In response to my remark that: [[ Overall, I find the rationale of it baffling. It is not a complete paper of course, but even considered as only an intended preface to a book on the logic of mathematics, it is seems puzzlingly incomplete, at the least. Why does he start off with the theory vs. practice distinction? ]]
Gary Fuhrman says: I tend to think of that distinction as parallel to the action-perception cycle in animals generally. That is, action is guided by perception and perception guided (framed, focussed) by action, and the two parts of the cycle modify each other recursively; and likewise, practice (including experiment) is guided by theoretical models which are then modified by practice, or rather by the "reaction" with reality brought about by practice. Maybe i'm just revealing my biosemiotic leanings here, but that distinction seems basic enough to be as good a place to start as any. REPLY Thanks for the suggestion, Gary. That seems right to me, though in reflecting on this I go in a somewhat different (but compatible) direction because of my own special research interests, which in recent years have been dominated largely by concern with the role of publication in scientific inquiry considered as an act of assertion. It occurs to me that the reason why he is especially concerned about theory-practice in this particular paper may have to do with the action-reaction relationships involved in the transmission of conviction about a research finding which is expressed in the formal assertion the inquirer makes to his or her research peers when he or she puts something forth for the purpose of bringing others in the research community into agreement with him or her about the matter. Many different kinds of communication are involved in research, but what we think of as formal publication of results is an especially important kind of communication that is essential to research when it occurs within a tradition of inquiry, and it can be construed as an especially rigorous form of assertion, involving generally well-understood rules of presentation of what are purported to be findings about the subject matter which should be of interest to others in that research community and generally well-understood obligations that are invoked by the act of assertion -- obligations both on the person making the research claim and on others in the community in virtue of that claim being made. Now, Peirce talks about the nature of assertion in a number of different places in his work, but this is the only paper of his I know of where he seems to be especially concerned with the way in which the forcefulness which originally comes from the object of inquiry when it is interacted with in experimentation or observation, which compels the researcher to a conclusion about it, is then transmitted by the persuaded researcher to other researchers by the making of an assertion to them in the form of a publication put forth for precisely that persuasive purpose. The reason why mainline philosophy of science cannot come to grips with Peirce in the way it should is, I believe, that he recognizes the role of persuasion in research as a part of the rationalilty of inquiry, whereas the only way in which the presently prevailing philosophy of science seems to know how to deal with the persuasional factor is to see it as implying a scepticism about the rationality of science, as with Feyerabend and other sceptics. But Peirce thinks of the persuasional factor as omnipresent in the inquiry process, beginning from the persuasion the object of perception exerts upon the experimenting or observing inquirer in his or her interaction with the object, which is then transmitted as a conviction or belief of the persuaded inquirer to other inquirers as a finding through research communication, which takes an especially powerful form in formal publication. I have to break this off temporarily to run an errand , but you can perhaps see what I have in mind if you turn to p. 312 in the EP2 version in the longish paragraph there which ends up talking about "credenciveness" (suggestibility) and then goes on to talk about the relation of belief, affirmation (= assertion), and judgment. What I am suggesting is that the reason why he is discussing the theory-practice relationship here is not related primarily to his work on the classification of the sciences, as I thought at first it might be, but rather because he is concerned with the transmission of conviction about the subjectmatter as that is both enabled and controlled in the assertional practices in the inquiring community, which involves some sort of fundamental alternating pattern of action and reaction (response). Well, that is coming out a bit too foggy to be helpful, I'm afraid. Later, Joe -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.21/236 - Release Date: 1/20/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
