Interesting words from Pierce, but I’m concerned that this doesn’t really do what it says on the tin. This ultimately amounts to “assume comprehensibility” as a cure for nihilism, but nihilism is taking issue with the assume part. Moreover, there’s kind of a laundering effect going on here to get to the transcendence of logic, if we don’t want to assume it outright, we can interpolate it from the effectiveness of our activities; art, the natural sciences, and even mathematics all seem to do rather amazing things, and they do so without foundation in the strict logical positivist sense, so we can take all the body of abilities and intuitions and pieces of mental life which we suppose make this possible and say: look, we can do stuff! Let’s take our divine transcendent ability to comprehend and call it logic. But there are problems with this. Some comprehensibility almost certainly exists (this is a weaker claim than “assume total comprehensibility”, which it is harder for the nihilist to deny) but the extent to which the universe is comprehensible to us is entirely up for discussion, it is not a binary between incomprehensibility and total comprehensibility (the former of which does not seem to be the case, and the latter of which likely cannot exist on a formal positivist level but you can hypothesise it to be the case because of our divine transcendent logic - a leap). Only the weaker version of this claim is required for thought and moreover to define the foundations of comprehension as the sum total of the faculties which we identify in the course of doing the thing doesn’t strike me as much of a foundation, it just amounts to “look we can do things”, and if you get essentialist and faithful about it, you can take that to “and that’s because we have a limitless essential ability that underlies us” but it is no way entailed. I hope that was somewhat legible, sorry if not! Thanks
Sorry for the delayed answer! You raise a good point. The idea of the transcendence of logic is obviously left undeveloped in this post. If we aren't nihilists there could be said to be two positions on this issue.
The first one is that logic is our human-dependent tool for understanding our immediate environment and nothing more. It something internal to us, and the world obeys a different logic, if it obeys logic at all.
The second one is to see logic as real human-independent form of the universe and our use of it is just a part of an overarching logic of reality. This is the fundamental hope that our the structure and logic of our mind is similar to the structure and logic of the universe (a hope that is well grounded in the Darwinian scheme).
As I see it, the first option leads to epistemological problems. How could our knowledge then be held as true, if it does not correspond with reality? How can it be connected to reality, if its form and logic is different.
With the second option the form of our knowledge is basically the same. Therefore, the reality and us are part of the same continuum.
Now, it is an open question if logic is truly transcendent, meaning that it is beyond the universe as something eternal. I believe it to be so, but there are also Peirce scholars that disagree with me on this.
Thank you for adding Peirce's voice to this topic. I'm not familiar with his work, but what you said reminds me a lot of Hegel, since he equated logic with metaphysics (and critiqued Kant for similar reasons that you do). One worry that I've had with Hegel's response to nihilism, however, is that establishing the intelligibility of being only gets us part way to the desired goal. The logic structure of reality might make it somewhat welcoming to us, but it doesn't yet make it a home. What most religions have provided is the idea that reality isn't only intelligible, but that it's a place suitable for us and our needs (preferably where good things happen to good people). Hegel's system was rejected by many religious thinkers for just this reason. But perhaps Peirce can succeed where Hegel didn't.
I also wanted to say that the dichotomy between nihilism and transcendence isn't so helpful for understanding the phenomena of meaning and purpose in human life. Many people find meaning in their daily lives: looking after their children, being part of a community, pursuing an artistic project, or something else. I grant you that none of these things can meet your standard of being infinite, eternal or transcendent. They are all finite, temporal, and immanent to the world. But, for all that, they are not the mere nihilistic self-seeking practices you are worried about.
Thanks for the comment! Although there is a lot of commonality between Peirce and Hegel, Peirce had his disagreements. One of them is that Hegel saw that 3rdness (Geist), by itself, constituted the whole of reality, where as Peirce saw that it must be accompanied with 1stness (novelty, spontaneity) and 2ndness (brute actuality).
