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Open Brunsondiss.Pdf The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Liberal Arts PRAGMATISM AND THE PAST: CHARLES PEIRCE AND THE CONDUCT OF MEMORY AND HISTORY A Dissertation in Philosophy by Daniel J. Brunson © 2010 Daniel J. Brunson Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2010 The dissertation of Daniel J. Brunson was reviewed and approved* by the following: Vincent M. Colapietro Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee Brady Bowman Assistant Professor of Philosophy Christopher Long Associate Professor of Philosophy Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies, College of Liberal Arts Jennifer Mensch Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Science, Technology, and Society William Pencak Professor of American History Nancy A. Tuana DuPont/Class of 1949 Professor of Philosophy Director, Rock Ethics Institute Director of Philosophy Graduate Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School ii Abstract My dissertation is entitled Pragmatism and the Past: CS Peirce on the Conduct of Memory and History. I start from the longstanding criticism that pragmatism unduly neglects the past in favor of the future. As a response, I interpret Peirce‘s pragmatism and its associated doctrines in light of his accounts of memory, history, and testimony. In particular, I follow Peirce‘s own example of a deep engagement with the history of philosophy and related fields. For example, Peirce‘s account of memory is linked to the development of a notion of the unconscious, which brings in both his work as an experimental psychologist and his interaction with figures such as Helmholtz, Wundt and James. Although my dissertation is primarily a recovery of Peirce‘s philosophy, it is influenced by a variety of contemporary approaches to issues of memory and testimony, including thinkers such as Coady, Danto, Ricouer, and their commentators. Overall, I show that Peirce‘s pragmatism calls for a robust notion of the past, rather than denying or reducing it to the future. Moreover, Peirce‘s pragmatism offers a promising heuristic for any field of inquiry that concerns the past, and, as Peirce readily considers history a science, stands as a contribution to philosophy of science in general. Finally, Peirce‘s account of the role of testimony in inquiry offers the promise of a fruitful contribution to another subject of great interest in contemporary philosophy. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………. v Chapter I: Peirce‘s Pragmatism and Methodeutic …………………….. 1 A: The Pragmatic Maxim ………………………………………… 5 B: Pragmatism and its Companions ……………………………. 22 C: Pragmatism considered Architectonically ………………….. 27 D: Pragmatism as the Methodeutic of Abduction …………….. 52 Chapter II: Memory and Modernity ……………………………………. 59 A: Peirce and Modernity ………………………………………… 78 B: Descartes and the Reliability of Memory …………………... 82 C: Berkeley and the Content of Memory ………………………. 93 D: Thomas Reid and the Force of Memory ……………………. 103 Chapter III: Perception and Instinct ……………………………………. 116 A: Peirce as Psychologist ………………………………………… 117 B: The Modes of Consciousness ………………………………… 126 C: Peirce‘s Account of Perception ………………………………. 136 D: Instincts ………………………...………………………………. 157 Chapter IV: The Logic of Assessing Testimonies …………………….. 166 A: Peirce 1901 Monograph ……………………………………… 167 B: Explaining Assertions ……….……………………………….. 181 C: An Example of Abduction under Difficulties …..………… 201 Chapter V: Historical Practices ………………………………………… 213 A: Scientific Natures …………………………………………….. 215 B: Scientific History………………….…………………………… 219 C: The Alleged Futurity of Yesterday? ………………………… 235 References …………………………………………………………………….. 245 iv Acknowledgments In a dissertation on remembrance in its various forms, an acknowledgement of debt is especially pertinent. While I am thankful to all of my teachers over the years, three deserve special mention; what I could call, in only something of a pun, my three cotary professors. After stumbling into a philosophy major at IUPUI, André De Tienne saw that I could be actually a philosopher, and began the long process of directing and nurturing my talents in this pursuit. Laurence Lampert also provided a strong model of philosophical engagement, and did much to teach me how the read and write with a critical eye. In graduate school, by far my greatest influence was Vincent Colapietro. Of all that Vincent has taught me, the responsibilities of a philosophical life have been the most important. Among my colleagues over the years, the following stand out by virtue of their friendship and constant assistance in clarifying my own thoughts on Peirce and other matters: David Agler, Will Behun, Masato Ishida, Joshua Miller, and Toby Svoboda. Perhaps my greatest blessing is a surfeit