philosophy paper

10 June 2020

Stewart Notes, 01 of 02 c. 2020

Chapters 1 & 2 from Elements of Knowledge; Pragmatism, Logic, and Inquiry

Philosophy 1370: 01 & 02 - Online!

First Summer Session 2020

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In what follows, you will notice previously unmentioned items from “Preliminary Ideas and

Conceptions.” This, given the highly original nature of our unique, on-line course, is the best way to

proceed, I think, as this promotes continuity, as opposed to fragmentation.

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Here we take up Pragmatism, America’s only native philosophical doctrine, as invented and

espoused by Charles Sander Peirce (1839 - 1914). As I put it on page 01 of Elements, it is “. . .a method,

synonymous with the experimental method of the sciences, for acquiring and developing human

knowledge.” That method is known otherwise as the “Problem - Hypothesis - Test” method: problems

are identified, hypothetical solutions are proposed through guesswork, erroneous solutions are

eliminated with certainty; those solutions who survive testing are what we take to be “facts.” Objective

facts. Those persistent realities upon which our subjective opinions have no bearing. I should add,

immediately, that this method is not limited to the experimental sciences, but is in fact the method for

progress in human knowledge, universally. For example, I have used and relied upon pragmatism

constantly when I have been (off and on) a classical concert pianist, since childhood: one has to,

experimentally, and for but one example, practice out wrong notes. Eliminate the errors. I also profited

from Pragmatism when I was in the farming and ranching business, and elsewhere. For another

example, consider for a moment the subject of religion. Whether you personally have a religious

conviction or not, it’s easy to understand that a person’s religious beliefs won’t be the same at age 88

as they were when you were 18. Even here, in religion, there is evolution in knowledge; the elimination

of errors.

I use the term “evolution” deliberately, for there is a stunning analogy, a stunning comparative

similarity, between what Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) had to say in his 1859 masterpiece On the Origin

of Species, by Means of Natural Selection and Peirce’s position on human knowledge, Pragmatism. Goes like

this. Darwin, by the way, was not an atheist: the evidence blatantly contradicts this opinion, which

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gained the rank of a very powerful subjective consensus, still with us, yet, today. Consensus? Just

because a group of people all get together and agree on something, doesn’t make it “so.”

What Darwin came to describe as “survival of the fittest” meant/means but one thing, and one

thing only: reproductive success. Darwin was far too early, chronologically, to have had any knowledge

of what we understand as genetics, chromosomes, genes, DNA, etc. But he had the insight that,

whatever the mechanisms of parental traits being passed along to their offspring, if there is no

reproductive success, there is no transmission of traits from parents to offspring, if what is technically

termed “sexual reproduction,” by biologists, is involved. “Sexual reproduction”? Plain and simple: two

different sets of chromosomes “meeting and greeting,” so to speak.

For Darwin, it was survival of species that mattered. For Peirce, survival of ideas. Both species

and ideas evolve. We, as homo sapiens, have a genetic makeup that’s different from our biologically most

distant ancestors. And nobody sane still thinks that the humoral theory of disease, the one that claimed

all ills could be corrected by bleeding people, has any merit, whatsoever.

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But to get to the mechanics of how Pragmatism actually operates, we must first consider the

subject of “arguments.” Arguments (not silly little disagreements, minor inconsistences) all have one

characteristic in common: evidence is presented; results (“conclusions”) are obtained. How so? Well,

there are but three routes from evidence to results. One is termed “deduction,” another is known as

“induction,” and the third one is what we call “abduction.”

Deductive arguments, at their best, announce conclusions that are matters of complete,

unquestionable certainty. As in,

All human beings are mammals.

All mammals are warm-blooded.

Thus (inevitably, aha!) All human beings are warm-blooded.

Inductive procedures yield probabilities. As in winning the lottery, for example, or the odds that you

will have a long and prosperous life. Or the odds that, if I play a hymn or two, tonight, on one of my

pianos, all will go well !

Abduction, the fastest of the three, brings us new ideas. It is the “discovery” move. Imagination.

Guesswork. Noticing connections you hadn’t, previously. Call it intuition. Abduction is a bit

mysterious, as it should be. Now, Peirce and his “beans” examples.

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Three Forms of Reasoning!

Deduction, Induction, and Abduction

Philosophy of Knowledge - Phil. 1370: 01 & 02 - Online !

First Summer Session 2020 - Lamar University

To help illustrate and clarify the differences and connections between deductive, inductive, and

abductive forms of reasoning, here are three examples provided by C.S. Peirce in 1878 in his Popular

Science Monthly piece "Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis". It was the sixth and last of a series of

papers in his "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" which appeared in Popular Science Monthly during

1877 - 1878. Here he goes !

Deduction

Rule: All the beans from this bag are white.

Case: These beans are from this bag.

Result: These beans are white.

Induction

Case: These beans are from this bag.

Result: These beans are white.

Rule: All the beans from this bag are white.

Hypothesis (aka Abduction or Discovery!)

Rule: All the beans from this bag are white.

Result: These beans are white.

Case: These beans are from this bag.

Pragmatism proceeds according to Abductive origination of an hypothesis (first), Deductive elimination

of erroneous ones (second); Inductive probability of an hypothesis' survival (third).

Notice that the contents of these three expressions are exactly the same. It’s the formal arrangement

of each that makes the difference. Formal design, vs. contents. More, tomorrow.

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