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PEIRCE-L Digest 1282 -- February 2-3, 1998
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From PEIRCE-L Forum, Jan 5, 1998, [name of author of message],
"re: Peirce on Teleology"
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Topics covered in this issue include:
1) Re: Morris R. Cohen
by Tom Anderson
2) Re: Europhilia in Harper's
by Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
3) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by John Oller
4) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by John Oller
5) Re: Morris R. Cohen
by Howard Callaway
6) Re: Morris R. Cohen
by Tom Anderson
7) CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
by "Gayle L. Ormiston"
8) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by Tom Anderson
9) What is zero? What is number?
by alan_manning[…]byu.edu (Alan Manning)
10) Re: What is zero? What is number?
by "George W. Stickel"
11) Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
by Joseph Ransdell
12) Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
by Howard Callaway
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:42:11 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Morris R. Cohen
Message-ID: <34D62193.B4319FEA[…]ix.netcom.com>
I'd just like to second Howard's enthusiasm for Morris Cohen. I had the
good fortune of getting bitten by curiousity about him and finding that
the local library had several of his book, including his autobiography,
and a big book he wrote on American philosophy, as well as PREFACE TO
LOGIC. I the PTL is an excellent introduction to the topic, very clear
and helpful -- there were many places where I detected unattributed
debts to Peirce, as I'm doing now while I'm reading C. I. Lewis. I
think you can easily do the same thing in Peirce's work with Chauncey
Wright, incidentally -- of course, there's no way to prove it either
way. One reads things in someone's work that remind you of something in
someone else's work, and that suggests influence. Both Cohen and Lewis
knew Peirce's work from the archives, and in some ways knew that work
intimately and used it without attribution. I've looked in vain for any
reference to anything unpublished by Peirce in Lewis' whole body of
writing (skimming, not reading carefully, mind you). In his work on
logic, Lewis very carefully used and referred to many published works by
Peirce -- I suspect there must have been some convention that required
reference to published work but didn't to unpublished work or
conversation (conversation in the case of Wright and Peirce).
Cohen made all kinds of important contributions to American philosophy,
and had a most interesting and inspiring personal background. He was an
immigrant to the US at the age of ten or eleven from Russia.
He was as a young person an activist in the Socialist Labor Party, and
he and several of his comrades came into contact with a philosophy group
in New York City led by a man whose name I can't recall right now, who
was both an individualist and an idealist in philosophy, strongly
opposed to marxism. But he was a person who loved debate and respected
good opponents, and he attracted Cohen and his friends into his circle,
and in turn they cut their 'eye teeth' studying philosophy within this
group, outside the context of school. Although he never agreed with the
philosophical views of this man, he had enormous respect for him and
even at the end of his Cohen's life, he acknowledged a great debt to
him.
He continued his studies at CCNY and Harvard, where he studied with
Royce and Lewis among others. He was a pioneer in legal philosophy and
in getting people together from the two professions to discuss
fundamentals, lawyers and philosophers, and he had an enormous influence
on the way both academics and jurists look at questions like
interpreting the constitution -- Cohen argued strongly that scientific
findings about contemporary society were relevant to the interpretion of
laws and constitutions opposed to the traditional view that the
interpretive task was just to tease out what was there, that was
intended by the founding fathers or the writers of the legislation.
Incidentally, he wanted to title the Peirce collection he edited
"Tychism, Synechism and Agapism" but his wife talked him out of it.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 18:16:31 +0100
From: Thomas.Riese[…]t-online.de (Thomas Riese)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Europhilia in Harper's
Message-ID:
Joe Ransdell, you wrote:
>I didn't mean in my post of some time back to be asking
>you about how you make a living or anything like that,[...]
I think I understood it as you meant it, Joe. As an aside: I
fortunately don't have to live from acting -- I would have starved
already a long time ago;-)
There were several factors why I posted my last message: I was not
sure whether what I had posted was perhaps offending to someone on the
list and I feel a bit in constant danger to be impolite simply because
English is not my mother tongue, there are subtle cultural
differences and it is of course particularly dangerous for me to use
allusions and such things. But I deliberately take that risk and I am
willing to bear the consequences if this should go wrong.
