Iris, List,
I've been reflecting on your thoughts on the Pragmatic Trivium as I
referred to it, but held off responding before others had had a chance. My
remarks will no doubt reflect some of the responses to your comments by
others and, indeed, because of that I'll keep them somewhat general unless
more specificity is called for.
You wrote: ". . .it's easier to ask questions about the pragmatic trivium
as it relates to today's world than to find satisfying answers in Peirce's
writings. But that's not to say that there aren't valuable ideas in those
writings."
I would tend to agree with both these sentences. Regarding the first: I
suppose one could say that it's harder to search for answers and for keys
to answers to the problems of the modern world in *many* a past
philosopher's reflections on the pragmatic trivium. This is the case, I
think, regarding the ancient Greeks as well as Kant, Bentham, John Stuard
Mill, William James, Josiah Royce and, of course, Peirce and many others.
It may be especially difficult in regard to Peirce; for while he certainly
wrote much on all three, the material on esthetics and ethics especially
are spread out throughout his voluminous work, much of which remains in
manuscript.
But there are indeed "valuable ideas" of potential value to our world in
the writings of all these thinkers and, again, there are plenty of these in
Peirce applicable to the humanities, arts and sciences. Still, by way of
example, Gary Fuhrman's post of yesterday, July 4th, contains several
quotations which suggest some of these "valuable ideas" which might yet
find application in the post-modern world we inhabit. Your class project on
race, Iris, suggests an promising approach -- juxtaposing Peirce's thinking
(in your project, on race) with that of a contemporary thinker -- one which
could be generalized.
While most attention in the late 20th and early 21st century has been
directed to his logic as semeiotic, and for good reason, there are
important inquiries now being made in his esthetics and ethics. And note
that I just spelled esthetics as Peirce did to designate a cenocopic
(philosophical) *science. *He tentatively concludes that the summum bonum
in *science *is the growth of "concrete reasonableness." Our *scientific
ethics* ought to be directed to increasing *that* growth of concrete
reasonableness. (And, as Peirce saw it, good logic takes a fundamental
principle ethics, from *improving *conduct -- good scientific conduct, that
is -- and so directs itself toward *improving *thinking*.*)
This is not at all to suggest that the humanities and the arts ought not
have their own *summa bona* (and I'm drafting a post taking up the
aesthetician and philosopher of mind, Suzanne Langer's, aesthetic theory in
a separate post). However, I believe that a lot of confusion has arisen
when Peirce's scientific esthetics, ethics, and logic have been conflated
with the aesthetics, ethics, and logics of the arts and humanities. These
surely *can* draw from principles of the pragmatic trivium, but they have
and indeed *must* explore their own aesthetics, ethics, and logics. And
vice versa: the principles of, say, the aesthetics or logics of the arts
don't *necessarily* transfer to science.
You also commented on "Jon Alan Schmidt's interesting reflections on
liberal education. As someone who has spent her life in academia, I am
puzzled at Jon's account of the difference between teaching ("establishing
and maintaining a preferred narrative") and learning ("seeking and
reporting accurate information")."
I too was puzzled at Jon's distinction between teaching and learning quoted
directly above and for the reason you gave: "Neither of these begins to
account for the focus on ethics that has dominated in the humanities for
the last forty years." But here, again, there may be differences between
the way science is taught and learned and the ways in which the humanities
are, and even if there is some overlap. Indeed, as I see it, there ought to
be.
The sharp distinction which Peirce makes -- and which was recently
mentioned by someone in this thread -- between teaching what is (fallibly)
'known' and inquiring into that which is 'not yet known' may be relevant
here (I won't rehearse it, although I will say that I think Peirce may go
too far in suggesting that these are even antagonistic).
Whatever the connection between academic teaching and learning currently
is, it seems to me that part of the work of teaching *ought* to include
instruction in *how to inquire*, *how to research*, *the conditions
necessary for creativity to flourish*, etc., both generally and as regards
specific arts, humanities, and sciences. This, I believe, is being done to
some extent in many universities.
In addition, and as you wrote: "The value of Peirce's account of inquiry
for me lies in helping students to develop their abilities to ask the best
questions and persist in those inquiries, even when the answers they find
are tentative or contradictory to their initial assumptions."
