|
|
| (11 révisions intermédiaires par le même utilisateur non affichées) |
| Ligne 26 : |
Ligne 26 : |
| | | | |
| | http://www.furcy.link/ | | http://www.furcy.link/ |
| | + | |
| | + | - coder dans VSC en local, copie du dossier racine dans filezila, hébergement ovh + nouveau nom de domaine, synchronisation des FTP SSL |
| | | | |
| | == ether2print == | | == ether2print == |
| Ligne 93 : |
Ligne 95 : |
| | <p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Morris R. Cohen</span></p> | | <p class='c005'><span class='sc'>Morris R. Cohen</span></p> |
| | | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><span class='sc'>The College of the City of New York.</span></p>
| + | ... |
| − | <div class='chapter'>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
| |
| − | <h2 class='c009'>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'><a href='#intro' style='color:#FFFF;'><span class='sc'>Introduction</span> vii</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#proem' style='color:#FFFF;'><span class='sc'>Proem. The Rules of Philosophy</span> 1</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#part1' style='color:#FFFF;'><span class='sc'>Part I. Chance and Logic</span> (Illustrations of the Logic of Science.)</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-1' style='color:#FFFF;'>1. The Fixation of Belief 7</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-2' style='color:#FFFF;'>2. How to Make Our Ideas Clear 32</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-3' style='color:#FFFF;'>3. The Doctrine of Chances 61</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-4' style='color:#FFFF;'>4. The Probability of Induction 82</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-5' style='color:#FFFF;'>5. The Order of Nature 106</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap1-6' style='color:#FFFF;'>6. Deduction, Induction and Hypothesis 131</a></p>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'><a href='#part2' style='color:#FFFF;'><span class='sc'>Part II. Love and Chance</span></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap2-1' style='color:#FFFF;'>1. The Architecture of Theories 157</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap2-2' style='color:#FFFF;'>2. The Doctrine of Necessity Examined 179</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap2-3' style='color:#FFFF;'>3. The Law of Mind 202</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap2-4' style='color:#FFFF;'>4. Man’s Glassy Essence 238</a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><a href='#chap2-5' style='color:#FFFF;'>5. Evolutionary Love 267</a></p>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'><a href='#essay' style='color:#FFFF;'><span class='sc'>Supplementary Essay</span>—The Pragmatism of Peirce, by John Dewey 301</a></p>
| |
| − | <div class='chapter'>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>
| |
| − | <h2 id='intro' class='c009'>INTRODUCTION</h2>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Many and diverse are the minds that form the philosophic
| |
| − | community. There are, first and foremost, the great
| |
| − | masters, the system builders who rear their stately palaces
| |
| − | towering to the moon. These architectonic minds are
| |
| − | served by a varied host of followers and auxiliaries. Some
| |
| − | provide the furnishings to make these mystic mansions of
| |
| − | the mind more commodious, while others are engaged in
| |
| − | making their façades more imposing. Some are busy
| |
| − | strengthening weak places or building much-needed additions,
| |
| − | while many more are engaged in defending these
| |
| − | structures against the impetuous army of critics who are
| |
| − | ever eager and ready to pounce down upon and destroy all
| |
| − | that is new or bears the mortal mark of human imperfection.
| |
| − | There are also the philologists, those who are in a
| |
| − | more narrow sense scholars, who dig not only for facts or
| |
| − | roots, but also for the stones which may serve either for
| |
| − | building or as weapons of destruction. Remote from all
| |
| − | these, however, are the intellectual rovers who, in their
| |
| − | search for new fields, venture into the thick jungle that
| |
| − | surrounds the little patch of cultivated science. They are
| |
| − | not gregarious creatures, these lonely pioneers; and in their
| |
| − | wanderings they often completely lose touch with those
| |
| − | who tread the beaten paths. Those that return to the community
| |
| − | often speak strangely of strange things; and it is
| |
| − | not always that they arouse sufficient faith for others to
| |
| − | follow them and change their trails into high roads.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>Few nowadays question the great value of these pioneer
| |
| − | minds; and it is often claimed that universities are established
| |
| − | to facilitate their work, and to prevent it from being
| |
| − | lost. But universities, like other well-managed institutions,
| |
| − | can find place only for those who work well in harness.
| |
| − | The restless, impatient minds, like the socially or conventionally
| |
| − | unacceptable, are thus kept out, no matter how
| |
| − | fruitful their originality. Charles S. Peirce was certainly
| |
| − | one of these restless pioneer souls with the fatal gift of
| |
| − | genuine originality. In his early papers, in the <i>Journal of
| |
| − | Speculative Philosophy</i>, and later, in the <i>Monist</i> papers
| |
| − | reprinted as <a href='#part2'>Part II</a> of this volume, we get glimpses of a
| |
| − | vast philosophic system on which he was working with an
| |
| − | unusual wealth of material and apparatus. To a rich
| |
| − | imagination and extraordinary learning he added one of the
| |
| − | most essential gifts of successful system builders, the power
| |
| − | to coin an apt and striking terminology. But the admitted
| |
| − | incompleteness of these preliminary sketches of his philosophic
| |
| − | system is not altogether due to the inherent difficulty
| |
| − | of the task and to external causes such as neglect and
| |
| − | poverty. A certain inner instability or lack of self-mastery
| |
| − | is reflected in the outer moral or conventional waywardness
| |
| − | which, except for a few years at Johns Hopkins,
| |
| − | caused him to be excluded from a university career, and
| |
| − | thus deprived him of much needed stimulus to ordinary
| |
| − | consistency and intelligibility. As the years advanced,
| |
| − | bringing little general interest in, or recognition of, the brilliant
| |
| − | logical studies of his early years, Peirce became more
| |
| − | and more fragmentary, cryptic, and involved; so that
| |
| − | James, the intellectual companion of his youth, later found
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>his lectures on pragmatism, “flashes of brilliant light relieved
| |
| − | against Cimmerian darkness”—a statement not to
| |
| − | be entirely discounted by the fact that James had no interest
| |
| − | in or aptitude for formal logical or mathematical considerations.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Despite these limitations, however, Peirce stands out as
| |
| − | one of the great founders of modern scientific logic; and in
| |
| − | the realm of general philosophy the development of some
| |
| − | of his pregnant ideas has led to the pragmatism and
| |
| − | radical empiricism of James, as well as to the mathematical
| |
| − | idealism of Royce, and to the anti-nominalism which characterizes
| |
| − | the philosophic movement known as Neo-Realism.
| |
| − | At any rate, the work of James, Royce, and Russell, as
| |
| − | well as that of logicians like Schroeder, brings us of the
| |
| − | present generation into a better position to appreciate the
| |
| − | significance of Peirce’s work, than were his contemporaries.</p>
| |
| − | <h3 class='c010'>I</h3>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Peirce was by antecedents, training, and occupation a
| |
| − | scientist. He was a son of Benjamin Peirce, the great
| |
| − | Harvard mathematician, and his early environment, together
| |
| − | with his training in the Lawrence Scientific School,
| |
| − | justified his favorite claim that he was brought up in a
| |
| − | laboratory. He made important contributions not only in
| |
| − | mathematical logic but also in photometric astronomy,
| |
| − | geodesy, and psychophysics, as well as in philology. For
| |
| − | many years Peirce worked on the problems of geodesy, and
| |
| − | his contribution to the subject, his researches on the pendulum,
| |
| − | was at once recognized by European investigators
| |
| − | in this field. The International Geodetic Congress, to
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>which he was the first American representative, gave unusual
| |
| − | attention to his paper, and men like Cellerier and
| |
| − | Plantamour acknowledged their obligations to him.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c011'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>This and other scientific work involving fine measurement,
| |
| − | with the correlative investigations into the theory
| |
| − | of probable error, seem to have been a decisive influence
| |
| − | in the development of Peirce’s philosophy of chance.
| |
| − | Philosophers inexperienced in actual scientific measurement
| |
| − | may naïvely accept as absolute truth such statements as
| |
| − | “every particle of matter attracts every other particle
| |
| − | directly as the product of their masses and inversely as the
| |
| − | square of the distance,” or “when hydrogen and oxygen
| |
| − | combine to form water the ratio of their weights is 1 : 8.”
| |
| − | But to those who are actually engaged in measuring natural
| |
| − | phenomena with instruments of precision, nature shows no
| |
| − | such absolute constancy or simplicity. As every laboratory
| |
| − | worker knows, no two observers, and no one observer in
| |
| − | successive experiments, get absolutely identical results. To
| |
| − | the men of the heroic period of science this was no difficulty.
| |
| − | They held unquestioningly the Platonic faith that nature
| |
| − | was created on simple geometric lines, and all the minute
| |
| − | variations were attributable to the fault of the observer or
| |
| − | the crudity of his instruments. This heroic faith was,
| |
| − | and still is, a most powerful stimulus to scientific research
| |
| − | and a protection against the incursions of supernaturalism.
