Joseph Ransdell a ��crit :
Bernard:
The only thing that presently interests me about Ben's thesis about
verification concerns it as a claim made about taking it into account
in the basic category theory. When you broaden it to being about
experimenal procedure instead that broadens it quite beyond my concern.
OK. I will try to answer Ben on the categorial aspect of the matter
further. However my point was precisely that in order to don't throw too
roughly verification into a category of its own, it is necessary to put
it into its proper context. This context is I think the scientific
method and in the same way as nobody would make of -say- the effects of
a conception a category of its own, the same goes for verification. But
there is something in Ben's argumentation that deserves interest,
namely the role of recognition and experience in the flow of living
signs as well as their involvement in the basic theory of signs. In
short, I think that if the solution of the collateral experience does
not consist in the invention of a new category, yet the problem remains.
In a sense your response below (see after my message) shows that either
you consider the problem as being concerned by the communication theory
properties of scientific exchanges or you consider it as not being a
problem at all.
I strongly agree with you on the fundamental role of trust in
recognition (and I read trust as Firstness: something which is as it is
without needing anything else). The reason is that since "all evolution
of thought is dialogical" a precondition for the dialogue can take place
is trust. I often muse over the following passage from Peirce, which I
think says just the same concerning the dialogue of our reason with the
universe:
" Our Reason is akin to the Reason that governs the universe, we must
assume that or despair of finding out anything. Now despair is always
illogical, and we are warranted in thinking so, since otherwise all
reasoning will be in vain" (NEM, Vol 3). In other words we can trust a
familiarity, affinity of our reason with the world, and this trust is
logical Peirce adds. The same goes for argumentation.
Now the fact that the dialogue is supported by trust, the fact that as
you are saying there is a normal presumption of credibility in human
communication, does not give an account of the ways in which the
dialogue itself develops: it is just a prerequisite for the dialogue to
take place. Collateral experience is a dialogue between two signs: a
sign of an object for an interpretant on the one side and another sign
(which is nothing but the previous interpretant) of the SAME object on
the other side. I say "another sign" because experience, as thought, is
in signs [To Ben's attention: you are probably familiar with second
order cybernetics as stated by von Foerster that made a special status
for the system's observer. I believed this theory for a long time but
one of the main lessons I have learned from Peirce is that there is no
such special thing as the observer or the recognizant: they just are
signs like other signs]. So we have two triads both under an actualized
form. Starting from this several directions are possible:
- stating that we have two communicating triads, which tends to make the
problem fit into an independant theory of communication (independant
from sign theory). It seems to be the way that Joe is suggesting but it
seems to me that it lets open the question of how two signs can have
the SAME object in common. Peirce did not address directly this question
as far as I know but I think that he considered that this sameness was
part of the sign definition (straight away from the New-List), so it is
a part consubstantial with the logical doctrine of signs and not a part
of an independant communication theory.
-stating that two triads, it is one in surplus, and thus that's not the
right amount. This is how I understand Ben's proposal of a special
figure with fourthness. It seems to me that it has in common with the
previous position the weakness of making the sign's theory within its
triadic character some provisional construct. Ben throws it on the fire.
-sure I would prefer a third way :-) two triads can enter within
another triad the role of which would be to unify the critical theory of
signs with the rhetorical or methodeutical one. Peirce did not achieve
that but it is not a reason for trying something like that.
Bernard
I should say, though, that I think that verification in science is
motivated in the same say as in ordinary life, namely, by the
occurrence of a real question being at least pertinent or justifiable
if not actually raised about a given claim made. In practice,
scientists tend to accept research claims made by those they regard as
peers as unquestioningly as one does in ordinary life in regards to
claims made by ordinary life peers. Huaan relationships depend
importantly on this: someone who thinks that everything anyone else
says is questionable prima facie is living in hell (which,
unfortunately, does indeed occur all too frequently in human life, as
the daily news testifies). Peirce's brief discussion of
"credenciveness" in the New Elements paper (in Essential Writings 2)
is very suggestive in this respect, and I note that Peirce is
responsible for the definition of "credencive" in the Century
Dictionary, though I can't check up on that right at the moment while
in process of composing this message. But, to put the point in brief,
I think Peirce reognizes the fundamental importance of there being a
normal presumption of credibility in human communication: the
recognition of the speech acts of assertion, statement making, etc.,
is a theoretical understanding of that pre-theoretical practice in
daily life and in science as well. It is a recognition of the
fundamental role of trust.