You are quite right in pointing out that courses in or related to critical
thinking (or having a critical thinking component or emphasis) "have been
taught on a regular basis for many years, in many universities," as they
certainly have been in mine. As in your English Department, in ours and in
the Humanities Departments of the colleges of the City University of New
York, "courses on critical thinking have been required for our English
majors and graduate students, my own among them. Weaving (or at least
attempting to weave) Peirce's ideas into those courses has been one of the
most interesting and rewarding challenges of my teaching."
For me as well, introducing Peirce into critical thinking (and related)
courses has been a rewarding challenge. Before my retirement I taught
classes in critical thinking for about 25 years, and in my classes in
creative thinking and communication studies critical thinking was ever
present, usually explicitly so. Naturally, in creative thinking there was
an emphasis on abduction, but all stages of a 'complete inquiry' were
considered. For several years before my retirement I worked within our *Center
for Teaching and Learning* and found that many of my colleagues, working
with me to develop seminars and programs designed to help instructors teach
better, had a keen appreciation of the importance of critical thinking
(which, btw, includes critical listening which we created a seminar around).
Finally, I believe that critical thinking instruction should begin well
before college, a point the philosopher and educator, Phyllis Chiasson,
makes in *Peirce's Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking*.
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHIPPT
You concluded: "Perhaps. . . more hands-on interaction with Peirce's
critical commonsenseism might offer one way forward."
One of the reasons I believe that this hands-on interaction with critical
commonsenseism is so important, quasi-essential even, is that if inquiry is
to be seen as a kind of dialogic, a point of Peirce's that Joe Ransdell
liked to emphasize (yet finding it in philosophy as early as the Socratic
dialogues), then critical thinking can be seen as rooted in the social
principle. We work best together in society and we are able to think
critically *together*.
Thanks again for your most stimulating and valuable comments in this
thread, Iris.
Best,
Gary R
"Time is not a renewable resource." gnox
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 4:47 PM Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> List,
>
> Iris Smith Fischer, a long time member of the forum, responded off-list to
> the questions I posed in this thread and some of the responses which
> followed. She has kindly given me permission to forward her most
> interesting responses.
>
> Best,
>
> Gary
>
> I apologize for responding so late to your excellent questions of June 13.
> [. . .]
>
> As I've read through the thread, I've noted other important and valuable
> questions. Jerry Rhee asks, "Is it not obvious that Peirce was incompetent
> for the task imposed upon him of defining the esthetically good?" In some
> ways, I think he might be right: it's easier to ask questions about the
> pragmatic trivium as it relates to today's world than to find satisfying
> answers in Peirce's writings. But that's not to say that there aren't
> valuable ideas in those writings, and as Jerry points out, we all have an
> obligation to continue to seek answers.
>
> The primary challenge of bringing Peirce into conversation with ethical
> questions of our day seems to lie in the strictures on our own ways of
> thinking, and on his. They seem to vary from response to response in the
> thread. Because you framed your questions in terms of ethical challenges
> facing universities and colleges, we have Jon Alan Schmidt's interesting
> reflections on liberal education. As someone who has spent her life in
> academia, I am puzzled at Jon's account of the difference between teaching
> ("establishing and maintaining a preferred narrative") and learning
> ("seeking and reporting accurate information"). Neither of these begins to
> account for the focus on ethics that has dominated in the humanities for
> the last forty years. The value of Peirce's account of inquiry for me lies
> in helping students to develop their abilities to ask the best questions
> and persist in those inquiries, even when the answers they find are
> tentative or contradictory to their initial assumptions. The best and most
> productive sessions have occurred when I have juxtaposed for students the
> perspectives on, say, race that Peirce offers in his account of using
> abduction to track down and recover his stolen watch and coat (rendered
> vividly by Tom Sebeok and Jean Umiker-Sebeok in their article "You Know My
> Method," published in *The Sign of Three*) with the account of racialized
> thinking in, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates's book *Between the World and Me*.
> It's an uncomfortable conversation, no doubt about it. But that's the sort
> of challenge we in Peirce studies have to face. And, whatever Peirce's own
> racial attitudes were, the value of his concept of abduction still stands
> after such a conversation, I've found.
>
> In relation to Edwina Taborsky's comment that "I always felt that a key
> course for college and university students would have been ongoing courses
> in critical thinking, to enable them to think through fallacious arguments,
> false statistics and etc", I'm happy to report that such courses have been
> taught on a regular basis for many years, in many universities. In my own
> (English) department such approaches dominate our freshman composition
> courses, and courses on critical thinking have been required for our majors
> and graduate students, my own among them. Weaving (or at least attempting
> to weave) Peirce's ideas into those courses has been one of the most
> interesting and rewarding challenges of my teaching. Perhaps you're right;
> more hands-on interaction with Peirce's critical commonsenseism might
> offer one way forward.
