Charles Sanders Peirce’s first rule of logic (EP 2.48, 1898) identifies the inception point of human inquiry. Taking a closer look at this principle, we find at its core a necessary relationship between emptiness and desire that underlies all genuine instances of human learning and adaptation. This composite relationship plays a critical role in the function or failure of learning but has received scant attention in the literature. As a result, the complexities of the first rule of logic are not well understood, often being mistakenly conflated with the rule’s famous corollary, ‘do not block the way of inquiry’, or passed over with cursory definitions, including ‘wonder’, ‘doubt’ and ‘the will to learn’. Following a background discussion highlighting the nature of reflexive inquiry and fallibilism that situate human consciousness both within and beyond animal being, I draw on multiple layers of evidence from a range of disciplines to better reveal the complex dynamics intrinsic to the first rule of logic. These layers include a closer reading and exegesis of the original passage and surrounding text; a semiotic reanalysis of this reading in light of recent advances in the semiotic theory of learning; a resituation of these distinctions within broader contemporary discussions of emptiness ontology to which I contribute in part via an original semantic/rhetorical analysis of a linguistic construction in Laozi; the introduction of a closely related pedagogical tool under development in the context of my own university-level teaching in ethnography and research methods; and the dialogic situation of this diagram within discourses of psychotherapy, philosophy and literature. Building on these principles and distinctions, the paper closes with a perspective shift on obstacles and desire in human learning and an expanded reformulation of the first rule of logic.

中文翻译：

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第一逻辑规则中的空虚与欲望

查尔斯·桑德斯·皮尔斯（Charles Sanders Peirce）的第一个逻辑规则（EP 2.48，1898年）确定了人类探究的起点。仔细研究这个原理，我们发现其核心是空虚与欲望之间的必要关系，它是人类学习和适应的所有真实实例的基础。这种复合关系在学习的功能或失败中起着至关重要的作用，但是在文献中却很少受到关注。结果，人们对第一条逻辑规则的复杂性没有很好的理解，常常被错误地与规则著名的推论相混淆，“不阻碍查询的方式”，或者被粗略的定义所忽略，包括“奇迹”，“怀疑”和“学习的意愿”。在进行了背景讨论后，我强调了反思性探究和谬论的本质，使人类在动物之内和之外都处于意识状态，然后，我从一系列学科中运用了多层证据，以更好地揭示逻辑第一规则固有的复杂动力。这些层次包括对原始段落和周围文本的仔细阅读和解释。根据学习符号学理论的最新进展对该阅读进行符号学重新分析；这些区别在当代关于空性本体论的广泛讨论中的定位，我对老子的语言结构进行了原始的语义/修辞分析，对此做出了部分贡献；在我自己的民族志和研究方法的大学水平教学的背景下，引入正在开发中的紧密相关的教学工具；以及该图在心理治疗，哲学和文学领域的对话情况。在这些原则和区别的基础上，本文以对人类学习中的障碍和期望以及对第一逻辑规则的扩展重新阐述的观点转变作为结尾。