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The epistemology of Charles S. Peirce and its implications for a philosophy of education

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The epistemology of Charles S. Peirce and its implications for a philosophy of education

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Content THE EPISTEMOLQGY OF CHARLES S. PEIRCE AHD ITS-'IMPLICATIONS' FOR A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by George S. Maccia July_1952 _ UMI Num ber: DP24016 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Dissertation Pubi sh*ng UMI DP24016 Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 ph. 0 Ed. ’ S3 M i z s r This dissertation, w ritte n by .......GEORGE. . S . J4AC CIA............. under the guidance of hA§...Faculty Committee on Studies, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the C ouncil on Graduate Study and Research, in p a rtia l f u l fillm e n t of requirements fo r the degree of D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y Dean Committee on Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION........................... . 1 Preface The Problem Importance of the Problem Scope of the Problem Sources and Authenticity of Materials Used Methods of Procedure Organization of the Study Summary of the Chapter II. THE CATEGORIES OF PEIRCE ........ 20 The Categories in General Firstness Secondness Thirdness Summary of the Chapter III. THE KNOWSR AND THE KNOWN.......... 32 Consciousness and Reality Perception and Its Function Imagination and Its Function Memory and Its Function Conception and Its Function Judgment and Its Function Desire and Its Function Volition and Its Function Belief and Its Function Cognition and Its Function Summary of the Chapter ii Chapter IV. V, VI. VII. Page KNOWING AND TRUTH............... 81 Truth and Reality ‘ Truth and Desire Truth and Volition Truth and Belief Truth and Cognition Truth and Certitude Summary of the Chapter KNOWING AND THE G O O D ........... 98 Good and Reality Good and Desire Good and Volition Good and Cognition Good and Belief Summary of the Chapter THE AIMS OF EDUCATION ABSTRACTED FROM THE EPISTBMOLQGY OF CHARLES S. PEIRCE COMPARED TO THOSE OF JOHN DEWEY.......... 109 Aims of Education as Derived from Peirce * s Epistemology Aims of Education as Stated in Dewey1s Democracy and Education Comparison of the Educational Aims of Peirce and Dewey Summary of the Chapter THE CONSEQUENCES OF PEIRCE»S AIMS OF EDUCATION AS APPLIED TO CURRICULAR PROBLEMS . ............. 145 * The General Curricular Implications of Peircefs Educational Aims iii Chapter Page The Control of the Curriculum The Content of the Curriculum The Organization Of the Curriculum Summary of the Chapter VIII. CONCLUSIONS AND HBCOMMSIDATIOTS.......... 184 Beview of the Problem The Categories of Peirce The Content of Consciousness The Potentialities of Knowing The Values of Knowing The Educational Aims of Peirce and Dewey Consequences of Peirce*s Aims in Curricular Problems Conclusions of the Investigation Recommendations BIBLI OGBAPHlf 200 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Preface Since Charles S. Peirce is the acknowledged founder of American Pragmatism, his thought is of interest to . students of education as well as to students of philosophy. Until the publication of Collected Papers . the study of Peirce*s thought was difficult indeed. Before Collected Papers the published manuscripts were scattered throughout various periodicals* Many other manuscripts had not been published. Charles Hartshorne and Paul ¥eiss in editing the Collected Papers have provided a more facile access to the thought of Peirce. As a consequence the study of Peirce»s philosophy has been stimulated. At least six volumes concerned particularly with his philosophy, or P 3 4- B *7 aspects of his philosophy, have been published. ' ^Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), Vols. I-VI, ^Charles Sanders Peirce, Chance. Love. Logic, ed. Morris R. Cohen (N.Y.: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1923;. Eugene Freeman, Categories of Charles Peirce (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1934). 2 The controversy as to whether Peircefs philosophy is systematic or not rests on the selection of material from his writings. Since either the support or denial of the systematic character of Peirce*s thought rests upon selection, there may always he dispute about liberties taken in the selection of materials from his •writings. Per haps the strongest support for treating his philosophy as systematic rests in the statement which follows: To erect a philosophical edifice that shall outlast the vicissitudes of time, my care must be, not so much to set each brick with nicest accuracy, as to lay the foundations deep and massive .... The undertaking which this volume inaugurates is to make a philosophy like that of Aristotle, that is to say, to outline a theory so comprehensive that, for a long time to come, the entire work of human reason, in philosophy of every school and kind, in mathematics, in psychology, in physical science, in history, in sociology, and in what ever other department there may be, shall appear as the filling up of its details.1 ^Justus Buchler, Charles Peirce *s Empiricism (N.Y.: Earcourt Brace and Co., 1939). ^Charles S. Peirce, The Philosophy of Peirce. Selected Writings. ed, Justus Buchler (London: K. Paul, Trench, Truber, and Co., Ltd., 1940). 6James Feibleman, An Introduction to Peirce *s Philosophy (N.Y,: Harpers and Brothers, 1946X1 ? Thomas A. Goudge, The Thought of C. S , . Peirce (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950). iCharles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, eds, jCharles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard Uni versity Press, 1931), 1.1. Throughout the footnotes the Homan numeral indicates the volume and the Arabic numeral, jthe paragraph. Thus 1.1 indicates the first paragraph of 'the—f- i-r s t-volume^ ------------------------------------ It is evident from the above quotation that Charles Peirce f intended to develop, if not a complete system, at least the I I basis upon which a system may be built. Therefore, it may i be.assumed that a coherent system or at least the basis for a system may be found among his papers, k philosophy con sidered as a system should contain in its structure a rather i complete treatment of the problem of knowledge. It was the Intention of this study to abstract the epistemology of Charles S. Peirce and to investigate its implications for education. In so far as this investigator can discover, little i or no study has been made of the educational implications of Peirce’s thinking. Thus It seems that this study is the first to investigate the implications of Peirce’s philos ophy in education. The Problem The purpose of this study was to determine the epistemology of Charles Sanders Peirce and its implications for a philosophy of education stated as aims; that is, to compare the aims of education derived from Peirce’s epistem ology with those as stated by John Dewey” 1 ' and to determine 3-John Dewey, Democracy and Education (N.Y.s Mac millan Co., 1916). ~ 4 the consequence of Peirce's aims when they were applied to curricular problems. In other words, the purpose of this study was to answer the following questions from the philosophy of Peirce: What is the relation between the knower and the known? What is the relation between knowing and truth? What is the relation between knowing and the good? What are the aims of education as derived from Peirce's epistemology? What are the aims of education as stated by John Dewey in Democracy and Education^-? How do the aims of education as derived from Peirce compare with those stated by Dewey? Who should control the curriculum? What should be the content of the curriculum? What should be the organization of the curriculum? Importance of the Problem The public schools are under attack. Modern Edu cation is accused of neglecting to teach children the fun damental skills.^ The recent attacks are swelling with the Ubid. ^David Hulburd, This Happened in Pasadena (N.Y.: Macmillan Co., 1951)• fervor of those leveled against "Progressive Education"» approximately fourteen years ago. The criticisms of Jac ques Maritain1 are being re-echoed. It is claimed that the emphasis on vocationalism is so great that moral, ethical and logical problems are neglected. A review of the liter ature of the criticisms against modern education will show that the attacks center upon the relativism of pragmatism. Perhaps the sum total of such objections has been expressed by William Pepperell Montague as follows: Now, pragmatic relativism in its repudiation of logical validity and in its substitution of the new interest in psychological genesis for the old interest in objective truth and falsity voices accurately and in the language of technical philosophy the anti-in- tellectualism that dominate the new school of politi cal and social science. In theory it means the delib erate and systematic repudiation of that disinterested faith in ideals which, however imperfectly practised in the past, has been the inspiration of human greatness.2 However, would these criticisms be valid when levied against educational practices derived from Peirce»s pragmaticism? Montague distinguishes clearly between the ontological position of Peirce and that of Dewey. What is the ontological frame of Peirce»s philos ophy? The following quotations show that Peirce was a ^-Jacques Maritain, Education at the Crossroads (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943*JT” ^William Pepperell Montague, The Ways of Knowing (N.Y.: Macmillan Co., 1948). 6 realist. Truth is the conformity of a representation to its object .... only, -what is that "object1 1 which serves to define truth? Why it is the reality: it is of such nature as to be independent of representations of it..1 .... the real is that which insists upon forcing its way to recognition as something other than the mind’s creation.^ What is the ontological frame of Dewey’s philos ophy? Dewey denies the existence of any antecedent reals. He emphatically repudiates a conformance theory of truth. The conclusion of this part of the discussion will be that standards and tests of validity are found in the consequences of overt activity, not in what is fixed prior to it and independently of it. This con clusion will lead us to the final point, the trans formation that is required in the conception of the values which have authority over conduct.3 .... notions are true because they do have to do with true Being - with full and ultimate Reality. Such a notion lies at the back of the head of every one who has, in however an indirect way, been a recipient of the ancient and medieval tradition. This view is radically challenged by the pragmatic conception of truth, and the impossibility of reconciliation or com promise is I think, the cause of the shock occasioned by the newer theory.4 "Real” things may be as" transitory as you please or as lasting in time as you please; these are specific differences like that between a flash of lightning and 1Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.578. 2Ibid., 1.524. 3John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty ~ (N.Y.: Min ton, Balch Co., 1929), p. 73. 4 John Dewey, Reconstruetion in Philosophy (N.Y.: _New_ Amer ic an _Li.hrar y>-l 951), __p.Z3.3 0 _ .________ _____________ 7 the history of a mountain range. In any case they are for knowledge "events” not substances.-** Comparisons extending into areas other than ontol ogy - knowledge, reason, truth, good and science - show further the divergence of the pragmatism of Dewey and Peirce. In statements on knowledge Peirce clearly relates knowing with experienced existence. The knowledge which you are compelled to admit is that knowledge which is directly forced upon you, and which there is no criticising, because it is directly forced upon you.2 It thus appears that all knowledge comes to us by observation. A part is forced upon us from without and seems to result from Mature*s mind; a part comes from the depths of the mind as seen from within, which we call our mind.3 As all..knowledge comes from synthetic inference, we must equally infer that all human certainty consists merely in our knowing that the processes by which our knowledge has been derived are such as must generally have led to true conclusions. Dewey in defining knowledge uses terms which deny correspondence and affirm operation as the essence of know ing • Knowledge then does not encompass the world as a whole. But the fact that it is not co-extensive with experienced existence is no defect or failure on its part. It is an expression of the fact that knowledge attends strictly to its own business; - transformation lpewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 128. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 11.141. 5Ibid.. 11.444. 4Ibid.. 11.693. 8 of disturbed and unsettled situations into those more controlled and more significant.1 When the belief that knowledge is active and opera tive takes hold of men, the ideal realm is no longer something aloof and separate; it is rather that collec tion of imagined possibilities that stimulates men to new efforts and realizations. When the practice of knowledge ceased to be dia lectical and became experimental, knowing became pre occupied with changes and the test of knowledge became the ability to bring about certain changes.3 Though Peirce held that instinct was more depend able than reason^, he nevertheless placed his faith in reason as having great potentiality for dependability. Every race of animals is provided with instincts well adapted to its needs, and especially to strenghten- ing the stock. It is wonderful how unerring these instincts are. Man is no exception in this respect; but man is so continually getting himself into novel situations that he needs, and is supplied with, a sub sidiary faculty of reasoning for bringing instinct to bear upon situations to which it does not directly apply. The object of reasoning is to find out, from con sideration of what we already know, something else which we do not know.6 Reasoning is a process in which the reasoner is conscious that a judgment, the conclusion, is determined by other, judgment or judgments, the premisses, according 1Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 26. ^Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 103. 3Dewey, Quest for Certainty. p. 227. 4Peirce, Collected Papers. VI.500. 5Ibid.. VI.497. 6Ibid.. V.365. 9 to a general habit of thought, which he may not be able precisely to formulate, but which he approves as con ducive to true knowledge .... Without this logical approval, the process, although it may be closely an alogous to reasoning in other respects, lacks the es sence of reasoning.-*- Dewey rejects a faculty of reason as such. He has absolutely no faith in reason. There is no separate ^mind1 1 gifted in and of itself with a faculty of thought . . . . Thinking is objective ly discoverable as that mode of serial responsive be havior to a problematic situation in which transition to the relatively settled and clear is effected.2 Pure reasoning as a means of arriving at truth is like the spider who spins a web out of himself. The web is orderly and elaborate, but it is only a trap.3 For Peirce the final goal of inquiry is truth. Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and onesidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.4 .... there is something that is So. no matter if there be an overwhelming vote against it.* The very opinion entertained by those who deny that there is any Truth, in the sense defined, is that it is not force, but their inward freedom which determined their experi ential cognition. But this opinion is flatly contra dicted by their own experience. They insist upon 1£bid., 11.775. sDewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 227. 3Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 48. 4Peirce, Collected Papers. V.565. 5Ibid.. '11.155. ' 101 I shutting their eyes to the element of compulsion, al- \ though it is directly experienced by them* i Peirce would not accept the tenet that truth is ! measured by verification through direct observation.^ Dewey’s maxim of truth rests in such verification. Dewey says: | i In physical matters men have slowly grown accustomed in all specific beliefs to identifying the true with the verified. But they still hesitate to recognize the implication of this identification and to derive the definition of truth from it.3 For Dewey the final goal of inquiry is melioration. The only guarantee of impartial, disinterested in* quiry is the social sensitiveness of the inquirer to the needs and problems of those with whom he is associ- j ated. If ideas, meanings, conceptions, notions, theories, systems are instrumental to an active reorganization of the given environment, to a removal of some specific trouble and perplexity, then the test of their validity and value lies in accomplishing this work. If they succeed In their office, they are reliable, sound, valid, good, true. If they fail to clear up confusion, to eliminate defects, if they increase confusion, un certainty and evil when they are acted upon, then they are false.? The final aim of all moral action for Peirce is the summum bonum. The good aim can be pursued and adopted consistently. However, we cannot rely upon either reason (for reason is in its infancy) nor upon science (for science 1Ibid.. 11.138. 2Ibid.. V.597. ^Dewey, Reconstruction In Philosophy, p. 131. 4Ibld.. p. 121. 5lbld_. t p. 128. ________ 11 must proceed without reservation to consequences) to yield criteria for moral action. Man*s racial instincts and religious heritage must supply the norms for action. The pragmatic is t does not make the summum bonum to consist in action, but makes it to consist in that• process of evolution whereby the existent comes more ane. more to embody those generals which were . . . . said to be destined, which is what we strive to express in calling them reasonable Men continue to tell themselves they regulate their conduct by reason; but they learn to look forward and see what conclusions a given method will lead to before they give their adhesion to it. In short, it is no longer the reasoning which determines what the con clusions shall be, but the conclusion which determines what the reasoning shall be. This is sham reasoning. In short, as morality supposes self-control, men learn that they must not surrender themselves unreservedly to any method, without considering to what conclusions it will lead them. But this is utterly contrary to the single-mindedness that is requisite in science.^ In order that science may be successful, its votaries must hasten to surrender themselves.at discretion to ex perimental inquiry, in advance of knowing what its decisions may be. There must be no reservations.^ Morality consists in the folklore of right conduct. A man is brought up to think he ought to behave in certain ways. If he behaves otherwise, he is uncom fortable, his conscience pricks him. That system of morals is the traditional wisdom of ages of experience. If a man cuts loose from it, he will become the victim of his passions. It is not safe for him even to reason about it, except in a purely speculative way.3 There is no single goal of action - conceived action or otherwise - for Dewey. Speaking of philosophies i ■^•Peirce, Collected Papers. V.433. 2Ibid.. 1.57. sIMd.. 1.50. 12 which hold a suromum bonum Dewey said: And yet these schools have agreed in the assumption that there is a single, fixed and final good • . . • The question arises whether the way out of the confusion and conflict is not to go to the root of the matter by questioning this common element • . • • It has been repeatedly suggested that the present limit of intellectual reconstruction lies in the fact that it has not as yet been seriously applied in the moral and social disciplines. Would not this further application demand precisely that we advance to a belief in plurality of changing, moving, individualized goods and ends, and to a belief that principles, criteria,^laws are intellectual instruments for analyzing individual or .unique situations?-** .... moralists usually draw a sharp line between the fields of the natural sciences and the conduct that is regarded as moral. But a moral that frames its judgments of value on the basis of consequences must de pend in a most intimate manner upon the conclusions of science* For the knowledge of the relations between changes which enable us to connect things as antecedents and consequences is science.s Just as rational conceptions were once superimposed upon observed and temporal phenomena, so eternal values are superimposed upon experienced goods. In one case as in the other, the alternative is supposed to be confusion and lawlessness. Philosophers suppose these eternal values are known by reason; the mass of persons that they are divinely revealed.*^ The chief consideration in achieving concrete se curity of value lies in the perfecting of methods of action .... It raises the question whether mankind has not now achieved a sufficient degree of control of methods of knowing and of arts of practical action so that a radical change in our conceptions of knowledge and practice is rendered both possible and necessary. ^Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 132. ^Dewey, Quest for Certainty, p. 274. 5Ibid.. p. 256. 4Ibid.. p. 36. 13 Judgments about values are judgments about the con ditions and the results of experienced objects; judgments about that which should regulate the formation of our desires, affedtions and enjoyments.1 It is evident that ontologically and epistemologi- cally there are differences between the philosophies of John Dewey and Charles Peirce that may not be passed over lightly. Certainly the teachings of these two philosophers on the nature of the good is alone sufficient to place their philosophies in opposition. In light of the present pressure upon our schools, it ib of value to examine Peirce’s epistemology and its implications for education. Since the major objection to the philosophy of John Dewey is his denial of a , priori reals and sihde the emphasis of Peirce1s philosophy is on ante cedent (a priori) reals, the aims of education as derived from Peirce’s epistemology may provide a meeting ground for the protagonists and antagonists of modern education. Harold Rugg2, in a rather brief treatise of the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, links Peirce as a man of consensus with William James and John Dewey. Peirce re pudiates the pragmatism as -developed by James and Dewey.^ 1Ibid.. p. 255. 2Harold Rugg, Foundations for American Education (Yonkers-on—Hudson; World Book Co., 1947)» 3Peirce, Collected Papers. Y.429. 14 Fundamental differences exist between the philosophy of Peirce and Dewey. Therefore, a thorough investigation of Peircefs writings must be made in order that a better under standing of his philosophy will enable more accurate eval uations of his place in education. Scope of the Problem k random selection of volumes treating the problem of knowledge will show inconsistency concerning the limits and content of epistemology. Differences of this sort not only make it difficult to set the scope but also difficult to define adequately what is meant by epistemology. There fore, it is probable that there will be objections to what ever limitations are imposed upon investigations of the knowledge process. Before the value and adequacy of an epistemology can be considered, fit is necessary to establish what the theory of knowledge is. This need is especially true when the study is that of a philosophy in which the epistemo- logical frame has not been set; that is to say, in which the author has not treated the problems of epistemology in an organized fashion. Peirce*s theory of knowledge will be considered to fall under two separate categories. These are the immediate (What are the actual data which make up auman consciousness?) and the mediate (What are the values 15 and potentialities of knowing?) categories. There is stilli another problem which pertains to the mediate category of epistemology. It is that which considers the laws of dis cursive reason. However, the laws of discursive reason (logic) were not treated in this investigation for these reasons: 1. Since the major interest of this investigator is to determine the implications of Peirce*s epistemology for a philosophy of education, considered as aims, it is felt that the aims of education would rise more readily from the consideration of the values and potentialities of knowledge rather than from the consideration of the laws of discursive reason. The values and potentialities of knowledge seem proper to ends while laws of reasoning seem proper to means. Therefore, a study of the logic of Peirce;, important as it would he, would not make contributions commensurate with the purpose of this study. S. According to Van Steenberghen^-, historically the content of logic has been considered as distinct from that of epistemology; and the content of logic has reached such proportions that it requires separate study. It may be asked whether an inclusion of Peirce*s psychology should be considered in this study. The learn- 3-Fernard Van Steenberghen, Epistemology, trans, _Rev._Mar_tin_X._F_l^=nn_(E.Y._:___Jjagner_ Inc. , , 1949)_,_p^__gQ. 16 ing process certainly is implicated in a theory of know ledge . But psychology is interested in discovering behav ioral processes whereas Epistemology is interested in questions about what the mind works on, what their material is, what is its relation to the external world, to other persons1 minds, to events in history and so on.There fore, the psyphology of Peirce was not treated separately in this study. Finally, it must be made clear to what extent ontological problems were considered in this study. Such problems - the nature of reality, logic and psychology - were not considered per se but rather as they became nec essary to clarify the relation between that which exists in reality and that which appears in the consciousness. The study of the aims of education of John Dewey will be limited to those found in his book entitled Democracy'^and Education.^ This writing of Dewey is widely used as a text in colleges of education and departments of education in universities throughout the country. There fore, it is assumed that aims of education expressed in this volume would be reflected in educational teaching and practice which follow the teachings of John Dewey. *^A. D. Woozley, Theory of Knowledge (London: Hutch inson House, 1949), p. 15. ________^ Dewey, op. cit. __________________________________ 17 For practical reasons only three problems of the curriculum will be used as a test for the consequences of Peirce*s educational aims. Sources and Authenticity of Materials Used Since the source materials are the Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, their genuineness rests only upon the integrity of the editors of these volumes.’ * ' The authen ticity of the original papers may be established by examin ing the manuscripts at Harvard University. The collection of Peirce*s writings was done under the auspices of Harvard i University. Therefore, it is assumed that the editors had access to the original manuscripts. Since detection of falsification can be readily accomplished and since the editors would gain only injured reputations by falsifi cation of the writings published in Collected Papers, this investigator made no attempt to verify the authenticity of the papers as published in the above volumes. Their authen ticity was assumed. Methods of Procedure A pilot study using only volumes I and V of Col lected Papers suggested the method of procedure which follows From the index of each volume of Collected Papers. references to categories of epistemology, ontology, psychol IPeirce, op. clt. 18 ogy, and logic were studied. Passages which had a bearing upon this investigation were typed upon 3r * x 4" reference cards. To limit bias the entire relevant paragraph or para graphs were copied rather than isolated sentences. These quotations were filed under appropriate headings and sub headings. The data were then read and grouped to show Peirce’s thinking according to the sequence of the questions listed under The Problem of this study. Upon obtaining Peirce's epistemology it was examined for concepts which implied aims for education. The aims of education were derived and listed. The aims of education stated in John Dewey's Democracy and Education! were abstracted and listed. Dewey's educational aims were compared with those derived from Peirce's epistemology. 