Inquiry Blog http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2015/01/20/pragmatism-about-theoretical-entities-1/
Peirce List JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15467 FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15800 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15817 FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15818 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15826 JC:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15832 FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15857 FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15858 Frederik, List, I don't see that we differ much on the question of Peirce's realism, not so much on the question of what he knew as when he knew it, maybe. I have never bought that multi-stage story of Peirce's development as much as others do. The way I read him, he started out writing technical works for audiences trained in mathematical and scientific disciplines. They may not have had quite as much mental flexibility as he assumed but their natural dispositions and practical training possessed them of that basic "scientific attitude" that I tried to thumbnail sketch recently on a not unrelated thread. This had the effect that Peirce simply did not have to articulate a whole of lot of assumptions that were already taken for granted by his audience. That would have been a case of "teaching grandpa to suck eggs", as the folksy idiom goes. As various not-so-simple twists of fate would have it, one of the big things that changed with the passing years was the increasing diversity of audiences that he addressed, and I think this accounts for a greater share of the variance in what he wrote than is widely acknowledged. Just for instance, the acceptance of "real possibles" that makes up the bread-and-butter of probability theory and statistical inference would hardly need arguing in those early papers with the same dogged insistence it took to justify it to later audiences. Regards, Jon On 3/17/2015 7:00 AM, Frederik Stjernfelt wrote:
Dear Jon, lists -
JA:I think I can understand how Peirce would need to emphasize realism
in certain arguments or for certain audiences, imaginary or otherwise.
FS:To Peirce, realism does not seem restricted to certain arguments or audiences - > cf. classic expositions like Boler's 1963 book on P and scholastic realism or > Max Fisch's paper on P's development from nominalism to realism.
JA:By that standard, though, all mathematicians would be extreme realists,
as opposed to the garden variety Platonists they really are in practice.
JA:In all but the most paradoxical or pathological circumstances, it makes
sense to say that a set is something other than its elements, and the rest of the claim you cite would depend on the definitions of choice for terms like "comprise", "more than", "possible number", and "instantiations".
FS:These are just my shorthand expressions. The argument refers to the connection > between P's realism and his continuity metaphysics - I dealt with this in more > detail in ch. 2 of Diagrammatology (2007)
JA:Still, I have a long history of using a principle like that to argue
for a measure of rationalism to leaven any mix of naive empiricism, so I guess that makes me an extremist, too.
FS:Certainly …
FS:Best
F
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