A quote from William James

There is no worse enemy of god and man than zeal armed with power and guided by a feeble intellect ... The great lesson of history, is to keep power of life and death from that kind of mind, the mind that sees things in the light of evil and dread and mistrust rather than that of hope.

W.J.
Manuscript lectures, p. 76.

I'm looking at you, Phelps.

I'm back.

And I'm irritated. More to follow.

A mighty shout out to the organization formerly known as "Tech Tow"

Dear Valley Towing,

Sirs:

I simply must take this opportunity to commend the rapid and efficient work of your staff. When my foray to the Food Lion on North Main St. at 11:30 pm Saturday night took a turn for the unexpected, little did I realize that my starter’s inefficacy would catalyze a rapid reaction team of which the Ministry of Homeland Security would be justly proud. In despite of your fine organization, I thought to forestall any complaint by placing flyers under each windshield wiper indicating that my car would not start. I further opined in writing that I would return at first light to rectify the problem, isasmuch as the 20 degree windchill and more or less complete lack of light presented what seemed to me to be insurmountable obstacles, given the placement of my Oldsmobile’s starter.

It was only after I returned at 6:23 am, hectored an innocent and bewildered cashier [to be told that a manager would appear at 7:00 am], and re-initiated my brisk and bracing morning walk that my confusion began to be replaced by something very like awe. “Surely,” I thought, as I broke in to my temporary place of abode in order to turn the alarm off, “this kind of efficiency could only be martialed in response to a very real, very potent threat.” Impressed, sirs, beyond my ability to cogently express, I immediately set off back up the hill towards the spot that my car had so recently (7.5 hours?) occupied. After making my way once more through the dead empty parking lot (certainly unsullied by a certain aged and ailing Oldsmobile), a quick fact-finding consultation with the aforementioned (but now present) manager--cool helpful guy! Seriously. Hello Mr. “D”!--gave me a better grip on the overall situation.

I had not reckoned, in my ill-advised failure to put my two-ton car in a backpack and traipse off the hallowed ground guarded with tenacious zeal by the fine, fine members of your organization, with your employees’ ability to recognize a threat, if not recognize block printing. I blame myself. As a fan of MacGyver (What’s he doing with that thing?) and as a proud owner of quite possibly the largest Swiss Army Knife extant, I too should have realized that my briefcase in the backseat (under my laundry ... *all* of my laundry) could be combined with my recently re-graded student papers and, say, my house and bike lock keys in the front seat in order to form a small tactical nuclear weapon. Full of bird flu, possibly, although it was clean laundry; a relative term I realize. And “Turr-er-ism.” Maybe isolationism, too, I’m not sure. But that’s why YOU’RE the professionals!

The full beauty and majesty of your Top Gun-like scramble to mobilize only became clear to me once I had the honor and pleasure of conversing with some of your vaunted members. The tower, who I spoke to Sunday morning, dispensed with any debate about the fairness or wisdom of your crack team’s actions by responding to my assertion that I had left not one, but TWO notes on the car with the simple and incisive expedient of saying “Nuh-uh!” As I metaphorically fell prostrate before his searing logic, I reflected on the deep commitment to rhetorical skill and relevance which permeates public and private discourse here in the United States of America. Literally, a tear came to my eye. And not just to demonstrate longing for the allergy medicine which was, perhaps by now predictably, in my car, that would not start, several miles away. With the keys to my bike lock. And my housekeys. Which brings me to the alleged point of this particular paragraph: since I could not drive my car off the lot (for the low, low price of $95.00), I would be priveleged to see your team in action!

Let me say now, sirs, that it was worth every single penny of the $180.00 (which I paid with $20 bills) to watch your resolute operative maneuver my vehicle into a spot ... Such grace! Such power! So much easier than, say, pushing it into a spot in which it would be “safe.” Which is what I did, several nights ago. I can only take comfort in the realization that some aspects of my rugby training sessions, should I soon have enough money to actually fix my car and go, will be redundant. Had I had to push the car uphill from its original spot to its new one almost 20 meters away, I could have taken even more comfort of that kind. But that is beside the point. I literally cannot express my thanks in words. So let me join Dante Alighieri in wishing you and your entire organization my very deepest, and very, very warmest regards.

