Tag Archives: Richard McKeon

Direction of Fit

November 22, 2022 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

The notion of “Direction of Fit” can describe several associated concepts, from a specific one in “Speech Act Theory” (SAT) to the more general one in the “Philosophy of Mind” (POM). For SAT, the concept depends on whether words accurately describe the world (word-to-world), or if the world is actually altered by words (world-to-word) (or possibly both or neither). For POM, the concept is generalized to be between mind (or thought) and world, and of course, word could serve to mediate between mind (or thought) and world.

I propose that direction of fit could also be enlarged to encompass the fits of world-to-world and word-to-word.

Perhaps the notion of world fitting to world is tautological, that it is always true by necessity. For any fit of world to world is natural, in as much as we understand it, because anything else would be super-natural. This is the realm of science then, when we try to explain how the mechanism of the world behaves in its ordered operation. I imagine that we could also put engineering and technology in this case, since we are trying to create an artifact in the world that meshes with the normal goings on of nature. If it meshes very poorly, it either breaks or nature does instead.

The notion of word fitting to word is interesting as well. It is not given that words I write will fit with the words that you read, or there is a proper fit between speaking and listening. I guess the art of rhetoric can be placed here, as how we can fashion our words best to convince or explain or engage. In the POM sense, perhaps any art could be included as well, from literature to music to visual arts, since they strive to convey thoughts to thoughts. I am reminded of the notion of the perfect language in accurately describing the world or of complete understanding between minds.

Maybe words describing world could also be science, but perhaps its proper realm should be more of history or the states of human affairs. This is more in agreement with the opposite direction of World-to-Word, or world fitting to word.

Maybe I’m just thinking of a certain fourfold of Richard McKeon, and want to make a correspondence of

Word-to-World => Thought
World-to-Word => Action
Word-to-Word => Word
World-to-World => Thing

although I’m not sure this works.

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction_of_fit

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_of_reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Message_in_the_Bottle#%22The_Delta_Factor%22

https://read.dukeupress.edu/the-philosophical-review/article-abstract/123/4/429/87552/On-the-Very-Idea-of-Direction-of-Fit?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.jstor.org/stable/44290001

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/belief/

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intention/

http://www.gavinjensen.com/blog/category/Philosophy+of+Language

Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions

[*12.96, *12.98]

architectonics, fourfolds, Philosophy, sixteenfolds

Richard McKeon’s Aspects of Knowing, Part 3

July 1, 2019 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

Previously on this blog:

Each method can be associated with a discursive process: operational with debate, dialectical with dialogue, logistic with proof, and problematic with inquiry. Each method is also associated with a mode of thought which in turn has two moments and one dependency or assumption: the operational method is debate by discrimination and postulation dependent on chosen theses, the dialectical method is dialogue by assimilation and exemplification dependent on changeless models, the logistic method is proof by construction and decomposition dependent on indivisible constituents, and the problematic method is inquiry by resolution and question dependent on discoverable causes.

For this diagram, the four dependencies or assumptions are in the center, and the associated methods are adjacent to them. Filling out the outer edge are the four pairs of moments. Listed, these facets are:

Methods (associated discursive process): Operational (Debate), Dialectical (Dialogue), Logistic (Proof), Problematic (Inquiry)
Assumptions: Chosen Theses, Changeless Models, Indivisible Constituents, Discoverable Causes
Modes of Thought: discrimination and postulation, assimilation and exemplification, construction and decomposition, resolution and question

The second diagram comes from a chart in McKeon’s “Philosophic Semantics and Philosophic Inquiry”. Here, the four methods are in the upper left corner (Universal) and lower right corner (Particular), and four principles are in the lower left corner (Meroscopic) and upper right corner (Holoscopic). Four interpretations are in the center (the vertical pair is Ontic, and the horizontal pair is Phenomenal), and four selections are adjacent to them. Listed, these facets are:

Methods: Operational, Dialectical, Logistic, Problematic
Principles: Simple, Actional, Comprehensive, Reflexive
Interpretations: Existentialist, Entitative, Ontological, Essentialist
Selections: Knower (Types), Knowable (Matters), Knowledge (Hierarchies), Known (Kinds)

Note that the Archic Matrix of Watson and Dilworth is essentially derived from this, and even has many of the same terms. However and obviously, the sixteen-fold arrangements of the two diagrams are different.

