Peter, Stephen, list, Peter, you wrote:
PS: I am a little surprised at the lack of follow-up from the list to Steve's suggestions, below. I do not personally have any opinion regarding the prospect of Peirceans forming a new generation of public intellectuals, but this is a theme that I recall being raised on the list in the past, and generating lively discussion. Stephen had written: SR: Did Peirce ever say anything relevant to the issue of peer review? As for example implying a division between disciplines, in which ordinary persons would have no relevant contribution to make, and areas where anyone of ordinary capacities might be seen to have a valuable contribution to make? The impression I have is that Peirce might be quite iconoclastic regarding the vetting all of claims to truth, not to mention the proliferation of specialization and its sequestration under the umbrellas of academia and professions. GR: For my own part, I would hope--and that's all that it is and can be for now: a hope--that a more Peircean approach to "forming a new generation of public intellectuals" might come to be. By "a Peircean approach" I mean to include such thing as Socratic dialogue (that is, as Peirce understood it, not as Plato misinterpreted it); critical commonsensism (== pragmatism); a tripartite method of scientific inquiry involving the individual abductive generation of hypotheses, the deduction of the implications of certain hypotheses for testing, and the actual inductive test occur, the results to be reviewed and reflected upon by the relevant scientific communities of interest; the notion of the significant differences (including methodological) between Cenoscopic (philosophy) and Idioscopic (the 'special' sciences); the assumption of an extreme realist metaphysic--countering nominalistic and reductivistic tendencies--upon essentially pan-semiotic analyses (following the findings of a tricategorial phenomenology); his ethics of inquiry, etc. Still, all of this--and much more--has been 'out there' for well over a century, almost two (we are approaching the centenary of Peirce's death in 2014), and, while there has been some progress especially in the theory related to much that has been outlined above, for a philosophy which has as its name, "pragmatism," there has been scant little application of it to communities of inquiry it seems to me. Nevertheless, after decades of specialization, one can imagine that we're beginning to see a new, growing ideal of interdisciplinary semiotic thinking, this being one of the great possibilities of biosemiotics as some are conceiving it,and certainly one of the principal reasons why I'm drawn to it. Not only Deacon's work, but also Eliseo Fernandez's and Soren Brier's (both of these scholars are on this list, btw) tend towards this new interdisciplinary thinking. But the terrain is vast and extraordinarily complex such that both Brier and Deacon, for example, have had to write very long, very dense, very complex books. On the other hand, I've recommended Fernandez's work here since his short articles gives one--at least gave me--enough of a sense of the value and importance of the possibilities inherent in this relatively newly budding semiotic approach as to afford me the patience and fortitude to tackle a tome like Deacon's *Incomplete Science*. So, in a word, this is difficult material to take up as a individual or, a fortiori, as a community because of its complexity. I've been talking about beginning a discussion of Deacon's book here for some time, and Gary Fuhrman made a good faith attempt at getting it going. But now I think it'll take a great deal more preparation for us to get such a discussion off the ground (at the moment we are both rereading the book, btw). Peirce clearly distinguishes kinds of sciences (theoretical and practical, censocopic and specific, research/review/applied, etc.) and kinds of scientists; there have been many discussions concerning these distinctions on the list over the years. As for research in these individual disciplines, to offer a personal example, I have a special interest in a tiny little practical science which I call 'trikonic'. All it means to do is tricategorially analyze the findings of certain other sciences (viz., the theoretical and review sciences, especially the former as they are reflected on and organized by the later). Now, it is true that I am sometimes drawn to make--in order to undertake, or more frequently, to complete a particular trichotomic analysis--an abduction of my own which goes beyond trikonic. For example, I have hypothesized that Peirce's phenomenology is a trichotomic science (much as logic as semeiotic is). Still, and this is my main point here, I was informed by the work of others, in this case, Andre de Tienne in phenomenology, for ideas leading to the hypothesis that Peirce's phenomenology has these branches (Phaneroscopy, 1ns; Iconoscopy, 2ns; Category theory, or trichotomic, 3ns). Were it not for the list and, in particular, Joe's pointing to de Tienne's work, I might never have come upon it, have never read and reflected on it. Continuing, Stephen also wrote: SR: [. . . ] I feel it is the job of Peirceans to define a way ahead beyond the current straitjacket [. . . ] theologically and generally, I think Peirce is