What comes to the point about making reality our home, I believe that the word logic may be the problem here. For Peirce logic (semiotics) is not only intellectual/rational (3rdness) but also emotional/sentimental (1stness) and dynamic/active (2ndness). Actually, the most rational interpretation has the form of a habit. Therefore, habitual harmonious behaviour is very much rational.
Furthermore, by embodying true habits based on principles of action, we participate with "living generalities" or "eternal verities" as Peirce called them. So actually I would say that these "mundane" habits are very much opportunities to participate with the eternal and the infinite. The connection with the transcendent isn't some passive platonic contemplation but active participation through habits of action.
So if there really is a meaning crisis, then habits would be a solution. I guess this means we currently lack the right kind of habits. How does Peirce distinguish between habits that provide transcendent meaning (or allow us access to the infinite) and those that don't? In other words, what is meant by "eternal verities" or "living generalities"?
A true habit would be a habit that minimizes surprise and can be pursued indefinetly. The other pragmatists saw these habits as being instrumental and contingent; connected to the immediate environment. They saw that we have no access to the super-habits, i.e. "transcendental habits", that guide the whole of reality, which form the ultimate telos of reality.
Peirce on the other hand saw that we can participate with these super-habits that transcend our immediate environment.
How to distinguish them? Based on what their practical effects are, and that is of course fallible. Therefore, we can't ever be totally sure that we are participating with the right habits. But we have the hope that it is possible.
Encountering problems is often required for habit change, a process which our society must go through at this age. In that sense, facing the abyss becomes necessary before we can escape it. Remaining a naive idealist unwilling to confront challenges halts growth and change.
Nevertheless, I believe that inquiry must be accompanied by underlying hope. We must maintain faith that Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are real and are attainable through our efforts of inquiry. This sets our minds at something transcendent leading us out of the abyss.
What’s the difference between logic preceding metaphysics and just using your imagination?
I do think being rigorous in describing the characteristics and conditions of the subject is a huge help in clarifying the idea and inspiring new ones, so I’m grateful for your post diving into it.
What I’m wondering is if there’s a distinction that I’m missing between imagination and the logic described in your post. For illustrative purposes, imagining “a kindhearted sheep jumping over the moon”.
To imagine that requires inductive reasoning as one must generalize the act of jumping, abductive reasoning as one must imagine the situation presented, and idealism to consider the transcendental quality of kindheartedness. The imagining also precedes metaphysics as it does not assert any plausibility of the imagined scenario.
Would it be a fair statement to say that the way out of nihilism is to be more imaginative? Or does that miss out on some critical aspects of the logic?
Interesting thought! My idea in the post is to demonstrate that through logic, we have access to something transcendent, which hopefully is the beginning of the cure to nihilism.
To say that the cure to nihilism is just to use imagination sounds to me like the naive idealism I wrote about in the beginning of the post. To me it sounds like we could just make our own meaning as we like through imagination.
Now the act of using imagination is of course part of logic, i.e. semiotics, as absolutely everything is. It is a cognitive state that it very free, open, bursting with possibilities, that is 1stness (if you are familiar with the categories).
Great read, and insightful perspective! Some thoughts: «The solution to the meaning crisis does not rest in new metaphysics, self-improvement, spiritual practices, political change, or a return to the enlightenment era. Surprisingly, the solution lies in gaining a clear and correct understanding of logic.» Could it be a case of «all of the above» and not either/or? What is a logic without a metaphysic? You write «Therefore, if logic precedes metaphysics, and our mind as capable of conceiving the principles of logic, then our mind is capable of reaching the transcendent.» Doesn’t this bind logic to a metaphysic that distinguishes the transcendent noumena and the phenomenal? I’m not arguing that logic isn’t part of the solution, simply that it isn’t the solution by itself. And which logic is the «right» one? Here I’m thinking of the alternatives of e.g. Dialetheic logic (see e.g. Priest - In Contradiction). In my view, truth is contextual, relative to our entire framework/world view, which includes logic, metaphysics, but also our culture and so on (our «life-world» I guess Husserl would say). Could it be the case that what we are looking for with logic and metaphysics isn’t universal validity, but coherence with the whole of our conceptual framework?
