David Harriman's Book

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Riding a bicycle isn't propositional thought. It's a physical skill. What does either deduction or induction have to do with it?

Ellen,

I want to take a stab at this.

And I will start with an obvious observation to set my context: propositions are not the same thing as reality (other than themselves), but merely abstractions of it. In other words, excluding propositions themselves, they are not existents. They represent existents (or a form of existent called an imaginary existent). But when considering them as existents themselves, they follow their own rules of construction, which need not be the same rules of construction as the rest of reality.

We've discussed Ayn Rand's idea of induction and deduction before from her quote in ITOE:

The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts is, in essence, a process of induction. The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept is, in essence, a process of deduction.

Back when we talked about this, I was confused why this was unclear to some people when it was very clear to me (and some others). Over time I have learned that in academia, deduction and induction means proposition manipulation, not abstractions of sensory data or observations.

But if propositions are not connected to reality, what's the point in learning how to manipulate them according to complicated rules? Especially when there is a lot of disagreement among academics over the more arcane rules? What's the point? A pastime? A mental workout?

I believe Ron Merrill hit the nail on the head about a fundamental difference in approach that throws this into perspective. One may agree or disagree with the academic approach or Rand's, but I believe his observation makes it a lot easier to see where the two sides are coming from.

In talking about some early academic papers on Rand's philosophy (including Nozick), in The Ideas of Ayn Rand (p. 88), he wrote:

To read these arguments is frustrating; the two sides are simply not communicating. The opponents of Objectivism, steeped in the tradition of academic philosophy, display their superior debating skills while adroitly dodging the real issues. There is a tone of rather tolerant amusement as of a chess-master demolishing a naive opponent. It seems never to occur to them that Objectivists might not regard philosophy as a game.

He goes on to further critique the academic approach with some cute phrases ("philosophy means never having to say you're certain" and "skill at debate makes right" and so on ). However, the important two points are:

1. Rand's mission was not competitive; she wanted to help normal people (not just academics) understand important and fundamental issues with certainty so they could get on with living their lives as best they could (or, better, achieve great things), and

2. Philosophy to Rand was a human need, not just a bunch of academic rules and counter-rules.

So academics will look at learning to ride a bike and say that is not propositional (I'm not calling you an academic, though ). The Randian approach is learning to ride a bike is merely one form of knowledge, a nonverbal one, but the mental processes of gaining that knowledge are identical to using verbal logic to gain knowledge. She used terms like differentiation, integration and so on.

To the academic, the issue is equivalent to how to become skilled at a chess game. To Rand, it is how to use a mental tool for interacting with reality on a day-to-day basis (on up to complicated knowledge).

btw - A set of actions involving motor skills integrated into one mental abstraction is sometimes called a gestalt. For example, if you measure the time it takes for a mental impulse to travel from the brain to the finger, it would be physically impossible for pianists to play Chopin's Minute Waltz as fast as some of them do. But if several finger movements are "integrated" into one abstraction (one gestalt) and that abstraction is the impulse traveling over the nervous system, it becomes possible.

The purely mental equivalent (meaning no motor skills necessary) of a gestalt is a concept. Rand threw in a little algebra for concepts, but it is still the same process of integrating single instances into an abstraction. So much so that I, for one, consider them to be the same thing. I can't prove it, but I believe Rand would agree with this and it is what she was getting at in her quote on induction and deduction.

In other words, in this way of approaching knowledge, propositional logic is merely one form of using deduction and induction.

Michael

[anthony]

To read these arguments is frustrating; the two sides are simply not communicating. The opponents of Objectivism, steeped in the tradition of academic philosophy, display their superior debating skills while adroitly dodging the real issues. There is a tone of rather tolerant amusement as of a chess-master demolishing a naive opponent. It seems never to occur to them that Objectivists might not regard philosophy as a game.

He goes on to further critique the academic approach with some cute phrases ("philosophy means never having to say you're certain" and "skill at debate makes right" and so on ). However, the important two points are:

1. Rand's mission was not competitive; she wanted to help normal people (not just academics) understand important and fundamental issues with certainty so they could get on with living their lives as best they could (or, better, achieve great things), and

2. Philosophy to Rand was a human need, not just a bunch of academic rules and counter-rules.

Michael

That's it, right at the centre of most disputes.

