Peircers, I'm going to post a few portions of previous source bits on abduction, the cotary propositions, evolutionary philosophy, the pragmatic maxim, and related topics that I was able to find right off on my old machine. The Inquiry List has been down for maintenance for a month or so now or I'd be able to find a lot more on the web, but FWIW as the saying goes. I hope you will excuse me for recycling old material, but I'm confident that I was far smarter 15 or 20 years ago, and certainly more immersed in these particular issues, than I can hope to be now.
Regards, Jon ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤ Cotary Propositions ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤ Subj: Sources Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 16:24:03 -0400 From: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> To: Peirce Discussion Forum <[email protected]> | It appears to me, then, that my three cotary propositions | are satisfactorily grounded. Nevertheless, since others may | not regard them as so certain as I myself do, I propose in the | first instance to disregard them, and to show that, even if they | are put aside as doubtful, a maxim practically little differing | in most of its applications from that of pragmatism ought to be | acknowledged and followed; and after this has been done, I will | show how the recognition of the cotary propositions will affect | the matter. | | I have argued in several of my early papers that there | are but three essentially different modes of reasoning: | Deduction, Induction, and Abduction. I may mention in | particular papers in the 'Proceedings of the American | Academy of Arts and Sciences' for April and May 1867. | I must say, however, that it would be very easy to | misunderstand those arguments. I did not at first | fully comprehend them myself. I cannot restate the | matter tonight, although I am very desirous of doing | so, for I could now put it in a much clearer light. | I have already explained to you briefly what these | three modes of inference, Deduction, Induction, and | Abduction are. I ought to say that when I described | induction as the experimental testing of a hypothesis, | I was not thinking of experimentation in the narrow | sense in which it is confined to cases in which we | ourselves deliberately create the peculiar conditions | under which we desire to study a phenomenon. I mean to | extend it to every case in which, having ascertained by | deduction that a theory would lead us to anticipate under | certain circumstances phenomena contrary to what we should | expect if the theory were 'not' true, we examine the cases | of that sort to see how far those predictions are borne out. | | CSP, LOP 1903, PAT, 248-249; excerpt at CP 5.195 | | If you carefully consider the question of pragmatism you will see | that it is nothing else than the question of the logic of abduction. | That is, pragmatism proposes a certain maxim which, if sound, must | render needless any further rule as to the admissibility of hypotheses | to rank as hypotheses, that is to say, as explanations of phenomena | held as hopeful suggestions; and furthermore, this is 'all' that the | maxim of pragmatism really pretends to do, at least so far as it is | confined to logic, and is not understood as a proposition in psychology. | For the maxim of pragmatism is that a conception can have no logical | effect or import differing from that of a second conception except so | far as, taken in connection with other conceptions and intentions, it | might conceivably modify our practical conduct differently from that | second conception. Now it is indisputable that no rule of abduction | would be admitted by any philosopher which should prohibit on any | formalistic grounds any inquiry as to how we ought in consistency | to shape our practical conduct. Therefore, a maxim which looks only | to possibly practical considerations will not need any supplement in | order to exclude any hypotheses as inadmissible. What hypothesis it | admits all philosophers would agree ought to be admitted. On the | other hand, if it be true that nothing but such considerations has | any logical effect or import whatever, it is plain that the maxim | of pragmatism cannot cut off any kind of hypothesis which ought to | be admitted. Thus, the maxim of pragmatism, if true, fully 'covers' | the entire logic of abduction. It remains to inquire whether this | maxim may not have some 'further' logical effect. If so, it must in | some way affect inductive or deductive inference. But that pragmatism | cannot interfere with induction is evident; because induction simply | teaches us what we have to expect as a result of experimentation, and | it is plain that any such expectation may conceivably concern practical | conduct. In a certain sense it must affect deduction. Anything which | gives a rule to abduction and so puts a limit upon admissible hypotheses | will cut down 'the premisses' of deduction, and thereby will render a | 'reductio ad absurdum' and other equivalent forms of deduction possible | which would not otherwise have been possible. But here three remarks | may be made. First, to affect the premisses of deduction is not to | affect the logic of deduction. For in the process of deduction itself | no conception is introduced to which pragmatism could be supposed to | object except the act of abstraction. Concerning that I have only time | to say that pragmatism ought not to object to it. Secondly, no effect | of pragmatism which 'is consequent upon its effect on abduction' can | go to show that pragmatism is anything more than a doctrine concerning | the logic of abduction. Thirdly, if pragmatism is the doctrine that | every conception is a conception of conceivable practical effects, | it makes conception reach far beyond the practical. It allows any | flight of imagination, provided this imagination ultimately alights | upon a possible practical effect; and thus many hypotheses may seem | at first glance to be excluded by the pragmatical maxim that are not | really so excluded. | | CSP, LOP 1903, PAT, 249-250; CP 5.196 | | Charles Sanders Peirce, |'Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking', | The 1903 Harvard 'Lectures on Pragmatism' (LOP), | Edited and Introduced, with a Commentary by: | Patricia Ann Turrisi, SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1997 (PAT). | Excerpts of these Lectures constitute CP 5, Book 1, CP 5.14-212. And of course the WayBak Machine is down, too, but maybe this link will work at a later date: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg02890.html ¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤~~~~~~~~~¤ -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
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