Martin -- and Bill:
Martin, I find what you are saying both plausible and resulting in a gemerally consistent view. Something can be done, too, to put a more positive face on the first two methods, which need not be construed as negatively as Peirce does, e.g. by pointing out that tenacity, in spite of there being nothing that one can cite at a given time that supports one's viewand the evidence seems actually to be against it, this sort of stubborness seems to be a pretty important factor at times in winning through to a better view. Of course everything really depends on good judgment and being willing, finally, to give up on something. But there is a positive element in tenacity that needs to be identified and salvaged finally as part of the fourth method. And so also for authority, which is, in some cases, simply the overwhelming forcefulness of well-deserved good reputations. Peirce is definitely aware of this sort of thing. I ran across a passage within the past day or so that illustrates this and I'll see if I can find it again. Peirce is expressing a kind of scorn, as I recall, about scientists who are overly impressed by the recognition given in official commendations and awards and the like and says that the individual scientist has to be the best judge of his or her own competence. In other words, competence actually requires one's own ability to be the best judge of one's own competence, that is, one ought to regard the matter that way. I think though that you are probably right that it is only in the case of the third method that it even appears that we can reasonably talk about it as being a rational method, that being highly qualified, of course, by noting it as a "degenerate" form, as you suggest.
That goes back to what Bill Bailey was saying about the decision about the planet Pluto being a committee decision. I think myself that it is not correct to say that they really did settle anything by making that decision. I mean their vote may well have the effect of bringing that change about, but this is simply a causal result, not a logical consequence, i.e. they didn't really decide to do anything other than to lend persuasional weight to what will turn out de facto to be accepted about Pluto from now on. I would argue myself -- have argued elsewhere -- that acceptance in science can mean only one thing, namely. the fact that future inquirers do in fact make use of the proposition in question as a premise or presupposition in their own futuire inquiry, essentially including that part of it which consists in making a public claim to a research conclusion which is put forward as based on the propositon in quesion in that way. Otherwise it makes no difference what any scientists say about Pluto's status. It is up to the future to determine whether the resolution to actually use the proposition in that way or not has the effect of actual such use of it. And of course the last word on that is never in. As it stands, the confusion about what is meant by "acceptance" in science -= and inhumanistic scholaraship, too -- is massive and sometimes grotesque, as when it is confused with gettting a paper accepted by a prestigious journal!
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From Martin Lefebvre
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 11:40:01 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Martin, I find what you are saying both plausible and resulting in a gemerally consistent view. Something can be done, too, to put a more positive face on the first two methods, which need not be construed as negatively as Peirce does, e.g. by pointing out that tenacity, in spite of there being nothing that one can cite at a given time that supports one's viewand the evidence seems actually to be against it, this sort of stubborness seems to be a pretty important factor at times in winning through to a better view. Of course everything really depends on good judgment and being willing, finally, to give up on something. But there is a positive element in tenacity that needs to be identified and salvaged finally as part of the fourth method. And so also for authority, which is, in some cases, simply the overwhelming forcefulness of well-deserved good reputations. Peirce is definitely aware of this sort of thing. I ran across a passage within the past day or so that illustrates this and I'll see if I can find it again. Peirce is expressing a kind of scorn, as I recall, about scientists who are overly impressed by the recognition given in official commendations and awards and the like and says that the individual scientist has to be the best judge of his or her own competence. In other words, competence actually requires one's own ability to be the best judge of one's own competence, that is, one ought to regard the matter that way. I think though that you are probably right that it is only in the case of the third method that it even appears that we can reasonably talk about it as being a rational method, that being highly qualified, of course, by noting it as a "degenerate" form, as you suggest.
