PERSON CONCEPTS
by F Richard Singer III edition date 11/07/07
website: www.conceptualstudy.org
email: richardsinger3@sbcglobal.net
Overview: This is a purely conceptual paper. Altho it uses a few concepts from Descriptive Psychology, these concepts are not presupposed, but introduced as needed. This paper is intended as much for those who are not familiar with Descriptive Psychology as for those who are. Specifically it is intended for anyone interested in conceptual distinctions that can be used to compare and contrast individuals who we clearly consider as persons with those having various person-like behavioral characteristics. The person concept used in Descriptive Psychology is based on behavioral histories rather than on ontological attributes. I begin with some discussion of this concept, and why I have augmented its presentation by a paradigm case formulation. Since this person concept uses the concept of a dramaturgical pattern, that concept is also discussed. I use the concept of consciousness that was formulated by Julian Jaynes for that purpose. I then present other concepts that could be used to think about some types of individuals that would not be paradigm cases of persons. One type involves weakening or eliminating the socializing features of the paradigm case. I then focus on types of individuals whose behavior potential is far too limited for them to be classified as persons, even using the allowable transformations. Some of these clearly exist (such as domestic dogs), and I suspect that thinking about the extent to which their behavior is person-like could be of interest to some people. My main interest in formulating person-like concepts is to consider how and why Homo sapiens became persons. In particular, I am interested in Julian Jaynes’ concept of bicameral man. Finally I discuss the relationship between a behavioral concept and an ontological concept of a person. Altho I have coined some extra terminology for bringing conceptual distinctions into focus, I am not seriously proposing this terminology. More comments on terminology are given later.
Nets: Since this is a conceptual paper, it occasionally uses the concepts and terminology sketched below. These concepts are developed in detail in my book entitled A Personal Approach to Conceptual Philosophy (available on my website). The term ‘net’ denotes a network of concepts and 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.
¨ 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 and are intended to propose information about some particular state of affairs that the net is intended to help access.
That we have the net designated as Descriptive Psychology
is due to Peter Ossorio. Since this net is used in similar ways by a number of
people and is designed for use by the general public, I refer to it as PNDP
(Public Net for Descriptive Psychology). Since the realm of interest for PNDP
is potentially everything involving persons, the person concept is essential
for PNDP. Closely related to the PNDP person concept are other essential
concepts, such as the person characteristics and behavior description concepts.
These and other concepts are primarily a more systematic version of what the
ordinary connotations of these terms suggests. Since being a person entails
using these ordinary concepts, they are not only essential to some net, they
are crucial for any person. What this entails is sketched in Appendix 1. This
appendix also indicates where more conceptual information about PNDP can be
obtained.
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 actor at least implicitly knows two or more options for acting. Furthermore the individual has varying degrees of wants in relation to these options. This concept also includes having the competence to attempt these actions and to distinguish between them. In addition, according the maxim given in (3) below, deliberate action also involves participation in a social practice of some community.
The PNDP Person Concept: Some remarks by Ossorio indicate that he seems to be working from a pre-empirical perspective that primarily involves developing person concepts whose main applications would be towards individuals that are human. However this concept would not be limited to humans. It would also include any other individuals who interact in ways that involve deliberate action and social practices in a noteworthy manner. However it would not seem to include all of the imagined types of individuals that have motivated me to write this paper. In particular, it might not include very early humans, altho this is hard to determine without a paradigm case formulation of the PNDP person concept. In What There Is and the Way Things Are (Vol7 of Advances in Descriptive Psychology), Ossorio gives what he calls the standard Descriptive Psychology definition of a person.
(#) A person is an individual whose history is, paradigmatically, a history of deliberate action.
However he immediately adds that this is merely a minimum requirement and might be considered defective or misleading because of that. He says that not just any old history will do. Rather it must have a certain kind of continuity and coherence. It fits what he calls a dramaturgical pattern. A person assigns objects and events into positions in a drama of that person’s life. Given these comments, (#) would be better labeled as a conceptual condition rather than as a definition. In The Behavior of Persons, he amends (#) to give (0) below, which he there calls a definition. This dramaturgical feature makes me wonder if early humans, prior to the development of narrative language, would be classified as persons.
(0) A person is an individual whose history is, paradigmatically, a history of deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern.
Since Ossorio elsewhere adds the following aspects to the person and deliberate action concepts, I still prefer to call (0) a conceptual condition rather than a definition. My preference in this regard relates to the fact that both the person and the deliberate action concepts are essential in my net for thinking about what I do. In general, in a net where many of the concepts are not analyzable in terms of more basic ones, these concepts may be so intertwined with essential concepts in a net that definitions fail to capture many of the connections involved.
(1) What makes an individual a
person is, paradigmatically, to have mastered the person concept. This involves
learning to act as a person in interaction with other persons, which results in
knowing how to act as a person in interaction with other persons and results in
coming simply to be a person.
(Introduction to Place)
(2) The primary function of the concept of a person is to guide the behavior of one person with respect to other persons. (Stated several times in Persons)
(3) To engage in a Deliberate Action is to participate in a social practice of the community. Social practices are teachable learnable, do-able public forms of behavior usually involving more than one participant. Social practices are what there is to “do”. If one wants to do anything one selects from the things that are done, or else one invents a new form of behavior and gets it accepted as one of the things there is to do. (Comments on Maxim E5 in Place)
In The Behavior of Persons Ossorio indicates that using the word ‘paradigmatically’ means in a paradigm case; and when a paradigm case has not been formulated it is a promissory note for what would be in one. Given a formulation in which the paradigm case included this dramaturgical component, early humans could be included by an allowable transformation. However to the extent that the dramaturgical component is central, these early humans might be classified as persons only in a limited manner. In fact, all the types of individuals I am considering might be included as persons of some sort given sufficient allowable transformation, altho this would not mesh with the ordinary use of the term ‘person’. My uncertainty about what to take as allowable transformation is related to some uncertainty about the force of the maxims in Place, and especially about E5 above. The role of maxims is discussed in Appendix 2.
In (1) above, it would seem that being a person involves both knowing the person concept and having acquired it in a special manner. The acquisition part would not apply to the person concept as used with traditional beliefs about the God. However (1) is also qualified by ‘paradigmatically’, and perhaps this allows a broad enough person concept to include God. I do not know to what extent parts of (1) are indispensable components of the PNDP person concept. The first sentence appears to be conceptual and indispensable. The second has a paraceptual flavor, but perhaps it is also part of the conceptualization. This is further complicated because deliberate action is a necessary part of the person concept, and my initial understanding of deliberate action only involved what I now call optional action, i.e. it was independent of the concept of a social practice. In fact, (3) reads more like a paraceptual claim than a conceptual condition, but perhaps it is part of the current conceptualization of the deliberate action concept. I am unclear about all of this because I have not found a paradigm case formulation of the PNDP person concept with allowable transformations. To help me in such matters, I later give what I hope will be an acceptable paradigm case formulation, with transformations that take account of (0) thru (3).
