[peirce-l] Re: What's going on here?
Frances writes,
[[ My access to digital versions of Peircean writings is limited, but it
would be interesting to seek and find out how many occasions the term
intermediate appears in his texts, if indeed it has not already been done
and posted to the list archive. ]]
A search for intermediate in the Collected Papers gives 46 hits. He seems
to use the word mostly in connection with continuity (as per his doctrine of
synechism) and thus with Thirdness. For instance: A fork in a road is a
third, it supposes three ways; a straight road, considered merely as a
connection between two places is second, but so far as it implies passing
through intermediate places it is third Continuity represents Thirdness
almost to perfection (CP 3.337). In CP 4.75 (Thomas's selection) i don't
see a clear distinction between the immediate and the direct, but i do see
an implied contrast between intermediate and direct.
By the way, i came across another paragraph in Peirce that strikes me as
very similar in tone and content to CP.475, though it is differently framed:
[[[ Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the
extraction of truth--that hot and partisan debate is the way to investigate.
This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic puts its heel
upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that knowledge can only
be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the methods of obstinacy,
of authority, and every mode of trying to reach a foregone conclusion, are
absolutely of no value. These things are proved. The reader is at liberty to
think so or not as long as the proof is not set forth, or as long as he
refrains from examining it. Just so, he can preserve, if he likes, his
freedom of opinion in regard to the propositions of geometry; only, in that
case, if he takes a fancy to read Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever
he finds with A, B, C, etc., for, if he reads attentively that disagreeable
matter, the freedom of his opinion about geometry may unhappily be lost
forever. ]]] -- CP 2.635, EP1 193
I wonder, would the proof Peirce refers to here qualify him as an
authority on authority? ;-)
gary F.
}The best things in life aren't things. [Buchwald]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin Island, Canada
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Are there authorities on authority?
TO: Larry Sanger Larry: Before explaining to you what I find questionable in the way you are presently conceiving the task of developing the DU, I want to say first that I am looking forward to reading with care your dissertation on epistemic circularity and the problem of meta-justification which I discovered last night. I browsed through it quickly but read enough of to see that it is of interest not only to me but well worth recommending to people on PEIRCE-L generally because of the skill with which you handle the issues there and because the view you defend as your own, which is akin to Thomas Reid's common-sensism, is also akin to Peirce's critical common-sensism, which was so called by him to suggest that it is Scottish common-sensism as modified by Kantian considerations. The URL for it is: http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/essays/text/larrysanger/diss/preamble.html It is, of course, much concerned with the problematics of the question I posed to you in my earlier message about whether or not there are authorities on authority (or experts on expertise, as you might prefer to put it). In stating my critical points, I will ask you to put up with the kind of bluntness that helps in stating things as briefly as possible -- though the message as a whole is hardly brief! -- with the understanding that there is no implicit intention of being in any way disrespectful in stating it in that way. I will of course be willing to elaborate further on any points which you or anyone else finds questionable. That said, let me start by remarking that after discovering that the problem of authority is something which you have had a special interest in yourself, I was puzzled at first as to why I did not see in what you seem to be doing or planning to do in the development of DU any obvious signs of your understanding of the difficulties that are implicit in making knowledge claims of this sort. But then it occurred to me that the reason for this probably does not lie in your not being willing to apply what you know from your philosophical understanding of the problem at the theoretical level but rather in an understanding of the way academic life works which is, in my opinion, too far from the reality of it to provide you with a basis for a viable plan. You say: ==quote Larry Sanger Ultimately, and "pragmatically" speaking, I imagine it will come down to academic respectability, or consistency with the scientific method and other very widely-endorsed epistemic methods (which vary from field to field). Basically, if the Digital Universe aims to cast its net as widely as possible, and to include the bulk of academe, the most it can hope to do is to represent the state of the art in each field. It cannot, in addition, hope to be selective about persons or fields or institutions (etc.) in a way that is identifiably contrary to the already-existing standards of credibility in various fields. It can at best hope to be fair to all strands of expert opinion in any given field. ===end quote== The phrase "state of the art" may have misled you. There are many fields (and philosophy is surely one of them) in which there is nothing that even roughly corresponds to the phrase "state of the art". (The "state of the art" articles that appear from time to time in the journals are nothing more than summary accounts of positions taken, distinctions drawn, and arguments given in recent years on some topic of interest as that is understood within one of the many traditions of philosophy -- the so-called "analytic" tradition -- which are currently flourishing.) "Current opinion in the reigning orthodoxy in a field " would be the more accurate description once you get outside the hard sciences, and even there, where much is settled, you tread on dangerous ground in thinking that you, as an interested outsider, eager as you may be to do justice to the situation in the field, can get into position to make a wise decision about who is represent that to the world -- or to have that decided for you by delegated authority from you -- without spending far more time and energy than you could possibly commit to it. Moreover, It seems to me that you might as well have said that your intention is to favor the reigning orthodoxy and do what you can to reinforce it by publicizing it as being what it is not. But do you really want to do that? The fact is, Larry, that you cannot reasonably hope "to be fair to all strands of expert opinion in any given field" -- the idea of achieving such fairness or even roughly approximating to it is just implausible as a practical proposition, and you are merely contradicting what you are saying about favoring the reigning orthodoxy, in any case, and to no good purpose. What you will be bound to do, in lieu of what you aim at doing, is only to add to the misinformation already available, and be doing so,
[peirce-l] Re: What's going on here?
