Thread:
JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/16238
FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/16241
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/16242
FS:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/16243
Thanks, Frederik, for catching my drift.
Speaking of drift, the tendency to collapse the two dimensions
of methodology and ontology and the corresponding reduction
of the normative to the descriptive has become very nearly
the prevailing wind on the Peirce List in recent months.
I naturally blame the hylozooism of the bi0semiotics
gang but even readers who read at least the riper
Peirce do not appear immune to its influence.
At any rate, you probably missed it, but I tried a couple
of times already to point up the (quasi-)necessary course
correction, for example, with the thread I started on the
"Scientific Attitude" (SA).
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15803
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15807
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15896
Regards,
Jon
On 4/21/2015 6:25 PM, Frederik Stjernfelt wrote:
Dear Jon -
Another great quote from the canon.
It distinguishes between two dimensions of necessity in the investigation of
signs:
that of the result of the investigation (which is there) and that of the
process of investigation (which needs not be there, as all processes are
fallible).
Fallibilist necessity, as far as I can see.
Best
F
Den 22/04/2015 kl. 00.18 skrev Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>
:
Frederik, Jeff, List,
Yes, but, we have to take Peirce at his own meaning.
The sense that he attached to the complex of words
including à priori, formal, and (quasi-)necessary
in the context of defining logic and scientific
inquiry is a very particular normative sense
that is not often grasped by readers today.
See this bit of the canon:
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/04/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-logic-as-semiotic/
Regards,
Jon
On 4/21/2015 4:47 PM, Frederik Stjernfelt wrote:
Dear Jeff, lists,
You are certainly right these concepts come in variants. That was why I
attempted to present the early 20C Austrian roots of my objective conception as
against the subjective Kantian one.
Peirce seemingly changed views on the a priori over time - or used the notion with
different meanings. In 1909 he wrote "it would seem proper that in the present state
[of] our knowledge logic should be regarded as coëxtensive with General Semeiotic, the a
priori theory of signs."
Best
F
Den 21/04/2015 kl. 17.55 skrev Jeffrey Brian Downard
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
Lists,
Peirce provides us with a definition of the distinction between what is a
priori and what is a posteriori in the Century Dictionary.
Here it is: from the former, from that which precedes; hence from antecedent
to consequent, from condition to conditioned, or from cause to effect.
Peirce took himself to be working from an account that traces its roots back to
Albert of Saxony in the late Medieval period. He distinguishes between
demonstratio a priori, which is reasoning from causes or first principles to
effects, and demonstratio a posteriori, which is reasoning from effects to
causes, which merely proves the fact without showing why it must be as it is.
It is clear that this Latin terminology is being used to characterize an
important Aristotelian division between two ways in which we might claim to
know things. Peirce adds that, in the 18th century, demonstratio a priori was
applied to reasoning from a given notion back to the conditions which such a
notion involves. He goes on to distinguish between this modern use of the
distinction and Kant's particular use of it--which is to employ it as an
adjective in cases where there are disparate elements that are combined in
cognition. So, in cases where our knowledge might be based, in part, on e!
mpirical
e
vidence, there might also be a priori elements supplied by the power of the
understanding that are necessary for the possibility of such experiential
cognition. The forms of space and time, for example, are held to be a priori
elements in our experiential cognition.
As a person who was trained in an analytically oriented department, my early
sense as a graduate student who was working on Kant was that a rather marked
rupture occurred in the early 20th century as logical positivists and
analytically minded philosophers started using the distinction in rather novel
ways. The novelties they introduced only confused matters further when they
tried to draw on these concepts in order to reconfigure the distinction between
the analytic and the synthetic. It would be good, I think, to be clear about
where we are using 20th century versions of these terms to make our points and
where we are trying to use the terms in the ways that Albert of Saxony,
Leibniz, Kant, Hamilton--or Peirce--was using them.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
--
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