Optional Action: In order to specify some transformations in a paradigm case formulation of the person concept, I need a concept of optional action that is less restrictive than the PNDP deliberate action concept. Optional action merely involves having knowledge and wants in regard to at least two options when acting in a situation. Altho optional action demands more than merely having options, it does not require any relation to social practices and is thus applicable to asocial individuals. Thus all deliberate action is optional action, but optional action would not necessarily be deliberate action. Conceptually, an individual might engage in optional action whether or not that that individual had ever encountered another who could engage in optional action. It might consider pausing to drink from the stream or to continue pressing on. It might consider scratching an itch with a stick or by looking for a tree to rub against. According to (3), the concept of deliberate action would seem to involve more than this. However my understanding of the connection between deliberate action and social practice depends on features of the social practice concept that I still find somewhat vague. So I will merely mention some obvious cases of optional actions that do not seem to involve participation in the social practices of any community.
Some asocial aliens in science fiction engage in optional action without engaging in social practices of any community. A creator of the universe as conceptualized in monotheistic religions, or even the Greek Gaea, would be examples of individuals who were thought of as having engaged in optional actions that were not forms of any social practice. The existence of such individuals is a paraceptual matter, but regardless of existential concerns, I want concepts for thinking about them. In fact, I am more interested in a broader concept that includes them than in one that does not. So I will coin the term asocio-person for individuals who did not become persons as indicated in (1), and for whom the person concept does not function as indicated in (2). Furthermore, I do not want to classify individuals who have a history of optional action as limited variants of persons. Creating the universe is hardly a limitation in power.
Knowing: The
optional action concept depends on what it means to know. I often say that our
dog
In general, I conceptualize knowing in terms of behavior
potential. An individual knows X if it can successfully integrate X into its
actions. For someone giving a behavior description, this means that this is a
value of the know-parameter that could be appropriately given by a describer.
Behavior potential includes, but goes beyond, the potential to act
linguistically. Language plays an important role by bringing knowledge into
focus, especially by allowing us to reflect on and communicate about what we
know. With a broader concept of knowing, knowledge may or may not involve the
ability to use language. I do not know if
Charmayne once said that Caleb heard the vacuum cleaner in the other room and knew that it was Jennifer. Caleb was nine months old and clearly could not articulate this. It was by his reaction that Charmayne knew that Caleb knew, and she did not hesitate to say that he knew. We also tend to use ‘know’ for nonverbal information of adults. When P claims to know the way home, we do not normally expect P to formulate what P knows linguistically. In fact, most information about the way home is likely to be more pictorial than verbal. Not only does such pictorial knowledge go beyond propositional knowledge, much of our other informational knowledge also does. What a person knows about some realm of interest can termed realm knowledge. Even for a fairly minor realm, a persons realm knowledge may go far beyond propositional knowledge. Ask a basketball player to tell you everything he knows about the limited realm of last nights game. Much of what he knows will be left unsaid.
Examples: Walking home and thinking about language and informational knowledge, I asked myself what knowledge I had about what I had just encountered but was now behind me. Various things occurred to me, and I turned around to check. One very specific state of affairs that I recalled was there being more than 5 U-haul rental trucks on my left. Altho I formulated this linguistically, the essence of what I knew was not verbal. I examined an image in order to verbalize it. Even the numerical content was recalled before I verbalized it. I turned to count and saw 9 trucks, something I did not already know. Furthermore, altho my current account sounds like propositional knowledge, this is merely a way to bring it into focus. My recall involves a sensory memory. This seems to be the case with a much of my informational knowledge with visual components, and this includes knowledge about states that are not necessarily spatial. For instance when I think about knowing the proof of LaGrange’s Theorem the main thing I recall is a picture, and I also recall a picture when I think about knowing a proof of the Quadratic Reciprocity Theorem. As I will indicate later when I discuss subjective consciousness, we also imagine temporal relationships visually. We lay our life out as if it was a line, and thinking that I did X before Y often involves (metaphorically) seeing myself at an earlier point on that line. I know that I lived in Marissa before I lived in Glenville. I may formulate this as a proposition, but it is a part of my basic reliable knowledge that I recall by seeing a variety of events in my life history. The event of falling from the pecan tree in Glenville is something I recall as an image and a sensation.
Having Concepts: Altho concepts may seem to be dependent on language, this may be primarily due to the way we discuss and analyze and formulate them. This is not how we usually acquire concepts. They are mainly acquired thru use rather than discussion and analysis, and we recognize that P has a concept when P can act on it. If P routinely stops on red then its seems plausible that P has some concept of a traffic light. In line with this, I conceptualize having a concept in terms of acting on it rather than on articulating it. P may have some concept of a traffic light without having a name for it, altho because language plays such a major role in our lives, a name is very likely to be acquired. A young child is likely to ask about what something is called when seeing it for the first time. Having terminology for concepts is useful for many reasons. Language allows us to bring concepts into focus, making implicit concepts more explicit. This allows us refine concepts, relate them to other concepts, recognize nuances, see new distinctions, appreciate further applications, and of course especially to communicate using them.
A Paradigm Case Formulation of the Person Concept: This formulation specifies features of a paradigm case of the PNDP person concept. (A) is called the central feature. The others are called socio-features. A person who satisfies these features could be called a socio-person to distinguish it from one who does not. I then add enough allowable transformations to cover additional cases. I augment this by adding what I call expansive transformations. A mature socio-person (the paradigm case):
(A) has a history in which deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern is ubiquitous and has mastered the concept of a person and distinguishes between persons and non-person
(B) acquired the person concept by learning to act as a person in interaction with other persons
(C) knows how to act as a person in interaction with other persons
(D) 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
(E) frequently engages in a deliberate action by participating in a social practice of a community
Allowable Transformations:
(1) Change (A) to ‘is likely to develop such a history and is likely to learn to make such a distinction, given most courses of events that this individual could reasonably be expected to encounter during its existence (including existence in an afterlife). The term immature person would seem to correspond to ordinary usage when we want to differentiate such a person from the paradigm case, which applies to persons after they have developed such a history.
(2) Change any or all of the other features in a manner similar to transformation (1). For instance, ‘knows how’ in (C) can be changed to ‘is likely to learn how’. The term immature person can be also be used to differentiate such a person from the paradigm case, even if (A) has been satisfied.
(3) In (A), change ‘deliberate action’ to ‘optional action’. Weaken or eliminate the socio-features. There need not even be any expectations about the likelihood of these features being realized, altho such a person would necessarily have the capacities for the abilities that they entail. For instance, a robot created and programmed with feature (A) and sent on a permanent solitary mission might be such a person. However, altho there is no expectation that this robot would have feature (C), if retrieved it would be likely to acquire this feature. In this paper, ‘asocio-person’ is used to distinguish such a person from the paradigm case.
(4) Modify these conditions in any manner that allows an omnipotent and omniscient creator of the universe to be a person who exists or existed outside of the universe and who knowingly engages in optional action. This allows the person concept to be applied to the God concept in the way that it is ordinarily used by theists, altho the account of one God in three persons complicates this. An atheists could use this concept in a shared net when disputing the claim that God exists.
Expansive Transformations: An expansive transformation indicates cases that are not included in the person concept, but that are included in a related person-like concept.
(5) Retain having a history in which deliberate action is ubiquitous, but weaken (A) by omitting the dramaturgical pattern and the ability to distinguish between individuals who have such a history of deliberate action and individuals who do not. In this paper, ‘semi‑person’ is used for such an individual.
(6) Weaken (A) by changing ‘a noteworthy history’ to ‘occasional instances’. Omit the dramaturgical pattern and the ability to distinguish between individuals who have such a history of deliberate action and those who do not. In this paper, ‘quasi-person’ is used for such an individual.
