MAXIMS AND THEIR USE
by F Richard Singer III edition date 11/07/07
website: www.conceptualstudy.org
email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net
This paper and others referred to only by name can be downloaded from the above website.
Overview: The
term ‘net’ denotes a network of conceptual distinctions and conceptual
relationships that is used to think about some realm of interest; perhaps to
obtain or organize information about it, to propose conjectures about it, to
suggest questions about it, etc. Altho this paper is on the role that maxims
can play in understanding and formulating almost any net, it focuses on using
them to think about the realm of actions by persons. Since Descriptive
Psychology is the net Peter Ossorio designed for that realm of interest, most
of the discussion centers on maxims from his book Place. Descriptive Psychology is intended for use by the general
public, and will be referred to as PNDP (Public Net for Descriptive
Psychology). Since this paper is intended as much for those who are not
familiar with PNDP as for those who are, its concepts are not presupposed, but
introduced as needed. Because the PNDP maxims can be understood using any
ordinary concepts about persons and what they do, the paper begins with the
concept of a maxim, rather than with the person concept. Several maxims from Place briefly illustrate how maxims can
be used as reminders for thinking about the behavior of persons. This is
followed by a brief outline of the person concept and the closely related
concepts of a characteristic and a behavior description. Since these and other
PNDP concepts are more systematic versions of what the ordinary connotations of
these terms suggest, some reasons for having this systematic net for
understanding what persons do are indicated. This is followed by a more
elaborate set of illustrations of how the use of maxims as reminders could help
almost anyone in giving more faithful and more useful behavior descriptions.
The use of maxims as reminders is the related to their more general use as
conceptual tools. Maxims are compared and contrasted to axioms, indicating why
maxims are more useful in open-ended nets having many concepts that cannot be
analytically reduced to ones that are more fundamental. For such nets, the
advantage of using maxims to supplement other conceptual tools such as paradigm
cases and the use of parameters is considered.
Note: The order of presentation goes from what most people are likely to find manifest to what might seem more remote general consideration about the conceptual role of maxims. Some readers may prefer starting with the part that begins by contrasting maxims and axioms.
Note: There are some minor changes in the language used in some maxims, partially because of what Ossorio said in the commentary in Place. Moreover, these changes make them easier to illustrate. There also is a version of a paradigm case of the person concept that has features gleaned from Place, but which do not appear in earlier presentations.
References: A reader who wants more details about concepts as they are formulated in Descriptive Psychology can consult the file entitled Concept Dictionary-Encyclopedia on the Descriptive Psychology section of conceptualstudy.org. For a comprehensive introduction to PNDP, see Persons, Behavior, and the World, by Mary Shideler. For a deeper perspective, see various books from the collected works of Peter Ossorio. The Behavior of Person covers all the material in Shideler, but with nuances, she does not consider. More about PNDP and its applications are developed in the series Advances in Descriptive Psychology. These books can be ordered from the Society for Descriptive Psychology website sdp.org.
Maxim A1 A person needs a world in order to have the possibility of engaging in any behavior at all.
Maxim A2 A person requires that the world be one way rather than another way in order to behave in one way rather than another.
On his way to a patio that he was constructing, Ralph noticed some weeds growing in the path. He stopped to pull them. Had his world not included these objects and had he not been attuned to the process of pulling weeds such an action would not have been possible. Had the weeds not been there he would not have stopped to pull them. To make these maxims manifest think of your own experience.
These maxims are tautological because of the relationship between concepts of world and behavior. In these maxims, the world for a person consists of all of the objects, processes, events, states of affairs, and relationships that person is likely to take account of when doing something. A world for a person is a realm of interest; as ordinarily used in phrases like ‘the sports world’ or ‘the business world’.
It seem unlikely that in describing behavior anyone is likely to explicitly violate these two maxims, but that is not the point in using them as reminders. As reminders, they can help us focus on aspects we might forget in specific situations. Example 1 focuses on Maxim A2. Like all of the examples in this paper, it is a simplified fictional version of personal observations or experiences. The purpose is to illustrate the use of maxims as reminders and to help readers imagine how they might use them. To better illustrate this use of maxims, make up examples that relates to something from your own experiences and observations.