absolutely essential to explaining a way beyond nominalism and to opening the door to the appropriation of religion as post-institutional spirituality. Also to the introduction of a general appropriation of ethical values [. . .] in a world where [these have (GR] proved seriously wanting. Maybe academic Peirce folk could fill the void in the ranks of our public intellectuals. GR: Now that's some challenge! I won't remark on the 'theological' aspect of the question, since it has historically 'gotten me into trouble' here, not to mention that even a brief reflection on it (or the problem of nominalism, or the ethical question) would make an already long post even longer. I will only suggest, again, that much as did the late Arnold Shepperson, and as many have expressed here and in print, I too have benefited immensely now for well over a decade from seeing this Peirce forum and Arisbe as essential intellectual resources. I will always be grateful to Joe Ransdell for creating both on the Peircean and democratic principles that he did. For me the list offers a kind of intellectual 'hope' that we can discuss matters philosophical here as peers. Because Peirce posited cenoscopic--that is, philosophy--as a science anyone of sound mind might enter into, I personally consider everyone on this list my peer in philosophy. Still, when one considers its several branches, I know that there are some here far more competent than I in some of these branches, and I look to them for enlightenment. Meanwhile, challenges to my own thinking only help to sharpen it. I would like to conclude by quoting a passage from Deacon's chapter in *Incomplete Nature* titled "Work," a passage which, I think, suggests just how great the challenge is to especially creative intellectuals today in even conveying their thinking to others. TD: "[T]hat which is involved in discovering how best to communicate ideas that are counterintuitive or alien or otherwise go against received wisdom, is particularly difficult work [. . .] This suggest that the sources or resistance that are the focus of the work to be done also include many tendencies not generally considered by physicists and engineers; for example, tendencies of thought that contribute to the difficulty of changing opinions or beliefs" (Deacon, 331). Best, Gary Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York E202-O 718 482-5700 *** *** *** *** >>> "Skagestad, Peter" 01/29/12 3:35 PM >>> List, I am a little surprised at the lack of follow-up from the list to Steve's suggestions, below. I do not personally have any opinion regarding the prospect of Peirceans forming a new generation of public intellectuals, but this is a theme that I recall being raised on the list in the past, and generating lively discussion. Anyhow, this slow read has gone on somewhat longer than intended or expected, and it is clear that the focus of discussion on the list has moved beyond it, which is fine. I shall attempt to wrap it up with a fairly quick overview of the last few pages of Joe’s paper. A peer is someone who is to be treated as an equal, and who is to be respected both because s/he is an equal and because s/he has a perspective that is different from mine and therefore of value to me as an inquirer. Joe specifically grounds this conception in Peirce’s work, as follows: JR: “Peirce describes the coordination of the perspectives of the individual inquirers, which assumes an equal respect for each such perspective as having its own role to play in providing the composite substance of the date being reconciled in the coordination in a striking passage in “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”: [Quoting Peirce] One man may investigate the velocity of light by studying the transit of Venus and the aberration of the stars; another by the oppositions of Mars and the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites; a third by the method of Fizeau; a fourth by that of Foucault; a fifth by the motions of the curves of Lissajoux; a sixth, a seventh, an eighth, and a ninth, may follow the different method of comparing the measures of statical and dynamical electricity. They may at first obtain different results, but, as each perfects his method and his processes, the results are found to move steadily together toward a destined center. So with all scientific research. Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside themselves to one and the same conclusion. (Collected Papers, 5.407)” PS: I take Joe here to be * correctly * inferring from Peirce that the larger and, more importantly, the more diverse the pool of inquirers is, the greater confidence we can have that any consensus they reach is one to which they have been carried “by a force outside themselves”. What is of the very essence of scientific research, then, is undermined by the formation of scientific elites which decide who does or does not qualify as a peer and allowed to participate in peer review of scientific communications: JR: “When only some members of a research community are actually treated as having a right to provide input into the theoretical reconciliation that is constantly being constructed in the ongoing course of inquiry, the community of inquirers shrinks, in effect, to the size of those so privileged, and the properties