RE: The true evolution of Peirce's nominalism
Joseph Ransdell <ransdell <at> cspeirce.com>
2007-10-03 02:04:04 GMT
I just noticed that I said, at one point in my recent message, that the
object is the objective content of a cognition. That was a mistake. What
I should have said is that it is the objective referent. But it would have
been better had I avoided use of the term "objective" in explicating his
usage since the use of "objective" can be very tricky because of his usage
of "object".
Joseph Ransdell
ransdell <at> cspeirce.com
ARISBE website: http://www.cspeirce.com/
PEIRCE-L archives: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/?forum=peirce-l
_____________________________________________
From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:ransdell <at> cspeirce.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 4:06 PM
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] The true evolution of Peirce's nominalism
Andrew and list:
Continuing from a prior message (see below): MS 194, which I reproduced in
part earlier, is now available in full on-line at the ARiSBE website, with
the following URL:
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ms194/ms194.htm
First, a further remark on what appears to be a misreading of it by Tom
Short, where he (Short) says: "Notice that Peirce here used 'external' in
the sense of being outside of all experience, or not constituted by thought
. . . ." I remarked earlier that Peirce does not talk about anything
being external to all experience but rather of it being external to the
mind, and, moreover, holds that the realist "does not think of the mind as a
receptacle, which if a thing is in, it ceases to be out of." Thus anything
that is thought of is ipso facto in the mind, which in no way precludes it
also being external to the mind. Peirce also does not use the phrase
"constituted by the mind", but what Short presumably has in mind is the
following leading question of the paper:
* * * * * * * QUOTE PEIRCE * * * * * * * *
The question is, "Whether corresponding to our thoughts and sensations,
and represented in some sense by them, there are realities, which are not
only independent of the thought of you, and me, any number of men, but which
are absolutely independent of thought altogether."
* * * * * * * END QUOTE * * * * * * * * * *
Short apparently thinks that Peirce's answer to this is that, yes, there are
realities which are absolutely independent of thought altogether. That is,
I take it that this is what Short means in saying that Peirce regards the
entities which are external to the mind as "not being constituted by
thought". But that is not what Peirce says when he answers the leading
question at the end MS 194, which reads as follows:
* * * * * * * * * * QUOTE PEIRCE * * * * * * * * * * *
But if it be asked us, whether some realities do not exist, which are
entirely independent of thought; I would in turn ask, what is meant by such
an expression and what can be meant by it. What idea can be attached to
that of which there is no idea? For if there be an idea of such a reality,
it is the object of that idea of which we are speaking, and which is not
independent of thought. It is clear that it is quite beyond the power of
the mind to have an idea of something entirely independent of thought-it
would have to extract itself from itself for that purpose; and since there
is no such idea there is no meaning in the expression. The experience of
ignorance, or of error, which we have, and which we gain by means of
correcting our errors, or enlarging our knowledge, does enable us to
experience and conceive something which is independent of our own limited
views; but as there can be no correction of the sum total of opinions, and
no enlargement of the sum total of knowledge, we have no such means, and can
have no such means of acquiring a conception of something independent of all
opinion and thought.
* * * * * * * * * END QUOTE * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is as much an expression of Peirce's idealism as it is of his realism.
In any case, it flatly contradicts Tom's understanding of what Peirce is
saying in this document. It is possible that the reason the import of this
passage apparently didn't register in Tom's understanding is that he was
actually thinking about another passage, where Peirce is talking about the
example of the untested diamond and says:
* * * * * * * * * * QUOTE PEIRCE * * * * * * * * * *
We say that a diamond is hard. And in what does its hardness consist? It
consists merely in the fact that nothing will scratch it; therefore its
hardness is entirely constituted by the fact of something as rubbing against
it with force without scratching it. And were it impossible that anything
should rub against it in this way, it would be quite without meaning, to say
that it was hard, just as it is entirely without meaning to say that virtue
or any other abstraction is hard. But though the hardness is entirely
constituted by the fact of another stone rubbing against the diamond yet we
do not conceive of it as beginning to be hard when the other stone is rubbed
against it; on the contrary, we say that it is really hard the whole time,
and has been hard since it began to be a diamond. And yet there was no fact,
no event, nothing whatever, which made it different from any other thing
which is not so hard, until the other stone was rubbed against it.
