> On Jun 20, 2018, at 4:31 AM, Stephen Curtiss Rose <stever...@gmail.com> wrote: > > The Pragmaticist Maxim cuts through all these considerations and focuses on > the practical results of thinking, musing, etc Peirce designated aesthetics > and ethics as normative sciences. He was agapaic in his core understanding of > things. This suggests he would have had little interest in parsing the merits > of groups and religions but would have focused instead on the fruits of their > thinking.
Many elements of the maxim as applied in this way arise out of Stoic ethics we should note. John Shook has a good article on this, “Peirce’s Pragmatic Theology and Stoic Religious Ethics.” Although much of what he discusses are parallels rather than evidence for direct influence. While the agapaic element obviously comes from Christianity, particularly the fairly platonic Gospel of John, the Stoic elements can’t be neglected. While Stoicism sees this through reason rather than love, the reasoning out the place of the individual in terms of the whole through self-reflection is significant. As is the rather pantheistic conception of God. (Here meaning how individual signs are parts of the whole) > Peirce was hardly universalist in his understanding however, having a blind > spot about slavery. I can only assume that now that spot would have vanished. > And that he would see the fruits of considerations in terms of the degree to > which harm is created or prevented. That can and should be measured. It is > not beyond the province of science which is also universal. Sadly blind spots in ethics towards slavery were nothing new. Again this was a constant problem in Roman ethics I’d say. It is one reason why Stoic ethics remain somewhat problematic IMO.
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