Suteerth, List,
First, let me welcome you to the List. I hope you will find interlocutors
to engage with in this e-forum. I would suggest that you read through the
founder and first moderator of Peirce-L, Joseph Ransdell's comments on the
structure and expected democratic conduct in the forum since, as the second
moderator of the forum, I continue to consider them sound and, so, in
effect. See "How the Forum Works":
https://cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm#forum
As to your question: Peirce's attempts at articulating a proof of
pragmatism were offered at various points in his career, not just near its
conclusion. Indeed, he never offered it as a single argument.
There appear to some scholars to be two main strands of those proofs.
Peirce scholars like Susan Haack (in *Evidence and Inquiry*) and
Christopher Hookway (in *The Pragmatic Maxim*) emphasize those focused on
the clarification of meaning, arguing that Peirce first identifies a
fundamental problem in traditional metaphysics involving the ultimately
confusing attempt to define the meaning of abstract concepts by looking for
"essential properties." As opposed to this approach Peirce famously offers
the PM.
Some other scholars, like Cheryl Misak (*Truth and the End of Inquiry*) and
Richard Bernstein (*The Pragmatic Turn*) highlight Peirce’s pragmatism as
a methodological tool for structuring the process of inquiry, focusing
especially on its role in science, reasoning, and the search for truth. You
appear to be emphasizing this second approach.
Perhaps the most famous example showing how his maxim clarifies *meaning *is
Peirce's diamond example. Here the abstract idea of 'hardness' is
illustrated/demonstrated by considering the effect of a diamond scratching
the surface of another hard object, say, a rock (in his day the diamond was
considered the hardest object; since then two harder substances have been
identified). In a later modal development of this idea Peirce argues that
the *act* of scratching need not even actually be required, that a diamond
buried deep underground *would* scratch a rock even were it never mined.
And even such abstract concepts as 'courage' can be understood through its
*conceivable* practical effects.
Turning now to that second strand which sees pragmatism as a method for
guiding inquiry, Peirce famously begins his reflection on inquiry with the
idea of *fallibilism* whereas all knowledge is provisional and subject to
revision given new facts, experiments, etc. The beliefs -- including
scientific beliefs -- that we have are all mental *habits* tending
towards *action
*(physical or mental}. A genuine doubt (not a "paper doubt" as Peirce put
it *contra *Descartes) breaks a habit and leads to inquiry (or at least
ought to) in the pursuit of a more stable belief (itself also fallible, of
course). The only way to get to that stable belief is to test ideas by
their *conceived* practical consequences in experience and, of course, this
is especially so in scientific inquiry where hypotheses are experimentally
tested to see to what extent they conform to the real world. Of course
Peirce famously argues in "The Fixation of Belief" that the scientific
method (which is itself supported by pragmaticism) is the only one of the
four he outlines which can lead to reliable knowledge since it is based on
the testing of hypotheses which experimentation involves the (possible)
real effects of ideas.
So, I agree with Robert Burch ("Peirce's Reduction Thesis")t hat
.pragmatism is *both* a theory of meaning and a theory of inquiry. By
proving that only pragmatic reasoning leads to stable, testable beliefs,
Peirce grounded pragmatism in the very structure of logic and the
scientific method.
One might add that Peirce’s pragmatism is tied to his realism, synechism,
and to his view of truth as that which would be agreed upon by an
indefinite community of inquirers in the long run (as often discussed here,
that being "agreement" being asymptotic and never actually reached).
As earlier noted, Peirce's proofs of pragmatism are complex, incomplete,
and spread across his writings. While I wasn't able to address all your
points and questions, I hope I've at least hinted at why Peirce sought a
proof of pragmatism.
Best,
Gary R
On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 9:47 AM suteerth vajpeyi <[email protected]>
wrote:
> This is my third post so far. The second question (why did Peirce attempt
> to prove the truth of the pragmatic maxim?) troubles me more. The pragmatic
> maxim is a regulative (or in other words normative) principle for attaining
> greater clearness of apprehension or in other words clarifying the meaning
> of a sign. "Speak the truth !" one may say to one's kids. But it would be
> absurd to try to prove the truth of a regulative principle from factual
> premises. So why did peirce attempt to do it for his pragmatism? Especially
> why do it late in his life when his understanding of logic was getting
> clearer by the day. He had earlier remarked that pragmatism is a principle
> of logic. Logic according to him is a normative science for attaining truth.
>
> One thing that immediately strikes one is that since logic and pragmatism
> are regulative principles for attaining knowledge, we can expect that the
> pragmatic maxim must be a part of logic. But at which stage of the inquiry
> process ? We try to resolve the problem by trial and error. All thinking is
> semiosis according to peirce. Semiosis (sign-use to gain increased
> knowledge) has three components: the object, the sign and finally the
> interpretant. Similiarly there are three stages of inquiry- abduction,
> deduction and induction. Can we connect the components of semiosis to the
> process of inquiry ?
>
> The various possible relations are sign & object, sign & interpretant,
> object & interpretant. What is the order in which they occur ? Firstly one
> chooses a sign to stand for an object. Secondly one determines the
> interpretant of the sign. Thirdly by interpreting the sign, a knowledge of
> the object is attained. The order of logical processes on the other hand is
> abduction, deduction and induction. Abduction then, corresponds to the sign
> object relation. The allotment of a sign to stand for an object is just
> another way of saying that we attribute meaning to a sign. The first
> attachment of meaning to a sign and the first explanation of a surprizing
> fact by a hypothesis requires that the meaning of a hypothesis be
> apprehended first. As outlined in my previous post, pragmatism is just
> another way of apprehending the meaning of any sign, whether it be a term
> or a proposition. A hypothesis is just a proposition. So we can now come to
> understand why peirce may have called pragmatism as the logic of abduction.
>
> But the first question (why he attempted to prove pragmatism to be true)
> still eludes me...
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