Sally, list,
Thank you for your remarks.
You wrote,
Regarding psychology, your comments led me to realize that the independence
Peirce wanted to declare for logic in relation to psychological phenomena may
have had consequences for the way in which other social sciences are understood
in relation to Perice's logic as well, if psychology is taken as representative
of all the social sciences in some way. This is quite a thought, and my first
response would be, "hold on a minute!" I wonder if others have reflected on
this. In my view, psychology would be the weakest candidate for representing
the social sciences in general, focused as it has been on subject- matter that
typically, in the mainstreams of the discipline, has been defined as basically
individual in character (individual psyches). It would seem to have a special
relationship to philosophy and to logic that is not replicated in the other
social sciences in this regard. I haven't thought this through enough to say
more, but I thank you for bringing it to my attention.
For Peirce, mathematics and (cenosocopic) philosophy, though experimental in a
special sense, are basically armchair sciences though they draw upon special
sciences for suggestions, instances, special facts; and on the other hand
physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, etc., are _about_ special
classes of phenomena and depend on special experiences, special experiments, in
order to draw conclusions. Philosophical ethics and logic are about what we
_should_ do and think, while the human/social studies are about what we
_actually_ do and think. Peirce argued that logic itself is based on the
social principle, though not on an actual society, an actual history, etc.
Somewhere he says that, in order to advance logical methodeutic, one needs
experience in actual special sciences, but that's not the same as making
mathematics and logic base themselves on principles resting on special research
findings in sociology, psychology, etc. Application runs one way, inspiration
the other way, in Peirce's system.
So the question, at least from a Peircean standpoint, about fields like
sociology in relation to Peirce's logic is, do they get into a study of
intelligent inference processes, intelligent decision processes, etc. (as
economics sometimes does) at a sufficiently general and abstract level that
they arguably have parts in philosophy (normative - philosophical ethics,
philosophical logic, - or, say, metaphysical - philosophy on physical-psychical
relations etc.)? Peirce held (1904) that all logical (not necessarily
deductive) analysis is philosophy, pure or applied. So a finer-pointed question
(maybe too fine-pointed for an initial approach) would be, is it in application
of philosophy in sociology, or a general level of sociology in philosophy?
Do you think that there's something logical, general, abstract, philosophical
in Peirce's sense, like that going on in sociology or cultural anthropology (or
psychology, for that matter)?
(I suppose that one could call Peirce's philosophical studies of conception,
judgment, inference, cognition, etc., "logical psychology," on the mind as
logically (though not necessarily deductively) conceived. It seems
etymologically true to the word "psychology" as meaning "mind study," but
Peirce didn't use the phrase "logical psychology," I guess for reasons of the
history of the term "psychology" in its use in science. He was less averse to
the use of the term "epistemology.")
You wrote,
Your comment here about mathematical work seems just right:
Now, let's say that often enough sociological factors in mathematical work
pale to the point that _usual_ sociological factors and explanations offer
diminishing returns for sociology about mathematics.
Indeed, mathematics would seem to be so "pale" as to be a special case. The
spectrum of such paleness it might be understood to sit at the far end of might
be worth fleshing out at some point, although I doubt there would be much hope
for consensus on that!
People will disagree about whether math or special sciences are more basic, and
the arguments often vie over the order of being (ordo essendi) versus the order
of learning or familiarity (ordo cognoscendi). Peirce sided with the order of
being, a.k.a. the order of abstractness. But the argument often turns out to
be ABC vs. CBA which come to the same thing with different senses (essendi vs.
cognoscendi) of ordering. If one thinks of terms of applications, I think that
most will agree that one uses mathematical findings to support sociological
claims, but one does not use sociological findings to support mathematical
claims; and also that a sociological problem can inspire mathematical work to
help solve it and similar problems, but a mathematical problem won't inspire
sociological work to help solve it or similar problems (unless one means that a
sociologist helps muster some mathematicians to solve it), and that 'pure'
maths and sociology are toward opposite ends of a spectrum. You can see an
outline of Peirce's later spectrum or classification of research at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_the_sciences_(Peirce)#Sciences.
Also http://www.uta.fi/~attove/peirce_syst.PDF (Tommi Vehkavaara's diagrams of
Peirce's successive views over the years).
A library scientist Birger Hjørland in Denmark wrote on a webpage of his
(http://www.iva.dk/bh/Core%20Concepts%20in%20LIS/articles%20a-z/classification_of_the_sciences.htm):
"There is not today (2005), to my knowledge, any organized research program
about the classification of the sciences in any discipline or in any country.
As Miksa (1998) writes, the interest for this question largely died in the
beginning of the 20th century." I don't think that that quite applies to
mathematicians, but all the same it seems that people interested in Peirce and
mathematicians are currently the main two groups with an abiding interest in a
classification with some philosophical or logical basis. Anybody, please
correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks again for your remarks.
Best, Ben
----- Original Message -----
From: Sally Ness
To: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 11:38 PM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : "Sciences as Communicational Communities"
Segment 3
Ben, list,
Thanks very much for this second response--I should say that I did not receive
any Peirce posts for about 10 days, due to a change in the email system I use,
so I may have missed a post from you--apologies for any lack of acknowledgment
if that was the case. Anyway, I appreciate your adding to the record on this
paper in such a detailed and thoughtful way.
It is interesting, as you point out, that Peirce starts with economics as an
example of a social science, and that he makes the connection (which certainly
does seem to have ethical and practical aspects) to political economy so
explicit in the 1902 quote. I hope that the classificational issues you raise
might be addressed by other listers. I am not familiar with this manuscript,
but it reads to me as though Peirce saw economics as having different "parts"
to it, making it a science that could belong to more than one class of science
with regard to differing parts of its character. Certainly, its mathematical
"part" is larger, and more elaborately developed, than is the case with at
least the main streams of many of the other social sciences.
Regarding psychology, your comments led me to realize that the independence
Peirce wanted to declare for logic in relation to psychological phenomena may
have had consequences for the way in which other social sciences are understood
in relation to Perice's logic as well, if psychology is taken as representative
of all the social sciences in some way. This is quite a thought, and my first
response would be, "hold on a minute!" I wonder if others have reflected on
this. In my view, psychology would be the weakest candidate for representing
the social sciences in general, focused as it has been on subject- matter that
typically, in the mainstreams of the discipline, has been defined as basically
individual in character (individual psyches). It would seem to have a special
relationship to philosophy and to logic that is not replicated in the other
social sciences in this regard. I haven't thought this through enough to say
more, but I thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Your comment here about mathematical work seems just right:
Now, let's say that often enough sociological factors in mathematical work pale
to the point that _usual_ sociological factors and explanations offer
diminishing returns for sociology about mathematics.
Indeed, mathematics would seem to be so "pale" as to be a special case. The
spectrum of such paleness it might be understood to sit at the far end of might
be worth fleshing out at some point, although I doubt there would be much hope
for consensus on that!
Your comment at the end of that paragraph is really what I was trying to
articulate at a number of points in my posts--thank you for this clarification:
So Joe's criticisisms of sociology of science might apply better to actual
sociology, at least as he knew it, as actually or potentially abused for
political ends, than to sociology at its ideal best.
Finally, thanks for the reference to Feynman's work. His perspective does seem
akin to a cultural anthropological one. I am not familiar with it, but hope to
learn more of it.
Thanks again,
Sally
On Oct 15, 2011, at 12:26 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
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