Socialization: As conceptualized, the paradigm case of a person is an individual who became a person thru a socialization process. This suggests the paraceptual question of whether a socialization process is necessary in becoming a person. What I have read about feral and isolated children (feralchildren.com) suggests that this is the case with humans. I find it highly plausible that in becoming a mature person, a human starts as an immature person only because it is born into a community of persons. To acquire language, which is indispensable for seeing ones life in a dramaturgical manner, a human child needs to interact with persons. Whether a human child would even be an asocio quasi-person without some socialization process is a question about which I can only speculate. The ability to occasionally engage in optional action might be due to biological rather than cultural evolution.
Side Remark: Of course, there is an option to socialization, as in the story of Adam and Eve. Even taken as fiction, this story suggests that our ordinary concept referred to by the word ‘person’ makes no socialization demands, and so the allowable transformations are compatible with this ordinary concept.
Humans: To be a person is a functional concept that involves a history of action. The PNDP human concept has a biological component; namely a human is a person who is a member of the Homo sapiens species. This also includes fictional individuals, such as James Bond, who are imagined as humans. Other non-human individual who would be considered as biological persons would be androids and many of the aliens of science fiction. Non-biological persons would include most types of robots that satisfy the central functional feature (A). They also might include the Greek gods, but perhaps not the Roman ones who according to one account I read were more like impersonal forces. Since Zeus is said to both be immortal and to have fathered children with human women, I am unsure of the biological status he is imagined to have. In general, with polytheistic gods, our contemporary way of thing makes it hard to tell the extent to which the person concept applies. Of course having concepts for supernatural persons make no paraceptual existential claims. However even for those who would deny the existence of supernatural person, the concept of a supernatural person could be useful for understanding those who do.
Comment: An individual might be able to recognize options but not implicitly understand this as a central aspect of itself nor see itself as involved in a dramaturgical pattern. Such an individual could engage in optional action (or deliberate action if socialized) without being able to make a distinction between individuals who could and those who could not do so. This latter ability would seem to be more sophisticated than the mere ability to know options or to and even have a history in which such optional actions are ubiquitous. Using feature (A), the ability to make a distinction between individuals who could recognize options and those who cannot is central to what it means to be a person. It is for this reason I classify an asocio-person as a type of person but do not classify semi‑persons or any other types of quasi-persons as persons. Feature (A) does not mean that a person must be able to articulate this distinction between actions that involve options and actions that do not. A person must merely be able to react to it appropriately, altho not always correctly. For instance, altho I may seem to chastise my computer, this is merely a way of venting, and I know that my computer is not reflecting on whether to respond to my concerns. Likewise, a belief that the Easter Bunny is a person probably indicates a mistaken paraceptual belief rather than a misunderstanding about this distinction or any other conceptual misunderstanding.
Dramaturgical Patterns and Subjective Consciousness: The dramaturgical pattern is a central feature of the PNDP person concept, and reading Chapter 10 of The Behavior of Persons gave me a perspective on what this means. However I have not seen a helpful concise explanation of the dramaturgical pattern concept. Instead of formulating one, I will relate the concept of acting in dramaturgical pattern to Julian Jaynes’ concept of consciousness. Hopefully this is faithful to the concept of a dramaturgical pattern, altho the accounts I have read of the PNDP concept are not focused enough for me to be sure.
Jaynes formulates a concept of consciousness that is intertwined with what he says is wrong with prior accounts of consciousness. He is showing how concepts associated with the word consciousness are either vague or are unsuitable for thinking about a significant features of our experience. This may obscure the fact that his concept is entirely independent of any theory about how the brain works or his theory about the origins of consciousness. To avoid any possible semantic confusion, I will use the term ‘subjective consciousness’ for the concept of consciousness used by Jaynes. Subjective consciousness is a concept and is thus neither true nor false. Instead, it is more or less useful for some purposes, and for me it has great personal utility. In fact, instead of formulating the concept of a person as I have done above, I would prefer the central feature of the paradigm case include that a person is an individual whose behavioral history is shaped to a noteworthy extent by subjective consciousness. All of the persons I know are subjectively conscious, and I think the paradigm case of a PNDP person would be a subjectively consciousness. Transformation (4) above gives an example of a person who might not be, since being omniscient might make all the features to be described below irrelevant.
Jaynes gives six features for the concept of subjective consciousness: {spatialization, excerption, analog-I, metaphor-me, narratization, conciliation}. These are ubiquitous in the experience of a subjectively conscious individual. In fact, I find it hard to imagine what it would be like not to depend on them. This is the main reason I initially found Jaynes’ theory interesting but barely plausible. I will only briefly sketch these features. For more detail, see Origins of Consciousness by Julian Jaynes pages 59-65.
Spatialization refers to the use of a metaphorical mind-space in which an individual separates the things it considers as if they were individual objects. Spatialization applies not only to things that have spatial qualities in the physical world. It applies to whatever an individual thinks about. It uses the metaphor of seeing for abstract entities, which it separates so that it can see how they are related. It spatializes time, viewing years as laid out in succession, usually from left to right.
Since a finite individual can only pay attention to part of a state at any moment, it never sees anything in its entirety. Nor for dramatic purposes would it want to. Instead, it excerpts what it considers important and worth bringing into focus. Excerption involves thinking of an object or event or state in terms of some of its very limited aspects. Just now thinking of my garden, I see leaves covering part of it, weeds among the onions and garlic, some pepper plants. At another time, I might see other features. Of course, this seeing is in my mind-space, for I am not currently looking at my garden.
The central feature of subjective consciousness is the analog-I, the metaphor an individual has of itself. The analog-I moves about in its mind-space, doing things it is not actually doing. It also forms excerptions of things it has done. Without this analog-I, it might have live options, but it could not select among them on the basis of what it might imagine as alternative outcomes. Deliberating about what to do in terms of future consequences would not be possible. Shall I weed the garlic early this afternoon? It will be in the sun at that time, but if I only do one patch, I can go cool off in the creek before I get too uncomfortable. On the other hand I can go to the creek first and get gravel to repair the road.
The analog-I looks out at some state of affairs and imagines acting within or upon it. An individual can also step back, observe itself as acting and think about what would be happening to it. The metaphor-me is the version of itself that that it observes in its mind-space. My analog-I is imagined as weeding the garlic and going to the creek. It is my metaphor-me that gets too hot and that becomes cool in the creek.
Our analog-I sees itself as the main figure in a story that takes place in our spatialized time. Narratization is the process of telling itself this story about what it is doing or might be going to do, and about how the facts it notices or imagines fit in with this. Narratization explains why it did what it did or why it might select alternatives. It provides a rationale for how it might act in novel situations as they arise.
Conciliation is the process of bringing perceptions together as conscious recognizable objects. It does so in a way that makes excerpts from these stimuli compatible with each other and its ongoing narratization. Conciliation does in the mind-space what narratization does in mind-time.
Subjective Consciousness and Optional Action: Because comment (3) by Ossorio made me uncertain about the PNDP concept of deliberate action, I will make a conjecture relating subjective consciousness to optional action rather than to deliberate action.
