Jon, List,
You quoted "Peirce's warning about those who dismiss metaphysics. . ."
CSP: Find a scientific man [or woman] who proposes to get along without any
metaphysics--not by any means every man [or woman] who holds the ordinary
reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn--and you have found one whose
doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized metaphysics
with which they are packed. ... Every man [and woman] of us has a
metaphysics, and has to have one; and it will influence his [or her] life
greatly. Far better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized and
not be allowed to run loose. (CP 1.129, c. 1905)
In short, every person holds metaphysical assumptions which are either
examined or not.
Peirce clearly regarded metaphysics as an essential science because it
articulates *the most general features of reality presupposed by all
inquiry*, viz., law, continuity, chance, intelligibility, etc. At the same
time, and as you noted, it remains constrained by logic and experience.
Peircean metaphysics helps clarify the ontological status of his categories
and works to defend realism against nominalism. To dismiss it doesn't eliminate
metaphysical assumptions but merely leaves them unexamined. I would say
that is irresponsible in consideration of the ethics of inquiry.
This is not to say that there isn't 'bad' metaphysics. Peirce deplored most
of the metaphysics of his time: “The metaphysics of the present day is in a
deplorable condition.” CP 6.6 and "What passes for metaphysics is for the
most part a tissue of meaningless verbiage.” CP 1.16 Peirce aimed at making
metaphysics truly scientific, which is why he structured it based on logic
as semeiotic ("When metaphysics is divorced from logic, it becomes a mere
play of words.”CP 6.53.)
So I too find it truly unfortunate that there are those who not only dismiss
Peirce's metaphysics but who actually disparage it. Perhaps they are only
disparaging 'bad' metaphysics, as Peirce most certainly did. At least that
is my hope.
Best,
Gary R
On Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 10:55 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
> List:
>
> I am puzzled by the disparagement of "a metaphysical approach" and the
> accompanying claim that "its premises or conclusions" are "beliefs" that
> "require an emotional commitment." According to Peirce, "For our present
> purpose it is sufficient to say that the inferential process involves the
> formation of a habit. For it produces a belief, or opinion; and a genuine
> belief, or opinion, is something on which a man is prepared to act, and is
> therefore, in a general sense, a habit. A belief need not be conscious" (CP
> 2.148, 1902). In other words, beliefs are the habits of conduct that result
> from inferential processes, so their role is no different in metaphysics
> vs. any other science. After all, "Logic may be defined as the science of
> the laws of the stable establishment of beliefs" (CP 3.429, 1896), and
> "Metaphysics consists in the results of the absolute acceptance of logical
> principles not merely as regulatively valid, but as truths of being" (CP
> 1.487, c. 1896).
>
> Moreover, it is plainly false that "a metaphysical foundation" is
> equivalent to "a foundation without empirical evidence." In Peirce's
> architectonic classification, all the special sciences depend on
> metaphysics for principles and supply metaphysics with data (see CP 3.427,
> 1896; RLT 114, 1898). The key difference is that the special sciences are
> confined to "the reality of existence" and thus study "facts, observable
> with a microscope or telescope, or which require trained faculties of
> observation to detect," while metaphysics is also concerned with "the
> reality of potential being" and studies "those universal phenomena which
> saturate all experience through and through so that they cannot escape us"
> (EP 2:35, 1898). Put another way, the special sciences require "travel or
> other exploration, or some assistance to the senses, either instrumental or
> given by training, together with unusual diligence" (CP 1.242, 1902), while
> metaphysics "sets in order those observations which lie open to every man
> [and woman] every day and hour" (CP 7.538, 1899).
>
> Accordingly, Peirce's warning about those who dismiss metaphysics seems
> pertinent here.
>
> CSP: Find a scientific man [or woman] who proposes to get along without
> any metaphysics--not by any means every man [or woman] who holds the
> ordinary reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn--and you have found one
> whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized
> metaphysics with which they are packed. ... Every man [and woman] of us has
> a metaphysics, and has to have one; and it will influence his [or her] life
> greatly. Far better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized and
> not be allowed to run loose. (CP 1.129, c. 1905)
>
>
> Jeff's outline
> <https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2026-01/msg00010.html> is
> commendable precisely because he is seeking to identify and criticize the
> widely unrecognized *metaphysical* assumptions underlying the modern
> scientific consensus about cosmology, and then offer viable alternatives
> for serious consideration--one of which is a distinctively Peircean
> framework.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 9:25 AM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Jack, list
>>
>> The problem I have with a metaphysical approach is that such are based on
>> and require: belief. That is, the metaphysical approach can be extremely
>> and totally valid, logically, but that doesn’t make its premises or
>> conclusions objectively real. They remain to the core : beliefs- and
>> require an emotional commitment and even, in many cases, an assertion of
>> right vs the wrong beliefs of others…since, as noted, there is no objective
>> proof. .
>>
>> We have seen the results of such in all rival conflicts, in religious
>> authority, even - in societal and political norms and rules.
>>
>> The outline proposed by Jeff, on the other hand, requires not merely
>> logic but also, evidentiary evidence for its conclusions.
>>
>> The question then moves to- does our species require such an approach
>> to life, ie, does it require a metaphysical foundation? ..ie..a foundation
>> without empirical evidence but one that rests purely on belief?
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> On Jan 15, 2026, at 6:40 AM, Jack Cody <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> GARY: In any event, I take your response as encouragement that
>> this logico-metaphysical line of thought is worth pursuing much further.
>> The fundamental idea can be rather simply expressed, but, I think, it may
>> be hard to comprehend without some investigative study, and its
>> implications have just begun to be explored:
>>
>> *Continuity does not arise within time; rather, time, law, and
>> cosmological order arise within continuity. *
>>
>> ME: Indeed, Gary, and Jon has made some valuable comments thereafter.
>> Yes, it's more than worthy of pursuit. Any viable metaphysics must deal
>> with the atemporal which one can indeed "prove" (infer necessarily). The
>> framework around the necessity of the atemporal, then, is what becomes
>> vital. Jon and I do not agree on certain, I'll call it "catechistic",
>> issues, but he puts God (who is atemporal if one believes in God, and also
>> temporal, too) as the ultimate source and thus that upon which, qua Truth,
>> we would converge (ultimately). Now if one is secular, we can swap out God
>> for Truth (qualitatively) and lose not so much (Augustinian in
>> compatibilism here)
>>
>> I suppose what I'm saying is that whilst Jon and I have had numerous
>> disagreements, and in treatments of what is atemproal, no doubt, we won't
>> agree entirely, as it goes, I am happy (or more than happy) to see people
>> with the capacity to do so taking the atemporal necessity very seriously.
>> It's something that science simply cannot do (beyond time and space,
>> literally, is that which empirical methods and empirical meaning-making
>> materials can do very little to understand — instead, I argue, we must use
>> logic, and serious logic, to prove a necessary inference of the atemporal
>> and then it's a market place of ideas in terms of how we frame this within
>> extant metaphysical frameworks). Good to see this being done here, whether
>> I agree or not with framing — the endeavor is clearly ongoing. That's makes
>> me more than happy.
>>
>> Best,
>> Jack
>>
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