| |
| − | But few would defend it to-day in its explicit form, and
| |
| − | there is little empirical evidence to show that while the
| |
| − | observer and his instruments are always varying, the objects
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>which he measures never deviate in the slightest from
| |
| − | the simple law. Doubtless, as one becomes more expert in
| |
| − | the manipulation of physical instruments, there is a noticeable
| |
| − | diminution of the range of the personal “error,” but
| |
| − | no amount of skill and no refinement of our instruments
| |
| − | have ever succeeded in eliminating irregular, though
| |
| − | small, variations. “Try to verify any law of nature and
| |
| − | you will find that the more precise your observations, the
| |
| − | more certain they will be to show irregular departure from
| |
| − | the law.”<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c011'><sup>[2]</sup></a> There is certainly nothing in our empirical information
| |
| − | to prevent us from saying that all the so-called
| |
| − | constants of nature are merely instances of variation between
| |
| − | limits so near each other that their differences
| |
| − | may be neglected for certain purposes. Moreover, the approach
| |
| − | to constancy is observed only in mass phenomena,
| |
| − | when we are dealing with very large numbers of particles;
| |
| − | but social statistics also approach constant ratios when
| |
| − | the numbers are very large. Hence, without denying discrepancies
| |
| − | due solely to errors of observation, Peirce contends
| |
| − | that “we must suppose far more minute discrepancies
| |
| − | to exist owing to the imperfect cogency of the law itself,
| |
| − | to a certain swerving of the facts from any definite
| |
| − | formula.”<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c011'><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It is usual to associate disbelief in absolute laws of nature
| |
| − | with sentimental claims for freedom or theological
| |
| − | miracles. It is, therefore, well to insist that Peirce’s attack
| |
| − | is entirely in the interests of exact logic and a rational
| |
| − | account of the physical universe. As a rigorous logician
| |
| − | familiar with the actual procedures by which our knowledge
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>of the various laws of nature is obtained, he could not
| |
| − | admit that experience could prove their claim to absoluteness.
| |
| − | All the physical laws actually known, like Boyle’s
| |
| − | law or the law of gravitation, involve excessive simplification
| |
| − | of the phenomenal course of events, and thus a large
| |
| − | element of empirical inaccuracy. But a more positive
| |
| − | objection against the traditional assumption of absolute or
| |
| − | invariable laws of nature, is the fact that such assumption
| |
| − | makes the regularities of the universe ultimate, and thus
| |
| − | cuts us off from the possibility of ever explaining them or
| |
| − | how there comes to be as much regularity in the universe
| |
| − | as there is. But in ordinary affairs, the occurrence of any
| |
| − | regularity is the very thing to be explained. Moreover,
| |
| − | modern statistical mechanics and thermodynamics (theory
| |
| − | of gases, entropy, etc.) suggest that the regularity in the
| |
| − | universe is a matter of gradual growth; that the whole of
| |
| − | physical nature is a growth from a chaos of diversity to a
| |
| − | maximum of uniformity or entropy. A leading physicist of
| |
| − | the 19th Century, Boltzmann, has suggested that the
| |
| − | process of the whole physical universe is like that of a
| |
| − | continuous shaking up of a hap-hazard or chance mixture
| |
| − | of things, which thus gradually results in a progressively
| |
| − | more uniform distribution. Since Duns Scotus, students
| |
| − | of logic have known that every real entity has its individual
| |
| − | character (its <i>haecceitas</i> or <i>thisness</i>) which cannot be explained
| |
| − | or deduced from that which is uniform. Every
| |
| − | explanation, for example, of the moon’s path must take
| |
| − | particular existences for granted. Such original or underived
| |
| − | individuality and diversity is precisely what Peirce
| |
| − | means by chance; and from this point of view chance is
| |
| − | prior to law.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>All that is necessary to visualize this is to suppose that
| |
| − | there is an infinitesimal tendency in things to acquire
| |
| − | habits, a tendency which is itself an accidental variation
| |
| − | grown habitual. We shall then be on the road to explain
| |
| − | the evolution and existence of the limited uniformities
| |
| − | actually prevailing in the physical world.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>A good deal of the foregoing may sound somewhat
| |
| − | mythologic. But even if it were so it would have the merit
| |
| − | of offering a rational alternative to the mechanical mythology
| |
| − | according to which all the atoms in the universe are
| |
| − | to-day precisely in the same condition in which they were
| |
| − | on the day of creation, a mythology which is forced to
| |
| − | regard all the empirical facts of spontaneity and novelty
| |
| − | as illusory, or devoid of substantial truth.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The doctrine of the primacy of chance naturally suggests
| |
| − | the primacy of mind. Just as law is a chance habit so is
| |
| − | matter inert mind. The principal law of mind is that ideas
| |
| − | literally spread themselves continuously and become more
| |
| − | and more general or inclusive, so that people who form
| |
| − | communities of any sort develop general ideas in common.
| |
| − | When this continuous reaching-out of feeling becomes nurturing
| |
| − | love, such, e.g., which parents have for their offspring
| |
| − | or thinkers for their ideas, we have creative
| |
| − | evolution.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>James and Royce have called attention to the similarity
| |
| − | between Peirce’s doctrine of tychistic-agapism (chance and
| |
| − | love) and the creative evolution of Bergson. But while
| |
| − | both philosophies aim to restore life and growth in their
| |
| − | account of the nature of things, Peirce’s approach seems to
| |
| − | me to have marked advantages, owing to its being in closer
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>touch with modern physics. Bergson’s procedure is largely
| |
| − | based on the contention that mechanics cannot explain
| |
| − | certain empirical facts, such as the supposed identity of
| |
| − | the vertebrate eye and the eye of the scallop. But the fact
| |
| − | here is merely one of a certain resemblance of pattern, which
| |
| − | may well be explained by the mechanical principles of convergent
| |
| − | evolution. Peirce’s account involves no rejection
| |
| − | of the possibility of mechanical explanations. Indeed, by
| |
| − | carrying chance into the laws of mechanics he is enabled to
| |
| − | elaborate a positive and highly suggestive theory of protoplasm
| |
| − | to explain the facts of plasticity and habit.<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c011'><sup>[4]</sup></a> Instead
| |
| − | of postulating with Spencer and Bergson a continuous
| |
| − | growth of diversity, Peirce allows for growth of habits both
| |
| − | in diversity and in uniformity. The Spencerian mechanical
| |
| − | philosophy reduces all diversity to mere spatial differences.
| |
| − | There can be no substantial novelty; only new forms or
| |
| − | combinations can arise in time. The creative evolution of
| |
| − | Bergson though intended to support the claims of spontaneity
| |
| − | is still like the Spencerian in assuming all evolution
| |
| − | as proceeding from the simple to the complex. Peirce
| |
| − | allows for diversity and specificity as part of the original
| |
| − | character or endowment of things, which in the course of
| |
| − | time may increase in some respects and diminish in others.
| |
| − | Mind acquires the habit both of taking on, and also of laying
| |
| − | aside, habits. Evolution may thus lead to homogeneity
| |
| − | or uniformity as well as to greater heterogeneity.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Not only has Peirce a greater regard than even Bergson
| |
| − | for the actual diversity and spontaneity of things, but he
| |
| − | is in a much better position than any other modern philosopher
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>to explain the order and coherence of the world.
| |
| − | This he effects by uniting the medieval regard for the
| |
| − | reality of universals with the modern scientific use of the
| |
| − | concept of continuity. The unfortunate war between the
| |
| − | pioneers of modern science and the adherents of the scholastic
| |
| − | doctrine of substantial forms, has been one of the
| |
| − | great misfortunes of human thought, in that it made absolute
| |
| − | atomism and nominalism the professed <i>creed</i> of physical
| |
| − | science. Now, extreme nominalism, the insistence on
| |
| − | the reality of the particular, leaves no room for the genuine
| |
| − | reality of law. It leaves, as Hume had the courage to
| |
| − | admit, nothing whereby the present can determine the
| |
| − | future; so that anything is as likely to happen as not.
| |
| − | From such a chaotic world, the <i>procedure</i> of modern natural
| |
| − | and mathematical science has saved us by the persistent
| |
| − | use of the principle of continuity; and no one has indicated
| |
| − | this more clearly than Peirce who was uniquely qualified
| |
| − | to do so by being a close student both of Duns Scotus and
| |
| − | of modern scientific methods.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It is instructive in this respect to contrast the views of
| |
| − | Peirce and James. James, who so generously indicated his
| |
| − | indebtedness to Peirce for his pragmatism, was also largely
| |
| − | indebted to Peirce for his doctrine of radical empiricism.<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c011'><sup>[5]</sup></a>
| |
| − | The latter doctrine seeks to rescue the continuity and
| |
| − | fluidity of experience from the traditional British empiricism
| |
| − | or nominalism, which had resolved everything into a
| |
| − | number of mutually exclusive mental states. It is curious,
| |
| − | however, that while in his psychology James made extensive
| |
| − | use of the principle of continuity, he could not free himself
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>from British nominalism in his philosophy—witness the
| |
| − | extreme individualism of his social philosophy or the equally
| |
| − | extreme anthropomorphism of his religion. Certain of
| |
| − | Peirce’s suggestions as to the use of continuity in social
| |
| − | philosophy have been developed by Royce in his theory of
| |
| − | social consciousness and the nature of the community;<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c011'><sup>[6]</sup></a>
| |
| − | but much remains to be worked out and we can but repeat
| |
| − | Peirce’s own hope: “May some future student go over
| |
| − | this ground again and have the leisure to give his results
| |
| − | to the world.”</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It is well to note, however, that after writing the papers
| |
| − | included in this volume Peirce continued to be occupied
| |
| − | with the issues here raised. This he most significantly
| |
| − | indicated in the articles on logical topics contributed to
| |
| − | Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy.<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c011'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>In these articles it is naturally the logical bearing of the
| |
| − | principles of tychism (chance), synechism (continuity), and
| |
| − | agapism (love) that is stressed. To use the Kantian terminology,
| |
| − | almost native to Peirce, the regulative rather
| |
| − | than the constitutive aspect of these principles is emphasized.
