Robert, Helmut, List: RM: In this response, after acknowledging our differences, you use CSP's statements as an argument of authority.
HR: Peirce is not necessarily always right, is he? This comment and question both indicate a misunderstanding of my intent. I am not suggesting that there must be final causes in nature *because *Peirce says so, which would indeed be a fallacious appeal to authority--as would suggesting that there *cannot *be final causes in nature merely because Democritus and Monod say so. I am simply pointing out that Peirce explicitly (and repeatedly) affirms that there are final causes in nature, such that denying the reality of final causes is straightforwardly disagreeing with Peirce. I trust that no one disputes this. HR: "For evolution is nothing more nor less than the working out of a definite end", is theism and speculation, isn´t it? No, why suggest that? Again, a final cause is not necessarily the purpose of an agent, that is just its most familiar manifestation. The reality of final causes would not, by itself, entail the reality of God; and atheism does not, by itself, entail the rejection of final causation. RM: Indeed, the quotation CP 1.204 states a proposal according to without a final cause there would be no evolution, arguing that evolution itself is the realization of an end, which will no longer be challenged by the science of its time (in 1902, I presume) which would have provided evidence of it. The old notion (Democrite I suppose) would be an old-fashioned one who can be mocked. There is nothing these and who think like me that Democrite is right and that Jacques Monod is his continuator (he claims to do), with in addition a major scientific support ... HR: One may also assume, that evolution is continuous adaption without an end. One may assume that, but for Peirce such "continuous adaptation" would not be a synonym for biological evolution. After all, by itself random variation is insufficient; natural selection also must come into play, and it is not the *brute *necessity of the "necessitarianism" that Peirce routinely dismissed as untenable. Instead, fitness for a particular environment is the *telos *of biological evolution--its ideal end or final cause, a "would-be" that is never *perfectly *realized, because if it were, then the process would cease. This *philosophical *observation is perfectly consistent with not only the science of Peirce's time, but also the science of today. HR: And when he wrote "A final cause may be conceived to operate without having been the purpose of any mind", had he forgotten then, that he had claimed that the universe has a mind? No, because he did not say that a final cause may be conceived to operate without any mind *at all*, he said that it may be conceived to operate without having been the *purpose *of any mind. Again, intentional agency is not required for final causation, and Peirce's concept of mind (and thought) is much broader than that. "It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there" (CP 4.551, 1906). HR: The big chill too, like the big bang, is not scientifically proven. No theory is "scientifically proven" in the sense of being absolutely definitive and infallible. Peirce's cosmological *hypothesis *is that the entire universe is constantly evolving (3ns) at the present from being utterly indeterminate (1ns) in the infinite past to being utterly determinate (2ns) in the infinite future. These are not *actual *states, they are *ideal *states that are approached but never reached, like the asymptotes of a hyperbola. HR: Organisms who have brains apply a third kind of causation, volitional or example causation: They remember or anticipate something they want to get. This is still final causation, but it is the specific kind that manifests as an agent having a purpose. In my view, influenced by what Menno Hulswit has written on the subject, formal causation corresponds to 1ns, efficient causation to 2ns, and final causation to 3ns. This is evident in the division of signs according to the relation with the dynamical object--the latter is the formal cause of an iconic sign, the efficient cause of an indexical sign, and the final cause of a symbolic sign. We can also see it in the three interpretants--the efficient cause of the dynamical (effective) interpretant is the sign token itself, while its formal cause is the immediate (explicit) interpretant and its final cause is the final (destinate) interpretant. Consequently, every sign always (logically) has an immediate interpretant (as a may-be) and a final interpretant (as a would-be), but a token is only involved in the continuous (temporal) process of semeiosis when the dynamical object determines it to determine a dynamical (actual) interpretant. This *degenerate *triadic relation, which is reducible to its constituent dyadic relations, is governed by the *genuine *and irreducible triadic relation between the dynamical object, the sign itself, and the final interpretant. Semeiosis without such final causation (3ns) is not *genuine *semeiosis at all, but rather *degenerate *semeiosis as strictly efficient-causal action (2ns) due to "inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25, EP 1.293, 1891). This is also insufficient for evolution because it lacks the aspect of generalization, as Peirce explains. CSP: Accordingly, the pragmaticist does not make the *summum bonum* to consist in action, but makes it to consist in that process of evolution whereby the existent comes more and more to embody those generals which were just now said to be *destined*, which is what we strive to express in calling them *reasonable*. (CP 5.433, EP 2:343, 1905) Those generals that "the existent comes more and more to embody" by means of the "process of evolution" are *both *destined *and *reasonable. But what did Peirce "just now" describe as "destined" a few paragraphs earlier? CSP: Now, just as conduct controlled by ethical reason tends toward fixing certain habits of conduct, the nature of which ... does not depend upon any accidental circumstances, and *in that sense* may be said to be *destined*; so, thought, controlled by a rational experimental logic, tends to the fixation of certain opinions, equally destined, the nature of which will be the same in the end, however the perversity of thought of whole generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation. If this be so, as every man of us virtually assumes that it is, in regard to each matter the truth of which he seriously discusses, then, according to the adopted definition of "real," the state of things which will be believed in that ultimate opinion is real. (CP 5.430, EP 2:342) Something is "destined" in the relevant sense if its nature "does not depend upon any accidental circumstances." The paradigmatic examples are self-controlled "habits of conduct," which are beliefs as the final interpretants of propositions, and the "ultimate opinion" after infinite inquiry by an infinite community, whose dynamical object is reality as a whole and whose final interpretant is the truth. This is the *telos *of all semeiosis, its ideal end or final cause, the aim of every sincere inquirer even though "the perversity of thought of whole generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation." RM: I am very grateful to you for producing a comparative analysis and I look forward to it with great interest. There are some hints of it here and in my other post this evening, but more is still to come. Thanks for your interest and patience. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sat, May 23, 2020 at 2:55 PM robert marty <robert.mart...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jon Alan , List > > In this response, after acknowledging our differences, you use CSP's > statements as an argument of authority. Indeed, the quotation CP 1.204 > states a proposal according to without a final cause there would be no > evolution, arguing that evolution itself is the realization of an end, > which will no longer be challenged by the science of its time (in 1902, I > presume) which would have provided evidence of it. The old notion > (Democrite I suppose) would be an old-fashioned one who can be mocked. > > > > There is nothing these and who think like me that Democrite is right and > that Jacques Monod is his continuator (he claims to do), with in addition a > major scientific support; and I guess it wouldn't be sacrilege if someone > sent the compliment back to CSP, 117 years later. Moreover, his proclaimed > fallible allowed us to yet would oblige us to do so ... > > > > CP 1.211 is still an opinion that concerns only, it seems to me, the > supporters of the final cause. > > > > I am very grateful to you for producing a comparative analysis and I look > forward to it with great interest. > > > > Best regards > > Robert > >>
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