Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Tom, list,

You wrote,

   In the vast majority of our deductions, we are not propelled by any
   specific urge or sensation.
   [End quote]

I wouldn't say that we are _/propelled/_ by an urge or sensation to 
deduction in the way that we are propelled by surprise or perplexity to 
an abductive inference. I'd say that we are _/drawn/_ to deduction, as 
to a goal. The impatience that prepares us to be so drawn is an 
impatience relative to the prospect of waiting for the unexpedited 
course of experience to tell us what the deduction could now tell us, 
insofar as deduction is predictive. One will not feel much of that 
impatience if the deduction is easy or if one doesn't seriously consider 
the prospect of waiting instead of deducing. Peirce speaks of abductive 
inference as occasioned by surprise. Yet he also holds that abductive 
inference shades by degrees into perceptual judgment. That's to say that 
surprise, or some mild or mostly potential kind of surprise, is an 
ongoing part of perception. I'm not trying to do psychology, but instead 
trying to make out logical patterns. Even if there's not an outstanding 
degree of surprise in it, a phenomenon is perceived that needs to be 
explained in abductive inference. Likewise, even if there's not an 
outstanding degree of suspense in it, in deduction a phenomenon is 
conceived whose ramifications need to be expedited to light; they're 
already there, in some sense, in the premisses.


You wrote,

   Deduction is something we do because of our evolved brains,
   particularly the frontal cortex.
   [End quote]

I'd say that it is something we do because our brains have been evolved 
to adapt themselves to deduction (and other kinds of inference). 
Aerodynamics constrains the evolutions of flying animals. Deduction is 
one of those things that constrain the evolution of intelligence.


Your example of deduction is actually rather suspenseful and thereby 
proves my point. One deduces that something is wrong, one very much does 
not want to wait to find out, in the unexpedited course of experience, 
that something is wrong. But what is it? In puzzlement, one guesses.


Best, Ben

On 10/29/2015 5:46 PM, Ozzie wrote:


Ben U, List ~
This is a great discussion but I wanted to interject a 
practical/physical element that is missing.


One issue touched on is the role of impatience or dissatisfaction as a 
trigger for deductive/predictive thinking.  Of course, one can whip up 
impatience or dissatisfaction at will, but that is an artificial 
element if it must first be "whipped up."  The more important question 
is how logic occurs naturally, across all of experience.   As general 
matter, we are constantly making predictions from the imperfect 
deductive model of reality that each of us carries around in our 
heads.  In the vast majority of our deductions, we are not propelled 
by any specific urge or sensation.


Deduction is something we do because of our evolved brains, 
particularly the frontal cortex.  The frontal cortex is tasked with 
building the deductive model from birth, and works automatically like 
our hearts and lungs.  The frontal cortex evolved from survival (and 
success) factors in the human environment 100,000+ years ago.  Its 
purpose is to predict, so avoiding risks and finding food are more 
easily accomplished.


The evolved mechanism can of course be used for other purposes 
(forecasting stock prices, finding a wife, etc.), and in those cases 
the motive will vary along multiple dimension.  Impatience and 
dissatisfaction cannot be ruled out, but I don't see why they would be 
preeminent, either.  If one non-automatic motive for practicing 
deductive logic is predominant across the human species, I would 
expect to find it hard-wired into the mechanism, like the 
survive/thrive motive mentioned above.  So there should be some sort 
of evolutionary story to support the view that a certain motive that 
propels deductive thought is universal.  (If another general motive 
exists, I would guess it is emotional in nature.)


My second point concerns this comment posted earlier:  "In the 
deduction of further implications of the hypothesis once accepted 
(albeit on probation), it is not always so easy to find distinctive 
implications unimplied by competing explanations or by accepted theory."


I agree with this empirical challenge, so here is my model to show how 
deduction occurs in everyday experience:  Suppose you walk into your 
darkened bedroom tonight and reach inside the door to flip on the 
light.  While you were away, however, suppose I entered your home and 
raised the light switch 3" higher.  Then, when you try to turn on the 
light tonight, you will fumble around to find the switch.  And you 
will know, even in the dark, that something is "wrong."


This is a prediction issued from the deductive model of your world 
carried around in your brain.  Your prediction was made without 
conscious effort or motive.  The "surprise" of being

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Ozzie]

Ben U, List ~
This is a great discussion but I wanted to interject a practical/physical 
element that is missing. 

One issue touched on is the role of impatience or dissatisfaction as a trigger 
for deductive/predictive thinking.  Of course, one can whip up impatience or 
dissatisfaction at will, but that is an artificial element if it must first be 
"whipped up."  The more important question is how logic occurs naturally, 
across all of experience.   As general matter, we are constantly making 
predictions from the imperfect deductive model of reality that each of us 
carries around in our heads.  In the vast majority of our deductions, we are 
not propelled by any specific urge or sensation. 

Deduction is something we do because of our evolved brains, particularly the 
frontal cortex.  The frontal cortex is tasked with building the deductive model 
from birth, and works automatically like our hearts and lungs.  The frontal 
cortex evolved from survival (and success) factors in the human environment 
100,000+ years ago.  Its purpose is to predict, so avoiding risks and finding 
food are more easily accomplished. 

The evolved mechanism can of course be used for other purposes (forecasting 
stock prices, finding a wife, etc.), and in those cases the motive will vary 
along multiple dimension.  Impatience and dissatisfaction cannot be ruled out, 
but I don't see why they would be preeminent, either.  If one non-automatic 
motive for practicing deductive logic is predominant across the human species, 
I would expect to find it hard-wired into the mechanism, like the 
survive/thrive motive mentioned above.  So there should be some sort of 
evolutionary story to support the view that a certain motive that propels 
deductive thought is universal.  (If another general motive exists, I would 
guess it is emotional in nature.)

My second point concerns this comment posted earlier:  "In the deduction of 
further implications of the hypothesis once accepted (albeit on probation), it 
is not always so easy to find distinctive implications unimplied by competing 
explanations or by accepted theory." 

I agree with this empirical challenge, so here is my model to show how 
deduction occurs in everyday experience:  Suppose you walk into your darkened 
bedroom tonight and reach inside the door to flip on the light.  While you were 
away, however, suppose I entered your home and raised the light switch 3" 
higher.  Then, when you try to turn on the light tonight, you will fumble 
around to find the switch.  And you will know, even in the dark, that something 
is "wrong."  

This is a prediction issued from the deductive model of your world carried 
around in your brain.  Your prediction was made without conscious effort or 
motive.  The "surprise" of being wrong triggers your abduction that something 
is new, and you will update your deductive model -- though perhaps not until 
collecting more evidence from inductive activities.  Maybe you will continue to 
fumble with the light switch several more times before you can consistently 
forecast where to place your hand to turn on the light with minimal effort.  

Regards,
Tom Wyrick



> On Oct 29, 2015, at 12:34 PM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:
> 
> Dear Ben Novak, list,
> As regards an explanation A's implying the surprising phenomenon C, that 
> seems more on the level of implication than of an actual inference, which 
> would be the mind's moving from A as an accepted premiss to conclude at least 
> tentatively C. The mind already believes C and does not yet believe or 
> suspect A (that happens instead in the abductive conclusion). I'm not sure 
> that Peirce always thought that that implication had to be strictly deductive 
> (he just says "a matter of course") but I'll have to dig into "On the Logic 
> of Drawing History from Ancient Documents" where he goes into that relation 
> in some detail if I recall correctly.
> But let's say that it _is_ deductive, and that it is a deductive implication 
> even if not an actual deduction. Sometimes one needs to do a kind of proof of 
> concept. One thinks roughly that a certain hypothesis would entail the 
> phenomenon, but one needs to show the entailment clearly. This proof may take 
> mathematical form, and so on. It won't always be so comfortable and easy.
> In the deduction of further implications of the hypothesis once accepted 
> (albeit on probation), it is not always so easy to find distinctive 
> implications unimplied by competing explanations or by accepted theory.  
> Anyway, generally, the challenge of a heuristically worthwhile deduction is 
> to reach a new (or nontrivial) perspective without actually concluding in a 
> claim new to, i.e., unentailed by, the premisses. In seeking a new 
> perspective, one is trying to get something like information, news, even 
> though the deduction is uninformative in the Shannon sense. It is this sense 
> of seeking news that I'm magnifying into an (mild) emotion of impatience o

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Clark Goble]

> On Oct 29, 2015, at 9:06 AM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:
> 
> I think that I'd agree with Kant's remark "That philosophy which mixes pure 
> principles with empirical ones does not deserve the name of philosophy" 
> if by "philosophy" one takes him to mean pure philosophy, or pure cenoscopy 
> in Peirce's sense, as opposed to applied philosophy/cenoscopy, which can get 
> into questions such as that of the evolution of living beings from material 
> systems as understood by the special sciences (a.k.a. idioscopy), and so on. 

In one sense this seems almost true by definition. That is if we’re doing an 
analysis that depends upon keeping straight phenomena from necessary 
conditions. On the other hand as I’ve discussed here before I tend to agree 
with Quine that Kant’s division is deeply problematic in practice. By practice 
I don’t mean just applied philosophy (although I’m unsure what we mean by 
that). It seems to me that the very separation between logical supports and 
empirics is itself a kind of applied philosophy that breaks down when we 
consider philosophy in more abstract. That’s not to say the opposition isn’t 
frequently useful. It’s worth considering pure cenoscopy as a logical issue. 
Just that in more epistemological or even ontological senses the opposition 
doesn’t seem firm.

