[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gene, Let me say first of all, that I meant to specifically reject that Hobbesonian notion of man in a state of nature, man as feral, and to affirm that the state of nature for the human is to be socialized and languagized. Looking back upon what I wrote, I think it must have been the sloppiness of those last two paragraphs below that gave that impression. I should have put feral in quotes, and it needed to be clearer that I thought the savage mind Levi-Strauss described as categorizing things in his environment in terms of usage, what they were good for, was merely the everyday mind of everyone everywhere. That strikes me as merely basic human pragmatics, and I don't think it's that far apart from what you and Csikszentmihalyi describe as the pragmatics of the everyday mind in _The Meaning of Things_. (I might want to put more of the latter's concept of flow into that universe of use, or action than he would; I'm not sure.) I don't see how that is antithetic to either an ecological orientation or being a sophisticated naturalist. Regarding my statement To be socialized means to be locked into belief systems based upon tenacity and authority, initially those you are born into, I'll stick with what I said. I don't have Sam Johnson's stone to kick, so perhaps I can simply say, Well, here we are! How do we escape? I don't see that anything I said implies society is an assembly line of human products. I am also perfectly comfortable with all you wrote regarding what it means to be fully human and the dangers of getting drunk on metaphors--especially the machine metaphor. (I grew up around those drunks in the early days of communication theory.) We are locked into a social order, but that, and communication, may be the condition of our freedom. To close: I much enjoyed _The Meaning of Things_. Bill Bailey Levi-Strauss argues that there is no real difference in terms of complexity between primitive and scientific thought; he found the primitive's categories and structurings in botany, for example, to be as complex as any western textbook might offer. The difference he found was that the primitive botany was based upon use--what plants were good for. I still think Levi-Strauss erred in being driven by the concerns of his day, possibly responding to developmentalists like Heinz Werner, and was out to prove primitives were not simple. But what he ended up describing as the primitive mind is the everyday mind of socialized people everywhere--habits of willful tenacity and authority. I don't accept the notion of man in a state of nature. What few studies/examples of feral children and social isolates there are suggest, unless rescued before puberty, they do not achieve normal human development. I don't know what laws there are governing the human mind, but whatever they are, they're largely social. To be socialized means to be locked into belief systems based upon tenacity and authority, initially those you are born into. These two social requisites of belief are perfectly capable of the most radical kinds of error and monstrosity. They have historically supported all sorts of superstition, tyranny, genocide--you name it--along with the heights of human achievement. end Bailey quotation Dear Bill, You describe Levi-Strausss claim that primitive can often match scientific knowledge in areas such as botany, though primitive is not disinterested. And how sometime later you acknowledged how scientists too are filling needs, have uses for their systems. So far Im with you. One might even state it differently: scientific naturalists can tend to be focalized exclusively on a research question, whereas hunter-gatherers can tend to view a particular question as an aspect of ecological mind. Jared Diamond gives a great example of ornithological field work in New Guinea where his focus on identifying a particular rare bird limited him from seeing it ecologically: his aboriginal guide had to show him how one version of the bird is found low in branches, the other in higher branches. Diamond was only looking at the bird itself, isolate. The question I would pose is: who was more scientific, the aboriginal or the focused Diamond? But your idea that man in a state of nature is feral, if I understand you, seems to me to be a basic misreading of the life of hunter- gathering through which we became human, as is your idea that the primitive mind is the everyday mind of socialized people everywhere. Im not a fan of Levi-Strausss way of boiling people down to his structural conception of mind. But the anthropological record reveals hunter-gatherer peoples typically to be highly sophisticated naturalists. Consider Paul Shepards words, from his book, Nature and Madness: Beneath the veneer of civilization, in the trite phrase of humanism, lies not the barbarian and the animal, but the human in us who knows what is right and necessary for becoming fully
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Gene, 28.9.2006 kello 07:59, Eugene Halton kirjoitti: 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. 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. On the main, yes, but this was not exactly what I had in mind. You wrote in your previous post: 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. It was the way you considered social to be excluded, and tenaciously held belief as something having nothing to do with others' beliefs, which I did not quite agree with. A belief, being a habit, is held as long as it works. And the reason it works - or does not work - may be mainly social, (also including others' beliefs). But it need not be authority. Individuals may not be forced (by authority) to stick to their beliefs, if it just works to do so. 