PHILOSOPHIC SEMANTICS
& PHILOSOPHIC INQUIRY:
PARSED AND ANNOTATED
TEXT VERSION

This page is a modification by Net Prophet of the text version of the original article by Richard McKeon.  The original WORDS are all intact, but the original paragraphs have been subdivided and parsed.   IN ADDITION, formatting has been changed and notes have been added by Net Prophet.   This is one more layer of modification to the simple parsed-text version.

The intent of this further modification is to make the structure easier to see, and the hopefully the article easier to understand by noting the internal ties, links and similarities which were apparently so obvious to Mr. McKeon after many decades of daily use that he didn't feel he needed to belabor them.  In particular, I want to trace the four modes of thought through ALL of the semantic disctinctions.   Mr. McKeon lists the four modes of thought in a rather offhand way, often in different orders, and apparently thinks the connecting links are so obvious he doesn't need to spell them out.

In addition, I am very intrigued by his statement that "The four modes of thought are mutually exclusive and exhaustive of possible modes."  This suggests an intriguing mathematical foundation to me.    It seems to me [and Mr. McKeon never suggested this that I know of, so I have absolutely NO authority for this idea at all] that each of the four modes of thought is associated with a real integer.   I see them as relateted to the first four prime numbers: zero, one, two and three.  [Yes, I know that zero and one are usually defined away as non-primes, and also non-composites, but I would argue that is an absurd and anomalous definition.]   So I further wish to investigate this possible connection, and get feedback from mathematicians, philosophers, and other students of Mr. McKeon.

[My comments within Mr. McKeon's article will be within brackets, as this sentence.]

Philosophic Semantics and Philosophic Inquiry

Richard McKeon

The nature and functions of philosophy, like those of any other enterprise, are determined by its subject-matter and its conditioning circumstances.  In a broad ambiguous sense, the subject-matter and circumstances of philosophy are the same, for they both range through
    the processes of nature,
    the structure of the cosmos,
    the experiences of men, and
    the institutions of societies.  

But in a narrower more precise sense, the forces of "nature" and the problems of "experience" which condition philosophizing differ from the interpretations of "nature" and "experience" which result from philosophizing as a material stimulus differs from a theoretical product.  The beginnings of philosophizing are prehistoric, in the broad sense that the earliest recorded stages of religion, literature, history, political organization., and science presuppose and even record prior speculation and prior problems.  Philosophy is one of the marks of an advanced culture, in the narrow and precise sense that the statement and examination of basic problems are culminating points of theory, practice, and production.  Philosophies have borrowed from science, politics, and art; they have determined the nature and organization of knowledge, society, and aesthetic experience.   The enterprises and objects which have been both subject-matters and conditioning-influences of a philosophy include other philosophies.  As subject-matter, the reinterpretation or refutation of other philosophies, past or contemporary, is a proper part of the statement of any philosophy; as conditioning-influence, the continuity of philosophies in history and in controversy makes any philosophy at once an architectonic [structural design] reorganization of what is sound in the statements of philosophers and a cathartic exposure of what is absurd.  In the broad ambiguous sense there are as many interpretations of the philosophy of Aristotle or of Wittgenstein as there are interpretations of nature; in the strict sense there is only one true interpretation of statements or things.

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The basic ambiguity of philosophic statement and discussion is not peculiar to philosophy. It is common to all discourse and to reflective inquiry in all fields.  One of the tasks which has always been an inseparable or irresistible adjunct to philosophical speculation is the clarification of ambiguities.   Ambiguities and contradictions are treated in two ways in inquiry: they are removed by choosing one of the several meanings of an ambiguous term or statement and by showing the others are absurd or irrelevant, or they are used by distinguishing the several senses and the appropriate regions of their application.  Communication and presentation depend on unambiguous definition in basic statements and on consequential consistency in discursively related statements; discussion and inquiry depend on productive ambiguity in the interpretation of common problems and suggestive inconsistency in the assumptions proposed to resolve them.  The statement of the solution of a problem moves from undifferentiated ambiguity to literal precision. 

Philosophic semantics is an examination of different solutions of philosophic problems; philosophic inquiry is an examination of common issues to which different philosophic resolutions may be found.  The unambiguous resolution of a fundamental problem often leads to new ambiguous problems; semantics and inquiry are therefore stages in the ongoing process of philosophy.  If they are differentiated, the relations among philosophies may be stated unambiguously and the recurrence of philosophic problems may be distinguished from the progress of philosophic resolutions.