How often I get the impression in debate that philosophy is mostly seen as "a thing apart" from one's life, a theoretical pastime. It confuses me.

As for induction, there's not an induction-denier who doesn't use induction dozens of times a day.

He would be too afraid to get out of bed, drive a car, cross a bridge and enter an office building - without observation and experientially-gained theories or concepts.

It's an intellectual game they play, with the undertone of lessening certainty in man's mind.

[BaalChatzaf]

That's it, right at the centre of most disputes.

How often I get the impression in debate that philosophy is mostly seen as "a thing apart" from one's life, a theoretical pastime. It confuses me.

As for induction, there's not an induction-denier who doesn't use induction dozens of times a day.

He would be too afraid to get out of bed, drive a car, cross a bridge and enter an office building - without observation and experientially-gained theories or concepts.

It's an intellectual game they play, with the undertone of lessening certainty in man's mind.e

I have yet to meet anyone who denies the existence of inductive reasoning or even its usefulness in some situations. The issue is "quality". Arriving at a conclusion inductively does not absolutely guarantee the conclusion is true. Where as if one starts with true premises and deductively reaches a conclusion then the conclusion must be be true. Deduction is a -truth preserving- operation. It guarantees that the conclusion is at least as true as the premise. Induction is ny ot a truth pereserving operation. Once can reach a false general conclusion from particular facts. Each fact is (by definition) true but the general conclusion may be false. How is this possible? It is possible because the set of facts used as the premise of the induction is not complete. There maybe be conflicting facts in the world that are not knows to the person doing the induction.

Case in point: The black swan. Every swan seen in the northern hemisphere is white or a light color. However in Australia black swans were observed. So the conclusion one might have reached from the "Norther facts" - all swans are white simply is not true. There are black swans.

Even with the limitation induction is the only way we have to get from a finite set of facts to a general universally quantified conclusion. Induction is the way we "leap" from particulars to generalities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have yet to meet anyone who denies the existence of inductive reasoning or even its usefulness in some situations.

Bob,

Would you like some introductions?

Let me help you right from the first page of Google search results:

Start here: Conjectural Dogma and its Revision [Karl Popper] on a page called Scientific Method.

Today scientists and school children still have to struggle with the concept of induction, even though, Karl Popper has shown that induction does not exist and is in fact a misunderstanding of how learning takes place.

Or here in Google books: The Philosophy of Karl Popper by Herbert Keuth:

He [Popper] writes: "Induction simply does not exist, and the opposite view is a straightforward mistake" (PKP, 1015; cf. OK, 7).

Or here (attributing Popper with this position): Karl Popper

Induction does not exist and hence not verification.

Now, I can come up with a boat-load of other similar quotes. I don't know if Popper ever said directly that induction does not exist, although the middle quote above seems to be directly quoting him, but lots of his followers say induction does not exist and some of Popper's critics say he said that.

This is all over the Internet and very easy to find.

I first came across this notion in the book Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature by Greg Nyquist (which I read before the blog by the same name came into existence and even before I crossed swords with Daniel Barnes about it). I would have to dig out the book to find the passage, but I remember looking at that passage, blinking my eyes, rereading it, putting the book down and picking it back up after a while to check that I had understood it correctly. And yup. I had. Nyquist was very clear that he believed induction did not exist.

Maybe you have not come across anyone who denies the existence of induction, but they are all over the place. To be fair, I have not come across anyone with that view outside of the circle of Popper-people.

On this very thread, we have:

Induction is completely unknown as a real phenomenon...

Is that enough instances to make an induction about it?

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

But wait!

There's more!



You said "inductive reasoning" and not just "induction."

Well, OK then.

Inductive Reasoning In Science
Neurologica blog

Philosopher Karl Popper had an interesting answer to this question – inductive reasoning does not exist...

I'm only going to do this one, though.

I'm only doing it for entertainment (even though it is quoted correctly).

There are lots more, but enough already.

Michael

[merjet]

Here it is straight from LSD. (Not lysergic acid diethylamide, but that is falsifiable. )

In other places he says, "There is no such thing as induction by repetition."