«How can something inherently contingent and subjective be expected to maintain universal validity?» There’s something to be said for the hermeneutic circle here, for the (to my view unavoidable) situation we find ourselves in where we are always-already immersed in the world, trying to make sense of it. We cannot doubt that this is our situation, because it is the ground for our being able to doubt in the first place. In much the same way we must presuppose a logic in order to reason about and justify the logic, just as we must presuppose a metaphysic to reason about and justify a metaphysic. I’m not sure universal validity is real, though we can conceive of it as the ideal limit to our framework. I’m more or less thinking out loud here, but what if separating metaphysics from logic is part of the problem, what if these are one whole that by separation cause some of the trouble we require a solution for in the first place?
Great comment! You are right, of course logic, just by itself, isn't enough. Logic necessarily has implications for metaphysics, but metaphysics must be grounded on logic, which for Peirce was semiotics. This would give us a semiotic metaphysics, where reality is conceptualized as sign-action (semiosis), i.e. communication. My point is that simply talking about metaphysics doesn't solve the meaning crisis, we have to go deeper to the root of the problem, to logic itself.
Considering question of binding of logic to metaphysics by characterizing logic as transcendent. By transcendent I mean that logic is formal science that limits the possibilities of actuality, which necessarily has to conform to logic. This is analogical to the way Euclidean diagrammatic proofs limit the possibilities of triangles. The interior angles of triangles (on a 2-dimensional flat plane) must add to 180 degrees. This is not a metaphysical claim, but a formal one. I guess one could call it a transcendental one?
The question of the right logic is a question of experimental testing. The principles of logic must be testable. That is the reason Peirce was so keen on visual diagrammatic representations of the principles logic (what he called Existential Graphs, or EGs for short). Also semiotics is presented through diagrams (triangles, solenoids etc.). These iconic diagrams provide a way to intersubjectively test the logical principles, as they present the logic, not merely symbolically, but also iconically.
Most importantly, these diagrams are the way out of the hermeneutic circle. The Euclidean geometrical demonstration shows formal aspects of triangles, without a need to appeal to logical principles. This avoids the problem of circularity when justifying logical principles.
I might have to read Peirce.. it seems to me that in order to have a geometrical demonstration to show the formal aspects of triangles you would need some experience of this demonstration, which is empirical. One could now claim that this is not necessarily so, that this demonstration is a priori. But all the parts used in such an a priori demonstration would stem from empirical knowledge, from experience: you would have to have observed various triangles, be familiar with spatiality etc. This to me is just another turn around the circle, and in my view the circle is to be embraced, not escaped from. Logic, metaphysics, experience etc. are all parts of the whole of reality which is more than the sum of these parts.
The Peircean semiotic view seems to lead to a form of Platonism (ultimate reality is a transcendent logic) and a deterministic reality (assuming everything downstream from logic can’t introduce anything illogical). Would this be a correct impression? If you have already written about these aspects I’d be happy to read.
According to Peirce, "the elements of every concept enter into logical thought at the gate of perception". In other words, all knowledge is gained through perception, and therefore obviously also the diagrammatic proofs are perceived empirically.
The important aspects about these proofs, is that when demonstrating them, one doesn't cite any underlying principles of reasoning as premises. The circularity of proving logic with logic is avoided. Actually, the diagrammatic proofs are independent of any particular theory of logic, which is the reason for the lack of disagreement about the sum of the internal angles of triangles.
There simply is no more uncontroversial or direct way to prove something. If the other person is not pursued to belief that the internal angles sum up to 180 degrees, the only possibility is to demonstrate the proof again. There are no higher-order principles one could refer to.
For Peirce, no theory of inquiry can be justified unless some arguments are accepted as legitimate pre-theoretically. This is one expression of the necessary hope inquirers must possess in order to inquire. And what would be more compelling than a visual diagram simply stating what is evident.
Yet, I understand your point and in a sense we still live in this hermeneutic circle. This is the postmodern realization, which Peirce accepts and takes as a starting point. The question Peirce asks is: How, given this situation, that we have no objective vantage point to reality, could we still manage to reach the Truth? How can we know the Truth from within the process of reality? How are synthetic judgments possible?
