Jeff, Jeffrey, Sam, list,
Jeff, I have trouble making more of Peirce's esthetic and ethical frames
of inquiry in "The Fixation of Belief." When the inquirially good is the
inquirially efficient (apart from countervailing moral concerns such as
involuntary tests of people), it seems a simple Peircean genus-species
relation of the good to the true. Insofar as theoretical inquiry is
subject to extra-inquirial ends, the ethical and esthetic issues get
more complex, and this happens inevitably. A lot may be implicit, but
the explicit statements toward the end of "Fixation" seem to sum up
pretty well the esthetic and ethical frames as conceived of in that
article. But I think that the problem is probably just me, in need of an
IQ boost.
Anyway, in "Fixation" he is trying to get away from, or perhaps to
_/precede/_, metaphysical nominalist-realist arguments over truth, the
real, etc., so he pursues the issues in terms of belief, belief's
security, a hypothesis that there are reals, etc., and even denies that
anybody cares about truth _/per se/_. In later years he embraces the
inquirial importance of a hearty will to truth, and even disparages the
idea of beliefs (in some sense) in genuine science. But in those later
years it is still essentially truth as eventually distinguished from
falsehood and defined in "Fixation" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" -
e.g., that opinion which, unlike a false opinion, will not steer one
wrong in what one aims at, and the final opinion that _/would/_ be
reached by sufficient inquiry - it is truth so distinguished and
presuppositionally defined that he embraces as inquiry's end. He does
not come to drop the idea that belief and doubt are important terms in
which to understand the ideas of truth and inquiry - for example in the
1902 Carnegie application. Thus truth is a belief's ideal security or
'stability' as some put it - but it's a stability not only in actual
situations but across would-be situations as well. I think that Peirce
is quite right to see modal realism as a necessary implication of his
kind of pragmatism.
Peirce in later years allows of practical certainty, as opposed to
theoretical certainty. A practical general certainty would still in
principle be 'falsifiable', i.e., testable for falsity, at least by
critical discussion. Otherwise it would be a belief that makes no
practical difference, and thus, as you put it, not to be prized, not
worth having. One might say that an in-principle untestable belief lacks
all intellectual _/vividness/_, at least at heart. It's interesting how
you link this with how we don't value that which comes to us inevitably
and free of cost, risk, etc. I wish that I had thought of that; you've
traced a connection from logic back through ethics to esthetics.
There's another point that I can make, however. In "Fixation", Peirce
argues that the scientific method is, _/among the four methods that he
outlines/_, the only one that leaves room for its own misapplication.
Peirce's big picture of inquiry methods is part of an even bigger
picture of methods of learning and development cognitive and otherwise,
which beckons when one starts to consider esthetic and ethical frames of
inquiry, a bigger picture that people like me, who are far less
encyclopedic than Peirce, find it helpful to thematize and explore now
and then.
From here onward, my post becomes something of a ramble. Those who
continue should not worry too much about what I'm 'driving at'.
One could outline further methods - e.g., the method of struggle, trial
as combat - which could be seen as a
not-generally-obviously-infallibilistic genus of which the method of
(despotic) authority is an infallibilistic species, a species such that
one side in combat has become dominant and seemingly infallible. Then
there is the method of trial-and-error, which is fallibilistic, and is
the method of 'men of experience', whom Aristotle rated below artisans
and scientists, because the 'men of experience' are least able to give
an account of their supposed knowledge. Yet Peirce defines a scientific
intelligence as an intelligence capable of learning from experience. One
could argue that the method of trial-and-error is a rudiment of
scientific method, in a way trial-and-error, especially as involving
personal stakes (even if 'only' those of one's time, energy, reputation,
etc.), is the struggle-level of scientific inquiry. However, struggle as
trial-and-error is also, in addition to that, a way of learning not so
much cognitively as volitionally, i.e., some sort of strengthening or
unshackling of virtues or character strengths, particularly in areas,
arenas so to speak, where the struggle element is predominant -
conflicts for power and freedom, competition for means and wealth,
more-or-less cultural rivalries for glory, glamour, and at least
non-eclipse, and more-or-less societal disputes for standing, honor,
legitimacy. From these one could derive conceptions of (infallibilistic)
inquirial methods of authority - authority of power, authority of
wealth, authority of glamour (obviously related to the method of the _/a
priori/_), and authority of status (like the traditional 'argument from
authority', known in Latin as _/argumentum ad verecundiam/_ (respect,
reverence, etc.)), which settle opinions by the wrongs of coercion,
corruption, emotional manipulation, and delusion. Anyway, while all
inquiry involves learning, there is a broad sense of 'learning' such
that not all learning is cognitive (and even cognitive learning is not
always particularly inquirial or opinion-fixative even when it is a bit
of struggle, e.g., rote memorization).
