On 6/18/2019 3:34 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
An off-list email I received today from a Peirce forum member remarked: "The list is supposed to be talking about Peirce rather than talking about supposed ground rules for talking about Peirce." I completely agree.
Yes. That's a good idea. In fact, we can do both by discussing Peirce's own writings about how to do research. I made a slight addition to the subject line. For example, Peirce emphasized the need for critical analysis of our reasoning processes and for criticism of the criticism. Note his comments about self criticism and reasoning machines:
In genuine reasoning, we are not wedded to our method. We deliberately approve it, but we stand ever ready and disposed to reexamine it and so improve upon it, and to criticise our criticism of it, without cessation. Thus the utility of the word "reasoning" lies in its helping us to discriminate between self-critical and uncritical formations of representations. If a machine works according to a fixed principle involved in the plan of it, it may be a useful aid in reasoning; but unless it is so contrived that, were there any defect in it, it would improve itself in that respect, then, although it could correctly work out every possible conclusion from premises, the machine itself would afford no assurance that its conclusions would be correct. Such assurance could only come from our critical examination of it. Consequently, it would not be, strictly speaking, a reasoning-machine... Self-criticism can never be perfectly thorough for the last act of criticism is always itself open to criticism. But as long as we remain disposed to self-criticism and to further inquiry, we have in this disposition an assurance that if the truth of any question can ever be got at, we shall eventually get at it. (R 831, 1900)
For methods of reasoning, see CP Volume 7, Book II on Scientific Method (CP 7.49 - 361). That is too much to cover, but many excerpts are quite relevant to the issues we have been discussing. We should also consider relevant passages about Peirce from the many books and articles that have been published. For example, Matthew E. Moore, "Is Synechism Necessary?, 2012:
Peirce has left us, not any kind of final word, but a work in progress, one eminently worth carrying on, in the spirit of the one who started it. Which is to say that we must be as resolutely critical, and as ruthless in paring away what does not work, as Peirce was at his best.
In this passage, MEM suggests using Peirce's writings as a resource, but without attempting anything like a harmonized synthesis. On the evidence for God and immortality, note the Letter CSP to WJ, CP 8.259, 7 March 1904:
I also want to say that after all pragmatism solves no real problem. It only shows that supposed problems are not real problems. But when one comes to such questions as immortality, the nature of the connection of mind and matter (further than that mind acts on matter not like a cause but like a law) we are left completely in the dark. The effect of pragmatism is simply to open our minds to receiving any evidence, not to furnish evidence.
This suggests that no proof is possible. The best we can do is to open our minds and discover experience that may convince ourselves, but we can't "furnish evidence" to anyone else. There is, of course, much more relevant material in Peirce's own writings and the many excellent books and articles that have been published about his work. John
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