| |
| − | Thus the doctrine of chance is not only what it was
| |
| − | for James’ radical empiricism, a release from the blind
| |
| − | necessity of a “block universe,” but also a method of keeping
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xvii'>xvii</span>open a possible explanation of the genesis of the laws
| |
| − | of nature and an interpretation of them in accordance with
| |
| − | the theorems of probability, so fruitful in physical science
| |
| − | as well as in practical life. So the doctrine of love is not
| |
| − | only a cosmologic one, showing how chance feeling generates
| |
| − | order or rational diversity through the habit of generality
| |
| − | or continuity, but it also gives us the meaning of truth in
| |
| − | social terms, in showing that the test as to whether any
| |
| − | proposition is true postulates an indefinite number of co-operating
| |
| − | investigators. On its logical side the doctrine of
| |
| − | love (agapism) also recognized the important fact that
| |
| − | general ideas have a certain attraction which makes us divine
| |
| − | their nature even though we cannot clearly determine their
| |
| − | precise meaning before developing their possible consequences.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Of the doctrine of continuity we are told expressly<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c011'><sup>[8]</sup></a> that
| |
| − | “synechism is not an ultimate absolute metaphysical
| |
| − | doctrine. It is a regulative principle of logic,” seeking the
| |
| − | thread of identity in diverse cases and avoiding hypotheses
| |
| − | that this or that is ultimate and, therefore, inexplicable.
| |
| − | (Examples of such hypotheses are: the existence of absolutely
| |
| − | accurate or uniform laws of nature, the eternity and
| |
| − | absolute likeness of all atoms, etc.) To be sure, the
| |
| − | synechist cannot deny that there is an element of the inexplicable
| |
| − | or ultimate, since it is directly forced upon him.
| |
| − | But he cannot regard it as a source of explanation. The
| |
| − | assumption of an inexplicability is a barrier on the road to
| |
| − | science. “The form under which alone anything can be
| |
| − | understood is the form of generality which is the same thing
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xviii'>xviii</span>as continuity.”<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c011'><sup>[9]</sup></a> This insistence on the generality of
| |
| − | intelligible form is perfectly consistent with due emphases
| |
| − | on the reality of the individual, which to a Scotist realist
| |
| − | connotes an element of will or will-resistence, but in logical
| |
| − | procedure means that the test of the truth or falsity of any
| |
| − | proposition refers us to particular perceptions.<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c011'><sup>[10]</sup></a> But
| |
| − | as no multitude of individuals can exhaust the meaning of
| |
| − | a continuum, which includes also organizing relations of
| |
| − | order, the full meaning of a concept cannot be in any
| |
| − | individual reaction, but is rather to be sought in the manner
| |
| − | in which all such reactions contribute to the development of
| |
| − | the concrete reasonableness of the whole evolutionary
| |
| − | process. In scientific procedure this means that integrity
| |
| − | of belief in general is more important than, because it is
| |
| − | the condition of, particular true beliefs.</p>
| |
| − | <h3 class='c010'>II</h3>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>This insistence on the continuity so effectually used as a
| |
| − | heuristic principle in natural and mathematical science,
| |
| − | distinguishes the pragmatism of Peirce from that of his
| |
| − | follower James. Prof. Dewey has developed this point
| |
| − | authoritatively in the supplementary essay; but in view of
| |
| − | the general ignorance as to the sources of pragmatism which
| |
| − | prevails in this incurious age, some remarks on the actual
| |
| − | historical origin of pragmatism may be in order.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>There can be little doubt that Peirce was led to the formulation
| |
| − | of the principle of pragmatism through the influence
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xix'>xix</span>of Chauncey Wright.<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c011'><sup>[11]</sup></a> Wright who had first hand acquaintance
| |
| − | with creative scientific work in mathematics,
| |
| − | physics, and botany was led by the study of Mill and Bain
| |
| − | to reflect on the characteristics of scientific method. This
| |
| − | reflection led him to draw a distinction between the use of
| |
| − | popular scientific material, by men like Spencer, to construct
| |
| − | a myth or picture of the world, and the scientific
| |
| − | use of laws by men like Newton as means for extending our
| |
| − | knowledge of phenomena. Gravitation as a general fact
| |
| − | had interested metaphysicians long before Newton. What
| |
| − | made Newton’s contribution scientific was the formulation
| |
| − | of a mathematical law which has enabled us to deduce all
| |
| − | the then known facts of the solar system and to anticipate
| |
| − | or predict many more facts the existence of which would
| |
| − | not otherwise be even suspected, e.g., the existence of the
| |
| − | planet Neptune. Wright insists, therefore, that the principles
| |
| − | of modern mathematical and physical science are
| |
| − | the means through which nature is discovered, that scientific
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xx'>xx</span>laws are the finders rather than merely the summaries of
| |
| − | factual truths. This conception of the experimental scientist
| |
| − | as translating general propositions into prescriptions
| |
| − | for attaining new experimental truths, is the starting point
| |
| − | of Peirce’s pragmatism. The latter is embodied in the
| |
| − | principle that the meaning of a concept is to be found in
| |
| − | “all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the
| |
| − | affirmation or denial of the concept could imply.”<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c011'><sup>[12]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>In the earlier statement of the pragmatic maxim,<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c011'><sup>[13]</sup></a>
| |
| − | Peirce emphasized the consequences for conduct that follow
| |
| − | from the acceptance or rejection of an idea; but the stoical
| |
| − | maxim that the end of man is action did not appeal to him
| |
| − | as much at sixty as it did at thirty.<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c011'><sup>[14]</sup></a> Naturally also Peirce
| |
| − | could not follow the development of pragmatism by Wm.
| |
| − | James who, like almost all modern psychologists, was a
| |
| − | thorough nominalist and always emphasized particular
| |
| − | sensible experience.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c011'><sup>[15]</sup></a> It seemed to Peirce that such emphasis
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxi'>xxi</span>on particular experiences endangered the principle
| |
| − | of continuity which in the hands of men like Weierstrass
| |
| − | had reformed modern mathematics. For this reason he
| |
| − | began to call his own doctrine pragmaticism, a sufficiently
| |
| − | unattractive name, he thought, to save it from kidnappers
| |
| − | and from popularity. He never, however, abandoned the
| |
| − | principle of pragmatism, that the meaning of an idea is
| |
| − | clarified (because constituted) by its conceivable experimental
| |
| − | consequences. Indeed, if we want to clarify the
| |
| − | meaning of the idea of pragmatism, let us apply the pragmatic
| |
| − | test to it. What will be the effect of accepting it?
| |
| − | Obviously it will be to develop certain general ideas or
| |
| − | habits of looking at things.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Peirce’s pragmatism has, therefore, a decidedly intellectual
| |
| − | cast. The meaning of an idea or proposition is
| |
| − | found not by an intuition of it but by working out its implications.
| |
| − | It admits that thought does not constitute
| |
| − | reality. Categories can have no concrete being without
| |
| − | action or immediate feeling. But thought is none the less
| |
| − | an essential ingredient of reality; thought is “the melody
| |
| − | running through the succession of our sensations.” Pragmatism,
| |
| − | according to Peirce, seeks to define the rational
| |
| − | purport, not the sensuous quality. It is interested not in
| |
| − | the effect of our practical occupations or desires on our
| |
| − | ideas, but in the function of ideas as guides of action.
| |
| − | Whether a man is to pay damages in a certain lawsuit may
| |
| − | depend, in fact, on a term in the Aristotelian logic such as
| |
| − | proximate cause.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It is of interest to observe that though Peirce is an ardent
| |
| − | admirer of Darwin’s method, his scientific caution makes
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxii'>xxii</span>him refuse to apply the analogy of biologic natural selection
| |
| − | to the realm of ideas, in the wholesale and uncritical
| |
| − | manner that has lately become fashionable. Natural selection
| |
| − | may well favor the triumph of views which directly
| |
| − | influence biologic survival. But the pleasure of entertaining
| |
| − | congenial illusions may overbalance the inconvenience
| |
| − | resulting from their deceptive character. Thus rhetorical
| |
| − | appeals may long prevail over scientific evidence.</p>
| |
| − | <h3 class='c010'>III</h3>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Peirce preferred to call himself a logician, and his contributions
| |
| − | to logic have so far proved his most generally
| |
| − | recognized achievement. For a right perspective of these
| |
| − | contributions we may well begin with the observation that
| |
| − | though few branches of philosophy have been cultivated as
| |
| − | continuously as logic, Kant was able to affirm that the
| |
| − | science of logic had made no substantial progress since the
| |
| − | time of Aristotle. The reason for this is that Aristotle’s
| |
| − | logic, the logic of classes, was based on his own scientific
| |
| − | procedure as a zoologist, and is still in essence a valid
| |
| − | method so far as classification is part of all rational procedure.
