The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School “EVOLUTIONARY LOVE” IN THEORY AND PRACTICE A Thesis in Philosophy by Michael J. Ventimiglia Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2001 We approve the thesis of Michael J. Ventimiglia Date of Signature ___________________________________ ______________ Carl R. Hausman Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Thesis Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee ___________________________________ ______________ Douglas R. Anderson Associate Professor of Philosophy Thesis Co-Advisor Co-Chair of Committee ___________________________________ ______________ Vincent Colapietro Professor of Philosophy ___________________________________ ______________ Daniel Conway Professor of Philosophy ____________________________________ ______________ Robert Scott Kretchmar Professor of Exercise and Sport Science ____________________________________ ______________ John J. Stuhr Professor of Philosophy Head of Department of Philosophy iii Abstract The cosmology of Charles Peirce is amongst the least celebrated aspects of his thought. It is typically considered far too anthropomorphic to be a serious contribution to our understanding of the evolution of reality. While this anthropomorphism may disqualify the cosmology from serious scientific consideration, it is quite possible that the cosmology does offer philosophical insights about the very human experience that inspired it. In this dissertation I offer a “reclaiming” of the Peircean cosmology. My intent is to look to the Peircean cosmology not for insights about the growth of the cosmos as such, but for insights about the growing self. Specifically, the dissertation takes cue from Peirce’s 1893 essay “Evolutionary Love” which claims that “growth comes only from love” or Christian agape. The majority of the dissertation is dedicated to a historically and biologically informed examination of the relation between agape and growth in Peirce’s philosophy. My hope, however, is to not only to clarify the specifics of this relationship in theory, but also to apply Peirce's theoretical insights to an experientially persuasive account of the growing self. In the final chapter I offer a odel of personal growth in which "existential abduction" is understood to inaugurate a purposeful but undetermined development of the self's ends or desires. In the course of the investigation, I will offer interpretive suggestions about the nature of Peircean growth through habit-taking, the importance of iv feeling and sentiment in Peirce’s philosophy, and the relationship of agape to eros in the Peircean version of agapastic love. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements. vii Introduction: Reclaiming the Cosmology. 1 Chapter One: “Evolutionary Love” in Context . 14 I. Theological Context . 15 II. Historical Context . 33 Chapter Two: The Growth of Mind . 45 I. Habit-Taking in Inquiry . 47 Abduction in Inquiry . 52 Deduction in Inquiry . 62 Induction in Inquiry . 66 Summary . 68 II. Habit-Taking in Physiology . 70 Physiological Abduction . 72 Physiological Deduction. 73 Physiological Induction . 74 III. Habit-Taking in the Cosmos . 75 Cosmic Abduction. 80 Cosmic Deduction . 89 Cosmic Induction . 90 Chapter Three: Three Models of Growth . 92 I. Darwin and Tychastic Evolution . 95 Random Variation . 104 Selection . 114 II. The Varieties of Anancasm . .116 III. Lamarck, Habit-taking, and Agapasm . 121 Lamarck and Habit-Taking . 124 Lamarck and Agape . 130 IV. A Peircean Theory of Agape . 134 Agape and the Development of Eros . 135 An Historical Precedent . 140 vi Chapter Four: Growth and Love in the Self. 145 I. The Growth of the Self . 145 Existential Abduction . 150 Existential Deduction . 162 Existential Induction . 164 II. Fear and Growth . 166 Fear of Abduction . 169 Fear of Deduction . .. .170 Fear of Induction . 171 III. Three Models of Personal Growth . 173 Tychastic Evolution of the Self . 175 Anancastic Evolution of the Self . .183 Agapastic Evolution of the Self . .189 Agape and the Fear of Existential Abduction . 190 Agape and the Fear of Existential Deduction . 192 Agape and the Fear of Existential Induction . 193 Conclusion . .196 References . 205 vii Acknowledgements I would like to begin by thanking Joseph Flay, John Stuhr and the Pennsylvania State University Department of Philosophy for the consistent and generous support I have received in every aspect of my graduate career. The Penn State Philosophy Department is a wonderful place to learn. I am particularly grateful to Daniel Conway, who, in his capacity as Graduate Chair during the years in which this dissertation was written, has worked magic for me on more occasions than I can recall. I would also like to thank Vincent Colapietro, a friend and mentor, who, since my days at Fordham University, has been instrumental in the furthering of most every aspect of my intellectual and professional career. To both Carl Hausman and Douglas Anderson, mere written