Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[John F Sowa]

Jeff,

There seem to be quite a few people who are interested in discussing 
applications of Peirce's logic and philosophy to current issues.  That was 
certainly a hot topic in the various Peirce -ennials.

I believe that it would be a topic of general interest.

John


From: "Jeffrey Brian Downard" 
Sent: 4/8/24 12:35 AM
To: "Michael J.J. Tiffany" , 
"s...@bestweb.net" 
Cc: Peirce List 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

Hello Michael and John,

Nice to hear from you on the List, Michael.
I agree with your suggestions in (1) and (2). How might we further draw out 
some of Peirce’s suggestions for explaining the evolution of cooperation in a 
wide variety of systems, ranging from ecosystems to human economic and 
political systems? Complex emergent phenomena, such as the flow of information 
across the world wide web, provide us with fruitful case studies for modeling 
and explaining the growth of order in systems having parts that stand in 
relations of reciprocity and interdependence.
I think Peirce’s central model for explaining the growth of order in physical, 
chemical, biological, and human social systems is the cycle of logical inquiry. 
Let me know if you are interested in exploring these ideas further on the list 
or as part of a small research and discussion group.
Yours,
Jeff Downard
Flagstaff, AZ
Philosophy, NAU
From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  on 
behalf of Michael J.J. Tiffany 
Date: Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 10:57 AM
To: s...@bestweb.net 
Cc: Peirce List 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)



John, List:

I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.

I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that 
time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company 
(HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). Two 
personal observations:

1. Agapism has greater predictive power than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce 
railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. In 
evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in 
Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > 
individual selection.

However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about 
socio-economic evolution. Wealth creation -- distinct from zero sum wealth 
transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many 
examples of successful wealth aggregators whose success could be predicted with 
naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or even 
"greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the extraordinary 
wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of the most 
successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they shepherded. 
Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a literally more useful 
model for understanding and predicting reality, especially complex emergent 
phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once 
put it).

2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates 
understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained 
transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's another, 
vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to write 
qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you can 
understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the 
reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of abduction 
as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at.

Warm regards,

Michael J.J. Tiffany

Portsmouth, New Hampshire

On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa  wrote:

Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of Peirce's 
writings for our time (the 21st C).

Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
present.

John



Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
To: John Sowa 
Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

John,
I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead in 
philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass extinction. 
Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in his opposition 
to the 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Hello Michael and John,

Nice to hear from you on the List, Michael.

I agree with your suggestions in (1) and (2). How might we further draw out 
some of Peirce’s suggestions for explaining the evolution of cooperation in a 
wide variety of systems, ranging from ecosystems to human economic and 
political systems? Complex emergent phenomena, such as the flow of information 
across the world wide web, provide us with fruitful case studies for modeling 
and explaining the growth of order in systems having parts that stand in 
relations of reciprocity and interdependence.

I think Peirce’s central model for explaining the growth of order in physical, 
chemical, biological, and human social systems is the cycle of logical inquiry. 
Let me know if you are interested in exploring these ideas further on the list 
or as part of a small research and discussion group.

Yours,

Jeff Downard
Flagstaff, AZ
Philosophy, NAU

From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  on 
behalf of Michael J.J. Tiffany 
Date: Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 10:57 AM
To: s...@bestweb.net 
Cc: Peirce List 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)
John, List:

I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.

I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that 
time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company 
(HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). Two 
personal observations:

1. Agapism has greater predictive power than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce 
railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. In 
evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in 
Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > 
individual selection.

However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about 
socio-economic evolution. Wealth creation -- distinct from zero sum wealth 
transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many 
examples of successful wealth aggregators whose success could be predicted with 
naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or even 
"greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the extraordinary 
wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of the most 
successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they shepherded. 
Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a literally more useful 
model for understanding and predicting reality, especially complex emergent 
phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once 
put it).

2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates 
understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained 
transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's another, 
vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to write 
qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you can 
understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the 
reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of abduction 
as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at.


Warm regards,

Michael J.J. Tiffany
Portsmouth, New Hampshire


On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa 
mailto:s...@bestweb.net>> wrote:
Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of Peirce's 
writings for our time (the 21st C).

Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
present.

John



Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
To: John Sowa mailto:s...@bestweb.net>>
Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

John,

I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead in 
philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass extinction. 
Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in his opposition 
to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in his day and since, 
the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views would have led to a 
radically different paradigmatic foundation of the sciences than the 
‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched nearly a century 
later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a revolution.

In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford Encyclopedia 
of Philosophy, Rober Burch seems 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Edwina Taborsky]

Jerry
This section is, I believe,from 1868 - and there are more descriptions of the 
categories elsewhere., eg. 8/328 1904.

The three terms you reference - quality, relation, representation] can be 
understood to refer to Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.The categories, are 
‘modes of being’, or the form of the substance in which information is 
functioning,  and are basic to the Peircean framework.  And he explains them in 
the preceding and following paragrdaphs. But you can also see his outline in 
5.41 and on-150. And 1.23; And 1.300 and on [1894] 1:277 and on….

I am not sure of your agenda re: icon, index, symbol…which are Relations 
between the Represetnamen and Object in the mode of Firstness, Secondness and 
thirdness [ but I assume you know that already]…

I think my analogy of the three categorical modes of chance/freedom; current 
state interaction; and new habits of organization [aka Firstness, Secondness 
and Thirdness] ae pretty obvious within an economic process.  After all- an 
economy operates within entrepreneurship [ Firstness] where novel ideas are 
generated and developed. It operates within a steady state daily life process 
of local interactions [Secondness] - which process takes up most of the 
‘energy’ of an economic mode. And - it operates within the development of new 
economic modes and goods and services - which require the development of 
new‘habits of organization’ to produce and deliver the products. 

Even such a system as the use of symbolic units [ money[ went through these 
three categories, with the introduction of the symbol [Firstness]; and then, 
the common use in local interactions [ Secondness] and the legislated 
overseeing of the common value of these ‘bits of metal and paper’ [Thirdness]. 
And now -we are developing new symbols and new habits of the use of ‘money’..as 
a symbol of value. ..

I analyze economic modes with a triad of Investment/Production/Consumption [and 
these can even. E understood within 3ns, 2ns, 1ns!!!

Edwina



> On Apr 7, 2024, at 8:45 PM, Jerry LR Chandler  
> wrote:
> 
> Dear Edwinia, List 
> 
>> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
>> interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
>> interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
>> Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 
>> 
> 
> Your exuberant assertions are a bit beyond my amateurish  reach. 
> 
> I am curious about these theses from the perspective of CSP theory of 
> categories with respect to your understandings of semiosis and semantic 
> closures. 
> 
> In the “A New List of Categories”, CSP describes the meaning of his terms and 
> then asserts:
> 
> "BEING
>   Quality (Reference to a Ground)
>   Relation(Reference to a Correlate)
>   Representation  (Reference to an Interpretant)
> SUBSTANCE
> 
> The three intermediate conceptions may be termed accidents.”
> 
> (The punctuation is reproduced from the Essential Peirce, Vol 1., page 6)
> 
> I am attempting to sort through the terms in light of “icons, indices, and 
> symbols”.
> 
> Can you briefly connect to an understanding of “BEING”? 
> Can you briefly elucidate the threads of reasoning that connect this view of 
> “SUBSTANCE”  to the conclusions in economics?
> 
> Yes, I know that you may find these to be “Philosophy 101” questions, but I 
> have been reading a bit of Metaphysics in recent months…
> 
> Michael, your thoughts are equally welcomed.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Jerry 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Jerry LR Chandler]

Dear Edwinia, List 

> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
> interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
> interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
> Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 
> 

Your exuberant assertions are a bit beyond my amateurish  reach. 

I am curious about these theses from the perspective of CSP theory of 
categories with respect to your understandings of semiosis and semantic 
closures. 

In the “A New List of Categories”, CSP describes the meaning of his terms and 
then asserts:

"BEING
Quality (Reference to a Ground)
Relation(Reference to a Correlate)
Representation  (Reference to an Interpretant)
SUBSTANCE

The three intermediate conceptions may be termed accidents.”