* * * * * * * * * *END QUOTE * * * * * * * * * * * *
The phrase "constituted by the fact that . . ." may have captured Tom's
attention. Peirce is saying here that it is the actual fact of the rubbing
and concomitant non-scratching that constitutes the fact of the hardness
which we conceive as being true of it at all times, i.e. we do not think of
it as being nonhard when rubbing is not actually occurring. (Something is
amiss in what Peirce is saying, I believe, but we'll return to that later.)
Thus he might be thinking that since Peirce regards it as constituted as a
fact about the diamond he is regarding it as ipso facto not merely
mind-constituted or merely "in the mind", for Peirce surely does not think
that facts are just something in the mind or mind-dependent. If so, Tom is
still mistaken since Peirce does regard facts as, in a sense,
mind-dependent, though this does not mean that they are not real. In the
definition of "fact" in the Century Dictionary he gives a philosophically
informed definition of "fact" as:
* * * * * * * * * * * QUOTE PEIRCE * * * * * * * *
A real state of things, as distinguished from a statement or belief; that in
the real world agreement or disagreement with which makes a proposition true
or false; a real inherence of an attribute in a substance, corresponding to
the relation between the predicate and the subject of a proposition. By a
few writers things in the concrete and the universe in its entirety are
spoken of as facts, but according to the almost universal acceptation, a
fact is not the whole concrete reality . . . but an abstract element of the
reality. Thus, Julius Caesar is not called a fact; but that Julius Caesar
invaded Britain is said to have been a fact, or to be a fact. To this
extent, the use of the word fact implies the reality of abstractions.
* * * * * * * * * * * END QUOTE * * * * * * * * *
The point to the remark about the reality of the abstraction is what is
explained, in effect, in the New List, where he talks about the blackness of
the stove. The fact is, let us say, that the stove is black, or,
alternatively, that there is blackness in the stove. Now, blackness is an
abstraction, an ens rationis ("being of reason") or artifact of mind --
which, however, does not preclude the possibility that it is an ens reale, a
real being, which indeed it is if the stove really is black.
Although I think Tom Short's misreading needs to be pointed out, since this
discussion of the topic is generated by Andrew's quotation of a passage from
his recent book, that nevertheless is not what I am myself interested in
pursuing at this point, which is, rather, what exactly Peirce's view is on
the topics of realism, nominalism, idealism, and pragmatism, which are all
tightly bound up together in his thinking and tied together with the
technical terminology he developed as a refinement of what were originally
scholastic conceptions for modern scientific purposes. And their way of
drawing distinctions -- which is still in practice in much early modern
philosophy -- is often very different from what we are accustomed to now.
Consider the following sentence, for example, which occurs in MS 194:
"The object of the belief exists it is true, only because the belief exists;
but this is not the same as to say that it begins to exist first when the
belief begins to exist."
This will seem obviously false at first: how could it be true to say that
the existence of the object depends on the existence of the belief and say
also that the object can exist before the belief exists? This sounds like
the senselessness of a straightforward contradiction. But the reason it is
not is that, in Peirce's usage, an object is always an object OF something,
i.e. it is a technical term for an entity which is the term of a referential
relation, as in the sign-object-interpretant relation. In other words, to
refer to something AS an object is to refer to it AS the referent of a sign
(in the context of theory of knowledge, it is the objective content of a
cognition). This places no constraint on the date of its existence. Thus
it is merely a tautological truth about the usage of "object" that the
object of the belief exists only because the belief exists, not a
preposterous metaphysical proposition.