More serious: I am in difficulties as soon as something like 'academic
politics' comes into play. I have some years ago deliberately left the
academic world (at least as far as jobs, funds etc. are concerned) and
what I do I would myself consider as philosophy and science in the
marketplace (Athenean variant, so perhaps better: 'agora') and then
'hard core mathematics' and impro theatre acting and other things fit
together perfectly;-)
I would like to contribute my share to the community but the
presuppositions are of course for me different than those for most
others. So I some time ago tried to 'sell' Peircean ideas to
academics (various departments) who didn't know anything about them
and this was more or less totally unsuccessful. I then decided that
the thing to do was to develop things further, preferably in other
people's specialities and *then* they would hopefully ask: where did
you get this from? That would be immediately convincing.
I worked some years in computer related research projects and what
impressed me immensely was that fact that people cooperated worldwide
and developed a freely available UNIX-like operating system ("LINUX")
which is not only high-quality but really world-class and they were
able to give things away freely and at the same time make a living
without necessarily having some sort of unifying 'ideology' in the
background. It really works and it very much works in the Peircean
spirit (though not expressedly so).
So I have sometimes difficulties to understand why academic politics
concerning Peirce scholarship is so defensive in nature. That really
surprised me. I think there is such an enormous potential in Peirce's
legacy technically and socially and with respect to the interaction of
both. I believe we have not yet even scratched the surface of all the
potentials that are in it. I am sure there are still big surprises
waiting.
Just for an example: John von Neumann gave his formal Hilbert space
framework for quantum mechanics as a variant of Dedekind's cuts.
Interestingly enough the main problem in his approach is to explain
the nature of the process of measurement which we could in Peircean
terminology only call 'abductive'. More than that: Birkhoff and v.
Neumann showed, using the lattice idea taken from Peirce, that the
above mentioned formalism can be considered as a 'logic'.
At the same time things in this field till today are considered as
ultimately 'incomprehensible'.
What then happens if we take a Peircean alternative to Dedekind's
approach, keeping in mind that Hilbert space is a geometric entity and
Peirce too saw an intimate connection between logic and geometry?
And the physicists themselves don't feel all too sure about their
believes, as could be seen when there some time ago was this 'cold
fusion' hoax.
And this even isn't the most interesting complex of ideas Peirce has
to offer. It just only has a high public attention value. What is more
important I think is the fact that children (o.k.: _my_ children;-))
understand Peircean mumbo jumbo much better than what is usually
accepted as an 'explanation'. Don't ask me why, but they then start to
do the right things. And pedagogy seems to me to be in a terrible
state, here in Germany at least. It's the modern equivalent of
scholasticism in its terminal phase.
So what about the incomprehensible metaphysical ideas Peirce had? The
metaphysics of contemporary physics is even more "incomprehensible". I
think incomprehensibility doesn' count much. And if we consider e,g,
Leibniz, as Andrew Reynolds recently did: His metaphysics is nothing
but calculus, as he discovered and understood it, in prose
transcription. It may sound funny, but if we take serious what Peirce
recommended: to take our logic as our metaphysics -- I think there are
good reasons to believe that we can't do anything better. But if we
like we can of course translate Peirce's metaphysics back into
mathematics. It's then not necessarily more comprehensible but at
least "socially accepted".
To be too much concerned about social (or even scientific)
'acceptability' can be hindering. I recently tried to write a review
of Robert Burch's book on the Peircean reduction thesis. I think it is
an excellent book but it is very complicated simply because it binds
things back to model-theoretic structures which are foreign to
Peirce's conceptions.
And then we have a complicated overhead and you run into even greater
trouble if you try to say something about the relation of Peirce's
ideas and model-theory and finally, at the decisive point, the whole
argument will remain question-begging. There is a point of conflict
and it doesn't make much sense to avoid it. So we should address it
right at the beginning.
Incomprehensibility and strangeness are indeed no arguments,
especially if we have to do with ideas which are at the same time in
themselves 'simple' (though not easy to understand) and *new*. I think
then the best we can do is to do new things with these new ideas
(instead of trying to justify them with old one's -- nobody will buy
it if you say: I can do what others can do, ...only a lot more
complicated).
So there is a conflict for me since on the one hand side I would like
to contribute and on the other side I feel I shouldn't give up my way
of doing things. So in a way 'credentials' are an issue for me though
not as a question of personal merits or reputation. It's a question of
accepted standards which can make life easier or worse.