But maybe what I’m really questioning isn’t the “pure principles” vs. 
“empirical principles” so much as “applied philosophy” and “pure philosophy.” 

Peirce discusses something related in “The Basis of Pragmaticism  in the 
Normative Sciences” (chapter 27 in EP emphasis mine).

Two meanings of the term “philosophy” call for our particular notice. The two 
meanings agree in making philosophical knowledge positive, that is, in making 
it a knowledge of things real, in opposition to mathematical knowledge, which 
is a knowledge of the consequences of arbitrary hypotheses; and they further 
agree in making philosophical truth extremely general. But in other respects 
they differ as widely as they well could. For one of them, which is better 
entitled (except by usage) to being distinguished as philosophia prima than is 
ontology, embraces all that positive science which rests upon familiar 
experience and does not search out occult or rare phenomena; while the other, 
which has been called philosophia ultima, embraces all that truth which is 
derivable by collating the results of the different special sciences, but which 
is too broad to be perfectly established by any one of them. The former is well 
named by Jeremy Bentham’s term cenoscopy κοινοσκοπι the lookout upon the 
common), the latter goes by the name of synthetic philosophy. Widely different 
as the two sciences are, [they are] frequently confounded and intertangled; and 
when they are distinguished the question is often asked, “Which of these is the 
true philosophy?” as if an appreciation of one necessarily involved a 
depreciation of the other. In the writer’s opinion each is an important study. 
Cenoscopy should be that department of heuretic science which stands next after 
Mathematics, and before Idioscopy, or special science; while Synthetic 
Philosophy, the subject upon which Francis Bacon, Auguste Comte, William 
Whewell, and Herbert Spencer have left us admirable works in their several 
ways, stands at the head of the Retrospective Sciences.

Is this what you’re getting at? In your list from the original post you have 
cenescopy as one division within the science of discovery. I’m not sure where 
you see Kant fitting in here though. I assume it’s the same divide but I’d be 
interested in seeing if you think so. In your list of taxonomy these are 
separated by science of discovery and science of review. However some might see 
applied philosophy more as practical science, your third category. 

To me Kant’s dictim seems more about the divide between mathematics and 
cenoscopy. If so, then does “pure cenoscopy” mean something more mathematical? 

Sorry for my being so confused. Despite my misgivings about Peirce’s project 
here, I do think that keeping the categories separate is useful even if I think 
our inquiry in practice won’t be so neat. For Quine the concern with Kant was 
more epistemological than categorical.

 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Dear Ben Novak, list,

I should add something for a broader picture.

I've talked about associating a certain impatience for a new perspective 
with deduction. Generally, Peirce justifies abductive inference _/in 
general/_ as leading more expeditiously than anything else does to new 
truths. The point of the whole scientific method is to speed inquiry up, 
in Peirce's view. So some sort of impatience has a natural place in 
scientific inquiry. Being ampliative, an abductive inference necessarily 
makes a new claim beyond the premisses. But Peirce doesn't see novelty, 
counter-intuitiveness, or anything like that, as justifying a given 
abductive inference (prior to testing). One doesn't know at that point 
whether it has led to a new truth. Instead, plausibility, as natural 
simplicity, is what justifies an abductive inference prior to testing, 
and the associated emotion is not that of impatience or suspense, but 
that of surprise, bafflement, conflict with one's assumptions or 
beliefs. I'm suggesting that the sense of impatience does, however, 
belong to the occasion of deduction, just as the new perspective does - 
because reaching the conclusion will lead to a true new perspective, if 
the premisses are true.


Best, Ben

On 10/29/2015 1:34 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


Dear Ben Novak, list,

As regards an explanation A's implying the surprising phenomenon C, 
that seems more on the level of implication than of an actual 
inference, which would be the mind's moving from A as an accepted 
premiss to conclude at least tentatively C. The mind already believes 
C and does not yet believe or suspect A (that happens instead in the 
abductive conclusion). I'm not sure that Peirce always thought that 
that implication had to be strictly deductive (he just says "a matter 
of course") but I'll have to dig into "On the Logic of Drawing History 
from Ancient Documents" where he goes into that relation in some 
detail if I recall correctly.


But let's say that it _/is/_ deductive, and that it is a deductive 
implication even if not an actual deduction. Sometimes one needs to do 
a kind of proof of concept. One thinks roughly that a certain 
hypothesis would entail the phenomenon, but one needs to show the 
entailment clearly. This proof may take mathematical form, and so on. 
It won't always be so comfortable and easy.


In the deduction of further implications of the hypothesis once 
accepted (albeit on probation), it is not always so easy to find 
distinctive implications unimplied by competing explanations or by 
accepted theory.


Anyway, generally, the challenge of a heuristically worthwhile 
deduction is to reach a new (or nontrivial) perspective without 
actually concluding in a claim new to, i.e., unentailed by, the 
premisses. In seeking a new perspective, one is trying to get 
something like information, news, even though the deduction is 
uninformative in the Shannon sense. It is this sense of seeking news 
that I'm magnifying into an (mild) emotion of impatience or suspense.


That's very easy in the case of categorical syllogisms, and the 
novelty is minimal there, but still observable:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Ergo———Socrates is mortal.

Of course there are all kinds of logic problems where the solution is 
not so obvious.


You wrote,

Therefore, I ask: If one assumed that "If A, then C would be a
matter of course," and then deduced from A that one should find
not only C, but also D and F, then when one checked and found that
D or F were not found in the circumstances in which one found C,
would then one have an attenuative deduction situation? Or would
one only have the falsification of hypothesis A?

If, from A one attenuatively deduces D, and next finds D false upon 
observation, then from not-D one attenuatively deduces  not-A; A is 
disproven (i.e., falsified).


I should add that I've found only one place where Peirce wrote of a 
new aspect as part of deduction's function. See Appendix below.


Best, Ben

Appendix: Peirce wrote in his 1905 letter draft to Mario Calderoni (CP 
8.209)

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letter-draft-mario-calderoni-0

[] The second kind of reasoning is deduction, or necessary
reasoning. It is applicable only to an ideal state of things, or
to a state of things in so far as it may conform to an ideal. It
merely gives a new aspect to the premisses. [ End quote]

In mentioning the "new aspect," Peirce was stating something that many 
have noticed. Technically it doesn't apply to all deduction (a 
deduction with the form /pq/ ergo /p/ is valid but brings no new 
aspect to the premisses), but just to deduction with some heuristic 
value (and, I'd say, among such deductions, more to attenuative 
deduction than to equipollential deduction).


On 10/21/2015 10:46 PM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear Ben Udell:

Please rest assured that I did not take any of your comments as 
criticism.


Rather, I am very

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Dear Ben Novak, list,

As regards an explanation A's implying the surprising phenomenon C, that 
seems more on the level of implication than of an actual inference, 
which would be the mind's moving from A as an accepted premiss to 
conclude at least tentatively C. The mind already believes C and does 
not yet believe or suspect A (that happens instead in the abductive 
conclusion). I'm not sure that Peirce always thought that that 
implication had to be strictly deductive (he just says "a matter of 
course") but I'll have to dig into "On the Logic of Drawing History from 
Ancient Documents" where he goes into that relation in some detail if I 
recall correctly.


But let's say that it _/is/_ deductive, and that it is a deductive 
implication even if not an actual deduction. Sometimes one needs to do a 
kind of proof of concept. One thinks roughly that a certain hypothesis 
would entail the phenomenon, but one needs to show the entailment 
clearly. This proof may take mathematical form, and so on. It won't 
always be so comfortable and easy.


In the deduction of further implications of the hypothesis once accepted 
(albeit on probation), it is not always so easy to find distinctive 
implications unimplied by competing explanations or by accepted theory.


Anyway, generally, the challenge of a heuristically worthwhile deduction 
is to reach a new (or nontrivial) perspective without actually 
concluding in a claim new to, i.e., unentailed by, the premisses. In 
seeking a new perspective, one is trying to get something like 
information, news, even though the deduction is uninformative in the 
Shannon sense. It is this sense of seeking news that I'm magnifying into 
an (mild) emotion of impatience or suspense.


That's very easy in the case of categorical syllogisms, and the novelty 
is minimal there, but still observable:

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Ergo———Socrates is mortal.

Of course there are all kinds of logic problems where the solution is 
not so obvious.


You wrote,

   Therefore, I ask: If one assumed that "If A, then C would be a
   matter of course," and then deduced from A that one should find not
   only C, but also D and F, then when one checked and found that D or
   F were not found in the circumstances in which one found C, would
   then one have an attenuative deduction situation? Or would one only
   have the falsification of hypothesis A?

If, from A one attenuatively deduces D, and next finds D false upon 
observation, then from not-D one attenuatively deduces not-A; A is 
disproven (i.e., falsified).


I should add that I've found only one place where Peirce wrote of a new 
aspect as part of deduction's function. See Appendix below.


Best, Ben

Appendix: Peirce wrote in his 1905 letter draft to Mario Calderoni (CP 
8.209)

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-letter-draft-mario-calderoni-0

   [] The second kind of reasoning is deduction, or necessary
   reasoning. It is applicable only to an ideal state of things, or to
   a state of things in so far as it may conform to an ideal. It merely
   gives a new aspect to the premisses. [ End quote]

In mentioning the "new aspect," Peirce was stating something that many 
have noticed. Technically it doesn't apply to all deduction (a deduction 
with the form /pq/ ergo /p/ is valid but brings no new aspect to the 
premisses), but just to deduction with some heuristic value (and, I'd 
say, among such deductions, more to attenuative deduction than to 
equipollential deduction).


On 10/21/2015 10:46 PM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear Ben Udell:

Please rest assured that I did not take any of your comments as 
criticism.


Rather, I am very interested in the issues that you have raised, and 
eager to understand them. I therefore appreciate very much your 
explanatory emails, both in response to me and to others, as well as 
of all those others who have contributed to this thread.


I find your puzzlement about the "emotion belonging to occasion of 
(attenuative) deduction" to be fascinating, at least as you describe 
the problem:


It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the
emotion belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm
thinking of a feeling of curiosity about the future such that one
wishes to shorten by deduction the wait till discovery. You
suggest the word 'dissatisfaction'. One could think of a feeling
of dissatisfaction with the facts known or hypothesized so far, as
if they seemed coy, or insufficient for a worthwhile conclusion,
to which one responds by managing to deduce a worthwhile
conclusion. Yet "dissatisfaction" as the occasion of deduction
seems too vague. Surprise and perplexity could also be taken as
kinds of dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's idea that
deduction _predicts_, then the idea of at least some mild feeling
of suspense or impatience seems to follow logically enough as
belonging to deduct

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

inciples in 
which shallowpates revel because all this is something quite useful 
for the chitchat of everyday life." (G, 410)


Drawing on the arguments that Kant is making about the how we ought to 
inquire about in normative questions, Peirce insists that it is 
essential that we refine our methods for the sake of inquiring into 
the following kinds of questions:


1)  What ideals should we aspire to?
2)  What principles determine whether an action is right or wrong?
3)  What principles should govern the conduct of my thought so that my 
reasoning will be valid an my inquiries will really lead me to truth?


One of the main reasons Peirce has for making a clear plan for his 
inquiries into the normative sciences is that these kinds of questions 
require that we employ the appropriate methods.  For better or worse, 
the methods that have been developed up to this point in the history 
of thought are not quite what we need if we hope to develop better 
answers to the questions.  As such, we need to refine and develop the 
appropriate methods.  One of the main purposes of formulating an 
architectonic plan for philosophical inquiry into these kinds of 
questions is that we are constantly in danger of 1) perpetuating 
longstanding confusions about the phenomena that we are trying to 
explain, 2) failing to understand what is special about the subject 
matter of our inquiries, 3) failing to clarify the goals that are 
guiding us and 4) failing to understand how we should use the methods 
we've got to improve upon our understanding of 1-4.


--Jeff

Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com ]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:11 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion


Clark, list,

I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in 
the light shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up 
of knowledge. Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically 
right, which combined mathematical postulates are consistent and 
nontrivial, and so on, instead it decides which maths are applicable 
to, and illuminating in, physics. How far can one trace such 
structures of logical dependence and independence?


Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical 
refraction was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in 
mathematics. But even if it hadn't proved applicable in physics, it 
still would have been mathematically valuable. If one thinks that 
mathematics depends logically on biology or psychology, one will 
start asking mathematicians to study biology or psychology to really 
get to the bottom of their subject. While they might find some 
inspiration and deep examples of math there, it still seems like a 
more refined and polite version of sending the mathematicians out to 
work in the collective farms. I think that mathematicians would 
already be studying a lot more biology or psychology if they thought 
that such studies could support their mathematical findings.


Moreover, one may suppose (as Peirce did) that the most general 
classifications will bear out logical structure, and that the layout 
of the city of research will come to reflect the collective structure 
of the subject matters like constellations above. One likes to see 
what that 'total population' of subject matters shapes up to look 
like in terms of parameters. I imagine that Peirce liked that. It 
seems philosophical enough. Peirce put such classification into 
'Science of Review', which he also called 'Synthetic Philosophy'. At 
any rate such classification applies cenoscopic philosophy. If one 
extends parameters from a number of sample cases, one may even 
predict that there ought to be, or come to be, a certain field of study.


***

It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the 
emotion belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm 
thinking of a feeling of curiosity about the future such that one 
wishes to shorten by deduction the wait till discovery. You suggest 
the word 'dissatisfaction'. One could think of a feeling of 
dissatisfaction with the facts known or hypothesized so far, as if 
they seemed coy, or insufficient for a worthwhile conclusion, to 
which one responds by managing to deduce a worthwhile conclusion. Yet 
"dissatisfaction" as the occasion of deduction seems too vague. 
Surprise and perplexity could also be taken as kinds of 
dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's idea that deduction 
_/predicts/ _, then the idea of at least some mild feeling of 
suspense or impatience seems to follow logically enough as belonging 
to deduction's occasion. If one has abduced a hypothesis about which 
one cares, and can't think of a deductive, distinctive testable 
prediction, one

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

ght or wrong?
3)  What principles should govern the conduct of my thought so that my 
reasoning will be valid an my inquiries will really lead me to truth?


One of the main reasons Peirce has for making a clear plan for his 
inquiries into the normative sciences is that these kinds of questions 
require that we employ the appropriate methods.  For better or worse, 
the methods that have been developed up to this point in the history 
of thought are not quite what we need if we hope to develop better 
answers to the questions.  As such, we need to refine and develop the 
appropriate methods.  One of the main purposes of formulating an 
architectonic plan for philosophical inquiry into these kinds of 
questions is that we are constantly in danger of 1) perpetuating 
longstanding confusions about the phenomena that we are trying to 
explain, 2) failing to understand what is special about the subject 
matter of our inquiries, 3) failing to clarify the goals that are 
guiding us and 4) failing to understand how we should use the methods 
we've got to improve upon our understanding of 1-4.


--Jeff

Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com ]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:11 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion


Clark, list,

I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in 
the light shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up 
of knowledge. Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically 
right, which combined mathematical postulates are consistent and 
nontrivial, and so on, instead it decides which maths are applicable 
to, and illuminating in, physics. How far can one trace such 
structures of logical dependence and independence?


Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical 
refraction was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in 
mathematics. But even if it hadn't proved applicable in physics, it 
still would have been mathematically valuable. If one thinks that 
mathematics depends logically on biology or psychology, one will 
start asking mathematicians to study biology or psychology to really 
get to the bottom of their subject. While they might find some 
inspiration and deep examples of math there, it still seems like a 
more refined and polite version of sending the mathematicians out to 
work in the collective farms. I think that mathematicians would 
already be studying a lot more biology or psychology if they thought 
that such studies could support their mathematical findings.


Moreover, one may suppose (as Peirce did) that the most general 
classifications will bear out logical structure, and that the layout 
of the city of research will come to reflect the collective structure 
of the subject matters like constellations above. One likes to see 
what that 'total population' of subject matters shapes up to look 
like in terms of parameters. I imagine that Peirce liked that. It 
seems philosophical enough. Peirce put such classification into 
'Science of Review', which he also called 'Synthetic Philosophy'. At 
any rate such classification applies cenoscopic philosophy. If one 
extends parameters from a number of sample cases, one may even 
predict that there ought to be, or come to be, a certain field of study.


***

It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the 
emotion belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm 
thinking of a feeling of curiosity about the future such that one 
wishes to shorten by deduction the wait till discovery. You suggest 
the word 'dissatisfaction'. One could think of a feeling of 
dissatisfaction with the facts known or hypothesized so far, as if 
they seemed coy, or insufficient for a worthwhile conclusion, to 
which one responds by managing to deduce a worthwhile conclusion. Yet 
"dissatisfaction" as the occasion of deduction seems too vague. 
Surprise and perplexity could also be taken as kinds of 
dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's idea that deduction 
_/predicts/ _, then the idea of at least some mild feeling of 
suspense or impatience seems to follow logically enough as belonging 
to deduction's occasion. If one has abduced a hypothesis about which 
one cares, and can't think of a deductive, distinctive testable 
prediction, one is left to feel impatient for time's eventual 
confirmation or overturning of one's hypothesis in the natural course 
of events. Note also the nice opposition between surprise, 
perplexity, etc., and suspense. Well, I guess there's to brood on the 
question some more.


Best, Ben

On 10/21/2015 2:28 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Oct 21, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

The positivists divided sciences into formal (i.e., mathematics and 
dedu

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Clark Goble]

> On Oct 21, 2015, at 3:14 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard  
> wrote:
> 
> The main thing I want to add to what you've said is prompted by a remark that 
> Kant makes about philosophical methodology.  In the Preface of the Grounding, 
> he puts a sharp edge on the claim.  He says:  "That philosophy which mixes 
> pure principles with empirical ones does not deserve the name of 
> philosophy" (G, 390) 

As you note earlier it does seem quite common in philosophy to dispute this 
point with Kant. Certainly Quine raises very good reasons for questioning the 
distinction between synthetic and analytic truth. That’s not to say the 
categories aren’t helpful in many cases. Just that I think the divide between 
science and philosophy is a problematic one in some ways. It’s not just those 
with analytic backgrounds making such critiques. You find it in the Continental 
tradition as well.

Is this highly influential argument of Quine’s at odds with Peirce? I’m not 
sure it is. (Ironically Quine gets called a pragmatist although in his writings 
on Peirce he clearly is fairly ignorant of him. Quine himself doesn’t consider 
himself a pragmatist.)

At least some interpreters of Peirce see the analytic/synthetic distinction as 
arising out of the very nature of the sign and the distinction between 
interpretant and object. However given that signs can be decomposed this is 
then seen as at best a relative divide.

Given the nature of the Peircean sign, especially in his mature phase, I wonder 
how Peirce would view this grounding. 

Clearly Peirce makes this divisions at time as a useful type of logical 
analysis, as Ben notes. I’m just not at all convinced the logic of his thought 
maintains such divisions as absolutes. 

I should reiterate that my critique of Peirce on the classification of the 
sciences was more just a critique of its utility in this day and age. Clearly 
there are cases where such categories might be fruitful either pedagogically or 
as a shorthand for thought. 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Clark Goble]

> On Oct 21, 2015, at 2:11 PM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:
> 
> I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in the light 
> shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up of knowledge. 
> Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically right, which combined 
> mathematical postulates are consistent and nontrivial, and so on, instead it 
> decides which maths are applicable to, and illuminating in, physics. How far 
> can one trace such structures of logical dependence and independence?


This seems to rest on a problematic division of who decides what’s right. It’s 
precisely because of cases like this that I find Peirce’s focus on taxonomy 
(especially of the sciences) problematic. I completely agree with your later 
comments about how taxonomies help keep logical divisions clear. Where that can 
be done we must do it. Think for instance of the analysis of interpretations of 
quantum mechanics where we must keep epistemological and ontological categories 
clear.

My problem with the above is that what determines something is right is largely 
a community response. An informed community focusing in on logic. But a social 
community nonetheless. Most problematically I’m not sure the community is 
neatly split among physicists and mathematicians. 

Clearly mathematicians do physics. (Think Peter Woit for instance who has been 
a constant skeptic of string theory keeping physicists honest about the 
empirics of their work) I think the opposite happens as well. Now we might be 
tempted to say that we must distinguish between a physicist doing mathematics 
and a mathematical doing physics. But that then leads us to a situation where I 
sense a vicious regress. A physicist is a mathematician when judging what is 
mathematics when… 

I think we can separate the fields but of course what decides what is right is 
separate from its nature. Physics as a social field blends with mathematics so 
that areas get pushed by physics. Think certain subsets of abstract algebra of 
use in dealing with symmetries. It’s also the case that the very nature of 
mathematics changes with this influence. I think this was noted in the 70’s by 
Putnam with his justly famous paper on semi-empirical methods in mathematics. 
The “taking as true” mathematical theorems for which there is no formal proof 
but which most regard as true became much more common. Then there were the 
quasi-proofs starting with things like the Four Color Theorem where computers 
were so utilized such that no individual really could trace the steps in the 
proof. While not exactly what Putnam was getting at it became a good 
illustration of semi-empirical methods. Since then such proofs have become more 
common. Likewise unproven mathematical theorem can be treated as true due to 
influence from physics. I believe the Corbordism Hypothesis is an example of 
this - one can approach it via algebraic topology or from quantum field theory.

This is all quite loose though. Clearly physicists typically approach things 
quite different from how mathematicians typically do. The above to me is more 
an example of Peirce’s principle of continuity. 

I bring all this up simply because it seems like the sciences are so messy like 
this that even two fields between which it seems easy to draw boundaries shows 
that in practice the boundaries break down. Famously this is a problem dividing 
the scientific from the non-scientific as well. I suspect it will be true of 
any category of this sort which rests in part upon a social aspect. Any logical 
analysis which depends upon the maintenance of strong boundaries would thus be 
an incorrect analysis. (Although perhaps useful as a first or second order 
approximation for thinking through issues)

Even clear divisions such as between ontology and epistemology sometimes break 
down in similar ways. (What if the epistemological limits are just ontological 
for instance? Certainly possible if one is an idealist of certain stripes.)






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Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Ben Novak]

Dear Ben Udell:

Please rest assured that I did not take any of your comments as criticism.

Rather, I am very interested in the issues that you have raised, and eager
to understand them. I therefore appreciate very much your explanatory
emails, both in response to me and to others, as well as of all those
others who have contributed to this thread.

I find your puzzlement about the "emotion belonging to occasion of
(attenuative) deduction" to be fascinating, at least as you describe the
problem:

It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the emotion
belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm thinking of a
feeling of curiosity about the future such that one wishes to shorten by
deduction the wait till discovery. You suggest the word 'dissatisfaction'.
One could think of a feeling of dissatisfaction with the facts known or
hypothesized so far, as if they seemed coy, or insufficient for a
worthwhile conclusion, to which one responds by managing to deduce a
worthwhile conclusion. Yet "dissatisfaction" as the occasion of deduction
seems too vague. Surprise and perplexity could also be taken as kinds of
dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's idea that deduction _
*predicts*_, then the idea of at least some mild feeling of suspense or
impatience seems to follow logically enough as belonging to deduction's
occasion. If one has abduced a hypothesis about which one cares, and can't
think of a deductive, distinctive testable prediction, one is left to feel
impatient for time's eventual confirmation or overturning of one's
hypothesis in the natural course of events. Note also the nice opposition
between surprise, perplexity, etc., and suspense. Well, I guess there's to
brood on the question some more.

Previously, I had thought that deduction, at least insofar as it was the
second stage of abductive reasoning after a hypothesis was found, was the
"comfortable"stage of the process, where after the irritation of the
"surprising fact C is observed," comes the comfortable hypothesis that "But
if A were true, C would be a matter of course."

The next step is to apply what one knows of A, again presumably
comfortably, in order to trace out the known consequences of A, so that one
could then switch to induction to observe whether all the known
consequences are found, so that if one of the known consequences is not
found, then the hypothesis must be rejected, and then one must go back to
one's initial irritation to find another hypothesis.

However, I have just read your blog on "Deduction vs, Apliative; also
Repletive vs Attenuative" at
http://tetrast.blogspot.com/2015/08/idara.html
where you define attenuative as *Something* (explicit or entailed) *in the
premisses is not* (explicit or entailed) *in the conclusion.*

Therefore, I ask: If one assumed that "If A, then C would be a matter of
course," and then deduced from A that one should find not only C, but also
D and F, then when one checked and found that D or F were not found in the
circumstances in which one found C, would then one have an attenuative
deduction situation? Or would one only have the falsification of hypothesis
A?

Ben Novak


*Ben Novak *
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themselves.* *One day the last portrait of Rembrandt* *and the last bar of
Mozart will have ceased to be — **though possibly a colored canvas and a
sheet of notes may remain — **because the last eye and the last ear
accessible to their message **will have gone." *Oswald Spengler

On Wed, Oct 21, 2015 at 4:11 PM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:

> Clark, list,
>
> I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in the
> light shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up of
> knowledge. Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically right, which
> combined mathematical postulates are consistent and nontrivial, and so on,
> instead it decides which maths are applicable to, and illuminating in,
> physics. How far can one trace such structures of logical dependence and
> independence?
>
> Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical
> refraction was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in mathematics.
> But even if it hadn't proved applicable in physics, it still would have
> been mathematically valuable. If one thinks that mathematics depends
> logically on biology or psychology, one will start asking mathematicians to
> study biology or psychology to really get to the bottom of their subject.
> While they might find some inspiration and deep examples of math there, it
> still seems like a more refined and polite version of sending the
> mathematicians out to wo

RE: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Ben, Lists,

Let me a add a piece to what you've said to see if we are on the same track.  I 
add this point in order to highlight some features of what Peirce is trying to 
accomplish in thinking architectonically about inquiry.  Many philosophers in 
the 20th century, especially those who are more analytic in their orientation, 
reject certain propositions that Peirce affirms about the value of working in 
an architectonic manner (that is, with a plan in hand) for the purposes of 
doing philosophy, so I'd like to make these points a bit more explicit.

Remarks that have been made by a number of contributors to the List about what 
philosophy might or might not contribute to questions about the origins of 
order in the cosmos, or the evolution of living beings from material systems, 
or the real character of the law and force of such things as gravity remind me 
of the dangers of not keeping things in a clearer order when it comes to 
setting up our explanations in both the cenoscopic science of philosophy and 
the idioscopic sciences of physics, chemistry, biology and the like.  I can't 
help but think that Peirce has pretty darned good reasons for insisting that 
doing philosophy well requires  that we reflect on matters architectonic.

The main thing I want to add to what you've said is prompted by a remark that 
Kant makes about philosophical methodology.  In the Preface of the Grounding, 
he puts a sharp edge on the claim.  He says:  "That philosophy which mixes pure 
principles with empirical ones does not deserve the name of philosophy" (G, 
390)  Later in Section 2, Kant makes the following point about any procedure 
which does not clearly separate between different kinds of questions (e.g., 
about questions concerning the justification of the primary principles of valid 
reasoning from questions about how we human beings often do in fact think).  He 
says:  "such a procedure turns out a disgusting mishmash of patchwork 
observations and half-reasoned principles in which shallowpates revel because 
all this is something quite useful for the chitchat of everyday life." (G, 410)

Drawing on the arguments that Kant is making about the how we ought to inquire 
about in normative questions, Peirce insists that it is essential that we 
refine our methods for the sake of inquiring into the following kinds of 
questions:  

1)  What ideals should we aspire to? 
2)  What principles determine whether an action is right or wrong?
3)  What principles should govern the conduct of my thought so that my 
reasoning will be valid an my inquiries will really lead me to truth?

One of the main reasons Peirce has for making a clear plan for his inquiries 
into the normative sciences is that these kinds of questions require that we 
employ the appropriate methods.  For better or worse, the methods that have 
been developed up to this point in the history of thought are not quite what we 
need if we hope to develop better answers to the questions.  As such, we need 
to refine and develop the appropriate methods.  One of the main purposes of 
formulating an architectonic plan for philosophical inquiry into these kinds of 
questions is that we are constantly in danger of 1) perpetuating longstanding 
confusions about the phenomena that we are trying to explain, 2) failing to 
understand what is special about the subject matter of our inquiries, 3) 
failing to clarify the goals that are guiding us and 4) failing to understand 
how we should use the methods we've got to improve upon our understanding of 
1-4.

--Jeff



Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com]
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2015 1:11 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

Clark, list,

I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in the light 
shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up of knowledge. Physics 
doesn't decide which math is mathematically right, which combined mathematical 
postulates are consistent and nontrivial, and so on, instead it decides which 
maths are applicable to, and illuminating in, physics. How far can one trace 
such structures of logical dependence and independence?

Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical refraction 
was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in mathematics. But even if it 
hadn't proved applicable in physics, it still would have been mathematically 
valuable. If one thinks that mathematics depends logically on biology or 
psychology, one will start asking mathematicians to study biology or psychology 
to really get to the bottom of their subject. While they might find some 
inspiration and deep examples of math there, it still seems like a more refined 
and polite version of sending the mathematicians out to work in the col

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Clark, list,

I think that the relevance of the classification of research is in the 
light shed on the logical supports among fields in the build-up of 
knowledge. Physics doesn't decide which math is mathematically right, 
which combined mathematical postulates are consistent and nontrivial, 
and so on, instead it decides which maths are applicable to, and 
illuminating in, physics. How far can one trace such structures of 
logical dependence and independence?


Sometimes physical research leads to mathematical discovery. Conical 
refraction was simultaneously a discovery in physics and in mathematics. 
But even if it hadn't proved applicable in physics, it still would have 
been mathematically valuable. If one thinks that mathematics depends 
logically on biology or psychology, one will start asking mathematicians 
to study biology or psychology to really get to the bottom of their 
subject. While they might find some inspiration and deep examples of 
math there, it still seems like a more refined and polite version of 
sending the mathematicians out to work in the collective farms. I think 
that mathematicians would already be studying a lot more biology or 
psychology if they thought that such studies could support their 
mathematical findings.


Moreover, one may suppose (as Peirce did) that the most general 
classifications will bear out logical structure, and that the layout of 
the city of research will come to reflect the collective structure of 
the subject matters like constellations above. One likes to see what 
that 'total population' of subject matters shapes up to look like in 
terms of parameters. I imagine that Peirce liked that. It seems 
philosophical enough. Peirce put such classification into 'Science of 
Review', which he also called 'Synthetic Philosophy'. At any rate such 
classification applies cenoscopic philosophy. If one extends parameters 
from a number of sample cases, one may even predict that there ought to 
be, or come to be, a certain field of study.


***

It's true, 'impatience' and 'suspense' seem strong words for the emotion 
belonging to the occasion of (attenuative) deduction. I'm thinking of a 
feeling of curiosity about the future such that one wishes to shorten by 
deduction the wait till discovery. You suggest the word 
'dissatisfaction'. One could think of a feeling of dissatisfaction with 
the facts known or hypothesized so far, as if they seemed coy, or 
insufficient for a worthwhile conclusion, to which one responds by 
managing to deduce a worthwhile conclusion. Yet "dissatisfaction" as the 
occasion of deduction seems too vague. Surprise and perplexity could 
also be taken as kinds of dissatisfaction. If we take seriously Peirce's 
idea that deduction _/predicts/_, then the idea of at least some mild 
feeling of suspense or impatience seems to follow logically enough as 
belonging to deduction's occasion. If one has abduced a hypothesis about 
which one cares, and can't think of a deductive, distinctive testable 
prediction, one is left to feel impatient for time's eventual 
confirmation or overturning of one's hypothesis in the natural course of 
events. Note also the nice opposition between surprise, perplexity, 
etc., and suspense. Well, I guess there's to brood on the question some 
more.


Best, Ben

On 10/21/2015 2:28 PM, Clark Goble wrote:


On Oct 21, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Benjamin Udell wrote:

The positivists divided sciences into formal (i.e., mathematics and 
deductive logic) and factual. I never got clear on where they put 
philosophy, I suspect they hoped to make it into a formal science.


I think they differed among themselves on this, although I’m not an 
expert on the Vienna circle. (And especially not the 19th century 
positivists) It seemed that the spirit of the mid-20th century was to 
attempt to reduce philosophy to other matters. Either becoming clear 
on our semantics that would dissolve most problems or to reduce it to 
a kind of foundationalist epistemology of judgments with the rest 
being clear formalism. It was in most ways a rather bad dead end for 
philosophy IMO. Fortunately people drug themselves out of it while 
(hopefully) taking what was useful from both critiques.


I’ll confess that I’ve never quite understood the drive to taxonomy on 
these matters. (This is one Peircean drive I’ve never been able to 
quite embrace) If for only the reason that any practical analysis 
seems such a mix of different taxonomies. I just never quite was clear 
what the point was. Certainly keeping clear what one is doing 
(semantics vs. ontology) and so forth is important. But one can become 
clear on the parts one is doing while acknowledging that the item 
under analysis is usually a mix.


Perhaps I’m wrong in this though.

As to my question, I think I was getting myself into some contortions 
about deduction because in some half-conscious way I was still 
introducing the idea of conflict. Now, Peirce said that deduction is 
for predictio

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Clark Goble]

> On Oct 21, 2015, at 11:25 AM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:
> 
> The positivists divided sciences into formal (i.e., mathematics and deductive 
> logic) and factual. I never got clear on where they put philosophy, I suspect 
> they hoped to make it into a formal science. 

I think they differed among themselves on this, although I’m not an expert on 
the Vienna circle. (And especially not the 19th century positivists) It seemed 
that the spirit of the mid-20th century was to attempt to reduce philosophy to 
other matters. Either becoming clear on our semantics that would dissolve most 
problems or to reduce it to a kind of foundationalist epistemology of judgments 
with the rest being clear formalism. It was in most ways a rather bad dead end 
for philosophy IMO. Fortunately people drug themselves out of it while 
(hopefully) taking what was useful from both critiques.

I’ll confess that I’ve never quite understood the drive to taxonomy on these 
matters. (This is one Peircean drive I’ve never been able to quite embrace) If 
for only the reason that any practical analysis seems such a mix of different 
taxonomies. I just never quite was clear what the point was. Certainly keeping 
clear what one is doing (semantics vs. ontology) and so forth is important. But 
one can become clear on the parts one is doing while acknowledging that the 
item under analysis is usually a mix.

Perhaps I’m wrong in this though.

> As to my question, I think I was getting myself into some contortions about 
> deduction because in some half-conscious way I was still introducing the idea 
> of conflict. Now, Peirce said that deduction is for prediction. That by 
> itself is enough to suggest that an emotion of impatience belongs to the 
> occasion of deduction — an impatience with the vagueness of the future, or 
> the coyness of the present in telling us it — one doesn't want to wait for 
> nature to take its course, one wants to find out ahead of time, on the basis 
> of accumulated data, what is the fate, for example of the Milky Way. (It 
> turns out to be on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy.)

I think you’re right although I’m not sure impatience gets at the feeling quite 
right. I think dissatisfaction is perhaps more apt since impatience implies a 
time component that’s not always present.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Dear Ben Novak,

I haven't been following that thread carefully, since I've gotten busy 
with practical matters.


On re-reading my previous message, I find that I misplaced a phrase (in 
one of my two uses of it) in such a way that you may have thought that I 
was criticizing you, suggesting that you were trapped in a method of 
tenacity or authority, or whatever. I don't think that at all. Here it 
is with the phrase inserted in boldface into its proper place:


   [] Peirce of course would have been interested in all that,
   though it would take more a inspirational or exemplificative role
   than a dispositive role in his /philosophy/_ of how one _/ought/_ to
   think. **To pursue an abductive trail,** one needs to be not too
   trapped in inquiry methods of tenacity, authority, or the a priori
   []
   [End quote]

As to my question, I think I was getting myself into some contortions 
about deduction because in some half-conscious way I was still 
introducing the idea of conflict. Now, Peirce said that deduction is for 
prediction. That by itself is enough to suggest that an emotion of 
impatience belongs to the occasion of deduction — an impatience with the 
vagueness of the future, or the coyness of the present in telling us it 
— one doesn't want to wait for nature to take its course, one wants to 
find out ahead of time, on the basis of accumulated data, what is the 
fate, for example of the Milky Way. (It turns out to be on a collision 
course with the Andromeda galaxy.)


— In (attenuative) deduction one notices certain necessary but 
perspectivally new consequents about what is going to happen. (To reduce 
impatience.)
— In induction one expects certain unnecessary consequents sufficient 
for the antecedents, but also similar to them, about what is actually 
happening. (To reduce feeling of a skew or arbitrariness.)
— In abduction (a.k.a. retroduction) one supposes certain contingent, 
'can-be', but also particularly plausible, naturally simple, consequents 
about what has happened. (To reduce feeling of surprise, perplexity, 
conflict with assumptions or expectations.)


Tom Wyrick's comments might be taken as relevant to my question if one 
thought that I was pursuing a question of psychology. The philosophical 
study of semiotics, inference, etc., is at a cenoscopic level, concerned 
with positive phenomena in general, not with special classes or 
populations of concrete phenomena. One wouldn't expect questions about 
statistical inference and its principles to depend on results in brain 
studies any more than one would expect number theory to depend on 
results in brain studies. If brain study conclusions could be used to 
support conclusions in number theory, I doubt that number theorists 
would be too proud to use such brain studies. What the brain studies may 
help resolve instead are questions of /implementations/_ of logic, 
semiotics, statistical inference, number theory, etc., in homo sapiens. 
They might help show specific, mathematically or logically arbitrary 
skews of such implementations, and so on.


The positivists divided sciences into formal (i.e., mathematics and 
deductive logic) and factual. I never got clear on where they put 
philosophy, I suspect they hoped to make it into a formal science. 
Peirce divided discovery sciences into mathematics, cenoscopy 
(_/philosophia prima/ _) 
http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/cenoscopy , and idioscopy 
(physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, etc.). Understanding Peirce's 
views on this helps clarify his approach to (philosophical) logic as 
formal semiotic - the formal study of signs and semiosis, a study not 
resting _/logically/_ on neurology, psychology, linguistics, or 
sociology, but sometimes related to them genealogically, in drawing on 
them for examples, generalizing from them, where the word 
'generalization' is used in Peirce's preferred sense of _/selective/_ 
generalization of characters to a wider domain. I've argued a number of 
times here at peirce-l (somebody disagreed) that we should feel free to 
look at actual concrete historical cases without worrying too much about 
whether they'll bias us in philosophical inquiry. I think Peirce had no 
hesitation about it. On the other hand I think that Peirce was quite 
right to keep track of whether the dependence of one science on another 
is a logical dependence or a dependence for examples and inspiration.


Best, Ben

On 10/21/2015 9:28 AM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear  Udell:

I wonder if this post on a different thread, which I am sure you read, 
is relevant to your question in this thread:


Ozzie via list.iupui.edu
3:13 PM (17 hours ago)
to Clark, PEIRCE-L

Clark, List ~
I believe your discomfort arises from the fact that at the
frontiers of knowledge (in any discipline), logical abduction tips
over into speculation when objects do not have Pragmatic
interpretants, and are replaced by nominalistic black-box
mechanisms whose true p

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Ben Novak]

Dear  Udell:

I wonder if this post on a different thread, which I am sure you read, is
relevant to your question in this thread:

Ozzie via 
list.iupui.edu
3:13 PM (17 hours ago)
to Clark, PEIRCE-L
Clark, List ~
I believe your discomfort arises from the fact that at the frontiers of
knowledge (in any discipline), logical *abduction* tips over into
*speculation* when objects do not have Pragmatic interpretants, and are
replaced by nominalistic black-box mechanisms whose true properties are
unknown.  That leaves each "thinker" free to assign "reasonable" properties
to the mechanism, and to challenge others for doing the same -- except when
they happen to agree.

This happens in all disciplines, as when physicists stalled out on gravity,
then conceived of a new "graviton" particle emitted by atoms to explain
it.  They've never seen a graviton, but "it must be there."  (They stay
busy exploring the inside of their black box by smashing atoms in
rarefied/unrealistic environments.)

Back to logic.  Like other humans, I *simultaneously* carry on logic at
various levels:  I walk down the street, look at the scenery, talk with a
friend, worry about an argument I had with a family member and mull over a
project I'm working on -- while carrying on numerous autonomous activities
such as digestion, breathing, etc.  Each of these is a logical activity.
Some logic concerns our survival, some concerns our emotions, and most
focuses on practical matters of lesser importance/urgency.  Some logic is
hard-wired into our DNA (instincts), other logic is based on
experience/habit, and some is the product of on-the-fly cognition in the
face of new circumstances.  All logic requires energy to carry out, and all
logic that concludes with a decision to act requires energy, too.
Therefore, optimizing behavior requires an even higher form of logic to
mediate/coordinate the competing demands for energy ordered up by the
various logical mechanisms.  Our colleague Edwina has written about this
mediating function before.

If someone claims that plants can/do communicate with each other, we would
expect them to connect all of the logical dots in that story -- the
physical components of plants that permits them to broadcast and receive
signals, the nature of the electrochemical signals, factors in the
environment that affect signaling, etc.  If logic occurs in plants, we
would insist, show us exactly how it operates.

Yet, when we speak of human abduction, induction, deduction, interpretants,
signs, etc ... well, that black-box discussion contains no actual body
parts, there are no alternative types of logic taking place at the same
time, data/information is costless, the product of one logical exercise is
of the same nature and value as all others, etc.  In short, our logical
black box is chiefly filled with definitions and unrealistic/simplifying
assumptions.  When those clash from one discussant to the next, each argues
to the reasonableness of his/her definitions and assumptions -- but
(genuine) empirical evidence is seldom offered.  Therefore, the debates are
seldom/never resolved.

Focusing solely on human cognition, then, here is my first Pragmatic
question about semiotic logic:  If an object has interpretants, WHERE do
those (object+interpretants) reside in the brain, and WHAT links them
together?  Pick any object at all.  If we can't conceive of the way that
even one object and its interpretants exist in physical reality, then we
cannot demonstrate empirically that human cognition (the physical brain)
actually employs semiotic logic.  This is an empirical matter; we have
already asserted/predicted that the physical brain (cognition) makes use of
objects and interpretants.

That is only the first step.  Every other aspect of semiotic logic must
have some physical/empirical counterpart, too, where logic is carried out,
mediated and used to direct activity.

I do believe that human cognition employs semiotic logic, but belief
without an operational mechanism means that our views belong in the
nominalist, black-box category.  It is inconsistent to believe that a
physical brain evolved/optimized to carry out Pragmatic logic does so in a
way divorced from physical reality.

Once the physical nature of logic is addressed, other debates/discussions
associated with black-box thinking will either fall by the wayside
(empirical rejection) or be resolved through clarification.  Among these, I
include the recent discussion of knowing-how-to-be vs. DNA, language as
constructed vs. instinct, different types of abduction, circumstances
conducive to induction, etc.  Those earlier views are not wrong, so much as
they do not lead to a deeper understanding.

I hope this illuminates my first paragraph above, and explains why I
believe a new paradigm is required to proceed.  I have learned a few things
about brain research by watching TED Talks at TED.com .

Regards,
Tom Wyrick

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

Dear Ben Novak,

On the one hand, in calling attention to surprise and perplexity as the 
occasion of abductive inference (as opposed to deductive and inductive 
inference), Peirce is talking about a generic necessary condition which 
the general character of abduction reflects in being a response to that 
condition. The surprise, the violation of accepted explanation or the 
unexpected lack of explanation, leads one to needing to think a bit 
outside the box, bring into the mix an idea new to the case; that's 
abductive inference.


On the other hand, as your police example points out, surprise, - or, in 
the phenomenon itself, anomalousness, complication, etc., - was not 
generally a sufficient condition for pursuing the abductive trail when 
Peirce wrote, any more than it is today. In any actual society and any 
actual mind, there needs to be some motivated curiosity, and the social 
and psychological conditions can certainly vary in their hospitality to 
focused abductive thinking and methods of follow-up.  Peirce of course 
would have been interested in all that, though it would take more a 
inspirational or exemplificative role than a dispositive role in his 
_/philosophy/_ of how one _/ought/_ to think. One needs to be not too 
trapped in inquiry methods of tenacity, authority, or the a priori (or, 
as I would generalize them, the method of willful belief, the method of 
contest and ascendancy, and the method of wishful belief, as well as a 
method of belief in reaction to others' beliefs - contrarianism, 
partisanism, and so on), and the dominance of such a method could mark 
an age, an intellectual age at least. To pursue an abductive trail, one 
needs to be not too busy with other things, as you say, even if one 
knows enough to be surprised by the phenomenon; the means need to be not 
too arduous; and one needs the 'means' that consists in having some 
notion of how to apply to the case the method of learning from 
experience, observation, experiment, etc. There need to be means, 
motive, and opportunity (even if the motive is a general devotion to 
some research questions). The police and others in the old days did not 
familiarize themselves with the kinds of evidence that would provide 
them with illuminative surprises, and the methods of thinking and 
investigating were correspondingly poor (which is not to say that 
they're perfect today). Yet some people, especially the kind who stick 
their noses into everybody's business, surely did (as one sees some 
doing today) abduce a lot about the people whom they know - relatives, 
neighbors, co-workers, and even keep an eye out for evidence that would 
affect their surmises. Such a busybody's mind is a novel (somebody once 
said to me "His mind is a novel," which struck me as one of the great 
remarks), the kind of novel that's full of intrigue. But it's not a work 
of deep imagination, it's the busybody's diary, a slice-of-life tell-all 
somewhat mixed with fancies, the daily soap opera. A power-seeker may 
thrive on, indeed revel in, being such a busybody (as the remark's 
subject did, in his way); and the power gained also helps such a person 
to be a bigger busybody. Well, of course; knowledge is power. I guess 
that a person whose own personality is a kind of blank or has some sort 
of emptiness or precisely a shallowness of imagination might be obsessed 
with filling his or her mind with other people and all their furniture 
too. Continually monitoring them. Well, it could be good, evil, 
indifferent, etc. I'm thinking of some of the themes in your thesis.