I'll try now to briefly address your last question. Semiotic does not lead to static platonism or determinism. It avoids determinism because, as briefly mentioned, semiotics is vague and based on probabilities and continuities. The end result cannot be determined with 100 % accuracy from the initial conditions.
It avoids static platonism, because, although semiotics requires teleology and a telos, the telos itself is dynamic and in a state of growth and development. Meaning is not fixed but living. Novelty is constantly flowing into all things producing limitless possibilities for interpretations. For this reason Peirce said that the universe is like a poem. Its meaning cannot be expressed with 100 % accuracy, but retains a vagueness in it, like the interpretation of a poem.
I recently read Ortega y Gasset's "Some Lessons in Metaphysics", and reading over my notes this morning I found this quotation: "...we find that metaphysical activity is an inevitable ingredient of human life; even more, that it is what man is always doing, and all his other occupations are decantings precipitated from it… Metaphysics is not a science; it is a construction of the world, and this making a world out of what surrounds you is human life."
Is not the "activity" of positing that metaphysics should be grounded in logic etc. a metaphysical activity? On the above interpretation of metaphysics, are we not doing metaphysics when we are doing logic? I realized that your and mine conception of what metaphysics means with respect to logic and the rest of our common terms might differ. To me metaphysics and logic are both pieces, of different "orders", of the conceptual background against which we construct our world, so once again I'm driven to stating that metaphysics and logic are impossible to separate, they are both "grounded" in each other, one inseparable whole.
This might be just another turn on the carousel, and I do not in any way intend to contradict you in any strong way, merely to show a different part of the balance. Our different views of the matter may (necessarily?) come down to our having a different understanding of the terminology and their meanings, which is something I have written about in several places if you're interested in reading.
I agree that ultimately everything is inseparably part of the whole. This is the Peircean doctrine of synechism. By saying that logic is transcendent I don't claim that we have some privileged vantage point outside the universe from which we make these claims.
You are right! Everything we do is a metaphysical activity, because claiming otherwise would separate the wholeness of reality into separate chunks contrary to the doctrine of synechism.
The distinction between logic and metaphysics is a logical one, not a ontological one. This is a "technique" called prescission. Peirce writes:
“Prescission consists in logically supposing a case in which the former idea is present but the latter not so.”
“…Precission, consists in supposing a state of things in which one element is present without the other, the one being logically possible without the other.“
For example we can think of a object that is red. There is thus an actual existent (the object - 2ndness) and the quality embodied in it (the color - 1stness). Now we can logically separate them and contemplate color without it being embodied in anything. Therefore, color precedes its embodiment, although no color can be perceived without it being embodied in something. It is a logical, not an ontological distinction.
This works also in the ordering of the sciences (although it's a bit clumsy). We cannot conceive biology, that does not take into account the sciences of chemistry and physics. But we can conceive physics without psychology.
This leads us back to logic. We can conceive logic without it being actually guiding any reality, that is, we can conceive logic independent of metaphysics, even though us actually conceiving this is part of metaphysics, as we are real natural organisms in the universe.
I guess ultimately, there is no way to make any final claims about these issues. In the end one has to have faith and hope. Peirce sees that the precondition of inquiry and science is the hope that the logic of the universe is the same as the logic of our minds.
The hope which I am trying to express in the post is that, if we believe, with Peirce, that the logic which we use, is not limited to some part of the universe, or even to this universe, but, as logic precedes metaphysics, we have access to truly eternal and infinite Truth.
(And I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. They make me consider these issues more deeply.)
It is always good to read Peirce, but his writings are bit hard to get into. Forster's book is a great one. In addition to addressing the role of logic is has great chapters on Peircean metaphysics. I highly recommend it!