The problem is similar to the problem of literary texts on the
internet (e.g. Project Gutenberg): there are many people who would
like to contribute and indeed do so, but often there is a lack of
standards which can enormously degrade the worth of what is done. At
the same time the commercial publishers fear that their business would
vanish if such practices are supported and so they don't contribute
their knowledge (which would, if they did, in fact show how valuable
their standards really are).
Nevertheless I believe that people would happily use the tools and
methods developed by scholars and other professionals (even teachers
in schools;-)) if they are offered in a suitable manner (people
happily submit to programming standards concerning coding techniques,
computer code documentation and text formatting that require enormous
discipline and indeed there are a lot of people whose English style
makes an impression of semi-illiteracy, but their coding style
reminds one of the single-heartedness of mind and discipline of
medieval monks).
And the Internet has astonishing possibilities to offer: A friend of
mine, a doctor here in Germany, recently told me that some of his
collegues in the U.S. dictate their reports and send them via Internet
to India where they are typed and sent back. There is no difference to
a secretary sitting next door in this.
I was reminded of that story when I recently got a fund raising letter
from the Indiana University Peirce Edition Project. What if scanned
manuscript pages were available on the net and, suitably organized,
the community could upload transcriptions, translations, annotations
etc. We might have a complete edition soon and the contributors would
have access to 'first hand' sources. Just an idea. With the LINUX
project it worked just that way: many people solved their own problems
thus giving their share to the community and at the same time they
were constantly able to maintain a 'clean' working 'official' edition
of the system which was usable right from the first moment and then
gradually grew into more and more sophistication.
Concerning certain other problems I can only say that at the beginning
of our Century doctors proposed to put heroin into cough syrup -- they
thought the addiction risk, in comparison to the respiration
depressive opiates they used before, could thereby be lessened...:-)
So what?!
Bad social habits? I recommend reading a biography of Talleyrand as a
preparation: perhaps *the* genius in the art of diplomacy.
By the way: I first, years ago, when I studied writings of people of
the Wiener Kreis, hit upon the name 'Charles Peirce' in Karl R.
Popper's book "Objective Knowledge" (chap.6 'On clouds and clocks'):
"... Charles Sanders Peirce...one of the greatest philosophers of all
times..."
Whatever else the worth of what Popper has done might be: I think this
was an excellent insight -- for me at least.
This is not directed against anybody and neither yet a fully
consistent 'credo' -- just some "thinking aloud". I confess I am
myself a bit unsure which direction to take. But then discussion
sometimes helps:-)
Thomas Riese.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:18:35 -0600
From: John Oller
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D5FFEB.27A0[…]usl.edu>
BugDaddy wrote:
>
> 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...
Didn't I read a series of posts recently with your name attached that
were singing the praises of "multiplicity" (something about a roller
coaster ride) as against "unity"? It is that rejected "unity of
conception" that I was aiming to defend. If you have not rejected it,
then you would, I think, be in a better position to understand the
merits of Peirce's conception of abduction. Perhaps I have misunderstood
your position on "multiplicity" versus "unity". If I am wrong, please
show me where.
>
> Your answer seems to be that we should consider an infinite
> sequence of cases.
Uh uh. Read the response to Tom Gollier. A sequence of 4 inertial
locations occupied by a particular object on 10 cycles is hardly
infinite (10 X 4 inertial locations = about 40 distinct representations
divisible into 4 sets of 10 each that are quite similar but distinct
with respect to time). But the connections once established do spill
over the edges and imply an indefinitely extended series. However,
abductions typically do not pertain in practical cases to infinitudes
but to connected sequences of events involving material entities that in
some cases, most ordinary experiences (e.g., Tom's with his grandson),
are in fact correctly known and designated for what they are. They are
usually relatively few in number owing to limits on the numbers of icons
we can hold in our consciousness at any given moment; a propos of George
Armitage Miller's magic number 7 plus or minus one or two. Or consider
the fact that in visual attention there cannot be an infinite number of
fixations on inertial locations (as defined and exemplified in the two
previous posts).
> 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.
