John, List: I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.
I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company (HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). Two personal observations: 1. Agapism has *greater predictive power* than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. In evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > individual selection. However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about socio-economic evolution. Wealth *creation* -- distinct from zero sum wealth transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many examples of successful wealth *aggregators* whose success could be predicted with naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or even "greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the extraordinary wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of the most successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they shepherded. Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a literally more useful model for understanding and predicting reality, especially complex emergent phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once put it). 2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's another, vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to write qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you can understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of abduction as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at. Warm regards, Michael J.J. Tiffany Portsmouth, New Hampshire On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses Jerry's note > about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of > Peirce's writings for our time (the 21st C). > > Basic point: Peirce was writing for the future. Those of us who value > his contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which > is our present. > > John > > > ------------------------------ > *Sent*: 4/7/24 10:36 AM > *To*: John Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> > *Subject*: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of > science (U Pitt) > > John, > > I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s > ‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical > positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the > beachhead in philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to > the global existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of > mass extinction. Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more > widely in his opposition to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna > Circle in his day and since, the affinities of those two men’s > philosophical views would have led to a radically different paradigmatic > foundation of the sciences than the ‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently > remains entrenched nearly a century later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re > long overdue for a revolution. > > In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the *Stanford > Encyclopedia of Philosophy <https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/>*, > Rober Burch seems to report some similar thoughts about Peirce’s > perspective … > > An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce’s evolutionism is > that in Peirce’s view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” > Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most > fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, > greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is > prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of > its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who > apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but > extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century. > The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce > associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical > ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the third of Peirce’s > six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine of Chances,” > Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the ethics of > self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole > world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences, > collectively.” To social Darwinism, and to the related sort of thinking > that constituted for Herbert Spencer and others a supposed justification > for the more rapacious practices of unbridled capitalism, Peirce referred > in disgust as “The Gospel of Greed.” > > All merely hypothetical or purely conjectural, of course. But your > admonition to relate Peirce to our 21st century world nudged me into > sharing the idea. > > *From:* peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu > > *On Behalf Of *John F Sowa > *Sent:* Saturday, April 6, 2024 5:53 PM > *To:* Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com>; Peirce List < > PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu> > *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of > science (U Pitt) > > Jerry, > > Thanks for that note. The following sentence shows why we need to > relate Peirce's writings to the latest and greatest work that is being done > today: > > From the abstract: "C.S. Peirce, however, is not generally considered a > canonical figure in the history of philosophy of science." > > I have attended a few APA conferences where I gave a talk in a Peirce > session and attended other talks in more general sessions. And I have not > heard anybody mention Peirce (except me in the discussions after a talk). > > The logicians are constantly talking about Frege, despite the fact that > nobody else had ever used his notation for logic. But they don't mention > Peirce, despite the fact that every logician uses his algebra of logic > (with minor notational changes by Peano). > > In fact, the reason why Peano changed the notation was for ease of > publication. Peirce used the Greek letters, sigma and pi, for the > quantifiers, which were rarely available in those days. But any typesetter > could easily turn letters upside down and backwards. So instead of > mentioning Peirce, they give credit to Peano for the algebraic notation. > > It's essential for Peirce scholars to relate his writings to the big, > wide, modern world. Susan Haack does that very well. Some others do that. > And it's essential for Peirce scholars to do much, much more to relate > Peirce's work to the hot topics of the 21st century. Peirce himself > expected his writings to be hot issues for 400 years. We're almost halfway > there, and we need to heat up the discussions. > > John > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > *From*: "Jerry LR Chandler" <jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com> > *Subject*: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of > science (U Pitt) > > *FYI * > > *JLRC * > > *Friday, April 12th @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT* > > This talk will also be available live streamed on: Zoom at > https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94576817686 <https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94576817686> > > *Title: Peirce Disappears: C.S. Peirce and Early Logical Empiricism* > > Abstract: Scholars of the history of philosophy of science read and > hear a lot about Duhem, Mach, Poincaré, and the members of the Vienna > Circle. C.S. Peirce, however, is not generally considered a canonical > figure in the history of philosophy of science. But in the early years of > the logical empiricist movement in the United States, Peirce received a > warm reception from prominent representatives, proponents, and sympathizers > of logical empiricism including Charles Morris, Ernst Nagel, Herbert Feigl, > Phillip Frank, and W.V.O. Quine. This reception was short-lived though and > Peirce gradually disappeared from the mainstream philosophy of science > while logical empiricism turned into a formidable movement. > > In this talk, I begin by discussing examples of the early reception of > Peirce’s philosophy in the works of Morris, Nagel (and his student Justus > Buchler), Feigl, and Frank. I show the variety of topics (including logic, > probability theory, theories of truth and meaning, and social dimensions of > science) in which Peirce received a warm (though not uncritical) reception. > We see that the engagements with his works are persistent from the late > 1920s to the 1950s and get more refined over time. I then provide some > explanations for the eventual marginalization of Peirce in mainstream > philosophy of science. > > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at > https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at > https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the > links! > ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . > ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to > l...@list.iupui.edu with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the > message and nothing in the body. More at > https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . > ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and > co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the body. More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