(The punctuation is reproduced from the Essential Peirce, Vol 1., page 6)

I am attempting to sort through the terms in light of “icons, indices, and 
symbols”.

Can you briefly connect to an understanding of “BEING”? 
Can you briefly elucidate the threads of reasoning that connect this view of 
“SUBSTANCE”  to the conclusions in economics?

Yes, I know that you may find these to be “Philosophy 101” questions, but I 
have been reading a bit of Metaphysics in recent months…

Michael, your thoughts are equally welcomed.

Cheers

Jerry 










_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at 
https://cspeirce.com  and, just as well, at 
https://www.cspeirce.com .  It'll take a while to repair / update all the links!
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON 
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . 
► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu 
with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the 
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► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Edwina Taborsky]

Michale

Thank you for this excellent post. You are exactly right 

Peirce's agapastic  semiosis is a dynamic and generative process- and it 
explains not merely the increasing complexity of the physicochemical and 
biological realms [which are, indeed, complex adaptive systems,]  but also, 
explains the socioeconomic world of our species. 

As you say - wealth creation, which is all about a growth economy- - is quite 
different from the no-growth zero sum wealth transfer which is found in all no 
growth steady state populations [ before the industrial age]. 

And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 

Again - thank you for an excellent post, and moving Peirce out of the seminar 
room into the real world.

Edwina 

> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:57 PM, Michael J.J. Tiffany 
>  wrote:
> 
> John, List:
> 
> I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.
> 
> I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that 
> time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company 
> (HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). 
> Two personal observations:
> 
> 1. Agapism has greater predictive power than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce 
> railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. 
> In evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in 
> Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > 
> individual selection. 
> 
> However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about 
> socio-economic evolution. Wealth creation -- distinct from zero sum wealth 
> transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many 
> examples of successful wealth aggregators whose success could be predicted 
> with naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or 
> even "greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the 
> extraordinary wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of 
> the most successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they 
> shepherded. Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a 
> literally more useful model for understanding and predicting reality, 
> especially complex emergent phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as 
> the Santa Fe Institute once put it).
> 
> 2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates 
> understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained 
> transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's 
> another, vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to 
> write qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you 
> can understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the 
> reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of 
> abduction as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at. 
> 
> 
> Warm regards,
> 
> Michael J.J. Tiffany
> Portsmouth, New Hampshire
> 
> 
> On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa  > wrote:
>> Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
>> about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of 
>> Peirce's writings for our time (the 21st C).
>> 
>> Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
>> contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
>> present.   
>> 
>> John
>>  
>> 
>> Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
>> To: John Sowa mailto:s...@bestweb.net>>
>> Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of 
>> science (U Pitt)
>> John,  
>> 
>> I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
>> ‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
>> positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead 
>> in philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
>> existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass 
>> extinction. Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in 
>> his opposition to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in 
>> his day and since, the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views 
>> would have led to a radically different paradigmatic foundation of the 
>> sciences than the ‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched 
>> nearly a century later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a 
>> revolution. 
>> 
>> In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford 
>> Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Michael J.J. Tiffany]

John, List:

I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.

I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In
that time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity
company (HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies
2023). Two personal observations:

1. Agapism has *greater predictive power* than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce
railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open
Court. In evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now
than in Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group
selection > individual selection.

However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking
about socio-economic evolution. Wealth *creation* -- distinct from zero sum
wealth transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are
many examples of successful wealth *aggregators* whose success could be
predicted with naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the
fittest" or even "greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account
for the extraordinary wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the
motivations of the most successful creators and the massive amount of
cooperation they shepherded. Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more
inspiring. It's a literally more useful model for understanding and
predicting reality, especially complex emergent phenomena (the "worlds
hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once put it).

2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically
accelerates understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of
large pretrained transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy
that there's another, vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence
having to write qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't
see how you can understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're
calling the reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an
understanding of abduction as a kind of activity that you could be better
or worse at.