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here it is straight from LSD. (Not lysergic acid diethylamide, but that is falsifiable. )

In other places he says, "There is no such thing as induction by repetition."

Merlin,

Thanks.

For the lazy reader, this is straight out of The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper (p. 18). The exact phrase is:

Now in my view there is no such thing as induction.

But he added a footnote to that comment just to make sure he was not misunderstood:

I am not, of course, here considering so-called 'mathematical induction'. What I am denying is that there is such a thing as induction in the so-called 'inductive sciences': that there are other 'inductive procedures' or 'inductive inferences'.

Back to Bob. Is that enough people who deny "the existence of inductive reasoning or even its usefulness in some situations" for ya'?

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Qua reasoning there is no need for saying it is or is not inductive through analysis, just leave the label off and accurately describe what is going on. The label hardly helps anyway. For another party to then exclaim that's wrong because that's inductive would get no traction, not even the traction of pin the tail on the donkey. (That donkey is doing the moving, not the tail*.) Science neither uses or needs such labeling, so why philosophers? Reasoning is like a raw egg. Break it open and beat it up and toss it in the flying pan to make an omelet: add your facts--cheese and chopped ham--and cook it up and eat it. No need to pause and say the white part of the egg is inductive and the yellow part deductive. All that's needed to know is deductive is theoretically arguing from a principle to a conclusion and inductive to a principle to a conclusion. The only real test is the validity of the conclusion. How does it taste? Add some seasoning?

Now, what Popper says we can consider for he involves science. It is then up to scientists to take it or leave it, ignore it or embrace it, use it or lose it. The rest of us will comment, comment and comment some more, but what do we really care unless ITOE travels to ethics and politics? The only way to do that is with the blessings of lucidity. That's why we read the tract: to clear our heads.

--Brant

*can anybody make any sense out of this?--I can't, but it was too good to leave out

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

can anybody make any sense out of this?...

Brant,

The part about cooking eggs was good. I like eggs.

Michael

[Guyau]

.

Deleted - wrong thread*

[anthony]

Case in point: The black swan. Every swan seen in the northern hemisphere is white or a light color. However in Australia black swans were observed. So the conclusion one might have reached from the "Norther facts" - all swans are white simply is not true. There are black swans.

Even with the limitation induction is the only way we have to get from a finite set of facts to a general universally quantified conclusion. Induction is the way we "leap" from particulars to generalities.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Each fact is (by definition) true but the general conclusion may be false. How is this possible? It is possible because the set of facts used as the premise of the induction is not complete. There maybe be conflicting facts in the world that are not knows to the person doing the induction.

If you are living in 15C. Europe, and have never heard of Australia - surely you're 100% correct to induce that "all" swans are white in the known world? Within limitations of time and place, and (if one is not a botanist but a layperson) relevance to oneself, knowledge is contextual.

Besides, if an attribute of "swan" is "whiteness", shouldn't the black Australian bird be named something else?

(Just a silly thought.)

[BaalChatzaf]

Back to Bob. Is that enough people who deny "the existence of inductive reasoning or even its usefulness in some situations" for ya'?

Michael

Popper said that ennumerative induction is not logically valid. Which is indeed the case. A million instances of white swans through the ages were taken to imply that all swans are white. zzzzzzt, not a valid -inference-!!! Black swans were seen in New Zealand. Thus proving that the multiple instance of swans being right to not -imply- that -all- swans are white.

Extend this to physical science. No matter how many experiments corroborate a hypothesis, such corroborations do NOT -prove- the hypothesis is true. This was Popper's point. Why is he right. No matter how many particular observations are consistent with the hypothesis, it does not prove that cannot be a counter example or empirical refutation for the hypothesis.

In short, there are no induction (this empirical induction, not mathematical induction) -proofs- of a scientific hypothesis. Such particulars are corroborations of the hypothesis, but taken together do NOT constitute -proof- of the hypothesis.

All it takes is one contrary experiment (properly confirmed by several independent experimenters) to blow a theory up.. Just one.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

Bob: "Just one" time the sun doesn't rise tomorrow, will blow that theory (and all theories) away, too. But you'd be a fool to not make plans for lunch tomorrow because of that.

