ONT Re: Aristotle's Approximation
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| Ta de moi pathemeta mathemata gegone.
|
| My sufferings have been my lessons.
|
| ~~~ Herodotus, cf. Liddell & Scott.
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Let us now take up a slightly bigger piece of our text:
| Words spoken are signs or symbols (symbola) of
| affections or impressions (pathemata) of the
| soul (psyche); written words (graphomena)
| are the signs of words spoken (phoné). As
| writing (grammatta), so also is speech not
| the same for all races of men. But the
| mental affections themselves, of which
| these words are primarily signs (semeia),
| are the same for the whole of mankind, as
| are also the objects (pragmata) of which
| those affections are representations or
| likenesses, images, copies (homoiomata).
| With these points, however I dealt
| in my treatise concerning the soul;
| they belong to a different inquiry
| (pragmateias) from that which we
| now have in hand.
|
| Aristotle, 'On Interpretation', 1.16.a.4-9,
|'Aristotle, Volume 1', Translated by H.P. Cooke & H. Tredennick,
| Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1938.
I think that it was the etymological ligature between
pragma (object) and pragmateias (inquiry) that first
gave me a clue to the nature of pragmatic thinking.
Another thing that we probably ought to mark once again is the order
of the related entities: first there is the pragma (object), then
there is the pathema (interpretant), then there is the vast host
of parasitic signs and symbols, initially spoken and eventually
written that are themselves the signs of affective impressions
and the signs of these signs in turn, respectively.
| 4 (gramma, graphé)
| ^
| ^
| ^
| 3 (phoné)
| . /^
| . / ^
| . / ^
| (pragma) 1-------@ ^ <sema, semeion, symbolon>
| . \ ^
| . \ ^
| <homoioma> . \^
| 2 (pathema)
Notice how this renders the more cognitive realms of talking and writing,
whether in dialogue with one's own psyche or else in community with others,
tantamount to first and second and possibly even further derivatives of the
more affective impressions of pathemata -- not exactly one of the features
of Aristotle's treatment that would be emphasized by later generations,
but fully in accord with another principle attributed to him:
| Nihil est in intellectu quin prius fuerat in sensu.
|
| Nothing is in intellect that is not first in senses.
Now, we know that Aristotle did not write this exactly --
it is not even in Greek -- so it may be one of those
Latin taglines from the 'Roman à Clif Notes' that is
supposed to crystallize what Aristotle said somewhere,
some way or another in the vast tomes and dark tombs
of his received and his lost works, respectively.
One learns to expect that the Latin translation
will tend to be slightly more watered down and
even a bit insipid, and here I suspect that the
Latin "sensus" is already pasting its censorial
externalities over the more deeply felt sense of
the Greek "aisthesis", that pithy and terrible
laying out of the circumstances that determine
one's fateful lot in the moment, the days, or
the whole life ahead. That is how I read it.
Recall where we last saw this motto,
numbered among Peirce's Cossic Trio:
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| It may be added that algebra was formerly called 'Cossic', in English,
| or the 'Rule of Cos'; and the first algebra published in England was
| called "The Whetstone of Wit", because the author supposed that the
| word 'cos' was the Latin word so spelled, which means a whetstone.
| But in fact, 'cos' was derived from the Italian, 'cosa', thing,
| the thing you want to find, the unknown quantity whose value
| is sought. It is the Latin 'caussa', a thing aimed at,
| a cause. (CSP, NEM 2, 50).
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'The New Elements of Mathematics',
| Carolyn Eisele (ed.), Mouton, The Hague, Netherlands, 1976.
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| At the end of my last lecture I had just enunciated three propositions
| which seem to me to give to pragmatism its peculiar character. In order
| to be able to refer to them briefly this evening, I will call them for the
| nonce my cotary propositions. 'Cos', 'cotis', is a whetstone. They appear
| to me to put the edge on the maxim of pragmatism. (LOP 1903, 241; CP 5.180).
|
| These 'cotary' propositions are as follows:
|
| 1st, 'Nihil est in intellectu quin prius fuerat in sensu'
| [nothing exists in intellect that is not first in senses].
| I take this in a sense somewhat different from that which
| Aristotle intended. By 'intellectus' I understand the
| 'meaning' of any representation in any kind of cognition,
| virtual, symbolic, or whatever it may be. Berkeley and
| nominalists of his stripe deny that we have any idea at
| all of a triangle in general, which is neither equilateral,
| isosceles, nor scalene. But he cannot deny that there are
| propositions about triangles in general which propostions
| are either true or false; and as long as that is the case,
| whether we have an 'idea' of a triangle in some psychological
| sense or not, I do not, as a logician, care. We have an
| 'intellectus', a meaning, of which the triangle in general
| is an element. As for the other term, 'in sensu', that
| I take in the sense of in a 'perceptual judgment', the
| starting point or first premiss of all critical and
| controlled thinking. I will state presently what
| I conceive to be the evidence of the truth of this
| first cotary proposition. But I prefer to begin
| by recalling to you what all three of them are.
