Mike, list,
You wrote:
*I like your analysis and I see its logic. I (and others on the list) have
at times been confused as to whether abduction was in Firstness or
Thirdness. I still feel that abduction is applied to the "surprising fact"
that causes us to question the generals in Thirdness, so is *grounded*
there, but the results of abductive logic informs the possibilities to be
considered anew in the next sequence of inquiry, so informs what to
consider in Firstness. By this thought, abduction is really a bridge
between Thirdness and Firstness in a dynamic process.*
I will have to think hard about your very intriguing thought that
"abduction is a bridge between 3ns and 1ns in a dynamic process."
Meanwhile, I believe that most Peirce scholars see abduction as a 1ns when
it is considered within a tripartite inquiry (what Peirce calls "a complete
inquiry") such that:
*1st, 1ns, abduction (a hypothesis is formed)*
*|> 2nd, 3ns, deduction (there is an analysis of the implications of the
hypothesis were it valid in the interest of constructing tests of it*
*3rd, 2ns, induction (the actual experiment testing of the hypothesis
occurs)*
In the terms of categorial vector analysis, the pattern in which deduction
mediates between abduction and induction (commencing of course at
abduction) is that which I call the *vector of process* (the same vector
occurs in Peirce's categorial analysis of biological evolution, btw).
However, a year or so ago there was a discussion here concerning the
vectorial structure of abduction itself, that is, as a form of inference.
Some thought that it too followed the vector of process (so commencing at
1ns), while I, with Peirce's famous "bean" analysis as prime evidential
support, held that it followed a different vector, namely what I call
the *vector
of representation*, commencing at thirdness, mediated at 1ns, and
concluding at 2ns, so:
*2nd, 1ns, a well-prepared scientist makes a guess (an 'aha' moment
perhaps; abduction as a kind of instinct);*
*|> 1st, 3ns, Out of the wealth of his knowledge and experience,
considering a scientific problem (involving "a surprising array of
fact"--1907); *
*3rd, 2ns, the scientist formulates it in such a way that in the next step
of inquiry its implications for testing may be deduced; that is, he makes
of it a bona fide hypothesis.*
I have more and more come to see this as the formof retroduction, inference
from effect to cause, although Peirce not infrequently uses 'retroduction'
as a synonym for 'abduction'. But note this remark:
I have on reflexion decided to give this kind of reasoning the name of
*retroduction* to imply that it turns back and leads from the consequent of
an admitted consequence, to its antecedent. Observe, if you please, the
difference of meaning between a *consequent* the thing led to, and a
*consequence*, the general fact by virtue of which a given antecedent lead
to a certain *consequent *(MS [R] 857: 4-5).
Late in his career (in the N.A.) Peirce makes this point regarding
retroduction (having just referenced Darwin):
. . . it is quite indubitable, as it appears to me, that every step in the
development of primitive notions into modern science was in the first
instance mere guess-work, or at least mere conjecture. *But the stimulus to
guessing, the hint of the conjecture, was derived from experience. The
order of the march of suggestion in retroduction is from experience
to hypothesis *(emphasis added).
The final sentence above gives credence I think to my putting 3ns first in
considering abductive inference (some might argue that 2ns ought be first,
but there are arguments against that position which I won't bother you with
now). You continued:
*In that context, then, "some possibilities" which we should be "most
concerned to insist upon" are those that prove to be the most pragmatic
responses to our inquiry. I think that is the point you are making here. In
that context, then, virtually any "conditional proposition" worthy of
pragmatic consideration could/would be instantiated in some pragmatic
reality. Even unicorns fit under this umbrella, since we know of no natural
reason to discount a horse-like animal with a single frontal horn. Under
this formulation, any reasonable "conditional proposition" could be seen as
real.*
Any thought, indeed even a dream, has a kind of reality. But the
"conditional propositions" which arise spontaneously out of a life of
scientific work in, say, a specialized area of science will, to the
pragmatist, have a compelling likeliness to be true. This is also a matter
of the economy of research. One might imagine that unicorns exist and spend
decades hunting all over the world to find one and, well, in effect simply
be wasting his time. As Peirce comments in a 1910 letter to Paul Carus:
As for the validity of the hypothesis, the retroduction, there seems at
first to be no room at all for the question of what supports it, since from
an actual fact it only infers a *may-be* (*may-be* and *may-be not*). *But
there is a decided leaning to the affirmative side and the frequency with
which that turns out to be an actual fact is to me quite the most
surprising of all the wonders of the universe *(emphasis added, CP 8.238).
