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Physics Avoidance
Physics Avoidance
Essays in Conceptual Strategy
MARK WILSON
1
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To Winston and Kathleen
The rich profusion thee confounds, my love,

Of flowers, spread athwart the garden. Aye,
Name upon name assails thy ears, and each
More barbarous-sounding than the one before—
Like unto each the form, yet none alike;
And so the choir hints a secret law,
A sacred mystery. Ah, love could I vouchsafe
In sweet felicity a simple answer!
Gaze on them as they grow, see how the plant
Burgeons by stages into flower and fruit,
Bursts from the seed so soon as fertile earth
Sends it to life from her sweet bosom, and
Commends the unfolding of the delicate leaf
To the sacred goad of ever-moving light!
Goethe, “The Metamorphosis of Plants”1
1
Rudolf Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist, Heinz Norden, trans. (New York: Henry Shuman, 1949), p. 55–6.
SUMM ARY CONTENTS
1. PRAGMATICS’ PLACE AT THE TABLE 1
2. PHYSICS AVOIDANCE 51
3. FROM THE BENDING OF BEAMS TO THE PROBLEM

OF FREE WILL 99
4. TWO CHEERS FOR ANTI-ATOMISM 136
5. THE GREEDINESS OF SCALES 201
6. BELIEVERS IN THE LAND OF GLORY 241
7. IS THERE LIFE IN POSSIBLE WORLDS? 287
8. SEMANTIC MIMICRY 324
9. A SECOND PILGRIM’S PROGRESS 362

C O N T E NTS
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
1. PRAGMATICS’ PLACE AT THE TABLE 1

Appendix 1: The “Worlds” of Science and Common Sense 40
Appendix 2: Investigative Moods and Logical Reasoning 46
2. PHYSICS AVOIDANCE 51
Appendix 1: Initial/Boundary Condition Mimics 90
Appendix 2: Constraints and the Physics of Mechanism 94
3. FROM THE BENDING OF BEAMS TO THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL 99

Appendix: The Problem of the Physical Infinitesimal 130
4. TWO CHEERS FOR ANTI-ATOMISM 136

Appendix: Hertz’s Challenge and the Underdetermination of Theory 196
5. THE GREEDINESS OF SCALES 201
6. BELIEVERS IN THE LAND OF GLORY 241

Appendix: The Origins of Conceptual Clashes I: Pressure 281
7. IS THERE LIFE IN POSSIBLE WORLDS? 287

Appendix: The Origins of Conceptual Clashes II: Force 320
8. SEMANTIC MIMICRY 324
9. A SECOND PILGRIM’S PROGRESS 362
Index Topic 423

Index Author 425
PREFACE A ND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Despite its title, this book does not “avoid physics” in the sense of ignoring the topic
altogether. Rather it concerns itself with various stratagems for evading lengthy and
unreliable patterns of inference that we might otherwise confront in science. Here is our
basic prototype of “avoidance.” Wobbly Jack and Jill are perched on the top of their
proverbial hill, from which they will soon tumble. Where are they likely to land? In
theory, we might painfully calculate their downward trajectories bump by bump until
we reach a final landing place, but doing so requires an accurate assessment of hillside
topography, the elastic coefficients
pertinent to children, etc., as well
as a formidable computer. Such
reasoning pathways are notori-
ously prone to error, and great
care needs to be taken to insure
that one of our children will not
become launched into computa-
tional interstellar space through a
round-off error when they hit a
rock. In contrast, consider the pol-
icy of looking for the lowest points
of ground at the foot of the hill;
avoiding physics that is where they will both even-
tually tumble, we can assuredly decide. Although we cannot fully augur at which of
these lowest points they will be found, the predictions we can otherwise obtain through
avoidance reasoning are extremely reliable and easy to obtain. In the standard jargon of
applied mathematics, we have eschewed calculation of an evolutionary development
(their detailed but hard to compute trajectories down the hill) in favor of an estimation
of eventual equilibrium position (the locations where they can remain stationary). The
character of the reasoning employed differs considerably between the two cases, and I’ll
say that these two modes exemplify different forms of explanatory architecture.
In these contexts, the phrase physics avoidance signals the exploitation of a strategic
opportunity that allows us to resolve important physical questions in a practical manner.
My central purpose is to alert readers to the characteristic symptomatology of some of
these distinctive reasoning patterns.
Contemporary philosophical thinking blurs many of these architectural ingredients
together, wrapping distinct edifices within a poorly diagnosed envelope that I call Theory
T thinking (in tribute to the numerous T’s and T’’s that populate these abstracted
discussions). As a result, substantially different forms of explanatory motif get stuffed
xii Preface and Acknowledgments
into inadequate pigeon holes, producing considerable con-