| |
| − | But when we come to describe the mathematical
| |
| − | method of physical science, we cannot cast it into the
| |
| − | Aristotelian form without involving ourselves in such complicated
| |
| − | artificialities as to reduce almost to nil the value
| |
| − | of Aristotle’s logic as an organon. Aristotle’s logic enables
| |
| − | us to make a single inference from two premises. But the
| |
| − | vast multitude of theorems that modern mathematics has
| |
| − | derived from a few premises as to the nature of number,
| |
| − | shows the need of formulating a logic or theory of inference
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiii'>xxiii</span>that shall correspond to the modern, more complicated, practice
| |
| − | as Aristotle’s logic did to simple classificatory zoology.
| |
| − | To do this effectively would require the highest constructive
| |
| − | logical genius, together with an intimate knowledge
| |
| − | of the methods of the great variety of modern sciences.
| |
| − | This is in the nature of the case a very rare combination,
| |
| − | since great investigators are not as critical in examining
| |
| − | their own procedure as they are in examining the subject
| |
| − | matter which is their primary scientific interest. Hence,
| |
| − | when great investigators like Poincaré come to describe
| |
| − | their own work, they fall back on the uncritical assumptions
| |
| − | of the traditional logic which they learned in their school
| |
| − | days. Moreover, “For the last three centuries thought
| |
| − | has been conducted in laboratories, in the field, or otherwise
| |
| − | in the face of the facts, while chairs of logic have been
| |
| − | filled by men who breathe the air of the seminary.”<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c011'><sup>[16]</sup></a> The
| |
| − | great Leibnitz had the qualifications, but here, as elsewhere,
| |
| − | his worldly occupations left him no opportunity
| |
| − | except for very fragmentary contributions. It was not until
| |
| − | the middle of the 19th century that two mathematicians,
| |
| − | Boole and DeMorgan, laid the foundations for a more generalized
| |
| − | logic. Boole developed a general logical algorithm
| |
| − | or calculus, while DeMorgan called attention to non-syllogistic
| |
| − | inference and especially to the importance of the logic of
| |
| − | relations. Peirce’s great achievement is to have recognized
| |
| − | the possibilities of both and to have generalized and developed
| |
| − | them into a general theory of scientific inference.
| |
| − | The extent and thoroughness of his achievement has been
| |
| − | obscured by his fragmentary way of writing and by a rather
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiv'>xxiv</span>unwieldy symbolism. Still, modern mathematical logic,
| |
| − | such as that of Russell’s <i>Principles of Mathematics</i>, is but a
| |
| − | development of Peirce’s logic of relatives.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>This phase of Peirce’s work is highly technical and an
| |
| − | account of it is out of place here. Such an account will
| |
| − | be found in Lewis’ <i>Survey of Symbolic Logic</i>.<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c011'><sup>[17]</sup></a> I refer to
| |
| − | it here only to remind the reader that the <i>Illustrations of
| |
| − | the Logic of the Sciences</i> (<a href='#part1'>Part I</a> of this volume) have a
| |
| − | background of patient detailed work which is still being
| |
| − | developed to-day.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Symbolic logic has been held in rather low esteem by
| |
| − | the followers of the old classical methods in philosophy.
| |
| − | Their stated objection to it has been mainly that it is
| |
| − | concerned with the minutiae of an artificial language and is
| |
| − | of no value as a guide to the interpretation of reality.
| |
| − | Now it should be readily admitted that preoccupation with
| |
| − | symbolic logic is rather apt to retard the irresponsible
| |
| − | flight of philosophic fancy. Yet this is by no means always
| |
| − | an evil. By insisting on an accuracy that is painful to those
| |
| − | impatient to obtain sweeping and comforting, though hasty,
| |
| − | conclusions, symbolic logic is well calculated to remove the
| |
| − | great scandal of traditional philosophy—the claim of absolutely
| |
| − | certain results in fields where there is the greatest
| |
| − | conflict of opinion. This scandalous situation arises in part
| |
| − | from the fact that in popular exposition we do not have to
| |
| − | make our premises or assumptions explicit; hence all sorts
| |
| − | of dubious prejudices are implicitly appealed to as absolutely
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxv'>xxv</span>necessary principles. Also, by the use of popular
| |
| − | terms which have a variety of meanings, one easily slides
| |
| − | from one meaning to another, so that the most improbable
| |
| − | conclusions are thus derived from seeming truisms. By
| |
| − | making assumptions and rules explicit, and by using technical
| |
| − | terms that do not drag wide penumbras of meaning
| |
| − | with them, the method of symbolic logic may cruelly reduce
| |
| − | the sweeping pretensions of philosophy. But there is no
| |
| − | reason for supposing that pretentiousness rather than
| |
| − | humility is the way to philosophic salvation. Man is bound
| |
| − | to speculate about the universe beyond the range of his
| |
| − | knowledge, but he is not bound to indulge the vanity of
| |
| − | setting up such speculations as absolutely certain dogmas.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>There is, however, no reason for denying that greater
| |
| − | rigor and accuracy of exposition can really help us to discern
| |
| − | new truth. Modern mathematics since Gauss and
| |
| − | Weierstrass has actually been led to greater fruitfulness by
| |
| − | increased rigor which makes such procedure as the old
| |
| − | proofs of Taylor’s theorem no longer possible. The substitution
| |
| − | of rigorous analytic procedures for the old Euclidean
| |
| − | proofs based on intuition, has opened up vast fields
| |
| − | of geometry. Nor has this been without any effect on
| |
| − | philosophy. Where formerly concepts like infinity and continuity
| |
| − | were objects of gaping awe or the recurrent occasions
| |
| − | for intellectual violence,<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c011'><sup>[18]</sup></a> we are now beginning to
| |
| − | use them, thanks to Peirce and Royce, in accurate and
| |
| − | definable senses. Consider, for instance, the amount of
| |
| − | a priori nonsense which Peirce eliminates by pointing out
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxvi'>xxvi</span>that the application of the concept of continuity to a span
| |
| − | of consciousness removes the necessity for assuming a first
| |
| − | or last moment; so likewise the range of vision on a large
| |
| − | unobstructed ground has no line between the visible and the
| |
| − | invisible. These considerations will be found utterly destructive
| |
| − | of the force of the old arguments (fundamental
| |
| − | to Kant and others) as to the necessary infinity of time and
| |
| − | space. Similar enlightenment is soon likely to result from
| |
| − | the more careful use of terms like relative and absolute,
| |
| − | which are bones of contention in philosophy but Ariadne
| |
| − | threads of exploration in theoretical physics, because of
| |
| − | the definite symbolism of mathematics. Other important
| |
| − | truths made clear by symbolic logic is the hypothetical
| |
| − | character of universal propositions and the consequent insight
| |
| − | that no particulars can be deduced from universals
| |
| − | alone, since no number of hypotheses can without given data
| |
| − | establish an existing fact.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>There is, however, an even more positive direction in
| |
| − | which symbolic logic serves the interest of philosophy, and
| |
| − | that is in throwing light on the nature of symbols and on
| |
| − | the relation of meaning. Philosophers have light-heartedly
| |
| − | dismissed questions as to the nature of significant signs as
| |
| − | ‘merely’ (most fatal word!) a matter of language. But
| |
| − | Peirce in the paper on Man’s Glassy [Shakespearian for
| |
| − | Mirror-Like] Essence, endeavors to exhibit man’s whole
| |
| − | nature as symbolic.<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c011'><sup>[19]</sup></a> This is closely connected with his
| |
| − | logical doctrine which regards signs or symbols as one of
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxvii'>xxvii</span>the fundamental categories or aspects of the universe
| |
| − | (Thoughts and things are the other two). Independently
| |
| − | of Peirce but in line with his thought another great and
| |
| − | neglected thinker, Santayana, has shown that the whole life
| |
| − | of man that is bound up with the institutions of civilization,
| |
| − | is concerned with symbols.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It is not altogether accidental that, since Boole and
| |
| − | DeMorgan, those who have occupied themselves with symbolic
| |
| − | logic have felt called upon to deal with the problem
| |
| − | of probability. The reason is indicated by Peirce when he
| |
| − | formulates the problem of probable inference in such a way
| |
| − | as to make the old classic logic of absolutely true or false
| |
| − | conclusions, a limiting case (i.e., of values 1 and 0) of the
| |
| − | logic of probable inference whose values range all the way
| |
| − | between these two limits. This technical device is itself
| |
| − | the result of applying the principle of continuity to throw
| |
| − | two hitherto distinct types of reasoning into the same class.
