Attribute Position

On taking sides.

The first part of the rule set asks a precise question. EIC’s inventive approach is contemplative, and its inventive position is interstitial — that much was settled in Part 1. When we approach a concrete attribute, a further cut has to be named: the attribute position.

• ATTRIBUTE POSITION: Focus of systemic attributes. The two main attribute positions are intrinsic attributes and interstitial attributes.

The cut is the same one the ceramic mug already taught. Ceramic and glass stay with the materials — and with the parcels that work inherent properties. That a mug is yours does not. EIC maintains its focus on interstitial attributes: the qualities that hold between things, not the qualities a thing carries in itself.

That is a strong departure from traditional Philosophy, which usually claims both. Metaphysics tries to say what exists in Reality. Instead of improving craftsmanship, expanding artistry, or using the scientific method to extract usable information, it produces perspectives that — although often interesting — lack integration with the broader knowledge reservoir. A theory of ceramic that never speaks to the potter, and a theory of “yours” that never speaks to how relations are actually formed, are free to be ingenious. They are not free to call that ingenuity a contribution to the other parcels.

This unregulated scope is, from our point of view, one of the main causes of ossification in philosophical frameworks. The other three inventive parcels usually have a clearer focus. Philosophy tends to give itself license to analyze everything that feels appropriate. The perspectives can be striking. They also tend to depart from the outcomes of other fields. The disconnection between current philosophical discussion and the broader culture has its roots here.

There is a historical shape to that disconnection. Philosophy in the West was originally conceived as the upper bound of knowledge, containing also what we now categorize as the sciences. Once the scientific method emancipated the sciences and took a predominant position in society and culture, Philosophy has struggled to define itself and its proper boundaries. Conciliatorics offers an alternative: a specific home for the philosophical instinct, without the need to compete with the other fields for relevance. EIC does not become more ambitious by claiming the ceramic. It becomes more useful by staying with what is interstitial, and by remaining able to hand the ceramic back.

We can now proceed to the mechanics through which attributes relate.