Further Reading:

http://www.richardmckeon.org

Richard McKeon’s Aspects of Knowing

Richard McKeon’s Aspects of Knowing, Part 2, V3

The Archic Matrix

[*5.184, *5.185, *6.20, *11.102, *11.106]

architectonics, fourfolds, Philosophy, sixteenfolds

The Archic Matrix

September 13, 2018 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

Now that I am presenting sixteen-folds, let me briefly return to a subject I’ve mentioned previously. The Archic Matrix of Walter Watson and David Dilworth is a four-by-four matrix representing different aspects of the “personalities” of philosophers, determined by their writings. It is adapted from the Philosophical Semantics of philosopher Richard McKeon.

The four aspects of the Archic Matrix (also called Archic Variables) in this diagram are Perspective (upper left), Reality (lower left), Method (upper right), and Principle (lower right). The archic variable Perspective can have values Personal, Agonistic, Existential, and Creative, and similarly for the other three variables.

Each of the values of each of the variables is conditioned by one of the variables. For example, Personal is only conditioned by the Archic Variable Perspective, even though it is already a value of that variable. The value Agonistic is conditioned by the Archic Variable Method, Existential by Reality, and Creative by Principle.

Whereas the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a two-by-four matrix giving sixteen different combinations for its four personality “variables”, each having two values, the four-by-four Archic Matrix has four values for each of four variables and so gives 256 different combinations. It would be interesting if someone mapped the larger scheme into the smaller.

Further Reading:

Walter Watson and David Dilworth’s Archic Matrix

Archic Matrix: Perspectives

Archic Matrix: Realities

Archic Matrix: Methods

Archic Matrix: Principles

Richard McKeon’s Aspects of Knowing

http://www.ottobwiersma.nl/philosophy/archic_matrix.php

http://wwwhistoricalthreads.blogspot.com/2010/07/walter-watson-architectonics-of-meaning.html

http://www.philosophicalprofile.org/test/index.php

Notes:

The only work that seems to mention both the Archic Matrix and Myers-Briggs is as follows:

Mondo Secter / The Architectonics of Culture: A Critique, Modification, and Extension of Hofstede’s Study of Societal Culture with a Chinese-Based Typology, Ph.D. Dissertation, Simon Fraser University, August 2003

Click to access b31853754.pdf

Secter is elsewhere mentioned to be completing an adaption of this dissertation (albeit long ago), called “The Architectonics of Culture and Personality: Six Core Dimensions of Who We Are”. It would useful to know anything else about this work. Updates, anyone?

[* 10.151]

alchemy, fourfolds, logic

The Marriage of Opposites, Part 3

March 2, 2018 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature; but different in degree.

— From The Kybalion by The Three Initiates

There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

— Niels Bohr

I have mentioned the alchemical notion of the “Marriage of Opposites” several times (here and here). When opposites marry, what happens as a result? Do they cancel one another out, leaving just a boring average as result? Do they explode in a fiery conflagration, like matter and anti-matter releasing energy? Or do they create a new thing, something that is greater than the sum of their parts?

If opposites annihilate each other, what is the result, emptiness or a void? It is often said that nature abhors a vacuum (“horror vacui”), but I think it is far more true that the mind does. In dualistic thinking, everything that is not one thing must be its opposite. Not good is bad, not happy is sad, not black is white.

In classical logic, the Law of the Excluded Middle says that for any proposition “p”, either it is true or its negation “not p” is true. Thus, “p or not p” is necessarily true, a tautology. Similarly, their combination “p and not p”, cannot ever be true, and so is necessarily false. If one can assume “not p” and derive a contradiction, then “p” must be true (reductio ad absurdum).

In intuitionistic logic, one cannot deduce “p” simply from the falsity of “not p” (that is, “not not p”), one must actually prove that “p” is true. So “p or not p” may still be uncertain, if we don’t know how to prove “p”. However, “p and not p” is still false, based on the falsity of “not p”.

In the viewpoint of Dialetheism, it is offered that there are truths whose opposites are also true, called “true contradictions”. Dialetheisms cannot exist in formal logics because if “p and not p” is true, then you can deduce anything you want and your logic breaks down. Nonetheless, much thought through the years has been dedicated to dialetheisms and their ilk. Please see the recent work by philosopher Graham Priest.