Perhaps an individual must be subjectively consciousness in order to have a dramaturgical pattern of optional action as a ubiquitous feature of its experience and to utilize this dramaturgical pattern to support the options selected.
In saying that optional action is a ubiquitous feature of our experience, I only mean that when we reflect on what we are doing, we usually imagine alternatives. It is easy to realize that a large amount of what we do doesn’t directly involve optional action. By this I mean that altho looking back I can always imagine alternative to anything I did, these are mostly irrelevant to what I actually did. I put on my shoes, walk until I come to a trail I often use, turn on this trail, avoid stepping in a large puddle a short distance later, etc. I do most of this without considering alternatives. What I find hard to imagine is that I might do all of this and not even be able to imagine alternatives and to consider what it might be like to select from them. I also find it hard to imagine that I would take so many walks if initiating in such episodes was not usually an optional act.
Private Languages and Dramaturgical Patterns: Altho humans initially acquire language by interacting and communicating with other humans, they can use language to think about their world and what they are doing. To see ones life in a dramaturgical pattern, it is only this use of language that is needed. By a private language, I mean a tool that is used for thinking about the world but that has not been acquired by interaction with others and has never been used to communicate. In fact, this is exactly what would be needed for the existence of an asocio-person. Whether a private language or an asocio-person could exist is a paraceptual matter, and hence cannot be settled by conceptual analysis. Traditional monotheists talk as if they are committed to the existence of at least one private language. If the word ‘language’ is restricted to a concept that involve communication is an essential manner, then the term ‘private language’ refers to a conceptual tool that is not a type of language but a type of partial language.
Syntactic Language and Narrative Usage: In this paper the term syntactic language is reserved for languages whose syntactic structure is flexible enough to be used for a variety of purposes, that include proposing and requesting elaborate information, giving detailed commands, expressing subtle feeling. Even more significant its semantics involves an extensive reliance on metaphor (see Jaynes Chapter 2). A syntactic language will also have the capacity to be used for telling stories, and when used for telling simple stories about what happened we will say it is used for rudimentary narrative purposes. Mature narrative usage is conceptualized as telling stories about oneself and others that are recognized as fictional and that may involve both the past and the future. Narratization involves being able to tell stories with oneself as actor in mind-space and mind-time. Altho not explicitly mentioned by Jaynes, I think that doing so involves mature narrative usage of language and that he believes that rudimentary narrative usage is necessary but not sufficient for narratization.
Terminology for Concepts: Altho I use phrases like ‘the concept of deliberate action’, I am somewhat uncomfortable with certain connotations of such phrases. Phrases like ‘the concept I indicate by the term deliberate action’ or ‘the concept ordinarily indicates by the term deliberate action’ come closer to the way I think about such matters. However they are awkward, and so I use the more abbreviated language with the caveat that it should be interpreted in way that makes concepts more basic than what they are called. Using such abbreviated language, I would say that I had the wrong concept of deliberate action prior to reading Place. This might suggest that there was something wrong with my concept, but all I mean is that the concept I indicated by the term deliberate action was not the same concept as the current PNDP concept referred to by that term. Given what I had read, it still seems to me that the concept I once indicted by this term may have been an earlier version of the concept PNDP now indicates by this term. It may also be the case that PNDP always used the term deliberate action with its current meaning, but had not fully described its use in the beginning. Regardless, the concept I mistakenly understood as the PNDP deliberate action concept is conceptually sound. However due to my reflection on how PNDP articulated basic person concepts, and especially on the maxim relating deliberate action to social practices, I have reluctantly coined the term ‘optional action’ for what I once called deliberate action.
The term quasi-person seems awkward and suggests that merely occasionally engaging in optional actions makes an individual more like a person than might be warranted. On the other hand, it does suggest a way in which some animal may be more like persons than others and that some person-like characteristics are fairly widespread. This term is used not so much as a a attribute for classification, but as a way of indicating a current operational perspective. Thus referring to a raven as a quasi-person would be done only when this might be a useful way of thinking about it for the purposes at hand.
I must admit that I do have a liking for the term
‘semi-person’ and using it for classification purposes. Perhaps this is largely
due to my fascination with the work of Julian Jaynes. However I also wonder
about whether Adam and Eve might not be classified as semi-person before eating
the forbidden fruit. This is obviously not be endorsed by people who takes the
story literally and believes that God created them as persons. For someone who
treats this story as either a myth or a parable a different perspective might
be taken, since without a knowledge of good and evil it would seem difficult to
be subjectively conscious. They did not even know that they were naked. Jaynes
might consider the story of the Garden of Eden to be about a longed for
bicameral past when choice was not so problematic.
An earlier version of this paper limited the term person to what I have now called a socio-person, using the term personoid for the broader case. I did this because PNDP terminology seemed to demand the socio-features that might be incompatible with the allowable transformations I formulated. Whatever PNDP may allow as special cases of persons, it is clear there that PNDP usage of the term applies mostly to persons who satisfy these socio-features. However, because there are some different person concepts, I decided not to restrict the term person to the PNDP person concept. Instead I tried to formulate a version of the PNDP person concept that would also include as persons those individuals that would be included by any other widely used person concept.
In saying that there are different person concepts, all that I mean is that the term person is used for more than one concept, somewhat like the term bat is used for more than one concept. There is an important difference. In using the term bat for both an inanimate object and a flying animal, context normally indicates which concept is being used. Nor is there is likely to be any dispute about which of these is really a bat. On the other hand, the term person is often applied to the same type of individual, and the fact that people are using different concepts may not be apparent. Moreover the same individual may even unknowingly use the term person for different concepts, an unlikely event when using the term bat. There may even be a dispute about what a person really is, as if some paraceptual matter was at issue. In fact, a heated dispute over the use of the term person is more likely to be a paraceptual dispute about cosmic versions. I want terminology that does not confound conceptual and paraceptual concerns and that dos not violate the sensibilities of any community who might use it.
One apparent difference in person concepts is between a behavioral concept and an ontological concept. Ordinary theistic usage of the term person is sometimes used to distinguish individuals having an immortal soul from those who do not. For many people, what this entails and what they consider the essence of being a person is to have been created in the image of God. It seems unlikely that an individual with a physicalist cosmic version would use this person concept. If he did then he would claim that there are no persons. I try to subsume this person concept in my paradigm case formulation, i.e. an individual with a soul would be classified as a person via transformation (1), at least if having a soul entails what I think it would. We could use the term immortal persons for such persons. Unlike the PNDP concept which depends on behavior, this immortal person concept depends on and is defined by an ontological attribute. In fact, it was primarily to include any such individuals as persons that the afterlife feature was included in transformation (1). Of course, many of those who consider a fertilized egg as a person, do so because of a belief in its soul, rather than because it qualifies by transformation (1). In terms of facilitating wider communication, this would be better regarded as a paraceptual claim that persons are immortal rather than as part of conceptualization.
There are at least two advantages of taking of formulating a behavioral person concept. Persons interact with persons and in doing so are usually implicitly using regarding others as persons by their behavior. Ontological disagreements make the use of an ontological concept problematic when used by persons with different cosmic versions. Altho having different cosmic versions tends to result in different conceptual nets, there is no necessary reason that people with different cosmic versions cannot use a common net. The person concept I formulated is intended for use in such a common net. Using it, a person with a physicalistic cosmic version could claim that there are no immortal persons. A person with a traditional theistic cosmic version, could claim that all persons are immortal persons. A heretical Christian position could be that only those who accept Jesus are immortal persons, since going out of existence is one possible interpretation of the word perish. In general, a number of other disagreements could be more clearly formulated with a net having a person concept that allows for classifying an individual as a person on fairly wide behavioral and potential behavioral grounds.