The semantic interpretation of philosophies will never yield unique, adequate, or universally accepted interpretations of any philosophy, but philosophic semantics may provide schemata by which to make unambiguously clear the meanings that are attributed in a proposed interpretation to statements made in any philosophy.  There is no simple relation between distinct philosophic positions nor is a comprehensive or sequential translation possible from one to another, but different philosophies are significantly related by the common

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problems they treat, and philosophic inquiry may provide modes by which to relate the stages of different solutions based an different interpretations of common problems.  There is a variety of ways in which the schemata of semantics have been set up in the history of philosophy, and the distinctions have been employed in a variety of modes of philosophic inquiry.  The semantic distinctions have accumulated a mass of ambiguities from which they are rescued periodically by the precisions of a great philosopher engaged in one of the modes of inquiry; and the modes of inquiry are reduced to precise repetitions in the doctrines of a school from which they are rescued periodically by the controversial reformulation of common problems in the mode of a rival school.  The precisions of philosophic semantics may be preserved by connections established by the modes of inquiry, and the communications among modes of inquiry may be preserved by precisions established by the distinctions of semantics.

[The brackets in this paragraph refer to the modes of thought described on page 4, and the number which I have association with that mode of thought.  Further description follows]
Among the numerous semantic schemes that have been used in philosophy, one persistent and useful organization has been built about differences of method.  For all their ambiguity the differences between
    dialogue or the dialectical method, [1 = assimilation]
    debate or the operational method,  [0 = discrimination]
    proof or the logistic method, and    [3 = construction]]
    inquiry or the problematic method  [2 = resolution]
were stated in ancient philosophy, have run through histories of restatement and modification, and are still operative in contemporary philosophy.  The ambiguities arise in part because each of the methods assumes the functions of the others: dialectic is dialogue, but it is also debate, proof, and inquiry, and the same is true of each of the other methods; but they assume the functions of opposed methods by changing the method they borrow, and the transformation is therefore ambiguous and subject to clarification.  

The ambiguities arise in part also because a method is a discursive process which has a beginning or principles, and an end or conclusions; and the conclusions have constituent parts or categories.

Four inclusive main heads of philosophic semantics may be set up--Principles, Methods, Interpretations, and Selections--but the differentiation of methods, and the relations of the methods

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to principles, interpretations, and selections can be rendered precise only by reference to common problems and to the modes of philosophic inquiry.

The common problems of the modes of inquiry which use such a semantics built on methods are problems of
    things,         [3 = construction]
    thoughts,    [1 = assimilation]   
    facts, and    [? 0 = discrimination ?]    
    simples.       [? 2 = resolution ?]

The modes of inquiry may be differentiated under any of these four heads, and there is a strict equivalence of the modes in their operation on the common problems which fall under each of the heads.  The distinctions of the semantic scheme may therefore be established by consideration of the modes of thought. 

Even in non-technical considerations of thinking, four modes of thought may be distinguished:
    it is a process by which parts are put together, [3 = contruction]
    or englobing truths are approximated,                  [1 = assimilation]
    or problems are solved,                                             [2 = resolution]
    or arbitrary formulations are interpreted.              [0 = discrimination]

The four are formally exhaustive of possibilities:
    the assumption of least parts, but no whole except by composition;                        [3 = contruction]
    the assumption of an ontological unifying principle but no absolute least parts; [1 = assimilation]]
    the rejection of least parts and separated wholes and the assumption
            of problems and natures encountered in the middle region; and                        [2 = resolution]
    the assumption that all distinctions are initially arbitrary.                                              [0 = discrimination]              

The four modes of thought are mutually exclusive and exhaustive of possible modes.  Each of the modes has two moments and each makes use of a basic assumption:
    construction and decomposition make use of constituents; [3]
    assimilation and exemplification of models;                                [1]
    resolution and question of causes; and                                        [2]
    discrimination and postulation of theses.                                     [0]

[I assign the number in brackets to each mode of thought for the following reasons.  It is the number of items that are GIVEN or ASSUMED in each mode of thought.  Thus:
0 =  discrimination and postulation of theses; because there is NO given.   ANY analysis or dissection can be undertaken.  It is purely arbitrary and up to the knower.
1 =  assimilation and exemplification of models; because there is ONE archetype or global model that everything is seen to exemplify.  Nietzsche's "will to power" would be an example of this.
2 = resolution and question of causes; because problems are always oppositions expressed as a duality: good vs. evil, etc.
3 = construction and decomposition make use of constituents; because three or more elements are required for a choice of elements to contruct something.]

