Burke and Clark:
Burke asks whether Peirce ever defined "knowledge", and I would add this to what Clark says:.
REPLY:
Yes, and very cagily, in Baldwin's Dictionary, and it appears in the Collected Papers as follows:
======Peirce: CP 5.605-6 from Baldwin's Dictionary (1902)=========
[Definition of "knowledge":]
605. This word is used in logic in two senses: (1) as a synonym for Cognition, and (2), and more usefully, to signify a perfect cognition, that is, a cognition fulfilling three conditions: first, that it holds for true a proposition that really is true; second, that it is perfectly self-satisfied and free from the uneasiness of doubt; third, that some character of this satisfaction is such that it would be logically impossible that this character should ever belong to satisfaction in a proposition not true.
606. Knowledge is divided, firstly, according to whatever classification of the sciences is adopted. Thus, Kantians distinguish formal and material knowledge. Secondly, knowledge is divided according to the different ways in which it is attained, as into immediate and mediate knowledge. Immediate knowledge is a cognition, or objective modification of consciousness, which is borne in upon a man with such resistless force as to constitute a guarantee that it (or a representation of it) will remain permanent in the development of human cognition. Such knowledge is, if its existence be granted, either borne in through an avenue of sense, external or internal, as a percept of an individual, or springs up within the mind as a first principle of reason or as a mystical revelation. Mediate knowledge is that for which there is some guarantee behind itself, although, no matter how far criticism be carried, simple evidency, or direct insistency, of something has to be relied upon. The external guarantee rests ultimately either upon authority, i.e., testimony, or upon observation. In either case mediate knowledge is attained by Reasoning, which see for further divisions. It is only necessary to mention here that the Aristotelians distinguished knowledge hoti, or of the facts themselves, and knowledge dioti, or of the rational connection of facts, the knowledge of the how and why (cf. the preceding topic). They did not distinguish between the how and the why, because they held that knowledge dioti is solely produced by Syllogism in its greatest perfection, as demonstration. The term empirical knowledge is applied to knowledge, mediate or immediate, which rests upon percepts; while the terms philosophical and rational knowledge are applied to knowledge, mediate or immediate, which rests chiefly or wholly upon conclusions or revelations of reason. Thirdly, knowledge is divided, according to the character of the immediate object, into apprehensive and judicative knowledge, the former being of a percept, image, or Vorstellung, the latter of the existence or non-existence of a fact. Fourthly, knowledge is divided, according to the manner in which it is in the mind, into actual, virtual, and habitual knowledge. See Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, lib. I, dist. iii. quest. 2, paragraph beginning "Loquendo igitur." Fifthly, knowledge is divided according to its end, into speculative and practical.
=======end quotation===============
You'll notice that he defines it as a "perfect cognition", with no implication that any such thing ever is or is not actually attained. Thus it is stated consistently with his fallibilism since it specifies a condition -- the first condition, that it really is true -- which specifies something we cannot be absolutely certain of, though of course we may very well be certain enough for this or that practical purpose. As a matter if practice we do of course identify some things we are confident about as being knowledge, but it never follows from that that it IS knowledge. All knowledge is really just "knowledge".so-called. But, again, there can be (defeasible) situational justification for so identifying it.
Peirce uses the word "cognition" frequently, and that term does not carry the same burden of implication in its use that "knowledge" does, so, for example, it is not straining its usage to speak of defective or even false cognition. In practice, nothing of importance in his philosophy seems to hinge on how Peirce conceives of knowledge, which is little more than a verbal question given his approach to topics usually connected with it, such as the question of what is meant by truth, for example. The question about the meaning of "truth" or "true" IS an important question for Peirce, since inquiry, being essentially social, involves truth claims. But does it involve knowledge claims? Only secondarily, when one is defending a truth claim by citing something which is functioning as a premise or presupposition of the truth claim one is making and justifying the use of that premise or presupposition as something "we already know", which is typically just a way of saying: "That is not in question for us" or "everybody takes that for granted" as a way of discouraging any attempt to put it into question and thus undercut our truth claim in that way. The function of a publication which is a research report -- not all research publication is of this nature but in what is regarded as primary publication in a science you have what can alternatively be called a "research report", which is a claim about a finding of some sort -- in such publication the paper as a whole makes a truth claim. It claims that something should be accepted by other researchers for the reasons given in the paper. It is not a knowledge claim. It would be absurd to conclude a research claim by saying "I (or we, the author of the report) know such and such." Why? Because it is of the essence of such a report that one is attempting to bring about agreement about something which does not exist prior to the publication of the report, which is supposed to be instrumental in bringing that agreement about.
The point is that because Peirce regards science (in the broad sense) as essentially of the nature of an ongoing social process, rather than as an archive of already established acceptances (i.e as an archive of "knowledge"), he has only a secondary interest in the nature of knowledge -- or rather "knowledge" so-called, speaking strictly It is the pursuit of knowledge, to be sure, -- or rather the pursuit of "knowledge" -- but a theory of inquiry is primarily concerned with the nature of truth, not knowledge. It is not accidental that Peirce has the only really interesting theory of truth. Compare the usual "mainstream" philosophical definitions of truth as correspondence or coherence or the usual debased "pragmatic" conception of "true if it works". They are either trivial (correspondence), obviously inadequate (coherence), or preposterous (debased pragmatism).
Dewey makes the mistake of not thinking that much interest attaches to the concept of truth -- though he agrees with Peirce's definitions of it -- because of the redundancy in the usage of "true" as a predicate, where itt typically serves the purpose of an indicator of assertional intent. Karl Popper, whom I rhink of as another of the few major figures in the same tradition as Peirce (the Socratic tradition, as I claimed in a paper a few years back and have claimed on and off here over the years). Popper lays much heavier stress on the conception of truth in his work than Dewey does,, but it is not clear to me that he has actually worked out the reason for its importance in the way that Peirce has. In any case, this tradition -- marginalized during the 20th Century -- is the one that takes inquiry rather than knowledge as primary. That there is something seriously wrong-headed about the prevailing or mainstream view of these matters is shown, in my opinion, by the helplessnesa of contemporary philosophy of science in the face of the radical scepticism of Feyerabend and such lesser lights as Rorty, speaking for the literary humanists, and of course there is also the "post-modern" scepticism which was at one time so prominent, but which seems to have lost some of its appeal since the coming to power of the devotees of the politics of Thrasymachus, who knows quite well how useful that sort of scepticism can be when it comes to "the interests of the stronger party".
.Joe Ransdell
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----- Original Message ----
From: Burke Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:23:05 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Peirce and knowledge
From: Burke Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Peirce Discussion Forum <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:23:05 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: Peirce and knowledge
Did Peirce ever give his own working definition of the word "knowledge?"
I "know" that Peirce thought that our knowledge is fallible, truth is
something we only approach in the long run, that scientific knowledge
has a social nature, etc., but, again, would anyone on the list tell me
more about how you think he would define that concept?
Thanks in advance.
Burke Johnson
I "know" that Peirce thought that our knowledge is fallible, truth is
something we only approach in the long run, that scientific knowledge
has a social nature, etc., but, again, would anyone on the list tell me
more about how you think he would define that concept?
Thanks in advance.
Burke Johnson
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