Edwina, List,
I assume you are articulating your own view--which is shared by a number of materialist oriented philosophers and scientists including Hobbes, Boyle and others. On my reading of the relevant texts, I believe Peirce argued against such a materialist position--even one that take the material realm to be an "articulation of Mind." It isn't obvious to me what the latter clause adds, but I am willing to be enlightened. Here are four such lines of argument. 1. Arguments for the validity of deduction require at least a verbal definition of the real, where the character of the real is not exhausted by individuals of a material character--not even if one brings a conception of individuals like us with minds into that realm. 2. Arguments for the validity of induction and abduction require a real definition of the real, where that account adds yet more to the character of the real as generals (e.g., general properties, laws of nature, etc.) that govern the relations between what is possible and what is actual. 3. Having developed these two lines of argument within the context of a critical logic, Peirce argues for an account of the real as having the character of what is truly continuous as a regulative principle within methodeutic. Such a principle is necessary for the healthy development and robust communication of scientific theories of all sorts, including natural and social sciences. 4. With these arguments in hand, Peirce applies the principles of logic to the study of questions of metaphysics. Here, he forges a position that unifies elements of both realism and objective idealism. These four strands of argument each seem to work against the claim that there isn't anything 'real' outside of the material world - even when we take the material world to be an articulation of Mind. One way of responding is to say that I'm reading Peirce wrong on one or more of these lines of argument. Another way to respond is to say that your position is different from Peirce's, and that he is wrong and you are right where there is disagreement. Or, there might some third way to respond. Let me know if one of these avenues fits with what you take yourself to be doing. As things stand, it isn't clear to me what you are doing in making such assertions, but my assumption that is fits the second option. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 1:41 PM To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: RE: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1: overview I don't think that there is anything 'real' outside of the material world - and I understand the material world to be an articulation of Mind. [Again, I won't repeat 4.551]. I see the reality of Mind as articulated within/as the material world; Mind doesn't exist 'per se' outside of these existential instantiations. Mathematics is an intellectual abstraction of this reality-as-existential. I don't think you arrive at necessary reasoning, deduction, without having gone through the processes of abduction and induction. That is, since Deduction is operationally triadic, then, in a Necessary Deduction, don't its premises have to be true? For example, can I assume that a purely intellectual opinion/conclusion, 'the universe was created in one day"" - is a necessary deductive? The premises would be: 'the bible says so'...etc. Or is it "Deduction is an argument whose Interpretant represents that it belongs to a general class of possible arguments precisely analogous which are such that in the long run of experience the greater part of those whose premises are true will have true conclusions" 2.267...Now, a "Necessary Deductions are those which have nothing to do with any ratio of frequency but profess [or their interpretants profess for them] that from true premises they must invariably produce true conclusions" 2.267 That is - isn't Peirce's Objective Idealism firmly rooted in phenomenology; i.e., in experience- and these experiences have been shown, by repetition, to be true, such that one no longer requires further experience? Edwina On Sun 15/10/17 4:02 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent: Edwina, Despite the accurate Peirce quotes, your last paragraph still confuses Truth with the real law that tends toward the truth. Peirce is clearly saying that this real law operates in any and every universe (domain, realm) which can be the object of a valid argument — including the purely imaginary realm of mathematics. It does not operate only in “the real material world” (as if only the material world were real). Actually, insofar as we are talking about the real law governing deduction, or “necessary reasoning,” we never know whether a conclusion is factual: “Necessary reasoning can never answer questions of fact. It has to assume its premisses to be true.” (That’s a quote from Lowell 2). Gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: 15-Oct-17 13:39 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1: overview Gary, list: Peirce wrote: "I have no objection to saying that in my opinion what makes a reasoning sound is the real law that the general method which that reasoning more or less consciously pursues does tend toward the truth." And, "The very essence of an argument,— that which distinguishes it from all other kinds of signs,— is that it professes to be the representative of a general method of procedure tending toward the truth. To say that this method tends toward the true is to say that it is a real law that existences will follow." An Argument is a semiosic process, and is as valid in the biological realm as it is in the Seminar Room. The semiosic Argument functions as a 'real law that existences will follow'. Therefore, the existence that emerges/exists within this real law is 'the truth of that law'. That's how I see it. I don't confine 'Truth' to the Seminar Room of rhetoric and human mental analysis; I think it operates in the real material world. Edwina On Sun 15/10/17 1:27 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent: Edwina, Your first