[peirce-l] Re: What
.Clark Goble wrote: I honestly don't recall Peirce addressing the problem of competing and contradictory beliefs. Does anyone know off the top of their head anything along those lines? The closest I can think of is the passage of 1908 to Lady Welby where he talks about the three modalities of being. Relative to the first, that of possibility, he talks of Ideas. One might say that the *idea* of infidelity, for example, can be accepted as well as its contradiction. So perhaps that's one way of dealing with it. Dear Clark, I'm tempted to say, facetiously, that Peirce often wrote of two fundamental laws of psychology. One of course being the law of association of ideas and the other beingwhat he calleda"general law of sensibility" or Fechner's psycho-phsical law.But I won't -). Fechner's law as you may recall states that the intensity of any sensation is proportional to the log of the external force which produces it. However, on page 294 of Vol III of _The Writings of Charles S Peirce, A Chronological Edition_ I did stumble accross something that may relate to what you have in mind. There Peirce writes that "It is entirely in harmony with this law [Fechner's] that the feeling of belief shoud be as the logarithm of the chance, the later being the _expression_ of the state of facts which produce the belief". He continues, "the rule for the combination of independent concurrent arugments takes a very simple form when expressed in terms of the intensity of belief, measured in the porposed way. It is this: Take the sum of all the feelings of belief which would b e produced separately by all the arguments pro, substract from that the similar sum for agruments con, and the remainder is the feeling of belief which we ought to have on the whole. This a a proceeding which men often resort to, under the name of balancing reasons". BTW, all of this occurs in his 1878 essay on Probability of Induction which apparently waspublished Popular Science Monthly. Cheers, Jim Piat The question then becomes how inquiry relates to these ideas. I'd suggest, as you do, that it would cut off inquiry, but not because of knowledge. Rather, as Joe said earlier, it is the individual doing what they can to stave off the loss of a threatened belief. I think this is that they don't *want* discussion to leave the world of possibility and move to the realm of facts (the second of the three universes). It is interesting to me how many people do *not* want to move from possibilities (how ever probable) to the realm of facts or events. I think rather that tenaciousness is, as Joe suggested, more closely related to appeals to authority and their weakness. I'd also note in The Fixation of Belief that Peirce suggests that doubt works by irritation. "Theirritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle *inquiry* though it must be admitted that it is sometimes not a very apt designation." (EP 1:114) To me that suggests something like a small boil or irritation on ones skin or small cut in ones mouth. One can neglect it but eventually it will lead to a change in action. As Peirce notes it may not seem like what we call inquiry. Thus his "sometimes not a very apt designation." But so long as it changes our habits, even if it takes time and is slow, then inquiry is progressing. It might be an error to only call a process of inquiry what we areconscious of as a more directed burden of will. Which I believe was Jim W's point a few days ago. Clark Goble ---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What
List, I could not follow the last discussion on tenacity and related items in all details, since Iwas in Memphis and now in Pittsburgh and with no muchtime nor easy access to Internet. But I think (I only think) that Peirce maid his best efforts in the direction of Logic-Semiotic-Philosophy. Even if he was aware of psychological aspects of thought, inquiry and so on, psychology and/or psychoanalysis are not his more developed fields. Even if Peirce is a kind of Leonardo da Vinci of his time we should (I just propose) change from Peirce to Freud and Lacan (and others) to find more specific information on items like 'reasons' or 'modalities' of inquiry that are not just logical or semiotical reasons. I wrote already about a book of Michel Balat (I don't have the title here, but it's from the same editor as the last book of Bernard Morand). The text or research is already some years old but only recently edited (no so carefully edited as Bernard's one). It is on the concrete relation of Lacan's development of the psychoanalytic theory after having participated (apparently also with Louis Althusser) in a seminar by Recanati on Peirce. Perhaps somebody of the List knows a way of making an English translation of that book... all Percians with some interest in psychological aspects will enjoy it very much... I can tell. Best Claudio [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Clark Goble To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 1:58 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What On Oct 8, 2006, at 7:52 PM, Juffras, Angelo wrote: Tenacity is not a method of inquiry. A person who is tenacious does not doubt and hence has no annoying disturbance that would require him to inquire. He knows. I'm not sure that is true. There are those who doubt in many ways but their tenacity in effect "blocks" the practical effects of this doubt. One could I suppose call this a kind of double-belief. Exactly how Peirce would treat it I'm not sure. But I think we all know examples of this. The classic one I use as an example is a person who knows their spouse is cheating on them but is tenacious in stating and defending the fidelity of their spouse. I honestly don't recall Peirce addressing the problem of competing and contradictory beliefs. Does anyone know off the top of their head anything along those lines? The closest I can think of is the passage of 1908 to Lady Welby where he talks about the three modalities of being. Relative to the first, that of possibility, he talks of Ideas. One might say that the *idea* of infidelity, for example, can be accepted as well as its contradiction. So perhaps that's one way of dealing with it. The question then becomes how inquiry relates to these ideas. I'd suggest, as you do, that it would cut off inquiry, but not because of knowledge. Rather, as Joe said earlier, it is the individual doing what they can to stave off the loss of a threatened belief. I think this is that they don't *want* discussion to leave the world of possibility and move to the realm of facts (the second of the three universes). It is interesting to me how many people do *not* want to move from possibilities (how ever probable) to the realm of facts or events. I think rather that tenaciousness is, as Joe suggested, more closely related to appeals to authority and their weakness. I'd also note in The Fixation of Belief that Peirce suggests that doubt works by irritation. "Theirritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle *inquiry* though it must be admitted that it is sometimes not a very apt designation." (EP 1:114) To me that suggests something like a small boil or irritation on ones skin or small cut in ones mouth. One can neglect it but eventually it will lead to a change in action. As Peirce notes it may not seem like what we call inquiry. Thus his "sometimes not a very apt designation." But so long as it changes our habits, even if it takes time and is slow, then inquiry is progressing. It might be an error to only call a process of inquiry what we areconscious of as a more directed burden of will. Which I believe was Jim W's point a few days ago. Clark Goble ---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]__ Información de NOD32, revisión 1.1794 (20061006) __Este mensaje ha sido analizado con NOD32 antivirus systemhttp://www.nod32.com --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What
will be different because the initial observations which function as the basis for the conclusions ultimately drawn are different (as in the passage two or three pages from the end of How to Make Our Ideas Clear about investigation into the velocity of light.) Great weight is put upon that sort of convergence as at least frequently occurring in the use of the fourth method. Moreover, the third method is not one in which use of the two laws is characteristic since it depends upon a tendency for people to come to agreement in the course of discussion over some period of time though they do not agree initially. (There is no convergence toward truth but only toward agreement, since use of the third method in respect to the same question in diverse communities can result in the settlement of opinion by agreement in diverse communities which will, however, often leave the various communities is disagreement with one another about what they have severally come to internal agreement on. There is something of importance going on in his understanding of this particular point, Jeff, about the relationship of the starting points of inquiry to the conclusion of it that has to do with the logic of the movement from the first to the fourth method, as is evident in the draft material from 1872 in Writings 3, but is more difficult to discern in the final version where the discussion of the four methods is partially in the Ideas article as well as the Fixation article, which are really all of a piece. JK: Next, can you help me see more clearly how the passage you quote in support of your suggestion that Peirce has in mind laws concerning the properties of neural tissue, etc. is supposed to yield *two* psychological (in any sense of psychological, since you rightly point out that idioscopic laws might be fair game at this point) laws? I don't love my interpretation and would like to find a way of reading Peirce as clearer and less sloppy about this issue. But I don't see how your reading leaves us with two laws that Peirce could have expected the reader to extract from the text. JR: I don't think he necessarily expected the readers to extract them from the text, Jeff, since it would not be necessary for his purposes there for the reader to do so. It is possible that in fact he did provide some explicit clues, at least, to what he had in mind in some draft version not yet generally available, but I don't find any place in what is in print (in Writings 3 and CP 7 in the section on the Logic of l873) where there is any explicit attempt at identifying them. It may only be a learned allusion to what someone of the time would be familiar with from the inquiries into psychological matters that were starting up around that time in Europe. If they pertained to the first method but not the fourth he would not have any logical need to make sure that the reader knew what he was alluding to, given that his aim in the paper was primarily to establish an understanding of the fourth method only. As regards why I think the two psychological laws might have had something to do with neural responsiveness, I say this because of the reference to that sort of consideration at the end of section 3 of the Fixation article. Whatever these laws are, though, they would have to be ones that could be instantiated by the will of the person threatened with the prospect of losing a belief, such that a result would be the reinforcement of the shaky belief such as would be involved in deliberately avoiding any further exposure to possible doubt-inducing ideas and in the repeating of reassuring experiences. But how to formulate anything like that which might pass muster as a psychological law simply escapes me. Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Jeff Kasser [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2006 2:15:49 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What This is intriguing stuff, Joe and I'd like to hear more about what you have in mind. First, I'm not sure what sort of special relationship the two psychological laws in question need to bear to the method of tenacity. If they're in fact psychological (i.e. psychical) laws, then it would be unsurprising if the other methods of inquiry made important use of them. I thought that the only special connection between the laws and tenacity is that the method tries to deploy those laws especially simply and directly. Next, can you help me see more clearly how the passage you quote in support of your suggestion that Peirce has in mind laws concerning the properties of neural tissue, etc. is supposed to yield *two* psychological (in any sense of psychological, since you rightly point out that idioscopic laws might be fair game at this point) laws? I don't love my interpretation and would like to find a way of reading Peirce as clearer and less sloppy about
[peirce-l] Re: What
s alluding to, given that his aim in the paper was primarily to establish an understanding of the fourth method only. As regards why I think the two psychological laws might have had something to do with neural responsiveness, I say this because of the reference to that sort of consideration at the end of section 3 of the Fixation article. Whatever these laws are, though, they would have to be ones that could be instantiated by the will of the person threatened with the prospect of losing a belief, such that a result would be the reinforcement of the shaky belief such as would be involved in deliberately avoiding any further exposure to possible doubt-inducing ideas and in the repeating of reassuring experiences. But how to formulate anything like that which might pass muster as a psychological law simply escapes me. Joe[EMAIL PROTECTED]- Original Message From: Jeff Kasser [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Thursday, October 5, 2006 2:15:49 PMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: WhatThis is intriguing stuff, Joe and I'd like to hear more about what you have in mind.First, I'm not sure what sort of special relationship the twopsychological laws in question need to bear to the method of tenacity.If they're in fact psychological (i.e. psychical) laws, then it would be unsurprising if the other methods of inquiry made important use of them.I thought that the only special connection between the laws and tenacity is that the method tries to deploy those laws especially simply and directly.Next, can you help me see more clearly how the passage you quote in support of your suggestion that Peirce has in mind laws concerning the properties of neural tissue, etc. is supposed to yield *two* psychological (in any sense of ""psychological," since you rightly point out that idioscopic laws might be fair game at this point) laws?I don't love my interpretation and would like to find a way of reading Peirce as clearer and less sloppy about this issue.But I don't see how your reading leaves us with two laws that Peirce could have expected the reader to extract from the text.Thanks to you and to both Jims and the other participants; Ithis discussion makes me resolve to do less lurking on the list (though I've so resolved before).Jeff-Original Message-From: Joseph Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduDate: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 15:57:59 -0700 (PDT)Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Jeff Kasser says: JK:First, as to the question in the heading of your initial message, it seems to me that Peirce can only be referring to the antecedents of the two conditional statements that motivate the method of tenacity in the first place.These are stated in the first sentence of Section V of "Fixation.""If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit, why should we not attain the desired end, by taking any answer to a question which we may fancy, and constantly reiterating it to ourselves, dwelling on all which may conduce to that belief, and learning to turn with contempt and hatred from anything which might disturb it."In the context of the paper, this would seem to make fairly straightforward sense of the idea that tenacity rests on "two fundamental psychological laws."Peirce sure seems to think that it should be apparent to the reader on which "laws" tenacity rests, and so I don't think we're to wander too far afield from the paper itself in determining which the laws are.REPLY: JR:The more I think about it the less plausible it seems to me that either of these is what he meant by the two "psychological laws".What would the second one be: If x is a belief thenx is a habit?That doesn't even sound like a law.And as regards the first, what exactly would it be?If a belief is arrived at then inquiry ends?Or: If inquiry has ended then a belief has been arrived at?But nothing like either of these seems muchlike something he might want to call a psychological law. Moreover, why would he single out the method of tenacity as based on these when they are equally pertinent to all four methods?He does say earlier that "the FEELING of believingis a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions".That is more like a law, in the sense he might have in mind, but that has to do with a correlation between a feeling and an occurrence of a belief establishment and, again, there is no special relationship there to the method of tenacity in particular. I suggest that the place to look is rather at the simple description of the method of tenacity he gives at the very beginning of his discussion of it when he says "… why should we not attain the desired end by taking as answer to a question any we may fancy, and
[peirce-l] Re: What
Dear Joe and Jeff, I looked at some of the drafts in the Chronological edition Vol III page 33-34 --.Could it be thatthe laws he may be referring to are the law of association andsomething like a law of sensory impressions? Also I got the impression he may have intended these two laws to also operate in the fourth method of fixing belief but that the method of tenacity was distinquished by its being mostly limited to emphasizingthese laws. Peirce referring to the laws as fundamental makes me wonder if he views them as operating in all methods of fixing belief. That what distinguishes the other methods form the method of tenacity is that in fixing belief the other methodsemphasizemodes of beingin addition to one's personal feelings and associationsof ideas related to them.So -- the method of tenancity emphasizes the law of sensory impression (something akin to the directperception or the felt impression of similarity) and one's almost instantenous ideational associations, whereas the other methods place greater emphasis on the additional modes of will, reason (and ultimately in the fourth method) a balance of the lst three. It's hard for me to suppose that even someone using the lst method is absent all influence from secondness and thirdness (will, and representation). Or that methods other than tenacity exclude feelings. After all, each method is a matter of representation. Don't mean any of this in a contentious way. Just trying toraise a questionon the fly. I know I'm rehashing my earlier bit about combining the lst three to form the fourth, but in this case I'm doing so just to suggest how the law of association and of sensory impression (if there is such a law) might apply.Maybe I'm just being overlycommited to what I feel is the case--unwilling toacknowledge either fact or reason. JimPiat - Original Message - From: Joseph Ransdell To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 1:10 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What Jeff Kasser (JK) says:JK: First, I'm not sure what sort of special relationship the two psychological laws in question need to bear to the method of tenacity. If they're in fact psychological (i.e. psychical) laws, then it would be unsurprising if the other methods of inquiry made important use of them. I thought that the only special connection between the laws and tenacity is that the method tries to deploy those laws simply and directly.REPLY (by JR = Joe Ransdell):JR: Peirce says, of the tenacious believer: ". . . if he only succeeds -- basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychological laws . . .". That seems to me plainly to be saying that the method of tenacity is based on two fundamental psychological laws. It would be odd for him to say "basing his method, like every other is based, on two psychological laws" in a passage in which he is explaining that method in particular. And if he wanted to say that this method is different from the others in that it applies these laws "simply and directly" whereas the others do not then I would expect him to say something to indicate what an indirect and complicated use of them would be like. Also, to say that use of such laws (whatever they may be) occurs in all four methods would contradict what he frequently says in the drafts of the essay and seems to think especially important there but which does not appear in the final version of the paper except in "How to Make Our Ideas Clear", where it is not emphasized as being of special importance, namely, that in the fourth method the conclusions reached are different from what was held at the beginning of the inquiry. This is true in two ways. First, because in the fourth method one concludes to something from premises (the starting points) which are not identical to the conclusion with which the inquiry ends; and, second, because, sometimes, at least, the starting points of different inquirers in the same inquiring community in relation to the same question will be different because the initial observations which function as the basis for the conclusions ultimately drawn are different (as in the passage two or three pages from the end of "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" about investigation into the velocity of light.) Great weight is put upon that sort of convergence as at least frequently occurring in the use of the fourth method. Moreover, the third method is not one in which use of the two laws is characteristic since it depends upon a tendency for people to come to agreement in the course of discussion over some period of time though they do not agree initially. (There is no convergence toward truth but only toward agreement, since use of the third method in respect to the same question in diverse communities can result in th