fusion in the aftermath.1 In doing so, we lose sight of the
granular detail required to understand how practical sci-
ence strategically adapts itself to fresh tasks. Many of
the telltale symptoms of distinct reasoning architectures
are already familiar to applied mathematicians, and I hope
to introduce their discriminations to a wider audience in
this book.
As such, this is largely a work within the philosophy of
science, with a special emphasis on how various pieces of
mathematical apparatus should be fitted together in cap-
turing a worldly behavior effectively (“harmonize” is a
word I will frequently utilize to this purpose). But the
chief ambition of these essays is not to persuade other
avoiding intractable reasoning philosophers that they should imitate the narrow veins of
science-based inquiry I pursue, but to free them from the shackles of pseudo-scientific
folklore that hamper their own explorations across the far-extended territories of
philosophy. Contemporary writers have come to believe that they must claim to “follow
the scientific method” in their deliberations, even when they pursue projects that seem
suspiciously a priori. I don’t approve of their armchair apriorism, but the methodological
apologetics aren’t necessary either, for they stem from misrepresentations of working
science. In a related vein, the sweeping portrait of “theory” ingrained within conven-
tional Theory T thinking has discouraged direct study of the subtle explanatory land-
scapes that characterize both practical science and our everyday modes of description, to
such an extent that the worthiest insights of the great diagnosticians of twentieth-century
philosophy (J. L. Austin and the later Wittgenstein) are commonly dismissed as unsys-
tematic and lacking in rigor. “They haven’t supplied a proper theory,” the complaint
runs. In truth, a legitimate demand for “theory” amounts to nothing more than “tell me
something helpful.” However, it is true that that the precautions ingrained within that
canny hodgepodge of folk wisdom that we call “common sense thinking” often
resemble—and anticipate—the formalized reasoning architectures encountered within
the cleverest forms of scientific physics avoidance. Our appreciation of the cultivated
subtleties of common sense thinking can be increased, I think, from a recognition of the
fact that many varieties of well- documented scientific strategy operate along rather
similar lines. I will be therefore pleased if these ruminations encourage other writers to
directly cultivate the descriptive policies that underpin our everyday modes of practical
discourse, without any need to examine strings, rubber bands, and seesaws in the detail
provided here.
At the present moment, however, any effective deflation of pseudo-scientific meth-
odology must probably begin on the Theory T side of the ledger, because that’s where
1
Insofar as I can determine, these same T-laden propensities have been perpetuated within the sinews of possible
world thinking, as championed by the late David Lewis. See Essay 6 for more on this theme.
Preface and Acknowledgments xiii
the restrictive tenets of which I complain obtain their ersatz credentials. Sometimes the
best way to combat pseudo-scientific prejudice is simply to evoke concrete scientific fact.
That, essentially, is my project in these essays. Unfortunately, the practices that most
effectively reveal the deficiencies of Theory T thinking are subtle in their internal
contours, and the sledding within some of these essays may sometimes get a bit
bumpy. Some of these expository jolts merely reflect poor writing on my part, but
other intricacies appear simply because nature has made it so—the paths of reasoning it
tolerates with respect to our physical surroundings are crooked and cannot be made
straight. Indeed, a significant part of my narrative task lies in explaining why easy things
often rely upon tricky rationales. Without qualms, baffled readers should skim lightly
over any turgid passages that impede their advance, for I think that my central morals
can be adequately grasped without mastering every kink in every example that I present.
A recurring thread running throughout the book is the necessity of approaching
conceptual innovation in a manner that is biologically plausible and computationally
feasible. We are, after all, creatures of relatively small brain, and the physical world casts
descriptive opportunities our way that are varied in strategic character with little regard
for our inferential limitations. Often the key to adaptive
success is to find ways to re-engineer a familiar reasoning
scheme A into a fresh routine that addresses task B in a
swift and relatively painless manner. The results often
provide significant computational advance cloaked in con-
ceptual muddle, for the strategies that underpin policy
B can be quite different from those that rationalize
A. We can discover a worthy routine while misdiagnosing
its underlying rationale, just as we can nimbly execute card
tricks, without understanding why they succeed (the latter
often requires deep mathematics).
Many of these basic issues are outlined in a preliminary
manner within Essay 1, but many readers may prefer
jumping directly into the waters of any of the subsequent
essays, for immediate swimming is often more appealing
than long disquisitions on dry land. Every essay in this parlor tricks with reasoning
volume began life as a self-sustained lecture, and every one can be read, ad libitum, apart
from the others. Doing so entails some degree of repetition and cross-referencing across
chapters, but the results are preferable, I think, to my previous literary production
(Wandering Significance2), which blossomed into a pink enormity through an overly
earnest attempt to thread a linear narrative through very variegated territory. Virtually
nothing appearing here has been published before.3
That is not to say that the themes explored across these essays do not align with one
another fairly tightly, and most of them are organized around one of the many puzzles
2
Mark Wilson, Wandering Significance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).
3
Portions of Essay 5 appeared in “Stitching Together a Language for Science,” Analytic Philosophy 56(4) (2015).
xiv Preface and Acknowledgments
that emerge when we attempt to explicate how the loose bundle of descriptive tech-
niques called “classical physics” applies so effectively to the macroscopic world about us.
In my initial plottings, I had expected to frame this collection around a long survey
article entitled “What is ‘Classical
Physics’ Anyway?”, portions of
which have been published else-
where.4 I eventually decided that
this preface wasn’t necessary. How-
ever, it is within the applicational
contexts of traditional classical
mechanics that I first recognized
the importance of asymptotic con-
nections across characteristic scales
(Essays 1 and 5) and the conceptual
confusions that often follow in their
wake.
In brief, here is a summary of
contents. roadmap to the book ahead
Essay 1 (“Pragmatics’ Place at the Table”) argues for the importance of investigative
context as an important vehicle for reasoning compression, supporting the varied
explanatory architectures that allow us to capture the physical world in tractable
terms. This essay recapitulates the central argument of Wandering Significance in
variant terms.
Essay 2 (“Physics Avoidance”) distinguishes some fundamental classes of explanatory
architecture following the discernments of applied mathematics. In my opinion, descrip-
tive philosophy of science would be greatly improved if these diagnostic tools were
more widely employed. These distinctions will frequently reappear in other essays.
Essay 3 (“From the Bending of Beams to the Problem of Free Will”) outlines how
Leibniz’s strange metaphysical views stem from mathematical concerns intimately
linked to the methodological considerations of Essay 5. His insights have proved helpful
to me in other essays and have guided me to a better appreciation of what “metaphysics”
should be about.
Essay 4 (“Two Cheers for Anti-Atomism”) is another historically oriented chapter
focusing upon Pierre Duhem’s methodological insights with respect to classificatory
words such as “temperature.” This essay is long and detailed because Duhem directs our
attention to a complicated range of subtle facts about the applicational range of thermal
vocabulary. To its detriment, contemporary philosophical thinking with respect to
linguistic reference seems largely unaware of considerations of this type, so providing
a somewhat lengthy résumé of Duhem’s concerns strikes me as a worthy expositional
project. The conclusions reached are strongly complementary with the themes of
4
Robert Batterman, ed., Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Physics (New York: Oxford University Press,
2013).
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
other chapters. Again, this essay is intended as a tribute to another major influence upon
my thinking.
Essay 5 (“The Greediness of Scales”) outlines the working architectures of modern
multiscalar modeling techniques, in a manner that extends the discussion of investigative
context from Essay 1. Concrete organizational proposals of a multiscalar character help
us recognize the distortions and vagaries endemic within standard Theory T thinking.
Essay 6 (“Believers in the Land of Glory”) criticizes contemporary metaphysics’ tacit
reliance upon the coarse categories of Theory T thinking, which has misdirected
philosophical attention away from the puzzles of applied mathematical technique that
originally concerned Leibniz and other historical authorities.
Essay7 (“Is There Life in Possible Worlds?”) examines the topsy-turvy manner in
which thinking about causation in contemporary “possible world” terms inverts the
practical considerations that rationalize appeals to counterfactual possibility within
effective science. The essay also emphasizes the role of reliability within any “science”
worthy of the name. A possible link to Wittgenstein’s later thought is sketched as well.
Essay 8 (“Semantic Mimicry”) supplies my central exemplar of how “easy things rely
upon tricky supportive rationales.” It concentrates upon the long-vexed problems of
describing a continuous material in a coherent way. This is probably the most technic-
ally demanding of the essays.
Essay 9 (“A Second Pilgrim’s Progress”) criticizes contemporary formulations of
“naturalism” from the perspective of applied mathematics, especially in regard to
mistaken presumptions about the role that set theory plays within its deliberations.
Although these assorted essays emphasize the many varieties of strategic architecture
that science and common sense utilize in addressing nature’s descriptive challenges,
I write as neither a pluralist nor an anti-realist.5 Instead, I see myself as reviving older
strains of skeptical concern with respect to our abilities to reason thoroughly about our
surroundings in mathematical ways. John Locke writes:
Reason, though it penetrates into the depths of the seas and earth, elevates our thoughts as
high as the stars and leads us through the vast spaces and large rooms of this mighty fabric,
yet it comes far short of the real extent of even corporeal being, and there are many
instances where it fails us.6
5
e.g. in the vein of Nancy Cartwright, How The Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
Although Cartwright’s writings correctly highlight inferential patterns to which philosophers should pay greater attention,
she generally supplies them with a gloss diametrically opposite to that I would favor. For example, she correctly observes
that productive inferential pathways leading to useful empirical conclusions often hinge upon the order in which various
limits are taken. But she then characterizes these behaviors as the typical “put up jobs” that physicists supply when they
deceptively pretend that they have captured the “dappled world” within a unified physical framework. In contrast,
I regard those same limit-sensitive behaviors as characteristic of the asymptotic techniques for which applied mathemat-
icians have developed compelling rationales for their frequent appearances within inferential practice. The notion that
there is anything “deceptive” or “idealized” about their invocation strikes me as altogether misguided. This is not to say
that many mysteries about how asymptotic techniques store data still remain. But these merely strike me as agenda items
for further research, not grounds for philosophical despair.
6
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 681.
xvi Preface and Acknowledgments
At bottom, mathematics’ abilities to capture nature’s unfolding processes within its own
conceptual terms rest upon its capacities for supplying algorithms that can fill out pieces
of graph paper in a numerical manner, in hope of paralleling natural process in a helpful
fashion. Prosecuted naïvely, we already know that such efforts are doomed to failure,
because, inter alia, nature presents us with lots of mani-
folds that can’t be smoothly mapped to flat pieces of paper
(vide the problems of graphing a goose’s flight over a
curvaceous earth discussed in Essay 9). In this fashion,
our most basic modes of effective mathematical reasoning
must fall “short of the real extent” of natural process. But
this is hardly the end of the story, for clever mathemat-
icians have developed many sophisticated strategies for
stringing together patchworks of numerical approxima-
tion that allow us to feel that we have nonetheless “under-
stood nature” in a fully satisfactory manner, despite the
algorithmic limitations upon our concrete reasoning cap-
acities. Central to most varieties of this liberation from
John Locke
computational shortsightedness are the tools of set theory
and the differential calculus. But these appeals frequently introduce descriptive exag-
gerations of the sort highlighted as “the greediness of scales” problem in Essay 5. At
present, mathematicians repair these descriptive lapses through corrective doses of
asymptotic interconnection, following Oliver Heaviside’s maxim:
It is said that every bane has its antidote and some amateur biologists have declared that
the antidote is to be found near its bane.7
In this vein, applied mathematics has developed wonderfully illuminating explanations
for why our lot as limited creatures of nature is doomed to perpetual challenge, as well
as suggesting a wide array of clever reasoning architectures to work around these
obstacles. This evaluation of our computational predicament is not pluralist in the
usual philosopher’s sense; it merely supplies straightforward scientific explanations of
the diverse descriptive demands that make more impatient thinkers presume that we
should become pluralists or anti-realists. So the methodological moral I extract is: be
more patient and do not fall prey to extreme philosophical remedies.
But how far can we advance through these devious methods of conceptual repair and
what will the fabric of affected science look like in the future? I don’t know, and I doubt
that anyone else alive can supply reliable appraisals of this prognostic cast. Other
philosophers, however, believe that they have somehow established an Archimedean
perch from which this futuristic feat can be accomplished. Insofar as I can determine,
these illusions of confidence largely trace to our unfortunate heritage of Theory
T thinking, a simplistic methodology in which mathematical science allegedly supplies
7
Oliver Heaviside, Electromagnetic Theory, Vol. II (New York, Chelsea, 1971), pp. 31–2. The original context is
explained in Essay 5.
Preface and Acknowledgments xvii
“processes” that parallel nature’s own in a tidily isomorphic fashion. In one fell swoop,
many of the detailed descriptive concerns that animated the great metaphysical writers
of the past get removed from the docket of philosophical attention. I hope that these
essays may assist in reversing these premature exclusions.
When Locke wondered about our capacity for understanding “the real extent of
corporeal being,” he worried skeptically about our ability to capture the varied phe-
nomena encountered amongst ordinary solids like wood and steel (cohesion, elasticity,
fracture, transmission of coherent work) within a unified and coherent conceptual
package. Most of my own examples focus upon the same congeries of descriptive
concern, but with the advantages of modern hindsight. Material science has made
great advances with respect to the behaviors of solids in the centuries since Locke
wrote, and important aspects of these historical developments have involved deep and
subtle revisions in how scientists think about the concepts and the capacities of applied
mathematics. We can now render “corporeal being” a far greater degree of representa-
tional justice than Locke anticipated, but we achieve this feat by catching the relevant
behaviors within more complex forms of conceptual netting than he could have possibly
envisioned. Insofar as I can see, a considerable percentage of contemporary philosophers
remain oblivious to these modernizing alterations and attempt to cobble by with
classical conceptions of “concept” very much like Locke’s own.8 A suitable corrective
is simply to return to Locke’s original physical concerns and ponder them afresh in light
of what we now know. Such, essentially, is the task of these essays.
Yet, as Locke and the other great British essayists and poets of his time emphasized,
we forever remain limited creatures of nature and can only provisionally evaluate our
capacities for understanding the world around us based upon the practical advances we
find ourselves able to make. Philosophers cannot serve as prophets any more effectively
than our fellow captives of nature, and we should not pretend otherwise. Neither
conceptual analysis nor transcendental musings nor a priori intuition can free us from
these empirical limitations. At best, we can assemble provisional progress reports with
respect to how matters presently appear. But doing so competently requires that we
attend to the complexities of explanatory landscape in a more detailed manner than is
common within philosophy today.
Such musings have led to an interest in the multiscalar techniques of modern
computing, and I was fortunate to have my friend Bob Batterman, independently
studying these topics, rejoin me on the Pittsburgh philosophy faculty a few years ago.
The fruits of unceasing conversations with Bob appear on every page of this book, even
when it is not evident to the untrained eye. I am further grateful to Bob for securing a
grant from the John Templeton Foundation that supported me as I struggled to
complete this fulsome manuscript.
A second central influence arrived with another import to our Allegheny banks, Jim
Woodward, whose insightful work on causation has greatly enhanced my recognition of
8
See Wandering Significance, Chapter 3, for more on the “classical picture of concepts.”
xviii Preface and Acknowledgments
the linguistic adjustments that open unexpected pathways from one form of computa-
tional architecture to another. Essay 6’s musings on “the early a priori” start here.
I have presented much of this material in a wide range of forums over several years,
and I fear that I cannot recall all of the kind folks who have offered me helpful advice.
But some of them are: James Allen, Jeremy Avigad, Gordon Belot, Robert Brandom,
Julia Bursten, A. W. Carus, Kathleen Cook, Josh Eisenthal, Sébastien Gandon, Brice
Halimi, Jeremy Heis, Jennifer Jhun, Jeff King, Peter Koellner, Michael Liston, John
MacFarlane, Alan Nelson, Jill North, Meghan Page, Kenneth Pearce, Christopher
Pincock, Mark Richard, Tom Ricketts, Robert Schwartz, Erica Shumener, Sheldon
Smith, Katie Tabb, and Jim Weatherall. As usual, I again thank my most faithful
respondents, Michael Friedman, Anil Gupta, Pen Maddy, George Wilson, as well as
my indulgent editor, Peter Momtchiloff.
Pittsburgh, 2016
1
PRAGMATICS’ PLACE
AT THE TABLE
Lessons from Multiscalar Science
[O]ur common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth
drawing, and the connections they have found worth drawing, in the lifetimes of
many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they
have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest and more subtle, at least in
all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to
think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon—the most favored alternative method.
J. L. Austin1
(i)
spoiling the party
1
“A Plea for Excuses” in Philosophical Papers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), p. 130.
2 Pragmatics’ Place at the Table
Warning! This essay will shift rather dramatically between the uncomfortably lofty and
the disconcertingly nitty-gritty, for it will eventually discuss the behavior of granite and
steel in more detail than is customary within a philosophical essay.2
Let us begin with some of the uncomfortably lofty issues. Consider Wittgenstein’s
old slogan: “Meaning is use.” Jaunty aphorisms such as this serve as philosophy’s form of
Rorschach test: their explication reveals more about the psychology of their interpreter
than they encode in their own right. With that understanding, I’ll develop my own gloss
on its content here.
But let me first explain why I have positioned the present essay first in this collection.
At heart, I consider myself a philosopher of language, interested in the question, “Why
will an evolving descriptive practice sometimes fall into strange forms of conceptual
confusion, despite the fact that its practitioners have not recognized that they have made
any obvious kind of blunder?” The richest traditions of twentieth-century common sense
philosophy (epitomized by J. L. Austin) maintained that these anomalies arise because
effective real-life usage is controlled by subtle contextual factors that we often overlook.
But the unsystematic character of the discussions provided by Austin’s school strike
most modern readers as too haphazard to qualify as a plausible account of linguistic
practice. How could one ever learn a language as irregularly framed as that?
It turns out, however, that contextual dependencies of the sort highlighted by the
common sense philosophers are also active within a properly operating physical science.
Recent progress in the multiscalar modeling of complex materials (such as steel or
granite) stems from the realization that scientific success can be achieved only if the
descriptive vocabularies utilized are subjected to a carefully monitored set of contextual
restrictions, not wholly unlike the specialized “usages” of the common sense school.
These modern computational recipes factor a complicated problem into a nested set of
discrete investigations, which supply a collection of localized contexts that embedded
terminologies can subsequently exploit with great efficiency. I believe that the divisions
of linguistic labor exemplified within these modeling schemes supply us with excellent
illustrations of how the loose appeals to “usage” characteristic of the ordinary language
school can be formalized in a precise and systematically learnable manner. The purpose
of this chapter is to explicate the basic nature of these structural advantages.
But let us first rehearse the considerations that have lead many contemporary
philosophers to reject the appeals to “use” characteristic of the old British school. In
this vein, consider Jerry Fodor’s brusque objection to the notion that pragmatically
inflected usage can play any significant role within the story of language:
Thought about the world is prior to thought about how to change the world. Accordingly,
knowing that is prior to knowing how. Descartes was right and Ryle was wrong. Why,
after all these years, does one still have to repeat these things?3
2
John MacFarlane once introduced me as follows: “There are some at the University of Pittsburgh who remain loyal
to the heritage of Wilfrid Sellars, but Wilson is loyal to its heritage of steel.”
3
Jerry A. Fodor, LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 14. A more
exacting treatment of allied themes can be found in Jeffrey King and Jason Stanley, “Semantics, Pragmatics and the Role of
Semantic Content” in Zóltan Gendler Szabó, ed., Semantics versus Pragmatics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Pragmatics’ Place at the Table 3
Articulated in less tendentious terms, the argument runs:

