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But for the moment I would myself prefer to stick with further
leisurely musement about the four methods of the Fixation article, and I don't
think your thesis works for that. Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear Joe,
Thanks for those comments. I think you
and Jim Willgoose are right about the shortcoming of my "averaging"
approach. I'm still intrigued with the idea of looking for helpful
parallels between Peirce's methods and categories. The idea for example
that tenacity is related to an overemphasis upon the iconic felt component of
experience, authority to will, and the a priora to rationation. With
the fourth perhaps representing a proper balance or non-degenerative
triadic relating of the lst three. Thinking along these lines suggests to
me some ways of understanding icons, indexes and symbols that I
had previously overlooked. The idea for example that the icon is
the mode by which feelings are elicited, the reaction the mode by
which will is expressed, rationatic the grammar of representation
and science, common sense and the like examples of fully triadic
representation as manifested in social activity. So just
thinking about the fixation paper along these lines has been helpful
and fun for me. I've also profited from the attempts to clarify the
notion of a psychological law and in what sense the methods can be
understood as such.
I agree, most of my stuff about "averages" hasn't
proven very useful. So be it. Much still to discuss and many
interesting ideas still on the table. It's fun to return to a topic
after discussing some new topic -- often discussion of the new
topic provides fresh insights that can be applied to the old topic.
So I like it when we periodically revisit old discussions.
Thanks again,
Jim Piat
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Original Message ---- From: Joseph Ransdell
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Peirce Discussion Forum
<peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2006 10:10:02
PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What
Jim: I
think your thesis about the truth being the average, in the sense you
describe, is an instance of a partial truth in that it probably does
work for some class of truths, but it really only applies to those in which
the diversity of opinion is opinion based upon observation. The first
three methods, though, are not about opinions arrived at by observation.
Indeed, the third is conspicuously not composed of any opinions arrived at by
observation, .The second could at mos be construed as being about observation
in the case where the authority arrived at the opinion that way; but the
person who adopts the method of authority is, insofar, NOT basing his or her
opinion on observation. And as regards the first, the only observation
the tenacious thinker is making is about his or her own feelings, but the
opinion adopted is not about his or her own feelings of conviction. So
you are at best right only about some cases of settlement by the fourth
method. But even there I do not recognize in it the formal structure of
the fourth method itself. I think you start to go wrong when you
say that
"Each of the three
methods for fixing belief is valid in so far as it goes".
"Valid" must mean "valid as a way of getting truth", but there is simply no
basis for saying that, so far as I can see. One CAN say that any of the
four methods can yield a truth, and one can perhaps make a case for saying
that there may be describable classes of cases where the conviction yielded by
this or that non-fourth method is a better way of getting truth than the
attempt to use the fourth method would be. When I taught using this paper,
usually in intro classes, I regularly assigned the students the task of
considering various kinds of cases where we form opinions about something and
then making a case for the method they thought most reliable, by and large,
for getting at the truth about the matter in this case and that.. I
uuually just cited such sorts of cases as those where we are arriving at
ethical opinions, at esthetic opinions, religious ones, poliical, scientific
(when we are oot ourselves scientists), opinions about wha other people are
like, opinions about ourselves, and so on. And I often got very
interesting and plausible claims made about the value of this and that
non-fourth method.. But none of that srrengthens your view.
On the
other hand, I think that, as regards cases where indeed
observation is involved, there may be a generalization to be drawn
along the lines you suggest/ Since it does not appear to require all of
the elements of the foruth method, thouoh, it looks to me like it might
actually be a fifth method. So it was a thesis well worth trying out, at
the very least.
Joe
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Original Message ---- From: Jim Piat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To:
Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> Sent: Thursday,
October 5, 2006 6:14:05 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What
Dear Jim Willgoose,
Opps, I goofed. I think you are
right. In an earlier version of my post I had included the
possibility that in an open system new energy, information and possibilities
were being added (or taken away) that would change the mean of the system and
thus account for evolution of the mean (and why variation about the mean is so
important and included in nature's plan).
Otherwise, yes, the average represents the "least
total error" of a distribution and moreover is in some ways an abstract
"fiction" as for example the average family size of 2.3
people. Still, as long as we are dealing with
generalization about multiple observations that in reality vary
about a mean (and I can't think of any actual observations that don't)
then the mean remains the characterization of the group of observations
that produces the least total difference from all the other observation
comprising the data set. And what is our notion of truth if not the
example with the least error?
Along with Peirce, and statistical measurement
theory, I think of every observation as containing a combination some
universal truth and individual error. The average of a distribution of
observations contains the least percentage of individual error because that is
what the math of achieving the average produces. The "truth" of a whole
distribution is the distribution itself. The least erroneous
generalization about the distribution is its average. I don't think
truth lies outside the data. I take the view that every method,
observation or imaginable thing contains some truth but only a part of the
truth along with individual error. Each of the three methods for fixing
belief is valid in so far as it goes (and of course as examples of
themselves perfectly true). So I would describe them as producing
partial truths. All observation are individual matters.
But idividual observations are wrong in so far as they lack
the validity that only multiple individual POVs can provide.
The whole truth requires simultaneous observations from multiple POVs
which can only be achieved through the existence of others. And the
multiple observations must be combined rationally (as for example the simple
average) in order to cancel rather than multiply or add error. All of
this multiple POV business being required because the universe extends in
both space and time and there is no way any individual can achieve a POV from
which to grasp its totality.
As to the flat earth example -- I'd say "the
world is flat" was not so much a wrong conclusion as it was an only
partially true conclusion. For the purpose of most local everyday
walking distances (the main mode of transportation at the time the view was
popular, though never universally accepted) the idea that the earth was a
bumpy (hills and valleys) flat surface was effectively true. Granted,
as we expand our horizons and the distribution of observation to include
previously excepted outliers the mean shifts accordingly. An error
you have correctly noted in my account. I incorrectly spoke as if
my world were the whole world and we all lived in a locally closed and fixed
system. A common false assumption of the tenaciously
narrow minded such as myself.
BTW some empirical studies of cultural ideals of human
facial beauty point to the conclusion that the population average (based upon
actual measurements of facial features) is the most favored. This seems
to tie in with Peirce's suggestion (as it survives my personal filter)
that aesthetics is the basis for ethics and ethics for truth.
And yes -- in the final analysis all of what I've
proposed is not only old hat but so limited in its generality as to be little
more than a crank opinion. I realize this. Yet for
me individually pluralism has been a big part of
my small personal conception of how truth is
approached. So I appreciate your taking the time to comment, Jim.
Your helpful suggestions have, I believe, already brought me a bit closer
to courtroom ideal of "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth". I've been learning a little about the history of common law
recently . In a way the common law system with its constant honing
and development based upon reason and evidence has produced a quasi scientific
body of knowledge about human behavior that is in my view every bit the equal
or superior of that produced by other social
science approaches. A psychologist who wants to understand
interpersonal relations and our society at large could do worse than
to study contract and property law.
Best wishes and thanks,
Jim Piat
Jim Wilgoose wrote:
Interesting. But if all the scientist did was "average" three defective
modes of inquiry, wouldn't we be stuck with the "least total error," yet an
error nevertheless? We would have all agreed that the earth is flat, Euclidean
geometry is the true physical geometry, a part can never be greater than the
whole and so forth. The other methods are experimentally defective. Even if
the average was taken just from within the scientific community, are there not
numerous examples of "leaps" in knowledge occurring by virtue of the beliefs
held out along the fringes of the distribution?
Jim W
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