[peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor

[Charles F Rudder]

Ben, list:   Ben,   I am struggling to understand exactly what it is you are saying Peirce overlooks in connection with verification.  In an effort to get some further clarification of your position, I am including a statement of my understanding of some of what Peirce says on the subject followed by some questions.   I. Peirce on Verification    TRANSUASION (CP 2.98):  A Transuasive Argument, or Induction, is an Argument which sets out from a hypothesis, resulting from a previous Abduction, and from virtual predictions, drawn by Deduction, of the results of possible experiments, and having performed the experiments, concludes that the hypothesis is true in the measure in which those predictions are verified, this conclusion, however, being held subject to probable modification to suit future experiments. Since the significance of the facts stated in the premisses depends upon their predictive character, which they could not have had if the conclusion had not been hypothetically entertained, they satisfy the definition of a Symbol of the fact stated in the conclusion. This argument is Transuasive, also, in respect to its alone affording us a reasonable assurance of an ampliation of our positive knowledge. By the term "virtual prediction," I mean an experiential consequence deduced from the hypothesis, and selected from among possible consequences independently of whether it is known, or believed, to be true, or not; so that at the time it is selected as a test of the hypothesis, we are either ignorant of whether it will support or refute the hypothesis, or, at least, do not select a test which we should not have selected if we had been so ignorant. (END QUOTE)   I take the word "verification" as a synonym for the consequences of Peirce's transuasive arguments (distinguishable from abductive and deductive arguments) that set out the conditions under which individuals will be most likely to agree to act as if statements referring to perceptual events and relations between and among perceptual events are true.  I say "act as if" because I understand Peirce to say that "belief" necessarily entails both cognitive and behavioral action.  Granting that there are semiosical antecedents to one's being able to name and otherwise classify perceptual events like seeing a burning building, any physically and psychologically normal person who sees a burning building will most likely voluntarily or quasi voluntarily agree to report seeing or having seen a burning building as a consequence of their experience's compelling them to act as if they are or were in the actual presence of a burning building.  The cognitive assent in agreeing to say there is or was a building burning in which Thirdness is predominant is inseparably connected to a nonvoluntary inability dominated by Secondness to act as if seeing a burning building is or was an hallucination, optical illusion, etc.  To refuse to report or to quibble over reporting that a building is or was burning would be an instance of "paper doubt."  Say what you will, the consequences of acting as if there is or was no building burning are identical to what we conventionally mean (the import of Peirce's pragmatic maxim) by saying that a building is burning is true.  Peirce's transuasive argument does not set out conditions under which all rational individuals ought to agree, but conditions under which, over time, most people will in actual fact agree as a consequence of an inability to act as if what is predicted will not occur.  Belief has the character of a wager.  Whatever a person's state of mind, relative to present states of information the odds favor acting as if the conclusions of  transuasive arguments are true.   II.  Questions   1.  Do you generally agree with my summary of Peirce's transuasive argument?  If not, where in your opinion have I gone astray?   2.  If you do generally agree with my account of transuasion, what does Peirce's transuasive argument fail to address in connection with verification? --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com