BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gene, list:
See my comments below: Overall - I think that your personal
antipathy towards industrialism and capitalism [an antipathy that I
do not share] means that you reject any thinker - even if they are
focused on issues that have nothing to do with these issues - who
does not share your personal views.
On Tue 13/03/18 2:10 PM , Eugene Halton eugene.w.halto...@nd.edu
sent:
Dear Gary R.,
Sorry that I misconstrued your criticism earlier, that
it was not about potential catastrophe but about whether “greed,
power, and especially crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina
goals” are features of actually existing science and technology
rather than external to them. Yes, we do disagree and probably will
continue to, though I am grateful for your criticism.
1] When scientists such as Julian Huxley, grandson of “Darwin’s
bulldog” T. H. Huxley and noted for coining the term “the new
synthesis” in mid-20th century genetics called for “the lower
strata” to be denied “too easy access” to hospitals to reduce
reproduction, and stated that “long unemployment should be a ground
for sterilization,” it was the voice of actually existing science
speaking, just as it was when noted ethologist and Nazi Konrad Lorenz
made similar statements in 1941, after Nazi “medical murders”
under the aegis of eugenics had begun. Admitting ways in which
wrongheaded and potentially evil ideas can operate in the practices
of science and technology is, to my way of thinking, a means of
acknowledging the fallibility and potentials of these practices for
self-correction.
EDWINA: I consider that you making the critical thinking errors of
generalization as well as 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'. Because SOME
individuals involved in science had certain opinions about
non-scientific topics, does not mean that ALL scientists feel that
way nor does it mean that science CAUSES these beliefs. These beliefs
remain individual and psychological; i.e., specific to the individual
and have absolutely nothing to do with science.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
2] You also say, “You will have to offer much more
evidence if I’m to believe that Peirce’s character and Carnegie's
were ‘similar,’ that Peirce was ‘hypocritical’ in his
condemnation of the Gospel of Greed. And you draw some
extraordinarily conclusions from a few facts and a single comment to
Lady Welby by Peirce, while your question as to what side of the
civil war Peirce would place himself based on his father's views is
bogus.”
Fair enough. I admire Peirce’s criticism of the gospel
of greed. I simply wanted to indicate that his aristocratic outlook
struck me at odds with that criticism. I did not compare his
character with Carnegie’s, only that other comments Peirce made
later seemed similar to what Carnegie expressed.
EDWINA: Could you explain what you mean by 'his aristocratic
outlook'? Obviously you have a description of 'aristocratic outlook'
- and are hostile to it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3] Here below is a fuller version of Peirce’s 1908
letter to Lady Welby, where he says “The people ought to be
enslaved,” that universal suffrage is “ruinous,” that
labor-organizations are “clamouring today for the ‘right’ to
persecute and kill people as they please,” that the “lowest
class” “insists on enslaving the upper class.”
Peirce is clearly anti-worker, anti-union, anti-lower class,
pro-upper-class in these statements, with zero empathy for the plight
of workers in the face of rabid industrial capitalism in America.
Consider, Upton Sinclair published his novel The Jungle, two years
earlier, depicting the sordid conditions of slaughterhouse workers in
Chicago. Consider that pragmatists John Dewey and George Herbert Mead
were already actively involved with settlement houses in Chicago,
with lower class immigrants and workers, seeking a critical
understanding of democracy in the grip of industrial capitalism.
EDWINA: What evidence do you have for your description above? The
fact that books were published by others about work situations has
nothing to do with Peirce.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Peirce: “Being a convinced Pragmaticist in Semeiotic, naturally
and necessarily nothing can appear to me sillier than rationalism; and
folly in politics can go no further than English liberalism. The
people ought to be enslaved; only the slaveholders ought to practice
the virtues that alone can maintain their rule. England will discover
too late that it has sapped the foundations of culture. The most
perfect language that was ever spoken was classical Greek; and it is
obvious that no people could have spoken it who were not provided
with plenty of intelligent slaves. As to us Americans, who had, at
first, so much political sense, we always showed a disposition to
support such aristocracy as we had; and we have constantly
experienced, and felt too keenly, the ruinous effects of universal
suffrage and weakly exercised government. Here are the
labor-organizations, into whose hands we are delivering the
government, clamouring today for the ‘right’ to persecute and
kill people as they please. We are making them a ruling class; and
England is going to do the same thing. It will be a healthful
revolution; for when the lowest class insists on enslaving the upper
class, as they are insisting, and that is just what their intention
is, and the upper class is so devoid of manhood as to permit it,
clearly that will be a revolution by the grace of God; and I only
hope that when they get the power they wont be so weak as to let it
slip from their hands. Of course, it will mean going back relatively
to the dark ages, and working out a new civilization, this time with
some hopes that the governing class will use common-sense to maintain
their rule. The rationalists thought their phrases meant the
satisfaction of certain feelings. They were under the hedonist
delusion. They will find they spell revolution of the most degrading
kind.”