of the subject-matter that are effectively being accessed and taken duly into account for purposes of arriving at an understanding of the subject-matter are correspondingly diminished *” PS: Peer review through editorial selection of reviewers, then, is really pseudo-peer review, in contrast to Ginsparg’s system, which comes closer to realizing peer review in the proper sense of the term. Joe goes on to emphasize that what he is criticizing is the existing system; he does not mean to impugn editors functioning within the system, who need have no elitist intent and who may in fact exercise excellent judgment in their selection of reviewers. But what is elitist, authoritarian, and limiting is the very system whereby reviewers are selected by editors, who are of course themselves selected by people in positions of authority: JR: “There is no doubt but what many editors do in fact have good judgment, and that their selection of reviewers can be counted on to be reasonably just. But inasmuch as the opinion of the reviewers is actually operative in publication process only via the confidence the editor places in them, and it is the editor who selects them to begin with, there is no getting around the fact that this is an elitist system in which the editors, who must themselves be peers of the readers of their journals, are functioning as Orwellian peers, peers more perish than the peers whom they nominally serve.” PS: The adjective “Orwellian” here is of course a reference to Animal Farm, George Orwell’s satire of Soviet communism, where “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. Joe goes on for three more pages enlarging on the themes covered above, but I think all the main points have been covered, so I shall stop here. Again, I wish had some probing, provocative questions to put out there, but I don’t. The floor is open to questions, comments, objections, amplifications, etc. Cheers, Peter ________________________________ From: Stephen C. Rose [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:57 AM To: Skagestad, Peter Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION Thanks Peter. You have answered the question I think. But I feel comments on this ending part might be useful: > The impression I have is that Peirce might be quite iconoclastic regarding the vetting all of claims to truth, not to mention the proliferation of specialization and its sequestration under the umbrellas of academia and professions. If the answer to this is yes, I feel it is the job of Peirceans to define a way ahead beyond the current straitjacket. My efforts are entirely beyond it. because I claim no expertise and only (perhaps) an intuitive and imperfect understanding. But theologically and generally, I think Peirce is absolutely essential to explaining a way beyond nominalism and to opening the door to the appropriation of religion as post-institutional spirituality. Also to the introduction of a general appropriation of ethical values generally in a world where the Aristotelian framework of values (which Aristotle actually did not possess, opting instead for characteristics such as "honor") has proved seriously wanting. Maybe academic Peirce folk could fill the void in the ranks of our public intellectuals. ShortFormContent at Blogger On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Skagestad, Peter > wrote: Steve, list, I am not aware that Peirce said anything explicitly about peer review, although he certainly said things that are relevant to it - more of that when we move on to the next segment of Joe's paper. But of course academic disdciplines barely existed in Peirce's day, and they certainly were not institutionalized the way they are today. Thus Perirce could hold a degree in chemistry, spernd most of his professional life as astronomer, while taking time out to teach logic at Johns Hopkins, a combination that is hardly imaginable today. Does anyone else have any light to shed on Steve's question? Cheers, Peter ________________________________________ From: Stephen C. Rose [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2012 5:19 PM To: Skagestad, Peter Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION Did Peirce ever say anything relevant to the issue of peer review? As for example implying a division between disciplines, in which ordinary persons would have no relevant contribution to make, and areas where anyone of ordinary capacities might be seen to have a valuable contribution to make? The impression I have is that Peirce might be quite iconoclastic regarding the vetting all of claims to truth, not to mention the proliferation of specialization and its sequestration under the umbrellas of academia and professions. ShortFormContent at Blogger On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Skagestad, Peter >> wrote: List, After a bit of a hiatus I am returning to the slow read of Joe’s paper. I said earlier that, while I count myself quite knowledgeable about the topics covered in the first part of the paper, I know next to nothing about contemporary scientific communication, which is the focus at least of the second half. It has occurred to me, however, that in the interest of full disclosure I should mention that I am currently in my third career as a textbook editor, meaning that