Ben, Frank, Nice to wake to these cogent emendations! Really. Each is a wonderful (word used with semi-intent) reason for valuing CSP as what Glassy Essence calls him at some point - the word wise person or wisdom comes to mind as I do not remember the precise reference but you get the idea. Thanks!
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>* On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 12:59 AM, Frank Ransom <[email protected]> wrote: > Stephen, list, > > You might want to consider Peirce's doctrines of critical common-sensism > and fallibilism working together. We have well-tested beliefs and > continually test them, having a healthy respect for the fact that any one > of our given beliefs might be false, and otherwise go about our business as > we know it until experience proves otherwise. When a serious doubt comes > up, one can have a great deal of belief that one rests upon whilst working > to resolve the present doubt that one wishes to resolve. In fact, inquiry > probably can't go on without there already being a bedrock of beliefs to > depend upon. So belief and doubt certainly will go hand in hand, as you > noted above. > > Something else you might want to consider is Peirce's discussion in "A > Neglected Argument" where Peirce discusses the play of musement. To put it > in a simple way, not only doubt, but also wonder can be a stimulus to > inquire. If one has a kind of open question about everything, a generalized > curiosity, that seems to me to be wonder, and what Peirce is getting at > with the play of musement. Perhaps one might say that doubting and > wondering are species of the same general activity that leads to inquiring. > I've always liked the statement by Aristotle that philosophy begins with > wonder. Consider the possibility, when you assert that sometimes belief and > doubt go hand in hand, that one can have a great deal of settled belief, > and yet find one's own self in a state of wonder, perhaps even precisely > because of what we have settled upon believing; the universe, when we > consider what we know about it so far, can indeed seem a wondrous place. > All this is just to say that I think part of what can be bothersome isn't > so much the basic idea that Peirce articulates, but the feel of it when we > think of it as doubt, which tends to be associated with skepticism, and > which doesn't at all seem to have anything to do with imagining, dreaming, > and creative thinking generally; while wonder does seem associated with the > more creative and freer side of thinking, leading to artistic and > productive modes of thinking, which I suppose you might find neglected by > Peirce's insistence on doubt being the stimulus to inquire and to think in > general (since, after all, the end of thought is the development and > establishing of habit, which is also the end of inquiry). I should say > though that wonder is a bit vaguer than I have represented it to be just > now. While surprise, doubt, and inquiry are distinguished from each other > by Peirce, it seems to me that wonder is not so easily separated into three > such distinct parts; the wondering is the surprise, the doubt, and the > inquiring all at once, or so it seems to me. Comments invited on that one. > > -- Franklin > > > On Tue, Jul 1, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Stephen, list, >> >> Peirce usually speaks of 'doubt' but I think one can and ought to speak >> just as well of suspicion. An agnostic, for example, if not convinced of >> the question's unanswerability, both doubts and suspects that God exists or >> is real. The point is some sort of uncertainty or unsettledness on a >> question upon whose resolution or settlement one would be disposed to act. >> It's quite natural for inquiry to proceed from the unsettled to the settled >> (settled at least for the time being). Doubt and suspicion imply >> questioning, and, well, questioning is inquiry. >> >> Then there is the question of whether inquiry also proceeds not just from >> uncertainty, but from surprise, anomaly, novelty. Peirce also talks about >> the explanatory effort as attempting to get from the complex/complicated to >> the simple. As occasions of inquiry, to bewilderment by the complex, and >> surprise by the anomalous, one could add impatience and suspense about the >> indefinite future (what will be the Milky Way's fate?) and frustration, >> hesitation, inagency, in the face of what feasibly could be around the >> corner. >> >> Best, Ben >> >> On 6/30/2014 11:51 PM, Stephen C. Rose wrote: >> >> It's late and I'm punched out watching the Yankees go down. Just to say I >> approach this entirely from an experiential side with no sense of what a >> mathematical theory of inquiry would be. I take inquire to mean any >> question. If I wonder how I am, to take an example, we could assume I was >> speaking from doubt but I could be asking the same question to explain an >> unaccountable happiness or an encounter that puzzles me. My question could >> have many nuances that would suggest anything from whimsy to simple >> matter-of-factness. This all would seem far removed from inquiry as an >> effort to operate within the context of mathematics. So perhaps the >> differing contexts makes it hard to apply what we sense or understand from >> Peirce in the same way. >> >> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>* >> >> >> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 11:06 PM, Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Thread: >>> JA: >>> http://web.archive.org/web/20140630220000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13446 >>> SR: >>> http://web.archive.org/web/20140701002000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13447 >>> JA: >>> http://web.archive.org/web/20140701003000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13448 >>> SR: >>> http://web.archive.org/web/20140701024001/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13449 >>> >>> Stephen, List, >>> >>> Not a problem, we all must begin from the doubts we actually have, and >>> there a few things we have more doubts about than whether a given >>> description or theory of X is really a good description or adequate theory >>> of X, and that is every bit as true if X = inquiry as anything else. >>> Indeed, the whole point of an "inquiry into inquiry" is just to find an >>> adequate theory of inquiry. >>> >>> What prompted me to open this particular can of worms -- Dispersion, >>> Uncertainty, Doubt, Entropy -- was the linkages that potentially exist, at a >>> very abstract logical and mathematical level, between this complex of >>> subjects and Peirce's hints about the nature of the inquiry process. >>> >>> >>> Jon >>> >>> Stephen C. Rose wrote: >>> >>>> I have no argument save my own guesses and my recollections of reading >>>> something that said to me that CSP thought as I suggested so I will read >>>> some more and see if anyone else chimes in. Cheers, S >>>> >>>> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>* >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> >>> academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey >>> my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ >>> inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ >>> isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA >>> oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey >>> facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache >>> >> >> >> >> ----------------------------- >> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON >> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to >> [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L >> but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the >> BODY of the message. More at >> http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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