Thus, as regards understanding idealism, an implication of this is that of
course all objects are in the mind since being in the mind merely means
being referred to in cognition. It also follows, from what I pointed out
earlier, that this is no way precludes the possibility that the object is
also external to or outside of the mind, just as it seems to be in ordinary
non-reflective perception, assuming it is veridical, just as common sense
regards it.
I have to stop at this point because out of time.
Joe Ransdell
Joseph Ransdell
ransdell <at> cspeirce.com
ARISBE website: http://www.cspeirce.com/
PEIRCE-L archives: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/?forum=peirce-l
_____________________________________________
From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:ransdell <at> cspeirce.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 12:44 PM
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] The true evolution of Peirce's nominalism
Andrew and list:
Continuing from my previous post, I want to point out that Tom Short is
mistaken when he says:
* * * * * * * QUOTE SHORT* * * ** * * * *
Notice that Peirce here used 'external' in the sense of being outside of all
experience, or not constituted by thought, and that he was trying to retain
the view, which he takes to be nominalist, that the external in this sense
is real.
Peirce tried to reconcile the two theories of reality in various ways,
but all of them along the line already indicated, that the individual is
real so far as it is knowable and, hence, so far as it is general. But such
attempts fail.
* * * * * * * * * END QUOTE * * * * * * * *
But Peirce does not speak of something being outside of all EXPERIENCE. He
speaks rather of something as being external to the MIND. That is a very
different matter. By substituting the word "experience" for the word
"mind", Short is deranging Peirce's argumentation radically since what is at
issue, implicitly, is an analysis of the nature of experience, and "mind" is
one of the concepts which is being used in that analysis, along with the
concept of the internal, the external, the real, and so forth. The logical
effect is to introduce the concept of experience as an analytical element in
terms of which experience is being explicated, which simply destroys
Peirce's line of argument by reducing it to hopeless confusion. But the
confusion is Short's rather than Peirce's, and insofar as his criticism of
Peirce relies upon that mistaken description of the argument it fails in
virtue of that confusion. I should add, too, that Peirce does not talk
about something as "not being constituted by thought."
I don't want to follow up on that myself at this time, as regards Short's
criticism, though it makes one suspicious of a radical misunderstanding of
Peirce of some importance. But let me quote something from the Berkeley
review about his idea of externality which is directly to our present
interest in this:
* * * ** * * * * * QUOTE PEIRCE* * * * * * * * *
The realist will hold that the very same objects which are immediately
present in our minds in experience really exist just as they are experienced
out of the mind; that is, he will maintain a doctrine of immediate
perception. He will not, therefore, sunder existence out of the mind and
being in the mind as two wholly disproportionable modes. When a thing is in
such relation to the individual mind that that mind cognizes it, it is in
the mind; and its being so in the mind will not in the least diminish its
external existence. For he does not think of the mind as a receptacle,
which if a thing is in, it ceases to be out of. To make a distinction
between the true conception of a thing and the thing itself is, he will say,
only to regard one and the same thing from two different points of view; for
the immediate object of thought in a true judgment IS the reality. The
realist will, therefore, believe in the objectivity of all necessary
conceptions, space, time, relation, cause, and the like. (CP 8.16; 1871;
Review of Berkeley)
* * * * * * * * END QUOTE* * * * * * * * * *
Well, I just ran out of time. So enough for the present post.