I routinely commission and interpret reviews of manuscripts. These reviews are no doubt very different from prepublication reviews of scientific papers * my manuscripts are reviewed less for truth claims than for coverage, organization, accessibility, and the like * but the listers should be aware that this is what I do for a living. We resume on page 19 of the version posted at Arisbe. Having described Ginsparg’s publication system (arXiv), Joe counters the criticism that the system lacks peer review, not by questioning the fundamental importance of peer review to scientific communication, but by challenging the concept of peer review as currently understood, i.e. prepublication review by editorially selected reviewers: JR: [my] view is * that what has come to be called “peer review” is not peer review proper but rather a crippled form of it which is not only of limited value at best as a critical control principle but is also a subversion of the peer principle that underlies the practice of authentic peer review. Why? Because it treats peer review as a system of elite control, which is directly contrary to the conception of a peer.” PS: Initially, Joe notes, he thought this use of the term “peer review” to refer to review by editorially selected reviewers was a purely verbal matter, which was best left undisturbed, especially as both defenders and opponents of the practice shared the same usage. But this, he had later come to see, was a mistake. By accepting the conventional usage of “peer review” and by rejecting peer review so understood, the advocates of the Ginsparg system were in effect undermining the radical potential of the system and contributing go rendering it innocuous: JR: “[Since] it is respect for the peer principle that lies at the basis of the critical control of research communication generally, [the rejection of peer review] was a rhetorical mistake that has enable the success of those who deny the significance of the success of the Ginsparg system by denying that it has the status which it actually does have as a venue for primary publication. With this status denied, what actually takes place in the Ginsparg system can be and now commonly is in fact dismissed as being no different in kind from what happens on any bulletin board, listserver based forum or discussion group, chat line, or any other informal medium not regarded as important enough to the hegemony of legitimacy claimed by the editorially controlled journal to be a challenge to it.” PS: So, Ginsparg’s system, in Joe’s view, differs substantially from informal online discussion groups by incorporating its form of peer review, facilitated by the use of abstracts, which enables it to play the role previously played by scientific journals, while at the same time its egalitarianism poses a serious challenge to the elitism of the scientific establishment. This challenge, however, has been blunted by the failure of both the system’s advocates and the defenders of the status quo to recognize the role of peer review in the system and the consequent failure of both sides to distinguish the Ginsparg system from informal forums which pose no threat to the status quo. What is needed, in Joe’s view, is a new understanding of “peer review”, starting with a new understanding of the term “peer”: JR: “A research peer * is a presumptive equal, not someone who has been demonstrated to be de facto equal in this or that respect but rather someone who is regarded, presumptively, as someone whose informed opinion about the subject-matter of research is to be taken as seriously as one’s own opinion is insofar as that depends on the status of the researcher, as distinct from its dependence on the justification provided by the researcher for the claim. A peer is someone whose disagreement with one’s own view requires to be explained * a non-peer is someone whose opinion about the matter in question makes no difference to you*” PS: I pause here to note that Joe is here defining “peer” in terms of how a person is to be treated; your peer is a person you regard in a particular way and treat in a particular way. Joe not going to go into the question of how a person comes to qualify as your peer, not because the question is not important, but because it is too big a question to do it justice in this context. Joe goes on to define “peer review” as follows: JR: ”Peer review proper, then, is what occurs in the inquiry process when one makes * a research claim and the research community addressed responds according to the communicational norms that then obtain. All communication that occurs within this normatively constituted dialogical space hat pertains to the claim at issue is peer review.” PS: There is much more to come, but I shall stop here, both to catch my breath and to give listers the opportunity to chime in with any comments or questions that occur to you. As there has been very limited list participation so far, I want to emphasize that of course a slow read is a recreational activity rather than a professional duty. No one should feel any obligation to contribute; I am simply offering the opportunity to do so. I plan to resume in a few days. Cheers, Peter --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. 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