'The consequences of Peirce's educational aims were tested in the following problems of the curriculum. Who should control the curriculum? What should be the content If the curriculum? How should the curriculum be organized? Organization of the Study The study began with a presentation of the problem and its scope (Chapter I). The presentation made clear that the investigation falls into two main sections: the ^Dewe y_T_op.._cit. . ________________________ ________ _ 19 epistemology of Charles S. Peirce and the educational implications of such an epistemology. ftn analysis of the epistemology was limited to a consideration of the immediate (Chapter III) and mediate (Chapters IV, V) categories* This analysis was preceded by a limited treatment of the fundamental categories of Peirce* philosophy (Chapter II). From the findings of the preceding chapters the educational aims of Charles S. Peirce were derived. To clarify the aims by contrast, Peirce*s aims were compared to the educational aims of Dewey (Chapter VI), The study then proceeded to the specific by apply ing Peirce*s pragmatic maxim for meaning to curricular problems (Chapter VII). The study was concluded with rec ommendations arising from the investigation (Chapter VIII). Summary of the Chapter The first chapter presented the problem and the scope of the problem. The author*s method of procedure including an analysis of the sources and authenticity of materials was discussed. The importance of the problem in American education was indicated by pointing out a clear distinction between the pragmaticism of Peirce and Dewey. Finally, the organization of the problem was outlined. CHAPTER II THE CATEGORIES OF PEIRCE The Categories in General The. recurring theme of Peirce*s thinking is the relation between his universal categories: Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. First, Second, and Third are mathematical terms which had for Peirce a multitude of mean ings beyond the mere purport of number. Everywhere in the phenomena, in all the common place events, and throughout analysis of ordinary observations, these three ideas ap peared. These ideas of First, Second, and Third are s.o broad that they, T T may be looked upon rather as moods or tones of thought, than as definite notions • • . According to Peirce, these three notions of phenom enology are the most fundamental of notions. First, Second, and Third are the only universal categories in the Phaneron (Peircefs term for whatever appears; that is, the phenomena). It is a priori impossible that there should be an indecomposable element which is what it is relatively to a second, a third, and a fourth. The obvious reason is that which combines two will by repetition combine any number. Nothing could be simpler; nothing in philos- ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.355. 21 ophy is more important,1 It is plausible that in a study of phenomena only three universal categories may appear. We can only know by what ■we observe.^ Therefore, there is a possibility that our observations may be erroneous. However, although Peirce readily concedes that we may be mistaken in our observations he maintains that this possibility of error does not exclude the possibility that these categories are real.3 I may say, however, that in my opinion, each cate gory has to justify itself by an inductive examination which will result in assigning it only a limited or approximate validity.^ / Peirce defines the real as something other than the mindfs creation. Reality is that mode of being by virtue of which the real thing is as it is, irrespectively of what any mind or any definite collection of minds may represent it to be.3 But the knowledge of categories is mental. Thus, the problem of the origin of the categories rises. Do the categories have their origin in sense or in the mind? Peirce does not know. However, he reasons that the cate gories have their origin in the nature of mind. This assumption is held only tentatively and must be subjected 3 - Ibid.. 1.398. 8Ibid.. VI.522 5Ibid.. IV.580. 4Ibid.. 1.301. 5Ibid.. V.565. 22 to the test of the facts of psychology. Must it not he that they [categories] ^ have their origin in the nature of mind? . . . .We find the ideas of first, second, third constant ingredients of our knowledge. It must then either be that these ideas are given in sense, or that it is the peculiar nature of mind to mix them with our thoughts. Now we certainly cannot think that these ideas are given in sense. First, second, third are not sensations. They can only be given in sense by things appearing labeled as first, second, and third, and such labels things do not usually bear. They ought therefore to have a psychological | origin. 4 man must be a very uncompromising partisan of the theory of the tabula rasa to deny that the ideas of first, second, and third are due to congenital tenden cies of the mind .... I do not rest here, but seek to put the conclusion to the test by an independent examination^ of the facts of psychology to see whether we can find any traces of the existence of three parts or faculties of the soul or modes of consciousness, which might confirm the results just reached. The next problem to consider is the character of the categories as they appear in the Phaneron. Firstness The category of First, Firstness, or Monad is simply in Itself. Firstness does not refer to any thing nor lie beyond anything.^ in other words, First has no relation to anything other than itself as first. The First is present and immediate. In terms of time it is the instant. In terms of origin it is new, spontaneous, and original. In terms of relation it is free. First is in itself vivid and ■^Insertions between brackets are by the author of this study. 2pelrce7^Collected_Papers.— .3 l b id ..,_I...356- 23 conscious. Thus, it is not the object of a sensation. Logically, First is prior to all synthesis and differenti ation, First, as first, cannot he f T articulately thought; assert it and it always implies a denial of something else. Stop to think of it, and it has flown,1 1 ! ¥hat the world was to Adam on the day he opened his eyes to it, before he had drawn any distinctions, or had become conscious of his own existence - that is first, present, immediate, fresh, new, initiative, original, spontaneous, free, vivid, conscious, and evanescent. Only, remember that every description of it must be false of it.s Every description of First is a description. To describe it is to relate it to something else and thus destroy its character as something simple and in itself. Structurally, First has no unity and no parts. Why no unity? Unity as one refers to one object; whereas,' first contains no relation. ¥hat is it that has no unity, no parts, but is itself? Is First a synonym for nothing? Firstness is not negative but positive in character, Perhapp the best synonym for Firstness is possibility.s Everything has the quality of firstness and, , ! that wherein all such qualities agree is universal firstness” The use of possibility must not be misconstrued to mean that possi bility implies an actual relation to what exists. Possi- - ‘ -Ibid.. 1.357. 2Ibid.. 1.25. gIbid.. 1.357. 4Ibid.. Ii.531. 24 bility as Firstness is a mode of being in itself. The such ness of possibility as first may or may not be actualized (embodied in something). Any actuality of it is merely potential. But we can only know Firsts (possibilities) as actualized (embodied). Firstness is the mode of being which consists in its subject*s being positively such as it is regardless of aught else. That can only be a possibility. For as - long as things do not act upon one another there is no sense or meaning in saying that they have any being, unless it be that they are such in themselves that they may perhaps come into relation with others. The mode of being a redness, before anything in the universe was yet red, was nevertheless a positive qualitative possibility. And redness in itself, even if it be embodied, is some thing positive and sui generis. That I call Firstness. We naturally attribute Firstness to outward objects, that is we suppose they have capacities in themselves ■which may or may not be already actualized, which may or may not ever be actualized, although we can know nothing of such possibilities except so far as they are actualized.1 Ontologically, First is termed a Quality (General). Quality is a suchness sui generis. It is mere abstract potentiality independent in its being from what is actual.2 The first comprises the qualities of phenomena, suck as red, bitter, tedious, hard, heartrending, noble; and there are doubtless manifold varieties utterly unknown to us. Beginners in philosophy may object that these are not qualities of things and are not in the world at all, but are mere sensations. Certainly we only know such as the senses we are furnished with are adapted to reveal; and it can hardly be doubted that the speciali zing effect of the evolutionary process which haa made us what we are has been to blot the greater part of the senses and sensations which were once dimly felt, and to 1Ibid.. 1.25. 8Ibid.. 1.422. 25 render bright, clear, and separate the rest* But whether we ought to say that it is the senses that make the sense-qualities to which the senses are adapted, need not be determined in haste* It is sufficient that wherever there is a phenomenon there is a quality; so that it might almost seem that there is nothing else in phenomena. The qualities merge into one another. They have no perfect identities, but only likenesses, or partial identities. Some of them, as the colors and the muscial sound, form well-understood systems. Prob ably, were our experience of them not so fragmentary, there would be no abrupt demarcations between them, at all. Still each one is what it is in itself without help from the others. They are single but partial determinations.1 Epistemologically, First is termed a feeling. As a general, feeling is a nsense-quality, r which is only a possibility of sensation remaining possible when it is not actual. However, sensation is necessary for the appre hension of the general.^ Imagine me to make and in a , slumberous condition to have a vague, unobjectified, still less unsubjecti fied, sense of redness, or a salt taste, or of an ache, or of grief or joy, or of a prolonged musical note. That would be, as nearly as possible a purely monadic state of feeling,s Feeling, then, is consciousness. It is immediately present and involves only itself. By feeling, I mean an instance of that kind.of con sciousness which.involves no analysis, comparison or any process whatsoever, nor consists in whole or in part of any act by which one stretch of consciousness Is distinguished from another, which has its own posi tive quality which consists in nothing else, and which is of itself all that it is, however it may have been 1Ibid.. 1.418. 5Ibid.. 1.303. 2Ibid.. 1.422. 26 brought about; so that if this feeling is present during a lapse of time, it is wholly and equally present at every moment of that time. To reduce this description to a complete definition, I will say that by a feeling I mean an instance of that sort of element of conscious ness which is all that it is positively, in itself, re gardless of anything else.1 A . feeling, then, is not an event, a happening, a coming to pass, since a coming to pass cannot be such unless there was a time when it had not come to pass; and so it is not in itself all that it is, but is rela tive to a previous state. 4 feeling is a state, which is in its entirety in every moment of time as long as it endures. But a feeling is not a single state which is | other than an exact reproduction of itself. For if that reproduction is in the same mind, it must be at a differ ent time, and then the being of the feeling would be relative to the particular time in which it occurred, which would be something different from the feeling itself, violating the definition which makes the feeling to be all that it is regardless of anything ^else. Or j if the reproduction were simultaneous with the feeling, it must be in another mind, and thus the identity of the feeling would depend upon the mind in which it was, | which is ether than the feeling; and again the definition would be violated in the same way. Thus, any feeling must be identical with any exact duplicate of it, which is as much as to say that the feeling is simply a qual ity of immediate consciousness.2 Secondness The category, Second, Secondness or Dyad, is a con ception of complexity. Secondness involves other; that is, relation.^ It is the actuality of event, of action and re action, and of brute force.4 The character of Second is dual. It is the possible made actual. Second is the im- mediate character of Firsts in relation.' 1Ibld.. 1.306. 2Ibld.. 1.307. 3Ibid.. 1.296 4TbldT. 1.25. ?Ibid.. 1.358. 27 Ontologically speaking, Second is termed fact. A fact involves a here and now. It consists in the actuality of things. The second category of elements of phenomena com prises the actual facts. The qualities, in so far as they are general, are somewhat vague and potential. But an occurrence is perfectly individual. It happens here and now. A permanent fact is less purely individ ual; yet so far as it is actual, its permanence and generality only consist in Its being there at every in dividual instant. Qualities are concerned in facts but they do not make up facts* Facts also concern subjects which are material substances. ¥e do not see them as we see qualities, that is, they are not in the very potentiality and essence of sense. But we feel facts resist our will. That is why facts are proverbially called brutal. How mere qualities do not resist. It is the matter that resists. Even in actual sensation there is a reaction. Now merely understood, it is correct to say that we immediately, that is, directly perceive matter. To say that we only infer matter from its qualities is to say that we only know the actual through the potential. It would be a little less erroneous to say that we only know the potential through the actual, and only infer qualities by gen eralization from what we perceive in matter. All that I here insist upon is that quality is one element of phenomena, and fact, action, actuality is another. Epistemoiogically, Secondness is volition. The category, Second, as it appears in inner relations (mind) is the element of struggle. This element of struggle is termed by Peirce vividness (volition). Vividness is a nsense of commotion, an action and reaction between our soul and the stimulus”.2 1Ibid.. 1.419. 2Ibid., 1.322. 28 Thirdness i Third, Thirdness, or Tryad is the final universal | i element in Peirce’s philosophy. "By third, I mean the medium or connecting bond between the absolute first and last. The beginning is first, the end second, the middle third."1 Ontologically, Thirdness is law. Peirce defines Third in terms of a sign (representation). The sign re presents something to the idea produced by the sign or modified by it. The thing a sign represents is called its !object. The idea produced by the sign is its meaning. Meaning, then, characterizes Thirdness, for meaning involves o a three-termed relation. Every triadic relation involves meaning (thought)^, which ontologically is nothing but law4" . The third category of elements of phenomena consists of what we call laws when we contemplate them from the outside only, but which when we see both sides of the shield we call thoughts. Thoughts are neither qualities nor facts. They are not qualities because they can be produced and grow while a quality is eternal, independ ent of time and of any realization. Besides thoughts may have reasons, and indeed, must have some reasons, good or bad. But to ask why a quality is as it is, why red is red and not green, would be lunacy. If red were green it would not be red; that is all. &ny re semblance of sanity the question may have is due to its being not exactly a question about quality, but about 1Ibid.« 1.337. 2Ibid., 1.339. 3lbid.. 1.346. 4Ibld.. I.344. 29 the relation between two qualities, though even this is absurd. 4 Thought then is not a quality. No more is it a fact. For a thought is general. I had it. I imparted it to you. It is general on that side. It is also general in referring to all possible things, and not merely to those which happen to exist. No collec tions of facts can constitute a law; for the law goes beyond any accomplished facts and determines how facts that may be. but all of which never can have happened, shall be characterized. There is no objection to saying that a law is a general fact, provided it be understood that the general has an admixture of potentiality in it, so that no congeries of actions here and now can ever make a general fact. 4s general, the law, or general fact, concerns the potential world of quality, while as fact, it concerns the actual world of actuality. Just as action requires a peculiar kind of subject, the thought, or, as the phrase in this connection is, the mind. as a peculiar kind of subject foreign to mere individual action. Law, then, is something as remote from both quality.and action as these are as remote from one another. Epistemologically, as evident in the above quotation, Third ness is thought. Summary of the Chapter There are three indecomposable or universal cate gories which appear through careful observation of phenomena. 4s universal these categories are general and involve all being. Since the categories do not originate in sense, they must be of the nature of mind. The reality of the categories can only be determined through a continuous process of induction. The simplest and priman of the categories is First ness. Firsts are absolutely simple and in themselves what 1Ibid.. 1.420 30 they are. They hear no relation to anything other than themselves. Any attempt to describe First destroys its character as first. In externality, First is quality. In consciousness, First is feeling. A feeling is simply a quality of immediate consciousness. All Firsts are general. Secondness involves complexity; a relation of one and other. Thus, the character of Second is dual. This duality of Second is exemplified in the law of action and reaction. Secondness as action is brute force. Wherever there is force there is struggle (reaction). Viewed from within struggle is volition. Viewed from without, Second ness is fact. Fact involves the here and now. It is the actuality of things. As actual, fact is individual, and it has no character of general. A general fact, however, is general in so far as it is' potential and not actual. Thus, a Second may be both individual and, in a certain sense, general. Thirdness involves complexity. It mediates between Firsts aslfirst and Seconds as end. In other words, Third is the middle term in a three-term relation. Ontologically, Thirdness is the category of regularity or law. As a re- i presentation of a sign, Third is meaning. Epistemologically, Third is thought. As the mediating term between First and Second, Third is general. But it is not the generality of Firsts, since Third can grow and develop whereas First is what it is without modification. The ontological categories are quality, fact, and law. The epistemological categories are feeling, volition, and thought. The categories for Peirce form the warp and woof of reality. In the next chapter a more thorough study of the nature of reality is made. A determination of the nature and function of the categories in the knowing process viewed as consciousness will form the major emphasis of the chapter. CHAPTER III THE KNOWER AND THE KNOWN Consciousness and Reality Reality,--Reality is defined by Peirce as a word or sign which signifies something which is prior to and inde pendent of the knowing process. In other words, there are antecedent reals acting as signs which signify subjects as having characters sufficient to identify them. Reals pos sess these.characters regardless of the representation of them,'*' Therefore, the real has characters which are inde pendent of thought.s ^Nothing can be more completely false that we experience only our own ideas . . • ,I f Reality is manifested in three ways in keeping with the three fundamental elements In the Phaneron, First, reality appears as quality. It is evident that the reality of quality is the mode of being independent of its being represented. Its being 'lies only in itself,^ Second, reality is manifested as fact or thing. ^•Peirce, Collected Papers. VI,453. SIbid.. V.406. ■ 3ibid.. VI.95. 4lbid.. 1.515, V.565. 33 The reality of fact is independent of being represented, but it is the reality of Secondness* Thus, reality is the mode of being a persistent forcing of recognition as some thing other than the mind»s creation.1 The being of fact lies in its opposition or otherness.^ [There is a category] which the rough and tumble of life renders most familiarly prominent* We are con tinually bumping up against hard fact. We expected one thing, or passively took it for granted, and had the image of it in our minds, but experience forces that * idea into the background, and compels us to think quite differently. You get this kind of consciousness in some approach to purity when you put your shoulder against a door and try to force it open. You have a sense of resistance and at the same time a sense of effort. There can be no resistance without effort; there can be no effort without resistance. It is a double conscious ness. We become aware of ourself in becoming aware of the not-self. The waking state is a consciousness of reaction; and as the consciousness itself is two-sided, so it has also two varieties; namely, action, where our modification of other things is more prominent than their reaction on us, and perception, where their effect on us is overwhelmingly greater than our effect on them.1 And this notion, of being such as other things make us is such a prominent part of our life that we conceive other things also to exist by virtue of their reactions against each other. The idea of other, of not, becomes a very pivot of thought. To this element I give the name of secondness.3 Third, reality is manifested as reason or thought. The reality of thought or reason is independent of its being represented, but it is the reality of mediation or Third ness. Its reality is the mode of being an object of the final opinion to which sufficient investigation would 1Ibid.. 1.324. 2Ibid.. 1.515. 3Ibid.. 1.515. 34 lead.1 The being of reason or thought lies in its bring ing qualities and things together.s Each one of the categories is real. But existence and reality must not be confused as one. Existence is a special mode of reality. It is the dynamic relation in which the individual becomes actual by brute force. That is to say, existence is the reality of Secondness through which the object crowds out places for itself in the uni verse, Existence is brought about by fact.3 Reality in cludes both quality and fact. Therefore, existents and potentials are equally real. What is the relation between existence and thought? In speaking of the existence of reality as Thirdness, Peirce says: What anything really is, is what it may finally come to be known to be in the ideal state of complete information, so that reality depends on the ultimate decision of the community; so thought is what it is only by virtue of its addressing a future thought which is in its value as thought Identical with it, though more developed. In this way, the existence of thought now depends on what is to be hereafter; so that it has only a potential existence, dependent on the future thought of the community,^ Thought then is only potentially existent in so far as it relates to reality. - ‘ - I’ bid.. 11.693. ' gIbid.. 1.515. 3Ibid.. I.go, V.503. 4Ibid.. V.316. ______________ 35 The final question to be asked concerning reality is whether anything is not real* Peirce calls that which is not real fiction or figment* According to this, that real and sensible difference between one degree of probability and another, in which the meaning of distinction lies, is that in the frequent employment of two different modes of inference, one will carry truth with it oftener than the other. It is evi dent that this is the only difference there is in ex isting fact. Having certain premisses, a man draws a certain conclusion, and as far as this inference alone is concerned the only possible practical question is whether the conclusion is true or not, and between ex istence and non-existence there is no middle term. "Being only is and nothing is altogether not,'1 said Parmenides; .... the distinction of reality and fiction depends on the supposition that sufficient in vestigation would cause one opinion to be universally received and all others to be rejected. That presuppo sition, involved in the very conceptions of reality and figment, involves a complete sundering of the two. It is the heaven-and-hell idea in the domain of thought. Thus, it follows that any distinction made at present be tween reality and figment is only approximate. No real distinction can be made until social thought has made its ultimate opinion. Consciousness.— Consciousness is real. It is the reality of the inner. Consciousness is nothing but the 2 qualities of feeling. The whole content of consciousness is made up of qualities of feeling, as truly as the whole of space is made-up of points or of the whole of time of in stants. 1Ibld.. 11.650. 2Ibld.. I.318. Ibid.. 1.317. 56 As First, consciousness is termed the singular consciousness or the quale-consciousness or the immediate consciousness# The immediate consciousness is absolutely simple in itself.-** And the whole content of immediate con sciousness is made up of the qualities of feeling.*^ How, feeling is nothing but a total unanalyzed impression of the whole of consciousness. A feeling so long as it remains a mere feeling is absolutely simple. For if it had parts, those parts would be something different from the whole, in the presence of which the being of the whole would consist. Consequently, the being of the feeling would consist of something beside itself, and in a relation. Thus it would violate the definition of feeling as that mode of consciousness whose being lies wholly in itself and not in relation to anything else. In short a pure feeling can be nothing but the total unanalyzed impression of the tout ensemble of consciousness.^ Feeling is absolutely simple and is identical with any ex act duplicate of it.4 In the discussion of Peirce*s cate gories5, it was discovered that anything absolutely simple in itself is a quality. A quality is nothing more than possibility or potentiality.6 Immediate consciousness is defined in the same terms as quality.^ Thus, feeling and 1Ibid., 1.381. 2Ibid.. 1.317. 5Ibid.. VI.345. aIbid.. 1.307. ^See page 22 of this study. ®Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.25, 1.310, VI.231. 7Ibid.. 1.318. 37 immediate consciousness are qualities. But quality and con sciousness are not identical in every respect. Nov a quality is a consciousness. I do not say a waking consciousness - but still, something of the nature of' consciousness. A sleeping consciousness, perhaps. A possibility, then, or potentiality, is a particu lar tinge of consciousness, a potential consciousness. However the distinction is little more than verbal.1 The second aspect of consciousness or dual conscious ness is a sense of action and reaction.^ It is the feeling of other, the sense of externality. The dual consciousness differs from the immediate consciousness in that the poten tial becomes actual* Dual consciousness, however, is also immediate in that awareness of other (outer force) is pre sent; that is, the relation of inner to outer is instantan eous. As the object forces its attention on the organism the reaction of the consciousness follows at the same in stant, and it continues as long as the stimulus of the object is present.3 It is obvious that the dual conscious ness is the category, Second, viewed in its inner relations. The dual consciousness might be very well termed the waking c ons c i ousne s s • Consciousness as Third is termed the plural or syn thetic consciousness or the sense of learning. But that element of cognition which is neither 1Ibid., VI.221 5Ibid.» V.462. 2Ibid., 1.381 38 feeling nor the polar sense, is the consciousness of a process, and this in the form of the sense of learning, of acquiring, of mental growth is eminently characteris tic of cognition* This is a-kind of consciousness which, cannot he immediate because it covers a time, and that not merely because it continues through every instant of time, but because it cannot be contracted into an in stant . * * • Neither can the consciousness of the two -sides of an instant, of a sudden occurrence, in its individual reality, possibly embrace the consciousness of a process. This is the consciousness of a process. This is the consciousness that binds our life together* It is the consciousness of synthesis* The synthetic consciousness is the sense of modification. The synthetic consciousness differs from the dual conscious ness in that the awareness is of a binding of time together. It is the awareness of the modification of instant* For example, a series of notes, as notes, is present only at the instant of perception. As perception the series is present in the dual consciousness as reaction.