>
Let me try to make the connection: If unity of conception is desirable
and attainable without threatening the multiplicity, and if in fact the
differences between things and persons cannot be accounted for at all
except in a common world, then why should we not seek out the genuine
connections between us? Such connections cannot be found, however, by
denying what is truly known nor by pretending that genuine differences
do not exist. Multiplicity is not only not threatened by a unity of
conception, it (multiplicity) is inconceivable without some unifying
connectedness of the distinct elements. That unifying context in which
the multiplicity (or some plurality of them) exists, if we can
understand it (the context), is just what is meant by a unity of
conception.
You may ask, "But how does this apply to understanding Peirce?" To which
my response is that we must seek to understand what he is saying on his
terms and in his way. Now if he were a novice who knew nothing of the
traditional conceptions of logic, which he decidedly is not, then the
rejection of his notion of abduction might proceed along the lines taken
by Tom Gollier. But that road can be ruled out. Peirce was not a novice
in logic. All of this is intimately related to the notion of abduction
that Tom sees as a formal embarrassment.
Then the question is to seek a consistent understanding of Peirce that
would accord with his manner of thinking. This means that we must see
his notion of the "unity of conception" in the manner in which he has
put it forward. Reject his argument for the "unity of conception" and we
might as well abandon hope of understanding or doing justice to Peircean
thought or its derivatives.
With all best hopes,
John
***************************************
John W. Oller, Jr., Professor and Head
Department of Communicative Disorders
University of Southwestern Louisiana
P.O.Box 43170
Lafayette, LA 70504-3170
***************************************
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 11:18:30 -0600
From: John Oller
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D5FFE6.581F[…]usl.edu>
Tom Gollier wrote:
>
> 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.
It is true that any number of distinct coordinations might be possible
in a trivial sense of "number" (where the possibilities are only
"distinct" in some pointless way), but there are not an infinite number
of ways in which the little train in Bower's experiment moves through
its several inertial positions. Let us label the inertial locations of
the object as A (the first stationary position), B (the second inertial
location where the object is found moving to C), and C (the third
inertial location where the object comes to rest again and sits a
while), then D will be the fourth inertial location through which the
object arrives back at A (moving from C). Now, this is very far from an
infinitude of locations. Only a philosopher thinking a little bit
perversely can make out that there are an infinite number of ways that
the object is associated with its various inertial locations; but the
infant is not a philospher in that sense yet. (Not until college.)
In the experiment Bower has the car move through the cycle described 10
times and then on the eleventh cycle the car passes up position C (where
it has stopped these 10 times running) and goes to a new location
farther down the track that we may call E. Bower correctly predicted
that the infants below a certain age (16 weeks) would search position A.
In fact, they searched all of the inertial locations I have described.
To explain why requires the development of the theory of abstraction,
and it requires the notion of abduction as well. However, in a few more
weeks the infant will solve the mystery to a faretheewell and without
going through any infinite series of iterations.
> 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,
I noted, but did not make clear evidently, that the pairings as proposed
will not hold in anything like a rigid numerical sequence. Such strictly
paired sequences will only be observed in relatively short term
relations by an observer whose attention does not wander to other
subjects and or contexts.
> 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'.
No. The assumption by itself would have no holding power. The reason the
process works is that the little car really is the same. It does not
work because we have made that assumption. Here is the whole difference
between TNR theory and the indeterminate deductions of systems grounded
only in assumption.
A story is told of Abraham Lincoln and a certain farmer with whom he was
arguing. Lincoln asked the man how many legs a cow typically has. The
man said 4. But, suppose, Lincoln asked, we called the cow's tail a leg,
then how many legs would the cow have? The man said 5. That's where
you're wrong, said Mr. Lincoln, calling a tail a leg does not make a leg
of it. The cow would still have only 4 legs.
And that too is the basic difference between a TNR and a fiction. The
trouble with much philosophy (and modern linguistics) is that it often
aims to discover determinate interpretations of facts by starting out
the deductive process from fictions. I have shown in TNR theory why that
program can't work. It cannot ever achieve the desired level of
determinacy.
Yet there is no problem if the abduction is correct. No one said that
the deck was not stacked in advance. Have you not heard of Chomskyan
innate ideas? Or of Kant's argument about a priori knowledge? Or of
Peirce's "Neglected Argument"?
