Suteerth, List: I apologize for the delayed response, but my attention has been elsewhere for the last few weeks. Here are a few comments on your post.
SV: Consider what effects on your practice the object of your conception entails. The sum of all these practical effects is your entire conception of its meaning. This is your own paraphrase of Peirce's famous maxim, "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object" (CP 5.402, EP 1:132, 1878). Notice the repetition in the original statement--"conceivably," "conceive," and "conception" (three times)--which you have largely omitted from your version. The relevant effects are not those *on your practice* that the object of your conception *entails*, they are those that we *conceive *that object to have which might *conceivably *have practical bearings of any kind; and it is not the *sum *of *practical *effects that constitutes your entire conception of its *meaning*, but your *conception *of *conceivable *effects that constitutes your entire *conception* of the object. See the differences? You might be interested in reading my paper on the maxim, which presents 13 variants along with 47 restatements and elaborations that Peirce formulated after William James began popularizing pragmatism in 1898, followed by my own analysis and commentary ( https://philpapers.org/go.pl?aid=SCHPMO-8). SV: There are three modes of thought corresponding to the three different things that exist in the universe: qualities, relations and representations. For Peirce, these are not three different *things *that *exist *in the universe, they are three different *modes of being* that we prescind from whatever is or could be present to the mind in any way (the *phaneron*); and he ultimately preferred to designate them as "quality, reaction, and mediation" because these are respectively "the purest conceptions" of his three universal categories--1ns, 2ns, and 3ns (CP 1.530, 1903). They correspond to *three *different universes that together encompass whatever is capable of serving as the dynamical object of a sign--"Of the three Universes of Experience familiar to us all, the first comprises all mere Ideas ... The second Universe is that of the Brute Actuality of things and facts ... The third Universe comprises everything whose being consists in active power to establish connections between different objects, especially between objects in different Universes" (CP 6.455, EP 2:435, 1908). SV: Our ideas are in our heads while the real world to which they apply is outside. I suspect that Peirce would disagree with this statement. "A psychologist cuts out a lobe of my brain ... and then, when I find I cannot express myself, he says, 'You see your faculty of language was localized in that lobe.' No doubt it was; and so, if he had filched my inkstand, I should not have been able to continue my discussion until I had got another. Yea, the very thoughts would not come to me. So my faculty of discussion is equally localized in my inkstand. It is localization in a sense in which a thing may be in two places at once" (CP 7.366, 1902). "Accordingly, just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body we ought to say that we are in thought and not that thoughts are in us" (CP 5.289n, EP 1:42n, 1878). SV: Do you think that pragmatism has a future or do you think (like the philosopher nicholas rescher) that pragmatism as a criterion of meaning must give way to pragmatism as a methodological postulate? This strikes me as a false dichotomy. In Peirce's architectonic classification of the sciences, pragmatism falls within the third branch of the normative science of logic as semeiotic, which he sometimes calls *methodeutic*. The maxim itself as "a criterion of meaning" leads to "a methodological postulate," namely, the three stages of inquiry in their proper sequence--abduction/retroduction for formulating hypotheses, deduction for explicating those hypotheses, and induction for testing those hypotheses. That is my suggestion of "why Peirce considered pragmatism a maxim of logic and called it the logic of abduction." As for the proof of pragmatism, many scholars have offered attempts to reconstruct it since Peirce never quite managed to spell it out himself. In my opinion, the best of them is Nathan Houser's "proof from Peirce's theory of signs" (EP 2:xxxv-xxxvi) as gleaned from his various drafts for an article simply entitled "Pragmatism" (R 318-322&324, 1907). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Mar 7, 2025 at 10:02 AM suteerth vajpeyi <[email protected]> wrote: > What is pragmatism ? Is it a method of clarifying the meaning of > conceptions or a criterion for deciding if a statement is meaningful or not > ? It serves both purposes. As a method of clarifying the meaning of > conceptions, it can be stated as follows:- > > Consider what effects on your practice the object of your conception > entails. The sum of all these practical effects is your entire conception > of its meaning. Here the word 'conception' means any idea introduced to > reduce the plurality of qualities and relations we are aware of into a > harmonious unity. For example we reduce all the various sensations we > perceive to one concept in the proposition "The stove is black". The stove > is a bundle of qualities and relations which is unified under the general > idea of 'a black object'. Thus 'black' is a conception here. All this is > from peirce's article "On a new list of categories". > > What is meant by the phrase, 'the conception of meaning of a term'? The > job of a conception is to unify. So when we have unified all the qualities > and relations we are referring to into one representation using one term we > will have grasped its entire meaning. Take the term 'Justice'. It is a > representation of a quality prevailing in the relations between men when > they strive to achieve their common good, the good of the unlimited > community. > > So far we have only enumerated some examples to the effect that the real > world outside us is made up of qualities and relations which can be > confirmed by a multitude of observers from the same perspective or > standpoint. We have seen that all propositions and words are a species of > signs or representations and that the function of all representations is to > unify a set of different qualities and relations into one. > > There are three modes of thought corresponding to the three different > things that exist in the universe: qualities, relations and > representations. They have been called by alfred north whitehead as the > mode of presentational immediacy which grasps qualities, the mode of causal > efficacy which grasps relations and the mixed mode of sign reference which > grasps representations. Now we can also begin to understand how a > representation that has no effect on our practice is meaningless. > > This is because by the term meaning, peirce referred to what is today > called the conventional intension of a term. Not all the objective > attributes possessed by a thing nor all the whimsical beliefs about that > thing are what is referred to here. What is referred to here is the use to > which a representation is put by a community of users. > > Why does a representation need to have an influence upon our actions in > order to be meaningful ? Our ideas are in our heads while the real world to > which they apply is outside. Now other observers or inquirers only share > with us the external world in which we live. Our only contact with reality > is via the two processes of observation and action. But why not simply say > that the sum of all effects upon our observations is the entire meaning of > a term. Why choose action over observation ? Indeed the logical positivists > preferred to speak of the observational effects that trace their origin to > the object denoted by a representation. Peirce on the other hand preferred > to speak of action. Choosing action as a criterion of meaning has marked > advantages over choosing observation. > > The reason for these advantages is simple. Action is the only point of > contact between our external and our internal worlds. When we act, we > modify reality and also observe the effects of that modification. Also, we > have no clue about the thoughts of others. Only the actions that express > those thoughts are what can be grasped by us. Thus, to know the > conventional intension of a term or statement, we have to take stock of how > it modifies the actions of ourselves and others. Meaning, in the sense of > the conventional intension of a term must be user and observer independent. > That is why, in order to make observation more objective and reproducible, > peirce preferred to speak of an idea's influence over our actions. This > also had the added advantage of making normative ideas more tractable and > meaningful. With an observational criterion of meaning, one just cannot > explicate the meaning of normative conceptions around which most of our > time, interest and energies are spent. Normative conceptions by definition > refer not to what exists but what ought to exist, not to our present state > of affairs but to our future actions. This makes normative terms like > justice and goodness clearer and more precise something that could not be > accomplished by all the formidable tools of the mathematical logic of the > positivists. > > References: Peirce- how to make our ideas clear, on a new list of > categories. > A.N. whitehead- modes of thought > > Do let me know your thoughts on this defence of pragmatism. Inform me of > the mistakes and shortcomings of this exposition. > > Do you think that pragmatism has a future or do you think (like the > philosopher nicholas rescher) that pragmatism as a criterion of meaning > must give way to pragmatism as a methodological postulate ? > > Do you think that pragmatism can be proved from more fundamental > assumptions or that a proof is un-necessary or impossible ? > > Could someone supply the complete proof of pragmatism from more basic > assumptions (something which peirce was prevented from doing by his > circumstances and ultimately his death) ? > > Finally let me know your thoughts on why peirce considered pragmatism a > maxim of logic and called it the logic of abduction. >
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