Hello Dick:
First, I enjoy reading your posts for the clarity of thought that they express. Second, I'd like to respond to some of what you say about the "leap"--which I have copied below:
"It is important for me, however, to recognize that to decide is to take a risky leap that differs from every kind of insight. . . .I think that the notion of 'leap to plan' involves a decision, as well as the direct insight behind the conception of the plan and the reflective insight that the plan is a good one. Because, unless I decide, I will not execute the plan. When action is the outcome (as in the tennis example), the actor must decide to act. Because these insights and decisions can occur so quickly (blink), it is easy to oversimplify, in the manner of the radical behaviorists, the complex cognitive and decisional processes involved in executing a novel return of a tennis serve."
Yes, yes, and yes--so quick, a huge movement of thought seems to occur faster than time and space will allow--which is another point entirely.
However, we can look (ahem) at another dimension of the leap, as it were, by unearthing and distinguishing the completely different kinds of questions that underlie knowing, deciding, and doing (including saying) in "real time" (to use common language). In this sense, and in a mature and well-working consciousness, there is no leap, but rather a constant and interactive flow--from understanding and knowing the real that we can (or the speculative, or coming as close as we can about it) to committing ourselves to intelligent and reasonable act in that real-time. We actually move from one set of questions to the other constantly. The more differentiated is our interior structure, the more thoughtful and "mature and well-working" our consciousness tends to be. (In this sense, the logical fallacy of jumping to judgment, before we understand anything, is more of a leap than a flow.)
But I think, in our analyses, it's helpful to go to the source, or to keep our thumb on the pulse, as it were, that is general empirical method? That is, the generalized questions WHAT IS IT and IS IT SO are about factualness--where we are exploring, understanding, and knowing factual reality.
On the other hand, the generalized questions that underlie reflecting and deciding, and then actually doing, (as you suggest) though they rely on the movements in our prior understanding/knowing complex for their intelligibility and reasonableness, still do not intend or aim at knowing facts. Rather these questions are about creating history and ourselves in it.
The below questions pretty-much match what you say in the movement of meaning in your paragraph above. So my input here doesn't disagree-with but rather supports your thematics there. Generally, those questions that follow and flow from our knowing complex of meaning are (variably):
What would/could/should I think/do/say? What is actually worthwhile for me to think/do/say? Would/could/should I do/say it? Will I ...."execute"? And then the decision (yes I will, no I won't), and then the act (actually saying/doing in real time, or not).
Notice that some are questions for meaning, and some are questions for yes/no kinds of answers. Our knowing/judging are also tied to yes/no responses; however, whereas those are yes/no about the real, our yes/no in this second set of questions (where deciding occurs) move us towards the act (execution). Here, we do not respond yes or no; rather, here we act in place of saying yes/no, which puts us right into the concrete and way beyond merely thinking. Act is where our yes/no of judgment and deciding are transformed into our one-being. That is, and in commonspeak, we cannot board a plane that has left already.
As an example, actually studying about any what-is-it-questions is our having already answered the "what should I do?" (for meaning) and "should I do it?" (for deciding/yes/no) questions. Here, in fact, as we actually study, we are already living in the response to that later set of questions.
Also, briefly, I think you are oh-so right about (what I would call) field-reality envy--not only in sociology, but also in so-many in the other human-related fields. My take on it is that (a) we have equated the term "science" with the data of "physics" and related fields, where science really means method, and where method can apply to any data, including the data of the mind.
And (b) worse, philosophically, the "taking a look" notion marries most everyone to the duality of brain-mind, and where brains are real and minds cannot be--hence, the problems in the neuro-sciences, and where human fields have no import on reality--they give lip service to it, but not really. Further, those who resonate with the utter wrongness of that idea, including historians, don't know how to fix it--haven't read or understood Lonergan's paradigmatic philosophical corrective.
The reality fallacy is all-pervasive and deep-set, and, as you know, has worked its way into all sorts of common and field/theory assumptions--(that's the philosophical gulf again).
Best,
Catherine