I can only hope that you look forward as expectantly as I to our ensuing--and I choose that word *very* carefully, as I am wont to do--more personal, more pecuniary, and above all more litigious correspondence.

Sincerely,
M. T. Rea, Esq. (J.D.)
Marshall-Wythe School of Law, Class of 1993
Department of Philosophy, Virginia Tech

Judicial Activism & Stare Decisis

So, enough about so-called "Reality." Let's talk about the administration!

My ruminations on the topic of reality are constitutively unhelpful (for anyone besides myself, I suspect) in trying to get a handle on what the hell is going on, in Bush's America. So I thought I'd see if I can't prepare for a topic ahead of time, by babbling about a couple of terms that are about to be heaved around our glorious capital. So let's think about "Judicial Activism" and "Stare Decisis."

Next week, the clueless goofball you see here on the left, fresh from appointing 17 people to important positions when THE SENATE WHERE HE HOLDS A MAJORITY WAS OUT OF TOWN--what a mandate!--is going to attempt to appoint the comely primate on the right to the supreme court, which self-proclaimed professor wonks like to call "SCOTUS", possibly to get the tingly frisson of using jargon, and possibly the satisfaction of having someone ask what, precisely, that could be. Not the subtle doctor!

My feelings about the battological malversationists in (sorry; "that constitute") the administration are such that, based on past experience, I can safely assume that this guy is not *my* guy. But I don't know a lot about him. I invite you--John Childrey, e.g., et. al.--to say nice things about him. Or mean things. Hell, say what you want. No-one wants to "discuss" Peirce. But how about the phantasmagorical spectre of "Judicial Activism"? Sounds scary! To hear the $hrub tell it, anyone who disagrees with him is a "judicial activist." Certainly on the side of those pesky Radical Militant Librarians who are making the FBI's job a living hell. As I shouldn't have to point out, that door swings both ways.

What's at stake here? The administration, in their capacity as people who think that re-naming things changes their essence, ladles that label on their foes. Yet they never seem to see judicial activism in cases with which they agree. (Many hippies are just as bad, or worse, vis-a-vis consistency.) Given my own (pragmatic, and largely Holmesian) view of what the law is, I am fascinated by the way in which it changes. Everyone can think of changes they'd like to make, but what's at stake here is basically the nature of that change.

I'm just introducing the topic here. Me, I'm drawn to the overly philosophical topic of Natural Law. That fine figure of statuary up top there is a cat named Hugo de Groot, a.k.a. Grotius. Nice guy. I'll work him up later on this puppy, if reminded. Grotius thought we could recognize what God would want us to do in situations not covered explicitly by the Bible. There are primary Laws of Nature that are God's express will, but we can use our noodles to work out some of the other stuff, secondary laws of nature. Reason mandates, e.g., that Great Britain (in concert with naval allies) not be allowed to blockade the Dutch. Groot? Dutch.

Natural Law Theory is often opposed to Legal Pragmatism ... but I can save all that up for some kind of spectacular blowout after young Chaka up there on the right is confirmed. I want to *talk* about judicial activism. So, persons--what do you think?

A closely related topic, and with almost as much jargonal value as 'battalogical malversationism', is that of stare decisis. This short link defines the persistently and perniciously mis-pronounced term as: "Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principal that the precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts." Because the Supreme Court is the highest court (I mean hierarchically--not that I don't think Scalia, Thomas & Roberts don't need a bong hit), this principal is *always* "before" the court. What have they said before? Were they right? Has the situation changed? Should changing circumstances even matter? What are the implications of what they say now? Hmmm. But really, what this term will be bandied about *for*, can be summed up in 2 words:

Dred Scott. Actually, of course, I really need 2.25 words or so ... Roe v. Wade. In fact, with regard to social conservatives, 'Holy Grail' would work just as well. His mighty tyrannical $hrubbery can talk all the smack he wants about not applying a litmus test ... he wants Roe dead. He wants it's family dead. He wants it's house, burned to the ground. And since social conservatives, who put this monkey in the White House (apparently fearing the horrible creeping degeneracy of Elton John's recent nuptials), have been putting up with rather a lot of sociopathic shenanigans because here, finally is a man of [editorial note: uniformly bad or no] character who will solve the number one problem facing America ... they feel they are owed. Don't believe me? Check out what they had to say about Miers.