Example 1: Jill’s job requires frequent travel. Early May, when Jill left for the week she asked Dave to make sure the flowers get enough water while she is gone. It rained Wednesday, and Dave saw no need to water any flowers. Almost all of them not only got direct rain, they also got the water from the roof. Dave forgot about the pot under the front porch roof. The flowers in it were in sad shape when Jill returned. This was not the first time that this has happened, altho in the past when it had not rained he had watered that pot. Why did Jill ask Dave to care for the flowers? Why did Dave forget? Why did Jill not give him explicit instructions about the pot on the porch? Knowing them and using Maxim A2 as a reminder, Jill and Dave have different worlds and requirements for their worlds. She has a rich world of flowers. At the most elementary level she requires them to have water and she acts accordingly. Altho Jill finds Dave’s forgetfulness about watering flowers strange, she knows enough about his world to remind him. However, she finds it hard to imagine that Dave barely has a world of flowers, since he did as much work in planting and potting as she did. She forgets that he did this solely because his world requires her wellbeing, and she finds it hard to imagine that he does not have any requirements for the wellbeing of flowers. She now leaves explicit written instructions when she leaves. He does not really need them because he has finally learned to associate the pot on the porch with her wellbeing. They learned more useful behavior patterns without explicit recourse to any maxims. They already knew that they had different requirements for their worlds. Such knowledge is part of any person’s basic reliable knowledge for interacting in a world of persons, altho a person may not articulate it in this manner. What Jill and Dave did not have in focus was the details of these differences. Would they have learned them sooner if they had explicitly used Maxim A2 as a reminder? Perhaps not, as maxims are only tools, and altho they have the potential to remind us of something to consider, they do not come with an algorithm for selecting the important details. That is a matter of our competence in being a person. Still having the maxim can make the details easier to locate. In the preface to Place, Tony Putman gives this comment on maxims.
Maxims
encapsulate our understanding of what it means to be a person, which we already
knew but might not know we knew - and
“knowing that we know” makes a significant difference, both in understanding
and in being one.
What such a difference might be, will be discussed later.
The Person Concept: Since maxims are for persons to consider in thinking about behavior, before giving more illustrations, a sketch is given of the PNDP person concept and the related concepts of a characteristic and a behavior description. Below are features of a paradigm case of a person. The paper entitled Person Concepts gives a fuller formulation, with allowable transformations to cover additional cases. For instance, in order to include a newborn child as a person, these features are modified by allowing them to be future expectations. That paper also indicates how to make this behavioral person concept blend with a widely used person concept that is not behavioral.
A person has a
history in which deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern is ubiquitous;
where acting in a dramaturgical pattern means that a person assigns objects and
events into positions in a drama of that person’s ongoing life. A person has
sufficiently mastered a person concept to distinguish between persons and
non-persons, at least most of the time. A person acquired the concept of a
person by learning to act as a person in interaction with other persons.
Moreover, a person knows how to act as a person in interaction with other
persons. A person uses the person
concept primarily to guide its behavior with respect to other persons and to
consider the behavior of persons with respect to other persons.
Ordinary Descriptions: These and other PNDP concepts are refined systematic versions of what the ordinary connotations of these terms suggest. A simple ordinary description might say that Dan wanted firewood and so he split 4 large logs obtaining firewood which he intended to use in his wood burning stove. This description indicates five considerations involved in this description. The letters labeling these and the bold face fonts are there to focus on the fact that they are instance of certain general types of considerations often used in describing behavior.
(I) Dan is identified as the one engaged in the behavior.
(W) What he wanted was firewood
(P) His performance involves splitting logs,
(A) His main achievement was to obtain firewood,
(S) This was a significant to him because it provided wood for burning in his stove.
An observer might have noticed a number of other things. Suppose the observer was asked why Dan selected those logs and split them in the order he did. The observer might say that Dan knows that 3 of these logs will be easy to split and that altho Dan is good at splitting the difficult log, he likes to get some easy work done and save a challenging task for last. This mentions some other types of consideration we use in describing behavior. He knows which logs will be easy to split. He knows how to split them. Moreover, to like leaving a challenge to last is an attitude towards that activity, and hence one of Dan’s many characteristics that could be mentioned in explaining why Dan split logs in the order he chose. A multitude of considerations could be mentioned if the observer (or Dan) was further questioned. In getting firewood, Dan was saving money on his heating bill, indicating another significance consideration. Noting this, the observer might remark on characteristic, namely that Dan has the trait of being thrifty. Clearly, any and all of this can be said without any systematic knowledge of the types of considerations PNDP uses for their behavior description concept. We all know how to describe behavior in terms of a variety of considerations. The statement below is a modification of what was said about maxims and could be said about almost any concept in PNDP.
Formulating a
behavior description concept encapsulates our understanding of what it means to
describe behavior, which we already knew but might not know we knew - and “knowing that we know” makes a significant
difference, both in understanding and in giving descriptions.
Characteristics: PNDP focuses on a number of characteristics we use in thinking about behavior, most of which are indicated in the following list.
{Traits, Attitudes, Interests, Styles, Abilities, Knowledge, Values, Embodiment, Capacities}
These characteristic concepts are formulated in relation
to behavior in ways that are compatible with the ordinary usage suggested by
these terms. For instance, to support the claim that Rick has a strong interest
in professional football, you could indicate the number of games he watches and
the conversations he has about it. Likewise, in claiming that a dog has a
friendly attitude towards strangers, just indicate the number of times he has
welcomed them. Altho there are alternative ways to organize and specify
characteristics, everyone uses some version of characteristics in thinking
about what persons do. In this sense, some version of a characteristic concept
is crucial for any person. A similar remark applies to a behavior description
concept.