^ To be present as a series the succession of notes must be some thing other than an instant (quality) or reaction (per ception) . The series to be a series must have a beginning, middle, and end. There must be a passage of time. Thus, the sense of a series is a sense of a binding of time; that is, the series is present in the synthetic conscious- 1Ibid.. T.38I. *In consciousness as action our modification of other things is more prominent than their reaction on us. In consciousness as reaction (perception) their effect on us is overwhelmingly greater than our effect on them. Ibid., 1.317. 39 ness. Viewing the succession of notes as a melody brings out what is meant by a sense of learning. The single notes, as singular, are just feelings or sensations lasting only as long as the notes are sounding. To be recognized as a melody a series of notes must be recognized as a series; that is, as a whole. The recognition of series can only come about through the modification of instant. Thus, the awareness of melody is the awareness of modification. The awareness of modification is termed the sense of learning.3* According to Peirce there is no intuitive self- consciousness. Ignorance and error is all that distinguishes a self as apart from the absolute ego (immediate conscious ness as continuous quality)Self-consciousness is the result of learning. A child hears it said that the stove is hot. But it is not, he says; and, indeed, that central body (child’s body) is not touching it, and only what that touches is hot or cold. But he touches it, and finds the testimony confirmed in a striking way. Thus, he becomes aware of ignorance, and it is necessary to suppose a self in which this ignorance can inhere. So testimony gives the first dawning of self consciousness Thus, the awareness of self is a function of the synthetic consciousness* There is no intuitive self-consciousness since self-consciousness is the result of inference. The only argument worth noticing for the existence Ibid.. V.395, 5Ibid.. V.233. ^Ibid.. V.S35, 40 of an intuitive self-consciousness is this. We are more certain of our own existence than of any other fact; a premiss cannot determine a conclusion to be more certain than it is itself; hence, our own existence cannot have been inferred from any other fact. The first premiss must be admitted, but the second premiss is founded on an exploded theory of logic. 4 conclusion cannot be more certain than that some one of the facts which support it is true, but it may easily be more certain than any one of those facts. Let us suppose, for example, that a dozen witnesses testify to an occurrence. Then my belief in that occurrence rests on the belief that each of those men is generally to be believed. In the same way, to the developed mind of man, his own existence is supported by every other fact, and is, therefore, incomparably more certain than any one of these facts. But it cannot be said to be more certain than that there is another fact, since there is no doubt perceptible in either case. It is to be concluded, then, that there is no ne cessity of supposing an intuitive self-consciousness, since selfrconsciousness may easily be the result of inference. Perception and Its Function Knowing arises in perception. 411 knowledge results 2 from sensing and experiencing. Perception is knowing only in a limited sense, for in perceiving we have only the direct experience of something acting against us.^ The experience is immediate and endures only as long as the object acts and consciousness reacts. It is apparent that in percep tion we perceive the reality of Secondness. But the percept, 4 as percept is reality as First. 4s soon as the awareness of something arises there is a relation. The relation is between the outer as action and the inner as reaction. In llbld.._«_V_._21X_____ 3Ibid.. II, 139., 140. Ibid.. VI.522 4Ibld.. V.565. other words, the knower is the patient since the effect of the outer on the knower is greater than the effect of the knower on the outer.-*- The direct knowledge from perception cannot he dehated. It is that which the senses receive. The knowledge which you are compelled to admit is that knowledge which is directly forced upon you, and which there is no criticising, because it is directly forced upon you.s However, the percepts themselves are experienced; they are not known as experienced. The object acts. The knower reacts. Then, the percept is gone. Perception occurs instantaneously. Any attempt to analyze items occur ring in perception must occupy time. Thus, the items ana lyzed would he unlike the percepts themselves. In the pro cess of analysis there is effort. The effort consists in recalling and preserving the items as experienced. Thus, during the period of time required to recall and preserve the percept, the original percept as First was replaced by the Secondness of the relation between consciousness and the object and another relation was introduced forming a new Second. The original percept is irretrievably lost. The knower must be content with crude and possibly erroneous self-informations of what the percepts were.3 Peirce calls 1Ibid.. 1.317. 5Ibid.. 11.141. gIbid.. 11.141. 42 these self-informations, arising from the analysis of per ception, perceptual facts. Perceptual facts, then, are the, "intellect»s fallible record of the percepts, or 1 evidence of the senses1".**- The function of perception is to provide perceptual facts. A cursory reading of the above paragraph reveals a contradiction. How can we know the real when we can!t know the percept directly? The answer is that we know the real potentially. True knowledge of the real can only come when the process of knowing terminates in ultimate reality. In other words, what the real is depends upon the final de cision of the community. But it may be said that this view is directly opposed to the abstract definition which we have given of reality, inasmuch as it makes the characters of the real depend on what is ultimately thought about them. But the an swer to this is that, on the one hand, reality is inde pendent, 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 opin ion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks. Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last. Yet even that would not change the nature of the belief, which alone could be the re sult of investigation carried sufficiently far; and if, r after the extinction of our race, another should arise with faculties and disposition for investigation, that true opinion must be the one which they would ultimately come to. "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again," and the opinion which would finally result from invest!~ 43 gation does not depend on how anybody may actually think. But the reality of that which is real does depend on the real fact that investigation is destined to lead, at-last, if continued long enough, to a be lief in it,-1 If we must wait for the ultimate decision of the community to know the real, how do we distinguish between fact and fancy in the present? Peirce has no means to dis tinguish between fact and fancy with absolute certainty,* However, he has three tests which he considers adequate for ordinary circumstances: 1) if the percepts persist after efforts to dismiss them fail; 2) if several observers agree that the percepts are present; 3) and if the percepts persist and produce effect in experiments designed to test them (use of laboratory N 2 instruments, cameras, etc.). Imagination and Its Function The image is not a mental picture in the same sense that a photograph is an exact reproduction of the object photographed. The image is a result of inference.^ Peirce reasons that we have no intuitive power for distinguishing between one mode of cognition and another. Therefore, ^Ibld.. V.408. 3Ibid.. V.3CH. 2Ibid.. 11.142. 33 images must be inferred.-*- The image, then is a mental re- construction of the percept* It is the product of inference from perceptual facts.^ Since perceptual facts are subject to error, inferences from them will be handicapped in the same way. Expectation is the bridge which refers the imagina tion to relations outside the consciousness. i An imagination is an affection of consciousness which can be directly compared with a percept in some special feature, and be pronounced to accord or dis accord with it. Suppose for example that I slip a cent into a slot, and expect on pulling a knob to see a little cake of chocolate appear. My expectation con sists in or at least involves, such a habit that when I think of pulling the knob, I imagine I see a chocolate coming into view. When the perceptual chocolate comes into view, my imagination of it is a feeling of such a nature that the percept can be compared with it as to size, shape, the nature of the wrapper, the color, the taste, flavor, hardness and grain of what is within . . Atffhis is looking at the matter from the psychological point of view. Under a logical aspect your opinion in question is that general cognitions of potentialities in futuro if duly; constructed, will under imaginary conditions determine schemata or imaginary skeleton diagrams with which percepts will accord when the real conditions accord with those imaginary conditions This expectation of imagination is extremely im portant in invention and discovery. Through imagining, images are brought into relation in expectation of what would occur if real things were brought into the same relations.4 1Ibld., V.242, 302. 2Ibid.. V.298-306. ^Ibid.. 11.148. 4Ibid.. IV.233. 45 People who build castles in the air do not, for the most part, accomplish much, it is true; but every man who does accomplish great things is given to building elaborate castles in the air and then painfully copy- i ing them on solid ground. Indeed, the whole business of ratiocination, and all that makes us intellectual beings, is performed in imagination. Vigorous men are wont to hold mere imagination in contempt; and in that they would be quite right if there were such a thing. How we feel is no matter; the question is what we shall do. But that feeling which is subservient to action and to the intelligence of action is correspondingly important; and all inward life is more or less so sub servient. Mere imagination would indeed be mere tri fling; only no imagination is mere. “More than all that is in thy custody watch over thy phantasy1 1 . , said Solomon, “for out of it are the issues of life.1,1 Thus, the process of inferring images is the im agination, and the function of the imagination is to aid in the production of conceptual habits. The habit referred to here is a deliberate one. It is the result of learning by conscious effort. .... I am persuaded that nothing like a concept can be acquired by muscular practice alone. When we seem to do that, it is not the muscular action but the accompanying inward efforts, the acts of imagination that produce the habit. Memory and Its Function Memory is closely related to perception in that perception often provides the stimulus which brings about recall. However, the percept itself is not recalled, for the percept by nature Is immediate. We are immediately aware of feelings. Before we can interpret the feelings, 1Ibid.. VI.286. 2Ibld.. V.479. 46 they are past. Thus, it is that the perceptual facts and not percepts provide the data of cognition. The relation between memory and perceptual facts is a relation of Third to a Second. As Third, memory mediates between sense data (perceptual facts) as Seconds and percepts (qualities of feelings) as Firsts. Look at a red surface, and try to feel what the sensation is, and then shut your eyes and remember it. No doubt different persons are different in this re spect; to some the experiment will seem to yield an opposite result, but I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the memory that is in the least like the vision of red. When red is not before my eyes, I do not see it at all. Some people tell me they see it faintly - a most inconvenient kind of memory, which would lead to remembering bright red as pale or dingy. I remember colors with unusual accuracy, because I have had much training in observing them; but my memory does not consist in any vision but in a habit by virtue of which I can recognize a newly presented color as like or unlike one I had seen before.3 - In its immediate character memory is a Second. Memory and imagination are closely related. There is an interaction between memory and imagination. Memory, in its character of Secondness, immediately presents data to the imagination. From this data an image is constructed.^ "Memory supplies a knowledge of the past by a sort of brute force, a quite binary action, without reasoning.,|S Not only is memory a bridge to the past, but it is also the 1Ibid.. 1.379. sIbid.. V.302. sIbid.. 11.86. 4 7 basis for future action or conception. Thought and control of future activity can only be inferred from what is past. For the now (the instant) is only known by inference. The now is only known as it is past. i How does the Past bear upon our conduct? The an swer is self evident: whenever we set out to do any thing, we "go upon11, we base our conduct on facts al ready known, and for these we can only draw on our memory. It is true that we may institute a new investi gation for the purpose; but its discoveries will only become applicable to conduct after they have been made and reduced to a memorial maxim. In short, the Past is the storehouse of our knowledge. The function of memory, then, is to relate past and future. The recall of the past is an automatic reaction to present action (perception). In projecting the future, memory is the source of data from which future action is inferred. Memory supplies "food for thought". Conception and Its Function In order to obtain an adequate understanding of the nature of a concept, it is necessary to treat briefly Peirce*s theory of signs; for he defines the concept in terms of the sign. We think only in signs. These mental signs are of mixed nature; the symbol^parts of them are called concepts• A , sign is defined as a "representamen". It is something which represents something to somebody in a cer- ^Ibid.. V.460. 2Ibld.. 11.^02. 48 tain respect or capacity. The sign can only represent the object and tell about it. It cannot furnish acquaintance -with or re cognition of that object; for what is meant in this volume by that object of a sign; namely, that with which it presupposes an acquaintance in order to con vey some further information concerning it.1 ¥hat the sign represents depends upon the person*s past experience. Thus, memory functions in concept formation. Peirce lists three trichotomies of signs. The first trichotomy of signs is a triadic relation of comparison. As First, the sign is itself a quality, and it is called a A qtialisign is a quality which is Sign. It cannot actually act as a sign until it is embodied; but the has nothing to do with its character as,a As Second, the sign is an actual existent and it is called A Sinsign . . . . is an actual existent thing or event which is a sign. It can only be so through its qualities; so that it involves a qualisign, or rather several qualisigns. But these qualisigns are of a peculiar kind and only form a sign through being actual ly embodied.® As Third, the sign is a general law, and it is called a Legisign. The relations are of the nature of logical possibilities Qualisign.3 sign.** K a Sinsign. J - Ibld.. 11.231 5Ibid.. 11.243 2Ibid.. 11.233 4Ibid.. 11.244 5ib±cb^—H t243 %-bi-d-n,—I - I - t245 49 A kegisign is a lav that is a Sign. This lav is usually established by men. Every conventional sign is a legisign (but not conversely). It is not a single object but a general type vhich, it has been agreed, shall be significant. Every legisign signifies through an instance of its application, vhich may be termed a Replica of it. Thus, the vord wthe, T vill usually occur from fifteen to tventy-five times on a page. It is in all these occurrences one and the same vord, the same legisign. Each single instance of it is a Replica. The Replica is a Sinsign. Thus, every Legisign requires Sinsigns. But these are not ordinary Sinsigns, such as are peculiar occurrences that are regarded significant. Nor vould the Replica be significant if it vere not for the lav vhich renders it so.1 The second trichotomy of signs is a triadic relation of performance. These relations are of the nature of actual o facts." According to the second trichotomy of signs, the sign, as First, has some character in itself, and it is called an Icon.3 A Icon is a sign vhich refers to the object that it denotes merely by virtue of characters of its ovn, and vhich it possesses, just the same, vhether any such Object actually exists or not. It is true that unless there really is such an Object, the Icon does not act as a sign; but this has nothing to do vith its character as a sign. Anything vhatever, be it quality, existent individual, or lav, is an Icon of anything, in so far as it is like that thing and used as a sign of it.4 The Sign, as Second, is in some existential relation to the object, and is called an Index. An Index is a sign vhich refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that 2Ibid.. 11.234. 4Ibid., 11.247. 1Ibid.. 11.246. 3Ibid., 11.243 sIbid.. 11.243. I 50 Object. It cannot, therefore, he a Qualisign, because qualities are whatever they are independently of any thing else. In so far as the Index is affected by the Object, it necessarily has some Quality in common with the Object, and it is in respect to these that it refers to the Object. It does, therefore, involve a sort of Icon of a peculiar kind; and it is not the mere resem blance of its Object, even in these respects which makes it a sign, but it is the actual modification of it by the object.-*- As Third, the sign is in relation to an interpretant, and is called a Symbol.s A Symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object. It is thus itself a general type or law, that is, is a Legisign. As such it acts through a Replica. Rot only is it general itself, but the Object to which it refers is of a general nature. Now that which is general has its being in the instances which it will determine. There must, therefore, be existent instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by Hexistentt T , existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the association or other law, be affected by those, instances; and thus the Symbol will involve a sort of Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind. It will] not, however, be by any means true that the slight effect upon the Symbol of those instances account for the significant character of the Symbol.5 The third trichotomy of signs is a triadic relation of thought. They are relations which are of the nature of laws.^ As First, the sign is represented by its inter- pretant as a sign of possibility^ and is called a Rheme. • ‘ ■Ibid.» 11.248. glbid.. 11.243. 5Ibid.. 11.249. 4Ibid.. 11.234. 5Ibid., 11.243. 51 Bheme is a Sign which, for its Interpretant, is a Sign of qualitative Possibility, that is, is under stood as representing such and such a kind of possible Object, Any Rheme, perhaps, will afford some informa tion; but it is not interpreted as doing so.1 The sign, as Second, is represented by its interpretant as sign of fact, and is called a Dicisign or Dicent Sign.2 A Dicent Sign is a Sign, which, for its Interpretant, is a Sign of actual existence. It cannot^ therefore, be an Icon, which affords no ground for an interpreta tion of it as referring to actual existence. A deci- sign necessarily involves, as a part of it, a Rheme, to describe the fact which it is interpreted as indicating. But this is a peculiar kind of Rheme; and while it is essential to the Dicisign, it by no means constitutes it. As Third, the sign is interpreted as a sign of reason, and is called an Argument.4 An Argument is a Sign which, for its Interpretant, is a Sign of law .... The Interpretant of the Argu ment represents it as an instance of a general class of Arguments, which class on the whole will always tend to the truth. It is this law, in some shape, which the argument urges; and this nurgingf t is the mode of re presentation proper to Arguments.5 3 For the purpose of determining the implications of signs as concepts, we need only consider the second tri chotomy which is the most fundamental class of signs. The most fundamental division of signs is into Icons. Indices, and Symbols. Namely, while no Representamen actually functions as such until it actually determines an Interpretant, yet it becomes a Representamen as soon 1Ibld.. 11.250.. 2lMd., 11.243, gIbid.. 11.251. 4rbid., 11.243. 5Ibid.. 11.252, 253. 52 as it is fully capable of doing this; and its Represent ative Quality is not necessarily dependent upon it ever actually determining an Interpretant, nor even upon its actually having an Object.3 * Icon is a sign vhich merely represents a relation.2 It is a sign by virtue of its own characters whether the object it represents exists or not. In its character as First, the icon is a representamen, ”whose representative Quality is a Firstness of it as a First”.3 In other words, the icon has a qua objectivity making it suitable as a sub stitute for the object which it is,like. A pencil scratch is the icon of a line. The pencil scratch represents a line whether the line exists or not. Thus, the signifi cation of an icon is independent of the existence of its object.4 But, nevertheless, the sign as First (Icon) must be similar to the object it represents even though the ex istence of the object is in futuro. The icon, then, is the image of its object. It is the interpretant idea excited by the external object*s action on the brain. If the ob ject is potential, the idea is called iconic. If the ob ject is actual, the idea is called hypoiconic.3 Hypoicons may be divided into three classes. Those hypoicons which represent simple qualities are images; those which repre- 1Ibid.. 11.275. ' 2Ibld.. 1.372. 5Ibid.. 11.276. 4Ibid.. 11.305. ________5Ibid.. 11.276._________________________ 53 sent dyadic relations of the parts of one thing analogous ly are diagrams; and those -which stand for a representative character of a representamen by a parallel reference in Icons function in communicating an idea directly. The only way of directly communicating an idea is by means of an icon; and every indirect method of com municating an idea must depend for its establishment upon the use of an icon. Hence, every assertion must contain an icon or set of icons, or else must contain signs whose meaning is only explicable by icons.2 The index is a sign which has a genuine relation to its object.3 As a representamen, it is an individual Second. An index is called genuine when the relation between the object, the sign (index) and interpretant is existential. All three are existing individuals which are either things 4 or facts. A clock is a genuine index of time, for the clock is an existing individual which acts as a sign of time which is existing individual fact, and the sign (clock) is interpreted by an existing individual. An index is called degenerate when the relation is one of reference. ”Any Individual is a degenerate Index of its own characters.! t 5 Thus, time is a degenerate index. Its characters are referred to the interpreter by means of something else are metaphors.1 1Ibid., 11.277 3Ibid., 11.305 glbid.. 11.278 4Ibid., 11.283 5 , 283. 54 a second sign (instrument for recording time). The sign as an index, must he directly related to its object."*" There is a dynamic connection between the [particular object and the senses or memory of the person in terpreting the sign. A sign, or representation, which refers to its ob ject not so much because of any similarity or analogy with it, nor because it is associated with general char acters which that object happen to possess, as because it is in dynamical (including spatial) connection both with the individual object, on the one hand, and with the senses or memory of the person for whom it serves as a sign, on the other hand. No matter of fact can be stated without the use of some sign serving as an index. If A says to B, "There is a fire,0 B will ask, "Where?" Thereupon A is forced to resort to an index, even if he only means somewhere in the real universe^ past and future. Otherwise, he has only said that there is such an idea as fire, which would give no information, .since unless it were known already, the word "fire" would be unintelligible. If A points his finger to the fire, as much as if a self- acting fire-alarm had directly turned it in that di rection; while it also forces the eyes of B to turn that way, his attention to be riveted upon it, and his understanding to recognize that his question is answer ed. Signs which have real connections with th&ir objects which are not individuals are called subindices. Examples of subindices are proper names, personal demonstrative pro nouns, or relative pronouns, or letters attached to dia grams .s Although an index bears a genuine relation to its 1Ibid.. 1.372. gIbid., 11.305 55 object, it has no significant resemblence to its object.1 The index denotes; that is, it calls attention to its ob ject without describing it. A rap on the door is an index. Anything which focuses the attention is an index. Anything which startles us is an index, in so far as it marks the junction between two portions of experience.^ Indices function in communication by focusing atten tion to an object and representing the specificity of the object, for the significance of an index depends upon the existence of its object. The symbol ”is the general name or description which signifies its object by means of an habitual connec- *z tion between the name and the character signified”. As a concept the symbol is a sign whereby the mind associates the sign with its object. All words, sentences, books, or gestures and other conventional signs are symbols.4 The symbol is general and must therefore, have the character of a First or Third. That a symbol is a sign, principally Third, is shown in the following definition. A symbol is a law or regularity of the indefinite future. Its Interpretant, must be of the same descrip tion; and so must be also the complete immediate Object, or meaning.5 1Ibld.. 11.304. 5 3Ibid.. 11.285. 5Ibid.. 1.369. 4Ibid.. 11.292. 5Ibid... 11.293. 56 The Symbol, as third (mediation between Firsts and Seconds), is genuine when it has a general meaning. It must denote an individual and signify a character. For ex ample: **A man walking with a child points his arm up into the air and says, *There is a balloon*. The pointing arm is an essential part of the symbol without which the latter would convey no information.**1 Here, an index is a con stituent of the symbol and calls attention to (denotes) the balloon. **But if the child asks, *¥hat is a balloon?* and the man replies, *It is something like a great big soap bubble*, he makes the image a part of the symbol.**1 Here, an icon is a constituent of the symbol and signifies a character (bubbleness). There are two kinds of degenerate symbols. A singu lar symbol is one whose object is an actual individual (this balloon) which would be the indirect interpretant of an index. The direct interpretant of an index must be an index. An abstract symbol is one whose only object is a character (bubbleness) which would be the indirect inter pretant of an icon which must be* an* icon. Since the symbol is Third, the concept is Third; for in terms of mind the symbol is called a concept. The concept involves law (regularity). The concept signifies 1Ibid.. 11.293. 57 Its object by virtue of an habitual (acquired or inborn) connection.^ The senses are the fount of conceptions. 411 con cepts are obtained by abstractions and combinations of p cognitions first occurring in judgments of experience. The function of conception is to reduce the mani fold of sense impressions to unity.3 The process of con ception is an evolutionary one. Concepts grow. Symbols grow. They come into being by development out of other signs, particularly from icons, or from mixed signs partaking of the nature of icons and sym bols. We think only in signs. These mental signs are of mixed nature; the symbol-parts of them are called concepts. If a man makes a new symbol, it i£ by thoughts involving concepts. So it is only out of symbols that a new symbol can grow .... 