Among the methods of authority, perhaps the biggest temptation in
discovery research is the method of status, especially when it is a
method of _/self/_-deception, such that one grants oneself a status of
greater knowledgeability, etc., than one fairly has; it's a temptation
of the intelligent; magicians find it easier to bewilder or beguile
'smart' people than to do so with 'stupid' people, by whom magicians
mean, the people who are unimpressed and chuckle, "well, you did it
somehow" (but those people are obviously smart enough in another way).
As Feynman said, the person whom it is easiest for one to fool is
oneself. Peirce focuses, near the end of "Fixation," on the closing of
one's eyes or ears to the information or evidence that might bring one
the truth particularly when one should know better. This closing of
one's perception, in sometimes less guilty ways, plays a particularly
vulnerable role in the method of tenacity because it is there
unprotected by folds of authority or of aprioristic emulation of some
fermented paradigm; instead there is to keep practicing and repeating
one's initial opinion, it seems a bit like the gambler's fallacy,
boosted sometimes by some initial luck. Well, practice and repetition of
something that has shown _/some/_ success is the core practical-learning
method, not inevitably infallibilistic, of artisans and more generally
practitioners productive and otherwise; to which method they add the
appreciational method of devotees (including the religious) -
identification (appreciation) and imitation (emulation) and, these days,
the methods of reflective disciplines as well (sciences, fine arts,
etc.). What I'm getting at is that some infallibilistic methods of
inquiry can be seen as misapplications, or at least as echoes, of
methods that have some validity outside of inquiry as the struggle to
settle opinion, and thus have validity in applications in inquiry (e.g.,
one needs to keep _/in practice/_ in doing math, etc.), as long as those
applications are not confused with inquiry itself. Anyway, one's barring
of one's own way to truth inhabits the core of all infallibilistic
inquiry. Perhaps one can reduce all logical sins to this, as long as one
remembers the difference between logical sin and other logical errors,
errors sometimes imposed on one.
Best, Ben
On 4/9/2014 1:09 AM, Kasser,Jeff wrote:
Sorry. I originally sent this only to Ben.
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
*From:* "Kasser,Jeff" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> >
*Date:* April 8, 2014 at 10:54:58 PM MDT
*To:* Benjamin Udell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >
*Subject:* *RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: de Waal Seminar: Chapter 6, Philosophy
of Science*
Hi Ben, Sam, Jeffrey, et al.
I like Jeffrey's question about the status in Peirce's argument of the
claim that the scientific method is the only method that leaves room
for its own misapplication. And I like the answer Ben gave below.
Peirce rightly prefers overlapping strands of argumentation to a
single line of reasoning, but it's hard to resist raising questions
about what in "Fixation" depends on what.
I tend to trace his argumentative resources back to the doubt-belief
theory. I think Peirce wants to come as close as he can to deriving
such things as fallibility and openness to improvement from those
resources centered on Section III of the paper. For belief to be worth
wanting, it has to be something that can go wrong. Any game that makes
it trivially true that I win every time isn't worth playing, and if
there's no prospect at all of going wrong, there's no real sense in
which one can claim to be right. So belief couldn't be satisfactory
unless it were, in principle at least, open to correction. I can use
a method that as a matter of fact guarantees that I can't go wrong,
but I can't think of myself as doing that w/o undercutting the very
notion of success. So such methods as authority can be used but can't
be voluntarily and clear-headedly adopted. This comes close to
building the hypothesis of reality into the notion of belief, but
Peirce does that a couple of times in "Fixation," so far as I can tell.
I'd like to hear and talk more about how you see the role of ethics
and esthetics in the argument of "Fixation," Ben. I think you and I
agree that the contrast between the efficiency aspects of the argument
and the normative appeals involved isn't as clear as it's often been
taken to be.
Best to all,
Jeff
________________________________________
From: Benjamin Udell [[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ]
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 11:10 AM
To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: de Waal Seminar: Chapter 6, Philosophy of
Science
Jeffrey, Jeff,
Off to an excellent start!
Jeffrey, you wrote,
[Peirce] says: “This is the only one of the four methods which
presents any distinction of a right and a wrong way.” (EP, vol. 1,
121)
What is Peirce saying here? Let us try to clarify the bases of
this claim. In a number of places, including the lectures in
Reasoning and the Logic of Things, he stresses and develops the
idea that the scientific method is self-correcting. I’d like to
ask a question about the relationship between these two claims.
