Jon, thanks for this, and for your later post, which clears things up considerably. Just a couple of responses:
JS: In R 843, he states that the NA pertains to "the Being whose Attributes are, in the main, those usually ascribed to Him, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Infinite Benignity, a Being not 'immanent in' the Universes of Matter, Mind, and Ideas, but the Sole Creator of every content of them, without exception." GF: If the former, this use of the term “God” would make Peirce a pantheist or panentheist ... JS: Pantheism and panentheism both seem to be ruled out by Peirce's explicit denial in at least two drafts, including the one quoted above, that God--as he defines the term--is "immanent in Nature." GF: That rules out pantheism, but not, I think, panentheism, which (as I understand it) holds that Nature is immanent in God, not the other way round. Anyway, I think the fact that in revising his drafts for publication, Peirce reduced the ascription of “Infinite Benignity” (R 843) to a conditional clause in the NA, could signify a well-considered reluctance to assert it. But enough theology … JS: CP 6.491 includes his description of the objection that "man's power of guessing at the truth" could simply be--like the instincts of animals to which he compared it--"entirely explained by the action of natural selection," and thus inapplicable to metaphysical matters like the Reality of God. However, for some reason the editors left out Peirce's response that immediately follows in R 844. CSP: This opens an interesting question of logic to which I have devoted much study, with the result of fully satisfying myself that man's power of divining the truth is not so circumscribed. My reply to this objection could not be given here nor in any piece to be read at one sitting. My reply would show that whatever general conduct of a race would fit or disfit its individuals to the life to come, may be expected also to adapt or maladapt the race itself to maintaining its footing in this world; and further to show, through its pragmaticistic interpretation, that the belief in the Ens necessarium would according as it were true or false, fit or disfit individuals to eternal life hereafter. And consequently, natural selection naturally will act here on earth to the cultivation of this belief, if it be true, and to its suppression if it be false, just as it acts in respect to ordinary morality. GF: Maybe it’s unfair of me to comment on this “at one sitting,” but I find this reply unconvincing, because it appears to rest partly on the premiss that the “life to come” is an individual life. I see no logical reason to accept that premiss. Consequently I don’t think Peirce has met the objection that challenges the connection between the Reality of God and logic as semeiotic. I’m inclined to think that connection is just as vague as other features of the NA — and that your efforts here have done just about all that can be done to reduce that vagueness. And as Jeff said, thanks for pointing to the SPIN project which gave you access to the manuscripts. The more Peirceans start using it, the better! Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com] Sent: 16-Sep-16 16:20 Gary F., List: GF: My responses to your four questions and the rest of your post are inserted into it below. Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. GF: It could be those, but it’s also possible that the reference is not that specific; Peirce might even be referring to Pragmatism, or to his theory of “logic as semeiotic” in the broad sense. Yes, and I found some additional clues in the manuscript drafts (R 841-844). That post may have gotten lost in the recent digressions, so I am thinking about re-sending it. GF: I think there is a logical connection between the hypothesis of God’s reality (as laid out in the NA) and the doctrine of “the light of nature,” or “il lume naturale” ... This is consistent with both the published version of the article and several of its drafts. GF: If you accept that the “light of nature” hypothesis is an essential part of “this theory of thinking,” an obvious consequence would be that our guesses about how nature works turn out to be confirmed, or at least useful, much more often than would be the case if there were no connection at all between the processes of nature and of reasoning. Indeed, Peirce drafted multiple versions of a detailed probabilistic argument for this. GF: But roughly, I think it would mean that adopting either of them as a belief and living accordingly would have experiential consequences that would never arouse a “living doubt” of either one in the mind of an honest inquirer. This strikes me as a very interesting way of thinking about it. GF: Now, Peirce in the NA offers no evidence or argument that Ens necessarium, or the Real creator of all three Universes of Experience, is in fact benign; and elsewhere (CP 1.143 for instance) he implies that we have no reason to think Him benign. In R 843, he states that the NA pertains to "the Being whose Attributes are, in the main, those usually ascribed to Him, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Infinite Benignity, a Being not 'immanent in' the Universes of Matter, Mind, and Ideas, but the Sole Creator of every content of them, without exception." GF: If the former, this use of the term “God” would make Peirce a pantheist or panentheist ... Pantheism and panentheism both seem to be ruled out by Peirce's explicit denial in at least two drafts, including the one quoted above, that God--as he defines the term--is "immanent in Nature." GF: The conclusion would be better stated as: there is reason to suspect that human minds and nature come from the same source. Or that human mind is part of nature. This is a fair point, and Peirce evidently anticipated it, or at least something like it. CP 6.491 includes his description of the objection that "man's power of guessing at the truth" could simply be--like the instincts of animals to which he compared it--"entirely explained by the action of natural selection," and thus inapplicable to metaphysical matters like the Reality of God. However, for some reason the editors left out Peirce's response that immediately follows in R 844. CSP: This opens an interesting question of logic to which I have devoted much study, with the result of fully satisfying myself that man's power of divining the truth is not so circumscribed. My reply to this objection could not be given here nor in any piece to be read at one sitting. My reply would show that whatever general conduct of a race would fit or disfit its individuals to the life to come, may be expected also to adapt or maladapt the race itself to maintaining its footing in this world; and further to show, through its pragmaticistic interpretation, that the belief in the Ens necessarium would according as it were true or false, fit or disfit individuals to eternal life hereafter. And consequently, natural selection naturally will act here on earth to the cultivation of this belief, if it be true, and to its suppression if it be false, just as it acts in respect to ordinary morality. Peirce appears to be suggesting here that the persistence of humanity's instinctive belief in God is evidence that it is true. GF: I think Hull may be more on the right track in her emphasis on diagrammatic thinking. Again, I find that notion very attractive; but the article is long and complex, and I probably need to read it again (and again) to ensure that I have understood it properly. Regards, Jon
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