List: Peirce is best known as the founder of *pragmatism*, but in several passages he seems to characterize it as subordinate to *synechism* within his overall system of thought. That leads me to pose a few questions about the relationship between the two, some of which have come up previously on the List. My hope is that they will generate some interesting and fruitful discussion.
CSP: Almost everybody will now agree that the ultimate good lies in the evolutionary process in some way. If so, it is not in individual reactions in their segregation, but in something general or continuous. Synechism is founded on the notion that the coalescence, the becoming continuous, the becoming governed by laws, the becoming instinct with general ideas, are but phases of one and the same process of the growth of reasonableness. This is first shown to be true with mathematical exactitude in the field of logic, and is thence inferred to hold good metaphysically. It is not opposed to pragmatism in the manner in which C. S. Peirce applied it, but includes that procedure as a step. (CP 5.4, 1902) How is the fundamental notion of synechism, as described here, "shown to be true with mathematical exactitude in the field of logic"? In what sense is pragmatism a "procedure" that synechism "includes ... as a step"? What other steps does synechism include? CSP: In the present article there will be space only to explain just what this doctrine ... really consists in. Should the exposition be found to interest readers of *The Monist*, they would certainly be much more interested in a second article which would give some samples of the manifold applications of pragmaticism (assuming it to be true) to the solution of problems of different kinds. After that, readers might be prepared to take an interest in a proof that the doctrine is true,--a proof which seems to the writer to leave no reasonable doubt on the subject, and to be the one contribution of value that he has to make to philosophy. For it would essentially involve the establishment of the truth of synechism. (CP 5.415, EP 2:335, 1905) Which of Peirce's different formulations of pragmat(ic)ism is most amenable to "a proof that the doctrine is true"? In what sense would such a proof "essentially involve the establishment of the truth of synechism"? What are some further implications of both pragmatism and synechism being demonstrably true? CSP: We here reach a point at which novel considerations about the constitution of knowledge and therefore of the constitution of nature burst in upon the mind with cataclysmal multitude and resistlessness. It is that synthesis of tychism and of pragmatism for which I long ago proposed the name, Synechism, to which one thus returns; but this time with stronger reasons than ever before. But I cannot, consistently with my own convictions, ask the Academy to listen to a discourse upon Metaphysics.(CP 4.584, 1906) What "novel considerations about the constitution of knowledge" does synechism entail that "burst in upon the mind" at this point, the conclusion of a lengthy lecture <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271419583_Two_Papers_on_Existential_Graphs_by_Charles_Peirce> "On the System of Existential Graphs Considered as an Instrument for the Investigation of Logic" (R 499 & R 490)? How do they further entail "novel considerations about ... the constitution of nature," thus touching on metaphysics? In what sense is synechism a "synthesis of tychism and of pragmatism"? Thanks, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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