[You may or may not find this number association meaningful.  You might also relate the numbers to some other aspect of the modes of thought I have not noticed.  Even if you regard them as meaningless numberings, you can still use them as a arbitrary but usefully brief shorthand notation to denote the underlying unique modes of thought as they are expressed in principles, methods, interpretations  and simples.]

The four methods distinguished in philosophic semantics may be differentiated unambiguously by the four modes of thought, and the characteristic operations of each as a method may be clarified by the mode of thought used to define it.   Since there is a strict equivalence between the modes of thought and the modes of things, facts, and simples, the differentiation by the modes of thought may be translated into differentiations by modes of things, facts, and simples. 

The logistic method [3] is proof by construction and decomposition dependent on indivisible elements;

the dialectical method [1] is dialogue by assimilation and

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exemplification dependent on changeless models;

the problematic method [2] is inquiry by resolution and questions dependent on discoverable causes;

the operational method [0] is debate by discrimination and postulation dependent on theses and rules. 

So defined an important difference is observable in the four methods: two, the dialectical [1] and the operational methods [0], are universal methods applicable to all problems and all subject-matters, and they do not require indemonstrable first principles or univocal [having a single, sharply defined sense or nature; unambiguous] terms; 

the other two, the logistic [3] and the problematic [2] methods, are particular methods, which require distinct methodological procedures for different problems or subject-matters, each with its own indemonstrable first principles and univocal definitions.

The principles which are employed in conjunction with one of the methods need not be determined by the same mode of thought as the method.   Nonetheless, the kinds of principles may be distinguished from each other, as the methods were, by use of the modes of thought. 

Moreover, principles are beginnings, and beginnings may be found either in determinative wholes or in generative parts; and
    two modes of thought lead back to holoscopic [looking at or seeing the whole] principles, while
    two modes lead back to meroscopic [looking at or seeing the parts] principles. 

    Comprehensive principles [1] are holoscopic in that they assimilate all things, thoughts, symbols, and actions into an inclusive whole formed by an englobing principle. 
    Reflexive principles [2] are holoscopic in that they resolve problems into a plurality of wholes formed by principles which are reflexively instances of themselves.  

    Simple principles [3] are meroscopic in that they decompose things, thoughts, symbols, or actions into atoms, simple ideas, undefined terms, or unconditioned impulses from which to construct what is known to be and what is thought or felt or desired. 
    Actional principles [0] are meroscopic in that they postulate distinctions by which to discriminate into kinds what is said, done, or made.

The propositions which are established as conclusions and the actions which are determined as consequences of principles and methods need not be determined by the same mode of thought as the principles or the methods.  The kinds of

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interpretations may, nonetheless, be determined, as the methods and principles were, by use of the modes of thought.  Moreover, conclusions or consequences are found to be of two kinds;
    they may derive their character from a reality assumed to transcend or to underlie phenomena and statements  [ontic]
    or they may reduce reality and values to aspects or consequences of phenomena.  [phonomenal]

    Ontological interpretations [1] are ontic in that they assimilate what seems to be the case to a reality which transcends and corrects appearances. 
    Entitative interpretations [3] are ontic in that they construct secondary qualities, perceptions, emotions and other appearances from a nature which underlies phenomena.    

    Essentialistic interpretations [2] are phenomenal in that they resolve problems by seeking properties and causes which are natural functions or acquired conditionings. 
    Existentialistic interpretations [0] are phenomenal in that they discriminate statements and meanings which may be used to produce knowledge or attitudes or satisfactions.

The rigidities of doctrine and the ambiguities of problem for which philosophy is sometimes taxed are removed by the interplay of philosophic semantics and philosophic inquiry.  A philosophic problem is ambiguous.   Philosophic discussion of a problem explores a broad ambiguous answer to a question, and in the interpretation of the question, different meanings are used to form opposed hypotheses which guide the resolutions of the problem in different modes of inquiry.  In controversy the resulting reformulations of the original ambiguous answer are placed in opposition as if they were univocal and as if the choice between them were a simple problem of logic involving little more than the resolution of contradictions.  The different meanings and references of the statements thought to be contradictory are examined in philosophic semantics; and their adequacy, their relations to each other, and the new problems they may raise are subjects for philosophic inquiry.