[Brant Gaede]

Apart from induction, the black swan is what you get by describing or defining swans by non-essential characteristics. This leads to the faulty reasoning. Even if black swans never appear, the reasoning would still be faulty right out the gate.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Apart from induction, the black swan is what you get by describing or defining swans by non-essential characteristics. This leads to faulty reasoning.

--Brant

The swan is defined by its body shape. Color is not one of its defining characteristics.

1. Any of various large aquatic birds of the family Anatidae chiefly of the genera Cygnus and Olor, having webbed feet, along slender neck, and usually white plumage.

Note the word "usually" prior to "plumage" A usual characteristic cannot be a defining characteristic. However a bird with webbed feet and a slender neck was seen in now Zealand. It also had black plumage.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Popper said that ennumerative induction is not logically valid.

Bob,

Which is it?

You don't know anyone who says inductive reasoning is invalid or Popper was right that inductive reasoning is invalid?

You said one thing one minute and another at another minute.

You can't have both.

Dayaamm!

(You used to have it together. What happened?)

Besides, all your phrase, "ennumerative induction is not logically valid," means at root is that induction is not deduction. Boil it down and that's all you get. There is no other there there.

Then all you have to do is say only deduction is valid as knowledge and voila, you have blanked out a major form of reasoning by a tautology. (Why is deduction the only valid form of logic? Because logic is deduction. And valid knowledge is only logic. Why? Just because. That's why. If it ain't logic, it ain't knowledge. Tautology. Well what about observation? That ain't knowledge. It's just guessing. That's all that stuff means in the end. Obviously, I don't agree.)

Here's how it works on a deeper level. If I make the rules of a system, I can predict the future with 100% accuracy that if I work the system with those rules today, that system will have the same rules tomorrow. Like any tautology, it always works. (Deductive logic is such a system.) And if it should not work for some arcane complicated supposition that some smartass devises, I just change the rules so it will always work. Just like with any tautology.

Making a competition between induction and deduction is pure bullshit once you take the clothes and plumage off the arguments. Especially if you think tautologies are not knowledge.

I happen to think they are once you add observation and induction, but I'm not playing chess with life. This stuff is important for living to me, not competing in games of abstraction, especially where you stack the deck (i.e. cheat).

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Popper said that ennumerative induction is not logically valid.

Bob,

Which is it?

You don't know anyone who says inductive reasoning is invalid or Popper was right that inductive reasoning is invalid?

You said one thing one minute and another at another minute.

You can't have both.

Dayaamm!

(You used to have it together. What happened?)

Besides, all your phrase, "ennumerative induction is not logically valid," means at root is that induction is not deduction. Boil it down and that's all you get. There is no other there there.

Then all you have to do is say only deduction is validlid as knowledge and voila, you have blanked out a major form of reasoning by a tautology. (Why is deduction the only valid form of logic? Because logic is deduction. And valid knowledge is only logic. Why? Just because. That's why. If it ain't logic, it ain't knowledge. Tautology. Well what about observation? That ain't knowledge. It's just guessing. That's all that stuff means in the end. Obviously, I don't agree.)

Here's how it works on a deeper level. If I make the rules of a system, I can predict the future with 100% accuracy that if I work the system with those rules today, that system will have the same rules tomorrow. Like any tautology, it always works. (Deductive logic is such a system.) And if it should not work for some arcane complicated supposition that some smartass devises, I just change the rules so it will always work. Just like with any tautology.

Making a competition between induction and deduction is pure bullshit once you take the clothes and plumage off the arguments. Especially if you think tautologies are not knowledge.

I happen to think they are once you add observation and induction, but I'm not playing chess with life. This stuff is important for living to me, not competing in games of abstraction, especially where you stack the deck (i.e. cheat).

Michael

A valid line of reasoning guarantees a true conclusion when it starts from true premises. Or, put another way, valid arguments preserve truth values. Inductive arguments do no such thing. Example: the black swan. From n true particulars one can reach a false general conclusion. Truth value is not guaranteed. In deductive arguments if one starts from true premises then we MUST reach a true conclusion. The problem is that using deduction one cannot infer a universally quantified conclusion from a finite set of particulars.