| |
| − | The result is philosophically significant.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Where the classical logic spoke of major and minor
| |
| − | premises without establishing any really important difference
| |
| − | between the two, Peirce draws a distinction between
| |
| − | the premises and the guiding principle of our argument.
| |
| − | All reasoning is from some concrete situation to another.
| |
| − | The propositions which represent the first are the premises
| |
| − | in the strict sense of the word. But the feeling that certain
| |
| − | conclusions follow from these premises is conditioned by an
| |
| − | implicit or explicit belief in some guiding principle which
| |
| − | connects the premises and the conclusions. When such a
| |
| − | leading principle results in true conclusions in all cases of
| |
| − | true premises, we have logical deduction of the orthodox
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxviii'>xxviii</span>type. If, however, such a principle brings about a true conclusion
| |
| − | only in a certain proportion of cases, then we have
| |
| − | probability.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>This reduction of probability to the relative frequency
| |
| − | of true propositions in a class of propositions, was suggested
| |
| − | to Peirce by Venn’s <i>Logic of Chance</i>. Peirce uses it to
| |
| − | establish some truths of greatest importance to logic and
| |
| − | philosophy.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>He eliminates the difficulties of the old conceptualist
| |
| − | view, which made probability a measure of our ignorance
| |
| − | and yet had to admit that almost all fruitfulness of our
| |
| − | practical and scientific reasoning depended on the theorems
| |
| − | of probability. How could we safely predict phenomena by
| |
| − | measuring our ignorance?</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Probability being reduced to a matter of the relative frequency
| |
| − | of a class in a larger class or genus, it becomes,
| |
| − | strictly speaking, inapplicable to single cases by themselves.
| |
| − | A single penny will fall head or it will fall tail every time;
| |
| − | to-morrow it will rain, or it will not rain at all. The
| |
| − | probability of 1/2 or any other fraction means nothing in
| |
| − | the single case. It is only because we feel the single event
| |
| − | as representative of a class, as something which repeats
| |
| − | itself, that we speak elliptically of the probability of a
| |
| − | single event. Hence follows the important corollary that
| |
| − | reasoning with respect to the probability of this or that arrangement
| |
| − | of the universe would be valid only if universes
| |
| − | were as plentiful as blackberries.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>To be useful at all, theories must be simpler than the
| |
| − | complex facts which they seek to explain. Hence, it is
| |
| − | often convenient to employ a principle of certainty where
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxix'>xxix</span>the facts justify only a principle of some degree of probability.
| |
| − | In such cases we must be cautious in accepting
| |
| − | any extreme consequence of these principles, and also be
| |
| − | on guard against apparent refutations based on such extreme
| |
| − | consequences.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Finally I should like to emphasize the value of Peirce’s
| |
| − | theory of inference for a philosophy of civilization. To the
| |
| − | old argument that logic is of no importance because people
| |
| − | learn to reason, as to walk, by instinct and habit and not by
| |
| − | scientific instruction, Peirce admits<a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c011'><sup>[20]</sup></a> that “all human
| |
| − | knowledge up to the highest flights of science is but the
| |
| − | development of our inborn animal instincts.” But though
| |
| − | logical rules are first felt implicitly, bringing them into
| |
| − | explicit consciousness helps the process of analysis and
| |
| − | thus makes possible the recognition of old principles in novel
| |
| − | situations. This increases our range of adaptability to such
| |
| − | an extent as to justify a general distinction between the
| |
| − | slave of routine or habit and the freeman who can anticipate
| |
| − | and control nature through knowledge of principles. Peirce’s
| |
| − | analysis of the method of science as a method of attaining
| |
| − | stability of beliefs by free inquiry inviting all possible
| |
| − | doubt, in contrast with the methods of iteration (“will to
| |
| − | believe”) and social authority, is one of the best introductions
| |
| − | to a theory of liberal or Hellenic civilization, as
| |
| − | opposed to those of despotic societies. Authority has its
| |
| − | roots in the force of habit, but it cannot prevent new and
| |
| − | unorthodox ideas from arising; and in the effort to defend
| |
| − | authoritative social views men are apt to be far more ruthless
| |
| − | than in defending their own personal convictions.</p>
| |
| − | <div>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxx'>xxx</span>
| |
| − | <h3 class='c010'>IV</h3>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Not only the pragmatism and the radical empiricism of
| |
| − | James, but the idealism of Royce and the more recent
| |
| − | movement of neo-realism are largely indebted to Peirce.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>It may seem strange that the same thinker should be
| |
| − | claimed as foster-father of both recent idealism and realism,
| |
| − | and some may take it as another sign of his lack of consistency.
| |
| − | But this seeming strangeness is really due to
| |
| − | the looseness with which the antithesis between realism and
| |
| − | idealism has generally been put. If by idealism we denote
| |
| − | the nominalistic doctrine of Berkeley, then Peirce is clearly
| |
| − | not an idealist; and his work in logic as a study of types
| |
| − | of order (in which Royce followed him) is fundamental
| |
| − | for a logical realism. But if idealism means the old
| |
| − | Platonic doctrine that “ideas,” genera, or forms are not
| |
| − | merely mental but the real conditions of existence, we need
| |
| − | not wonder that Peirce was both idealist and realist.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Royce’s indebtedness to Peirce is principally in the use
| |
| − | of modern mathematical material, such as the recent development
| |
| − | of the concepts of infinity and continuity, to
| |
| − | throw light on fundamental questions of philosophy, such
| |
| − | as relation of the individual to God or the Universe. At
| |
| − | the end of the nineteenth century mathematics had almost
| |
| − | disappeared from the repertory of philosophy (cf. Külpe’s
| |
| − | <i>Introduction to Philosophy</i>), and Peirce’s essay on the
| |
| − | <i>Law of Mind</i> opened a new way which Royce followed in
| |
| − | his <i>World and the Individual</i>, to the great surprise of his
| |
| − | idealistic brethren. In his <i>Problem of Christianity</i> Royce
| |
| − | has also indicated his indebtedness to Peirce for his doctrine
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxxi'>xxxi</span>of social consciousness, the mind of the community,
| |
| − | and the process of interpretation. It may be that a great
| |
| − | deal of the similarity between the thoughts of these two
| |
| − | men is due to common sources, such as the works of Kant
| |
| − | and Schelling; but it is well to note that not only in his
| |
| − | later writings but also in his lectures and seminars Royce
| |
| − | continually referred to Peirce’s views.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The ground for the neo-realist movement in American
| |
| − | philosophy was largely prepared by the mathematical work
| |
| − | of Russell and by the utilization of mathematics to which
| |
| − | Royce was led by Peirce. The logic of Mr. Russell is
| |
| − | based, as he himself has pointed out, on a combination of
| |
| − | the work of Peirce and Peano. In this combination the
| |
| − | notation of Peano has proved of greater technical fluency,
| |
| − | but all of Peano’s results can also be obtained by Peirce’s
| |
| − | method as developed by Schroeder and Mrs. Ladd-Franklin.
| |
| − | But philosophically Peirce’s influence is far greater in
| |
| − | insisting that logic is not a branch of psychology, that it
| |
| − | is not concerned with merely mental processes, but with
| |
| − | objective relations. To the view that the laws of logic
| |
| − | represent “the necessities of thought,” that propositions
| |
| − | are true because “we can not help thinking so,” he answers:
| |
| − | “Exact logic will say that <i>C</i>’s following logically from <i>A</i> is
| |
| − | a state of things which no impotence of thought alone can
| |
| − | bring about.”<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c011'><sup>[21]</sup></a> “The question of validity is purely one
| |
| − | of fact and not of thinking.... It is not in the least the
| |
| − | question whether, when the premises are accepted by the
| |
| − | mind, we feel an impulse to accept the conclusion also.
