Charles Sanders Pierce and JFK inquiry

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I repeat that Peirce's message

for the JFK inquiry

is simple:

the Warren Commission did not succeed in eradicating doubt,

as nearly everyone agrees.

That being the case,

Peirce would say,

THE INQUIRY MUST CONTINUE!

[Michael Hogan]

Let me try and put the thread back on topic:

"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]

Let me try and put the thread back on topic:

Why does Michael Hogan keep posting the SAME STUFF, OVER AGAIN?

Does he think no one here can read and understand it the FIRST TIME???

If he thinks we are all IN OUR DOTAGE,

maybe he should look

in a MIRROR!

Edited May 17, 2011 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Greg Parker]

I repeat that Peirce's message

for the JFK inquiry

is simple:

the Warren Commission did not succeed in eradicating doubt,

as nearly everyone agrees.

That being the case,

Peirce would say,

THE INQUIRY MUST CONTINUE!

Which, like nearly everything else you cite or quote, is being taken out of context.

I have already said what his contribution is: that instinct and conjecture have a place in this type of inquiry.

Otherwise Pierce is useless to us. Hell, he doesn't even rate a mention in The Philosopher's Song:

[Greg Parker]

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.

So who was the first GARBOLOGIST listed?

I myself aim to be the first IRONY CONSULTANT listed.

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

Blavatsky was indeed associated with LOGIC among her contemporaries. The world was reeling from Darwinism at the time and she filled a need. Not so Pierce. He was IGNORED by the vast majority of his contemporaries. It took many years of rehabilitation by fellow conservative "free-thinkers" (which surely must be an OXYMORON?) to qualify him for his glowing conservapedia entry.

And leave Aristotle out of it.

Peirce, fluent in Greek,

I just bet he was!

corrected an error in the translation of Aristotle that scholars had been mistaking

down through history.

Peirce remains Aristotle's BEST STUDENT SO FAR!

Was he a bugger for the bottle, too?

Edited May 17, 2011 by Greg Parker

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I have already said what his contribution is: that instinct and conjecture have a place in this type of inquiry.

That is only ONE of Peirce's many MANY contributions to human knowledge.