Jim Piat and list:
Jim, your analysis (see below) agrees with something I worked out on this from a different but complementary perspective some years ago in the process of teaching from "The Fixation of Belief" in my intro classes. I've also used it here a number of times but perhaps never explained adequately how I had derived it. I regard your analysis as a sort of verification of mine (or mine as a verification of yours) since it is clear that you did in fact come up with it from a different perspective. When that happens it is like the sort of corroboration or verification one gets which Peirce refers to in that marvelous passage where he says:
======quote Peirce CP 5.407=============
. . . all the followers of science are animated by a cheerful hope that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to each question to which they apply it. One man may investigate the velocity of light by studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars; another by the oppositions of Mars and the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites; a third by the method of Fizeau; a fourth by that of Foucault; a fifth by the motions of the curves of Lissajoux; a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, and a ninth, may follow the different methods of comparing the measures of statical and dynamical electricity. They may at first obtain different results, but, as each perfects his method and his processes, the results are found to move steadily together toward a destined centre. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinate opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.
=======end quote=============
Anyway, my analysis goes like this. Like you, I think of the fourth method as including the first three in a sense, though I would put it more exactly as including that distinctive element in each of the three which they respectively take account of. (Whether or not it would be possible to conceive of the third method as doing something analogous with the first two, and the second method as doing something analogous with the first method -- which would make for a very nice symmetry in the whole account -- I do not know since I have never tried to work that out.) The frame I use here is the formulation for the necessary components of what I call a "primary research publication", meaning by that the kind of publication often called in the sciences a "primary publication", in which one is making a research claim in the form of a report to other researchers in the same field about a conclusion one has come to about the subject-matter of common interest to those in the field, though only provisionally, on the assumption that others will or would come to the same conclusion about it provided that they were to start from the same agreed upon understanding of the subject-matter, already and independently established and thus to be taken for granted, and on the basis of this prior agreement were to draw an inference -- described as such in this paper -- from some specified premises to the conclusion which constitutes the research claim the paper is making.
In other words, in putting the paper forth as a publication one is addressing one's research colleagues -- one's research peers -- and saying, in effect: "Here is a conclusion I have come to about our subject-matter, and I believe that you -- any of you -- will agree with me on this if you start from where I am starting [the premises of this particular claim] and draw the following inference [which could be any of the three basic types of inference -- deductive, inductive, or abductive -- or any co-ordinated sequence of such inferences] to this conclusion." This could be the description either of an observational or an experimental procedure, which are essentially the same thing since a scientific observation is one which is understood to occur consequent upon certain specified conditions of observation being met.
Thus implicit in the making of the research claim is something essential in each of the methods. The essential element of the first method, which concerns only the conviction of the individual (which could be an individual group or team, by the way), is there at the most fundamental level of the claim: " I have come to the following conviction or conclusion . . . " That is, in making the claim one is first of all reporting on a conclusion already drawn BUT as qualified immediately as only provisionally drawn, dependent upon the fact, if it is a fact, that those whom one is addressing will agree with it.
Then the essential element of the second method (authority), namely, the opinions of other people, is being taken into account since it is the opinion of the peer community -- taken distributively, not collectively (anyone, i.e. each and every one, as distinct from some supposed whole unit) -- to whom the claim is being addressed that that the claim is being addressed to: "And I believe that you, whoever you are, will or would come to the same conclusion . . . ".
The essential element of the third method, the systemic unification of ideas, is being taken account of in the requirement that the claim include the justification of the conclusion drawn through the establishment of the premise-conclusion relation(s) which provides the justificational aspect of the claim being made and also by citing as necessary all that is being taken for granted by way of presuppositions and other contextual factors which should be mentioned explicitly as a reminder to the reader in case they question the general relevance of the claim to the current understanding of the prolematics of the field. "provided we are starting from the same place (premises, presuppositions, contextal factors thought worth mentioning) and the inference principles I am using, which are such-and-such . . . , "
And the distinctive element of the fourth method, which is the appeal to the real, is provided for in the understanding that what one is purportedly describing is basically an experimental/observational relationship between conditions to be satisfied in consequence of which one will supposedly find oneself compelled by what one then experiences to acceptance of the same research conclusion which one has already tentatively drawn: "Assuming all this, I believe that you will agree with me in finding yourself compelled to the conclusion that such-and-such."