Frances to Gary... It does seem that Peirce did not, in his available writings to us, use the term intermediate in any formal or categorical manner. To use the term intermediate informally or casually as a thirdness as he often did, in regard to say continuity and synechism as you noted, would however perhaps defeat the term mediate as an alternate for thirdness; but so be it. In regard to the term direct it does seem to be say an iconic firstness, at least when used in seeking the initial proof of connectivity among premisses and conclusions in logical arguments, but not as a thirdness in the way intermediate might be, because the term indirect is used by Peirce as say a symbolic thirdness. The direct and the indirect are seemingly formal terms for him, while intermediate is not. The formal contrast at least in proof therefore is perhaps not so much between direct and intermediate as you suggested, but rather might be between direct and indirect as he often stated. It would be tidy for me in my statements about Peirce to align these terms as immediate and intermediate and mediate and as direct and redirect and direct but only if they properly expressed and conveyed his ideas, even as synonyms; yet he seemingly did not so align them, and there you have it. As you further mused in offering us an additional Peircean passage, the proof Peirce refers to in arguments may qualify him eventually as an authority on authority but only if he initially arrived at his conclusions through empirical means. If the authorship and ownership or messenger of a stated conclusion are important at all, given its necessary empirical foundation of course, they would then be perhaps extra logical rather than being merely illogical. In regard to the inner state of desire among semioticians or logicians, in their wishing or willing or wanting to seek truth in the first place, it might be held as an innate inclined trait; and thus aligned as habitual tendency, along with obstinate stubborn tenacity, and ruling authority. These methods of arriving at proof and truth, aside from any desire to attain them, are however not empirical; yet some senseless and illogical desire for them seems ever present. This desire for humans to be rational and reasonable is certainly a drive in the intellectual and scientific process, probably the outcome of evolution, but it seemingly cannot be accounted for by logic on its own solely alone. It would seem that objective logic must hence allow and admit some degree of psychologistic subjectivism after all. This may go to explaining why abduction is best located as an immediate or initial kind of inferred judgement, before empirical induction and eventual deduction. The desire might of course also be neatly aligned with direct monstration in finding logical proof. Gary wrote... Frances writes My access to digital versions of Peircean writings is limited, but it would be interesting to seek and find out how many occasions the term intermediate appears in his texts, if indeed it has not already been done and posted to the list archive. A search for intermediate in the Collected Papers gives 46 hits. He seems to use the word mostly in connection with continuity (as per his doctrine of synechism) and thus with Thirdness. For instance: A fork in a road is a third, it supposes three ways; a straight road, considered merely as a connection between two places is second, but so far as it implies passing through intermediate places it is third Continuity represents Thirdness almost to perfection (CP 3.337). In CP 4.75 (Thomas's selection) i don't see a clear distinction between the immediate and the direct, but i do see an implied contrast between intermediate and direct. By the way, i came across another paragraph in Peirce that strikes me as very similar in tone and content to CP.475, though it is differently framed: [[[ Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the extraction of truth--that hot and partisan debate is the way to investigate. This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic puts its heel upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that knowledge can only be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the methods of obstinacy, of authority, and every mode of trying to reach a foregone conclusion, are absolutely of no value. These things are proved. The reader is at liberty to think so or not as long as the proof is not set forth, or as long as he refrains from examining it. Just so, he can preserve, if he likes, his freedom of opinion in regard to the propositions of geometry; only, in that case, if he takes a fancy to read Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever he finds with A, B, C, etc., for, if he reads attentively that disagreeable matter, the freedom of his opinion about geometry may unhappily be lost forever. ]]] -- CP 2.635, EP1 193 I wonder, would the proof Peirce refers to here qualify him as an authority on authority? ---