1. Tasks that require language for their successful execution generally demand that
articulated stretches of individual sentences get laid down in dialogues. This is
the linguistic level at which pragmatic purpose (“meaning is use”) should
normally display itself.
2. But the individual sentences within these dialogues must be understood first
before the purpose of the larger groupings to which they belong can be
adequately recognized.
3. Parsing these component sentences in turn rests upon a foundation of lexical
grasp and grammatical recursion.
4. These recursive processes of semantic recognition must transpire before the
pragmatic purpose of a dialogue can be grasped, by which time the primary
“meanings” of its component sentences must be firmly locked in place.
Thus: Thought about the world is prior to thought about how to change the world.
I agree with Fodor that popular accounts of pragmatic relevance that appeal loosely to
unsystematic notions of context cannot address these objections adequately.4 The lines
of thought pursued in this essay follow a different path. To keep their reasoning
practices within practical bounds, engineers divide a modeling task into a collection of
more or less independent algorithms, controlled by an external register that monitors
the overarching strategic purposes to which the localized results eventually contribute.
We follow similar policies of strategic guidance in everyday discourse as well, for
essentially the same reasons. If we hope to understand the complicated patterns in
which physical terminologies attach themselves to the world within real-life speech, we
must first appreciate the remarkable linguistic efficiencies that accrue to the contextual
factors we shall survey. On this same basis, we will also
appreciate the methodological shibboleths recommended
by Fodor and others should be firmly resisted.
But what do I mean by a “register of investigative pur-
pose”? In an everyday context, roughly the sorts of back-
ground rationale we request when Mrs. Antony in the film
Strangers on a Train natters on with no clear end in view.
“Where are you going with this line of thought?” we politely
enquire. Here are some typical answers we might anticipate: Mrs. Antony
1. “Oh, I was trying to establish a general conclusion about politics by arguing by
reductio ad absurdum employing generic representatives ‘Hugo’ and ‘Jill’ to stand
in for typical Republican and Democratic voters.”
2. “Oh, I am trying to uncover some useful auxiliary lines that will allow us to see
the proper geometrical relations between these triangles.”
3. “I’m trying to figure out where the bank robbers are likely to stop when they get tired.”
4
The suggestions of the so-called free enrichment school strike me as helpful, but as too irregularly framed to address
our parsing concerns fully.
Unlike Mrs. Antony, most of us monitor our ongoing progress in purposive reasoning
as we think things through (my talk of “registers” captures the mental machinery we
employ to keep track of our investigative intentions). We communicate these projects to
others through locutions such as: “Let’s see what happens if we give an opponent the
benefit of the doubt,” “Let’s see what happens if we enclose the triangle between two
parallel lines,” “Let’s first catalog the possible escape routes,” etc. And we terminate
these same stretches of investigative search by remarks such as “We’ve now found that
our opponent’s views lead inexorably to a contradiction, hence . . . ,” “Accordingly, we
learn that these two areas are forced to be equal,” “All of these routes ultimately trace to
a hacienda on old US 99, so let’s send some troopers out there,” etc. Such are the guiding
locutions of language management that are absent within Mrs. Antony’s aimless dis-
quisitions. We learn the rudiments of these communica-
tive structures at the same time as we acquire the other
significant aspects of language. When Mother teaches us
the meaning of “steel,” she simultaneously instructs us in
strategies for reasoning about such materials in a rudi-
mentary way, including the mastery of discourse direct-
ives such as “Let’s consider what happens when we look
at the metal under a microscope.” I claim that many
aspects of classificatory reference can be adequately
understood only through recognizing the profound
semantic contributions supplied by these compartmental- parental instruction
ized registrations of strategic context.
Allied forms of mental structuring have been actively studied within cognitive
science, sometimes with important carry-overs into linguistics proper, but Fodor’s
generative concerns do not appear to have been directly confronted in these terms.
But the present essay will not make its case for “use” in this exact vein, but will argue
instead from the perspective of effective language design: if we lacked tools for keep
track of our shifting investigative purposes, we would find ourselves unable to reason
about many common forms of everyday circumstance, due to their intractable com-
plexities.5 We are not supernatural intellects; we forever remain the evolved descend-
ants of humble hunter-gatherers, who must cobble together and redirect our modest
computational inheritance in the pursuit of more sophisticated objectives. Philosophers
often proceed on the presumption that we possess bigger brains and inferential skills
than we do, able to juggle descriptive parameters and computational processes far
beyond our actual capacities. But with a limited stock of words and smallish brains,
we must forever seek roundabout strategies that allow us to handle the extremely large
range of challenges that we confront within science and everyday practice (such
workaround tactics are called “strategies of physics avoidance” in Essay 2). The multi-
scalar methods we shall survey in this essay beautifully illustrate how descriptive
5
Some philosophers like to argue by transcendental deduction but I prefer brute engineering necessity.
problems of an otherwise insurmountable complexity can be conquered by breaking the

task at hand into a set of local investigations whose relationships to one another are
carefully monitored by a set of markers that keep track of investigative intent.
As we’ll see, within a suitably structured discourse, vocabularies such as “force” and
“pressure” frequently adjust their physical significances to reflect the evanescent inves-
tigative purposes to which these words currently contribute. From the perspective of
reducing computational complexity, these subtle reorientions in referential attachment
can prove enormously beneficial, but they can easily baffle the observer who has not
appreciated the efficiencies offered by these contextualized adjustments in meaning. In
this manner, the contextual shifts characteristic of multiscalar modeling supply excellent
prototypes for understanding the sensitivities to usage to which common sense philo-
sophers such as J. L. Austin appealed.
A second factor often contributes to conceptual puzzlement. In other essays, we’ll
find that many of the stock reasoning practices of the modern physicist or engineer have
gradually evolved over time through silent processes of trial-and-error tinkering with
pre-established investigative methods. These cobbled together routines can be easily
passed along to later generations through instructions such as “At this point, you should
shift your investigative focus to a lower scale size and compute as follows.” But learning
how to execute a complicated sequential routine and appreciating its underlying
strategic rationale are two different things. If we fail to grasp the latter, we will find
ourselves unable to properly appreciate why our descriptive vocabularies adjust their
referential foci from one investigative context to the next. In this manner, significant
conceptual puzzles have often appeared within the history of science, arising as the
accidental side products of otherwise beneficial forms of linguistic advance. Our chief
task in these essays is to understand the developmental mechanisms that generate these
natural confusions.
Of course, philosophers like Austin originally pursued far bigger philosophical game
than unraveling the funny behaviors of words like “force” and “pressure.” In these
essays, however, we will largely confine ourselves to physical examples, with occasional
side remarks reaching to considerations beyond. Philosophy must first liberate itself
from the anti-pragmatic straitjacket in which Fodor and others have locked its move-
ments. What better way to do that than to appeal to the well-understood computational
policies that have so significantly advanced the capacities of modern engineering?
(ii)
Before we look into a typical scientific example, let us first remind ourselves of how
swiftly we shift our investigative focus within our everyday reasonings. Suppose that we
wish to rob a certain bank in Montrose, California. General wisdom in the design of
geographical information systems recommends that we divide our problem into inves-
tigative stages to be addressed sequentially: First ask, “What is the shortest route to the
bank?” and then determine

how should we pilot our
way to the target along that
path? In Stage 1, we will
consult some kind of topo-
graphic map in computing
the shortest route, generally
by weighing the comparative
merits of a collection of
prima facie possibilities.6 At
this initial stage in our inves-
tigation, we want to register
the streets of Montrose in a
minimalist fashion, omitting Stage 1
most of the details of the sur-
rounding landscape, for such clutter will only impede our calculations. But when
this planning task is completed, we need to prepare a set of driving instructions
so that we find our way to the bank. So in a second stage of mental cogitation, we
must import some of this previ-
ously excluded data into our
stage 1 plan, relying upon some
expanded database akin to Goo-
gle Street View. The final result
will be a list of piloting instruc-
tions such as “Keep driving until
Cazzette’s Children’s Store
comes into view.”
Observe that we instinctively
consult these distinct investiga-
tive stages, when we are asked
a question like “Where’s Cazz-
ette’s Children’s Store?” The
answers we regard as appropri-
ate usually reflect the current
stage of our geographical
Stage 2
thinking:
6
It is worth remarking that we humans seldom execute this optimality search as a computer would, but prefer
drawing a conventional map on a piece of paper and scanning it with our eyes. Why? My guess is that we have inherited
excellent “geometrical fact estimators” from our hunter-gatherer ancestors originally devised for computing preferred
paths across a landscape. We have learned to redirect these skills with respect to shortest route estimation by substituting
a conventional map for a natural environment. Homo sapiens’ remarkable capacities for the plastic redirection of pre-set
routines reoccur within Lesson VI below. The general consideration that possibility spaces need to be kept small and
targeted comprises the central theme of Essay 7.
(a) At the corner of Market and Honolulu (topographic mode)

(b) Wait a few minutes; it’ll be right in front of you (piloting mode).
In this manner, our tacit awareness of current investigative purpose affects the
manner in which we parse a simple question. I find it striking that we make such
adjustments in our everyday thinking extremely swiftly without overtly noticing that we
have done so.7 In the pages ahead, any sequential succession of shifting investigative
strategies of this ilk will be called a cognitive architecture. Accordingly, the “architecture”
of our bank robbery plotting reflects a simple two stage process. The multiscalar
arrangements we shall investigate in the pages ahead are more complicated, involving
various feedback interconnections between different computational stages.
Let’s now see how a suitably selected architecture can
vastly reduce the syntactic demands upon data registra-
tion. Here’s a simple illustration. How can we keep the
storage requirements of a digital photograph within rea-
sonable bounds? Consider the exquisite object illustrated
(a Tubaphone #9 banjo), captured in two standard pictor-
ial modes (TIFF and JPEG formats, respectively). The
compressed photo on the right only employs about 15%
of the data points utilized on the left.8 How is this possible?
Answer: compressed formats store their data in the hier-
archal manner of a good strategy for winning Twenty
Questions: they ask very broad, large-scale questions at
first (“Are you a fictional character?”) rather than immedi- data compression
ately considering
very detailed spe-
cifics (“Are you
George Harvey
Bone in Hangover
Square?”). Simpli-
fying somewhat,
TIFF images
encode their data
straightforwardly
on a pixel by pixel
basis, requiring a
large number of
data points in the partitioned forms of data compression
7
In an allied manner, we rarely notice the edits in a Hollywood movie like The Incredible Shrinking Man despite the fact
that they frequently shift perspective radically.
8
6,291,988 bytes versus 428,587 bytes in the representations I originally consulted. By the time you see them, dear
reader, the photos will have become subjected to further forms of compression and may have once again become equal!
process. Compressive schemes instead ask an initial series of broad questions Q1, which
then incite a follow-up round of finer grained questions Q2 depending upon the response
to Q1, and so on through a nested array of further queries Q3, Q4, etc.9 To keep track of
these interdependencies, we often list the questions posed within a segregated front-end
register (Q1, Q2, Q3, . . . ), followed by an enumeration of their respective answers
(A1, A2, A3, . . . ).
Representational tactics of this general nature can be called multiple register schemes,
in analogy to the practice of writing polyphonic music in separate staves, such as
the three clefs in which organ music is written. Here the lowest pedal clef captures
the slowly altering harmonic environment (tonic, dominant, relative minor, . . . )
against which the
faster moving melo-
dies of the two upper
registers unfold. Hav-
ing established a firm
chordal context in this
divided manner, the
multiple register scheme
higher registers can
vary rather freely in their melodic contents, trusting to the fact that the parallel bass
line articulates the harmonic environment that allows auditors to keep track of the
piece’s musical movements.
In our how-to-rob-a-bank circumstances, we plotted out our schemes in two distinct
stages (topographic versus piloting) and observed that questions like “Where’s
Cazzette’s Children’s Store?” are answered differently according to the investigative
“pedal register” currently active. More formally, experts in Geographical Information
Systems (GIS) have learned that storing geographical data differently within distinct
registers greatly shortens computational endeavor.10
But my favorite exemplars of the manner in which we exploit contextual registers
within our everyday thinking are provided by the directive instructions we employ to
convey shifts in investigative focus, such as:
Let’s now see what happens if we give our opponent the benefit of the doubt
or
In order to reach general conclusions about politics, let’s let “Hugo” and “Jill” respectively
designate typical Republican and Democratic voters.
9
More sophisticated “wavelet” approaches to data compression employ nested sequences of contextually adapted
questions in more sophisticated manners than conventional JPEGs (which are largely based upon the Fast Fourier
Transform).
10
I. Heywood, S. Cornelius, Sarah Carver, and S. Carver, An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems
(Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 2006).
In doing so, we locate our unfolding ruminations within a shifting array of contextual
controls that might be called “investigative moods.” In the examples at hand, we alert
our audience to the fact that we plan to argue by reductio or that we intend to
substitute generic names for explicit quantifications. These announcements of investi-
gative mood reduce syntactic complexity11 and allow for significant reasoning compres-
sion as well—the technique gets a lot of pesky quantifiers, modal operators, and scope
restrictions out of the way so that the central combinatorial aspects of the reasoning can
move ahead in a simpler manner. Indeed, the Fitch lines employed within a standard
natural deduction system in elementary logic mark these stretches of investigative
mood explicitly (for interested readers, I outline the technique in Appendix 2). This
network of contextual markers keeps track our shifting reasoning tactics in the same
manner as the pedal clef of an organ score captures the shifting harmonic underpinnings
of the music. I believe that much of our everyday reasoning relies upon various forms
of these “pedal register” compressions. Present-day philosophy of language could
become more supple if its practitioners more warmly appreciated the substantive
reductions in syntactic complexity achievable through various policies of contextual
localization.
Accordingly, pragmatics (in the robust sense of practical objectives) gains its “place at
the table” through the manners in which our registrations of investigative strategy
enhance our other linguistic capacities, with respect to both data and reasoning com-
pression. To be sure, these considerations will scarcely exhaust all of the ways in which
the rough slogan “meaning is use” captures valuable insights into the workings of
language. Pace Fodor, however, the strategic factors upon which we will focus are
totally systematic in their contours, and their rudiments can be acquired within our
earliest days of linguistic instruction.
(iii)
Let us now turn to the extraordinary tactical compressions that have been achieved
within modern engineering through the deft employment of reasoning architectures
of a multiscalar design. Approached straightforwardly, complex physical scenarios
frequently involve far too many descriptive variables, arranged across a wide spectrum
of size and time scales, to submit to straightforward reasoning procedures. Clever
forms of “physics avoidance” workaround are needed to reduce these registration
11
Drawing upon Appendix 2, “Hugo and Jill agree in their liking for Mary” is a lot shorter than “Every male
Republican who has married some female Democrat that he likes is such that both of them will probably like whatever
presidential candidate appears in the second election cycle from now who has been endorsed by some previous Democrat
president admired by the female, provided that the candidate endorsed by that same president in the electoral cycle before
has not run a second time.”
demands to a practical dimension. Multiscalar

schemes achieve these objectives in a very instruct-
ive way.
Essay 5 (“The Greediness of Scales”) will revisit
these expository matters in greater detail. My pre-
sent objective is to extract several important phil-
osophy of language lessons from a brisker survey of
the subject.
As a simple example of a descriptive problem
involving a large number of syntactic param-
eters linked to size scale, consider the woeful
story of the Incredible Shrinking Man, the victim
of atomic radiation who gradually grows smaller
with each passing day. To capture this epic prop-
erly on film, its director (Jack Arnold) continually
adjusts his mise en scene to suit the size scale of
the principal events under review, rather than
staging the entire film at the ordinary human
scale of its opening scenes (in which case our
protagonist’s fierce encounter with the spider in
frame 4 would be scarcely noticeable). Employing
standard scientific jargon, I shall dub any mode of
descriptive depiction linked to a set of target
events in terms of the characteristic size scale at
which those events unfold as a Representative Vol-
ume Element (or RVE). With each, we can associate
a characteristic scale size, supplying a rough indi-
cation of the extent of the primary objects under
review. Thus the characteristic scale lengths of
our five Shrinking Man scenes displayed can be
rendered as:
1. RVE characteristic scale: 1 meter

