John, List, "Men seem to themselves to be guided by reason. There is little doubt that this is largely illusory . . . because their reasonings are prominent in their consciousness, and are attended to, while their instincts [and emotions] they are hardly aware of. . . . — Charles S. Peirce
"To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman Best, Gary R “Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final” ― Rainer Maria Rilke *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Thu, Oct 7, 2021 at 12:50 AM sowa @bestweb.net <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > Gary R, > > I agree that those suggestions are helpful: > > GR: [Margaretha's] ideas and suggestive metaphors about how List > discussion might be improved -- along with the suggestions by John Sowa and > Gary Furhman which Jon Alan Schmidt just quoted -- if taken up in the > spirit of collegiality, could help improve communication here considerably. > > I would like to add a few more suggestions. > > The first one is that the method of asking questions, as in Plato's > dialogues with Socrates as the discussion leader, is one of the best ways > to promote fruitful discussions. People may be offended by a direct > contradiction of what they just said, but nobody is offended by an honest > question. (A loaded question can be offensive. e.g. "Have you stopped > beating your wife?") > > The so-called "Socratic method" can also be annoying when pushed to an > extreme. But an honest question is more likely to generate a fruitful > discussion. > > For Peirce, it's especially important to recognize that he had a very > fertile imagination, and his ideas were constantly growing .and developing > over the years. His comment "symbols grow" indicates that the same words > on different occasions may have very different meanings and implications: > > 1903: For every symbol is a living thing, in a very strict sense that > is no mere figure of speech. The body of the symbol changes slowly, but > the meaning inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off > old ones. (CP 2.222). > > The only statements by Peirce that remain constant are the ones in > mathematics and formal logic A statement in math or logic has a fixed > meaning forever. But Peirce's comments about then may change, as we have > noted in various discussions. > > The following point is significant: > > CSP: The little that I have contributed to pragmatism (or, for that > matter, to any other department of philosophy), has been entirely the > fruit of this outgrowth from formal logic, and is worth much more than > the small sum total of the rest of my work, as time will show. > (CP 5.469, R318, 1907) > > The categories of 1-ness, 2-ness, and 3-ness are based on logic, and they > have been central to his thought throughout. But his applications of those > ideas continued to grow. Even in his late writings of 1913, his ideas > continued to grow, and he had hopes of writing more. Nobody on planet > earth can be certain that any ideas outside of mathematics and logic would > remain unchanged. > > The recent discussions of comments by De Tienne and Atkins about > phaneroscopy were interesting, but nobody can be certain that their > opinions about the "science egg" are what Peirce intended. On these > issues, good questions are more valuable than definitive answers. > > In summary, a good way to improve the level of discourse on Peirce-L is to > ask more questions and to avoid making definitive pronouncements about what > Peirce meant. De Tienne read as much or more than anybody else, and even > he doesn't know. We can state our own opinions, but we can't claim that > our opinions are what Peirce intended. > > John > >
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