Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science: Papers from the Harvard Sesquicentennial Congress

by Edward C. Moore (Editor)

Overview

A compilation of selected papers presented at the 1989 Charles S. Pierce International Congress

Interest in Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is today worldwide. Ernest Nagel of Columbia University wrote in 1959 that "there is a fair consensus among historians of ideas that Charles Sanders Peirce remains the most original, versatile, and comprehensive philosophical mind this country has yet produced." The breadth of topics discussed in the present volume suggests that this is as true today as it was in 1959.

Papers concerning Peirce's philosophy of science were given at the Harvard Congress by representatives from Italy, France, Sweden, Finland, Korea, India, Denmark, Greece, Brazil, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and the United States. The Charles S. Peirce Sesquicentennial International Congress opened at Harvard University on September 5, 1989, and concluded on the 10th—Peirce's birthday. The Congress was host to approximately 450 scholars from 26 different nations. The present volume is a compilation of selected papers presented at that Congress.

The philosophy of science and its logic are themes in the work of Charles Peirce that have been of greatest interest to scholars. Peirce was himself a physical scientist. He worked as an assistant at the Harvard Astronomical Observatory from 1869 to 1872 and made a series of astronomical observations there from 1872 to 1875. Solon I. Bailey says of these observations, "The first attempt at the Harvard Observatory to determine the form of the Milky Way, or the galactic system, was made by Charles S. Peirce....The investigation was of a pioneer nature, founded on scant data."

Peirce also made major contributions in fields as diverse as mathematical logic and psychology. C. I. Lewis has remarked that "the head and font of mathematical logic are found in the calculus of propositional functions as developed by Peirce and Schroeder." Peirce subsequently invented, almost from whole cloth, semiotics - the science of the meaning of signs. Ogden and Richards, the British critics, say that "by far the most elaborate and determined attempt to give an account of signs and their meanings is that of the American logician C. S. Peirce, from whom William James took the idea and the term Pragmatism, and whose Algebra of Dyadic Relations was developed by Schroeder."

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Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science

Papers from the Harvard Sesquicentennial Congress

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By Edward C. Moore

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Copyright © 1993 The University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-9029-7

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CHAPTER 1

Peirce on the Conditions of the Possibility of Science

C. F. Delaney, The University of Notre Dame

One associates the phrase "the conditions of the possibility of science" with Immanuel Kant, and Peirce's commitment to the Kantian project is certainly well documented. He states that, during his formative years as an undergraduate at Harvard, he "devoted two hours a day to the study of Kant's Critic of Pure Reason for more than three years until I almost knew the whole book by heart and had critically examined every section of it" (CP 1.4). In the early 1860s he singlemindedly devoted himself to a rethinking of the transcendental analytic, which culminated in his 1867 paper "On a New List of Categories," and he then described Kant as "now acknowledged everywhere as the master of philosophy" (W 1.241). To invoke an earlier idiom, Kant was, for Peirce, "The Philosopher," and Peirce's own philosophical reflections are so related to his mentor that, in his own words, "I am forced back again to Kant and find myself unable to take a single step until I have defined somewhat the principles upon which his philosophy is founded" (ibid.).

As in most cases of genuine philosophical inspiration or tutelage, however, there is a substantial difference between the master and the pupil, a difference which is best understood along the lines of a critical rethinking of the Kantian project rather than as a misunderstanding or critique of it. The project at issue is that of exhibiting the conditions of the possibility of science. It is in their conceptions of science that Kant and Peirce fundamentally differ, a difference which has its ultimate ground in the centrality of the notions of "history" and "community" in Peirce's overall philosophical orientation. This general orientation disposed Peirce to what I will call a concrete, as opposed to an abstract, conception of science. In contrast to the focal conception of science being that of a static set of propositions (Euclidean geometry or Newtonian mechanics), he conceived of it as a sociohistorical process of inquiry with a specific structure. This fundamental shift of perspective on science gave a quite different tonality to Peirce's project of exhibiting its conditions of possibility.

For Peirce there were two different traditional conceptions of science. The first was the characterization of science primarily as a systematic or organized body of knowledge, and the second was the characterization of it primarily as a method of knowing. The former he viewed as a rather "shallow cut" which captured only "the fossilized remains of science" (MS 614:7). The latter he saw as a "deeper cut" which was surely on the right track but which, in its traditional articulations, was compromised by an excessively individualistic and not sufficiently dynamic conception of methodology. He drew on his own experience as a scientist, his knowledge of the history of science, and his expertise as a methodologist of science in an effort to characterize the concrete reality that was living science in contrast to some abstract specification of some feature thereof.

