Dear Gary and list
I am glad that you accept my integrative view here. It took me a long time to
reach it and many of my colleagues finds it highly provocative.
Peirce's anthropomorphism I would interpret -without having any other sources -
as his abductive epistemology based on evolution and synechism as the our
innate source to "guess right" in our scientific abductive hypothesis. It is
the evolution of abductive semiosis and the attractions of our symbolic mind to
ideas that is the real mover of knowledge development.
Best
Søren
Fra: Gary Fuhrman [mailto:[email protected]]
Sendt: 29. maj 2014 15:22
Til: [email protected]
Emne: RE: [PEIRCE-L] De Waal seminar chapter 9, section on God, science and
religion: text 2
A marvelous study of Peirce's "integration of science and religion," Søren!
I wonder if you might comment, from your perspective, on one aspect of Peirce's
religious belief which appears relatively 'conservative' to most of us: his
avowed "anthropormorphism." Although Peirce does not see this as unscientific,
it does seem to be in some tension with some of his other views about science,
such as his avoidance of 'psychologism' in logic. Consider for instance this
passage from EP2:152 (second Harvard Lecture, 1903):
"Anthropomorphic" is what pretty much all conceptions are at bottom; otherwise
other roots for the words in which to express them than the old Aryan roots
would have to be found. And in regard to any preference for one kind of theory
over another, it is well to remember that every single truth of science is due
to the affinity of the human soul to the soul of the universe, imperfect as
that affinity no doubt is. To say, therefore, that a conception is one natural
to man, which comes to just about the same thing as to say that it is
anthropomorphic, is as high a recommendation as one could give to it in the
eyes of an Exact Logician. ... I have after long years of the severest
examination become fully satisfied that, other things being equal, an
anthropomorphic conception, whether it makes the best nucleus for a scientific
working hypothesis or not, is far more likely to be approximately true than one
that is not anthropomorphic. Suppose, for example, it is a question between
accepting Telepathy or Spiritualism. The former I dare say is the preferable
working hypothesis because it can be more readily subjected to experimental
investigation. But as long as there is no reason for believing it except
phenomena that Spiritualism is equally competent to explain, I think
Spiritualism is much the more likely to be approximately true, as being the
more anthropomorphic and natural idea; and in like manner, as between an
old-fashioned God and a modern patent Absolute, recommend me to the
anthropomorphic conception if it is a question of which is the more likely to
be about the truth.
Do you see this as perfectly compatible with Peirce's panentheism, or (more
important) his way of integrating religion and science? (I think I do, but I'd
like to hear it from you.)
gary f.
} The human body is the best picture of the soul. [Wittgenstein, PI II.iv) {
www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm<http://www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm> }{ gnoxics
From: Søren Brier [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 28-May-14 5:56 PM
---------------------------------------------
Peirce's philosophical work proceeds in a way that suggests a new understanding
of science and religion as well as the relation between them, which transcends
our usual way of thinking of these matters in the West Peirce's triadic
semiotics worked on an original solution to the metaphysical problems connected
to the relation between science, philosophy, mathematics and religion in the
modern world. Peirce was truly a mathematical philosopher, believing that
philosophy must begin with logic resting in turn upon pure mathematics.
...
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