NOTE: This paper was shipped to GMU as a pdf document, on a DVD with other documents in January 2009. The DVD is stored in Box 99, Folder 7 of Warfield Special Collection. A pdf file of the paper was added to Warfield Digital Collection. There is no hard copy version in GMU collections. On 9 January 2009. Warfield mailed a DVD containing eleven papers, of which this is one, to Robert Vay, Special Collections & Archives, Fenwick Library, George Mason University.

ABSTRACT: Few schemes are more fundamental in life than strategies for enlightenment. Given great differences among cultural groups in beliefs, and noting the continuing presence of major conflicts in most walks of life, one may suppose that enlightenment strategies have somehow been submerged beneath political establishments, to the extent that they have been lost from view. A review of the various enlightenment strategies might be in order that would return them to the surface, giving them renewed visibility. It might also be helpful to see them in the same ambience, should there be those who have become advocates of some strategy without consideration of others. In reviewing these strategies, a comparison of the options available to the learner to highlight strengths and weaknesses may be timely. Such a comparison would seem to be particularly relevant to systems thinking, which often seems to lack presence when and where conflicts abound. Axiomatic origins from Kant and Peirce are taken as a beginning point. Distinctions are made among six strategies, pinpointed for reference by identifying them with particular exponents: Comte’s positivism, Le Moigne’s constructivism, Rabinow’s “return to founders”, Rabinow’s “absorb and surpass”, von Glasersfeld’s “radical constructivism” and Foucalt’s “coherent inquiry”. The shortcomings of each are described. Finally Foucault’s thought is connected to a domain described as structural modeling, which is asserted to be the pinnacle of enlightenment strategies to produce high-quality structural hypotheses for resolving problematic situations.

NOTE: IN AUGUST 2011 ROSE DISCOVERED A PRINTOUT OF A FILE TITLED <Fenwick Submissions.wpd) in which Warfield comments on this article, probably writing in late 2008 or as he was collecting a group of documents to send to GMU: "Enlightenment Strategies. This is an article begun quite some time back, which I have recently printed out. To finish this I need to insert the references or else end notes. Also I may have to beef up the last part of this article. This article is located where? It is #76 in "My Papers" and it appears there in the three different formats" When I found this comment I looked up the article as it now appears in the GMU Warfield Digital Collection and I see that in the GMU Digital Collection the article is fully finished, with the references added, which means Warfield probably "beefed up" the last part of the article as well.