Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to expound one of the most important insights yielded by the interrogative model of inquiry, prominently including scientific inquiry. I have outlined this model elsewhere.1 The basic idea on which this model is based is simplicity itself. It can be expressed most easily in the jargon of game theory.2 A player, called the Inquirer, is trying to prove a predetermined conclusion C from a given theoretical premise T. (In a variant form, the Inquirer is trying to prove either C or ~ C, i.e., to answer the initial question “C or not- C?”.) Over and above deductive moves, i.e., over and above drawing logical inferences, beginning with T, the Inquirer may address questions to a source of information and use the answers (when available) as additional premises, in short, may carry out interrogative moves. The answerer is called Nature. As a bookkeeping technique, a Beth-like semantical tableau can be assumed to be used.3 Each move is relative to the stage of a subtableau reached in the game at the time. The questions must of course pertain to a given model M of the language of T. Before a question is asked, its presupposition must have been established by the Inquirer, that is, occur in the left column of the subtableau in question.4
The research reported here was made possible by NSF Grant #IST-8310936 (Information Science and Technology, Principal Investigators Jaakko Hintikka and C. J. B. Macmillan).
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Notes
* The research reported here was made possible by NSF Grant #IST-8310936 (Information Science and Technology, Principal Investigators Jaakko Hintikka and C. J. B. Macmillan).
See, inter alia, Jaakko Hintikka, An Interrogative Model of Inquiry and Some of Its Applications (forthcoming); ‘On the Incommensurability of Theories’ (forthcoming); 1985, ‘A Spectrum of Logics of Questioning’, Philosophica 35, 135–50; ‘The Logic of Science as a Model-Oriented Logic’, in Peter Asquith and Philip Kitcher (eds.), PSA 1984, Philosophy of Science Association, East Lansing, MI, pp. 177–85; 1982, (with Merrill B. Hintikka) ‘Sherlock Holmes Confronts Modern Logic: Towards a Theory of Information-Seeking By Questioning’, in ‘’E. M. Barth and J. L. Martens (eds.), Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, pp. 55–76.
This is more than a matter of jargon, however. One of the main advantages of the interrogative model is that it enables us to study strategies of research and not just one-time scientific inferences. Now game theory is the most important conceptual tool of strategy research; hence its concepts are extremely handy in studying the interrogative model.
The original presentation is E. W. Beth: 1955, ‘Semantic Entailment and Formal Derivability’, Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, N. R. vol. 18, no. 13, Amsterdam. As a logical proof technique, the tableau method is not only equivalent but virtually identical with a Gentzen-type sequent method, except that the closed tableau which may result from the Beth method is in the Gentzen method read in the reverse order, i.e., from the bottom up. What the Beth method allows is to view the tableau construction as a frustrated attempt to bulid a countermodel in which the left-column entries are all true and right-column entries are false.
For the concept of presupposition (and other basic concepts in the theory of questions and answers), see Jaakko Hintikka: 1976, ‘The Semantics of Questions and the Questions of Semantics’, Acta Philosophica Fennica 28, No. 4, Helsinki
Interesting discussions of the peculiarities of clinical inquiry are few and far apart. Typically, little attention is paid to the structural differences of clinical and pure research.
For syntax, see Chomsky’s methodological writings, and for semantics, see Jerrold J. Katz: 1972, Semantic Theory, Harper & Row, New York.
Critique of Pure Reason, preface to the second edition, B xiii of the original.
The logic of such questions is extremely tricky, and left completely unexplained in the earlier literature on the logic and semantics of questions. For a brief discussion, see my papers, ‘Questions With an Outside Quantifier’ in R. Schneider, K. Tuite and R. Chametzky (eds.), Papers From the Parasession on Nondeclaratives, Chicago Linguistics Society, 1982, pp. 83–92; and ‘On Games, Questions, and Strange Quantifiers’, in Tom Pauli (ed.), Philosophical Essays Dedicated to Lemart Åqvist, Department of Philosophy and the Philosophical Society, Uppsala, 1982, pp. 159–69.
See, e.g., ‘A Spectrum of Logics of Questioning’, note 1 above.
For branching quantifiers, see my 1974 paper, ‘Quantifier vs. Quantification Theory’, Linguistic Inquiry 5, 153–77, reprinted in Esa Saarinen (ed.), Game- Theoretical Semantics, D. Reidel, Dordrecht; 1979.
See note 10 above.
Forthcoming.
When N. R. Hanson introduced the ideas of theory-ladenness and concept-ladenness of observations, he was careful to make it clear that “here ... the psychological is a symbol of the logical”. (See N. R. Hanson: 1958 Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge chap. 1, especially p. 17.) Yet in later discussion the problem has got thoroughly muddled as witnessed, e.g., by appeals to the psychology of perception against the possibility of a theory-neutral language. (Cf., e.g., T. S. Kuhn: 1962 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 112–13.) Yet plainly, the question whether one’s concepts and theories exert causal influence on what one perceives has no relevance whatsoever to the logical structure of the scientific process.
See, e.g., Max Jammer: 1966, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics, McGraw-Hill, New York, chap. 1.
Oskar Becker: 1951, Die Grösse und Grenze der mathematischen Denkweise, Karl Alber, Freiburg, sect. 2.2.
T. S. Kuhn: 1976, ‘Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science’, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 7, 1–31;
reprinted in T. S. Kuhn, The Essential Tension, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977, chap. 3.
Cf. Jaakko Hintikka and Unto Remes: 1974, The Method of Analysis, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, chap. 9; and Jaakko Hintikka: 1978, ‘A Discourse on Descartes, Method’ in Michael Hooker (ed.), Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 74–88.
This does mean, of course, that the outcome of a micro-level inquiry needs to be considered incorrigible in some absolute sense. All I need to do to handle this possibility is to allow uncertain answers by Nature in the macro-level game, which I want to do anyway. See Section 12.
G. W. Leibniz: 1969, Philosophical Papers and Letters, Leroy E. Loemker (ed.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht, p. 188; cf. p. 283.
Cf., e.g., Jammer, note 14, chap. 2.
See note 8.
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Hintikka, J. (1999). What is the Logic of Experimental Inquiry?. In: Inquiry as Inquiry: A Logic of Scientific Discovery. Jaakko Hintikka Selected Papers, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9313-7_7
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