>
> Thanks for listening,
> Iris
>
> Iris Smith Fischer
> Professor Emerita
> University of Kansas
>
> "Time is not a renewable resource." gnox
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 4:03 PM Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> List,
>>
>> In a recent op-ed piece titled "The End of College as We Knew It" (
>> https://tinyurl.com/ybha8mhb), Frank Bruni reflects on something I've
>> been informally discussing with friends and colleagues now for years;
>> namely, that "A society without a grounding in ethics, self-reflection,
>> empathy and beauty is one that has lost its way” (Brian Rosenberg, recently
>> president
>> of Macalester College). It seems to me that this has happened in the
>> United States.
>>
>> It has long seemed to me that America today has largely abandoned what
>> might be called the normative trivium of aesthetics, ethics, and logic --
>> Peirce's three Normative Sciences, *not* the classical trivium (for
>> which see Sister Miriam Joseph
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Miriam_Joseph>'s 2002 book, *The
>> Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric*) that he
>> generalized to serve as the three branches of Logic as Semeiotic.
>>
>> This philosophical trivium points to the possible *application *of
>> Peirce's three Normative Sciences -- not their theoretical forms, but
>> rather their ordinary and potentially pragmatic guises as they appear in
>> life practice, including reflection and action upon what is beautiful in
>> art and nature, what is ethical in our behavior in the world, and how we
>> can apply 'critical commonsenseism' in our quotidian lives. Bruni writes:
>> "We need writers, philosophers, historians. They’ll be the ones to chart
>> the social, cultural and political challenges of this pandemic -- and of
>> all the other dynamics that have pushed the United States so harrowingly
>> close to the edge. In terms of restoring faith in the American project and
>> reseeding common ground, they’re beyond essential."
>>
>> Bruni's op-ed reflection came in part in response to a recent article by
>> Rosenberg in *The Chronicle of Higher Education*; see "How Should
>> Colleges Prepare for a Post-Pandemic World" (
>> https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Should-Colleges-Prepare/248507).
>> Rosenberg writes: “If one were to invent a crisis uniquely and
>> diabolically designed to undermine the foundations of traditional colleges
>> and universities, it might look very much like the current global
>> pandemic.” In a similar vein, Professor Andrew Belbanco, president of
>> the Teagle Foundation which gives as its purpose promoting the liberal
>> arts, writes: “This is not only a public health crisis and an economic
>> crisis, though Lord knows it’s both of those. It’s also a values crisis.
>> It raises all kinds of deep human questions: What are our responsibilities
>> to other people? Does representative democracy work? How do we get to a
>> place where something like bipartisanship could emerge again?”
>>
>> Commenting on the economic divide of the American university, Bruni notes
>> that "the already pronounced divide between richly endowed, largely
>> residential schools and more socioeconomically diverse ones that depend on
>> public funding grows wider as state and local governments face
>> unprecedented financial distress. A shrinking minority of students get a
>> boutique college experience. Then there’s everybody else." Gail Mellow,
>> former president of LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
>> (where I taught for decades before my retirement) is quoted as saying, “We
>> always knew that America was moving more and more toward very different
>> groups of people," to which Bruni adds, "that movement is only
>> accelerating."
>>
>> Confronting all this will undoubtedly be one of the great challenges that
>> America -- and for that matter, the world -- will have in the years and
>> decades to come. The question I pose is: Can Peirce's version of pragmatism
>> (or pragmaticism) -- which he also calls 'critical commonsenseism' --
>> creatively contribute to these enormous challenges? And, if so, how? And
>> are there ways in which Peirce's philosophical trivium might help inform
>> the aesthetics, ethics, and critical thinking of the world as it emerges
>> from the coronavirus pandemic? If so, how?
>>
>> [Note: I have Bcc'd this post to several former members of this forum, a
>> few members who rarely if ever post but who have stayed in contact with me
>> offlist, and a few friends and colleagues who have not been members but who
>> may have an interest in this topic. Those who are not current members of
>> the forum may send your thoughts on the topic off-list to me letting me
>> know if I have your permission to post them.]
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> "Time is not a renewable resource." gnox
>>
>> *Gary Richmond*
>> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>> *Communication Studies*
>> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
>> Virus-free.
>> www.avg.com
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>>
>
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