Interesting words from Pierce, but I’m concerned that this doesn’t really do what it says on the tin. This ultimately amounts to “assume comprehensibility” as a cure for nihilism, but nihilism is taking issue with the assume part. Moreover, there’s kind of a laundering effect going on here to get to the transcendence of logic, if we don’t want to assume it outright, we can interpolate it from the effectiveness of our activities; art, the natural sciences, and even mathematics all seem to do rather amazing things, and they do so without foundation in the strict logical positivist sense, so we can take all the body of abilities and intuitions and pieces of mental life which we suppose make this possible and say: look, we can do stuff! Let’s take our divine transcendent ability to comprehend and call it logic. But there are problems with this. Some comprehensibility almost certainly exists (this is a weaker claim than “assume total comprehensibility”, which it is harder for the nihilist to deny) but the extent to which the universe is comprehensible to us is entirely up for discussion, it is not a binary between incomprehensibility and total comprehensibility (the former of which does not seem to be the case, and the latter of which likely cannot exist on a formal positivist level but you can hypothesise it to be the case because of our divine transcendent logic - a leap). Only the weaker version of this claim is required for thought and moreover to define the foundations of comprehension as the sum total of the faculties which we identify in the course of doing the thing doesn’t strike me as much of a foundation, it just amounts to “look we can do things”, and if you get essentialist and faithful about it, you can take that to “and that’s because we have a limitless essential ability that underlies us” but it is no way entailed. I hope that was somewhat legible, sorry if not! Thanks
Sorry for the delayed answer! You raise a good point. The idea of the transcendence of logic is obviously left undeveloped in this post. If we aren't nihilists there could be said to be two positions on this issue.
The first one is that logic is our human-dependent tool for understanding our immediate environment and nothing more. It something internal to us, and the world obeys a different logic, if it obeys logic at all.
The second one is to see logic as real human-independent form of the universe and our use of it is just a part of an overarching logic of reality. This is the fundamental hope that our the structure and logic of our mind is similar to the structure and logic of the universe (a hope that is well grounded in the Darwinian scheme).
As I see it, the first option leads to epistemological problems. How could our knowledge then be held as true, if it does not correspond with reality? How can it be connected to reality, if its form and logic is different.
With the second option the form of our knowledge is basically the same. Therefore, the reality and us are part of the same continuum.
Now, it is an open question if logic is truly transcendent, meaning that it is beyond the universe as something eternal. I believe it to be so, but there are also Peirce scholars that disagree with me on this.
Thank you for adding Peirce's voice to this topic. I'm not familiar with his work, but what you said reminds me a lot of Hegel, since he equated logic with metaphysics (and critiqued Kant for similar reasons that you do). One worry that I've had with Hegel's response to nihilism, however, is that establishing the intelligibility of being only gets us part way to the desired goal. The logic structure of reality might make it somewhat welcoming to us, but it doesn't yet make it a home. What most religions have provided is the idea that reality isn't only intelligible, but that it's a place suitable for us and our needs (preferably where good things happen to good people). Hegel's system was rejected by many religious thinkers for just this reason. But perhaps Peirce can succeed where Hegel didn't.
I also wanted to say that the dichotomy between nihilism and transcendence isn't so helpful for understanding the phenomena of meaning and purpose in human life. Many people find meaning in their daily lives: looking after their children, being part of a community, pursuing an artistic project, or something else. I grant you that none of these things can meet your standard of being infinite, eternal or transcendent. They are all finite, temporal, and immanent to the world. But, for all that, they are not the mere nihilistic self-seeking practices you are worried about.
Thanks for the comment! Although there is a lot of commonality between Peirce and Hegel, Peirce had his disagreements. One of them is that Hegel saw that 3rdness (Geist), by itself, constituted the whole of reality, where as Peirce saw that it must be accompanied with 1stness (novelty, spontaneity) and 2ndness (brute actuality).
What comes to the point about making reality our home, I believe that the word logic may be the problem here. For Peirce logic (semiotics) is not only intellectual/rational (3rdness) but also emotional/sentimental (1stness) and dynamic/active (2ndness). Actually, the most rational interpretation has the form of a habit. Therefore, habitual harmonious behaviour is very much rational.
