------------------------------------------
PEIRCE-L Digest 1281 -- February 1-2, 1998
------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------
CITATION and QUOTATION from messages on PEIRCE-L is permissable if
the individual message is identified by use of the information on
DATE, SENDER, and SUBJECT: e.g.:
From PEIRCE-L Forum, Jan 5, 1998, [name of author of message],
"re: Peirce on Teleology"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
If the type is too large and the message runs off the screen on the
right you can shrink the size of the typeface by use of the option
on your browser.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Since it is mostly in ASCII format You can download the
whole document easily by using the SELECT ALL and COPY commands, then
PASTE-ing it into a blank page in your word processor; or you can
SELECT, COPY, and PASTE individual messages using your mouse.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
by "Douglas Moore"
2) Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
by piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
3) Re: Cohen and Nagel 1934
by piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
4) Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
by piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
5) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by Tom Gollier
6) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by BugDaddy[…]cris.com (BugDaddy)
7) Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
by joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
8) Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
by piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 02:19:09 +1100
From: "Douglas Moore"
To:
Subject: Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
Message-ID: <01bd2f24$be19c550$0200a8c0[…]pc200pro.webexpress.net.au>
Joseph Ransdell writes:
>Response to Douglas Moore:
>
>I agree with what I take to be implicit -- to same extent explicit -- in
>your post about the future of logic lying in computer science in the sense
>of its implementation and development there being what will drive any
>further developments in logic on the formal side. Are you acquainted with
>what John Sowa and his followers are doing in attempting to implement
>Peirce's graphical logic as the basic schema for knowledge-representation
>language, by the way? If so, I would be interested in your assessment.
>There's a link to that project on the LINKS page at Arisbe:
>
> http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/links/links.htm
I am aware of this work. A reasonable approach but no one is claiming any
breakthroughs though. My own approach has been to implement a quite generic
(but not absolutely generic..my aim) programming language based on a
synthesis of three paradigms - the functional programming, logical
programming and procedural programming paradigms and attempt to implement
something like existential graphs in this environment. I apply it to natural
language processing problems. That's how I earn my crust. I'm not claiming
any breakthroughs either, but the approach is elegant and does work well.
>The formal side is not the only side to logic, though, and for that we have
>to turn to communications conceptions, I think, to understand where Peirce
>was going, which would most naturally be thought of from the computer
>science side in terms of the organization and function of communicational
>networks: not at the level of network protocols and the like but rather in
>terms of human communicational practices that make use of the hardware as
>nodes. I think that when we get into that, though, we are probably leaving
>computer science proper behind and going into what is at present largely
>terra incognita, belonging to no existing field of inquiry. That we need
>to move into it now seems clear to me, but that is just "the state of the
>art" and does not seem to me to be indicative of any limitation inherent in
>Peirce's work that nothing much has yet been done, though it is a
>limitation which positivist philosophy of science could not so much as
>address, much less overcome.
>I think you are overlooking the fact that, as far as the formal aspect of
>it goes, neither the positivists nor Russell actually advanced logic to
>any significant degree past where Peirce developed it. The logicist
>program of the Principia, which Peirce thought mistaken and rejected before
>Russell ever heard of the idea, has long since been abandoned, hasn't it?
>(Peirce did not regard Russell as a "fellow traveler", by the way, but
>rather with a certain contempt as "nauseatingly superficial" (in The
>Principles of Mathematics) and as someone exploiting the work of others
>without giving due credit.)
Russel can still be a fellow traveller in the sense that I meant it. One
might find Russell as "nauseatingly superficial" and indeed an opportunist
and even a plagarist on a number of matters (his History of Western
Philosophy has been criticised on these grounds) , but this is only a
judgment on his competence and moral rectitude. Russell is shallow and
Peirce saw himself as digging much deeper. The point that I was trying to
get across is that Peirce was digging in a totally different place to
Russell. A more decisive critiscim of Russel would have been to point out
the dead end road of the traditional formalism that Russel precribed too.
