[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, if persisted in, will, in the long run (if
[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. Anyway, you wrote:
JR: "...exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the
second
[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 Stagyrite. "Dialectica," says the most celebrated medieval logic, "est ars artium, scientia scientiarum, ad omnium methodorum principia viam habens. Sola enim dialectica probabiliter disputat de principiis omnium aliarum scientiarum." Exercise 1. Let the student write out an impartial discussion of the question whether the principles of right reasoning can be investigated. For it would seem that these principles must be known before any investigation whatever can be made. In this writing, let precision of thought be the first object, precision in the order of discussion the next. Let no ornament of style be permitted. A science by which things are tested is necessarily a classificatory science. Thus, every system of qualitative chemical analysis consists in a classification of chemical substances. Accordingly, we have to study, in the first place, the classification of inferences. Just as there are several different systems of qualitative analysis,--as ordinary analysis by sulphuretted hydrogen, blowpipe analysis, and analysis by carbonate of baryta,--based on different classifications of chemical substances, but all valid, so there are different valid systems of logic, based on different classifications of inferences. The accomplished reasoner will do well to be familiar with more than one such system. Chapter 2 First of all, the student has to gain a perfectly definite conception of the true function of reasoning. 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. Upon the next point, somewhat more thought must be bestowed. Any useful inquisition must lead to some definite conclusion. A method of investigation which should carry different men to different results without tending to bring them to agreement, would be self-destructive and worthless. But if by a sufficiently long result a settlement of opinion could be reached, this concordance (even if further exploration would disturb it) is all that research really tends towards, and is therefore its only attainable end. The only legitimate aim of reasoning, then, is to ascertain what decision would be agreed upon if the question were sufficiently ventilated. To this it may be objected, 1st, that the primary object of an investigation is to ascertain the truth itself and not the opinions which would arise under any particular circumstances; and, 2nd, that the resolution of my own doubt is more my object in an investigation than the production of unanimity among others. Undoubtedly, that which we seek in an investigation is called truth, but what distinct conception ought to be attached to this word it is so difficult to say, that it seems better to describe the object of an investigation by a character which certainly belongs to it and to it alone, and which has nothing mysterious or vague about it. In like
[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 Stagyrite. "Dialectica," says the most celebrated medieval logic, "est ars artium, scientia scientiarum, ad omnium methodorum principia
[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 (much) later introduced esthetics to the normative sciences and saw both ethics and logic as requiring the