He argued that the focal meaning of the word "science" should be to designate the concrete life of a social group of inquirers, informed by a particular methodological strategy and animated by the desire to discover the truth. His general characterization of scientific methodology as involving abductive, deductive, and inductive phases is well known. The abductive phase of inquiry is concerned with the original generation and recommendation of explanatory hypotheses; the deductive phase has to do with the logical elaboration of a selected hypothesis; and the inductive phase bears on the confirmation of the hypothesis by future experience. The inquiry process itself is construed as thoroughly historical and thoroughly social, and the ampliative phases of the process (abduction and induction) are intrinsically characterized in sociohistorical terms. The justification of particular abductive and inductive procedures is not in terms of their cognitive status for the individual investigator at a given moment but in terms of their contribution to the success of the community of investigators in the long run.

The sociohistorical picture of science that emerges from Peirce's account of scientific methodology receives its ultimate generalization in his construal of science as a "mode of life." Applauding Francis Bacon's vision of science (while demurring at many particulars), Peirce proposes the following definition of the word "science" as a follower of Bacon would use it:

For him man is nature's interpreter; and in spite of the crudity of some anticipations, the idea of science is in his mind inseparably bound up with that of a life devoted to single-minded inquiry. That is also the way in which every scientific man thinks of science. That is the sense in which the word is to be understood in this chapter. Science is to mean for us a mode of life whose single, animating purpose is to find out the real truth, which pursues this purpose by a well-considered method, founded on thorough acquaintance with such scientific results already ascertained by others as may be available, and which seeks co-operation in the hope that the truth may be found, if not by any of the actual inquirers, yet ultimately by those who come after them and who shall make use of their results. It makes no difference how imperfect a man's knowledge may be, how mixed with error and prejudice; from the moment that he engages in an inquiry in the spirit described, that which occupies him is science as the word will here be used. (CP 7.54–55)

This concrete characterization he also extends to our conceptions of the particular branches of science. He views a particular science — for example, chemistry — as "no mere word manufactured by some academic pedant but as a real object, being the very concrete life of a social group constituted by real facts of inter-relation" (CP 7.52). From Peirce's perspective, then, when we speak of science in general or of some particular science, what we are concretely talking about is a community of inquirers, extended over time, with a unity of purpose and method which enables the product to be much more than the sum of the individual contributors. It is in this spirit that Peirce returns to the question of definition and states, "If we are to define science, not in the sense of stuffing it into an artificial pigeonhole where it may be found again by some insignificant mark, but in the sense of characterizing it as a living, historical entity, we must conceive it as that about which men such as I have described busy themselves" (CP 1.44).

It is this understanding of science that informs Peirce's project of exhibiting the conditions of the possibility of science. Given this conception of science as a specific mode of inquiry, two points clearly call for some accounting. Science is, from Peirce's own perspective, only one model of cognitive inquiry, and one which has not always been dominant and whose continuance is by no means inevitable. Moreover, it is a mode of inquiry whose objective validity, whose possibility of attaining the truth, has no obvious guarantee. Hence, what are the conditions of the possibility of its continuance and flourishing, on the one hand, and its objective validity, on the other? As I will reconstruct Peirce's project, then, it will have two facets: first, the articulation of certain qualities of inquirers and institutions necessary to sustain the process; second, the articulation of certain features of our world necessary to guarantee its objective validity. Together these will constitute the conditions of the possibility of science as we know it.

The Conditions of the Possibility of the Development and Continuance of Science as a Mode of Inquiry

Since other models of cognitive inquiry (tenacity, authority, and self-evidence) have had historical periods of dominance and continue to vie with science for our allegiance, the development and continuance of science as we know it depends on the persistence of certain interrelated social practices which in turn depend on certain virtues being embodied in the individual members of the community of investigators. It is to these sustaining virtues that Peirce turns his attention in his initial exploration of the conditions of possibility of the scientific mode of life.

Peirce wants to argue that the continued development of science as we know it is grounded in certain moral dispositions which mark its individual practitioners: "The most vital factors in the method of modern science have not been the following of this or that logical prescription — although these have had their value too — but they have been the moral factors" (CP 7.87). The specific moral factors on which he focused are the love of truth, the sense of community, and the sense of confidence.