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxxii'>xxxii</span>The true conclusion would remain true if we had no impulse
| |
| − | to accept it, and the false one would remain false
| |
| − | though we could not resist the tendency to believe in it.”<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c011'><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Since the days of Locke modern philosophy has been
| |
| − | almost entirely dominated by the assumption that one must
| |
| − | study the process of knowing before one can find out the
| |
| − | nature of things known; in other words, that psychology is
| |
| − | <i>the</i> central philosophic science. The result of this has been
| |
| − | an almost complete identification of philosophy with mental
| |
| − | science. Nor did the influence of biologic studies of the
| |
| − | middle of the nineteenth century shake the belief in that
| |
| − | banal dictum of philosophic mediocrity: “The proper
| |
| − | study of mankind is man.” The recent renaissance of
| |
| − | logical studies, and the remarkable progress of physics in
| |
| − | our own day bid fair to remind us that while the Lockian
| |
| − | way has brought some gains to philosophy, the more ancient
| |
| − | way of philosophy is by no means exhausted of promise.
| |
| − | Man cannot lose his interest in the great cosmic play.
| |
| − | Those who have faith in the ancient and fruitful approach
| |
| − | to philosophy through the doors of mathematics and physics
| |
| − | will find the writings of Charles S. Peirce full of suggestions.
| |
| − | That such an approach can also throw light on the
| |
| − | vexed problem of knowledge needs no assurance to those
| |
| − | acquainted with Plato and Aristotle. But I may conclude
| |
| − | by referring to Peirce’s doctrine of ideal as opposed to
| |
| − | sensible experiment,<a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c011'><sup>[23]</sup></a> and to his treatment of the question
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxxiii'>xxxiii</span>how it is that in spite of an infinity of possible hypotheses,
| |
| − | mankind has managed to make so many successful inductions.<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c011'><sup>[24]</sup></a>
| |
| − | And for the bearing of mathematical studies on the
| |
| − | wisdom of life, the following is certainly worth serious reflection:
| |
| − | “All human affairs rest upon probabilities. If
| |
| − | man were immortal [on earth] he could be perfectly sure
| |
| − | of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted
| |
| − | should betray his trust. He would break down, at last, as
| |
| − | every great fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization
| |
| − | does. In place of this we have death.” The recognition
| |
| − | that the death of the individual does not destroy the logical
| |
| − | meaning of his utterances, that this meaning involves the
| |
| − | ideal of an unlimited community, carries us into the heart
| |
| − | of pure religion.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class='chapter'>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span>
| |
| − | <h2 id='proem' class='c009'>PROEM <br /> THE RULES OF PHILOSOPHY<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c011'><sup>[25]</sup></a></h2>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Descartes is the father of modern philosophy, and the
| |
| − | spirit of Cartesianism—that which principally distinguishes
| |
| − | it from the scholasticism which it displaced—may
| |
| − | be compendiously stated as follows:</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>1. It teaches that philosophy must begin with universal
| |
| − | doubt; whereas scholasticism had never questioned fundamentals.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>2. It teaches that the ultimate test of certainty is to be
| |
| − | found in the individual consciousness; whereas scholasticism
| |
| − | had rested on the testimony of sages and of the Catholic
| |
| − | Church.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>3. The multiform argumentation of the middle ages is
| |
| − | replaced by a single thread of inference depending often
| |
| − | upon inconspicuous premises.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>4. Scholasticism had its mysteries of faith, but undertook
| |
| − | to explain all created things. But there are many facts
| |
| − | which Cartesianism not only does not explain but renders
| |
| − | absolutely inexplicable, unless to say that “God makes them
| |
| − | so” is to be regarded as an explanation.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>In some, or all of these respects, most modern philosophers
| |
| − | have been, in effect, Cartesians. Now without wishing
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>to return to scholasticism, it seems to me that modern
| |
| − | science and modern logic require us to stand upon a very
| |
| − | different platform from this.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>1. We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin
| |
| − | with all the prejudices which we actually have when we
| |
| − | enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are
| |
| − | not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which
| |
| − | it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this
| |
| − | initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real
| |
| − | doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will
| |
| − | ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those
| |
| − | beliefs which in form he has given up. It is, therefore, as
| |
| − | useless a preliminary as going to the North Pole would be
| |
| − | in order to get to Constantinople by coming down regularly
| |
| − | upon a meridian. A person may, it is true, in the course
| |
| − | of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing;
| |
| − | but in that case he doubts because he has a positive
| |
| − | reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim.
| |
| − | Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not
| |
| − | doubt in our hearts.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>2. The same formalism appears in the Cartesian criterion,
| |
| − | which amounts to this: “Whatever I am clearly convinced
| |
| − | of, is true.” If I were really convinced, I should have done
| |
| − | with reasoning and should require no test of certainty.
| |
| − | But then to make single individuals absolute judges of truth
| |
| − | is most pernicious. The result is that metaphysics has
| |
| − | reached a pitch of certainty far beyond that of the physical
| |
| − | sciences;—only they can agree upon nothing else. In
| |
| − | sciences in which men come to agreement, when a theory
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>has been broached it is considered to be on probation until
| |
| − | this agreement is reached. After it is reached, the question
| |
| − | of certainty becomes an idle one, because there is no one
| |
| − | left who doubts it. We individually cannot reasonably
| |
| − | hope to attain the ultimate philosophy which we pursue;
| |
| − | we can only seek it, therefore, for the community of philosophers.
| |
| − | Hence, if disciplined and candid minds carefully
| |
| − | examine a theory and refuse to accept it, this ought to create
| |
| − | doubts in the mind of the author of the theory himself.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>3. Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in
| |
| − | its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premises
| |
| − | which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust
| |
| − | rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than
| |
| − | to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not
| |
| − | form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link,
| |
| − | but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided
| |
| − | they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>4. Every unidealistic philosophy supposes some absolutely
| |
| − | inexplicable, unanalyzable ultimate; in short, something
| |
| − | resulting from mediation itself not susceptible of mediation.
| |
| − | Now that anything is thus inexplicable, can only be known
| |
| − | by reasoning from signs. But the only justification of an
| |
| − | inference from signs is that the conclusion explains the fact.
| |
| − | To suppose the fact absolutely inexplicable, is not to explain
| |
| − | it, and hence this supposition is never allowable.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <div class='chapter'>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>
| |
| − | <h2 id='part1' class='c009'>PART I <br /> CHANCE AND LOGIC <br /> (ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE LOGIC OF SCIENCE)</h2>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <div>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>
| |
| − | <h3 id='chap1-1' class='c001'>CHANCE AND LOGIC <br /> FIRST PAPER <br /> THE FIXATION OF BELIEF<a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c011'><sup>[26]</sup></a></h3>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <h4 class='c012'>I</h4>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>Few persons care to study logic, because everybody conceives
| |
| − | himself to be proficient enough in the art of reasoning
| |
| − | already. But I observe that this satisfaction is limited to
| |
| − | one’s own ratiocination, and does not extend to that of
| |
| − | other men.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>We come to the full possession of our power of drawing
| |
| − | inferences the last of all our faculties, for it is not so much
| |
| − | a natural gift as a long and difficult art. The history of
| |
| − | its practice would make a grand subject for a book. The
| |
| − | medieval schoolman, following the Romans, made logic the
| |
| − | earliest of a boy’s studies after grammar, as being very
| |
| − | easy. So it was as they understood it. Its fundamental
| |
| − | principle, according to them, was, that all knowledge rests
| |
| − | on either authority or reason; but that whatever is deduced
| |
| − | by reason depends ultimately on a premise derived from
| |
| − | authority. Accordingly, as soon as a boy was perfect in
| |
| − | the syllogistic procedure, his intellectual kit of tools was
| |
| − | held to be complete.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>To Roger Bacon, that remarkable mind who in the middle
| |
| − | of the thirteenth century was almost a scientific man, the
| |
| − | schoolmen’s conception of reasoning appeared only an obstacle
| |
| − | to truth. He saw that experience alone teaches anything—a
| |
| − | proposition which to us seems easy to understand,
| |
| − | because a distinct conception of experience has been handed
| |
| − | down to us from former generations; which to him also
| |
| − | seemed perfectly clear, because its difficulties had not yet
| |
| − | unfolded themselves. Of all kinds of experience, the best,
| |
| − | he thought, was interior illumination, which teaches many
| |
| − | things about Nature which the external senses could never
| |
| − | discover, such as the transubstantiation of bread.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Four centuries later, the more celebrated Bacon, in the
| |
| − | first book of his “Novum Organum,” gave his clear account
| |
| − | of experience as something which must be open to verification
| |
| − | and reëxamination. But, superior as Lord Bacon’s
| |
| − | conception is to earlier notions, a modern reader who is not
| |
| − | in awe of his grandiloquence is chiefly struck by the inadequacy
| |
| − | of his view of scientific procedure. That we have
| |
| − | only to make some crude experiments, to draw up briefs
| |
| − | of the results in certain blank forms, to go through these
| |
| − | by rule, checking off everything disproved and setting down
| |
| − | the alternatives, and that thus in a few years physical
| |
| − | science would be finished up—what an idea! “He wrote
| |
| − | on science like a Lord Chancellor,”<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c011'><sup>[27]</sup></a> indeed.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The early scientists, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler,
| |
| − | Galileo and Gilbert, had methods more like those of their
| |
| − | modern brethren. Kepler undertook to draw a curve
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>through the places of Mars;<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c011'><sup>[28]</sup></a> and his greatest service to
| |
| − | science was in impressing on men’s minds that this was the
| |
| − | thing to be done if they wished to improve astronomy;
| |
| − | that they were not to content themselves with inquiring
| |
| − | whether one system of epicycles was better than another
| |
| − | but that they were to sit down by the figures and find out
| |
| − | what the curve, in truth, was. He accomplished this by his
| |
| − | incomparable energy and courage, blundering along in the
| |
| − | most inconceivable way (to us), from one irrational hypothesis
| |
| − | to another, until, after trying twenty-two of these,
| |
| − | he fell, by the mere exhaustion of his invention, upon the
| |
| − | orbit which a mind well furnished with the weapons of
| |
| − | modern logic would have tried almost at the outset.<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c011'><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>In the same way, every work of science great enough to
| |
| − | be remembered for a few generations affords some
| |
| − | exemplification of the defective state of the art of reasoning
| |
| − | of the time when it was written; and each chief step in
| |
| − | science has been a lesson in logic. It was so when Lavoisier
| |
| − | and his contemporaries took up the study of Chemistry.
