Frances: "It would seem that objective logic must hence allow and admit
some
degree of psychologistic subjectivism after all."
and
Frances: "Human logic according to Peirce is thus seemingly an obstinate
and
degenerate form of pure logic that thinkers discover. What is likely found
however is not a rigid mechanical world predetermined to exist by some
agent of
design, but rather is a dispositional tendency for the natural world to
simply
evolve logically. The human aquisition and utilization of pure logic is
perhaps
one of intermediate phenomena, acting as a bridge laying related between
say
immediate nomena and mediate epiphenomena, if it can be put in those terms
within a Peircean framework."
In CP 4.80 Peirce writes: "Second intentional, or, as I also call it,
Objective
Logic [...]"
I do not have much use for the distinction between "subjective" and
"objective"
in your sense, though I do seem to understand very well what you mean,
Frances.
The problem is: the more subjective people are in one sense, the more
objective
they are in another sense. Take phobias. Very subjective thing. Usually I
couldn't produce such effects personally with me. But being afflicted with
it
there is a button and each time it is pushed: whooom. It happens. Very
mechanistically. Each time the very same thing. On and on.
Many years ago I learned to do "psychotherapy". What clients try to do is
change
habits. That's learning, often very serious learning, and that interested
me. In
the Freudian schools you learn beforehand what's good and what's bad.
"Projection" is bad: You see your husband and then you see your stepfather
in
him and then you are in trouble etc. So far so bad. But then, perhaps we
can put
the very same effect to a good use. There is something interesting and
maybe I
got that from Fritz Pearls or Virgina Satir. I don't remember. It's this:
Client
tells you his or her problem. You don't understand what's going on.
Neither does
your client. And you'd better know that you don't know what's going on.
For if
you really know what's going on, you have the same problem as your client.
Then
you are usually not so particularly qualified to help, since you haven't
been
able to solve your own problem. If, on the other hand, you hear what is
said and
then say: Ah, that's easy, you don't have to have that problem, since I do
not
have it. Here is my good advice. I'll tell you... Well, then your client
will go
away. And for very good reasons. If your client stays for some reason, the
best
you could do, is teach him a new language, with words like "suppression",
"resistance", "Ego", "Superego", ¨€¨Gestalt¨€ś etc etc in it. The client then
has
her problem, as before, and a new foreign language to talk about it. More
problems, not less. And when you have even a Latin name for your problem
and
it's a scientific thing, you can't simply forget, in a natural way, to
have your
problem. It will never leave you. It's Latin, you know.
That's more confusion and not less and not at all what the patient came
for.
So I hear what the description of the problem is and let's say it's about
grandma, father and poor me and so on. Then I'd say: OK, let's see what
you have
in your pockets. And there is a knife, a handkerchief, a coin etc. And we
put
things on the table here and there and there and the handkerchief is poor
me,
the coin is grandma and so on. I don't understand what that means but so
be it.
But then I get that look in my eyes and I tell the client: It's time isn't
it?
What about your watch? Client: I don't know? What is it about my watch?!
Me: I
don't know, you know. Client: I don't know either! Me: Yes, I know. Put it
on
the table. Client: Where and what is it. Me: Just guess where it should
go. You
don't know and you perfectly well know that you don't know, so you guess.
And
then you tell me what it is, this watch, that it is time for now.
That doesn't make much sense what I say. So: the step is abduction. I help
the
client to make an abduction and then this watch is "my love for ..." some
generalization of something in relation to the other things already on the
table. And then we arrange and rearrange, things appear and disappear.
"No, I
always thought it were grandma, but in truth it is ..." Things like that.
For me grandma, father and poor me could as well be A, B, C,... But why
not call
a variable grandma? Why should I be afraid to do so? Only because my math
teacher never did so? So my client solves, quite objectively, a problem
and I do
my purely fictional subjective math at the same time. All I do is see that
there
are all these necessary inductive, deductive and retroductive steps. With
all
these lovers of benefactors and non-lovers of servants of non-benefactors
etc. I
see to it that the horse keeps going on the road of inquiry.
Sometimes, when I perceive some interesting abstract pattern in these
things on
the table, I would even do some further steps with it, maybe proving an
interesting theorem. But, of course, I translate things into grandma,
father and
poor me. Often the client is very surprised at first and then even more
surprised that you understand such subtle aspects of the problem. Even
interesting new aspects.
So that's Voodoo magic, isn't it? Yes. You work with hypostatic
abstractions.
Dormitive virtue and such things. DRUGS! Thinking about thinking, i.e.
second
intentional thinking. Objectified. Why does this work miracles (given
enough
experience, keen observation, enormous personal flexibility and real human
interest, compassion with your client)?
Well, the answer you find substantially e.g. in Georg Cantor's famous
mathematical papers and it is that if you take any number of objects then
you
will _thereby_ have more relations (between objects) than you have
objects. And
if you reinsert some of these relations, which are interesting to you, as
objects into the space of the other objects, you get still other relations.
That's Peirce.
Don't say that this is the same as Existential Graphs. Existential Graphs
are
much more sophisticated and elegant. But it hinges on the same point of
hypostatic abstractions, second intentional i.e. objective logic. What
else? He
even says so. Constantly.
I know, I probably shouldn't have written the above. It's not the
scientific,
philosophical way to do things. If you would trace out the above idea with
the
same energy, genius as a Charles Peirce, you would develop the logic of
relatives and especially Existential Graphs. Sooner or later. Why not put
it to
use? Why not simply (try to) understand it? Why not a little bit of
Pragmatic
Maxim or Pragmaticist Maxim? No, no, not talking about it. You DO IT! Why
not
simply _do_ it? Why not illustrate it in a dirty little, subjective way?
Hm?
So, in particular, I don't believe that all pupils and students are ill.
Learning is not something to be ashamed of.
So what is the criterion for success in a "psychotherapeutic" setting? I
think
it is that your client is not any more so very much interested in the
"problem"
he or she came with. They even tend to forget it as something only mildly
interesting. But there are a lot of other interesting things he or she
surprisingly can do now in seemingly totally unrelated aspects of his or
her
life. They will not run around now with a "solution" instead of a
"problem" and
the one is as boring as the other is, like the middle class gentleman,
Monsieur
Jourdain, in Moliere "been speaking prose all my life, and didn't even
know it!"
They will simply do interesting new things, whatever it is that interests
them
in _their_ life. Not mine.
In a sense all I want to do is get Peirce off of my back;-)
Thomas.
P.S.
The following I borrowed from the friendly people from The Metaphysical
Club at the University of Helsinki (Thanks to there!)
(http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/pragmatismmaxim.html)
In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should
consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity
from
the truth of that conception; and the sum of these consequences will
constitute
the entire meaning of the conception." ('Pragmatism', CP 5.8-9, c. 1905)
"Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows:
Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you
conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of
those
effects is the whole of your conception of the object. I will restate this
in
other words, since ofttimes one can thus eliminate some unsuspected source
of
perplexity to the reader. This time it shall be in the indicative mood, as
follows: The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the
total of
all general modes of rational conduct which, conditionally upon all the
possible
different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the acceptance of the
symbol." ('Issues of Pragmaticism', CP 5.438, 1905)
"According to the maxim of Pragmaticism, to say that determination affects
our
occult nature is to say that it is capable of affecting deliberate
conduct; and
since we are conscious of what we do deliberately, we are conscious
habitualiter
of whatever hides in the depths of our nature; and it is presumable (and
only
presumable, although curious instances are on record), that a sufficiently
energetic effort of attention would bring it out." ('Issues of
Pragmaticism', CP
5.441, 1905)
etc etc
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