Clark, list,
I usually worry when I see a quote of myself from 2007 - I was often
very wordy in those days but I didn't do too badly in that one.
I think that I still agree with the things in your quote of me, except
the first thing, that economy is as important as chance in the world.
What I think is that optima (and feasibilities) are just as important as
probabilities in the world. I was trying to find a way to say that in
terms of chance, and was wrong to talk as though economy were to optima
as chance is to probability.
You wrote,
As an aside, at the time I recall thinking this economic view
applied not just to particular hypotheses but also what questions
one takes up given finite time. So relative to the NA it may well be
that many atheists or agnostics just don’t think it worth their time
to inquire about God.
Peirce discusses the question of what questions one takes up given
finite time. He addresses it in Memoir 28, on the economics of research
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-08.htm#m28
in the Carnegie application, and he discusses the selection and ordering
of hypotheses at some length in "On Drawing History from Ancient
Documents" in CP 7, much of which is reprinted under a longer title in
EP 2. The discussion of caution (as in 20 Questions), breadth, and
incomplexity should not be missed by anybody interested in the topic,
and there's plenty else there worth reading too about hypotheses, the
pertinent discussion starts around EP 2:106 (CP 7.218).
Best, Ben
On 9/26/2016 2:53 PM, Clark Goble wrote:
On Sep 26, 2016, at 12:01 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Remember that in the Carnegie Application (1902) he said,
"Methodeutic has a special interest in abduction, or the inference
which starts a scientific hypothesis. For it is not sufficient that a
hypothesis should be a justifiable one. Any hypothesis which explains
the facts is justified critically. But among justifiable hypotheses
we have to select that one which is suitable for being tested by
experiment." That adverb "critically" is a reference to logical
critic, the critique of arguments. In the rest of that quote he is
discussing why methodeutic gets involved. In 1908 in "A Neglected
Argument" he discusses plausibilty as natural simplicity and
is explicit in placing the issue in logical critic.
Ben, I’m really learning a lot here. I confess I always separated the
logical vs. methodeutic more as whether ones analysis was focused in
on objects or interpretants. I think I’m rethinking this quite a bit.
I hope you won’t mind me quoting a selection from your discussion with
Joe that you mentioned. I’d be very curious as to what, if anything,
you disagree with now. (This is from May 25, 2007)
I meant that I see economy as an element at least as basic as
chance and probability in the world. (Between equi-feasibility
and chance as equi-probability, there's something obviously in
common, but I'm not sure how to think about this.)
In the Cotary Propositions, Peirce speaks of abductions which are
irresistable, abductions which shade into irresistability in
shading into being perceptual judgments. So there will also be
abductions which are very compelling even when not irresistable.
There'll be the whole continuum. Often, for instance, an abduction
is compelling not just in itself but in respect of the lack of
strong alternatives.
Peirce's argument for discovery's being an economic question is
beautiful, no question about it. Now, Peirce says in your third
quote, "Consequently, the conduct of abduction, which is chiefly a
question of heuretic and is the first question of heuretic, is to
be governed by economical considerations. I show how this leads
to methodeutic inquiries of other kinds and at the same time
furnishes a key for the conduct of those inquiries."
Abduction, as an art, is to be governed by economical
considerations. This sounds like abduction as inference to the
simplest, most economic, most "natural" explanation. Methodeutic
is concerned not only with abduction per se but with applying such
economics as a key for the conduct of other kinds of methodeutic
inquiries into research -- _expanding_ that economism into an
economics of research generally. Abduction is the discovertive
mode of inference. Therefore it is to be govermed by economic
considerations, an economics of explanation. Research aims to
discover. Therefore it is likewise to be governed by economic
considerations, an economics of research.
Sometimes the simplest explanation is compelling enough that
inquiry reasonably settles there. Sometimes there is no single
simplest explanation, sometimes there's none at all, and then
inquiry reasonably proceeds further into the given question, and,
for instance, conducts tests of competing hypotheses.
At that point you saw methodeutic as more about considering an
abductive hypothesis in terms of further inquiry. It becomes a
question of how economical inquiry is. As an aside, at the time I
recall thinking this economic view applied not just to particular
hypotheses but also what questions one takes up given finite time. So
relative to the NA it may well be that many atheists or agnostics just
don’t think it worth their time to inquire about God.
The problem as I see it is that these methodological considerations
each depend upon abductive hypothesis quite far down in an argument.
Again the history of string theory and supersymmetry offers
interesting ways of thinking through this issue.
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