EDWINA; My reading of the above is that Peirce was critiquing
universal suffrage because of the disastrous effects of LIV [low
information voters] - something we have all seen in modern times.
And how can one object to his concern about unions - who have both
benefited AND harmed the workers. I'm sure you are aware of the
current fights by workers NOT to belong to a union - which can become
a tyrannical governance in itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
5] And here below is Peirce in another statement, saying his
conservatism supports “letting business methods develop without the
interference of law,” and that he is “a disbeliever in
democracy.” Perhaps he might be exaggerating, but I still find
these offputting, not to mention unnecessary to conservatism. There
were also conservative critics of capitalism back then, such as Henry
Adams.
“If they were to come to know me better they might learn to think
me ultraconservative. I am, for example, an old-fashioned christian,
a believer in the efficacy of prayer, an opponent of female suffrage
and of universal male suffrage, in favor of letting business methods
develop without the interference of law, a disbeliever in democracy,
etc.” (MS 645).
EDWINA: So what? What does this have to do with his semiosis and his
theories on reason, on evolution, on Mind?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
6] Finally, I didn’t state that what side Peirce took
regarding the civil war was based on his father’s views. I was only
trying to express that given that his father had been pro-slavery, and
that Peirce had lived through the times of the civil war, that one
might expect discretion from him regarding “enslaving.” But
actually it turns out, unfortunately, that Peirce did continue to
hold his father’s view. What do you think of this:
“…my father was regarded in much the same way by the majority of
his Massachusetts fellow-citizens,-i.e. of those who knew his crime [
of supporting Negro slavery], though it differed from that of the
Southwicks in consisting in a political, not a religious belief. I
myself fully share my father's abomination. For I do not regard such
slavery as an owner is likely to exercize as half as horrible as that
to which many,-not to insist on saying the great majority of
us,-subject ourselves. Freedom of thought is, to my thinking, so much
more valuable than any other kind...” (MS, 847. Can also be found
cited in Brent, p. 31)
EDWINA: Peirce was supporting freedom of thought. Not the thought
itself, but the freedom to think it. You, Gene, reject it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
7] Again, I deeply admire Peirce’s vast philosophy.
But I also abhor the narrow-mindedness of these types of private
beliefs he seems to have held, all the more so given the fecundity of
his ideas such as agapasm. I wish that the deep poverty and injustice
Peirce personally suffered could have tempered his prejudices in
later life and opened his eyes to some of the institutional sources
of injustice and poverty, but I don’t get the sense that that
happened.
EDWINA: Why should his personal thoughts concern you? He has the
right to them. Does he have to think like you? Do you seriously imply
that his poverty and the injustices he suffered were some kind of
punishment for his 'bad thoughts'? Do you imply that, according to
you, he OUGHT to think like you? Why?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope I have addressed some of your criticisms, Gary,
even if we still do not agree.
Gene Halton
On Mon, Mar 12, 2018 at 6:00 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Gene, Edwina, Kirsti, list
Gene wrote:
EH: Regarding the potential for catastrophe, Gary R. stated, “that
you would, however, find it difficult to find in Peirce very much
support for your thesis.”
The potential for catastrophe (regarding which I fully
agree with you) was not the 'thesis' that I said you would "find it
difficult to find In Peirce very much support." Re: "catastrophe" I
fully agree with you since quotations we've both offered make
Peirce's view of that quite clear, for example, his writing in
'Evolutionary Love' " The twentieth century, in its latter half,
shall surely see the deluge-tempest burst upon the social order -- to
clear upon a world as deep in ruin as that greed-philosophy has long
plunged it into guilt." Indeed the "deluge-tempest" didn't even take
as long as Peirce thought it would as the First World War broke out
just a few months following his death. The rest of the horror of that
century and the continued horror in this century, both brought about
by the crazed greed and power seeking of a few men is, in my view,
virtually self-evident.
What I didn't agree with was your assertion that "The greed, power,
and especially crypto-religious reverence for deus-ex-machina goals
are not simply external to actually existing science and technology,
but are essential features of the system." I have already given my
reasons for disagreeing with you on that thesis so I won't repeat
them now; and I assume that we are still in disagreement on this
matter even while you've offered additional examples of "corruption
within science itself." There is not an actual or even, I think,
conceivable institution where one won't find corrupt men and women
(mainly men). I also agree with Edwina that Peirce was entirely and
explicitly opposed to Social Darwinism.
