Jeff, list, I explicitly included cenoscopy among “empirical sciences” because I use the word as pretty much synonymous with “experiential” — as Peirce also did, except when the context dictated otherwise; and that makes it pretty much synonymous with “positive science” as well.
[[ Logic is a branch of philosophy. That is to say it is an experiential, or positive science, but a science which rests on no special observations, made by special observational means, but on phenomena which lie open to the observation of every man, every day and hour. ] CP 7.526 ] But you are quite right to point out that this usage of “empirical” is “a much broader notion of the term than often is used by classical British empiricists as well as contemporary empiricists of a more analytical orientation.” It is also much broader than the usage of Comte and the Positivists. Gary f. From: Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected]> Sent: 7-Apr-19 11:36 To: 'Peirce-L' <[email protected]>; [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic Gary F, Gary R, Jon S, List, Is Cenoscopy an empirical science? It is clear that, on Peirce's account, it is a positive science. Having said that, let me narrow the question down a bit. Within the larger branch of the cenoscopic sciences, are the normative sciences empirical sciences? Let's try to clarify the question. In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill argues that the only evidence anything is good is empirical evidence. In the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that our cognitions concerning the fundamental principles of morality and logic are a priori and not a posteriori in character. The reason, I take it, is that both logic and ethics study what ought to be. Ethics studies how we ought to act and logic studies how we ought to think. On his account, there would be no imperatives in thinking logically or ethically if the principles that serve as the grounding for those imperatives were not laws of reason. For my part, I take Peirce to be saying that one reason cenoscopy (and not pure mathematics) is a positive science is that it rests on positive observations, and those sorts of observations can help us determine what really is the case. In the pure normative sciences of logic and ethics, the key observations do not appear to be based on the "impressions of the senses", to use the account of that word "empirical" that Hume and Mill favor. Rather, the observations are evaluative in character. The primary kind of observations that form the data for a theory of critical logic are judgments that some examples of reasoning are good (i.e., valid) and that others are bad (i.e., invalid). It is interesting, I think, that Peirce offers a very definition of the word "empirical" in the Century Dictionary. The first definition is wide enough to cover normative evaluations of the goodness of argument--including practical arguments that might form the basis of a theory of ethics. In calling them empirical in this broad way, however, it will be good to keep in mind that it is a much broader notion of the term than often is used by classical British empiricists as well as contemporary empiricists of a more analytical orientation. --Jeff
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