Altho I did not limit the term person to the social practice PNDP person concept, I did take this concept as the paradigm case in my formulation of the person concept. This seemed appropriate because it is this concept that we mostly act on and which permeates our interactions with others, and this seems to be the case with the persons we encounter. It is primarily to focus on alternative usage that I dot want to limited the term person to those that meet the socio-features of the formulation. I also include as persons those who might be expected to acquire a dramaturgical history of optional action. In an earlier version I referred to them as potential persons, leaving the term immature person to those who were in the process of becoming subjectively conscious. However the term potential person has the connotation of not being a person, and given the attitudes of many people I decide to use the term immature person instead. Clearly a fertilized egg that is about to be discarded is not likely to acquire a history of deliberate action in this life, but many believe that it will in another life because of its ontological status. Whether it has this or some other status is a paraceptual matter about which there is considerable disagreement.
Quasi-Persons: As indicated, the possibility that asocio-persons could exist is a paraceptual matter. That an asocial species could evolve into a species of asocio-persons does not seem totally implausible to me. The concept of an asocio quasi-person might be a useful for someone interested in such considerations. To consider this, it might be useful to think about whether any of animals are asocio quasi-person or asocio semi-persons and how socialization relates to their acquisition of the ability to engage in optional action. Drawing paraceptual conclusions would demand research I do not have the ability to conduct. The utility of such research may be somewhat remote, but it might provide some additional perspectives on optional action and intentional action in the realm of biology.
What I have to say about quasi-persons is merely suggestive of how to use concepts to think about some ordinary matters that might be of interest to people who are fascinated by animals. However we need not restrict ourselves to thinking about animals. Is being biological even necessary for being either alive or being an asocio quasi-person?
Altho our dog Boston knows that he can get out of the yard when the back gate is open and also knows that he can stay in the yard when this gate is open, I cannot tell if he know of this as an option. However even if he does, I would not classify him as a person or potential person, nor even as a semi-person. At most, optional action seems to be a small part of what he does. If domestic dogs have learned to be a quasi-person then perhaps it is because of their association with humans. Assuming that wild dogs are quasi-persons, perhaps this is because optional action is necessary for the social way they hunt. Candidates for semi-persons in the animal world include dolphins and some of the great apes. However in each of these cases any abilities to engage in optional actions may only emerge via socialization. After all, the ability to engage in optional action could be an advantage to dealing with the complexities of being in a social group. However the ability to know options would seem to be useful to any animal capable of learning, and there is no conceptual reason to consider optional action as impossible for asocial animals. In fact, the behavior of some solitary predators might at least appear to involve some optional actions. Perhaps all solitary animals with the capacity to learn also have the capacity to develop the ability to know options and thus to be asocio quasi-persons. If so, could a private language emerge in an asocial animal species thru biological evolution via a process of natural selection? Could a genetic code be such that a private language would emerge with maturation, or even immediately after birth?
Semi-Persons: Since I find reincarnation at most barely plausible, I find it highly plausible that new persons are emerging. Of course, becoming a person in a world of persons would not seem problematic, or at least not as problematic the emergence of persons in a world devoid of persons. It was this that primarily motivated me to formulate the concept of a semi-person. To consider the origins of persons, it seems reasonable to conjecture that the emergence of persons was preceded by the emergence of individuals who had some of the features of persons, altho special creation seems to be the explanation that many people find satisfactory. Of course, having concepts does not provide the paraceptual information that would be needed to settle any questions about the origins of persons. However, it might suggest some conjectures to investigate and ways to formulate them. It can also be useful in bringing paraceptual differences into focus, such as those between creationists and evolutionists. What follows is intended to be neutral with respect to any paraceptual claims.
Without a language that could be used for mature narratization, having a history of deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern would not be possible. In saying this, I have conceptualized ‘acting in a dramaturgical pattern’ as something understood by the actor and which the actor could articulate aspects of, i.e. I am using a concept that does not merely involve someone else seeing an individuals history that way. The dramaturgical pattern is a major aspect of the PNDP person concept. Thus as conceptualized, the emergence of persons was either preceded by or concurrent with the emergence of syntactic language. Nor is the mere existence of syntactic language sufficient, since the ability to conceptualize oneself as an actor in an ongoing drama is also necessary. This entails being able to take both the roles of observer and critic as conceptualized in PNDP. All of this is what is involved in mature narrative usage of language and in being subjectively conscious. In addition to the dramaturgical pattern feature, being a person involves knowing the distinction between persons and non-persons. As indicated earlier, this involves more than having a noteworthy history of optional or even deliberate action. It might even seem to involve more than seeing ones life in a dramaturgical pattern. However I interpret being subjectively conscious as being able to effectively act on this distinction within an individuals mind-space, for otherwise the ability to narrate as a critic and observer would be too severely limited. Thus I am taking the ability to make the distinction between persons and non-persons as part of a way to indicate what it mean to act in a dramaturgical pattern, rather than as something beyond this feature.
Anyone believing in special creation would merely say that all of what is involved emergence of persons occurred in the act of the creator. For them, the concept of a semi‑person might have limited utility, perhaps only for saying that God did not create any semi-persons. Anyone believing that we might some day design artificial persons should not find special creation totally implausible, altho they might be inclined this way. I at least find it barely plausible, but on the basis of unexamined paraceptual beliefs absorbed from my education, I am inclined to find a gradual emergence much more plausible. Thus I use the concept of a semi‑person mostly for thinking about the gradual emergence of persons and what person-like features may have preceded persons. My knowledge of established empirical results relating to all of this is perfunctory. In spite of this, I will formulate a number of offhand remarks to indicate the type of paraceptual information I would like have. Some of these were motivated by Jaynes’ theory about the origins of subjective consciousness.
That most quasi-persons are not semi-persons is based on the conjecture that many animals engage in optional action but do not have a noteworthy history of such actions. The most direct way to check if an act was optional (rather than merely intentional) is to ask the individual about imagined options. However, we also judge by observing more about the action, and this is the basis we use for judging that very young children engage in optional action. This seems reasonable because this behavior seems to be a prelude to them becoming mature persons. We also use this as a basis to judge that that some animals engage in optional actions, altho we never observe this as a ubiquitous feature of their lives. Still it would seem that at some point individuals having the ability to engage in optional action would have emerged prior to semi-persons rather than having all individual with this ability also able to live a life with a noteworthy history of deliberate action.
It may even be that case that what seems to be optional action in animals is merely intentional with conflicting intent, i.e. they are drawn towards alternatives without being aware of them. I find this at least somewhat plausible, by noting this in human behavior. Where it seems least plausible to me is in certain problem solving situation. For instance in the account of the chimpanzee named Sultan solving the problem of getting the banana by combining two sticks, it is how the solution seemed to occur, rather than the form it took, that gives the appearance of optional action. Likewise there is a similar way that that a problem solution occurs in the study of the raven behavior. See the April 2007 Scientific American Article by Heinrich and Bugnyar. However even if optional action is more than an occasional occurrence for some animals, it seems reasonable to conjecture that currently there are no semi-persons on this earth. This is based on my offhand information about what is known about animal behavior and a number of cultural artifacts and practices I would suspect might be concurrent with a species whose members had noteworthy histories of deliberate action rather than merely occasional behavior episodes.