2. RVE characteristic scale: 10 centimeters
3. RVE characteristic scale: 1 centimeter
4. RVE characteristic scale: 1 millimeter
5. RVE characteristic scale: 1 nanometer
We assemble the Shrinking Man’s saga by weav-
ing these localized RVE depictions together to gen-
erate a “completed story” (the scenes selected
frequently shift scale, when the director regularly
returns to an RVE choice suitable to the normal-
narration on multiple scales sized wife left behind). Large amounts of
philosophy lurk within this seemingly innocuous notion of a

“completed story,” to which we’ll return later.
Let us shift our attention to the RVE levels characteristic of
ordinary steel, which I’ve attempted to dramatize in the form
of an equally enticing “movie.” As we inspect ever smaller
hunks of metal, we initially find that, starting at a macroscopic
RVE length of one meter, steel obeys the same rules for
stretching and compression through a large number of smal-
ler scalar choices. However, when we eventually reach a
characteristic length of about .1 millimeter, this regular scal-
ing behavior fails, and the material responds to pushes and
pulls in a different manner. Below this critical characteristic
length, a complex hierarchy of varying behaviors comes into
view as we inspect our metal at ever smaller RVE levels.
RVE level: 50 μm (basic grain)

RVE level: 5 μm (pearlite invading austenite)
RVE level: .5 μm (level of dislocations)
RVE level: .001 μm (molecular lattice)
All of these RVE levels interact in complex ways, and any

naive attempt to capture the behavior of a mundane piece of
railroad steel in bottom-up molecular terms generates an
impossible descriptive overload. For example, let us run a
very hefty object (a 4-6-4 Hudson locomotive12) repeatedly
across our poor bar of steel. These high-scale railroad events
eventually display trickle-down effects at the minute length
scale of the dislocations (RVE level: .5 μm) after traversing an
elaborate hierarchy of intervening structures appearing at
various characteristic scales. From a lower perspective, disloca-
tions appear as scarcely visible imperfections within the
molecular lattice, but, when viewed at a scale fifty magnifica-
tions greater, these little irregularities cluster together into
identifiable lines and other structures. Considered by the
lights of this higher RVE choice, the movements of the
dislocations under stress comprise the dominant events aris-
ing upon this length scale. As the locomotive’s load stresses
the rail above, the little dislocations shift their positions within
the enclosing pearlite matrix. This deflection of coherent
energy allows the steel to be much tougher than it would
otherwise be, because the energy injected from the
12
“They’re the rollingest babies on the New York Central Line”—Son House. Incredible Shrinking Steel
locomotive merely moves the dislocations about

and does not attack the molecular bonds themselves
in a coherent manner. But all good things (including
steel’s toughness) must come to an end, and, after
repeated migrations, the dislocations pile up along
the cementite walls that hem them in, spoiling their
ability to deflect higher-scale pressures. The molecu-
lar bonds below become less protected, and our bar
turns brittle. Such a change in response behavior
after repeated loadings and unloading is called a
hysteresis effect. Due to this slowly accumulating
dislocation pileup, running a locomotive repeatedly
back and forth across a piece of railroad steel even-
tually makes the metal crack. But the exact manners
in which these trickle-down effects develop are
induced dislocation movements
greatly affected by the entire hierarchy of RVE sub-
structures that connect the locomotive’s poundings with the tiny dislocations lying
below. We can’t accurately augur how the dislocations will react to the high-scale
hammerings unless we trace through the levels of this energetic cascade. Historically,
hysteresis proved a great challenge
to modelers due to these interacting
levels of complex RVE structure.13
The range of size scales that we
must tie together in assembling a
composite story of such effects is
clearly tremendous. Engineers often
call the resulting obstacles to effective
computation the tyranny of scales
problem.14 In practical terms, it is
utterly impossible to develop the
tale of our rail by working naïvely
upwards from the molecular scale,
and we must implement significant comparison of length scales
13
As discussed in Essay 4, Pierre Duhem attempted to develop a thermomechanical framework that could handle a
wide range of complex materials in a single-level fashion, but he recognized that hysteresis effects represented a particular
challenge to this program. Indeed, modern modelers have obtained better results through the use of multiscalar schemes
as sketched here (although often employing a greater number of RVE sub-models than I cite).
From a mathematical point of view, we must continually reset boundary conditions as we traverse this energetic
cascade in a manner appropriate to the RVE sub-model before us. At the locomotive level, our initial specification of load
can be quite crude: 175 tons over a span of 100 feet. But more refined and localized estimates are required at the RVE
stages below this level. Multiscalar techniques extract these new conditions from local estimates calculated within the
RVE modeling at a scale length higher. The upshot is often a hierarchy of internally linked equilibrium boundary value
problems, with no reliance upon initial values anywhere.
14
The phrase comes from J. T. Oden. See Essay 5 for references.
reasoning compressions to evade this “tyranny.” Hysteresis effects in steel present us

with a “much worser” analog to our digital photograph problem.
The multiscalar models of this essay evade these obstacles by implementing an
allocation of linguistic tasks akin to that employed within a sweatshop assembly line.
Working from the macroscopic scale downward, a multiscalar scheme decomposes its
modeling efforts into bite-sized pieces of achievable chore involving sub-models linked to
specific RVE size scales. These sub-models concentrate entirely upon the locally domin-
ant behaviors normally witnessed at the appropriate RVE level, leaving the job of
tracking smaller disturbances (such as dislocation pileup) to other sub-models. Through
this division of descriptive labor, each sub-model can perform its computational duties in
a tractable manner involving a moderate number of descriptive parameters. A multiscalar
method assembles a hierarchy of separate sub-model computations in this localized
manner and scrutinizes their outputs for self-consistency. Corrective interscalar adjust-
ments are introduced as needed until an overall descriptive accord is reached, a corrective
process that may need to run through many iterations. By simplifying descriptive task in
this layered manner, tremendous reasoning compression can be achieved. But at each
stage of this process, we must keep track of the local task we are addressing, very much as
we must explicitly register the questions Qi to which we supply answers Ai within JPEG
data compression. We will later find that our various Ai answers often characterize the
very same regions of steel in syntactically inconsistent ways, depending upon the RVE
sub-model in which these Ai appear. Multiscalar strategies evade these difficulties
through clever policies of interscalar homogenization that I will now illustrate.
Let’s consider a simpler situation in which only two interlocking scales are in play,
rather than the larger number of levels active in the behavior of everyday steel (further
discussion of hysteresis modeling will resume in Essay 5). Consider a large block of
subterranean granite subject to extreme geothermal pressures. Suppose we wonder how
sound waves will move through its interior. Under moderate stresses and temperatures,
granite behaves in the simple manner of
well-made steel, namely, as an isotropic
elastic solid, requiring just two basic param-
eters (E and G) to monitor its behavior.
Under higher and prolonged pressures, gra-
nite recrystallizes into layered gneiss, ren-
dering the rock sensitive to direction of
applied pressure. Such anisotropic materials
require a larger number of elastic constants
to capture their behaviors adequately (five
or six depending upon circumstance). In
consequence, seismic waves will travel
through the two forms of stone in different granite to gneiss
ways. To understand what such waves tell
us about the buried rock, we must estimate what portion of the underground material
will convert to gneiss and where this metamorphosis occurs. A naive approach to this task
attempts to describe the molecular structure of granite in detail and will quickly flounder
upon the shoals of scalar tyranny. In contrast, a multiscalar scheme begins at the highest
scale level by computing internal stresses across the entire granite block by employing a
simple continuum physics modeling using the two elastic parameters E and G. It
reassesses these initial estimates only as the lower RVE sub-models dictate. The upshot
is a computational methodology that is neither purely “bottom-up” nor purely “top-
down” in its descriptive policies.
To obtain their initial stress estimates, these schemes generally employ a finite
element modeling of the type discussed in Essay 8, in which the submerged block is
decomposed into a network of little cells at the RVE scale size of the granite grain
(details don’t matter here). It then scours these results for the cells that display the
highest levels of local stress and shifts to a more realistic sub-model in which the same
little cell is treated as a laminate comprised of different minerals in a manner appropriate
to granite grain. In the previous stage of modeling this region was described as a
smeared out continuous blob lacking interior structure. But what will happen to our
little RVE laminate if it is placed within a stress environment of the same strength as the
region received within our original E and G modeling? Well, it will either shear
elastically in a manner that conforms to our original upper-scale prediction, or it will
recrystallize into gneiss. If the first happens, we can conclude that our initial assignment
of internal stresses is consistent with its smaller-scale details. If not, we must send a
corrective message back to our higher-scale modeling, demanding that our original
E and G modeling equations be replaced in the affected region with a new set of
formulas that utilize the anisotropic parameters appropriate to gneiss. After these
upper-scale corrections have been made, we must recompute the entire block’s distri-
bution of stress in light of these adjustments. We obtain a new macroscopic allocation of
stresses that must be checked once again for consistency with our localized laminate sub-
models. These successive stages of macroscopic estimation ! microscopic correction
may need to cycle through many iterations before an overall self-consistent modeling
assignment is reached (where the answers to all consistency tests come out “it’s okay”).
The accompanying diagram illustrates the basic computational architecture behind this
investigative technique. The comparison between distinct RVE results involves a
technique called homogenization that will emerge as vitally important in the consider-
ations ahead.
As previously noted, these divisions of linguistic labor policies support the tremendous
advances in reasoning compression that have revolutionized our capacity to simulate
complex materials on a computer. From whence do these advantageous compressions
spring? Partially, from the top-down driven character of our computations:15 we calculate
15
Strictly speaking, our procedure qualifies as neither a purist top-down nor a purist bottom-up methodology, but as a
hybrid compromise, in light of its repeated checks for self-consistency. Traditionally, top-down (Cauchy, Stokes, Green)
and bottom up (Navier) approaches to elasticity were regarded as competing (vide the nineteenth-century controversies
over rari- and multi-constant treatments recounted in A. E. H. Love, A Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of Elasticity
(New York: Dover, 1944)). Our multiscalar techniques bridge this divide in an enlightening manner.
multiscale modeling of granite
detailed effects upon a small scale only after some warning symptom (such as high stress
values) triggers an alarm. But the reasoning efficiencies also derive from the fact that our
RVE modelings are all of equilibrium character, a methodology that allows us to ignore
many forms of temporary small-scale effect (exploitation of equilibrium represents one of
Essay 2’s chief exemplars of “physics avoidance”). At first blush, policies of successive
approximation may appear computationally extravagant due to the many repetitions
required before the scheme stabilizes upon acceptable answers. But this appearance is
deceptive; the compressive advantages of equilibrium reasoning far overshadow these
mild computational costs.
To reap these considerable advantages, we must keep track of localized investigative
context. As noted previously, syntactic claims often appear within distinct portions of
our calculations that flat out contradict one another if interpreted in a naïve manner.
And these divergencies persist even after our calculations stabilize upon a final answer.
Through their reliance upon differential equations (see Essay 5), our various RVE sub-
models generally describe the same interior regions in syntactically inconsistent ways.
For example, on a macroscopic RVE scale, a small region R of our rock will be described
as “uniformly granite” (in contrast to “partially converted to gneiss”) whereas our
laminate modeling may characterize this same R as not uniform at all, but as an
entangled mixture of feldspar and quartz. But