[peirce-l] Re: What
Dear Jim W, Thanks for these comments. Seemsfolks commonly suppose human behavior to intentional and the behavior of merely physical systems to be non intentional. I'm not convinced that human and so call mere physical behavior differ in this respect. I think the distinction between the human and the merely physical (the intentional vs. the non intentional) is more a matter of our level of analysis. Conceived as merely physical nothing is intentional but understood in the largerintentional context of the universe everything is intentional in the sense of tending toward some end. So in part my explorations with the notion of the things tending toward the average was an attempt to suggest some of the ways that thisconceptualdivide between the seemingly merely physical and mental could be bridged (starting from either direction). You also raise the matter of complexity and unpredictability of human behavior. Nosubstantialdisagreement from me on this one either. I meant my comments about the parallels between feeling, will, andreasoning to be merely suggestive and hopefully useful ways of exposing some aspects that might otherwise be overlooked -- or rather that I had been overlooking. As I think Joe was pointing out in one of his recent posts, observations have both an object related component and an observer related component. The observer variables are so complex and to often defy classification much less prediction. Human actions are the final product of a complex interaction of very subtle factors. The brain/mind has a way of multiplying the effects of certain variables in ways that make a seeming small physical difference (as measured in the merely physical world so to speak) have an enormous effect on the actual behavior produced. As a result predicting these behavior is extremely difficult. For example the response of billiard balls is not altered much by their history whereas one's stored memories can have an enormous effect upon how some physical event will effect our response. We have yet learned how to measure stored memories and their effects -- so there is this big unknown in predicting human behavior (or for that matter any complex system that would store information in a analogous way). Again, speaking loosely because of course I have insufficient facts and understandingto speak otherwise. Sobottom line -- yes, I agree with your comments and those of Joe. Just trying to process them a bit. Thanks again, Jim Piat Jim P, Thanks for the response.I think that if you allow for the evolution of the mean and stick to the scientific method, then there are strong parallels toPeirce's theory of truth in the "long run." There is a convergence towards the "least total error."This may work for scientific theories. (AlthoughPeirce's theoryhas in general come under a lot of criticism) But practical beliefs, and their supposed underlying psychological laws, which we have been considering lately, are an example where the distribution of behavioral patterns does not seem to have the "bite" that predicting the position of the planets has. If we suppose all men have real doubts and inquire at some time time or another, what does the distribution of behavioral "outputs" show? It would seem to show the preferred method of inquiry. We might then track which method is winning out in some domain of inquiry. But supposewe want is to assign a specific psychological law to a specific method of inquiry. We would have to have a set of descriptionsfor isolating the data into four groups.We could then take the "tenacious" individualsand try to explain their behavior. But we already have the set of descriptions in place for isolating the tenacious individuals. So, what we want to know is why some people "cling spasmodically to the views they already take." Answers to this question can be distributed with the "least total error" representing the winning answer. But are descriptive laws with respect to behavior as convincing as physical laws are with respect to the position of the planets? ! Are descriptive laws with respect to behavior just an illusion? Why do we take an "intentional stance" towards some systems and not others, disparaging the former as lacking theoretical "bite." Jim W-Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Thu, 5 Oct 2006 6:14 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What Dear Jim Willgoose, Opps,I goofed. I think you are right. In an earlier version of my post I had included the possibility that in an open system new energy, information and possibilities were being added (or taken away) that would change the mean of the system and thus account for evolution of the mean (and why variation about the mean is so importa
[peirce-l] Re: What
Good stuff, Jim. Thanks. I've raised a query about the relationship between the two laws and the method of tenacity in my just-posted response to Joe, who broached a similar issue. I'd like, of course, to hear your thoughts on this matter. I'm not sure that the tenacious person's basing his method on these laws would need to be done as explicitly or self-consciously as your message suggests. If the method were adequately grounded in the proper laws, that would count in favor of the practices of someone deploying the method, even if the deployer were unaware of the grounding. Lots of questions about the different objects of epistemic evaluation (people, beliefs, methods, arguments, etc.) could arise here, but Peirce seems most directly interested in the virtues and vices of methods, rather than of those who deploy them. Also like Joe, you don't quite make it clear which two laws you think Peirce has in mind. I don't have my text with me just now and will go over it with both your message and Joe's in mind in the next day or so. I'm excited to see what we all manage to come up with. The suggestion in your message could, I suppose, be combined with Joe's about the properties of neural tissue. Your law will need to be hedged a good bit to protect it from falsification, but that's not an objection, since that holds of most laws. Best, Jeff -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Date: Wed, 04 Oct 2006 00:05:50 -0400 Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What Thanks for the response Jeff. I guess my first question is whether the passage which reads basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychological laws could refer to something not specifically targeted for the method of tenacity. The settlement of opinion is common to all four methods, and thus, does not seem to reflect laws peculiar to the method of tenacity. I previously suggested: an instinctive dislike of an undecided state of mindmakes men cling spasmodically to what views they already take. (FOB sec.5) This is target specific. Now, the data for this law (presuming we could frame it in terms of all men at some time) may be understood as coenoscopic in the sense of an observation about our common moral psychology. But it could also be expressed idioscopically in terms of association and habit. It is difficult given the passage above to imagine the tenacious individual basing his method on association or habit since these could hardly be as transparent to the tenacious individual as the passage suggests the psychological laws are. (basing his method, as he does...) Jim W -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Tue, 3 Oct 2006 11:24 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What I agree with you, Jim, that Peirce must have thought that the statement about the aim of inquiry must be pretty close, at least, to being a psychological law. I claimed as much in my post. It's nevertheless a somewhat puzzling claim. Precisely because, as you note, the (alleged) fact that doubt is necessary for inquiry does not directly settle the question about the aim of inquiry, it's a bit peculiar that Peirce called his claim about the aim of inquiry a psychological law. Generalizations about what some people desire when they inquire won't get us anywhere near the status of a law. Even a generalization about what all inquirers in fact desire when they inquire seems to fall far short of nomological status. Peirce seems to be talking about an aim that is internal to inquiry in the way that checkmate is internal to playing chess (though the motivations for chess-playing can be quite various). Nobody would be tempted to say that the aim of chess is a psychological law or fact. But Peirce seems to be claiming, not just in Fixation but in many other places, that the aim of the activity of inquiry can be derived from psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. And he also seems to claim that an activity doesn't count as inquiry unless it is done from a certain aim (or maybe even from certain motivations). So these psychical facts about doubt and belief are doing a lot of peculiar and intriguing work for Peirce. Best, Jeff -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:49:49 -0400 Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to? J Kasser says, It's not easy to see how Peirce could have considered the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry a psychical or a psychological law. It seems charitable here to see Peirce as writing a bit casually once again and to construe him as meaning that the statement in question is a normative truth more or less forced on us by psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. But, as the following quote from another of your messages indicates, Peirce
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gene, Let me say first of all, that I meant to specifically reject that Hobbesonian notion of man in a state of nature, man as feral, and to affirm that the state of nature for the human is to be socialized and languagized. Looking back upon what I wrote, I think it must have been the sloppiness of those last two paragraphs below that gave that impression. I should have put feral in quotes, and it needed to be clearer that I thought the savage mind Levi-Strauss described as categorizing things in his environment in terms of usage, what they were good for, was merely the everyday mind of everyone everywhere. That strikes me as merely basic human pragmatics, and I don't think it's that far apart from what you and Csikszentmihalyi describe as the pragmatics of the everyday mind in _The Meaning of Things_. (I might want to put more of the latter's concept of flow into that universe of use, or action than he would; I'm not sure.) I don't see how that is antithetic to either an ecological orientation or being a sophisticated naturalist. Regarding my statement To be socialized means to be locked into belief systems based upon tenacity and authority, initially those you are born into, I'll stick with what I said. I don't have Sam Johnson's stone to kick, so perhaps I can simply say, Well, here we are! How do we escape? I don't see that anything I said implies society is an assembly line of human products. I am also perfectly comfortable with all you wrote regarding what it means to be fully human and the dangers of getting drunk on metaphors--especially the machine metaphor. (I grew up around those drunks in the early days of communication theory.) We are locked into a social order, but that, and communication, may be the condition of our freedom. To close: I much enjoyed _The Meaning of Things_. Bill Bailey Levi-Strauss argues that there is no real difference in terms of complexity between primitive and scientific thought; he found the primitive's categories and structurings in botany, for example, to be as complex as any western textbook might offer. The difference he found was that the primitive botany was based upon use--what plants were good for. I still think Levi-Strauss erred in being driven by the concerns of his day, possibly responding to developmentalists like Heinz Werner, and was out to prove primitives were not simple. But what he ended up describing as the primitive mind is the everyday mind of socialized people everywhere--habits of willful tenacity and authority. I don't accept the notion of man in a state of nature. What few studies/examples of feral children and social isolates there are suggest, unless rescued before puberty, they do not achieve normal human development. I don't know what laws there are governing the human mind, but whatever they are, they're largely social. To be socialized means to be locked into belief systems based upon tenacity and authority, initially those you are born into. These two social requisites of belief are perfectly capable of the most radical kinds of error and monstrosity. They have historically supported all sorts of superstition, tyranny, genocide--you name it--along with the heights of human achievement. end Bailey quotation Dear Bill, You describe Levi-Strausss claim that primitive can often match scientific knowledge in areas such as botany, though primitive is not disinterested. And how sometime later you acknowledged how scientists too are filling needs, have uses for their systems. So far Im with you. One might even state it differently: scientific naturalists can tend to be focalized exclusively on a research question, whereas hunter-gatherers can tend to view a particular question as an aspect of ecological mind. Jared Diamond gives a great example of ornithological field work in New Guinea where his focus on identifying a particular rare bird limited him from seeing it ecologically: his aboriginal guide had to show him how one version of the bird is found low in branches, the other in higher branches. Diamond was only looking at the bird itself, isolate. The question I would pose is: who was more scientific, the aboriginal or the focused Diamond? But your idea that man in a state of nature is feral, if I understand you, seems to me to be a basic misreading of the life of hunter- gathering through which we became human, as is your idea that the primitive mind is the everyday mind of socialized people everywhere. Im not a fan of Levi-Strausss way of boiling people down to his structural conception of mind. But the anthropological record reveals hunter-gatherer peoples typically to be highly sophisticated naturalists. Consider Paul Shepards words, from his book, Nature and Madness: Beneath the veneer of civilization, in the trite phrase of humanism, lies not the barbarian and the animal, but the human in us who knows what is right and necessary for becoming fully
[peirce-l] Re: What
Dear Folks-- I'm trying to think of some sort of non psychologistic sounding way of describing or accounting for the drive to settle doubt. I'm thinking that doubt represents uncertainty (a measure of information) and uncertainty poses risk.In general, dynamic sytems tend toward equilibriums around their mean values. Perhapsthebehavior we call inquiry is a form of this "moderation in all things".The mean is the point in every distribution which yields the leasttotal errorif taken as the value for every member of the distribution.The mean is also the point of dynamic random equilibrium.Maybe doubt is a form of dynamic disequilibriumand inquiry a form of "regression to the mean". In a pluaralistic universe -- truth is the mean or that which mediates between extremes. Not the extremes that we imagineseparate our truth from the falsehood of others, but the extremes that actually exist each from another and of which our point of view of truth is but one. Truth is what drives consensus and is common to all POVs -- the lowly average. Thetenaciousthinkfeeling is truth, the authoritarian will, the rationalist reason and the scientist the 'average' of em all. MostlyI'm trying to get a better handle on some non psychologistic sounding ways of thinking about doubt, inquiry and belief. Maybe I've just substituted one set of mis-used words for another -- without any real progress in understanding. Curious what others might think of these borrowed (and probably misapplied) ideas. Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What
Jim P, Interesting. But if all the scientist did was "average" three defective modes of inquiry, wouldn't we be stuck with the "least total error," yet an error nevertheless? We would have all agreed that the earth is flat, Euclidean geometry is the true physical geometry, a part can never be greater than the whole and so forth. The other methods are experimentally defective. Even if the average was taken just from within the scientific community, are there not numerous examples of "leaps" in knowledge occurring by virtue of the beliefs held out along the fringes of the distribution? Jim W -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 3:10 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What Dear Folks-- I'm trying to think of some sort of non psychologistic sounding way of describing or accounting for the drive to settle doubt. I'm thinking that doubt represents uncertainty (a measure of information) and uncertainty poses risk.In general, dynamic sytems tend toward equilibriums around their mean values. Perhapsthebehavior we call inquiry is a form of this "moderation in all things".The mean is the point in every distribution which yields the leasttotal errorif taken as the value for every member of the distribution.The mean is also the point of dynamic random equilibrium.Maybe doubt is a form of dynamic disequilibriumand inquiry a form of "regression to the mean". In a pluaralistic universe -- truth is the mean or that which mediates between extremes. Not the extremes that we imagineseparate our truth from the falsehood of others, but the extremes that actually exist each from another and of which our point of view of truth is but one. Truth is what drives consensus and is common to all POVs -- the lowly average. Thetenaciousthinkfeeling is truth, the authoritarian will, the rationalist reason and the scientist the 'average' of em all. MostlyI'm trying to get a better handle on some non psychologistic sounding ways of thinking about doubt, inquiry and belief. Maybe I've just substituted one set of mis-used words for another -- without any real progress in understanding. Curious what others might think of these borrowed (and probably misapplied) ideas. Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What
I agree with you, Jim, that Peirce must have thought that the statement about the aim of inquiry must be pretty close, at least, to being a psychological law. I claimed as much in my post. It's nevertheless a somewhat puzzling claim. Precisely because, as you note, the (alleged) fact that doubt is necessary for inquiry does not directly settle the question about the aim of inquiry, it's a bit peculiar that Peirce called his claim about the aim of inquiry a psychological law. Generalizations about what some people desire when they inquire won't get us anywhere near the status of a law. Even a generalization about what all inquirers in fact desire when they inquire seems to fall far short of nomological status. Peirce seems to be talking about an aim that is internal to inquiry in the way that checkmate is internal to playing chess (though the motivations for chess-playing can be quite various). Nobody would be tempted to say that the aim of chess is a psychological law or fact. But Peirce seems to be claiming, not just in Fixation but in many other places, that the aim of the activity of inquiry can be derived from psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. And he also seems to claim that an activity doesn't count as inquiry unless it is done from a certain aim (or maybe even from certain motivations). So these psychical facts about doubt and belief are doing a lot of peculiar and intriguing work for Peirce. Best, Jeff -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:49:49 -0400 Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to? J Kasser says, It's not easy to see how Peirce could have considered the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry a psychical or a psychological law. It seems charitable here to see Peirce as writing a bit casually once again and to construe him as meaning that the statement in question is a normative truth more or less forced on us by psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. But, as the following quote from another of your messages indicates, Peirce was pretty quick to close the is/ought gap with respect to this issue: The following axiom requires no comment, beyond the remark that it seems often to be forgotten. Where there is no real doubt or disagreement there is no question and can be no real investigation. So perhaps he really meant that a statement about the aim of iqnuiry could be a (coenscopic) psychological law. (end) The question is whether the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry is a normative truth or a psychological law. The fact that doubt is a necessary condition for inquiry does not settle this question. It merely suggests what is required for any inquiry to begin. Peirce does not say the settlement of inquiry ought to be the sole object of inquiry. Thus, the statement is a generalization about what all (some?) men desire when they inquire. It is the major premise in a practical syllogism. The conclusion is the normative claim that we ought to pursue the scientific method. Maybe there is an implicit premise that we ought to pursue the best method for settling opinion. This might satisfy those concerned with the naturalistic fallacy. Peirce overstates his case about his own psychologism. His statement about the origin of truth is unfortunate. He should have spoken of either a desire for truth originating in the impulse to self-consistency or of belief. In the latter case, it makes perfectly good sense to talk about psychological concepts such as self-control, satisfaction, conviction, habit etc. The interesting question is whether we can make sense of practical reason and talk of ends and actions without the introduction of psychological concepts. The problem here has less to do with replacing psychologizing tendencies with phenomenological observations than with using the intentional idom to assess practical reason. I have always thought of FOB as an ethics of inquiry. And unless one wants to try and eliminate the concepts involved in moral psychology, they are always there as a conceptual resource for articulating the normative basis of methodology in the sciences. It appears then, that logical methodology is based on ethics. Jim W -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 3:04 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to? Joe and other listers, Thanks, Joe, for your kind words about my paper. I fear that you make the paper sound a bit more interesting than it is, and you certainly do a better job of establishing its importance than I did. It's something of a cut-and paste job from my dissertation, and I'm afraid the prose is sometimes rather dissertationy, which is almost never a good thing. First, as to the question in the heading
