Clark and list,
Thanks for the reference to Timothy Williamson. I do not see any direct connection to Peirce but one could be made in terms of factoring beliefs or maybe dispositions into prime/composite and contents into narrow/broad. I don't know how all of this would work. The unpublished paper ( Can cognition be factorized into internal and external components?) I looked at was attempting to adjust the internal states of the knower to the environment in such a way that one could act on their beliefs. Part of the trick was to get the contents just "broad" enough that action goes through and the theory is workable. Supposing you want to buy a black stove, just how satisfied do you have to be that this stove is black before you buy it?
In any case, where is the principle of justification in the Baldwin quote? Condition #1 is true. Condition #2 is believed. Condition #3 is a character of a "satisfaction." Peirce says, "it would be logically impossible that this character should ever belong to satisfaction in a proposition not true." In other words, in a less than perfect cognition, one is never justified in believing a false proposition. This seems incredibly strong and parallels the ideal theory of truth. In effect, justification can only ever be approached.
Jim W
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Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Peirce and knowledge
On Sep 27, 2006, at 12:19 PM, Joseph Ransdell wrote:
This word is used in logic in two senses: (1) as a synonym for Cognition, and (2), and more usefully, to signify a perfect cognition, that is, a cognition fulfilling three conditions: first, that it holds for true a proposition that really is true; second, that it is perfectly self-satisfied and free from the uneasiness of doubt; third, that some character of this satisfaction is such that it would be logically impossible that this character should ever belong to satisfaction in a proposition not true.
Thanks for that quote Joe. I'd not seen that one before. It's interesting to compare his (2) with the traditional sense of justified true belief. All three elements are there but the emphasis on perfect Cognition makes me wonder whether he's really adopting the traditional sense at all or something more akin to a mental state ala Williamson's recent influential book. (Well, influential in a peculiar sense since no one I've met actually buys Williamson's arguments)
Clark Goble
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