Sally - On Wittgenstein and CSP: you can mine a fair number of
downloadable articles if you Google the two names [and I'd be happy
to send some I have downloaded]. John Upper [who was at Queens U,
Ontario] had done an early master's thesis, I believe, comparing the
two. Later, Jaime Nubiola, on this list still, I believe, did an
overview of scholarship on the two in 1996. Catherine Legg
[Melbourne] - also on this list for some time, and possibly still --
had an interesting piece on rules, pragmatism, and skepticism. And
there was some years back, and may still be, a Peirce-Wittgenstein
research group at U Quebec. The themes of doubt, certainty, and rules
seem to run through most of these articles, with reference a few
times to this comment from Wittgenstein's "On Certainty": "So I am
trying to say something that sounds like pragmatism."
Similarities, yes; but many differences, too. It would be an
interesting thread.
*From:* C S Peirce discussion list
[mailto:[email protected]]*On Behalf Of* Sally Ness
*Sent:* Sunday, September 25, 2011 5:51 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : "Sciences as Communicational
Communities" Segment 5
Gary F., List,
Thanks, Gary, for this response. I didn't really know what to make
of JR's assertion regarding the distributive vs. collective existence
of the communicational community--the translation into Peircean terms
is very helpful.
I take your point about JR having the life of a Peircean symbol in
mind in paragraph 23, with all that that concept implies. When this
is factored in, it is clear that the form of life is something to
which the inquirer belongs, not one that is coterminous with the
inquirer's individual being (my initial reading). This is one moment
in the paper when it seems particularly difficult to speak in the
spirit of Peirce, as JR certainly is doing, without also speaking in
his exact terms as well--without using explicitly Peirce's definition
of the symbol and making all that that definition entails clear. In
this respect, JR's use of "form of life" does seem to be a good
alternative, however. Even if the physicists weren't familiar with
Wittgenstein's distinctive notion of "grammar" and its relation to
the practices of language games and the forms of life they sustain,
the phrase still conveys in a common sensical way that there is a
larger reality to which an individual inquirer, as an "inquirer,"
necessarily belongs.
The compatibility of Wittgenstein and Peirce is a topic of interest
to me. I have been struck repeatedly by how closely Wittgenstein's
thinking can align with Peirce's. If any listers know of work done
that compares these two philosophers, I would appreciate any
references. Perhaps this needs a different thread, however.
Thanks again,
Sally
Sally,
JR's "overall form of life" does sound more like
Wittgenstein's/Lebensform/ than a Peircean idiom, but as i think
you mentioned before, he seems to be going out of his way here to
avoid Peircean terminology that might put off the people he's
addressing. However it does seem to me quite compatible with
Peirce's ideas on scientific inquiry. I don't think i'd agree
that JR "locates truth entirely within the "life" of the
inquirer, not in the subject matter that determines the
inquirer's inquiry, and not in any relation that the inquirer and
the subject-matter might be maintaining to one another". We're
talking about the life of a symbol here, and a genuine symbol
must involve both indexical and iconic components in generating
an interpretant, which does imply a relation between the inquirer
and the subject-matter (to put it in less Peircean terms).
Speaking of the "communicational community", JR's assertion that
it "exists distributively not collectively" looks at first more
individualistic than anything Peirce would say, but i think makes
a more Peircean sense if we bear in mind the typical Peircean
distinction between reality and existence. I think Peirce would
say that the community as a "form of life" is more/real/ than the
individual inquirer, but it only/exists/ in the actual practice
of individual inquirers. And that practice, to be genuine,
requires an objective focus on "subject-specific properties", as
JR puts it in paragraph 23.
That's how i see it, anyway.
Gary F.
} Sincerity is incommunicable because it becomes insincere by
being communicated. [Luhmann] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm> }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
*From:* C S Peirce discussion list
[mailto:[email protected]]*On Behalf Of* Sally Ness
*Sent:* September-23-11 6:11 PM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* [peirce-l] Slow Read : "Sciences as Communicational
Communities" Segment 5
_Segment 5_
List,
As Jerry Chandler has commented, how much weight the scientific
community places on the concept of sincerity may be open to
doubt. However, there is little doubt about the weight the
community places on the concept of truth. The fifth segment of
the paper, "Sciences as Communicational Communities," which is
composed of paragraphs 22 and 23 (reproduced below), focuses
directly and mainly on the concept of truth.
