Qualities of reading

Introduction

Critiques of the judgment identified issues which still required resolution, particularly its complexity and lack of substantiation of creativity (see Chapter 2). The intensive scrutiny the judgment had received had not revealed self-contradiction. We were therefore entitled to presume self-consistency. A satisfactory reading had to reveal the particular form of self-consistency, hidden behind the surface complexity, substantiate creativity and address the further issues identified from critiques.

In addition, it would be desirable for the reading to have further qualities of economy, comprehensiveness, final simplicity, and potential for practical implementation.

We can therefore review the reading established against the criteria identified from the critiques and consider the extent to which it embodies further desirable qualities.

Themes of critiques

The reading established can be systematically compared with the criteria for elucidation developed in Chapter 2, again considering issues in broadly descending order of significance and conceptual dependence.

Complexity

The self-consistency of the decision, which was earlier presumed, has been made specific and revealed, through careful verbal analysis. A self-consistent conceptual structure was revealed and used consistently and effectively for the subsequently analysis.

The primary analytic method used was the deeply historically rooted process of exegesis, or close reading. The analysis then rests on well-established methods. The results of exegesis were synthesized, in a discursive presentation and also dia-grammatically with a parallel exposition as formal logic (a single, progressively developed diagram was used). The congruence between discursive and formal modes of presentation implies a robust analysis. Methods of analysis and of development then indicate that the argument is firmly rooted.

From the self-consistency revealed and used, and the deep rooting of the argument we can regard the concern of critiques with the complexity of the decision as fully resolved.

Creativity

A lack of substantiation of creativity was identified by critiques.

Creativity has been substantiated, as human action motivated by meaning, above a certain level of routinicity. It has not been over-populated, in accord with the resistance to final delimitation implied by the absence of direct explication of creativity in the judgment.

The argument is deeply rooted substantively and formally. Substantively, fundamental distinctions from the theory of computation, from information theory, and from ordinary discourse supported the identification of the not automatically computational with a strong sense of semantic, as direct human engagement with meaning. The concept of creativity arrived at was consistent with significant ordinary discourse. The extreme antithesis to creativity was tied to a bedrock concept, to that of an automatic mechanical procedure or automatic computational process. The concept is both bedrock and historically variable in its instantiation, if there are advances in implementation.

Formally, the technique of negation, used to derive an understanding of creativity from its antithesis, is deeply historically rooted. The argument held in discursive and formally logical form. The congruence in results between two methods of expression and of thought sometimes considered antithetical to or in tension with each other, of ordinary discourse and reasoning with symbolic logic and purely logical transformations, adds conviction to the result obtained. In this instance, logic is being used to give a slightly more definite expression to the result of a verbally conducted argument (Holmes, 1881/1991, p. 219). The understanding of creativity developed rests, therefore, on a very strong substantive and methodological basis.

The presence of a mechanical procedure or highly routine process in the processes which give rise to the end product directly considered for its copyrightability can be determined from a reading or inspection of the product, or, if necessary, by an enquiry into its circumstances of production. The degree of absence of routinicity required for creativity gives rise to a less sharp boundary than that between the mechanical or automatically computed and the not mechanical. The boundary is broadly congruent with the previous distinction of intellectual from clerical labor (clerical labor, by itself, would not normally have given rise to copyrightability). It is also analogous in not being an entirely sharp boundary. We then have a discriminatory principle for creativity which centrally contains a concept, of computability, which is both bedrock and flexible in its instantiation, and amenable to being known. The further dimension, of routinicity, is not more complex than historically inherited distinctions, most notably between intellectual and clerical. Creativity is then amenable to being known.

We can therefore regard the understanding of creativity as very strongly and usefully proven. The lack of substantiation of creativity, identified by critiques, has been addressed and resolved.