1. The Architecture of Theories 157
2. The Doctrine of Necessity Examined 179
3. The Law of Mind 202
4. Man’s Glassy Essence 238
5. Evolutionary Love 267
SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY—The Pragmatism of Peirce, by John Dewey 301
INTRODUCTION
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.
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 _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, and later, in the
_Monist_ papers reprinted as Part II 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 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.
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.
I
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 which he was the first
American representative, gave unusual attention to his paper, and men
like Cellerier and Plantamour acknowledged their obligations to him.[1]
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 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.”[2] 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.”[3]
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 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 _haecceitas_ or _thisness_) 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.[4] 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.
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 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 _creed_ 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 _procedure_ 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.
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.[5] 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 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;[6] 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.”
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.[7]
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 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.
Of the doctrine of continuity we are told expressly[8] 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 as continuity.”[9]
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.[10] 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.
II
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.
There can be little doubt that Peirce was led to the formulation of the
principle of pragmatism through the influence of Chauncey Wright.[11]
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 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.”[12]
In the earlier statement of the pragmatic maxim,[13] 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.[14]
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.[15] It
seemed to Peirce that such emphasis 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.
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.
It is of interest to observe that though Peirce is an ardent admirer of
Darwin’s method, his scientific caution makes 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.
III
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 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.”[16] 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 unwieldy symbolism. Still, modern
mathematical logic, such as that of Russell’s _Principles of
Mathematics_, is but a development of Peirce’s logic of relatives.
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’ _Survey of
Symbolic Logic_.[17] I refer to it here only to remind the reader that
the _Illustrations of the Logic of the Sciences_ (Part I of this volume)
have a background of patient detailed work which is still being
developed to-day.
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 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.
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,[18] 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 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.
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.[19] This is closely
connected with his logical doctrine which regards signs or symbols as
one of 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.
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.
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
type. If, however, such a principle brings about a true conclusion only
in a certain proportion of cases, then we have probability.
This reduction of probability to the relative frequency of true
propositions in a class of propositions, was suggested to Peirce by
Venn’s _Logic of Chance_. Peirce uses it to establish some truths of
greatest importance to logic and philosophy.
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?
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.
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 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.
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[20]
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.
IV
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.
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.
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 _Introduction to
Philosophy_), and Peirce’s essay on the _Law of Mind_ opened a new way
which Royce followed in his _World and the Individual_, to the great
surprise of his idealistic brethren. In his _Problem of Christianity_
Royce has also indicated his indebtedness to Peirce for his doctrine 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.
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 _C_’s
following logically from _A_ is a state of things which no impotence of
thought alone can bring about.”[21] “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. 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.”[22]
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 _the_ 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,[23] and to his treatment of the question how it is
that in spite of an infinity of possible hypotheses, mankind has managed
to make so many successful inductions.[24] 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.
Footnote 1:
See Plantamour’s “_Recherches Experimentales sur le mouvement
simultané d’un pendule et de ses supports_,” Geneva, 1878, pp. 3-4.
Footnote 2:
P. 190.
Footnote 3:
Pp. 162-163.
Footnote 4:
Pp. 249 ff.
Footnote 5:
James, _Pluralistic Universe_, pp. 398-400.
Footnote 6:
Royce, _Studies in Good and Evil_, and _The Problem of Christianity_,
esp. Vol. 2. Baldwin (_Mental Development_) is heavily indebted to
Royce in this respect.
Footnote 7:
These articles are by-products or fragments of a comprehensive work on
_Logic_ on which Peirce was engaged for many years. For the writing of
this book, Royce declared, no greater mind or greater erudition has
appeared in America. Only several chapters seem to have been finished,
and will doubtless be included with other hitherto unpublished
manuscripts in the complete edition of Peirce’s writings that is now
being prepared by Harvard University.
Footnote 8:
Baldwin’s _Dictionary_, article Synechism.
Footnote 9:
_Ib._
Footnote 10:
Baldwin’s _Dictionary_, art. Individual: “Everything whose identity
consists in a continuity of reactions will be a single logical
individual.”