Behavior Descriptions: The parameters for a behavior description as used in PNDP are taken from things we might ordinarily say in talking about something an individual did, as was illustrated earlier. Of course, our ordinary descriptions are likely to be less systematic and indicate only those features of interest for the purposes at hand. The paradigm case of a behavior description uses all of the parameters below to describe an action or a course of action X by a person called the actor. The person giving the description is called the observer. The observer and actor can be the same person.
¨ Identity (I) specifies the actor A for X.
¨ Wanting (W) indicates what A intends to achieve by X.
¨ Knowledge (K) has to do with what A knows and uses in relation to X.
¨ Know-How (KH) has to do with the competencies A displays relation to X.
¨ Performance (P) encompasses the processes that A is implementing.
¨ Achievement (A) is what X accomplishes, what difference it makes.
¨ Characteristics (C) includes some of A’s characteristics that are being expressed by doing X.
¨ Significance (S) includes what else is being done by doing X, what importance X has for A.
An observer can give a behavior description in which there is more than one actor. Furthermore, an actor need not be a person. For instance, an actor could be an animal or a robot. The observer can be a team working together to give a behavior description. The behavior concept is broad. It includes everything all intentional action, even when the actor is not aware of these intentions. It does not include all activity, since there must at least be a recognizable value for the W-parameter. For instance, it does not include things done automatically like ordinary breathing, altho the way we breathe can be intentional. Nor does it include things done accidentally like falling out of a tree, altho getting to the position from which a fall is likely to occur would normally be intentional action.
Deliberate Action: The PNDP person concept involves the concept of deliberate action. Ossorio briefly characterizes deliberate action as intentional action in which the actor knows what he is doing and is doing it on purpose. This means that deliberate action is usually behavior in which the K-parameter involves the actor knowing two or more alternatives on which to act. Moreover, the W-parameter involves the actor having varying degrees of wants in relation to these actions. This concept also includes having the competence to engage in and to distinguish between the various options.
The behavior description concept provides a tool for bringing various aspect of behavior into focus. The parameters used and the detail to which they are developed will depend on the observer’s purposes in giving the description. One major reason for formulating a more systematic version of our ordinary person concepts net is to provide a pre-empirical basis for empirical study. What may be even more important are the ordinary purposes PNDP could serve. Understanding the PNDP refined versions of concepts in our ordinary net for understanding persons can provide tools anyone can use to enhance their behavior potential (as discussed in The Potential Impact of Descriptive Psychology). PNDP has refined and systematized concepts from our public ordinary net. In doing so, it uses and refines other concepts from that net. To adequately understand PNDP, a person must already have competence in working with a number of ordinary concepts in addition to ordinary versions of person concepts. For example, the reality concepts of PNDP would make no sense without an understanding of many specific objects, events, processes, states of affairs, relationships.
Maxims in PNDP:
In the introduction to Place (p. 6),
Ossorio makes the remark below about maxims.
Maxims are discursively
appropriate forms for couching warnings and reminders, particularly in contrast
to simple statements of facts. Warnings and reminders are appeals to
competence. They are for someone who already knows and understands; they are
not, at face value, a way of imparting new information to someone who doesn’t
already know or understand.
Altho the maxims given in Place are not primarily a way of imparting new information, reflecting on them via the commentary given there can help bring important relationships between concepts into better focus. Maxims can be interpreted as both reminders and conceptual provisions. In both ways, they codify our understanding of persons and behavior; and thus establish a structure for what qualifies as an adequate description of behavior in any particular instance. Specifically they can be interpreted as reminders of relationships between concepts.
Ordinary Maxims: That
maxims could be used as conceptual reminders is not apparent from a dictionary
definition indicating that a maxim is a general truth or rule of conduct
briefly expressed. The first and last maxims below are stated as rules, while
the second is stated as a truth. However, the second could be construed as
prudential advice and the first and last could be paraphrased as truths about
prudence rather than as rules.
look before you leap a penny saved is a penny earned leave sleeping dogs lie
Looking at a variety of other ordinary maxims, their prudential nature seems apparent. This they share with the function of maxims as rule-like constraints on giving behavior descriptions. We can take such constraints as rather specialized prudential reminders that are intended to prevent us from going wrong in this specific type of descriptive action. However, unlike ordinary maxims, which have a definite factual flavor, we interpret these maxims as tautological reminders without factual content. Altho giving a specific PNDP behavior description involves making factual claims, it can involve using complex conceptual relationships within a net that includes the person concept. Unlike actions related to thrift or danger or a variety of other matters, misusing concepts is a major way in which giving a behavior description can go wrong. For instance if the concept of the actor’s world is taken as the world as seen by the observer then the description can be fundamentally wrong. A warning aspect of Maxim A8 below is especially relevant to a description that might be used by a critic who was inclined to advise against taking things as they seem without looking for some further reason to do so. Since any reason would involve taking something as it seemed, this would involve an infinite regress involving an inability to act as if the individual knew options.
Maxim A8: A person takes it that things are as they seem, unless he has reason enough to think otherwise.