Okay, I've veered off into the partisan--except, of course, I've been sitting here the whole time. Sinisterly, perhaps. So let me say this: I have absolutely no quibble with people who believe abortion is wrong, or even murder. I do not consider it murder, tho' it might very well be wrong; I think women should have the right to choose, especially considering what Alito has said about women's rights--figuratively: "Woman!? Make me a sandwich!" I don't think that only my view is reasonable, or valid ... it depends on what I value, and my convictions regarding the importance of what my buddy John Childrey points out is a "made up" right ... of privacy.

I do have a problem with people who harrass women (or anyone) doing legal things, and certainly those who threaten violence. Because they are terrorists. Sorry Bill O'Reilly, the fact that I don't believe that George Bush could beat a reasonably well-educated chimpanzee at checkers does *NOT* mean that I like terrorists. I can be in favor of a right without being in favor of the thing itself. I think Nazis should be allowed to talk their trash, but I don't agree with them a'tall. I think their philistine pig-ignorance reflects poorly on everyone with a brain. But they can spew that crap. Coulter does.

Judicial activism is, in part, about the extent to which judges can effect changes on the law. It *should* be the topic of neutral discussion. My boy O.W. Holmes, Jr.? Big on restraint. It's a complicated question, and really has to be viewed within the framework of Stare Decisis. The reasons for this should be evident, but the question is not simple. Values that inform this discussion passionate, on both sides, and will play out with regard to a couple of famous or infamous cases, but that isn't relevant to what I want to investigate, *unless* one believes that one's own desire to see Roe overturned (or upheld) dictates one's approach to the question of judicial restraint vs. judicial activism.

Discuss. I'll work up an investigation of the question of the relation between judicial restraint, or activism, and legal pragmatism. Gimme a few days and a chapter to my boss, who is beginning to regard me as if a dead farm animal he can barely stand to drag out of the way of his Suburban.

Now;

What do we think the proper role of the court is? What then should we look for in a justice? With that firmly in hand ... does Alito fare well for you, or no?

Reality, Part II

Logic & Reality

In the previous post, I attempted to lay out some of Peirce's argument that the meaning of any concept, by necessity, is tied to the the sensible effects that one might expect ... and I tried to make it clear that 'sensible', here, means something like "sens-ABLE." If we are talking about two different concepts, the thing that differentiates these concepts is that they will lead to different sensible effects. The example I was blathering about previously is Peirce's own--namely, transubstantiation. For Peirce, two conceptions that don't yield different sensible (and we might, for our purposes, occasionally say 'practical') effects ARE NOT DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS.

I tell this to my students, and they glumly record it (sometimes eagerly, but this is almost ALWAYS a sign that they are hoping to be "conceived" of as so interested and busy that I should not ask them, say, a direct question) and then raise their lumpen faces conveying two things: Firstly, that they are far, FAR too cool to care what some dead guy said; secondly, they mutely convey some form of the opinion "So what, dude?" Perhaps transubstantiation is a bad example. Those who have an opinion probably don't realize that their opinion is something like metaphysical, and those who don't see the issue as worthwhile--perhaps for pragmatic reasons themselves?--have a hard time seeing the implication of this stance. So, in order to round off my little Peirce-a-thon, let's look at the end of the essay How To Make Our Ideas Clear. So what? Here's what.

(Dude.)

Recall the "maxim of logic" that Peirce calls "the method of pragmatism" interchangeably with "the method of science":

"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

N.b. what this rule purports to be. We might wish it to be clearer, but Peirce--intent on helping us out--turns to examples. What do we *mean* when we say that something is "hard"? In the end, argues Peirce, we mean that that thing can scratch other things. To wit, quoting his mighty Peirce-ness ... -icity. Like-ness. Anyways:

"Let us illustrate this rule by some examples; and, to begin with the simplest one possible, let us ask what we mean by calling a thing hard. Evidently that it will not be scratched by many other substances. The whole conception of this quality, as of every other, lies in its conceived effects. There is absolutely no difference between a hard thing and a soft thing so long as they are not brought to the test. Suppose, then, that a diamond could be crystallized in the midst of a cushion of soft cotton, and should remain there until it was finally burned up. Would it be false to say that that diamond was soft? This seems a foolish question, and would be so, in fact, except in the realm of logic."