> 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.
Here you lost me. I'm not understanding why the word "change" comes up
here. If things are reduced to a consistent unity this word "change" is
a nonsequitur.
>
> 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):
Okay. The example shows the sort of arbitrary change you have in mind,
but not the kind that would be relevant to the sorts of series that
Peirce, I think, had in mind. Here is the question: What possible basis
could there be, except for the train in the tub, for calling the
tub-setting and the train-setting by the "same" letters (i.e., putting
them in the same series in the first place?). Hence your objection to
the presupposition that the train car is the same in all of its
appearances, and that it must be this way in advance, is not so much a
nonsequitur as it is a nonstarter. Your own example of your grandson
requires that the kid be the same observer and the very sort of thing
you are trying to object to has been introduced into your own example.
>
> ================= 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.
No, no, no. Uh uh. What Peirce stated is unassailable formally and
otherwise. Put the thing in its right-handed version (again a nod to
Brent's passages on Peirce and his left-handed approach to writing and
why it made him hard to understand, etc.) and there is no conceivable
formal error or inadequacy. Suppose the infant (or any observer) sees an
entity that is correctly interpreted to be an instance of a certain
identity (say a particular person, dog, or object). How is this
abductive recognition achieved? The known law, might be the fact the
object in question has characteristics a, b, c, . . . etc., which
distinguish it from other objects. Now, here is an object that meets all
those requirements (i.e., has a, b, c, etc.), therefore, here is that
object that has those traits. The relation described is formally valid
and is exactly as good as the law (rule) on which it is based. Indeed,
it claims so little that to fault it for its formal character is to
misconstrue its empirical content _as_ its formal character while the
formal character (as TNR-theory shows) is utterly independent of that
particular empirical content.
> 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.
>
The embarrassment is like that of the farmer who thinks that a cow can
have five legs if we just call the tail a leg. It is nonsense to suppose
that deduction can be made sense of without abductive and inductive
inferences. To suppose that formalisms can be understood in any way
without grounding them in abductions is to engage in sophistry--albeit a
popular form of sophistry and one developed beyond its means, and
throughoughly embedded, in traditional conceptions of logic.
All the best,
John
***************************************
John W. Oller, Jr., Professor and Head
Department of Communicative Disorders
University of Southwestern Louisiana
P.O.Box 43170
Lafayette, LA 70504-3170
***************************************
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 18:28:29 +0100 (MET)
From: Howard Callaway
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: Morris R. Cohen
Message-ID:
On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Tom Anderson wrote:
> He was as a young person an activist in the Socialist Labor Party, and
> he and several of his comrades came into contact with a philosophy group
> in New York City led by a man whose name I can't recall right now, who
> was both an individualist and an idealist in philosophy, strongly
> opposed to marxism. But he was a person who loved debate and respected
> good opponents, and he attracted Cohen and his friends into his circle,
> and in turn they cut their 'eye teeth' studying philosophy within this
> group, outside the context of school. Although he never agreed with the
> philosophical views of this man, he had enormous respect for him and
> even at the end of his Cohen's life, he acknowledged a great debt to
> him.
>
The early influence on Cohen whom you are thinking of here, Tom, was non-
other that Felix Adler. Adler was an idealist of Kantian background,
though this idealism is definitely his own, strong as regards the moral
idealism, but very distinctive in comparison with Kant or anyone else.
I've argued, on occasion, that Adler's views make interesting comparisons
to Dewey's and to others in the pragmatist tradition, though this likeness
was sometimes disputed, as by Radner, as I recall. Adler had an
interesting kind of fusion of "teleological" and "deontological" elements
in his ethics. According to his metaphysics, we see through the phenomena
when we act so as to bring out the best in others. As you can see, even
from this one point, everything centers on ethics. In any case, Adler
was a very strong personality, and he influenced just about everyone
who came into any considerable contact with him. So, I think it no
overstatement to say that Cohen carried Adler's influence as well as that
of Peirce.
Thanks for your appreciation of Cohen. I hope we see further discussion.
