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Dear Steve,
I did not meant to convey that I thought Dennett
favored the theater of the mind metaphor, but it would not surprise me if Peirce
found Dennett's view simplistic. Personally I mostly have to content
myself with just the surface of the debate though I'm always hoping to grasp the
issues on a deeper level. So I appreciate your raising some of those issues and
challenging me to think more deeply about them. I find the Peirce-L
endlessly fascinating, but see myself participating more as one of
its kibitzer/gadflies than as one of its heavy lifters. A
legitimate, albeit small and sometimes annoying, role in the grand
scheme --I hope. But four posts is enuff of me for now so, with
thanks and best wishes to all, I'll shut up for a while.
Cheers,
Jim Piat
I do not believe that comparing theories by abstracting their general
statements about reality is sufficient.
Dennett's theater of the mind argument argues against the homunculus and
the theater.
IMHO, Dennett makes arguments against which Peirce would rebel fiercely -
in both its content and methodology. In particular, I do not see Peirce
accepting heterophenomonology which argues naively that being objective is the
best we can do in science. Dennett does not take experience seriously as a
phenomenon of the world, and therein lies the core of the problem - which is
theoretical and has more to do with his ability to reason than it does with
objective observation. In short, Dennett simply denies his ability to make any
observation.
With respect,
Steven
On Sep 8, 2006, at 7:43 AM, Jim Piat wrote:
Jeffrey Grace
wrote:
>>It struck me as Peirceian because, if I'm not mistaken, Peirce
denied that there was such a thing as "introspection". He also seemed
to affirm the idea that individuals are "less real" than generality... or
rather that all individuals are instances of general categories and
therefore less real as individuals. I also get the impression that
what we call mind or subjective experience is more objective or public than
we realize... and this seems to coincide with Dennett's
heterophenomenology...the idea that an objective observer might be able to
read someone's subjective experience better than the subject
him/herself>>.
Dear,
Jeffrey,
I can't find the Justice Holmes
quote about the plain meaning of words vs one's subjective intent that I
thought was so apt to your comments -- but do want to say I think you
make a very good point. In fact, recently I was thinking about
Dennett's homunculus/theater of the mind metaphor in conjunction with
the "infinite regression" criticism sometimes leveled against Peirce
theory of signs. My idea was that a theater of the mind need only go
three levels deep to cover all the possiblities (but that's for another
discussion and only tangentially related to the point you are
making). Just now I merely want to say that I think you capture
something very important about Peirce's views and also maybe
something about Denett's that he may not realize
himself. Surely Peirce's ideas on pragmatism gave impetus
to the objective thrust that so captured law, psychology and philosophy
in the early 1900s. And Dennett is indebted to this
tradition.
All said with respect and
admiration for the counterpoints of Steven and Gary. That's part
of what I find so appealing and impressive about Peirce -- that
he identified both what is best and what is worst in
behaviorism.
Cheers,
Jim
Piat ---
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