the latter claim shouldn’t be viewed as “describ-
ing the rock more correctly” because this local-
ized form of “correctness” presumes that our
“uniformly granite” attribution characterizes the
stress environment around our smaller RVE
unit correctly with respect to our upper-scale
evaluations.16 In other words, the pairing “uni-
formly granite”/“mixed feldspar and quartz”
work together in descriptive symbiosis, for mul-
common location on different scales tiscalar tactics practice a division of linguistic
labor in which no participating party proves
“more correct” than any other. We’ll return to the philosophy of language ramifications
of this remark later, for interscalar syntactic clashes are characteristic of descriptive
schemes that rely heavily upon strategic context for reasoning compression.
Such examples vividly display the great advantages of partitioning a descriptive
practice into an integrated network of localized tasks focused upon achievable strategic
goals (such frameworks have been called computational architectures here). Reasoning
tractability represents a constraint upon linguistic practice every bit as vital as the
systematic learnability that Fodor emphasizes. Pursuant to this theme, let us now extract
nine methodological morals (marked i–ix) from our granite/gneiss example, all cen-
tered upon basic issues of reasoning practicality. For these represent the engineering
necessities that none of us can evade, no matter how fervidly we might wish that our
linguistic lot in life were otherwise.
Multiscalar schemes are especially salutary in these respects. Many of their instructive
advantages trace to the fact that their component investigative stages are generally
linked to physical scale size in a direct and palpable way. This correlation makes it
easy to ascertain where the chief contextual shifts linked to investigative purpose
appear within a multiscalar discourse (in contrast to other scientific circumstances
discussed in these essays, in which the pertinent adjustments in strategy may seem
less obvious).
16
The structural logic behind this interscalar descriptive interdependence can be more easily appreciated if we
consider the details of homogenization more closely. Our lower-scale RVE sub-models are generic: they supply
prototypes for the grain structure within granite without claiming any specific knowledge that feldspar is truly found
within the target rock’s region R, rather than quartz, hornblende, or mica. In reasoning within this sub-model, we ask, “If
region R starts with a certain statistical array of minerals, will their relative positions substantially shift within a higher
stress regime S?” But the estimate of S upon which this appraisal rests stems from our higher-scale examination. So a
characterization of feldspar content is “correct” within a lower RVE sub-model only if S “correctly” characterizes the
rock’s distribution of stresses with respect to a higher-scale evaluation.
(iv)
Lesson I: Effective descriptive policies encode significant descriptive information within their
computational architectures.
An intriguing feature of a well-selected multiscale modeling lies in the fact that good deal
of descriptive content is encoded within the architecture of the enveloping computa-
tional scheme (that is, within the rules whereby data is shuttled from one local
registration to another), rather than becoming overtly captured within any of its
component sub-models (which only report upon the “dominant events” witnessed at
the pertinent scale size). To this end, the
RVE divisions within a multiscalar modeling
are often calibrated to correspond to the
descriptive opportunities offered within
nature itself. What do I mean by a descriptive
opportunity? (a phrase that will reverberate
often in the pages ahead). Answer: physical
circumstances whose dominant ranges of
variation can be adequately captured in a
smallish number of descriptive parameters
and where questions of significant interest
can be addressed through feasible calcula-
tion. All of the characteristic behaviors we
assigned to steel or granite at different RVE
levels supply “opportunities” of this charac-
ter; a multiscalar modelling needs to link mimicking physical hierarchy
them together in a fruitful manner.
Let me borrow a simple exemplar of a “descriptive opportunity” from Essay 8.
Computing the local stresses induced by a heavy locomotive within a girder bridge is
a complicated task, even if we ignore the lower-scale hysteresis. Nineteenth-century
structural engineers realized that, with respect to various bridges of a specialized design
(a so-called determinate structure), the stress problem can be reduced to a very simple
reckoning that considers only the forces and moments acting at each joint. But the
availability of this reduced variable opportunity depends upon a delicate balancing act
within the structure. Notice that the
right-hand side of the determinate
bridge illustrated is free to slide hori-
zontally (symbolized by the little
wheels placed beneath that end). If
we alter these arrangements by
attaching the frame firmly to its
pier, our “determinate bridge oppor-
tunity” vanishes, and calculating the
stresses within our firmly anchored a reasoning opportunity
bridge becomes considerably more difficult and highly prone to computational error. Such
uncertainties make it unwise to build indeterminate bridges unless considerable care is
taken, so we don’t find many of these along our railroads and highways.
Why does this happen? Let’s examine the problem schematically, from a mathematical
point of view. With respect to a generic bridge, we theoretically possess equations that
express our macroscopic variables m1, m2, . . . in terms of the microscopic stresses s1, s2, . . .
m1 = f1 (s1, s2, . . . , sn)
:
m27 = f27 (s1, s2, . . . , sn)
But in the special circumstances of our first bridge, these equations can be solved for the
stresses:
s1 = gn (m1, m2, . . . , m27)
:
sn = gn (m1, m2, . . . , m27)
But fixing the right-hand pier of our bridge amounts
to adding an extra equation to our collection that
spoils its solvability (the equation set is said to be
over-constrained). From this perspective, a computa-
tional opportunity resembles the baby bear’s well-
adjusted porridge: the natural conditions required to
support easy-to-compute answers must join together
in a perfectly matched “sweet spot.”
Collective behaviors that emerge when the bound-
finding a sweet spot
aries of a target system protect its internal regions
from environmental complexities often give rise to exceptional descriptive opportun-
ities. A classic illustration (much discussed in the essays ahead) is provided by the violin
string: by restricting its movements tightly at bridge and nut, we trap internal energy
within distinct overtone units (fundamental, octave, 12th, etc.). This energetic entrap-
ment then supports an excellent vocabulary for describing the string’s complex wig-
glings in computationally
manageable terms (we
merely need to evaluate
the energy allocated to
partial overtone). But if
excessive play is permitted
at bridge or nut, this prof-
endpoint induced opportunity itable descriptive oppor-
tunity vanishes.
Through their misapplications of the mathematician’s term “boundary condition,”
philosophers of science have failed to recognize the special alignments between interiors
and boundaries that generate significant descriptive opportunities of this character. In
general, a multiscalar reasoning scheme will succeed only if its component parts capture
the special descriptive opportunities that nature itself directly provides. In this manner,
the specific RVE levels cited within a multiscalar modeling typically mimic the hier-
archal layers of “dominant behavior” that can be empirically identified within the target
material, simply through inspecting its complexities under a microscope. If we don’t
imitate nature in this manner, our reasoning schemes are likely to generate mere
computational mush.
Accordingly, in framing a good architecture for answering questions about nature, we
should anchor our syntax to the physical locales that supply the best opportunities for
ready computation and work outward from these locales to conquer the rest of the
nearby terrain, rather as climbers initially anchor their ropes to the firmest portions of
rock outcropping. In this sense, the very plotting of a computational scheme can reflect a
fair amount of descriptive information about a target system whose contents do not
otherwise appear within the localized statements generated within its sundry sub-
models. In this fashion, an integrated architecture can prove greater than the sum of
its descriptive parts.
(v)
Lesson II: Reasoning complexity can be greatly reduced by concentrating upon dominant
effects within each sub-model.
The astonishing reasoning compressions character-
istic of multiscalar schemes trace to the fact that
each of its RVE sub-models is assigned the com-
paratively circumscribed duty of capturing only the
central physical processes normally witnessed at its
characteristic scale length, leaving the task of cap-
turing rare or minor effects to other RVE choices.
Within these divisions of descriptive labor, none of
the component layers of sub-modeling attempt to
“get everything right”; each localized model ren- dominant behavior
ders descriptive justice only to the dominant
behaviors it normally encounters. Each sub-modeling declares, “I’m only trying to
develop a narrative appropriate to the events usually witnessed on my length scale,
which I articulate in a language especially calibrated to such occurrences. But I’m happy
to accept correction missives from my companion sub-models who focus upon other
choices of RVE scale.” In a moment, we’ll look more closely at how each localized
modeling receives these corrective missives from other units.
In our granite/gneiss diagram above, the various feedback arrows linking its sub-
model calculations together implement this concentrate-upon-dominant-behaviors
stratagem. The full scheme doesn’t neglect minor effects altogether, but it defers their
initial tracking to the sub-model levels in which these

alterations first emerge as significant effects. In our gra-
nite example, the breakdowns in upper scale E and
G elastic rules first arise when minute recrystallizations
realign the rest state of the rock into anisotropic layers.
Likewise, a locomotive’s repeated poundings produce
changes that are normally imperceptible at the level of
the full steel rail, but which overtly push the dislocations
around in palpable ways when viewed on a much smal-
ler RVE scale. Like some subterranean monster from an
old horror movie, the higher level breakdowns in antici-
pated behaviors emerge as invaders from another scale
length. Accordingly, multiscalar schemes achieve signifi-
cant reasoning compression by adjusting their RVE-
invaders from other scales localized results only as computations on other length
scales suggest that breakdowns in normally dominant
behaviors may lie in the offing (such schemes follow the prudent policy of “never
trouble trouble until trouble troubles you”). Our granite/gneiss routine implements
these computational evasions by only examining its laminate sub-models closely within
their regions of highest anticipated stress, for these are the locales in which irregular
events are likely to first arise.
The basic strategy of concentrating upon dominant effects initially and worrying about
potential disturbances from other scales later on is as old as mathematical physics itself.
How should we model the shapes of colliding billiard balls? Standard treatments (dating
back to Wren, Huygens, and Newton) describe these shapes as never varying throughout
any form of pool-table interaction (energetic losses are codified as so-called coefficients
of restitution). High-speed photography readily establishes that this isn’t so; the balls
compress and expand when they collide. As it happens, modern continuum mechanics
has developed excellent models for tracking these complicated internal adjustments,
albeit at the cost
of heavy-duty
computing. But
these small-scale
changes occur so
swiftly on an
everyday time
scale that, for the
most part, they ignoring rapid changes through a cutoff
can be ignored.
We can “cut out” the fleeting temporal intervals in which these compressions transpire
and paper over their omission through sundry rules of thumb.
Considered in RTE (= Representative Time Element) terms, through such cutouts
we obtain a useful descriptive policy that omits the many “faster time” RTE ingredients
that emerge when we investigate our colliding balls on a more refined temporal scale.
On the rare occasions when such internal details become important, we must, speaking
in the jargon of the physicist, “open up the suppressed degrees of freedom” within the
balls and allow their surfaces to flex geometrically in very complicated ways. But plainly
we shouldn’t wish to explore this Pandora’s box of difficult and unreliable computations
unless they are absolutely required. In normal billiard ball circumstances we almost
never need to do this (due to their carefully engineered toughness). With baseballs, it’s
another story.
For reasons that elude me, academic philosophers have manifested little interest in
the practical concerns of how we actually manage to reason about the universe before us
in a tractable manner. Instead, they often brush aside our sophisticated architectures as
unworthy of notice, because “Oh, we don’t really need to worry about such complex-
ities because, in principle, we might always describe our material in single level,
molecular terms.” Well, in actuality, we can’t, courtesy of strong tyranny of scales
limitations. How should we evaluate these blithe dismissals?
There are two aspects to this question. First, these “in principle” appeals strongly rely
upon simplistic Theory T assumptions with respect to the syntactic format that future
“fundamental science” will someday assume, for it is clear that no “theory” developed to
date has satisfied those precepts. I regard such presumptions as rashly speculative, but
will defer further discussion to Essay 6. Second, one of our chief obligations as
philosophers is to describe the working methodologies of real-life science correctly,
before we launch into whimsies concerning futuristic completions. Otherwise, we court
the dangers wittily characterized by Margaret Cavendish long ago:
[M]ost men in these latter times busy themselves more with other worlds than with this they
live in, which to me seems strange, unless they could find some art that would carry them
into those celestial worlds, which I doubt will never be.17
We shall later find that many celebrated conceptual puzzles owe their origins to the
complicated physics avoidance policies that we exploit within our most effective
descriptive practices. If we ignore the operations of these subtle stratagems, we deprive
ourselves of the diagnostic tools required to unravel many classic philosophical
difficulties.
I sometimes wish that word processors might administer a mild electric shock to
authors whenever they type the phrase “in principle,” for it’s generally a signal that
important issues have been lightly brushed aside. Many academic philosophers have
become firmly convinced that they “know, in principle, how science works” without
having, in actuality, looked at much of it. The point is not that great gobs of scientific
17
Margaret Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001), p. 4.
knowledge will significantly improve our philosophizing (this is not true at all), but
unchallenged quantities of faulty folklore can significantly inhibit it.
Operating together in harness, Fodor-type assumptions with respect to “semantics”
and unmonitored characterizations of “how fundamental science works” have generated
an intellectual landscape in which the vital utilities of pragmatically inflected linguistic
usage are rashly dismissed as “uninteresting.”
(vi)
Lesson III: Sub-models should exchange data through homogenized instructions, not via
unfiltered exchanges of localized description.
This observation may represent the most important moral
to be extracted from our studies. One of the most inter-
esting aspects of multiscalar methodology resides in the
manner in which various scales send corrective messages to
one another, as when our grain-level sub-model informs
the higher-scale modeling that it should adjust its elasticity
parameters. The official name for this communication
technique is homogenization, but how does it work?
Once again we will want these homogenizations to
mimic the real-life relationships encountered in nature
between RVE scales. communication through
In normal circumstances, how do the events transpiring homogenization
on one characteristic scale “see” the events occurring on a
lower RVE level? Answer: in a blurry way, as a mixture of coherent changes mixed
together with a fair amount of signal noise. Within the range of everyday experience, the
macroscopic behaviors of granite are determined largely by its two elastic parameters (E
and G), providing building engineers with an admirable descriptive opportunity that
they exploit ably in planning a stone construction. However, when pressures and
temperatures become extreme, these standard rules will fail due to minute recrystal-
lization events arising on the scale of the component grain. From a macroscopic vantage
point, we “see” these alterations only as a change in gross behavior: the metamorphosed
rock now responds to pushes and pulls according to more complicated rules (that we can
capture with a wider array of elastic parameters).
These are the interscalar relationships we want to mimic within our multiscalar
computations. If our laminate sub-model flexes in a manner that is consistent with our
upper scale E and G expectations, fine; no correction in our upper-scale reasoning is
required. But if our sub-model recrystallizes within its new stress requirement, our
upper-scale calculations must take this revised datum into consideration. So the correct-
ive messages we send across scales should constitute reports on whether normal
dominant behavior patterns have broken down or not.
But how should