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Gene, 28.9.2006 kello 07:59, Eugene Halton kirjoitti: If I understand your criticism that the social should not be excluded from the method of tenacity, you are saying that much research today goes on under Darwin-like survival of the fittest rules: research by tenacity in a competitive social milieu, individuals forced by the game to stick to their prior thought which gave them their success. Are you saying that through the competitive social milieu, in pushing individuals into tenacity, the social is thereby ingredient in the method of tenacity? Or that methodically tenacious individuals, in aiming for competitive social success, thereby reveal the social within the method of tenacity? I'm not sure. On the main, yes, but this was not exactly what I had in mind. You wrote in your previous post: A tenaciously held belief is still social, as any habit is. Yet the social is excluded from the method of tenacity. What you believe by tenacity may also be social and learned, or perhaps social and instinctive, but believed in because you simply continue to believe in it, regardless of others' beliefs. It was the way you considered social to be excluded, and tenaciously held belief as something having nothing to do with others' beliefs, which I did not quite agree with. A belief, being a habit, is held as long as it works. And the reason it works - or does not work - may be mainly social, (also including others' beliefs). But it need not be authority. Individuals may not be forced (by authority) to stick to their beliefs, if it just works to do so. Or maybe I should soften what I said in previous post to viewing the social as only indirectly involved in the method of tenacity? Tenacity seems to me to be about imposing one's way on experience. Well, on second thoughts, I think one could say that the social is not essentially involved in the CONCEPT of the method of tenacity, although it is necessarily involved in using the method. But in the concept of the method of authority the social IS essentially involved, because authority presupposes two positions, being a dual relation, with one or more believers and at least one believed. This, I assume, is in agreement with your progressively broadening social conceptions, only taken from a different aspect. The you wrote: I am also familiar with the funding approach you describe, through some encounters with the MacArthur Foundation way back. I spent one evening with Jonas Salk and Rod MacArthur (shortly before he died), who were talking about the five year fellowships the foundation had started, with no applications or conditions. Salk described it as a way to develop something like intellectual spore heads that could have time to pursue their ideas unencumbered, then disseminate. About a year later I also got to play with Salk and some of his spore heads at another meeting, which involved a tour of the Art Institute in Chicago. We were in an Andy Warhol exhibit, a room of large silver floating balloons shaped like pillows. Salk and others, including me, laughing and bouncing balloons around, as though in an amusement park. What was this, the method of musement? -A method, not of fixing belief, but of loosening it! Yes, the method of musement, absolutely! The question is, is it critically adopted, or just indulged in. (In analogy to using unlimited funds reasonably or just sloshing money around). In Neglegted Argument... Peirce recommends that about 5-10 % of one's working hours should be spent musing. No doubt this was based on some part of his over 20 000 cards about the size of a postcard, on which he wrote down e.g. detailed and methodical observations on his own experiences. I, for my part, have found out that about 10 -15% works out best. Anyway, the main point is that Peirce found it reasonable to use both kinds of methods, those of fixing AND those of loosening one's beliefs. With fixing, one should take critical approach in, with loosening, one should take it out. For the reason that one's beliefs get fixed by themselves, uncontrollably, so the question is are they critically fixed or not. All of them never can be at once (i.e. collectively), but some of them can, any time. On the other hand, one can deliberately choose to loosen one's ideas, if one has a method which works. Peirce recommends musement. Best, Kirsti Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
and the SocraticTradition in Philosophy", Proceedings of the Peirce Society, 2000)http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/socratic.htm Peirce could take this for granted not because of some well known psychological laws but because of the adoption (in a modified form) of the basic dialectical principle by Hegel and others, following upon the use of it in the Kantian philosophy in the transcendental dialectic of pure reason in the First Critique. I do not say that this should also satisfy us today as sufficient to persuade us to the acceptance of the thesis that inquiry is driven by doubt, construed as a "dissatisfaction at two repugnant propositions". But it is possible that Peirce did, at the time of composition of the Fixation article, think that this would be regarded as being something no one would be likely to dispute, or at least as something which no reader of the Popular Science Monthly would be likely to dispute. (That Journal was, as I understand it, a rough equivalent of the present day Nature as regards its targeted audience, whereas the Scientific American at that time was oriented more towards applications and inventions than theoretical science.) It is not obvious that logic should be based in a theory of inquiry, but it is not clear to me that Peirce regarded that as something which had to be argued for. In any case, none of this affects your thesis about Peirce not regarding the Fixation as suffering from psychologism.I have a couple of other comments to make, Jeff, but I will put them in another message which I probably won't write before tomorrow. Joe Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED]- Original Message From: Jeff Kasser [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Sunday, October 1, 2006 3:04:13 PMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe and other listers, Thanks, Joe, for your kind words about my paper. I fear that you make the paper sound a bit more interesting than it is, and you certainly do a better job of establishing its importance than I did. It's something of a cut-and paste job from my dissertation, and I'm afraid the prose is sometimes rather "dissertationy," which is almost never a good thing. First, as to the question in the heading of your initial message, it seems to me that Peirce can only be referring to the antecedents of the two conditional statements that motivate the method of tenacity in the first place. These are stated in the first sentence of Section V of "Fixation." "If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit, why should we not attain the desired end, by taking any answer to a question which we may fancy, and constantly reiterating it to ourselves, dwelling on all which may conduce to that belief, and learning to turn with contempt and hatred from anything which might disturb it." In the context of the paper, this would seem to make fairly straightforward sense of the idea that tenacity rests on "two fundamental psychological laws." Peirce sure seems to think that it should be apparent to the reader on which "laws" tenacity rests, and so I don't think we're to wander too far afield from the paper itself in determining which the laws are. This interpretation does have two disadvantages, however. If my paper is at all close to right, then Peirce considered these laws "psychical" rather than "psychological," in the 1870's as well as in the 1860's and in the latter half of his career (I don't mean that he had the term "psychical" available in 1877, however). But this is one of those places where the fact that Peirce was writing for *Popular Science Monthly* can perhaps be invoked to account for some terminological sloppiness. A second consideration is a bit more troublesome, however. It's not easy to see how Peirce could have considered "the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry" a psychical or a psychological law. It seems charitable here to see Peirce as writing a bit casually once again and to construe him as meaning that the statement in question is a normative truth more or less forced on us by psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. But, as the following quote from another of your messages indicates, Peirce was pretty quick to close the is/ought gap with respect to this issue:The following axiom requires no comment, beyond the remark that it seems often to be forgotten. Where there is no real doubt or disagreement there is no question and can be no real investigation. So perhaps he really meant that a statement about the aim of iqnuiry could be a (coenscopic) psychological law. This raises an issue you mention in yet another message, viz. what exactly makes doubts "paper" or otherwise inappropriate. There's been some good work done on t
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Response to J Kasser (resend) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Mon, 2 Oct 2006 11:49 AM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? J Kasser says, "It's not easy to see how Peirce could have considered "the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry" a psychical or a psychological law. It seems charitable here to see Peirce as writing a bit casually once again and to construe him as meaning that the statement in question is a normative truth more or less forced on us by psychological (i.e. psychical) facts. But, as the following quote from another of your messages indicates, Peirce was pretty quick to close the is/ought gap with respect to this issue: The following axiom requires no comment, beyond the remark that it seems often to be forgotten. Where there is no real doubt or disagreement there is no question and can be no real investigation. So perhaps he really meant that a statement about the aim of iqnuiry could be a (coenscopic) psychological law." (end) The question is whether"the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry" is a normative truth or a psychological law. The fact that doubt is a necessary condition for inquiry does not settle this question. It merely suggests what is required for any inquiry to begin. Peirce does not say "the settlement of inquiry ought to be the sole object of inquiry." Thus, the statement is a generalization about what all (some?) men desire when they inquire. It is the major premise in a practical syllogism. The conclusion isthenormative claim that we ought to pursue the scientific method. Maybe there is an implicit premise that we ought to pursue the best method for settling opinion. This might satisfy those concerned with the "naturalistic fallacy." Peirce overstates his case about his own psychologism. His statement about the "origin of truth" is unfortunate. He should have spoken of either a "desire for truth" originating inthe impulse to self-consistency or of "belief."In the latter case,it makes perfectly good sense to talk about psychological concepts such as self-control, satisfaction, conviction, habit etc. The interesting question is whether we can make sense of practical reason andtalk of ends and actions without the introduction of psychological concepts. The problem here has less to do with replacing psychologizing tendencies with phenomenological observations than with using the "intentional idom" to assess practical reason. I have always thought of FOB as an "ethics of inquiry." And unless one wants to try and eliminate the concepts involved in moral psychology,they are always there as a conceptual resource for articulating the normative basis of methodology in the sciences. It appears then, that logical methodology is based on ethics. Jim W -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 3:04 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe and other listers, Thanks, Joe, for your kind words about my paper. I fear that you make the paper sound a bit more interesting than it is, and you certainly do a better job of establishing its importance than I did. It's something of a cut-and paste job from my dissertation, and I'm afraid the prose is sometimes rather "dissertationy," which is almost never a good thing. First, as to the question in the heading of your initial message, it seems to me that Peirce can only be referring to the antecedents of the two conditional statements that motivate the method of tenacity in the first place. These are stated in the first sentence of Section V of "Fixation." "If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit, why should we not attain the desired end, by taking any answer to a question which we may fancy, and constantly reiterating it to ourselves, dwelling on all which may conduce to that belief, and learning to turn with contempt and hatred from anything which might disturb it." In the context of the paper, this would seem to make fairly straightforward sense of the idea that tenacity rests on "two fundamental psychological laws." Peirce sure seems to think that it should be apparent to the reader on which "laws" tenacity rests, and so I don't think we're to wander too far afield from the paper itself in determining which the laws are. This interpretation does have two disadvantages, however. If my paper is at all close to right, then Peirce considered these laws "psychical" rather than "psychological," in the 1870's as well as in the 1860's and in the latter half of his career (I don't mean that he had the
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary: How Emersonian. As I said, I am too ignorant to make pronouncements on Peirce. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Peirce was a man of his times--and that he obviously spent too much time with Emerson's godson. :=) Should you find any Swedenborgian passages in Peirce, please don't tell me. If Peirce's ideal of scientific method parallels the bhodisattva ideal . . . well, so be it; oxymoron is the food of faith. Gary R wrote, in part: I thought perhaps that Gary had such a passages as this in mind when he suggested that there might be parallels between Peirce's ideal of scientific method and the Boddhisattva ideal: CP 1.673. . .. the supreme commandment of the Buddhisto-christian religion is, to generalize, to complete the whole system even until continuity results and the distinct individuals weld together. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
hich all the physical sciences repose, when defined in the strict way in which its founders understood it, and not as embracing the law of the conservation of energy, neither is nor ever was one of the special sciences that aim at the discovery of novel phenomena, but merely consists in the analysis of truths which universal experience has compelled every man of us to acknowledge. Thus, the proof by Archimedes of the principle of the lever, upon which Lagrange substantially bases the whole statical branch of the science, consists in showing that that principle is virtually assumed in our ordinary conception of two bodies of equal weight. Such universal experiences may not be true to microscopical exactitude, but that they are true in the main is assumed by everybody who devises an experiment, and is therefore more certain than any result of a laboratory experiment. (CP 8.198, CN3 230 [1905]) end quote=== In other words, Peirce is identifying there the point at which the coenoscopic and the idioscopic meet, in physical conceptions that appear in the context of idioscopic (special scientific) research, and I suggest that the two "psychological laws" which he is referring to in the passage in the Fixation article which I quoted in my first post on this topic must be the coenoscopic analogues of those in the case of the psychological sciences, In other words, those particular psychological laws must be psychological in the commonsense psychology of everyday life, though they will appear as fundamental conceptions in scientific psychology.and thus seem at first to be idioscopic in type. Now Jeff's claim in that paper (among other things) is that "The Fixation of Belief" is concerned with psychology only in the sense of commonsense psychology, not scientific psychology, and Peirce's anti-psychologism is as characteristically present in that paper as it is in any of his more technical papers on logic. Thus the fact that the Fixation paper relies as heavily as it does on doubt and belief neither shows that Peirce lapsed into psychologism there nor that Peirce ever thought that this was so, but rather -- and I think this is what Jeff is saying -- it is rather that where Peirce may seem to be admitting to psychologism in that paper he is in fact admitting to something rather different, namely, a rhetorical failure in composing it that mistakenly made it appear to people who do not understand what the objection to psychologism actually is that he was making his claims in that paper rest on psychology in the special or idioscopic sense. when in fact he was not. (I may be putting words in Jeff's mouth there but I think that is what he is getting at.) Well, that will have to do for this post. Sorry for being so long-winded on that. Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] . . - Original Message From: Bill Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 1:21:48 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe, thanks for your response. I "get it" now. Festinger came to mind because "selective exposure" as amode of dissonance avoidance was a major topic in communication research. I haven't read that literature in years--and I didn't particularly buy into it then--so don't trust me now. As I recall, one mode of dissonance reduction wassimilar tothe pre-dissonance mode:"selective perception," or "cherry picking"--selecting only the data consonant with the threatened belief or behavior. "Rationalization"was a dissonance reduction means, I think, though it seems nearly tautological.In terms of Festinger's smoking-health dissonance I remember itin this form: "We're all going to die of something." There is also the heroic, the transcendent "We all owe a death." Simple denial is a common means: "If smoking causes cancer, most smokers would get it, but in fact most don't." Researchers turned up so many techniques of dissonance reduction I no longer remember which were originallyproposed by Festinger and which came later. Some, by the way (I think Eliot Aronson among them), argued cognitive dissonance was nota logical but a psychological phenomena, and that humans were not rational but rationalizers. And, relevant to your remarks below, some argued that the need to reduce the dissonance resulted not from logical tensions, but from the social concept of the self. For example, the argument goes, if it were only a logical tension operating, there'd be no tension experienced from telling a lie for money. It would make logical sense to say anything asked of you for either a few or many bucks. The tension arisesonly as a result of social norms:"What kind of person am I to tell a lie for a lousy couple of bucks." In my personal experience with smoking, I c
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
I think you're right, Gary, that Peirce doesn't really need to be saved
from the circularity you (very astutely) pointed out in your earlier
message. And I think that you make a good start of showing why he
doesn't need saving. But I would add that Peirce is very concerned
about avoiding what he takes to be vicious circularities in philosophy,
and that he does think of psychologism as involving a vicious
circularity. As some of Peirce's writings on the classification of
sciences make apparent and as Christopher Hookway has emphasized in a
couple of papers, Peirce maintained that we claim a kind of autonomy or
rational self-control when we undertake inquiry. He seemed to think
that some facts are not subject to logical criticism. These give shape
to the project of inquiry and we don't give troubling hostages to
fortune in relying on them to formulate the goals and methods of
inqury. But Peirce was very concerned about building claims that
couldn't be established by the coenscopic sciences into the goals and
methods of inquiry, because he feared that they would then be placed
beyond the possibility of falsification through inquiry. It's an open
question whether the coenscopic/idioscopic distinction can bear the
weight that Peirce asks it to bear, but I do think that Peirce is very
troubled by some apparent circularities and not at all troubled by (what
some would see as) other circularities.