|
| The second is that perceptual judgments contain general elements,
| so that universal propositions are deducible from them in the manner
| in which the logic of relations shows that particular propositions usually,
| not to say invariably, allow universal propositions to be necessarily inferred
| from them. This I sufficiently argued in my last lecture. This evening I shall
| take the truth of it for granted.
|
| The third cotary proposition is that abductive inference shades into
| perceptual judgment without any sharp line of demarcation between them;
| or in other words our first premisses, the perceptual judgments, are to be
| regarded as an extreme case of abductive inferences, from which they differ
| in being absolutely beyond criticism. The abductive suggestion comes to us
| like a flash. It is an act of 'insight', although of extremely fallible insight.
| It is true that the different elements of the hypothesis were in our minds before;
| but it is the idea of putting together what we had never before dreamed of putting
| together which flashes the new suggestion before our contemplation.
|
| On its side, the perceptive judgment is the result of a process,
| although of a process not sufficiently conscious to be controlled,
| or to state it more truly not controllable and therefore not fully
| conscious. If we were to subject this subconscious process to logical
| analysis we should find that it terminated in what that analysis would
| represent as an abductive inference resting on the result of a similar
| process which a similar logical analysis would represent to be terminated
| by a similar abductive inference, and so on 'ad infinitum'. This analysis
| would be precisely analogous to that which the sophism of Achilles and the
| tortoise applies to the chase of the tortoise by Achilles, and it would fail
| to represent the real process for the same reason. Namely just as Achilles
| does not have to make the series of distinct endeavors which he is represented
| as making, so this process of forming the perceptual judgment because it is
| subconscious and so not amenable to logical criticism does not have to make
| separate acts of inference but performs its act in one continuous process.
| (LOP 1903, 241-242; CP 5.181).
|
| It appears to me, then, that my three cotary propositions are satisfactorily
| grounded. Nevertheless, since others may not regard them as so certain as I
| myself do, I propose in the first instance to disregard them, and to show that,
| even if they are put aside as doubtful, a maxim practically little differing in
| most of its applications from that of pragmatism ought to be acknowledged and
| followed; and after this has been done, I will show how the recognition of
| the cotary propositions will affect the matter.
|
| I have argued in several of my early papers that there
| are but three essentially different modes of reasoning:
| Deduction, Induction, and Abduction. I may mention in
| particular papers in the 'Proceedings of the American
| Academy of Arts and Sciences' for April & May 1867.
| I must say, however, that it would be very easy to
| misunderstand those arguments. I did not at first
| fully comprehend them myself. I cannot restate the
| matter tonight, although I am very desirous of doing
| so, for I could now put it in a much clearer light.
| I have already explained to you briefly what these
| three modes of inference, Deduction, Induction, and
| Abduction are. I ought to say that when I described
| induction as the experimentaltesting of a hypothesis,
| I was not thinking of experimentation in the narrow
| sense in which it is confined to cases in which we
| ourselves deliberately create the peculiar conditions
| under which we desireto study a phenomenon. I mean to
| extend it to every case in which, having ascertained by
| deduction that a theory would lead us to anticipate under
| certain circumstances phenomena contrary to what we should
| expect if the theory were 'not' true, we examine the cases
| of that sort to see how far those predictions are borne out.
| (LOP 1903, 248-249; CP 5.195).
|
| If you carefully consider the question of pragmatism you will see
| that it is nothing else than the question of the logic of abduction.
| That is, pragmatism proposes a certain maxim which, if sound, must
| render needless any further rule as to the admissibility of hypotheses
| to rank as hypotheses, that is to say, as explanations of phenomena
| held as hopeful suggestions; and furthermore, this is 'all' that the
| maxim of pragmatism really pretends to do, at least so far as it is
| confined to logic, and is not understood as a proposition in psychology.