Getting back to how I started this thread, not that I think that we need 
to keep revisiting it, I still can't think of an emotion specific to the 
arbitrary (Priman, in Peircean terms) appearance (as opposed to the 
conflicting appearance), other than the ones that I mentioned. On the 
occasion of attenuative deduction, I'd add that a contingent statement 
regarded as false is what seems excluded, insular, "cryptic," barren of 
sound conclusions, but when it's reevaluated as true, one may be caught 
in a twilight zone where it still seems excluded yet there it is (and 
maybe something else needs to be excluded), and that's where somewhat of 
a feeling of impatience or suspense about the ramifications comes in. I 
like the idea of attenuative deduction as typically resulting like a 
recalculation from an update of input, but the idea seems bit "out 
there" and seems to lead to some problems.


Best, Ben

On 10/13/2015 4:36 PM, Ben Novak wrote:


Dear Ben Udell:

I really didn't intend to send only to you, but I guess I didn't 
notice that merely hitting reply resulted in that. It is my hope that 
my email and your reply will now appear on the list, and we can see if 
others find them of interest...


Back to the subject. What I am suggesting is that the motivation for 
thinking abductively is quite different than it was when Peirce wrote. 
I think I mentioned in an earlier email about 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Ben Novak]

Dear Ben Udell:


I really didn't intend to send only to you, but I guess I didn't notice
that merely hitting reply resulted in that. It is my hope that my email and
your reply will now appear on the list, and we can see if others find them
of interest...

Back to the subject. What I am suggesting is that the motivation for
 thinking abductively is quite different than it was when Peirce wrote. I
think I mentioned in an earlier email about how revolutionary Sherlock
Holmes stories were to police forces, and that historically it took several
decades before police forces really began using Holmes' logic in the
investigation of cases.

Today, on the other hand, adductive logic is by far the dominant logic in
our culture and society. Most young people naturally and almost
instinctively first evaluate whatever they hear in abductive ways. How
different this was a century ago! The Scotland Yard and police inspectors
in Holms' stories were not caricatures, but normal; it was Holmes who was
different. Today, forensics is the big thing, with NCIS programs on all the
time.

So, I am suggesting two things. First, that the question of what sparks
abductive questioning was certainly different when Peirce wrote, than it is
today. What seems important today is not simply surprise, but some
additional reason to cause one to act on the strange set of facts. Simply
put, there are entirely too many strange facts to get excited about. For
example, once it was possible to take an auto engine apart and find out how
it works, and auto mechanic and wannabes were everywhere. Today, how an
automobile engine works is as mysterious as how a Boeing 747 Jumbo jet
engine works. But few have the time--or the need--to study either.
Millions, such as me, use the computer every day without any idea of how
computers work.

So, it is not sufficient to be faced with a surprising set of facts
anymore. When I think of  it, the computer I am writing this on is a
total--and surprising--mystery to me.

One of the things I enjoy about the discussions on Pierce L is the degree
of specialty with which many participants can investigate the subjects of
abduction, semiotics, etc., as well as the efforts of some for a more
unified theory. But, on the other hand, I do miss the observation of, and
accounting for, the vast amount of daily things that are relevant.

I suggest that these subjects are ubiquitous, and that if we were more
conscious of daily life and experiences, we would find much more fodder for
our work. Part of what I think important in this is a lot more awareness of
culture and history.

Ben Novak



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sheet of notes may remain — **because the last eye and the last ear
accessible to their message **will have gone." *Oswald Spengler

On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 12:40 PM, Benjamin Udell  wrote:

> Dear Ben Novak:
>
> Thanks for this. I don't know why you sent it only to me and not to
> peirce-l.
>
> Looking at the history of dominant logics certainly gives a panoramic
> dimension to the discussion. I think that it helps that you note the
> difference between abductive inference, which is as pervasive as any other
> mode of inference in the mind, and abductive logic, and its methodeutical
> elaboration (which involves the interplay of all the modes of inference),
> as a dominant logic of an age. However, I'm looking at a feeling that would
> be involved in the occasion of induction generally, and it seems similar
> to, yet not the same as, the kind of surprise that Peirce discusses as the
> occasion of abductive inference, the abduction-inspiring surprise of
> conflict with one's beliefs about what can be. What I'm looking at instead
> is not the sense that something shouldn't have happened, that it conflicts
> with expectations and ought to be impossible, but rather that it seems kind
> of arbitrary or 'slanted' or fluky. Downard's reply to me at peirce-l
> quotes Peirce on active surprise versus passive surprise, and Peirce's idea
> of passive surprise sounds like what I'm talking about, but Peirce's
> example of a eclipse that one had neither expected to happen nor expected
> not to happen, seems not the clearest example, it makes it seem as if
> eclipses were sometimes feasible or probable but still uncertain.
>
> In the case of attenuative deduction's occasion, I'm thinking of what one
> deduces _*from*_ the new observation, not of how one deduces _*to*_ it
> from the undoubted already-given. I'm not sure what to call t

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

 so. Thus every actual interpretation 
is dyadic . . . . [As] pragmaticism says . . . (one part of 
pragmaticism, for Pragmaticism is not exclusively an opinion about the 
Dynamic Interpretant), . . . it says, for one thing, that the meaning 
of any sign for anybody consists in the way he reacts to the sign. 
When the captain of infantry gives the word "Ground arms!" the dynamic 
Interpretant is in the thump of the muskets on the ground, or rather 
it is the Act of their Minds. In its Active/Passive forms, the 
Dynamical Interpretant indefinitely approaches the character of the 
Final/Immediate Interpretant; and yet the distinction is absolute. The 
Final Interpretant does not consist in the way in which any mind does 
act but in the way in which every mind would act. That is, it consists 
in a truth which might be expressed in a conditional proposition of 
this type: "If so and so were to happen to any mind this sign would 
determine that mind to such and such conduct." By "conduct" I mean 
action under an intention of self-control. No event that occurs to any 
mind, no action of any mind can constitute the truth of that 
conditional proposition. The Immediate Interpretant consists in the 
Quality of the Impression that a sign is fit to produce, not to any 
actual reaction. Thus the Immediate and Final Interpretants seem to me 
absolutely distinct from the Dynamical Interpretant and from each 
other. And if there be any fourth kind of Interpretant on the same 
footing as those three, there must be a dreadful rupture of my mental 
retina, for I can't see it at all.


Would it help to characterize the phenomena you are trying to describe 
in these terms?  If we do characterize it in these terms, will we be 
missing something that calls out for our attention, or will the 
analysis be sufficient?


--Jeff

Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2015 4:41 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion


List,

Some may remember my attempts to outline, as forming a system, such 
heuristic aspects, given by conclusions to premisses, as an abductive 
inference's natural simplicity, an induction's verisimilitude, an 
attenuative deduction's new aspect, and an equipollential deduction's 
nontriviality.


I've hit upon something that strikes a novel (to me) but also 
Peircean note, involving the idea of Firstness, so I thought I'd pass 
it along.


For a long time I was careful to distinguish between surprise (of an 
anomaly) and bewilderment at excessive complexity or complication. 
Peirce usually mentions surprise as the occasion of inquiry in 
general and of abductive inference in particular, but occasionally 
mentions complication as such occasion. Now, the idea of abductive 
inference's natural simplicity seems more a response to complication 
than to anomaly or surprise. I won't belabor that appearance, but 
will just say that I wondered what appearance or feeling (akin to 
puzzlement, but not puzzlement) would be the occasion of a chiefly 
inductive inquiry, or of an inductive inference in the course of 
inquiry. Then it finally dawned on me that I was paying too much 
attention to the temporal mode of the feeling (overturning of 
expectation versus overturning of supposition) and not enough to the 
overturning, the conflict. What occasions induction (besides an 
occasioning inquiry) is not a conflict (a secundan thing), a 
cognitive dissonance, but a sense of something _arbitrary_, 
gratuitous, spontaneous, unnecessary though possible, which, in 
Peircean terms, means a whiff of Firstness (see Peirce's 
"Quale-Consciousness" for example).


If one has a sample from a population about which one had no 
particular expectations, then any definite result is bound to seem 
arbitrary, arbitrarily one-sided, to seem like some things that one 
has seen and unlike other things (unless one supposes some Bayesian 
priors in the absence of evidence, which isn't a Peircean approach 
anyway). While the occasion of abductive inference seems surprising, 
contrarian, so to speak, the occasion of induction seems partisan, it 
just takes sides. This arbitrary character, while not surprising or 
perplexing, is still, let's say, striking. From a non-Bayesian 
viewpoint, if one knew in advance that that the population consists 
of reds and greens, and if one found in the sample a 50-50 
distribution of red and green, that would still seem arbitrary. How 
does one 'explain' it or account for it? One induces that the total 
population has a 50-50 distribution of red and green; if true, then 
the sample's distribution is _not so arbitrary_. I am unsure what 
emotional response to associate with such arbitrariness. It may 
involve a sense of being detou

RE: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Hi Ben, List,

I meant to send the following response to the full List, and not solely to Ben.

