Clark, List: That strikes me as a sensible application of Peirce's self-proclaimed "sentimental conservatism" (CP 1.661). If "philosophical science" should be allowed to "influence religion and morality ... only with secular slowness and the most conservative caution" (CP 1.620), then it seems like the same is true of proposed political solutions to perceived societal problems. Perhaps with a similar thought in mind, the Founders quite intentionally designed an arrangement in which it is very difficult to enact sweeping changes at the national level in the absence of broad consensus. When public opinion is polarized like it is right now, gridlock in Washington is a *feature *of the system, not a *bug*--despite the complaints that it routinely engenders from both sides of the aisle.
Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 12:40 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > On Nov 26, 2016, at 2:39 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Meanwhile, my own sense is that one possible strength of Peirce's theory > lies in his philosophical* summum bonum*, namely, the notion of our > seeking the 'reasonable in itself'. It follows that--and here one perhaps > necessarily goes beyond a consideration of democracy--when this *summum > bonum* is offered in consideration, now not of mere science, but of what > have been called the 'wicked problems' confronting humanity and the world, > that one might hope for approaches (if not exactly solutions) which appear > reasonable for those communities of interest hoping to address them. > > As I’ve thought more about the comments over the weekend I think I have > come to an implication of Peirce’s thought. This isn’t necessarily > something Peirce himself considered too much. > > It would seem that Peirce would be concerned about too strong a central > government in that he wants to maximize inquiry and thus possible solutions > to a problem rather than a single line of inquiry. This would mean a trust > in federalism of a sort. A federalism where each state and ideally each > county/city within that state would be free to try solutions to problems. > Only after seeing success in other locals would solutions be adopted more > widely and then via each state/county. > > The problem otherwise, from a Peircean perspective, would be the danger of > too quickly abandoning common sense (the tried experiential solutions of a > community) as well as imposing a single hypothesis on society with no way > to really test it well. That is there would be a large danger of abduction > not being sufficiently tested in terms of it being the best of possible > solutions. > > I’m not sure if anyone else would agree here. > > There are of course strong arguments against federalism in preference to a > stronger central government. That is the problem of getting solutions > implemented when there are countering movements in individual states where > particular powers are able to unduly control government. (This was of > course the argument of the classic progressives of the Teddy Roosevelt era) > That is there will intrinsically be a tension between discovering > solutions for a problem and whether the majority or at least powerful want > to solve that problem. For an example of this think of the relative > difference in state policies in a state like Mississippi versus what we > might call a more successful state. >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
