Thanks, Jeff, this helps to clarify the issue. Your quote from CP 6.295 is a
kind of precursor to the Neglected Argument: strong feeling is in itself, I
think, an argument of some weight. But of course it only has much weight
for those who have the feeling!
In your first quote, while summarizing the history of cosmology, Peirce
remarks that the ontological gospeller [John], in whose days those views
were familiar topics, made the One Supreme Being, by whom all things have
been made out of nothing, to be cherishing-love, and it's clear that his
own warmth of feeling supports that idea. However, he also recognizes the
logical problem in reconciling this belief with monotheism: the Creator of
love must also be Creator of hate. This isn't a problem for an evolutionary
cosmology such as Peirce is outlining here, which aims to explain how the
various universal tendencies work themselves out; but it doesn't provide any
rational basis for identifying that One Supreme Being with the Real creator
of all three Universes of Experience (and therefore of all those
tendencies). Besides, the idea that love is supreme among all tendencies, or
more genuine than the others, even if we accept it, doesn't prove that the
Creator of all universes is benign. But then that's the kind of
theological argument that Peirce prefers to avoid, by appealing to instinct
as the best guide to belief in practical matters.
Anyway, I dont think youve given me good reason to change what I said
before, but you have thrown a strong light on its Peircean context.
gary f.
} I thank thee that I am none of the wheels of power but I am one of the
living creatures that are crushed by it. [Tagore] {
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm> www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{
gnoxics
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 21-Jun-14 8:30 PM
Gary F.,
You say: "Im not aware of any argument in Peirces scientific metaphysics
supporting the proposition that God is benign."
Peirce starts the discussion of Evolutionary love with the following
question about the possible relationships that might hold between principles
of love and hate.
6.287. Philosophy, when just escaping from its golden pupa-skin, mythology,
proclaimed the great evolutionary agency of the universe to be Love. Or,
since this
pirate-lingo, English, is poor in such-like words, let us say Eros, the
exuberance-love.
Afterwards, Empedocles set up passionate love and hate as the two coördinate
powers of the universe. In some passages, kindness is the word. But
certainly, in any
sense in which it has an opposite, to be senior partner of that opposite, is
the highest
position that love can attain. Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller, in
whose days
those views were familiar topics, made the One Supreme Being, by whom all
things
have been made out of nothing, to be cherishing-love. What, then, can he say
to hate?
Later in the essay, Peirce seems to think that he has offered an argument of
sorts.
6.295. Much is to be said on both sides. I have not concealed, I could not
conceal, my own passionate predilection. Such a confession will probably
shock my
scientific brethren. Yet the strong feeling is in itself, I think, an
argument of some
weight in favor of the agapastic theory of evolution -- so far as it may be
presumed to
bespeak the normal judgment of the Sensible Heart. Certainly, if it were
possible to
believe in agapasm without believing it warmly, that fact would be an
argument
against the truth of the doctrine. At any rate, since the warmth of feeling
exists, it
should on every account be candidly confessed; especially since it creates a
liability
to one-sidedness on my part against which it behooves my readers and me to
be
severally on our guard.
Is this the only argument he's given in "Evolutionary Love" for the thesis
that the principle of love has priority in his metaphysical explanations of
the evolution of order in the cosmos? For my part, I think there is an
argument in the following passage:
6.303. All three modes of evolution are composed of the same general
elements.
Agapasm exhibits them the most clearly. The good result is here brought to
pass, first,
by the bestowal of spontaneous energy by the parent upon the offspring, and,
second,
by the disposition of the latter to catch the general idea of those about it
and thus to
subserve the general purpose. In order to express the relation that tychasm
and
anancasm bear to agapasm let me borrow a word from geometry. An ellipse
crossed
by a straight line is a sort of cubic curve; for a cubic is a curve which is
cut thrice by a
straight line; now a straight line might cut the ellipse twice and its
associated straight
line a third time. Still the ellipse with the straight line across it would
not have the
characteristics of a cubic. It would have, for instance, no contrary
flexure, which no
true cubic wants; and it would have two nodes, which no true cubic has. The
geometers say that it is a degenerate cubic. Just so, tychasm and anancasm
are
degenerate forms of agapasm.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
_____
From: Gary Fuhrman [[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2014 5:28 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] De Waal seminar chapter 9, section on God, science
and religion: text 1
Having just caught up with this thread, Id like to add one belated comment.
Peirces God is ens necessarium personified. He views the personification as
instinctive. Some of us have an aversion to this kind of personification.
Whether that aversion is itself instinctive is a difficult psychological
question, I think. But its clear that in Peirces view, religious belief
should be more instinctive than rational; thats a central point of the
Neglected Argument essay. EP2:435:
If God Really be, and be benign, then, in view of the generally conceded
truth that religion, were it but proved, would be a good outweighing all
others, we should naturally expect that there would be some Argument for His
Reality that should be obvious to all minds, high and low alike, that should
earnestly strive to find the truth of the matter; and further, that this
Argument should present its conclusion, not as a proposition of metaphysical
theology, but in a form directly applicable to the conduct of life, and full
of nutrition for man's highest growth.
Theres a pair of big IFs at the beginning of that sentence, and Peirce
focusses on the first while neglecting the second. The first sentence of the
NA affirms his belief that God as ens necessarium is Really creator of all
three Universes of Experience. But he does not address the question of
whether the Creator is benign.
Now, from a rational point of view, there is nothing necessarily benign
about creative power. Im not aware of any argument in Peirces scientific
metaphysics supporting the proposition that God is benign. Rather I think
its a pragmatic requirement for any monotheistic religion to believe that
Creation is benign. This belief, like the habit of personification, may be
instinctive for some people and not for others; but for a religion that is
directly applicable to the conduct of life, this kind of optimism is
parallel to the belief that truth is discoverable, which is a logical
requirement for doing science, according to Peirce. Optimism is
pragmatically nutritious, while pessimism is insane, or at least unhealthy.
Personally I dont share Peirces optimism not on an instinctive level,
that is. But I think hes quite right that its healthy for both religion
and science as communal enterprises. The religious expression of that
optimism is the belief that the personified Creator is also the
personification of Good or benignity. I also think that from a rhetorical
point of view, Peirce was wise to slip that premise into his argument almost
surreptitiously (in the sentence quoted above) because I dont think
theres any reason to believe it except that its ethically nutritious if
we concede that religion, were it but proved, would be a good outweighing
all others.
gary f.
} Be! Verb imprincipiant through the entrancitive spaces! [FW2 463] {
www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{ gnoxics
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