In other words, a prepared scientific mind has a tendency--against all odds
it would seem--to guess right!
You concluded:
*I get it that possibles, once instantiated or as a character of what gets
instantiated, can be deemed to exist (and are obviously real). But I'm also
not sure I am comfortable with a notion that any possible is real simply
because it is possible. My sense is there is more here.*
1. I don't think that Peirce would say that *all* possibles are real,
but only that some are* real*. So, here's an example of a 'may-be' which
could be realized: the blue print of my dream house may some day result in
that house being built (even, as John suggested, the design will probably
be changed any number of times as new, perhaps aesthetic or economic,
abductions are considered during it's actual construction. If all the
conditions (financial, design, etc.) are met, it 'would-be' the case that
some time in the future that possible structure would really come to exist.
I think Peirce gave this sort of example himself; a recipe for apple pie as
well (I've forgotten the context(s).
The quote is, as I recall, from the 1903 lectures on pragmatism, but I
haven't the time just now to check
Finally, I think John Sowa was quite correct in treating the discussion of
'existence' and 'reality' from the standpoint of logic since that is what
those threads all concern. As he pointed out, Peirce was a logician. But he
was also a metaphysician of some considerable ability, so I'm glad that Jon
S moved this discussion to a thread with a new Subject
Best,
Gary R
xxx
[image: Gary Richmond]
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>*
On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 12:46 AM, Mike Bergman <m...@mkbergman.com> wrote:
> Hi Gary, List,
>
> I like your analysis and I see its logic. I (and others on the list) have
> at times been confused as to whether abduction was in Firstness or
> Thirdness. I still feel that abduction is applied to the "surprising fact"
> that causes us to question the generals in Thirdness, so is *grounded*
> there, but the results of abductive logic informs the possibilities to be
> considered anew in the next sequence of inquiry, so informs what to
> consider in Firstness. By this thought, abduction is really a bridge
> between Thirdness and Firstness in a dynamic process.
>
> In that context, then, "some possibilities" which we should be "most
> concerned to insist upon" are those that prove to be the most pragmatic
> responses to our inquiry. I think that is the point you are making here. In
> that context, then, virtually any "conditional proposition" worthy of
> pragmatic consideration could/would be instantiated in some pragmatic
> reality. Even unicorns fit under this umbrella, since we know of no natural
> reason to discount a horse-like animal with a single frontal horn. Under
> this formulation, any reasonable "conditional proposition" could be seen as
> real.
>
> While I like some of the nugget of this argument, I think it ultimately
> begs the question. What caught my attention in the CSP quote you surfaced
> seems to suggest more: a "most concerned" criterion that seems to go
> farther than any "conditional proposition".
>
> I get it that possibles, once instantiated or as a character of what gets
> instantiated, can be deemed to exist (and are obviously real). But I'm also
> not sure I am comfortable with a notion that any possible is real simply
> because it is possible. My sense is there is more here.
>
> BTW, can you provide a citation of the quote in question?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike
>
> On 10/18/2017 11:08 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
>
> Mike, List,
>
> Thanks for your generous comments and support. It did take a bit of
> research to come up with the citations to support the argumentation of that
> post, so I'm glad you found it of interest.