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. Well, on second thoughts, I think one could say that the social is not essentially involved in the CONCEPT of the method of tenacity, although it is necessarily involved in using the method. But in the concept of the method of authority the social IS essentially involved, because authority presupposes two positions, being a dual relation, with one or more believers and at least one believed. This, I assume, is in agreement with your progressively broadening social conceptions, only taken from a different aspect. The you wrote: 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! Yes, the method of musement, absolutely! The question is, is it critically adopted, or just indulged in. (In analogy to using unlimited funds reasonably or just sloshing money around). In Neglegted Argument... Peirce recommends that about 5-10 % of one's working hours should be spent musing. No doubt this was based on some part of his over 20 000 cards about the size of a postcard, on which he wrote down e.g. detailed and methodical observations on his own experiences. I, for my part, have found out that about 10 -15% works out best. Anyway, the main point is that Peirce found it reasonable to use both kinds of methods, those of fixing AND those of loosening one's beliefs. With fixing, one should take critical approach in, with loosening, one should take it out. For the reason that one's beliefs get fixed by themselves, uncontrollably, so the question is are they critically fixed or not. All of them never can be at once (i.e. collectively), but some of them can, any time. On the other hand, one can deliberately choose to loosen one's ideas, if one has a method which works. Peirce recommends musement. Best, Kirsti Kirsti Määttänen [EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary: How Emersonian. As I said, I am too ignorant to make pronouncements on Peirce. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Peirce was a man of his times--and that he obviously spent too much time with Emerson's godson. :=) Should you find any Swedenborgian passages in Peirce, please don't tell me. If Peirce's ideal of scientific method parallels the bhodisattva ideal . . . well, so be it; oxymoron is the food of faith. Gary R wrote, in part: I thought perhaps that Gary had such a passages as this in mind when he suggested that there might be parallels between Peirce's ideal of scientific method and the Boddhisattva ideal: CP 1.673. . .. the supreme commandment of the Buddhisto-christian religion is, to generalize, to complete the whole system even until continuity results and the distinct individuals weld together. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, list,
In addition to the story of Genie, there's plenty of evidence in
developmental psychology that reasoning, and indeed language, is a
social phenomenon. I'd mention Vygotsky and Tomasello, but then i'd have
to leave out all the others.
I'm surprised to see this part of your message though:
[[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer
has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been
cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A
modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao
and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]]
So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History
does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an oriental
phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world.
[[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't
that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born,
and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]]
No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look
at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier
(2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley
Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his
life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience?
As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's
ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the
bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to
work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal
attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced
that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in
accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see
through the differences.
However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present
evidence to the contrary, by all means do so!
gary F.
}Set thy heart upon thy work, but never upon its reward. [Bhagavad-Gita
2:47]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
---
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. I'll respond as briefly as I can, and we can proceed through personal e-mails if you like. First, an agreement: if you abstract all particularity--an example would be Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy--then, yes, most of the world's religious world views look somewhat alike. They all encourage us to get our egos out of the way to serve the Absolute, whether God or Brahma. But I suggest when you get down into the trenches, into the details where the devil lurks, the differences do matter. If you really believe that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see through the differences, in spite of all that has been written to the contrary by both eastern and western scholars, I doubt that anything I say will change your view. To deny what I said of the Bhagavad Gita, you have to deny what is written there. I've seen Ghandi's commentary, and whether he liked the Gita or not is irrelevant. He, in fact, treated the Mahabharata War as allegorical. But would he assert that the principle of selfless action as illustrated is wrong? If a real Arjuna argued with a real Krishna that killing all those people was unthinkably wrong, should he go with his ego rather than with god-defined dharma? Even as allegory, my point remains: Arjuna was not the author of the deaths of his kinsmen and others on the battle field, and had no responsibility for his actions. There was no him or his. That is all maya, an illusion of ego. How can there be personal responsibility in selfless action? But Ghandi's life provides a good illustration of the difference between East and West. Imagine the difference in outcome of his passive resistance