Altho Maxim A8 might seem to have factual content, it is a purely conceptual part of the person concept. In taking things as they seem, people act as if they have the competence to recognize some basic reliable knowledge. An individual who did not do this could not have deliberate action as a major feature of its
behavior. In fact, deliberate action would be problematic for such an individual. This is not a factual claim. Rather it is implicit in the concept of deliberate action. Maxim A8 can remind us of this. To know alternative action possibilities and relate them to a dramaturgical pattern, a person must take something as it seems, at least at some point. Otherwise, that person would always be unsure of what options might be available and the significance of these options, among numerous other debilitating uncertainties. An action that occurred would be a result of impulse or programming or something other than knowing options. It would not meet the conceptual condition for being a deliberate action and a deliberate action description would incorrect. Moreover, this maxim is a reminder what to account for by describer. In giving a description, not taking something as it seems, rather than doing so, would be what calls for an explanation and an articulation of reasons.
Side Remark: That many actions of persons are not predetermined is taken by most people take as part of their basic reliable knowledge, at least implicitly. When an action does not seem to be predetermined, a person will consider the actor as having been able to do otherwise. This is inherent in Maxim A8.
Behavior Potential:
Maxim C2 as stated in Place did not
contain the word ‘valued’. Suppose that you conceptualized behavior potential
in terms of a diversity of live options, using the concept of live options as
formulated by William James. For an option to be live for a person P it must be
more than something P might think about doing. It must also be an option that,
given P’s characteristics, P actually could attempt to exercise. From this
perspective, Maxim C2 not only might seem to be factual, but factually
incorrect.
Maxim C2: A person will not choose less valued behavior potential over more.
Altho some maxims may seem to have a factual flavor, they all have purely conceptual interpretations that are tautological. That C2 is tautological may not seem apparent without carefully examining the commentary\, which gives a different concept of behavior potential, To reconcile this, we can distinguish two behavior potential concepts, calling the one based on live options ‘diverse behavior potential’ and the concept discussed by Ossorio ‘valued behavior potential’. It is conceptualized in terms of having valued options rather than in having a greater diversity of live options. Valued behavior potential for a person P is a relation between P’s values and P’s options. Choosing more rather than less behavior potential can be briefly conceptualized as choosing an option that P hopes will enhance what P values more than the alternative live options. This is not necessarily enhanced by having more live options. It is in terms of valued options that Maxim C2 can be viewed as purely conceptual. It indicates a relationship between behavior and a characteristic. Having a value is conceptualized in terms of behavioral choices. Suppose we said that a person chose X over Y when it was clear that the person expected the X to result in a less valued state than a choice of Y. Then we are violating a conceptual relationship between choice and values. This maxim is a reminder of this relationship.
Example 2: Jim
has so much credit card debt that he can barely make next month’s minimum payments.
Jim has a month’s vacation coming. He wants to take a vacation to
Maxim I6: A
person’s behavior goes right, if it doesn’t go wrong in one of the ways it can
go wrong.
The Utility of Maxims as Reminders: Being a person involves behavioral competence. Maxim I6 is a reminder that there is usually no need to explain why a person’s behavior goes right. To the extent that it does, a casual description of what people do serves most of our purposes. Even when behavior goes wrong, most of the time there is little reason to give a systematic description. Al once left a trash fire unattended and had to call the fire department. Al could give a systematic behavior description of what he did, but doing so would serve little practical purpose. The way in which things went wrong and why they went wrong was obvious. Instead, Al just gave an ordinary account to satisfy the curiosity of a number of people. The wind was unusually strong, he had other matters on his mind, his attitude was too casual, etc. The memory of what happened was poignant enough that it is unlikely to happen again. He does not need any maxims as reminders, nor does he need a systematic analysis of how his characteristics were involved in this behavior. Of course, such a deeper examination of this incident might have less tangible results.
Maxim B7: If a situation calls for a person to do something he can’t do, he will do something he can do, if he does anything at all.
Altho Examples 1 illustrated a use of Maxim A2 as a reminder when thinking about what to consider about Dave’s behavior, it also indicated that Jill and Dave worked out a solution without explicit recourse to any maxims or systematic behavior descriptions. A similar remark applies to Example 2. Jo could have said what she did about Jim’s behavior without using Maxim C2. At most, the utility of these maxims would have been to put things into better focus or to see some things that might have otherwise been neglected. However, there are times when using maxims as reminders in giving a systematic behavior description could make a significant difference, either in terms of immediate practical utility or because of less tangible results. This is illustrated by considering Maxim B7 in conjunction with some other maxims in several examples. Hopefully this will at least challenge you to think about a situation in which you find the use of a maxim as a reminder of significant utility.
As with any maxim, this is tautological because doing something that can’t be done is conceptually impossible. Nevertheless, Maxim B7 can still be a useful reminder of one thing that might be missed in accounting for why a person did not do what seemed to be called for in a situation. It also acts as a reminder of at least one feature of the person concept, namely that when a person P is involved in a situation what P does relates both to the situation and to P’s characteristics. Also, altho P’s characteristics could be considered as part of a situation, our ordinary descriptions tend to treat them differently.
