Clark, List:
CG: Yes, if there were a late quote along those lines that would
have answered my question directly. I suspect though that is just
someone assuming it’s merely regulative.
How about this one, from Peirce's definition of "synechism" in
Baldwin's /Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology/ (1902)?
CSP: It would, therefore, be most contrary to his own principle
for the synechist not to generalize from that which experience
forces upon him, especially since it is only so far as facts can
be generalized that they can be understood; and the very reality,
in his way of looking at the matter, is nothing else than the way
in which facts must ultimately come to be understood. There would
be a contradiction here, if this ultimacy were looked upon as
something to be absolutely realized; but the synechist cannot
consistently so regard it. Synechism is not an ultimate and
absolute metaphysical doctrine; it is a regulative principle of
logic, prescribing what sort of hypothesis is fit to be
entertained and examined. (CP 6.173)
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 1:59 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
In the Wikipedia article "Synechism," somebody wrote, without
providing a reference, "The fact that some things are ultimate
may be recognized by the synechist without abandoning his
standpoint, since synechism is a normative or regulative
principle, not a theory of existence."
Yes, if there were a late quote along those lines that would have
answered my question directly. I suspect though that is just
someone assuming it’s merely regulative.
On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
In his review "An American Plato" of Royce (1885 MS) W 5:222-235
(see 227-230), also EP 1:229-241 (see 234-236), Peirce says:
That’s a very good quotation. I’d forgotten about that since I’ve
tended of late to restrict myself too much to the later Peircean
writings. i.e. after 1895 when his ideas are more stabilized. Plus
of course it helps that EP2 is available on Kindle while
inexplicably EP1 is not.
But that’s a really good quote related to some other discussions I
was having over unknowable things and Peirce.
On Mar 2, 2017, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
In that quote Peirce very clearly holds that not all will be
known or can even be imagined. What is left is the idea that
details may remain vague (as indeed a house that one sees is a
kind of "statistical" object, compatible with the existence of
innumerable alternate microstates and that, in any case, the
object as it is "in itself" does not involve the idea of some
secret compartment forever hidden from inquiry; it is instead a
matter of deciding which questions one cares about. Material
processes scramble information, and life interpretively
unscrambles some of it according to standards of value and interest.
An other excellent quote and helpfully quite late - almost 15
years into his modal realist period. I rather like his keeping
actuality and reality separate since that was what confused me the
most all those years ago.
What’s so interesting in that quote is that the realism seems
wrapped up in his modal realism yet recognizes something is
knowable in one possible world but not in the other. It’s hard not
to think of the hamiltanian equation in the wave collapse model of
quantum mechanics (say the Dirac Equation). There you have all the
possible states as real but not actual. As soon as one makes one
measurement then that constrains the possibilities. So Peirce is
recognizing on a practical economics of epistemology something
akin to uncertainty relations. (Here making just an analogy and
not saying they are really the same sort of thing)
On another note, Joe Ransdell used to insist that Peirce's
realism was stronger in the 1860s than it was when he wrote
things like "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (1878).
I think he was more of a platonist by way of Kant in that very
early phrase. Yet so many of the details weren’t worked out. I
tend to see his modal realism as the most important idea. It’s
connecting realism and possibility that seems like the leap that
fully makes his ideas work (and leads him back to a certain kind
of platonism defined in terms of possibilities)
Of course his fellow pragmatists were not such strong realists as
Peirce, and William James later wrote of liking to think that
J,S. Mill if he were still alive would be the pragmatists' leader.
Yes James definitely wasn’t and was more focused on what
individuals think rather than the logical and community angle
Peirce focused on. Dewey seems to be much more of a realist of the
style of Peirce even if he doesn’t quite embrace Peirce’s logic.
The rest (except perhaps for Royce depending upon how one looks at
him) are too caught up in the nominalism of philosophy IMO.
