James,
Well, looking it up, I can't find serendipidous, but I found serendipitous,
which is defined as "occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or
beneficial way", which is what I noted in my last post. If you think that a
scientific strategy that occurs or is discovered by chance in a happy or
beneficial way is what will produce convergence, I must confess that I can
not see it the way you do. I believe I will have to leave it at that. If
you think you can make this connection you observe clearer, I'm all ears
(so to speak).
There is no foundation, on Peirce's view (as I understand it), which we can
> identify as the justification of our beliefs by tracing our beliefs back to
> them. The Peircean truth-criterion looks forward and not backward.
This we agree upon. Of course, I take it that by looking forward, is meant
the constant readiness to submit belief to experiential, experimental test.
So if Aristotle's first principles ultimately end up not passing such
testing, then we should be prepared to give them up; their continued
adoption is dependent on how well they continue to explain the phenomena we
experience.
With respect to your comment on social prejudices, I'm aware of what he
says about the a priori method in the Fixation of Belief article. In fact,
since our guesses can be so prejudiced, it is all the more important that
such guesses be put to inductive, experimental testing. Which brings me to
another part of the Fixation article that you refer to:
My use of 'serendipidous' was motivated by a reflection on Peirce's
> definition of the scientific method in "The Fixation of Belief" - which is
> perhaps not yet as clearly developed as it could be. The scientific method
> is there described as a method which consists of allowing Reality to affect
> the content of our opinions. To this we may object that our opinions are
> always and invariably affected by the real conditions in which they emerge,
> so that this definition does not tell us what is distinctive about the
> scientific method. What we are talking about, then, is a *particular* way
> in which Reality can be induced to affect our opinions - namely a strategy
> that consists in creating situations where the observed result can be
> expected to be different, depending on whether our hypothesis is true or
> false.
Allowing Reality to affect the content of our opinions is conducted by
submitting our beliefs to inductive testing--we directly interact with the
Real to find out whether it answers to our belief about it or not, and this
is what Peirce means at this point in the Fixation article. As the series
of articles continues (of which the Fixation article is the first of that
series, "Illustrations of the Logic of Science"), Peirce goes on to explain
the need to predesignate hypotheses and the significant characters we are
looking for. This is why in the Doctrine of Chances article in that series,
he works to show that a chance universe is completely systematic, but can
never make any explanation more likely than any other, because everything
in a pure chance universe is singular and logic, being about what is
general, is impossible. But we do observe order, this means we do not live
in a pure chance universe, and that means that rather than trying to choose
characters based only upon systematic considerations, we must make our
selection with respect to some purpose and thus predesignate what we are
looking for. Hence the development of a strategy for understanding reality,
paying attention to the conditions that are conducive to bringing about the
desired result, and so forth. I'm not sure we really disagree, but I wanted
to point out that the Fixation article is the first of a six paper series
that goes on to explain in detail the logic of science and scientific
method, as Peirce says at the end of the Fixation article. So I think it's
very misleading to say that the definition of the scientific method in "The
Fixation of Belief" is perhaps not yet as clearly developed as it could be,
since it is precisely the aim of the series of papers to clarify what is
meant by the scientific method and how it ought to proceed, and Peirce
explicitly says this. The first step in understanding it is by
acknowledging that it must test itself against the Real, and the rest of
the papers go on to detail how this is supposed to work out.
With respect to Aristotle and experimentation, I take it that you grant my
point, however, that experimentation doesn't have a prominent place in his
account of proper method, nor does he pursue it in any sustained way. He's
mostly making observations and deducing conclusions from them, rather than
putting hypotheses to experimental test.
-- Franklin
----------------------------------------------
On Wed, Nov 25, 2015 at 4:37 PM, James Crombie <james.crom...@usainteanne.ca
> wrote:
> Franklin,
>
> Thanks for the reply.