had he not been dealing with the British but with an Arjuna of his own religion. Was Ghandi deficient in conscience? If he had one, yes. Arjuna had a conscience, and that was his problem. Conscience is a western ego-thing. Dharma knows no conscience. I should add, I don't think religion defines a culture. Ego is a human phenomenon; after all, eastern wisdom literature wasn't aimed at westerners, but at its own people. Enlightenment is probably as rare in the East as saints are in the West. But as ideals, different religions make great cultural differences. One of the most persistent mistakes the West makes in foreign relations is the pigs is pigs fallacy: people are people. I don't think there are any easy moral equivalencies to be made between traditional East and West. Obviously as secularization and western-style industrialization of the East proceeds (rapidly), the differences shrink. In my own views, I'm probably more Taoist than anything else, and I certainly don't think western culture is the Way to go. On the other hand, I think it is the western view of the individual life as valuable and to be nurtured in self actualization rather than exploited by the state that has given rise to the idea of human/civil rights/liberties that was not present in the traditional Orient. Bill Gary F wrote, in part: Bill, list, I'm surprised to see this part of your message though: [[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]] So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an oriental phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world. [[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]] No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier (2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience? As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see through the differences. However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present evidence to the contrary,
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill and Gary, Bill Bailey wrote: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. However, Gary's comment that he sees a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism suggests that there may indeed be reasons for continuing this discussion here. In any event, it has been a most interesting discussion so far with excellent points made by both of you. As it stands it feels to me to be something of a draw. So I hope you will both consider continuing your discussion here (you might try changing the Subject of the thread if you do). Gary R. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Gary R. The bhodisattva relinquishes escape from the great wheel of death and birth and union with the Absolute to help others achieve enlightenment. Thus the bhodisattva is reborn again and again into the world of suffering with no reward except doing the work. About the only western equivalent I can think of is a Christian refusing at death to go to heaven so long as there lost souls in Hell, and going to Hell to save them. Such selflessness is probably beyond most westerners unless they become a Buddhist monk or priest, preferably at an early age. And if they became bhodisattvas, we'd never know; the existence of such persons is an article of faith. From what I've read, Peirce doesn't strike me as being of the bhodisattva temperament, but I'm a long way from making competent pronouncements about Peirce. I think the appropriate thing for the list is for Gary F to elaborate on the close parallels he finds between Peirce's ideal of scientific method and the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. As you point out, that is very much on topic. Bill Bailey Bill and Gary, Bill Bailey wrote: This is not the venue for debating the similarities and contrasts between traditional Occident and Orient. However, Gary's comment that he sees a close parallel to Peirce's ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism suggests that there may indeed be reasons for continuing this discussion here. In any event, it has been a most interesting discussion so far with excellent points made by both of you. As it stands it feels to me to be something of a draw. So I hope you will both consider continuing your discussion here (you might try changing the Subject of the thread if you do). Gary R. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.407 / Virus Database: 268.12.10/459 - Release Date: 9/29/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Joe, I agree with your characterization of the scientific method as including the distinctive elements of the other three. You have clarified the issue in a way that is very helpful to me. I agree as well thattakenindividually each of the lst three methods(tenacity, authority and reason) can lead to disaster. So, without going into all the details let me just sum up by saying I agree with you and that includes your cautions aboutmy misleading metaphors, etc. Thanks for two very helpful posts. Picking up onyour suggestion of a possible hierachical relationship between the methods I have been thinking about some of their possible connections with Peirce's categories. Again, my ideas on this are vague and meant only to be suggestive and I look forward to your thoughts. First, very roughly, it strikes me that iconicity is the crux of directapprehension of reality. In essence perceptionis the process by which one becomesimpressed with (or attunded to)the form of reality. In effect a kind of resonance is established by which subject and environment become similar. This I think accounts for the conviction we all have that in some fundamental way what we perceive "is" the case -- which Ithink is in part the explanation for the method of tenacity. Second is the notion of otherness or dissimilarity. The existance of resistance which we experience as the will of others or as the limits of our own wills. Third is the notion of thought or reason bywhich one is able to mediate between these two modes of existence. Unfortunately, as you point out,one canget lost in thought (or without it) andthus weare