That is the main difference between deduction and induction.

So that is the which in which is it.

May I suggest you take a course in first order logic? It would help you keep things straight.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

May I suggest you take a course in first order logic? It would help you keep things straight.

Ba'al Chatzaf

________________________________________

Condensation!

--Brant

caused by pissing on your debate opponent

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In deductive arguments if one starts from true premises when MUST reach a true conclusion. The problem is that using deduction one cannot infer a universally quantified conclusion from a finite set of particulars.

That is the main difference between deduction and induction.

Bob,

In other words, the problem with induction is that it is not deduction. That's your main argument. It certainly is Popper's.

Er... I think I said that.

Several times in fact.

On this very thread.

Or would you like quotes to remember?

May I suggest an elementary reading course? It would help keep things straight.

Besides, Popper didn't just limit himself to a specific kind of induction like you are claiming. He said induction does not exist at all. His words, not mine. Are his words suddenly the Bible and need interpretation to make them the contrary of what they say? (And may I suggest reading the quotes?)

By the way, which is it? You still haven't answered.

Have you never met people who deny inductive reasoning exists or do you suddenly agree with them, that is those you have not met, I mean kinda met, or whatever?

I like the idea of consorting with ghosts where someone can be a person and not a person at the same time, but we are in the only reality I know how to navigate. So which is it? Have you met these people and agree with them? Or have you not met anyone who could possibly say such a stupid thing (that is, the thing you suddenly agree with)?

(It can get worse. The problem is, this for me is fun. )

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A valid line of reasoning guarantees a true conclusion when it starts from true premises.

Bob,

I agree with this. I think it is cheating and imprecise to say "I have only seen white swans, therefore all swans are white," then call that induction. The precise way is "I have only seen white swans, therefore a pattern of white swans exists."

That is a precise way of stating it. And it is knowledge. 100% verifiable by observation. And I would call that a perfect induction that is a true induction, not a flawed assertion trying to be a deduction and masquerading as an induction.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

So academics will look at learning to ride a bike and say that is not propositional (I'm not calling you an academic, though ). The Randian approach is learning to ride a bike is merely one form of knowledge, a nonverbal one, but the mental processes of gaining that knowledge are identical to using verbal logic to gain knowledge. She used terms like differentiation, integration and so on.

[....]

In other words, in this way of approaching knowledge, propositional logic is merely one form of using deduction and induction.

Ironically, your "way of approaching knowledge" is similar to Popper's approaching knowledge as "trial and error" and extending that term's meaning beyond customary usage until, in his use, it became any form of learning.

Regarding Rand's statement from ITOE:

The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts is, in essence, a process of induction. The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept is, in essence, a process of deduction.

If I could delete one sentence from Rand's complete writings and recorded Q and A responses and interviews, it would be that sentence. I think it bequeaths everyone who sees value in Rand's ideas on concepts with a needless nightmare of confusion and trouble.

I think that differentiating concept formation from propositional logic (and from skill learning, which she didn't include in the statement) is needed to understand issues of "knowledge."

I'm not unsympathetic to your aversion to academic discourse. I agree that plenty of game-playing goes on. Nonetheless - and in keeping with Rand on this point - I think that concepts shouldn't be integrated in disregard of necessity, and that your usage has the unfortunate result of conflating phenomena which differ in ways important to categorize differently..

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

The problem I have with this whole discussion is the term "propositional logic" and using that to stake some kind of claim to exclusivity of standard for knowledge. Not that I am against logic. I think it is one of mankind's greatest fundamental accomplishments. But when logic is defined solely as deduction, then that is used (when you boil down all the verbiage) as proof that induction is not logical, that's nothing but a tautology. It's playing the game with loaded dice.

Reams of ink has been written about this, yet highly intelligent people don't seem to see the intellectual con.

What's worse, this con paves the way for Popperians to come into my life and get dogmatic and look-down-their-nose snooty about induction not even existing.

I think Rand saw this problem and that's why she used induction and deduction as as a way of thinking for building concepts, not just as propositional logic.

I repeat, how can induction ever be considered as valid propositional logic when logic is defined as deduction? It can't, but not because the propositions are invalid. It's because it ain't deduction.

