Clark, Gary F, Lists, Something that helped me a great deal in grasping Peirce's sense of causality in the present context (of facts as the "truth-makers" of dicisigns such that ". . .if a dicisign is true, the corresponding fact is the case," NP, p 72) is reading fn 24, p. 74-75, following the sentence: "Scientifically traceable causal relations hold between facts, not between occurrences (NP, 74). Here Peirce argues against J.S.Mill's notion that an occurrence could have a cause. The passage quoted in the note concludes:
Mill's not making the needful distinction between Facts and Occurrences drives him to the declaration that the complete cause of any happening is the aggregate of all its antecedents, a principle which, though it is a necessary result of his views, he utterly ignores from the moment of enunciating it; for the excellent reason that its recognition would eviscerate the conception of Cause of all utility." This is to say that if one were to follow Mill's principle that "the complete cause of any happening is the aggregate of all its antecedents" then one would be left with something like the notion that *everything *preceding it is the cause of any occurrence, which is what I take Peirce to mean in writing that Mill's principle "would eviscerate the conception of Cause of all utility." Elsewhere in KS in a passage not quoted in this section he writes: Mill's singularity is that he speaks of the cause of a singular event. Everybody else speaks of the cause of a "fact," which is an element of the event. But, with Mill, it is the event in its entirety which is caused. The consequence is that Mill is obliged to define the cause as the totality of all the circumstances attending the event. This is, strictly speaking, the Universe of being in its totality. . Or perhaps a simpler and, perhaps, less metaphysical way of looking at this is that although an actual occurrence is most certainly real, "it can never be known or even imagined in all its infinite detail"(from Ms 647, quoted on p. 74) and the same would be the case *a fortiori* for its "cause". Best, Gary R *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690* On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 2:04 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Oct 9, 2014, at 8:17 AM, Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]> wrote: > > Those who find this concept of causality questionable would do well to > post their questions now. > > > I confess I've always had trouble with the conception of "events" in > philosophy. While I've long loved reading Davidson his events always seemed > mysterious to me. I found the idea of fact for Peirce straightforward but > exactly what the relationship with events is something I find more > difficult. It seems like Peirce's conception here of causality with events > is mysterious. It appears that his analysis of causes is less a physical > one than a logical one relating facts or true propositions. > > In that sense there's a certain degree of overlap with how say Davidson > conduct's his analysis. For Davidson in notions like his anomalous monism > you have different sorts of descriptions of events and (going by distant > memory here) causes are between those. This makes translation between the > mental to physical difficult for Davidson due to the different sort of > descriptions involved. (As I said, my ability to figure out Davidson's > events was always weak, so I was never sure if I quite got Davidson even > though I always loved reading him) > > Now Peirce's famous example via continuity on relating causally the mental > to the physical and vice versa seems different from Davidson. And there are > many other differences. Still I wonder if there's a certain broad > similarity at play. > > > > > ----------------------------- > 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 > . > > > > > >
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