Footnote 11:
The personal relations between Peirce and Wright were thus described
by Peirce in a letter to Mrs. Ladd-Franklin (_Journal of Philosophy_,
Vol. 13, p. 719): “It must have been about 1857 when I first made the
acquaintance of Chauncey Wright, a mind about on the level of J. S.
Mill. He was a thorough mathematician. He had a most penetrating
intellect.—He and I used to have long and very lively and close
disputations lasting two or three hours daily for many years. In the
sixties I started a little club called ‘The Metaphysical Club.’—Wright
was the strongest member and probably I was next.—Then there were
Frank Abbott, William James and others.” “It was there that the name
and the doctrine of pragmatism saw the light.” It might be added that
Peirce’s tychism is indebted to Wright’s doctrine of accidents and
“cosmic weather,” a doctrine which maintained against LaPlace that a
mind knowing nature from moment to moment is bound to encounter
genuine novelty in phenomena, which no amount of knowledge would
enable us to foresee. See Wright’s _Philosophical Discussions_—1876,
also Cambridge _Hist. of American Literature_, Vol. 3, p. 234.
Footnote 12:
_Monist_, Vol. 15, p. 180.
Footnote 13:
This volume, pp. 43-45.
Footnote 14:
“To say that we live for the sake of action would be to say that there
is no such thing as a rational purport.” _Monist_, Vol. XV, p. 175.
Footnote 15:
The letter to Mrs. Ladd-Franklin quoted before, explains why James,
though always loyal to Peirce and anxious to give him credit whenever
possible, could not understand the latter’s lectures on pragmatism.
Peirce’s incidental judgments on others is worth quoting here:
“Modern psychologists are so soaked with sensationalism that they
cannot understand anything that does not mean that. How can I, to whom
nothing seems so thoroughly real as generals, and who regards Truth
and Justice as _literally_ the most powerful powers in the world,
expect to be understood by the thoroughgoing Wundtian? But the curious
thing is to see absolute idealists tainted with this disease,—or men
who, like John Dewey, hover between Absolute Idealism and
Sensationalism. Royce’s opinions as developed in his _World and
Individualism_ are extremely near to mine. His insistence on the
elements of purpose in intellectual concepts is essentially the
pragmatic position.”
Footnote 16:
Baldwin’s _Dictionary_, art. Method.
Footnote 17:
“Peirce anticipated the most important procedures of his successors
even when he did not work them out himself. Again and again one finds
the clue to the most recent developments in the writings of Peirce,”
Lewis’ _Survey of Symbolic Logic_, p. 79.
Footnote 18:
Hans Breitmann is symbolic of those who “solved the infinite as one
eternal sphere.”
Footnote 19:
See _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, Vol. 2, pp. 155-157, article
on A New List of Categories in the Proceedings of the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 7, 287-298 and article on _Sign_, in
Baldwin’s _Dictionary_.
Footnote 20:
_Studies in Logic_, p. 181.
Footnote 21:
_Monist_, Vol. 7, p. 27. _Cf._ _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_,
Vol. 2, p. 207; _Popular Science Monthly_, Vol. 58, pp. 305-306.
Footnote 22:
This vol., p. 15.
Footnote 23:
Suggestive for a theory of the metaphysics of fictions is the
suggestion (p. 46) “that the question of what would occur under
circumstances which do not actually arise, is not a question of fact,
but only of the most perspicuous arrangement of them.” This
arrangement is, of course, not merely subjective.
Footnote 24:
Pp. 128-129, _cf._ _Monist_, Vol. 7, p. 206, and _Logical Studies_,
pp. 175 ff.
PROEM
THE RULES OF PHILOSOPHY[25]
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:
1. It teaches that philosophy must begin with universal doubt; whereas
scholasticism had never questioned fundamentals.
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.
3. The multiform argumentation of the middle ages is replaced by a
single thread of inference depending often upon inconspicuous premises.
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.
In some, or all of these respects, most modern philosophers have been,
in effect, Cartesians. Now without wishing 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Footnote 25:
From the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, vol. 2, p. 140.