Following up on the comments by Gary R, Stephen, Jon, and (earlier) Tom Gollier,
What strikes me first about Peirce's description of "the all-familiar phenomena of self-control" is that his generic "man" seems to behave more rationally than most people actually do. But we have to bear in mind that this whole lecture, indeed this whole series, is primarily about reasoning, and he is addressing this "argument about morals" because it is analogous to the argument about logic which is his main target. The quirks of 'irrational man' (however real) are not relevant to this argument. The words "all-familiar phenomena" are all-important here. Some people have more self-control than others, but everyone has some acquaintance with it, and Peirce is implicitly asking his audience to draw on that experience. In Peirce's terms at least, this is a phenomenological inquiry, not a psychological one. Psychology is classified by Peirce as a "special science," meaning that its practitioners need special training and/or equipment to establish the "facts" of the science, and have to use assumptions and methods which they can only draw from metaphysics and logic. What distinguishes philosophy (i.e. "cenoscopy") from all special sciences is that it requires no such special equipment: "It contents itself with a more attentive scrutiny and comparison of the facts of everyday life, such as present themselves to every adult and sane person, and for the most part in every day and hour of his waking life" (EP2:146). This goes double for phenomenology, which according to Peirce ought to be called "first philosophy," and thus first of the "positive sciences." The "facts" with which he asks us to "confront" the target argument are "facts of everyday life." This section also exemplifies Peirce's classification of the normative sciences: esthetics, ethics and logic, in that order, form a hierarchy in the sense that each draws principles from the one before. The phenomena of self-control typically include a "resolution," a "mental formula" which is very like a diagram. All reasoning is essentially diagrammatic, according to Peirce, and I think Jon is right to point out that such diagrams are not what we usually call "images" because they do not represent anything in the universe of visual experience. They are, you might say, a form of abstract art. This will be important to recall when we get to the second Lowell lecture, in which Peirce introduces his Existential Graphs. Those diagrams are iconic in the sense that the graphs and the experiments we perform on them are visible, but they are also symbolic signs whose objects are not visible. Moreover, in practice, the kind of "diagram" Peirce is referring to in 1.592 may not be visualized at all; it may be schematic in some other way. Personally, I think my own "diagrams" are often more proprioceptive or "muscular" than visual. But metaphors of vision are so pervasive in our language that they are pretty much unavoidable in discussing mental matters. Anyway, Peirce observes that the "mental formula" which becomes a habit or disposition must be "converted" into a "determination, by which I mean a really efficient agency," before it can issue forth in actual behavior. In Peircean phenomenological terms, this is an example of Thirdness "bringing about a Secondness," as Peirce put it in the Syllabus (EP2:267). In 1.593 Peirce explains how Firstness enters into the process, in the form of "a peculiar quality of feeling" which "accompanies the first steps of the process." Already we can see how his description of "the all-familiar phenomena of self-control" undermines the "defendant argument" he is criticizing, by denying its implicit premisses. But Peirce will clarify this in the next instalment, along with the "difficult question of fact" concerning the timing of the process. Gary f. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 27-Sep-17 09:16 To: 'Peirce-L' <[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1.3 Continuing from Lowell 1.2: Taking up, first, the argument about morals, let us confront it with the facts of the case. The necessitarians tell us that when we act, we act under a necessity that we cannot control. I am inclined to think that this is substantially so. We certainly cannot control our past actions, and I fancy it is too late to control what is happening at the very instant present. You cannot prevent what already is. If this be true, it is true that when we act, we do act under a necessity that we cannot control. But our future actions we can determine in a great measure; can we not? To deny that were mere gabble and word-twisting. No matter how bad the argument may be that we can only control future actions by a present action which is itself necessitated, still it would be idle to find fault with it, since it is quite irrelevant. The point is that our future actions will be controlled by present endeavors. That is sufficient. But let us describe the all-familiar phenomena of self-control. In the first place, then, [note: CP 1.591 begins here (EP2:245), and the CP edition differs slightly in punctuation and paragraphing from the EP2 edition. EP2 sticks more closely to Peirce's manuscript, but from this point on i'll post the CP text, because it generally makes both reading and specific reference to the text more convenient. The wording will not differ from EP2.] 