When one considers something and its opposite at the same time, how can you reach an agreement between them? In magnetism, opposite charges attract and like charges repel. All too often, opposite viewpoints vigorously repel each other instead of reaching a happy medium. Each viewpoint considers the other “false” and so they push away at each other, instead of meeting halfway in compromise.

If there is empirical evidence supporting one viewpoint and not the other, and both parties can agree to it, then problem solved. But if viewpoints are more like ideologies, and one side shows evidence that the other side dismisses, what then? Are we only left to agree to disagree? That doesn’t seem like a long term solution.

In this blog I have insinuated but not stated explicitly that a marriage of opposites can often be achieved by combining it with another pair of opposites. Rather than meeting in the middle to a void or an annihilation, one can reach the other side by “going around” the danger, by way of intermediates. Much like Winter reaches Summer by passing through Spring and Summer reaches Winter via Fall, this type of structure is found everywhere in human thinking.

In fact, many systems of pluralistic philosophies are built on fourfolds instead of dualities. For example, see the work of Richard McKeon, specifically this paper.

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kybalion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_vacui_(physics)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentia_mirabilis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitionistic_logic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest

http://www.richardmckeon.org/

Click to access McK-PhilosophicSemantics&Inquiry.pdf

https://www.quora.com/Is-Graham-Priest-sincere-and-serious-about-his-stance-on-dialetheism-I-have-difficulty-empathizing-with-such-a-position-What-should-I-do-to-better-understand-this-position-Do-other-philosophers-respect-this-position/answer/Toni-Kannisto?share=368d7909&srid=5ofmf

[*10.32]

fourfolds

A Game of Fourfolds, Part 5

February 24, 2018 Martin K. Jones 2 Comments

In this fifth installment of our ongoing series, I propose that a game could be played by making a set of equally sized and shaped triangular tiles with simple words or phrases on them. The triangles are all isosceles right triangles, also called monoboloes, so that two of them joined along their long edge would be a square, and four of them joined at their right angles would be a larger square. Figures of two tiles joined along any edge of equal length are called diaboloes, three are called triaboloes, four are called tetraboloes, and in general the figures are called polyboloes (or also polytans, after the Chinese tangram puzzle).

The words or short phrases on the monoboloes would need to be chosen judiciously so that each word has a matching opposite. (A list of such pairs of opposites or duals can be found at my previous fourfold game post.) This is so that a square diabolo could be formed from opposites, and a square tetrabolo could be formed that makes some conceptual sense. In fact, the game play would require that tiles should only be played and joined if there was a rational or explainable reason for their combination.

For example, “Water” and “Fire” could be aligned along their long edge as well as a short edge, whereas “Earth” and “Below”, not being opposites, could only be aligned along a short edge. Opposites could also be aligned “corner” to “corner” (where corner is the 90 degree angle), if there is a supporting tile between them.

During game play, the players alternate playing tiles from their hand onto the table, or pick tiles up from the table and place them back in different positions. Obviously the rules of play would need to be specified in more detail, as well as a method for scoring so that a player could “win”. Or, as a game of solitaire, perhaps winning is just maximizing the number of tiles played onto the table, or the illumination of concepts brought about by the play.

I might also consider that the flip-side of a monobolo is the same word but perhaps having white letters on a black background or colored differently to distinguish it from the “front”. And would the flip-sides all be of the same color? As I have shown various fourfolds on this blog, I have tried to orient them in a common conceptual “direction”, although that is often not clear to me or agreed upon by others of similar temperament. Perhaps they could be the same color if they metaphorically point this same way.

Also, by design and by construction, the monoboloes could be considered “Words”, diaboloes could be considered “Thoughts”, triaboloes could be considered “Actions”, and tetraboloes could be considered “Things”. This would be more in line with the hierarchy given by Richard McKeon’s 1972 lectures on Aristotle’s “Topics”. Words, thoughts, actions, and things are called “commonplaces” by McKeon, or a “place within which inquiry about meanings that are about things that are covered by that meaning can take place”.

The association of these tiles with tangrams is an interesting one. The standard tangram set consists of two small tans (unitans?), three bitans (square, midtan?, and paratan?), and two tetratans that form larger tans (bigtans?). I wonder if there is a standard nomenclature for these pieces, because mine seems rather silly.