Best to all, and with warm admiration for the departed Arnold Shepperson,
Jeff
gnusystems wrote:
Joe, Kirsti, list,
[[ Well, Gary, it looks like some fancy footwork with the term is
rooted in might have to be resorted to if we are to save Peirce on this
one! You've caught him with a flat contradiction there! ]]
Personally i think the contradiction is more apparent than flat. As i
said (and i think Kirsti said the same), this is not circulum vitiosum
but a pattern which underlies inquiry and therefore can only be itself
investigated via a cyclical process.
The social principle is implicit in explicit (formal) logic, *and*
logic/semeiotic is implicit in the social principle. (Though Peirce
would not have put it that way in 1869 or 1878.) The social
principle is intrinsically rooted in logic (1869) because recognition
of others as experiencing beings is a special case of seeing a
difference between phenomenon and reality, or between sign and object --
or between soul and world, to use the terms Peirce uses in both of
these passages. Logic begins with the revelation of a real world out
there beyond phenomenal consciousness. Logic is rooted in the social
principle (1878) in that it explicates the relationship between
experience and reality, which it cannot do prior to the developmental
stage at which the difference between the two is recognized -- a stage
accessible only to *social* animals who can handle symbolic signs. (The
method of tenacity is, in a sense, a reversion to an earlier stage of
development even though it is also a social stance.)
So i don't think Peirce needs to be saved; or if he does, it's only
because (like a bodhisattva) he has sacrificed his own soul to save the
whole world.
gary F.
}To seek Buddhahood apart from living beings is like seeking echoes by
silencing sounds. [Layman Hsiang]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/gnoxic.htm }{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, list,
In addition to the story of Genie, there's plenty of evidence in
developmental psychology that reasoning, and indeed language, is a
social phenomenon. I'd mention Vygotsky and Tomasello, but then i'd have
to leave out all the others.
I'm surprised to see this part of your message though:
[[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer
has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been
cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A
modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao
and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]]
So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History
does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an oriental
phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world.
[[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't
that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born,
and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]]
No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look
at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier
(2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley
Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his
life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience?
As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's
ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the
bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to
work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal
attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced
that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in
accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see
through the differences.
However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present
evidence to the contrary, by all means do so!
gary F.
}Set thy heart upon thy work, but never upon its reward. [Bhagavad-Gita
2:47]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. I'll respond as briefly as I can, and we can proceed through personal e-mails if you like. First, an agreement: if you abstract all particularity--an example would be Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy--then, yes, most of the world's religious world views look somewhat alike. They all encourage us to get our egos out of the way to serve the Absolute, whether God or Brahma. But I suggest when you get down into the trenches, into the details where the devil lurks, the differences do matter. If you really believe that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see through the differences, in spite of all that has been written to the contrary by both eastern and western scholars, I doubt that anything I say will change your view. To deny what I said of the Bhagavad Gita, you have to deny what is written there. I've seen Ghandi's commentary, and whether he liked the Gita or not is irrelevant. He, in fact, treated the Mahabharata War as allegorical. But would he assert that the principle of selfless action as illustrated is wrong? If a real Arjuna argued with a real Krishna that killing all those people was unthinkably wrong, should he go with his ego rather than with god-defined dharma? Even as allegory, my point remains: Arjuna was not the author of the deaths of his kinsmen and others on the battle field, and had no responsibility for his actions. There was no him or his. That is all maya, an illusion of ego. How can there be personal responsibility in selfless action? But Ghandi's life provides a good illustration of the difference between East and West. Imagine the difference in outcome of his passive resistance had he not been dealing with the British but with an Arjuna of his own religion. Was Ghandi deficient in conscience? If he had one, yes. Arjuna had a conscience, and that was his problem. Conscience is a western ego-thing. Dharma knows no conscience. I should add, I don't think religion defines a culture. Ego is a human phenomenon; after all, eastern wisdom literature wasn't aimed at westerners, but at its own people. Enlightenment is probably as rare in the East as saints are in the West. But as ideals, different religions make great cultural differences. One of the most persistent mistakes the West makes in foreign relations is the pigs is pigs fallacy: people are people. I don't think there are any easy moral equivalencies to be made between traditional East and West. Obviously as secularization and western-style industrialization of the East proceeds (rapidly), the differences shrink. In my own views, I'm probably more Taoist than anything else, and I certainly don't think western culture is the Way to go. On the other hand, I think it is the western view of the individual life as valuable and to be nurtured in self actualization rather than exploited by the state that has given rise to the idea of human/civil rights/liberties that was not present in the traditional Orient. Bill Gary F wrote, in part: Bill, list, I'm surprised to see this part of your message though: [[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]] So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an oriental phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world. [[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]] No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier (2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience? As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see through the differences. However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present evidence to the contrary,
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill and Gary, Bill Bailey wrote: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. However, Gary's comment that he sees a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism suggests that there may indeed be reasons for continuing this discussion here. In any event, it has been a most interesting discussion so far with excellent points made by both of you. As it stands it feels to me to be something of a draw. So I hope you will both consider continuing your discussion here (you might try changing the Subject of the thread if you do). Gary R. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary R. The bhodisattva relinquishes escape from the great wheel of death and birth and union with the Absolute to help others achieve enlightenment. Thus the bhodisattva is reborn again and again into the world of suffering with no reward except doing the work. About the only western equivalent I can think of is a Christian refusing at death to go to heaven so long as there lost souls in Hell, and going to Hell to save them. Such selflessness is probably beyond most westerners unless they become a Buddhist monk or priest, preferably at an early age. And if they became bhodisattvas, we'd never know; the existence of such persons is an article of faith. From what I've read, Peirce doesn't strike me as being of the bhodisattva temperament, but I'm a long way from making competent pronouncements about Peirce. I think the appropriate thing for the list is for Gary F to elaborate on the close parallels he finds between Peirce's ideal of scientific method and the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. As you point out, that is very much on topic. Bill Bailey Bill and Gary, Bill Bailey wrote: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. However, Gary's comment that he sees a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism suggests that there may indeed be reasons for continuing this discussion here. In any event, it has been a most interesting discussion so far with excellent points made by both of you. As it stands it feels to me to be something of a draw. So I hope you will both consider continuing your discussion here (you might try changing the Subject of the thread if you do). Gary R. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.10/459 - Release Date: 9/29/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[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 thattakenindividually 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 aboutmy misleading metaphors, etc. Thanks for two very helpful posts. Picking up onyour 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 directapprehension of reality. In essence perceptionis the process by which one becomesimpressed 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 Ithink 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 bywhich one is able to mediate between these two modes of existence. Unfortunately, as you point out,one canget lost in thought (or without it) andthus weare best served not by some form of degenerate representation (minimizing either the iconic, indexical --or mediativecomponent) but bya full blown common sense form ofreasoning 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 referentiallysettlement, and method three an overlyrationalistic form of settlement at the expense ofthe other two. I think that Peirce did not intend that we take the lst three methods as examples of belieffixationwhichfolks actually employ in their pure form. By itself each method is not aexample of symbolic or representational thought but of something more akin toa degenerative form of representation. So, I thinkPeirce intended them asexaggerationsin order to illustrate degenerative ways ofrepresentation and inaequate ways of belief fixation or settlement of doubt. What he did wasto 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 pretendwe 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 areproperly and consistently the foundation of allhe 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
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Bill, As always I enjoyed your straightforward, informative and wise comments.You have a way of keeping my feet on the ground without destroying the fun of having my head in the clouds(to pick one of the nicer places I've been accused ofhaving my head).I hope I did not create the impression that I devalued any of the methods of fixing belief that Peirce described. I don't think he intended to devalue them either. Nor did I mean to put science on a pedestal.Not that it needs any commendation from me. I think science isa formalization ofthe method of common sense which (to borrow Joe's apt description) includes the distinctiveelements ofeach method.I believe that common sense is the way all humans in all cultureshave at all times represented and participated in theworld. We are all symbolic creatures and we all feel, will, andinterpretthe world with symbols whether wecall one another primitive or advanced.I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings. A form with no feeling is a phantom, an other with no resistence does not exist and thought that does not mediate is empty verbiage. The danger arises out of our ability tomisrepresent. We are all fundmentally alike and cut from the same cloth.LOL--I'm of a mind to go off on a swoon about the commonality of humanity but I fear getting called on givingfacile lip service to something I don't practice. Oh, the feral children. Hell, I don't even believe the accounts. Well I should say I don't believe the labels. Most of them sound to me like accounts of severely retarded children who have been hidden away by families. Countless severely retarded children have grown up in relatively caring institutions with the same outcome. But I agree with your point, IF a child could survive past a weekalone in the woodsor a closet, the childstill would not develop language etc -- It's the preposterous IFthat makes me dismiss these as crack pot accounts that have somehow emerged from the tabloids for 15mins of manistream press. And occassionally the attention of some devoted researcherwho ends up wanting toadopt the child.But I don't mean to be cruel. Fact is, I don't know the detailed facts of any of these cases.And I digress --- unaccustomed as I am to public digressions Best wishes, Jim Piat - Original Message - From: Bill Bailey To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 2:42 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Jim, Joe, List: This discussion brought to mind the comparison by Claud Levi-Strauss of "primitive" thought and that of western science. I think the discussion is in The Savage Mind. Levi-Strauss argues that there is no real difference in terms of complexity between "primitive" and scientific thought; he found the primitive's categories and structurings in botany, for example, to be as complex as any western textbook might offer. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Jim, I'd be the first to characterize the reports on the feral children as "iffy." But have you read the account of "Genie"? She was aCalifornia child who was kept in isolation in an upstairs room, strapped for hour to a potty (whether I spell it with a "Y" or an "IE," it doesn't look right)chair because her father was ashamed of her because of some deficit he assigned to her hip. I was fortunate enough to be in Arizona whenthe World Health Organization had its conventionthere, and it featured an earlyreport on Genieby the psychologist who was also a foster-family member for her. There followed a book by the language therapist, Susan Curtiss,who worked with Genie. As I recall, it was titledGenie. The professionals describing Genie's behavior and progress--or lack of it--are remarkably similar to the lay reports of "feral" children. I think there is a time frame for language learning. As for your post, it wasn't my intention to provide any form of corrective; I'm not competent to do that. I was simply noting my response to the discussion andsaying that Peirce's "laws" made sense to me. However, I will question this statement in your response: "I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings." One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where lifehashistorically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humansnearly routine. A modern example is Maoistpurges and the rape and pillage ofTibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. I would argue that it is the traditional value of the autonomous individual by the western world which causes us angst over an atrocity that would not raise an eyebrow even today in some "all is one" parts of the world.Where all is one, no aspect of the whole is of much consequence. For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita?So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. Bill Bailey - Original Message - From: Jim Piat To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Dear Bill, As always I enjoyed your straightforward, informative and wise comments.You have a way of keeping my feet on the ground without destroying the fun of having my head in the clouds(to pick one of the nicer places I've been accused ofhaving my head).I hope I did not create the impression that I devalued any of the methods of fixing belief that Peirce described. I don't think he intended to devalue them either. Nor did I mean to put science on a pedestal.Not that it needs any commendation from me. I think science isa formalization ofthe method of common sense which (to borrow Joe's apt description) includes the distinctiveelements ofeach method.I believe that common sense is the way all humans in all cultureshave at all times represented and participated in theworld. We are all symbolic creatures and we all feel, will, andinterpretthe world with symbols whether wecall one another primitive or advanced.I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings. A form with no feeling is a phantom, an other with no resistence does not exist and thought that does not mediate is empty verbiage. The danger arises out of our ability tomisrepresent. We are all fundmentally alike and cut from the same cloth.LOL--I'm of a mind to go off on a swoon about the commonality of humanity but I fear getting called on givingfacile lip service to something I don't practice. Oh, the feral children. Hell, I don't even believe the accounts. Well I should say I don't believe the labels. Most of them sound to me like accounts of severely retarded children who have been hidden away by families. Countless severely retarded children have grown up in relatively caring institutions with the same outcome. But I agree with your point, IF a child could survive past a weekalone in the woodsor a closet, the childstill would not develop language etc -- It's the preposterous IFthat makes me dismiss these as crack pot accounts that have somehow emerged from the tabloids for 15mins of manistream press. And occassionally the attention of some devoted researcherwho ends up wanting toadopt the child.But I don't mean to be cruel. Fact is, I don't know the detailed facts of any of these cases.And I digress --- unacc
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, I included some comments in the middle -- Jim, I'd be the first to characterize the reports on the feral children as "iffy." But have you read the account of "Genie"? She was aCalifornia child who was kept in isolation in an upstairs room, strapped for hour to a potty (whether I spell it with a "Y" or an "IE," it doesn't look right)chair because her father was ashamed of her because of some deficit he assigned to her hip. I was fortunate enough to be in Arizona whenthe World Health Organization had its conventionthere, and it featured an earlyreport on Genieby the psychologist who was also a foster-family member for her. There followed a book by the language therapist, Susan Curtiss,who worked with Genie. As I recall, it was titledGenie. The professionals describing Genie's behavior and progress--or lack of it--are remarkably similar to the lay reports of "feral" children. I think there is a time frame for language learning. --- Dear Bill, I think you are probably right about there being a critical period for the acquisition of language. And I appologize for the flip tone of my comments onimpaired children and those who care about them. Everyone is precious and I admire those whoare devoted to helpingothers. Even while being a bit of a self centered SOB myself. I think you are also rightabout the dangers of a world view that doesn't repect the individual. However I'm not convinced that a high regard for what we all have in common (or mostly in common),is to blame forMao's or Hitler's horrific conduct. I think these folks suffered from a degenerate form of respect for the individual -- the only individuals they respectedwere themselves and to a lesser degree those others in whom they saw a reflection of themselves. I think they lacked a respect for humanity in general as well as for most other individuals.I think both the individual and the group are worthy of respect. We are individuals and members of a species. Neither aspect of us can survive without the other. I think I my earlier post was unbalanced. I just reread your comments below. I don't think preaching humility equates with condoning murder. Or that non westerners lack a concern for individual suffering. I think the key to peaceful relationsis respect for others -- individually and collectively. Westerner and non westerner alike. Still, to conclude on a balanced note -- I agree that I went too far in the direction of stressing our commonality in my last post. And that your comments here are awelcome corrective (intended as such or not). Thanks Bill for another interesting informative and fun post. Jim Piat As for your post, it wasn't my intention to provide any form of corrective; I'm not competent to do that. I was simply noting my response to the discussion andsaying that Peirce's "laws" made sense to me. However, I will question this statement in your response: "I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings." One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where lifehashistorically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humansnearly routine. A modern example is Maoistpurges and the rape and pillage ofTibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. I would argue that it is the traditional value of the autonomous individual by the western world which causes us angst over an atrocity that would not raise an eyebrow even today in some "all is one" parts of the world.Where all is one, no aspect of the whole is of much consequence. For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita?So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. Bill Bailey --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Joe, What you say below is all very interesting to me. I hope you do give another go at writing up how lst three methodsexemplify some of the major ways in which our problem solving goes astray. I think the three methods (while each having an attractive virtue) if used exclusively or even in some sort of mechanistic combination often cause more problems then they solve. They are pseudo solutions to lifes problems because each denies some fundamental aspect of reality -- either the self , the other or what mediates between the two. Or to put it another way -- feeling, will, or thought. In anycase you seem to be in an inspired mood and I hope you press on. Just now for example the whole country seems at a loss for what to do about the Mid East. I wonder how the approach you are thinking about might be applied intrying to solveproblems on that scale as well as in analyzing the problems of our individual lives. And not just interpersonal problems, the problems weface with our enviroment as well. Best wishes, Jim Piat - Original Message - 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] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[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 multiplebeliefs 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. Inother wordsthe three issues being juggledas 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, butthe term observationis 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 paperdescribes thethe 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 individualrealism takenat face value (tenacity).Countered bythe 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 subjectivitywhich 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 toput my two cents in the discussion. Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Folks, Part of what I'm trying to say is that its not as though the scientific method were an entirely independent alternative to the other three methods. On the contrary the scientific method is built upon and incorporates the other three methods. The lst threeare not discredited methods they are the building blocks of the scienfic method. What gives sciences its power is that in combining the three methods (plus the emphasis upon observation -- which can or can not be part of the method of tenacity)it gives a more reliable basis for belief than any of the other three methods alone. But as for one and two -- yes I'd say they are the basis of the whole structure. Tenacity and authority can both include reason and observation. So if we include reason and observation in the lst two then we have all the elements of the scientific method. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
is 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.eduSent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:45:17 AMSubject: [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 multiplebeliefs 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. Inother wordsthe three issues being juggledas 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, butthe term observationis 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 paperdescribes thethe 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 individualrealism takenat face value (tenacity).Countered bythe 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 subjectivitywhic
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
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 [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ - Original Message From: Jim Piat [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:56:39 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Dear Folks,Part of what I'm trying to say is that its not as though the scientific method were an entirely independent alternative to the other three methods. On the contrary the scientific method is built upon and incorporates the other three methods. The lst threeare not discredited methods they are the building blocks of the scienfic method. What gives sciences its power is that in combining the three methods (plus the emphasis upon observation -- which can or can not be part of the method of tenacity)it gives a more reliable basis for belief than any of the other three methods alone. But as for one and two -- yes I'd say they are the basis of the whole structure. Tenacity and authority can both include reason and observation. So if we include reason and observation in the lst two then we have all the elements of the scientific method. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary, Joe, et al.