>
> First principles that we have to "work through a variety of considerations
> to reach" are not the kind of first principles Peirce is rejecting -
> although, like you, I don't pretend to speak with much authority on how to
> accurately characterize Aristotle's actual position on this matter. I
> grant you that Peirce often expresses sympathy with Aristotle's approaches.
>
> As for Descartes, we might say that he also "work[s] through a variety of
> considerations" - but with a view to showing that we don't, in the end,
> have to work through them since, as it turns out, on Descartes' view, the
> clear and distinct deliverances of consciousness are the ultimate arbiter.
> They are also examples of the kind of "first cognition" which Peirce rules
> out. Peirce also rules out, on my view, anything resembling uninterpreted
> sense data as the "foundation" of anything.
>
> There is no foundation, on Peirce's view (as I understand it), which we
> can identify as the justification of our beliefs by tracing our beliefs
> back to them. The Peircean truth-criterion looks forward and not backward.
>
> I agree with you that Peirce devotes considerable attention to how to
> (deliberately) choose which abductive conclusions to investigate first. He
> also - perhaps it's in the "Law of Mind" series - speculates that it's
> because the mind is a historical product of the evolution of the universe
> that it tends to produce abductive guesses much closer to the ultimate
> truth than mere chance would account for.
>
> My use of 'serendipidous' was motivated by a reflection on Peirce's
> definition of the scientific method in "The Fixation of Belief" - which is
> perhaps not yet as clearly developed as it could be. The scientific method
> is there described as a method which consists of allowing Reality to affect
> the content of our opinions. To this we may object that our opinions are
> always and invariably affected by the real conditions in which they emerge,
> so that this definition does not tell us what is distinctive about the
> scientific method. What we are talking about, then, is a *particular* way
> in which Reality can be induced to affect our opinions - namely a strategy
> that consists in creating situations where the observed result can be
> expected to be different, depending on whether our hypothesis is true or
> false.
>
> As for experimentation in Aristotle, I now recall the experiment of
> plunging one hand into cold water, the other hand into hot water and then
> both hands into lukewarm water. I was also struck by Aristotle's
> observation of how drops of water on, say, a red-painted surface, appear to
> be red - and by the ingenious (but in the end incorrect) hypothesis
> Aristotle advances to explain this phenomenon. This discussion occurs in De
> Anima, where there is a lot of reflection on how light and vision work. We
> now think of this phenomenon as being explained by refraction - but
> Aristotle wanted to know how it was that the drops of water could actually
> "become" red.
>
> As for social prejudices, in "Fixation" Peirce notes as one of the
> weaknesses of the a priori method that - in spite of all the deployment of
> reason and argument this method involves - it turns out to be subjected to
> the secular whims of fashion, passing from materialism to spiritualism and
> back again in endless cycles, causing doubt to re-emerge in those who
> observe that this is happening.
>
> A serendipidous scientific strategy, on the other hand, will produce
> convergence.
>
> But if a controversy is not about something "real", there will be no
> convergence. (Except by chance, and then only for a while.)
>
> Cheers,
>
> James
>
>
> Le 2015-11-25 06:08, Franklin Ransom a écrit :
>
> James, list,
>
> James, welcome to the list.
>
> James wrote:
>
> Peirce's non-foundationalism is expressed in his rejection of Cartesian
>> and Aristotelian First Principles
>
>
> I should probably understand this point better, but I am wondering whether
> this point might be further explained. In the case of Cartesian first
> principles, we use extreme doubt to get all the way to these principles,
> and then from them work out and justify the rest of all that is understood.
> I find that Peirce indeed rejects this. In the case of Aristotelian first
> principles, we certainly do not use extreme doubt, but work through a
> variety of considerations that ultimately lead us to first principles, not
> in the sense of principles which come first in understanding, but in
> nature. So there is this line from Aristotle to the effect that we reason
> from what is better known to us to what is better known to nature. After
> having gotten to such first principles, we can understand nature better. I
> am not so sure I find Peirce rejecting this. I'm sure that Peirce would
> want to add that there needs to be experimentation to really put the
> principles to the test. but as far as observation and deduction goes, I
> find Peirce mostly in agreement with Aristotle's point of view. Perhaps I
> have misunderstood what Aristotle is about, or why Peirce would have had
> some important issue to take with Aristotle, other than the need for
> experimentation?