these “corrective mes-
sages” be syntactically
framed? At this junc-
ture we run into a sig-
nificant problem with
our customary math-
ematical tools. Left to
its own devices, math-
self-consistency between scales ematics can prove
rather stupid and not
understand what we humans intend by “dominant behavior.” To it, every feature of
the lower-scale behavior, large or small, is of equal importance. This kind of “stupidity”
creates great headaches in signal processing and, for allied reasons, we must filter away
the “noise” created by excessive details encountered in our lower-scale sub-models.
A standard technique to this purpose is that of blowing up our original RVE into an
infinite population so that suitable parameters will emerge in an asymptotic limit. These
techniques are generically called
homogenization methods and
their basic prototype can be
found in the central limit
method of extracting the two
Gaussian modeling parameters
(mean and variance) from a
complicated set of individual
gambles.18 But the selection of
an appropriate homogenization
policy for a laminate can be blowing up a sub-model
quite tricky due to the orienta-
tions within the layers and the manner in which strain energy is stored along their grain
interfaces. A correct choice should reflect the blurring relationships that connect the
various scales together in real life.
These techniques allow our various scales to “talk to one another” in the language of
asymptotic limits, rather than through directly sharing raw data as it is generated within
each individual scale of RVE sub-modeling. This policy is central to the successes of
multiscalar modeling, for great consistency clashes would arise if our various RVE-
centered sub-models freely passed unfiltered data to one another. We have already
observed that natural scale-centered models frequently employ the same descriptive
language (e.g. that of classical continuum physics) in discordant manners. A laminate
sub-model will normally assign little portions of our rock different stresses than the
18
Philosophers often characterize these filtering techniques loosely as undifferentiated “averaging” and wrongly
conceive of them as quasi-logical operations, rather than as direct models of real-world interscalar influence.
macroscale modeling with which we start (this is the same difficulty that we explicated
with respect to “uniformly granite” and “mixed feldspar and quartz” above). These
attributions are dependent upon one another, and we should not regard the lower-scale
RVE descriptions as “accurate” and their homogenized surrogates as “approximate.”
These entangled modes of description work together to produce a greatly improved
form of collective modeling effort (in union there is strength).
We tacitly implement similar divisions of descriptive labor within our everyday
thinking about material behavior on different length scales, without engaging in sophis-
ticated homogenization calculations. Instead, we intuitively estimate what lower-scale
events should “look like” when viewed from a higher-scale perspective. In this vein, we
remark that lower-scale recrystallization within our rock will “appear as” a behavioral
change in isotropy upon a higher scale and that trapped collections of dislocations will
“appear as” an increased brittleness in a piece of steel. In fact, we commonly employ
both causal and semantic vocabulary to capture these important forms of interscalar
relationship. We say that the usual rules of granite behavior no longer “remain true”
when lower-scale recrystallization sets in and that heavy locomotive traffic “causes” the
dislocations to pile up on a minute scale. And so on. In these employments, the words
“true” and “cause” both function as significant devices of language management. These
considerations bring us to our next lesson.
(vii)
Lesson IV: Usages that employ contextual registers aligned with investigative purpose require
special linguistic locutions to help listeners follow its altering contexts correctly and to allow for
the learning of novel patterns of cognitive architecture.
As the investigative architectures within our reasonings become more elaborate, we
require special vocabularies that allow us to articulate their structural subdivisions and
to teach these computational policies to novices. Words that function in this manner
I have called devices of language management, for we employ terminologies of this
character when we need to indicate where a specific stretch of reasoning pattern begins
and where it ends.19 With respect to our JPEG example, each question Qi within its
front-end registration governs a fixed span of back-end answers Ai. In a logical setting
(these examples come from Appendix 2), we mark our shifts in investigative policy with
imperatives that either mark the beginning of a search:
(a) Let’s consider a typical Republican, call him “Hugo”
(b) There are two cases we must consider: will Karen run again or will she not?
19
As we’ll later see, few words purely perform these functions; words like “cause” carry a good deal of context-
sensitive descriptive information as well.
or its termination:
(c) Summing up, Hugo and Jill are likely to agree in their presidential likes and
dislikes.
In an analogous manner, the varying stages within a stretch of multiscalar reasoning can
be highlighted as follows:
(d) Let us now convert our recrystallization data into terms that our higher order
model can understand.
(e) Let us repeat these “checking for consistency” steps over and over until we
reach stable results across the scales.
Note that most of these management imperatives are neither “true” nor “false” in any
straightforward sense, but are merely “appropriate” (or not) to the reasoning tasks at
hand. But we must employ structural markers of these types when we introduce an
unfamiliar reasoning routine to a friend.
As noted at the end of section (vi), the utilities of instruction (d) can also be captured
in “causal” or “semantic” vocabulary, viz.:
(d’) Let us now ask what upper scale effects will be caused by the lower scale
recrystallization.
(d”) Let us now consider what becomes true on a higher length scale as granite
recrystallizes.
Note that we also employ these same management tools to keep different pools of
descriptive endeavor cleanly separated. We warn our pupils, “Never assume that data
established within one branch of an argument by cases argument continues to hold in
the other cases.” Or: “The stresses computed within a laminate sub-modeling can’t be
entered freely into an upper-scale treatment without undergoing significant homogen-
ization filtering.” As these management tools enter the story of language in significant
ways, conventional philosophical distinctions between “semantics” and “pragmatics”
break down, for many sentences will not obtain firm truth-values until their placement
within some enveloping scheme of practical endeavor becomes settled (I’ll supply
examples in our next lesson). In this fashion, “use” (in the sense of “reasoning to
practical purpose”) sometimes precedes “semantics” (in the sense of “adequate attach-
ment to exterior circumstance”), Fodor’s blunt asseverations to the contrary.20
20
Historically, the old-fashioned term for what I call an “investigative architecture” is heuristics: the art of assembling
reasoning ingredients towards a collective purpose. For many years the merits of investigative heuristics have been
neglected within philosophically motivated studies of logical reasoning (although not in the study of computer-assisted
proof) for various formal reasons. In the beginning this was not so; the central reasoning structures within Boole’s original
symbolic logic were fashioned with heuristic considerations strongly in view (see Wandering Significance, pp. 522–8).
These contextual dependencies were expunged from later expositions of logic largely because they made certain forms of
mathematical investigation cumbersome (e.g. checking for correctness by Padua’s principle; such matters are more
efficiently addressed in an axiomatic format). But the summum bonum of the systematic mathematician does not always
coincide with the virtues of efficient reasoning. As a result, investigative heuristics remain a vital structural aspect of real
life linguistic practice. Observe that the query “What’s the logic of that?” is generally a request for heuristics.
Matters are complicated further by the fact that terms like “cause” and “true” serve
both “managerial” and “data reportage” purposes, depending upon their contextual
positioning within a discourse.21 These multitasking behaviors have generated a good
deal of conceptual confusion within philosophy, as we’ll see when we investigate
“cause”’s tergiversating behaviors in other essays. Conventional divisions between
“semantics” and “pragmatics” do not strike me as capturing the subtleties of real-life
linguistic usage adequately, partially through their neglect of the shaping hands of
shifting investigative strategy.
(viii)
Lesson V: Descriptive terms may not acquire firm referential connections to the physical world
until their employment has been situated within a specific investigative context.
As long as localized word employments do not leech from one RVE level to another, it
serves as a source of great linguistic efficiency if words are allowed to adapt to local data
registration requirements in a context-sensitive manner. Substantial data compression can
be achieved through semantic adaptation, where migrating terms are allowed to register
physical information in manners suited to the altered RVE regimes in which the words are
now located, rather than imitating their performances within former habitats. We have
already observed that the continuum physics models employed at most levels within a
multiscalar modeling generally classify the tiny portions of matter before them in incon-
sistent ways. But the resulting syntactic clashes don’t generate inferential difficulties
because the various scales communicate with one another only in homogenized manners.
This scale-based isolation permits a considerable reduction in descriptive vocabulary due
to the fact that a word like “force” can adjust its precise referential focus to suit the RVE
unit in which it presently finds itself. Considered upon a conventional laboratory scale
21
Both words act as a Moses that first guides its entourage into the pastures of an investigative architecture and then
takes up residence therein, enjoying the life of a prosperous dairy farmer. “Cause” ’s inconstant behaviors in this mode are
discussed in Essay 2, but allied remarks apply to “true” as well.
As noted earlier, a common ordinary reasoning analog to the applied mathematician’s “homogenization techniques” is
that of evaluating which sentences X will hold true at higher RVE level H if facts Y obtain at lower-scale level
L. Multiscalar modelings commonly employ the same classical mechanics’ vocabularies with contextually divergent
references at different scale levels. Accordingly, the claim “if X holds at scale L, then the sentence ‘X’ will be true at level
H” often fails—it is a non-trivial matter how “X” should be properly homogenized when its application is lifted to a new
RVE level. In such circumstances, the Tarski scheme “ ‘X’ is true if and only if X” will not represent a “truism” in either of
its inferential directions; such transitions can prove outright mistaken when homogenization barriers are transversed. Anil
Gupta’s well-known “revision theory” has long stressed “true” ’s role in serving as a critical evaluator of a body of syntactic
assertion; I believe that the significant “language management” tasks the word serves with respect to a multiscalar
architecture underscore Gupta’s central lessons significantly (Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap, The Revision Theory of Truth
(Cambridge: MIT, 2003)). Gupta further observes that the two conditionals within the “if and only if” of the Tarski
formula represent perfectly ordinary material conditionals, but that they serve to lift and lower assertions from one
contextual level to another. Una Stolnić’s “One’s Modus Ponens . . . : Modality, Coherence and Logic” (Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, forthcoming) draws related morals based upon the recognition that the discourse parsing of
conditionals requires a systematic understanding of contextual signals.
Another random document with
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The Spittle Houses.
Among the properties which fell to the portion of Katherine
Legh, after the dissolution of the Hospital were “all those messuages,
houses and buyldinges, landes and tenements callyd the Spyttell
howses, with all the orchards and gardens thereunto adjoyning.” The
only property situated within the Precinct that can be traced as
belonging to Katherine, consists of (i.) four houses and gardens,
immediately to the east of the churchyard[613] and, between these and
what is now Shaftesbury Avenue, (ii.) a house, garden and orchard.
[614]
The westernmost house of (i.) was probably The Angel, which is
definitely mentioned as having been transferred to Katherine, but
the remaining houses, etc., almost certainly were the Spittle houses,
with their orchards and gardens. They are shown distinctly on Agas’s
Map (Plate 1).
Pasture Ground.
The whole of the remainder of the Precinct to the south of the
Hospital was, in the days of Elizabeth, pasture ground, and is
probably to be identified with the close lying within the Precinct,
commonly called the Pale Close, which is stated[615] to have formed
part of the property transferred to Lord Lisle. The first specific
mention of the ground occurs in 1564, when the jurors holding the
Inquisitionem Post Mortem on Francis Downes found[616] that he was
seized, inter alia, of and in four messuages and four acres of pasture
in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Downes, it is stated,
purchased the property from Thomas Carew, son and heir of Sir
Wymonde Carew, to whom it had been sold by Lord Lisle.
The four acres subsequently passed to John Graunge, in 1566,
whose son sold them in 1611 to Robert Lloyd (otherwise called Floyd
or Flood). On the latter’s death in 1617, he was found to be seized of
and in a house with a garden on the east side, a barn and garden on
the south of the house, and a stable and two closes of pasture,
containing four acres, adjoining the barn and garden.[617] The next
reference to the ground is in 1622, when it is referred to[618] as “two
closes, formerly pasture, late converted into gardens and
purchased ... by Abraham Speckard and Dorothy his wife.” It next
passed to Sir Richard Stydolph, for Charles Tryon, his grandson,
refers in his will,[619] signed 2nd November, 1705, to “a piece or
parcell of ground containing about four acres lying in the parish of
St. Giles-in-the-Fields ... near the church ... on which said ground are
now standing ... severall houses and other buildings held by severall
leases thereof granted by Sir Richard Stydolphe ... all or most
whereof will in few years expire.” With this fact is undoubtedly to be
connected the licence granted in July, 1671, to Sir Richard Stydolph
to continue building at the back of St. Giles’s church. The licence[620]
sets forth that Stydolph had let ground “on the backside of St. Giles’
Church in the way to Pickadilly to severall poore men who build
hansome and uniforme houses, some whereof were quite covered
and the fundacions of the rest laid,” before the proclamation
prohibiting building on new foundations had been issued. In due
course, “Christopher Wren, Esq.,” viewed the place and made a
report, approving generally of the scheme and suggesting that it
might “tend in some measure to cure the noisomnesse of that part,”
provided that the building was carried out in accordance with a
settled design. On this condition the necessary permission was given,
and it was provided that two copies of the “designe, mapp or charte”
should be made, neither of which, unfortunately, is available at the
present day. Stidwell Street preserved for some time, in garbled
form, the name of the owner of these lands.
The Manor and Possessions of St. Giles’
Hospital.
Up to within a few years of its dissolution, the Hospital of St. Giles, or
rather that of Burton Lazars, in whose custody it was, owned the greater
portion of the present Parish of St. Giles, together with large estates in other
parishes.
On 2nd June, 1536, however, Henry VIII. effected an exchange[621]
with the Master of Burton Lazars, whereby the latter received certain
property in Leicestershire and transferred to the King the undermentioned:
—
Manors of Feltham and Heston.
Messuages, etc., in Feltham and Heston.
2 acres of meadow in the Fields of St. Martins.
25 acres of pasture lying in the village of St. Giles.[622]
5 acres of pasture near Colman’s Hedge.[622]
5 acres of pasture in Colmanhedge Field.[622]
A close called Conduit Close, of five acres.
A close called Marshland.
A messuage called The White Hart, and 18 acres of pasture thereto
belonging.
A messuage called The Rose, and a pasture thereto belonging.
A messuage called The Vine.
Reserved were the church and rectory of Feltham, and all
glebes, tithes, etc., belonging thereto.
Of the lands and houses above-mentioned, only the last four
were in the parish of St. Giles, and three of them have already been
dealt with. The Vine was on the north side of High Holborn, and its
site, with that of the close behind, is now marked by Grape Street,
formerly Vine Street.
Dudley.
Very shortly afterwards, Sir Thomas Legh, the notorious
visitor of the monasteries, made a determined effort to gain
possession of the Hospital of Burton Lazars,[623] and obtained from Thomas
Radclyff, then master, the next advowson of the Hospital for his life. This
was confirmed in March, 1536–7, by Letters Patent.[624] In 1539 the
Hospital was dissolved, and its possessions reverted to the Crown. Legh,
however, for several years continued to hold the property, and enjoy the
profits, spiritual and temporal, until on 6th May, 1544, the King granted to
Sir John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, the Hospital with all its possessions in
Leicestershire, St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and elsewhere. Very naturally, this
resulted in “contencion, varyence and stryfe” being “reysed, stirred and
dependyng betweene the said Viscount Lisle ... and the said Sir Thomas
Legh ... of for and aboute the right, tytle, interest, occupation and
possession of the seyd late Hospytall,” and the Lord Chancellor, Lord
Wriothesley, was appointed arbitrator to settle the matter.
In the course of the same year (1544) Wriothesley gave his award,
dividing the property between the two claimants, but as the arrangement
was never completed it is not necessary to give details here.[625]
It appears that when the award in question was being obtained, Lord
Lisle was absent from the country, “beinge occupied in the parties beyond
the see in and aboute the Kynges Majesties affaires concernynge his
warres,” and on his return refused to carry out the decree, claiming that “the
veray trewe and hoole tytle of the seyde Viscounte of and in the premysses”
had not been disclosed. On 24th November, 1545, Sir Thomas Legh died,
[626] leaving as his sole heir a daughter, Katherine, aged five years. His
widow, Joan, pressed for the execution of the award, and eventually on 8th
March, 1545–6, a further decree[627] was made modifying the former. In
accordance therewith an indenture[628] was on 24th March drawn up
between Lord Lisle and Dame Joan Legh, providing for the transfer to the
latter during her life, with remainder to Katherine, of the undermentioned
property.
“All those messuages, houses, and buyldinges, landes and tenements
callyd the Spyttell howses, with all the orchards, gardens thereunto
adjoyning.”
A close called St. Giles’ Wood.[629]
The Chequer.[630]
4 cottages in the occupation of John Baron.
11 cottages in the occupation of William Wilkinson.
The Maidenhead,[703] with a garden.
The Bear and 2 cottages adjoining.
Bear Close and Aldwych Close.
The George.[703]
A “mese” in the occupation of John Smith.
The Angel.
6 cottages in the occupation of William Hosyer.
The King’s Head.[703]
2 cottages near The Greyhound.
Rents from The Crown and a brewhouse.
The tithe of two fields[631] in Bloomsbury.
13 cottages in St. Andrew’s, Holborn.
The Round Rents[632] and other tenements and cottages in St.
Andrew’s, Holborn.
Lands in Essex, Sussex, Northampton, York, Northumberland and
Norfolk.
Rents from a large number of properties in the City of London, St.
Clement Danes, etc.
In Lord Lisle’s hands remained:—
“The capitall house of the seyd late Hospitall of Seynte Gyles in the
feldes and all the stables, barnes, orchards and gardeyns thereunto
adjoyninge.”
Two “meses” parcels of the same site, with orchards and gardens,
etc., late in the tenure of Dr. Borde and Master Densyll.
A close of 16 acres lying before the Great Gate, in the occupation of
Master Magnus.
A close lying within the precinct, commonly called the Pale Close.
A close of 20 acres called The Newlands.[633]
A piece of ground called The Lane.[633]
Certain lands in Norfolk.
Lisle retained the property only for a few months, selling it in the
same year[634] (1546) to John Wymond Carew, (afterwards Sir Wymond).
Sir Wymond died on 23rd August, 1549, when he was found[635] to be seized
of “and in the capital mansion of the Hospital of St. Giles-in-the-Fields and
of and in certain parcels of land with appurtenances in the parish of St.
Giles-in-the-Fields ... in his demesne as of fee.”
In December, 1561, his widow, Dame Martha Carew, gave up, in
return for an annuity, to his son Thomas “all those lands, tenements, rents,
