Steven, List: SS: Notice the large amount of leeway given in this notion of “justified true” belief:
There is indeed considerable leeway for "justified" since it can range from merely plausible for abduction/retroduction to probable for induction to certain for deduction. Even in the last case, the certainty is only that the conclusion is true *if *the premisses are true, and any premiss about that which is actual must ultimately rest on abduction/retroduction and induction. However, there is no leeway for "true" since it is a normative ideal. The subjunctive "would" is intentional and appropriate--a belief corresponding to a habit that never *is *contradicted by any *actual *experience is not necessarily true, because "no agglomeration of actual happenings can ever completely fill up the meaning of a 'would-be'" (CP 5.467, EP 2:402, 1907). SS: So given that degree of perpetual uncertainty, one in which actions based upon plausibilities may be *justified *but knowledge never settled as *true *(excepting limited synthetic systems), I stand by my statement. Again, to me this confuses knowledge with certainty. Knowing something does not require *knowing *that it is true, it only requires that it *really is* true. SS: When Peirce appeals to the Dynamical Object and the Final Interpretant, both of these concepts operate as hypothetical limits on experience. Here I think we agree, in the sense that the dynamical object would only be fully known in the final interpretant--again, a normative ideal. SS: Indeed, if there is a Tychistic cosmos in which pure chance plays a part, then it is questionable that there can be sure progress toward such a limiting condition, and perhaps from such as well. To clarify, Peirce does not claim that the progress of knowledge is monotonic. CSP: There is, then, to every question a true answer, a final conclusion, to which the opinion of every man is constantly gravitating. He may for a time recede from it, but give him more experience and time for consideration, and he *will* finally approach it. The individual may not live to reach the truth; there is a residuum of error in every individual's opinions. No matter; it remains that there is a definite opinion to which the mind of man is, on the whole and in the long run, tending. On many questions the final agreement is already reached, on all it *will* be reached if time enough is given. The arbitrary will or other individual peculiarities of a sufficiently large number of minds may postpone the general agreement in that opinion indefinitely; but it cannot affect what the character of that opinion *shall be when it is* reached. This final opinion, then, is independent, not indeed of thought in general, but of all that is arbitrary and individual in thought; is quite independent of how you, or I, or any number of men think. (CP 8.12, 1871; underlines added) CSP: The perversity or ignorance of mankind may make this thing or that to be held for true, for any number of generations, but it can not affect what would be the result of sufficient experience and reasoning. And this it is which is meant by the final settled opinion. (CP 7.336n11, 1873). He eventually recognizes that the first statement expresses a regulative hope rather than an exceptionless law (NEM 4:xiii, no date). Based on the second quote and his later writings, when his scholastic realism was even more extreme, I believe that he would have sanctioned further revising the first quote by replacing the two underlined instances of "will" with "would" and the underlined phrase "shall be when it is" with "would be if it were to be." SS: For all his enormous contributions to semiotics and logic, I’ve never found these two bookends of his thought to be coherent with his Tychism. Could you elaborate on the alleged discrepancy that you perceive? For one thing, it is important to notice the *specific *part that objective chance plays in the cosmos according to Peirce's tychism. CSP: Taking the phenomena of the universe as a whole, there are no antecedent conditions on which their marvellous variety can depend; but we may suppose, either that this variety was introduced in a single infinitely long passed act of creation, or else that creation, being a gradual process, and not having begun with one tremendous act, that the variety is gradually filtering in by gradual creativeness. This is the metaphysical doctrine of tychism ... (R 319:16&23[16], 1907) For another thing, keep in mind that Peirce consistently subordinates his tychism to his overarching synechism. CSP: I have thus developed as well as I could in a little space the *synechistic *philosophy ... and further that it carries along with it the following doctrines: first, a logical realism of the most pronounced type; second, objective idealism; third, tychism, with its consequent thorough-going evolutionism. (CP 6.163, EP 1:333, 1892) CSP: Permit me further to say that I object to having my metaphysical system as a whole called Tychism. For although tychism does enter into it, it only enters as subsidiary to that which is really, as I regard it, the characteristic of my doctrine, namely, that I chiefly insist upon continuity ... Accordingly, I like to call my theory Synechism ... (CP 6.202, 1898) CSP: We here reach a point at which novel considerations about the constitution of knowledge and therefore of the constitution of nature burst in upon the mind with cataclysmal multitude and resistlessness. It is that synthesis of tychism and of pragmatism for which I long ago proposed the name, Synechism, to which one thus returns; but this time with stronger reasons than ever before. (CP 4.584, 1906) Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 2:59 AM Skaggs,Steven <s.ska...@louisville.edu> wrote: > Jon Schmidt, > > We appear to state the same things. Notice the large amount of leeway > given in this notion of “justified true” belief: > > justified true belief > justified if it is the conclusion of a valid argument (note: valid > argument includes mere plausibility) > a belief is true if the corresponding habit would never be contradicted by > any future experience (note subjunctive “would”) > > So given that degree of perpetual uncertainty, one in which actions based > upon plausibilities may be *justified* but knowledge never settled as > *true* (excepting limited synthetic systems), I stand by my statement. > > When Peirce appeals to the Dynamical Object and the Final Interpretant, > both of these concepts operate as hypothetical limits on experience. > Especially so for the Final Interpretant, but I suspect in some ways for > the Dynamical Object as well. Indeed, if there is a Tychistic cosmos in > which pure chance plays a part, then it is questionable that there can be > sure progress toward such a limiting condition, and perhaps from such as > well. > > For all his enormous contributions to semiotics and logic, I’ve never > found these two bookends of his thought to be coherent with his Tychism. > SxS >
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