Jon, Your note of April 20 (copied below) is indeed a serious question for pragmatists. It contains claims and assumptions that Peirce would not accept. I'll start with an issue we had discussed some time ago.
I wrote that the Christians who translated the Greek New Testament to Chinese chose 'Dao' to represent 'Logos'. I also wrote that many philosophers of comparative religion consider the Buddhist Dharma to be the equivalent of both Logos and Dao. But you strongly objected to my claim that Peirce would accept any such equivalence. Since I did not have citations at the moment, I did not continue that discussion. But as I was continuing my research on related issues, I studied Peirce's correspondence with William James and Lady Welby. His letters showed that his faith in God was strong, but his beliefs were quite different from the Episcopal creed. and from what you call "revealed truth". That phrase directly contradicts the First Rule of Reason: Do not block the way of inquiry. Peirce would not deny the possibility of revelation, but the FFR would treat revealed truths as revealed hypotheses, waiting to be tested. >From a letter by CSP to LW, 23 Dec. 1908: "I say the creed in church with the >rest. By doing so, I only signify... my willingness to put aside, most >heartily, anything that tends to separate me from my fellow Christians... I >think probably Christianity was a higher development out of Buddhism, modified >by Jewish belief in a living God." A year later, from a letter CSP to WJ, 25 Dec. 1909: "I think there is too much about deserve in the New Testament. Buddhism is superior to our own religion. That is what one of my selves, my intellectual self says. But enough, I will keep my own religion to myself and to One that does not scoff at it." That quotation comes from NEM 3.872, which contains a more complete copy of the letter than EP. Perhaps the EP editors omitted that section because they did not want readers to scoff at Peirce. Since he wrote those letters to two of his most trusted confidants at a time when he knew that the end was near, they must be considered sincere statements of his beliefs. The letter below contains claims that Peirce never made. 1. Concrete reasonableness implies the FFR: question everything, while recognizing that commonsense assumptions usually have a considerable amount of justification -- as far as they have been tested. Beyond that region more tests are required. 2. Each instance of continuity has "a special kind of generality" that explains that instance of continuity. But there are an uncountable infinity of continuities, each of which has its own explanation. The idea of continuity does not imply a unique summum bonum. 3. Peirce never doubted that nominalists can do good work in science. He admitted that he himself had begun his career as a nominalist. But he learned that there were laws of science that governed those principles. Rudolf Carnap, for example, was a confirmed nominalist all his life: he claimed that the laws of science were nothing but observed regularities. Although Carnap insisted that there was no such thing as a law, his research was useful in helping other scientists to discover laws. Peirce recognized that nominalists can indeed do important work in science. He would certainly accept all the firmly tested and verified results of modern science -- including the Big Bang. However, he would be critical of some of the claims that nominalists have made to explain some of those results. This is a very rich and important issue to explore. A total rejection of the results of modern science would be a huge violation of the FFR. I don't know what you mean by the following phrase "the complete revelation of God is the overall final interpretant of the entire universe as a sign", but Peirce never made any claims about revelation. Accepting revelation as a useful issue to study would be reasonable. But accepting it without further tests would be a violation of the FFR. I don't believe that Peirce would agree with the following note. John ________________________________________ From: "Jon Alan Schmidt" <[email protected]> Sent: 4/20/23 6:50 PM The challenge that we face as Peirceans today is advocating not only scholastic realism and objective idealism in an intellectual climate of widespread (and often uncritical) nominalism and materialism, but also value monism in an intellectual climate of widespread pluralism. As I recently learned from some interactions with self-described pragmatists on Twitter who are much more partial to James and Rorty than Peirce, there is considerable resistance to the notion of a single summum bonum. I did not have time to touch on esthetics and ethics in my 10-minute presentation, but as I see it, applying synechism in those normative sciences involves recognizing that concrete reasonableness is itself a manifestation of continuity as "a special kind of generality, or conformity to one idea" (CP 7.535n6, 1908). CSP: Such is the place of logic among the sciences; and such is its utility. Yet the reader will find that the aggregate value of all such applications will not compare with the treasure of the pure theory itself. For when he has surveyed the whole subject, he will see that the theory of logic, in so far as we attain to it, is the vision and the attainment of that Reasonableness for the sake of which the Heavens and the Earth have been created. (CP 2.122, 1902) The resulting ethical imperative is for each of us to exercise self-control over our future actions by deliberately cultivating habits of conduct accordingly. CSP: This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in embodiment, that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe, which did not take place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004 B.C., but is going on today and never will be done, is this very development of Reason. I do not see how one can have a more satisfying ideal of the admirable than the development of Reason so understood. The one thing whose admirableness is not due to an ulterior reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its fullness, so far as we can comprehend it. Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is, it is "up to us" to do so. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255, 1903) I recently came across the following in an unpublished manuscript where Peirce aligns elliptical philosophy (no starting/stopping point) with epicureanism, parabolic philosophy (same starting/stopping point) with pessimism, and his own hyperbolic philosophy (different starting/stopping points) with meliorism. CSP: [Meliorists] think that throughout the universe as a whole, the good has a decided tendency to prevail. If you ask what they mean by the good, they will tell you they mean the ultimate end of the universe. Accordingly, when they say the good tends to prevail, they mean there is a general tendency throughout the universe toward some describable condition of things. These thinkers consequently prescribe for us what they consider as an infallible recipe for being happy, if one only has the strength of mind to take the medicine, namely, to bring your desires into conformity with the general course of nature. ... Since the maxim of happiness is to recognize and accept the truth, they declare that contempt for the ego and love for the community of soul is the truest and happiest sentiment. (R 953, no date) This might be the closest that Peirce ever comes to endorsing a version of natural law theory, especially in conjunction with my suggestion that the complete revelation of God is the overall final interpretant of the entire universe as a sign, i.e., the "describable condition of things" toward which "there is a general tendency throughout the universe." Accordingly, "to bring your desires into conformity with the general course of nature" would then amount to bringing your desires into conformity with the revealed character of God Himself, along with your actions and beliefs. Regarding leadership, I think that it makes a lot of sense to frame it as drawing followers toward a designated goal as a final cause (3ns), instead of the all-too-common approach of pushing them toward it as an efficient cause (2ns). This allows appropriate flexibility in the means that they can employ to reach the specified end, as opposed to dictating every step along the way. Thanks, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmi
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