Ben- I made several points...which I admit are my own views of course.. 1) I felt that someone introducing a topic should, himself, explain the key points of the issue to the readers of the list, rather than expecting that readers should either buy his book or read it online. I think the only expectation of a list devoted to a particular researcher (in this case, Peirce) is that members should be reasonably well-read in Peirce. Not everyone has the time - or -desire - to read the book, but they might well be interested in a discussion.
2) Mysterious is an inexplicable as 'magical' or 'mystical'. All terms lead to speculation and even, an abandonment of an examination of pragmatic reasons. I'm quite interested in fascism and have read a 'reasonable' number on it, and on the Third Reich. 3) Ah- Hitler might have made little difference in other times and circumstances. But, didn't he write that Hitler's National Socialist Party won...? "One cannot say that this was the product of conditions--the conditions were the same for all the parties." Did the other parties have the same policies, lay the blame the same way? That is - weren't the times and circumstances highly relevant? 4) And was Hitler's thought 'utterly logical' as Novak claims? I think we'd need some examples. 5) As for 'abduction' - which is the assertion of a speculative hypothesis for 'why things are the way they are'....as you say, Ben, everyone uses it. I agree; every preacher, leader and people over time has done this. Whether they blamed the gods, or the failure of the people to sacrifice and pray properly, or the intrusion of minorities among the population or ....it is a basic characteristic of the human imagination to speculate 'WHY'. Of course, one must then prove the validity of this hypothesis - and Peirce's Fixation of Belief deals with this and the failures to scientifically verify the hypothesis. If you 'prove' it with 'authority, a priori, tenacity'..then, your assertion remains rooted in emotional bonds - and these are extremely powerful, certainly false and devastating in their results. As we saw in the Third Reich and in Islamic fascism now. Think of N. Korea. Think of Greece right now, whose people are convinced that their problems are due to others, not their own fiscal policies. Think of mobs, which all follow this path; social media are filled with examples of speculation gone wild. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Benjamin Udell To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Recently published: Hitler and Abductive Logic Edwina, Ben N., list, I've been reading the online version of Ben N.'s thesis. I found that I could not save it to my computer without first opening it online, and in order to save it computer, one has to move one's mouse over some buttons in the upper right-hand corner of the view pane till a little tool tip says "Download". I'm convinced that visual design of computer programs these days is largely done by sadists. Anyway, I've been reading it, it's two PDFs, and I'm half-way through the second one. It really is very readable, and that involvement of Hitler does add a certain electric current to the discussion of abductive inference. It's not a labor to read, and it's quite interesting. There are a number of technical errors (as Ben N. warns) evident to a Peirce scholar, but these can be corrected without damaging the thesis. In response to Edwina, I'd say that Ben N. does not present Hitler's rise as having a magical or mystical element, rather a mysterious element that requires explanation. He makes a case that many scholars think that there are some very difficult questions as to who Hitler was and how did he get so far. I'm no historian and hadn't read a book on Hitler since I was a teenager. So far, I'd say that the case is not made clear enough to the general reader that Hitler didn't just get lucky in the sense that some party had to come out on top or, in the classic formulation, "somebody has to be the king of France." Ben N. outlines some argument that luck wasn't such a big part of it, but it's not clear to me yet. On the other hand, I don't think that Ben N. is relying on a "Great Men" theory of history - he says that Hitler might have made very little difference in other times and circumstances. Insofar as everybody uses abductive inference, Ben N. perhaps doesn't bring out clearly enough the difference between Hitler's use of it and others' use of it, instead he talks about how Hitler was the first leader to use it. I think I know what Ben N. is getting at, but I'd phrase it more carefully. Ben N. is saying that Hitler was the first leader to invite the public to follow a pattern of abductive inference like in a detective story (Who Murdered Germany?), and that Hitler relied for credibility on the justificatory plausibility and complex cohesion of an untested hypothesis that would take a long time to verify. Well, there's more to it, which it would be foolish of me to try to summarize. I'd ask, is Ben N. so sure that Hitler was the first such leader? Many other regimes have 'explanations' that they give to their people, sometimes involving the idea of hidden forces behind events. Anyway, I'm enjoying reading it. One can certainly say that Ben Novak has made a serious effort, deserving of more attention than what some rather pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey stuff has received occasionally on peirce-l. Best, Ben On 7/9/2015 7:12 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote: Ben, I'm going to disagree with your view that in order to discuss the basic issue of your book, namely, your attempt to correlate the rise of Hitler with abductive logic - that it requires that we either buy your book or read it. I think that on a Peirce-list, the members ought to have a reasonable reading knowledge of Peirce's works, but I don't think that a research topic dealt with by a member requires that members of this list read that member's work. My view is that it is incumbent on YOU, to provide members with a reasonably thorough precis of the salient points of your argument. With regard to the points you have so far provided, my concern is that you seem to be trying to imbue Hitler's rise to power with some 'magical' or mystical element. For example, you claim that when his party took power, German politics consisted of 28 parties - why was Hitler's dominant? In Canada, at the federal level, there are 26 political parties - and there is nothing particularly magical or surprising that only three are dominant. There are about 30 minor political parties in the US. Only two-three are dominant. Second, my concern is your method of explaining this history. You seem to be using what is known as the 'Great Man Theory' of historical analysis, which examines history by focusing on the charisma or whatever of some singular causal individual. I consider this a weak analytic frame; I prefer the 'long duree' framework of the 'Annales' school (eg, Braudel), which considers infrastructural causality such as the population size, economic mode, technological capacity, trade relations etc...rather than individuals. As for fascism, it is an ideology of the mind, i.e., it is not rooted in pragmatic reality but in a notion of utopian purity of the past, such that 'if only we returned to that pure mode', then, all would be well. It is now rampant in the Al Qaeda (from the 19th c!) and ISIS of the MENA. There are, I maintain, population and economic reasons for the refusal of these populations and governments to deal with the pragmatic problems of the area and the resultant retreat into fascism. Same with Germany of the 1930s. And, once an infrastructure is set up, e,g, National Socialism's Third Reich, it is extremely difficult to move out of the rhetoric and back down to hard reality. That requires an external intervention. Certainly, internally, some tried to stop Hitler - As for Hitler being logical - what??? I think some examples would be helpful. His behaviour around Stalingrad was hardly logical. Is the popularity of various cult figures, of wealthy preachers, of due to their being logical? Or for some other reason(s)? What is abductive about Hitler's 'reasoning'? Again, my view - and I say it is my view - is that the onus for explanation of a topic is not to have readers buy your book or read it online, but for you to explain key points to us - and then, explain why you align it with Peircean theory. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Ben Novak To: Stephen Jarosek Cc: Stephen C. Rose ; Peirce List Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2015 5:12 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Recently published: Hitler and Abductive Logic ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- 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 .
----------------------------- 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 .