The first of what Peirce calls moral factors seems initially to be completely uncontroversial: "The first of these has been the genuine love of truth and the conviction that nothing else could long endure" (CP 7.87). This apparently straightforward claim, however, masks some complexities. Peirce is not claiming that an inquiry qua scientific is either disinterested or presuppositionless. On the contrary, he is well aware of the many interests that can motivate a given line of scientific inquiry. His claim is that for the truly scientific mind the search for truth is the dominant one. One of the contrasts he is alluding to is that between the mind of the inquirer and the mind of the pedagogue. He sees the scientist as the one whose dominant, driving interest is in the search for truth wherever it may lead, whereas he sees the teacher (or preacher) as one whose dominant interest is in organizing and communicating what he or she already knows. At times he characterizes this distinction as that between the laboratory mind and the seminary mind. This contrast between the quest for truth and the elaboration and dissemination of belief runs deep into the human character, and it is a contrast that Peirce sees "writ large" in the difference between the spirit of modern science and that of the Middle Ages.

Nor does Peirce think that scientific inquiry is presuppositionless. Any given scientific inquiry is conducted not only against a background of the "established scientific verities" of the moment but also against the background of more general metaphysical assumptions which guide our orientation to the world (CP 7.82). It is our attitude toward these presuppositions that can be either scientific or not. If the quest for truth is dominant, these background presuppositions are never regarded as beyond question. Although, as entrenched, the presumption is in their favor, if the results of the inquiry seem to call for their revision, then such a revision must be regarded as a real option in the interest of truth.

The second moral factor, the sense of community, is more complicated and attracts more of Peirce's attention. In addition to making the obvious points about the requirement of intersubjectivity of evidence imposed by the social character of scientific investigation, he goes on to explore the deeper commitments of self-sacrifice involved in the enterprise which is science.

The method of modern science is social in respect to the solidarity of its efforts. The scientific world is like a colony of insects in that the individual strives to produce that which he cannot himself hope to enjoy. One generation collects premises in order that a distant generation may discover what they mean. When a problem comes before the scientific world, a hundred men immediately set all their energies to work on it. One contributes this, another that. Another company, standing on the shoulders of the first, strikes a little higher, until at last the parapet is attained. (CP 7.87)

Mixing his metaphors between a colony of insects and a company of troops, Peirce makes the point that the life of science is essentially that of a historical community that is teleological in structure. The development and continuance of this life depends on the social sense becoming supreme, such that the individual investigators will subordinate their own satisfaction to the long-range goals of the community.

For Peirce this sense of community is not merely an extrinsic support of the life of science but is essentially tied to the very logic of scientific method. The rationality of both the abductive and the inductive phases of inquiry requires one to look beyond the particular inference in question to its role in the overall inquiry process: "It can be shown that no inference of any individual can be thoroughly logical without certain determinations of his mind which do not concern any one inference immediately" (CP 5.354). And these "determinations of mind" involve the individual's viewing his or her particular inferences not just as part of the larger set of that person's own inferences but in terms of their role in that ongoing inquiry, the proper logical subject of which is the historical community. With this in mind Peirce articulates what he calls the three logical sentiments: "namely, interest in an indefinite community, recognition of the possibility of this interest being made supreme, and hope in the unlimited continuance of intellectual activity as indispensable requirements of logic" (CP 2.655). The life of science demands the transcendence of both selfishness and skepticism through the active hope that rational cooperative effort will, in the end, prevail.

This leads to the third moral factor undergirding the development and continuation of science, namely, the sense of confidence. Peirce thinks that a sense of confidence is particularly crucial in an inquiry that proceeds by the method of conjecture and refutation. With regard to our specific, proposed explanations, we are clearly going to be wrong more often than we are right, so it is important that we continue to view our proximate failures in terms of their contribution to the long-range effort. He sees this confidence as characteristic of scientists: "Modern science has never faltered in its confidence that it would ultimately find out the truth concerning any question to which it could apply the check of experiment" (CP 7.87). This attitude implies both the correctness and completeness of science and takes the form of the action-guiding hope that the indefinite application of scientific methodology will lead to the attainment of truth in the long run. The ground of this particular hope will be explored in the next section of this chapter.

