Suteerth, List: Welcome to Peirce-L!
The maxim of pragmatism as presented below--Peirce never referred to it as "the pragmatic maxim"--is very similar but not quite identical to his original published statement of it in 1878. After William James began popularizing pragmatism two decades later, Peirce revised and elaborated on it in various ways, many of which I compiled in a paper with accompanying analysis and commentary that might be of interest ( https://philpapers.org/archive/SCHPMO-8.pdf). According to Peirce himself, the maxim of pragmatism is a principle of logic as semeiotic; specifically, its third branch, speculative rhetoric or methodeutic. As such, it depends on the other two branches, speculative grammar and logical critic, as well as the other two normative sciences, esthetics and ethics--not the other way around. Esthetics identifies the *summum bonum* as the only end that is admirable in itself, namely, the growth of concrete reasonableness; ethics identities the kinds of actions that are consistent with that ideal, one of which is inquiry, the sincere pursuit of true beliefs; and logic as semeiotic identifies appropriate means toward that end, one of which is employing the maxim of pragmatism to ascertain the ultimate meaning of intellectual concepts--the general habits of conduct adopted by interpreters. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Oct 10, 2024 at 8:04 AM suteerth vajpeyi <[email protected]> wrote: > The pragmatic maxim goes in its most popular form as follows: Consider > what effects which might conceivably have practical bearings which your > conception has. Then the sum of these effects exhausts the entire meaning > of your conception. > > Let us apply it to the question of what defines justice. What are the > practical consequences of the concept of justice ? Justice means giving > each person his due. This includes oneself in addition to the others. What > is a person's due ? It is the reciprocation of the nature of a person's > actions by the actions of others. Bad conduct begets bad conduct in > response as a punishment. Good conduct is responded to with good conduct as > an act of appreciation. > > But what does one mean by "good" and "bad"? We can, for our present > purposes, define good conduct as that which is facilitative of its purpose. > Although such usage departs from our ordinary understanding of the word > 'good'. For example there is such a thing as an efficiently conducted > burglary but no such thing as a "good" burglary. We can get around this > difficulty in the following way: good conduct being that which facilitates > its end, we can say that we all have similiar ends- food, water, material > comforts and pleasure, exercise of our natural physical and mental > facilities, companionship, love, progeny etc. Human diversity manifests > itself not primarily in the ends aimed at but in the MEANS chosen to > facilitate those ends. Thus while there might be an efficiently conducted > burglary, there cannot be a good burglary because burglary itself is a > means to an end- Material comfort. Does burglary facilitate material > comfort ? In the short run, it might seem so but in the long run all things > considered, it is not a "good" means to attain material comfort. This is > because it erodes trust and human cooperation in society. Human cooperation > and trust are the bed-rock of human prosperity. For if there is little or > no human cooperation, human conflicts multiply, destroying resources, time, > wealth etc. So our seemingly awkward definition of "good" conduct holds. > > But even our ends are capable of evaluation. We appraise some ends as more > valuable than others. Moreover, some ends are truly admirable, others are > not. An action is "good" in the conventional sense of the term when it > facilitates the realization of an admirable end. > > What makes an end admirable ? An end is not admirable for the sake of > realization of anything else for its admirableness is an intrinsic quality. > It is not a relation to something else still less is it a representation of > something before a rational agent. Admirability belongs to firstness, the > world of feelings. I here stop my analysis of the meaning of justice and > its relation to other terms. For I do not know what makes an end admirable. > > Would we exhausted the entire meaning of the term justice by carrying our > analysis further ? Surely, the pragmatic maxim has helped to clarify our > concepts of justice. But we are not dealing with the use of the pragmatic > maxim in gaining clearer apprehensions. We are dealing with the use of the > pragmatic maxim as a criterion of meaning. Look at both these statements > closely, with a severe eye. What is our interpretation of the term > "meaning" ? The meaning of a term is the apprehension we (a community of > inquirers) have of the concept denoted by that term. So the apprehension of > a term is co-extensive with its meaning. > > Conclusion: pragmatism is not only good at clarifying a term's meaning to > an interpreter, it is also capable of application to the normative sciences > of aesthetics, ethics and logic. > > Request- what are your thoughts on the pragmatic maxim, o reader ? >
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