This suggests, by contrast, the opposite mode of stating the problem of
logical theory. Generalization of the nature of the reflective process
certainly involves elimination of much of the specific material and
contents of the thought-situations of daily life and of critical
science. Quite compatible with this, however, is the notion that it
seizes upon _certain_ specific conditions and factors, and aims to bring
them to clear consciousness--not to abolish them. While eliminating the
particular material of particular practical and scientific pursuits,
(1) it may strive to hit upon the common denominator in the various
situations which are antecedent or primary to thought and which evoke
it; (2) it may attempt to show how typical features in the specific
antecedents of thought call out to diverse typical modes of
thought-reaction; (3) it may attempt to state the nature of the specific
consequences in which thought fulfils its career.
(1) It does not eliminate dependence upon specific occasions as
provocative of thought; but endeavors to define _what_ in the various
situations constitutes them thought-provoking. The specific occasion is
not eliminated, but insisted upon and brought into the foreground.
Consequently psychological considerations are not subsidiary incidents,
but of essential importance so far as they enable us to trace the
generation of the thought-situation. (2) So from this point of view the
various types and modes of conceiving, judging, and inference are
treated, not as qualifications of thought per se or at large, but of
thought engaged in its specific, most economic, effective response to
its own particular occasion; they are adaptations for control of
stimuli. The distinctions and classifications that have been accumulated
in "formal" logic are relevant data; but they demand interpretation from
the standpoint of use as organs of adjustment to material antecedents
and stimuli. (3) Finally the question of validity, or ultimate objective
of thought, is relevant; but is such as a matter of the specific issue
of the specific career of a thought-function. All the typical
investigatory and verificatory procedures of the various sciences are
inherently concerned as indicating the ways in which thought actually
brings itself to its own successful fulfilment in dealing with various
types of problems.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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