(1)
Clement. Clement the bell ringer can also be generalised in several ways,
including the following five - all male bell ringers, all bell ringers whether male
or female, all people who work in or around a church, all people who work,
and all people. An element derived by generalising "Clement the bell ringer"
could have any of these five degrees of generalisation.
(2)
Orange. As explained above, orange can be generalised as several things
which include the following four -
a type of citrus fruit, a fruit, a thing that
grows on trees, and a thing that grows. An element derived by generalising
"orange" could have any of these four degrees of generalisation (and more as
well if we chose to pursue them).
(3)
Destroys. ‘Destroy’ could involve at least four generalisations -
total
destruction, destruction to the point where the orange was no longer edible,
destruction by cutting the orange into parts or destruction by juicing the
orange.
In summary the element ‘Clement’ has 5 possible versions, the element
‘orange’ has 4 versions and the element ‘destroy’ has 4 versions. These
versions can be set out in a table in the following way:
Element
Number of Versions
Element (1) Clement
5
Element (2) Orange
4
Element (3) Destroy
4
Figure 7.3 Versions of Elements
Clearly this example does not canvass all possibilities since they are numerous.
However it identifies enough to illustrate the proposition that each element has
a number of possible versions because each material fact can be generalised to
any of a number of degrees.
Combining Individual Elements
The fundamental proposition is that each element is formed by generalising a
material fact. But each material fact can be generalised to any of several
degrees. Consequently there are several possible versions of each element.
This was illustrated in a hypothetical example above where the scope of
generalisation was artificially restricted to make the illustration clearer. Even
with this qualification, it was still possible to make at least several
generalisations of each element.
While one of the variables consists of the range of versions of each element,
this is only one of the two sources of variation and choice in forming the
elements of a rule. The other choice arises because any version of one element
can be combined in a rule with any version of any other element. This is
possible because each generalisation of a fact to create an element is usually
independent of the generalisation made of any other fact. Consequently, the
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