4' symbol, once in being, spreads among the peoples. In use and in experience, its meaning grows. Such words as force. law, wealth, marriage, bear for us very different mean ings from those they bore to our barbarous ancestors. The symbol may, with Emerson1s sphynx. say to man, Of thine eye I am eyebeam. Judgment and Its Function 4 judgment constitutes the very first cognitive act, The first judgment which occurs in the consciousness is termed by Peirce the perceptual judgment. Perceptual judg ment is defined as a propositional assertion of what the character of the immediate object (directly present percept; 1Ibid.. 11.297. 3Ibld.. 1.545 2Ibld.. V.255. 4Ibld.T 11.302. 58 is.1 The percept is not a judgment nor is the judgment a percept. A judgment is an act of formation of a mental pro position combined with an adoption of it, or act of assent to it. A percept, on the other hand, is an image or moving picture or other exhibition.s Perceptual judgments are the first premises of all our reasonings. They occur unexpectedly and •without con- * trol. They are the immediate result of perceiving. Each of the three categories of Peirce are elements of perceptual judgment. As First, quality is an element of perceptual judgment. We have seen under the discussion of perception that percepts are absolutely simple and in them selves what they are. The Second appears as an element of perceptual judgment and is a reaction; that is, the un controllable reaction to the percept.4 For example, the perception of blue evokes the judgment, "That is blue". Thus, the perception of blue brings about the affirmation of the quality (blue). According to Peirce perceptual judgments contain general elements.5, , Thus, perceptual judgments involve thirdness. To illustrate, Peirce draws a figure composed of a continuous serpentine line. This 1Ibid., V.54. 2Ibid.. V.115. 3Ibid.. V.116. 4Ibid.. V.115. 5Ibid.. V.182. 59 figure may be conceived as a line or as a vail, but either conception involves general classes. The class line is general, and the class vail is general. Thus, the per ceptual Judgment, line or vail, contains general elements.1 The importance of this exposition of the general ity of perceptual Judgments is that general elements enable universal propositions to be inferred from perceptual judg ments. Therefore, there is no need to posit an intuitive faculty for knowing universals. All knowledge comes throug sensing. Peirce maintains that nothing appears in the in tellect vhich does not first appear in a perceptual Judg ment . ^ It is true that judgment is defined in broader terms than that of perceptual judgment. In its broadest terms, judgment is defined as an act whereby a mental pro position is made and affirmed.3 But all other judgments are nothing more than conclusions of inferences based ul- 4 timately on perceptual judgments. Therefore, perceptual judgment is the hub upon vhich the whole of Peirce *s theory of knowledge turns. The function of perceptual judgment is to provide the first premises of reasoning. It is the starting point 1Ibld.. V.181. 2Ibid., V.181. 5Ibid.. V.115. 4ibid.. V.142. 60 of all critical and controlled thinking.^* S'ke judgment which is the sole vehicle in which a concept can be conveyed to a person's cognizance, is not a purely representitious event, but involves an act, an exertion of energy, and is liable to real consequences, or effects.2 How does judgment bring about real consequences? The answer is that a judgment is an act of consciousness in which we assert a belief.^ We shall see later that the belief is an intelligent habit that disposes our action. From the above exposition of judgment, it is apparent that judgment occupies a key position in determining our think ing and conduct. Desire and Its Function Desire is defined as a strong, vague, sense of need.4" It is a tendency to act; that is, desire is a cause not an effect of action.^ A desire is not a reaction with reference to a particular thing.^ It is always general. What is desired is always some kind of thing or event not a particular thing or event. Peirce illustrates the gen erality of desire as follows: Every cook has in her recipe-book a collection of rules, which she is accustomed to follow. &n apple pie is desired. How, observe that we seldom, probably 1Ibid.. V.181. 2Ibld.. V.547 3ibid.. 11.435. 4Ibid.. V.480 5Ibid_._._V.486 6Ibid._._ JL.3-41 61 never, desire a single individual thing. What we want is something which shall produce a certain pleasure of a certain kind. To speak of a single individual pleas ure is to use words without meaning. We may have a single experience of pleasure but the pleasure itself is a quality . . . . An apple pie, then, is desired - a good apple pie, made of fresh apples, with a crust moderately light and somewhat short, neither too sweet nor too sour, etc. But it is not any particular apple pie; for it is made for the occasion; and the only particularity about it is that it is to be made and eaten today .... The cook goes to the cellar and takes the apples that are uppermost and handiest. That is an example of following a general rule. She is directed to take apples. Many times she has seen things which were called apples, and had noticed their common quality. She knows how to find such things now; and as long as they are sound and fine, any apples will do. What she desires is something of a given quality; what she has to take is this or that particular apple * . . • But desire has nothing to -do with particulars; it relates to qualities.1 Hot only is desire general and vague (indeterminate) as; has been illustrated above, but desire has a third di- mension.^ A desire is Third in that substitutes are readi ly accepted. "While a certain ideal state of things might most perfectly satisfy a desire, yet a situation somewhat differing from that will be far better than nothing; and in general, when a state is not too far from the ideal state, the nearer it approaches that state the better.More over, a situation of things satisfying to one desire may not be satisfying to another. For example, a bright light 1Ibld.. 1.244. 5Ibid.. 1.207. 2Ibid., 1.207 62 may be perfectly satisfying to my need of light but be less satisfying to my aesthetic desire requiring soft shadows. Thus, it is evident that desire cannot be completely deter mined. 4 compromise must be reached between the desire and the object to be accepted. Since all desires are vague, objects will cluster about certain mediate qualities thereby creating extremely broad classes. These general classes, in turn, further stimulate desire etc, • . But, the function of desire is to remove stimuli. "Every man is busily working to bring to an end that state of things which now excites him to work.1 1 * • Volition and Its Function The will is strongly differentiated from feeling and reasoning in that volition represents duality of con sciousness. Feeling is First and Reason, Third. Volition in its immediate character is a Second, for volition obtains its character from action from without and reaction from within. The momentary direct consciousness of ego and non ego is volition.2 The duality of volition is the duality of agent and patient, of effort and resistance, of active effort and inhibition, of acting on self and of acting on external objects.^ 1 1 Ibid. . I.V»2. 2Ibld.. 1.^4. Ibid.. I.^2. 65 Peirce suggests that polar sense he the term used in place of volition*-*- In the polar sense there are two hinds of willing, active and inhihitive (passive) willing. Active willing is a term used to stand for ^internal effort made to accomplish a purpose.s Active willing takes place when something is effected.3 For example, if a man proposes to move something he must exert an effort. He must will that his muscles react. Something is effected even though the object is to heavy for the man to move. The contracting of certain muscles occurs. All that can be said of the manfs willing is that he directly willed to contract certain muscles. Inhihitive willing is the word used for naming the inertia or the resistence to the unexpected. It is the shock we experience when anything unexpected forces itself upon our recognition.4 Inhihitive willing does not occur unless something is effected. To feel shock there must he something which produces that shock. ...Thus, it is character istic of volition that something has been done. Although the mode of consciousness we call volition, or willing, contrasts decidedly with the mere perception that something has been done, yet it is not perfected, and perhaps does not take place at all, until something is actually effected .... In the days of table-turn- 1Ibid., 1.380. 5Ibid.. 1.331. 2Ibid.. 11.84. -Ibid., 1.332. 64 ing we used to be commanded to sit quite away from a table, and t T with all our mightT T to will that the table should move and sTnce~tlie whole weight of our outstretci.- ed arms soon made our finger-tips unconsciously numb (for things are not apt to be consciously unconscious; and there were other concurring physiological effects that we did not suspect), while we were possessed of no other t f mightn over the table than through our muscles we used to be speedily rewarded, by a direct conscious ness of willing that the table move, accompanied by the vision of its wondrous obedience. Until it moved, we were only longing. . . not willing.1 Volition is always exercised upon a particular ob ject on a particular occasion. In this way, volition over- p rules the generalizing character of desire. Generally, volition may be distinguished from desire as the power to concentrate the attention of a particular; whereas, desire is an appetite for a general. Wishing and willing are not the same. Wishing differs from volition in the same way that day-dreaming differs from doing. In wishing nothing is done. \ Wishing is not willing; it is a speculative varia tion of willing mingled with a speculative and antici patory feeling of pleasure.3 Although volition is the dual consciousness and, therefore, immediate, it is somewhat general and imperfectly determinate. Thus, volition involves generality, or Third- ness.4 Active willing involves a particular object, but 1rbid., 1.331. 2Ibid.. 1.206. 5Ibid.. 1.376. h.696. 65 not usually this specific object. For example, a man wishes to buy a car. He wants a Ford, perhaps. The Ford must be of a certain color, body style, have certain accessories, etc. . . As long as the car he obtains fits the specific qualifications the man pays for the car. His action con- forms to what was willed. But the car purchased was of a general class not absolutely individual. Thus, volition is somewhat general and indeterminate. The usual function of volition is to determine con duct through the active will, and to provide self-control through the inhibitive will. In the inhihitive will there is an inertia which resists the external forces acting on the person. Belief and Its Function Habit and belief are closely allied; therefore, the distinction between the two must be clarified. 4 habit is a tendency to behave in a similar way under similar future 2 circumstances. Habit is not an affection of consciousness. It is a general law of action.^ As a law, habit is a rule that determines that on a certain general kind of occasion 4 man will act in a certain general kind of way. Belief is a habit. It is an intelligent habit upon which.man will xIbld.. V.339 n.l. 2Ibid.. V.487. Ibid.. 11.148. 4Ibid.. 11.148______ ?Ibid.. V.510._______________ 66 act when a particular occasion presents itself.-*- Although belief affirms a particular act, belief is general in that the rule asserted is general. Thus, belief partakes in the character of Thirdness. In its character as Third, belief is the adoption of a proposition.2 As an intelligent habit, belief is an affection of consciousness. It is the belief- habit of the imagination. I believe that a fire is dangerous, and I imagine a fire bursting out close beside me, I shall also imagine that I jump back. Conversely - and this is the most important part - a belief-habit formed in the imagina tion simply, as when I consider how I ought to act under imaginary .circumstances, will equally effect my real action should those circumstances be realized. Thus, when you say that you have faith in reasoning, what you mean is that the belief-habit formed in the imagination will determine your actions in the real case.3 Belief, however, is not a fundamental affection of conscious ness, for belief is the result of inference.4 Nevertheless, belief is something of which we are aware and which affects our imaginary states as well as our objective action.^ Belief-habits formed are not the result of volition as arbitrary choice. They result from reason, or at least ought to be resultants of reason.6 For t f belief gradually 1Ibid.. 11.434. sIbid.. 1.635. 5Ibld.. 11.148 ^xbid.. 11.693. 5Ibid.. III.160. 6Ibid., 1.515. 67 tends to fix itself under the influence of inquiry” The importance of reason in the fixation of belief becomes clear upon the consideration of the methods of fixation of belief. Peirce tells of four methods which have been used by man at one time or another to fix belief. The first method which Peirce describes and rejects is the method of tenacity (ii Priori method). This method relies upon a decision as to what is most pleasing to the investigator. The method of tenacity leads to bigotry through its resistance to any thing which may tend to alter it. ¥hen the method of ten acity is adhered to by a community it becomes a second method for the fixation of belief, and it is called the method of authority. The method of authority relies, upon force and coercion. The method of authority leads to tyr anny. The third method for the fixation of belief, the method of the mystic, is also rejected since it is only a form of the method of authority. In addition, the method of the mystic is not liable to public inquiry. Only the mystic can know the truth. The fourth method for the fix ation of belief is the method of scientific inquiry.s To describe the method of scientific investigation is the object of this series of papers. At present I have only room to notice some points of contrast be tween it and other methods of fixing belief. This is the only one of the four methods which pre sents any distinction of a right and a wrong way. If I _______ 1Ibld., 11.693.______ 2Ibid.. V.. 577-387.___________. 68 adopt the method of tenacity, and shut myself out from all influences, whatever I think necessary to doing this, is necessary according to that method. So with the method of authority: the state may try to put down heresy by means which, from a scientific point of view, seems very ill~calculated to accomplish its purposes; but the only test on that method is what the state thinks; so that it cannot pursue the method wrongly. So with t*10 a Priori method. The very essence of it is to think as one is inclined to think. All metaphysicians will be sure to do that, however they may be inclined to judge each other to be perversely wrong .... But with the scientific method the case is different, I may start with known and observed facts to proceed to the unknown; and yet the rules which I follow in doing so may not be such as investigation would approve. The test of whether I am truly following the method is not an immediate appeal to my feelings and purposes, but, on the contrary, itself involves the application of the method. Hence, it is that bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this^fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic. The function of belief is twofold. Belief frees o us from the dissatisfying state of doubt. Thus, providing a resting place for thought. Since thought is motivated by doubt, the activity of thought ceases the moment a belief is reached.^ The second function of belief is to affirm a rule for action. But that action involves further doubt and, hence, further thought. Thus, belief is both the 4 stopping place and the starting place for thought. Cognition and Its Function The most general aspect of consciousness is cogni- 1Ibld.. V.397 3Ibld., V.397 2Ibld.. V.372. 4Ibld.. V.397- 69 tion. Cognition, in itself, cannot be regarded as a facul ty because every phenomenon of mental life is like cogni tion. However, there is an element of cognition which is not feeling, sense, nor activity. This element may be term ed the sense of learning or synthesis.1 Synthesis is a 0 kind of consciousness which cannot be immediate. It covers time and cannot be contracted into an instant. "It differs from immediate consciousness, as a melody does from one prolonged note."^ It is in this aspect as synthesis that cognition is the informing thought (reason). As the informing thought, cognition is the locus of contact between the mind and the object.S However, thought must not be considered purely mental. It is present throughout the physical world, and appears in the activities of bees as well as the work of crystals."1 The relation between cognition as inner (in forming thought) and object as outer is a relation of signs. There can be no thought without signs. When we think, then, we ourselves, as we are at the moment, appear as a sign. How a sign has, as such, three references; first, it is a sign to some thought which interprets it; second, it is a‘ sign for some object to which in that thought it is equivalent; third, it is a sign,in some respect or quality, which brings • LI'bid.. 1.376. 5Ibid.. I.6S8. sIbid.. I.381. 4Ibid.. IV.551. 70 it into connection with its object,1 Since cognition relates the object to the knower, it is primarily Third. "There is no absolutely first cogni tion of any object, but cognition arises by a continuous process."2 Cognition develops from perceptual judgment gradually by stages or degrees.3 It is within this process that reasoning plays an active part.4 However, the present knowledge of psychology is too fragmentary to enable an adequate description of this process.3 Nevertheless, Peirce maintains that cognitive elements go through some sort of syllogistic process in mediating between Firsts and Seconds. .... does the mind in fact go through the syl logistic process? It is certainly very doubtful whether a conclusion - as something existing in the mind inde pendently, like an image - suddenly displaces two pre misses existing in the mind in a similar way. But it is a matter of constant experience, that if a man is made to believe in the premisses, in the sense that he will act from them and will say th^t they are true, under favorable ‘ conditions he will also be ready to act from the conclusion and to say that that is true. Something, therefore, takes place within the organism which is equivalent to the syllogistic process.^ This argumentative process manifested by cognitive elements is reasoning. The reasoner is conscious that his conclusions are determined by premises according to a habit 1Ibid., V.283. 2Ibid., V.267. 3Ibid., V.311. 4Ibid.» V.267. 5Ibid., 11.184. 6Ibid., V.268. 71 of thinking he accepts as valid.^ His object is to know something not now known from considering what he already p knows. His conclusions ultimately are inferred from per ceptual facts. The data from which inference sets out and upon which all reasoning depends are the perceptual facts, which are the intellects fallible record of the per cepts . or "evidence of the senses11. It is these per cepts alone upon which we can absolutely rely, and that not as representative of any underlying reality other than themselves.^ Perceptual facts result from perceptual judgments.4 Thus, reasoning does not begin until a judgment has been formed.5 To begin with, reasoning usually consists in the consolidating of propositions believed to be true. ¥hen the propositions have not been previously brought together or considered in the same way, a new concept is inferred.^ This first step is called colligation.^ "In all reasoning there is a more or less conscious reference to a general method."8 This method is syllogistic and proceeds accord ing to law.9 ilbid., 11.773. sIbid.« V.365. 3Ibid., 11.143. 4See page 58 of this study. 5Peirce, Collected Papers. 11.773 ^Inference is defined as T ? the conscious and con trolled adoption of a belief as a consequence of other knowledge1 *. Ibid., 11.442. 7Ibid., 11.442. 8Ibid.. 11.204. 9Ibid.. V.268. 72 0 0 0 If you attend to the phenomena of reasoning . you •will .... remark, without difficulty, that a person who draws a rational conclusion, not only thinks it to be true, but thinks that similar reasoning would be just in every analogous case.^ Now reasoning is formal. That is to say, what ever inference is sound concerning one thing or one character is sound in regard to any other thing or character whose form of connection .... is strictly analogous to that of the former.s This method whereby the syllogism asserts the truth is the method of inclusion.5 Ve shall treat briefly the factors of inclusion in order to discover the nature of the syllogistic process* The principle which asserts the truth of a conclu sion following a true premise is called the leading princi ple.4 It contains everything that is required in order that a true conclusion follows a true premise.5 The lead ing principle functions in reasoning by formulating active habits which judge conclusions to be true.6 A premise is defined as the proposition which has led through consideration of it to a conclusion.7 in reasoning the premise is a judgment giving rise to a new o judgment through the influence of the belief-habit. The ■ ‘ -Ibid.. 1.606. gIbid.. 1.446. 3Ibid., 11.558. 4Ibid.,, 11.462. 5Ibid.. 11.465. 6Ibid.. III.164. 7Ibid.. 11.582. 8Ibid.. III.160. 73 new judgment may be itself a premise.-1 - The process of bringing two or more premises to gether is called colligation.^ Colligation is usually an unexpressed but important step of a syllogism. For example, in the syllogism: All Mis P All S is M S is P the colligation is not expressed. But in arriving at the conclusion what is actually done is the bringing together of the first and middle terms. All M is P, and All S is M. From this colligation, the conclusion that all S is P is derived. The conclusion is necessarily involved in the pre mise. ”The fact inferred shall be involved in the very being of the facts premised ... . Thus, inference forms the core of syllogistic reasoning. Inference predicts the probable truth and, therefore, belief of the conclu sion from the accepted - belief in - truth of the premise. propositions as the premisses are true, then a proposition related to them, as the conclusion is, must be, or is likely to be true.”4 The conclusion is not only in 1Ibid., 11.470. 5Ibld.. 11.555. 2Ibid.. 11.451. 4Ibld.. 11.462. volved in the premise, but it has a status in itself. It is "super-added" to the premise. The conclusion is an in sertion which does not effect the truth of the premise it- | self. Therefore, both the premise and the conclusion stand alone as propositions. The conclusion is defined as a I "general idea to which at the suggestion of certain facts | a certain general habit of reasoning has induced us to be lieve that a realization belongs”.2 There are three kinds of reasonings deduction, induction, and abduction.^ Deduction is that mode of reasoning which examines the state of things asserted in the premisses, forms a diagram of that state of things, preceives in the parts of that diagram relations not explicitly mentioned in the premisses, satisfies itself by mental experiments upon the diagram that these relations would always subsist, or at least would do so in a certain propor tion of cases, and concluded their necessary, or prob able, truth. Induction is that mode of reasoning which adopts a conclusion as approximate, because it results from the truth in the long run. For example, a ship enters port laden with coffee. I go aboard and sample the coffee. Perhaps I do not examine over a hundred beans, but they have been taken from the middle, top, and bottom of bags in every part of the hold. I concluded by induc tion that the whole cargo has approximately the same value per bean as the hundred beans of my sample. 411 that induction can do is to ascertain the value of a ratio.^ 1Ibid.. 11.555. 2Ibid., 11.146. 34bduction is used interchangably with retroduction. 4Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.66. 1.67. Ret^oduction is the provisional adoption of a hy pothesis, because every possible consequence of it is capable of experimental verification, so that the per severing application of the same method may be expected to reveal its disagreement with facts, if it does so disagree. For example, all the operations of chemis try fail to decompose hydrogen, lithium, glucium, boron carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, flurine, sodium, ..... gold mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth, thorium, and uranium. ¥e provisionally suppose these bodies to be simple; for if not, similar experimentation will detect their com pound nature, if it can be detected at all. That I term Retroduction.1 Each of the kinds of reason function in conscious ness in the process of moving from the known to the unknown Deduction relies upon imagination, for deduction functions through reconstruction of icons in the imagination in order to discover hidden relations among the objects of reason ing.2 Deduction seeks novel truth.^ Induction functions in producing habits of action.4 Certain sensations, all involving one general idea, are followed each by the same reaction;, and an associ ation becomes established, whereby that general idea gets to be followed uniformly by that reaction.6 Retroduction functions in prediction. Hypotheses are adopt ed as principles or natural laws, and assumes T f that there may be some natural tendency toward an agreement between the ideas which suggest themselves to the human mind and those which are concerned in the laws of nature.”6 1Itiid.. 1.68. 5Ibid.. IV.476. 2Ibid.. III.365. 4Ibid.. V.400. 76 Reason is manifested in the subconscious. "There are mental operations which are as completely beyond our control as the growth of our hair. "3- The relation between an image and a symbol is an unconscious one. It is un accountable, uncontrollable, and subconscious. That step of thought, which consists in interpret ing an image by a symbol, is one of which logic neither needs nor can give any account, since it is subconscious, uncontrollable, and not subject tt criticism. What ever account there is to be given of it is the psychol ogist’s affair. But it is evident that the image must be connected in some way with a symbol if any proposi tion is to be true of it. Although Peirce did not elaborate, he expressed his opinion that there is subconscious reasoning whose processes are perfect analogs of conscious reasoning.3 Reason must not be misconstrued as being fixed and perfectly developed. In fact at the present time reason is in such a pitiful state of development that in matters of "vital" importance (human affairs such as morality, etc.; racial heritage (instincts) is a superior guide. Neverthe less, reason can grow and develop, and the potentialities of reason are far superior to the potential worth of in stinct. "Now if exactitude, certitude, and universality are not to be attained by reasoning, there is certainly no other means by which they can be reached."4 1Ibid.. V.130. 