If the emergence of persons was gradual and preceded by the emergence of semi‑persons then the first of these may have been members of some hominid species. Since deliberate action entails knowing options, this raise the question of how much deliberate action is likely to occur without syntactic language. For instance, can one have a noteworthy history of deliberate action without being able to articulate the options involved? Clearly we proceed thru episodes without much thought to the multitude of choices we might have selected, but it is hard for us to imagine that we could not on reflection describe an alternative to anything we did. I took over a thousand steps during my walk yesterday, and altho I never considered pausing to rest, I can imagine doing so after any one of these steps. Without syntactic language such a recollection hardly seems possible. However it is the ability to reflect on options that demands such language (and it mature narrative usage), rather than the actions themselves. It seems at least somewhat plausible to me that if some deliberate action occurs without using language, then perhaps a history of deliberate action could also occur without using language. Of course using language would seem to be a major help in developing such a history, as well conceptually necessary for it being in a dramaturgical pattern. This is why most hominids might be classified as semi-persons rather than as persons.
Jaynes explicitly claims that consciousness comes after language. This may seem like a paraceptual claim, but given the concept of consciousness he is using (i.e. subjective consciousness), it is merely an important conceptual observation. It raises the question of whether there even may have been cultures of Homo sapiens whose members would not be classified as persons. For whether or not having a history of deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern is equivalent to being subjectively conscious, they are closely related and both depend on a mature narrative usage of language. Of course, this conceptual observation cannot settle any paraceptual claims. I find it useful because it helps bring paraceptual claims and questions into focus. Specifically, did the emergence of a syntactic language occur over thousands of years or did it evolve quickly? Furthermore, the mere existence of syntactic a language is not conceptually sufficient for subjective consciousness. Mature narrative usage is also necessary if an individual is to have the ability to conceptualize itself as an actor in an ongoing drama. This entails being able to take both the roles of observer and critic. Did the development of syntactic language depend on its being used for basic narrative basic purposes? Did it develop without being used for mature narrative purposes? It is clear how Jaynes would answer this last question, and that he would claim that early Homo sapiens were not persons in the PNDP sense of this term.
Not only would Jaynes claim that early Homo sapiens were semi-persons rather than persons, he makes what I found on my first reading the extravagant claim that bicameral civilizations existed prior to the emergence of subjective consciousness. Whatever plausibility attitude you actually take towards Jaynes theory about the origin of consciousness, if you are interested in the origin of persons, I recommend reading his book with the attitude that his theory is at least barely plausible. Anyone who finds this of interest might also be interested in the website (www.julianjaynes.org) of the Julian Jaynes Society. As far as I know, his theory of the origin of subjective consciousness is the only one that has been worked out in a high level of detail. Understanding his position could be useful in formulating a detailed alternative one, and especially in formulating a more evolutionary biological one. I am not going to discuss what Jaynes has said. My attempts to explain his work have always left me dissatisfied. His theory does not lend itself to a brief presentation, and even after reading his book several times my perspective seems inadequate. Instead will indicate some of the questions his book has raised for me.
According to Jaynes the immediate predecessor to subjectively conscious individuals were bicameral ones. What they were like is introduce in the chapter entitled Mind of the Iliad. I take this (and further descriptions) as a conceptualization. Altho Jaynes claims that the men in the Iliad were bicameral, his conceptualization does not depend on his paraceptual claims. Whether or not there were sophisticated bicameral civilizations, as Jaynes tries to demonstrate, the concept of a bicameral man qualifies at least as a semi-person. Perhaps bicameral men might even qualify as the most sophisticated semi-persons that have been seriously conceptualized. On the other hand, they might be immature persons who are likely to acquire a history of deliberate action in a dramaturgical pattern in some afterlife. Altho a bicameral man is not subjectively conscious, he can engage in complex social practices which often involve deliberate action. He fails to be subjectively conscious because he does not do so in a dramaturgical manner. His recognition of options and the extent to which deliberate action is a ubiquitous part of his history has a different basis. He uses a wide variety of established choice principles that allow for optional action in most ordinary manners. Thus optional action is seldom a problem that calls for a mature narrative us of language. This is also the case with much of what persons do, since we also usually select options without narrating a fictional account of an analog-I making choices and imagining consequences in our mind-space. Narratization is mostly used in more problematic situation. This is not available to bicameral man. Instead his choice is made by following the dictate of a voice which, with the stored-up admonitory wisdom of his life, tells him non-consciously what to do (Jaynes p85).
Even when I found Jaynes’ theory only slightly plausible,
it suggested an interesting possibility that I find at least slightly
plausible. Was the emergence of subjective consciousness as recent as about
3000 years ago? Did it not emerge in the
APPENDIX 1 PERSON
CHARACTERISTICS AND BEHAVIOR DESCRIPTIONS
PNDP Concepts: A reader who wants more details PNDP concepts can consult the file entitled Concept Dictionary-Encyclopedia on the Descriptive Psychology section of my website. 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 work 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.
Characteristics: PNDP
organizes characteristics we use in thinking about behavior into three
categories, each of which includes several types. These characteristic concepts
are all 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 my son has a strong interest professional football, you could indicate the
number of games he watches and the conversations he has about it. Likewise in
claiming that our dog
Dispositions: {Traits, Attitudes, Interests, Styles}
Powers: {Abilities, Knowledge, Values}
Derivatives: {Embodiment, Capacities, States}
Altho there are alternative ways to organize and specify
characteristics, some version of characteristics will be used in thinking about
what persons do. It is in this sense that a characteristic concept is a crucial
concept for any person. A similar remark applies to the behavior description
concept.
Behavior Descriptions: Below I indicate a slightly modified version of the PNDP behavior description concept. This is one of the fundamental concepts of PNDP. The parameters below are taken from things we might ordinarily say in talking about something an individual did, as will be illustrated later. Of course our ordinary descriptions are likely to be less systematic and indicate only those feature of interest for the purposes at hand. The paradigm case of a PNDP behavior description uses all of the parameters below to describe 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.
¨ Informational Knowledge (KI) has to do with information that 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 characteristic are being expressed by doing X.
¨ Significance (S) includes what else is being done by doing X, what importance X has for A.
Allowable Transformations: There are various types of behavior descriptions in which some of the parameters may be omitted. A behavior description that uses at least the first five of these parameters is an intentional action description. A deliberate action description is an intentional action description in which the KI parameter includes information about what action this action constitutes (See Notes on Behavior Description in Advances 1). 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.
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 actor knows two or more actions. Furthermore the individual has varying degrees of wants in relation to these actions. This concept also includes having the competence to engage in the various options and to distinguish between them.
Side Remark: Deliberate action is conceptualized in terms of knowing options, and in no way does this imply that the action taken is not predetermined. That many actions of persons are not predetermined is something that most people takes 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. I take this as a inherent in Maxim A8 from Place (see Appendix 2).