Howard
H.G. Callaway
Seminar for Philosophy
University of Mainz
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 12:58:24 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: Morris R. Cohen
Message-ID: <34D63370.96DA56A5[…]ix.netcom.com>
Howard Callaway wrote:
> On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Tom Anderson wrote:
>
> > He was as a young person an activist in the Socialist Labor Party, and
> > he and several of his comrades came into contact with a philosophy group
> > in New York City led by a man whose name I can't recall right now, who
> > was both an individualist and an idealist in philosophy, strongly
> > opposed to marxism. But he was a person who loved debate and respected
> > good opponents, and he attracted Cohen and his friends into his circle,
> > and in turn they cut their 'eye teeth' studying philosophy within this
> > group, outside the context of school. Although he never agreed with the
> > philosophical views of this man, he had enormous respect for him and
> > even at the end of his Cohen's life, he acknowledged a great debt to
> > him.
> >
>
> The early influence on Cohen whom you are thinking of here, Tom, was non-
> other that Felix Adler. Adler was an idealist of Kantian background,
> though this idealism is definitely his own, strong as regards the moral
> idealism, but very distinctive in comparison with Kant or anyone else.
> I've argued, on occasion, that Adler's views make interesting comparisons
> to Dewey's and to others in the pragmatist tradition, though this likeness
> was sometimes disputed, as by Radner, as I recall. Adler had an
> interesting kind of fusion of "teleological" and "deontological" elements
> in his ethics. According to his metaphysics, we see through the phenomena
> when we act so as to bring out the best in others. As you can see, even
> from this one point, everything centers on ethics. In any case, Adler
> was a very strong personality, and he influenced just about everyone
> who came into any considerable contact with him. So, I think it no
> overstatement to say that Cohen carried Adler's influence as well as that
> of Peirce.
>
> Thanks for your appreciation of Cohen. I hope we see further discussion.
I'm quite sure it was someone other than Adler -- although Adler may also have
had an influence. The person I'm thinking of ran a sort of philosophy club
and things like summer institutes and so forth that attracted many young
people -- it was outside of school. I'll see if I can get the autobiography
out again tonight or soon anyway so as to quote what he says about the person
I'm thinking of.
I'd just like also to comment about Cohen's book on American philosophy. He
has several pages on Chauncey Wright that are very appreciative and quite
sensitive, I think. His note on Peirce is excellent -- one of the very best
summaries I've seen. His note on Dewey is very critical, and (it strikes me)
offers a very Peirceian, scientific realist, critique of Dewey -- although
it's also mixed, as you note, Howard, with strong appreciation.
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 16:12:50 -0500
From: "Gayle L. Ormiston"
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19980202161250.006c4790[…]pop.kent.edu>
SECOND POSTING CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT SECOND POSTING
The Fifth Annual Kent State University May 4th Philosophy Graduate
Conference will be held on Saturday, April 18, 1998 (Kent, OH). The
conference theme is:
PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTIONS:
Metaphysical, Historical, or Political
Connections Among
Mind & World, Analytic & Continental
History & Issue
The keynote speaker is Frank Farrell (State University of New York at
Purchase; author of SUBJECTIVITY, REALISM, AND POST MODERNISM: THE RECOVERY
OF THE WORLD IN RECENT PHILOSOPHY).
An announcement of the conference and call for papers can be found at:
http://www.kent.edu/philo/events/conf98.htm
Please bring this notice to the attention of graduate students whom you
think might be interested in participating.
Thank you for your assistance.
Gayle L. Ormiston
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Philosophy
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242-0001
Phone: 330-672-2315
FAX: 330-672-4867
http://www.kent.edu/philo
e-mail: gormisto[…]kent.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 17:52:25 -0800
From: Tom Anderson
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID: <34D67859.2B701207[…]ix.netcom.com>
I'd like to make a quick comment on this dialogue between John Oller,
Tom Gollier and Bill Overcamp.
I agree with John that abduction fills out the picture of logic, and
that an account of the logic of inquiry or knowledge is sadly incomplete
without it. I also agree with Tom that as it stands, there is a certain
kind of logical deficiency in abduction -- only as viewed from the
perspective of induction and deduction. John argues that something in
abductive inference is necessary, and I couldn't disagree more -- I do
think abduction is often certain, or nearly so, and probably in the vast
majority of cases abduction is certain, or at least more than good
enough to go on. Magicians typically use abduction to get you to
believe that something impossible happened -- evidence is presented that
you can virtually only fit together in a way that supports the illusion
via abductive inference. A skeptic uses this as evidence for the
unreliability of our abductions -- although no skeptic phrases the
argument thus -- but you could turn the argument around and point out
that it takes great skill to be able to create such illusions, and that
normally our abductions are reliable. And as John points out with his
infant example, our routine perceptions of stable objects are abductive.