3jFbid-TT-II . - 1 - 7 - 8 - r 2Ibid.. IV.479. - % M d.. 1.14 8 -. — 77 Summary of the Chapter There are antecedent reals ■which the mind identi fies* The relationship between inner and outer is a cog nate relationship. The psychic character of consciousness reacts to the psychic character of the real acting an the consciousness. Consciousness, in its aspect as a First, is a qual ity and is called feeling. In its aspect as Second, con- sciouness is the immediate awareness of other, duality. We cannot know First as first or Second as second. We can only know relations; for any description of a feeling (First) requires time, and time in thought is a relation between # feeling (First) and last (Second). It is Third which in consciousness is the mediating category and enters into the very core of knowing. Although we can only know through perception, we do not know the percept. We know only perceptual facts which are conclusions resulting from judgments. Judgments rely upon memory, imagination, and the object for their premises. The judgments which yield perceptual facts are perceptual judgments. Perceptual judgments occur spon taneously. They are the most fundamental of cognitive acts. We cannot know infallibly. All we can know are perceptual facts which may or may not correspond to the 78 real object. There are only three fundamental affections of con sciousness. Feeling is one. Volition and reason are the others. Imagination and memory are secondary affections of consciousness. Imagination is the cognitive process of inferring images which function in the production of con cepts. Memory is the habit by which the new is represented as being like the old. Since memory functions in relating past and future, memory is the storehouse of knowledge. Memory and imagination provide the data for the inferring of concepts. Concepts are the symbol-parts of signs. As a sign the concept mediates between signs (icons) as Firsts and signs (indices) as Seconds, thereby reducing the mani fold of sense impressions to unity. Conception is rah on going process. The meaning of concepts expand and develop as the knowing of the race expands and develops. Concepts grow, and this growth does not cease until all community thought ceases. Desire is a secondary affection of consciousness which is defined as a sense of need. But stimuli are never completely removed, since desire creates general classes of things suitable for need-gratification rather than specific things. Since desire creates general classes, new classes and further activity is evoked whenever any set of 79 stimuli are removed. Desire, then, motivates the organism and assures dynamic process. Volition is the second fundamental affection of con sciousness which is polar in character. It is the direct consciousness of inner as distinct from outer. There are two kinds of volition. Active volition acts from within and is manifested when the organism effects something through its own activity. Passive (inhibitive) volition reacts to externality andtopposes psychic forces acting on the or ganism. Volition as action determines conduct. As passion, volition provides self-control. Belief is an intelligent habit which affirms an action or judgment. Belief-habits are resultants of reason which serve a twofold function. They free us from; states of doubt and affirm rules of action. All affections of consciousness whose character is general are elements of cognition. The element of cogni tion called reason is the third fundamental category of consciousness. Reason mediates between cognitive Elements through a syllogistic process. There are three kinds of reasoning. Deduction seeks novel truth among truth already known. It is a pro cess primarily mental. What is already known is diagramed. Mental experiments are performed upon the diagram. The 80 relations which appear are tested by means of further menta experimentation in order to determine their possibility of being true. Deduction proceeds from the general to the specific. Induction functions in producing habits of ac tion, It proceeds from the particular to the general; that is, from the consistency of a series of samples taken from actual objects the probable consistence of the objects is inferred, Hetroduction predicts the validity of hypothesis The hypothesis is adopted because every possible consequence of it can be verified experimentally. Not all reasonings are conscious. There are sub conscious reasoning processes strictly analogous to con scious ones. Since reason is a recent development on the scale of the evolutionary process, it is of potential rather than actual worth in practical matters. Reason functions best in theoretic matters, but at present the judgmentscf reason are still very fallible. With the growth and development of reason, knowledge of the real will become more certain and universal. The future of the race lies in reason. This chapter amplified the nature and function of the affections of consciousness. The question concerning the immediate problem of epistemology has been answered. The following chapter will begin the study of the mediate CHAPTER IV KNOWING AND TRUTH Truth and Reality Truth is the universe of all universes. It is assumed to he real in all its aspects.1 However, truth and reality are not completely synonymous. "Truth is the conformity of a representation to its object"2, but the object may have characters to which the representamen does not conform. Nevertheless, these characters are real. Thus, reality is wider than truth.2 In terms of mind, truth is defined as the agreement of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which community decision will ultimately arrive.s Truth is not subjective, however. It is not dependent on mind, for truth consists in a conformity to something independent of our thinking it to conform.^ From the above discussion, it is evident that truth partakes of the character of a Third. It is a mediating relation between something known to something which is less 1Peirce, Collected Papers. V.506. SIbid.. 1.578. 5Ibid.. V.565. 4Ibid., V.211. 82 known.1 Furthermore, there is a Secondness as a character of truth. The action and reaction (volition and perception) of the knower literally forces the recognition as something objective. The very opinion entertained by those wT ho deny' that there is any Truth, in the sense defined, is that it is not a force, but their inward freedom which determines their experimental cognition. They insist upon shutting their eyes to the element of compulsion, although it is directly experienced by them. The very fact is inde pendent of opinion of it.s • • • • There is the proposition which is so, what ever you opine about it. The essence of truth lies in its resistance to being ignored.5 In the above paragraph, we have seen truth mani fested in Second and Third. If each of Peirce*s categories are real, truth may be expected to be manifested in each category. However, we cannot know truth as First. We can not have truth in a quality of feeling. A quality of feel ing is simple in itself and reveals nothing by itself. The essence of truth lies in relation.4 Consequently, the reality of truth is potential, for ultimate truth rests upon the final decision of community thought.^ a universal conception of what is true can only result from a contin uous growth of knowledge as a result of scientific inquiry.^ 4Ibid., 1.578. Slbid., 11.138. 3Ibid., 11.139. 4Ibid.. IV.553 n.2. 5Ibid.. V.316. 6Ibid., V.387. 83 Scientific inquiry depends upon reason and involves deduc tion and induction which reduces ultimately to an analysis of judgment or assertion. This is nothing other than re- troduction. . . . .Reasoning which I employ in the analysis of assertion consists in deducing what the constituents of assertion must he from the theory, which I accept, that truth consists in the definitive compulsion of the in vestigating intelligence. This is systematical; hut it is only half a method. For the deductions, or quasi- predictions, from theory having heen made, it is requi site to turn to the rhetorical evidence and see whether or not they are verified hy observation. If we find them to he so, not only does the analysis of assertion gain evidence of heing completely rounded, hut the theory of truth is rendered more probable.1 However, the above quotation must not lead to the conclusion that truth is only that which is verified. A thing is true regardless of what it is thought to be. That is to say, inquiry may lead to false relations as well as true ones. The verification of such relations, whether they be true or false, by inquiry does not make them true.s To equate truth with that which is verified is to fall into the error of Comte and other positivists. Auguste Comte, at the other extreme, would condemn every theory that was not "verifiable11. Like the major ity of Comte»s ideas, this is a bad interpretation of a truth. An explanatory hypothesis, that is to say, a conception which does not limit its purpose to enabling the mind to grasp into one a variety of facts, but which seeks to connect those facts with our general conceptions of the universe, ought, in one sense, to be verifiable: 1Ibid.. 11.333. 2Ibid.. 1.247. 84 that is to say, it ought to he little more than a liga ment of numberless possible predictions concerning future experience, so that if they fail, it fails . . . . Comte; Poincare, and Karl Pearson take what they consider to be the first impressions of sense, but which are really nothing of the sort, but are percepts that are products of psychical operations, and they separate these from all the intellectual part of our knowledge, and arbitrarily call the first real and the second fictions.« These two words real and fictive bear no significations whatever except as marks of good and bad. But the truth is that what they call bad or fictitious. or subjective, the in tellectual part of our knowledge, comprises all that is valuable on its own account, while what they mark good, or real* or ob.iective is nothing but the pretty vessel that carries precious thought.1 Truth and Desire Though Peirce does not write directly of any rela tion between desire and truth, that man desires to attain truth can be inferred from what Peirce has written. Since desire is a tendency to reduce stimuli, the actions we make to satisfy our needs result from a desire to obtain some thing real and actual. It is clear that the satisfactions of needs is a form of reality as Secondness. The very notion of stimuli and the reduction of stimuli Involves otherness (action and reaction). The reality of fact lies precisely in the dual category of action and reaction. In so far as truth is fact, truth is desired.^ However, the vague and indeterminate character of desire makes it possible to desire generals which are not real. That generals may be false is 1Ibid.. V.597 gIbid.. V.582. implied by Peirce when he says: I The reality of generals is not a proposition that brings with it the necessity for regarding any and every general as real. The difficulty is.to determine not whether generals can be real but which generals are real.-*- Nevertheless, man desires truth.^ The volition that \ chooses under the stimulus of desire is intended for an actual object. In so far as the object chosen is real and not an hallucination, the choice is a true choice. It Is pnly as a result of ignorance and error that a false general j is desired. The pragmaticist recognizes T ! that to learn the very truth is the way to satisfy the wishes of his heart”.5 Truth and Volition The control of conduct is the function of volition. The organism controls action in order that the action may conform to an ideal.^ Thus, controlled action is purposive action. Since the only controllable conduct is future con duct5, the controlled conduct conforms to future ends. Ends in futuro are potential. Their attainment as universal reals depends upon the ultimate decision of the community. All which is contained in final community thought is real and true. Ends in futuro. in so far as they are incorporated xIbid.. V.430. 8Ibid.. 1.614. 5Ibid.. V.499. 4Ibid.. 1.573. 5Ibid.. V.461. in reals, are true, Thus, ultimately, controlled action is action for the attainment of truth. If ultimate ends are true and are to be attained as true in the long run, there must be truth in immediate ends. nOne cannot make; forecasts that will come true in the major ity of trials of them by means of any figment. It must be by means of something true and real.nl Consequently, voli tional conduct is conduct for the attainment of truth, even though truth is not a necessary attribute of all present volitional action. Man can will false conduct; that is, conduct which leads to the attainment of ends which are not true.& The discussion thus far has been concerned with pur posive volition influenced by the waking consciousness as Third. Man in controlling action mediates between past and future by means of self-criticism. He seeks to ascertain to what extent his action conforms to .his ideal. Hence, he asks these questions. Does my conduct accord with my mental resolution?^ Does the record of my conduct (in images) ac cord with my ideals of conduct?4 Does my conduct accord with my general intention?^ 1Ibid., 1.592. 2Ibid., V.430. 2Ibid., 1.596. 4Ibid., 1.599. 5Ibid., I.597. 87 In addition to these three self-criticisms of single series of actions, a man will from time to time review s ideals. This process is not a job that a man sits down to do and has done with. The experience of life is continually contributing instances more or less illu minative. These are digested first, not in man»s con sciousness, but in the depths of his reasonable being. The results come to consciousness later. But meditation seems to agitate a mass of tendencies and allow them more quickly to settle down so as to be really more con formed to what is fit for man.l Volition, in its immediate character as a Second, blindly reacts to external compulsion. Thus, strictly speak ing, the volitional awareness of consciousness is an aware ness only of inner and outer without regard to the truth of either. That is to say, volition does not know truth, but the force which effects volition is a truth.s Now it is the passive will which reacts against this compulsion thereby providing self-control. Thus, in passive volition man reacts to truth. Regardless of the fact that man may be reacting to something false, the force which compels him to react is true. Thus it is that truth brings about self-control. Truth and Belief In the final analysis belief and truth are the same. What the community ultimately believes in is truth, for the final opinion of the community must correspond with reality. J -Ibid.. 1.599. 2See page 82 of this study. 88 • . • . thought, controlled by a rational experi mental logic, tends to the fixation of certain opinions .... the nature of which will be the same in the end, however perversity of thought of whole generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation.1 However, until the ultimate fixation of belief is attained there may be belief in falsity. Ultimately only what is p true can be believed. Belief serves the course of attaining truth in two ways. It enables individuals and communities of individuals to release the tensions brought about by the tension-build ing state of doubt. Truths are asserted through the appli cation of the principle of economy. For every line of scientific research there is in any given stage of its development, an appropriate standard of certitude and exactitude, such that it is useless to require more.s These truths must not be taken as ultimate. The principle of economy is applied only temporarily.4 Further thought may introduce a . different standard of certitude and exact itude. The stimulation of further thought is the second way in which belief furthers the course of attaining truth. Belief, then, provides temporary truths which the individual 1Peirce, Collected Papers. V.430. sSee pages 4-2 and 43 of this study. 3Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.85. 4Ibid., 1.85. 89 and the community affirm* The temporary affirmations of truth through belief insures the evolutionary character of the emergence of truth. Truth and Cognition As the informing thought, cognition is truth. It is truth in so far as mental thought corresponds with non-mental thought of reality.However, thoughts are evolved from perceptual judgments. Perceptual judgments are assentations of qualitites. They are not the qualities themselves. Therefore, cognition as thought is susceptible to all the errors which may arise in the perceptual judgments. The truth of thought, then, is potential. The correspondence of thoughts which are mental and those which are non-mental rests upon ultimate decision of community inquiry. Thus, thought must grow in order to attain truth.^ The method most suited for the growth of thought is reasoning. Since reasoning must involve continuous induction, deduction, and abduction4, truth can only be known by inference. Conse quently, any assertion of truth must be made only for the time being. Therefore, the constant interaction of analysis 1I'bid.. 1.537. 3Ibid., V.284. 5Ibid.. IV.63. 3Ibid.. V.407. 4Ibid.. 1.34. 90 and synthesis is the most likely way of attaining truth,1 Thought, on the other hand, is entirely dependent on truth. Thinking ceases to be Thought when true thought dis owns it. A self-development of Thought takes the course that thinking will take that is sufficiently deliberate, and is not truly self-development if it slips from being the thought of one object-thought to being the thought of another object-thought. It is in the geological sense a 1 1 fault1 1 - an incomformability in the strata of think- ing.^ Thus, thinking, to be true, must be true thinking. True thinking is possible for there is an affinity between man’s thought and the thought of nature. However man may have acquired his faculty of divin ing the ways of Mature, it has certainly not been by a self-controlled and critical logic. Even now he cannot give any exact reason for his best guesses. It appears to me that the clearest statement we can make of the logical .... is to say that man has a certain In sight, not strong enough to be oftener right than wrong, but strong enough not to be overwhelmingly more often wrong than right, into Thirdness, the general elements of Nature.s The final goal of all inquiry is the knowledge of truth.4 Truth and Certitude If inquiry is to yield truth, ideas (conceptions) must be clear. The method for obtaining clear ideas is the method of pragmatism. Peirce defines the pragmatic rule in 1Ibid.* IV.476. ^Ibid., IV.10. 3Ibid., V.173. 4ibid., V.407. 91 terms of meaning. In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical conse quences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception^ and the sum of these conse quences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception.! As a method of thought, pragmatism should perform two func tions. The first function of pragmatism is to rid thought of ideas which are not clear. The second function of prag matism is to help make clear ideas distinct, or at least less difficult to comprehend.^ The pragmatic function is not problem-solving, but rather to make clear distinctions be tween pseudo-problems and real ones.s .... pragmatism is, in itself, no doctrine of metaphysics, no attempt to determine truth of things. It is merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts.4 Concretely, the meaning of ideas is arrived at through experimentation. All pragmatists will further agree that their method of ascertaining the meanings of words and concepts is no other than that experimental method by which all the successful sciences .... have reached the degrees of certainty that are severally proper to them to-day . .5 However, to arrive at the meaning of a concept experimental ly is not the same as verifying that meaning as true. The !lbid.. V.9. ^Ibid., V.206. 3Ibid.. V.6. 4Ibid., V.464. 5Ibid., V.465• 92 pragmatic method cannot, in itself, yield verified truth; ' for meaning and verification are not the same. To be veri fied something must be cognizable. Whereas, a thing may have meaning beyond the meaning verified. Meaning is not j T I dependent upon verification.x Thus, there is no certainty ; i that the verified meaning of a concept is the truth of that | i concept. The whole function of the pragmatic maxim is to 2 clarify meaning. The only action to which the maxim ap plies is conceived action. Pragmatism , f makes thought ultimately apply to action exclusively - to conceived action. But between admit- ] ting that and either saying that it makes thought, in | the sense of the purport of symbols, to consist in acts,! or saying that the true ultimate purpose of thinking is action, there is much the same difference as there is between saying that the artists-painter*s living art is applied to dabbing paint upon canvas, and saying that that art-life consists in dabbing paint, or that its ultimate aim is dabbing paint. Pragmatism makes think ing to consist in the living inferential metaboly^of symbols whose purport lies in conditional genera1^ re solutions to act. XIbld.. V.254. ^Meaning is not volition. Volition is dual while meaning is Third. Thus, meaning does not require physical or objective action. Peirce states that action (doing) as ithe "end-all*1 and "be-all" of life would be the death knell of pragmatism. Ibid., V.429. "To say that we live for the mere sake of action, as action, regardless of the thought it carries out, would ibe to say that there is no such thing as rational purport." Ibid., V.429* ^Italics have been inserted by the author of this study. ________4Peirce. Collected Papers. _V_.4CH_,n. l._______________ 95 Neither the experimental method nor the pragmatic maxim can provide actual present certitude. Reasoning is fallible. All positive reasoning is of the nature of judging the proportion of something in a whole collection by the proportion found in a sample. Accordingly, there are three things to which we can never hope to attain by reasoning, namely, absolute certainty, absolute exacti tude, absolute universality. ¥e cannot be absolutely certain that our conclusions are even approximately true; for the sample may be utterly unlike the unsampled part of the collection. We cannot pretend to be even prob ably exact; because the sample consists of but a finite number of instances and only admits special values of the proportion sought. Finally, even if we could as certain with absolute certainty and exactness that the ratio of sinful men to all men was 1 to 1; still among the infinite generations of men there would be room for any finite number of sinless men without violating the proportion.3 - Revelation can be no more certain than reason. We can never be certain that what is revealed has been truly inspired, for the test of the validation of the inspiration depends upon reason. For the same reason, we cannot be sure that the statement is true. Truths which rest upon inspira tion are somewhat incomprehensible in nature. Thus, we can not be sure that we comprehend them correctly.s By the same token, a priori laws and direct experience are rejected as the means of knowing with certitude.^ Under arduous and continuous scientific investi gation certain propositions become established as establish- 1Ibid., 1.141. gIbid.. 1.143 3Ibid., 1.144, 143. 94 i i ed truths. "They are propositions into which the economy of endeavor prescribes that, for the time being, further | inquiry shall cease.Consequently, all propositions in ; philosophy and hypotheses in science must be held tenta- j tively, and be abondoned in the light of new fact.^ Phi- ! i losophy and science must grow. Indeed, out of a contrite fallibilism, combined with a high faith in the reality of knowledge, and an intense desire to find things out, all my philosophy has always seemed to me to grow.3 The growth of philosophy and science carries with it the hope of knowing truth. Furthermore, the search for truth must be carried out for the sake of truth. Science consists in actually drawing the bow upon truth with intentness in the eye, with energy in the arm. Science, when it comes to understand itself, re gards facts as merely the vehicle of eternal truth . . . . Science, feeling that there is an arbitrary ele ment in .its theories, still continues its studies, confident that so it will gradually become more and more purified from the dross of subjectivity.' Philosophy ought to imitate the successful science in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangi ble premisses which can be subjected to careful scru tiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety ✓ of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. The spirit of the philosopher and scientist should be im- 1Ifcld.. V.589. 2Ibld.. VI.181. 3Ibid.T 1.14. 4Ibld.. 1.235. ?Ibid.. V.589. 6Ibld.. V.265. 95 bued r f with a great desire to learn the truth, and their going to work with all their might by a well-considered method to gratify that desire”. - * - Summary of the Chapter The definition of truth, as the conformance of a representamen to its object, is in keeping with Peiree!s ontological tenets. Truth is not Merely mental, for the occurrence of truth does not depend upon mind or relations of mind. Truth is essentially Third. Thus, truth is gen eral. As a general, truth is potential and cannot become universally actual until community inquiry ceases. The immediate character of truth, as a Second, forces recogni tion of the dual relation between the knower and the known. Since desire is vague and indeterminate, man can desire false reals. In so far as man desires real objects, he desires true ones and would not deliberately desire false ones. Volition as purposive action is controlled conduct. Controlled conduct relates to future action. Hence, con trolled conduct is a character of Thirdness. The ends toward which volition, as a Third, acts are general. In so far as these generals are true, volitional conduct is con duct designed to achieve true ends. In its character as jjbid. I.J335,. 96 Second, volition reacts to truth. The force which compels inhihitive willing is a true force. Ultimately belief equates to truth, for the final fixed opinion of community thought is true belief. Belief functions in the cause of truth by providing temporary 1 1 truths” which relieve the tensions set up by doubt. Never theless, tensions of doubt still exist. Consequently, fur ther inquiry is spurred and a new belief established. In this way, belief insures the emergence of truth through a growth-like process. The affinity between the thought of man and the thought of nature makes true thinking possible. The depend ence of manTs thought upon perceptual judgment introduces error. Thus, although the final goal of all inquiry is truth, man or generations of man cannot know truth with absolute certitude. Inquiries into the nature of truth must grow and develop. All seemingly infallible truths must be held tentatively until all the data of observation are related through the ultimate inquiry of the race. The pragmatic maxim is a method for ascertaining meaning. It cannot ascertain nor verify truth without dubious certainty. The knowledge of truth lies in the application of reason in scientific and philosophic inquiry which seek truth for its own sake. ____________________________________ 97 In chapter five the second half of the mediate prob lem of epistemology shall be considered* | CHAPTER V : ! i I 1 KNOWING AND THE GOOD | i j Good and Reality i | In general, good may be defined as the "object ad- i jmirable". It is the single ideal -which is the aim of all ; i endeavor. The ideal or end must be admirable in itself. ; i That is to say, it must be by its own nature maximally ! acceptable. The good aim, then, is one which can be pur sued. It is the fitting end for its subject. "Goodness ! i ! consists in the adaption of its subject to its end."2 For | man, whose highest nature is reasonable thought, simple ! I satisfactions of the moment; such as, slaking of thirst or the satisfaction of hunger; are not per se any part of the good.s Since the ultimate end Is the rationalization of the universe, and any one man or any generation of man is limit ed in knowing, the process for attaining man*s end must be ; continuous and evolutionary in character.4 Thus, the final jend for man is a social rather than an individual goal. i r ' ' " .. ' " " .1 1 U ' T ' 1 ‘ v r “T T " “ - 1 ■ ~ " " " ■■■ ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.615. 2Ibid.. V.158. 5Ibid.. 1.582. ________^Ibid._,_____ _ ___ _ 99 What is it, then, that the whole people is about, ■what is this civilization that is the outcome of history, but is never completed? We cannot expect to attain a complete conception of it; but we can see that it is a gradual process, that it involves a realization of ideas in man’s consciousness and in his works, and that it takes place by virtue of man’s capacity for learning, and;, by experience continually pouring upon him ideas he has not acquired . * * • From the examination of the nature of good, it is readily seen that the truth to which man aspires is nothing ’ ’ but a phase of the suiamum bonum”.^ The reality, then, of the summum bonum is potential, and it is the reality of reasonableness. The summum bonum is a Third in which the qualities in all their relations are known. Good and Desire Desire considered as a tendency of the conscious- * ness to act (mental action) is not mechanical, for mental r z action is action according to final causes. A final cause is ’ ’ that mode of bringing facts about according to which a general description of result is made to come about, quite irrespective of any compulsion for it to come about in this or that particular way”.4 Desire in its aspect as Third- ness is a final cause, for it is the working out of a de finite end in no specific way.^ Desire, so to speak, keeps 1Ibid., V.402 n.2. ^Ibid..1.575 3Ibid., 1.592. 