We know that Peirce has a hard- ... um, a great love ... er, sort of a mental chub- ... a great deal of respect for logic. Dilettantes like myself might be reminded of the question, so often brought up by undergraduates trying to participate (and who have not read that day's assignment): "If a tree falls in the forest ... does it make a sound?" A question that, in it's original context, was putatively designed to investigate the question of the extent to which human beings contribute, in some way, to the information that we receive. The idea that humans are active participants in the accumulation of their own wealth of knowledge is sometimes called humanism. This can mean a whole bunch of things, depending upon who's talkin'. Let me say, right now, two things: 1. Peirce was religious, in a very strange kind of way, and 2. was on occasion of the opinion, trumpeted among the deists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, that god wants us to figure things out with reason. Bringing me back, however the producers of Viagra might like a different definition of 'hardness', to Peirce's conviction that the Pragmatism he is espousing is a Logical Maxim.

Do you find Peirce "logical?" Perhaps you do not; but I am willing to hold my disbelief in abeyance while Peirce attempts to convince me. We know that diamonds are hard because ... well ... the diamonds in our experience are hard. They scratch glass, many metals (if not adamantium, so Wolverine is safe, I guess) and people silly enough to test expensive drills on themselves. There are a number of things conflated by our everyday understanding of the questions that Peirce is asking. Consider just one: how do we know that that thing in the cotton is a diamond? How would we find out? When cops on television want to test a diamond for being a diamond, they scratch something. But until they do ... the fact that diamonds are hard is based on our experience with diamonds. I'll take that further and say what we know about diamonds is based on the sensible effects we receive from diamonds. To make a long boring story short, we would only know that that diamond in the cotton is a diamond if we tested it, but before we do ... can we be sure it's a diamond? Therefore, logically ...

Okay, okay, enough of that. It's a harder question to answer than you might think. I push it in particular ways because I see Pragmatism in different ways than Peirce, and in fact as a (logical?) outgrowth of Empiricism. I only mention these concerns because epistemological concerns indicate one of the many ways in which these questions quickly become difficult. There are many others.

In fact, if you want a clearer exposition of the ways in which sensible effects convey meaning, dig into the link to the article, and check out what Peirce has to say about force, using vectors. If you are clear on how vectors can be added together (say; on a boat, against the current, with a sideways tailwind), it should be clear that a nearly infinite combination of vectors can yield a particular solution. But the way in which we compare these manifolds is tied to sens-ABLE effects. Capisce? Let's get jiggy with the main point of "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." And I'm going to go ahead and stump for the application of the third grade of clearness of apprehension to the concept of "Reality," as the main point of this article.

"Let us now approach the subject of logic, and consider a conception which particularly concerns it, that of reality. Taking clearness in the sense of familiarity, no idea could be clearer than this. Every child uses it with perfect confidence, never dreaming that he does not understand it. As for clearness in its second grade, however, it would probably puzzle most men, even among those of a reflective turn of mind, to give an abstract definition of the real. Yet such a definition may perhaps be reached by considering the points of difference between reality and its opposite, fiction. A figment is a product of somebody's imagination; it has such characters as his thought impresses upon it. That those characters are independent of how you or I think is an external reality."

Remember 'clear' & 'distinct?' Well here they are. Anyone who reacts to reality is "clear" about reality. Anyone who can define reality as that which is independant of what anyone thinks about it, is ... uh ... "distinct" about reality. But Peirce claims that logically, we have a "right" to a "third grade of apprehension of clearness," which he takes his logical maxim of pragmatism to provide. The question therefore remains, what might the method of pragmatism applied to the question of the meaning of 'reality' tell us?

Here, then, let us apply our rules. According to them, reality, like every other quality, consists in the peculiar sensible effects which things partaking of it produce. The only effect which real things have is to cause belief, for all the sensations which they excite emerge into consciousness in the form of beliefs. The question therefore is, how is true belief (or belief in the real) distinguished from false belief (or belief in fiction).

Because "reality" has only one effect, it has only one function. Peirce say that this function is to cause belief. Some are good, and some are bad ... how can we tell which are which? In their full development, according to Peirce, the terms 'truth' and 'falsehood' "appertain exclusively to the experiential method of settling opinion." If you remember the very first method of fixing belief, or that of tenacity, you'll remember that it involves clinging tenaciously to your beliefs. For someone of this temper, 'truth' ends up meaning "those things I believe." Remember my friend who wouldn't read Darwin? She didn't have to ... she knew the "truth."

