Clark, List,
With respect to the issues surrounding “modal realism” —
what position Peirce took up and when up did he take it —
let me refer to a figure I constantly have in mind, one
I drew to map the first few principalities in Peirce's
classification of sciences:
https://inquiryintoinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/peirce-syllabus.jpg
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/05/31/definition-and-determination-4/
The picture reminds us of both the analogy and the disparity
between phenomenology, our observation of actual appearances,
and mathematics, our observation of possible existence, with
“possible” in this case meaning no more than not inconsistent.
The disparity is something we come to know as the fallibility,
partiality, or subjectivity of all our models, representations,
and theories of reality.
The most astute physicists appreciate the significance of this
disparity or gap, and there is a famous quip by Einstein that
testifies to it, but more often than not I think they tend to
get by like the rest of us, with a variety of naive realism.
On the other foot, doing mathematics requires one to remain more
steadily recognizant of the di-stance between these two footings,
the terra firma of actuality and Plato's heaven of possibilities.
This makes the position described as “modal realism” the modus
operandi or standard operating philosophy in mathematics, so
taken for granted that its marching orders need no banners
or fanfare in the ordinary course of work.
I declared myself long ago as one who sees more continuity
of development than radical shift in Peirce's thought over
his lifetime. What I do see changing through the years is
the greater diversity of his audiences as the river of his
work flows from its constant sources to the alluvial delta
he left for us to sift. The greatest share of variance in
what he writes is explained more by variations in the whom
he is addressing than the what he is trying to communicate.
Drawing the conclusion in the present case, my initial guess
would be that any apparent conversion to modal realism is more
likely explained by an increasing need to underscore attitudes
of mind that are simply tacit in the scientific application of
formal logic, mathematics, probability, and statistics.
Regards,
Jon
On 3/17/2017 10:12 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
Re:
CG:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00012.html
CG:https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-03/msg00111.html
Clark,
I've been trying to get back to the questions you raised
on your initial “Truth as Regulative or Real” thread and
again on this one, but there are a number of underlying
issues that require a measure of preparation on my part.
I've made scattered remarks on these issues many times
over the last couple of decades, without quite sensing
much success in making them clear, so I'm going to do
my best to put together a more coherent account this
time around.
Until then ...
Jon
On 3/13/2017 6:51 PM, CLARK GOBLE wrote:
On Mar 13, 2017, at 7:00 AM, Jon Awbrey <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I think John Sowa's remarks about the “major failures caused by ignoring
[Peirce]”
and Jerry Chandler's remarks about later readings serving as a “Procrustian bed
for CSP's concepts” are very apt in this context, and I will have more to say
in that regard if I can get to it.
I think so too, but I think we should make explicit what other doctrines Peirce
held that was different from the
mainstream of philosophy lead to these differences. Off the top of my head I
think you have to mention the following:
scholastic realism vs. nominalism
modal realism vs. actualism (primarily for the late Peirce although with the
pragmatic maxim he moved to counterfactuals reasonably early)
externalism vs. internalism
signs vs. thoughts in a mind (i.e. the interpretant need not be a human mind)
verification as meaning vs. verification as truth
There’s probably some others but those five see the key differences that make
terms like correspondence or coherence
misleading at best.
--
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