Jon, list, Jon wrote:
JAS: There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's philosophy. It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things (synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between Reality and Mind, including human minds. While Reality is indeed independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual *minds may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*. This is precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at the end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every *Sign-- *would *perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the perfect (or absolute) Truth. In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs may turn out to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we have no good reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and until we are confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an unpleasant surprise that forces us to reconsider it. I know that you like to bring Peircean concepts together in as complete yet as succinct a way that you can while retaining the complexity of the relations of the component ideas in your summary synthesis. In this paragraph you've seemed to outdone yourself in bringing together in a most cogent manner: *retroduction*, *continuity*, *synechism*, *(independent)* *Reality*, *Mind*, *regulative hope*, *final opinion*, *infinite inquiry, ultimate interpretant*, *perfect (absolute) Truth*, and *fallibilism*. I have put this in my file of thoughts "to be inscribed on every wall of the city of philosophy"--well, at least on the walls of Arisbe :-) This is to simply to say that I view it as a very rich summary of certain essential concepts of Peirce's Realism. See, also, Susan Haack's *Transactions* paper, "Do not block the way of inquiry" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2612013 as your brief comments immediately made me think of it, esp. the section of its Abstract which capsule content I've put in boldface below. Abstract The first goal is to understand why Peirce describes his motto, "Do Not Block the Way of Inquiry," as a corollary of the "first rule of reason," why he believes it deserves to be inscribed on every wall of the city of philosophy, and what he has in mind when he characterizes the various barricades philosophers set up, the many obstacles they put in the path of inquiry. *This soon leads us to important, substantive themes in Peirce's meta-philosophical, cosmological, metaphysical, logical, and epistemological work* (§1). However, it also leads us to what might seem to be a tension in his account of the motives for inquiry. So the second goal is to track the source of this apparent tension, and to show how Peirce resolved it (§2). But the ultimate goal is to explain why Peirce's warning against blocking the way of inquiry is no less important, given the condition of philosophy today, than it was when he offered it more than a century ago-perhaps even more so (§3). I don't know whether there is a *strong* connection here, but that the "first rule of reason" and its corollary are important precepts in Peirce's theory of inquiry within pragmaticism, occurring as they do in the third branch of logic as semeiotic--preceding the possible application of what has been discovered in semeiotic to considerations in the last of the cenoscopic sciences, metaphysics--*that* may be what brought Haack's paper to my mind. Best, Gary *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *718 482-5690* On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 2:31 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote: > Matt, List: > > There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's > philosophy. It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things > (synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between > Reality and Mind, including human minds. While Reality is indeed > independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual > *minds > may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*. This > is precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at > the end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every * > Sign--*would *perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the > perfect (or absolute) Truth. In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs > may turn out to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we > have no good reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and > until we are confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an > unpleasant surprise that forces us to reconsider it. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Matt Faunce <matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Edwina, >> >> In Margolis's philosophy, habits are bound to eventually be overcome by >> the flux of life. So if he's right, everything about Margolis's own >> philosophy will eventually pass into irrelevance except the rule that flux >> > habit. (Flux is greater than habit.) That rule looks to me to be his >> achilles heel, because it needs to stay true; whereas Peirce's achilles >> heel is the magical power of abduction to bridge the correspondence gap >> between a reality that's independent of finite minds and the finite minds >> that inquire into reality. >> >> "Insufferably arrogant" was a bit of an exaggeration, as I'm willing to >> suffer through reading his arrogant comments in order to learn what I can. >> >> Matt >> >> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:41 AM Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> >> wrote: >> >>> Matt, list: >>> >>> You wrote: >>> "He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably >>> arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly the >>> truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into >>> irrelevance." >>> >>> I'm uncertain of your meaning. Are you defining Peirce as 'insufferably >>> arrogant' and declaring that his philosophy was merely relative to the time >>> - and is certain [bound] to become irrelevant? >>> >>> Edwina Taborsky >>> >> > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
