The Journal of Mind and Behavior

Volume 3, Number 4, Autumn: Part 2 (Special Issue)

Kenneth Burke’s Systemless System: Using Pepper to Pigeonhole an Elusive Thinker
Richard Y. Duerden, Brigham Young University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 323-336, ISSN 0271-0137
This article illustrates a method — using Pepper’s World Hypothesis to isolate the assumptions of often-perplexing thinkers such as Burke — and demonstrates the usefulness and limitations of that method. Focusing on Burke’s literary criticism, it approaches him first through his own categories, then relates those to Pepper’s schema, to find his root metaphor and the resulting principles, methods, and interpretations of his criticism, along with the major strengths, weaknesses, and affinities of his system of thought. Though some have accused Burke of being irrational or fragmentary in his writings, his thought it actually a very thorough and consistent, even creative, contextualism. In fact, his literary criticism anticipated poststructuralist issues.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard Duerden, Department of English, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602.

Notes on Experience and Teaching of Film
Barry K. Grant, Brock University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 337-344, ISSN 0271-0137
In the classroom, students are attentive to an instructor’s manner as much as they are to the ostensible material being taught. This situation can be turned to the instructor’s advantage, particularly in the teaching of film, which is already problematic due to the usual lack of a text in the classroom. However, film, by its very nature as a medium, depends upon the experience of the viewer. This experience is defined as the working with the cinematic text, in the contextualistic sense as defined by Dewey and Pepper. Two detailed examples from popular American films, as they might be approached in class, show how the common experience of the instructor and the student, based on the perception of the images, might illuminate the nature of film in spite of the absence of the text.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Barry K. Grant, Ph.D., Department of Fine Arts, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario Canada L2S 3A1.

Root Metaphor and Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Designs for Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools
James Quina, Wayne State University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 345-356, ISSN 0271-0137
In World Hypothesis (1942)and The Basis of Criticism in the Arts (1945), Pepper lays the foundation for the development of interdisiciplinary curricula. The four world hypotheses — formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism — are applied to such disparate subjects as astronomy, art, poetry, music, sculpture and drama. The categories of each world hypothesis are precise, yet one does not have to distort them to make them useful in interpreting the facts of any particular discipline. Pepper’s categories are neither too broad nor too narrow; they are both rigorous and universal. As Pepper puts it, they meet the criteria of scope and precision. The development of interdisciplinary curricula requires the use of categories and processes based on a metadiscipline such as Pepper’s philosophy. Extension of categories and processes drawn from popular movements and from particular fields have proved ineffective, producing curricula that are imbalanced in scope or precision. Root metaphors not only provide a balance of precision and scope; they also function as routing patterns, connecting experience with cognition, the subjective with the representative, and science with art. A broad range of disciplines can be taught from the perspectives of formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism. When the root metaphors of these world hypotheses are presented to students through physical analogies, puzzles and games, encounters, and in particular, centering processes, the intuitive and the rational can be coordinated. Root metaphors, taught in this way, give one the power to explore the whole range of human experience, from the most mundane and irrational fantasy, to the highest reaches of human cognition.

Requests for reprints should be sent to James Quina, Ph.D., 245 College of Education, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48202.

World Hypotheses and their Relevance to Curriculum
Brent Kilbourn, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 357-362, ISSN 0271-0137
This paper provides a sketch of the areas in which Pepper’s work is potentially useful to the field of curriculum. World Hypotheses has been used as an aid to interpreting different factions with regard to educational research methodology. This work has been used to address the broad question of the kinds of “world views” projected to students by the curriculum. It has been used to address specific issues concerning the curriculum development. In the area of teaching, World Hypotheses has been useful (as the object of what is taught) in graduate instruction in curriculum. Recent developments suggest that it has potential for informing us about the relationship between the structure of the subject-matter and pedagogical moves made by the teacher.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Brent Kilbourn, Ph.D., Curriculum Department, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1V6.

Teaching: A Study in Evidence
Arthur N. Geddis, East York Collegiate Institute
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 363-374, ISSN 0271-0137
This paper outlines the way in which the adoption of a particular “world view” and its conception of evidence might influence teaching. Building on a view of teaching which takes the presentation of reasons and evidence to be central, Pepper’s four world hypotheses are used to demonstrate how four different conceptions of evidence can each lead to a different teaching strategy. Particular attention is paid to some of the inherent weaknesses of the approach provided by each world hypothesis, and to the confusion that can arise when there is a mismatch between the teacher’s and students’ concepts of evidence.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Arthur N. Geddis, East York Collegiate Institute, 650 Cosburn, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4C 2V2.

Toward Root Metaphor: Pepper’s Writings in the University of California Publications in Philosophy 
Elmer H. Duncan, Baylor University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 375-380, ISSN 0271-0137
The general thesis of this paper is that much of what Pepper wrote about “root metaphors” in metaphysics and value theory may be found prefigured in his early papers published in the 1920s in the University of California Publications in Philosophy. His friend and colleague D.W. Prall had argued that there is only one type of value. In response, Pepper was led to argue that there are at least two types of values, what at that point he called “immediate” value and “standard” value. And he came to feel that just as there is more than one value, there is likely to be more than one acceptable metaphysical theory, or “world hypothesis,” based on more than one type of “root metaphor.” Pepper was eclectic in value theory (including ethics and aesthetics), as well as metaphysics. It seems to be the case that only later in life did he see that eclectism in these different areas involved different commitments. For to be eclectic in ethics and in aesthetics is to assume that more than one type of value can be accepted as genuine and that these values can be related in various ways. But to “accept” various metaphysical views or world hypotheses, is still to say that only one (if any) is correct, and then to admit that we don’t know which is the correct one.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Elmer H. Duncan, Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, Baylor University, Waco, Texas 76798.