4Ibid.. 1.211. loci the wheels turning by causing the action which removes the stimuli of the general classes. These general classes re sult originally from desire in operation. Desire* in turn* forms new classes which cause the action to remove the stimuli* etc. The removal of the stimuli produces a satis fying state of released tensions in the organism.3 - This state in itself is insufficient as an ultimate good. Now what would the doctrine that that which is ad mirable in itself is a quality of feeling come to if taken in all its purity and carried to its furthest extreme - which should be the extreme of admirableness? It would amount to saying that the one ultimately admir able object is the unrestrained gratification of a desire* regardless of what the nature of that desire may be. Now that is too shocking. It would be the doctrine that all the higher modes of consciousness with which we are acquainted in ourselves, such as love and reason* are good only so far as they' subserve the lowest of all modes of consciousness. It would be the doctrine that this vast universe of Nature which we contemplate with such awe is good only to produce a certain quality of feeling.^ Whether such momentary satisfactions of desire contain the good can only be obtained through a study of the fit- ry ness of conduct for the ideal.0 Good and Volition A synonymous term for volition is polar sense.4 In consciousness most polar distinctions refer to volition. - ‘ - Ibid.. 1.582. 5Ibid.. 1.600. 2Ibid.. 1.614. 4Ibid.. 1.380. 101 . . . . dichotomy* meaning the fact that the ele ments that a distinction separates are just two in number* is strikingly often - perhaps* that it is pre sumably always - due to volition . . • .1 Thus* right and wrong* good and bad, moral and immoral* etc., are volitional in character.2 How can volition which is separate from reason distinguish good from bad? The answer to this question rests upon the consideration of the whole character of volition as Second* and right action as a character of the good. The volitional selection of action as good or bad is not a conceptual selection. The selection of good is immediate. It occurs as a result of agreement of expecta tion of the organism with the reality of the object. The action of the organism is toward the object.3 For example* the reaction is like that of two magnetic fields which at tract each other. There is an immediate merging or blend ing of the two fields. The nature of each is such that they complement each other. The rejection of the object as bad results from the inertia of the inhibitive will. The polarity between the inhibitive will and the object is such that the organism resists or moves away from the force of the object.^ For 1Ibid.« 1.350. 2 Ibid.. 1.330. 5Ibid.. 1.333. 4Ibld.. 1.333. University Of Southern California UbfS»jt- 102 example, the reaction is like that of two magnetic fields which repel each other. There is an immediate opposition of the two fields. The crude analogies used to illustrate the relation "between volition and the good must not he rigidly accepted as exact representations of the relation. Volition does not immediately select all good action nor reject all had. Instinctive volitional selections are not infallible. How ever, in matters of vital importance (matters of practical moral application) the immediate selection of good action and rejection of had action by volition is apt to he more right than wrong.1 Good and Cognition Whereas the relation between volition and the good (as right action) is immediate and actual, the relation between reason and good conduct is mediate and potential. Consequently, for individual and practical matters, reason as the guide toward good conduct must he used with caution.^ Invariably follow the dictates of Instinct3 in pre ference to those of Reason when such conduct will an swer your purpose: that is the prescription of Reason herself.4 J -Ibid., 1.638. 2Ibid.. 1.626. ^Instinct is defined as a disposition 'which is due to inheritance or infantile training and tradition or both. Ibid.. 11.170. 4Ibid.. 11.177 103 In matters of conduct, reason is much more fallible than in stinct. In the ordinary conduct of every day affairs, men really do act from instinct; and their opinions are founded on instinct in the broad sense in which I here take that term. A small dose of reasoning is necessary to connect the instinct with the occasion: but the gist and character of their conduct is due to the instinct. It • is only a remarkable man or a man in a remarkable situation, who, in default of any applicable rule of thumb, is forced to reason out his plans from first principles. In at least nine such cases out of every ten, he blunders seriously, even if he manages to escape complete disaster. ¥e shall therefore be well within our bounds in pronouncing Reason to be more than a thousand times as fallible as Instinct.1 However, the ultimate end of man is not action. ! T ¥hat is the chief end of man? Answer: to actualize ideas of the immortal, ceaselessly prolific kind.This ultimate end lies in the general not in the particular. It Is evolu tionary in character in that its actualization lies in the future The pragmaticist does not make the summum bonum to consist in action, but makes it to consist In that pro cess of evolution whereby the existent comes more and more to embody those generals which were .... said to destined, which is what we strive to express in call ing them reasonable. In its higher stages evolution takes place more and more largely through self-control. Self-control is defined as the capacity to attain an extended view of a practical subject.- It rises above 1Ibid.< 11.176. 2 Ibid.. 11.151. 2Ibid.. 11.765. 4Ibid.. V.4. 5Ibid.. V.455-_____________________ 104 temporary urgency. There are grades of self-control of which reasoning is one.s Thus, good reasoning and good con duct are closely allied.5 Since the good toward which man strives is general, the study of man*s end and the direction of conduct which is in keeping with this good should move toward reason and away from instinct.4 Because reason in its present stage of development is not as dependable as instinct, instinct (the inheritance and tradition of the race) should be the guide in crises. In so far as the summum bonum is truth; that is, is an object of knowledge rather than an object of conduct; instinct should be completely disregarded. I would not allow to sentiment or instinct any weight whatsoever in theoretical matters, not the slightest. Right sentiment does not demand any such weight; and right reason would emphatically repudiate the claim if it were made.5 Good and Belief "Beliefs guide our desires and shape our actions."6 They are intelligent habits which are deliberate and self- controlled.*^ Such belief is general. It is not exhausted 1Ibid.. V.339 n.l. 2Ibid.. V.533-534. 3Itld.. 1.576. 4Ibid.. 11.178. 5Ibid.. 1.634. 6Ibid.. V.371. 7Ibid.. V.480. 105 by objective action, for belief determines what we shall do in the imagination as well as in objective relations There are instinctive beliefs which are mirrored clearly in the action of primitive peoples.2 in generations whose reason is more highly developed, it is clear that instinctiv beliefs must not be held tenaciously. They are but poor guides to future right action. .... The whole history of thought shows that our instinctive beliefs are so mixed up with error that they cannot be trusted till they have been corrected by ex periment .6 However, belief is fundamental to all conduct. All action, all conduct, hence, all moral objects are asserted as good through belief.4 It is obvious, therefore, man must fix belief to attain the good. In fact, the fixation of belief through self-control is the only way that the summum bonum can ultimately be reached. Among the things which the reader as a rational person, does not doubt, is that he not merely has habits but also can exert a measure of self-control over his future actions; which means, however, not that he can impart to them any arbitarily assignable character, but, on the contrary, that a process of self-preparation will tend to impart to action (when the occasion for it shall arise), one fixed character, which is indicated and perhaps roughly measured by the absence (or slightness) of the feeling of self-preparation for action of the next occasion. Consequently, there is a tendency, as 3 - Ibid.. III.160. 2Ibid.. V.499. ^Ibid.. 1.55. 4Ibid.. 1.55. 106 action is repeated again and again for the action to approximate indefinitely toward the perfection of that fixed character, which would he marked by entire ab sence of self-reproach. The more closely this is ap proached, the less room for self-control there will be; and where no self-control is possible there will be no self-control.1 As seen in the above quotation; belief which is fixed through control is a habit of thought. Thus, belief should properly be fixed under the influence of inquiry.s Furthermore, the conduct rising out of belief should be constantly reviewed in the light of new truth as to what is proper to man. Consequently, the assertion of the good through belief can rest ultimately only upon the findings of research conducted in the spirit of scientific investi- gation.s Summary of the Chapter The good is the real object which is admirable in itself. It is the summum bonum. For man, the ultimate good is the rationalization of the universe. Thus, the final end is a social rather than an individual goal. The social goal is a goal in futuro. Hence, the final end is a potential good and only can be obtained through right conduct (objective and mental). Desire is the final cause which stimulates man to 1Ibid.. V.418. 8Ibid.. 11.693. _______ 5Ibid.. V.387.___________________________________ _ 107 work for his end. The satisfaction, accompanying the attain ment of the immediate object of desire, is insufficient to be the ultimate good. What relation this satisfaction has to the good can only be determined through rational inquiry. Man acts immediately toward or away from an object as a result of volitional action. The action toward an object is a result of active will,and amounts to an im mediate instinctive selection of the good. The rejection of the object by passive will is immediate,and amounts to an immediate instinctive rejection of the bad. The immedi ate action of the volitional selection of the good is more often right than wrong. However, as a guide to future action, volitional action must ultimately yield to reason as the measure of the good. Since the summum bonum is primarily the object of knowledge and not of action, instinctive judgments diould be disregarded. The hope of the attainment of the ultimate good lies in the reasonable opinion of social inquiry. In so far as belief is general, the assertion of the proposition which is to be the maxim of right conduct should rest on the data of inquiry carried oh in the spirit of Science. This chapter concludes the investigation of the mediate problem of epistemology and consequently, the in- 108 vestigatlon of the epistemology of Peirce. The following chapter will begin the educational phase of this disserta tion. Educational aims abstracted from Peirce will be com pared with those as stated by John Dewey. CHAPTER VI THE AIMS OF EDUCATION ABSTRACTED FROM THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF CHARLES S. PEIRCE COMPARED WITH THOSE OF JOHN DEWEY Alms of Education as Derived from Peirce’s Epistemology The primary aim of man1 s activities, Both individual and social, is the attainment of the summum bonum. The summum bonum is objective and, in the long run, obtainable. It lies, in some ^ay, in the evolutionary process.^ Since the ultimate end lies in the evolutionary process, it has potential rather than actual being. It has reality in future. Thus, the ultimate end for man is general and con tinuous. It is not individual and discrete.^ Since man’s highest nature is reasonable thought, the conformance of man’s thought to the ultimate objective, external thought is the goal most fitting, for man* Precisely, then, the highest goal of rational man is Truth. This does not mean ■^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.4. 2See page 99 of this study. 110 that the Truth man seeks is actual in all its aspects and can he known with absolute certainty through the pronounce ment of any authority or from the findings of any method of inquiry.1 Thus, in order that man obtain his end, thought must grow and develop. Only in this way can man, through and with community thinking, reach the Truth. It is evident that any educational aim for man must be in keeping with his nature and the structure of the universe. Since man is potentially rational and the universe is psychic in char acter^, the growth of reason is the primary aim of educa tion. In the development of reason, inquiry of every type should be fully carried out, for f f rational methods of in quiry have the vital power of self-correction and of growth*1. Thus, any school situation should provide practice in de duction, induction, and abduction.^ In his discussion of the application of reason for . the fixation of belief, Peirce rejects all methods of in quiry which are not conducted in the spirit of scientific investigation.5 The only motive stimulating inquiry should ^See page 93 of this study. 2Ibld.. p. 32. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.582. 4See page 90 of this study. 5Ibld.. p. 67. Ill be an Intense desire for learning the truth. Consequently, education should also have for an objective the stimulation of interest for inquiry into truth for truth’s sake. Wo one can develop the single-mindedness of interest necessary for the discovery of truth unless he has self-control. But self-control is not only essential in inquiry, it is equally important in conduct. Desire for truth and self-control ’ ’seem to be the fundamental characteristics which distinguish a rational being” Therefore, education should aim to foster and develop self-control. Such control cannot come about through discussion, for self-control is volitional in character.^ Thus, the school environment should be such that the experience which makes self-control necessary is present. The desire for truth should be controlled by the student to the extent that he conducts his inquiry into truth according to principles which are not based on utilitar ian motives such as personal gain. His inquiry should be • z based on.principles rooted only in truth for truth’s sake. Self-control should be developed to the extent that the desire to learn assumes the character of Volition (will to learn) -^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.419. sSee page 65 of this study. 3Peirce, Collected Papers. V.585. ^Tbld.» V.583 112 The reasoning process must "be developed through Nonets eyes”. * * - That is to say* educators should avoid teaching the student the manipulating of "words and fancies to the neglect of the manipulation of real-things. All knowing starts in the senses*5 , and inferences as to the characters of the objects can only come by experiencing them. Since experience is the t ? forcible modification of our ways of thinkingw by means of , ? the brutal inroads of ideas from without*^, education should provide for the student * s learning by experiencing the actual external world of objects and events. Experience is our only teacher. Far be it from me to enunciate any doctrine of a tabula rasa. For, as I said a few minutes ago, there manifestly is not one drop of principle in the whole vast reservior of estab lished scientific theory that has sprung from any other source than the power of the human mind to originate ideas that are true. But this power, for all it has accomplished, is so feeble that as ideas flow from the springs of the soul, the truths are almost drowned in a flood of false notions; and that which experience does is gradually, and by a sort of fractionation, to precipitate and filter off the false ideas, eliminati them and letting the truth pour on its mighty current. The importance of experience in learning is strengtif enedvthrough a corollary aim of education which is commun- V.363. 2See page 40 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.321. 4Ibid.. V.50. 113 ication. The social character of reality3’ in Peirce*s think ing makes communication a vital outcome of education. The communication Peirce refers to is communication by means of signs.^ Such communication can occur only within a universe held in common through common experience.3 Peirce, in his emphasis on the reality of experience,, does in no way mean to "belittle the importance of imagination in learning. The inferring of images and the application of processes related to imagination mark the difference "between stagnancy and progress in the practical matters of invention and scientific genius. It is not too much to say that next after the passion to learn there is no quality so indispensible to the suc cessful prosecution of science as imagination. Find me a people whose early medicine is not mixed up with magic and incantations, and I will find you a people devoid of all scientific ability.4 Indeed, in the study of Peirce*s epistemology, it is evident that imagination forms a key to all knowing when the vagaries of imagination are tested in experience.3 Thus, education must aim to foster the development of imagining processes. Further examination of the nature of experience has shown that experience is only known as it is past. Direct ^See page 34 of this study. sPeirce, Collected Papers. II.278. aIbld.. 11.357. 4Ibld.. 1.47. -_______ aSe_e_tiage_45_.of this study. 6Ibid.. a. 41._________ 114 immediate knowledge of the external is instantaneous and vague at best.-*- Thus*. it is evident that education should aim at the development of memory. This does not mean that Peirce holds a faculty theory of mind. Peirce defines memory as the ability to infer that an object has been seen before.^ It is not a faculty with the power to reproduce an exact image of an object. Memory cannot be developed in general, but the process of recognizing specific objects can be developed.s In the study of the content of consciousness it was found that the third fundamental affection of conscious ness may be described as the sense of learning.4 How this sense of learning is the quintessence of reason. It has its physiological basis in the formation of habits.5 ob viously, since the highest nature of man is reasonable thought, the development of its physiological bases of learning is a fundamental objective of education. Habits of reasoning and habits of conduct must be the goal of good teaching, but in so doing the educator must not fall into the error of the medieval schoolman. The teacher must 1Ibld.. p. 41. 2Ibid.. p. 46. sPeirce, Collected Papers. 1.379. 4See page 69 of this study. 5Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.390. 115 not hit upon a method* habituate it and consider learning complete. The medieval schoolman* following the Romans* made logic the earliest of a boy*s studies after grammar* as being very easy . . . • Accordingly* as soon as a boy was perfect in the syllogistic procedure, his in tellectual kit of tools was held complete.1 Good habits of conduct are requisite for the student de sirous of knowing truth. Unless he is honest and sincere with himself* he cannot maintain the single-minded interest necessary in the process of inquiry (seeking truth)Edu cational institutions must provide the environment conducive to learning. It must be an environment characterized by the spirit of diligent inquiry into truth for truth's sake.3 The facilities of these institutions should be such that the perceptive and rational abilities of the student may obtain the maximum development. By this means* some of the causes of the lack of reasoning ability would be removed.^ There would be a more rapid rise of man* from the embryonic form of rationality which characterizes him now* to the rational station which is his destiny.^ Contrary to what, may be expected of aims of edu cation which honor truth for truth »s sake* it is not the 1Ibid.. V.S59. 2Ibid.. 1.49. 5Ibid.. 1.44. -Ibid.. 1.657. 5Ibid.. V.585. 116 aim of the teaeher to cram the student with facts to fit the pigeon-holes of his mind so that he is filled with his own importance. Rather the teacher must see that the students do not become filled with notions of self-importance and superior abilities. But suppose, by some extraordinary conjunction of the planets, a really good teacher of reasoning were ap pointed, what would be his first care? It would be to guard his scholars from that malady with which logic is usually infested .... namely unfair reasoners and what is worst unconsciously unfair .... The good teacher will therefore take the utmost pains to prevent the scholars getting puffed up with their logical acquire ments.1 Peirce distinguishes between the theoretical inquiry t ! whose purpose is simply and solely knowledge of Godts truthT f , and the practical whose purpose is r f for the uses of life”.s That, a separation between education for theory and education for practice is requisite, can be ascertained from Peirce !s statements concerning science as an instru ment for a practical end. One result of this is that all probable reasoning is despised. If a proposition is to be applied to action, it has to be embraced, or believed without reservation. There is no room for doubt, which can only paralyze action. But the scientific spirit re quires a man to be at all times ready to dump his whole cartload*, of beliefs, the moment experience is against them. The desire to learn forbids him to be perfectly cocksure that he knows already. Besides positive science can only rest on experience; and experience can never result in absolute certainty, exactitude^ necessity, xIbia.. 1.657 2Ibid.. 1.239. 117 or universality. But it is precisely with the universal and necessary, that is, with law, that conscience con cerns itself. Thus the real character of science is destroyed as soon as it is made an adjunct to conduct; and especially all progress.in the inductive sciences is brought to a standstill.1 It would be a mistake to make educative ends subservient to practical ends. Such ends would destroy the theoretic com ponent of knowledge. It would be equally erroneous to make educative ends serve only theoretic inquiry. The law to which conscience adheres belongs to the subconscious man. It resides in T l that part of the soul which is hardly distinc*: in different individuals, a sort of community-consciousness, or public spirit, not absolutely one and the same in differ- ent citizens, and yet not by any means independent of them1 *. It is clear, then, that the aims of education for inquiry which seek the summum bonum in thought, and the aims of education for conduct which seek the summum bonum in action are different, and rest on different principles. At least, this is true in the present stage of evolved reason.5 Ethi cal aims, then rest upon instinct.4 The investigation of the nature of ethical aims must not rest here. To do so would be to miss the signifi- llbid.. 1.55. sIbid.. 1.56. 5Ibid.. 1.620. ^See page 103 of this study. 118 cance of an emphasis on conduct which is really social not individual in character. Peirce reasons that individual, particular, limited goals are of little value, for all j individual things must come to nothing. They must decay ! t i i or die. Thus, aims which are not futile must embrace that 1 which continues and endures beyond the individual. \ I can see but one solution of it. It seems to me that we are driven to this, that logicality inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. This community, again, must not be limited, but must extend to all races of beings with whom we can come into immediate or mediate intellectual relation. It must reach, however vaguely, beyond this geological epoch, beyond all bounds. He, who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole world, is as j it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences collec- j tively.2 The last sentence of the above quotation supplies the clue to Peirce’s great ethical norm which is love. It is not the love of self but the love of one's neighbor which i o jshould guide man's conduct.J The primary ethical aim of all education is to bring about the love of one's neighbor. This ideal must be practiced. Since the student can only learn through experience, he must experience conduct which is commensurate with the ethical aim. The love of one's neighbor extends beyond the social graces and courtesies. The teacher must understand the problems of the student to ^Peirce. Collected Papers. 11.653* 2Ibid.. 11.654._______3ibid.. IV..68. 119 the extent that he can guide his student out of the logi cal difficulties he encounters. Such a teacher T ! would fulfill the first condition, at least, of being helpful1 1 .1 The fulfillment of the ethical objective of education lends itself directly to the accomplishment of the intellectual objectives of education. Were there nothing in reasoning more than the old traditional treatises set forth, then a rogue might be as good a reasoner as a man of honor .... But in induction a habit of probity is needed for success: a trickster is sure to play the confidence game on himself* And in addition to probity industry is es sential. In the presumptive choice of hypotheses still higher virtues are needed - a true elevation of soul.^ The specification of ethical aims must not be con fused by applying to them theoretical findings. Conduct should follow the conscience of the race. Take, for example, the belief in the criminality of incest. Biology will doubtless testify thatt the practice is inadvisable; but surely nothing that it has to say could ■warrant the intensity of our sentiment about it. When, however, we consider the thrill of horror which the idea creates in us, we find reason in that to consider it an instinct; and from that we may infer that if some rationalistic brother and sister were to marry, they would find that the conviction of horrible guilt could not be shaken off.5 Thus, educational aims of conduct must not hurriedly follow a pattern indicated by theoretical inquiry. Any man who would precipitately change his code of morals on the find- J . I 1Ibid.. 1.657. sIbia.. 1.576. 5Ibid.. V.445. 120 ings of individual or theoretical inquiry would be unwise. Buies of conduct are racial inductions 1 1 summarizing the experience of all our race”. * * * The general educational aims of Peirce, as develop ed in this section, are listed below in order to facilitate reference when they are compared with the educational aims of John Dewey. 1. Education should bring about the growth and development of reason. 2. Education should stimulate self-interest in dis covering truth for truth*s sake. 3. Education should foster and develop self-control 4. Education should provide the experiences necess ary for active learning. 5. Education should develop the; concepts: and technl ques necessary for the communication of ideas. 6. Education should develop imagination which is rooted in experience. 7. Education should develop the ability to recall past experience. 8. Education should foster the development of good habits of reasoning and conduct. 9. The educational environment should be conducive 1I'bid.. 1.653. 121 to the development of the perceptive and rational abilities of the student. 10. Education should bring about brotherly love and moral conduct. Aims of Education as Stated in Dewey fs Democracy and Education There is no ultimate end for man. There is instead particular ends toward which man moves in his various capacities; that is, ends mark the cessation of activity.^ If the end is foreseen, it is termed an aim.2 These aims must not be rigid. They must merely direct activity and be modified as the activity warrants. The notion of a summum bonum is rigid. Whereas, an aim must be flexible.*5 The aim is 4only a sign, a cue, by which the activity to be carried out is specified.4 It is not something which is to be attained, nor is it something separate from the means it guides. When one has such a notion, activity is a mere un avoidable means to something else; it is not significant or important on its own account. As compared with the end it is but a necessary evil; something which must be gone through before one can reach the object which alone is worthwhile. In other words, the external idea of the aim leads to a separation of means from end, while ^•John Dewey, Democracy and Education (N.Y.: Mac millan Co., 1916), p. 118. 2Ibid.. p. 119. SIbld.. p. 122. 4Ibid.. p. 123. 122 an end which grows up within an activity as plan for its direction is always both ends and means, the distinc tion being only one of convenience.! Since there is no single aim for man, there is likewise no single aim for education. Education is an abstract term for an institution composed of individuals each with their own aims. They have come together to carry out activities which in themselves make up their goals. And it is well to remind ourselves that education as such has no aims. Only persons, parents, and teachers, etc. have aims, not an abstract idea like education. And consequently their purposes are indefinitely varied, differing with different children, changing as children grow and with the growth of experience on the part of the one who teaches.