The question, What is freedom? is one of the recurrent ambiguous questions of philosophy which has opened up new dimensions in contemporary thought and action. It is a significant question because the initial interpretation,

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"freedom is the absence of external impediments to action," focuses attention on the need to remove the ambiguities of "absence," "external," "impediment," and "action," and the growing host of ambiguities in each clarifying statement. 

The semantic scheme constructed from the modes of thought sets forth, thus far (see chart p. 13), three sets of determinations of the question, What is freedom? --
    What is freedom in fact or interpretation, What things are free?;
    What is freedom in thought or method, What property do free things share?;
    What is freedom in being or principle, What are the grounds of the possibility or the actuality of freedom? 

The question takes on a vast scope of meanings under these distinctions; and since a complete interpretation of the question makes use of all four semantic headings, the number is increased by the number of possible combinations of the four.  The indefinitely large number of possible meanings is the source of the richness of philosophic inquiry, for each interpretation may be used as the hypothesis for further investigation.

What is freedom? treated as, What or who are free? is a question of interpretation. 
    According to the entitative interpretation [3] freedom is unimpeded motion, and external impediments are hindrances to motion; bodies are free.  Human freedom is one instance of freedom to move: it is self-detemination as opposed to restraint or coercion. 
    According to the existentialist interpretation [0] freedom is spontaneous or undetermined activity, and external impediments include psychological as well as physical hindrances and the fixities of automatic and habitual responses; animate beings are free.  Human freedom is an instance of the freedom to originate: it is freedom of self-initiation or self-expression as opposed to conformity to the customary in action, opinion, or taste. 
    According to the essentialist interpretation [2] freedom is action in accordance with deliberative choice, and external impedimnts include lack of thought and decision as well as physical and psychological hindrances; men are free.   Human freedom is self-adjustment or self-realization as opposed to reliance on nature, chance, or

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fortune for the achievement of values. 
    According to the ontological interpretation [1] freedom is autonomous thought and action, and external impediments include lack of wisdom as well as limitations of reason and will; in a strict sense only God is free and intelligent beings or wise men approximate to the divine freedom.  Human freedom is self-perfection as opposed to determination by worldly, animal, or physical inclinations. 

In this large spread, from bodies to God, of interpretations of what or who is free, ontic interpretations are radically distinct from phenomenal interpretations:
    ontic freedoms consist in doing as one should -- acting according to one's nature or according to wisdom -- whether or not one pleases; while
    phenomenal freedoms consist in doing as one pleases -- spontaneously or voluntarily -- since freedom is a precondition of virtuous action not an operation of nature or an effect of the good.

What is freedom? treated as, What is the freedom of the free, or what actions are free? is a question of method or of the use of thought in the recognition or achievement of freedom. 
    Knowledge has a direct relation to freedom conceived according to the universal methods -- one must have knowledge, in the form of knowledge appropriate to the method, to be free. 
    The relation of knowledge to freedom is indirect in freedom achieved by the particular methods -- one need not oneself possess the knowledge which is needed to secure and safeguard one's freedom. 
    Universal freedoms depend on knowledge conceived as wisdom or on knowledge conceived as power. 
        Free actions are wise actions; and hindrances in the way of freedom are removed dialectically [1] by education and by development of knowledge leading to wisdom. 
        Free actions are willed actions; and freedom is achieved and retained operationally [0] by the acquisition and use of power and of knowledge which is power. 
    Particular freedoms depend on knowledge conceived as science or on knowledge conceived as prudence. 
        Free actions are actions in accordance with one's nature; and hindrances, inhibitions, and alienations may be removed to restore natural freedom by therapy performed by an expert in a logistic [3] science of human nature and its diseases. 
        Free actions are deliberate

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actions; and freedom is the precondition and the effect problematically [2] of democratic society, which operates according to prudence, or right reason, or the rule or law, without the necessity that all free men be endowed with prudence or be expert in jurisprudence.