Peirce calls "shenanigans!" on this conception ... or at least claims that it cannot constitute a "fully developed" model of truth and falsehood. A reflective thinker (Peirce!), a thinker who understood the limitations of the methods of tenacity, authority, and the a priori method; a thinker who has given some consideration to the question of how the humans species' state of the art assessments of reality change over time realizes that continued investigation gets us further toward *THE* answer. Peirce seems to have what some would call a "limit" theory of truth. We (at least, those who investigate) are led towards the truth. As Marty McFly might have it, the truth--which describes the real--is our 'density.' To wit:

This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the predestinate opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.

So ... how do we know if the answer we have right now is "true," and therefore describes the real?

We don't. But if we are applying the pragmatic method, the logical maxim which ties the meaning of concepts and theories to sense-ABLE effects, we will take new evidence into account. And it is this method that Peirce is pushing. His friend James enjoyed saying that Pragmatism is a method and an orientation towards truth, but stands for no particular results.

How do we guard against sitting down contented with the wrong answer? By employing the pragmatic method, or the method of science. Peirce wants to define reality as that "opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate." Peirce means by 'investigation' the pragmatic, or scientific, method. Reality is what scientists will eventually agree on. Huzzah!

At first glance, it looks as if Peirce has given us a definition of reality that is opposed to our conception of 'reality' in the "second grade of apprehension of clearness:" that which is independent of what is thought about it. Doesn't Peirce's approach make reality dependent upon our thoughts? Peirce says not so, or more accurately, reality depends upon thought in general:

But the answer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it; and that, on the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks.

So. There you go. Peircean pragmatism bypasses static and categorical uses of 'truth' and 'reality' by taking account of 1) How we actually do fix beliefs, and 2) What we mean when we say that something is "real." Let me raise one more topic, in the hope that any clearness I have "crushed to earth" earth here might rise ...

The meaning of terms, like the meaning of concepts, depend upon how they are used (to be more specific, they depend upon sense-ABLE effects that we expect). We tend to use 'truth' and 'reality' in at least two ways. When teaching I differentiate between T1 and t2. Truth1 is our intuition that there is an absolute objective truth "out there" that we describe when we are telling THE truth. But we all know that there are things that are "true2 to ME" which are not true to others.

E.g., I believe that "The Boy Bands of the 90's were absolute trash, and everyone who listened to them suffered irreparable aesthetic harm." But they sold millions of albums. Am I right? We all know that aesthetic opinions are not True1, or objectively true in the first sense. [I yet believe history will vindicate me, n.b.] Nothing makes my conclusion better than my friend Dan Suh's conclusion that "The Backstreet Boys kick ass!" I believe my conclusion, not Dan's, but I'm describing the world as I understand it. Dan is describing the world as he understands it.

What about our ideas about, say, the atomic weight of lead? Can I be wrong in that? Certainly. In fact, I haven't a clue what it is. But I know there is an answer, that has been arrived at through experimentation (read investigation of sense-ABLE effects). Within the confines of our understanding of atomic weights, an answer has been reached. We think of that answer as "objectively" true; unlike my hatred of 'N Sync. But both kinds of conclusion are the same, because of the ways in which we fix beliefs.

A "good" or "true" belief, even if it is a belief about objective reality, takes the sense-ABLE evidence into acount. This doesn't mean it can't change--look at the history of science!--but it gains its status from the method applied, not the conclusion itself. Capisce?

Peirce is a scientist. He believes that science approaches the truth, defined as a description of the real, and known only by its adherence to method. Chew on that, and I'll have another run at this topic through the philosophy of James in a later post.

Happy Holidays!

Reality, Part I

Peirce stumps for Reality-based decision-making; calls Descartes "French"

So earlier--or perhaps I should say "below"--I was referring to an article called "The Fixation of Belief", which is one of the couple of articles by C. S. Peirce that most philosophers have read, if they have read any at all. In that post I noted that Peirce thought that doubt (on any subject) is an uneasy state from which we attempt to escape, by means of enquiry. Enquiry produces belief, which assuages doubt, and can come from one of four methods; tenacity, authority, a priori, or pragmatism--which Peirce also calls the method of science.