Furthermore, by embodying true habits based on principles of action, we participate with "living generalities" or "eternal verities" as Peirce called them. So actually I would say that these "mundane" habits are very much opportunities to participate with the eternal and the infinite. The connection with the transcendent isn't some passive platonic contemplation but active participation through habits of action.
So if there really is a meaning crisis, then habits would be a solution. I guess this means we currently lack the right kind of habits. How does Peirce distinguish between habits that provide transcendent meaning (or allow us access to the infinite) and those that don't? In other words, what is meant by "eternal verities" or "living generalities"?
A true habit would be a habit that minimizes surprise and can be pursued indefinetly. The other pragmatists saw these habits as being instrumental and contingent; connected to the immediate environment. They saw that we have no access to the super-habits, i.e. "transcendental habits", that guide the whole of reality, which form the ultimate telos of reality.
Peirce on the other hand saw that we can participate with these super-habits that transcend our immediate environment.
How to distinguish them? Based on what their practical effects are, and that is of course fallible. Therefore, we can't ever be totally sure that we are participating with the right habits. But we have the hope that it is possible.
Good text. But I fear escaping the abyss of nihilism and finding truth may be two different things. What if truth lies into the abyss?
Encountering problems is often required for habit change, a process which our society must go through at this age. In that sense, facing the abyss becomes necessary before we can escape it. Remaining a naive idealist unwilling to confront challenges halts growth and change.
Nevertheless, I believe that inquiry must be accompanied by underlying hope. We must maintain faith that Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are real and are attainable through our efforts of inquiry. This sets our minds at something transcendent leading us out of the abyss.
What’s the difference between logic preceding metaphysics and just using your imagination?
I do think being rigorous in describing the characteristics and conditions of the subject is a huge help in clarifying the idea and inspiring new ones, so I’m grateful for your post diving into it.
What I’m wondering is if there’s a distinction that I’m missing between imagination and the logic described in your post. For illustrative purposes, imagining “a kindhearted sheep jumping over the moon”.
To imagine that requires inductive reasoning as one must generalize the act of jumping, abductive reasoning as one must imagine the situation presented, and idealism to consider the transcendental quality of kindheartedness. The imagining also precedes metaphysics as it does not assert any plausibility of the imagined scenario.
Would it be a fair statement to say that the way out of nihilism is to be more imaginative? Or does that miss out on some critical aspects of the logic?
Interesting thought! My idea in the post is to demonstrate that through logic, we have access to something transcendent, which hopefully is the beginning of the cure to nihilism.
To say that the cure to nihilism is just to use imagination sounds to me like the naive idealism I wrote about in the beginning of the post. To me it sounds like we could just make our own meaning as we like through imagination.
Now the act of using imagination is of course part of logic, i.e. semiotics, as absolutely everything is. It is a cognitive state that it very free, open, bursting with possibilities, that is 1stness (if you are familiar with the categories).
Hope this answers your question!
Great read, and insightful perspective! Some thoughts: «The solution to the meaning crisis does not rest in new metaphysics, self-improvement, spiritual practices, political change, or a return to the enlightenment era. Surprisingly, the solution lies in gaining a clear and correct understanding of logic.» Could it be a case of «all of the above» and not either/or? What is a logic without a metaphysic? You write «Therefore, if logic precedes metaphysics, and our mind as capable of conceiving the principles of logic, then our mind is capable of reaching the transcendent.» Doesn’t this bind logic to a metaphysic that distinguishes the transcendent noumena and the phenomenal? I’m not arguing that logic isn’t part of the solution, simply that it isn’t the solution by itself. And which logic is the «right» one? Here I’m thinking of the alternatives of e.g. Dialetheic logic (see e.g. Priest - In Contradiction). In my view, truth is contextual, relative to our entire framework/world view, which includes logic, metaphysics, but also our culture and so on (our «life-world» I guess Husserl would say). Could it be the case that what we are looking for with logic and metaphysics isn’t universal validity, but coherence with the whole of our conceptual framework?
