Jeff D., list,
Sorry for the delayed response. I've rarely been so inundated with
practical matters.
I think that I'd agree with Kant's remark "That philosophy which mixes
pure principles with empirical ones does not deserve the name of
philosophy...." if by "philosophy" one takes him to mean pure
philosophy, or pure cenoscopy in Peirce's sense, as opposed to applied
philosophy/cenoscopy, which can get into questions such as that of the
evolution of living beings from material systems as understood by the
special sciences (a.k.a. idioscopy), and so on. Peirce goes so far as to
outline a three-way division of science in which the second branch is
Science of Review, which he also called Synthetic Philosophy and
_/Philosophia Ultima/_, and which does mix empirical principles with
pure ones.
Forgive me for citing Wikipedia but I wrote most of the article and it
has a convenient table of taxa; the footnotes have links to Peirce texts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_the_sciences_%28Peirce%29#Taxa
Branches:
1. Science of Discovery (Classes: 1. Mathematics, 2. Cenoscopy a.k.a.
_/Philosophia Prima/_, 3, Idioscopy a.k.a. the Special Sciences -
Physical & Psychical).
2. Science of Review, a.k.a Synthetic Philosophy, which includes
classification of the sciences.
3. Practical Science, a.k.a. the Arts.
In descending taxical order, one can discern, not too dimly, the guiding
questions that you point out,of (1) ideals, (2) conduct, and (3) thought
and learning, twice:
1. Each *branch* has its own distinctive animating *motive/purpose*
common to all its subdivisions.
2. Each *class* has its own great *subject* and *kind of observations* .
3. Throughout an *order* , researchers pursue the same *general kind of
inquiry* (but deal with different kinds of conceptions); orders can
differ hierarchically within a class.
4. Throughout a *family* of science, *conceptions* are shared but skills
differ.
5. Throughout a *genus* of science, *skills* are shared, but
acquaintance with facts in detail differs.
6. Throughout a *species* of science, the researchers are all thoroughly
well *qualified* *in all parts of it*.
In a *variety* of science, researchers devote lives to it but no so
numerously as to support journals, societies, etc.
I think that this bears out that Peirce was thinking much as you say he was.
Best, Ben
On 10/21/2015 5:14 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:
Ben, Lists,
Let me a add a piece to what you've said to see if we are on the same
track. I add this point in order to highlight some features of what
Peirce is trying to accomplish in thinking architectonically about
inquiry. Many philosophers in the 20th century, especially those who
are more analytic in their orientation, reject certain propositions
that Peirce affirms about the value of working in an architectonic
manner (that is, with a plan in hand) for the purposes of doing
philosophy, so I'd like to make these points a bit more explicit.
Remarks that have been made by a number of contributors to the List
about what philosophy might or might not contribute to questions about
the origins of order in the cosmos, or the evolution of living beings
from material systems, or the real character of the law and force of
such things as gravity remind me of the dangers of not keeping things
in a clearer order when it comes to setting up our explanations in
both the cenoscopic science of philosophy and the idioscopic sciences
of physics, chemistry, biology and the like. I can't help but think
that Peirce has pretty darned good reasons for insisting that doing
philosophy well requires that we reflect on matters architectonic.
The main thing I want to add to what you've said is prompted by a
remark that Kant makes about philosophical methodology. In the
Preface of the Grounding, he puts a sharp edge on the claim. He
says: "That philosophy which mixes pure principles with empirical
ones does not deserve the name of philosophy...." (G, 390) Later in
Section 2, Kant makes the following point about any procedure which
does not clearly separate between different kinds of questions (e.g.,
about questions concerning the justification of the primary principles
of valid reasoning from questions about how we human beings often do
in fact think). He says: "such a procedure turns out a disgusting
mishmash of patchwork observations and half-reasoned principles in
which shallowpates revel because all this is something quite useful
for the chitchat of everyday life." (G, 410)
Drawing on the arguments that Kant is making about the how we ought to
inquire about in normative questions, Peirce insists that it is
essential that we refine our methods for the sake of inquiring into
the following kinds of questions:
1) What ideals should we aspire to?
2) What principles determine whether an action is right or wrong?
3) What principles should govern the conduct of my thought so that my
reasoning will be valid an my inquiries will really lead me to truth?