| |
| − | The old chemist’s maxim had been, “Lege, lege, lege,
| |
| − | labora, ora, et relege.” Lavoisier’s method was not to read
| |
| − | and pray, not to dream that some long and complicated
| |
| − | chemical process would have a certain effect, to put it into
| |
| − | practice with dull patience, after its inevitable failure to
| |
| − | dream that with some modification it would have another
| |
| − | result, and to end by publishing the last dream as a fact:
| |
| − | his way was to carry his mind into his laboratory, and to
| |
| − | make of his alembics and cucurbits instruments of thought,
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>giving a new conception of reasoning as something which
| |
| − | was to be done with one’s eyes open, by manipulating real
| |
| − | things instead of words and fancies.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The Darwinian controversy is, in large part, a question
| |
| − | of logic. Mr. Darwin proposed to apply the statistical
| |
| − | method to biology. The same thing has been done in a
| |
| − | widely different branch of science, the theory of gases.
| |
| − | Though unable to say what the movement of any particular
| |
| − | molecule of gas would be on a certain hypothesis regarding
| |
| − | the constitution of this class of bodies, Clausius and Maxwell
| |
| − | were yet able, by the application of the doctrine of
| |
| − | probabilities, to predict that in the long run such and such
| |
| − | a proportion of the molecules would, under given circumstances,
| |
| − | acquire such and such velocities; that there would
| |
| − | take place, every second, such and such a number of collisions,
| |
| − | etc.; and from these propositions they were able to
| |
| − | deduce certain properties of gases, especially in regard to
| |
| − | their heat-relations. In like manner, Darwin, while unable
| |
| − | to say what the operation of variation and natural selection
| |
| − | in every individual case will be, demonstrates that in the
| |
| − | long run they will adapt animals to their circumstances.
| |
| − | Whether or not existing animal forms are due to such action,
| |
| − | or what position the theory ought to take, forms the
| |
| − | subject of a discussion in which questions of fact and
| |
| − | questions of logic are curiously interlaced.</p>
| |
| − | <h4 class='c012'>II</h4>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>The object of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration
| |
| − | of what we already know, something else which we do
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>not know. Consequently, reasoning is good if it be such
| |
| − | as to give a true conclusion from true premises, and not
| |
| − | otherwise. Thus, the question of validity is purely one of
| |
| − | fact and not of thinking. A being the premises and B being
| |
| − | the conclusion, the question is, whether these facts are
| |
| − | really so related that if A is B is. If so, the inference is
| |
| − | valid; if not, not. It is not in the least the question
| |
| − | whether, when the premises are accepted by the mind, we
| |
| − | feel an impulse to accept the conclusion also. It is true
| |
| − | that we do generally reason correctly by nature. But that
| |
| − | is an accident; the true conclusion would remain true if we
| |
| − | had no impulse to accept it; and the false one would remain
| |
| − | false, though we could not resist the tendency to believe
| |
| − | in it.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>We are, doubtless, in the main logical animals, but we
| |
| − | are not perfectly so. Most of us, for example, are naturally
| |
| − | more sanguine and hopeful than logic would justify.
| |
| − | We seem to be so constituted that in the absence of any
| |
| − | facts to go upon we are happy and self-satisfied; so that the
| |
| − | effect of experience is continually to counteract our hopes
| |
| − | and aspirations. Yet a lifetime of the application of this
| |
| − | corrective does not usually eradicate our sanguine disposition.
| |
| − | Where hope is unchecked by any experience, it is
| |
| − | likely that our optimism is extravagant. Logicality in regard
| |
| − | to practical matters is the most useful quality an animal
| |
| − | can possess, and might, therefore, result from the
| |
| − | action of natural selection; but outside of these it is probably
| |
| − | of more advantage to the animal to have his mind
| |
| − | filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently
| |
| − | of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>That which determines us, from given premises, to draw
| |
| − | one inference rather than another, is some habit of mind,
| |
| − | whether it be constitutional or acquired. The habit is good
| |
| − | or otherwise, according as it produces true conclusions from
| |
| − | true premises or not; and an inference is regarded as valid
| |
| − | or not, without reference to the truth or falsity of its conclusion
| |
| − | specially, but according as the habit which determines
| |
| − | it is such as to produce true conclusions in general
| |
| − | or not. The particular habit of mind which governs this
| |
| − | or that inference may be formulated in a proposition whose
| |
| − | truth depends on the validity of the inferences which the
| |
| − | habit determines; and such a formula is called a <i>guiding
| |
| − | principle</i> of inference. Suppose, for example, that we observe
| |
| − | that a rotating disk of copper quickly comes to rest
| |
| − | when placed between the poles of a magnet, and we infer
| |
| − | that this will happen with every disk of copper. The guiding
| |
| − | principle is, that what is true of one piece of copper is
| |
| − | true of another. Such a guiding principle with regard to
| |
| − | copper would be much safer than with regard to many other
| |
| − | substances—brass, for example.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>A book might be written to signalize all the most important
| |
| − | of these guiding principles of reasoning. It would
| |
| − | probably be, we must confess, of no service to a person
| |
| − | whose thought is directed wholly to practical subjects, and
| |
| − | whose activity moves along thoroughly beaten paths. The
| |
| − | problems which present themselves to such a mind are
| |
| − | matters of routine which he has learned once for all to
| |
| − | handle in learning his business. But let a man venture into
| |
| − | an unfamiliar field, or where his results are not continually
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>checked by experience, and all history shows that the most
| |
| − | masculine intellect will ofttimes lose his orientation and
| |
| − | waste his efforts in directions which bring him no nearer to
| |
| − | his goal, or even carry him entirely astray. He is like a
| |
| − | ship on the open sea, with no one on board who understands
| |
| − | the rules of navigation. And in such a case some general
| |
| − | study of the guiding principles of reasoning would be sure
| |
| − | to be found useful.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The subject could hardly be treated, however, without
| |
| − | being first limited; since almost any fact may serve as a
| |
| − | guiding principle. But it so happens that there exists a
| |
| − | division among facts, such that in one class are all those
| |
| − | which are absolutely essential as guiding principles, while
| |
| − | in the other are all those which have any other interest as
| |
| − | objects of research. This division is between those which
| |
| − | are necessarily taken for granted in asking whether a certain
| |
| − | conclusion follows from certain premises, and those
| |
| − | which are not implied in that question. A moment’s thought
| |
| − | will show that a variety of facts are already assumed when
| |
| − | the logical question is first asked. It is implied, for instance,
| |
| − | that there are such states of mind as doubt and
| |
| − | belief—that a passage from one to the other is possible,
| |
| − | the object of thought remaining the same, and that this
| |
| − | transition is subject to some rules which all minds are alike
| |
| − | bound by. As these are facts which we must already know
| |
| − | before we can have any clear conception of reasoning at all,
| |
| − | it cannot be supposed to be any longer of much interest to
| |
| − | inquire into their truth or falsity. On the other hand, it
| |
| − | is easy to believe that those rules of reasoning which are
| |
| − | deduced from the very idea of the process are the ones
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>which are the most essential; and, indeed, that so long as it
| |
| − | conforms to these it will, at least, not lead to false conclusions
| |
| − | from true premises. In point of fact, the importance
| |
| − | of what may be deduced from the assumptions involved
| |
| − | in the logical question turns out to be greater than might
| |
| − | be supposed, and this for reasons which it is difficult to exhibit
| |
| − | at the outset. The only one which I shall here mention
| |
| − | is, that conceptions which are really products of logical
| |
| − | reflections, without being readily seen to be so, mingle with
| |
| − | our ordinary thoughts, and are frequently the causes of
| |
| − | great confusion. This is the case, for example, with the
| |
| − | conception of quality. A quality as such is never an object
| |
| − | of observation. We can see that a thing is blue or green,
| |
| − | but the quality of being blue and the quality of being green
| |
| − | are not things which we see; they are products of logical
| |
| − | reflections. The truth is, that common-sense, or thought
| |
| − | as it first emerges above the level of the narrowly practical,
| |
| − | is deeply imbued with that bad logical quality to which the
| |
| − | epithet <i>metaphysical</i> is commonly applied; and nothing can
| |
| − | clear it up but a severe course of logic.</p>
| |
| − | <h4 class='c012'>III</h4>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>We generally know when we wish to ask a question and
| |
| − | when we wish to pronounce a judgment, for there is a dissimilarity
| |
| − | between the sensation of doubting and that of
| |
| − | believing.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>But this is not all which distinguishes doubt from belief.
