Great points, John. I call Peirce’s notion of “innate” “phylogentic habits.” (I think he says something similar)
But unlike what a number of people mean by “innate” today, Peirce’s philosophy doesn’t require innate conceptual content. That would not be in great conflict with his system, if evidence were there, but his system requires only general kinds of emotions, recognitions, general biases, to work. Yes, too bad Kant couldn’t have read Darwin. I imagine he would have done great things with those ideas. Dan Sent from my iPad > On Apr 9, 2019, at 9:51 AM, John F Sowa <[email protected]> wrote: > > Jeff and Dan, > > We have to distinguish "a priori" in a logical sense from "innate" in > a biological sense. Peirce interpreted the word 'innate' as learned > from the experience of previous generations. That may be a priori > for an individual, but it's a posteriori for the species. > > JBD >> It is worth noting that from early on (e.g., see "Questions Concerning >> Certain Faculties Claimed for Man"), Peirce interprets Kant's account >> of our experience of space in a similar way > > Yes, but he was critical about assuming synthetic a priori assumptions > without any justification. Note the footnote on EP 1:14, >> Kant's successors, however, have not been content with his doctrine. >> Nor ought they to have been... The problem is... how universal propo- >> sitions appearing to be synthetical can be evolved by thought alone. > > In a letter to William James in 1905 (NEM 3:813-814), he wrote >> our notion of time as a _single_ continuum, so that tomorrow morning >> is a sort of proper name (which daily changes its denotation). How >> fundamental Kant made this circumstance in his philosophy without >> the slightest attempt to analyze it! ... What more did Kant mean >> by calling time _Anschauung_? ... he never that I remember offers the >> least proof of it; and I should like to know how he supposed himself >> to know this. > > DE >> Kant's notion of a priori categories are perhaps best translated in >> my terms into the idea of an inborn ability of humans to generalize >> and learn by any means. > > Yes. But in reading Kant and Peirce, it's important to remember > Darwin (1859). Kant published his Critique in 1787, and Peirce > wrote those criticisms in 1868 and 1905. > > Does Smyth say anything about these issues? > > John > > ----------------------------- > 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 . > > > >
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