Given Peirce's pragmatism, it should not be surprising that he saw these moral factors not as private, internal states but as embodied in a coordinated set of practices constitutive of the scientific community. In addition to the constraint to make experiment replicatable and evidence intersubjectively available, Peirce points to the scientists' "unreserved discussions with one another" and their "availing themselves of that neighbor's results," which practices constitute a given science as "a real object, being the concrete life of a social group constituted by real facts of inter-relation" (CP 7.52). This institution so constructed not only is the judge and repository of past results but is dynamically characterized by criteria of evaluation of present programs and prognoses of future ones, which give it an identity over time that transcends any individual or group of practitioners. In summary, the reality of these virtues, practices, and institutions is the condition of the possibility of the development and continuation of science as a mode of inquiry.

(Continues...)

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Table of Contents

Contents

Preface,
Acknowledgments,
Abbreviations,
Introduction: Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science Edward C. Moore,
Part 1. Logic and Mathematics,
1. Peirce on the Conditions of the Possibility of Science C. F. Delaney,
2. Peirce's Realistic Approach to Mathematics: Or, Can One Be a Realist without Being a Platonist? Claudine Engel-Tiercelin,
3. Peirce as Philosophical Topologist R. Valentine Dusek,
4. Peirce and Propensities James H. Fetzer,
5. Induction and the Evolution of Conceptual Spaces Peter Gärdenfors,
6. Abduction, Justification, and Realism Anthony J. Graybosch,
7. Peirce and the Logic of Logical Discovery Leila Haaparanta,
8. Truth, Laudan, and Peirce: A View from the Trenches Shelby D. Hunt,
9. Peirce and Statistics Henry E. Kyburg, Jr.,
10. Peirce's View of the Vague and the Definite Joseph Margolis,
11. The Test of Experiment: C. S. Peirce and E. S. Pearson Deborah G. Mayo,
12. Pragmatism, Abduction, and Weak Verification Jeremiah McCarthy,
13. Peirce's Theory of Statistical Explanation Ilkka Niiniluoto,
14. Peirce on Problem Solving Peter Robinson,
Part 2. The Physical Sciences 15. Peirce as Participant in the Bohr-Einstein Discussion Peder Voetmann Christiansen,
16. From Peirce to Bohr: Theorematic Reasoning and Idealization in Physics Eliseo Fernández,
17. The Role of Potentiality in Peirce's Tychism and in Contemporary Discussions in Quantum Mechanics and Microphysics Demetra Sfendoni-Mentzou,
18. Aristotle and Peirce on Chance Philip H. Hwang,
Part 3. The Life of the Mind,
19. Peirce's Definitions of the Phaneron André De Tienne,
20. An Application of Peirce's Valency of Relations to the Phenomenon of Psychological Dissociation Martin Lemon,
21. Knowing One's Own Mind Gerald E. Myers,
22. Peirce's Psychophysics: Then and Now Peter J. Behrens,
23. Peirce and Self-Consciousness Antoni Gomila,
24. The Relevance of Peirce for Psychology Clyde Hendrick,
25. Peircean Benefits for Freudian Theory: The Role of Abduction in the Psychoanalytic Enterprise Matthias Kettner,
26. The Valuation of the Interpretant James Jakób Liszka,
27. The Riddle of Brute Experience: An Argument for a Revision of Psychoanalytic Theory Based on Peircean Phenomenology Alfred S. Silver, M.D.,
28. Memory, Morphology, and Mathematics: Peirce and Contemporary Neurostudies George W. Stickel,
Index,

Editorial Reviews

A compilation of selected papers presented in 1989 at the Charles S. Peirce Sesquicentennial International Congress at Harvard U. Though known as one of the greatest American philosophers, Peirce (1839-1914) was himself a physical scientist, and one of the themes in his work that has been of greatest interest to students of his thought centers around his view of the philosophy of science and its logic. He also made major contributions in fields as diverse as mathematical logic and psychology, and essentially invented the field of semiotics--the science of signs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"Collect[s] by topic some of the essays from the 1989 Peirce Sesquicentennial Congress, at which world-renowned professors lent their luster to the devoted scholars who, working in unfashionable places, have been the mainstay of the Peirce revival."
—The American Scholar

"The publication of papers from the 1989 Peirce Congress may well initiate a new era in Peirce scholarship and in American philosophy. This volume significantly expands previous notions of the depth and applicable scope of Peirce’s thought. . . . A fine collection."
—Journal for the Advancement of American Philosophy
 

"Peirce scholars who are interested in the relevance of Peirce’s thought for modern logic, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind will find this volume an invaluable addition." 
—Peirce Project Newsletter

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