What is freedom? treated as, What are the grounds of the possibility or the actuality of freedom, or what decisions are free? is a question of principles or of the groundings of freedom in being. 
    The possibility of freedom is grounded in the being of the universe or of man as holoscopic principles -- practical decisions are cognitive if self-rule is possible by approximating one's actions to a rational structure in all being or by establishing social institutions in which men are ruled by deliberations and decisions which they participate in and make. 
    The actuality of freedom is grounded in agreements or conventions of men as meroscopic principles -- practical decisions are emotive and persuasive if the end of action is to secure what one wants and if values are determined by agreement concerning desires to be satisfied and pleasures to be secured. 
    Society and justice are grounded in nature and being by holoscopic principles, and transitions may be made in valid inference from what is to what ought to be. 
    Communities and right and wrong are grounded in convention and agreement by meroscopic principles, and no inference is possible from what is to what ought to be. 

    Holoscopic principles [1,2] place freedom in a rational universe or in human societies. 
        Comprehensive principles [1], which establish a reflexive coincidence between that which is and that which is intelligible, make freedom in intelligent beings self-rule of inclinations and emotions by reason. 
        Reflexive principles [2], which establish reflexive beginnings in separate inquiries and fields, limit freedom to the principles of ethics and politics and make freedom self-rule in practical action.

    Meroscopic principles [3,0] place freedom in the pursuit of pleasure and the establishment of associations. 
        Simple principles [3], which provide the elements from which to construct what is real, seek the elements of value and communities in preferences and agreements: freedom operates in the pursuit of pleasures and

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the establishment of preferences. 
        Actional principles [0] are arbitrary principle used in the formulation and interpretation of the real and in the advancement of pleasure and the private and public good. 

The semantic schema makes it possible to explore in precise detail both the obvious fact that philosophers do not mean the same thing when they talk about freedom and also the less frequently recognized fact that the different meanings have been explored in implications and applications which emerge only rarely in comparable sequences or in conclusions which can be placed in simple correlation.   Philosophic semantics yields unambiguous philosophies which are related to each other in ambiguous controversy on common probems.  The semantic schema has been constructed by giving precise meanings to kinds of methods, interpretations, and principles by defining each by a mode of thought --
    assimilation,              [1]
    distinction,                 [0, usually he calls this "discrimination']]
    construction, and    [3]
    resolution.                  [2]

An ambiguous statement, like the initial definition of freedom, can then be given unambiguous meanings determined by methods, interpretations, and principles.  The unambiguous resolutions of a problem, like the problem of freedom, may be seen in their ambiguous relations to each other by transforming the schema to show how the basic terms used to analyze knowing -- knowledge, knower, known, and knowable -- are transformed in their meanings from analysis to analysis.

{Editor's Note: "||," "//," and "\\" in the above table represent hand-drawn ARROWS going both directions between the various pairs of linked terms in McKeon's original handouts.  They cannot be conveniently represented in ASCII in this text, but you can substitute the symbolic image of two-way flow or causation arrows immediately below this line for the above symbol pairs:
------->
<------- }

    Ontic interpretations set up relations between knowledge and the knowable:
        ontological interpretations [1] assimilate the knowable to knowledge;
        entitative interpretations [3] construct knowledge from the elements of the knowable. 
    Existentialist

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interpretations [0] present the known (nature, society, man, and art) as products of the discrimination and activity of the knower;
        essentialist interpretations [2] resolve the problems encountered in the known in theory, practice, and production to reconstitute the known in a new form. 

    In the dialectical method [1] knowledge is the objective which the knower seeks and approximates;
    in the operational method [0] the knower makes knowledge. 
    In the logistic method [3] the knowable is transformed into the known;
    in the problematic method [2] the known is used to inquire into the knowable. 

    Holoscopic principles [1,2] provide beginnings which are a coincidence of knowledge and known:
        comprehensive principles [1] set up inclusive coincidences of that which is most truly and that which is most intelligible;
        reflexive principles [2] seek a plurality of subject matters which are marked off by instances of knowledge which is self-instantiating and by beings which are self-caused or first causes.

     Meroscopic principles [0,3] provide beginnings in which the contributions of the knower and the knowable are separated from each other and from influence one on the other:
        actional principles [0] provide beginnings in uninterpreted terms set in fixed but undefined relations by thesis or postulation before they are interpreted to produce knowledge and values;
        simple terms [3] [simple principles?] provide beginnings which have no parts [that is, they are already the smallest parts or element] and therefore no possible error from which composite things and images and conventions can be formed without error in simple steps.