I used to have a tangram set when I was a child and even still have an old Dover book by Ronald C. Reed “Tangrams: 330 puzzles”. It’s nice to see that it’s still available on Amazon. Of course the arrangement of the pieces in tangrams is much more flexible than what I’m proposing here for my game so really they are very little alike.

Further Reading:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Polyabolo.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_models_of_personality

Richard McKeon / Disciplines, Arts, and Faculties: Invention and Justification: Topics, Lectures given at University of Chicago 1972. (Taped, Transcribed and Edited by Patrick F. Crosby, by private communication)

Notes:

Possible names for tile combinations:

Unit, Solitary, Unitary, Simple, Singular, Singleton
Binary, Duplex, Dual, Twofold, Bipartite
Triple, Threefold, Ternary, Trinity, Tripartite
Quaternary, Quadruple, Tetrad, Fourfold, Quadripartite

[*10.72]

architectonics, fourfolds, Philosophy

Richard McKeon’s Aspects of Knowing, Part 2, V3

October 10, 2017 Martin K. Jones 4 Comments

The duals in Richard McKeon’s system of Philosophical Semantics can also be arranged in a three-dimensional tetrahedron, where the dual pairs are on opposing edges. The universal and particular methods, the phenomenal and ontic interpretations, and the meroscopic and holoscopic principles are shown above.

Universal methods, between knower and knowledge, are applicable to all problems and all subject matters. Particular methods, between the knowable and the known, require distinct methodological procedures for different problems or subject matters.

Holoscopic principles, looking at the parts from the perspective of the whole, provide a coincidence of knowledge and known. Meroscopic principles, looking at the whole from the perspective of the parts, separate the knower and the knowable from each other and from influence between each other.

Ontic interpretations, between the knowable and knowledge, derive their character from a reality assumed to transcend or to underlie phenomena and statements. Phenomenal interpretations, between knower and the known, may reduce reality and values to aspects or consequences of phenomena.

Alternatively, the four vertices of knower, knowledge, known, and knowable can be labeled by their method, principle, and interpretation as shown at right.

Further Reading:

http://www.richardmckeon.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_McKeon

Notes:

As McKeon said in his lecture of October 23, 1972 (the “Topics course”, unpublished): “You can either look at things from the point of view of the whole — then the principles are holoscopic (holos means whole, skopein means to look). Or, you can take the same set of facts, and view them from the part: then you have meroscopic principles. (Meros means part, skopein still means to look at).”

[*6.136]

fourfolds, Philosophy

Four Philosophies

May 14, 2015 Martin K. Jones 3 Comments

If one could divide all philosophies into four groups, what would those groups be? There doesn’t seem to be a strong consensus on how to do this although several have tried.

My first inclination is to start with the Archic Philosophers, discussed by Robert McKeon and his students Walter Watson and David Dilworth. These would be the Sophists, Plato, Democritus, and Aristotle. Philosophies aren’t usally divided in this way, but pros of doing this is that all four groups emerge from classical Greek thought. One of the main cons is that many would not agree that all philosophies are decendents of these four philosophers, or even combinations of aspects from each.

Another student of McKeon, Robert S. Brumbaugh, thought the process philosophies starting from those of Heraclitus and Anaxagoras (both pre-Socratic) and ranging through Whitehead should be represented instead of the Sophists. Otherwise he choose the same three as McKeon, giving Anaxagorean, Platonic, Democritean, and Aristotelian philosophies. By doing this he can form the double dual of Materialist-Formalist (direction) and Holoscopic-Meroscopic (method).

Anaxagoras: Materialist, Holoscopic
Platonic: Formalist, Holoscopic
Democritean: Materialist, Meroscopic
Aristotelian: Formalist, Meroscopic

Two works older than Brumbaugh’s that divide philosophy into the same four groups are those of Ralph Barton Perry and James Donald Butler. Their division is Naturalism, Idealism, Pragmatism, and Realism. I believe that the Realism in these books means Platonic Realism, instead of the more recent Scientific Realism thought of today. Of course Realism has many shadings as seen below.

It might be advantageous to consider Naturalism as a group instead of Realism, since the very concept of the real has so much disagreement. Naturalism does too, but not the extent that Realism does.

Several web sites divide four philosophies of eduction into Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, and Existentialism. To me, Existentialism is similar to the Relativism of the Sophists. But what about Phenomenalism? Is that more like Relativism or Idealism?