hereditaments, etc., lieing and being in St. Gyles and Maribone, nere
London, late belonging to Burton Lazar, which she holds by way of
jointure”;[636] and Thomas sold them to Francis Downes. On the latter’s
death in 1564 they were particularised[637] as four messuages, and four
acres of pasture in St. Giles, and 20 acres of pasture in St. Marylebone.
Although the manor of St. Giles is not mentioned, it
must have been included in the portion assigned to Katherine
Legh, for it is found afterwards in her possession. Sir
Thomas’s widow died on 5th January, 1555–6[638] (having
previously remarried[639]), leaving Katherine in her sixteenth
year. Such a desirable prize was not likely to remain long in
the matrimonial market, and a husband was soon found in
Blount.
the person of Sir James Blount, Lord Mountjoy. Blount’s life
seems to have been one of continual financial worry, and his
mortgages and recognisances figure very prominently in the Close Rolls of
the period.[640]
The date of his marriage with Katherine Legh is not known precisely,
but it was certainly within 13 months of the death of her mother.[641] By
degrees the greater portion of Lady Katherine’s inheritance was converted
into ready money, and among other transactions, the manor of St. Giles was
on 18th July, 1565, mortgaged to Robert Browne, citizen and goldsmith of
London, and Thomas his son.[642] The mortgage was never redeemed,[643]
and on 20th June, 1579, Thomas Browne parted with the manor to Thos.
Harris, who in turn sold it on 12th February, 1582–3, to John Blomeson.
Blomeson retained it for nine years, and on 3rd May, 1592, sold it to “Walter
Cope, of the Strand, Esq.,”[644] afterwards Sir Walter Cope.[645] On his death
in 1614, the manor came into the possession of his daughter and sole
heiress, Isabella, who married Sir Henry Rich, and on 2nd April, 1616, it was
sold to Philip Gifford and Thos. Risley, in trust for Henry, third Earl of
Southampton.[646]
On the death of the fourth earl in 1668, it became the
property of his daughter, Lady Rachel Russell, from whom it
descended to the Dukes of Bedford, who now hold it.
Russell.
LIV.—THE CHURCH OF ST. GILES-IN-THE-
FIELDS.
First Church.
In a book,[647] now in the possession of the Holborn
Metropolitan Borough Council, containing a number of extracts
apparently copied from an earlier volume, is the copy of a document
dated 26th January, 1630–31, in which it is stated that Queen Maud,
about the year 1110, here built a church “pulchram satis et
magnificam,” and called it by the name of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. It is
possible that the statement is merely based on the fact of the
foundation of the hospital, including the church, at about that date.
Although there is no record of any presentation to the living
before the Hospital was suppressed in 1539, the fact that the parish
of St. Giles was in existence at least as early as 1222[648] necessitates
the assumption that the church was partially used for parochial
purposes. After the suppression of the Hospital the whole fabric
became parochial.
The earliest institution that has been found to[649] this church
is dated 20th April, 1547, and was at the presentation of Sir Wymond
Carew. On the next occasion (1571) the privilege was exercised by
Queen Elizabeth, and since that time the patronage has always been
in the hands of the Crown.
Very little information remains as to the architectural
character of the church (whether the original structure or not) at the
time of the dissolution.[650]
Besides the high altar there must have been an altar to the
patron saint, St. Giles. There is also evidence of the existence of a
chapel of St. Michael, for in the 46th year of Henry III. Robert of
Portpool bequeathed certain rents to provide for the maintenance of
a chaplain “to celebrate perpetually divine service in the chapel of St.
Michael, within the hospital church of S. Giles.”[651]
According to an order of the Vestry of 8th August, 1623, there
then existed a nave and a chancel, both with pillars, clerestory walls
over, and aisles on either side.
The Vestry minutes of 21st April, 1617, record the erection of a
steeple with a peal of bells, but from the fact that “casting the bells” is
mentioned as well as the buying of new bells, and from the reference
to it in the following year (9th September, 1618) as “the new steeple,”
it seems probable that something of the kind had existed before.
Parton[652] says that there was in early times a small round bell tower,
with a conical top, at the western end of the church, but his authority
for the statement is very doubtful.
The size of the church, measured within the walls, was 153 feet
by 65 feet.[653]
Second Church.
The church was, in the early years of the 17th century, in
danger of falling, as indeed some of it did, causing a void at the upper
end of the chancel “which was stored with Lumber, as the Boards of
Coffins and Deadmen’s Bones.” A screen was erected at the expense
of Lady Dudley “to hide it from the beholders’ eyes, which could not
but be troubled at it.”[654] A further collapse caused the parishioners
to decide to erect a new church. This was begun in 1623 and finished
in 1631. The cost of building amounted to £2,068, all of which, with
the exception of £252 borrowed, was obtained from voluntary
offerings. The largest contributor was Lady Dudley, who gave £250,
and, in addition, paid for the paving of the church and chancel. A
small sketch of the church is given by Hollar in his plan of 1658
(Plate 3), and a lithograph (here reproduced) by G. Scharf is in
Parton’s Hospital and Parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
Hatton[655] gives the length as 123 feet and the breadth 57 feet.
The church and steeple appear to have been built of rubbed brick[656],
surmounted with battlements, and coped with stone.[656] A western
gallery was erected in 1671, and others to the north and south in
1676–7.
The chancel had a large east window, and one on either side.
The nave had a window over the chancel arch, and a large one at the
west end.
There were north and south aisles, which must have been of
considerable height to admit of the galleries which were
subsequently added. They appear to have been of three bays,[657] with
two windows in each. All the windows, except the westernmost one
in the north aisle, were glazed with coloured and painted glass. There
were three doors to the church, one beneath the west window and
others under the third window from the east of the north aisle and
the westernmost window of the south aisle.
No window is mentioned by Strype at the west end of the
north aisle, so that it is probable that the tower was attached to the
church in this situation. This had battlements and was provided with
a vane.
The interior was well furnished and provided with numerous
ornaments, many of which were the gift of Lady Dudley.[658] Chief
among the latter must be mentioned an elaborate screen of carved
oak placed where one had formerly stood in the old church. This, as
stated in a petition to Parliament in 1640,[659] was “in the figure of a
beautifull gate, in which is carved two large pillars, and three large
statues: on the one side is Paul, with his sword; on the other
Barnabas, with his book; and over them Peter with his keyes. They
are all set above with winged cherubims, and beneath supported by
lions.”
The church had a pair of organs with case richly gilded, and
the organ loft was painted with a representation of the Twelve
Apostles.
Very costly and handsome rails were provided to guard the
altar. This balustrade extended the full width of the chancel, and
stood 7 or 8 feet east of the screen at the top of three steps.
The altar stood close up to the east wall, with a desk raised
upon it in various degrees of advancement.
The upper end of the church was paved with marble, and six
bells were provided in the steeple.
In 1640 the reformers were very bitterly incensed against the
rector with regard to the fittings in the church, and a petition was
presented to Parliament enumerating the various articles which were
considered superstitious and idolatrous. The result of this action was
that most of the ornaments were sold in 1643, while Lady Dudley was
still alive.
After the Restoration the church was repaired and decorated,
and a striking clock and dials added to the tower.
In 1716 the church had a very valuable addition made to its
plate in the form of an engraved gold communion cup, weighing 45
ozs., which had been purchased pursuant to the will of Thomas
Woodville, a parishioner who died at sea. This valuable chalice,
together with the rest of the sacramental and other plate, was stolen
from the vestry room in 1804.
The church was obviously not well constructed, for by 1715 it
was reported to be in a ruinous condition. Under a moderate
computation it appeared that it would cost £3,000 to put it in order.
The ground outside being above the floor of the church, caused the
air to be damp and unwholesome, and proved inconvenient in other
ways. In these circumstances it was thought better to recommend a
complete reconstruction of the church.
The parishioners accordingly petitioned that the church
should be included in the 50 new churches to be built in the cities of
London and Westminster and the suburbs, and the necessary
authority for this was eventually obtained in 1718.[660] Nothing,
however, was done until 1729, when an arrangement was come to
whereby the Parish of St. Giles agreed to make provision for the
stipend of the rector of the new parish of St. George, Bloomsbury, on
condition that the Commissioners acting under the Act of Queen
Anne should pay a sum not exceeding £8,000 for the rebuilding of
St. Giles Church. The arrangement was sanctioned by an Act of
Parliament of the same year.[661] By 1731, Henry Flitcroft had
prepared plans and entered into an agreement to begin pulling down
by 31st August of that year, and to have the new church completely
finished on or before 25th December, 1733. For this work the
architect was to receive £7,030, but in fact the contract was exceeded
by over £1,000, Flitcroft’s receipt being for £8,436 19s. 6d.[662]
Third Church.
The interior dimensions of the church are as follows: length
from the west wall to the east wall of the chancel, 102 feet; length
from the west wall of the nave to the east wall of the nave, 74 feet;
depth of the chancel, 8 feet; width of the nave and aisles, 57 feet 6
inches.
The plan is a nave of five bays with side aisles (Plate 43), over
which are galleries, these being connected by a western one in the
last bay of the nave. A shallow sanctuary is placed at the eastern end,
and at the west is the steeple and a vestibule containing the
entrances and the staircases to the galleries and tower.
The general treatment of the exterior of the church (Plates 45
and 47) is plain in character, but of pleasing effect. The walling is
faced with Portland stone rusticated (chamfered at the joints) to a
projecting band marking the gallery level. Above, the walling is of
plain ashlaring with rusticated quoins. The gallery windows have
semi-circular heads with keystones, moulded architraves and plain
impost blocks. The whole is surmounted by a bold modillion cornice,
with blocking course above.
Emphasis is given to the sanctuary by a pediment and by a
large semi-circular-headed window with panels on either side
forming a decorative composition.
The western end has a similar pediment with the tower rising
above. The central entrance doorway lacks emphasis and the
importance which its position seems to require, and is almost the
same in design as those to the vestibules facing north and south,
which are relatively unimportant. On the main frieze below the
cornice is the inscription—H. Flitcroft, Architectus.
Rising immediately behind the western pediment is the
steeple of about 150 feet in height.
Flitcroft’s able design was evidently influenced by that of
Gibbs for the neighbouring church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, but it
lacks the vigorous character of that noble structure. The banding to
the obelisk above the belfry tends to make this feature appear
somewhat overheavy in comparison with the graceful lantern
beneath. The change from square to octagon at the clock face level is
cleverly managed, and will bear comparison with the same feature at
St. Martin’s Church.
The following extract from A Critical Review of the Public
Buildings, Statues and Ornaments in and About London and
Westminster made by Ralph in 1734, is of interest, as it gives an
opinion upon the architecture of this church shortly after its
erection:—
“The new church of St. Giles’s is one of the most simple and elegant
of the modern structures: it is rais’d at very little expence, has very few
ornaments, and little beside the propriety of its parts, and the harmony of
the whole, to excite attention, and challenge applause: yet still it pleases,
and justly too; the east end is both plain and majestick, and there is nothing
in the west to object to but the smallness of the doors, and the poverty of
appearance that must necessarily follow. The steeple is light, airy and
genteel, argues a good deal of genius in the architect, and looks very well
both in comparison with the body of the church, and when ’tis consider’d as
a building by itself, in a distant prospect.”
Ralph disliked the position of the church, and would have
altered its direction, making what is the east end the main front, and
placing it in such a manner as to have ended the vista of Broad
Street.
The interior (Plate 49) is much finer than the exterior would
suggest, and is an excellent example of a well thought-out design.
Square panelled piers rising to the underside of the galleries support
Ionic columns with block entablatures, all of Portland stone (Plate
46). These carry the roof and ceiling. The ceiling of the nave is
barrel-vaulted in form, panelled and divided into bays by mouldings.
The ceilings of the aisle-galleries (Plates 44 and 51) take the form of a
species of groined vaults intersecting the barrel ceiling of the nave.
The whole is covered by a roof of one span.
The treatment of the galleries is more than usually
satisfactory, for the fronts, instead of being housed into the columns
—giving the suggestion of a necessary after addition—rest
comfortably upon the piers supporting the columns, and, if taken
away, would mar the proportion of the columns to their pedestals.
The shallow sanctuary is almost the full width of the nave. It is
ceiled with an ornamental panelled barrel vault following that of the
nave, and the eastern wall is filled by an architectural composition
harmonising with the general treatment of the nave.
On the frieze of the altar piece (Plate 51) is carved a cherub’s
head, and above is a scrolled pediment having in the centre a pelican
feeding her young in the nest.
The lower panels on either side of the altar and of the
sanctuary, are four in number, and enclosed in carved wood frames.
Two contain pictures; that of Moses to the left (Plate 52) and of
Aaron to the right of the altar.
The pulpit is of carved oak with inlay panels. The ironwork to
the choir balustrade is of wrought work, and the old iron bound chest
in the north-west vestibule is of interest.
The organ (Plate 50) is of considerable interest, and Mr.
George E. Dunn, the organist, has been good enough to supply the
following information. The instrument was built by the celebrated
Bernard Schmidt (known as Father Smith) for the second church in
1671, when he was 41 years old. He was known chiefly for the
perfection of his diapason stops—the true organ tone—and those in
this organ are among his best specimens. When the church was
rebuilt by Flitcroft he evidently did not desire to interfere with the
organ, and adopted the unusual expedient of erecting the tower of
the new church partially round the organ; consequently the back and
part of two sides are covered by the walling of the tower. Father
Smith’s original specification remained until 1856, when many of the
stops had become decayed after 180 years’ use. Dr. G. C. Verrinder,
the organist at that time, had it restored and enlarged by Messrs.
Gray and Davidson, and further repairs and alterations were made in
1884 by the same firm, under the instructions of the late Dr. W.
Little, the organist at that date. In 1889–1900 further alterations
were made by Messrs. Henry Jones and Sons, in collaboration with
the present organist. But through all the decay and changes the
organ has undergone Father Smith’s original diapasons in the front
organ remain and are still perfect. The blowing is done by hand, but
the well-balanced lever renders this comparatively easy, while,
despite the retention of the old tracker action, the instrument is quite
free from the “rattling” so often found in these old actions. In front
are carved the royal arms of George I.
All the glass to the windows, except a small panel (Plate 52) in
the west window of the south vestibule, is modern. This fragment,
which is probably from the earlier church, represents St. Giles’s tame
hind struck by the arrow.
The majority of the monuments in the church belong to the
19th century. Those of earlier date are as follows:—
On the north-east wall of the nave is a tablet of white marble,
on a black marble slab, with the following inscription:
H. S. E.
GULIELMUS WATSON EQUES
SOCIETATIS REGALIS APUD LONDINUM,
ET COLLEGII REGALIS MEDICORUM SOCIUS,
REGALI ETIAM ACADEMIÆ MADRITENSI ADSCRIPTUS,
IN UNIVERSITATIBUS HALÆ ET VIRTEMBERGIÆ
MEDICINÆ DOCTOR
HONORIS ERGO ELECTUS
VIR SUI TEMPORIS
SCIENTIÆ INDAGATOR STUDIOSISSIMUS:
ARTIS MEDICÆ ET BOTANICÆ, NECNON PHILOSOPHIÆ
NATURALIS,
PRÆCIPUE QUOD AD VIM ELECTRICAM ATTINET
INTER PRIMOS PERITUS.
OBIIT DIE MAII 10. A.D. 1787. ÆTAT. SUÆ 72.
HOC MARMOR NEC SUPERBUM,
NEC QUIDQUAM HABENS ORNATUS:
PRAETER IPSUM EJUS NOMEN,
FILIO PIENTISSIMO LEGANTE,
TESTAMENTI CURATORES
PONI JUSSERUNT.
Above, surmounted by a crest, is placed a coat of arms:
(Argent) on a chevron engrailed (Azure) between three martlets
(Sable) as many crescents (of the first).
On the wall of the north aisle is a white marble tablet to the
memory of John Barnfather, who died on 17th September, 1793, in
the 75th year of his age. A tribute is paid to his strictness and
impartiality in the execution of his duties as a justice of the peace,
and to his “mildness of Temper and benignity of mind” in private life.
The tablet is surmounted by a mourning female figure, and fixed on
an oval slab of black marble.
A little to the west along the aisle is a tablet of black marble,
with white marble cornice and base, bearing an inscription to the
memory of other members of the same family, viz., Robert
Barnfather, who died on 23rd October, 1741, aged 54, and his wife
Mary, who died on 6th December, 1754, aged 67. A long account of
the latter’s many good qualities is contributed by “their most
Affectionate Son.”
Still further westward is a tablet with the following
inscription:—
NEAR UNTO THIS PLACE LYETH THE BODY OF
ANDREW MARVELL ESQUIRE, A MAN SO ENDOWED BY
NATURE
SO IMPROVED BY EDUCATION, STUDY & TRAVELL, SO
CONSUMMATED
BY PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE: THAT JOINING THE MOST
PECULIAR GRACES
OF WIT & LEARNING WITH A SINGULAR PENETRATION &
STRENGTH OF
JUDGMENT, & EXERCISING ALL THESE IN THE WHOLE
COURSE OF HIS LIFE
WITH AN UNALTERABLE STEADINESS IN THE WAYS OF
VIRTUE, HE BECAME
THE ORNAMENT & EXAMPLE OF HIS AGE; BELOVED BY GOOD
MEN, FEAR’D
BY BAD, ADMIR’D BY ALL, THO IMITATED ALASS! BY FEW, &
SCARCE FULLY
PARALLELLED BY ANY. BUT A TOMB STONE CAN NEITHER
CONTAIN HIS CHARACTER,
NOR IS MARBLE NECESSARY TO TRANSMIT IT TO POSTERITY,
IT WILL BE ALWAYS
LEGIBLE IN HIS INIMITABLE WRITINGS. HE SERVED THE
TOWN OF KINGSTON
UPON HULL, ABOVE 20 YEARS SUCCESSIVELY IN
PARLIAMENT, & THAT WITH SUCH
WISDOM, DEXTERITY, INTEGRITY & COURAGE AS BECOMES A
TRUE PATRIOT
HE DYED THE 16. AUGUST 1678 IN THE 58TH. YEAR OF HIS AGE.
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF ANDREW MARVELL ESQR. AS A
STRENUOUS ASSERTER OF
THE CONSTITUTIONS, LAWS & LIBERTIES OF ENGLAND,
AND OUT OF FAMILY AFFECTION & ADMIRATION OF
THE UNCORRUPT PROBITY OF HIS LIFE & MANNERS
ROBERT NETTLETON OF LONDON MERCHANT HIS GRAND
NEPHEW
HATH CAUSED THIS SMALL MEMORIAL OF HIM
TO BE ERECTED IN THE YEAR 1764.
Further is a tablet of white marble, in the form of an
ornamental cartouche, recording the death of John Hawford and
Elizabeth his wife, and their two sons John and William. All four
deaths occurred between December, 1712, and July, 1715.
Next is a tablet to the memory of Thomas Edwards, who died
on 9th July, 1781, in the 71st year of his age. The tablet is of white
marble, surmounted by a black cinerary urn, on an oval slab of
painted marble. The inscription records his various bequests for the
use of the poor of the parish, and explains that the monument was
erected by his widow not only as a tribute of gratitude and affection,
but with a view to inciting others “whom God has blessed with
Abilities and Success” to follow his example. Her own death, on 23rd
November, 1818, is also mentioned.
Still in the north aisle, but near the entrance, is a tomb
bearing a white marble recumbent effigy of Lady Frances Kniveton,
resting on a black marble slab above a stone base. This is one of the
two memorials preserved from the second church. The inscription,
contained on a white marble tablet, reads as follows:—
In Memory of the Right Honble. Lady Frances Kniveton,
(Wife of Sr. Gilbert Kniveton,/of Bradley, in the County of Derby
Bart.) lyeth buried in the Chancel of this Church./She was one of the
5 Daughters & Co-heirs of the Rt. Honble. Sr. Robert Dudley Kt. Duke
of the/Empire; by the Lady Alice his Wife & Dutchess. which
Robert. was Son of the Rt. Honble./Robert Dudley, late Earle of
Leicester. & his Dutchess was Daughter of Sr. Tho: Leigh,/and Aunt