>
> Also, James wrote:
>
> Scientific method for Peirce amounts to devising strategies for this to
>> happen in the most serendipidous way - hence the logic of abduction.
>
>
> I don't find that it makes sense to say that one devises a strategy for
> something to happen with something happening in a serendipitous way,
> Serendipity is really about some chance occasion that turns out fortunate.
> Devising a strategy, in Peirce's logic of science, is something that
> involves the selection of hypotheses for testing. We might say that
> abduction as an inference is itself serendipitous, although I think that
> there is some truth to the idea that continued observation will inevitably
> result in the development of better abductions. With respect to scientific
> method though, it is certainly not serendipitous, but aimed at the
> strategic selection of given hypotheses according to the principles of the
> economy of research, and would include deduction and induction. Hopefully
> the result of the method doesn't lead us to simply hope for a serendipitous
> result. Another way of putting it is that Peirce never really suggests how
> we can devise strategies to come up with better abductions, only strategies
> of what we can do once we have hypotheses to consider.
>
> I myself am interested in the idea of developing strategies for inducing
> better abductions, but I haven't found Peirce so interested. For him, it
> seems that an abductive inference is simply uncontrolled, and we can only
> begin controlled inquiry once we have already a hypothesis delivered from
> an abductive inference. Perhaps he would admit that psychology could
> discover something more about how we come up with the abductions that we
> do. That is to say, that we come up with abductions is the purview of
> logic, but why we come up with specific ones, and that some are more common
> than others in human inquirers, might be something that psychology could
> study. For instance, when unconscious social prejudices affect the kinds of
> guesses we're prepared to make in a given social context.
>
> -- Franklin
>
> P.S. -- I too hope for a positive prognosis and speedy recovery for John.
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Nov 24, 2015 at 3:36 PM, James Crombie <
> james.crom...@usainteanne.ca> wrote:
>
>> If rationalism is the view that the real is what-can-be-thought, then the
>> arch-rationalist is Parmenides. I would agree that Descartes is a
>> foundationalist rationalist - and opine that Peirce is a
>> non-foundationalist rationalist - and also a non-foundationalist
>> empiricist. Peirce holds that the real is definitely what-can-be-thought -
>> or at least a subset of what can be thought. But Peirce also holds that
>> under the influence of experience we can change what we think. Scientific
>> method for Peirce amounts to devising strategies for this to happen in the
>> most serendipidous way - hence the logic of abduction. Peirce's
>> non-foundationalism is expressed in his rejection of Cartesian and
>> Aristotelian First Principles - and in his simultaneous rejection of
>> empiricist First Sensations. See the end of Section IV in "The Fixation of
>> Belief". Non-foundationalism ("no first cognition") and fallibilism go
>> together very nicely.
>>
>> Greetings from Nova Scotia!
>>
>> James Crombie
>>
>
> --
> James Crombie, Ph.D.
> Philosophie | Sciences humaines
> Université Sainte-Anne <https://www.usainteanne.ca/> Tél. :
> +1-902-769-2114 poste 7104
> 1695, Route 1, Pointe-de-l'Église (Nouvelle-Écosse) B0W 1M0 - CANADA
> james.crom...@usainteanne.ca
> http://personnel.usainteanne.ca/jcrombie
> [image: Université Sainte-Anne]
> «Le rôle culturel de la philosophie n'est pas de fournir des vérités
> toutes faites mais de bâtir l'esprit de vérité et [...] de ne jamais
> laisser s'endormir l'énergie de la curiosité intellectuelle, de ne
> jamais cesser de questionner ce qui paraît évident et définitif.»
> - Leszek Kolakowski (1927-2009)
>
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