«How can something inherently contingent and subjective be expected to maintain universal validity?» There’s something to be said for the hermeneutic circle here, for the (to my view unavoidable) situation we find ourselves in where we are always-already immersed in the world, trying to make sense of it. We cannot doubt that this is our situation, because it is the ground for our being able to doubt in the first place. In much the same way we must presuppose a logic in order to reason about and justify the logic, just as we must presuppose a metaphysic to reason about and justify a metaphysic. I’m not sure universal validity is real, though we can conceive of it as the ideal limit to our framework. I’m more or less thinking out loud here, but what if separating metaphysics from logic is part of the problem, what if these are one whole that by separation cause some of the trouble we require a solution for in the first place?
Great comment! You are right, of course logic, just by itself, isn't enough. Logic necessarily has implications for metaphysics, but metaphysics must be grounded on logic, which for Peirce was semiotics. This would give us a semiotic metaphysics, where reality is conceptualized as sign-action (semiosis), i.e. communication. My point is that simply talking about metaphysics doesn't solve the meaning crisis, we have to go deeper to the root of the problem, to logic itself.
Considering question of binding of logic to metaphysics by characterizing logic as transcendent. By transcendent I mean that logic is formal science that limits the possibilities of actuality, which necessarily has to conform to logic. This is analogical to the way Euclidean diagrammatic proofs limit the possibilities of triangles. The interior angles of triangles (on a 2-dimensional flat plane) must add to 180 degrees. This is not a metaphysical claim, but a formal one. I guess one could call it a transcendental one?
The question of the right logic is a question of experimental testing. The principles of logic must be testable. That is the reason Peirce was so keen on visual diagrammatic representations of the principles logic (what he called Existential Graphs, or EGs for short). Also semiotics is presented through diagrams (triangles, solenoids etc.). These iconic diagrams provide a way to intersubjectively test the logical principles, as they present the logic, not merely symbolically, but also iconically.
Most importantly, these diagrams are the way out of the hermeneutic circle. The Euclidean geometrical demonstration shows formal aspects of triangles, without a need to appeal to logical principles. This avoids the problem of circularity when justifying logical principles.
I might have to read Peirce.. it seems to me that in order to have a geometrical demonstration to show the formal aspects of triangles you would need some experience of this demonstration, which is empirical. One could now claim that this is not necessarily so, that this demonstration is a priori. But all the parts used in such an a priori demonstration would stem from empirical knowledge, from experience: you would have to have observed various triangles, be familiar with spatiality etc. This to me is just another turn around the circle, and in my view the circle is to be embraced, not escaped from. Logic, metaphysics, experience etc. are all parts of the whole of reality which is more than the sum of these parts.
The Peircean semiotic view seems to lead to a form of Platonism (ultimate reality is a transcendent logic) and a deterministic reality (assuming everything downstream from logic can’t introduce anything illogical). Would this be a correct impression? If you have already written about these aspects I’d be happy to read.
According to Peirce, "the elements of every concept enter into logical thought at the gate of perception". In other words, all knowledge is gained through perception, and therefore obviously also the diagrammatic proofs are perceived empirically.
The important aspects about these proofs, is that when demonstrating them, one doesn't cite any underlying principles of reasoning as premises. The circularity of proving logic with logic is avoided. Actually, the diagrammatic proofs are independent of any particular theory of logic, which is the reason for the lack of disagreement about the sum of the internal angles of triangles.
There simply is no more uncontroversial or direct way to prove something. If the other person is not pursued to belief that the internal angles sum up to 180 degrees, the only possibility is to demonstrate the proof again. There are no higher-order principles one could refer to.
For Peirce, no theory of inquiry can be justified unless some arguments are accepted as legitimate pre-theoretically. This is one expression of the necessary hope inquirers must possess in order to inquire. And what would be more compelling than a visual diagram simply stating what is evident.
Yet, I understand your point and in a sense we still live in this hermeneutic circle. This is the postmodern realization, which Peirce accepts and takes as a starting point. The question Peirce asks is: How, given this situation, that we have no objective vantage point to reality, could we still manage to reach the Truth? How can we know the Truth from within the process of reality? How are synthetic judgments possible?