Comment on Parameters: 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 mentions some values for 5 of these parameter. (I) is Dan. (W) is wanting firewood. (P) is splitting logs. (A) is obtained firewood. (S) is getting wood for stove. There were a number of other things that an observer might have noticed. Suppose the observer was asked why Dan selected those 4 logs. The observer might say that Dan knows that these 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 more challenging task for last. This mentions a value for the (KI) parameter, namely the information he notes about the logs. It also indicates some values for the (C) and (KH) parameters. To like leaving a challenge to last is an attitude towards that activity, and hence one of the many things that could be mentioned in explaining why Dan split logs in the order he chose. Likewise, his skill could be considered as a characteristic, but it is so directly relevant to what he did that I would classify it as a value for the (KH) parameter. A multitude of other values for many of these parameters could be mentioned should the observer (or Dan) be further questioned. For instance, Dan might say that in getting firewood he was saving money on his heating bill, indicating another value for the (S) parameter. Noting this we might also remark on another value for the (C) parameter, namely that Dan has the trait of being thrifty. Clearly any and all of this can be said without any knowledge of the PNDP behavior description concept. We all know how to describe behavior in terms of a variety of considerations. The statement below is a modification of something Tony Putman says (see Appendix 2 below) about maxims in the preface to Place. In fact, for almost anything in PNDP we could make a similar remark.
Formulating the concept of a behavior description 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.
Behavior: I do not consider the concept of a behavior description as a conceptualization of the concept of behavior. For me, the concept of behavior is presupposed. The behavior description concept merely provides a tool for bringing various aspect of behavior into focus. The parameters to use and the detail to which they are developed will depend on the observer’s purposes in giving the description. The behavior concept is broad. It includes everything done as a person. Behavior is intentional action, even when the actor is not aware of these intentions. It does not include all activity. 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.
APPENDIX 2 MAXIMS AND
AXIOMS
Note: This is Appendix is a condensed version of a paper entitled Maxims and Their Use.
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 axioms and maxims
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. Axioms state what is
taken to be absolutely true in the domain of pure reason, thereby establishing
the structure of that domain. Maxims serve a similar function in the domain of
practical reason, which is concerned with establishing what is to be done in a
given situation. Maxims codify our understanding of persons and behavior; as
such, they establish a structure for what qualifies as an adequate description
of behavior in any particular instance. Later in the introduction to Place (p. 6), Ossorio makes the
following remark to clarify his use of 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.
Since the above account of axioms doesn’t accord with my mathematical perspective, I give a different characterization of axioms. 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 propositions can be deduced taking the axioms as starting points. This seems more relevant to me for comparing axioms and maxims, primarily because I am going to conceptualize maxims as conceptual provisions for nets in which many concepts are not analyzable in terms of more primitive ones and where conceptual information is not organized deductively. Since this includes most widely used nets, this perspective on maxims could be useful for a variety of nets. I also think that this is compatible with the use of maxims by Ossorio, but I would add that while being for someone who already understands, in formulating maxims we are examining a net rather than using it. So maxims may also be used to enhance that understanding and help us refine the net we are using. There is more to be said about how maxims act as conceptual reminders and how this effects the understanding and refine the concepts we are using.
Side Remarks on Axioms: Contemporary mathematics uses axioms as conceptual provisions, rather than regarding them as self-evident truths. We still regard axioms as true, in the sense that they truly specify the way we use and relate various concepts. We select primitive concepts whose properties we specify using axioms. We construct further concepts by analytic definitions which represent intuitive ideas by precise abstractions. We formulate and prove statements 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 similar roles in any geometry, the term point is used for a different basic concepts in different geometries. Likewise for the concept of a line. The axioms specify how these concepts are to be used in that geometry, and unlike earlier concerns, there is no question about which axioms are the true axioms for points and lines. Even when set theory is taken as a foundation for mathematics, we can conceptualize alternate set theories. Altho a platonist may 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 a platonist investigate these by treating the axioms for them as conceptual specifications just as would be done by any other mathematician. Even in an axiomatic study of logic, at least one alternate logic has been proposed, and altho I prefer the standard one, this is on utility grounds rather than on some vague notion of the true logic. These ideas are developed in my book entitled My Net for Understanding Mathematics.
Ordinary Maxims: That
maxims could be used as conceptual provisions 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 maxim 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 a rule.
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 indicated below 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 paraceptual flavor, I will try to interpret these maxims as conceptual reminders without paraceptual content. That this is appropriate seems fairly plausible to me. Altho giving a specific PNDP behavior description involves making paraceptual claims, it can involve using fairly complex conceptual relationships within a net that includes the person concept as essential. 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.
Maxims in PNDP:
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 and that they reflect the conceptual structure of the
person concept.
Maxim A8: A person takes it that things as they seem, unless he has reason enough to think otherwise.
Altho A8 might seem to have paraceptual content, I interpret it as purely conceptual and as 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 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 paraceptual claim. Rather it is implicit in the concept deliberate action. A8 can remind us of this. To know alternative action possibilities and relate them to a dramaturgical pattern, a person must at some point take something as it seems. 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. Thus it would not meet the conceptual condition for being a deliberate action and a deliberate action description would incorrect. Moreover, A8 is reminder for a describer about what to account for. In giving a description it is not taking something as it seems, rather than doing so, that calls for an explanation and an articulation of reasons. A warning aspect of this maxim 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.
The Role of Maxims: Instead of using A8 to bring out a feature of the person and deliberate action concepts, it could have been made it explicit in the initial formulation of these concepts. However this would have made that formulation more elaborate and would likely have obscured more central features. In addition, there is a multitude of other features that it would be inconvenient to include in an initial formulation. As remarked earlier, essential concepts may be so intertwined that definitions fail to capture many of the connections involved. 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 person characteristics, etc. No matter how elaborate a formulation we gave there would be implicit features that were 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 in regard to describing persons and their behavior.
That a person is an individual with a history of deliberate action is true in the same trivial that an axiom is true for some mathematical net. This proposition is about how the person concept is used, and could only be false if the PNDP did not use the concept in this manner. A similar remark applies to maxims. That a person is an individual with a history of deliberate action could also have been given as a maxim relating these concepts. That it was taken as part of the initial formulation indicates that it plays a more central role for this concept and provides an initial understanding for it uses. In general, a feature of a concept that is considered central is included in its initial formulation and other feature 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-person. 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 was apparent to me after reading the maxims, but this was not apparent by looking at the so-called definition. This reflexive feature of the person concept is so central that I also included it in a paradigm case formulation rather than leaving it to the maxims.
Paraceptual Flavor: Altho some maxims may seem to have a paraceptual flavor, they all have purely conceptual interpretations. Given my concept of behavior potential Maxim C2 below not only seemed to be paraceptual, but paraceptually incorrect. C2 was particularly puzzling, until I more carefully examined the commentary. I then realized that I had a different concept of behavior potential, namely one that conceptualized behavior potential in terms 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’ characteristics P actually could attempt to exercise. The concept I termed as behavior potential involved the diversity of live options.
Maxim C2 A person will not choose less behavior potential over more.
To reconcile this, I distinguish two behavior potential concepts, calling one concept ‘diverse behavior potential’ and the PNDP concept ‘valued behavior potential’ as discussed by Ossorio in Place (p. 49-53). It is conceptualized in terms of having valued options rather than in having a greater diversity of live options. Valued behavior potential for P is a relation between P’s values and P’s options. Choosing more rather than less behavior potential could be briefly is 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 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 that person expected the X to result in a less valued state than a choice of Y. Then we are violation a conceptual relationship between choice and values. This maxim is a reminder of this relationship. To correctly apply this maxim. I restate as a person will not choose less valued behavior potential over more.