Later,
Joe
Joseph Ransdell
ransdell <at> cspeirce.com
ARISBE website: http://www.cspeirce.com/
PEIRCE-L archives: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/?forum=peirce-l
_____________________________________________
From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:ransdell <at> cspeirce.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 10:35 AM
To: Peirce Discussion Forum
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] The true evolution of Peirce's nominalism
Andrew and list:
I remarked earlier that I had misremembered what Peirce said in the Berkeley
review paper of 1871, mistakenly thinking that he expressed the view there
that the realist and nominalist views as there described both had some truth
in them but he thought the realist view the more philosophical, whereas in
fact he quite straightforwardly affirmed the realist view there, just as he
had in the 1868 paper. A quotation you provided from Tom Short's book
reminded me of what I had actually remembered, which was apparently that
same passage which he quoted as follows (from a draft of 1872, a year after
the Berkeley review). You quoted Tom as saying:
* * * * * * * *QUOTE TOM SHORT* * * * * * * * * * * * *
In later manuscripts, of 1872-3, Peirce explicitly affirmed both theories
[i.e. nominalism and realism], for example:
> Here then are two opposite modes of conceiving reality.... I do
> not think the two views are absolutely irreconcilable.... The
> realist view emphasizes particularly the permanence and fixity
> of reality; the nominalistic view emphasizes its externality. (W3:29)
Notice that Peirce here used 'external' in the sense of being outside of all
experience, or not constituted by thought, and that he was trying to retain
the view, which he takes to be nominalist, that the external in this sense
is real.
Peirce tried to reconcile the two theories of reality in various ways,
but all of them along the line already indicated, that the individual is
real so far as it is knowable and, hence, so far as it is general. But such
attempts fail.
* * * * * * * * * END TOM SHORT QUOTE* * * * * * * * * *
I want to provide the larger context for this for several reasons. One is
that Tom says something that I do not find contained there that might be of
some significance. But I am not at present interested in criticizing Short,
but rather in getting clear on Peirce's commitment to realism and/or
nominalism. In that regard, the reason this material, from a draft of a
book Peirce was working on in the early 1870's. is important is that it is
clearly of a piece with both of the two leading papers of the Illustrations
of the Logic of Science series of 1877-78, in the first of which - "The
Fixation of Belief" - his doubt-belief theory of inquiry is explained, and
in the second of which - "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" - his pragmatism is
explained. (These two papers are in reality one, as became clear to me from
teaching them in many classes over the years. They are so conceptually
interconnected that neither of them can be adequately understood apart from
the other.) And what we have in this draft of 1872 is a reprise of the
Berkeley Review account of realism and nominalism, ensconced within the
context of material which is clearly early work towards the pragmatism paper
in particular, including a consideration of the case of the untested diamond
in which his implicit answer to the question about its hardness is NOT the
nominalistic answer of the 1878 paper but a realist answer!
What follows below is one continuous paragraph which is difficult to read,
as it stands. For our purposes here I have broken up into paragraphs with
explanatory headings in brackets (everything within brackets is by me).
Nothing is omitted as far as it goes, but it continues
for a page or so more. The reason for not including all of it here is
simply that further complications are introduced which I think might be best
held off temporarily in order to master what he says up to this point.
However, I will make the rest of it available in a day or two, as I get the
time to scan it in and correct the transcription.
* * * * * * * * *QUOTE PEIRCE * * * * * * * * * * * * *
[On Reality] MS 194; Fall 1872, Writings 3,28ff
The question is, "Whether corresponding to our thoughts and sensations,
and represented in some sense by them, there are realities, which are not
only independent of the thought of you, and me, any number of men, but which
are absolutely independent of thought altogether."
[The realist view:]
The objective final opinion is independent of the thoughts of any particular
men, but is not independent of thought in general. That is to say, if there
were no thought, there would be no opinion, and therefore, no final opinion.
All that we directly experience is our thought-what passes through our
minds; and that only at the moment at which it is passing through. We here
see, thoughts determining and causing other thoughts, and a chain of
reasoning or of association is produced. But the beginning and the end of
this chain, are not distinctly perceived. A current is another image under
which thought is often spoken of, and perhaps more suitably. We have
particularly drawn attention to the point to which thought flows, and that
it finally reaches; a certain level, as it were-a certain basin, where
reality becomes unchanging. It has reached its destination, and that
permanency, that fixed reality, which every thought strives to represent and
image, we have placed in this objective point, towards which the current of
thought flows.