Comment on Duncan’s Paper: Further Reflections on the Intellectual Biography of Stephen Pepper
Joan Boyle, Dowling College
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 381-384, ISSN 0271-0137
This brief paper contains reflections on the evolution of Pepper’s thought from the 1923 paper “Equivocation of Value” in the University of California Publications through his work on root metaphor from the 1928 paper “Philosophy and Metaphor” to the 1973 article “Metaphor in Philosophy.” The evolution pointed out is from Pepper’s early determination of “two kinds of value”: “immediate” and “standard,” which are completely unrelated to different values as different ways of operating, hence to the underlying hypothesis of the root metaphor theory. “Standards” are thus tied to, but not identified with, immediacy, as rules or habits of inference are tied to empirical facts. Finally, the question is raised whether selectivism is a fifth root metaphor or the foundation of root matephor theory itself.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Joan Boyle, Ph.D., Department of Philosophy, Dowling College, Oakdale, New York 11769.

Construing the Knowledge Situation: Stephen Pepper and a Deweyan Approach to Literary Experience and Inquiry
Brian G. Caraher, Indiana University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 385-402, ISSN 0271-0137
This paper appraises Dewey’s general accounting of experience and knowledge as it bears upon an approach to literary experience and inquiry. A potential inadequacy in Dewey’s general account is precluded through an assessment of the perceptual and conceptual poles of the knowledge situation offered by Pepper. Pepper’s analysis of purposive activity in knowledge situations lends cognitive underpinnings to Dewey’s accounting of experience and knowledge. Pepper also helps clarify the nature and types of evidence at work in the knowledge situation. Two types of evidence, “uncriticized” and “criticized,” are noted and developed. A provisional characterization of literary experience and inquiry based upon this assessment of the knowledge situation and the types of evidence is offered. Finally, two modes of attention are deployed in connection with Pepper’s two types of evidence. The modes of attention are termed “instrumental” and “aesthetic,” and both are then related to the characterization of literary experience and inquiry.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Brian G. Caraher, Ph.D., Department of English, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405.

Arabella, Jude, or the Pig? Selectivism and a New Definition of Aesthetic Quality
John Herold, Mohawk Valley Community College
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 403-410, ISSN 0271-0137
Pepper’s generally overlooked, fifth world hypothesis generates its own aesthetic theory, and its root metaphor of the selective art is particularly rich for understanding literature as well as human behavior. Goal-seeking activity can result in a fundamental change in the quality of lived experience; no other aesthetic theory adequately explains how art has the capacity to transform our lives. Hardy’s characters rarely experience the exhiliration of purposivity — feeling themselves adapting to new situations — yet that quality is present in the novels as in a scene in which Jude and Arabella slaughter a pig. The humans’ behavior is less purposive than the pig’s whose five stages of response to death pre-figure the hero on his tragic journey of unfulfillment. The scene is also a black comedy of sex-negative family life. Hardy’s reader is challenged to separate real from sham values if the sentient body is to survive modern civilization.

Requests for reprints should be sent to John Herold, Department of English, Mohawk Valley Community College, Utica, New York 13501.

Mimesis, Scandal, and the End of History in Mondrian’s Aesthetics
Terrell M. Butler, Brigham Young University
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 411-426, ISSN 0271-0137
The end of history and the end of art are one and the same in Mondrian’s aesthetics: the harmonious balance of opposites in a differentiated, hierarchical whole. In painting, this “dynamic equilibrium” (Mondrian, 1945, p. 25) of opposing elements is expressed by the right angle; in history, by human continuity in which all conflicts between self and other, heart and mind, particular and universal disappear. In both art and history, unity and repose are the consequence of the violent eradication of scandal embodied in all traditional art and most modern art. Art and history can only express the wholeness that is their end by excluding the mimetic relations, which, because they are inextricably bound up with desire, create disequilibrium, undifferentiation, and tragic disorder. Both De Stijl and the human community it is supposed to engender originate in the sacrifice of a victim. The victim is art itself. Pepper’s theory of organicism fails adequately to explain the transition from conflict to integration because it does not take account of the role of violence, especially violent exclusion, in the constitution of organic wholes.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Terrell M. Butler, Ph.D., Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602.

The New Faustian Music: Its Mechanistic, Organic, Contextual, and Formist Aspects
David B. Richardson, Edinboro State College
The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Autumn 1982, Vol. 3, No. 4, Pages 427-442, ISSN 0271-0137
Spengler’s Decline of the West (1922) assumes the Faustian Culture (Western Civilization) had exhausted its cultural possibilities by the end of the eighteenth century, but Spengler did not realize that within the old Faustian European Society, a new world-view had emerged in 1800 in music and the other arts and sciences. The old Western Culture dated back to the tenth century A.D., but in 1800 its world-view had been metemorphosed and revitalized by Graeco-Roman learning, Near-Eastern, Indian, and Chinese influences. The new music reveals the invigoration, reflects the changes. A powerful analytical tool to examine the composers’ role in the development of the new Faustian era, and particularly during the twentieth century, is available in Pepper’s four metaphysical world hypotheses: Mechanism, Organicism, Contextualism, and Formism. The mechanical element is profoundly European and finds expression in polyphony and counterpoint. The organic element reveals the impact of Chinese philosophy and the covert influence of Indian ideas. Contextualism is the strongest of the four and derives from the powerful Magian (Near Eastern) presence of Christianity, 900-1800 A.D., and also from the Chinese writings which are even more contextualistic than organic. Graeco-Roman literature has given the Faustian Civilization, and its new music, a powerful sense of classical form: formism.

Requests for reprints should be sent to David B. Richardson, Ph.D., Philosophy Department, Edinboro State College, Edinboro, Pennsylvania 16444.

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