sentence introduces a bit of confusion. Peirce does not say that truth is a is a real law that existences will follow; he says that the “general method of procedure tending toward the truth” is a real law that existences will follow. This method, or law, is what makes a consequent follow from an antecedent. Every argument implicitly claims to follow that general method, and if it really does, then the argument is sound. But the “following” is independent of the factual truth of the premisses. Peirce is essentially asking us what it means to say that one fact or idea really follows from another, and in Lecture 2 he will give an answer that analyzes the “following” (the inference process) into as many small steps as possible. And he will do this for deductive, mathematical, “necessary” reasoning, where the “facts” are about mathematical objects which have no empirical existence in the usual sense of “empirical.” In short, this law or method is not itself a fact, nor is it “truth.” It is general, and its whole mode of being consists in really governing a reasoning process so that “the conclusions of that method really will be true, to the extent and in the manner in which the argument pretends that they will.” Gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: 15-Oct-17 10:30 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1: overview Since truth " is a real law that existences will follow." and that this is achieved via "the soundness of argument to consist in the facts of the case and not at all in whether the reasoner feels confidence in the argument or not" [this is a comment against subjective opinions].... AND that this observation of the experienced facts is subject to the self-criticism of reasoning..AND that this reasoning operates within the reality of the Three Categories, derived from: "I undertook to do was to go back to experience, in the sense of whatever we find to have been forced upon our minds," Then, it seems to me that Peirce's analysis is 'rationally phenomenological' [objective idealism] - in the above sense, that reason must assure us that our opinions conform to the facts. After all, he also asserts that we cannot know the unknowable. This, to me, means that our capacity for sensual observation and our capacity for reasoning cannot, by us, by surmounted. We can only, ourselves, know what we can phenomenologically and rationally experience. There may indeed be 'facts' outside of our human capacities - but - we cannot Know them. Edwina On Sun 15/10/17 6:56 AM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent: [EP2:534] Four days after this lecture (Lowell 1), an anonymous listener sent Peirce the following question: “If not inconvenient for you, will you be kind enough to give tonight a summary— however brief— of your answer to the question ‘What makes a Reasoning Sound?’” Peirce prepared a response that he read at the beginning of the third lecture. This response, found in MS 465, is as follows: My first duty this evening is to reply to a note which asks me to give an explanation at my last lecture. The letter did not come to hand until the following morning. The question asked is what my answer in the first lecture was to the question “What makes a Reasoning to be sound?” I had no intention of answering that question in my first lecture, because I dislike to put forth opinions until I am ready to prove them; and I had enough to do in the first lecture to show what does not make reasoning to be sound. Besides in this short course it seems better to skip such purely theoretical questions. Yet since I am asked, I have no objection to saying that in my opinion what makes a reasoning sound is the real law that the general method which that reasoning more or less consciously pursues does tend toward the truth. The very essence of an argument,— that which distinguishes it from all other kinds of signs,— is that it professes to be the representative of a general method of procedure tending toward the truth. To say that this method tends toward the true is to say that it is a real law that existences will follow. Now if that profession is true, and the conclusions of that method really will be true, to the extent and in the manner in which the argument pretends that they will, the argument is sound; if not, it is a false pretension and is unsound. I thus make the soundness of argument to consist in the facts of the case and not at all in whether the reasoner feels confidence in the argument or not. I may further say that there are three great classes of argument, Deductions, Inductions, and Abductions; and these profess to tend toward the truth in very different senses, as we shall see. I suppose this answers the question intended. However, it is possible that my correspondent did not intend to ask in what I think the soundness of reasoning consists, but by the question “What makes reasoning sound?” he may mean “What causes men to reason right?” That question I did substantially answer in my first lecture. Namely, to begin with, when a boy or girl first begins to criticize his inferences, and until he does that he does not reason, he finds that he has already strong prejudices in favor of certain ways of arguing. Those prejudices, whether they be inherited or acquired, were first formed under the influence of the environing world, so that it is not surprising that they are largely right or nearly right. He, thus, has a basis to go upon. But if he has the habit of calling himself to account for his reasonings, as all of us do more or less, he will gradually come to reason much better; and this comes about through his criticism, in the light of experience, of all the factors that have entered into reasonings that were performed shortly before the criticism. Occasionally, he goes back to the criticism of habits of reasoning which have governed him for many years. That is my answer to the second question. http://gnusystems.ca/Lowells.htm }{ Peirce’s Lowell Lectures of 1903
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