Ben U., Gary R., List,
The following remarks seem--at least to my ear--to bear on the some relationships between plausibility and methodeutical justification. Peirce says: "As I phrase it, he provisionally holds it to be "Plausible"; this acceptance ranges in different cases -- and reasonably so -- from a mere expression of it in the interrogative mood, as a question meriting attention and reply, up through all appraisals of Plausibility, to uncontrollable inclination to believe." The inference to a hypothesis expressed in the interrogative mood suggests that the holding of the question to be "plausible" (e.g., well-fitted to the surprising phenomena, well-formed as having great uberty, etc.) does seem to derive its plausibility from the first rule of reason. At the very least, the idea that the question has been formulated by a sincere desire to learn, and in a manner that does not embody undue bias or prejudice, and that it does not close the door of inquiry all seem to provide some justification to the claim that the question is plausible. What is more, the suggestion that plausibility comes in varying degrees, ranging from the lowest levels of assurance up to the "high peaks" of plausibility does suggest that the principle of continuity applies to the manner in which seek and then provide degrees of assurance. For instance, the efforts to rid one’s estimations of plausibility of the undue effects of bias and prejudice are something that one might seek to improve on an incremental basis. What is more, the manner in which one might assure that the door of inquiry is kept open might vary from something like a door that is barely cracked open to one that is wide open. Furthermore, the way in which the door is held open might vary from a door that swings uncontrollably due to the "winds" of vicissitude, to one that is firmly held open with a wedge. Finally, the remark that "where conjecture mounts the high peaks of Plausibility -- and is really most worthy of confidence" suggest that what makes a conjecture really worthy of confidence is that the many estimations of the suitability of the hypothesis as an explanation is a process that has effectively been guided by the pragmatic maxim. If the leading conceptions in the hypothesis have been clarified up to the third degree, then it really is most worthy of our confidence as a hypothetical explanation of a set of surprising phenomena. The fact that the surprising character fades the more worthy it is of our confidence does suggest that the fit is one with a large system of our other beliefs that are relatively well settled as habits--and that the hypothesis is sufficient to explain all that was, initially, quite surprising. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2016 9:50 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking Jeff D., Gary R., list, Your quote from "A Neglected Argument..." bears on plausibility, which Peirce elsewhere in the same essay discusses as natural, instinctual simplicity; it bears upon assurance by instinct; I don't find him discussing methodeutical justification (e.g., testability) of abductive inference in the passage that you quoted. I've had some further thoughts on the nature of assurance by form, but they would just lead us further into byways. You get into some of the bigger question that you raised in earlier posts, including the idea that Peirce's Humble Argument may be the only game in town (my words) on the questions that it concerns. I have lots of half-formed remarks that I could offer on that, and when I try to get started, I digress. Maybe I should just mention topics that occur to me but that I'm unsure of how to address: • Only game in town - is the assurance of the Humble Argument's being the only game in town to be acheived by instinctual plausibility, by experience, or by form? Probably by a combination, but would one kind of assurance be foremost in the overall assurance? For example, suppose that string theory were proven mathematically to be the only consistent way to unite general relativity with quantum field theory. It would still have to have assurance by experience by accordance with all observations, but it would still lack confirmation of predictions that distinguish it from general relativity per se and quantum field theory per se, which predictions, since they are about quantum gravity, would currently require a particle collider the size of the known universe - a conceivable practical test, but contingently fantastically impractical for us. So, if it were to be found, I'd call such an assurance of string theory (as sole possible mathematico-physical unifier of GR and QFT) an assurance by form. See what I mean about my digressions? More to the point, I should just ask, how does one strengthen the assurance that the Humble Argument is the only game in town? • Common elements in theological ideals of various religions - how alike are those ideals, really? Best, Ben On 9/25/2016 12:06 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote: Hi Ben U., Gary R., List, Responses inter polated: JD: Conclusion: The humble argument for the Reality of God is logical in all three senses--according to the assurance of instinct, experience and according to the exact requirements of good logical form. We should remember, however, that this is not a claim that the conclusion of the argument is true. Rather, the claim is that the conclusion is plausible. [End quote] BU: The claim is rather that the conclusion is 1. plausible (assurance by instinct) *and* 2. verisimilar (in Peirce's sense, likeness of conclusion to premisses, the assurance by experience when experience has accumulated but is not yet conclusive), *and* 3. formally valid. Abductive formal validity, if it does not include plausibility (instinctual assurance), still includes at least critical abductive formal validity (the abductive inference can be put into the form of rule, result, ergo case, or into the form of CP 5.189, or into whatever other form is accounted good for abduction at the critical level, i.e., the level of critique of arguments. JD: Yes, I agree. BU: In addition, in your paragraph beginning "Major premiss", you listed a series of _methodeutical_ (not critique-of-argument) justifications for an abductive inference, such as testability (I'll just discuss testability for simplicity's sake). Indeed Peirce came to regard methodeutical justifications as needed for completing the justification (i.e., validation) of an abductive inference, whereas no particular methodeutical justification was needed for a deduction or an