In addition, your impugning of Peirce's character seems to me over
the top. You wrote:
EH: Peirce’s criticism of the greed philosophy, including a
reference to how he was swindled, did not seem to apply to workers.
In fact, his criticism of the philosophy of greed rings hypocritical
when some of his other comments are taken into account, which read as
similar to those of Carnegie.
You will have to offer much more evidence if I'm to believe that
Peirce's character and Carnegie's were "similar," that Peirce was
"hypocritical" in his condemnation of the Gospel of Greed.
And you draw some extraordinarily conclusions from a few facts and a
single comment to Lady Welby by Peirce, while your question as to what
side of the civil war Peirce would place himself based on his father's
views is bogus. May none of our characters be judged on the basis of
the views of our parents. You wrote:
EH: As Peirce wrote to Lady Welby: “The people ought to be
enslaved; only the slaveholders ought to practice the virtues that
alone can maintain their rule.” ( Semiotics and Significs, edited
by Charles S. Hardwick (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press,
1977), p. 78). Given that Peirce lived through the American civil war
(not fighting in it), and that his father Benjamin had been
pro-slavery before the war, Charles’s advocacy of a “virtuous”
slaveholding elite strikes me as repugnant and puerile.
Can you guess what side of the slaveholder/enslaved divide Peirce
would put himself on?
I do not take Peirce's comments about "the people" (not, btw, the
African people held as slaves in America) literally. He is writing to
a, I believe relatively liberal, friend in England, a woman whom he's
gotten to know well through letters, one who will know that this is
not to be taken literally (as you clearly have). I find his comment
(in context) more along the lines of Jasper, very skeptical of
majoritarian democracy, famously arguing for a form of government
guided by "an intellectual elite." There is just too much else in
Peirce suggesting that he upholds the ethics of the Gospel of Love,
including, for an example recently discussed on the list, his support
for Abbot against the unfair criticism of his work by Royce.
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [2]
On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 3:41 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Stephen quoted Peirce:
We employ twelve good men and true to decide a question, we lay the
facts before them with the greatest care, the "perfection of human
reason" presides over the presentment, they hear, they go out and
deliberate, they come to a unanimous opinion, and it is generally
admitted that the parties to the suit might almost as well have
tossed up a penny to decide! Such is man's glory! Peirce: CP 1.627
In point of fact this quote is not from CP 1.627 but .626.
But first consider that the method of scientific inquiry is not that
of a jury, now is it?
Indeed, the quotation exemplifies the reason why I as list moderator
ask contributors to contextualize quotations (I usually do this
off-list). The quotation above appears in the first lecture of the
1998 lectures published as Reasoning and the Logic of Things.
When William James first proposed that Peirce give a series of
lectures in Cambridge, he suggested in a letter that, rather then
speaking on logic and science as he was wont to do, that instead
Peirce ought speak on "topics of vital importance" (which phrase
appears in 1.622,.623 and variants at .626 and .636). Peirce, of
course, chose to speak on what interested him at the time, including
logic, inquiry and reasoning, and cosmology.
In the first lecture, no doubt in part to explain to James why he
hadn't taken his advice for a theme for the lecture series, he begins
by arguing that "topics of vital importance" have nothing to do with a
"theory of reasoning," which is a principal topic in his lectures. But
they do have their place, although not in scientific inquiry: ". . .
in practical affairs, in matters of vital importance, it is very easy
to exaggerate the importance of ratiocination" and in such matters
Peirce will offer as alternatives 'instinct' and 'the sentiments'. It
is this snippet just quoted that introduces the paragraph which
concludes the quotation which Stephen offered. However, ". . . in
theoretical matters I refuse to allow sentiment any weight
whatsoever" (CP 1.634).
Science, by which he means here, "pure theoretic knowledge," ". . .
has nothing directly to say concerning practical matters" (CP 1.637),
and it is best "to leave [cenoscopic] philosophy to follow perfectly
untrammeled a scientific method" (CP 1.644). Thus, once he's
concluded this discussion of topics of vital importance being little
aided by our vain power of reason (witness the jury illustration!),
he moves on in the lectures to follow to discussions of topics of
scientific importance.
Of course it goes without saying, I'd hope, that the positive
results of scientific inquiry, for example, new technologies, may be
applied to matters of vital importance (for example, in medicine,
etc.)
Best,
Gary R
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [4]
On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 2:29 PM, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
We employ twelve good men and true to decide a question, we lay the
facts before them with the greatest care, the "perfection of human
reason" presides over the presentment, they hear, they go out and
deliberate, they come to a unanimous opinion, and it is generally
admitted that the parties to the suit might almost as well have
tossed up a penny to decide! Such is man's glory!
Peirce: CP 1.627 Cross-Ref:††
amazon.com/author/stephenrose [6]
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