Warm regards,

Michael J.J. Tiffany
Portsmouth, New Hampshire


On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa  wrote:

> Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note
> about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of
> Peirce's writings for our time (the 21st C).
>
> Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value
> his contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which
> is our present.
>
> John
>
>
> --
> *Sent*: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
> *To*: John Sowa 
> *Subject*: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of
> science (U Pitt)
>
> John,
>
> I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s
> ‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical
> positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the
> beachhead in philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to
> the global existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of
> mass extinction. Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more
> widely in his opposition to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna
> Circle in his day and since, the affinities of those two men’s
> philosophical views would have led to a radically different paradigmatic
> foundation of the sciences than the ‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently
> remains entrenched nearly a century later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re
> long overdue for a revolution.
>
> In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the *Stanford
> Encyclopedia of Philosophy *,
> Rober Burch seems to report some similar thoughts about Peirce’s
> perspective …
>
> An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce’s evolutionism is
> that in Peirce’s view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.”
> Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most
> fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife,
> greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is
> prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of
> its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who
> apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but
> extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century.
> The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce
> associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical
> ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the third of Peirce’s
> six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine of Chances,”
> Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the ethics of
> self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole
> 

[PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[John F Sowa]

Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of Peirce's 
writings for our time (the 21st C).

Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
present.

John


Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
To: John Sowa 
Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

John,
I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead in 
philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass extinction. 
Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in his opposition 
to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in his day and since, 
the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views would have led to a 
radically different paradigmatic foundation of the sciences than the 
‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched nearly a century 
later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a revolution.
In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford Encyclopedia 
of Philosophy, Rober Burch seems to report some similar thoughts about Peirce’s 
perspective …

An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce’s evolutionism is that in 
Peirce’s view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” Peirce speaks of 
evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the 
evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it 
is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own 
perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had a 
social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing 
against the morally repugnant but extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of 
the late nineteenth century. The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic 
significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John 
and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the 
third of Peirce’s six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine 
of Chances,” Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the 
ethics of self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the 
whole world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences, 
collectively.” To social Darwinism, and to the related sort of thinking that 
constituted for Herbert Spencer and others a supposed justification for the 
more rapacious practices of unbridled capitalism, Peirce referred in disgust as 
“The Gospel of Greed.”
All merely hypothetical or purely conjectural, of course. But your admonition 
to relate Peirce to our 21st century world nudged me into sharing the idea.
From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  On 
Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2024 5:53 PM
To: Jerry LR Chandler ; Peirce List 

Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)
Jerry,
Thanks for that note.   The following sentence shows why we need to relate 
Peirce's writings to the latest and greatest work that is being done today:

>From the abstract:  "C.S. Peirce, however, is not generally considered a 
>canonical figure in the history of philosophy of science."

I have attended a few APA conferences where I gave a talk in a Peirce session 
and attended other talks in more general sessions.  And I have not heard 
anybody mention Peirce (except me in the discussions after a talk).

The logicians are constantly talking about Frege, despite the fact that nobody 
else had ever used his notation for logic.  But they don't mention Peirce, 
despite the fact that every logician uses his algebra of logic (with minor 
notational changes by Peano).

In fact, the reason why Peano changed the notation was for ease of publication. 
 Peirce used the Greek letters, sigma and pi, for the quantifiers, which were 
rarely available in those days.  But any typesetter could easily turn letters 
upside down and backwards.  So instead of mentioning Peirce, they give credit 
to Peano for the algebraic notation.

It's essential for Peirce scholars to relate his writings to the big, wide, 
modern world.  Susan Haack does that very well.  Some others do that.   And 
it's essential for Peirce scholars to do much, much more to relate Peirce's 
work to the hot topics of the 21st century.  Peirce himself expected his 
writings to be hot issues for 400 years.  We're almost halfway there, and we 
need to heat up the discussions.

John

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[John F Sowa]

Jerry,

Thanks for that note.   The following sentence shows why we need to relate 
Peirce's writings to the latest and greatest work that is being done today:

>From the abstract:  "C.S. Peirce, however, is not generally considered a 
>canonical figure in the history of philosophy of science."

I have attended a few APA conferences where I gave a talk in a Peirce session 
and attended other talks in more general sessions.  And I have not heard 
anybody mention Peirce (except me in the discussions after a talk).