It might be worth pointing out here that Peirce is widely acknowledged as the progenitor of a school of philosophy known as Pragmatism. Other adherents would include William James and John Dewey, as well as non-philosophers like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (A proponent, predictably, of Legal Pragmatism.) The central principle of Pragmatism is contained in a paper called:

How to Make Our Ideas Clear

Today I wish to work my way up to the pragmatic maxim. I should stress that pragmatism has meant different things to different people. For Peirce, pragmatism was a logical maxim. His friend James called it a philosophy, but for ol' C. S., pragmatism was a logical tool that allows us to take clearness about concepts to what SportsCenter would undoubtedly call "the next level."

Which means what? Peirce digs logic like Dom Deluise at a clambake. I think I mentioned he had the recurring fantasy that people would pay him to teach them logic through the mail, an assumption demonstrating not so much a logical flaw as a complete misunderestimation of the logical needs of the public. N.b. the status of logic in America, c. 2005, e.g. In any case, Peirce felt that:

"The very first lesson that we have a right to demand that logic shall teach us is, how to make our ideas clear; and a most important one it is, depreciated only by minds who stand in need of it."

Really, you gotta love this guy. He is to snottiness what Karl Rove is to neck fat. For Peirce, there are three grades of clearness; he would call them grades of "clearness of apprehension." But only two had hitherto been investigated by the logiciancs. (Correcting the many inadequacies of ... well, everyone ... was Peirce's favorite pastime.)

I shall now digress. Anyone who has had the misfortune to sit through any Descartes, e.g., will recognize the first two grades of apprehension: The oft-imitated, never duplicated Cartesian comedy team of Clear & Distinct. I mentioned Descartes in the previous post. Descartes tried to put science on a firm foundation, so he cast about for things he knew must be true before experience. Claiming that (at least some) things that are clear and distinct could be known a priori, Descartes proceeded to identify several clear and distinct propositions by withholding his assent from everything (a process sometimes known as methodological doubt), and only assenting to those things he knew, ahead of time, to be certain. As you might suspect, if you remember Peirce's complaint about a priori "reasoning," we end up deciding that we should trust, well, the things we already think. But I'm not here to put the boot in. Check out the article if you want to watch C. S. whiffle-bat poor Rene into submission. Unilaterally, I might add.

Peirce must ruminate about clear, which is the first "degree of apprehension of clearness," and about distinct, which is the second, before he can add a third. This third degree of apprehension of clearness will become the driving force of Peirce's Pragmatism. If something is clear, then it is recognizable, as opposed to obscure. If something is distinct, it "contains nothing which is not clear." This is about as helpful as a [skunk]-flavored lollipop, so Peirce tweaks it, and claims that something is distinct if it is abstractly definable. Does this mean that clear things are not abstractly definable? Possibly. For certain Supreme Court Justices, e.g., pornography is clear but not distinct. (Did you click that link hopefully? Naughty! The answer was a couple paragraphs down, and was Mr. Justice Potter.)

After having his way with the allegedly hapless Descartes, Peirce sets his goal for the paper:

"The principles set forth in the first part of this essay lead, at once, to a method of reaching a clearness of thought of higher grade than the "distinctness" of the logicians."

Referring back to the first part of the essay [and I've never been entirely sure that Peirce didn't mean The Fixation of Belief], he points again to the process of uncomfortable doubt, banished once inquiry has attained belief. But as he notes:

"It was there noticed that the action of thought is excited by the irritation of doubt, and ceases when belief is attained; so that the production of belief is the sole function of thought."

Peirce does not mean doubt, here, with a big 'D.' He doesn't mean existential doubt, or necessarily big, philosophical questions, but rather any situation in which we attempt to determine a course of action. If I pull out a handful of change, e.g., I must decide which combination of coins to use, and probably have a number of options. This momentary hesitation while you work out what to do would count as doubt, as far as Peirce is concerned. (And there's nothing to say that you don't have a rule, or a habit that applies to change ... I keep quarters, and heave everything else into a tip-jar or charity collection--so I don't think about it.) Thought is *FOR* fixing belief, says Peirce. He also says that the pragmatic method, or the method of science, is the best way to do so. So perhaps we should work out precisely what that is. Clear? Crystal? Distinct? Pergamus.

