MAXIMS FOR BEHAVIOR DESCRIPTIONS
by F. Richard Singer III website: conceptualstudy.org.
Edition date: September 2007
This paper and others referred to only by name can be downloaded from the above website.
Abstract: The
term ‘net’ denotes a network of concepts 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. Descriptive
Psychology was designed by Peter Ossorio for the realm of action by persons.
Descriptive Psychology is a net rather than a theory, altho it can be used to
clarify psychological theories. However the focus of this paper is on ordinary
uses of this net. Many of the concepts in Descriptive Psychology should be easy
to understand, as they are more refined versions of concepts routinely used by
most people. Some of these concepts will be presented in a way that provides an
elementary introduction to a central portion of Descriptive Psychology. Since
this paper introduces this net by considering the role that maxims can play in
thinking about the realm of actions by persons, most of the discussion centers
on maxims from Ossorio’s book Place
(Ossorio 1998). We begin by briefly illustrating how a maxim can be used as a
reminder for thinking about the behavior of persons. This is followed by a
sketch of a behavioral version of the person concept and the closely related
concepts of a characteristic and a behavior description. Since these and other
concepts from Descriptive Psychology are refined versions of what the ordinary
connotations of these terms suggest, some reasons for having a refined 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 descriptions, both of
their own behavior and the behavior of others. There are some minor changes in
the language used in some maxims, partially because of what Ossorio said in his
commentary. Moreover, these changes make them easier to illustrate. Altho this
paper is written as an introduction to Descriptive Psychology, it may be of
interest to anyone who has other ideas about how Descriptive Psychology might
be introduced to a general audience. A reader who would like a broader
introduction is referred to the references.
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 for him to behave in one way rather than another.
Note: The concept of behavior is broad. It includes 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 intent. 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.
Example 0: 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 involved. In Descriptive Psychology, the world for a person is conceptualized as all of the objects, processes, events, states of affairs, and relationships that person is likely to take account of when doing something. A person’s world includes a number of specific worlds, i.e. various realms of interest; such as ordinarily referred to by 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 below focuses on Maxim A2. Like all 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 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 had 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 had happened before, 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? 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 gives him 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 implicitly 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.
Maxims: 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.
One difference Maxim A2 can make is to remind us that others may have different requirement for their worlds than we might have for ours. Moreover this is inherent in our ordinary concept of what it means to be a person. Thus we already implicitly know this about persons, but unless we make such knowledge explicit we may sometimes have a tendency to ignore this in our actions. In this sense, the use of maxims for reminders in thinking about behavior is much like using a date book to systematically keep track of your schedule. However since the behavior of persons can be more complex than a schedule of events, using maxims can have a much broader utility. Using Maxim A2 as a reminder, we should not be surprised when someone behaves in ways that differ radically from what we would have done, as was the case with Jill’s reaction to Dave.
In the introduction to Place
(p. 6), Ossorio reinforces this perspective on 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 this paper focuses on using maxims as reminders for thinking about specific instances of behavior, reflecting on them can also help bring important relationships between concepts into better focus. Specifically they can be interpreted as reminders of relationships between concepts. The paper entitled Maxims and Axioms for Conceptual Nets expands this present paper to include a discussion of this broader epistemic perspective on maxims.
Ordinary Behavior Descriptions: Since maxims are for persons to consider in thinking about behavior, a sketch is given the concepts of a behavior description that Ossorio is using. A simple ordinary description might say that Dan wanted firewood and so he split 4 large logs obtaining firewood that he intended to use in his wood burning stove. This description indicates the five considerations below that are involved in this description. Letters labeling these considerations and bold face fonts are there to focus on certain general types of considerations often used in describing behavior. These and other related concepts are refined systematic versions of what the ordinary connotations of these terms suggest.
(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 significant to him because it provided wood for burning in his stove.
An observer might have noticed a number of other things. She might say that Dan knows that 3 of the logs will be easy to split and that altho Dan is good at splitting difficult logs, 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. His liking to like leaving a challenge to last is an attitude towards that activity. It is one of Dan’s characteristics that could be mentioned in explaining why Dan split logs in the order he chose. Many other considerations could be mentioned. In getting firewood, Dan was saving money on his heating bill, indicating another significance consideration. Noting this, the observer might remark on another 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 for a 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 use in Descriptive Psychology.
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: There are a number of characteristics we use in thinking about behavior, some 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. To say that Dan has the trait of being thrifty we would note
that he not only saves money on his heating bill, but takes many other
opportunities to save money. 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.
Systematic Behavior
Descriptions: The parameters below are used by Ossorio for a systematic
behavior description. They 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 these parameters 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. An observer can give a behavior description in which there is more than
one actor. The observer can be a team working together to give a behavior
description.
¨ 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.
This 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. Understanding the 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). Ossorio 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 these, a person must already have competence in working with a number of ordinary concepts in addition to ordinary versions of person concepts.
Deliberate Action: The person concept being used 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 Person Concept: Since maxims are for persons to consider in thinking about behavior, before giving more illustrations, a sketch is given of the behavioral person concept as used in Descriptive Psychology 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.
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 behavior description involves making factual claims, it also often involves using complex conceptual relationships within a net for thinking about the realm of actions by persons. 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 when 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 as part of their basic reliable knowledge, at least implicitly. A determinist is committed to doing otherwise because he has what he considers reasons not to takes such events as they seem. Maxim A8 does not tell us when it is better to take thing as they seem or what reasons are sufficient for doing otherwise.
Maxim I6: A
person’s behavior goes right, if it doesn’t go wrong in one of the ways it can
go wrong.
Example 2: Al once left a trash fire unattended. Looking out the window, he was surprised to see smoke and a blazing fire. He tried to put out the fire but it was spreading rapidly over a large part of the woods. He called the fire department. Al explained both to himself and his friends that the wind was unusually strong, he had other matters on his mind, his attitude was too casual, etc.
The Utility of Maxims I6: 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, there may be little reason to give a systematic description. Al could give a systematic description of what he did, but doing so would serve little practical purpose. The way in which things went wrong and why was obvious. Instead, Al just gave an ordinary account to satisfy the curiosity of a number of people. 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, a deeper examination of this incident might have some intangible results. Al could use this as a reminder that altho things usually go right for him, it might be useful to pay more attention to some of his characteristics and ways in which these influence the ways in which thing might go wrong.
Maxim C2: A person will not choose less (valued) behavior potential over more.
Behavior Potential: Maxim C2 as stated in Place does 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 might not only seem to be factual, but factually incorrect. That C2 is tautological, should be clear form the commentary given in Place. It uses a concept based on the way P values behavioral options, rather than one based on having live options. To focus on this, we can distinguish two behavior potential concepts, calling the one based on live options ‘diverse behavior potential’ and calling the concept discussed by Ossorio ‘valued behavior potential’. Valued behavior potential for 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 as a deliberate act, P chose X over Y when it was clear that P expected X to result in a less valued state than a choice of Y. Then we are violating a conceptual relationship between deliberate action and choice and values. This maxim is a reminder of this relationship.
Example 3: 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
Suppose Jim reflects on both Maxim I6 and Maxim C2. He
might identify going ever deeper in debt as one of the ways that his behavior
is going wrong. He can also reflect on his valued behavioral potential and at
least consider changing value priorities.
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 Example 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 3. 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 useful.
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 our concept of a person, 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 4: Jay’s team has given the crowd little reason to cheer. Jay has just stolen the ball. He 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 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. 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, Maxim 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. 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, along with Maxim A2, 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 5: 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, Kay 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 6: 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 should know that the situation calls
for him to come down from the tree. He 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 Clause A.