of family, original and acquired. I would be little without the generous support of my parents, Michael and Vanessa, and the camaraderie of my non-biological brothers. Finally, the person most responsible for my well-being throughout this process is my love, Tracy Peshoff, and I dedicate this work to her. Our son, Malcolm, will get the next one. v Pragmaticism consists in holding that the purport of any concept is its conceived bearing upon our conduct. How, then, does the Past bear upon conduct? The answer is self-evident: whenever we set out to do anything, we ‗go upon,‘ we base our conduct on facts already known, and for these we can only draw upon our memory. It is true that we may institute a new investigation for the purpose; but its discoveries will only become applicable to conduct after they have been made and reduced to a memorial maxim. In short, the Past is the storehouse of all our knowledge. vi A certain maxim of Logic which I have called Pragmatism has recommended itself to me for divers reasons and on sundry considerations. Having taken it as my guide in most of my thought, I find that as the years of my knowledge of it lengthen, my sense of the importance of it presses upon me more and more. If it is only true, it is certainly a wonderfully efficient instrument. It is not to philosophy only that it is applicable. I have found it of signal service in every branch of science that I have studied. -Charles Sanders Peirce, CP 5.14 [1903] Art and science have their meeting point in method. Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803 - 1873) Chapter I: Peirce’s Pragmatism and Methodeutic Introduction The purpose of this chapter is twofold. My first task is to provide a synoptic account of Peirce‘s pragmatism, one that recognizes the development of his thought while still maintaining a consistent interpretation of Peirce‘s philosophy. While there are several fine systematic expositions of Peirce‘s thought, the needs of the later chapters of this dissertation require a concise presentation of the basic concepts and terms of Peirce‘s work. In particular, I will articulate Peirce‘s pragmatism in its early formulation as a logical maxim for clarifying the meaning of concepts, such as ‗hardness‘, or ‗reality‘ (Part A). 1 Then I will briefly characterize pragmatism in its relation to Peirce‘s other philosophical positions, such as synechism, the doctrine of 1 CP 5.18 [1903]: ―On their side [other pragmatists], one of the faults that I think they might find with me is that I make pragmatism to be a mere maxim of logic instead of a sublime principle of speculative philosophy.‖ continuity (Part B). 2 More substantively, I will then offer an interpretation of the organizing principles of Peirce‘s thought, his cenopythagorean categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, and then use these concepts to present a robust characterization of Peirce‘s semeiotic, the study of signs (Part C).3 This effort transitions into the second task of this chapter, which is an argument that the shift in pragmatism as a maxim to achieve a third grade of clarity to pragmatism as a maxim for evaluating hypotheses (abductions) is best understood by considering this latter formulation as a consequence for methodeutic, the logic of inquiry, of a semeiotic conception of meaning. In short, what unifies these two ways of formulating pragmatism is Peirce‘s conception of the nature of a sign, especially symbols, with the understanding that concepts are a type of symbol. Then, in his post-1900 efforts to distinguish his brand of pragmatism from that of William James and others, Peirce expands his characterization of pragmatism from a maxim of clarification into a principle to aid the self-controlled pursuit of true symbols. In other words, the shift is from clarifying the meaning of concepts, to demarcating hypotheses capable of confirmation, and furthermore, with the introduction of principles of economy evaluating hypotheses for the likelihood of confirmation. 2 For example, see CP 4.584 [1906], where Peirce describes synechism as a synthesis of pragmatism and tychism (the doctrine of absolute/objective chance). 3 Although Peirce used both spellings (‗semiotic‘ and ‗semeiotic‘), it has become increasingly common to use ‗semeiotic‗ to refer to an explicitly Peircean study of signs, as semiotics has come to include much of Ferdinand Saussure‘s semiology, and more besides. See Fisch, ―Peirce‘s General Theory of Signs,‖ in Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism, pp. 321-322. 2 In addition, the following chapters will explore some relatively neglected areas of Peirce‘s corpus, such as his account of testimony, and will attempt to move beyond Peirce, while hopefully remaining consistent with his principles. Thus,
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