Example 3: Jay’s team has given the crowd little reason to cheer. Jay has just stolen the ball and has a clear path to the basket. Fran and Liz expect Jay to dunk the ball, thus getting the crowd back into the game. Instead, he did not do what the situation as seen by them called for. He merely made a simple lay up. Liz asked Fran why Jay did not dunk the ball to excite the fans. Fran said that Jay is upset by their lack of support and is not willing to do something showy just to please them. Liz gave another account. We might add to the situation that Jay felt a muscle pull in his leg just before reaching the basket. However, in their initial descriptions, neither of them knew about the state of his leg. When they obtained this information, they thought of it as being something about Jay rather than as part of the situation. Implicitly using B7, they both considered it as an explanation of why dunking the ball was something that Jay could not do in this situation. Before obtaining the information about the muscle pull, other accounts of why Jay did not do what the situation called for seemed more plausible to both of them. In effect, they did not even consider that Jay could not dunk the ball. Every description of a situation is a description from someone’s perspective. From Jay’s perspective, the muscle pull was part of the situation, and so he did not regard the situation as calling for him to dunk the ball. From this perspective, B7 is irrelevant. This perspective was not available to Fran and Liz, so they had a different notion about what the situation called for.
The Utility of Maxim B7: Fran only implicitly used Maxim B7, and since an explanation seemed so obvious once she learned about the temporary state of Jay’s leg, she did not need it as a reminder. In general, we almost never need a reminder when a person cannot do something because of lack of skill or knowledge or physical capacity. However, an explicit focus on Maxim B7 might be useful when the reason that a person cannot do something might be due to other characteristics, including various combinations of dispositions. To say that a person P cannot do X should be interpreted as saying that for P at that time doing X is not a live option (in the sense of William James). To lie under oath is clearly possible and imaginable, but for many people it is not a live option. In general, regardless of how easy doing X may seem to an observer, if doing X does not even occur to P, then intentionally doing X is not a live option for P. Maxim A4 below indicates a general reason that P doing X may not even be imaginable by P, and that even if it is imaginable, it may not be a live option.
Maxim A4: For a person, the world includes him as a person (and in particular as the person he believes himself to be), and as an actor, observer, critic.
Example 4: To illustrate an explicit use of Maxim B7 as a reminder, consider a situation in which Joe is in a hopeless situation in a chess game. Nothing unusual has taken place during the game. According to the social practices of chess, the situation calls for Joe to make a socially acceptable response (continue to play or politely resign). Instead, Joe mutters that chess is a waste of time, knocks the board and pieces off the table, and storms away. Rather than just saying his behavior was uncalled for, Kay decides that the situation called for Joe to do something he could not do, in spite of the fact that most people could have done what was called for. In accounting for what Joe did and why she finds this account at least moderately plausible, she indicates some of his characteristics. Joe exhibits an attitude of intellectual superiority, often disparaging the intellectual abilities of those around him. Joe knows that chess is considered an intellectual game. Altho he has for the first time encountered a better player, his world does not allow the possibility of an intellectual superior. Maxim A4 suggested this observation to her. Maxim B5 below suggests a related alternative viewpoint. Altho Joe had a reason to do the socially acceptable thing, he had a stronger reason to something else instead. This could have merely made it hard for Joe to do the socially acceptable thing. Instead, she takes it as part of the reason it made politely resigning something he could not do. More could be said. However, this should be enough to see how Maxim B7 can act as a reminder for anyone describing what an actor does that differs from what would seem to be called for in a situation. Later we will return to a modified version of this maxim.
Maxim B5: If a person P has a reason to do X then P will do X, unless
A. P has a stronger reason to do something else, or
B. P does not recognize that he has that reason, or
C. P is unable to do X, or
D. P mistakenly takes it that he is doing X, or
E. P miscalculates or his behavior miscarries, or
F. there is some other account of P not doing X.
Example 5: Frank is 14 years old and near the top of a large oak tree. The storm that has been brewing comes in force. There is lightning and heavy rains. Because of the wind, he is swaying back and forth. Frank knows that the situation calls for him to come down from the tree. Frank remains where he is. Did the situation call for him to do something he could not do? There are ways that an observer might account for it in this manner. Perhaps he did not have the skill to climb down with the tree swaying in this manner. Perhaps he was paralyzed with fear. An observer who knew him well would find either account at most barely plausible, and instead of using Maxim B7 might use Maxim B5.
Competence and Plausibility: That the situation called for Joe to do something he could not do can be challenged. In response, Kay says that she finds this account at least moderately plausible and gives reasons why her plausibility attitude seems warranted. In general, the faithfulness of any account of a situation and what was done depends on the competence of the describer. The behavior of a person can be complex, and our competence in accounting for it is limited by a variety of factors. Maxims can be useful tools that enhance competence, but they do not guarantee that an account is correct. Maxims are conceptual tools, and like most tools, which ones to use and how to apply them depends on the user’s judgement. In using a maxim, we may have a tendency to casually regard our account as correct. In simple cases, there seems little reason to do otherwise, as Maxim A8 reminds us. For a more complex account, if anything important is at stake, a person might find it useful to examine the personal plausibility attitudes toward some of what was said. The paper Plausibility Concepts develops the concept of a personal plausibility attitude and its utility.