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 accurate. 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 there was a unique act that the situation seemed
to call for. In Example 5 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 probably knew
that coming down from the tree was what that situation called for. He at least
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. 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 (Advances 1) Ossorio illustrates how to view ‘provocation elicits hostility’ 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. This maxim 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 the more elaborate Maxim B7a below. The other clauses provide additional reminders. F is a fallback that makes Maxim B7a non-falsifiable. Clearly more than one of these unless clauses may be the case and others might be imagined. 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
(Continued): We can augment the use of Maxim B5 for Example 6 with Maxim
B7a. While some observers might use Clause A to account for Frank not coming
down from the tree, others might say that he did not know that staying up was
dangerous, i.e. they would be using Clause B from Maxim B7a. Others might find a simple use of Clause E
plausible, altho without an indication of why he is unwilling, this gives only
minimal help in understanding his behavior. Clause D might be used to provide
one such indication, for instance suppose the observer knew that Frank wanted
to impress his peers with his courage. On the other hand, some observers might
say that Frank values the thrill of being in the storm more than he values the
sense of security from coming down. This observation uses Clause C as a special
case of Clause D. The fact that he wants to impress his peers might also have
occurred to anyone reflecting on Clause C. Any account of what Frank did is
partial and fallible. It will only be given for the purposes of some observer.
As usual, knowing how to use Maxim B7a depends on the competence of the
observer, both to obtain relevant information and to judge how it relates to
the behavior. Moreover, altho this maxim may serve as a reminder of what to
consider, all of these considerations might could anyway. We can member a to
send a birthday card to a best without writing a note to do so.
Example 7: On May 1, Ben and Ann decide on a three-phase project. 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 soon. 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 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 things 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 many demands on his time that he must always work overtime. Kay also indicates that values are involved and that Clause C could provide some additional perspective.
Understanding a Concept: A person may master the concept of a traffic light without having a term for it, altho because language plays such a major role in our lives, some term for it is likely to be known by most people who understand this concept. However, a person who calls it a traffic light but does not stop when it is red either does not understand the concept of traffic light or is unwilling or unable to follow the social practice it is intended to support. In general, mastering a concept involves being able to act on it, rather than being able to indicate terminology. Having locutions for concepts is useful for many reasons. Language allows us to bring concepts into focus, making implicit concepts more explicit. This allows us to refine concepts, relate them to other concepts, recognize nuances, see new distinctions, appreciate further applications, and of course especially to communicate using them. We all understand some concept of a behavior description, i.e. we can all describe behavior. However, the mastery of a behavior description concept is considerably more complex than the mastery of the concept of a traffic light. Moreover the concept of describing behavior is used in a much wider variety of situations, and even when we do not explicitly describe what people or doing we observe and react to their behavior. Maxims can help us enhance our mastery of our behavior description concept, thus using it more effectively.
Summary: A conceptual net is intended to help us access some realm of interest. Being persons, we all have concepts that we routinely use for the realm of actions by persons. Descriptive Psychology is a systematic net having refined versions of these concepts. A behavioral person concept is the central crucial concept for Descriptive Psychology. Closely related to the person concept are the behavior description and characteristics concepts. These and other concepts in Descriptive Psychology can initially be understood using the ordinary connotations that these terms suggest. Careful use our ordinary versions of these concepts can help us refine them. Reflecting on behavioral situations Ossorio formulated a variety of maxims. These maxims can be used as reminders for giving more faithful and useful descriptions of behavior. This can help us better understand our own behavior, as Example 3 illustrates about what Jim might have done to think about what keeps him in debt. Of course ordinary common sense might have the same effect, altho using Maxim I6 and Maxim C2 help him bring his actions into better focus. Maxims can also help us understand the behavior of others, especially when what they do differs from our expectations. At a less tangible level, this application of maxims to specific behavioral situations can enhance our understanding of the concepts involved. This may allow us to develop a more refined version of the net we use for thinking about the behavior of persons. Specifically maxims can be interpreted as general reminders of relationships between concepts. The maxims in Place play this role in Descriptive Psychology, and in addition to their use in thinking about specific instance of behavior, this is why some of them were used in this paper to introduce that net.
References: Formulations of many of the concepts from Descriptive Psychology can be found in the file entitled Concept Dictionary-Encyclopedia on the Descriptive Psychology section of conceptualstudy.org. For a comprehensive introduction to these concepts, 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 Descriptive Psychology 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.
Ossorio, Peter (1998) Place.
Ossorio, Peter (2006) The
Behavior of Persons.
Shideler, Mary (1988) Persons,
behavior, and the world.