Russell's work was necessarilly shallow because the formailstic terrain he
worked in was inherently shallow. The problem for Peirce was that the deep
formalism he needed was located in the "terra incognita" that you mention. I
see this terra incognita as an embroyonic new formalsim.
On many matters Peirce and Russell were in agreement. Russell declared that
there was no fundamental dividing line between logic and mathematics. Peirce
seemed to agree. The nuance was that Russell saw mathematics as a branch of
logic whilst Peirce saw logic as a branch of mathematics. Thus Russell
attempted in Prinpicipia Mathematica to arrive at the complete logical
foundations of mathematics. This project has demonstratably failed due to
being definitively shot down by Goedel. Paradoxically, this definitive
failure of Russell and Whitehead can be thought of as a great contribution,
even if only in the negative. Peirce wanted the mathematical foundations of
logic. He made some contributions in the area of mathematizing logic such as
quantifiers and his logic of relatives. However, unlike Russell, he didn't
come out with any great notion regarding the foundations of it all that
could be put to the test of someone like Goedel.
> And I don't know of any purely formal advances
>independent of the logicist program that are due to the Principia, nor of
>any advances due to the positivists since then. (Perhaps there are, and I
>await correction on that.)
I think the discovery of the difference between classes and sets can be
attributed to Russell. The fact that the set of all sets is not a set I find
as being quite significant and belongs to the "logic of maths" category. The
axiomatisations of set theory also fits into this category and is also
notable for more failures than successes. No definitive solution has been
obtained to this day but Peirce didn't buy into this kind of problem. He
preferred the "maths of logic" paradigm. In this respect mathematical logic
(as distinct from the logic of mathematics) hasn't progressed that much as
far as fundamentals are concerned, and that is what you are really saying.
In my opinion, putting mathematics as being primordial to logic is fraught
with dangers. The point is, you can't have any (traditional) mathematics
without set theory. Even more severe, you can't have any decent set theory
without the Axiom of Choice. Now the Axiom of Choice states that a solution
to the problem of distinguishing the elements of a set is known. You start
by assumming that you know how to do this. The Axiom of Choice can be easly
understood as equivalent to Zermello's theorem which states that there
always exists a mapping which maps the elements of any set onto the real
line i.e., there always exists a unique way of "labelling" all the elements
of any set with real numbers. In this respect, one starts to see that
mathematics - if it embodies the Axiom of Choice - is inescapably nominalist
right from the foundations. Bit of a problem there for Peirce.
The Axiom of Choice is non constructive. It doesn't tell how to distinguish
the elements of a set from each other. It merely assumes that you can. Now
for anyone interested in developing a theory of thought, this is
catastrophic. Surely the critical problem in "thought" or "intelligence" is
to solve the problem of how a mind actually functions in distinguishing
objects from each other - the discrimination problem. If you have a science
that is based on the Axiom of Choice assumption, you can never even tackle
the discrimiantion problem as it is defined as a non problem. The
foundations assumes non constructively that you already can do this. The
real problem is how do you can do it. In order to solve that problem you
have to quit non constructive maths and go constructive.
And this is what has happened. Using the constructionist Category Theory,
and in particular the sub discipline of the Theory of Topois, which favours
an intuitionist logic, it has been shown that the Axiom of Choice can be
replaced by another choice - that of choosing any Axiom of Choice whatever!
This doesn't lead to any "theory of thought" but does show that a more
iconic approach than traditional symbolic logic and symbolic mathematics has
some interest.
It also means that there have been considerable developments into the logic
of mathematics since Peirce's time, even though, as you say, not so much in
the area of the mathematics of logic.
However, long before Category Theory and Topois, Peirce pioneered his own
iconic approach to representing logical relations. His approach is
potentially more powerfull than Category Theory. Why I say this is that
Category Theory, although constructionist in methodology is a system built
up from a classical axiomatic foundation. Old style axiomatic at the base,
new fangled constructionist on top - a horrible hybrid. What is really
needed is a system which is constructionist from top to bottom. Even the
foundations must bootstrap up in some kind of constructionist way. I do
believe that Peirce was trying to do something like this, even though he was
unaware of the fact that he was indeed a budding constructionist, through
and through.