>
> I do think that this matter of the distinction Peirce makes between
> existence (2ns) and reality (all 3 categories-- from the standpoint of what
> I've termed the* vector of involution*, commencing at 3ns, which involves
> 2ns & 1ns, 2ns involving 1ns) is semiotically of considerable importance
> and, so, ought not be swept under the carpet of a piece of logic which
> would equivocate existence and reality in a logico-grammatical sleight of
> hand ("quantified variables") which makes *everything* "exist" by the
> conceptual trick of having "is" stand for not only existence, but also
> reality. While the problem is difficult, as Jon S has suggested, I do not
> think that Quine's (and Sowa's) strictly logical solution is adequate.
>
> You quoted me, then asked:
>
>
> GR: As for the reality of *possibles*, Peirce holds that ". . . it is
> the reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to
> insist upon." Here one can begin to see how the last branch of logic rather
> melds into metaphysical inquiries.
>
> MB: Might you or others on the list identify what "some" of those
> possibilities may be (with citations).
>
> I think yours is a very good question, that it is undoubtedly important to
> point out what "'some' of the possibilities may be." But I believe that the
> first question we ought try to answer is why Peirce says that "it is the
> reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist
> upon."
>
> My preliminary thoughts on the matter: If pragmatism is the logic of
> abduction, as Peirce asserts in 1903, then I would think that "some" of
> those possibilities will be particular abductions and hypotheses which
> might prove fruitful, which, upon reflection and/or testing, show
> themselves to be valid, perhaps even finally useful. As Peirce writes:
>
> Pragmaticism makes the ultimate intellectual purport of what you please to
> consist in conceived conditional resolutions, or their substance; and
> therefore, the conditional propositions, with their hypothetical
> antecedents, in which such resolutions consist, being of the ultimate
> nature of meaning, must be capable of being true, that is, of expressing
> whatever there be which is such as the proposition expresses, independently
> of being thought to be so in any judgment, or being represented to be so in
> any other symbol of any man or men. *But that amounts to saying that
> possibility is sometimes of a real kind.* (Issues of Pragmatism, EP2:354,
> emphasis added).
>
>
> This, I believe, is how inquiry progresses, how we approach "the truth of
> certain matters," that 'truth," or, better, knowledge, sometimes bringing
> about, for example, technologies which are of benefit to us. Perhaps it is
> yet possible to imagine that we might evolve our humane consciousness, the
> final frontier of evolution as Peirce saw it. But this has little--if
> any--hope of happening if we cannot conceive powerful abductions,
> hypotheses, *possibilities*. . . This, I would maintain, *is* the work of
> individuals.
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R
>
> [image: Gary Richmond]
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *718 482-5690 <%28718%29%20482-5690>*
>
> On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 9:33 PM, Mike Bergman <m...@mkbergman.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Gary, List,
>>
>> Excellent response. However, the snippet below caught my eye:
>>
>> As for the reality of *possibles*, Peirce holds that ". . . it is the
>> reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist
>> upon." Here one can begin to see how the last branch of logic rather melds
>> into metaphysical inquiries.
>>
>> Might you or others on the list identify what "some" of those
>> possibilities may be (with citations).
>>
>> Thanks, Mike
>>
>> On 10/18/2017 7:54 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
>>
>> As for the reality of *possibles*, Peirce holds that ". . . it is the
>> reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist
>> upon." Here one can begin to see how the last branch of logic rather melds
>> into metaphysical inquiries.
>>
>>
>> --
>> __________________________________________
>>
>> Michael K. Bergman
>> Cognonto Corporation319.621.5225
>> <%28319%29%20621-5225>skype:michaelkbergmanhttp://cognonto.comhttp://mkbergman.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/mkbergman
>> __________________________________________
>>
>>
>>
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>
> --
> __________________________________________
>
> Michael K. Bergman
> Cognonto Corporation319.621.5225
> <(319)%20621-5225>skype:michaelkbergmanhttp://cognonto.comhttp://mkbergman.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/mkbergman
> __________________________________________
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