So here we will disagree. You wish Rand had not made that statement. I'm glad she did.

I think that is going to be one of the small kernels that will open this whole can of worms over time. I expect there will be a lot of resistance, too.

Contrary to seeing this from one end of Rand's razor, that "concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity," I see the entire history of this debate (what I know of it so far, that is) from the other end, that concepts are not "to be integrated in disregard of necessity."

Apropos, I don't know if this is dealt with in Harriman's book. I have his book, but I haven't read it yet. If he did deal with it and expand on it, I believe it needs doing, but I wish he had not fudged science history as so many have complained about.

One of the oddest comments I remember reading about his book, though, is Peikoff saying somewhere that science is fundamentally induction, not deduction. This makes the same mistake the other folks make but from the opposite end. Both sides frame the issue as an either-or question when both the "either" and the "or" are needed and both are on equal footing just to operate.

In other words, I don't believe it is possible to have deduction without induction and vice-versa.

Note that this is reflected in how the the human brain physically processes information, with the left and right sides having different focuses. Even as a metaphor for deduction and induction, note that this is a focus, not an exclusivity. The left brain is not rational only and the right brain intuitive only. Each side uses the other and lots of it. If one side physically dies, the other will assimilate functions of the dead side--albeit imperfectly.

I think this is what has been done with the induction versus deduction debate. They killed one side of the brain and are trying to make do with half a brain.

Michael

[anthony]

A valid line of reasoning guarantees a true conclusion when it starts from true premises.

Bob,

I agree with this. I think it is cheating and imprecise to say "I have only seen white swans, therefore all swans are white," then call that induction. The precise way is "I have only seen white swans, therefore a pattern of white swans exists."

Michael

It's an important qualification Michael, and fits my understanding of the 'classical model' (as I see it) of induction: Observation - Pattern - Tentative Hypothesis - Theory.

Compare with deduction: Theory - Hypothesis - Observation - Confirmation.

I'm still trying to figure how a Popperian arrives at a theory without induction. Floating abstraction?

[Brant Gaede]

Classical or any other model strikes me as an aftereffect of a conclusion--that is, an imposition of order to straighten everything out and go on with additional flights of fancy. It's just securing the foundation. Who actually uses any model to go anywhere? Einstein got "there" before the "proofs" did.

--Brant

[Guyau]

Ellen, regarding the Rand quotation in #321:

I imagine Rand was finessing a long-standing Aristotelian tradition concerning induction in that passage. That is, she took Aristotelian materials and transmuted them into her leaner metaphysics and more modern epistemology. It was Aristotle who introduced induction as way to knowledge, the way to true, justified universals and principles. He addressed two varieties of induction.* The one known as abstractive induction, or as intuitive induction, received a nice discussion from Leonard Peikoff (1985) in his paper “Aristotle’s ‘Intuitive Induction’.”

I have been studying The Nature of Scientific Explanation by Jude Dougherty (2013). This is an Aristotelian/Thomist account of scientific explanation for modern science. Prof. Dougherty wrote me a kind note complimenting the second part (V1N3) of my “Induction on Identity” twenty-plus years ago, and it is especially thrilling to see now what he has to say on induction (chap. 2 and more). He includes a quote from Louis Groarke’s An Aristotelian Account of Induction (2009), which reads:

“Induction is the mental ability to somehow jump from the experience of a particular to concepts, rules, and principles covering a wide variety of cases. We can, then, define Aristotelian induction in two different ways. Induction is, as traditionally understood, an inference from the particular to the universal; but it is also in its most basic form, an inference from sense perception to knowledge. We begin in perception and we end up with words or symbols, with propositions made out of some kind of language, with verbal or linguistic claims that ultimately affirm what is true, in a general way, about the world.”

Dougherty continues:

Thus we have two different ways of knowing: deduction, in which the intellect moves from previously established propositions to a conclusion that follows necessarily; and induction, in which the intellect moves from the observance of particular instances to the nature or essence of the kind of thing in question. (24–25)

In my copy of ITOE, Ellen, in the passage you quoted, I penciled long ago some marginalia. The two occurrences of “in essence” are underlined, and my margin remark on them is “hedge; unsure of exact relationship.”

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