[peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New List

[Jim Piat]

Dear Folks-- poking about I found that much of what Peirce says about perception relevant to our discussion of  verification.  (I think what makes verification possible within representation is that the capacity to respond to secondness is inherent in representation -- Peirce didn't say that but I think it's so).  But Peirce did say this:   "Whatever Comte himself meant by verifiable, which is not very clear, it certainly ought not to be understood to mean veifiable by direct observation, since that would cut off all history as an inadmissile hypothesis. But what must and should be meant is that the hypothesis must be capable of comparing perceptual predictions deduced from a theory with the facts of perception predicted, and in taking the measure of agreement observed as the provisional and approximative, or probametric, measure of the general agreement of the theory with fact.   It thus appears that a conception can only be admitted into a hypothesis in so far as its possible consequences would be of a perceptual nature; which agrees with my original maxim of pragmatiism as far as it goes."   (Source EP II page 225 -The Nature of Meaning)   Well, whether the observation is direct or otherwise it does seem that Peirce views verification as comparing an prediction with an "observed" outcome.  And elsewhere in discussions of perception/observation he seems to make it clear that secondness is involved in perception and perception is involved in cognition.    And also from EP II pages 24 and 26 respectively:  "It thus appears that all knowledge comes to us from observation.  A part is forced upon us from without and seems to result from Nature's mind; a part comes from the depths of the mind as seen from within, whcih by an egotistical anacoluthon we call 'our' mind".  . . .  "The remark that reasoning consists in the observation of an icon will be found equally important in th theory and the practice of reasoning".   None of the above intended as proof of anything  -- just an interesting line of inquiry.   Jim Piat --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com