best served not by some form of degenerate representation (minimizing either the iconic, indexical --or mediativecomponent) but bya full blown common sense form ofreasoning or inquiry that has been formalized as the scientific method. So, to recap -- method one is a form of overly iconic settlement, method two a over-reaction in the direction of excessively referentiallysettlement, and method three an overlyrationalistic form of settlement at the expense ofthe other two. I think that Peirce did not intend that we take the lst three methods as examples of belieffixationwhichfolks actually employ in their pure form. By itself each method is not aexample of symbolic or representational thought but of something more akin toa degenerative form of representation. So, I thinkPeirce intended them asexaggerationsin order to illustrate degenerative ways ofrepresentation and inaequate ways of belief fixation or settlement of doubt. What he did wasto describe the three modes of being involved in representation (the fourth method) as isolated forms of belief settlement. The result of course was a bit of a stretch or caricature of the degenerative ways in which we distort common sense in the settlement of our doubts. Because we are in fact symbols using symbols we can in theory come up with all sorts of false possiblities -- which is part of what makes thinking about thinking so difficult. Even erroneous thinking or representation involves representation. Sometimes we build sand castles in the air and pretendwe are on the beach pretending the waves will never come. Again, just some vague notions --I can't help but feel that in the case of Peirce his categories areproperly and consistently the foundation of allhe says. Jim Piat --- Joe wrote: "But I would disagree with this part of what you say, Jim. Considered simply as methods in their own rights, I don't think one wants to speak of them as being incorporated AS methods within the fourth method. As a methodic approach to answering questions the method of tenacity is surely just a kind of stupidity, and it seems to me that the turn to authority, not qualified by any further considerations -- such as, say, doing so because there is some reason to think that the authority is actually in a better position to know than one is -- apart, I say, from that sort of qualification, the turn to authority as one's method seems little more intelligent than the method of tenacity, regarded in a simplistic way. The third method, supposing that it is understood as the acceptance of something because it ties in with -- coheres with -- a system of ideas already accepted, does seem more intelligent because it is based on the properties of ideas, which is surely more sophisticated than acceptance which is oblivious of considerations of coherence. But it is also the method of the paranoid, who might reasonably be said to be unintelligent to a dangerous degree at times. But I think that what you say in your other message doesn't commit you to regarding the methods themselves as "building blocks", which is a mistaken metaphor here. It is rather that what each of them respectively appeals to is indeed something to which the fourth method appeals: the value of self-identity, the value of identification (suitably
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Bill, As always I enjoyed your straightforward, informative and wise comments.You have a way of keeping my feet on the ground without destroying the fun of having my head in the clouds(to pick one of the nicer places I've been accused ofhaving my head).I hope I did not create the impression that I devalued any of the methods of fixing belief that Peirce described. I don't think he intended to devalue them either. Nor did I mean to put science on a pedestal.Not that it needs any commendation from me. I think science isa formalization ofthe method of common sense which (to borrow Joe's apt description) includes the distinctiveelements ofeach method.I believe that common sense is the way all humans in all cultureshave at all times represented and participated in theworld. We are all symbolic creatures and we all feel, will, andinterpretthe world with symbols whether wecall one another primitive or advanced.I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings. A form with no feeling is a phantom, an other with no resistence does not exist and thought that does not mediate is empty verbiage. The danger arises out of our ability tomisrepresent. We are all fundmentally alike and cut from the same cloth.LOL--I'm of a mind to go off on a swoon about the commonality of humanity but I fear getting called on givingfacile lip service to something I don't practice. Oh, the feral children. Hell, I don't even believe the accounts. Well I should say I don't believe the labels. Most of them sound to me like accounts of severely retarded children who have been hidden away by families. Countless severely retarded children have grown up in relatively caring institutions with the same outcome. But I agree with your point, IF a child could survive past a weekalone in the woodsor a closet, the childstill would not develop language etc -- It's the preposterous IFthat makes me dismiss these as crack pot accounts that have somehow emerged from the tabloids for 15mins of manistream press. And occassionally the attention of some devoted researcherwho ends up wanting toadopt the child.But I don't mean to be cruel. Fact is, I don't know the detailed facts of any of these cases.And I digress --- unaccustomed as I am to public digressions Best wishes, Jim Piat - Original Message - From: Bill Bailey To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 2:42 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Jim, Joe, List: This discussion brought to mind the comparison by Claud Levi-Strauss of "primitive" thought and that of western science. I think the discussion is in The Savage Mind. Levi-Strauss argues that there is no real difference in terms of complexity between "primitive" and scientific thought; he found the primitive's categories and structurings in botany, for example, to be as complex as any western textbook might offer. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Jim, I'd be the first to characterize the reports on the feral children as "iffy." But have you read the account of "Genie"? She was aCalifornia child who was kept in isolation in an upstairs room, strapped for hour to a potty (whether I spell it with a "Y" or an "IE," it doesn't look right)chair because her father was ashamed of her because of some deficit he assigned to her hip. I was fortunate enough to be in Arizona whenthe World Health Organization had its conventionthere, and it featured an earlyreport on Genieby the psychologist who was also a foster-family member for her. There followed a book by the language therapist, Susan Curtiss,who worked with Genie. As I recall, it was titledGenie. The professionals describing Genie's behavior and progress--or lack of it--are remarkably similar to the lay reports of "feral" children. I think there is a time frame for language learning. As for your post, it wasn't my intention to provide any form of corrective; I'm not competent to do that. I was simply noting my response to the discussion andsaying that Peirce's "laws" made sense to me. However, I will question this statement in your response: "I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings." One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where lifehashistorically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humansnearly routine. A modern example is Maoistpurges and the rape and pillage ofTibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. I would argue that it is the traditional value of the autonomous individual by the western world which causes us angst over an atrocity that would not raise an eyebrow even today in some "all is one" parts of the world.Where all is one, no aspect of the whole is of much consequence. For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita?So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. Bill Bailey - Original Message - From: Jim Piat To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, September 29, 2006 5:25 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Dear Bill, As always I enjoyed your straightforward, informative and wise comments.You have a way of keeping my feet on the ground without destroying the fun of having my head in the clouds(to pick one of the nicer places I've been accused ofhaving my head).I hope I did not create the impression that I devalued any of the methods of fixing belief that Peirce described. I don't think he intended to devalue them either. Nor did I mean to put science on a pedestal.Not that it needs any commendation from me. I think science isa formalization ofthe method of common sense which (to borrow Joe's apt description) includes the distinctiveelements ofeach method.I believe that common sense is the way all humans in all cultureshave at all times represented and participated in theworld. We are all symbolic creatures and we all feel, will, andinterpretthe world with symbols whether wecall one another primitive or advanced.I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings. A form with no feeling is a phantom, an other with no resistence does not exist and thought that does not mediate is empty verbiage. The danger arises out of our ability tomisrepresent. We are all fundmentally alike and cut from the same cloth.LOL--I'm of a mind to go off on a swoon about the commonality of humanity but I fear getting called on givingfacile lip service to something I don't practice. Oh, the feral children. Hell, I don't even believe the accounts. Well I should say I don't believe the labels. Most of them sound to me like accounts of severely retarded children who have been hidden away by families. Countless severely retarded children have grown up in relatively caring institutions with the same outcome. But I agree with your point, IF a child could survive past a weekalone in the woodsor a closet, the childstill would not develop language etc -- It's the preposterous IFthat makes me dismiss these as crack pot accounts that have somehow emerged from the tabloids for 15mins of manistream press. And occassionally the attention of some devoted researcherwho ends up wanting toadopt the child.But I don't mean to be cruel. Fact is, I don't know the detailed facts of any of these cases.And I digress --- unacc
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, I included some comments in the middle -- Jim, I'd be the first to characterize the reports on the feral children as "iffy." But have you read the account of "Genie"? She was aCalifornia child who was kept in isolation in an upstairs room, strapped for hour to a potty (whether I spell it with a "Y" or an "IE," it doesn't look right)chair because her father was ashamed of her because of some deficit he assigned to her hip. I was fortunate enough to be in Arizona whenthe World Health Organization had its conventionthere, and it featured an earlyreport on Genieby the psychologist who was also a foster-family member for her. There followed a book by the language therapist, Susan Curtiss,who worked with Genie. As I recall, it was titledGenie. The professionals describing Genie's behavior and progress--or lack of it--are remarkably similar to the lay reports of "feral" children. I think there is a time frame for language learning. --- Dear Bill, I think you are probably right about there being a critical period for the acquisition of language. And I appologize for the flip tone of my comments onimpaired children and those who care about them. Everyone is precious and I admire those whoare devoted to helpingothers. Even while being a bit of a self centered SOB myself. I think you are also rightabout the dangers of a world view that doesn't repect the individual. However I'm not convinced that a high regard for what we all have in common (or mostly in common),is to blame forMao's or Hitler's horrific conduct. I think these folks suffered from a degenerate form of respect for the