One of the main reasons Peirce has for making a clear plan for his
inquiries into the normative sciences is that these kinds of questions
require that we employ the appropriate methods. For better or worse,
the methods that have been developed up to this point in the history
of thought are not quite what we need if we hope to develop better
answers to the questions. As such, we need to refine and develop the
appropriate methods. One of the main purposes of formulating an
architectonic plan for philosophical inquiry into these kinds of
questions is that we are constantly in danger of 1) perpetuating
longstanding confusions about the phenomena that we are trying to
explain, 2) failing to understand what is special about the subject
matter of our inquiries, 3) failing to clarify the goals that are
guiding us and 4) failing to understand how we should use the methods
we've got to improve upon our understanding of 1-4.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Benjamin Udell [[email protected] ]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:11 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion
Clark, list,
I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in
the light shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up
of knowledge. Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically
right, which combined mathematical postulates are consistent and
nontrivial, and so on, instead it decides which maths are applicable
to, and illuminating in, physics. How far can one trace such
structures of logical dependence and independence?
Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical
refraction was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in
mathematics. But even if it hadn't proved applicable in physics, it
still would have been mathematically valuable. If one thinks that
mathematics depends logically on biology or psychology, one will
start asking mathematicians to study biology or psychology to really
get to the bottom of their subject. While they might find some
inspiration and deep examples of math there, it still seems like a
more refined and polite version of sending the mathematicians out to
work in the collective farms. I think that mathematicians would
already be studying a lot more biology or psychology if they thought
that such studies could support their mathematical findings.
Moreover, one may suppose (as Peirce did) that the most general
classifications will bear out logical structure, and that the layout
of the city of research will come to reflect the collective structure
of the subject matters like constellations above. One likes to see
what that 'total population' of subject matters shapes up to look
like in terms of parameters. I imagine that Peirce liked that. It
seems philosophical enough. Peirce put such classification into
'Science of Review', which he also called 'Synthetic Philosophy'. At
any rate such classification applies cenoscopic philosophy. If one
extends parameters from a number of sample cases, one may even
predict that there ought to be, or come to be, a certain field of study.
***
It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the
emotion belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm
thinking of a feeling of curiosity about the future such that one
wishes to shorten by deduction the wait till discovery. You suggest
the word 'dissatisfaction'. One could think of a feeling of
dissatisfaction with the facts known or hypothesized so far, as if
they seemed coy, or insufficient for a worthwhile conclusion, to
which one responds by managing to deduce a worthwhile conclusion. Yet
"dissatisfaction" as the occasion of deduction seems too vague.
Surprise and perplexity could also be taken as kinds of
dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's idea that deduction
_/predicts/ _, then the idea of at least some mild feeling of
suspense or impatience seems to follow logically enough as belonging
to deduction's occasion. If one has abduced a hypothesis about which
one cares, and can't think of a deductive, distinctive testable
prediction, one is left to feel impatient for time's eventual
confirmation or overturning of one's hypothesis in the natural course
of events. Note also the nice opposition between surprise,
perplexity, etc., and suspense. Well, I guess there's to brood on the
question some more.
Best, Ben
On 10/21/2015 2:28 PM, Clark Goble wrote:
On Oct 21, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
The positivists divided sciences into formal (i.e., mathematics and
deductive logic) and factual. I never got clear on where they put
philosophy, I suspect they hoped to make it into a formal science.
I think they differed among themselves on this, although I’m not an
expert on the Vienna circle. (And especially not the 19th century
positivists) It seemed that the spirit of the mid-20th century was
to attempt to reduce philosophy to other matters. Either becoming
clear on our semantics that would dissolve most problems or to
reduce it to a kind of foundationalist epistemology of judgments
with the rest being clear formalism. It was in most ways a rather
bad dead end for philosophy IMO. Fortunately people drug themselves
out of it while (hopefully) taking what was useful from both critiques.
I’ll confess that I’ve never quite understood the drive to taxonomy
on these matters. (This is one Peircean drive I’ve never been able
to quite embrace) If for only the reason that any practical analysis
seems such a mix of different taxonomies. I just never quite was
clear what the point was. Certainly keeping clear what one is doing
(semantics vs. ontology) and so forth is important. But one can
become clear on the parts one is doing while acknowledging that the
item under analysis is usually a mix.
Perhaps I’m wrong in this though.
As to my question, I think I was getting myself into some
contortions about deduction because in some half-conscious way I
was still introducing the idea of conflict. Now, Peirce said that
deduction is for prediction. That by itself is enough to suggest
that an emotion of impatience belongs to the occasion of deduction
— an impatience with the vagueness of the future, or the coyness of
the present in telling us it — one doesn't want to wait for nature
to take its course, one wants to find out ahead of time, on the
basis of accumulated data, what is the fate, for example of the
Milky Way. (It turns out to be on a collision course with the
Andromeda galaxy.)
I think you’re right although I’m not sure impatience gets at the
feeling quite right. I think dissatisfaction is perhaps more apt
since impatience implies a time component that’s not always present.
-----------------------------
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 .
