Dear Jon Alan Schmidt: I would like to go back to the point that this chain of emails began. Jon Alan Schmidt asked about something he found Peirce had said in the *Neglected Argument*, which had been omitted in the version published in the *Essential Peirce*:
CSP: Among the many pertinent considerations which have been crowded out of this article, I may just mention that it could have been shown that the hypothesis of God's Reality is logically not so isolated a conclusion as it may seem. On the contrary, it is connected so with a theory of the nature of thinking that if this be proved so is that. Now there is no such difficulty in tracing experiential consequences of this theory of thinking as there are in attempting directly to trace out other consequences of God's reality. Jon said that raised "a few interesting questions," namely: 1. To what specifically was Peirce referring here as "a theory of the nature of thinking"--the three stages of a "complete inquiry" and their "logical validity," as laid out in sections III and IV of the paper, or something else? 2. How exactly is "this theory of thinking" *logically *connected with "the hypothesis of God's reality"? 3. What would be some "experiential consequences of this theory of thinking" that we could, with comparatively little difficulty, deductively trace and inductively test? 4. What exactly would it mean to "prove" Peirce's "theory of the nature of thinking," such that "the hypothesis of God's reality" would thereby also be "proved"? I have some tentative thoughts about these matters, including a couple of ideas that I found in the secondary literature, but would appreciate seeing what others have to say initially. So, let me respond. I thought I understood firstness, secondness, and thirdness when our discussion began. This is the example I had in mind. I am a student sitting in a class listening to an interesting lecture, when suddenly an explosion occurs. It could be a firecracker under behind the professor's desk, or a truck wreck on the street right outside the classroom windows. The sound of true explosion, whatever it is, is sudden, unexpected, and immediate. The sound or other shock waves hitting my body constitute firstness--I feel them. Secondness is what my body does in reaction, which is to immediately and involuntarily, raise my head, flinch, and commence other bodily reactions to the explosion waves reaching me. Thirdness occurs next, when my mind begins to wonder what just happened. All this can happen in far less than the blink of an eye. Peirce's analysis of it by breaking it down in this way was thought to be a fertile way of beginning to understand thinking, or to begin a theory of thinking. Please correct me again, Jon, if that is not an elementary example of firstness, etc. However, I soon got lost in the subsequent discussion of these, where thirdness became intertwined with secondness and firstness, and so on, in the subsequent emails. I do not doubt that all of you are correct that Peirce did take this rudimentary example to far heights of thinking which I may just be constitutionally unable to rise to. But my reading of Peirce suggests that he was a very pragmatic person who appreciated someone from Missouri showing up and saying "show me." In any event, so much of the subsequent discussion involved concepts going back and forth with no examples that allowed them to be brought to earth for examination. At least, that is what it seemed to me. So, is it possible to get back to the original question. Remember that Peirce thought that all this became clear to him his daily walks through the woods, and he wrote this essay suggesting that its thinking would be available to anyone of ordinary intelligence who pondered the three universes suggested on their own daily walks through the woods. So, let's go back to Jon's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th questions, because I think he is on to something: 1. How exactly is "this theory of thinking" *logically *connected with "the hypothesis of God's reality"? 2. What would be some "experiential consequences of this theory of thinking" that we could, with comparatively little difficulty, deductively trace and inductively test? 3. What exactly would it mean to "prove" Peirce's "theory of the nature of thinking," such that "the hypothesis of God's reality" would thereby also be "proved"? In response, some raised the ontological argument of St. Anselm. But the raising of it was not followed through. Here is my question (which I hope "nests" all three of Jon's questions): What would Anselm's ontological argument look like if it were restated in Peirce's terms? In other words, could Anselm have discovered the same argument as Peirce? Would this give us any insight into the theory of thinking? Peirce says that we could, with comparatively little difficulty, deductively and inductively test such a theory of thinking. Someone from Missouri might say, "Show me." Ben Novak *Ben Novak <http://bennovak.net>* 5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142 Telephone: (814) 808-5702 *"All art is mortal, **not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts themselves.* *One day the last portrait of Rembrandt* *and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be—**though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes may remain—**because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message **will have gone." *Oswald Spengler On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > On 9/13/2016 3:29 AM, John Collier wrote: > > I used Peirce’s ideas fairly prominently in my philosophy of science > courses in the 1980s and 90s. I also used his work to cast light on Kuhnian > issues both in my classes and in my doctoral dissertation. Although the > last was accepted enthusiastically, I continually got grumblings about how > was not teaching the Standard View properly. > > Maybe things have improved, with more naturalistic approaches becoming > more prevalent, but the culture wars really made a mess of trying to bring > in Peircean ideas because the view that science was a mere social construct > seemed to be supported by naïve interpretations of Peirce. So I found > myself apparently fighting myself at some times. > > > Yes, the culture wars (which are still with us) are rather annoying. Not > just because of how they try to make science into something we can control > and thereby reject but because of how often they just read philosophers so > badly. Lots of figures who make more careful subtle distinctions about > science’s social aspects are appropriated for tasks they’d be aghast at. > (Kuhn is the classic example although it’s not hard to find others) > > > ----------------------------- > 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 > . > > > > > >
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