With circularity, I think you'll have to consider, what Peirce wrote of taking up the same premisses again and again in cyclical systems, e.g. cyclical algebra. That is not circulum vitiosum. The same premisses take on new meanings, with a new context, that's how I've interpreted the idea.
To Peice, meaning IS contextual.
Kirsti Määttänen
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25.9.2006 kello 20:55, gnusystems kirjoitti:
Joe, thanks for that pointer to Jeff Kasser's paper; it clears up many
of the questions i've had lately about what Peirce meant by
psychologism (and psychology).
However i'm inclined to question Jeff's emphasis (in the middle of the
paper) on the circularity of psychologistic approaches to logic as a
crucial component of Peirce's antipsychologism. I think there's an
important sense in which the logic of science -- the logic that Peirce
was mainly interested in -- *has* to be circular, or rather cyclical. I
won't go into that here, but i will point out a circularity in Peirce
which i think would be rather damning if all circles were vicious.
Jeff quotes W2 270-1, CP 5.354, EP1 81 [1869]:
[[[ [L]ogic rigidly requires, before all else, that no determinate fact,
nothing which can happen to a man's self, should be of more consequence
to him than everything else. He who would not sacrifice his own soul to
save the whole world, is illogical in all his inferences, collectively.
So the social principle is intrinsically rooted in logic. ]]]
Now, compare this with a clearly recycled version from 1878 (EP1, 149;
CP 2.654):
[[[ It seems to me that we are driven to this, that logicality
inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must
not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. This
community, again, must not be limited, but must extend to all races of
beings with whom we can come into immediate or mediate intellectual
relation. It must reach, however vaguely, beyond this geological epoch,
beyond all bounds. He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the
whole world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences,
collectively. Logic is rooted in the social principle. ]]]
The social principle is rooted in logic, and logic is rooted in the
social principle. If that ain't circular, what is?
gary
}Who guides those whom God has led astray? [Qur'an 30:29 (Cleary)]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Coming out of hibernation this is one hell of an interesting thread, but I've not had time to put in my contribution because my time is consumed with various projects. So I'll put in my 0.02 cents worth now. What more compelling factor in fixation of belief is there than the mind-body unity of all the mind-bodies (of our body-cells) that come together in the one mind-body that is self? What about all the little animals (neurons) that are having to contend with their own habits? Surely the group-habits of the cells of which we are composed will establish an attractor (chaos theory) that will lock us into fixed ideas until we can get the whole team (of cells) to agree to a new set of habits? People can incorporate new ideas swiftly, so long as these new ideas are not in fact new, but expressions of an EXISTING logic-set. It's easy to change political opinions, for example, if we know what the different political parties are about - but this understanding of political parties emerges over a long period of time. But step outside of what we know, and the fixation of belief, courtesy of the habits of the critters of which we are comprised, will have a lot of momentum that is not changed easily. A truly new idea will take some considerable time to emerge, especially within a new logical framework that is establishing itself. In other words, we are dealing more with the momentum of tornadoes and hurricanes rather than logic-switching of circuits. That's my 0.02 cents worth. Back to my projects... __ Newton's Laws of Emotion: http://members.iinet.net.au/~tramont/biosem.html There can be no complexity without simplicity. Stephen Springette __ --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Title: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Pei Kristi, Yes indeed, I'm thinking of growth logically. This is why I don't think (at least am not convinced by any argument I've seen) that there is much to be gained by looking at the order of different methods of fixation chiefly in psychic or psychological terms. We can certainly conceive the logical possibility of a monadic mind, however we need to remember that for Peirce mind (human or not) is Third since the Law of Mind is the law of habit-taking. A monadic mind would therefore be a mind in an entirely different sense, it would be a mind that cannot grow, that cannot form habits; it would be the mere possibility of a mind, one where the law of mind would be a mere incohate possibility. cheers, Martin Lefebvre Martin, Joe, et al., 25.9.2006 kello 19:40, martin lefebvre kirjoitti: I consider the Fixation essay to be organized around a sort of development/growth principle that leads to the scientific method as the method of choice of reason. I believe that growth here can be thought of categorially. Yes, I agree, absolutely. But still, the principle of growth can be viewed as predominantly a logical order, or predominantly as a metaphysical order, or as a psychic order ( the term 'psychic' to be understood here in contradistinction to 'psychological' - which is a distinction Peirce at least once made - a distinction I've interpreted as: the former referring to philosophy of mind, and the latter referring to the empirical science called 'psychology'.) From the following, it seems to me you are considering the logical order: The method of tenacity works as long as the individual is considered monadically (the social impulse must be held in check) and as long as there is no attempt to examine a belief against experience. A monadic mind (what could that be???)... A monadic mind is something we can think of, so it's a logical possibility, it is conceivable, irrespective of whether any such (human) mind would exist. Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Joe, Kirsti, list,
[[ Well, Gary, it looks like some fancy footwork with the term is
rooted in might have to be resorted to if we are to save Peirce on this
one! You've caught him with a flat contradiction there! ]]
Personally i think the contradiction is more apparent than flat. As i
said (and i think Kirsti said the same), this is not circulum vitiosum
but a pattern which underlies inquiry and therefore can only be itself
investigated via a cyclical process.
The social principle is implicit in explicit (formal) logic, *and*
logic/semeiotic is implicit in the social principle. (Though Peirce
would not have put it that way in 1869 or 1878.) The social
principle is intrinsically rooted in logic (1869) because recognition
of others as experiencing beings is a special case of seeing a
difference between phenomenon and reality, or between sign and object --
or between soul and world, to use the terms Peirce uses in both of
these passages. Logic begins with the revelation of a real world out
there beyond phenomenal consciousness. Logic is rooted in the social
principle (1878) in that it explicates the relationship between
experience and reality, which it cannot do prior to the developmental
stage at which the difference between the two is recognized -- a stage
accessible only to *social* animals who can handle symbolic signs. (The
method of tenacity is, in a sense, a reversion to an earlier stage of
development even though it is also a social stance.)
So i don't think Peirce needs to be saved; or if he does, it's only
because (like a bodhisattva) he has sacrificed his own soul to save the
whole world.
gary F.
}To seek Buddhahood apart from living beings is like seeking echoes by
silencing sounds. [Layman Hsiang]{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary, Joe, Kirsti, list,
Personally i think the contradiction is more apparent than flat. As i
said (and i think Kirsti said the same), this is not circulum vitiosum
but a pattern which underlies inquiry and therefore can only be itself
investigated via a cyclical process.
I have to agree. The more I read of Peirce, the more I see loops of reasoning -
loops, networks, call it what you will. In fact it only seems to jive with his
thinking, especially showing itself when he gets knee-deep in relative logic.
The circle has less to do with circular reasoning than with being able to
define even the simplest conceptions via the logic of relations (5.207).
A bit like the hermeneutic circle of Heidegger - the structure of meaning, and
of Dasein itself, looping back on itself and forming a system (H. 153 of Being
and Time). So far as I know, Heidegger never read Peirce, but they seem to be
touching on the same thing.
Circles in reasoning must be demonstrated to be truly vicious; I'm not
convinced that this one is.
best,
jacob
Original-Nachricht
Datum: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 09:35:29 -0400
Von: gnusystems [EMAIL PROTECTED]
An: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu
Betreff: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce
referring to?
Joe, Kirsti, list,
[[ Well, Gary, it looks like some fancy footwork with the term is
rooted in might have to be resorted to if we are to save Peirce on this
one! You've caught him with a flat contradiction there! ]]
Personally i think the contradiction is more apparent than flat. As i
said (and i think Kirsti said the same), this is not circulum vitiosum
but a pattern which underlies inquiry and therefore can only be itself
investigated via a cyclical process.
The social principle is implicit in explicit (formal) logic, *and*
logic/semeiotic is implicit in the social principle. (Though Peirce
would not have put it that way in 1869 or 1878.) The social
principle is intrinsically rooted in logic (1869) because recognition
of others as experiencing beings is a special case of seeing a
difference between phenomenon and reality, or between sign and object --
or between soul and world, to use the terms Peirce uses in both of
these passages. Logic begins with the revelation of a real world out
there beyond phenomenal consciousness. Logic is rooted in the social
principle (1878) in that it explicates the relationship between
experience and reality, which it cannot do prior to the developmental
stage at which the difference between the two is recognized -- a stage
accessible only to *social* animals who can handle symbolic signs. (The
method of tenacity is, in a sense, a reversion to an earlier stage of
development even though it is also a social stance.)
So i don't think Peirce needs to be saved; or if he does, it's only
because (like a bodhisattva) he has sacrificed his own soul to save the
whole world.
gary F.
}To seek Buddhahood apart from living beings is like seeking echoes by
silencing sounds. [Layman Hsiang]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/gnoxic.htm }{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Kirsti Mtt��nen kirstima at saunalahti.fi writes: Dear Eugene, Thanks for an inspiring mail. The idea of a progressively broadening social conception I find a very fruitful one, enriching the idea of a logical ordering. This, together with your exhilarating thought-experiment with an evolutionary-historical progression, definitely made some thoughts I was not quite in the clear with, more clear. But I cannot see that the social should be excluded from the method of tenacity in the way you state: ��A tenaciously held belief is still social, as any habit is. Yet the social is excluded from the method of tenacity. What you believe by tenacity may also be social and learned, or perhaps social and instinctive, but believed in because you simply continue to believe in it, regardless of others' beliefs. Take for example the way things are nowadays in scientific communities, which is no way really furthering finding out truth. It's arranged according to the belief that maximal competition (between individuals) ensures that the 'best ones' win. Well, 'the best ones' in that view may win, but the truth certainly is not a winner. - Anyway, the method of tenacity is bound in this context to become one individuals with some success are pressed to resort to. Because if anything fundamental to the work of that individual is convincingly questioned, and so threatened, the whole career may be at stake. It does not make any difference, whether the person in question has primarily the truth as a personal motivating aim, or the just the aim of a fine career, winning others presents itself either as the means, or as the aim. In Economy of Reseach (or thus titled in CP) Peirce sees the only way of really furthering the finding out of the truth in the practice of just funding generously a lot of people. With a rational HOPE, but nothing more sure, that some of them, but some ones which cannot be identified in advance, will produce something worth funding the whole lot. Well, it's a long time since I read that piece. But I've had the opportunity for a good many years to be a part of a (quite small) research institute with absolutely no problems with funds. Within a short time it became internationally acknowledged as the leading institute in the field, as well as highly appreciated outside the special field. Then various things happened, and with them the 'normal' scarcity of funding started. Within a VERY short time followed a deep decay in level of research. I also had the opportunity to discuss with one of the persons in charge of the so called 'golden coller' department in the Finnish company Nokia, which some you may know, before the stupendous success the company later achieved. The principles were the same, except somewhat less rational. They acted on a principle based on spending money on individuals, based on decisions made in upper departments in the hierachy. So they were just sloshing around money, irrationally. At the institute I was a member, all decisions were discussed. But there was no pressure to make them look like reasonable to the outside. One of my favorite quotes from that particular piece used to be the metaphor by Peirce: Burning diamonds instead of coal to produce heat. Thanks again, Kirsti Kirsti Mtt��nen kirstima at saunalahti.fi Dear Kirsti, If I understand your criticism that the social should not be excluded from the method of tenacity, you are saying that much research today goes on under Darwin-like survival of the fittest rules: research by tenacity in a competitive social milieu, individuals forced by the game to stick to their prior thought which gave them their success. It seems to me somewhat similar to the description of Isolato tenacity I gave. Are you saying that through the competitive social milieu, in pushing individuals into tenacity, the social is thereby ingredient in the method of tenacity? Or that methodically tenacious individuals, in aiming for competitive social success, thereby reveal the social within the method of tenacity? I'm not sure. It seems to me such individuals can be characterized as aiming for power through whatever means, and would fit the method of authority. I characterized it in my previus post as: 2 You believe what you are forced by social power to believe or can force on others to believe. By force here I would include social legitimation, the power politics of cliques, peer reviews, etc., and not only police. Or maybe I should soften what I said in previous post to viewing the social as only indirectly involved in the method of tenacity? Tenacity seems to me to be about imposing one's way on experience. I am also familiar with the funding approach you describe, through some encounters with the MacArthur Foundation way back. I spent one evening with Jonas Salk and Rod MacArthur (shortly before he
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, Joe, list, Well, the Pluto example is an intriguing one. BB: The experiential evolution in the conception of Pluto as a planet can be described as the new information that surprised even the scientists. This scenario seems to me to fit pretty well Peirce's sketch of the way things necessarily happen in social groups. But it also involves features I wonder how Peirce would work out in the terms of his sketch, In some news source, I saw the vote of the astronomers hailed as a triumph of science over romance. And so it appears at first glance. But what we have an instance of tenacity (This is how we have always defined a planet,) propped up by the authority of science, the community of investigators. We can certainly say there has been an advance in information. But has there been an evolutionary advance in the mode of conception, or just a shift in whose conceptions are valued? Has there been an evolutionary advance in the mode of conception? A good question. To my mind Peirce would certainly not had applauded at a decision by vote. What is at stake here, is a possible change (or need for a change) in more fundamental issues, those of nominalistic or realistic stance. In other words, is the basic issue about definitions? Or is it about something, which shows that definitions do not play the part they are commonly thought to play in nominalistic way of thinking. Which brings to mind how Peirce criticized the common modern view of geometry as based on definitions, not on what is undoubtedly hold to be true of things ( somewhere in vol.3 of CP). So to me it seems. on the basis of the information provided by you, that this case was just a shift in whose conceptions are valued, decided in the way constitutive to modern gallup-democracy (which I view as a twisted and peculiar mode of the method of authority). Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Joe, Thanks for your response and the quote. On second thoughts, informed with the quote you provided, some kind of evolution seems to be involved. But, being evolution of a conception, it must be of logical nature. I can't see how it could hold as a hypothesis of evolution of either individual or social development. Social comes first, no question about it. But it might be fruitful to think of the principle of ordering the methods this way in terms of critical thought involved. The method of tenacity, by definition, involves none. The method of authority may involve some, though not necessarily by the believer, but by the authority. It is not excluded, by definition, that the authority in question may have arrived at the belief by a process involving critical thought, as well as having gained the authority for a reason. Well, I don't know. Don't remember Peirce ever writing along these lines. But it is an ordering of intellectual enditions. So the method of tenacity would imply a conscious belief, in contrast to all the beliefs forced upon us by experience which we are not aware we are holding. CP 5.524 ...For belief, while it lasts, is a strong habit, and, as such forces the man to believe until some surprise breaks the habit. Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]> 25.9.2006 kello 02:02, Joseph Ransdell kirjoitti: Dear Kirsti:: I'm short on time today and can't really answer you until tomorrow, but I ran across a llater passage in Peirce in wihch he describes what he was doing earlier, in the Fixation article, as follows. (I'm just quotting it, for what \it's worth , at the moment and will get back with you tomorrow, when I have some free time again. In a manuscript c. 1906 which was printed in the Collected Papers at 5.564, Peirce describes The Fixation of Bellief (1877) as starting out from the proposition that the agitation of a question ceases only when satisfaction is attaned with the settlement of belief, and then goes on to consider how: ...the conception of truth gradually develops from that principle under the action of experience; beginning with willful belief, or self-mendacity [i.e. the method of tenacity], the most degraded of all intellectual cnditions; thence rising to the imposition of beliefs by the authority of organized society [the method of authority]; then to the idea of a settlement of opinion as the result of a fermentation of ideas [the a priori method]; and finally reaching the idea of truth as overwelmingly forced upon the mind in experience as the effect of an independent reality [the method of reason or science, or, as he also calls it,in How to Make Our Ideas Clear, the method of experience]. My words are in brackets Joe Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 8:50:46 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to? Joe Bill, Joe, I agree with Bill in that I do not see any reason why the order of the methods of tenacity and that of authority should be reversed. But that wasn't the impulse which caused me to start writing this response :). It was the two fundamental psychological laws on the title you gave, which caught my attention. Anyway, you wrote: > JR: ...exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the > second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have > the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be > authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried > to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't > recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory > on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much > interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of > something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I > believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible? And later in the discussion you wrote: JR: Well, I was thinking of the argument one might make that social consciousness is prior to consciousness of self, and the method of tenacity seems to me to be motivated by the value of self-integrity, the instinctive tendency not to give up on any part of oneself, and one's beliefs are an important aspect of what one tends to think of when one thinks of one's identity. To my mind the logic in the order Peirce is here following is based on the degree of 'goodness' of methods, not on motives, or order in evolution, or any other kind of (logical) order. And the goodness has to do with 'summum bonum, the ultimate aim and purpose, which is not necessarily an aim or a purpose held by any (one) individual person. So, the method of tenacity, in spite of being the lowest in degree of goodness, IS STILL A CONSISTENT METHOD. Which,
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Kristi, Joe, list:
The human is a social animal, born into a social group
which typically has a full array of habits, customs in place. That strikes
me as a given. "We've always done it that way, and that's the way it will
be done" seems to me what Peirce is talking about as tenacity propped up by
authority. And that too strikes me as a given, even in this empirical,
secular society where tenacity and authority are currently clashing over
Pluto.Peirces "community of investigators"(is that his term?),
the astronomers, settled it with a vote. The experiential evolution in the
conception of Pluto as a planet can be described as the new information that
surprised even the scientists. This scenario seems to me to fit pretty
well Peirce's sketch of the way things necessarily happen in social
groups. But it also involves features I wonder how Peirce wouldwork
outin the terms of his sketch, In some news source, I saw the vote
of the astronomers hailed as a triumph of science over romance. And so it
appears at first glance. But what we have an instance of tenacity ("This
is how we have always defined a planet,") propped up by the authority of
science, the community of investigators.We can certainly say there has
been an advance in information. But has there been an evolutionary advance
in the mode of conception, or just a shift in whose conceptions are
valued?