The ambiguities of the problems of philosophy and the precisions of the statements of philosophy fix the problems of defining the fourth and last column of the semantic schema, Selections.  Simples can be enumerated, but explanation of their natures and uses requires statement or interpretation which is established by use of method and principles.  Simples are employed in forming the constitutive parts of propositions, the terms and connectives of methods, and the simplicities of principles.  The modes of thought may be translated into the modes of simplicity to define the kinds of selection.
    Simples of assimilation [1] are categories of thought -- ideas and presentations which are modes of being or of phenomena; they are set forth in selection in hierarchies ordered to a

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transcendent idea or being. 
    Simples of discrimination [0] are categories of language or action -- symbols (or intentions) and rules of operation (or execution); they are set forth in selection in types ordered by perspectives of orientation (or purpose). 
    Simples of construction [3] are categories of things -- discerned by cognition and emotion; they are set forth in selection by matters or objects to which other arrangements of processes and materials may be transformed by reduction. 
    Simples of resolution [2] are categories of terms -- natures and dispositions; they are set forth in selection as functions by which natures may be defined and classified. 

The statement of a philosophy involves a particular selection of categories, which is colored by the general selection characteristic of the philosophic communication of a period making the primary use and determination of categories
    sometimes metaphysical for the clarification of principles (after a revolt against sophistry and empiricism),
    sometimes epistemological for the ordering of judgments and consequences critically and methodologically (after a revolt against dogmatism and theoretical metaphysics),
    sometimes semantic and pragmatic for the establishment of warranted statements and effective actions (after a revolt against idealisms and psychologisms).  The ambiguous question, What is freedom? takes its fourth determination from the selection of categories, What are we talking about when we talk about freedom and how do we fix our meanings? 

There are four possible determinations of what has meaning and what is meant:
    basic thoughts and approximations to them;                                [1]
    arbitrary orderings of experience interpreted by assigning significances to the words in which it is expressed;                                                                                                   [0]
    constructs composed of things known or images perceived; [3] and
    natures and dispositions signified and denoted by terms.         [2]

The interaction of the modes of Philosophic inquiry and the schema of philosophic semantic is apparent both in framing of common problems for interpretation and investigation in different philosophies and in developing particular philosophies in distinction from and opposition to other philosophies.  The interdependent structures are set forth in parallel form in the following chart:

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The basic equivalence of the modes of being, thought, fact and simple is indicated in the chart of the modes of inquiry by the lines connecting the modes.  The principles, methods, interpretations, and selections which employ a single mode are likewise connected in the semantic chart by lines which trace paths from the inclusive to the simple kinds. 

The basic divisions of philosophy tabulated below the two charts take their origin from the dominant mode under which they are classified.  The division into theoretic, practical and poetic has a metaphysical foundation and was developed by Aristotle in controversial treatment of the problems of philosophy and the positions of philosophers.  The division into physics, ethics, and logic has a Hellenistic origin; Aristotle uses it in the Topics as a classification of dialectical questions.  The distinction philosophy, poetry and history is made when the emphasis is on modes of fact and statement, and Aristotle uses it to determine the proper nature of poetry.  Philosophy becomes logic, rhetoric, or grammar when questions of structure and categorial parts become central.  The basic problems listed in the final tabulation arise in the differentiation of principles, methods, interpretations, and terms under which they are tabulated.

The discussion of philosophical positions is a discussion of facts about philosophies; the discussion of philosophical problems is a discussion of issues between philosophies.  Philosophic semantics is a method to secure precision in the statement and investigation of philosophical positions; philosophic inquiry is a method to introduce flexibility into the statement and investigation of philosophical problems.  They supplement each other, since philosophic semantics becomes rigid and doctrinaire if it loses contact with the problems to which the positions are solutions, and philosophic inquiry becomes abstract and sectarian if it cuts off communication with other positions and other interpretations of the problem.

The semantic schema does not provide a final determination of what is meant by a philosophic statement, but rather a means of isolating successive

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aspects of proposed meanings for consideration and development. Its use may be illustrated by sketching some of the high points of the meanings that have been taken on by the four methods listed.  Philosophies have not frequently followed the lines traced on the chart by which methods are related to principles, interpretations, and selections determined by the same mode of thought, and one aspect of the diversification of methods arises from the innovations introduced by altering principles, interpretations or selections.