The reason that I brought up the fact that you might not think about how to dispose of your change, because you might have a habit, is because Peirce thinks that beliefs are habits:

"And what, then, is belief? *** We have seen that it has just three properties: First, it is something that we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, a habit."

So a belief, from this perspective, is "thought at rest", as I've mentioned. But it can also serve as a starting point for more inquiry ... which is, of course, more thought. But the big fat point here is that "the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action." Stay with me here, because the P-man is getting ready to swing away, and reveal his empirical streak.

Habits of action are ways in which we get around in the sensible world. (Sense-able?) This doesn't sound too startling, but the implications might rock your socks off. (Having said that, it occurs to me that Jack Black is channelling Peirce's arrogance, in Tenacious D, if not his overweening competence ...)

A Belief is a Habit of Action with regard to Sensible Effects.

If it is true that the function of thought is to produce belief, and beliefs are rules for action, then differences in meaning (distinctions between thoughts) are nothing more than differences in practices prompted. Grok it, yo.

Let's see what this means, by way of Peirce's example. Shrinking violet that he is, Peirce headed straight for the noncontroversial issue of what really happens during transubstantiation. Does your Welch's grape juice and Captain's wafer become the blood and body of Christ? Or merely symbolize it? Does this constitute a difference of opinion? Well, it seems like it, but Peirce calls "Shenanigans!" Because the sensible characteristics of the Welch's, or the wine, don't change:

"Thus our action has exlusive reference to what affects the senses, our habit has the same bearing as our action, our belief the same as our habit, our conception the same as our belief; and we can consequently mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of something as having all the sensible characters of wine, yet being in reality blood, is senseless jargon."

So, that's disposed with. Which is nice ... if only the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 had known ... about the principle of pragmatism, which follows:

"It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object."

Clear is recognizable. Distinct is abstractly definable. But for something to reach the vaunted "third grade of apprehension of clearness", a brother's gotta work out all conceivable sensible effects. Earlier I mentioned Peirce's empiricism. For Peirce, any possible meaning, of any concept, must be tied to sensible effects. Nothing else counts.

Peirce goes on to apply this maxim of meaning--and for Peirce, it is a logical maxim--to a number of concepts, including weight, force, and hardness. But these are prelude; for what Peirce is working his way towards is a consideration of the application of the pragmatic maxim to the concept of Reality.

Belief

Let's have a look at this particular crazy bastard right here. His name is C. S. Peirce (pronounced like 'purse'), and he might be the smartest person you've never heard of. Certainly, pound-for-pound, America's smartest drug addict.

Persons who follow the history of science are fond of noting that prior to, say, 1895, many scientists were ready to call it a day--just as soon as a couple of wrinkles in "our" theory of electromagnetism had been smoothed out. Despite the fact that from 1895-1905, all hell broke loose in physics ... *IN* 1895, if you wanted to get your hands on someone who knew everything there was to know, Peirce would have been a good choice.

Granted, he was sort of a wreck of a human being. Couldn't hold a job, kept thinking that people would flock, nay stampede, to send him money to learn logic through the mail, died crazy locked up in a tower. [Okay, okay, that last is NOT true ... despite the fact that from a narrative standpoint it would have provided him with a fitting end. Plus ... my boss Joe Pitt told me that once.] But his thinking in a wide range of fields has improved his reputation nearly every year since his death in 1914. [Perhaps not to his credit, Peirce would not have been the slightest bit surprised.]

Peirce was a difficult thinker. Even philosophers, driven by the imperative of attaining a wide acquaintance with the history of philosophy, typically read only two articles. The first is called:

The Fixation of Belief

In it, he argues a number of things. His first step was to define belief, and Peirce defined belief (a number of times and in slightly different ways throughout his works) as thought at rest. Belief is a solution to doubt. Doubt is uncomfortable. Enquiry (or inquiry) is spurred by doubt, and stopped (assuaged, contented by) belief. If I am thinking about what I want on my pizza (jalapenos? sun-dried tomato? anchovies?) I only think about it until I've "made up my mind." Then I'm done thinking about it ... at least 'till the next time.

Puerile example? You bet. But consider this ... when we make up our minds, we stop enquiring. This is true of ordering lunch, and Peirce would say, of any non-scientific context. Belief is thought at rest.