Dear Joe,Thanks for your response and the quote. On second
thoughts, informed with the quote you provided, some kind of evolution seems to
be involved. But, being evolution of a conception, it must be of logical nature.
I can't see how it could hold as a hypothesis of evolution of either individual
or social development. Social comes first, no question about it.But it
might be fruitful to think of the principle of ordering the methods this way in
terms of critical thought involved. The method of tenacity, by definition,
involves none. The method of authority may involve some, though not necessarily
by the believer, but by the authority. It is not excluded, by definition, that
the authority in question may have arrived at the belief by a process involving
critical thought, as well as having gained the authority for a reason.
Well, I don't know. Don't remember Peirce ever writing along these
lines. But it is an ordering of "intellectual enditions". So the method of
tenacity would imply a conscious belief, in contrast to all the beliefs forced
upon us by experience which we are not aware we are holding. CP 5.524
""...For belief, while it lasts, is a strong habit, and, as such forces the man
to believe until some surprise breaks the habit."
Kirsti
Määttänen[EMAIL PROTECTED]25.9.2006
kello 02:02, Joseph Ransdell kirjoitti:Dear
Kirsti::
I'm
short on time today and can't really answer you until tomorrow, but I
ran across a llater passage in Peirce in wihch he describes what he
was doing earlier, in the Fixation article, as follows. (I'm
just quotting it, for what \it's worth , at the moment and will get back
with you tomorrow, when I have some free time again.In
a manuscript c. 1906 which was printed in the Collected Papers at 5.564,
Peirce describes "The Fixation of Bellief" (1877) as starting out from the
proposition that "the agitation of a question" ceases only when satisfaction
is attaned with the settlement of belief, and then goes on to consider how: "...the
conception of truth gradually develops from that principle under the
action of experience; beginning with willful belief, or self-mendacity [i.e.
the method of tenacity], the most degraded of all intellectual cnditions;
thence rising to the imposition of beliefs by the authority of organized
society [the method of authority]; then to the idea of a settlement of
opinion as the result of a fermentation of ideas [the a priori method]; and
finally reaching the idea of truth as overwelmingly forced upon the mind in
experience as the effect of an independent reality [the method of reason or
science, or, as he also calls it,in How to Make Our Ideas Clear, the method
of experience]."My
words are in bracketsJoe
Ransdell[EMAIL PROTECTED]-
Original Message From:
Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]To:
Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent:
Sunday, September 24, 2006 8:50:46 AMSubject:
[peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Joe
Bill,Joe,
I agree with Bill in that I do not see any reason why the order of the
methods of tenacity and that of authority should be reversed. But that
wasn't the impulse which caused me to start writing this response :).
It was "the two fundamental psychological laws" on the title you gave,
which caught my attention. An
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
to it
and to it alone, and which has nothing mysterious or vague about it. In
like manner, it may be admitted that a genuine investigation is
undertaken to resolve the doubts of the investigator. But observe this:
no sensible man will be void of doubt as long as persons as competent
to judge as himself differ from him. Hence to resolve his own doubts is
to ascertain to what position sufficient research would carry all men.
For attaining this unanimous accord,--this catholic confession,--two plans have been pursued.
The first, simplest, and most usual is to adhere pertinaciously to some
opinion and endeavour to unite all men upon it. The means of bringing
men to agree to such a fixed opinion are an efficient organization of
men who will devote themselves to propagating it, working upon the
passions of mankind, and gaining an ascendency over them by keeping
them in ignorance. In order to guard against all temptation to abandon
his opinion, a man must be careful what he reads and must learn to
regard his belief as holy, to be indignant at any questioning of it,
and especially to consider the senses as the chief means whereby Satan
gains access to the soul and as organs constantly to be mortified,
distrusted, and despised. With an unwavering determination thus to shut
himself off from all influences external to the society of those who
think with him, a man may root //opinions/faith// in himself
ineradicably; and a considerable body of such men, devoting all their
energies to the spread of their doctrines, may produce a great effect
under favourable circumstances. They and their followers may truly be
said to be not of this world. Their actions will often be inexplicable
to the rest of mankind, since they live in a world, which they will
call spiritual and others will call imaginary, with reference to which
their opinions are certainly perfectly true. The belief of one of these
men, though perhaps resulting in large measure from the force of
circumstances, will also be strengthened by a direct effort of the
will, and he should therefore consistently regard it as wrong-willed
and wicked to allow one's opinion to be formed, independently of what
one wishes to believe, by that play of Sense which the Devil puts in
one's way.
This method (which we may term the Divine, Spiritual, or Heavenly
method) will not serve the purpose of the Children of This World, since
the world in which they are interested has this peculiarity: that
things are not just as we choose to think them. Consequently, the
accord of those whose belief is determined by a direct effort of the
will, is not the unanimity which these persons seek.
===end Peirce quote==
I'll close this message and comment in a separate one/.
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Note new email address; old address at cox.net now defunct)
- Original Message From: Bill Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Monday, September 25, 2006 9:46:14 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Kristi, Joe, list:
The human is a social animal, born into a social group
which typically has a full array of habits, customs in place. That strikes
me as a given. "We've always done it that way, and that's the way it will
be done" seems to me what Peirce is talking about as tenacity propped up by
authority. And that too strikes me as a given, even in this empirical,
secular society where tenacity and authority are currently clashing over
Pluto.Peirces "community of investigators"(is that his term?),
the astronomers, settled it with a vote. The experiential evolution in the
conception of Pluto as a planet can be described as the new information that
surprised even the scientists. This scenario seems to me to fit pretty
well Peirce's sketch of the way things necessarily happen in social
groups. But it also involves features I wonder how Peirce wouldwork
outin the terms of his sketch, In some news source, I saw the vote
of the astronomers hailed as a triumph of science over romance. And so it
appears at first glance. But what we have an instance of tenacity ("This
is how we have always defined a planet,") propped up by the authority of
science, the community of investigators.We can certainly say there has
been an advance in information. But has there been an evolutionary advance
in the mode of conception, or just a shift in whose conceptions are
valued?
Dear Joe,Thanks for your response and the quote. On second
thoughts, informed with the quote you provided, some kind of evolution seems to
be involved. But, being evolution of a conception, it must be of logical nature.
I can't see how it could hold as a hypothesis of evolution of either individual
or social development. Social comes first, no question about it.But it
might be fruitful to think of the principle of ordering the methods this way in
terms of
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Title: [peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Pei Joe, Kristi, list, At the risk of offering a post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument, I'll try looking at the issue from the prespective of Peirce's more mature views. I consider the Fixation essay to be organized around a sort of development/growth principle that leads to the scientific method as the method of choice of reason. I believe that growth here can be thought of categorially. The method of tenacity works as long as the individual is considered monadically (the social impulse must be held in check) and as long as there is no attempt to examine a belief against experience. A monadic mind (what could that be???) would think what it thinks, irrespective of anything else. Of course, the individual (the self) is not a monad (see Colapietro's work on this) and the social impulse cannot be held in check forever. With the method of authority belief is achieved in relation to the belief of others (those in authority) -- not in relation to experience. There is a growing sense of dualism here with the introduction of others. With the third, a priori, method we find something interesting. This third method is far more intellectual and respectable from the point of view of reason than either of the others which we have noticed, says Peirce (italics mine). He adds, however: It makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste. Now, as you know, Peirce (much) later introduced esthetics to the normative sciences and saw both ethics and logic as requiring the help of esthetics. Esthetics being concerned with the formation of the summum bonum and of ideals or ends. Now there is a strong connection in Peirce between esthetics and abduction (and agapasticism), in the sense that the formation of ideals and the summum bonum lies on the latter's ability to attract us before we can even consider the consequences of adopting them with regards to conduct or thought either by way of imagination through deduction or concretely through induction. This requires insight (il lume naturale), the very principle for the (very) weak form of assurance we can get from abduction. Peirce tells us, in short, that it is rational for us to trust our guesses. Moreover, the Law of Mind explains that instinct, our ability to guess right, is itself subject to growth in concrete reasonableness. (The mind of God, for Peirce, is a mind whose guesses are all right guesses). All this to say that, in his later years, Peirce will be brought to recognize the third method of fixing belief (agreeableness to reason) as a keystone to the scientific method of experience. The problem is that this method, on its own, cannot distinguish between accidents and reality. This is why Peirce concludes that the only method likely to obtain a controlled (and growing) representation of reality is the scientific method. However, it seems that both the 3rd and 4th methods are related to the object (reality) through the mediation of reason (the 3rd method, however, only in a somewhat degenerate manner, through insight). Another way of saying it is to consider that neither of the first two methods imply indefinite growth whereas only the scientific method can approximate reality by mimicking (iconically) and being affected (indexically) by it (and not by accidents of another nature), understood that reality is that which is independent from us while idefinitely growing in concrete reasonableness (in kalos). At the time of writing Fixation it seems Peirce was not quite ready to see the full impact of the rationality of the 3rd method. Thus his rejection of it as relating to taste and his criticism of taste as being a matter of fashion. However, his realization that esthetics belongs to the normative sciences and that ethics and logic require its help a realization prepared in part by his cosmological writings -- may impact our retroactive reading of the Fixation essay. Thus it could be argued (here might lie the post hoc turn of the argument) that Peirce, in the way he ordered the 4 methods, was already manifesting some insight with regards to esthetics's connection to logic (though somewhat unwittingly)... Martin Lefebvre Dear Joe, Thanks for your response and the quote. On second thoughts, informed with the quote you provided, some kind of evolution seems to be involved. But, being evolution of a conception, it must be of logical nature. I can't see how it could hold as a hypothesis of evolution of either individual or social development. Social comes first, no question about it. But it might be fruitful to think of the principle of ordering the methods this way in terms of critical thought involved. The method of tenacity, by definition, involves none. The method of authority may involve some, though not necessarily by the believer, but by the authority. It is not excluded, by definition, that the authority in question may have arrived at the belief by a process involving critical
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Joe and list, It is difficult to tell exactly what those two psychological laws are from the text. (preceding the quote below) It is also difficult to frame them universally. Either we talk of all men at all times or some men at all times or all men at some time or another. I think we could talk of all men at some time or another"systematically keeping out of view all that might cause a change in his opinions." That is what needs explaining. The explanation is teleological. What causes people to avoid changing their opinions? Why do people avoid changing their opinions? Peirce says, 1. an instinctive dislike of an undecided state of mind makes men cling spasmodically to the views they already take. 2. a steady and immovable faith yields great peace of mind. (sec. 5 FOB) Pyrryo, of course,claimed that 'suspension' yields peace of mind. But this was only after the method of science or experiencewas brought to bear.Furthermore, an undecided state of mind motivates inquiry as much as it closes it down. Effectively, this reflects the problem of framing a law universally. How about "The truth is too painful." If the man following the "method of ostriches" knew this about himself, however,it is difficult to see how it could yield peace of mind. Can s/he coherently say "I am impervious to the truth and I am happy." What can be said here? In any case, I am not sure what the two psychological laws are. #1 looks like a candidate. Jim W -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu Sent: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 6:21 PM Subject: [peirce-l] What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? In "The Fixation of Belief" Peirce says that "a man may go through life,systematically keeping out of view all that might cause a change n his opinions, and if he only succeeds -- basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychologicl laws -- I do not see what can be said against his doing so". This is in Part V, where he is explaining the method of tenacity, where he then goes on to say that "the social impulse" will nevertheless somehow cause him, at times, to face up to some contradiction which impels recourse to adopting the second method, which is the method of authority. His explanation of this is very unsatisfactory, far too sketchy to be very informative, and I wonder if anyone has run across any place where he says anything that might flesh that out or, regardless of that, whether anyone has any plausible explanation themselves of exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible? Joe Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Check Out the new free AIM(R) Mail -- 2 GB of storage and industry-leading spam and email virus protection. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, Kirsti, et al: In my earlier message I mischaracterized the method he describes in MS 165. And of course what later becomes the fourth method or method of reason is only alluded to rather than described except in the last paragraph of this MS where he talks about "the Children of This World" in contrast with the "Divine, Spiritual, or Heavenly" world of the fundamentalists, the "Children of this world" being those who realize that "things are not just as we choose to think them", which is nearly equivalent to saying that they recognize that there is such a thing as reality, the recognition of which is of the essence of the fourth method, which Peirce defines in terms of that which is so regardless of what anyone thinks it to be. I was thinking of this simplistically as the method of tenacity, but in fact what he is describing includes both the tenacity component and the authority component and I would say that it also includes the a priori component as well, though what he means by the latter, in the Fixation article, is not easy to get completely clear on. Anyway, I think we can see how, after writing this, further rewrites by Peirce will show him recognizing that he needs to draw some further distinctions, which ends up finally as the four methods of the Fixation paper -- and there are many, many rewrites of this in the MS material, some of which is available in Writings 2 and 3 and some of which is available in Volume 7 of the Collected Papers (in the part called "The Logic of 1873"), which is somewhat misleadingly titled since Peirce was working on this text from the time of the MS presently in question from 1869-1870. If you go to the ARISBE website, you will see that on the page for the primary Peirce writings as made available there http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm I have arranged the material which the Peirce Edition Project has made available from Volume 2 of the Writings from that period (a few years earlier than the publication of the Fixation paper in l877) in a fairly perspicuous way and the development of his thinking on this can be traced through to some extent there in addition to what can be learned from what is available in the Collected Papers in Volume 7. But there is much MS material still available only in the unpublished manuscripts. Perhaps we can get copies of some of that transcribed and distributed in the next few weeks. (If anybody has an digitized transcriptions of that particular MS material, let me know and I will put it up on-line.) Joe Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Joseph Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Monday, September 25, 2006 11:10:36 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Bill, Kirsti, and list generally: Let's go back to a short MS from 1869-70 (available on-line, from Vol 2 of the Writings), which is the earliest MS I am aware of -- but not necessarily the earliest one there is -- in which we find Peirce explicitly approaching logic, in what is clearly a projected introductory logic text, from the perspective of logic as inquiry. In German "inquiry" would be "Forschung", as in Karl Popper's Logik der Forschung of 1914, which was disastrously -- for the course of logic in the 20th Century -- mistranslated as "Logic of Scientific Discovery". (More on that later.) The immediate point of interest is that in it we find Peirce working initially with only two methods, tenacy and what will later be called the "method of reason" or "method of science" or, in How to Make Our Ideas Clear, "the experiential method". It is short and I include the whole of it here and wll as follows: =quote Peirce http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/writings/v2/w2/w2_37/v2_37.htm Practical Logic (MS 165: 1869-70) Chapter I "All men naturally desire knowledge." This book is meant to minister to this passion primarily and secondarily to all interests that knowledge subserves. Here will be found maxims for estimating the validity and strength of arguments, and for deciding what facts ought to be examined in the investigation of a question. That the student may attain a real mastery of the art of thinking, it is necessary that the reasons for these maxims should be made clear to him, and that the maxims themselves should be woven into a harmonious code so as to be readily grasped by the mind. Logic or dialectic is the name of the science from which such rules are drawn. For right reasoning has evidently been the object of inquiry for Aristotle in all the books of the Organon except perhaps the first, as it was also that of the Stoics, of the Lawyers, of the medieval Summulists, and of modern students of Induction, in the additions which they have made to the doctrines of the Stagy
