One of Dr Hartmans students at the University of Tennessee in the 1960’s was Wayne Carpenter, Wayne tells of his early introduction to Hartman and the science of Axiology:

‘My adventure with Dr. Hartman began in the summer of 1967, On starting my course I was informed  that all new graduate students in philosophy would be required to participate in a new course on values taught by Dr Hartman.

I took the course but since my interest was epistemology, my major influence was not Dr. Hartman. What did intrigue me was his knowledge of Kant.  I had always been interested in Kant and one of the best experiences of my graduate school days was taking Dr. Hartman's course on Kant and following up that course with an individualized study on Kant. I collected every instance of "Geganstand" and "Object" from The Critique and prepared a defence of Kant's philosophy of science. I was fortunate to spend hours working with Dr. Hartman but the focus was always Kant. I did take the "test" and was as amazed then as I am now at the power of the instrument.                                                                                                      

I was drafted in 1968 and managed to delay my entry into the service until January, 1970. Dr. Hartman was very upset that I had been drafted. One of my lasting memories of him is his expression of sorrow that I had to leave graduate school because of war.

Being drafted basically stopped life for me but resulted in a change of course in my studies and interests which shaped my life in ways that I would have never imagined. I was very fortunate to have two officers in basic training who helped me receive a job classification normally reserved for graduate students in psychology. After basic training, I reported immediately to Fort Benning in Georgia and was assigned to a support unit for HUMMORO, a psychological research company which anchored much of the psychological research done by the Army at that time. My first assignment was assisting in test construction and testing soldiers returning from Vietnam. I was fortunate to work under a psychologist who had performed the first studies at NASA on the effects of light on human development.

During the summer of 1970, HUMMRO began a new study of decision making. Batallion Commanders were having new difficulties resulting from the rise of the helicopter as a command center for battle. The influx of data from multiple sources on the ground, in the air, and from the sea were resulting in fatal mistakes for our soldiers. A new project was designed to evaluate decision making in controlled simulators. The focus of the project was the development of a new technology and training program which would enhance decision making. Westinghouse landed the technical end of the project and my unit was assigned the Army support unit for the soft end, the study of decision making.’

I had been reading Hartman's The Structure of Value and Kant's Critique. I used Hartman's three-fold analysis of knowledge to propose a new integrated multi-level model for decision making. My goal was to build a decision slide rule which would give commander's a more rational approach to translating data into information and accessing the information for making more effective  decisions. To my amazement, I was assigned the project and began working with the HUMMRO psychologist in charge of the project. He gave me a free hand to develop my research ideas. I received a new security clearance and began collecting every book and article that had ever been written on decision making in English, German and French up to and through 1970. My first objective was to review the literature, create a decision making bibliography of relevant books and articles, and write abstracts of the books and articles.

 As I began to develop my research, Dr. Hartman not only became my inspiration and resource for my project, but I began to believe that his discovery was one of the most important landmarks in western thought. It is one of those ironies of life that a disruption in my studies resulting from war became my opportunity to discover the power of Dr. Hartman's discovery. The irony is especially poignant since Dr. Hartman was such a strong critic of war.

I relied on the formal logic of Value and the dimensional structure of Value to create a multi-level (from experiential to conceptual to axiomatic) integrated approach to decision making. I became convinced that the structure of concept was the essential ingredient for understanding the decision process and that the decision process was the connecting link between value and valuation. The colonel in charge of our company recommend me for a medal but the Army gave the officer in charge the medal, even though he had done nothing to develop the project, and commendation letters to my unit.’

Professor Carpenter was convinced of the value of Hartman’s work and continued to work with others who were developing Hartman’s theories, Wayne picks up the storey of his work in the late 1970’s:

‘During John Davis's axiological tutoring and mentoring, John taught me that Hartman believed that to achieve a correct analysis, all of the scores must be integrated into a total, holistic connection. In other words, the intrinsic score in the world must be interpreted in the light of the extrinsic score in the world and so on until a total integrated view is achieved.