Joe Ransdell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
----- Original Message ----
From: Bernard Morand <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2006 5:48:29 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor
Ben, Gary, Joe, Charles and list
I followed the discussion about verification with interest and while
I don't think that the question of verification calls for a fourth
category,
some arguments from Ben deserve to be studied carefully. As an
example I will take a passage out of the last reply from Joe, a short
extract in order to limit the subject to one point that I think to be
important.
Joe writes :
"Scientific verification is really just a
sophistication about ways of checking up on something
about which one has some doubts, driven by an
unusually strong concern for establishing something as
"definitively" as possible, which is of course nothing
more than an ideal of checking up on something so
thoroughly that no real question about it will ever be
raised again. But it is no different in principle
from what we do in ordinary life when we try to "make
sure" of something that we think might be so but about
which we are not certain enough to satisfy us."
It seems to me that the Peirce's quote given by Ben
makes clear that scientific "verification" is NOT the
same as checking something in ordinary life as Joe puts
it. I reproduce a fragment of the quote :
Mr. George Henry Lewes in his work on Aristotle(1)
seems to me to have come pretty near to stating the
true cause of the success of modern science
when he
has said that it was *_verification_*. I should
express it in this way: modern students of science
have been successful because they have spent their
lives not in their libraries and museums but in their
laboratories and in the field; and while in their
laboratories and in the field they have been not
gazing on nature with a vacant eye, that is, in
passive perception unassisted by thought, but have
been *_observing_* -- that is, perceiving by the aid
of analysis -- and testing suggestions of theories.
The cause of their success has been that the motive
which has carried them to the laboratory and the field
has been a craving to know how things really were, and
an interest in finding out whether or not general
propositions actually held good -- which has
overbalanced all prejudice, all vanity, and all
passion. (CP 1.34)
The main differences are:
- the originator of the verification: according to Joe,
an individual being doubting of something ; according
to Peirce a group of students motivated by a desire to
know. Doubt isn't an essential part of the verification
motive in science.
- the goal of the verification: the fact that no real
question will be raised again on the subject according
to Joe ; wether or not a GENERAL proposition ACTUALLY
holds good with regards to a PARTICULAR fact according
to Peirce
- the means of the verification: our own satisfaction
(I suppose) according to Joe ; observation ("perception
by the aid of analysis") for Peirce.
In scientific "verification" we take advantage of
theories to be tested. Is there the same, or some
equivalent in ordinary life conduct? I don't know but
perhaps psychologists could answer. However I don't see
why it would be required that the same goes for ordinary
life conduct and scientific activity.
In fact "verification" is the word borrowed by
Peirce
from G.H. Lewes here but I think that we would better say
today "experimental method" of which the strict
verification is but one little stage. As already said it
requires what Peirce calls a general proposition and what
we would call today a "model" or a theory and what is
ascertained with the help of the method is an actuality.
Hence the verification step needs reiterations on several
cases in order to calculate the probability that they fall
under the general law. In turn these reiterations call for
protocol definitions as well as tools and instruments for
observing. A large part of the progress of science is owed
to the improvement of these instruments.
The word "experimental" is itself subject to a large
spectrum of interpretations from empirism to a mere mondane
consequence of some theory. However we dispose of a more
precise equivalent, at least on this list: the pragmatist
method
So it
seems to me that it is only by restricting the subject
to the verification step that it can appear as a matter of
ordinary life. I wonder whether this very restriction is not
also the mistake of Popper when he ends with turning
verification into falsification. But Charles is certainly
better informed
than me on this.
Regards
Bernard
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