[peirce-l] Fw: 2nd CFP: Models and Simulations (Paris, 12-13 June 2006)
Looks like the sort of conference a Peircean might be specially interested in; Forwarded to the list by Joseph Ransdell - Original Message - From: Stephan Hartmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 1:20 PM Subject: 2nd CFP: Models and Simulations (Paris, 12-13 June 2006) ** MODELS AND SIMULATIONS Two-day conference in Paris, 12-13 June 2006 http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CPNSS/events/Conferences/Simulations/http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CPNSS/events/Conferences/Simulations/ ** KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Robert Batterman (Western Ontario) and Paul Humphreys (University of Virginia) ORGANIZERS: Roman Frigg (LSE), Stephan Hartmann (LSE), and Cyrille Imbert (IHPST/Paris I) PROGRAMME COMMITTEE: Robert Batterman (Western Ontario), Jacques Dubucs (IHPST/CNRS), Roman Frigg (LSE), Stephan Hartmann (LSE), Paul Humphreys (University of Virginia), Cyrille Imbert (IHPST/Paris I), and Eric Winsberg (University of South Florida) PUBLICATION: Revised versions of selected papers will be published in a special issue of Synthese. The deadline for submission of the final version of the paper is 1 September 2006. The conference is generously supported by the CNRS and IHPST, Paris. The conference language is English. OUTLINE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS Computer simulations play a crucial role in many sciences, but they have not yet received the attention they deserve from philosophers of science. This conference attempts to systematically explore methodological issues in connection with computer simulations and the implications of these for traditional questions in the philosophy of science. Special emphasis is put on the relation between models and simulations as well as on the role of computers in the practice of science. The papers presented at the conference will address, among others, the following questions: 1. What difference does the essentially dynamic nature of simulations make to modeling, particularly in their representational abilities? 2. Is there a difference between simulations that have an explicit model or theory behind them and those that do not? 3. When there is no model, what form does the representational connection between the simulation and the world take? 4. Can any sense be made of claims that the world itself is carrying out computations and simulating itself? 5. What role does intentionality play in simulations or such apparently automatic representational processes as genetic algorithms? 6. Are there principles that one can use to decide whether a simulation is to be interpreted realistically or only instrumentally? 7. At what level (e.g. the machine code, the algorithmic, the scientific language) does a simulation represent a system? 8. It is well-known hat models enter into different relationships such as isomorphism, embedding, or being a submodel of. Are there analogous relations between simulations? 9. What would qualify as an equivalence relation between simulations? 10. What is the relation between simulations used as an experimental tool and real experiments? 11. How does the methodology of simulations compare with experimentation? 12. How, if at all, do models and simulations explain? 13. What are the implications of the growing use of simulations in science for our understanding of science? 14. What are the implications of the repeated use of the same models and simulations within different fields of science? 15. How reliable are the results of simulations, and how is the reliability of a simulation determined? 16. What role does mathematics play in simulations? 17. Is there a difference between the use of simulations across different fields such as physics, biology, and the social sciences? 18. Is there a difference between the use of simulations in fundamental science and in applied science? SUBMISSION OF PAPERS Please send extended abstracts of 1000 words to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] by 15 March 2006. Decisions will be made by 1 April. A few travel bursaries for graduate students are available; if you wish to be considered please submit a short (tentative) travel budget and a CV together with your paper. There will also be a Best Graduate Paper Award of 500 EUROS. For details, visit the conference website. Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2006 Although the conference has a philosophical orientation, contributions by historians and sociologists of science are welcome too. We particularly encourage working scientists to submit papers. -- - Stephan Hartmann http://www.stephanhartmann.org - -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.1/271 - Release Date: 2/28/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing
[peirce-l] Chronological edition, vol 6.