There is also the monumental work “The Sociology of Philosophies” by Randall Collins but I haven’t examined it yet. I suspect they are not condensed or simplified into four groups.

So for now I’ve settled on Relativism, Idealism, Pragmatism, and Naturalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_philosophies

Walter Watson / The Architectonics of Meaning: Foundations of the New Pluralism

David Dilworth / Philosophy in World Perspective: A Comparative Hermeneutic of the Major Theories

Robert S. Brumbaugh / Western Philosophic Systems and Their Cyclic Transformations

Ralph Barton Perry /Present Philosophical Tendencies: a critical survey of naturalism, idealism, pragmatism, and realism together with a synopsis of the philosophy of William James

James Donald Butler /Four Philosophies and Their Practice in Education and Religion

Randall Collins / The Sociology of Philosophies: a global theory of intellectual change

[*8.138, *8.151, *8.152]

fourfolds, hermeneutics, logic

The Rational Structure of Inquiring Systems

February 26, 2015 Martin K. Jones Leave a comment

What are the components of consciousness? In the dissertation of L. Kurt Engelhart we see a fourfold used to analyze the texts and bodies of work of both scientists and philosophers, a hermeneutical tool if you will. This tool is also styled by concepts of “systems theory”, and requires the exposition of the aspects of Content, Control, Process, and Purpose of the authors. These match closely the Four Causes of Aristotle, which are the causes of made things or the explanations of how and why they came about: material, efficient, formal, and final. In fact, this close association was one of the main reasons I dove into the world of fourfolds. Texts are made things, after all.

Making is so fundamental to what we do, that humans have been called “Homo Faber”, man the maker. We make tools, stories, culture, and even our concept of self. What if I turned this tool onto my own work, the writings and images found here? Perhaps that will be the project of another analyst, if my efforts warrant. What if I applied this tool to Engelhart’s project? That would be interesting indeed.

Another fourfold Engelhart presents is that of the domains of conscious experience, or the self itself as system. This fourfold consists of the Real, the Actual, the Ideal, and the Literal, but my version is in disagreement with Engelhart’s as to the classification of integrative and differentiative for the Ideal and the Literal. My assignments match the conjunctive and disjunctive properties of the operators of Linear Logic. Also left out is the Universal and how it supersedes the Actual as we make a complete turn. I like my version because it is similar to Richard McKeon’s Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions. Also T. S. Eliot’s Falls the Shadow.

Of course this is just a brief gloss of the rich ideas presented in Engelhart’s work. Another of his key concepts is that of wholeness, which I have completely omitted. I hope to return and write a better review at a later time. I’m glad to see that Engelhart’s dissertation is now available as a Kindle book for the low, low price of $1. It is much easier to read in this format! From the Amazon Book Description:

This study describes, as a single systemic model of inquiry, the context common to conscious experience of the phenomenon of inquiry. Data are the published texts of selected contemporary writers relevant to the question. The problem is to define a common systemic structure of inquiry in a context of consciousness. Research verifies that a specific structure is common to these writers and that their respective views are converging on this same structure.

Identifying a common structure involves reducing the textual descriptions of the writers to their systemically relevant essentials. Defining the essential elements and describing a reduction method depends heavily on theory of metaphor and metaphorical evolution. A history of the metaphorical structure relevant to inquiry is described and this structure is used as a basis for finding structure in the selected texts. Texts researched include evolutionary biology, sociology, psychology (phenomenology), and philosophy. This work replicates that done by Talcott Parsons in experimentally describing a voluntaristic theory of action. A wholistic theory of inquiry is described using the same systemic scheme.

The metaphysical approaches to inquiry of realism and idealism have converged on a common theoretical structure for describing inquiry. Commonalities emphasize systemic structure comprising the elements of function: purpose, process, content, and control. It has been necessary to distinguish between affectual and instrumental purposes, and between organic and mechanical function. The ontological essentiality of the structure reveals a necessary logical relationship between function, systemicity, wholeness, and rationality in human understanding. Continuing research in philosophy is crucial to expanding our understanding of the ontological and epistemological structural essentials of consciousness.

Human inquiry during the last century has specialized in the material realm of realism, objective description, and mechanical explanation. A wholistic theory of inquiry does not discount the contributions of realism-based science or idealism-based philosophy, but expands the horizons of each to include the other. Where mathematics provides essential tools for mechanical explanation, organic explanation still lacks abstract structural tools for describing conscious organic, including human, behavior. The intent of a wholistic theory of inquiry is to provide conceptual tools that support disciplined inquiry into conscious behavior.

