Peter, list, Mixed quantifiers in CP 5.161 - yes, that's essentially what I said, a mixed particular-universal, "ExAy..."
CP 5.181 - the concrete example is the one with the mixed quantifiers in the quoted CP 5.161, the previous lecture. Peirce says in 5.181 that he sufficiently argued in his case about deducing universal propositions from particular ones in his "last lecture." I took 5.161 in the previous lecture as his argument and that's why I said that I think that he was wrong. The full text of the 2nd cotary proposition is (2) The second is that perceptual judgments contain general elements, so that universal propositions are deducible from them in the manner in which the logic of relations shows that particular propositions usually, not to say invariably, allow universal propositions to be necessarily inferred from them. This I sufficiently argued in my last lecture. This evening I shall take the truth of it for granted. Maybe I'm splitting hairs about agreeing that scientific falsificationism doesn't depend logically on practically infallible perception and trying to keep theoretically infallible perception out of it. But I think I've nonetheless come pretty close to agreeing with you. Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Skagestad, Peter To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 5:23 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Hmm - the second passage instances statements with mixed quantifiers; as for the cotary proposition in CP 5.181, I am not sure what to make of it without seeing a concrete example. Peter From: C S Peirce discussion list [[email protected]] on behalf of Benjamin Udell [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 5:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Peter, list, You make a pretty compelling point. Let me take the opportunity to note that, when I said, "involves inferring to universal propositions from perceptual judgments," I was referring to Peirce's view in his second cotary propostion but failed to say so. (From CP 5.181) The second is that perceptual judgments contain general elements, so that universal propositions are deducible from them in the manner in which the logic of relations shows that particular propositions usually, not to say invariably, allow universal propositions to be necessarily inferred from them. Peirce in his previous lecture had said: [End of CP 5.155] A particular proposition asserts the existence of something of a given description. A universal proposition merely asserts the non-existence of anything of a given description. [CP 5.156] Had I, therefore, asserted that a perceptual judgment could be a universal proposition, I should have fallen into rank absurdity. For reaction is existence and the perceptual judgment is the cognitive product of a reaction. But as from the particular proposition that "there is some women whom any Catholic you can find will adore" we can with certainty infer the universal proposition that" any Catholic you can find will adore some woman or other," so if a perceptual judgment involves any general elements, as it certainly does, the presumption is that a universal proposition can be necessarily deduced from it. Maybe Peirce was wrong - for my part I think that he was wrong - since the particular proposition "there is some woman whom any Catholic you can find will adore" has a universal component "any Catholic.", it's an "ExAy..." etc. kind of thing. I prefer to think of it as a kind of mixed particular-universal proposition. That goes beyond merely having a general element, such as in "There is a horse," where "horse" is a general term, and the perception involves a general apprehension. Anyway I agree that the conclusions of special sciences are essentially hypothetical, abductive, conjectural in some sense, though backed by much evidence and by reasonings of other kinds. It seems to me that even one's judgment of the _applicability_ of particular lines of deduction and induction to this or that particular actual idioscopic case or series of cases has a hypothetical element. Abductiveness of conclusions goes beyond the fact that special sciences use abductive inference - all researchers including mathematicians use abductive inference. Now, if one holds that pure maths and their 'deep' applications (probability theory, math of information, etc.) characteristically draw deductive conclusions, and that the special sciences characteristically draw abductive conclusions, then two questions arise: (1) whether there are fields that characteristically draw inductive conclusions (studies in general statistics are an obvious candidate) and (2) do philosophy or cenoscopy characteristically draw conclusions of a particular mode and, if so, what? You may be quite right that scientific falsificationism does not depend logically on perceptual fallibilism. One problem for me is that I so easily assent to the (at least retrospective) fallibility of perception, that I don't have a clear idea of what infallible perception would be or what it would imply. Maybe it's because I'm thinking of a theoretically infallible perception, which seems to have epistemological and metaphysical ramifications beyond the proper scope of the question. If we settle for practically infallible perception, then I think that I can agree that scientific falsificationism does not depend on perceptual practical-fallibilism. That is, no matter how much we improve our perceptual judgments, there will still be need to test claims for falsity. Universal claims and claims of particular perceptions too, since one's practically infallible perception wouldn't necessarily tell one whether somebody else is either honest or has their practically infallible perceptual faculties intact. Best, Ben Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Skagestad, Peter To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, August 06, 2011 1:32 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Ben, list, My (no doubt fallible) belief is that falsificationism about science and fallibilism about perceptual judgements are logically independent of each other. To see the independence of the former of