List, I've always felt no one acts irrationally. Given their beliefs, how they perceive what's there, and their way of thinking about it, what they do "makes sense". But I can see now that I was probably was a little sloppy when I expressed that idea as everyone being logical. Just using Peirce's icons we would have a lot of ways of thinking with images (what Hegel called "picture-thinking"), many ways of thinking with metaphors, and numerous kinds of diagrams, only a few of which would be logics, that could be employed.
I guess that makes me one of those "relativists," but maybe we still have a standard of "consistency' between the different elements to separate the sheep from the goats? Tom That said On Mon, Sep 25, 2017 at 10:18 AM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: > List, > I don´t know which philosophies were on vogue at that time (1903), but > about LL 1.1. and 1.2., I think they apply to later philosophical vogues > too: To most that ends with "ism" or "turn". Somebody sees the formerly not > seen importance of something (e.g. language, construction of reality, > behavior, relativity), and then makes an "ism" or a "turn" out of it, which > suggests, that the whole reality is due to it (e.g. linguistic turn, > constructivism, behaviorism, relativism). So it is a generalization only by > assumption, instead of having looked before, how far a generalization might > go. Maybe the vogue-starters just did not have a meta-theory of > generalization, did they? Or they did/do not know it. I think the Peircean > categories- theory may be a good tool to decide, how far you can generalize > something. > Best, > Helmut > > 25. September 2017 um 15:31 Uhr > "Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]> > wrote: > > This seems a good description of postmodern subjective relativism, with > its rejection of objective reality and its focus on the 'Fixation of > Belief' that I think Peirce referred to as 'a priori'. > > With a rejection of objective reality - and its concomitant infrastructure > of Mind [4.551], this also means a rejection of Thirdness or the reality of > a generality of logical relations in the particular instantiations. So- we > get subjectivism, and a world made up of only the particular in Firstness > and Secondness. > > Edwina Taborsky > > > > On Mon 25/09/17 8:04 AM , [email protected] sent: > > Continuing Peirce’s Lowell Lecture 1 (from EP2:243): > > > > … I had better mention that the argument I shall criticize is open to > quite another objection than that which I notice,— and a more obvious one. > You may wonder why I pass over it. It is simply because some forms in which > the same confusion of thought occurs are not open to this same objection. I > only notice the radical objection that is common to all forms. > > > > But you will think it high time I told you what this tangle of ideas of > which I have said so much consists in. First let me state the fallacious > argument which embodies it. The particular argument which I have chosen to > exemplify it leads to a more extreme conclusion than some of the others. It > does so because it is less illogical than those others. Its conclusion is > that there is no distinction of good and bad reasoning. Although, thus > nakedly exhibited, this conclusion might find few to embrace it, yet it is > substantially what I might almost say that all Germany believes in today. > For example, few nineteenth-century treatises on logic in the German > language have a word to say about fallacies. Why not? Because they hold the > law of logic to be, like a law of nature, inviolable. Or to state the > matter more exactly, enough of them hold to this opinion to set the fashion > for the others. Fashion is everything among German philosophers, for the > simple reason that the professor’s livelihood depends on his lectures being > in the favored vogue. > > > > The fallacious argument itself runs thus: Every reasoning takes place in > some mind. It would not be that mind’s reasoning unless it satisfied that > mind’s feeling of logicality ( logisches Gefühl). But as long as it does > that, nothing can be gained by criticizing the reasoning any further, since > there is no other possible sign by which we could know that it was good > than that feeling of logicality in the reasoner’s mind. For if the > reasoning be criticized, that criticism must be conducted by reasoning; and > that reasoning, in its turn, must either be accepted because it satisfies > the reasoner’s feeling of logicality, or else be criticized by further > reasoning. He cannot carry through an endless series of reasonings. > Therefore, some final reasoning there must be that is adopted on the > assumption that a reasoning which satisfies the feeling of logicality is as > good as any reasoning can be; and if this be not true, all reasoning is > worthless. Consequently, since every reasoning satisfies the reasoner’s > feeling of logicality, every reasoning is as good as any reasoning can be. > That is, there is no distinction of good and bad reasoning. > > > > That is the argument which I pronounce a miserable fallacy. If we extend > to arguments a just maxim of our law, every argument must be presumed to be > sound until it is proved fallacious. Accordingly, I will refer to this > argument as the “defendant argument,” and to the writers who adhere to it > as the “defendants.” > > > > In order to emphasize that confusion which I think so pestilent, and to > prevent your minds from being distracted from it to another fault in the > defendant argument, I put it into parallel with another argument that > involves a quite analogous confusion. > > > > Namely, we find in some of the old writers a fallacious argument to prove > that there is no distinction of moral right and wrong. The argument runs as > follows: > > > > The distinction between a good act and a bad one, if there be any such > distinction, lies in the motive. But the only motive a man can have is his > own pleasure. No other is thinkable. For if a man desires to act in any > way, it is because he takes pleasure in so acting. Otherwise, his action > would not be voluntary and deliberate. Thus, there is but one possible > motive for action that has any motive; and consequently, the distinction of > right and wrong, which would be a distinction between motives, does not > exist. > > > > You see the parallelism between the two arguments. Each undertakes to > refute a distinction between good and bad; the one in reasoning, the other > in endeavor. Each does this by pronouncing something unthinkable; the one, > that a man should adopt a conclusion for any other reason than a feeling of > logicality, the other that a man should adopt any line of conduct from any > other motive than a feeling of pleasure. > > > > My position, in opposition to these arguments, is that it is so far from > being true that every desire necessarily desires its own gratification, > that, on the contrary, it is impossible that a desire should desire its own > gratification; and it is so far from being true that every inference must > necessarily be based upon its seeming satisfactory, that it is, on the > contrary, impossible that any inference should be based in any degree upon > its seeming satisfactory. > > > > I want to lead you to see clearly that the defendants confound two > disparate categories, and, having identified objects belonging to these > categories, attribute to them a nature belonging to a third category. They > confound an efficient agency, whose very existence consists in its acting > when and where it is, with a general mental formulation; and as if this > were not blunder enough, they call the identified two a feeling. The first > blunder is as if a man, being asked what made the Campanile fall in Venice, > were to reply that it was the regularity of nature. That is a confusion > tolerably common,— the confusion of a decree of a court with the sheriff’s > strong right arm. But, after having identified these, to call them a > feeling is, I believe, a mistake peculiar to philosophers. It is > something like confusing a living man with the general idea of a man and, > having done so, saying that he was constructed of two nasal consonants and > a vowel. > > > > To be continued > > > > > ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" > or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should > go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to > PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" > in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/ > peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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