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Title: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Pei Martin -- and Bill: Martin, I find what you are saying both plausible and resulting in a gemerally consistent view. Something can be done, too, to put a more positive face on the first two methods, which need not be construed as negatively as Peirce does, e.g. by pointing out that tenacity, in spite of there being nothing that one can cite at a given time that supports one's viewand the evidence seems actually to be against it, this sort of stubborness seems to be a pretty important factor at times in winning through to a better view. Of course everything really depends on good judgment and being willing, finally, to give up on something. But there is a positive element in tenacity that needs to be identified and salvaged finally as part of the fourth method. And so also for authority, which is, in some cases, simply the overwhelming forcefulness of well-deserved good reputations. Peirce is definitely aware of this sort of thing. I ran across a passage within the past day or so that illustrates this and I'll see if I can find it again. Peirce is expressing a kind of scorn, as I recall, about scientists who are overly impressed by the recognition given in official commendations and awards and the like and says that the individual scientist has to be the best judge of his or her own competence. In other words, competence actually requires one's own ability to be the best judge of one's own competence, that is, one ought to regard the matter that way. I think though that you are probably right that it is only in the case of the third method that it even appears that we can reasonably talk about it as being a rational method, that being highly qualified, of course, by noting it as a "degenerate" form, as you suggest. That goes back to what Bill Bailey was saying about the decision about the planet Pluto being a committee decision. I think myself that it is not correct to say that they really did settle anything by making that decision. I mean their vote may well have the effect of bringing that change about, but this is simply a causal result, not a logical consequence, i.e. they didn't really decide to do anything other than to lend persuasional weight to what will turn out de facto to be accepted about Pluto from now on. I would argue myself -- have argued elsewhere -- that acceptance in science can mean only one thing, namely. the fact that future inquirers do in fact make use of the proposition in question as a premise or presupposition in their own futuire inquiry, essentially including that part of it which consists in making a public claim to a research conclusion which is put forward as based on the propositon in quesion in that way. Otherwise it makes no difference what any scientists say about Pluto's status. It is up to the future to determine whether the resolution to actually use the proposition in that way or not has the effect of actual such use of it. And of course the last word on that is never in. As it stands, the confusion about what is meant by "acceptance" in science -= and inhumanistic scholaraship, too -- is massive and sometimes grotesque, as when it is confused with gettting a paper accepted by a prestigious journal! Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] From Martin Lefebvre To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Monday, September 25, 2006 11:40:01 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe, Kristi, list, At the risk of offering a post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument, I'll try looking at the issue from the prespective of Peirce's more mature views. I consider the "Fixation" essay to be organized around a sort of development/growth principle that leads to the scientific method as the method of choice of reason. I believe that growth here can be thought of categorially. The method of tenacity "works" as long as the individual is considered monadically (the social impulse must be held in check) and as long as there is no attempt to examine a belief against experience. A "monadic" mind (what could that be???) would think what it thinks, irrespective of anything else. Of course, the individual (the self) is not a monad (see Colapietro's work on this) and the social impulse cannot be held in check forever. With the method of authority belief is achieved in relation to the belief of others (those in authority) -- not in relation to experience. There is a growing sense of dualism here with the introduction of "others". With the third, a priori, method we find something interesting. This third method is "far more intellectual and respectable from the point of view of reason than either of the others which we have noticed", says Peirce (italics mine). He adds, however: "It makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste". Now, as you know, Peirce (m
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Joe Bill, Joe, I agree with Bill in that I do not see any reason why the order of the methods of tenacity and that of authority should be reversed. But that wasn't the impulse which caused me to start writing this response :). It was the two fundamental psychological laws on the title you gave, which caught my attention. Anyway, you wrote: JR: ...exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible? And later in the discussion you wrote: JR: Well, I was thinking of the argument one might make that social consciousness is prior to consciousness of self, and the method of tenacity seems to me to be motivated by the value of self-integrity, the instinctive tendency not to give up on any part of oneself, and one's beliefs are an important aspect of what one tends to think of when one thinks of one's identity. To my mind the logic in the order Peirce is here following is based on the degree of 'goodness' of methods, not on motives, or order in evolution, or any other kind of (logical) order. And the goodness has to do with 'summum bonum, the ultimate aim and purpose, which is not necessarily an aim or a purpose held by any (one) individual person. So, the method of tenacity, in spite of being the lowest in degree of goodness, IS STILL A CONSISTENT METHOD. Which, if persisted in, will, in the long run (if the person persisting will live long enough), show to the person its truth or falsity. If false, it will be some kind of a nasty surprise to the person. If still persisted in, more nasty surprised are to follow. - Well, it might as well be a pleasant surprise. For example with the (common) belief that humans beings are by nature evil and egoistic. Being surprised in this way, according to my somewhat systematic observations, follows a different course. But Peirce does not give examples of this kind. But I do not see any justification given in this particular paper to: CSP: In judging this method of fixing belief, which may be called the method of authority, we must, in the first place, allow its immeasurable mental and moral superiority to the method of tenacity. It can only be the 'summum bonum', which could act as an (ultimate) justification in considering the method of authority as far superior to the method of tenacity. But Peirce does not take that up here. Anyway, the IF's in the following may be worth considering: CSP: If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit How I find, is, that these are the premisses from which Peirce proceeds in this chapter. So these give the perspective Peirce is here taking in view of the answers he offers, pertaining as well to the logic of the order of the methods in presenting them. As to the two fundamental psychological laws, I assume Peirce is referring to the laws he himself had arrived at stated. A relevant quote on this might be the following, where Peirce puts the question: How do we know that a belief is nothing but CP 5.28 ”... the deliberate preparedness to act according to the formula believed? My original article carried this back to a psychological principle. The conception of truth, according to me, was developed out of an original impulse to act consistently, to have a definite intention.” Which, by the time of writing, Peirce does not find satisfactory. For the reasons you stated in your later post, with which I agree. Best, Kirsti – Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Kirsti:: I'm short on time today and can't really answer you until tomorrow, but I ran across a llater passage in Peirce in wihch he describes what he was doing earlier, in the Fixation article, as follows. (I'm just quotting it, for what \it's worth , at the moment and will get back with you tomorrow, when I have some free time again. In a manuscript c. 1906 which was printed in the Collected Papers at 5.564, Peirce describes "The Fixation of Bellief" (1877) as starting out from the proposition that "the agitation of a question" ceases only when satisfaction is attaned with the settlement of belief, and then goes on to consider how: "...the conception of truth gradually develops from that principle under the action of experience; beginning with willful belief, or self-mendacity [i.e. the method of tenacity], the most degraded of all intellectual cnditions; thence rising to the imposition of beliefs by the authority of organized society [the method of authority]; then to the idea of a settlement of opinion as the result of a fermentation of ideas [the a priori method]; and finally reaching the idea of truth as overwelmingly forced upon the mind in experience as the effect of an independent reality [the method of reason or science, or, as he also calls it,in How to Make Our Ideas Clear, the method of experience]." My words are in brackets Joe Ransdell [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message From: Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 8:50:46 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Joe Bill,Joe, I agree with Bill in that I do not see any reason why the order of the methods of tenacity and that of authority should be reversed. But that wasn't the impulse which caused me to start writing this response :). It was "the two fundamental psychological laws" on the title you gave, which caught my attention. Anyway, you wrote: JR: "...exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible?And later in the discussion you wrote:JR:Well, I was thinking of the argument one might make that social consciousness is prior to consciousness of self, and the method of tenacity seems to me to be motivated by the value of self-integrity, the instinctive tendency not to give up on any part of oneself, and one's beliefs are an important aspect of what one tends to think of when one thinks of one's identity.To my mind the logic in the order Peirce is here following is based on the degree of 'goodness' of methods, not on motives, or order in evolution, or any other kind of (logical) order. And the goodness has to do with 'summum bonum", the ultimate aim and purpose, which is not necessarily an aim or a purpose held by any (one) individual person.So, the method of tenacity, in spite of being the lowest in degree of goodness,IS STILL A CONSISTENT METHOD. Which, if persisted in, will, in the long run (if the person persisting will live long enough), show to the person its truth or falsity.If false, it will be some kind of a nasty surprise to the person. If still persisted in, more nasty surprised are to follow.- Well, it might as well be a pleasant surprise. For example with the (common) belief that humans beings are by nature evil and egoistic. Being surprised in this way, according to my somewhat systematic observations, follows a different course. But Peirce does not give examples of this kind.But I do not see any justification given in this particular paper to:CSP: In judging this method of fixing belief, which may be called the method of authority, we must, in the first place, allow its immeasurable mental and moral superiority to the method of tenacity.It can only be the 'summum bonum', which could act as an (ultimate) justification in considering the method of authority as far superior to the method of tenacity. But Peirce does not take that up here.Anyway, the IF's in the following may be worth considering:CSP: "If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit"How I find, is, that these are the premisses from which Peirce proceeds in this chapter. So these give the perspective Peirce is here taking in view of the answers he offers, pertaining as well to t
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
ing some beliefs e.g. in religion, in one's parents, in the worthiness of one's country, etc., can be experienced as a kind of self-destruction and people often seem to demonstrate great fear of that happening to them. But this sense of self-identity could be argued to be a later construct than one's idea of the social entity of which one is a part. I always liked to use it in teaching intro to philosophy classes because it is the only paper on logic I know of where it is made clear that there is no obvious or self-evident basis for supposing that it is better to be reasonable than unreasonable: indeed, irrationality is frequently respected more highly than rationality by people with a literary orientation, for example. Anyway, what I want to say is that I interpret Peirce as appealing to four distinct things of value to which appeal can be made -- which may be existentially at odds with one another as values -- in a process of belief-fixing: self-integrity, social unity, coherence or unity of ideas (construable objectively as the idea that there is a universe), and the idea of the independently real that is always there, the one thing you can always rely upon. I think of the fourth method as presupposing the values of the first three but as introducing a fourth as well, which could be the first three considered AS ordered, I suppose. (But I am not arguing that.) What are the other possible kinds of dissonance reduction that Festinger identifies, by the way?Joe - Original Message From: Bill Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Friday, September 22, 2006 11:34:25 PMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe, I don't understand why you think the order might be reversed. To resort to authority is essentially to cease thinking and to unquestioningly accept. There's no cognitive dissonanceavoidance necessary. But if we begin with trying to avoid dissonance, and society forces us to confront it, then authority is one possible resort. (Leon Festinger's school ofresearch would suggeststill other possibilities of dissonance reduction.) Bill Bailey In "The Fixation of Belief" Peirce says that "a man may go through life, systematically keeping out of view all that might cause a change n his opinions, and if he only succeeds -- basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychologicl laws -- I do not see what can be said against his doing so". This is in Part V, where he is explaining the method of tenacity, where he then goes on to say that "the social impulse" will nevertheless somehow cause him, at times, to face up to some contradiction which impels recourse to adopting the second method, which is the method of authority. His explanation of this is very unsatisfactory, far too sketchy to be very informative, and I wonder if anyone has run across any place where he says anything that might flesh that out or, regardless of that, whether anyone has any plausible explanation themselves of exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible? Joe Ransdell[EMAIL PROTECTED]---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 9/20/2006---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 9/20/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
en defined in the strict way in which its founders understood it, and not as embracing the law of the conservation of energy, neither is nor ever was one of the special sciences that aim at the discovery of novel phenomena, but merely consists in the analysis of truths which universal experience has compelled every man of us to acknowledge. Thus, the proof by Archimedes of the principle of the lever, upon which Lagrange substantially bases the whole statical branch of the science, consists in showing that that principle is virtually assumed in our ordinary conception of two bodies of equal weight. Such universal experiences may not be true to microscopical exactitude, but that they are true in the main is assumed by everybody who devises an experiment, and is therefore more certain than any result of a laboratory experiment. (CP 8.198, CN3 230 [1905]) end quote=== In other words, Peirce is identifying there the point at which the coenoscopic and the idioscopic meet, in physical conceptions that appear in the context of idioscopic (special scientific) research, and I suggest that the two "psychological laws" which he is referring to in the passage in the Fixation article which I quoted in my first post on this topic must be the coenoscopic analogues of those in the case of the psychological sciences, In other words, those particular psychological laws must be psychological in the commonsense psychology of everyday life, though they will appear as fundamental conceptions in scientific psychology.and thus seem at first to be idioscopic in type.Now Jeff's claim in that paper (among other things) is that "The Fixation of Belief" is concerned with psychology only in the sense of commonsense psychology, not scientific psychology, and Peirce's anti-psychologism is as characteristically present in that paper as it is in any of his more technical papers on logic. Thus the fact that the Fixation paper relies as heavily as it does on doubt and belief neither shows that Peirce lapsed into psychologism there nor that Peirce ever thought that this was so, but rather -- and I think this is what Jeff is saying -- it is rather that where Peirce may seem to be admitting to psychologism in that paper he is in fact admitting to something rather different, namely, a rhetorical failure in composing it that mistakenly made it appear to people who do not understand what the objection to psychologism actually is that he was making his claims in that paper rest on psychology in the special or idioscopic sense. when in fact he was not. (I may be putting words in Jeff's mouth there but I think that is what he is getting at.) Well, that will have to do for this post. Sorry for being so long-winded on that.Joe[EMAIL PROTECTED] . . - Original Message ----From: Bill Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Saturday, September 23, 2006 1:21:48 PMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Joe, thanks for your response. I "get it" now.Festinger came to mind because "selective exposure" as amode of dissonance avoidance was a major topic in communication research. I haven't read that literature in years--and I didn't particularly buy into it then--so don't trust me now. As I recall, one mode of dissonance reduction wassimilar tothe pre-dissonance mode:"selective perception," or "cherry picking"--selecting only the data consonant with the threatened belief or behavior. "Rationalization"was a dissonance reduction means, I think, though it seems nearly tautological.In terms of Festinger's smoking-health dissonance I remember itin this form: "We're all going to die of something." There is also the heroic, the transcendent "We all owe a death." Simple denial is a common means: "If smoking causes cancer, most smokers would get it, but in fact most don't." Researchers turned up so many techniques of dissonance reduction I no longer remember which were originallyproposed by Festinger and which came later. Some, by the way (I think Eliot Aronson among them), argued cognitive dissonance was nota logical but a psychological phenomena, and that humans were not rational but rationalizers. And, relevant to your remarks below, some argued that the need to reduce the dissonance resulted not from logical tensions, but from the social concept of the self. For example, the argument goes, if it were only a logical tension operating, there'd be no tension experienced from telling a lie for money. It would make logical sense to say anything asked of you for either a few or many bucks. The tension arisesonly as a result of social norms:"What kind of person am I to tell a lie for a lousy couple of bucks." In my personal experience with smoking, I could have cared less about the dissonance between my smokin
