Gary, Clark, List,
You may recall that I concluded my message which began this thread
with this question: can anyone on the list offer some Peirce
quotations which might help quickly clarify his views on democracy?
when i search the CP for "democra" there are only three hits. Just
because of curiosity i also searched for "Jefferson" and
"Tocqueville"but there were no results. Hits in CP I and CP VI are:
CP 1.654. Common sense, which is the resultant of the traditional
experience of mankind, witnesses unequivocally that the heart is
more than the head, and is in fact everything in our highest
concerns, thus agreeing with my unproved logical theorem; and those
persons who think that sentiment has no part in common sense forget
that the dicta of common sense are objective facts, not the way some
dyspeptic may feel, but what the healthy, natural, normal
*democracy* thinks. And yet when you open the next new book on the
philosophy of religion that comes out, the chances are that it will
be written by an intellectualist who in his preface offers you his
metaphysics as a guide for the soul, talking as if philosophy were
one of our deepest concerns. How can the writer so deceive himself?
----
CP 6.449. Many a scientific man and student of philosophy recognizes
that it is the Christian church which has made him a man among men.
To it he owes consolations, enjoyments, escapes from great perils,
and whatever rectitude of heart and purpose may be his. To the monks
of the medieval church he owes the preservation of ancient
literature; and without the revival of learning he can hardly see
how the revival of science would have been possible. To them he owes
the framework of his intellectual system, and if he speaks English,
a most important part of his daily speech. The law of love which,
however little it be obeyed, he holds to be the soul of
civilization, came to Europe through Christianity. Besides, religion
is a great, perhaps the greatest, factor of that social life which
extends beyond one’s own circle of personal friends. That life is
everything for elevated, and humane, and *democratic* civilization;
and if one renounces the Church, in what other way can one as
satisfactorily exercise the faculty of fraternizing with all one‘s
neighbours?
In CP VIII:
Peirce: CP 8 Bibliography General 1875 [G-1875-1]1875
3. “A Plan and an Illustration” (on proportional representation),
The *Democratic* Party; A Political Study, by a Political Zero
(Melusina Fay Peirce), John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, 1875, pp.
36-37. Both the whole work and Peirce’s contribution are anonymous,
but these are identified in [Fisch-Haskell].
The publication by Melusina can be found here:
http://www.unav.es/gep/TheDemocraticPartyMichigan.pdf
Using the keyword "republic" i find:
CP 2.654 To be logical men should not be selfish; and, in point of
fact, they are not so selfish as they are thought. The willful
prosecution of one’s desires is a different thing from selfishness.
The miser is not selfish; his money does him no good, and he cares
for what shall become of it after his death. We are constantly
speaking of /our/ possessions on the Pacific, and of /our/ destiny
as a *republic*, where no personal interests are involved, in a way
which shows that we have wider ones. We discuss with anxiety the
possible exhaustion of coal in some hundreds of years, or the
cooling-off of the sun in some millions, and show in the most
popular of all religious tenets that we can conceive the possibility
of a man‘s descending into hell for the salvation of his fellows.
CP 2.654 Now, it is not necessary for logicality that a man should
himself be capable of the heroism of self-sacrifice. It is
sufficient that he should recognize the possibility of it, should
perceive that only that man’s inferences who has it are really
logical, and should consequently regard his own as being only so far
valid as they would be accepted by the hero. So far as he thus
refers his inferences to that standard, he becomes identified with
such a mind.
----
CP 5.355. That being the case, it becomes interesting to inquire how
it is with men as a matter of fact. There is a psychological theory
that man cannot act without a view to his own pleasure. This theory
is based on a falsely assumed subjectivism. Upon our principles of
the objectivity of knowledge, it could not be based; and if they are
correct, it is reduced to an absurdity. It seems to me that the
usual opinion of the selfishness of man is based in large measure
upon this false theory. I do not think that the facts bear out the
usual opinion. The immense self-sacrifices which the most wilful men
often make, show that wilfulness is a very different thing from
selfishness. The care that men have for what is to happen after they
are dead, cannot be selfish. And finally and chiefly, the constant
use of the word ”*/we/*“ -- as when we speak of our possessions on
the Pacific -- our destiny as a *republic* -- in cases in which no
personal interests at all are involved, show conclusively that men
do not make their personal interests their only ones, and therefore
may, at least, subordinate them to the interests of the community.
In CP 8.41 and CP 4.231 P just refers to Platos Republic. And CP 7.601
is from my point of view also of lesser interest:
He will not even name him (perhaps to spare the family), but refers
to him by various satirical nick-names, especially as
”*/Thrasymachus,/*“†4 -- a foolish character introduced into the
*Republic* and another dialogue of Plato for the purpose of showing
how vastly such an ignorant pretender to philosophy is inferior to
Socrates (that is, to Plato himself) in every quality of mind and
heart, and especially in good manners.
