List,
Peirce wraps up this argument for the reality of Thirdness by pointing out
that "laws of nature" such as those governing gravitation, elasticity,
electricity and thermodynamics ("conservation of energy") are positive laws,
while the laws of dynamics "stand on quite a different footing": "The laws
of dynamics are very much like logical principles, if they are not precisely
that. They only say how bodies will move after you have said what the forces
are" - just as, in deductive logic, you can only assert the conclusion after
you have asserted the premisses. That is presumably why these "merely formal
principles" can be exact (like "exact logic") while the others are not
presumed to be exact, at least not by Peirce, who argues that they must be
evolving like everything else in nature.
I think this argument for the triadicity of these natural laws depends on a
usage of the term "dynamics" which has itself evolved since then, especially
with the rise of nonlinear and non-equilibrium thermodynamics (or
"energetics" as Howard Odum called it. Nowadays the more common argument is
that Newtonian mechanics are relatively artificial because its equations
treat time as reversible, while actual events in nature are radically
irreversible. Add to that "the operation of self-control," which evolves
along with life itself, and you get "laws" which are quite inexplicable in
terms of mechanics (including quantum mechanics), but whose evolution can be
accounted for in terms of teleodynamics (as in Deacon's Incomplete Nature).
>From this follows the claim already flagged by Jon Awbrey: "That truth and
justice are great powers in the world is no figure of speech, but a plain
fact to which theories must accommodate themselves."
Peirce's final argument against "the common aversion to recognizing thought
as an active factor in the real world" is that this aversion springs from
bad education, which overcomes the natural beliefs of children. This is a
variation on Peirce's frequent insistence that "common sense" and "instinct"
are more reliable guides to belief than reasoning - unless they have been
corrupted or overwhelmed somehow by social forces. Peirceans today are
surely aware of how people's political common sense can be overcome by spin
doctors and abuses of social media . so, no need to say any more about that.
Gary f.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 13-Dec-17 15:43
To: [email protected]
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.5
Continuing from Lowell 3.4,
https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-low
ell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13889
As to the common aversion to recognizing thought as an active factor in the
real world, some of its causes are easily traced. In the first place, people
are persuaded that everything that happens in the material universe is a
motion completely determined by inviolable laws of dynamics; and that, they
think, leaves no room for any other influence. But the laws of dynamics
stand on quite a different footing from the laws of gravitation, elasticity,
electricity, and the like. The laws of dynamics are very much like logical
principles, if they are not precisely that. They only say how bodies will
move after you have said what the forces are. They permit any forces, and
therefore any motions. Only, the principle of the conservation of energy
requires us to explain certain kinds of motions by special hypotheses about
molecules and the like. Thus, in order that the viscosity of gases should
not disobey that law we have to suppose that gases have a certain molecular
constitution. Setting dynamical laws to one side, then, as hardly being
positive laws, but rather mere formal principles, we have only the laws of
gravitation, elasticity, electricity, and chemistry. Now who will
deliberately say that our knowledge of these laws is sufficient to make us
reasonably confident that they are absolutely eternal and immutable, and
that they escape the great law of evolution? Each hereditary character is a
law, but it is subject to development and to decay. Each habit of an
individual is a law; but these laws are modified so easily by the operation
of self-control, that it is one of the most patent of facts that ideals and
thought generally have a very great influence on human conduct. That truth
and justice are great powers in the world is no figure of speech, but a
plain fact to which theories must accommodate themselves.
The child, with his wonderful genius for language, naturally looks upon the
world as chiefly governed by thought; for thought and expression are really
one. As Wordsworth truly says, the child is quite right in this; he is an
"eye among the blind,"
"On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find."
But as he grows up, he loses this faculty; and all through his childhood he
has been stuffed with such a pack of lies, which parents are accustomed to
think are the most wholesome food for the child,- because they do not think
of his future,- that he begins real life with the utmost contempt for all
the ideas of his childhood; and the great truth of the immanent power of
thought in the universe is flung away along with the lies. I offer this
hypothetical explanation because, if the common aversion to regarding
thought as a real power, or as anything but a fantastic figment, were really
natural, it would make an argument of no little strength against its being
acknowledged as a real power.
Those of you, ladies and gentlemen, who are interested in philosophy, as
most of us are, more or less, would do well to get as clear notions of the
three elements of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness as you can.
http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm }{ Peirce's Lowell Lectures of 1903
-----------------------------
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 .