[The nominalist view:]
But the matter has often been regarded from an opposite point of view;
attention being particularly drawn to the spring, and origin of thought. It
is said that all other thoughts are ultimately derived from sensations; that
all conclusions of reasoning are valid only so far as they are true to the
sensations; that the real cause of sensation therefore, is the reality which
thought presents. Now such a reality, which causes all thought, would seem
to be wholly external to the mind-at least to the thinking part of the mind,
as distinguished from the feeling part; for it might be conceived to be, in
some way, dependent upon sensation.
[The two views are reconcilable:]
Here then are two opposite modes of conceiving reality. The one which has
before been developed at some length, and which naturally results from the
principles which have been set forth in the previous chapters of this book
is an idea which was obscurely in the minds of the medieval realists; while
the other was the motive principle of nominalism. I do not think that the
two views are absolutely irreconcilable, although they are taken from very
widely separated standpoints. The realistic view emphasizes particularly the
permanence and fixity of reality; the nominalistic view emphasizes its
externality. But the realists need not, and should not deny, that the
reality exists externally to the mind; nor have they historically done so,
as a general thing.
[What is meant by "external" and by "real":]
That is external to the mind, which is what it is, whatever our thoughts may
be on any subject; just as that is real which is what it is, whatever our
thoughts may be concerning that particular subject. Thus an emotion of the
mind is real, in the sense that it exists in the mind whether we are
distinctly conscious of it or not. But it is not external because although
it does not depend upon what we think about it, it does depend upon the
state of our thoughts about something. Now the object of the final opinion
which we have seen to be independent of what any particular person thinks,
may very well be external to the mind.
[Thus the realist view can accommodate the nominalist view:]
And there is no objection to saying that this external reality causes the
sensation, and through the sensation has caused all that line of thought
which has finally led to the belief.
[An objection is addressed:]
At first sight it seems no doubt a paradoxical statement that, "The object
of final belief which exists only in consequence of the belief should itself
produce the belief"; but there have been a great many instances in which we
have adopted a conception of existence similar to this. The object of the
belief exists it is true, only because the belief exists; but this is not
the same as to say that it begins to exist first when the belief begins to
exist.
[Example of the diamond and its hardness:]
We say that a diamond is hard. And in what does its hardness consist? It
consists merely in the fact that nothing will scratch it; therefore its
hardness is entirely constituted by the fact of something as rubbing against
it with force without scratching it. And were it impossible that anything
should rub against it in this way, it would be quite without meaning, to say
that it was hard, just as it is entirely without meaning to say that virtue
or any other abstraction is hard. But though the hardness is entirely
constituted by the fact of another stone rubbing against the diamond yet we
do not conceive of it as beginning to be hard when the other stone is rubbed
against it; on the contrary, we say that it is really hard the whole time,
and has been hard since it began to be a diamond. And yet there was no fact,
no event, nothing whatever, which made it different from any other thing
which is not so hard, until the other stone was rubbed against it.
[Other examples:]
So we say that the inkstand upon the table is heavy. And what do we mean by
that? We only mean, that if its support be removed it will fall to the
ground. This may perhaps never happen to it at all-and yet we say that it is
really heavy all the time; though there is no respect whatever, in which it
is different from what it would be if it were not heavy, until that support
is taken away from it. The same is true in regard to the existence of any
other force. It exists only by virtue of a condition, that something will
happen under certain circumstances; but we do not conceive it as first
beginning to exist when these circumstances arise; on the contrary, it will
exist though the circumstances should never happen to arise. And now, what
is matter itself ? The physicist is perfectly accused to conceive of it as
merely the centre of the forces. It exists, therefore, only so far as those
forces exist. Since, therefore, these forces exist only in virtue of the
fact, that something will happen under certain circumstances, it follows
that matter itself only exists in this way.
[more remains to be transcribed]
* * * * * * * *END PEIRCE QUOTE * * * * * * * * *
I will make some comments on this in a separate message.
Joe Ransdell
Joseph Ransdell
ransdell <at> cspeirce.com
ARISBE website: http://www.cspeirce.com/
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