Perhaps he saw his "diagramatic" approach as an iconic form of mathematics
that could be applied to understanding logic, amonst other things. In my
view, it is pure constructionist logic in the making.
> The notation used in the Principia and
>commonly in use now is itself derived from Peirce via Peano. There has been
>a lot of formal work done since his time, and how much of it has
>significance beyond what Peirce had advanced to I do not know, but in the
>context of the question of the role of positivism relative to Peirce, I
>don't see how the eclipse of him as a logician and philosopher of science
>during their domination can be accounted for in terms of any difference on
>the formal side, or indeed in terms of anything they did that still stands
>as being of much interest. What would it be? The notion that their work
>had some affinity with science which his lacked seems to me to be based
>only on their own incessant self-promotion as "scientific" rather than on
>any real connection or affinity with the sciences that could be pointed
>out.
>
>As regards his pragmatism, it seems to me that there is some
>misunderstanding of what that is, as far as he is concerned. He did not
>regard it as a name for his logical approach in general but only as a
>special doctrine concerning meaning, and the basic idea of it (vaguely
>conceived) is to specify the relationship between theory and
>experimentation, i.e. it is an experimentalist conception of what theory
>is.
My basic assumption has long been that Peirce was well and trully anchored
in that camp of thinkers that Bertrand Russell and all good Analytic
philosphers hate so much - the system builders. Anyone that talks seriously,
as Peirce does, about arriving at an "intelligible theory of the universe"
is surely such a systems man. In brief, it should all fit together to form a
comprehensive and intelligible system.
Perhaps you are right and Peirce was just like Aristotle with no overall
system in mind but more interested in a wide ranging series of reponses to
ponctuel problems.
The way I see it was that he was fundametally opposed to absolutist
solutions and favoured a more relativistic approach to everything.
Pragmatism and relativistic logic. This comes out in his work on logic of
relatives, for example. On the face of it the logic of relatives is just
another of the many extensions of classical Boolean Algebra. I doubt that
this was the way Peirce saw it. I would think that he would see it as
another step towards his aim of developing a homogenous non absolutist,
relativistic system of logic, meaning and thought. Perhaps I am wrong and he
was much less ambitious than that.
> You seem to be assigning to it a far more comprehensive role than that
>and so, of course, you find nothing worked out because that isn't what it
>was supposed to be. I don't think it has anything much to do with the
>formalistic side of logic. I think that what corresponds in Peirce to what
>you are taking as basic for the Stoics is what he called "phenomenology"
>instead. Or at least that is what comes to mind when you talk about the
>Stoics as choosing for their starting point "anything whatsoever". That is
>fairly close to what he has in mind in talking about the subject-matter of
>phenomenology. A comparison there might be well worth while, but I have no
>idea of what that might actually yield.
In passing, where Peirce does differ from the Stoics is that he had no
apparent place in his system or apparent interest in morals. However, in
this loosely grouped set of thinkers calling themselves pragmatists, we do
find James with an intense interest in morals. In fact in his formula he
considered that the main function of thought is to help us establish
"satisfactory relations with our surroundings."
It is interesting to compare this with the Stoic version of "living in
accordance with Nature."
I add this to fuel my argument that if you want to salvage pragmatism from
the scrap heap and arrive at a comprehensive, non absolutist, relativistic
integrated system of logic, signs, morals, etc.. then it might be worth
looking at some ancient thinkers who have already been there.
