Preface to Place
How are we to understand a work like Place? In form and structure it is unlike anything ever seen in psychological literature: a bare listing of just under one hundred “Status–Dynamic Maxims” grouped under such headings as “Person and World” followed by a reiteration of these Maxims with commentary. Clearly, this is not one of the standard forms of professional discourse in behavioral science. Assuming the author is not merely being perverse in choosing this form for his content (and Ossorio is never merely perverse in his writings), we are left to figure out what kind of content requires such an unusual form of presentation.
In his Introduction to Place, Ossorio states clearly what he takes this content to be: “something it would make sense to point to and say, ‘. . . this is Folk Psychology. This is what we Folk understand about folks.’” Perhaps more exactly, he identifies the Maxims as “a characteristic set of the kind of warnings and reminders that one person might well give to another, particularly when some important failure or possible failure with respect to the Person concept is at stake.” (p. 6). Since no prior attempt to present such content has been made, it seems reasonable (or at least charitable) to grant that an unusual form might be required for its presentation.
That said, we are still left to wonder how to approach this book. Shall we just give it a thorough critical reading and take it that we have understood it? Many have tried that, but few have found it a satisfactory means of engaging with this material. Like most of Ossorio’s writings, Place calls for and amply rewards a different, deeper study than we are accustomed to offering to psychological writings. Indeed, Place might be productively approached in ways similar to how we traditionally approach works of mathematics, or Eastern scriptures. Each of these domains of study sheds a particular light on the work at hand.
Place and Mathematics
Ossorio’s first major work, Persons, presented special challenges to its readers when it first became available in the mid 1960’s, not the least of which was this: it was impossible to understand on one, or two, or three readings. A common comment at the time was: “I was reading along in Persons, thinking I understood what he was saying, and then he would say more and I would realize I had no idea what he was talking about. So I would go back and re–read, and . . .” Psychologists were not used to this; we were accustomed to getting at least a basic understanding of books written in our native language the first time through, with at most a bit of polishing required for the hard or subtle points. At first some were convinced the difficulty sprang from what was seen as Ossorio’s stubborn refusal to write simple, clear sentences; that comforting illusion lasted until a few of us tried to write more clearly what Persons said, and failed spectacularly.
But over time a few individuals appeared who seemed genuinely baffled by the general reaction. They found Persons straightforward and understandable. As it turned out, they all had one common characteristic: extensive background in extremely rigorous and complex logical systems, e.g. higher mathematics, or scriptural exegesis. Such study tends to develop substantial comfort with conceptual ambiguity and lack of closure, which serves a reader of Ossorio’s work well. Despite the fact that Persons was written in the familiar sentence and paragraph form of an essay or novel, these individuals read it with the care and attention one gives to the presentation of new material in mathematics, making sure they had a deep grasp of each sentence or concept before going on to the next, and assuming that their understanding of each concept would unfold and deepen over time. Mathematical writing requires this kind of approach; psychological writing almost never does.
It is not hard to see why these readers chose the approach they did: there is a mathematical “feel” to Ossorio’s writings that is both pronounced and hard to pin down. Certainly Ossorio does not deal in definitions or axioms or postulates, nor does he prove theorems—indeed he vigorously disputes the need for or desirability of using any of these in a fundamental approach to persons and behavior. But equally certainly his writings have the clarity, precision and careful articulation of an interconnected set of concepts that we associate with mathematics. The similarity is even more pronounced in Place, where the form of the work almost invites misunderstanding as a set of axioms or postulates about persons and behavior—a Principia Persona, as it were. Nothing could be further from what Ossorio intends; to see why requires a careful understanding of the difference between axioms and maxims.
Axioms have their place in the realm of “pure reason”, maxims in the realm of “practical reason” (the distinction dates back to Aristotle). Both axioms and maxims “bound” their respective domains; in this structural way they are similar, and any discussion of maxims might well have that familiar mathematical feel as a result. But what they bound, and how, are quite different. Pure reason fundamentally is concerned with establishing “truth” via logical proof; axioms state what is taken to be absolutely true within this domain of reason, thereby establishing the logical “structure” of the domain. Maxims serve a similar function in the domain of practical reason, which is concerned with establishing what is to done in a given situation. Maxims codify our understanding of persons and behavior; as such, they establish a “structure” for what qualifies as an adequate description of behavior in any particular instance.
Ossorio’s writings are exactly like mathematics in this way: they richly reward, indeed virtually require, deep study before the sense they make becomes evident. The unusual structure of Place can be recognized as alerting us to the need for a deep and careful approach to understanding it.
What kind of understanding will this deep study yield? The parallel with mathematics is instructive here: the test of whether one truly understands mathematical concepts is whether one can use them to do mathematics. That is, one can understand derivations (proofs, problem–solving) using these concepts, and can use them (within the limits of one’s own ability, of course) to create new derivations. The Maxims in Place “reflect our competence in regard to the concept of a person, which encompasses the concepts of (a) individual persons, (b) human behavior, (c) the real world, and (d) language.” (Ossorio, p. 7) Understanding these Maxims increases our competence in regards to these, which on the face of it is no small matter.
Place and Eastern Scriptures
Many Eastern traditions use a characteristic form, the sutra, to convey spiritual teachings. A sutra is a brief, pithy statement meant to convey a specific spiritual truth; it is typically dense and difficult to understand on first encounter (e.g. “Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind.”). Sutras are often collected together into a larger work which covers a specific domain of spiritual truth (e.g. Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras from which the above example was taken, Narada’s Bhakti Sutras, the Shiva Sutras) along with commentary on each sutra to aid the student in beginning to understand them. Place is a work of behavioral science, with no discernible spiritual intent, but its structure is remarkably similar to this classic Eastern spiritual form—Place is Ossorio’s Person Sutras, as it were.
There is no reason to believe that Ossorio intentionally copied (or for that matter was even aware of) this Eastern form in writing Place. The similarity seems to be a case of parallel invention: similar tasks calling forth similar solutions. The “task” in question is to convey a deep understanding of a complex domain while avoiding easy misapprehension. The price paid for succeeding at this task is that the meaning of each sutra takes some time and effort to unfold—on the face of it, the sutra may seem to be perversely obscure, or merely tautological. The Maxims in Place, like traditional sutras and indeed like mathematics, require sustained contemplation before the full extent of their meaning unfolds.
Again, what kind of understanding will this sustained contemplation unfold? The Eastern doctrine of self–recognition tells us that through contemplation we come to know that which we already knew but didn’t know we knew—and “knowing we know” makes all the difference. Ossorio states something comparable in his Introduction to Place: “Maxims . . . are for someone who already knows and understands; they are not, at face value, a way of imparting new information to someone who doesn’t already know or understand.” (p. 6) In other words, these Maxims encapsulate our understanding of what it means to be a Person, which we already knew but might not know we knew—and “knowing we know” makes a significant difference, both in understanding persons, and in being one.
Anthony O. Putman, Ann Arbor, Michigan, February, 1998.