To simplify it further, when -- according to the old story -- Galileo asked the learned theorists of his time to take a look through the telescope and they would see what he had been compelled to conclude, this was a primary publication -- or would have been if there was a truly scientific tradition in existence at that time. If it had no effect it was because they refused his invitation to share the experience which would allow the astral reality to go to work on them as it already had on him. This illustrates the further point that, of course, the research claim establishes nothing in itself, regardless of how cogently it is expressed, if there is no response, and the claim can only be the trigger invoking the norms of subsequent practice which are constitutive of the rationality of the method, supposing there is any such practice to begin with. When there are no such communicational norms in actual practice there is no such thing as "scientific method" in existence at that time, except as an unactuallized possibility.
I think, Jim, that the difference between your account and mine is only the difference between looking at the normal developed form of the research process from two different perspectives. In thinking of it in terms of the research publication, I am thinking of it in terms of the kind of act -- the communicational act -- that (ideally) brings the researchers in the field into the shared focus of attention that binds them together as individual contributors to a research conclusion which is, ideally, identical in content, which is the taken for granted goal of the tradition of inquiry AS a cooperation and collaboration in achievement of a common goal: a shared and agreed upon understanding of the subject-matter.
One important qualification, by the way: Research publication is by no means limited to what I am calling "primary publication", i.e. to publication of the logical form just described. In the sciences there is, for example, a second kind of professional publication which is also explicitly recognized by people in editorial work as being as important for the overall progress of the field as primary publication is, namely, what they usually refer to as a "review" appear, the analogue of which is usually called a "state-of-the-art" paper in philosophy, for example, the function of which is to integrate what is currently accepted or at issue in a given field or subfield in the shared understanding of its participants. And there are still other types of research publication as well which have been or could be identified, but that gets into another topic than we are immediately concerned with.
A research field has to be very highly developed for there to be a commonly recognized type of research paper of this type which is clearly distinguishable from, say, a review article or some other type of paper that plays an important role in the whole of the communicational practices in a given field. This is something which became clear to me in virtue of studying the actual practices in publication in physics when I learned of the controversy about the automated publication system devised by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos (Ginsparg is now at Cornell), which I have discussed here and of which you can find an account -- now in need of update -- in my paper on "The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation"
http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/ia.htm
(It is also available on-line as published on the SEED website.) I like to use the phrase "This is where the rubber meets the road" in research in characterizing the role of the primary publication, i.e. the place where the experience of the reality of the subject-matter is brought to bear on the ideational content of the research field. Research fields in which the empirical reference of the theoretical ideas being worked with has yet to be well-established will not have an easily distinguishable class of distinctively primary publications.
In correlating this with what you say, Jim, I suggest that you get momentarily off the track of what you say otherwise when you say:
"In other words the three issues being juggled as a basis for belief are (1) single vs. multiple beliefs (2) observation vs. spontaneous conviction (3) reasoned vs. unreasoned combining of beliefs."
Apart from that, it seems to me that we are talking about the same things, distinguishing the same factors, except that I use the publication of the resulting research claim as the place in the process where these factors show up as essential aspects of the claim made.
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jim, your analysis (see below) agrees with something I worked out on this from a different but complementary perspective some years ago in the process of teaching from "The Fixation of Belief" in my intro classes. I've also used it here a number of times but perhaps never explained adequately how I had derived it. I regard your analysis as a sort of verification of mine (or mine as a verification of yours) since it is clear that you did in fact come up with it from a different perspective. When that happens it is like the sort of corroboration or verification one gets which Peirce refers to in that marvelous passage where he says:
======quote Peirce CP 5.407=============
. . . all the followers of science are animated by a cheerful hope that the processes of investigation, if only pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to each question to which they apply it. One man may investigate the velocity of light by studying the transits of Venus and the aberration of the stars; another by the oppositions of Mars and the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites; a third by the method of Fizeau; a fourth by that of Foucault; a fifth by the motions of the curves of Lissajoux; a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, and a ninth, may follow the different methods of comparing the measures of statical and dynamical electricity. They may at first obtain different results, but, as each perfects his method and his processes, the results are found to move steadily together toward a destined centre. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinate opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.