| For the maxim of pragmatism is that a conception can have no logical
| effect or import differing from that of a second conception except so
| far as, taken in connection with other conceptions and intentions, it
| might conceivably modify our practical conduct differently from that
| second conception. Now it is indisputable that no rule of abduction
| would be admitted by any philosopher which should prohibit on any
| formalistic grounds any inquiry as to how we ought in consistency
| to shape our practical conduct. Therefore, a maxim which looks only
| to possibly practical considerations will not need any supplement in
| order to exclude any hypotheses as inadmissible. What hypothesis it
| admits all philosophers would agree ought to be admitted. On the
| other hand, if it be true that nothing but such considerations has
| any logical effect or import whatever, it is plain that the maxim
| of pragmatism cannot cut off any kind of hypothesis which ought to
| be admitted. Thus, the maxim of pragmatism, if true, fully 'covers'
| the entire logic of abduction. It remains to inquire whether this
| maxim may not have some 'further' logical effect. If so, it must in
| some way affect inductive or deductive inference. But that pragmatism
| cannot interfere with induction is evident; because induction simply
| teaches us what we have to expect as a result of experimentation, and
| it is plain that any such expectation may conceivably concern practical
| conduct. In a certain sense it must affect deduction. Anything which
| gives a rule to abduction and so puts a limit upon admissible hypotheses
| will cut down 'the premisses' of deduction, and thereby will render a
| 'reductio ad absurdum' and other equivalent forms of deduction possible
| which would not otherwise have been possible. But here three remarks
| may be made. First, to affect the premisses of deduction is not to
| affect the logic of deduction. For in the process of deduction itself
| no conception is introduced to which pragmatism could be supposed to
| object except the act of abstraction. Concerning that I have only time
| to say that pragmatism ought not to object to it. Secondly, no effect
| of pragmatism which 'is consequent upon its effect on abduction' can
| go to show that pragmatism is anything more than a doctrine concerning
| the logic of abduction. Thirdly, if pragmatism is the doctrine that
| every conception is a conception of conceivable practical effects,
| it makes conception reach far beyond the practical. It allows any
| flight of imagination, provided this imagination ultimately alights
| upon a possible practical effect; and thus many hypotheses may seem
| at first glance to be excluded by the pragmatical maxim that are not
| really so excluded. (LOP 1903, 249-250; CP 5.196).
|
| Admitting, then, that the question of Pragmatism is the Question of Abduction,
| let us consider it under that form. What is good abduction? What should an
| explanatory hypothesis be to be worthy to rank as a hypothesis? Of course,
| it must explain the facts. But what other conditions ought it to fulfill
| to be good? The question of the goodness of anything is whether that
| thing fulfills its end. What, then, is the end of an explanatory
| hypothesis? Its end is, through subjection to the test of
| experiment, to lead to the avoidance of all surprise and
| to the establishment of a habit of positive expectation
| that shall not be disappointed. Any hypothesis,
| therefore, may be admissible, in the absence of any
| special reasons to the contrary, provided it be capable
| of experimental verification and only in so far as it is
| capable of such verification. This is approximately the doctrine
| of pragmatism. But just here a broad question opens out before us.
| What are we to understand by experimental verification? The answer to that
| involves the whole logic of induction. Let me point out to you the different
| opinions which we actually find men holding today, perhaps not consistently, but
| thinking that they hold them, upon this subject. (LOP 1903, 250; CP 5.197-198).
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce,
|'Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking',
| The 1903 Harvard 'Lectures on Pragmatism' (= LOP 1903),
| Patricia Ann Turrisi (ed.), SUNY Press, Albany, NY, 1997.
|
| Excerpts from these Lectures constitute CP 5, Bk 1, CP 5.14-212.
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And remember also that it was in this context that the editors of
Peirce's 'Collected Papers', in a footnote to CP 5.181, gave us
the key to a passage in Aristotle's "Peri Psyche" that may
be the one for which we have been looking all along:
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| Now summing up what we have said about the soul,
| let us assert once more that in a sense the soul
| is all existing things. What exists is either
| sensible ('aistheta') or intelligible ('noeta');
| and in a sense knowledge ('episteme') is the knowable
| and sensation ('aisthesis') is the sensible. We must
| consider in what sense this is so. Both knowledge and
| sensation are divided to correspond to their objects
| ('pragmata'), the potential ('dynamei') to the potential,
| and the actual ('entelecheia') to the actual. The sensitive
| and cognitive faculties of the soul are potentially these
| objects, viz., the sensible and the knowable. These faculties,
| then, must be identical either with the objects themselves or
| with their forms ('eide'). Now they are not identical with the
| objects; for the stone ('lithos') does not exist in the soul,
| but only the form ('eidos') of the stone. The soul, then, acts
| like a hand ('cheir'); for the hand is an instrument ('organon')
| which employs instruments, and in the same way the mind is a form
| which employs forms, and sense is a form which employs the forms
| of sensible objects. But since apparently nothing has a separate
| existence, except sensible magnitudes, the objects of thought --
| both the so-called abstractions of mathematics and all states
| and affections of sensible things -- reside in the sensible
| forms. And for this reason as no one could ever learn or
| understand anything without the exercise of perception,
| so even when we think speculatively, we must have some
| mental picture of which to think; for mental images
| are similar to objects perceived except that they
| are without matter. But imagination is not the
| same thing as assertion and denial; for truth
| and falsehood involve a combination of notions.
| How then will the simplest notions differ from
| mental pictures? Surely neither these simple
| notions nor any others are mental pictures, but
| they cannot occur without such mental pictures.
|
| Aristotle, "Peri Psyche", 3.8
|
| Aristotle, "On The Soul", in 'Aristotle, Volume 8',
| W.S. Hett (trans.), Heinemann, London, UK, 1986.
| This edition first published in 1936.
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