The logicians are constantly talking about Frege, despite the fact that nobody 
else had ever used his notation for logic.  But they don't mention Peirce, 
despite the fact that every logician uses his algebra of logic (with minor 
notational changes by Peano).

In fact, the reason why Peano changed the notation was for ease of publication. 
 Peirce used the Greek letters, sigma and pi, for the quantifiers, which were 
rarely available in those days.  But any typesetter could easily turn letters 
upside down and backwards.  So instead of mentioning Peirce, they give credit 
to Peano for the algebraic notation.

It's essential for Peirce scholars to relate his writings to the big, wide, 
modern world.  Susan Haack does that very well.  Some others do that.   And 
it's essential for Peirce scholars to do much, much more to relate Peirce's 
work to the hot topics of the 21st century.  Peirce himself expected his 
writings to be hot issues for 400 years.  We're almost halfway there, and we 
need to heat up the discussions.

John


From: "Jerry LR Chandler" 
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U 
Pitt)

FYI
JLRC

Friday, April 12th @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT

This talk will also be available live streamed on: Zoom at 
https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94576817686

Title: Peirce Disappears: C.S. Peirce and Early Logical Empiricism

Abstract:  Scholars of the history of philosophy of science read and hear a lot 
about Duhem, Mach, Poincaré, and the members of the Vienna Circle. C.S. Peirce, 
however, is not generally considered a canonical figure in the history of 
philosophy of science. But in the early years of the logical empiricist 
movement in the United States, Peirce received a warm reception from prominent 
representatives, proponents, and sympathizers of logical empiricism including 
Charles Morris, Ernst Nagel, Herbert Feigl, Phillip Frank, and W.V.O. Quine. 
This reception was short-lived though and Peirce gradually disappeared from the 
mainstream philosophy of science while logical empiricism turned into a 
formidable movement.
In this talk, I begin by discussing examples of the early reception of Peirce’s 
philosophy in the works of Morris, Nagel (and his student Justus Buchler), 
Feigl, and Frank. I show the variety of topics (including logic, probability 
theory, theories of truth and meaning, and social dimensions of science) in 
which Peirce received a warm (though not uncritical) reception. We see that the 
engagements with his works are persistent from the late 1920s to the 1950s and 
get more refined over time. I then provide some explanations for the eventual 
marginalization of Peirce in mainstream philosophy of science.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at 
https://cspeirce.com  and, just as well, at 
https://www.cspeirce.com .  It'll take a while to repair / update all the links!
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON 
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . 
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► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

[PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Jerry LR Chandler]

FYI 
JLRC 

Friday, April 12th @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT

This talk will also be available live streamed on: Zoom at 
https://pitt.zoom.us/j/94576817686

Title: Peirce Disappears: C.S. Peirce and Early Logical Empiricism

Abstract:  Scholars of the history of philosophy of science read and hear a lot 
about Duhem, Mach, Poincaré, and the members of the Vienna Circle. C.S. Peirce, 
however, is not generally considered a canonical figure in the history of 
philosophy of science. But in the early years of the logical empiricist 
movement in the United States, Peirce received a warm reception from prominent 
representatives, proponents, and sympathizers of logical empiricism including 
Charles Morris, Ernst Nagel, Herbert Feigl, Phillip Frank, and W.V.O. Quine. 
This reception was short-lived though and Peirce gradually disappeared from the 
mainstream philosophy of science while logical empiricism turned into a 
formidable movement.
In this talk, I begin by discussing examples of the early reception of Peirce’s 
philosophy in the works of Morris, Nagel (and his student Justus Buchler), 
Feigl, and Frank. I show the variety of topics (including logic, probability 
theory, theories of truth and meaning, and social dimensions of science) in 
which Peirce received a warm (though not uncritical) reception. We see that the 
engagements with his works are persistent from the late 1920s to the 1950s and 
get more refined over time. I then provide some explanations for the eventual 
marginalization of Peirce in mainstream philosophy of science.
 


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at 
https://cspeirce.com  and, just as well, at 
https://www.cspeirce.com .  It'll take a while to repair / update all the links!
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON 
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . 
► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu 
with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the 
body.  More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP;  moderated by Gary Richmond;  and 
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.