induction to be valid (Carnegie Application, L75, 1902, New Elements of Mathematics v. 4, pp. 37–38. http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-carnegie-institution-correspondence-0 ) Quote | Abduction | Commens<http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-carnegie-institution-correspondence-0> www.commens.org Entry in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms | Abduction | Commens: Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce JD: I am suggesting that the methodeutical requirements for abduction that pertain to the first rule of reason, the principle of continuity and the pragmatic maxim do provide something by way of a justification for the validity of those abductive inferences that satisfy--in some degree, perhaps--the methological requirements. BU: But I wonder whether the methodeutical justification can be considered assurance by (logical) form. Is it _assurance_ at all? That a claim is testable in principle (idioscopically or otherwise) gives some kind of assurance versus claims that are untestable in principle or uncertain as to whether they're testable in principle. Yet such assurance in whatever degree is assurance not per se _of truth_ but of pragmatic meaningfulness, and that pragmatic meaningfulness is not in turn a source per se of assurance of truth, but only of the methodeutical possibility of reaching some sort of truth. That seems the case, even though a claim that is pragmatically meaningless (its object is uninvestigable, incognizable) even in principle amounts to a false claim that something unreal is real. (Meanwhile a claim's testability or untestability in merely our foreseeable practical future lends it little if any assurance that it is true/false or pragmatically meaningless in principle). The three assurances (instinct, experience, form) belong to a trichotomy of kinds of sign in at least one of Peirce's ten-trichotomy systems. I admit that I wouldn't know what to do with an assurance that something is pragmatically meaningful in that regard, if it is not a kind of assurance by form. Quote | Abduction | Commens<http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-carnegie-institution-correspondence-0> www.commens.org<http://www.commens.org> Entry in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms | Abduction | Commens: Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce JD: I think this passage from "The Neglected Argument..." bears on the question you are raising about the relationship between these methodeutical matters and the different sorts of assurance--by instinct, experience and form--for abductive inferences. Every inquiry whatsoever takes its rise in the observation, in one or another of the three Universes, of some surprising phenomenon, some experience which either disappoints an expectation, or breaks in upon some habit of expectation of the inquisiturus; and each apparent exception to this rule only confirms it. There are obvious distinctions between the objects of surprise in different cases; but throughout this slight sketch of inquiry such details will be unnoticed, especially since any normal man who considers the three Universes in the light of the hypothesis of it is upon such that the logic-books descant. The inquiry begins with pondering these phenomena in all their aspects, in the search of some point of view whence the wonder shall be resolved. At length a conjecture arises that furnishes a possible Explanation, by which I mean a syllogism exhibiting the surprising fact as necessarily consequent upon the circumstances of its occurrence together with the truth of the credible conjecture, as premisses. On account of this Explanation, the inquirer is led to regard his conjecture, or hypothesis, with favor. As I phrase it, he provisionally holds it to be "Plausible"; this acceptance ranges in different cases -- and reasonably so -- from a mere expression of it in the interrogative mood, as a question meriting attention and reply, up through all appraisals of Plausibility, to uncontrollable inclination to believe. The whole series of mental performances between the notice of the wonderful phenomenon and the acceptance of the hypothesis, during which the usually docile understanding seems to hold the bit between its teeth and to have us at its mercy, the search for pertinent circumstances and the laying hold of them, sometimes without our cognizance, the scrutiny of them, the dark laboring, the bursting out of the startling conjecture, the remarking of its smooth fitting to the anomaly, as it is turned back and forth like a key in a lock, and the final estimation of its Plausibility, I reckon as composing the First Stage of Inquiry. Its characteristic formula of reasoning I term Retroduction, i.e. reasoning from consequent to antecedent. In one respect the designation seems inappropriate; for in most instances where conjecture mounts the high peaks of Plausibility -- and is really most worthy of confidence -- the inquirer is unable definitely to formulate just what the explained wonder is; or can only do so in the light of the hypothesis. In short, it is a form of Argument rather than of Argumentation. CP 6.469 In many cases, we are able formulate a number of competing hypotheses that might explain some surprising phenomena. In other cases, however, the hypotheses that are able to satisfy the requirements of valid abduction are quite limited in number. I suspect that, in the case at hand, we are presented with something that is akin to what Kant calls a "need" of reason. In this case, where we seek an explanation that might be sufficient to bring unity to the three Universes into unity, the requirements for a plausible explanation are quite demanding--and it appears that only one key will fit the lock. After all, only one Ideal can, it would seem, really be highest. As this point, let me offer a suggestion that draws on some remarks that Peirce makes about the Idea of the Absolute. As in projective geometry, where we call the point on the infinitely distant horizon where all lines of "perspectivity" converge the "Absolute," so too in philosophy, we need something that will enable us to ground the different standards we might use in evaluating the validity of the different forms of argument. In this case, the grounding is an "Absolute" Ideal that might enable us to see how the different standards for measuring the validity of arguments might be mapped--one onto another. --Jeff On 9/23/2016 2:32 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:
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