The new Peirce list, New PL, is dedicated to the philosophy, logic, and semeiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce and applications to the cognitive sciences. See the attached diagram cogsci.gif, which shows the relationships among the six cognitive sciences. Peirce made major contributions to those fields, and current researchers have been inspired by his writings.

The primary difference between New PL and Peirce-L is the emphasis on 21st century issues. Scholarship on the details of Peirce's MSS is welcome, but usually with a focus on current developments. The dividing line between the two lists is vague, and subscribers are welcome to participate in both.

The fundamental guideline for any discussion of Peirce's work is his First Rule of Reason: "Do not block the way of inquiry". Three other guidelines are implied by that rule. See below for the four guidelines and some related quotations by Peirce.

New PL is hosted at Kassel University in Germany, and the id is cg@lists.iccs-lists.org. The focus of that list had been conceptual graphs, but it had always included discussions of Peirce's philosophy, logic, and semeiotic. For New PL, the letters CG may be considered an abbreviation of 'c ognitive'.

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For other questions, contact the moderator, Tom Hanika at Tom.Hanika@cs.uni-kassel.de his web page is https://www.kde.cs.uni-kassel.de/hanika .

John

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Guidelines for any discussion of Peirce's writings:

1. First Rule of Reason: Do not block the way of inquiry.

This rule has two corollaries: (1) When in doubt, ask questions. (2) When not in doubt, ask yourself why you are not in doubt. Peirce himself followed this guideline. In R304 (copy below), he wrote "I have been ... always disposed to doubt and criticize my own results."

2. Any claim about Peirce's best and final statement on any subject is always doubtful and open to endless questioning.

This point follows from the fact that many of Peirce's later MSS were lost, misplaced, burned, or not available. Nobody can know for certain whether any MS is his final opinion on any particular subject. In L477, he also admitted that he had been "holding back" ... "many important propositions about reasoning" because he "wanted to establish them more certainly before asserting them."

3. Mathematics (which includes formal logic) is the only subject for which reasoning can be precise. But a translation of any statement in ordinary language to or from any mathematical notation is subject to all the pitfalls, vagueness, and context dependence of ordinary language.

For some of the many comments Peirce wrote on this matter, see the excerpts from R318 copied below.

4. New developments in any branch of science may be used to revise, supplement, or extend anything Peirce wrote on that topic.

This guideline is based on the way Peirce would revise his writings to accommodate new scientific discoveries.

Following are some of the MSS by Peirce that explain these issues.

CSP, R825, 1898: The inductive method springs directly out of dissatisfaction with existing knowledge. The great rule of predesignation which must guide it is as much as to say that an induction to be valid must be prompted by a definite doubt or at least an interrogation; and what is such an interrogation but first, a sense that we do not know something, second, a desire to know it, and third, an effort, -- implying a willingness to labor, -- for the sake of seeing how the truth may really be. If that interrogation inspires you, you will be sure to examine the instances; while if it does not, you will pass them by without attention.

Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy,

Do not block the way of inquiry.

Although it is better to be methodical in our investigations, and to consider the Economics of Research, yet there is no positive sin against logic in trying any theory which may come into our heads, so long as it is adopted in such a sense as to permit the investigation to go on unimpeded and undiscouraged. On the other hand, to set up a philosophy which barricades the road of further advance toward the truth is the one unpardonable offense in reasoning, as it is also the one to which metaphysicians have in all ages shown themselves the most addicted.

CSP, R304, 1903: in philosophy what a man does not think out for himself he never understands at all. Nothing can be learned out of books or lectures, they have to be treated not as oracles but simply as facts to be studied like any other facts. That, at any rate is the way in which I would have you treat my lectures. Call no man master, or at any rate not me. Only bear in mind that I have been a good many years trying in singleness of heart to find out how these things really are, and always disposed to doubt and criticize my own results.

CSP, R318, 1907: My trichotomy is plainly of the family stock of Hegel’s three stages of thought, -- an idea that goes back to Kant, and I know not how much further. But the arbitrariness of Hegel's procedure, utterly unavoidable at the time he lived, -- and presumably, in less degree, unavoidable now, or at any future date, -- is in great measure avoided by my taking care never to miss the solid support of mathematically exact formal logic beneath my feet....

The little that I have contributed to pragmatism (or, for that matter, to any other department of philosophy), has been entirely the fruit of this outgrowth from formal logic, and is worth much more than the small sum total of the rest of my work, as time will show.

CSP, L477, 14 October 2011: there are many important propositions about reasoning which I have been holding back (some of them for near 50 years) because I wanted to establish them more certainly before asserting them, and which I am most anxious to submit to public judgment in the little time that remains to me.