or spoken gratitude seems woefully inadequate. Professors Hausman and Anderson have extended themselves not only far beyond what is required but well beyond what is reasonable. I am enormously indebted to both. The value of Professor Hausman’s friendship to me is rivaled only by the value of his careful and insightful commentary on every thought, no matter how undeveloped, that I have shared with him. Professor Anderson has taught me more from his person than I will ever be able to cull from pages in a book. Without Professor Anderson I would not have written this dissertation. I am grateful to both my co-mentors for their patience and their tolerance. Finally, I am most grateful to my parents, my family and my friends, unmerited gifts that are my finest achievement. 1 Introduction: Reclaiming the Cosmology It looks to me as though the investigation we are undertaking is no ordinary thing, but one for a man who sees sharply. Since we're not clever men . we should make this kind of investigation of it. If someone had, for example, ordered men who don't see very sharply to read little letters from afar and then someone had the thought that the same letters were somewhere else also but bigger and in a bigger place, I suppose it would look like a god send to be able to consider the little ones after having read these first, if, of course, they do happen to be the same.1 The macrocosm and the microcosm in The Republic do, of course, "happen to be the same," at least in an essential respect. The inference from the one to the other is justified by the reality of an Idea of justice, by that which makes justice justice in both the city and the soul. And so Socrates goes on to construct the perfectly just polis by which he infers, analogously, the structure of the perfectly just soul. The strategy yields a compelling account of the harmonious soul. Socrates looks to the macrocosm and learns about the human. In the Peircean cosmology we have a macrocosm of significantly larger scope. The cosmology was intended by Peirce to be a unified theory of all reality--mental and physical, possible, actual and general--with implications for every branch of human 1 Plato, The Republic, 268c7. 2 learning. Indeed, it would, Peirce hoped, be in its book-long formulation “one of the births of time” (1.354 fn.1).2 It has, in fact, turned out be perhaps the least celebrated aspect of this thought, famously referred to as the “black sheep or white elephant” of Peirce’s philosophy by W.B. Gallie in 1966.3 The considered, though not unanimous, verdict on Peirce’s cosmology is that it is far too anthropomorphic a description of reality to be thought of as a serious scientific hypothesis.4 Because of its infusion of final causality, feeling and consciousness into the physical world, it has alienated those interested in a scientifically respectable “Unified Theory of the Universe.”5 But while these features of the cosmology have been a distraction for those seeking a scientific thesis per se, they can only be an occasion for intrigue for those of us interested in the human as such. The phenomenon that is writ large across the growing anthropomorphic Peircean cosmos is, after all, human growth. And so, with a strategy similar to that of Socrates, I suggest that we consider looking to the Peircean macrocosm for wisdom about the microcosm. This dissertation offers a “reclaiming” of the anthropomorphic Peircean cosmology. It attempts to take back what is ours. It seeks to apply Peirce’s cosmological insights about evolution and love to our everyday lived experience of human growth. 2 References, when possible, will be to the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce in the customary fashion of volume and paragraph number. 3 W.B. Gallie, Peirce and Pragmatism, p. 216. 4 Not all scholars are in complete agreement. See, for example, Janice Staab’s Agape: Peirce's Abduction Concerning the Growth of Intelligibility, especially Chapter Five. 5 The phrase from the Stephen Hawking’s “A Unified Theory of the Universe Would Be the Ultimate Triumph of Human Reason,” as quoted by John K. Sheriff, Charles Peirce’s Guess at the Riddle, p. xvi. 3 Our main focus will be Peirce’s 1893 essay “Evolutionary Love,” in which Peirce considers the claim that “growth comes only from love,” or agape (6.289). In “Evolutionary Love” Peirce suggests that “growth by habit-taking”--a theory of growth formulated in various contexts throughout his intellectual career--is essentially similar in structure to the “formula” of growth implicit in agape (6.289). Our task below will be to clarify this relationship between agape and growth and to apply what is learned in theory to our experience of love and growth in the self. My intent is to provide a careful analysis of “Evolutionary Love” so that Peirce’s claims about growth and love-- writ large in the cosmology--can be reclaimed and subsequently applied to the growing self. My interest is therefore “Evolutionary Love” in both theory and practice.