Clark, List: I think we agree, with each other and with Peirce.
CSP: But every fact of a general or orderly nature calls for an explanation; and logic forbids us to assume in regard to any given fact of that sort that it is of its own nature absolutely inexplicable. This is what Kant calls a regulative principle, that is to say, an intellectual hope. The sole immediate purpose of thinking is to render things intelligible; and to think and yet in that very act to think a thing unintelligible is a self-stultification. It is as though a man furnished with a pistol to defend himself against an enemy were, on finding that enemy very redoubtable, to use his pistol to blow his own brains out to escape being killed by his enemy. Despair is insanity. True, there may be facts that will never get explained; but that any given fact is of the number, is what experience can never give us reason to think; far less can it show that any fact is of its own nature unintelligible. We must therefore be guided by the rule of hope, and consequently we must reject every philosophy or general conception of the universe, which could ever lead to the conclusion that any given general fact is an ultimate one. We must look forward to the explanation, not of all things, but of any given thing whatever. There is no contradiction here, any more than there is in our holding each one of our opinions, while we are ready to admit that it is probable that not all are true; or any more than there is in saying that any future time will sometime be passed, though there never will be a time when all time is past. (CP 1.405; 1888) Regards, Jon On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 2:03 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: > On Aug 30, 2016, at 12:46 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Just to clarify, I am actually the one who wrote what is quoted below from > Gary F.'s subsequent reply. > > CG: What Peirce wants to argue is that ultimately a kind of convergence > at infinity happens ... it seems to me that Peirce did imagine the semiotic > equivalent of the heat death of the universe where everything becomes > habitual. I just can’t quite see how he can reconcile that to the place of > chance in his thought. > > > My impression is that for Peirce this is a regulative ideal, rather than a > genuine future outcome. It would only happen at the "end" of indefinite > inquiry by an infinite community. > > My apologies on the incorrect attribution. > > I should note that I see it as primarily regulative as well. I could see > how someone could read what I wrote and assume the opposite. At one time I > thought the opposite but over time people convinced me I was wrong. > > The question is more how it can function regulatively. I think for a sense > of what we *mean* by truth it works great. However it may well be that > some truths simply will be inherently vague in the sense of not becoming > more determinate no matter how inquiry persists. So I think asking the > limits of the regulative nature is important. >
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