>It is true that the progress of science may die away, but then its essence will have been extracted. This cessation itself will give us time to see that Cosmos, that esthetic view of science which Humboldt prematurely conceived.
Charles Sanders Peirce, 1863
Nb. I can't find the original source for this quotation from Peirce. It appears as an epigraph to Laura Dassow Walls, 2009, The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America.
Charles Sanders Peirce is one of my favorite unknown philosophers. Although problematic (i.e. virulently racist) and a bit difficult to read, he was brilliant, and wrote on a wide range of topics in an insightful way.
One of my favorite ideas of his (and likely one of his most accessible) was his idea of truth. I think about it quite a lot, especially when I read pointless Internet arguments.
Peirceβs idea of truth came from pragmatism, which he was the founder of, and pragmaticism, which he created after he got mad that people were misinterpreting pragmatism. His exact line of reasoning in creating pragmaticism was to make a clunkier word that would be less likely to attract misguided adherents. In this, he seemed to have been successful, as Iβm not aware of any other pragmaticists.
In pragmatism (or pragmaticism), truth is defined thusly:
>βConsider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of those effects is the whole of our conception of the object.β
In other words, he defined what we think of something as what we think that thing can do. Or, as he explained later, we can also think of it as, βGiven that this is true, what should I do about it?β
So, if we describe a diamond as hard, we mean it can scratch pretty much anything else. If we call someone mean, we wouldnβt want to go to them for comfort on a tough day.
If someone else describes a diamond as soft, but still acknowledge it can scratch pretty much anything else, then youβre agreeing with that person. In the same way, if they say, βOh no, that guyβs actually pretty nice,β but still wouldnβt go to them for comfort on a tough day, theyβre also agreeing with you.
Well, what does this have to do with Internet arguments? Internet arguments usually fail from the getgo, by this standard. If you call a certain policy racist, then you are arguing that you ought to treat that policy in the same way as another policy youβd call racist (like redlining). You also argue that it has identical effects to other racist policies.
But thatβs not normally the case, is it? Words like racist, problematic, or socialist are thrown around with regards to their definition by any standard, but especially not by a pragmatic standard.
Take, for example, an excerpt from this Quality Contribution from r/
... keep reading on reddit β‘
Charles Sanders Peirce believed that evolutionary mechanisms did not only describe the origin and development of species but also considered evolution to be fundamental to the development of the universe itself and its laws.
In addition to this (metaphysical) extension of evolution beyond the realm of biology and culture, he posited that evolution functioned in accordance with the idea of "agapeism", the loving self-sacrifice of an entity's 'own perfection for the sake of the well-being of its neighbor.' (Compare Robert Burch).
Peirce's philosophy drew heavily upon an empirical methodology. How did he justify this view?
Kauffman gives a nice introduction to his ideas in reflexivity and eigenform. It is however quite a mouthful. von Foerster's Eigenbehaviors, reflexivity, fixed point theorems, magmas, knots, the lambda calculus, Conway's game of life, Laws of Forms and more concepts are discussed. I wanted to understand the significance of laws of forms and started to read it. It is not really a simple read and it's not clear why it matters.
Now I discovered The Mathematics of Charles Sanders Peirce which clears things up. It presents the graphical calculus developed by Peirce which was the groundwork for Laws of Forms. Spencer Browns' contribution was to add the absence of a distinction (the unmarked space) to the calculus which made some deductions easier. The main relation to reflexivity is that the symbol for form of distinction is itself the distinction (we take the form of distinction as the form).
Here's an argument to get us started:
P1. If there exists an epistemological paradigm that serves as a sound replacement to standard analytic epistemology (SAE), then SAE is false and untenable. (Because SAE continually generates shaky concepts that are highly susceptible to being defeated by lowly counter-examples, and if there is a method that soundly replaces it, then this means we have acknowledged these shortcomings as fatal to it)
P2. Rational persuasion epistemology (RPE) serves as a sound replacement to SAE.
P3. SAE is false and untenable.
P4. SAE is one of three codified methods for performing epistemology (the other two being rational persuasion, and Quine's naturalized epistemology, and we can reject Quine's method on a circularity charge).
P5. If P3 and P4, then the method that replaces SAE is the most impressive epistemological method/theory. (On account of uprooting the most highly practiced form of epistemology)
P6. Rational persuasion epistemology is the method that soundly replaces SAE.
P7. Rational persuasion epistemology is the most impressive epistemological method/theory.
P8. Epistemology is the most important philosophical endeavor. (cuz science)
P9. If P7 and P8, then whoever formulated RPE must be considered the greatest philosopher of all time on account of his/her advancing of the most impressive methodology/theory within the most important philosophical endeavor.
P10. Charles Sanders Peirce formulated RPE.
C. Charles Sanders Peirce is the greatest philosopher of all time on account of his advancing the most impressive methodology/theory within the most important philosophical endaeavor.
QED?
"Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. On the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe." - Charles Sanders Peirce
Semiotics and the Problem of Translation: With Special Reference to the Semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, by Dinda L. GorlΓ©e
Rodopi (January 1, 1994)
ISBN-13: 978-9051836424
ISBN-10 : 9051836422
WorldCat: https://www.worldcat.org/title/semiotics-and-the-problem-of-translation-with-special-reference-to-the-semiotics-of-charles-s-peirce/oclc/640113564&referer=brief_results
Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Semiotics_and_the_Problem_of_Translation/ghR0HONxJgAC
Most(if not all) of the mathematical results of Peirce seem to be rather short in length for instance the average reader can probably understand them in relatively short amount of time. Is there any mathematical result of his that is rather lengthy and relative to his results that are visible from his wikipedia page non-trivial?
>Nor must any synechist say, βI am altogether myself, and not at all you.β If you embrace synechism, you must abjure this metaphysics of wickedness. In the first place, your neighbors are, in a measure, yourself, and in far greater measure than, without deep studies in psychology, you would believe. Really, the selfhood you like to attribute to yourself is, for the most part, the vulgarest delusion of vanity.
-- Charles S. Peirce, 1893, "Immortality in the Light of Synechism"
Edit: the essay itself is not available online, but here is an introduction to synechism.
Like I found a book online where he is saying phenomenology like things
The first 3 have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Will Gilmore be a HOFer as well?
In section four of How To Make Our Ideas Clear, Peirce states the following: "the reality of that which is real does depend on the real fact that investigation is destined to lead, at last, if continued long enough, to a belief in it". On what, then, does the reality of the "real fact" regarding the effectiveness of investigation depend upon. Does the real fact of investigation's effectiveness rely on the fact that investigation leads to it? If so, is it not an issue to prove the effectiveness of a method by using the same method?
