Kees, Matt, Cathy, Gary F., list, Kees, first I want to thank you for your warm, generous, and wholly unexpected endorsement of my moderating of peirce-l. Perhaps you'd gotten a sense along the way that a good part of my work happens off-list as well as on. In any case, I agree with you that the list has been very active since the start of the seminar such that I find that what I consider to be one of my primary duties as list moderator, namely, reading all posts, has proved extremely time consuming recently. On the other hand, I'm delighted by the extent of interest shown in the seminar as evidenced by the high volume of postings, and I would encourage all, but especially those who have not yet participated in the seminar, to do so.
I also agree with Gary F. that you got "to the heart" of the relationship between feeling and esthetics" in this post, so I'd like to reflect on Matt's *other* question and your response to it. Matt wrote, and you commented: *MF: "If the esthetic ideal is "that which is objectively admirable without any ulterior reason", "without any reason for being admirable beyond its inherent character," since we have no outside standard to judge this admirability by how can we even recognize it so to deliberately aim our actions at it?"* *CdW: I think the way to go about addressing this question is to go back to what I said above: that we cannot derive the subsequent sciences from the sciences they are grounded in. Just as phaneroscopy cannot tell us what esthetics will be like, esthetics cannot tell us what ethics will be like. It befalls to the science of ethics to try to answer this question, and it does so by introducing such outside standards; they do not somehow evolve from esthetics but are alien to it.* In his message in response to yours Gary writes: *GF: Esthetics is just the science that ethics has to appeal to for its idea of "good", so that logic can have an ethical grounding for its normative judgment of reasoning. We might say that just as phaneroscopy observes the phaneron and asks, "What are its indecomposable elements?", esthetics looks at the phaneron and asks, "What could possibly be good about it (or about any ingredient of it)?"* To reiterate the salient point: phanersocopy asks "What are the phaneron's indecomposable elements" and theoretical esthetics asks, "What good--*for science*--is there in these indecomposable elements." I purposefully emphasized "for science" as this is central to a question Cathy asked me earlier this week pertaining to the relations of the three normative sciences to each other. She quoted me: *GR: "...arriving at the summum bonum for philosophical science is itself a deliberate and self-controlled process leading to a particular kind of habit formation; and that as "a deliberate, or self-controlled habit is precisely a belief," a belief in the reasonable in itself can bridge the gap between phenomenology and the (other) normative sciences, especially logic as semiotic." (emphasis added to original post)* And a short while later she concluded her post by commenting on a remark I made near the close of my post she was responding to: *CL: I'm looking forward to hearing more about how you think the three sciences might work together and even 'self-regulate' when you get the chance.* So, finally I'll try to bring together the several key ideas continued in the above quotations in an abduction regarding the relationship of the three normative sciences to each. I have tended to take Peirce at his word when he remarked that the divisions of his classification of the sciences are almost all trichotomies and, I would add, I see most, if not all, in *genuine *trichotomic relation as well. This seems to me to be the case here. It seems to me that theoretical esthetics is not seeking the "good in itself" *simply*, but the good *for cenoscopic science*. If the three normative sciences are in genuine triadic relation, while, as Kees wrote, *"** we cannot derive the subsequent sciences from the sciences they are grounded in"* (in the sense of their principles), there remains the possibility of vectorial movement through the three, so that in a sense the idea of "a deliberate, or self-controlled" process leading to the belief in an esthetic summum bonum of "the reasonable in itself," is in a sense, if not derived from at least a gift of *logica utens*, and provides here one example of the consequence of these three sciences acting upon each other *in scientific practice*. Best, Gary R. *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 11:55 AM, Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote: > I think Kees gets to the heart of the relationship between feeling and > esthetics here. > > > > I think we should also need to bear in mind that *Peirce's* "esthetics" > has nothing to do with the development of taste, be it literary, artistic, > culinary or whatever. Taste is indeed always contingent on embodiment and > usually on cultural context too. > > Esthetics is just the science that ethics has to appeal to for *its* idea > of "good", so that logic can have an ethical grounding for its normative > judgment of reasoning. We might say that just as phaneroscopy observes the > phaneron and asks, "What are its indecomposable elements?", esthetics looks > at the phaneron and asks, "What could possibly be good about it (or about > any ingredient of it)?" > > > > gary f. > > > > *From:* Cornelis de Waal [mailto:cdw...