Given the interest that has already been shown in this concept on
previous posts, and the expertise many listers have already
demonstrated with respect to philosophical discourses focusing on
this concept, I am going to leave the main points of this segment
open for response by those who have much greater philosophical
understanding of them than I. I will attempt little more in what
follows than a reprise of the contents of the segment that
identifies a few instances where more elaboration, definition,
and discussion from those who would be inclined to provide it
would be particularly helpful. I hope that listers with greater
knowledge of Peirce's thinking with respect to the concept of
truth will come forward to fill in the record in these and other
respects.
JR's language seems to depart more markedly from the letter, if
not the spirit, of Peirce in this penultimate segment than in any
other part of the paper. JR acknowledges this somewhat at the
outset of the segment, but claims that what he is presenting is
an original insight from Peirce, forging one of the strongest
explicit links to Peirce that appears in the paper in so doing.
JR uses the concept of "assertion indicator" to identify the
"force" of truth in the predicate "is true." "Assertion
indicator" is the first of several concepts, such as
"speech-act," "communicational act," and "appropriate
responsiveness" that appear to be referencing something other
than Peirce's own terminology. I am guessing that Austin's
speech act theory is in the background here, but I doubt this is
the only non-Peircean frame of reference. Additional
identification of what literature JR is most likely drawing on
here would be much appreciated. JR indicates that he has gone
further elsewhere in his work with these concepts. Perhaps we
will see them again in a later paper.
In any case, JR's key point in paragraph 22 is that truth ought
to be understood, for the purposes at hand at least, in terms of
its manifestation in relation to a verbal sign, and a predicate
sign specifically, a sign that/does not/ convey "content" (as the
subject of the sentence would be doing). Rather, the predicate
sign directs those who are interpreting the sentence to do so in
a manner that is in accordance with the norms that govern their
communicational processes generally speaking. In other words,
the phrase, "is true," is a signal designed to compel normative
communicative action, nothing more, nothing less. JR specifies
that this signalling is not to be confused with any function that
speech-act theory might identify. The contrast here is not
explicated, however. This is another moment where listers with
expertise in speech act theory and communicational act theory
(although I wonder if this latter is JR's own original concept
entirely) might provide some additional commentary.
What strikes me about JR's remarks in this paragraph is his move
to the analysis of the phrase "is true" immediately after raising
the more general question about the definition of the concept of
truth. I read it as his way of keeping the focus of the paper on
communicational practices, which makes the shift to discussing a
verbal sign and how it functions in utterances understandable.
JR seems to be using this focus mainly to show how the analysis
of truth can be related to his earlier comments about the norms
that govern scientific communication and the definition of its
membership.
In paragraph 23, however, JR leaves the issue of what "is true"
means and returns to the more general question, "What is truth?"
It would seem that part of his agenda here has been to make it
clear to his audience how different these two questions in fact
are. JR then gives what must have come across as an extraordinary
answer to the larger question: that truth is a form of life, and
one that scientific inquirers themselves embody. He claims that
this is fundamentally evident in their communicational conduct,
to the extent that their conduct conforms to the community's
norms. I find this statement extraordinary in that it locates
truth entirely within the "life" of the inquirer, not in the
subject matter that determines the inquirer's inquiry, and not in
any relation that the inquirer and the subject-matter might be
maintaining to one another (via "the data", for example, as Jerry
Chandler referred to it in his last post). JR's phrase, "the
overall form of life," has to be interpreted very carefully, in
this regard. Is this a reference to Wittgenstein, perhaps, in
addition to Peirce? Exactly how must it be read so that it does
speak, unambiguously, in the spirit of Peirce? JR's view might
be seen to change substantially depending on what this phrase is
understood to mean.
My final question, then, is this: How best to interpret JR's
final claim in paragraph 23 as it relates to Peirce's thinking on
truth?
I hope to post on the final segment of the paper in the next 3-4
days.
Best wishes to all,
Sally
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