Kirsti M����tt��nen <kirstima <at> saunalahti.fi> writes: > > Dear Eugene, > > Thanks for an inspiring mail. The idea of a progressively broadening > social conception I find a very fruitful one, enriching the idea of a > logical ordering. This, together with your exhilarating > thought-experiment with an evolutionary-historical progression, > definitely made some thoughts I was not quite in the clear with, more > clear. > > But I cannot see that the social should be excluded from the method of > tenacity in the way you state: > > > ��A tenaciously held belief is still social, as any habit is. Yet the > > social is excluded from the method of tenacity. What you believe by > > tenacity may also be social and learned, or perhaps social and > > instinctive, but believed in because you simply continue to believe in > > it, regardless of others' beliefs. > > Take for example the way things are nowadays in scientific communities, > which is no way really furthering finding out truth. It's arranged > according to the belief that maximal competition (between individuals) > ensures that the 'best ones' win. Well, 'the best ones' in that view > may win, but the truth certainly is not a winner. - Anyway, the method > of tenacity is bound in this context to become one individuals with > some success are pressed to resort to. Because if anything fundamental > to the work of that individual is convincingly questioned, and so > threatened, the whole career may be at stake. It does not make any > difference, whether the person in question has primarily the truth as a > personal motivating aim, or the just the aim of a fine career, winning > others presents itself either as the means, or as the aim. > > In "Economy of Reseach" (or thus titled in CP) Peirce sees the only way > of really furthering the finding out of the truth in the practice of > just funding generously a lot of people. With a rational HOPE, but > nothing more sure, that some of them, but some ones which cannot be > identified in advance, will produce something worth funding the whole > lot. > > Well, it's a long time since I read that piece. But I've had the > opportunity for a good many years to be a part of a (quite small) > research institute with absolutely no problems with funds. Within a > short time it became internationally acknowledged as the leading > institute in the field, as well as highly appreciated outside the > special field. Then various things happened, and with them the 'normal' > scarcity of funding started. Within a VERY short time followed a deep > decay in level of research. > > I also had the opportunity to discuss with one of the persons in charge > of the so called 'golden coller' department in the Finnish company > Nokia, which some you may know, before the stupendous success the > company later achieved. The principles were the same, except somewhat > less rational. They acted on a principle based on spending money on > individuals, based on decisions made in upper departments in the > hierachy. So they were just sloshing around money, irrationally. At the > institute I was a member, all decisions were discussed. But there was > no pressure to make them look like reasonable to the outside. > > One of my favorite quotes from that particular piece used to be the > metaphor by Peirce: Burning diamonds instead of coal to produce heat. > > Thanks again, > > Kirsti > > Kirsti M����tt��nen > <kirstima <at> saunalahti.fi> >
Dear Kirsti, If I understand your criticism that the social should not be excluded from the method of tenacity, you are saying that much research today goes on under Darwin-like survival of the fittest rules: research by tenacity in a competitive social milieu, individuals forced by the game to stick to their prior thought which gave them their success. It seems to me somewhat similar to the description of Isolato tenacity I gave. Are you saying that through the competitive social milieu, in pushing individuals into tenacity, the social is thereby ingredient in the method of tenacity? Or that methodically tenacious individuals, in aiming for competitive social success, thereby reveal the social within the method of tenacity? I'm not sure. It seems to me such individuals can be characterized as aiming for power through whatever means, and would fit the method of authority. I characterized it in my previus post as: "2 You believe what you are forced by social power to believe or can force on others to believe." By force here I would include social legitimation, the power politics of cliques, "peer reviews," etc., and not only police. Or maybe I should soften what I said in previous post to viewing the social as only indirectly involved in the method of tenacity? Tenacity seems to me to be about imposing one's way on experience. I am also familiar with the funding approach you describe, through some encounters with the MacArthur Foundation way back. I spent one evening with Jonas Salk and Rod MacArthur (shortly before he died), who were talking about the five year fellowships the foundation had started, with no applications or conditions. Salk described it as a way to develop something like intellectual "spore heads" that could have time to pursue their ideas unencumbered, then disseminate. About a year later I also got to play with Salk and some of his "spore heads" at another meeting, which involved a tour of the Art Institute in Chicago. We were in an Andy Warhol exhibit, a room of large silver floating balloons shaped like pillows. Salk and others, including me, laughing and bouncing balloons around, as though in an amusement park. What was this, the method of musement? -A "method," not of fixing belief, but of loosening it! Gene --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