When it comes to scientific abductions, though, I'd argue that they are
a lot less reliable, and stand very much in need of testing, and further
that the result of any test is usually not to confirm or disconfirm but
to force revisions -- our hypotheses allow us to structure reality in
the form of data that we can review, and what this review usually shows
is that our hypothesis captured a part of the structure we were
investigating, but also the data reveals anomalies between the data and
hypothesis. In light of the anomalies, we develop new hypotheses and
test them. From the point of view of conformity to reality, the results
of abduction range all the way from zero to one, with most of them (I
submit) being at or close to one, but the more scientific they get the
further from one they get. Although some abductions are as certain as
anything ever is, I'd still argue they aren't necessary -- and I'd argue
that abductions had the same logical status all the way along the line
from zero to one -- and then the logical status of the propositions
proposed by abduction or hypothesis is given by deduction and induction.
Abduction remains the without which not of logical investigation, the
feature that most logicians ignore and we owe a great deal to Peirce
for having placed hypothesis generation so near the center of inquiry.
What do you think?
Tom Anderson
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 16:33:39 -0700
From: alan_manning[…]byu.edu (Alan Manning)
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID:
All you mathematically-inclined Peirceans:
First, a quick query. Can anybody out there describe for me the process of
calculating (approximating) the square root of two (or any other numbers
with irrational roots) to the Nth decimal place? I remember learning a
way, but I've mostly forgotten how I did math before calculators. Here's a
tougher one: what algorithm does one follow to calculate numbers like "pi"
to the Nth decimal place?
Apropos the recent discussion of zero and number, John Robertson here at
BYU has been drafting a paper on the Peircean categories and kinds of
number. (He's been too busy being dept. chair to participate on the list
lately). Anyway, John suggests that ordinary counting numbers are, in
general, defined by secondness: any counting-number sequence is
meaningless unless connected with some external, equivalent thing-sequence.
I say "four," and my audience's automatic response is "four (of) what?"
which is not so different from my employing any index, pointing my finger
and/or saying "this", and my audience thinks/says "this what?"
So what about numbers in the abstract, when they're not used to count
physical things? In that case the abstract mathematical *equation* is
still fundamentally connecting (as secondness), now connecting one abstract
number-sequence to another, equally abstract number-sequence, but anyway
still connecting two thing-sequences, one on each side of the "equals"
sign, e.g. 10 + 6 = 4 + 4 + 4 + 4.
So what about zero? Zero, unlike ordinary-number secondness, essentially
represents firstness that excludes secondness. To say I have zero apples
is to say that I have the virtual idea (firstness) of "apple", but the
explicitly signalling the absence of any physically instantiated apple.
Skipping over a lot of further argumentation, John further connects
negative numbers (debt) with firstness of secondness (immediate object),
rational fractions (finite or infinitely repeating decimals) with firstness
of thirdness (immediate interpretant), irrational numbers (infinite,
non-repeating decimals) with secondness of thirdness (dynamic
interpretant), and "imaginary" numbers (square roots of negatives) with
thirdness. It's an interesting and elegant model, and John's drafting a
paper. If anybody's interested in reading and commenting on a draft when
it's done, I think I could persuade John to post it on the Web somewhere.
Alan Manning
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 1998 20:19:23 -0500
From: "George W. Stickel"
To: peirce-l[…]ttacs6.ttu.edu
Subject: Re: What is zero? What is number?
Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19980203011923.0098d754[…]pop.mindspring.com>
Alan,
It seems to me that all numbers are thirds because they are
legisigns--existing because of some general law, so that "two" is a replica
(CP 2.243-ff). They are symbols (CP 2.249) and they could be a possibility
(rheme) a dicent sign, or an argument, depending upon the context. They are
tied to relationship, at least via human experience of counting, so that
three is a relationship of 1 + 1 + 1 and does not exist apart from some
existential quality. In the addition presented above, three is understood
as an argument provided by the operations upon a unit value.
