Monday, September 27, 2010

Insight, Inrterpretation, Learning How

Whitehead's theory of Concrescence amounts to agreement with Heidegger that lived experience is interpretive, for, it entails that any cognitive process consists in an adaptation of data to the subject. Hence, it likewise concurs that Insight is something that is 'gained'. On the other hand, to the extent that an Insight is gained, that it is gained 'into' its object is difficult to reconcile, since, in Interpretation, it is the object that enters into the subject. However, there is one kind cognitive process in which data is both internalized by the subject, and, yet, remains independent of the cognizing subject--learning how. For, the internalized data remains a formula that is meaningful only insofar as the subject externalizes itself by enacting it. In other words, to further confirm a previous thesis, the object of Insight is always an explanatory ground, e. g. a detective's who- and howdunnit, a scientific principle, etc. Since, Whitehead and Heidegger are both primarily interested in the teleology of experience, the executive interpretation of precepts seems to be outside the purview of their theories. Merleau-Ponty, as previously discussed, does appreciate that Consciousness is 'I can', but not to the extent that he relates it to 'I interpret'. In contrast, for Peirce, the object of an Insight is an hypothesis, and he is the pioneer of the theory that hypotheses are primarily operational, yet, he does not seem to further conclude that the object of an Insight is heuristic.

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