Charles Sanders Pierce and JFK inquiry

[Greg Parker]

edit

Edited November 18, 2012 by Greg Parker

[J. Raymond Carroll]

This is exactly what the Warren Commission set out to do: not to find the truth; but to eradicate all doubt.[/font]

Thank you for posting this Greg. It is a nice summary of Peirce's THE FIXATION OF BELIEF.

Of course the Warren Commission did not succeed in eradicating doubt, as nearly everyone agrees. That being the case, Peirce would say, the inquiry must continue.

[Thomas Graves]

This is exactly what the Warren Commission set out to do: not to find the truth; but to eradicate all doubt.[/font]

Thank you for posting this Greg. It is a nice summary of Peirce's THE FIXATION OF BELIEF.

Of course the Warren Commission did not succeed in eradicating doubt, as nearly everyone agrees. That being the case, Peirce would say, the inquiry must continue.

Hear, hear!

(Or is it Here, here?)

Si, Si.

--Thomas

Edited May 15, 2011 by Thomas Graves

[Greg Parker]

Charles Sanders Peirce ( /ˈpɜrs/ like "purse"; 1839–1914) characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth per se but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, belief being that on which one is prepared to act.

Any follower of Pierce would necessarily take the same view - that the pursuit of truth is secondary to other considerations.

And Pierce, as far as I can tell, never said "never" block the path of inquiry; he specifically said do not use "reason" to block it.

The only people attempting to use what I would term "pseudo reasonableness" to block inquiry here are the fence-sitters.

Others seem to be here for no other purpose than blocking anything which impinges upon their own "secure beliefs"

Pierce was politically and scientifically only one or two steps removed from Madam Blavatsky.

He did get one thing right; instinct and conjecture do have a place in this type of inquiry. Not all of his followers may agree with him there.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Charles Sanders Peirce ( /ˈpɜrs/ like "purse"; 1839–1914) characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth per se but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, belief being that on which one is prepared to act.

Any follower of Pierce would necessarily take the same view - that the pursuit of truth is secondary to other considerations....

...Pierce was politically and scientifically only one or two steps removed from Madam Blavatsky.

You have A LOT to learn about Peirce, my lad.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Alexander Pope

[Edit: P.S. Beginners in Peirce ususally make the same mistake

as you make in the CAPTION of this thread:

They SPELL the great LOGICIAN'S NAME wrong!]

Edited May 16, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Greg Parker]

Charles Sanders Peirce ( /ˈpɜrs/ like "purse"; 1839–1914) characterized inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth per se but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubts born of surprises, disagreements, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, belief being that on which one is prepared to act.

Any follower of Pierce would necessarily take the same view - that the pursuit of truth is secondary to other considerations....

...Pierce was politically and scientifically only one or two steps removed from Madam Blavatsky.

You have A LOT to learn about Peirce, my lad.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Alexander Pope

[Edit: P.S. Beginners in Peirce ususally make the same mistake

as you make in the CAPTION of this thread:

They SPELL the great LOGICIAN'S NAME wrong!]

My emotional security relies upon spelling it P-I-E-R-C-E. The truth of the spelling is not as important as that need. Pierce would understand.

But I had no idea you were a fan of his. Please do explain how Pierce and Blavatsky are not a mere hop, skip and a jump apart.

I'm all ears.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Please do explain how Pierce and Blavatsky are not a mere hop, skip and a jump apart.

First, you must spend the next five years studying Peirce's logic and scientific method,

then come back and we can discuss it.

Your reference to Balvatsky in connection with Peirce, the greatest logician since Aristotle,

is just TOO FUNNY FOR WORDS!

[Greg Parker]

Please do explain how Pierce and Blavatsky are not a mere hop, skip and a jump apart.

First, you must spend the next five years studying Peirce's logic and scientific method,

then come back and we can discuss it.

Your reference to Balvatsky in connection with Peirce, the greatest logician since Aristotle,

is just TOO FUNNY FOR WORDS!

Pierce was close to some of the Theosophical hierarchy both personally and through membership in the Metaphysical Society. In turn, theosophists lapped up his theory on semiotics.

Blavatsky, Dewey, Pierce and others, all tried to build bridges between science, philosophy and religion. That Pierce didn't go in for seances and Blavatsky didn't go in for cartography means diddleysquat. They were both fascinated with belief and numbers, religion and science, philosophy and action.