The metamorphoses of the dialectical method range from the synoptic method which Plato used to discuss all problems, to the skepticism of the Academy, to the transcendentalism and mysticism of the Neoplatonists, to Christian creationism and mysticism, to Marxist materialism.  Plato combined the dialectical method with comprehensive principles and ontological interpretation; the dialectical method was retained in Academic skepticism but was used with actional principles and existentialist interpretation; Plotinus restored the ontological interpretation with dialectic but used simple principles; Augustine combined the dialectical method and ontological interpretation with actional principles; Hegel used the dialectical method with reflexive principles and entitative interpretation; Marx turned Hegel upside down by retaining the dialectical method and entitative interpretation but substituting actional for reflexive principles.

The logistic method was used by Democritus and Euclid in antiquity and by Hobbes, Newton, and Locke, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz in the seventeenth century and by Peirce and Santayana in recent times.  The influence of Descartes or Newton is difficult to trace without semantic distinctions: thus, Descartes used the logistic method with reflexive principles and existentialist interpretation; Spinoza's criticisms and modifications centered on the interpretation, and he therefore retained the method and principles but substituted the ontological for the existentialist interpretation.

The operational method was the method of the Sophists, the Pyrrhonian Skeptics and Cicero in antiquity and of Galileo, Bacon, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume in

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the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and of Kant, John Stuart Mill, and Peirce.   Mill expressed admiration for the ethics of Kant and undertook to show that the categorical imperative can be grounded only by utilitarian consideration of consequences; Kant used a combination of operational method (he observed that his method was the method of skepticism) and reflexive principles with an ontological interpretation; Mill used the same method (which he professed to derive from Cicero) and principles with an existentialistic interpretation,

The problematic method was used by Aristotle in antiquity, by Thomas Aquinas, and some other scholastics of the thirteenth and fourteenth Acenturies, and by William James and John Dewey.  Aristotle used a problematic method, reflexive principles, and essentialist interpretation; Aquinas retained the method and principles but substituted an ontological for the essentialist interpretation.   James thought that pragmatism was a continuation of Mill's utilitarianism: Mill used an operational method with reflexive principles and an existentialist interpretation; James retained the interpretation but used a problematic method and actional principles; Dewey continued the problematic method and actional principles but used an essentialist interpretation.

The modes of philosophic inquiry do not provide a fixed list of the persistent or perennial problems of philosophy, but rather a structure for the formation of hypotheses concerning a common question viewed from the orientation of different modes of inquiry.  Interpretation of the structure of different modes yields questions that have been asked or that might be asked and develops a context of related questions.  The four modes of inquiry, thus, take particular form in the four scientific questions raised by Aristotle at the beginning of the second book of the Posterior Analytics --
    experience is the concern of the question, whether it is;     [Modes of Simplicity]
    existence is the concern of, what it is;                                       [Modes of Fact]
    that which is answers the question, of what sort it is; and   [Modes of Thought]
    being is the source of answers to, why it is.                             [Modes of Being]

The same four questions became the four constitutiones of the Roman rhetoricians, whence they entered into legal and political philosophy.   They

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provide a basis for the reformulation of metaphysical problems which I once tried in an essay called, "Being, Existence, and That Which Is." They serve to relate, in a rich variety of ways, the categories which are modes of simples and the transcendentals which are predicated reflexively of each other and which are modes of being.  The distinction between things better known to us and things better known in nature and the prolix progeny of that distinction which includes the distinction between a posteriori and a priori explore the relations between the modes of experience and the modes of being.  The modes of inquiry serve to unravel the tangled history of the methods of
    induction and deduction,
    analysis and synthesis,
    discovery and proof
which first emerged from distinct modes and were variously merged with each other and inverted.

The modes of inquiry serve finally to separate continuing structures of problems from structures of suggestive innovation, and they suggest the rich possibilities which are opened when the dominant selection is the modes of fact and existence which turn to problems of concreteness of action and statement.  It has been the hope of many recent philosophers that to begin with the concrete is to avoid false problems and meaningless controversy.  That expectation has encountered the difficulty that the particular philosophies which have undertaken to be architectonic have faced controversial oppositions.  Too little attention has been paid to the fact that common problems have been treated in different ways or to the possibility that the accord of philosophies is not to be found in a common ideology or a common language but in a common enterprise to which different philosophies make supplementary contributions.  "Facts, Categories, and Experience" is a delineation and a contribution to that kind of common philosophy.  It will be treated controversially, in whatever consideration it received, in accordance with the rival possibilities provided by semantic schemata, but the problems it raises may shift attention from the position taken to issues between that position and other possible position and to the discussion and investigation of possible changes in the concrete situation and in the problems.

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