What a Situation
Calls For: In Examples 3 and 5 there was some unique act that seemed to be
called for in that situation. That was not the case in Example 4, where either
resigning or continuing to play was called for.
In general, what seems to be called for in a situation can be indicated
as a set of acts, where any act in the set is appropriate. In the simplistic
examples just given, there seems little doubt about what was called for. In the
case of Jay and Fran, what was called for differed only because there were two
versions of the situation. Altho he stayed in the tree, Frank knew that coming
down from the tree was what that situation called for. That is, he knew that
this is what would have been standard normal behavior in that situation, at
least for persons in a community relevant to such behavior. Had he been a
member of a daredevil community, this might not have been what the situation
called for. Likewise, if Kay discovered that Joe belonged to a chess club that
encouraged explosive of behavior, she would not use Maxim B7 to account for
what he did. In many cases, to say that a situation calls for P to do X
presupposes that P is a member of some community and that doing X is what would
be expected given the social practices of that community. However, what is
called for may not relate to the social practices of any apparent community.
For the lion in the room situation used by Ossorio, the situation calls for
leaving the room, and this would not seem to depend on the social practice of
any particular community.
In Explanation, Falsifiability and Rule-following Ossorio illustrates how he views the ‘provocation elicits hostility formula’ as conceptual. He presents it as a non-falsifiable rule by adding a number of unless clauses. Maxim B5 is also given in this format. Maxim B7 is given as a conditional. It does not imply that failure to do what is called for is because that P cannot do so. It merely reminds us that this is one way to account for what P did instead. This purpose is served by Clause A in Maxim B7a below. The other clauses provide additional reminders. Clearly more than one of these unless clauses may be the case and others might be imagined. F is a fallback that makes Maxim B7a non-falsifiable. For instance, B can sometimes be used to augment A. One way this maxim could be a useful reminder is for any situation in which an observer might be inclined to use E instead of A. Of course, the maxim does not tell an observer which to use. This depends on our observer’s competence, and especially on the observer’s ability to give a behavior description that focus on P’s relevant characteristics.
Maxim B7a If a situation S calls for a person P do X then P will do X, unless.
A. P cannot do X, or
B. P does not recognize that S calls for doing X, or
C. Doing X will be for P to choose less valued behavior potential, or
D. P could do X but has a strong reason for not doing X, or
E. P could do X but is unwilling to do X, or
F. There is some other account of P doing something other than X.
Example 6: Ben and Ann decide on a three-phase project at the beginning of the May. They commit themselves to present a finished version to a client Monday morning May 23. Each phase should take about 2 working days. Before Ann can work on Phase 2, Ben must complete Phase 1. They will then complete Phase 3 together. Ann wants Ben to begin immediately. He says he has other urgent matters to attend to, but that they have plenty of time. On May 9 he has still not started. Ann is beginning to worry. He promises to start Thursday. He begins a week later, completing Phase 1, on Friday May 20. Ann cancels her weekend plans. Working late into the night and starting early on Saturday, she completes Phase 2. Working Saturday evening and all day Sunday they meet the deadline. Ann complains to Ben that he should have started on May 9, to allow a margin, but at the latest on Friday May 13 to allow 6 regular working days for the time they anticipated. She adds this should have been obvious to Ben and that he knows that she hates to work on weekends.
Ann is acquainted with Maxim B7, but when Kay quotes it, Ann says it is not because Ben cannot start a project before the last minute, he just won’t. Kay turns to Maxim B7a. Here is a sketch of what was said. Ann and Kay agree that the situation called for Ben to start at the latest on May 13. Ann has already focused on Clause E, (that Ben could have but was unwilling). Kay indicates that Clause B (he does not recognize what the situation calls for) gives her a better perspective. From what she has said about Ben in the past, this is typical of the way he does things. By the time he started, he may have seen that the situation called for him to start earlier, but he could not see this until it was too late. Furthermore he did not see that his behavior would result in so much inconvenience for Ann. Ann responds that Ben is intelligent and should have recognized all of this. Kay reminds her that recognition of what a situation calls for is not just a matter of what he knows, but what he takes as real, i.e. what he will act on. He may know that 6 days are needed, but he acts as if other matters take precedence and that he can start a little later and still complete Phase 1 by the time it is needed. Furthermore, altho Ann tells Ben that she hates working on weekends, she has not made this real to him. She has never actually refused to use a weekend to complete a project. When Ann reluctantly agrees that perhaps Clause B provides a better perspective, Kay indicates that she actually finds Clause A fairly plausible, and that a number of Ben’s traits show why Ben could not do what the situation called for. Ann actually agrees, saying that it is his attitude, and this needs to be changed so that he can do thing in a timely fashion in the future. Kay points out that Ben’s behavior is not only an expression of the kind of attitude he brings toward a project, but also that this is indicative of a procrastination trait that may be harder to change. Ben never has his personal taxes done on time, he is late for appointments, etc. This trait relates to a deeper trait, linked to Ben’s self-assigned status in his world. To be able to start early violates this status of being an important person with so much many demands on his time that he must always work overtime. Kay also indicates that values are involved and that C could provide some additional perspective.
