Gary R., list,
This seems to be error-confession month. I've a few new ones of my own
now to mention.
As regards _/logica utens/_ and _/logica docens/_, I confused things a
bit, for example by asking whether mathematical reasoning IS one or IS
the other, rather than asking, on which of them does mathematical
reasoning rely.
I also mischaracterized the dependence on _/logica utens/_ in special
sciences by attributing it to unfamiliarity with Peirce. There's quite a
bit of methodological theory that addresses scientific method, and
idioscopic scientists are not entirely unfamiliar with it. Some of it is
in statistics (design of experiments, etc.) Really, we all swim in a sea
of _/logica utens/_ and occasionally apply (or, more rarely, originate)
some _/logica-docens/_ crystallization and enrichment of some of it. I
suspect that Peirce's methodeutic will gain increased attention, partly
because of the Internet.
As regards Kees's view of Peirce's view of pragamatism's
classificational place (in methodeutic a.k.a. speculative rhetoric), you
and he have well covered it now in other posts.
You wrote,
[GR] > It is my sense that this "methodeutically based enrichment of
the presuppostional conception" suggests the way in which once
logica docens, and especially methodeutic, is on a solid footing,
that there is good reason to go back to what was early presupposed,
to go back also to the sciences preceding logic as semeiotic, etc.
and now consider them from the standpoint of the findings and the
methods of a developed and purified formal logic in Peirce's broad
sense. Should the pre-logical sciences never benefit from the
advances of formal logic? Of course they should!
In the sense in which you probably mean that, yes. I don't think that
they get a 'do-over' in the Peircean system. They get applied in
examples in ways that help flesh them out. Phaneroscopy can't take
principles from probability theory or mathematical logic, but only from
pure maths, e.g., measure theory and order theory. I find it quite
difficult to think of phanerscopic issues without applying ideas as
principles such as universality from logical quantification, difficult
because the logical structure of such ideas seems pertinent to me. It's
one thing to think that all phenomena are such-and-such, it's another to
address generality, 'all-ness' etc., as a phenomenon.
[GR] > [...] I'm not certain what you mean by "clarified at or near
his logic's start" in what immediately follows in your post. Do you
mean in logical grammar? [....]
[BU] >> [....] But the presupposition of truth as the
predestinate end of sufficient inquiry, as clarified at or near
his logic's start [....]
He discusses the presuppositions of reasoning in various places. In the
Carnegie application (1902), he discusses it at or near the start of his
memoirs on logic. THEN he gets into stechiology (a.k.a. speculative
grammar, signs, objects, interpretants, and their classifications). So
it's quite as if logic begins on a general level, covering
presuppositions, belief, doubt, etc., then gets into the three
subdivisions of logic. Then in 1911 instead of stechiology or
speculative grammar, he puts a division called 'analytic' first in
logic, and it covers topics such as belief and doubt. Does this include
classification of signs? Who knows. The passage is in a 1911 letter
(draft or not, I don't know) to J. H. Kehler, printed in _The New
Elements of Mathematics_ v.3, p. 207. Peirce wrote the following which I
found at the _Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms_ under "Analytic"
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/analytic.html :
[CSP] I have now sketched my doctrine of Logical Critic, skipping a
good deal. I recognize two other parts of Logic. One which may be
called Analytic examines the nature of thought, not psychologically
but simply to define what it is to doubt, to believe, to learn,
etc., and then to base critic on these definitions is my real
method, though in this letter I have taken the third branch of
logic, Methodeutic, which shows how to conduct an inquiry. This is
what the greater part of my life has been devoted to, though I base
it upon Critic.
Best, Ben
On 4/23/2014 5:47 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Ben, list,
I am tending to agree with much that you wrote, Ben, but would like
you to clarify a point or two if possible.
You wrote:
In practice, this _/logica utens/_ aspect occurs not only
prior to formal logic but afterward, in the special sciences too,
since such scientists tend not to be too familiar with Peirce's
formal methodeutic theory
No doubt it is the case that many working in the special sciences
aren't familiar with Peirce's methodeutic and use a logica utens in
their work. But I think the point for Peirce would be that they ought
to familiarize themselves better with logic, with logica docens, and
apply it so that errors might be avoided,, just as he intended logic
as semeiotic to clarify concepts in the interest of avoiding serious
errors in metaphysics.