I'll try now to briefly address your last question. Semiotic does not lead to static platonism or determinism. It avoids determinism because, as briefly mentioned, semiotics is vague and based on probabilities and continuities. The end result cannot be determined with 100 % accuracy from the initial conditions.
It avoids static platonism, because, although semiotics requires teleology and a telos, the telos itself is dynamic and in a state of growth and development. Meaning is not fixed but living. Novelty is constantly flowing into all things producing limitless possibilities for interpretations. For this reason Peirce said that the universe is like a poem. Its meaning cannot be expressed with 100 % accuracy, but retains a vagueness in it, like the interpretation of a poem.
I recently read Ortega y Gasset's "Some Lessons in Metaphysics", and reading over my notes this morning I found this quotation: "...we find that metaphysical activity is an inevitable ingredient of human life; even more, that it is what man is always doing, and all his other occupations are decantings precipitated from it… Metaphysics is not a science; it is a construction of the world, and this making a world out of what surrounds you is human life."
Is not the "activity" of positing that metaphysics should be grounded in logic etc. a metaphysical activity? On the above interpretation of metaphysics, are we not doing metaphysics when we are doing logic? I realized that your and mine conception of what metaphysics means with respect to logic and the rest of our common terms might differ. To me metaphysics and logic are both pieces, of different "orders", of the conceptual background against which we construct our world, so once again I'm driven to stating that metaphysics and logic are impossible to separate, they are both "grounded" in each other, one inseparable whole.
This might be just another turn on the carousel, and I do not in any way intend to contradict you in any strong way, merely to show a different part of the balance. Our different views of the matter may (necessarily?) come down to our having a different understanding of the terminology and their meanings, which is something I have written about in several places if you're interested in reading.
I agree that ultimately everything is inseparably part of the whole. This is the Peircean doctrine of synechism. By saying that logic is transcendent I don't claim that we have some privileged vantage point outside the universe from which we make these claims.
You are right! Everything we do is a metaphysical activity, because claiming otherwise would separate the wholeness of reality into separate chunks contrary to the doctrine of synechism.
The distinction between logic and metaphysics is a logical one, not a ontological one. This is a "technique" called prescission. Peirce writes:
“Prescission consists in logically supposing a case in which the former idea is present but the latter not so.”
“…Precission, consists in supposing a state of things in which one element is present without the other, the one being logically possible without the other.“
For example we can think of a object that is red. There is thus an actual existent (the object - 2ndness) and the quality embodied in it (the color - 1stness). Now we can logically separate them and contemplate color without it being embodied in anything. Therefore, color precedes its embodiment, although no color can be perceived without it being embodied in something. It is a logical, not an ontological distinction.
This works also in the ordering of the sciences (although it's a bit clumsy). We cannot conceive biology, that does not take into account the sciences of chemistry and physics. But we can conceive physics without psychology.
This leads us back to logic. We can conceive logic without it being actually guiding any reality, that is, we can conceive logic independent of metaphysics, even though us actually conceiving this is part of metaphysics, as we are real natural organisms in the universe.
I guess ultimately, there is no way to make any final claims about these issues. In the end one has to have faith and hope. Peirce sees that the precondition of inquiry and science is the hope that the logic of the universe is the same as the logic of our minds.
The hope which I am trying to express in the post is that, if we believe, with Peirce, that the logic which we use, is not limited to some part of the universe, or even to this universe, but, as logic precedes metaphysics, we have access to truly eternal and infinite Truth.
(And I really appreciate your thoughtful comments. They make me consider these issues more deeply.)
It helps me too! Thanks again
Would you recommend Peirce’s original work or the Forster source?
It is always good to read Peirce, but his writings are bit hard to get into. Forster's book is a great one. In addition to addressing the role of logic is has great chapters on Peircean metaphysics. I highly recommend it!
Thank you for the in-depth answers and discussion! I’m putting Peirce on my reading list.
Excellent! Thank you for your always wonderful insight. 🙂