Example for C2: Al has so much credit card debt that he can barely make next month’s minimum payments. Al has a months vacation coming. He wants to take a vacation to France. Option X is to add the expenses to his credit card. Option Y is to forgo the vacation and work for an extra month’s pay instead. When Al does X, Jo’s initial reaction is that Al is choosing less behavior potential because X will result in less behavior potential than Y. Jo then reflects on the maxim. C2 is about choosing less behavior potential, rather than merely doing something that results in less. She considers the possibility that Al cannot see how X will result in less behavior potential. She thinks about Al’s characteristics. One of his traits to be present rather than future oriented. Al also doesn’t know very much about rates of interest. These among other characteristics may obscure his ability to see what she finds obvious. In spite of these considerations Jo decides that something else is involved. She sees that she has been thinking in terms of her values rather than about what Al values. She would choose Y not only because Y offers more diverse behavior potential, but because she values having more live options in the future. Al values the vacation in France more than he values the prospect offered by Y.
Understanding PNDP: To acquire a version of PNDP a person must use its concepts. Because being a person conceptually entails being able to use the person concept, all persons have a version of this concept that includes central feature of the PNDP version. In fact the 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 acquires their versions of these concepts. The preface to Place ends with the statement below.
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.
This indicates a major purpose of PNDP. PNDP has refined and systematized concepts from our public routine net. In doing so it uses and refines other concepts from that net. To adequately understand PNDP it is necessary to already have competence in working with a number of ordinary concepts in addition to the ordinary version 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. Altho the maxims given in Place may seem trivial, reflecting on them via the commentary given there can help bring important relationships between concepts into better focus.
One major reason for formulating more systematic versions of our ordinary net of person concepts is to provide a pre-empirical basis for empirical study. What I find even more important is a more ordinary purpose PNDP could serve. I believe that understanding the PNDP versions of this net can provide tools anyone can use to enhance their behavior potential. I discuss this in The Potential Impact of Descriptive Psychology, available in the Descriptive Psychology section of my website.
Side Remark: Unlike maxims, mathematical axioms are used for some analytic counterpart of a net that can be organized deductively. This requires a closed and limited set of axioms for this purpose. So it is not surprising that a large number of maxims might be formulated for a net using maxims, while only a small number of axioms will be formulated for the analytic counter part of a net.
Maxims as Reminders: Maxim B7 below is clearly true because doing something that can’t be done is conceptually impossible. Moreover it also indicates at least one feature of the person concept, namely that doing relates both to a person’s situation and characteristics. In using B7 we might focus on which person characteristics might make X something that A cannot do. This seems obvious when A cannot do X because lack of skill or knowledge or physical capacity, but It could also be due to other characteristics.
Maxim B7: If a situation calls for a person to do something he can’t do, he will do something he can do.
Example for B7: To illustrate how we could use B7 as a reminder, I focus on a situation that is much like one I once observed. 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 (i.e. continue to play or politely resign). Instead Joe mutters that playing chess makes no sense, knocks the board and pieces off the table, and storms away. Rather than just saying his behavior was uncalled for, I decide that the situation called for Joe to do something he cannot do, altho most people could have done what was called for. In accounting for this, I would indicate some of his characteristics. Joe exhibits an attitude of intellectual superiority, often disparaging the intellect abilities of those around him. Joe knows that chess is considered as an intellectual game. He has for the first time encountered a better player, but his world does not allow the possibility of an intellectual superior. More could be said, but this should be enough to see how B7 can act as a reminder for anyone who is describing what an actor A does that differs from an act X that would seem to be called for in a situation.
Variations on Maxim B7: In Explanation, Falsifiability and Rule-following Ossorio illustrates the how he views the ‘provocation elicits hostility formula’ as conceptual. He presents this formula as a non-falsifiable rule by adding a number of unless clauses. The same strategy could be used for the variation that I give below for Maxim B7. Note to do X does not mean there is some unique act X that is called for. X could be a set of appropriate X each of which could be done in various ways.
Maxim B7 (variation) If a situation S calls for a person P do X then P will do X.
A. Unless P cannot do X, or
B. Unless P does not recognize that S calls for doing X, or
C. Unless doing X will be for P to choose less valued behavior potential, or.
D. Unless P could do X but has a strong reason for not doing X, or
E. Unless P could do X but is unwilling to do X, or
F. Unless there is some other account of P doing something other than X.
Since B7 is given in Place as a conditional, it does not imply that failure to do what is called 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 above. The other clauses provide addition reminders. 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. Since this maxim is a reminder about giving a behavior description, F is a fallback that should make this version of B7 non-falsifiable. One way this non-falsifiable 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.
Example: Ben and Jill 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 Jill can work on Phase 2, Ben must complete Phase 1. They will then complete Phase 3 together. Jill wants Ben to begin immediately. He says he has other urgent manners to attend to, but that they have plenty of time. On May 9 he has still not started and Jill is beginning to worry. He promises to start Thursday. In fact he begins a week later, completing Phase 1, at the close of the work week on Friday May 20. Jill cancels her weekend plans. Working late into the night and starting early on Saturday, Jill completes Phase 2. Working Saturday evening and all day Sunday they meet the deadline. Jill complains Ben should have started on May 9, to allow a margin, but at the latest on Friday May 13 to allow 6 regular work days for the time they anticipated. She adds this should have been obvious to Ben and also that he knows that she hates to work on weekends.
Jill is acquainted Maxim B7, but when I quote it, she says it is not because Ben cannot start a project before the last minute, he just won’t. I turn to my modified unless version of B7. The elaborate discussion that follows is given in Maxims and Their Use. Here is a sketch of what was said. Jill and I agree that the situation called for Ben to start at the latest on May 13. Jill has already focused on E, (that Ben could have but was unwilling). I indicate that B gives me 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 is so much inconvenience for Jill. Jill responds that Ben is intelligent and should have recognized all of this. I remind 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 Jill 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 Jill reluctantly agrees that perhaps B provides a better perspective, I indicate that I actually find A fairly plausible, and that a number of Ben’s traits show why Ben could not do what the situation called for. She 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. I point out that Ben’s behavior is not only an expression of the kind of attitude he brings toward a project, but indicate that this is indicative of a procrastination trait that may be harder to change. Ben also 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. I also indicate that values are involves and that C could provide some additional perspective.
Main Observation:
¨ A conceptual net is intended to help us access some realm of interest R; perhaps to obtain or organize paraceptual information about R, to propose conjectures to about R, to suggest questions about R, etc.
¨ Since the realm of interest for PNDP is potentially everything involving persons, the person concept is essential for PNDP. Closely related to the PNDP person concept are other essential concepts, such as the person characteristics and behavior description concepts. These and other concepts are primarily a more systematic version of what the ordinary connotations of these terms suggests. 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 net having many concepts that are not analyzable in terms of more primitive ones, some 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.
¨
A feature of a concept that is considered
central can be included in its initial formulation using a conceptual condition
or a paradigm case formulation or a specifications of parameters. Other feature
can later be made explicit by using maxims.
¨ Maxims ca