He also thought that there were four basic ways of "fixing" belief. They are Tenacity, Authority, A priori, and Pragmatic (or Scientific).

Tenacity involves looking to ... well, yourself for your beliefs. I don't mean in a self-reliant kind of way, I mean in a "cover your eyes lest you see information you disagree with" kind of way. I once went to check on the books I had ordered for a class called "Reason and Revolution in Science," which included Darwin, and the (lovely, friendly, Baptist with two capital 'B's and a spike through it) general books manager said ... "Ooooh, tha-yats Duhr-Wihn, in't it? Oh, I couldn't read tha-yat ..." Tenacity!

Authority involves looking to ... wait for it ... an authority. Cf. the scholastic period, where if you wanted to know something theological you looked in the Bible (or perhaps official commentaries ... Summa Theologicae, anyone?), and if you wanted to know something about science, you would look in Aristotle. (Aristotle who had a very Happy Gilmore theory of gravity ... things made primarily of earth fall because they want to get to their home.) That's it. Everything was better in the old days ... I only like Matlock!

A priori is mildly difficult to explain. As an example, in the 17th century, when science began to make explanatory progress, some people were profoundly disquieted by the idea that we could go out and look at the world ourselves, leaving those authorities behind. This is of course a central tension of the 17th century, and has nothing whatever to do with Kansas and Dover, Pa. Some people tried to ally science and religion by making the first dependent on the second, but in a very roundabout kind of way. Descartes' science was trustworthy, he thought, because he had used his god-given intellect to investigate what must be true ahead of time by necessity. Everything must have a cause, for example. Obviously, right? Even before we have any experience with particular causes. A priori means before experience, and so "made manifest by the light of nature", which is code for a priori, at least in Meditations on First Philosophy means, for Descartes, absolutely certain. Such ideas are trustworthy, but not because they depend on an authority. They are things that we know must be true ... before we have any experience with reality.

Peirce doesn't think much of a priori ideas, or at least their logical provenance. Because we are capable of (and perhaps pinioned by) a tendency to think that what we believe is true. Descartes, for example, couldn't conceive of a world without god. So he was certain about it; but commentators like Peirce point out that there is a difference between my being certain--I certainly believe twinkies are the perfect food!--and some kind of abstract certainty. When looking for things that must be true, we often find ourselves settling for ... our own beliefs.

The fourth way to fix belief is the pragmatic, or scientific method. I will deal with this, and some of the pragmatic issues raised by Peirce's second paper, on another day when I'm bored prior to class. But what I want to raise right now is the general reason why Peirce claimed that the fourth method is the best. And the reason is, the pragmatic method of fixing belief responds to reality.

If you tenaciously cling to your beliefs, you will dismiss and possibly avoid counterevidence, or even ideas that might make you change your mind. Which is in a way admirable, but what if you believe that torture is a good thing? I have a hard time getting behind that one. Authority is nice (and a time-saver), but what if my authority is Hitler? Less aggregiously, what if your authority can't help you in a new situation? I know I'm not s'posed to covet my neighbor's oxen, to use the Bible as an example, check--can I download music? In the long run (and possibly excepting the Bible, depending upon your point of view) the method of authority resolves to "some guy said ..." x.

We are a bit further along with regard to *our* regard for science, so we tend to treat scientists as authorities ... but science has special rules, and is designed (at least in the abstract) to be a neutral search for truth. It has some Mertonian virtues, like freely communicated, transparent, repeatable, on ad infinitum.

I have a number of friends who are quite conservative but a little worried about the direction our country has been taking with regard to science in our current atmosphere of battological malversation. They tickle me. The thing that makes science cool, the thing that makes science work ... is a clear-eyed attempt to account for evidence. And evidence is not framing, or Chunkiavellian made up weapons, or keeping the level of debate on a level of generality so vague as to be useless. I'm for Freedom! If you're not with me ... (Well, actually, Cheney does specifically condone torture, right up to rape--if it doesn't cause organ failure. Oh dear.)

"The method of science," for Peirce, is the best method precisely because it takes reality into account. And every single trend I've watched for the last 5 years, in our leadership--specifically, when they say they want to get away from "reality-based decision-making"--in our media, in our relations to each other, in our fearful attempt to cling to the simple and good; even if the world is neither ... these things worry me on a general level because I retain the belief that we ought to take reality into account.

Spectator