Cathy, list,
You wrote,
[Cathy quote] 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. [End quote]
My attention to the difference between (antecedent) prejudice and
(subsequent) bias responds to Peirce's emphasis on a first opinion in
the method of tenacity.
Forming one's own various firm first opinions like random shots in the
dark (impetuousness) tends to lead not only to quick frustrations and
improvised rationalizations, but also to inconsistency not only among
the impetuous opinions but also with more settled opinions on related
subjects - the impetuous shades into the radical. So then one may think,
why not stick with a first opinion which will gradually or eventually be
vindicated (tenacity). At length, one may think, maybe it's better avoid
both inconsistency and both quick and slow frustrations by changing
one's mind - but still willfully. Here "impulsiveness" may be the wrong
word. In fact I'm thinking that it is probably the wrong word. Let's see
if I can get it right this time and, fortuitously enough, I'm thinking
of the kind of person who says, NOW I've got it right, I was wrong
before but now _*/I/*_ am totally right and is again excessively sure of
it, some willful sort of "eureka-ism", something that would be
fashionabilism if it were social, not personal and individual, and which
overestimates the newsiness and significance of the recent evidence.
While one has avoided inconsistency in one sense, one still has a lack
of coherence and sequiturs, and one has to keep changing one's grounds.
So one may think, why not stick with some facts that I HAVE seen, the
hard lessons that _*/I/*_ have learned - and again willfully, so that
I'll come out right, overestimating the character of the past evidence
as data or colligative facts that support nontrivial conclusions.
On the other hand, in the 1906 quote (CP 5.564), Peirce does not mention
the idea of a first opinion, he just mentions "willful belief, or
self-mendacity" as the first unscientific method, and, if one stands pat
there, the question of first opinions, continued opinions, latest
opinions, hidebound last opinions, doesn't come up.
For a bigger picture, one could generalize the willful attitudes
discussed above to political dispositions or temperaments, both the
excessive kinds and the reasonable kinds that are generally shared in
varying proportions, on a spectrum ranging from (impetuous) radicalism
(excessive) and reformism (reasonable), to hideboundism (excessive) and
conservatism / traditionalism (reasonable).
Best, Ben
On 6/16/2014 12:23 AM, Catherine Legg wrote:
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
*Sent:* Sunday, 15 June 2014 7:26 a.m.
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[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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