individual -- the only individuals they respectedwere themselves and to a lesser degree those others in whom they saw a reflection of themselves. I think they lacked a respect for humanity in general as well as for most other individuals.I think both the individual and the group are worthy of respect. We are individuals and members of a species. Neither aspect of us can survive without the other. I think I my earlier post was unbalanced. I just reread your comments below. I don't think preaching humility equates with condoning murder. Or that non westerners lack a concern for individual suffering. I think the key to peaceful relationsis respect for others -- individually and collectively. Westerner and non westerner alike. Still, to conclude on a balanced note -- I agree that I went too far in the direction of stressing our commonality in my last post. And that your comments here are awelcome corrective (intended as such or not). Thanks Bill for another interesting informative and fun post. Jim Piat As for your post, it wasn't my intention to provide any form of corrective; I'm not competent to do that. I was simply noting my response to the discussion andsaying that Peirce's "laws" made sense to me. However, I will question this statement in your response: "I attribute the sometimes horrors we do not to common sense but to a degenerate formofrepresentation that tries to treat therelational symbolic world as comprised of discrete unrelatedthings." One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer has been the traditional Orient, where lifehashistorically been cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humansnearly routine. A modern example is Maoistpurges and the rape and pillage ofTibet. Mao and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. I would argue that it is the traditional value of the autonomous individual by the western world which causes us angst over an atrocity that would not raise an eyebrow even today in some "all is one" parts of the world.Where all is one, no aspect of the whole is of much consequence. For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't that the message of the Bhagavad Gita?So kill away, oh nobly born, and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. Bill Bailey --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Joe, What you say below is all very interesting to me. I hope you do give another go at writing up how lst three methodsexemplify some of the major ways in which our problem solving goes astray. I think the three methods (while each having an attractive virtue) if used exclusively or even in some sort of mechanistic combination often cause more problems then they solve. They are pseudo solutions to lifes problems because each denies some fundamental aspect of reality -- either the self , the other or what mediates between the two. Or to put it another way -- feeling, will, or thought. In anycase you seem to be in an inspired mood and I hope you press on. Just now for example the whole country seems at a loss for what to do about the Mid East. I wonder how the approach you are thinking about might be applied intrying to solveproblems on that scale as well as in analyzing the problems of our individual lives. And not just interpersonal problems, the problems weface with our enviroment as well. Best wishes, Jim Piat - Original Message - I think we may be getting close to the rationale of the four methods with what you say below, Jim. I've not run across anything that Peirce says that seems to me to suggest that he actually did work out his account of the methods by thinking in terms of the categories, but it seems likely that he would nevertheless tend to do so, even if unconsciously, given the importance he attached to them from the beginning: they are present in the background of his thinking even in the very early writings where he is thinking of them in terms of the first, second, and third persons of verb conjugation (the second person -- the "you" -- of the conjugation becomes the third categorial element). But whether he actually worked it out on that basis, the philosophically important question is whether it is philosophically helpful to try to understand the four methods by supposing that the first three correspond to the categories regarded in isolation and the fourth can be understood as constructed conceptually by combining the three methods consistent with their presuppositional ordering. That remains to be seen. In other words, I do think we can read these factors into his account in that way, and this could be pedagogically useful in working with the method in a pedagogical context in particular, but it is a further question whether that will turn out to be helpful in developing his thinking further in a theoretical way. It certainly seems to be worth trying, though. If the overall improvement of thinking in our practical life seems not to have improved much from what it was in antiquity, when compared with the radical difference in the effectiveness of our thinking in those areas in which the fourth method has been successfully cultivated, it may be because we have failed to pay attention to the way we handle our problems when we take recourse to one and another of the other three methods, as we are constantly doing without paying any attention to it. I started to write up something on this but it quickly got out of hand and I had best break off temporarily and return to that later. I will just say that it has to do with the possibility of developing the theory of the four methods as a basis for a practical logic -- or at least a practical critical theory -- of the sort that could be used to teach people how to be more intelligent in all aspects of life, including political life -- and I will even venture to say, in religious life: two areas in which intelligence seems currently to be conspicuously -- and dangerously -- absent. One potentiality that Peirce's philosophy has that is not present in the philosophy and logic currently dominating in academia lies in the fact that he conceived