^ Aims, then, must be recognized not as Ends but as suggestions f t to educators as to how to observe, how to look ahead, and how to choose in liberating and directing the energies of the concrete situations in which they find themselves11 .3 The discussion of John Dewey*s educational aims which follows must be read with the above admonishment in mind. The most important aim (cue) of education is growth. .... growing, or the continuous reconstruction of experience, is the only end.4 We have laid it down that the educative process is a continuous process of growth, having as its aim at ' ^Ibid.« pp. 123-124. ^Ibid.. p. 125. 5Ibid., p. 125. I 4John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (W.Y.: Hew American Library, 1951)p. 146. 123 every stage an added capacity of growth.^ Education like growth must be an on-going, non-terminating process with no other end but process. Dewey finds this growth concept so fundamental that he makes it not only the aim of education, but also the criterion by which forma], education is evaluated. For the sake of convenience, educators may abstract from the on-going process of growth other cues which serve to guide activity. Such a cue is co3mminication. Communi cation is nothing more than conjoint activity. That is to say, it is a process of sharing experience between in dividuals, between individuals and groups, or between groups until the experience becomes a common possession. The communication is such that it modifies the dispositions of both parties sharing the experience.^ Thus, communi cation is educative. It is education through mutual co operation within mutually shared activities. In order that communication guide the activities of the school, there must be an environment conducive to active communication. Another aim of education is that i ] the school must provide an environment so that I the deeper more intimate educative formation of dis- ^Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 63. 2Ibid.. p. 11. 124 position comes, without conscious intent, as the young gradually partake of the activities of the various groups to which they belong,1 In order for this type of sharing to take place, there must be control. Therefore, educators must aim to control the activities of the student. However, this con trol is not brought about by physical compulsion. It is control dictated by the nature of the situation in which the activity takes place. The school functions T f to achieve this internal control through identity of interest and p under standingl f . Since growth and control signifies an ability to acquire habits, habit formation is an important aim of education.s The individual grows by learning from experi ence. Whereas, learning from experience simply means the acquisition of habits.^ These habits enable the individ ual to direct his activity for the satisfaction of his own needs. wHabits take the form both of habituation, or a general and persistent balance of organic activities with the surroundings, and of active capacities to readjust activity to meet new conditions.T f ^ Educators aim at the j formation of habits. Habits which are active; which become f . . . . . . g-H,---- — — - - - I r ~ r T - ' - ......... -T- I - n- TT : • ' ■ Ibid., p. 26. sIbid.. p. 48. 5Ibid.. p. 54. 4Ibid.. p. 62. 5Ibid.. p. 63. 125 modes of behavior. Such habits cannot be blind. They must involve thought, invention, and initiative.3 - Therefore, the student must know how to think. In order to think he must experience. He learns by experiencing. Thus, experi encing and thinking are additional educational aims. Experience is sin active as well as passive affair. It is not merely cognitive. The individual actively ex periments; that is, he trys to affect the surroundings. As a result, he suffers the consequences of the reaction of the surroundings to his experiment. However, mere action and reaction is not experience. In order that the activity be experienced, the individual must learn. The consequences must be perceived as the effect of his action.2 Thus, there is no duality of agent and patient. Both the individual and the environment are immediately, and in the same sense, rz agent and patient. They both affect each other. In such experience the mind does not perceive things but rather relations or connections.^ ! t Thought or reflection, as we have already seen, virtually If not explicitly is the dis cernment of the relation between what we try to do and what happens in consequence.”5 The discernment of relations 1Ibid.. p. 63. Slbid.. p. 163. 5Ibid.. p. 164. 4Ibid.. p. 167. 5Ibid.. p. 169. 126 enables the individual to foresee consequences, and in this way he obtains an actual workable control of events.^ The individual perceives relations through experiencing. Through perceiving relations, the person thinks. Therefore,, experiencing and thinking are part and parcel of one another. Thinking only can gradually develop to include that which lies beyond direct interests.^ Thus, education must be a slow process which provides the student opportunities for a wealth of experiencing. Thinking is an active process in which the individual attempts to foresee consequences. Thus, thinking occurs in problematic situations.5 If there were no consequences, there would be no thought. In order to teach students how to think, they must undergo problema tic situations. Education for thinking is education for solving problems which are identified with the student.4 The problems which students are to solve must .be their own. Activity, to be really educative, must be engaged in with intrinsic interest. That is to say, the student must be identified with the objects which define the activity and which furnish the means and obstacles to its realization.5 Education, then, must provide learning | experiences and problems with which the student can identi- 3 - Ibid.. p. 170. 2Ibid., 173. 5Ibid., p.173. 4Ibid., p. 192. 5Ibid.. p. 161. 127 fy his own interest. A corollary aim which supports education for think ing is the development of the imagination. , f The engagement of imagination is the only thing that makes any activity more than mechanical.Imagination, as defined "by Dewey, does not mean the weaving of* images' in fancy, hut rather it means the ! t warm intimate taking of the full scope of a situ- ationft.s The development of the imagination comes about through activity which is characterized as nplay-activity".3 Play-activity must not he confused with childish games of fancy. It should he distinguished from 1 1 serioust f activity only by the materials with which the individual is occupied. Thus, education should provide play-activity designed to % foster the activity of imagining. In order to foresee consequences, association be tween present and past activity must occur. The association or suggestion of connections is what is meant hy the term, memory.4" Memory, therefore, is not a faculty, hut an activ ity of mind. Thus, the development of memory, as an aim for education, must he translated in terms of experience. Like Peirce, Dewey considers the ethical problem of education. However, Dewey makes no distinction between i J-Ibid.. p. 276. 2Ibid., p. 276. 5Ibid.. p. 277. "^Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, pp. 32-33. the theoretical and the practical. Both theory and prac tice are guided by social action. ”As a matter of fact, morals are as broad as acts which concern our relationships with others.”' * * In school and out of school, activities should have coterminous relations. As the out-of-school relations are social, so must be the relations in school. The social ideal (democracy) must be the Ideal of all ac- p tivity. Thus, the ethical aim for schools in America should emphasize the development of shared, conjoint activ ity. Such activity is what is meant by the term, demo cracy. s For reasons cited previously^, I have listed the educational aims of John Dewey as developed in the above section. 1. Education should enable the student to grow, and bring about at every stage of growth an added capacity for more growth. 2. Education should provide activities in which the student can Identify his own Interests. 3. Education.* should provide activities which will Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 414. gIbid.. p. 115. 5Ibid.. p. 101. 4See page 120 of this study. 129 foster the development of internal control of student be havior . 4* Education • should provide the necessary experi ence thropgh -which the student can learn hy active partici pation in events. 5. Education should provide activities which en able communication through mutually shared activity. 6. Education should provide play-activities where by the student can enrich the meaning of his experiences. 7. Education should provide experience which per mits the student practice in the association of events. 8. Education should provide for the formation of habits of adjustment and readjustment of environmental activities. 9. Educational environment should be such that sharing comes about without conscious intent on the part of the student. 10. Education should provide experiences which foster shared, conjoint activity. 11. Education must provide problematic situations which will teach intelligent solving of problems. i 150 Comparison of the Educational Aims of Peirce and Dewey There is a basic distinction underlying the thought of Peirce and Dewey.^ Peirce emphasizes the cognitive as pect of knowing while Dewey emphasizes the behavioral. This does not mean that Peirce would advocate an armchair kind of education, nor does it mean that Peirce had much faith in direct communication between teacher and student. The stu dent must do his own learning. He, himself, must experience objects and learn about their relation to himself and to each other by the actual manipulation of the objects in his environment.2 The knowledge of environment, gained by the student from his experiences with it, is general. He can not know the specific thing other than as he has conceptual- / Z ized it. Thus, the logic of his thinking plays a vital role in his understanding the particular relations under question. The teacher, then, helps the student by helping him overcome the logical difficulties standing in the way of the student*s clear comprehension of the relations be tween the objects studied.4 The teacher would endeavor to •^See page 13 of this study. SIbld.. p. 112. 5Ibid.. p. 40. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.657. 131 have the student penetrate beyond the specific object,or event to the principles or law underlying the relations of the subject. He would further aid the student in setting up experimental situations which will test the student*s ideas.^ A teacher in a Dewey school would differ in his approach. He would not be as concerned with objects of a particular subject but rather with everyday events. He would help the student by providing activities which would have practical consequences pertinent to the student*s daily life. The teacher would endeavor to have the student foresee conse quences so that he would be able to carry on activities which would enable him to make the requisite adjustments for carrying on his daily pursuits.s Both Peirce and Dewey em phasize activity in learning, but the outcome of the activ ity is different. School activity for Peirce would lead primarily to greater rational capacity. School activity for Dewey wopld lead principally to a capacity for continuous behavioral adjustments. Growth is a key concept in the thinking of both • z Peirce^and Dewey. However, the purpose of growth is differ- 1Ibid., 1.44. s Dewey, Democracy and Education, pp. 89-90. 5Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.174-175. 132 | ent. In the educational aim of Peirce^, growth has an j outcome which is other than the process♦ Growth must end in the summum bonum. The purpose of growth for Dewey is more growth. There is ho other end than the process itself Both men see the growth process as continuous reconstruction of experience. For Peirce the reconstruction must come about principally through .reason and approach an ultimate.5 The reconstruction is a reconstruction of thought in its relation to things, and not of the things themselves.4 The concept of interest is part of the educational philosophy of Peirce5 and Dewey5. ¥ith Dewey, Peirce main tains that the quality of learning depends upon the extent of the student*s interest in what is being done.^ However, « t. 1 . - what is being done, for Peirce, is the conceptualizing of the experiences undergone. Interest must be a deep-seated impulse ! t to penetrate into the reason of things”5, for ”there is but one thing needful for learning the truth and that is a hearty and active desire to learn what is true”.5 ^See-page 109 of this study. ^Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 62. 5See page 76 of this study. 4Ibid.. p. 57. 5Ibid.. p. 120. 6Ibid.. p. 128 ^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.582. 8Ibid.. 1.44. . 9Ibid.. V.582. 133 I It is quite clear that, according to Peirce, the interest extends beyond the organic state of the individual and fol lows a principle. The principle followed Is truth. Now, truth Is independent of the thought or state of the knower. Therefore, any organic states which interfere with learning truth must be controlled. Dewey rejects any doctrine of interest based on a principle which is something other than the course of action of the individual. nThe principle is not what justifies an activity, for the principle is but another name for the continuity of activity.,fS Interest is not general. It is specific. There is not interest but interests. Interest means that one is identified with the ob jects which define the activity and which furnish the means and obstacles to its realization.5 The control of self is an educational aim of both Peirce4 and Dewey5. The control of conduct and thought is to come about intrinsically and through the student fs own activity. This control comes as a result of experiencing. It is a result of consequences. To these statements both ■^See page 81 of this study. ^Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 410. 5Ibid.. p. 161. 4See page 120 of this study. 5Ibid., p. 128. 134 Dewey and Peirce would assent. However, Peirce defines self-control in terms of thought. nSelf-control seems to he the capacity for rising to an extended view of practical subjects instead of seeing only temporary urgency.”- * * In its higher stages, evolution takes place more and more through self-control, and this gives the pragmaticist a sort of justification for making the rational purport to be general Dewey, on the other hand, defines control in terms of action. . . . . control is a guiding of activity to its own end; it is an assistance in doing fully what some organ is already tending to do.^ The internal control (self-control) arises in the nature of the situations in which the individual takes part. The internal control consists in habits of understanding. These habits are set up t ! in using objects in correspondence with others whether by way of co-operation and assistance or rivalry and competition”.4 Thus, in setting up an en vironment, the school should provide activities which would bring about control without conscious intent. That is to say, in carrying out activities, the control flows from the relationship involved. In this educational aim * * * Peirce, Collected Papers, V.339 n.l. 2Ibid.. V.432. 3Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 29. 4Ibid.. p. 39. 135 of Devey^, active environment implies behavior, not concep tion, Peirce’s educational environment should lead to con ception and to control through conscious intent.£ In either case, the environment should be one that brings about the desired learning through the student’s own experience, Education through the student’s experiencing is an aim supported by Peirce^ and Dewey^. The fundamental differ ence between the educational aim of Peirce and the educa tional aim of Dewey lies in their conception of the nature of experience. For Peirce, experience implies duality.^ There is an agent and patient which are really distinct from each other. In the learning experience, the student is the patient and the external object is the agent. On the other hand, there is no duality of agent and patient in Dewey’s conception of experience. ’ ’ The nature of experi ence can be understood only by noting that it includes an active and a passive element peculiarly combined. How ever, there is a cognitive aspect in experience. This cognitive aspect of experience lies in seeing connections.7 •^See page 128 of this study..' 2Ibid., p. 115, 3Ibid.. p. 120, 4Ibid., p. 128. Slbid.. p. 132. 6Dewey, Democracy and Education, p, 163. 7Ibid,. p. 163. 156 For Peirce, the cognitive aspect of experience is exempli fied in the formation of ideas.^ It is this cognitive aspect of experience which forms the basis for communica tion.2 Thus, a comparison of Peirce's5 and Dewey's4 edu cational aims for communication reveals again the hasic difference in the thinking of Peirce and that of Dewey. Dewey stresses behavioral activities. ¥hereas, Peirce stresses conceptual activities, for communication is carried on by means of the transference of ideas.5 According to Dewey, communication is carried on through sharing of activities.^ Obviously, then, the means for achieving communication would differ inithe two schools. Activities in a "Peircean" school would be designed to bring about common ideas. The activities carried out in a Dewey school would be designed to bring about common conjoint experience. Both Peirce and Dewey are in agreement about the importance of the development of imagination as an aim In education.^Their conceptions of the nature of imagina tion are not the same. Dewey defines'imagination as a ^See page 112 of this study. SIbid.. p. 113. 5Ibid.. p. 120. 4Ibid.,. p. 128. 5Peirce, Collected Papers, V.586. 6Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 11. ^See page 120 of this study. 8Ibid.. p. 128. 137~1 medium of appreciation in every field. However, imagination should not he confused with imagery (fancy or myth). It is the sensing of meaning.1 According to Peirce, imagina tion is a cognitive process whereby images are inferred.^ These images serve as signs representing the object in conceptual processes.3 Thus, it is apparent that Dewey and Peirce differ in their views concerning the nature of im agination. According to Dewey, there is nothing beyond process in experience and imagination.4 Although Peirce recognizes process In experience and imagination, he places his emphasis on the conceptual aspect of this process. Thus, there will be a difference not so much in the type but in the outcome of educational experiences which follow from the respective aims. Closely related to imagination is memory. Both Dewey and Peirce reject the faculty theory of memory, and emphasize it as the process of associating past and present . ► In Dewey’s aim of education6, memory is considered In terms of the association of events past with events present.^ In Peirce’s aim, memory is considered in terms of the recall lDewey, Democracy and Education, pp. 276-277. 2See page 42 of this study. 3Ibid., p. 53. 4Ibid.« p. 127. 3Ibid., p. 43. 6Ibid.. p. 128. 7Ibid.. p. 127. of past experience.^* Again the difference between the thought of the two men is a difference of emphasis. For Dewey, the recall of the past is a behavioral rather than cognitive function. The recall of associations are accom panied by emotional tone. Memory is vicarious experience,in which there is all the emotional values of actual experience ■without its strains, vicissitudes, and troubles.^ According to Peirce, the recall of past is a cognitive func tion. The object recalled is T ! an articulated complex and worked-over product which differs infinitely and immeasure- ably from feeling”.3 It is evident that the two aims are essentially different. The formation of habits is an educational aim of Dewey4 and of Peirce5. Peirce distinguishes between habits of reasoning and habits of conduct.5 Dewey makes no such distinction. For Dewey, thinking and conduct are just two sides of the same coin. They are part and parcel of each other. It is evident that classroom activities following Peirce*s aim may differ according to the habit being develop ed. Whereas, the activities carried out under the Dewey 3-Ibid.. p. 120. ^Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy, p. 30. 3Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.379. 4See page 128 of this study. ^Ibid., p. 120. 5Ibid.« p. 114. 139 aim would be the same. Habits of thinking would be habits of conduct. In their ethical aims for education, Peirce-** and Dewey2 are poles apart. Peirce’s aim stresses norms of conduct.3 Dewey’s aim stresses means of action.4 For norms of conduct, Peirce looks to the Bible, especially the New Testament. The f l New Testament is ’not* a textbook of the logic of science”, but it ”is certainly the highest existing authority in regard to the dispositions of heart which a man ought to have5 Peirce fears the rational in morals.6 Well, political, economy has its formula for redemp tion, too. It is this: Intelligence in the service of greed insures the fastest prices, the fairest contracts,1 the most enlightened conduct of all the dealings between men, and leads to the summum bonum, food in plenty and perfect comfort. Food for whom? Why, for the greedy master of intelligence. I do not mean to say that this is one of the legitimate conclusions of political econ omy, the scientific character of which I fully acknow ledge. But the study of doctrines, themselves true, will often temporarily encourage generalizations ex tremely false, as the study of physics has encouraged- necessitarianism. What I say, then, is that the great attention paid to economical questions during our century has induced an exaggeration of the beneficial effects of greed and of the unfortunate results of sentiment, until there has resulted a philosophy which comes un wittingly to this, that greed is the great agent in the 1Ibid.. p. 120. sIbid.. p. 128. 5Ibid.. p. 120. 4ibid.. p. 127. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 11.655. ft ^See page 103 of this study. 140] i elevation of the human race and in the evolution of the universe.1 Dewey also fears the rational in morals. However, he does not look to a creed or credo, but rather to society for norms of action. Morality, for Dewey, is nothing more than the effective sharing of social living.^ Morals is not a catalogue of acts nor a set of rules to be applied like drugstore prescriptions or cook-book recipies. The need in morals is for specific methods of inquiry and of contrivance: Methods of inquiry to locate difficulties and evils; methods of contrivance to form plans to be used as working hypotheses in dealing with them. And the pragmatic import of the logic of individ ualized situations, each having its own. irreplaceable good and principle, is to transfer the e.attention of theory from preoccupation with general conceptions to _ the problem of developing effective methods of inquiry.^ Since growth is an end in itself, Dewey does not speak of growth as the development toward certain ends. Therefore, thinking, as an aim of education, is listed separate from growth as an aim.4 ’ Thinking is method, the method of intelligent experience in the course which it takes.Dewey differs sharply from Peirce in defining the nature of thinking, and the way in which thinking can be best developed. Dewey, then, defines thinking as the method •^Peirce, Collected Papers. VI.290. ^Dewey, Democracy and Education, p. 418. ^Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy. pp. 136-137. A See pages 120-121 of this study. _Dewey_.._Deriioc racy_and_Education. p. 180.__________ 141 of an educative experience whieh can best be developed by: .... first that the pupil have a genuine situation of experience - that there be continuous activity in | which he is interested for its own sake; secondedly, that a genuine problem develop within this situation as a stimulus to thought; third* that he possess the informa tion and make the observations needed to deal with it; fourth, that suggested solutions occur to him which he shall be responsible for developing in an orderly way; fifth, that he have opportunity and occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to discover for himself their validity. * * - It is clear from the above quotation that thinking is en visaged by Dewey as consisting principally of intelligent activity. The school does not teach reasoning but problem solving. Peirce defines reasoning as a process which takes place in the consciousness and in which conclusions are in ferred from judgments as premises according to a habit of thought which the reasoner approves as a means of truth.2 Obviously, this process does not specify any particular method of inquiry. Method is implied; albeit, a general method.5 This method follows the principles of logic.^ The improvement of reasoning1 , therefore, can be brought about by improving the system of logic whose principles are being followed.5 It is clear that the reason of Peirce is not the thinking of Dewey. Probably the most divergent * * *Ibid., p. 192 • 2Peirce, Collected Papers. 11.773. 3Ibid., 11.204. 4Ibid.. I-I.186': 5Ibid.. 11.190. ~T43l I educational practices would result from the differences in the nature of thought as defined hy Peirce and Dewey. Summary of the Chapter From the epistemology of Peirce and his writings on learning* ten aims of education were abstracted. The primary aim of education for Peirce was the growth of reason. The need for the growth of reason arises from the necessity for the fixation of belief in an ultimate which is true. The fixing of belief necessitates inquiry. Such inquiry must be carried out with no other motive than the desire to learn the truth. Such a desire could come only from an interest in learning what is true. Thus, education should have as an aim the stimulation of interest in learning truth. In order to develop a consuming interest in the inquiry into truth, and to carry out that inquiry with unswerving fidel ity, the learner must be able to control his efforts by resisting interference and avoiding digression. Since all learning comes through experience, edu cation should provide experience in which the student con tacts real objects and events. Such experience, held in common, makes the fulfillment of the aim of education as communication possible. The development of imagination and memory are addi tional aims of education. Imagination rooted in experience 143! functions by furthering inquiry. The inferences of imagin-' ation are dependent upon the accuracy of recall. Accurate recognition of present objects resulting from recalling the past is indispensible for inquiry into truth. The physiological basis of learning is the formation of habits. Consequently, education should purpose to de velop habits,of right reason and right conduct. To develop such habits, an environment conducive to their development is requisite. Therefore, education should provide an en vironment which will enable the carrying out of the intend ed learning. ■ r In setting up ethical aims, education must look to the race conscience and religion. The most general of the ethical norms is embodied in the expression, ”love thy neighbor”. That love must be the moral aim of all education. From Dewey’s writings, eleven aims of education were abstracted. The first ten listed were comparable to the aims of education abstracted from Peirce. The eleventh aim of Dewey was concerned with the solving of everyday problems. In comparing the educational aims of Peirce and those of Dewey, it was discovered that both men held that learning can come about only through the student’s own activity. However, the activity meant by Peirce was 1 4 4! conceived activity. The activity meant by Dewey was be- ! havioral. Dewey *s aims of education never implied anything j other than process, while Peirce!s aims implied process j toward an end. In obtaining ethical norms, Dewey looked to meloriation through democratic process; whereas, Peirce i looked to Christianity. The distinction between thought and action by Peirce and the identification of thought and j * action by Dewey marks the greatest separation in the think ing of Peirce and that of Dewey. This distinction also marks widely divergent aims for education. This chapter considered the educational aims of Peirce. In the following chapter these aims will be ap- i plied to curricular problems. j CHAPTER VII THE CONSEQUENCES OF PEIRCE'S AIMS OF EDUCATION AS APPLIED TO CURRICULAR PROBLEMS The General Curricular Implications of Peirce's Educational Aims In the previous chapter it was shown that Peirce holds a real distinction between theory and practice *1 Any application of educational aims should he consistent with this dichotomy. Therefore, a clear grasp of what this di chotomy implies in inquiry and conduct should be obtained* Theoretical inquiry has as its end truth; whereas, practical inquiry has for its purposes the uses of life.