Jon,
[[ Selecting the means to achieve a taken-for-granted end is the common perception of what engineering is all about--techne and poiesis. However, I have argued elsewhere that it is more properly viewed as the exercise of context-sensitive judgment--phronesis and praxis. ]] OK. But I take it that you would agree that even your redefined “engineering” consists essentially of Practice as opposed to Theory. I don’t see what difference it would make, pragmatically, for logic to “take practice as primary instead” of theory. Jerry R, Yes, it’s true that esthetics comes before ethics in Peirce’s classification of the normative sciences. But as your Peirce quote says, the business of the esthetician “is to say what is the state of things which is most admirable in itself regardless of any ulterior reason.” When it comes to the ends of action, though, or “what our ultimate aim is … the logician has to accept the teaching of ethics in this regard.” Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 24-May-16 22:29 To: [email protected] Cc: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: 6 vectors and 3 inference patterns Gary F., List: gf: OK, I guess we have a case of polyversity here. To me, “experiencing the irritation” of doubt IS a “particular feeling of dissatisfaction.” My point was that if you classify even something like playfulness as “a form of dissatisfaction,” “its being so consists merely in our so regarding it” (Peirce, MS 293). Why do we play? In some sense, we are dissatisfied with whatever else we could (or even should) be doing at that moment. Satisfaction is not binary, of course; it is a matter of degree. So maybe I should say that what typically motivates human actions is the expectation of an increase in satisfaction, relative to the alternatives. Gf: No. Principles of nature, i.e. legisigns, are the ends which govern means. Critical consideration of ends is what ethics is all about, not knowledge of means to any taken-for-granted end (whether those means are technological or not). That’s what I meant by “ethically privileged.” I guess I see principles of nature as constraining means, rather than governing them; the ends that do the latter are (usually) conscious human purposes. Selecting the means to achieve a taken-for-granted end is the common perception of what engineering is all about--techne and poiesis. However, I have argued elsewhere that it is more properly viewed as the exercise of context-sensitive judgment--phronesis and praxis. GF: Anyway, as I tried to say awhile back, when we look at the semiotic or meaning cycle as a whole, theory and practice take turns, and there’s no way of determining which comes first in a cycle. But then, as Peirce says, “of these two movements, logic very properly prefers to take that of Theory as the primary one (EP2:304-5). Fair enough, but I remain interested in exploring how it would work (if at all) and what it would mean (if anything) to take practice as primary instead; or at least treat ingenuity as more basic than inquiry.
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