Jim and list
I think we may be getting close to the rationale of the four methods with what you say below, Jim. I've not run across anything that Peirce says that seems to me to suggest that he actually did work out his account of the methods by thinking in terms of the categories, but it seems likely that he would nevertheless tend to do so, even if unconsciously, given the importance he attached to them from the beginning: they are present in the background of his thinking even in the very early writings where he is thinking of them in terms of the first, second, and third persons of verb conjugation (the second person -- the "you" -- of the conjugation becomes the third categorial element). But whether he actually worked it out on that basis, the philosophically important question is whether it is philosophically helpful to try to understand the four methods by supposing that the first three correspond to the categories regarded in isolation and the fourth can be understood as constructed conceptually by combining the three methods consistent with their presuppositional ordering. That remains to be seen. In other words, I do think we can read these factors into his account in that way, and this could be pedagogically useful in working with the method in a pedagogical context in particular, but it is a further question whether that will turn out to be helpful in developing his thinking further in a theoretical way. It certainly seems to be worth trying, though.
If the overall improvement of thinking in our practical life seems not to have improved much from what it was in antiquity, when compared with the radical difference in the effectiveness of our thinking in those areas in which the fourth method has been successfully cultivated, it may be because we have failed to pay attention to the way we handle our problems when we take recourse to one and another of the other three methods, as we are constantly doing without paying any attention to it.
I started to write up something on this but it quickly got out of hand and I had best break off temporarily and return to that later. I will just say that it has to do with the possibility of developing the theory of the four methods as a basis for a practical logic -- or at least a practical critical theory -- of the sort that could be used to teach people how to be more intelligent in all aspects of life, including political life -- and I will even venture to say, in religious life: two areas in which intelligence seems currently to be conspicuously -- and dangerously -- absent. One potentiality that Peirce's philosophy has that is not present in the philosophy and logic currently dominating in academia lies in the fact that he conceived logic in such a way that rhetoric -- the theory of persuasion -- can be reintroduced within philosophy as a theoretical discipline with practical application in the service of truth. One can expect nothing of the sort from a philosophy that has nothing to say about persuasion.
Joe Ransdell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
I think we may be getting close to the rationale of the four methods with what you say below, Jim. I've not run across anything that Peirce says that seems to me to suggest that he actually did work out his account of the methods by thinking in terms of the categories, but it seems likely that he would nevertheless tend to do so, even if unconsciously, given the importance he attached to them from the beginning: they are present in the background of his thinking even in the very early writings where he is thinking of them in terms of the first, second, and third persons of verb conjugation (the second person -- the "you" -- of the conjugation becomes the third categorial element). But whether he actually worked it out on that basis, the philosophically important question is whether it is philosophically helpful to try to understand the four methods by supposing that the first three correspond to the categories regarded in isolation and the fourth can be understood as constructed conceptually by combining the three methods consistent with their presuppositional ordering. That remains to be seen. In other words, I do think we can read these factors into his account in that way, and this could be pedagogically useful in working with the method in a pedagogical context in particular, but it is a further question whether that will turn out to be helpful in developing his thinking further in a theoretical way. It certainly seems to be worth trying, though.
If the overall improvement of thinking in our practical life seems not to have improved much from what it was in antiquity, when compared with the radical difference in the effectiveness of our thinking in those areas in which the fourth method has been successfully cultivated, it may be because we have failed to pay attention to the way we handle our problems when we take recourse to one and another of the other three methods, as we are constantly doing without paying any attention to it.
I started to write up something on this but it quickly got out of hand and I had best break off temporarily and return to that later. I will just say that it has to do with the possibility of developing the theory of the four methods as a basis for a practical logic -- or at least a practical critical theory -- of the sort that could be used to teach people how to be more intelligent in all aspects of life, including political life -- and I will even venture to say, in religious life: two areas in which intelligence seems currently to be conspicuously -- and dangerously -- absent. One potentiality that Peirce's philosophy has that is not present in the philosophy and logic currently dominating in academia lies in the fact that he conceived logic in such a way that rhetoric -- the theory of persuasion -- can be reintroduced within philosophy as a theoretical discipline with practical application in the service of truth. One can expect nothing of the sort from a philosophy that has nothing to say about persuasion.