You continued, regarding Peirce's methodeutic that this "is where
pragmatism and it[s] maxim belong (I think). In the Carnegie
application, Peirce places pragmatism even further along in
methodeutic than I would have thought."
I'll have to take a look at the Carnegie application again soon. As
mentioned earlier, Kees' would seem to place the PM in theoretical
grammar, and offers an interesting semiosic analogy to make his point.
While I'm still reflecting on all of this, at the moment you and I
seem to agree that the PM is best placed late in methodeutic. Still,
Kees' argument for placing in in grammar is thought-provoking and
needs serious consideration, in my opinion.
You continued with a discussion of the presuppositional conception of
truth.
Peirce holds in various writings that reasoning presupposes
certain things about truth and the real. But the reasoner at that
stage hardly needs to know the THEORY of pragmatism, three grades
of clearness, etc. However, the pragmatic clarification of truth
does seem to involve some methodeutically based enrichment of the
presuppositional conception, so one can speak of a 'pragmatic
conception of truth'.
It is my sense that this "methodeutically based enrichment of the
presuppostional conception" suggests the way in which once logica
docens, and especially methodeutic, is on a solid footing, that there
is good reason to go back to what was early presupposed, to go back
also to the sciences preceding logic as semeiotic, etc. and now
consider them from the standpoint of the findings and the methods of a
developed and purified formal logic in Peirce's broad sense. Should
the pre-logical sciences never benefit from the advances of formal
logic? Of course they should!
You continued:
And even with reality defined presuppositionally, well before
methodeutic, it is not in methodeutic or logic at all, but
afterward in metaphysics, that Peirce treats of just what reality
so defined amounts to; his theory of truth and reality leads to
modal realism and the nontrivial consequence of the reality of
indeterminacy in the universe.
Indeed, Peirce's theory of truth and reality eventually lead him to an
/extreme/ modal realism and tychism. But as you go on to say, his
metaphysics of reality can be see as pragmatistic, and I would think
exactly because presuppositional notions of truth and reality /will/
be clarified by employing the PM. I think we're in agreement here, but
I'm not certain what you mean by "clarified at or near his logic's
start" in what immediately follows in your post. Do you mean in
logical grammar? It would be helpful if you would clarify or expand
upon the following:
Pragmatism has metaphysical consequences, in Peirce's system,
and one can call his metaphysics of reality 'pragmatistic'. But
the presupposition of truth as the predestinate end of sufficient
inquiry, as clarified at or near his logic's start, is something
of which pragmatism - a theory of the clarification of ideas - is
itself a theoretical application.
At the moment I'm not at all clear as to what you're saying in the
passage above. You continued:
As regards _/logica utens/_ in phaneroscopy, in Peirce's
classification there's nothing to stop _/logica utens/_, including
an informal version of pragmatism, an eye to conceivable practical
implications, from being involved.
Of course I agree. This was a point I occasionally tried to make with
Joe Ransdell, but I don't think with much success. It seemed to me
then and seems to me now that formal semeiotic is not at first
necessary--nor at first even possible, not at least in the fullest,
most developed sense--for the sciences preceding it. I would only add
now, as I mentioned above, that there is no reason why, once logic as
semeiotic, and most especially, methodeutic, is developed, it would
not be possible to apply its findings and methods to those earlier
sciences. I take it that we're in agreement on this.
You concluded:
But if mathematical reasoning is _/deductiva logica utens/_,
then _/logica utens/_ is not always vague and informal in every
sense. If on the other hand mathematical reasoning is not _/logica
utens/_, but still not _/logica docens/_ (which Peirce places as
later, in philosophy), then what is it?
Good question. Is there in the logic of mathematics--that is, in that
quite small and 'simple' part of theoretical mathematics--anything
suggesting that deduction is so rationally fundamental (or simple) as
to require no formal logical support? Of course there is also that
part of mathematics which requires a kind of abductiva logica utens as
well, and this last involves an insight of Peirce's which broadened
and deepened his father's definition of mathematics as "the science
which draws necessary conclusions." And further,as Kees might add,
working mathematicians /will/ talk about, for the purposes of
clarifying, conceptions involved in/associate with their work.
Best,
Gary
*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York *
On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 3:14 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
**
**
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