What kind of analysis should we give for the phenomena associated with the 
kinds of surprise (e.g., wonder, bewilderment, failure of the world to meet my 
expectations for order or lack thereof, etc.) that seem to call out for an 
abductive or inductive inference?  Here is one place in the Collected Papers 
where Peirce makes a distinction between the passive and the active aspects of 
surprise.  He characterizes the qualities of the feelings of surprise as having 
a more passive character, and then the characterizes the experience of 
resistance to will has having a more active character.  This fits nicely with 
the general line of analysis that he gives of these material elements of our 
common experience.

Here is the passage:  

8.315. [April 1, 1909] . . . let me give a little fuller explanation of my 
distinction between the Immediate, the Dynamical, and the Final Interpretants. 
. . The Dynamical Interpretant is whatever interpretation any mind actually 
makes of a sign. This Interpretant derives its character from the Dyadic 
category, the category of Action. This has two aspects, the Active and the 
Passive, which are not merely opposite aspects but make relative contrasts 
between different influences of this Category as More Active and More Passive. 
In psychology this category marks Molition in its active aspect of a force and 
its passive aspect as a resistance. When an imagination, a day-dream fires a 
young man's ambition or any other active passion, that is a more Active variety 
of his Dynamical Interpretation of the dream. When a novelty excites his 
surprise, -- and the scepticism that goes along with surprise, -- this is a 
more Passive variety of Dynamical Interpretant. I am not speaking of the 
feelings of passion or of surprise as qualities. For those qualities are no 
part of the dynamic Interpretant. But the agitations of passion and of surprise 
are the actual dynamic Interpretants. So surprise again has its Active and its 
Passive variety; -- the former when what one perceives positively conflicts 
with expectation, the latter when having no positive expectation but only the 
absence of any suspicion of anything out of the common something quite 
unexpected occurs, -- such as a total eclipse of the sun which one had not 
anticipated. Any surprise involves a resistance to accepting the fact. One rubs 
one's eyes, as Shaler used to do, determined not to admit the observation until 
it is plain one will be compelled to do so. Thus every actual interpretation is 
dyadic . . . . [As] pragmaticism says . . . (one part of pragmaticism, for 
Pragmaticism is not exclusively an opinion about the Dynamic Interpretant), . . 
. it says, for one thing, that the meaning of any sign for anybody consists in 
the way he reacts to the sign. When the captain of infantry gives the word 
"Ground arms!" the dynamic Interpretant is in the thump of the muskets on the 
ground, or rather it is the Act of their Minds. In its Active/Passive forms, 
the Dynamical Interpretant indefinitely approaches the character of the 
Final/Immediate Interpretant; and yet the distinction is absolute. The Final 
Interpretant does not consist in the way in which any mind does act but in the 
way in which every mind would act. That is, it consists in a truth which might 
be expressed in a conditional proposition of this type: "If so and so were to 
happen to any mind this sign would determine that mind to such and such 
conduct." By "conduct" I mean action under an intention of self-control. No 
event that occurs to any mind, no action of any mind can constitute the truth 
of that conditional proposition. The Immediate Interpretant consists in the 
Quality of the Impression that a sign is fit to produce, not to any actual 
reaction. Thus the Immediate and Final Interpretants seem to me absolutely 
distinct from the Dynamical Interpretant and from each other. And if there be 
any fourth kind of Interpretant on the same footing as those three, there must 
be a dreadful rupture of my mental retina, for I can't see it at all.  

Would it help to characterize the phenomena you are trying to describe in these 
terms?  If we do characterize it in these terms, will we be missing something 
that calls out for our attention, or will the analysis be sufficient?

--Jeff

Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354

From: Benjamin Udell [bud...@nyc.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2015 4:41 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

List,

Some may remember my attempts to outline, as forming a system, such heuristic 
aspects, given by conclusions to premisses, as an abductive inference's natural 
simplicity, an induction's verisimilitude, an attenuative deduction's new 
aspect

Re: [PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Matt Faunce]

Ben, you sent this right at the end of my time for philosophical studies 
today. So I can't say much now, except that it relates to CP 7.198, to 
which Jon Awbrey directed me when I inquired here about "the hard 
problem of consciousness".


Matt

On 10/11/15 7:41 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:


List,

Some may remember my attempts to outline, as forming a system, such 
heuristic aspects, given by conclusions to premisses, as an abductive 
inference's natural simplicity, an induction's verisimilitude, an 
attenuative deduction's new aspect, and an equipollential deduction's 
nontriviality.


I've hit upon something that strikes a novel (to me) but also Peircean 
note, involving the idea of Firstness, so I thought I'd pass it along.


For a long time I was careful to distinguish between surprise (of an 
anomaly) and bewilderment at excessive complexity or complication. 
Peirce usually mentions surprise as the occasion of inquiry in general 
and of abductive inference in particular, but occasionally mentions 
complication as such occasion. Now, the idea of abductive inference's 
natural simplicity seems more a response to complication than to 
anomaly or surprise. I won't belabor that appearance, but will just 
say that I wondered what appearance or feeling (akin to puzzlement, 
but not puzzlement) would be the occasion of a chiefly inductive 
inquiry, or of an inductive inference in the course of inquiry. Then 
it finally dawned on me that I was paying too much attention to the 
temporal mode of the feeling (overturning of expectation versus 
overturning of supposition) and not enough to the overturning, the 
conflict. What occasions induction (besides an occasioning inquiry) is 
not a conflict (a secundan thing), a cognitive dissonance, but a sense 
of something _/arbitrary/_, gratuitous, spontaneous, unnecessary 
though possible, which, in Peircean terms, means a whiff of Firstness 
(see Peirce's "Quale-Consciousness" for example).


If one has a sample from a population about which one had no 
particular expectations, then any definite result is bound to seem 
arbitrary, arbitrarily one-sided, to seem like some things that one 
has seen and unlike other things (unless one supposes some Bayesian 
priors in the absence of evidence, which isn't a Peircean approach 
anyway). While the occasion of abductive inference seems surprising, 
contrarian, so to speak, the occasion of induction seems partisan, it 
just takes sides. This arbitrary character, while not surprising or 
perplexing, is still, let's say, striking. From a non-Bayesian 
viewpoint, if one knew in advance that that the population consists of 
reds and greens, and if one found in the sample a 50-50 distribution 
of red and green, that would still seem arbitrary. How does one 
'explain' it or account for it? One induces that the total population 
has a 50-50 distribution of red and green; if true, then the sample's 
distribution is _/not so arbitrary/_. I am unsure what emotional 
response to associate with such arbitrariness. It may involve a sense 
of being detoured, skewed, diverted, interested, something like that.


Best, Ben




--
Matt


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[PEIRCE-L] induction's occasion

[Benjamin Udell]

List,

Some may remember my attempts to outline, as forming a system, such 
heuristic aspects, given by conclusions to premisses, as an abductive 
inference's natural simplicity, an induction's verisimilitude, an 
attenuative deduction's new aspect, and an equipollential deduction's 
nontriviality.


I've hit upon something that strikes a novel (to me) but also Peircean 
note, involving the idea of Firstness, so I thought I'd pass it along.


For a long time I was careful to distinguish between surprise (of an 
anomaly) and bewilderment at excessive complexity or complication. 
Peirce usually mentions surprise as the occasion of inquiry in general 
and of abductive inference in particular, but occasionally mentions 
complication as such occasion. Now, the idea of abductive inference's 
natural simplicity seems more a response to complication than to anomaly 
or surprise. I won't belabor that appearance, but will just say that I 
wondered what appearance or feeling (akin to puzzlement, but not 
puzzlement) would be the occasion of a chiefly inductive inquiry, or of 
an inductive inference in the course of inquiry. Then it finally dawned 
on me that I was paying too much attention to the temporal mode of the 
feeling (overturning of expectation versus overturning of supposition) 
and not enough to the overturning, the conflict. What occasions 
induction (besides an occasioning inquiry) is not a conflict (a secundan 
thing), a cognitive dissonance, but a sense of something _/arbitrary/_, 
gratuitous, spontaneous, unnecessary though possible, which, in Peircean 
terms, means a whiff of Firstness (see Peirce's "Quale-Consciousness" 
for example).


If one has a sample from a population about which one had no particular 
expectations, then any definite result is bound to seem arbitrary, 
arbitrarily one-sided, to seem like some things that one has seen and 
unlike other things (unless one supposes some Bayesian priors in the 
absence of evidence, which isn't a Peircean approach anyway). While the 
occasion of abductive inference seems surprising, contrarian, so to 
speak, the occasion of induction seems partisan, it just takes sides. 
This arbitrary character, while not surprising or perplexing, is still, 
let's say, striking. From a non-Bayesian viewpoint, if one knew in 
advance that that the population consists of reds and greens, and if one 
found in the sample a 50-50 distribution of red and green, that would 
still seem arbitrary. How does one 'explain' it or account for it? One 
induces that the total population has a 50-50 distribution of red and 
green; if true, then the sample's distribution is _/not so arbitrary/_. 
I am unsure what emotional response to associate with such 
arbitrariness. It may involve a sense of being detoured, skewed, 
diverted, interested, something like that.


Best, Ben


-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
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