On another of your questions about pi--this may not get at what you were
asking, but 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + . . . will yield pi/4.
George Stickel
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 02:07:49
From: Joseph Ransdell
To: peirce-l[…]TTACS.TTU.EDU
Subject: Re: more on positivism and the eclipse of Peirce (from Douglas Moore)
Message-ID: <3.0.1.16.19980203020749.57eff1e6[…]pop.ttu.edu>
Posted for Douglas Moore:
--------from and posted for Douglas Moore----------------
Jim,
I'll have to reply to this latter as I'm just heading off overseas to Isreal
in a few hours on business. I may be away for over 3 weeks and won't be in a
position to write muuch email..
I'll provide a response when I return
Doug
>
>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: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 10:17:42 +0100 (MET)
From: Howard Callaway
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Re: (unity of conception) slow reading: New List (paragraph 1)
Message-ID:
On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Tom Anderson wrote:
> I'd like to make a quick comment on this dialogue between John Oller,
> Tom Gollier and Bill Overcamp.
> ....
Tom, I found your comments very helpful, and they encourage me to
try to go a bit with them to see what I can make out of the issues
under discussion.
I'm much inclined to emphasize your point that "abductions aren't
necessary," particularly, of course in contrast to deductive implica-
tions. Still, something lingers around good examples of abduction
which is suggestive of Aristotle on "intuitive induction," or perhaps
the idea of "seeing essences," as in some other traditions.
> When it comes to scientific abductions, though, I'd argue that they are
> a lot less reliable, and stand very much in need of testing, and further
> that the result of any test is usually not to confirm or disconfirm but
> to force revisions -- our hypotheses allow us to structure reality in
> the form of data that we can review, and what this review usually shows
> is that our hypothesis captured a part of the structure we were
> investigating, but also the data reveals anomalies between the data and
> hypothesis. In light of the anomalies, we develop new hypotheses and
> test them.
I'm tempted to say something like this, that abduction which results
in hypothesis formation is implicitly or explicitly "guided" by
established belief in the domain of inquiry. Perhaps the point is
obvious, and doesn't need to be emphasized, but if we think of
abduction as "guided" by everything established in the domain, and
not merely by particular premises we want to put in a quasi-
syllogistic form, then this might relate the discussion of abduction
to prior discussion concerning the "unification of the manifold," and
the contextual character of the validity of judgment. Of course,
in arriving at an hypothesis, we are explicitly extrapolating,
as it were, or extending pre-existing belief in light of some
apparently relevant but unexplained evidence, so we should not
expect that whatever we use as guiding our hypothesis formation
will be fully sufficient to the objective. That is part of the
reason, as I see it, that Tom's talk of the interaction of
hypothesis and testing is so inviting.
> From the point of view of conformity to reality, the results
> of abduction range all the way from zero to one, with most of them (I
> submit) being at or close to one, but the more scientific they get the
> further from one they get. Although some abductions are as certain as
> anything ever is, I'd still argue they aren't necessary -- and I'd argue
> that abductions had the same logical status all the way along the line
> from zero to one -- and then the logical status of the propositions
> proposed by abduction or hypothesis is given by deduction and induction.
>
My impression is that the points mentioned here might bring us to
a consideration of Goodman's "Grue" paradox. Though Goodman formulated
in in reference to induction, given the interaction of abduction and
hypothesis testing which Tom emphasizes, I suspect that we might use-
fully look at Peirce on induction in relation to the Grue paradox.
Surely, there is a relationship here.
So, if x is green, y is blue, and z is green, we are not inclined to
count this as a genuine repetition, tending to support a generalization
involving "grue," though, if y is also green, then we do seem to have
a repetition supporting or suggesting a relevant generalization or
hypothesis, involving "green." The difference seems to be that "green"
already fits in with our established belief in some way, while "grue"
does not. Obviously much more could be said, but I'm wondering in the
first place if looking at abduction in this way might hold out some
interest to the issues now under discussion on this thread.
So, I hope this is helpful to those now in the discussion.
I still like that plurality of flowers. We unify, only to solve a
problem, IMHO.
Howard
H.G. Callaway
Seminar for Philosophy
University of Mainz
------------------------------
|
