This thesis seeks to show that the recorded thought of William Kingdon Clifford in the third quarter of the 19th C was not only relevant to scientific advancement but removed absolute certainty from any posited model of reality. The period during which Clifford worked was a turning point in humanity's understanding of the world. The two most significant developments of his time that Clifford used in his speculative metaphysic were the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries being abstract as opposed to abstruse, and the evolutionary theory of Darwin. Clifford was foremost a geometer. However he had an insatiable desire to understand his world, which led to him becoming fluent in several languages, applying his geometrical skills to contemporary unsolved problems of physics, involving himself in speculative metaphysics. Clifford is recognised as being a highly gifted geometer. His thought was taken up by John Archibald Wheeler in the mid 20th C. Likewise Ernst Mach recognised the thought of Clifford. Although the thesis involves mathematics I make no claim to being a mathematician. It is Clifford's speculative metaphysic and how it relates to our understanding of consciousness and the nature of languages both formal and natural that is my particular interest. Because of this I explore the relationship between Clifford, Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein in most detail. However the understanding of the world must take into consideration the world in its entirety.

"These Prolegomena are not for the use of pupils, but of future teachers, and even the latter should not expect that they will be serviceable for the systematic exposition of a ready-made science, but merely for the discovery of the science itself." Like Kant my intention is to persuade those who would study and teach social science to pause for a moment, and question whether such a thing as "social science" itself is possible. There most certainly exists a science to many aspects of social interaction but it is often obscured by practical strategies posing as science. Properly distinguishing the two will greatly facilitate future developments in both scientific and strategic pursuits. Attempting to describe strategic elements scientifically, regularly serves to frustrate the acquisition of real knowledge. Since a large portion of the social sciences is in fact strategic, we require a means of separating the two; this means is through the identification of the reflexively changeable and resistant features in social scientific theories. Considering social strategies as strategies presents many interesting developments like reflexive and catalytic influences on the strategic environment. Because of the persuasive and public nature of strategies, ethical concerns must be observed in investigation, education and employment. I suggest a method for identifying social strategies in the social sciences and a way these social strategies may be investigated. I outline some concerns, benefits and limitations of the project, and suggest areas in need of further development. By doing this I aim to present a more realistic and productive approach to the social sciences generally: one with the added benefits of requiring minimal modification to identified strategies, at the same time as standardising the scientific. Finally, since strategies are concerned with what agents should do, this categorical and methodological separation is the right course of action both ethically and scientifically.

A case is developed against Donald Davidson's thesis that any attempt to give meaning to the idea of conceptual relativism is doomed. Even under Davidson's assumption that untranslatability is a necessary condition of a difference between two schemes, it appears to be possible to conceive a situation in which one language is untranslatable for another, but still accessible for truth testing, which undermines Davidson's main argument. One further argument of Davidson's is countered by the observation that even if we play the game of radical interpretation strictly on Davidson's terms, we may well encounter a situation in which the only rational choice is to allow for partial failures of translation, and thus for a difference between the two conceptual schemes.

To introduce a definition of a game in normal form, we need the following concepts: the set I of players; the (pure) strategy sets S₁ for each agent i ϵ I; the payoff functions pi (s₁, ..., s₁) that assign payoffs for all i ϵ I as determined by a possible strategy combination (s₁, ..., s₁).

В обществе с высоким уровнем социальной субоптимльности перенеcение этocа науки нр "общесто в целом" нереалистично ибо не отражаwем "общественны интерес": зтос науки нетыслим без утверждения эпистемической ратциональности а социально субоптимальные ситуации склонны порожать конфликт между эпистемической и интегрально-практической рациальностями. В нем именно вторая отражаем интереcы "общеста в целом" и поэтому первая, репрезентирующая этoc науки, оказываетcя ущемленной и урезанной.