the following two messages came across the peirce list today and i thought
that they might be of some interest to this list. charles peirce can
always be counted on for a fresh look at things, imho. i think his refusal
to privilege rationality as the evolutionary endpoint of human thinking,
and his insistence on error and infantile behavior, would sit well with
activity theory and vygotskian thinking. how far offbase am i? :-)
gary shank
shank@duq.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Rationality
From: "Hans Vilh. Hansen" <hhansen@uwindsor.ca>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:27:48 -0500
X-Message-Number: 2
I wonder if some of the learned persons who subscribe to this list might be
able to help me with a question about Peirce.
Next term are graduate seminar is working under the topic, 'rationality' --
we do it historically -- and I have been assigned 'Peirce on
"rationality"'. I am looking forward to this, but it occurs to me that we
are often inclined to slide into talk of rational methods, rational person,
rational action, etc. Socrates might complain that we are giving a list
rather than dealing with the concept 'rationality' directly.
I plan to have the students read some of the better known Peirce essays
(Fixation, Clear Ideas, etc.), but I wonder if there is anything not so
well known that one of you might recommend.
If anyone cares to venture a tentative df of Peirce's concept of
'rationality' (from one of his stages), that would be very welcome too.
With the best wishes to all, and with thanks en advance,
HVH
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: Rationality
From: "Eugene Halton" <Eugene.W.Halton.2@nd.edu>
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:58:43 -0600
X-Message-Number: 3
Dear Hans Vilh. Hansen,
Be careful of what you wish for!
Here is Peirce from 1902, again breaking through the mask of western
nominalized reason:
"I doubt very much whether the Instinctive mind could ever develop into
a Rational mind. I should expect the reverse process sooner. The Rational
mind is the Progressive mind, and as such, by its very capacity for
growth, seems more infantile than the Instinctive mind. Still, it would
seem that Progressive minds must have, in some mysterious way, probably by
arrested development, grown from Instinctive minds; and they are certainly
enormously higher. The Deity of the ThÈodicÈe of Leibniz is as high an
Instinctive mind as can well be imagined; but it impresses a scientific
reader as distinctly inferior to the human mind. It reminds one of the
views of the Greeks that Infinitude is a defect; for although Leibniz
imagines that he is making the Divine Mind infinite, by making its
knowledge Perfect and Complete, he fails to see that in thus refusing it
the powers of thought and the possibility of improvement he is in fact
taking away something far higher than knowledge. It is the human mind that
is infinite. One of the most remarkable distinctions between the
Instinctive mind of animals and the Rational mind of man is that animals
rarely make mistakes, while the human mind almost invariably blunders at
first, and repeatedly, where it is really exercised in the manner that is
distinctive of it. If you look upon this as a defect, you ought to find an
Instinctive mind higher than a Rational one, and probably, if you
cross-examine yourself, you will find you do. The greatness of the human
mind lies in its ability to discover truth notwithstanding its not having
Instincts strong enough to exempt it from error. This is the marvel and
admirable in it; and this essentially supposes a generous portion of the
capacity for blundering....
"The conception of the Rational Mind as an Unmatured Instinctive Mind
which takes another development precisely because of its childlike
character is confirmed, not only by the prolonged childhood of men, but
also by the fact that all systems of rational performances have had
instinct for their first germ. Not only has instinct been the first germ,
but every step in the development of those systems of performances comes
from instinct. It is precisely because this Instinct is a weak, uncertain
Instinct that it becomes infinitely plastic, and never reaches an ultimate
state beyond which it cannot progress. Uncertain tendencies, unstable
states of equilibrium are conditions sine qua non for the manifestation of
Mind."
--Collected Papers 7.380, 381.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 27 2004 - 11:29:00 PST