Peirce means that, of the four methods, the scientific method is the
only one whereby inquiry, according to the method's own account, can
go wrong as well as right; scientific method alone among them
presupposes, or hypothesizes, that there are real things that are what
they are independently of the opinion of particular minds or
communities - hence the scientific method's fallibilism. According to
each of the other three methods' own accounts, inquiry by the method
in the account cannot go wrong. On the other hand, scientific method
is like the other methods in that, according its own account, inquiry
by it can go right - hence, the scientific method's rejection of
radical skepticism, a rejection also expressed in the opposition to
merely quarrelsome or verbal doubt. The scientific method's
supposition of real things, external permanency, to be cognized albeit
fallibly, is what gives it hope of inquiry's not floundering in
opinion's vicissitudes. The scientific method takes fallibility as
well as the possibility of success into account by having inquiry
genuinely address genuine doubts. By this it can improve the security
of beliefs, sometimes by changing them. It lets such doubts in,
instead of leaving them to accrue against overall scientific method
itself.
It seems to me that the claim that the inquirer is fallible but has
the potential for success is the basis for the scientific method's
claim that inquiry should be self-critical and self-corrective. The
argument does not seem to me to run in the opposite direction.
Near the end of "The Fixation of Belief" Peirce does frame inquiry in
terms of ethical and esthetic issues, even though he did not at that
time regard the studies of esthetics and ethics as preceding the study
of logic.
http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html
But, above all, let it be considered that what is more wholesome
than any particular belief is integrity of belief, and that to
avoid looking into the support of any belief from a fear that it
may turn out rotten is quite as immoral as it is disadvantageous.
The person who confesses that there is such a thing as truth,
which is distinguished from falsehood simply by this, that if
acted on it should, on full consideration, carry us to the point
we aim at and not astray, and then, though convinced of this,
dares not know the truth and seeks to avoid it, is in a sorry
state of mind indeed.
Yes, the other methods do have their merits: a clear logical
conscience does cost something -- just as any virtue, just as all
that we cherish, costs us dear. [....]
"...immoral...", "Just as any virtue..." - those words point to ethics.
"...just as all that we cherish..." - those words point to esthetics
(in Peirce's sense of 'esthetics').
Now, in ethics there is usually the idea of a struggle, e.g., in
virtue ethics, courage is due boldness (or at least due confident
behavior) despite pressure to do otherwise; prudence is due caution
despite contrary pressure; and so on. In the above-quoted passage,
Peirce sees issues of struggle, costs, and trade-offs reaching into
issues of one's most general values, i.e., the esthetic level. "The
Fixation of Belief" starts with the idea of inquiry as struggle, and
this struggle is also a case of ethical right and wrong and of
esthetic good and bad, in Peirce's view at that time, even though he
didn't yet see the studies of esthetics and ethics as preceding that
of logic.
As regards your last paragraph, the scientific method's fallibilism
about opinion seems quite thoroughgoing enough to apply to premisses,
conclusions, methods, etc., since all premisses, conclusions, and
methods that are actually adopted are adopted on the basis of actual
opinions. The infallibilism of the other three methods seems likewise.
Best, Ben
On 4/7/2014 3:12 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:
List,
In addition to joining Jeff K. in looking forward to the prospect of
bouncing ideas off each other as we explore this chapter of the ’
<Guide for the Perplexed>, I’d like t0o start by saying that I found
his introductory remarks about “The Fixation of Belief” clear and to
the point.
For the sake of getting the discussion started, I’d like raise a
question about a claim Peirce makes in part V of the essay. He says:
“This is the only one of the four methods which presents any
distinction of a right and a wrong way.” (EP, vol. 1, 121)
What is Peirce saying here? Let us try to clarify the bases of this
claim. In a number of places, including the lectures in Reasoning
and the Logic of Things, he stresses and develops the idea that the
scientific method is self-correcting. I’d like to ask a question
about the relationship between these two claims.
Peirce seems to suggest that the self-correcting character of the
scientific method is quite remarkable because it is able to correct
for three kinds of errors:
1) in the premises (i.e., the observations) we’ve used as
starting points,
2) in the conclusions we’ve drawn (i.e., the beliefs we’ve
formed) in our scientific reasoning,
3) and in the method itself.
I want ask a question about these three different kinds of error.
Call them, if you will, observational errors, errors in our
conclusions, and methodological errors. How might the claim that the
scientific method is the only one that admits of any distinction of a
right and wrong way be used in arguments to support each of these
three claims about the self-correcting character of scientific
inquiry? My hunch is that the other three methods he is
considering—tenacity, authority and the a priori methods--fail on
each of these three fronts.
Yours,
Jeffrey D.
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Kasser,Jeff [[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected] > ]
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 10:55 AM
To: Jeffrey Brian Downard
Cc: Peirce List
Subject: de Waal Seminar: Chapter 6, Philosophy of Science
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