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Physics Avoidance and Other Essays in Conceptual Strategy 1St Edition Mark Wilson All Chapter

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Physics Avoidance: and other essays in

conceptual strategy 1st Edition Mark

The rich profusion thee confounds, my love,

1. PRAGMATICS’ PLACE AT THE TABLE 1

3. FROM THE BENDING OF BEAMS TO THE PROBLEM

4. TWO CHEERS FOR ANTI-ATOMISM 136

5. THE GREEDINESS OF SCALES 201

6. BELIEVERS IN THE LAND OF GLORY 241

7. IS THERE LIFE IN POSSIBLE WORLDS? 287

8. SEMANTIC MIMICRY 324

9. A SECOND PILGRIM’S PROGRESS 362

Preface and Acknowledgments xi

1. PRAGMATICS’ PLACE AT THE TABLE 1

3. FROM THE BENDING OF BEAMS TO THE PROBLEM OF FREE WILL 99

4. TWO CHEERS FOR ANTI-ATOMISM 136

5. THE GREEDINESS OF SCALES 201

6. BELIEVERS IN THE LAND OF GLORY 241

7. IS THERE LIFE IN POSSIBLE WORLDS? 287

8. SEMANTIC MIMICRY 324

9. A SECOND PILGRIM’S PROGRESS 362

Index Topic 423

into inadequate pigeon holes, producing considerable con-

spoiling the party

Articulated in less tendentious terms, the argument runs:

problems of an otherwise insurmountable complexity can be conquered by breaking the

bank?” and then determine

(a) At the corner of Market and Honolulu (topographic mode)

demands to a practical dimension. Multiscalar

1. RVE characteristic scale: 1 meter

philosophy lurk within this seemingly innocuous notion of a

RVE level: 50 μm (basic grain)

All of these RVE levels interact in complex ways, and any

locomotive merely moves the dislocations about

reasoning compressions to evade this “tyranny.” Hysteresis effects in steel present us

multiscale modeling of granite

entangled mixture of feldspar and quartz. But

initial tracking to the sub-model levels in which these

But how should

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