Finished Meta-Paradigms in Philosophical Thought

The existence of age-old underlying patterns in the knowledge endeavor at large leads one to the view that an explanation of the divergences in human thought can fruitfully be found beyond the various philosophical theories, systems and ideas itself.

Fascinating: at the very least, this could be an entry point for a taxonomy of philosophy. But if the debate has really been raging for at least that long, then I suspect it is because the two views are incommensurable.

So, in the modern sense, Plato could be described as the intuitive (visionary) theorist, the idealist; whilst Aristotle, although he accepted intuitive knowledge as the "only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing.." (Jones,1970:253), can be identified as the true scientist, the realist.

There is a good chapter at the end of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Leonard Peikoff. It is called "The Duel between Plato and Aristotle". Peikoff argues that for two millennia, Western history has been the expression of a philosophic duel between Plato and Aristotle. That the conflict is real, at least at the philosophical level, seems reflected in Pietersen's analysis here as well, which reflects Rand's notion that Plato represented the primacy-of-consciousness view, and Aristotle the primacy-of-reality view.

Figure 3 builds on Figure 2 (extrapolated from Plato's theory of knowledge) and proposes four distinctive intellectual archetypes or meta-paradigms underlying and shaping all human thought.

Pietersen's work is even more profound than I thought. I am now in a position to explain why Pietersen ignores four possible meta-paradigms in his analysis of Jaspers' paradigmatic individuals: He considers the Worldliness/Other-worldliness axis to be incidental to his classification of the meta-paradigms, while Immanence/Transcendence and Rationalism/Subjectivism are essential. He does argue quite persuasively that each of the four paradigmatic individuals map quite cleanly into each of the four proposed meta-paradigms. Yet it does seem a little too convenient that even worldliness/other-worldliness should admit of exactly two exemplars from the paradigmatic individuals. It makes the whole characterisation sound over-formalised.

Still, I find his four-way system quite striking, and analagous to my original four-way construal of commensurability. I am left to wonder whether we can fruitfully combine Pietersen's meta-paradigms with our own theory of commensurability. We decided that 'commensurability' was being used in the wrong way for your original four-way theory in your Masters thesis. I have now modified that theory so that it is a proper subset of the dictionary definition of that word. Yet the new formulation precludes the possibility of appreciability, a category which I still think has merit, especially when it comes to respecting social norms that are not necessarily rational. So I was thinking of a new word to describe what was being measured in that old theory, such as reasonableness or plausibility. Given that it is literally 'conduciveness to a non-coercive convergence of opinion', 'convergeability' would also be an option--but that is such an ugly word that I doubt I will use it much.

First, I think that the current construal of commensurability to be correct. To properly speak of levels of commensurability, you are really talking about whether a disagreement can be resolved through rational debate. As far as the place of appreciability is concerned, that can happen at any of the other levels of commensurability. An absurdity may be appreciable or unappreciable, as may a provably false claim or an otherwise 'respectable' view, because appreciability is a separate dimension, to do with whether someone is sympathetic to the other side of the argument.

It is striking that appreciability should be a completely separate dimension. Perhaps this is because it deals with a faculty separate from the rational. It deals with the human ability to extend oneself into the perspective of another person, and see the world as if from her own eyes, which requires imagination, thereby resulting in empathy, thereby resulting in sympathy. This may or may not occur naturally, but seems always to be possible as an act of will, although most philosophers just let their imagination run where it may.

I wonder whether these categories are really 'meta-paradigms' at all, or whether they are simply different thinking styles. If they described types of paradigms, then one could be excused for trying to apply the concept of commensurability meaningfully to them. But if they are simply thinking styles, then this will render the notion of commensurability to be orthogonal in the first place.

The point of view is taken that no one particular mode of thought (with its own preferred knowledge premises, special language, concepts and methods, including its own journals) provides the 'ultimate' answer to life's important questions.

It seems to me that the different modes of thought have their obvious independent success stories. Type I thought thrives in mathematics and logic, Type II in the physical sciences, and Types III and IV in the humanities. But admittedly, the "modes of thought" do seem to produce their own paradigms ("knowledge premises, special language, concepts and methods, including [their] own journals"). This probably means that there is a real lack of level 2 commensurability between the meta-paradigms. Note, however, that Pietersen does not here commit himself to a perspectivist interpretation of the meta-paradigms:

Whether some higher level synthesis of the [sic] is feasible, or indeed advisable, is a debatable question.

But given their apparent foundational disparity, this conclusion is still tempting to draw.