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Joe, I don't understand why you think the order might be reversed. To resort to authority is essentially to cease thinking and to unquestioningly accept. There's no cognitive dissonanceavoidance necessary. But if we begin with trying to avoid dissonance, and society forces us to confront it, then authority is one possible resort. (Leon Festinger's school ofresearch would suggeststill other possibilities of dissonance reduction.) Bill Bailey In "The Fixation of Belief" Peirce says that "a man may go through life, systematically keeping out of view all that might cause a change n his opinions, and if he only succeeds -- basing his method, as he does, on two fundamental psychologicl laws -- I do not see what can be said against his doing so". This is in Part V, where he is explaining the method of tenacity, where he then goes on to say that "the social impulse" will nevertheless somehow cause him, at times, to face up to some contradiction which impels recourse to adopting the second method, which is the method of authority. His explanation of this is very unsatisfactory, far too sketchy to be very informative, and I wonder if anyone has run across any place where he says anything that might flesh that out or, regardless of that, whether anyone has any plausible explanation themselves of exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible? Joe Ransdell[EMAIL PROTECTED]---Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] No virus found in this incoming message.Checked by AVG Free Edition.Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.6/453 - Release Date: 9/20/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What is nothiing? (was, Introduction)
Arnold, List Arnold said: ...one never bullshits one's way out of a childish question: kids remember what you tell them, and it would seem to be one of the laws of bullshit, not covered by Harry Frankfurt, that it is supremely difficult, if not impossible, to extricate oneself from one's earlier bullshit without liberal doses of subsequent bullshit. Put another way, dishonesty breeds dishonesty, and there is something in the way one loses a child's trust with dishonest answers that seems to me to poison their whole future in a mean-spirited way if one tries to bullshit a way through the difficulties of questions like `what is nothing?', or `why do we have cops?'. This is probably the most prudent bit of parenting advice I have heard in quite some time. Ican attest to the brutally accurate memory of a child.Were it a requirement that as a prerequisite to parenting one should have to take a brief course on common sense I do believe we would have a world of happier, healthier children. Best to all, Darrel - Original Message - From: Arnold Shepperson To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 3:38 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: "What is nothiing?" (was, Introduction) Gary, Darrel, List Having a child in the house does put one's adulthood between a rock and a hard place, sometimes. My partner's grandson has been living with us for about six years (he's 10 now), the arrangment having become permanent since his dad died of AIDS two years ago. Although he hasn't quite got to the issue of Nothing as yet, our most enduring conversation since he began speaking English confidently (he is from a Zulu-speaking family, BTW) has been about Justice. One's adult status in this kind of situation seems not to involve any sort of capacity for providing authoritative answers, but the ability (and patience) to negotiate the rapids, rocks, and shoals that questions of this sort habitually throw up (yuck! I wrote that?). I think the earliest lesson this little guy taught me was that one never bullshits one's way out of a childish question: kids remember what you tell them, and it would seem to be one of the laws of bullshit, not covered by Harry Frankfurt, that it is supremely difficult, if not impossible, to extricate oneself from one's earlier bullshit without liberal doses of subsequent bullshit. Put another way, dishonesty breeds dishonesty, and there is something in the way one loses a child's trust with dishonest answers that seems to me to poison their whole future in a mean-spirited way if one tries to bullshit a way through the difficulties of questions like `what is nothing?', or `why do we have cops?'. In a way, part of the issue that Darrel has raised may be addressed by Peirce in his distinction between the practical forms of reasoning, and the differences between sham and fake reasoning. I'm not suggesting that Darrel should regale Grace with a formal disquisition on this, any more than I should read chapter and verse to Eddie-Lou. On the other hand, the distinction, and what Peirce has to say about it, seems very relevant to the way we speak to ourselves when we see ourselves close-up while shaving in the morning ... Cheers Arnold--- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What is nothiing? (was, Introduction)
Darrel, Gary First to Darrel: welcome. To both: one wouldn't call Agnes Heller a Peircean, but in her A Radical Philosophy of 1985, she characterises philosophy as the intellectual activity that is afraid neither ask nor to confront `childish questions'. In many respects, though, I think that there was something kind of childish about Peirce, right to the end (see the Essay on Reasoning in Uberty and Security in EP2), to the point that the likes of Simon Newcomb could blind him with sophistication. So what is `nothing'? I'll keep a close watch on this thread! Cheers Arnold On 2/11/06, Gary Richmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: David,Welcome to the list. Your reasons for joining it seem to me the very best for doing philosophy, to offer a child of a new generation an approach to answering the profound philosophical (cenoscopic) questions she may have about life's meaning, and that perhaps the most promising method for arriving at true answers (or the closest we can get to this) is a communal inquiry having the value of coming out of shared knowledge and experiences, as you phrased it. You may have come to just the right philosophical forum as this seems to me to be exactly the thrust of Peirce's pragmatism and approach to inquiry. May I plunge right in with a challenge to your answer to your child's question, what is nothing? You answered: the stuff left when you take away everything... Now I'm taking it that perhaps you came here because you thought (or felt) somehow that your answer needed to be validated, or further explicated, or was insufficient in some way, say only partially right or partially satisfactory, or some such thought. Now I would hazard the guess that Peirce would have suggested that your answer defines a certain kind of nothing, namely the nothing or zero of subtraction, but that subtraction is not a first process... CP 6.211 [T]ake the continuum of all possible sense qualities after this has been so far restricted that the dimensions are distinct. This is a continuum in which firstness is the prevailing character. It is also highly primitive. . . . For zero is distinctly a dualistic idea. It is mathematically A - A, i.e. the result of the inverse process of subtraction. Now an inverse process is a Second process.But Peirce continues by commenting on another sort of zero which is a limit. It is true that there is another sort of zero which is a limit. Such is the vague zero of indeterminacy. But a limit involves Secondness prominently, and besides that, Thirdness. In fact, the generality of indeterminacy marks its Thirdness. Accordingly, zero being an idea of Secondness, we find, as we should expect, that any continuum whose intermediate Listing numbers are zero is equivalent to a pair of continua whose Listing numbers are 1. He illustrates these categorial ideas and relations upon which he bases his theory of continuity by means of a famous blackboard example (to be found in the last of the 1898 Cambridge Conferences lectures, published as Reasoning and the Logic of Things, edited by Kenneth Lane Ketner and with an introduction by Ketner and Hillary Putnam)..Well, to cut to the chase, out of this move comes all of Peirce's synechastic and evolutionary philosophy, his theory of the generation of the early cosmos (what I've called Peirce's alternative to the Big Bang), evolutionary love and agapasm, etc. But it is also undoubtedly true that this original zero can be analyzed as chaos, as Peirce does at one point in the New Elements fragment currently being discussed on the list. Since his topic seems to me to be logic as semeiotic, this is represented by the blank sheet of assertion in his system of existential graphs--which, however, finally becomes the living symbol of an evolutionary cosmos within which we participate (more or less creatively, I would add). Well, my analysis might be quite flawed, and if it is I hope it'll be corrected. Well, that is just fallibilism, and every honest seeker benefits from it. Today I simply wanted to suggest that this sort of thinking (or whatever the truer, corrected form of it might be), the kind of thinking that leads to a philosophy of evolutionary love might prove to be a valuable supplement to your answer to Grace's question--and perhaps even some of the questions she's yet to ask! Again, welcome! Best,Gary RichmondDarrel Summers wrote: As the List Manager suggested I am introducing myself to the forum. My purpose for subscribing was in response to a question posed to me by my daughter Grace, age 5 years. Her question; what is nothing? and my answer the stuff left when you take away everything... led me to think more about the process of getting to nothing and the concept of beginning and end. I hope by monitoring these posts, and posting in my own non-acedemic style I might be better able to offer Grace a meaningful answer. I also would like Grace to be familiar with the value of communal / shared knowledge and experiences. Best
[peirce-l] Re: What is nothiing? (was, Introduction)
Gary, I appreciate your plunge! I spent the weekend reading with great interest the posts related to Grace's question, and Grace thinks it is quite amusing that so many "smart grown-ups are worriedabout nothing..." (I think when she says worried she means fascinated) We will be following with inthusiasm the forum and finding applicable writings where we can. Hoping you own a sled dog or two... Regards, Darrel - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 6:05 PM Subject: [peirce-l] "What is nothing?" (was, Introduction) David,Welcome to the list. Your reasons for joining it seem to me the very best for doing philosophy, to offer a child of a new generation an approach to answering the profound philosophical (cenoscopic) questions she may have about life's meaning, and that perhaps the most promising method for arriving at true answers (or the closest we can get to this) is a communal inquiry having the value of coming out of "shared knowledge and experiences," as you phrased it. You may have come to just the right philosophical forum as this seems to me to be exactly the thrust of Peirce's pragmatism and approach to inquiry.May I plunge right in with a challenge to your answer to your child's question, "what is nothing?" You answered: ""the stuff left when you take away everything..." Now I'm taking it that perhaps you came here because you thought (or felt) somehow that your answer needed to be validated, or further explicated, or was insufficient in some way, say only partially right or partially satisfactory, or some such thought. Now I would hazard the guess that Peirce would have suggested that your answer defines a certain kind of nothing, namely the nothing or zero of subtraction, but that subtraction is not a first process... CP 6.211 [T]ake the continuum of all possible sense qualities after this has been so far restricted that the dimensions are distinct. This is a continuum in which firstness is the prevailing character. It is also highly primitive. . . . For zero is distinctly a dualistic idea. It is mathematically A - A, i.e. the result of the inverse process of subtraction. Now an inverse process is a Second process.But Peirce continues by commenting on "another sort of zero which is a limit." It is true that there is another sort of zero which is a limit. Such is the vague zero of indeterminacy. But a limit involves Secondness prominently, and besides that, Thirdness. In fact, the generality of indeterminacy marks its Thirdness. Accordingly, zero being an idea of Secondness, we find, as we should expect, that any continuum whose intermediate Listing numbers are zero is equivalent to a pair of continua whose Listing numbers are 1.He illustrates these categorial ideas and relations upon which he bases his theory of continuity by means of a famous blackboard example (to be found in the last of the 1898 Cambridge Conferences lectures, published as Reasoning and the Logic of Things, edited by Kenneth Lane Ketner and with an introduction by Ketner and Hillary Putnam)..Well, to cut to the chase, out of this move comes all of Peirce's synechastic and evolutionary philosophy, his theory of the generation of the early cosmos (what I've called Peirce's alternative to the Big Bang), evolutionary love and agapasm, etc. But it is also undoubtedly true that this original zero can be analyzed as chaos, as Peirce does at one point in the New Elements fragment currently being discussed on the list. Since his topic seems to me to be logic as semeiotic, this is represented by the blank sheet of assertion in his system of existential graphs--which, however, finally becomes the living symbol of an evolutionary cosmos within which we participate (more or less creatively, I would add).Well, my analysis might be quite flawed, and if it is I hope it'll be corrected. Well, that is just fallibilism, and every honest seeker benefits from it. Today I simply wanted to suggest that this sort of thinking (or whatever the truer, "corrected" form of it might be), the kind of thinking that leads to a philosophy of evolutionary love might prove to be a valuable supplement to your answer to Grace's question--and perhaps even some of the questions she's yet to ask! Again, welcome! Best,Gary RichmondDarrel Summers wrote: As the List Manager suggested I am introducing myself to the forum. My purpose for subscribing was in response to a question posed to me by my daughter Grace, age 5 years. Her question; "what is nothing?" and my answer "the stuff left when you take away everything..." led me to think more about the process of getting to nothing and the concept of beginning and end. I hope by monitoring
[peirce-l] Re: What is nothiing? (was, Introduction)
Darrel, You wrote that: Grace thinks it is quite amusing that so many "smart grown-ups are worriedabout nothing..." (I think when she says worried she means fascinated) "From the mouths of babes. . ." Sometimes I worry too that grown-ups are "fascinated about nothing" by which I mean that they haven't necessarily got their values straight and so worry about the wrong things (such as keeping up with the Joneses, defending their egos, being "entertained," grabbing as much stuff as they can because "the guy who has the most stuff when he dies wins the game,' etc.) Of course when people prioritize such "nothings" then they've limited the time and energy that might be deployed for the development of "somethings," that is, some things of value, raising children properly, contributing to more Truth and Justice occurring in the world, promoting truly independent inquiry and journalism, promoting peace in the world (a point Maya Angelou stressed in her remarks at Coretta Scott King's funeral), etc., etc. We will be following with inthusiasm the forum and finding applicable writings where we can. We'll be looking forward to hearing from you (and Grace) as well. In your initial message to the forum you wrote of "posting in my own non-acedemic style" which suggests a refreshing aspect of this forum. One of the things that make it such a vibrant list, something that many have commented on over the years, is its wholly democratic nature such that all manner of folk read and post to the list, sharing only an interest in the philosophy of Peirce. While folk on the list can be quite appropriately critical of other's ideas here, there's not much inappropriate judging of others, their styles, etc. so that when it does occur there's usually a quick reaction against it and defending the person attacked. So I hope you'll feel very free posting in any style you feel comfortable with. Hoping you own a sled dog or two... Yesterday I went to a concert at The Town Hall near Times Square in Manhattan. While because of the blizzard there wasn't much vehicular traffic--including very few dog sleds as far as I could tell--it seemed that all of New York was out of doors on foot to enjoy the snow storm--the mood was definitely elevated. The friend I was to have attended the concert couldn't make it in from Brooklyn (another New York borough) because of the weather, and when I got to Town Hall I, along with a somewhat unexpectedly large audience, learned that the scheduled performers were stranded somewhere outside of Philly. But some young New York musicians stood in at the last minute to give what was certainly one of the most delightful musical performances I've attended in many years. Send my best wishes to Grace. Gary R --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