Doug Moore
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 20:33:16 -0500
From: piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
Message-ID: <19980201.212421.13422.1.piat[…]juno.com>
Dear Joe Ransdell,
I agree that the distinction between knowledge of the past and knowledge
of the truth is surely bogus as I believe all knowledge (including that
gleaned from the scientific method) is of the past. So we're all students
of history. You seem to have a greater faith in progress than some, but
isn't it possible that as the universe expands that the unknown is
outstripping the known and in fact we are losing ground? Visions of the
ever expanding spiral of existence remind me of Yeats' 1921 poem The
Second Coming:
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
And Joe, while I've got your ear, wasn't it Peirce himself who undertook
to seek and define the basket called truth? As always, with affection -
Jim Piat
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 19:52:55 -0500
From: piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Cohen and Nagel 1934
Message-ID: <19980201.212421.13422.0.piat[…]juno.com>
Speaking (I believe of the academic positivists of the 30' thru 50's)
Joe Ransdell wrote:
>The fact that this obliteration of awareness of what came before them
>was in part a matter of principle with them makes it tempting to view
>them as "the bad guys responsible", and I think it important to keep
>reminding people at this later date of just how bigoted,
>authoritarian,
>and self-serving they actually were in practice -- again, as a matter
>of
>principle, being essentially fanatical epigone of the Enlightenment,
>dedicated religiously to stamping out "superstition" in academia --
>but
>I think a just understanding of all this will have to appeal to
>considerations at another level that make it intelligible as a part of
>the overall patterns of thought and behavior in American life that can
>best be regarded as beginning with the First World War.
>
Joe, I'm interested in hearing more about the what you consider (as
regards this issue) to be the "overall patterns of thought and behavior
in American life that can best be regarded as beginning with the First
World War. I'd also like to hear more about the myth of the linguistic
turn in philosophy when you're in the mood and have the time.
One of the things that makes this list so attractive to me is the absence
of bigotry and self serving authoritarianism. So I'm always interested
in more about that as well. For me it's an unremitting struggle to see
things from the other person's point of view. I have to keep reminding
myself it's not a zero sum game.
Jim Piat
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 21:24:20 -0500
From: piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
Message-ID: <19980201.212421.13422.2.piat[…]juno.com>
On Sun, 1 Feb 1998 10:20:17 -0600 (CST) "Douglas Moore"
writes:
My own approach has been to implement a quite
>generic
>(but not absolutely generic..my aim) programming language based on a
>synthesis of three paradigms - the functional programming, logical
>programming and procedural programming paradigms and attempt to
>implement
>something like existential graphs in this environment. I apply it to
>natural
>language processing problems. That's how I earn my crust. I'm not
>claiming
>any breakthroughs either, but the approach is elegant and does work
>well.
Doug,
I'd be interested in a simple non technical example of the three
paradigms and how they might be applied to a natural language processing
problems if such is possible and you have the time and inclination.
As with your previous post I found this one very interesting. Do I
understand you correctly that Russell and Frege began with the notion of
a unit or element undefined? I get the impression they did, but I don't
know enough to judge the matter. I would agree that the problem of
discrimination is of fundamental importance in a theory of mind or
intelligence. Seems to me that the science of psychology (including
behaviorists approaches to learning; but, I suppose, most especially the
results of work in sensation and perception) has provided some empirical
evidence to help guide a constructionist theory. I wonder if you would
agree with this? Also I'd be curious whether you find the results of so
called psycholinguistics studies of much value in your work? Thanks in
advance for any comments you might wish to make.
Jim Piat
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 1998 18:51:09 -0800
From: Tom Gollier
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D5349C.E3A387B6[…]concentric.net>
John Oller gives the following example of abduction:
> Let A', A'', and A''' represent the little car in its different
> attitudes relative to its space-time contexts as described and
> manifested in the experimental paradigm. Let P', P'', and P''',
> represent the distinct contexts with the three As included as
> their respective parts.
and he concludes:
> Furthermore, the only reduction that can be conceived to perfectly
> join the potentially infinite series of As and Ps (as I have
> described them) is of the very kind that Tom has characterized as
> "bankrupt". But that inference is not bankrupt just in case the
> agreement between the correct abduction and the whole infinite
> coordination (now elevated to an inductively related pair of
> series) that is achieved between the two series of distinct
> entities is valid in perpetuity (i.e., throughout the generations
> of subsequent elements -- A'''', P'''', A''''', P''''', etc. --
> by which it is elevated to the level of a general from which the
> valid deduction follows that A _must be_ the same object in all of
> its connected Ps).
On the one hand, we have "the whole infinite coordination," and
there are any number of unities to be inductively derived from the
observations of the little car and its distinctive contexts. For
what we are talking about are the "rules" or mathematical functions
which describe the series A', A'', A'''; P', P'', P'''; or A'P',
A''P'', A'''P''' -- each of which can be extended out idefinitely --
as well as more complex relationships which might hold between the
series themselves in other than one-to-one correspondences, and it
is true that all these inductions, as well as the deductions which
can then be made from the rules so induced, will not disturb the
conclusion "that A _must be_ the same object in all of its connected
Ps." The problem, on the other hand, is that they will not disturb
that conclusion only because we have already assumed that A was the
same object when we made the "correct abduction" of presenting the
series as A', A'', A''' rather than A', A'', B' or A', B', B'' or
A', B', C'. And, we have already concluded that the P's were all
connected by representing that series as P', P'', P''' rather than
P', P'', Q' or P', Q', Q'' or P', Q', R'. In other words, the
abductions, the decisions that this something is a "case" of A or
this somewhere is a "case" of P, have already been done before any
inductions or deductions using the series are performed, and with
the membership of those series already decided, it's not likely any
of "rule" or "results" derived from them will change them.
Suppose, for instance, my grandson notices something somewhere, and
he makes the abduction that this is a case of the little car (A')
being at a certain spot on the track (P'). The next time he sees
this something, however, the "little car" is in his bath. In his
case, this is not an unlikely supposition at all. The question now
is: Is this an instance of the "little car" (A'') or an instance of
the "little boat" (B')? And, if he abductively infers that this is
indeed a case of "little car" (A''), then he must abuctively decide
if "in the bath" is an instance of P (P'') or it a spurious reading
of some kind (Q') to be excluded from the "connected" series of P's.
And, suppose the next time he sees something that looks a lot like
the "little car" (A''') except that it now has no wheels (C'), and
it is not on the track or in the bath (R')? These questions as to
what general term something is the case of require abductions as
opposed to inductions (which infer rules) or deductions (which infer
results):
================= Quote Peirce 1.89 =================
.. Now a retroductive conclusion is only justified by its
explaining an observed fact. An explanation is a syllogism of which
the major premiss, or rule, is a known law or rule of nature, or
other general truth; the minor premiss, or case, is the hypothesis
or retroductive conclusion, and the conclusion, or result, is the
observed (or otherwise established) fact.
==================== End Quote ======================
and in saying they are "logically bankrupt" I am asserting there is
no "correct" answer to any of these questions above in terms of
either truth and falsity or necessity. The abductions, unlike both
induction and deduction, have no "logical force" in their
syllogistic representation or, to say it more generally, in the
representations of a Critical Logic. That is not to say they are
without force, or that they are non-essential, but only to say that
they are definitely a formal embarrassment.
For abduction, as I see Peirce conceiving of it, occurs at that
point where "the rubber meets the road," where the Thirdness of
thought meets the thirdlessness of Secondness. Deciding if this
nameless secondness before me is a case of these A's or a case of
those P's is not a matter of looking at "logic as if it were
strictly limited to generals." Quite the contrary, it is a matter
of forcing those generals, and all that can be formally built out of
them, to face up to my experience and to recognize (1) that what we
abductively decide to include as a case of any general term can undo
any and all the supposed rigor of both propositions and arguments,
inductions and deductions, which use that term and (2) there is
nothing in what we formally do with those terms in propositions and
arguments, inductions or deductions, that will directly or
necessarily undo the abductions which were unconsciously,
uncritically, poorly, or even deceivingly, "introduced" in the first
place. It is rather the interpretations of Peircean abduction which
confuse it with induction, which see it as the positing the "rule"
which will do the explaining, which proceed "as if there were no
particulars," as if thought were a purely formal affair employing
induction (in 2 forms) and deduction, rules and results, in the
logical manipulation of "commonly understood" terms.
How are abductions justified, then, if they're inferences made prior
to any determinations of truth and falsity or the necessity of any
deductions? How is a politically motivated definition like
"citizen" defined as "adult white males owning a certain amount or
kind of property" dislodged if it is not true or false or some
other definition of "citizen" is not necessary? I would say by
references to a ground, references to correlates, and references to
other interpretants; none of which, I would submit, is a formal
matter of truth and falsity or necessity but all of which carry
their weight informally. In my opinion the "New List" is very much
the presentation of a set of abductively derived means for
justifying abductions, and thus I think it's safe to say I'm a long
way from "rejecting" this method of inference. I am, however,
somewhat insistent that we try to understand it as Peirce conceived
it and not as something more palatable to the purely formal
inclincations of so many varieties philosophy since.
Tom Gollier
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 04:25:08 GMT
From: BugDaddy[…]cris.com (BugDaddy)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34ed46ba.20497675[…]pop3.cris.com>
John Oller wrote:
> Bill Overcamp wrote:
>> I understand the context. I do not understand the syllogism.
>> substance implies being
>> these categories imply being
>> Therefore, substance implies these categories
>
>Now, Bill Overcamp, and Tom Gollier, this is a multiplicity of an
>interesting kind, but it can be reduced to unity, but not without an
>abductive inference of exactly the kind you reject.
I can't speak for Tom, but I think you have misinterpreted what I
wrote. I do not see that I "rejected" anything. I said I did
not understand. Perhaps I asked a dumb question...
Your answer seems to be that we should consider an infinite
sequence of cases. It is not clear to me how such a sequence is
related to the original question, but perhaps we will see that as
we read further in the New List.
Thank you for your interesting reply.
----------------------------------------------------------
Friend and lover you have taken away. My only friend is darkness.
Psalm 88:18
-----------------------------------
Life is a miracle waiting to happen.
http://www.cris.com/~bugdaddy/life.htm
-----------------------------------
Bill Overcamp
-----------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 23:03:38 -0600
From: joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell, joseph m.)
To:
Subject: Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
Message-ID: <00a401bd2f97$ed6924e0$18a432ce[…]ransdell.door.net>
In response to Jim Piat, who says:
>wasn't it Peirce himself who undertook to seek and define the basket
>called truth?
It's not like a basket (not a sort of thing) and not definable in the
sense in which an ordinary classificatory predicate is definable. The
best way to understand it philosophically, I think, is in terms of what
it means to be committed to the truth as distinct from, say, trying to
understand it in terms of how you can know when you have it. The latter
leads to a dead end at best, and sometimes to disaster.
I'll have to leave it thus cryptically until I have time to say more,
Jim, but as regards the following:
>You seem to have a greater faith in progress than some, but
>isn't it possible that as the universe expands that the unknown is
>outstripping the known and in fact we are losing ground?
I don't think there is any assumption that, someday, all will be known,
but only a conviction that, as regards any given question, there is an
answer to it.
I don't know about progress, but things do change.
Later, Jim
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Ransdell or <>
Department of Philosophy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409
Area Code 806: 742-3158 office 797-2592 home 742-0730 fax
ARISBE: Peirce Telecommunity website - http://members.door.net/arisbe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 10:17:50 -0500
From: piat[…]juno.com (Jim L Piat)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Peirce and the bootstrap, et al.
Message-ID: <19980202.101752.9078.0.piat[…]juno.com>
On Sun, 1 Feb 1998 23:06:01 -0600 (CST) joseph.ransdell[…]yahoo.com (ransdell,
joseph m.) writes:
>In response to Jim Piat, who says:
>
>>wasn't it Peirce himself who undertook to seek and define the basket
>>called truth?
>
>It's not like a basket (not a sort of thing) and not definable in the
>sense in which an ordinary classificatory predicate is definable. The
>best way to understand it philosophically, I think, is in terms of
>what
>it means to be committed to the truth as distinct from, say, trying to
>understand it in terms of how you can know when you have it. The
>latter
>leads to a dead end at best, and sometimes to disaster.
[...]
>I don't think there is any assumption that, someday, all will be
>known,
>but only a conviction that, as regards any given question, there is an
>answer to it.
>
>I don't know about progress, but things do change.
>
Joe, I think it's finally begining to dawn on me. It's a process, it's a
process...it's a process The journey is the destination
impiatj
_____________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com
Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
------------------------------
|