The search terms "vote" and "voting"don't produceany hits related to a
discussion of democracy.
Since Peirce mentions democracy within the context of his religious
ideas i also included a search for "political economy", because his
views on political economy are also influenced by religion:
CP 1.75 The old-fashioned *political economist* adored, as alone
capable of redeeming the human race, the glorious principle of
individual greed, although, as this principle requires for its
action hypocrisy and fraud, he generally threw in some dash of
inconsistent concessions to virtue, as a sop to the vulgar Cerberus.
But it is easy to see that the only kind of science this principle
would favor would be such as is immediately remunerative with a
great preference for such as can be kept secret, like the modern
sciences of dyeing and perfumery.
----
6.290. The nineteenth century is now fast sinking into the grave,
and we all begin to review its doings and to think what character it
is destined to bear as compared with other centuries in the minds of
future historians. It will be called, I guess, the Economical
Century; for political economy has more direct relations with all
the branches of its activity than has any other science. Well,
*political economy* has its formula of redemption, too. It is this:
Intelligence in the service of greed ensures the justest prices, the
fairest contracts, the most enlightened conduct of all the dealings
between men, and leads to the summum bonum, food in plenty and
perfect comfort. Food for whom? Why, for the greedy master of
intelligence. I do not mean to say that this is one of the
legitimate conclusions of political economy, the scientific
character of which I fully acknowledge. But the study of doctrines,
themselves true, will often temporarily encourage generalizations
extremely false, as the study of physics has encouraged
necessitarianism. What I say, then, is that the great attention paid
to economical questions during our century has induced an
exaggeration of the beneficial effects of greed and of the
unfortunate results of sentiment, until there has resulted a
philosophy which comes unwittingly to this, that greed is the great
agent in the elevation of the human race and in the evolution of the
universe.
CP 6.291 I open a handbook of *political economy* †1 -- the most
typical and middling one I have at hand -- and there find some
remarks of which I will here make a brief analysis. I omit
qualifications, sops thrown to Cerberus, phrases to placate
Christian prejudice, trappings which serve to hide from author and
reader alike the ugly nakedness of the greed-god. But I have
surveyed my position. The author enumerates “three motives to human
action:†2
CP 6.291The love of self;
CP 6.291The love of a limited class having common interests and
feelings with one‘s self;
CP 6.291The love of mankind at large.”
----
6.294. Here, then, is the issue. The gospel of Christ says that
progress comes from every individual merging his individuality in
sympathy with his neighbors. On the other side, the conviction of
the nineteenth century is that progress takes place by virtue of
every individual’s striving for himself with all his might and
trampling his neighbor under foot whenever he gets a chance to do
so. This may accurately be called the Gospel of *Greed*.
----
7.96. In all the explanatory sciences theories far more simple than
the real facts are of the utmost service in enabling us to analyse
the phenomena, and it may truly be said that physics could not
possibly deal even with its relatively simple facts without such
analytic procedure. Thus, the kinetical theory of gases, when first
propounded, was obliged to assume that all the molecules were
elastic spheres, which nobody could believe to be true. If this is
necessary even in physics, it is far more indispensable in every
other science, and most of all in the moral sciences, such as
*political economy*. Here the sane method is to begin by considering
persons placed in situations of extreme simplicity, in the utmost
contrast to those of all human society, and animated by motives and
by reasoning powers equally unlike those of real men. Nevertheless,
in this way alone can a base be obtained from which to proceed to
the consideration of the effects of different complications. Owing
to the necessity of making theories far more simple than the real
facts, we are obliged to be cautious in accepting any extreme
consequences of them, and to be also upon our guard against apparent
refutations of them based upon such extreme consequences.
Other hits for political economy can be found in:
CP 2.4, CP 3.405,CP 4.210, CP 4.114, 5.377, CP 6.517, CP 6.612, CP
7.64, CP 7.66, CP 8.6, CP 8 Bibliography General c.1893 [G-c.1893-5]
For "greed" in:
CP 6.292, CP 6.293, CP 6.294, CP 6.297, CP 6.311,CP 7.265, CP 8
Bibliography General c.1893 [G-c.1893-5]
The context for Peirce thinking about democracy and political economy
are obviously his religious ideas. Central concepts in this context are
love and greed/ altruism and egoism. This brings immediatly Aristoteles
classification of forms of government to my mind (Pol. III, 6 f.).
government of... altruistic
good
egoistic
bad
one
monarchy
tyranny
few aristocracy
oligarchy
many politeía
democracy
Maybe this could be a direction to think more about Peirce and democracy...
Best,
Stefan
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