@iupui.edu] > *Sent:* 22-Mar-14 9:11 AM > *To:* Matt Faunce; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu > > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 4, The Normative > Science of Logic > > > > Dear Matt, Cathy, List > > > > > > It is sure hard to keep up with this list, especially since there are now > various parallel threads, and I'm very much impressed with Gary Richmond > who seems to on the ball pretty much every day. The moderation of this list > surely got into good hands. > > > > I want to pick up on some aspects of Matt's questions, as others have done > also, and say something more about Peirce's criticism of Sigwart in > connection with Peirce's esthetics, a discipline about which Peirce says > relatively little. > > > > When you look at Peirce's division of the sciences, esthetics follows > immediately after phaneroscopy and precedes ethics and logic, which follow > it in that order. It seems to me, though, that in Peirce's scheme of things > the higher sciences cannot be derived from the more basic ones. And Peirce > does not go that route either. Instead he argues backward from what he > believes logic should be, to what this requires in terms of a more basic > and also broader discipline he identifies as ethics, which in a similar > vein requires certain other things to be settled before it can do its job > and that fall outside its purview, which brings Peirce to what he terms > esthetics, and esthetics, finally, is constrained by the results of > phaneroscopy. The argument he gives is rather neat and hinges on, or is > inspired by, his doctrine of the categories. > > > > This means, though, that when discussing esthetics this should take place > within the context of what Peirce takes logic to be, which is the > enterprise of distinguishing good from bad reasoning, where the former is > defined as any reasoning such that the truth of the premises gives us some > assurance that the conclusion be true as well. This may run from an > airtight deductive argument to a very tentative abduction. > > > > By taking this course, Peirce rejects the idea, he ascribes to Sigwart, > that logic be grounded in psychology. Psychology, which Peirce takes to be > a descriptive science, can tell us how people do reason, what they do feel > when they see something that appears obvious to them etc., but it cannot > tell us how people should reason. Sigwart argued, at least in Peirce's > reading of him, that a certain feeling of necessity accompanies certain > arguments and that it is this feeling that enables us to distinguish a > necessary argument from one that is, say, a very compelling abductive > argument. Now feeling, both at the individual and the collective level, has > proven to be an unreliable guide to logic, in that bad arguments can > nonetheless elicit very strong feelings that the conclusion is inescapable. > In fact there is a whole discipline, called rhetoric, which seems to be > specifically designed to giving people strong feelings that certain bad > arguments are strong ones. Hence, I think that, justifiably or not, > Sigwart exemplifies for Peirce a route he thinks should not be taken, > namely to develop logic through a study the actual operations of the mind, > de facto making it a descriptive enterprise. > > > > Now Matt asks whether perhaps ultimately our instinctive "immediate > feelings of necessity" conform to the same esthetic ideals that Peirce's > logic ultimately conforms to, adding that it might be possible to say that > that logic is grounded in something like a final feeling of necessity > experienced at the end of inquiry. These are good questions. > > > > I think approaching the issue from this angle exposes an interesting > misconception, or an equivocation if you like. For Peirce what makes an > argument a good one has everything to do with the relationship of the > premises to the conclusion, and that of itself has nothing to do with what > anyone thinks or feels about this connection. I'm confining myself here to > this "feeling of necessity." When in an introductory logic class you > introduce a valid syllogism to your students and some feel it makes no > sense, others feel it is convincing without knowing why, and yet others > feel the conclusion inescapable, all those feelings do not matter; what > matters is that the form of the argument is such that the conclusion is > inescapable. Now it seems to me that if this is true, then one would need > to add some sustained argument to make the point that somehow those > feelings, which are not relevant for determining the validity of an > argument when the final opinion has not been reached, suddenly become the > deciding factor to determine the validity of that argument once the final > opinion is reached. I'm not sure what such an argument could look like, > especially since any attempt to analyze a (simple) feeling requires one to > replace it with a structure of claims, which causes one to rely on the > relationship between premises and conclusions, suggesting that the analysis > of this relationship is more basic in terms of grounding than any feeling > thatmight be elicited by being exposed to an argument. Briefly put, Peirce > takes this approach to be a wrong one and his discussion of ethics and > esthetics is his attempt to seek an alternative. > > > > Before signing off, as the house is waking up, one brief comment on > another question of Matt, which I'll quote whole: > > > > "If the esthetic ideal is "that which is objectively admirable without any > ulterior reason", "without any reason for being admirable beyond its > inherent character," since we have no outside standard to judge this > admirability by how can we even recognize it so to deliberately aim our > actions at it?" > > > > I think the way to go about addressing this question is to go back to what > I said above: that we cannot derive the subsequent sciencesfrom the > sciences they are grounded in. Just as phaneroscopy cannot tell uswhat > esthetics will be like, esthetics cannot tell us what ethics will be like. > It befalls to the science of ethics to try to answer this question, and it > does so by introducing such outside standards; they do not somehow evolve > from esthetics but are alien to it. > > > > Cheers, > > > > Kees > > > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm. > > > > > > C
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