591. Every man has certain ideals of the general description of conduct that befits a rational animal in his particular station in life, what most accords with his total nature and relations. If you think this statement too vague, I will say, more specifically, that there are three ways in which these ideals usually recommend themselves and justly do so. In the first place certain kinds of conduct, when the man contemplates them, have an esthetic quality. He thinks that conduct fine; and though his notion may be coarse or sentimental, yet if so, it will alter in time and must tend to be brought into harmony with his nature. At any rate, his taste is his taste for the time being; that is all. In the second place, the man endeavors to shape his ideals into consistency with each other, for inconsistency is odious to him. In the third place, he imagines what the consequences of fully carrying out his ideals would be, and asks himself what the esthetic quality of those consequences would be. 592. These ideals, however, have in the main been imbibed in childhood. Still, they have gradually been shaped to his personal nature and to the ideas of his circle of society rather by a continuous process of growth than by any distinct acts of thought. Reflecting upon these ideals, he is led to intend to make his own conduct conform at least to a part of them- to that part in which he thoroughly believes. Next, he usually formulates, however vaguely, certain rules of conduct. He can hardly help doing so. Besides, such rules are convenient and serve to minimize the effects of future inadvertence, and what are well named the wiles of the devil within him. Reflection upon these rules, as well as upon the general ideals behind them, has a certain effect upon his disposition, so that what he naturally inclines to do becomes modified. Such being his condition, he often foresees that a special occasion is going to arise; thereupon, a certain gathering of his forces will begin to work and this working of his being will cause him to consider how he will act, and in accordance with his disposition, such as it now is, he is led to form a resolution as to how he will act upon that occasion. This resolution is of the nature of a plan; or, as one might almost say, a diagram. It is a mental formula always more or less general. Being nothing more than an idea, this resolution does not necessarily influence his conduct. But now he sits down and goes through a process similar to that of impressing a lesson upon his memory, the result of which is that the resolution, or mental formula, is converted into a determination, by which I mean a really efficient agency, such that if one knows what its special character is, one can forecast the man's conduct on the special occasion. One cannot make forecasts that will come true in the majority of trials of them by means of any figment. It must be by means of something true and real. 593. We do not know by what machinery the conversion of a resolution into a determination is brought about. Several hypotheses have been proposed; but they do not much concern us just now. Suffice it to say that the determination, or efficient agency, is something hidden in the depths of our nature. A peculiar quality of feeling accompanies the first steps of the process of forming this impression; but later we have no direct consciousness of it. We may become aware of the disposition, especially if it is pent up. In that case, we shall recognize it by a feeling of need, of desire. I must notice that a man does not always have an opportunity to form a definite resolution beforehand. But in such cases there are less definite but still well-marked determinations of his nature growing out of the general rules of conduct that he has formulated; or in case no such appropriate rule has been formulated, his ideal of fitting conduct will have produced some disposition. At length, the anticipated occasion actually arises. 594. In order to fix our ideas, let us suppose a case. In the course of my reflexions, I am led to think that it would be well for me to talk to a certain person in a certain way. I resolve that I will do so when we meet. But considering how, in the heat of conversation, I might be led to take a different tone, I proceed to impress the resolution upon my soul; with the result that when the interview takes place, although my thoughts are then occupied with the matter of the talk, and may never revert to my resolution, nevertheless the determination of my being does influence my conduct. All action in accordance with a determination is accompanied by a feeling that is pleasurable; but, whether the feeling at any instant is felt as pleasurable in that very instant or whether the recognition of it as pleasurable comes a little later is a question of fact difficult to make sure about. http://gnusystems.ca/Lowells.htm }{ Peirce's Lowell Lectures of 1903
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