I'm in the middle of re-reading a lecture by Joseph Margolis titled A
Second-Best Morality. I've been wanting to introduce some of his
concepts to Peirce-L because they both challenge and expand Peirce's
philosophy. Among the several things I've read by Margolis, A
Second-Best Morality seems to be the easiest introduction to this
otherwise very difficult-to-read philosopher.
The term Second-Best comes from Plato's "second-best state." Since, as
Margolis argues, there are no discoverable first principles to guide us
in what sort of state to form, Margolis explains,
"We are to construct a state, it seems––we must live within one
political order or another––in spite of the fact that no one knows
how to detect the would-be guiding Forms."
I have many thoughts on how concepts from this paper relate to the
subject we're talking about. Unfortunately I haven't organized them in a
presentable way yet, nonetheless, at the risk of forgoing presenting
some important premises that Margolis does present, here's a quote that
is of paramount importance to pragmatism.
"We must bear in mind that we ourselves are surely the creatures of
our own cultural history; what we can and dare judge to be morally
and politically reasonable must fit the living options of our actual
world. Even if we supposed an "ideal" answer might serve as a guide
at least, we need to remember that our visions cannot be more than
projections from local habits of thought or neighboring possibilities."
The question that this lecture poses is 'how much of reality does this
principle cover?' And it makes the case that it should be much more than
morals and judgments of art. If abduction of moral principles (and the
value of art) is not the guessing of what is true in a Cartesian-Realist
way but true in a 'second-best' way, then is this also the case of other
truths? Understand that Margolis brings to light premises that give this
question a lot of force. (By Cartesian-Realist, I mean that truth is out
there, outside of us, waiting to be discovered, and we have the means to
discover it. I mean to challenge the first clause.)
How far did Peirce move, say, compared with Descartes, or Kant, toward
this idea of second-best truth? Did he go far enough? Margolis
somewhere, on video, says something to the extent that this is where the
future of pragmatism is.
Here's a relevant quote by Peirce in CP 1:316.
"I hear you say: "This smacks too much of an anthropomorphic
conception." I reply that every scientific explanation of a natural
phenomenon is a hypothesis that there is something in nature to
which the human reason is analogous; and that it really is so all
the successes of science in its applications to human convenience
are witnesses. They proclaim that truth over the length and breadth
of the modern world. In the light of the successes of science to my
mind there is a degree of baseness in denying our birthright as
children of God and in shamefacedly slinking away from
anthropomorphic conceptions of the universe."
Here is the link to a page where you can download the PDF of the written
lecture (26 pages).
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/handle/1808/12411
Matt
-----------------------------
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 the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
