Ben what a detailed analytical list you’ve come up with!
I’m not sure that I see that your distinction between (antecedent) prejudice and (current) bias makes much real difference pragmatically, though, given that inquiry is always moving forward into the future. I.e. I don’t see a clear difference between impetuousness and impulsiveness. Cheers, Cathy *From:* Benjamin Udell [mailto:[email protected]] *Sent:* Sunday, 15 June 2014 7:26 a.m. *To:* [email protected] *Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Unscientific methods of inquiry List, I've been pottering around intermittently for a while in classifying unscientific methods of inquiry, using Peirce's outline of such methods as a starting point. Willful attitudes as unscientific methods of inquiry. Peirce called the method of persistence in a first opinion "the method of tenacity," a comparatively neutral characterization like the others in "The Fixation of Belief" (method of authority, method of the a priori). In drafts, on the other hand, he had called the method of authority the method of despotism. Years later he called the method of tenacity the method of "willful belief" and, most pejoratively, "self-mendacity" (CP 5.564, circa 1906, see end of this post). Here I call the method of tenacity somewhat pejoratively the method of "pertinacity," in keeping with some kindred methods' names. There is something a bit solipsistic in this set of methods, insofar as they all involve ignoring contrary evidence or views, as if truth were private, not public, as Peirce said of the method of tenacity in "The Fixation of Belief." I use a distinction sometimes made between prejudice (pre-judgment) and bias. In this distinction, bias reflects partialness or incompleteness of evidence or experience. In these methods, prejudice and bias are adopted or maintained against contrary views and evidences. *Impetuousness.* Too (pro-)active and forceful. Forms a prejudice about what certain evidence verges on showing. *Pertinacity.* Too patient and enduring. Holds a prejudice about what certain evidence will come to show. *Impulsiveness.* Too reactive and energetic. Forms a bias from what certain evidence newly shows. *Hideboundness.* Too settled and formed. Holds a bias based on what certain evidence showed in the past. One cannot resolve doubt and suspicions by pertinaciously persisting in a first opinion if one does not already have an opinion on the given subject. Impetuousness involves adopting a weak guess as one's first opinion. Impulsiveness and hideboundness involve forming or holding not a first opinion, but a latest or actual final opinion (not the final opinion that sufficient investigation _*would*_ reach). But these are not all the methods of inquiry by prejudice, bias, inclination, some sort of distortion. The method of authority involves an inclination imposed by extraneous considerations of power, intimidation, coercion, etc. In the past I've considered how wealth, glamour, and status can likewise do wrongs (corrupt, manipulate, deceive), and called them methods of authority, but it makes better sense to call all of them *unscientific methods of inquiry by contest and ascendancy*, the idea that might makes right generalized to the idea that ascendancy makes right. They can be regarded as methods of imposing, or succumbing to, conformity based on extraneous benefit gained, or extraneous cost avoided, by choice of opinion, because of who holds the opinion. Then there is what Peirce called the method of the a priori. The idea of this method seems a little harder for people to pin down. Jon Awbrey has called it the method of "plausibility (a priori pleasingness)" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.misc.inquiry/3779 , and Gary Furhman the method of consensus https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00474.html . The method of the a priori consists in letting inclinations of thought develop in their interplay, working out their conclusions in comparisons and discussions of perspectives in terms of what is "agreeable to reason," the method thereby depending on taste and fashion in intellectual paradigms and thus going in circles over long enough times. As Jeff Doward pointed out, this is the unscientific method of inquiry in which, nevertheless, the content of the opinion matters, not just that it is one's own opinion or that it is a common authority's opinion. But in the method of the a priori, that content inclines one by some benefit that would be gained, or cost that would be avoided, if the opinion were true. So it is a method of something like wishful thinking. Unscientific methods of inquiry on the basis of the appeal of the opinion's claimed facts Those below are cruder than the method of the a priori, its fermentation, etc. The appeal may consist in various things: The claimed facts' *advancing or promoting* one's will, efforts, cause, etc. (or avoidance of defeat). This can be used deliberately in coercion, too. The claimed facts' *convenientness* or avoidance of inconvenientness ("sure, it's a short walk, don't need the car"). This can be used deliberately in corruption, too. The claimed facts' *pleasantness* or pain avoidance ("all dogs go to heaven"). Or provoking desires, raising hopes, etc. Or even provoking fear, anger, etc., if such are what makes one's psychological engine go. This can be used deliberately in (emotional) manipulation, too. The claimed facts' *recognizability*, i.e., their assuringness or corroborativeness. Method of confirmation bias. This can be used deliberately in deception, too. I got to thinking about contrarianism and conformism as unscientific methods of inquiry. Peirce's method of authority is a particularly conformist method. I came up with this: Unscientific methods of inquiry based on agreement and/or disagreement with others (whose opinions matter to one on the subject). This classification is nice because its logically systematic underpinnings are pretty apparent. *Contrarianism * I'll be correct mainly by disagreeing with the others. I'll be correct since, among the others whose opinions matter on the subject, *there are not the correct but the incorrect.* *Partisanism * I'll be correct mainly by agreeing with some of the others and disagreeing with the rest. I'll be correct since, among others whose opinions matter on the subject, *there are the correct and the incorrect.* *Quasi-solipsism* I'll be correct mainly by there being nobody else (whose opinion matters). I'll be correct since, among others whose opinions matter on the subject, *there are neither the correct nor the incorrect* (i.e., no others' opinions than mine matter on the subject). *Conformism* I'll be correct mainly by agreeing with the others. I'll be correct since, among others whose opinions matter on the subject, *there are the correct and not the incorrect.* Peirce-relevant conclusion: It is possible to generalize, or extrapolate from, some of Peirce's ideas of unscientific inquiry methods and come up with many more. A separate question is that of whether Peirce's three are the main ones in a pragmatic, bigger-picture view. CP 5.564, circa 1906, QUOTE PEIRCE] My paper of November 1877, setting out from the proposition that the agitation of a question ceases when satisfaction is attained with the settlement of belief, and then only, goes on to consider how the conception of truth gradually develops from that principle under the action of experience; beginning with willful belief, or self-mendacity, the most degraded of all intellectual conditions; thence rising to the imposition of beliefs by the authority of organized society; then to the idea of a settlement of opinion as the result of a fermentation of ideas; and finally reaching the idea of truth as overwhelmingly forced upon the mind in experience as the effect of an independent reality. [END QUOTE] Best, Ben
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