| |
| − | There is a practical difference. Our beliefs guide our desires
| |
| − | and shape our actions. The Assassins, or followers
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>of the Old Man of the Mountain, used to rush into death at
| |
| − | his least command, because they believed that obedience
| |
| − | to him would insure everlasting felicity. Had they doubted
| |
| − | this, they would not have acted as they did. So it is with
| |
| − | every belief, according to its degree. The feeling of believing
| |
| − | is a more or less sure indication of there being established
| |
| − | in our nature some habit which will determine our
| |
| − | actions. Doubt never has such an effect.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Nor must we overlook a third point of difference. Doubt
| |
| − | is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle
| |
| − | to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the
| |
| − | latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish
| |
| − | to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else.<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c011'><sup>[30]</sup></a> On
| |
| − | the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing,
| |
| − | but to believing just what we do believe.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>Thus, both doubt and belief have positive effects upon us,
| |
| − | though very different ones. Belief does not make us act at
| |
| − | once, but puts us into such a condition that we shall behave
| |
| − | in a certain way, when the occasion arises. Doubt has not
| |
| − | the least effect of this sort, but stimulates us to action until
| |
| − | it is destroyed. This reminds us of the irritation of a nerve
| |
| − | and the reflex action produced thereby; while for the analogue
| |
| − | of belief, in the nervous system, we must look to what
| |
| − | are called nervous associations—for example, to that habit
| |
| − | of the nerves in consequence of which the smell of a peach
| |
| − | will make the mouth water.</p>
| |
| − | <div>
| |
| − | <span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>
| |
| − | <h4 class='c012'>IV</h4>
| |
| − | </div>
| |
| − | <p class='c006'>The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state
| |
| − | of belief. I shall term this struggle <i>inquiry</i>, though it must
| |
| − | be admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt
| |
| − | designation.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>The irritation of doubt is the only immediate motive for
| |
| − | the struggle to attain belief. It is certainly best for us
| |
| − | that our beliefs should be such as may truly guide our
| |
| − | actions so as to satisfy our desires; and this reflection will
| |
| − | make us reject any belief which does not seem to have been
| |
| − | so formed as to insure this result. But it will only do so
| |
| − | by creating a doubt in the place of that belief. With the
| |
| − | doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation
| |
| − | of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the
| |
| − | settlement of opinion. We may fancy that this is not
| |
| − | enough for us, and that we seek not merely an opinion,
| |
| − | but a true opinion. But put this fancy to the test, and it
| |
| − | proves groundless; for as soon as a firm belief is reached
| |
| − | we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be false or true.
| |
| − | And it is clear that nothing out of the sphere of our knowledge
| |
| − | can be our object, for nothing which does not affect
| |
| − | the mind can be a motive for a mental effort. The most
| |
| − | that can be maintained is, that we seek for a belief that we
| |
| − | shall <i>think</i> to be true. But we think each one of our beliefs
| |
| − | to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>That the settlement of opinion is the sole end of inquiry
| |
| − | is a very important proposition. It sweeps away, at once,
| |
| − | various vague and erroneous conceptions of proof. A few
| |
| − | of these may be noticed here.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>1. Some philosophers have imagined that to start an inquiry
| |
| − | it was only necessary to utter or question or set it
| |
| − | down on paper, and have even recommended us to begin
| |
| − | our studies with questioning everything! But the mere
| |
| − | putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does
| |
| − | not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief. There
| |
| − | must be a real and living doubt, and without all this discussion
| |
| − | is idle.</p>
| |
| − | | |
| − | <p class='c005'>2. It is a very common idea that a demonstration must
| |
| − | rest on some ultimate and absolutely indubitable propositions.
| |
| − | These, according to one school, are first principles
| |
| − | of a general nature; according to another, are first sensations.
| |
| − | But, in point of fact, an inquiry, to have that completely
| |
| − | satisfactory result called demonstration, has only
| |
| − | to start with propositions perfectly free from all actual
| |
| − | doubt. If the premises are not in fact doubted at all, they
| |
| − | cannot be more satisfactory than they are.</p>
| |
| | | | |
| | </body> | | </body> |
| Ligne 1 440 : |
Ligne 232 : |
| | </syntaxghighlight> | | </syntaxghighlight> |
| | | | |
| | + | [[Fichier:Tableau index.png|vignette|index]] |
| | == Base de données == | | == Base de données == |
| | [[Fichier:BASEDEDONNEES.png|vignette|plan base de données "FURCY"]] | | [[Fichier:BASEDEDONNEES.png|vignette|plan base de données "FURCY"]] |
| | + | [[Fichier:Référence furcy.png|vignette|plan base de données "FURCY"]] |
| | + | |
| | + | == FURCY_ARCHIVES_BASE DE DONNEES == |
| | + | |
| | + | Au début de mon projet de recherche, je me suis questionné sur les images qui circulaient autour de moi et dans ce flux constant d'images, une infine minorité représentée des POC que ce soit à l'image où dans la production de ces images. |
| | + | A mes yeux, ses images ont une importance! Elles permettent de montrer que des corps racisés ont pu exister.De par l'existence et la diffusion de ces images, elles permettent de raconter une histoire et porter des voix qui n'ont pas toujours pu être entendues. |
| | + | |
| | + | Dans le cadre du cours de design numérique, j'ai remis la main sur des tableaux réalisé au cours de mon M1. J'appellais cela archives mais on soit, c'est le début d'une base de données. Où on y retrouvait pour chacune des images, un maximum d'informations dans la mesure du possible. On y stipule le nom du/de la photographe, l'année de création/prise de vue de l'image , le lieux où l'image a été prise et surtout, le plus important, le contexte. |
| | + | |
| | + | |
| | + | [[Fichier:BASEDEDONNEES.png|vignette|plan base de données "FURCY"]] |
| | + | |
| | + | |
| | + | === création des tableaux === |
| | + | |
| | + | A force d'avoir téléchargé des images, j'ai procédé à un rassemblement de ces images et une création en sous-catégories, par thème. |
| | + | rassembler celles qui viennent de photos de livres, internet: youtube, captures d'ecrans, screenshot sur mobile, instagram, pinterest, tumblr, ancienne photo de couvertures facebook,... |
| | + | De là, je glissais une par une les images dans google images pour retrouver des articles où l'image avait pu être utililsée en espereant y trouver un nom derriere l'image ou un contexte. |
| | + | Pour beaucoup d'images, la date et le contexte est facilement trouvable mais ce qui est plus problématique, c'est que les crédits ne sont pas toujours affiché sur les articles de medias, ce qui complique le fait de retouver le.la photographe. |
| | + | [[Fichier:ORGANISATION DES DOSSIERS.png|vignette]] |
| | + | |
| | + | === siteweb === |
| | + | |
| | + | Pour avancer dans la création de cette plateforme de diffusion, j'ai du y faire un tri et prendre les images qui me semblaient les plus pertinentes et couvraient le plus des sous dossiers abordés plus haut soit: sport, architecture des villes, familles, culture:art,... |
| | + | J'ai fini par les intégrer à mon code HTML et jouer sur la maniere de les presenter via le CSS. |
| | + | |
| | + | template de reference: |
| | + | je voudrais pouvoir faire apparaitre certaines des informations en encadrement de l'image + chaque image est cliquable et mene à un contenu: article, video, podcast qui nous permet d'en apprendre plus sur le.la photographe, le contexte où ce qui se déroule à travers cet instant capturé. |
| | + | |
| | + | === base données === |
| | + | |
| | + | L'idée est de pouvoir y ajouter des informations esthétiques dans l'index, un critère d'analyse de ces images qui parfois peuvent retirer le propos qui peut en ressortir. |
| | + | on y ajoute: le cadraage, la colorimetrie qui peuvent être des bons indicateurs sur la periode, ou non - |
| | + | Etant donné que depuis l'apparition des appareils photos sur nos mobiles, capturer des images en portrait et couleur, depuis le numérique sont devenus des paramètres standards dans une photographie vernaculaire.(à voir ce qui en ressort) |
| | + | |
| | + | Pour pouvoir lier cette base de données et mon siteweb, j'ai crée une fiche contact quui permet d'alimenter la base de données, |
| | + | pour l'instant, j'y ai encore quelques problèmes pour que l'upload se fasse réellement mais la structure est deja presénte, |
| | + | |
| | + | - ex pbs rencontrés: |
| | + | - $file_date = $_POST['DATE']; ou $file_date = $_FILES['DATE']; |
| | + | - retrouver le user name + passeword ; passage dans le terminal pour voir que accesible dans MAMP |
| | + | $sname = "localhost"; |
| | + | $uname = "root"; |
| | + | $password = "root"; |
| | + | - <form action="UPLOAD2.php" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"> à bien placer au debut du form |
| | + | - <div class="custom_select" > |
| | + | <select name="COLORIMETRIE"> |
| | + | <option value="noir/blanc">NOIR/BLANC</option> |
| | + | <option value="couleur">COULEUR</option> |
| | + | <option value="sepia">SEPIA</option> |
| | + | </select> |
| | + | </div> |
| | + | custom select, bien placer le value dans chaque option |
| | + | - php: plavcer des echos entre les requests pour voir à quelle étape se situe le problème |
