Dear list,
How are we to interpret Peirce based strictly on the printed word if
the philosopher says such things as:
“My book is meant for people who _want to find out; _and people who
want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere.”
I mean, it’s not as though Peirce didn’t understand nuances of
recovering an author’s intention. For example:
“Now words, taken just as they stand, if in the form of an argument,
thereby do imply whatever fact may be necessary to make the argument
conclusive; so that to the formal logician, who has to do only with
the meaning of the words according to the proper principles of
interpretation, and not with the intention of the speaker as GUESSED
at from other indications, the only fallacies should be such as are
simply absurd and contradictory, either because their conclusions are
absolutely inconsistent with their premisses, or because they CONNECT
PROPOSITIONS BY A SPECIES OF ILLATIVE CONJUNCTION, by which they
cannot under any circumstances be validly connected. “
~_Some Consequences of Four Incapacities_
____________
If to understand irony is to understand that the philosopher may not
to speak at all (which would then make it _up to us_ to do so),
then what does _this_ perfect philosopher mean?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azd0dLu-Muo [1]
For example, consider contradictions in the following:
one; _Some Consequences_, 1883
If _A,_ then _B;_
But _A:_
[Ergo,] _B._
two; CP 2.718 (per JAS) 1886
_Rule. _If _A _is true, _C _is true,
_Case. _In a certain case _A _is true;
_Result. _.·. In that case _C _is true.
three, CP 5.189, 1903
The surprising fact, C, is observed;
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course,
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true.
_Ergo_ and _Hence_ are illative conjunctions.
But there is also contradiction.
For example, what of the following sequence?
For “This much Peirce had learnt from the medieval doctors, who
“always called the minor premise the antecedent and the conclusion
the consequent” (NEM 4, p. 178, 1898). ~ Bellucci and Pietarinen
That is, if “A presents B with a gift C, is a triple relation”, or
alternatively, “Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings
something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into
the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that
in which itself stands to C”,
then which is the consequent and where the predicate?
In consequence of the identification in question, in S ^ P, I speak of
S indifferently as _subject_, _antecedent_, or _premise_, and of P as
_predicate_, _consequent_, or _conclusion_. (Peirce 1880; W4, p. 170,
170n5)
In other words, when you examine one and two, the consequent is B and
C.
So, which is the consequent when taken whole?
For what reasons B or C, when even conclusion of a suspicious A?
That is, “Given the separate probabilities of the two consequences,
“If A, then B,” and “If both A and B, then C (1878),”
then perhaps multiple consequences sharing labels for different
reasons?
“But, first, if ‘being’ has many senses (for it means sometimes
substance, sometimes that it is of a certain quality, sometimes that
it is of a certain quantity, and at other times the other
categories),”
then what of the next situation in which there are many labels?
In which direction is movement; one two or three?
_________
To determine consensus opinion on what Peirce said reflects the
problem of speaking as a single, unified voice on something as
difficult as man’s glassy essence. But what is our social principle
for determination here? If we’re not allowed to apply the method of
that philosopher who gave us his method for scientific guessing to his
own philosophical writings, then where else should we test abduction?
That is, why is it we are doing what we’re doing? What is the good
in it?
With best wishes,
Jerry Rhee
PS. If we were to bring into this conversation an old one, then
CP 5.189 over CP 5.402 because illation and _consequentia, _
which is surprising, for _“_a _consequentia_ is an argument (A,
therefore B), not a conditional proposition (if A, then B).”
~Francesco Bellucci__
Links:
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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azd0dLu-Muo
