Jon, Gary F.,
I think that Gary F. is looking for the diametrical contrary of
'indubitability' in Peirce's sense. Such would be /insuspectability/.
That something is indubitable in Peirce's sense means that one can't
doubt it, even if eventually one may come to doubt it. This is related
to Peirce's critical common-sensism, in which he holds that there is a
set of propositions which people can't seriously doubt at the time, a
set which changes only slowly over time if at all. Thus, any proposition
inconsistent with those indubitable propositions would be insuspectable
at that time. However, the indubitable propositions also tend to be
vague, so inconsistencies with other propositions will tend to be vague too.
Now, the pragmatic maxim is a maxim about definitions, not the conduct
of research, and Peirce in that context eventually calls a conception's
meaning its 'purport'. At the end of 'How to Make Our Ideas Clear,'
Peirce says that he has discussed how to make our ideas clear, and that
that is not the same thing as making them true, i.e., verifying them,
which will be the subject of his next paper.
I think that what one can do in a conception in order to accommodate
future learning and surprises is incorporate Peirce's contrite
confession pf fallibility, plus a claim of 'successibility' (denial of
radical skepticism).
I do think that the reality of possibility makes a difference to the
pragmatic maxim in the sense that pragmatism leads to accepting such
reality and its denial tends to weaken the pragmatic maxim, since it
makes a conception's purport depend on whether certain conceived
conditions will ever be fulfilled, not on whether we think their
fulfillment is conceivable. I think Peirce's realism was little stronger
in the early 1870s than when he wrote 'How to Make Our Ideas Clear', for
example see CP 7.340-1 (1873, "Reality" in "The Logic of 1873").
Best, Ben
On 1/17/2015 10:12 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
Re: Gary Fuhrman
At: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15409
Gary,
You can try to split rhetorical hairs between cognizable and conceivable,
but I don't think those frizzies will wash. I never said anything about
"eternal conceivability". What you are saying here smacks of a regress
to the very brand of absolutism that Peirce's relational reform of logic
was designed to escape.
Relativity to a "state of information" (SOI_1) is one of Peirce's best
ideas,
but it's the same thing as relativity to a "system of interpretation"
(SOI_0),
in other words, a triadic sign relation, that was always a part of
Peirce's
triadic relational theory of "logic as formal semiotics" from the get-go.
Regards,
Jon
On 1/17/2015 9:56 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Jon,
We have no conception of incognizable consequences. But surely there
is a real possibility that a scientific
intelligence can come to know facts in the future which are
inconceivable in the present. Semiosis takes time, and
conceivability grows; if it didn’t, there would be no difference
between corollarial and theorematic deduction.
Eternal conceivability is not a pragmatic or pragmaticistically
meaningful concept.
gary f.
From: Jon Awbrey [mailto:jawb...@att.net] Sent: 17-Jan-15 7:35 AM To:
Howard Pattee Cc: Peirce List Subject:
[PEIRCE-L] Re: Natural Propositions : Chapter 8
Re: Gary Fuhrman
At: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15405
But we have no conception of inconceivable consequences.
Jon
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