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DEWEY_INQUIRY_HOW_AND_WHAT

                                             December 27, 2021

In John Dewey's "Logic: The Theory of Inquiry",
from 1938, he leads off talking about they
proximate and ultimate subject of logic, where the
proximate is roughly how it all works-- boolean
operations, etc-- but the ultimate appears to be
the question of what it all means, something like
the "platonist" debate: is it something that was
out there that was discovered or what?  What's the
connection between this abstract realm and reality?

Dewey's jamming on the supposed contradictions don't seem so
impressive to the modern eye-- or at least, not my modern one--
but he does a good job of documenting how one might be confused:

   "It is said, for example, that logic is the
   science of necessary laws of thought, and that it
   is the theory of ordered relations-- relations
   which are wholly independent of thought.  There
   are at least three views held as to the nature of
   these latter relations: They are held (1) to
   constitute a realm of pure possibilities as such,
   where pure means independent of actuality; (2) to
   be ultimate invariant relations forming the order
   of nature; and (3) to constitute idle rational
   structure of the universe. In the latter status,
   while independent of human thought, they are said
   to embody the rational structure of the universe
   which is reproduced in part by human reason."


I think the usual idea would be that these rules of
logic inevitably apply to "the order of nature" or
the "structure of the universe" whatever it happens
to be: you could say they underlie everything
without being part of it.  The usual claim is that
they're discovered rather than invented, so while
human thought is necessary to make them accessible to
humans you could say they're "independent of thought".



   "The most basic of these objections is that
   the field indicated, that of inquiries, is
   already pre-empted.  There is, it will be
   said, a recognized subject which deals with
   it. That subject is methodology; and there
   is a well recognized distinction between
   methodology and logic, the former being an
   application of the latter."

I think this is the central puzzle about Dewey--
placing "inquiry" at the center of our process
of obtaining knowledge is fine, it's actually
fairly conventional.  The idea that something
like "inquiry" necessarily underlies logic itself
is the thing that feels strange, and Dewey's
insistance that it must be so, the drive toward
arguing that it is so, is the central puzzle to
understanding his thinking.


   "The fact that most of the extant treatises upon
    methodology have been written upon the assumption
    of a fixed difference between the two does not
    prove that the difference exists."

Yeah, okay, but what's the *problem* with making
this distinction?


   "Inquiry in order to reach valid conclusions
    must itself satisfy logical requirements.  It
    is an easy inference from this fact to the idea
    that the logical requirements are imposed upon
    methods of inquiry from without."

Well, sure, typically so.  Unless you want to talk about,
say, choosing arguments based on psychological appeal.


   "How can inquiry originate logical forms (as it
    has been stated that it does) and yet be
    subject to the requirements of these forms? The
    question is one that must be met.

This is the sort of thing that doesn't actually bother me
that much at all-- oh my god, isn't this circular?
Well it could be, but there's no reason to think you're
going to go looping around in it forever.


   "The problem reduced to its lowest terms is
   whether inquiry can develop in its own ongoing
   course the logical standards and forms to which
   *further* inquiry shall submit."

But the actually interesting question would be whether
there really is a one true logic, or if there are
variant forms of it that further inquiry might establish.
Is the appropriate logic to use dependent on circumstances?



   "If inquiry begins in doubt, it terminates in the
    institution of conditions which remove need for
    doubt. The latter state of affairs may be designated
    by the words *belief* and *knowledge*. For reasons
    that I shall state later I prefer the words
    'warranted assertibility.'"





    "For it indicates that inquiry is a *continuing* process
    in evcry field with whIch It IS engaged. The
    "settlement" of a particular situation by a particular
    inquiry is no guarantee that *that* settled conclusion
    will always remain settled. The attainment of settled
    beliefs is a progressive matter; there is no belief so
    settled as not to be exposed to further inquiry. It is
    the convergent and cumulative effect of continued
    inquiry that defines knowledge in its general meaning."







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