That goes back to what Bill Bailey was saying about the decision about the planet Pluto being a committee decision. I think myself that it is not correct to say that they really did settle anything by making that decision. I mean their vote may well have the effect of bringing that change about, but this is simply a causal result, not a logical consequence, i.e. they didn't really decide to do anything other than to lend persuasional weight to what will turn out de facto to be accepted about Pluto from now on. I would argue myself -- have argued elsewhere -- that acceptance in science can mean only one thing, namely. the fact that future inquirers do in fact make use of the proposition in question as a premise or presupposition in their own futuire inquiry, essentially including that part of it which consists in making a public claim to a research conclusion which is put forward as based on the propositon in quesion in that way. Otherwise it makes no difference what any scientists say about Pluto's status. It is up to the future to determine whether the resolution to actually use the proposition in that way or not has the effect of actual such use of it. And of course the last word on that is never in. As it stands, the confusion about what is meant by "acceptance" in science -= and inhumanistic scholaraship, too -- is massive and sometimes grotesque, as when it is confused with gettting a paper accepted by a prestigious journal!
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From Martin Lefebvre
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 11:40:01 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamenal psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?
Joe, Kristi, list,
At the risk of offering a post hoc, ergo propter hoc
argument, I'll try looking at the issue from the prespective of
Peirce's more mature views.
I consider the "Fixation" essay to be organized around
a sort of development/growth principle that leads to the scientific
method as the method of choice of reason. I believe that growth here
can be thought of categorially. The method of tenacity "works"
as long as the individual is considered monadically (the social
impulse must be held in check) and as long as there is no attempt to
examine a belief against experience. A "monadic" mind
(what could that be???) would think what it thinks,
irrespective of anything else. Of course, the individual (the self) is
not a monad (see Colapietro's work on this) and the social impulse
cannot be held in check forever. With the method of authority belief
is achieved in relation to the belief of others (those in
authority) -- not in relation to experience. There is a growing sense
of dualism here with the introduction of "others". With the
third, a priori, method we find something interesting. This third
method is "far more intellectual and respectable from the
point of view of reason than either of the others which we have
noticed", says Peirce (italics mine). He adds, however: "It
makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste".
Now, as you know, Peirce (much) later introduced esthetics to the
normative sciences and saw both ethics and logic as requiring the help
of esthetics. Esthetics being concerned with the formation of the
summum bonum and of ideals or ends. Now there is a strong connection
in Peirce between esthetics and abduction (and agapasticism), in the
sense that the formation of ideals and the summum bonum lies on the
latter's ability to attract us before we can even consider the
consequences of adopting them with regards to
conduct or thought either by way of imagination through deduction
or concretely through induction. This requires insight (il
lume naturale), the very principle for the (very) weak form of
assurance we can get from abduction. Peirce tells us, in short, that
it is rational for us to trust our guesses. Moreover, the Law
of Mind explains that instinct, our ability to guess right, is itself
subject to growth in concrete reasonableness. (The mind of God, for
Peirce, is a mind whose "guesses" are all right guesses).
All this to say that, in his later years, Peirce will be brought to
recognize the third method of fixing belief (agreeableness to reason)
as a keystone to the scientific method of experience. The problem is
that this method, on its own, cannot distinguish between accidents and
reality. This is why Peirce concludes that the only method likely to
obtain a controlled (and growing) representation of reality is the
scientific method. However, it seems that both the 3rd and 4th methods
are related to the object (reality) through the mediation of reason
(the 3rd method, however, only in a somewhat degenerate manner,
through insight). Another way of saying it is to consider that neither
of the first two methods imply indefinite growth whereas only the
scientific method can approximate reality by mimicking (iconically)
and being affected (indexically) by it (and not by "accidents"
of another nature), understood that reality is that which is
independent from us while idefinitely growing in concrete
reasonableness (in kalos).
At the time of writing "Fixation" it seems Peirce was
not quite ready to see the full impact of the rationality of the 3rd
method. Thus his rejection of it as relating to "taste" and
his criticism of "taste" as being a matter of fashion.
However, his realization that esthetics belongs to the normative
sciences and that ethics and logic require its help a realization
prepared in part by his cosmological writings -- may impact our
retroactive reading of the "Fixation" essay. Thus it could
be argued (here might lie the post hoc turn of the argument) that
Peirce, in the way he ordered the 4 methods, was already manifesting
some insight with regards to esthetics's connection to logic (though
somewhat unwittingly)...
Martin Lefebvre
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