Joe Ransdell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message ----
From: Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 9:54:25 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 9:54:25 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Dear Joe,
I
agree with your characterization of the scientific method as including
the distinctive elements of the other three. You have clarified
the issue in a way that is very helpful to me. I agree as well
that taken individually each of the lst three
methods (tenacity, authority and reason) can lead to
disaster. So, without going into all the details let me just sum
up by saying I agree with you and that includes your cautions
about my misleading metaphors, etc. Thanks for two very
helpful posts.
Picking
up on your suggestion of a possible hierachical relationship
between the methods I have been thinking about some of their possible
connections with Peirce's categories. Again, my ideas on this are
vague and meant only to be suggestive and I look forward to your
thoughts. First, very roughly, it strikes me that iconicity
is the crux of direct apprehension of reality. In essence
perception is the process by which one becomes impressed with
(or attunded to) the form of reality. In effect a kind
of resonance is established by which subject and environment become
similar. This I think accounts for the conviction we all have
that in some fundamental way what we perceive "is" the case --
which I think is in part the explanation for the method of
tenacity. Second is the notion of otherness or
dissimilarity. The existance of resistance which we experience as
the will of others or as the limits of our own wills. Third
is the notion of thought or reason by which one is able to mediate
between these two modes of existence. Unfortunately, as you point
out, one can get lost in thought (or without it)
and thus we are best served not by some form of degenerate
representation (minimizing either the iconic, indexical -- or
mediative component) but by a full blown common sense form
of reasoning or inquiry that has been formalized as the scientific
method. So, to recap -- method one is a form of
overly iconic settlement, method two a over-reaction in the direction
of excessively referentially settlement, and method three an
overly rationalistic form of settlement at the expense of the
other two.
I
think that Peirce did not intend that we take the lst three methods as
examples of belief fixation which folks actually employ
in their pure form. By itself each method is not a example
of symbolic or representational thought but of something more akin
to a degenerative form of representation. So, I
think Peirce intended them as exaggerations in order to
illustrate degenerative ways of representation and inaequate ways
of belief fixation or settlement of doubt. What he did
was to describe the three modes of being involved in
representation (the fourth method) as isolated forms of belief
settlement. The result of course was a bit of a stretch or
caricature of the degenerative ways in which we distort common sense in
the settlement of our doubts. Because we are in fact
symbols using symbols we can in theory come up with all sorts of false
possiblities -- which is part of what makes thinking about
thinking so difficult. Even erroneous thinking or representation
involves representation. Sometimes we build sand castles in the
air and pretend we are on the beach pretending the waves will
never come.
Again,
just some vague notions -- I can't help but feel that
in the case of Peirce his categories are properly and consistently
the foundation of all he says.
Jim Piat
-------
Joe wrote:
"But
I would disagree with this part of what you say, Jim. Considered
simply as methods in their own rights, I don't think one wants to speak
of them as being incorporated AS methods within the fourth
method. As a methodic approach to answering questions the method
of tenacity is surely just a kind of stupidity, and it seems to me that
the turn to authority, not qualified by any further considerations --
such as, say, doing so because there is some reason to think that the
authority is actually in a better position to know than one is --
apart, I say, from that sort of qualification, the turn to authority as
one's method seems little more intelligent than the method of tenacity,
regarded in a simplistic way. The third method, supposing
that it is understood as the acceptance of something because it ties in
with -- coheres with -- a system of ideas already accepted, does seem
more intelligent because it is based on the properties of ideas, which
is surely more sophisticated than acceptance which is oblivious of
considerations of coherence. But it is also the method of the
paranoid, who might reasonably be said to be unintelligent to a
dangerous degree at times. But I think that what you say in
your other message doesn't commit you to regarding the methods
themselves as "building blocks", which is a mistaken metaphor
here. It is rather that what each of them respectively appeals to
is indeed something to which the fourth method appeals: the value of
self-identity, the value of identification (suitably qualified) with
others. the value of recognition of a universe -- all of which are
redeemed as valuable in the fourth method by the addition of the appeal
to the force majeure of the real given the right sort of conditions,
i.e. objectiviy."
Joe
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---Joe
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