Jack, list, In my previous note, I said that the differences between Kant & Peirce can be explained by the huge development of science between the mid 18th c (Kant) and the late 19th c (Peirce). But I realize that quotations are important to pad out a publication. At the end are some quotations I received in an offline note from someone who preferred not to get involved with the debate.
After those quotations, I copied excerpts from my previous note, which I believe are justified by what Peirce wrote. But he emphasized that with his "left-handed brain", he did not think in words. As he said in CP 5.18, the meaning of every theoretical judgment expressible in the indicative mood lies in a conditional sentence in the imperative mood. I also want to emphasize the importance of his correspondence with Lady Welby. In 1903, he adopted the word 'phenomenology' from Kant in an abstract discussion. But in 1904-5, he switched to a more concrete phaneroscopy after beginning his correspondence with LW and her significs. That's yet another reason why using quotations to support an argument can be misleading, especially when they're taken from different MSS at different dates. John __________________________ Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premisses which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected. [CP 5.265, c. 1868] Supposing matter to be but mind under the slavery of inveterate habit, the law of mind still applies to it. According to that law, consciousness subsides as habit becomes established, and is excited again at the breaking up of habit. But the highest quality of mind involves a great readiness to take habits, and a great readiness to lose them. [CP 6.613, 1893] Abduction furnishes all our ideas concerning real things, beyond what are given in perception, but is mere conjecture, without probative force. Deduction is certain but relates only to ideal objects. Induction gives us the only approach to certainty concerning the real that we can have. In forty years diligent study of arguments, I have never found one which did not consist of those elements. The successes of modern science ought to convince us that induction is the only capable imperator of truth-seeking. Now pragmaticism is simply the doctrine that the inductive method is the only essential to the ascertainment of the intellectual purport of any symbol. [CP 8.209, c.1905] "Pragmatism is the principle that every theoretical judgment expressible in a sentence in the indicative mood is a confused form of thought whose only meaning, if it has any, lies in its tendency to enforce a corresponding practical maxim expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood" [CP 5.18, 1903] ---------------------------------------------- But when I said that the details are not important, I meant the tons of quotations. You won't discover why Kant and Peirce disagreed about the noumenon just by reading what they wrote -- or any commentary by any scholar of either or both. You need to read their biographies, and the history of their time.. Kant was an excellent theoretician who had studied, taught, developed, and published important theoretical work about Newtonian mechanics. But the science of his day was limited. Benjamin Franklin had just discovered the nature of lightening by flying a kite. Chemistry was just beginning to creep out of alchemy. There was no concept of chemical elements. No steam engines. The only horse power came from horses. But when Peirce was just 8 years old, his father taught him chemistry and gave him exercises in analyzing mixtures to determine what chemical compounds were present. Those exercises were and still are college-level tests. Furthermore, Peirce traveled the world measuring gravity -- and doing the math to determine how to design better equipment for the purpose. He even recommended the use of a wavelength of light as a unit of measure for the pendulums he used. He not only recommended that -- he even designed the equipment for doing those very precise measurements, That is an immense difference in the state of science in just a century. That is a fact that you won't find by reading Peirce or Kant or any scholar who writes commentary about their writings. That is why Kant was pessimistic about learning the nature of the Ding an sich, and Peirce was optimistic that someday any currently unknown facts would (might?) eventually be discovered. Peirce had great faith in the progress of science -- but he realized that it might take much more than one or two centuries to discover the minutest details. His three guiding principles: The First Rule of Reason, Fallibilism, and no limit to the amount of time that may be required. Most authors who comment on Peirce mention those three principles. But they don't apply them to questions about the unknown or unknowable Ding an sich.
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