And leave Aristotle out of it.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle

Hobbes was fond of his dram

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart.

"I drink therefore I am"

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Blavatsky, Dewey, Pierce and others, all tried to build bridges between science, philosophy and religion.

SO WHAT!

Charles Sanders Peirce was the first person to be listed in WHO'S WHO as a LOGICIAN.

But Blavatsky's name is not associated with LOGIC, except, perhaps in the minds of her most devout followers and a few idle academics.

And leave Aristotle out of it.

Peirce, fluent in ancient Greek, corrected an error in the translation of Aristotle that scholars had been mistaking

down through history.

Peirce remains Aristotle's BEST STUDENT SO FAR!

Edited May 16, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Michael Hogan]

"The Digital Encyclopedia of Charles S. Peirce is the first on-line encyclopedia to bring together the most recent work on Peirce, and work inspired by his thought, in several fields of research -- Philosophy, Logic and Mathematics, Psychology, Ethology, Anthropology, Sociology, Communication, Aesthetics, Literature and Art Studies, Theoretical Biology, Philosophy of Science, Cognitive Sciences, Artificial Intelligence."

http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/home.htm

Education Forum member James H Fetzer has several articles reproduced at the above website. Fetzer's bio:

James H. Fetzer is McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota and teaches on its Duluth campus. The author or editor of more than 20 books in the philosophy of science and on the theoreticalfoundations of computer science, artificial intelligence, and cognitiven science, he has published more than 100 articles and reviews. The editor of the journal, MINDS AND MACHINES, he is also the series editor of STUDIES IN COGNITIVE SYSTEMS. He has adapted Peirce's approach toward signs in developing a theory of mind in ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS (1990) and in PHILOSOPHY AND COGNITIVE SCIENCE, 2nd edition (1996). His most recent work concerns evolution and mentality.

.

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer

One of Jim Fetzer's articles is entitled Peirce and Propensities. Here is a small sample:

Abstract

: Peirce introduced a conception of probabilities as "would-be's" that are intensional, dispositional, directly related to the long run, and indirectly related to the single case. The most adquate conception takes them to be intensional, dispositional, directly related to the single case and indirectly related to the long run. When probabilities are properties of single cases, then finite "short runs" and infinite "long runs" are successively longer and longer sequences of single cases. In its general conception, if not its specific details, Peirce thus appears to have anticipated the resolution of one of the most difficult problems in the theory of science. This chapter elaborates Peirce's contribution and explains the benefits of its single-case alternative in relation to crucial problems in quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, including connectionism and the philosophy of mind.

In his "Notes on the Doctrine of Chances" (CP 2.661) and related reflections, Charles S. Peirce advanced a conception of probabilities according to which a die and tossing device, for example, possesses "would-be's" for its various possible outcomes, where these would-be's are intensional, dispositional, directly related to the long run, and indirectly related to singular events. Among the most influential contemporary accounts--the frequency, the personal, and the propensity--the most promising, the propensity theory, provides an account according to which probabilities are intensional, dispositional, directly related to singular events, and indirectly related to the long run. Thus, in his general conception, if not its specific details, Peirce appears to have anticipated what seems to be the most adequate solution to one of the most difficult problems in the theory of science.

During his lifetime, Peirce shifted from the conception of probabilities as long-run frequencies to the conception of probabilities as long-run dispositions, that is, as tendencies to produce long-run frequencies. Section I below outlines Peirce's conception of probabilities as long-run dispositions. Section 2 sketches the superiority of this view over its long-run frequency and personality probability alternatives. Section 3 explains the necessity to displace the conception of probabilities as long-run dispositions by one of probabilities as single-case dispositions. And section 4 suggests how this successor to Peirce's account can contribute to the solution of contemporary scientific problems. In passing, we shall consider how Peirce's earlier views are related to his later views. Atthough a thinker's later views do not always improve upon his earlier opinions, in this case Peirce's later views turn out to be more adequate.