The Distinction between Maxims and Axioms: In the preface to Place Tony Putman says that to understand Ossorio we need to understand the difference between axioms and maxims. He says that both bound their respective domains; in this structural way, they are similar, and any discussion of maxims might well have that familiar mathematical feel as a result. But what they bound, and how, are quite different. His account refers to Kant’s distinction between pure and practical reason. Since Kant’s perspective doesn’t accord with our contemporary mathematical perspective, A mathematician would suggest a different characterization of the distinction. Axioms specify a basis for information about conceptual relationships within a complex net whose concepts are developed analytically from a few concepts taken as primitive and whose conceptual propositions can be deduced taking the axioms as starting points. Maxims serve a similar function in that they provide information about conceptual relationships for open-ended nets having many concepts that cannot be analytically reduced to ones that are more fundamental. However, they are not a basis for deductively organizing conceptual propositions, since these are known primarily by having a competent overall understanding of conceptual relationships within the net.
Analytic and Synthetic Nets: An analytic net is one that can be axiomatized in the sense above. The type indicated above can be called a synthetic net. Since this includes most widely used nets, this perspective on maxims could be useful for a variety of nets. Moreover even an analytic mathematical net can only be understood as a subnet in a broader intuitive net, for otherwise we could not recognizes whether an analytic definition served its intended purpose. For instance, in axiomatic number theory we define x £ y as there is some natural number z such that x+z = y. How would we know to do this if we did not already have an intuitive concept of numerical order?
Unlike maxims, mathematical axioms are used for some analytic counterpart of a net that can be organized deductively. We need a decidable closed and limited set of axioms for this purpose. So it is not surprising only a small number of axioms will be formulated for the analytic counterpart of a net while a large number of maxims might be formulated for a synthetic net.
The perspective indicated in this paper on the conceptual
role of maxims would seem to be compatible with the use of maxims by Ossorio.
However, while maxims are for someone who already understands, in formulating
them we are examining a net rather than using it. Even when we merely focus on
using maxims as conceptual reminders to serve the purposes at hand, this also
has a manifest effect on understanding and refining the concepts we are using.
Formulating them and commenting on them brings conceptual relationships within
the net into even better focus. It is because of this that “knowing that we
know” can make a significant difference, both in understanding and in what we
do. Moreover, it can also make a significant difference in appreciation, given
a deep aesthetic satisfaction.
Some Basic Net Concepts: The concepts and terminology sketched below are used to focus on how a synthetic net can be formulated. These concepts are developed in detail in A Personal Approach to Conceptual Philosophy. A concept is essential for a net if it permeates a person’s thinking about its realm of interest, giving coherence to the way the person regards many aspects of the net. A concept is crucial for a person if it is essential for the net that includes all of that person’s nets.
¨ Conceptual statements are about concepts and relationships between concepts in some net.
¨ Paraceptual statements presuppose some net. They are intended to propose information about some particular state of affairs that the net is intended to help access.
Earlier statements using the term ‘factual’ could have more appropriately used the term ‘paraceptual’. This did not matter enough to introduce unfamiliar terminology. For a serious perspective on conceptual nets, the terms ‘factual’ or ‘empirical’ do not have appropriate connotations. The term ‘paraceptual’ is used with the hoped for connotation of ‘beyond or alongside of the conceptual’.
Further Remarks on Axioms: Contemporary mathematics uses axioms as conceptual provisions, rather than regarding them as self-evident truths. We still regard axioms as true, not in a paraceptual manner, but because they truly specify how we use and relate various concepts. We select primitive concepts whose properties we specify using axioms. We construct further concepts by analytic definitions that represent intuitive ideas by precise abstractions. We formulate and prove propositions involving these concepts, using reasoning which is purely deductive. This results in an actual and potential collection of definitions and theorems. For instance, geometric axioms are used to conceptualize different geometries. Altho a concept of a point plays comparable roles in any geometry, the term point is used for different basic concepts in different geometries. A similar comment applies to the concept of a line. The axioms specify how these concepts are to be used in that geometry. Unlike earlier concerns, we mathematicians no longer ask about which axioms are the true axioms for points and lines in the realm of physical space.
Even when set theory is taken as a foundation for mathematics, we can conceptualize alternate set theories. Altho platonistic mathematicians believe there is only one true set theory, they know that we cannot formulate axioms sufficient to specify the platonistic realm of sets. In extending the axioms we commonly use, we obtain alternate set theories, and they investigate these by treating the axioms as conceptual rather than paraceptual propositions, just as would be done by any other mathematician. These ideas are developed in A Net for Understanding Mathematics.
Side Remark: Even in an axiomatic study of logic, an alternative to logic classical logic has been seriously proposed. A decision to use classical logic instead can easily be justified on utility grounds rather than on some vague notion of the true logic.
The Special Role of
Maxims in Synthetic Nets: In the abstract for Notes on Behavior Descriptions (See Advances 1 page 13), Ossorio
says that maxims function as prescriptive, or rule-like, constraints on giving
person descriptions and behavior descriptions; that they reflect the conceptual
structure of the person concept.
Instead of using Maxim A8 to bring out a feature of the person and deliberate action concepts, it could have been made explicit in the initial formulation of these concepts. However, this would have made that formulation more elaborate and would likely have obscured features that are more central. Moreover, there are many other features that it would be inconvenient to include in an initial formulation. Any synthetic net has a variety of essential concepts that may be so intertwined that definitions fail to capture many of the connections involved. Even paradigm case formulations and parametric specifications will fall short in a complex synthetic net, such as PNDP. Any presentation of the person concept will be a partial specification of the concepts involved. The person concept uses the concept of deliberate action, which presupposes the concept of intentional action, which is interrelated with eight concepts used to give a parametric analysis of a behavior description, which is related to characteristics, etc. No matter how elaborate a formulation we gave there would be implicit features not indicated. Ossorio makes this clear in Place (p.7) by calling these maxims a characteristic set. He says that it is an open-ended collection, since there is no limit to the reminders that might be appropriately given by one person to another regarding how to describe persons and their behavior.
That a person is an individual with a history of deliberate action is true in the same trivial sense that an axiom is true for some mathematical net, altho it is not given with a deductive intent. This proposition is about how the person concept is used, and could only be false if PNDP did not use the concept in this manner. A similar remark applies to maxims. The deliberate action aspect of the person concept could also have been given as a maxim relating these concepts. That it was given in the initial formulation indicates that it plays a more central role and indicates an important initial understanding for its uses. In general, a feature of a concept that is considered central is included in its initial formulation and other features can later be made explicit by using maxims. Ossorio also says that a person has mastered the concept of a person and distinguishes between persons and non-persons. This means that the person concept and closely related concepts are crucial for any person. This is not a paraceptual claim. That this is a part of the person concept should be was apparent after reading the maxims, but this would not be apparent by looking at the so-called definition. This reflexive feature of the person concept is so central that it would seem better to include it in a paradigm case formulation rather than leaving it to the maxims.
Before formulating any complex synthetic net a person must normally have used some version of its concepts in a manifest manner in relation to paraceptual concerns. To even acquire a useful working version this is often necessary. This should not be a problem in obtaining a version of PNDP and using its maxims to obtain a more refined one. Since being a person conceptually entails being able to use the person concept, all persons have a version of this concept that includes the central feature of the PNDP version. They need them in order to access information needed to interact with others. In fact, the ordinary routine public net for any human community has ordinary versions of PNDP concepts, and it is by using these concepts while being socialized that humans acquire their versions of this network of concepts.
We can deepen our mastery of a net thru using its concepts in ways that do not involve paraceptual concerns. Paraceptual use can be augmented by conceptual study. We can examine and cultivate paradigm case formulations, parametric specifications, definitions, maxims, etc. This may even help us develop a more significant version of a net. Persons get by without the highly coherent systematic version of a net for thinking about what persons do. Perhaps they could do much better if they acquired one, and in particular, if they acquired PNDP. Of course, a mere conceptual understanding of a net is not sufficient. Competence in using it is also essential. A frequent issue with word problems in algebra has nothing to do with purely algebraic concepts. Many students can solve the equation if it is given to them, but they do not know how to set it up.
Main Observations:
A conceptual net is intended to help us access some realm of interest; perhaps to obtain or organize paraceptual information about it, to propose conjectures about it, to suggest questions about it, etc.
Since the realm of interest for PNDP is potentially everything involving persons, the person concept is crucial for PNDP. Closely related to the PNDP person concept are other concepts, such as the characteristics and behavior description concepts. These and other concepts are primarily a more systematic version of what the ordinary connotations of these terms suggest. Since being a person entails using these ordinary concepts, they are not only essential to some net, they are crucial for any person.
In an open-ended synthetic net, the essential concepts are so intertwined that definitions will fail to capture many of the connections involved. To examine such a net we have a variety of conceptual devices.
Altho conceptual devices are intended as reminders for someone who already knows and understands a net, conceptual devices are also used to enhance that understanding and help us refine a net by examining it rather than by just using it for paraceptual purposes.
A feature of a concept that is considered central can be
included in its initial formulation by using conceptual conditions in a
paradigm case formulation or by a specification of parameters. Other feature
can later be made explicit by using maxims.
Maxims can be interpreted as both reminders and conceptual provisions. Specifically they can be interpreted of reminders of relationships between concepts.
The relationship between various concepts can be partially
understood in terms of a variety of maxims, and this can help insure that we
are making appropriate use of the net. In this way, they enhance our
understanding of the concepts involved. This may allow us to develop a more
refined version of the net.