I could see the validity of this process in my verbal interpretations; but at that time, I could not see how to build an analysis to provide an integrated, holistic platform. There were a number of challenges which I faced in the early stages of my research and development. I had to create translation rules from Hartman's Interpretation Manual for converting Hartman math into accurate statement sets. I also had to create a way to convert language, words, into their axiological, logical meanings. I had to create a model format which would define what I was measuring and I had to create a measuring system which would standardize the various measuring units in the Hartman System (Dim, Int, Dis) into one consistent mathematic measuring continuum. I also had to develop a theoretical model which would define what is in fact being measured in an axiological analysis.  

To establish the difference between a psychological and an axiological analysis, I relied on my research in the Army. In my decision models, I used the concept as the key to interpreting the decision process moving from recognition to analysis to resolution. I reversed the process and relied on the decision process as a way to define what is occurring in the process of concept formation. I interpreted the axiological process as a movement from perception to conception to decision to action. The axiological process could then be distinguished from the psychological process and from the medical, physiological process of brain studies. I defined behaviour as the socialization of actions. I defined Valuing and concept formation as a matter of measuring "choice". Later I defined this transformation from perception to action in terms of decision fields.

My office was a large room with a conference table in the middle. I developed a two prong attack on building interpretation rules. First, I made copies of Hartman's interpretation Manual and cut out each definition of a score pattern put them on newsprint on the wall. Next, I reverse engineered all of Dr. Hartman's interpretation examples and looked for rules which he was using for creating a specific analysis. I also put those examples and the rules I identified on newsprint on the wall.

I chose to begin my integrated analysis by relying on a threefold model: clarity, attention and balance, and apply this model to two worlds in three dimensions: Intrinsic in the world and self, extrinsic in the world and self and systemic in the world and self. I designated Intrinsic in the world as "Empathy", Extrinsic as "Practical Judgment" and Systemic in the world as "System Judgment". I designated Intrinsic in the self as "Self Esteem", Extrinsic as "Role Awareness" and Systemic in the self as "Self Direction". I relied on the fivefold stages in Hartman's scoring model to measure levels of clarity. To distinguish "attention" I relied on Hartman's delineation of bias scores less than 60% as a "tendency" and above 59% as a "trait". To deal with balance I created formulas which would define an intrinsic world score at the five scoring levels and within the "tendency" and "trait" measure compared to the same measures for the five other value dimensions. I placed all of those formulas on the wall and proceeded to create meanings for the thousands of combinations. I used matrix sets to combine those formulas into an integrated system which could be computerized.

I created the concept "axiological space" to provide a means for measuring the axiological value of a word. Axiological space measures the distance between the valuing subject and the object of value with systemic value indicating a wider measure than extrinsic or intrinsic value. I began to analyze words into their variations and roots. Jerry Ezell allowed me to hire Gary Aquaviva to analyze word patterns and word roots. Once I analyzed the axiological core of the word, I used a mathematical index to measure axiological space. Then, when I was choosing words for the integrated pattern analysis, I could match the axiological value of the word to the axiological value of the comparative combination. Using all of those techniques, after several years of work, the result was a lengthy value analysis which identified general trends in the person's value pattern, a measure for each of the six value dimensions including a clarity statement, a bias "tendency" or "trait" analysis and a diad and triad analysis measuring the effect of the scores on each other. An individual development analysis was provided for each dimension plus a strategy for development. Pieces of the analysis were computerized in 1982 and the total analysis was computerized in 1983.’

Whitepaper: by researcher Wayne Carpenter©

Wayne has continued to devote his life’s work to developing, improving and validating his computerised system of Axiological analysis through his company Axiometrics™ International. He is recognised as having done more validation work on value theory than anyone else. It is Wayne’s company Axiometrics™ International who provide access to the profile, back up and training to Axiometrics™ Partners and its trained consultants.

There are a number of different systems in the US based on Dr Hartman’s work of varying sophistication and computerisation. None have the same level of research, detail and accuracy as the Axiometrics™ system, thanks to the 40 years Wayne has devoted to its development. He is currently working at 27 levels based on his original starting point of Hartman’s theories and mathematics.