References and Links:

L. Kurt Engelhart / Wholeness and the Rational Structure of Inquiring Systems: A Dissertation

http://lkengelhartassoc.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_faber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does

Notes:

I removed some text about the “Book of Nature”, because it needed more work. This mentioned the systems theory adage “the purpose of a system”, which can also tie into “meaning as use”. I also missed seeing an obvious thought that inquiry is making.

[*2.188, *3.104, *8.134]

Discourse, fourfolds, Philosophy

Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions

June 6, 2013 Martin K. Jones 4 Comments

Here are some additional fourfolds from philosopher Richard McKeon.

McKeon wrote much on the subject of rhetoric. A favorite fourfold of concepts was that of Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions. He called these “commonplaces of inquiry” or “places of invention and memory”. Two rhetorical devices he used were amplification and schematization. Amplification can extend the scope of, for example, words to the other three, similar to the principle of indifference. “Objectivity is the inclusive principle of indifference by which it is recognized that being is grasped only in what we think, and say, and do about it.” [1] Schematization was used to identify and distiguish, for example, commonplaces. Thus I think amplification is a conjunctive device, and schematization is a disjunctive device.

Another fourfold of subjects by McKeon was Topics, Themes, Theses, and Hypotheses. McKeon wrote, “Speculation concerning discourse must avoid the fixities of categories, doctrines, methods, and assumptions which discourse assumes in any one form of philosophy or inquiry, if it is to include all the forms which discourse takes in philosophy and in inquiry, action, and production. This is possible because the variety of categories or elements is approached in discourse by way of common topics or ‘commonplaces’; the variety of facts or statements of what is the case by way of common hypotheses; the variety of arts or methods of treating problems by way of common themes; and the variety of assumptions or principles by way of common theses.” [2]

Are both these fourfolds aligned correctly with the previous Knowable, Knowledge, Known, and Knower? McKeon’s use of terms in his rhetoric was very fluid, perhaps to prevent systemization or to promote pluralism. However, his main reference to fourfolds was Aristotle’s four scientific questions, or Four Causes, which we can use to try to understand his fourfolds.

References:

Theresa Enos (ed.) / Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition: Communication from Ancient Times to the Information Age

[1] Richard McKeon / Selected Writings of Richard McKeon: Volume One: Philosophy, Science, and Culture

[2] Richard McKeon / Selected Writings of Richard McKeon, Volume Two: Culture, Education, and the Arts

Click to access McKNotes-Semantics&Inquiry_Intro.pdf

H. L. Ulman / Things, Thoughts, Words, and Actions: the problem of language in late Eighteenth-Century British rhetorical theory

[*5.197, *6.140, *7.162, *7.165]

architectonics, fourfolds, Philosophy

The Archic Philosophers

May 3, 2013 Martin K. Jones 1 Comment

In a word, the Sophist begins from man, the Democritean from matter, the Platonist from form, and the Aristotelian from functioning.

— From The Architectonics of Meaning, by Walter Watson

Inspired by philosopher Richard McKeon, I believe that philosophy as a whole is encompassed by four main philosophical stances, exemplified by four ancient philosophers: the Sophists (as a group), Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle. Their four systems of thought lay out principal philosophical directions, much like the compass directions east, south, north, and west lay out a complete set of primary directions.

Of course the compass directions can be subdivided into north-east, or south-south-west, and so on, and similarly each of these philosophical systems can be divided into four parts. This division into a four-by-four matrix is called the Archic Matrix and was written about at length in the separate but complementary works of Walter Watson and David Dilworth.

Watson and Dilworth described the four main philosophical directions to be perspective, reality, method, and principle: perspective for the Sophists, reality for Democritus, method for Plato, and principle for Aristotle. I have written about these philosophical perspectives previously in several ways.

Thus philosophy as a practice goes around and around and revisits the same ideas over and over. Perhaps McKeon thought his philosophical system followed in the footsteps of Aristotle, and probably Watson and Dilworth had a similar view.

Likewise, I believe that my fourfold of Structure-Function represents these four philosophical directions in the following way: Action(s) for the Sophists, Part(s) for Democritus, Structure for Plato, and Function for Aristotle.

[*6.108]
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