Someone else may already have posted it, in which case I apologize beforehand, but the latest volume of the Chronological Edition, spanning the years 1886-1890 is now for sale at IU Press for the incredibly low price of $14. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu Best wishes, Kees -PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS-- Cornelis de Waal, Ph.D. Associate Editor, Peirce Edition Project http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce Assistant Professor and Graduate Director Department of Philosophy http://www.iupui.edu/~philosop/cdewaal.htm ADDRESS: Peirce Edition Project tel.: (317) 274-2171 902 West New York Street, ES 0010 fax.: (317) 274-2170 Indianapolis, IN 46202 -PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS-- --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: Chronological edition, vol 6.
Thanks, Cornelis (I don't know you at all well enough to address you as Kees), for alerting the list to this terrific sale. The volume may also be ordered by telephone using the sale code: CMZZJX. Telephone 1-800-842-6796. The title is all that seems to be needed, but just in case, the 6th volume has the code WRIP6C. Other books now on sale at IU Press of possible interest to members of this list include: Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture: Putting Pragmatism to Work Larry A Hickman for those seeking a deeper understanding of the meanings and consequences of technology in today's world. Cloth 12.00, paper 6.50. also Global Semiotics Thomas Sebeok The study of semiotics underwent a gradual but radical paradigm shift during the past century, from a glottocentric. . .enterprise to one that encompasses the whole terrestrial biosphere. . . Gary Cornelis de Waal wrote: Someone else may already have posted it, in which case I apologize beforehand, but the latest volume of the Chronological Edition, spanning the years 1886-1890 is now for sale at IU Press for the incredibly low price of $14. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu Best wishes, Kees -PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS-- Cornelis de Waal, Ph.D. Associate Editor, Peirce Edition Project http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce Assistant Professor and Graduate Director Department of Philosophy http://www.iupui.edu/~philosop/cdewaal.htm ADDRESS: Peirce Edition Project tel.: (317) 274-2171 902 West New York Street, ES 0010 fax.: (317) 274-2170 Indianapolis, IN 46202 -PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF ADDRESS-- --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What's going on here?
On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 19:43:58 +0100, Frances Catherine Kelly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Frances to Gary... It does seem that Peirce did not, in his available writings to us, use the term intermediate in any formal or categorical manner. To use the term intermediate informally or casually as a thirdness as he often did, in regard to say continuity and synechism as you noted, would however perhaps defeat the term mediate as an alternate for thirdness; but so be it. (CP1.550) On a New List of Categories; 1867, ยง6. The facts now collected afford the basis for a systematic method of searching out whatever universal elementary conceptions there may be intermediate between the manifold of substance and the unity of being. I do not say that the Principle of Excluded Middle is downright _false_; but I do say that in every field of thought whatsoever there is an intermediate ground between _positive_assertion_ and _positive_negation_ which is just as Real as they. (L 224, Letter to William James, 1909 Feb 26.) In regard to the inner state of desire among semioticians or logicians, in their wishing or willing or wanting to seek truth in the first place, it might be held as an innate inclined trait; and thus aligned as habitual tendency, along with obstinate stubborn tenacity, and ruling authority. These methods of arriving at proof and truth, aside from any desire to attain them, are however not empirical; yet some senseless and illogical desire for them seems ever present. This desire for humans to be rational and reasonable is certainly a drive in the intellectual and scientific process, probably the outcome of evolution, but it seemingly cannot be accounted for by logic on its own solely alone. It would seem that objective logic must hence allow and admit some degree of psychologistic subjectivism after all. This may go to explaining why abduction is best located as an immediate or initial kind of inferred judgement, before empirical induction and eventual deduction. The desire might of course also be neatly aligned with direct monstration in finding logical proof. to seek truth for me would mean learning. Learning means changing habits. some degree of psychologistic subjectivism after all Yes. Sure. It's dirty work. Thomas. P.S. directly monstrative is certainly a carefully crafted allusion to demonstrative while at the same time more forceful and less insistent than demonstrative. It (the proof) simply manages to show what cannot possibly be described in the same way as directly monstrative expresses what cannot possibly be said here (namely: demonstrative). But what do you do with to see the force of something? --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
