Referring only to this section, my questions are based around:
1[ This outline can only refer to a single man, whose beliefs are
'determined' by his past experiences/learning. This is relativism,
BUT -
2] Are his actions 'more reasonable' - understanding reason as
attempting to connect to truth.
After all - if his beliefs fall within the fallacies of being
derived via Tenacity, A Priori, or Authority [Fixation of Belief] -
then, does this fit with the agenda of thought being an act of
Reason? Or is this single individual's thought instead alienated from
the action of Reasoning?
Or, is Peirce's suggestion, with the last sentence of this
selection, that man is endowed with a basic freedom, and this freedom
enables not necessarily that particular individual but rather 'the
community of men', so to speak, to use Reason to examine beliefs and
so, eventually, to arrive at truth?
Edwina
On Fri 29/09/17 8:13 AM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
Continuing from 1.3 (EP2:247, CP 1.594):
… 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.
595. The argument turns on the feeling of pleasure, and therefore it
is necessary, in order to judge of it, to get at the facts about that
feeling as accurately as we can. In beginning to perform any series
of acts which had been determined upon beforehand, there is a certain
sense of joy, an anticipation and commencement of a relaxation of the
tension of need, which we now become more conscious of than we had
been before. In the act itself taking place at any instant, it may be
that we are conscious of pleasure; although that is doubtful. Before
the series of acts are done, we already begin to review them, and in
that review we recognize the pleasurable character of the feelings
that accompanied those acts.
596. To return to my interview, as soon as it is over I begin to
review it more carefully and I then ask myself whether my conduct
accorded with my resolution. That resolution, as we agreed, was a
mental formula. The memory of my action may be roughly described as
an image. I contemplate that image and put the question to myself.
Shall I say that that image satisfies the stipulations of my
resolution, or not? The answer to this question, like the answer to
any inward question, is necessarily of the nature of a mental
formula. It is accompanied, however, by a certain quality of feeling
which is related to the formula itself very much as the color of the
ink in which anything is printed is related to the sense of what is
printed. And just as we first become aware of the peculiar color of
the ink and afterward ask ourselves whether it is agreeable or not,
so in formulating the judgment that the image of our conduct does
satisfy our previous resolution we are, in the very act of
formulation, aware of a certain quality of feeling,— the feeling
of satisfaction,— and directly afterward recognize that that
feeling was pleasurable.
597. But now I may probe deeper into my conduct, and may ask myself
whether it accorded with my general intentions. Here again there will
be a judgment and a feeling accompanying it, and directly afterward a
recognition that that feeling was pleasurable or painful. This
judgment, if favorable, will probably afford less intense pleasure
than the other; but the feeling of satisfaction which is pleasurable
will be different and, as we say, a deeper feeling.
598. I may now go still further and ask how the image of my conduct
accords with my ideals of conduct fitting to a man like me. Here will
follow a new judgment with its accompanying feeling followed by a
recognition of the pleasurable or painful character of that feeling.
In any or all of these ways a man may criticize his own conduct; and
it is essential to remark that it is not mere idle praise or blame
such as writers who are not of the wisest often distribute among the
personages of history. No indeed! It is approval or disapproval of
the only respectable kind, that which will bear fruit in the future.
Whether the man is satisfied with himself or dissatisfied, his nature
will absorb the lesson like a sponge; and the next time he will tend
to do better than he did before.
599. In addition to these three self-criticisms of single series of
actions, a man will from time to time review his ideals. This process
is not a job that a man sits down to do and has done with. The
experience of life is continually contributing instances more or less
illuminative. These are digested first, not in the man's
consciousness, but in the depths of his reasonable being. The results
come to consciousness later. But meditation seems to agitate a mass of
tendencies and allow them more quickly to settle down so as to be
really more conformed to what is fit for the man.
600. Finally, in addition to this personal meditation on the fitness
of one's own ideals, which is of a practical nature, there are the
purely theoretical studies of the student of ethics who seeks to
ascertain, as a matter of curiosity, what the fitness of an ideal of
conduct consists in, and to deduce from such definition of fitness
what conduct ought to be. Opinions differ as to the wholesomeness of
this study. It only concerns our present purpose to remark that it is
in itself a purely theoretical inquiry, entirely distinct from the
business of shaping one's own conduct. Provided that feature of it be
not lost sight of, I myself have no doubt that the study is more or
less favorable to right living.
601. I have thus endeavored to describe fully the typical phenomena
of controlled action. They are not every one present in every case.
Thus, as I have already mentioned, there is not always an opportunity
to form a resolution. I have specially emphasized the fact that
conduct is determined by what precedes it in time, while the
recognition of the pleasure it brings follows after the action. Some
may opine that this is not true of what is called the pursuit of
pleasure; and I admit that there is room for their opinion while I
myself incline to think, for example, that the satisfaction of eating
a good dinner is never a satisfaction in the present instantaneous
state, but always follows after it. I insist, at any rate, that a
feeling, as a mere appearance, can have no real power in itself to
produce any effect whatever, however indirectly.
602. My account of the facts, you will observe, leaves a man at full
liberty, no matter if we grant all that the necessitarians ask. That
is, the man can, or if you please is compelled, to make his life
more reasonable. What other distinct idea than that, I should be glad
to know, can be attached to the word liberty?
http://gnusystems.ca/Lowells.htm [1] }{ Peirce’s Lowell Lectures
of 1903
Links:
------
[1] http://gnusystems.ca/Lowells.htm
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