“Grasping” in Perspectives and Interpretations

Any “grasping” of world factors or “the world” whatsoever is therefore necessarily not only relative to presupposed interpretational perspectives, but only possible from or within such a perspective.

Thus, we have only the possibility of attending to or grasping states relative to interpretive perspectives. That means that any actions and recognitions whatsoever are dependent on methodological schematizations and perspectives previously taken over or being methodologically implied. All this also relates to the interpretative interconnection of action, action-orientation and formation, cognition and recognition, notably also involving scheme-interpretation in representing, depicting or cognitional modeling or even abstract modeling—not to speak of active interventions, e.g., in experiments or everyday agency. Recognition and action cannot be totally separated from each other, but can only be analytically distinguished in a certain sense. Any conception of “world” (or “world factors”), any experience of the external world, but also any recognition of other connections (say, e.g., of social origin) is certainly dependent on presupposed, predetermined or chosen perspectives of interpretation, on specific means of interpretation, like, e.g., forms and activation routines of schematization. One can only “grasp” the so- called “reality in itself” in connection with and via dependence on the respective frameworks of previous perspectives shaped by such interpretation schemata, patterns etc.

Some of these are primary interpretations or “Urinterpretationen” (original hereditary interpretation schemata) which are biologically, even possibly genetically fixed; others are variable as regarding the different six levels I have distinguished elsewhere (1993, Engl.: 2000, 2007,18).

These levels are also levels of flexibility and variability of schemes and interpretative constructs as one can easily see.

Important however is to distinguish between what is accepted as “ontical” or ontologically important and what is only methodological-epistemological. This is all the more also decisive for the problems of realism-or different realisms (i.e., for the conception of reality and of what is called “real” (be it “in itself” or independently of humans or be it “real” in only a secondary, e.g. socio-cultural or even virtual, sense)—What does all this now mean for realisms and the respective conception of reality? Certainly, grasping reality is only possible from or by using perspectives, by taking some interpretational perspectives of maybe unconsciously implied primary ones or by using consciously developed habitual or other higher-level conventional or normative forms of interpretation. Thus one may indeed defend a hypothetical-pragmatic residual realism or minimal realism only being concretized in interactions within the forms of interpretations by contact with respective systems, so to speak in interactional interpretations, notably by our actions, by our theoretical and scientific representations, by choosing perspectives for descriptions and actions. With regard to external perception this is mediated by what I have called “impregnation in the narrower sense”,^[83] i.e., by being impinged by the so-called “world factors”. However, even if we presuppose primary interpretations (biologically fixed, e.g.) with respect to direct sense perception such a recognition of “world factors” impregnating themselves on our sense organs and faculty of perception can only be conceived of and recognized by interpretatively colored concepts and processes (activities). Any so-called ‘direct’ recognitional “grasping” whatsoever is already interpretational. “Reality in itself”^[84] is then only indirectly recognized in the sense of methodologically “entangled” systems potentials no matter whether strictly quantum-theoretically understood or in a classical interpretation.

Impregnations are always results of schematic interactions and can thus be represented and conceived of only in action-dependent interpretation, in short: by interactional scheme-interpretations.

By our categorial schematizations and interpretations any “grasping” of reality is so to speak concretized in active, quasi active and interactive processes (activities in the wider sense) or procedures. If we would take a transcendental epistemological point of view, we would not like to talk about the activities as such, but about the basic dependence on such schematic activities and also the respective interactions.

The classical picture of an object as forwarded by determinism and classical physics—is but only a very simple special case, easy to understand and apparently easily accessible, but indeed dependent on an idealizing view and also relatively seldom encountered in the world.^[85] Classical deterministic systems are a special case, since locality and separability of the entangled systems is presupposed or hypostatized there admitting of no unlimited generalization, but to be only approximately instantiated. Locality and separability of systems (notably entangled ones) is not generally guaranteed, but is to be presupposed to a certain degree and any individual concrete observation or measurement in the process of isolating a specific variable and measuring result. This is even true in quantum mechanics if we undertake a definitive process of measurement of, say, the location or polarization fixing of a pair of entangled photons. In this sense classical deterministic and commonsense approaches seem to be the exceptional cases, whereas quantum-mechanical holistic entanglements of states are rather usual.^[86]

In general, what we were or are still used to see as the normal conditions, are in some sense the exception. This seems to be a very important insight for any (re) cognition of reality whatsoever—in particular with the traditional classical projection of classical mechanistic descriptions to the external world of material objects and the respective systems.

Our attempts to structure and pattern the world by using concepts of objects and processes are certainly dependent on interpretative, perspectivist frameworks and (theoretical as well as activated) schematizations: They are dependent also on actions, interactions, forms of intervention in the narrower sense. (In a way, this even applies to construing the respective forms of ordering phenomena and observations). We can even say, scheme-interpreting is finally (under special circumstances very weak) intervening and impregnating (or being impregnated) as far as it refers to “external” objects, their “make-up” and constitution or classification. Theoretically speaking also usual objects and processes are even in everyday connections to be conceived of as consisting in some sort of states of overlapping— analogously the possibility of overlapping states or the respective linear combinations of state functions in quantum theory. At least conceptual ways of sorting out, classifying, developing and applying theories are generally speaking (at least methodologically) to be understood as the delimitation and analytical segregation of subsystems from the everyday-”entanglement” of phenomena.^[87] This interpretation is but pragmatic, allowing the classical-objectifying (object-isolating) simplification of common sense as an approximation by ignoring the strong correlations (implying non-locality and non-separability of the respective entangled systems). The unitary holistic comprehensive description does not seem possible without respecting restrictions similar to Bohr's “complementarity”—even if generalized to an epistemological approach (as also Bohr would have it). In any case, one could understand such choices of one out of complementary perspectives in such a way that basically the possibility of relativized interpretations is acknowledged by which other possible approaches of different interpretations are for the time being “excluded” in the special situation, but in general being supposed as alternative possibilities.

This seems to be relevant in everyday connections-even with a doctor approaching his patient as a biological-physiological organism on the one hand and complementarily—and hopefully, complimentarily!—as a person on the other. Usually then only both approaches in systematic relationship (although not compatible under a single complete description of the situation) are to be acknowledged

as representative (e.g., the patient is at the same time an organism and a person and to be treated according to both!).

To sum up, as an interim general result: Interactional and scheme-interpreta- tionism allows for and requires the choices of respective observation perspectives and makes room for integrating complementarities (complementary interpretations) and to overarch isolating perspectives and at the same time to use and approximate restrictive subclassifications of disciplinary model instantiations. This is true not only for the realm of quanta, but for reality in general (although the mutual exclusion of perspectives as regarded by Bohr may be different in the mesocosmic connections, they are only tentatively and preliminarily exclusive). Any perception and conception and “grasping ” of reality is only possible by using the respective forms of interactions, impregnations etc. in terms of interpretations and schematizations methodologically presupposing or implying the respective choices of perspectives etc.

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Source: Agazzi E. (ed.). Varieties of Scientific Realism: Objectivity and Truth in Science. Springer,2017. — 411 pp.. 2017

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