=======end quote=============
Anyway, my analysis goes like this. Like you, I think of the fourth method as including the first three in a sense, though I would put it more exactly as including that distinctive element in each of the three which they respectively take account of. (Whether or not it would be possible to conceive of the third method as doing something analogous with the first two, and the second method as doing something analogous with the first method -- which would make for a very nice symmetry in the whole account -- I do not know since I have never tried to work that out.) The frame I use here is the formulation for the necessary components of what I call a "primary research publication", meaning by that the kind of publication often called in the sciences a "primary publication", in which one is making a research claim in the form of a report to other researchers in the same field about a conclusion one has come to about the subject-matter of common interest to those in the field, though only provisionally, on the assumption that others will or would come to the same conclusion about it provided that they were to start from the same agreed upon understanding of the subject-matter, already and independently established and thus to be taken for granted, and on the basis of this prior agreement were to draw an inference -- described as such in this paper -- from some specified premises to the conclusion which constitutes the research claim the paper is making.
In other words, in putting the paper forth as a publication one is addressing one's research colleagues -- one's research peers -- and saying, in effect: "Here is a conclusion I have come to about our subject-matter, and I believe that you -- any of you -- will agree with me on this if you start from where I am starting [the premises of this particular claim] and draw the following inference [which could be any of the three basic types of inference -- deductive, inductive, or abductive -- or any co-ordinated sequence of such inferences] to this conclusion." This could be the description either of an observational or an experimental procedure, which are essentially the same thing since a scientific observation is one which is understood to occur consequent upon certain specified conditions of observation being met.
Thus implicit in the making of the research claim is something essential in each of the methods. The essential element of the first method, which concerns only the conviction of the individual (which could be an individual group or team, by the way), is there at the most fundamental level of the claim: " I have come to the following conviction or conclusion . . . " That is, in making the claim one is first of all reporting on a conclusion already drawn BUT as qualified immediately as only provisionally drawn, dependent upon the fact, if it is a fact, that those whom one is addressing will agree with it.
Then the essential element of the second method (authority), namely, the opinions of other people, is being taken into account since it is the opinion of the peer community -- taken distributively, not collectively (anyone, i.e. each and every one, as distinct from some supposed whole unit) -- to whom the claim is being addressed that that the claim is being addressed to: "And I believe that you, whoever you are, will or would come to the same conclusion . . . ".
The essential element of the third method, the systemic unification of ideas, is being taken account of in the requirement that the claim include the justification of the conclusion drawn through the establishment of the premise-conclusion relation(s) which provides the justificational aspect of the claim being made and also by citing as necessary all that is being taken for granted by way of presuppositions and other contextual factors which should be mentioned explicitly as a reminder to the reader in case they question the general relevance of the claim to the current understanding of the prolematics of the field. "provided we are starting from the same place (premises, presuppositions, contextal factors thought worth mentioning) and the inference principles I am using, which are such-and-such . . . , "
And the distinctive element of the fourth method, which is the appeal to the real, is provided for in the understanding that what one is purportedly describing is basically an experimental/observational relationship between conditions to be satisfied in consequence of which one will supposedly find oneself compelled by what one then experiences to acceptance of the same research conclusion which one has already tentatively drawn: "Assuming all this, I believe that you will agree with me in finding yourself compelled to the conclusion that such-and-such."
To simplify it further, when -- according to the old story -- Galileo asked the learned theorists of his time to take a look through the telescope and they would see what he had been compelled to conclude, this was a primary publication -- or would have been if there was a truly scientific tradition in existence at that time. If it had no effect it was because they refused his invitation to share the experience which would allow the astral reality to go to work on them as it already had on him. This illustrates the further point that, of course, the research claim establishes nothing in itself, regardless of how cogently it is expressed, if there is no response, and the claim can only be the trigger invoking the norms of subsequent practice which are constitutive of the rationality of the method, supposing there is any such practice to begin with. When there are no such communicational norms in actual practice there is no such thing as "scientific method" in existence at that time, except as an unactuallized possibility.
I think, Jim, that the difference between your account and mine is only the difference between looking at the normal developed form of the research process from two different perspectives. In thinking of it in terms of the research publication, I am thinking of it in terms of the kind of act -- the communicational act -- that (ideally) brings the researchers in the field into the shared focus of attention that binds them together as individual contributors to a research conclusion which is, ideally, identical in content, which is the taken for granted goal of the tradition of inquiry AS a cooperation and collaboration in achievement of a common goal: a shared and agreed upon understanding of the subject-matter.
One important qualification, by the way: Research publication is by no means limited to what I am calling "primary publication", i.e. to publication of the logical form just described. In the sciences there is, for example, a second kind of professional publication which is also explicitly recognized by people in editorial work as being as important for the overall progress of the field as primary publication is, namely, what they usually refer to as a "review" appear, the analogue of which is usually called a "state-of-the-art" paper in philosophy, for example, the function of which is to integrate what is currently accepted or at issue in a given field or subfield in the shared understanding of its participants. And there are still other types of research publication as well which have been or could be identified, but that gets into another topic than we are immediately concerned with.
A research field has to be very highly developed for there to be a commonly recognized type of research paper of this type which is clearly distinguishable from, say, a review article or some other type of paper that plays an important role in the whole of the communicational practices in a given field. This is something which became clear to me in virtue of studying the actual practices in publication in physics when I learned of the controversy about the automated publication system devised by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos (Ginsparg is now at Cornell), which I have discussed here and of which you can find an account -- now in need of update -- in my paper on "The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation"
http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/ia.htm
(It is also available on-line as published on the SEED website.) I like to use the phrase "This is where the rubber meets the road" in research in characterizing the role of the primary publication, i.e. the place where the experience of the reality of the subject-matter is brought to bear on the ideational content of the research field. Research fields in which the empirical reference of the theoretical ideas being worked with has yet to be well-established will not have an easily distinguishable class of distinctively primary publications.
In correlating this with what you say, Jim, I suggest that you get momentarily off the track of what you say otherwise when you say:
"In other words the three issues being juggled as a basis for belief are (1) single vs. multiple beliefs (2) observation vs. spontaneous conviction (3) reasoned vs. unreasoned combining of beliefs."
Apart from that, it seems to me that we are talking about the same things, distinguishing the same factors, except that I use the publication of the resulting research claim as the place in the process where these factors show up as essential aspects of the claim made.
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message ----
From: Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:45:17 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
From: Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:45:17 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Dear Folks,
I notice that Peirces lst three methods of fixing
believe are part of the fourth or scientific method. Science is basically a
method that gathers multiple beliefs and combines them with reason to
produce warranted belief. Individual belief (without resort to any
authority other than oneself) is the method of tenacity -- I belief X
because it is believable to me. When individual beliefs are combined the
authority of others is introduced as a basis for belief. When these
multiple beliefs (or one's individual beliefs) are combined in some
reasonsed or logical way (for example taking their average) then one has has
achieved the a priori or method of taste. Finally if one bases all beliefs
not merely on unexamined conviction but instead relies on observation of events
-- and combines multiple such observational beliefs in a reasoned way, the
method of science has been achieved. In other
words the three issues being juggled as a basis for belief are (1)
single vs multiple beliefs (2) observation vs spontaneous conviction (3)
reasoned vs unreasoned combining of beliefs.
I haven't said this well but what I'm trying to get
at is that the scientific method relies on multiple observation combined in a
reasoned way. And this method incorporates all the essential aspect of
each of the three prior methods. Science rests ultimately on combined
unwarranted beliefs of individuals. At some point there must be an
observation taken as face valid and this is the core of the individual
observation. We know however that individual observations are inadequate
because they only include one POV. So we combine multiple individual
observations. I say observation, but the term
observation is just a way of directing individual beliefs to a common
focus. The reasoned part of the scientific method has to do with the
manner in which beliefs or observations are combined. Basically this is
the logic of statistics. The simplest example being taking an
average.
I notice too that Peirce's discussion of knowledge
provided by Joe touches on some of these same issues. BTW I don't
mean for my sketchy account to be definitive -- just
suggestive.
So in conclusion I would say the FOB
paper describes the the components of the scientific method --
mulitple, individual observations or beliefs comined in a reasoned
way. The basic foundation of all individual beliefs or observation is a
kind of unexamined individual realism taken at face value
(tenacity). Countered by the beliefs of others (based on the
same tenacity) provides the method of authority. Combining these beliefs
in a reasoned way adds the third "a priori" method. And finally insisting
that these combined three methods focus on the same question introduces the
notion of objectivity vs subjectivity which completes the elements of the
scientific method for fixing belief.
Sorry for the repitition. Don't have time
just now to clean this up but wanted to put my two cents in the
discussion.
Jim Piat
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