Joe, I agree with Bill in that I do not see any reason why the order of the methods of tenacity and that of authority should be reversed. But that wasn't the impulse which caused me to start writing this response :). It was "the two fundamental psychological laws" on the title you gave, which caught my attention. Anyway, you wrote:
JR: "...exactly what accounts for the transition from the first to the second method. One might wonder, too,whether Peirce might not have the order wrong: might it not be argued that method #1 should be authority and method #2 tenacity? I wonder if anyone has ever tried to justify his ordering of the methods in the way he does? I don't recall anyone ever trying to do that, but then I don't trust my memory on this since it has not always been a topic in which I had much interest until fairly recently. That he has somehow got hold of something right in distinguishing the methods can be argued, I believe, but can the ordering really be argued for as plausible?
And later in the discussion you wrote:
JR: Well, I was thinking of the argument one might make that social consciousness is prior to consciousness of self, and the method of tenacity seems to me to be motivated by the value of self-integrity, the instinctive tendency not to give up on any part of oneself, and one's beliefs are an important aspect of what one tends to think of when one thinks of one's identity.
To my mind the logic in the order Peirce is here following is based on the degree of 'goodness' of methods, not on motives, or order in evolution, or any other kind of (logical) order. And the goodness has to do with 'summum bonum", the ultimate aim and purpose, which is not necessarily an aim or a purpose held by any (one) individual person.
So, the method of tenacity, in spite of being the lowest in degree of goodness, IS STILL A CONSISTENT METHOD. Which, if persisted in, will, in the long run (if the person persisting will live long enough), show to the person its truth or falsity.
If false, it will be some kind of a nasty surprise to the person. If still persisted in, more nasty surprised are to follow. - Well, it might as well be a pleasant surprise. For example with the (common) belief that humans beings are by nature evil and egoistic. Being surprised in this way, according to my somewhat systematic observations, follows a different course. But Peirce does not give examples of this kind.
But I do not see any justification given in this particular paper to:
CSP: In judging this method of fixing belief, which may be called the method of authority, we must, in the first place, allow its immeasurable mental and moral superiority to the method of tenacity.
It can only be the 'summum bonum', which could act as an (ultimate) justification in considering the method of authority as far superior to the method of tenacity. But Peirce does not take that up here.
Anyway, the IF's in the following may be worth considering:
CSP: "If the settlement of opinion is the sole object of inquiry, and if belief is of the nature of a habit"
How I find, is, that these are the premisses from which Peirce proceeds in this chapter. So these give the perspective Peirce is here taking in view of the answers he offers, pertaining as well to the logic of the order of the methods in presenting them.
As to the "two fundamental psychological laws", I assume Peirce is referring to the laws he himself had arrived at & stated. A relevant quote on this might be the following, where Peirce puts the question: How do we know that a belief is nothing but
CP 5.28 ”... the deliberate preparedness to act according to the formula believed? My original article carried this back to a psychological principle. The conception of truth, according to me, was developed out of an original impulse to act consistently, to have a definite intention.”
Which, by the time of writing, Peirce does not find satisfactory. For the reasons you stated in your later post, with which I agree.
Best,
Kirsti
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Kirsti Määttänen
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