the latter, suppose perceptual judgements were infallible: I infallibly know that I am looking at a raven and I infallibly know what color it is. I still cannot infer the universal statement 'All ravens are black' from any number of observations of black ravens; the most I can say is that I have, so far, failed to falsify it, although it may falsified by my observation of the next raven. So we could still have falsificationism without fallibilism about perceptual judgements. What about the other way around? Suppose there were a "logic of confirmation," whereby scientific hypotheses are rendered increasingly probable as we observe more confirming instances. Whether this would work or not seems to me independent of whether our observations are fallible or infallible. But fallibilism about perceptual judgements does of course imply the fallibility of science - it rules out any conclusive proof of scientific hypotheses. I hope this makes sense. Peter From: C S Peirce discussion list [[email protected]] on behalf of Benjamin Udell [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 7:08 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Peter, Stefan, Gary R., list, That's a good point, Peter, about falsification's pertaining to general/universal judgments. Even a perceptual judgment that there are no animals (besides oneself!) in this room is, in Peirce's view, general only in its predicate - we can utter it "All x..." etc. but one perceptually judges of this, that, yon, etc. conjunctively, that this, that, and yon,etc., are such-and-such. A fallibilism about one's perceptually compelled judgments will itself be theoretical in some sense. Hence maybe one could say that scientific falsificationism is 'prefigured' or foreshadowed in fallibilism about perceptual judgments, but only given that such fallibilism is already somewhat theoretically oriented. The _fallibility_ of perceptual judgments does seem bound up with scientific falsificationism insofar as science depends on perceptual judgments, and involves inferring to universal propositions from perceptual judgments. But could one have a theoretical falsificationism, in particular a scientific falsificationism, without a theoretical falsificationism about perceptual judgments? It seems possible at first glance but seems kind of dicy when one tries to imagine how it would work. I'm left uncertain. Regarding Peirce on singular versus individual, the distinction that he made (at least sometimes) was that which is in one place and time (a singular), and that which is in only one place at a time (an individual). In that sense, we are individuals but not singulars. A singular in that sense is a single point in space and time. Even a mathematical point, when considered as being in motion or stationary in a timelike dimension, does not represent such singularness - it makes a temporoid line. However, later he often used "singular" in the sense that he had given to "individual." In "Questions on Reality" http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms148.htm Winter-Spring 1868 (Three Drafts) MS 148 (Robin 931, 396): Writings 2.162-187, perhaps the section that Stefan was trying recall: With reference to individuals, I shall only remark that there are certain general terms whose objects can only be in one place at one time, and these are called individuals. They are generals that is, not singulars, because these latter [the singulars -B.U.] occupy neither time nor space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one date. The subject of individuality, in this sense, therefore, belongs to the theory of space rather than to the theory of logic. [....] [....] But here it is necessary to distinguish between an individual in the sense of that which has no generality [the singular -B.U.] and which here appears as a mere ideal boundary of cognition, and an individual in the far wider sense of that which can be only in one place at one time. It will be convenient to call the former a singular and the latter only an individual. So, at that time he held that there are two kinds of individuals, - singular individuals, called singulars, occupy neither space nor time and can only be at one point and can be only at one date. - general individuals, called individuals, can be only in one place at one time (one place at a time). Peirce goes on to say in that text that "In short, those things which we call singulars exist, but the character of singularity which we attribute to them is self-contradictory." But the singulars that Peirce in later years discusses in regard to perceptual judgments are usually that which he earlier called general individuals - you, me, a horse, etc. Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Stefan Berwing To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 5:08 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Peter, List, this distinction is relevant as long singulars and individuals are the same. But when the individual is a universal in time and the singular is the content of a perceptual judgement, then this distinction is not possible in that form. (Peirce writes about singular/individual somewhere in the first part of W2). Best Stefan There is still a distinction, though. Perceptual judgements are hypotheses and hence testable, but they are not universal statements, which are the subjects of falsificationism. But I may be splitting hairs here... Peter ________________________________________ From: C S Peirce discussion list [[email protected]] on behalf of Gary Richmond Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 3:41 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: "Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process" Ben, list, I knew it (consensus) was too good to be true! But I think you make at least two important points here, Ben, and I'll be interested in others' responses (presently, I would tend to agree with you that fallibilism re: our perceptual judgments prefigures falsification and that fallibilism can be--I'd say, is--more basic than falsification). Best, Gary >>> Benjamin Udell 8/5/2011 2:53 PM >>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected]