I. Peirce's Conception.

If the theory of probability had its origin in "games of chance" involving tosses of coins, throws of dice, draws of cards, and the like, then it is entirely appropriate that Peirce illustrated his conception by using this example:

"I am, then, to define the meanings of the statement that the probability, that if a die be thrown from a dice box it will turn up a number divisible by three, is one-third. The statement means that the die has a certain "would-be"; and to say that a die has a "would-be" is to say that it has a property, quite analogous to any habit that a man might have. Only the "Would-be" of the die is presumably as much simpler and more definite than the man's habit as the die's homogeneous composition and cubical shape is simpler than the nature of the man's nervous system and soul." (CP 2.664)

In this passage, Peirce characterizes probability as a dispositional property of a specific type of physical arrangement (such as a die and tossing device), explicitly invoking the subjunctive mood concerning "what would happen if." Since this disposition is probabilistic, its effects are complex....

Anyone reading all of Jim Fetzer's writings on C. S. Peirce would be forced to conclude that he is more familiar with Peirce's work than is Carroll.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

"I am, then, to define the meanings of the statement that the probability, that if a die be thrown from a dice box it will turn up a number divisible by three, is one-third. The statement means that the die has a certain "would-be"; and to say that a die has a "would-be" is to say that it has a property, quite analogous to any habit that a man might have. Only the "Would-be" of the die is presumably as much simpler and more definite than the man's habit as the die's homogeneous composition and cubical shape is simpler than the nature of the man's nervous system and soul." (CP 2.664)

To which Madam Blavatsky responded:

My dear professor Peirce, I prefer card -games, myself.

Edited May 17, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Michael Hogan]

"I am, then, to define the meanings of the statement that the probability, that if a die be thrown from a dice box it will turn up a number divisible by three, is one-third. The statement means that the die has a certain "would-be"; and to say that a die has a "would-be" is to say that it has a property, quite analogous to any habit that a man might have. Only the "Would-be" of the die is presumably as much simpler and more definite than the man's habit as the die's homogeneous composition and cubical shape is simpler than the nature of the man's nervous system and soul." (CP 2.664)

To which Madam Blavatsky responded:

My dear professor Peirce, I prefer card -games, myself.

Anyone reading all of Jim Fetzer's writings on C. S. Peirce would be forced to conclude that he is more familiar with Peirce's work than is Carroll.

Actually, they would not have to read all of Fetzer's writings to come to that conclusion.

Edited May 17, 2011 by Michael Hogan

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Anyone reading all of Jim Fetzer's writings on C. S. Peirce would be forced to conclude that he is more familiar with Peirce's work than is Carroll.

I have sent this email to Dr. Fetzer:

Greetings Jim: Hope all is well with you.

I hope you take my arguments with a dash of humor. I assure you no personal malice is involved.

I would be grateful if you would take a look ar the Peirce thread, and point out where I am wrong.

Best Wishes

[Michael Hogan]

Anyone reading all of Jim Fetzer's writings on C. S. Peirce would be forced to conclude that he is more familiar with Peirce's work than is Carroll.

I have sent this email to Dr. Fetzer:

.....I would be grateful if you would take a look ar the Peirce thread, and point out where I am wrong.

It's good that Carroll asked Jim to confine himself to this thread. Else, Jim would have a task that would tax even his prolific writing abilities.

As far as this thread on Peirce....Carroll hasn't offered much.

Thank you for posting this Greg. It is a nice summary of Peirce's THE FIXATION OF BELIEF.

Of course the Warren Commission did not succeed in eradicating doubt, as nearly everyone agrees. That being the case, Peirce would say, the inquiry must continue.

First, you (Greg Parker) must spend the next five years studying Peirce's logic and scientific method,

then come back and we can discuss it.

Your reference to Balvatsky in connection with Peirce, the greatest logician since Aristotle,

is just TOO FUNNY FOR WORDS!

You (Greg Parker) have A LOT to learn about Peirce, my lad.

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Alexander Pope

[Edit: P.S. Beginners in Peirce ususally make the same mistake

as you make in the CAPTION of this thread:

They SPELL the great LOGICIAN'S NAME wrong!]

Edited May 17, 2011 by Michael Hogan

[J. Raymond Carroll]

As far as this thread on Peirce....Carroll hasn't offered much.

Unlike the great Peirce scholar

Michael Hogan

who has contributed SO MUCH

of his own ORIGINAL

research & analysis

to this thread!

Edited May 17, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll