RESEARCH MONOGRAPHS

Phenomenology and New Rhetoric, a monograph presented in conjunction with the 1970 Conference on New Rhetoric, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Santa Barbara, California. The monograph is available as a free PDF download here.

Abstract

This monograph has three purposes. It attempts first to describe in general terms methods of investigation proper to strict phenomenology and to new rhetoric. Second, it describes certain recent developments by the author that lead to a de-projective approach to phenomenology and which are of potential significance in a variety of areas of study, including new rhetoric. Finally, suggestions are made with a view to bringing portions of rigorous phenomenology into close connection with certain of the basic concerns of new rhetoric.

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A Relativistic Theory of Phenomenological Constitution: A Self-referential, Transcendental Approach to Conceptual Pathology, doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris, 1970. The dissertation is available as a free PDF download in French (volume 1) and in English (volume 2).

Abstract

The principal objective is the construction of an analytically precise methodology that can serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread conceptual fault or misconstruction, called a “projective misconstruction” or “projection” by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii) when remedied, leads to a less controversial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a projective variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self-reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and then sketches the direction of the studies which follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for this critique of impure reason.

The body of the work is divided into two parts: Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with projective uses of concepts. The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views knowledge as coordination. Section I describes formal structures which possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of identifying reference to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of phenomenological constitution. The “de-projective methodology” developed in Section I is applied to these concepts which have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology.

A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self-defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science.

The dissertation was originally presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index.

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Metalogic of Reference: A Study in the Foundations of Possibility, research monograph, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Starnberg, Germany, 1974.

A monograph written while I was a research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt in Starnberg, Germany. A limited number of copies of the monograph was printed; as a result the work is difficult to come by.

Metalogic of Reference continues the development of the method formulated in my dissertation, but transforms analysis from a rigorous phenomenological framework to a clearer, less terminologically top-heavy understanding of the transcendental preconditions of reference—that is, those necessary conditions without which reference is impossible.

A related paper is my “Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning,” originally published in the journal Synthese, Vol. 52, 1982, pp. 267-282. A free downloadable version is available here, which has been corrected and supplemented with an abstract, internet-searchable keywords, and references to some of my subsequent publications that develop this topic further.

The approach formulated in “Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning” and in my earlier Metalogic of Reference has been revised and developed further in a substantial work, Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. The Critique of Impure Reason, published in 2021, is availabe in a printed edition (ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6) as well as in a corrected second eBook edition (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5458352). Both the printed and the eBook editions are available as Open Access publications.

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Patterns of Problem Solving: A Final Report of Work Undertaken with the Support of the Lilly Endowment, monograph-report, Saint Louis University, 1976-77.

This is a report of my work in designing and establishing a campus-wide course in problem-solving. It describes results of pre- and post-testing of student IQs (excepting those students who did not wish to participate in this, of whom there were very few). I found that, on average, students meaningfully improved their IQ scores (and they very much enjoyed the process). “Meaningfully” means statistically significant improvements. For data that show such improvements, click here to see the report, which summarizes the initial pre- and post-test IQ study.* The results achieved were replicated in subsequently offered classes. Whether such IQ improvements would remain with students in their future lives is an open question, since it was not possible for me to follow them by means of longitudinal IQ testing.

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* See also Moshe F. Rubinstein, “A Decade of Experience in Teaching an Interdisciplinary Problem-solving Course,” in Tuma, D. T. and Reif, F. (Eds.), Problem Solving and Education: Issues in Teaching and Research, pp. 25-38, esp. pp. 34-36. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1980.