logic in such a way that rhetoric -- the theory of persuasion -- can be reintroduced within philosophy as a theoretical discipline with practical application in the service of truth. One can expect nothing of the sort from a philosophy that has nothing to say about persuasion. Joe Ransdell[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Folks, I notice that Peirces lst three methods of fixing believe are part of the fourth or scientific method.Science is basically a method that gathers multiplebeliefs and combines them with reason to produce warranted belief. Individual belief (without resort to any authority other than oneself) is the method of tenacity -- I belief X because it is believable to me. When individual beliefs are combined the authority of others is introduced as a basis for belief. When these multiple beliefs (or one's individual beliefs) are combined in some reasonsed or logical way (for example taking their average) then one has has achieved the a priori or method of taste. Finally if one bases all beliefs not merely on unexamined conviction but instead relies on observation of events -- and combines multiple such observational beliefs in a reasoned way, the method of science has been achieved. Inother wordsthe three issues being juggledas a basis for belief are (1) single vs multiple beliefs (2) observation vs spontaneous conviction (3) reasoned vs unreasoned combining of beliefs. I haven't said this well but what I'm trying to get at is that the scientific method relies on multiple observation combined in a reasoned way. And this method incorporates all the essential aspect of each of the three prior methods. Science rests ultimately on combined unwarranted beliefs of individuals. At some point there must be an observation taken as face valid and this is the core of the individual observation. We know however that individual observations are inadequate because they only include one POV. So we combine multiple individual observations. I say observation, butthe term observationis just a way of directing individual beliefs to a common focus. The reasoned part of the scientific method has to do with the manner in which beliefs or observations are combined. Basically this is the logic of statistics. The simplest example being taking an average. I notice too that Peirce's discussion of knowledge provided by Joe touches on some of these same issues. BTW I don't mean for my sketchy account to be definitive -- just suggestive. So in conclusion I would say the FOB paperdescribes thethe components of the scientific method -- mulitple,individual observations or beliefs comined in a reasoned way. The basic foundation of all individual beliefs or observation is a kind of unexamined individualrealism takenat face value (tenacity).Countered bythe beliefs of others (based on the same tenacity) provides the method of authority. Combining these beliefs in a reasoned way adds the third "a priori" method. And finally insisting that these combined three methods focus on the same question introduces the notion of objectivity vs subjectivitywhich completes the elements of the scientific method for fixing belief. Sorry for the repitition. Don't have time just now to clean this up but wanted toput my two cents in the discussion. Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Dear Folks, Part of what I'm trying to say is that its not as though the scientific method were an entirely independent alternative to the other three methods. On the contrary the scientific method is built upon and incorporates the other three methods. The lst threeare not discredited methods they are the building blocks of the scienfic method. What gives sciences its power is that in combining the three methods (plus the emphasis upon observation -- which can or can not be part of the method of tenacity)it gives a more reliable basis for belief than any of the other three methods alone. But as for one and two -- yes I'd say they are the basis of the whole structure. Tenacity and authority can both include reason and observation. So if we include reason and observation in the lst two then we have all the elements of the scientific method. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
is type which is clearly distinguishable from, say, a review article or some other type of paper that plays an important role in the whole of the communicational practices in a given field. This is something which became clear to me in virtue of studying the actual practices in publication in physics when I learned of the controversy about the automated publication system devised by Paul Ginsparg at Los Alamos (Ginsparg is now at Cornell), which I have discussed here and of which you can find an account -- now in need of update -- in my paper on "The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation" http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/ia.htm (It is also available on-line as published on the SEED website.) I like to use the phrase "This is where the rubber meets the road" in research in characterizing the role of the primary publication, i.e. the place where the experience of the reality of the subject-matter is brought to bear on the ideational content of the research field. Research fields in which the empirical reference of the theoretical ideas being worked with has yet to be well-established will not have an easily distinguishable class of distinctively primary publications. In correlating this with what you say, Jim, I suggest that you get momentarily off the track of what you say otherwise when you say: "In other words the three issues being juggled as a basis for belief are (1) single vs. multiple beliefs (2) observation vs. spontaneous conviction (3) reasoned vs. unreasoned combining of beliefs." Apart from that, it seems to me that we are talking about the same things, distinguishing the same factors, except that I use the publication of the resulting research claim as the place in the process where these factors show up as essential aspects of the claim made. Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message ----From: Jim Piat [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:45:17 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to? Dear Folks, I notice that Peirces lst three methods of fixing believe are part of the fourth or scientific method.Science is basically a method that gathers multiplebeliefs and combines them with reason to produce warranted belief. Individual belief (without resort to any authority other than oneself) is the method of tenacity -- I belief X because it is believable to me. When individual beliefs are combined the authority of others is introduced as a basis for belief. When these multiple beliefs (or one's individual beliefs) are combined in some reasonsed or logical way (for example taking their average) then one has has achieved the a priori or method of taste. Finally if one bases all beliefs not merely on unexamined conviction but instead relies on observation of events -- and combines multiple such observational beliefs in a reasoned way, the method of science has been achieved. Inother wordsthe three issues being juggledas a basis for belief are (1) single vs multiple beliefs (2) observation vs spontaneous conviction (3) reasoned vs unreasoned combining of beliefs. I haven't said this well but what I'm trying to get at is that the scientific method relies on multiple observation combined in a reasoned way. And this method incorporates all the essential aspect of each of the three prior methods. Science rests ultimately on combined unwarranted beliefs of individuals. At some point there must be an observation taken as face valid and this is the core of the individual observation. We know however that individual observations are inadequate because they only include one POV. So we combine multiple individual observations. I say observation, butthe term observationis just a way of directing individual beliefs to a common focus. The reasoned part of the scientific method has to do with the manner in which beliefs or observations are combined. Basically this is the logic of statistics. The simplest example being taking an average. I notice too that Peirce's discussion of knowledge provided by Joe touches on some of these same issues. BTW I don't mean for my sketchy account to be definitive -- just suggestive. So in conclusion I would say the FOB paperdescribes thethe components of the scientific method -- mulitple,individual observations or beliefs comined in a reasoned way. The basic foundation of all individual beliefs or observation is a kind of unexamined individualrealism takenat face value (tenacity).Countered bythe beliefs of others (based on the same tenacity) provides the method of authority. Combining these beliefs in a reasoned way adds the third "a priori" method. And finally insisting that these combined three methods focus on the same question introduces the notion of objectivity vs subjectivitywhic
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
But I would disagree with this part of what you say, Jim. Considered simply as methods in their own rights, I don't think one wants to speak of them as being incorporated AS methods within the fourth method. As a methodic approach to answering questions the method of tenacity is surely just a kind of stupidity, and it seems to me that the turn to authority, not qualified by any further considerations -- such as, say, doing so because there is some reason to think that the authority is actually in a better position to know than one is -- apart, I say, from that sort of qualification, the turn to authority as one's method seems little more intelligent than the method of tenacity, regarded in a simplistic way. The third method, supposing that it is understood as the acceptance of something because it ties in with -- coheres with -- a system of ideas already accepted, does seem more intelligent because it is based on the properties of ideas, which is surely more sophisticated than acceptance which is oblivious of considerations of coherence. But it is also the method of the paranoid, who might reasonably be said to be unintelligent to a dangerous degree at times. But I think that what you say in your other message doesn't commit you to regarding the methods themselves as "building blocks", which is a mistaken metaphor here. It is rather that what each of them respectively appeals to is indeed something to which the fourth method appeals: the value of self-identity, the value of identification (suitably qualified) with others. the value of recognition of a universe -- all of which are redeemed as valuable in the fourth method by the addition of the appeal to the force majeure of the real given the right sort of conditions, i.e. objectiviy. Joe [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ - Original Message From: Jim Piat [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Peirce Discussion Forum peirce-l@lyris.ttu.eduSent: Thursday, September 28, 2006 3:56:39 AMSubject: [peirce-l] Re: What "fundamental psychological laws" is Peirce referring to?Dear Folks,Part of what I'm trying to say is that its not as though the scientific method were an entirely independent alternative to the other three methods. On the contrary the scientific method is built upon and incorporates the other three methods. The lst threeare not discredited methods they are the building blocks of the scienfic method. What gives sciences its power is that in combining the three methods (plus the emphasis upon observation -- which can or can not be part of the method of tenacity)it gives a more reliable basis for belief than any of the other three methods alone. But as for one and two -- yes I'd say they are the basis of the whole structure. Tenacity and authority can both include reason and observation. So if we include reason and observation in the lst two then we have all the elements of the scientific method. --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Kirsti Mtt��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 Mtt��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
