an attempt to clarify concepts by definition. Conceptual considerations are subordinated to paraceptual ones, with concepts recognized as legitimate only if they represent something considered as existing in R. Basic law or axioms may be formulated for R, but are regarded as true of R, rather than as a means of concept clarification.

C2: There is an attempt to formulate all concepts for R, using definitions or other conceptual methods. Altho paraceptual restrictions are not placed on the concepts in the net, the net is judged by paraceptual considerations outside the net. This is done using various abstract concepts that are intertwined with certain paraceptual beliefs.

C3: At this level, there are extended episodes of CS. Nets are formulated with or without regard to any particular realm of application. Deliberate efforts are made to not favor paraceptual beliefs about any intended realm of application, except perhaps a belief that the net might be useful for thinking about this realm. This level will be referred to as mature CS.

Pure Conceptual Study & Pre-Paraceptual Study: Conceptual study IS pre-paraceptual if a noteworthy part of the significance parameter involves becoming better prepared to apply the concepts being studied to paraceptual concerns. Conceptual study IS pure if the significance parameter relates in a noteworthy manner mainly to conceptual concerns. Since significance can be complex, an episode of conceptual study can be both pure and pre-paraceptual. The study of the metric system in American elementary schools is seldom pre-paraceptual, altho similar study would be in many countries. Altho pre-paraceptual and pure conceptual study differ in the significance parameter, when successful their achievement parameters share a very important feature. Achievement involves shaping tools that are theory neutral.

Science: The term science is used both to refer to a type of activity and to the organized body of results from such activity. For the purpose of this paper, science is conceptualized as a type of study, namely sustained systematic study of some aspect of some world. The concept of systematic being used implies that science seeks to organize a general understanding, rather than rely on a case-by-case understanding. This constitutes a special condition on the want parameter. Being systematic also involves using highly organized conceptual distinctions and conceptual relationships, as well as some set of practices. This constitutes a condition on the performance parameter. This concept of science is essentially the one that Bob Brill presented in his doctoral thesis. For a fuller account of this concept, see this thesis

Pre-Empirical Study and Pre-Empirical Science: Pre-paraceptual study IS pre-empirical if a noteworthy part of the significance parameter involves becoming better prepared to apply concepts to empirical concerns, i.e. concerns about information that is intended to be verified by observation. I would classify the study of football concepts by a defensive coordinator as pre-empirical if he intends to use this to help formulate strategic and tactical principles and to check these by observation. I would classify my learning of the rules for backgammon as pre-paraceptual study, but not as pre-empirical study. The rules are too simple to be challenging and I mastered them rather casually. Altho there are clear-cut cases of pre-empirical study, there is no sharp boundary between pre-paraceptual studies that are or are not pre-empirical. Learning the concepts in our ordinary net for family relationships could be a form of pre-paraceptual study that is not pre-empirical, altho it could be pre-empirical if a noteworthy part of the significance parameter was to observe family interactions.

A study of concepts to be used in any recognized area of empirical science would normally be classified not only as pre-empirical study but also as pre-empirical science. In general pre-empirical study IS pre-empirical science if a noteworthy part of the significance parameter involves becoming better prepared to apply concepts to empirical science. The conceptual part of Men and Women: Partners and Lovers by Mary Kathleen Roberts (Advances in Descriptive Psychology Volume 2) is an excellent example of pre-empirical science. This paper is systematic and well organized. It uses concepts from PNDP to develop other specialized concepts. The conceptual part is a prelude to the empirical part and is clearly separated from the empirical concerns. Similar remarks could be made about other papers from Advances, many of which have conceptual parts that are pre-empirical science. In fact, Descriptive Psychology goes beyond what most people think of as psychology. Rather than being area of study within psychology, a major portion of Descriptive Psychology is the pre-empirical of area of behavioral science.

Mature Conceptual Science: PNCM is the most widely known net involving mature conceptual study. Most of this study is not pre-paraceptual, since even when it provides concepts for paraceptual applications; this is not part of the significance parameter for this type of study. Work in PNCM may be suggested by any human activity but it takes a life of its own that is independent of paraceptual theories or any attempt to mirror our other forms of experience. The tongue-in-cheek toast ‘Here is to pure mathematics, may it never be of use to anyone’ and the quip ‘There can be no dispute between pure and applied mathematicians, they cannot talk to each other’ are indicative of the purely conceptual attitude prevalent among pure mathematicians.

Not only has study within PNDP been conceptual science, it has usually included a major amount of pre-empirical science. This is a matter of the significance parameter for those doing Descriptive Psychology, and much of the work has been intended as a basis for paraceptual investigation in the behavioral sciences. Given the dominant paradigms in the behavioral science, this is not surprising. Lacking a net like PNDP, there is little recognition of the restrictive nature of the underlying epistemological presuppositions of most of the work being done. Nor is there an understanding of the role that an understanding of ordinary basic reliable knowledge could play in clarifying or broadening these paradigms.