^ It can be assumed that this distinction between theory and practice would follow throughout education. There, then, should be at least two different educational curricula, if not in the lower levels certainly at the university level. In support of this inference, let us consider what Peirce says about theory and practice in philosophy. ^See page 116 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. I.839. 146 I stand before you an Aristotelian and a scientific man, condemning with the whole strength of convict ion - the Hellenic tendency to mingle philosophy and practice.1 Peirce does not confine the dichotomy to philosophy and practice. He extends it Into science. * l The true scientific investigator completely loses sight of the utility of what p he is about." Hot only does the scientific man lose sight of any utilitarian ends, but his findings do not directly apply in practical matters.5 Furthermore, the dichotomy of theory and practice must be maintained, for one must not confuse ethical theory with ethical practice.^ Peirce, it is true, wrote nothing in Collected Papers about education for theory and education for practice. However, it seems justified to assume that education for theory and education for practice would be a valid separation in higher education at least. I hope to learn whether this university [has been set up] to the end thattsuch fine young men as can come here may receive a fine education and thus be able to earn handsome incomes, and have a canvas-back and a bottle of Clos-de-?ougeot for dinner - whether this is what she is driving at - or whether it Is that, .... she hopes that in this place something may be studied out which shall be of service in the solutions of . . . problems .... In short I hope to find out whether Harvard is an educational establishment or whether it is an institution for learning what is not yet thorough ly known, whether it is for the benefit of the individual 1Ibid.. 1.6X8. 5Ibid.. 1.657. 2Ibid.. 1,619 4Ibid.. 1.573 14? students, or whether it is for the good of the country and for the speedier elevation of man into that rational animal of (which) he is the embryonic form.3 - It is clear from the above quotation that education for theory is of higher value than education for practice. Thus, in extending this notion, the ideal school would be the school in which the pursuit of knowledge was conducted for the sake of knowing rather than for the pursuit of particular ends. Consequently, in applying Peircefs edu cational aims, the curricular situation Is assumed to be one in which truth, unknown truth, is the final cause. There need not be complete darkness concerning the general character of the activities which would be pursued in schools. There are in Peirce*s writings some scattered hints concerning the nature and content of school activity, or, at least, what school activity should not be. Certainly rote memorization or indoctrination of belief in authority would not be sanctioned by Peirce.2 The authority objected to by Peirce is the authority based upon opinion fixed by a means other than that of scientific inquiry.3 classroom activities would be conducted in the spirit ofC inquiry rather than in the spirit of acceptance. In such a class, there would be no children sitting with folded hands and with straight backs supporting open-bucket minds into which 1rbid., V.53S. 2Ibid.. V..ZQX. 5Ibid.. I.31., 148 established,^fixed, inert entities are pumped by the teacher. The children would be engaged- in activities, both physical and mental, where the learner would discover and obtain a knowledge of living entities.*** The prevailing attitude would be an attitude of intense interest which would grow out of a desire to see into the reason of things. Ratio cination might be the key term in curriculum.s The students would be proceeding by reason from what i they know to what they donft know. However, it must not be assumed that Peirce considered that the ability to reason was ready made and perfect. As a matter of fact, he thought that strong reasonh ers were very scarce. ^Comparatively few persons are ori ginally possessed of any but the feeblest modicum of this talent.Reasoning can grow and develop.4 Therefore, classroom activities would be designed to pace the abilities of the student, and'provide for their growth in the ability to reason. The growth of reason can only come through its use in inquiry for truth. Thus, the unswerving purpose behind all learning is to know truth for truth*s sake.5 Truth is objective. There are real facts which are governed by real principles. In other words, there is in reality a - ^Ibid.» 1.44. 5Ibid.. 1.65? 5Ibld.. 1.49. 2Ibid.. IV.45. 4Ibid.. 1.615. 149 content whose principles must be known if inquiry is to effec tively lead to truth. The pragmatic maxim of meaning*** is nothing more than a method for ascertaining these principles which are active in the world.^ The only activity implied in the maxim is conceived • 2 activity. For example, in a chemistry class in which the student is attempting to discover and verify for himself principles, the curriculum would not be so ordered as to leave time for nothing but activity in which the students busily goes through a neat set of experiments illustrating Principle I; then goes through another neat set of appli cations proving Principle I; a set of experiments illustra ting Principle II; then.the proving of Principle II; and so on until the workbook is complete. Rather, the teacher would choose a few important principles which form the core of the subject. He would present short, simple expositions which adhere rigidly to the logic of the subject being studied. To know what we think, to be masters of our own meaning, will make a solid foundation for great and weighty thought. It is most easily learned by those whose ideas are meagre and restricted; and far happier they than such as wallow helplessly in a rich mud of concep ts© e page 91 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers, 7.467. 5Ibid., V.393. 150 tions . . . . For an individual . . . . there can he no question that a few clear ideas are worth more than many* confused ones. In ascertaining the meaning of the principles, the student must conduct inquiries which penetrate into conceived effects of the principles he discovers. This does not say that the student will not engage in actual manipulation of objects, and in the actual observation of the effects of their re actions. Hor does it mean that the student will not make applications of the principles in appropriate curriculum content. It simply means that there will he time for the student to disengage thought from action, and to think through the principles and their consequences. In fact, concepts derived through learning must often be brought to test. 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 test.s Such then are the type and character of class activities which follow from Peirce»s thinking. llMd., V.393. 2Ibid.. V.403. 151 The Control of the Curriculum In a school whose purpose is to develop reason, it is clear that the control of the curriculum would not rest in the hands of any civic, church, or private authority. That is, the curriculum for the education of future reason- ers must not be in the hands of any persons or groups who have special interests. Peirce does not want ^Ministers”, ”Wall Street promoters” and ^Broad Street Brokers” meddling in scientific matters.3* Thus, It can be assumed that sped, interests should not meddle in the education of future scier tists,: for agencies which are f t vitally concerned” in the execution of their business tend toward orthodoxy.^ Control of education by such agencies would cripple and stunt the growth of reason. The only type of control which Peirce finds acceptable in inquiry is the control of the scientific method. This is true control, for a scientist must follow the principles of scientific method if he is to discover truth. Thus, it was clear that in institutes of research (graduate schools), the control of the curriculum would come from the nature of the subject and the principles of the methods used. 2Ibid.. V.379 1Ibid.. VI.3 5Ibid.. V.387 152 It was difficult to determine Peirce*s position in regard to education below the university level. Prom his emphasis on science, it might be assumed that the control of the curriculum should be determined by the findings of the science of education. This is apparently not the case. Peirce lists education as a practical science along with wgold-beating, etiquette, pigeon-fancying, vulgar arithme tic, horology, surveying, navigation, telegraphy, printing, bookbinding, paper-making, deciphering, ink-making, librari ans f work, engraving . . . .tf.l He then confesses to be nutterly bewildered by its motley crowd . • . . Peirce writes that ^American Universities are miserably Insignifi cant as institutions for learning. They are institutions for teaching rather than for research. Thus, they fail to develop a will to learn. He states f T that those admirable pedagogical methods, for which the American teacher is dis tinguished, are of little more consequence than the cut of ‘ his coat . . . .rt.3 Whether or not Peirce would hold the same sentiments about education as a science in our day is a question which may never be answered. Therefore, the discussion of the control of educational curriculum could not be carried below 1Ibld.. 1.243. sIbid.. 1.243. Slbid.. V.583. 153 the ■university level. It does follow from Peirce*s thought that the control of the curricular content for practical education (profes sional and vocational) would he hy the agencies best suited. Perhaps - since Peirce lists the science of education as a practical science - the agency best suited for determining the content of such curricula would be the specialists in education. There was no doubt about the source of the control of the curriculum for right conduct. Norms of conduct would be those promulgated by the social conscience.^ Apparently, the final say in curriculum matters would be the society. From the above discussion, it can be seen that in schools of research curricular control would be determined / only by social conscience in matters of conduct and by the principles of scientific research in matters of inquiry. However, the curriculum in professional and vocational schools would be determined ultimately by society acting through proper agencies. The Content of the Curriculum In discussing the cpntent of the curriculum the procedure was to apply each aim according to the order listed ilbid-, 1.654 154 1 earlier in this study. Education Should Bring 4bout the Growth and Develop ment of Reason.— Since this is the most inclusive aim of education, all curricular content should contribute toward this growth. However, there are some subject areas which lend themselves particularly to the development of reason. Perhaps, the area of study most like reason is mathematics, p for mathematics is itself a kind of reasoning. The reason- * 3 4 ing of mathematics is deduction. ’ Reasoning by deduction is reasoning with generals. That is to say, mathematical reasoning penetrates the essence of an object which is not obscured by extraneous and irrelevant characters. Thus, mathematical reasoning is deductive reasoning. However, mathematical or deductive reasoning is only one kind of reasoning. Therefore, mathematics cannot comprise the curriculum which proposes the growth of reason. Since induction is the experimental testing of a 7 theory , the various special sciences would be suited for learning the process' of inductive reasoning. Such sciences * ^See pages 120-121 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 11.120. 3Ibid.. V.8. 4Ibid.« V.14?. ^Ibid.. V.42. A See page 74 of this study. _________?Peiree. Collected Papers «J_. 14 5 . ._______________ ____ 155 ■would be the classificatory sciences; some of which are: systematic botany, zoology, taxonomy, ethnology: and grammar,, mineralogy, and chemistry The most creative method of reasoning is abductive (hypothetic or retroductive). Abduction can originate ideas* It devises theories to explain facts observed.5 Perhaps, the sciences most helpful for learning the application of abductive reasoning are those which are experimental, but most theoretical. They represent the epitome of the fruits of inductive and abductive reasoning. Such sciences are astronomy and theoretical physics.^ In the psychical sciences, experimental psychology is an example of this class of science.5 Abduction has an additional importance in reasoning, for abduction can be an aspect of both de ductive and inductive reasoning. Abduction infers facts which may or may not be replaced by inductions about them.^*^ Peirce places .biology, geology8, history and biography8 in the category of sciences in which the reasoning used is 1Ibid.. 1.189. 2Ibld.. 11.644. Slbid.. V.145. 4Ibid.. 11.644. 5ibld.. 1.189. 6Ibid.. 11.642. , ‘The theory of evolution is in a great measure the result of purely abductive reasoning. It has not and can not be thoroughly tested in experiment by means now known. 8Peirce, Collected Papers, 11.644. 9Ibid.. I-.:201. 156 almost completely that of abduction.*** The comparative sciences, such as comparative anat omy, comparative physiology, comparative histology, general studies in history, etc., would be of positive value in the learning of reasoning by analogy. Analogy is the inference that objects which agree in several characters may agree in other respects.^ All of the special sciences which have been listed depend upon logic.3 Therefore, logic is an essential ele ment of the curriculum. Logic would function in science by making ideas clear.^ In education for reasoning, the development of observational ability must not be neglected. Therefore, Phenomenology would be included in the curriculum. The first and foremost ability in reasoning is that rare faculty, the faculty of seeing what stares one in the face just as it presents itself . * . . This is the faculty of the artist who sees for ex ample the apparent colors as they appear . . . .rf5 It was apparent that art experience, in the sense of the recognition and manipulation of forms and colors under various spatial and lighting arrangements, should be included in the curriculum. Since the universe itself is a great work of art6, art experience should include hbid., 11.644. gIbld.. X.69. 3Ibid.. 11.120 4Ibid.. V.393. 5Ibid.. V.42. 6Ibid.. V.119. I literature and music. j | Nothing is truer than true poetry. And let me tell 1 ! the scientific men that the artists are much finer and i j more accurate observers than they are, except of the L special minutiae that the scientific man is looking for.!1 ]The fact that Peirce thought that esthetic experience can j yield true percepts can be ascertained from the following ! f quotation. , i One of the old Scotch psychologists .... mentions . . that a certain man blind from birth asked of a per son of normal vision whether the color scarlet was not something like the blare of a trumpet? and the philos opher evidently expects his readers to laugh with him over the incongruity of the notion. But what he really | illustrates much more strikingly is the dullness of apprehension of those who, like himself, had only the conventional education of the eighteenth century and remained wholly uncultivated in comparing ideas that in^ their matter are very unlike. For everybody who has acquired the degree of susceptibility which is requisite in the more delicate branches of reasoning - those kinds of reasoning which our Scotch psychologist would have labelled "Intuitions” .... will recognize at once so deeided a likeness between a luminous and extremely chromatic scarlet .... (and the blare of a trumpet] that I would hazard a guess that the form of the chem ical oscillations set up by this color in the observer will be found to resemble that of the acoustical waves of the trumpet’s blare. Another character necessary for the development of reasoning is a resolute determination to follow the object studied wherever it may lead and under whatever guise it may appear. In other words, there must be a will to learn. The development of a will to learn does not depend on the curricular content, but the character of the teacher. •^Ibid. T 1.315.____________ -1.312_____^Ibld___V— 42. The first thing that the will to learn supposes is ' a dissatisfaction with one's present state of opinion j . . . in order that he may have any measure of success in learning he must he penetrated with a sense of the unsatisfactoriness of his present condition of knowledge . . • it is not the man who thinks he knows it all, that! can bring other men to feel their need of learning, and ' it is only a deep sense that one is miserably ignorant, ! | that can spur one on in the toilsome path of learning, j i There was considerable evidence that Peirce was in- i 2 1 spired by reading the lives and works of great scientists and philosophers^. Thus, it can be assumed that Peirce would include biographies of great thinkers in the curric ulum. It would be a "great books1 1 program designed to bring the student in contact with actual written accounts of the lives and works of the world’s truth seekers. i Philosophy, including metaphysics, esthetics, ethics would be included in the curriculum. Since all of the special sciences borrow principles from mathematics, logic 4 ! and metaphysics , metaphysics would be included in the cur riculum along with logic and mathematics. The question of beauty is an esthetic question. The whole theory of the admirable in itself, regardless of any- thing else, is the business of esthetics . Thus, the study Jof esthetics would be included in the curriculum. Since i beauty is an aspect of the good, the reasoning and explo ration of the science of beauty defines the aim which right 1Ibld.. V.583. 2Ibid.. V.352 n.l. . Ibid.. 1.4. 4Ibid.. 1.188-189. 5lbid., 1.611. 159 conduct seeks. The theory of right conduct is ethics.^* Thus, in order for the student to obtain insight into the function of self-control, he would study ethics. Education Should Stimulate Self-interest in Discov ering Truth for Truth1s Sake.— This aim of education does not imply curricular content as much as it does the attitude accompanying curricular activities. Obviously, an abiding interest in inquiry into truth cannot develop in an environment in which the students and teacher are self-satisfied and certain of what they know. There must be some doubt by the student that he has truth. That is, o the student must be dissatisfied with his present knowledge. Moreover, the student must be willing to exert his own efforts in the inquiry brought about by interest. 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.3 Such a circumstance represents, in education, the ideal set of conditions for learning. In view of the fact that students' interests will differ and some subjects are better suited than others in requiring various types of reasoning, large areas of the curriculum must be prescribed by the teacher. Thus, more often than not, the teacher must be responsible for bringing about interest in inquiry _________1Ibid., 1.193 2Ibld.. V.^76.____ Ibid.. V.584.__ 160 for truth^ The student should feel the joy of discovery# Therefore, the method of inquiry most likely applied in the p earliest explorations would be induction. Education Should Foster and Develop Self-control#-— Since self-control is a result of the inertia of inhibitive will , it is clear that the control of conduct must come from within the student. This does not say that the teacher cannot function in bringing about the desired control# Pre cisely, since the control comes about through the inertia of inhibitive volition reacting against the action which is 4 contrary to the expectation of active volition , the disap proval of the teacher functions directly in helping the student develop self-control# The child does not come to the teacher completely devoid of self-control, for there are levels of self-control which are instinctive.y The family and teacher bring about that self-control developed z by training. &t this level the curricular content would consist of experiences in which self-control is necessary to meet social and teacher approval. ^Ibid.# V.583. 2Ibld.. V.584. 3see page 65 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers * I.3B3# 5ibia.. v.194. ____6itid.. v.^n.________________ 161 4s the child matures he becomes his own "training master". Much or all of the development of self-control can take place in the imagination. Through the use of imagination, the child develops self-control by applying some moral rule. The content of the curriculum would con sist of the moral and religious prescriptions of the society in which the child lives. 4t the highest levels of develop ment^ the student will exercise control by applying guiding 2 principles rather than rules of conduct. Curricular con tent at this level would comprise ethics and esthetics. Thus, ultimately, self-control would be governed by an "ideal of what is fine" Education Should Provide the Experiences Necessary for 4ctive Learning.--Many curricular experiences of the student have been discussed. Therefore, in this section of the chapter, the curricular experiences considered are those in which the child would participate. In developing these early experiences, the following quotation was used as a cue. . . . Only what it touches has any actual and pre sent feeling, only what it faces has any actual color, only what is on its tongue has any actual taste. It was assumed that the curriculum of the early 1Ibid., V.33. 3Ibid.. V.533 2Ibld.. V.533• 4Ibld.. V.229. 162 school years would provide objects and events of every description which the child would manipulate and form for himself# According to Peirce, there is considerable evi dence that colors and sounds have characters intuitively interpreted in the same way by everyone.^ Thus, sounds and colors would be included in the child’s curriculum. The experience of seeing and touching the moving lips is connected to the sound issuing from them. In this 2 way, the child identifies the sound with facts. The sounds, with accompanying experiences with objects, enables the child to understand language and converse. He uses words. The following quotation indicates the importance of language in learning. There is no element whatsoever of man’s conscious ness which has not something corresponding to it in the word; and the reason is obvious. It is that the word or sign which man uses is the man himself.^ The child then should connect words with their objects, and thereby conceive their meaning. Since words are signs of the external object which are themselves 4 signs , the child must actively associate the word with its object. For example, the word c-a-t, sees the cat, smells the cat, is scratched by the cat, etc. In this way, the •^ Ibid.. V.X18. 2Ibld.. V.232. 3Ibid.. V.314 4 See page 49 of this study. 163 1 sign c-a-t is related with the sign cat. The curriculum of the child must not neglect the informing character of odor as a sign. 4 mere presentment may be a sign .... But the best example is that of odors, for these are signs in more than one way. It is a common observation that odors bring back old memories. This I think must be due, in part at least, to the fact that, whether from the peculiar connection of the olfactory nerve with the brain or from some other cause, odors have a remarkable tendency to presentmentste themselves, that is to occupy the entire field of consciousness, so that one almost lives for the moment in a world of odor. Now in the vacuity of this world, there is nothing to obstruct the suggestions of association. That is one way, namely by contiguous association, in which odors are particularly apt to act as signs. But they also have a remarkable power of calling to mind mental and spiritual qualities. 4 lady’s favorite perfume seems to me somehow to agree with that of her spiritual being* If she uses none at all her nature will lack perfume. If she wears violet she herself will have the very same delicate fineness. Of the only two I have known to use rose, one was an artistic old virgin, a grande dame: the other a noisy young matron and very ignorant; but they were strangely alike. 4s for those who use heliotrope, frangipame, etc., I know them as well as I desire to know them. Surely there must be some subtle resemblence between odor and the impression I get of this or that woman’s nature.2 4t the higher grade levels, the pupil would experi ence through experimenting. That is, he would begin his inquiry into inquiry. From a verifiable hypothesis, the truth of which the pupil doubts, the experiment must grow. In order to test the hypothesis, the embryo experimenter •^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.231- 2Ibld.. 1.313. 164 must choosb the objects which he will put to test. Then he must act either externally or internally - There Is such a thing as mental experimentation, - to modify the objects and their surroundings. Prom the modification of the ob jects, there follows a reaction which the pupil observes and records. His observations are generalized. By bringing together the generalized observations, the pupil hypothe sizes a principle which he relates to the original hypothe sis. To obtain a clear understanding about the identity of the two hypotheses, the pupil conceives all their possible consequences. The essence of the experiment does not lie in obtaining correct results. The essence lies in the pur pose and plan of the experiment.^ Education Should Develop the Concents and Techniques Necessary for the Communication of Ideas.--Since no one^ experience is the same as any others, absolutely precise transference of ideas is not possible. However, ideas which are derived from experience in common are most likely to be communicated with clearness. Therefore, the relating of concepts and their concrete objects is an important phase of the curriculum. The content of the curriculum at lower grade levels would consist principally of actual objects and situations experienced in common. ilbid V .424 2Ibld.. V. 165 Thinking is carried on as a dialogue.1 Therefore, language is important in every stage of education. Children would have early experience with the use of language in communication. Wherever appropriate, and in accordance with the pupils* abilities, the curricular content brings in experience requiring the use of language. Foreign and classical languages would have an important place in the curriculum. Peirce*s facility in several languages (English, Latin, Greek, French, and German) apparently was instru mental in the formation of his philosophy. The rediscovery of the writings of Dons Scotus by Peirce was possible, in part at least, because he had learned to use Latin as a language. Such objects as history, biography, geography, world thought, etc. would be part of the curriculum for communication. These subjects would enable the student to come into relation with the life and ideas of other peoples in the present and past. Logic would also be included in the curriculum for communication, for logic has as a function the making of ideas clear. Communication can occur only through the transference of ideas. 1Ibid., V.506. 2Ibld.. VI.158. on-verba1 communication comes about through the per ception and interpretation of non-mental ideas. Ibid., V.470 See also the discussion of signs on pages 47-57 of this study 166 Education Should Develop Imagination Which Is Rooted in Experience.--Like perceiving, imagining is a well from, which thinking springs*1 Consequently, all curricula would contain elements through which imagination may be developed. Each subject has its own kind of imagining. The artist dreams of colors and forms, and the scientist of explana- 2 tions and laws* The mathematician imagines diagrams and relations. Thus, it was assumed that imagination would not be considered as separate from other learning experiences, but in conjunction with them. k t the lower levels, the child would engage in activities which would call into play Imaginative functions. His art experience would include the non-objective type. Thus, the infinitely variable continuous character of gen- 4 erals would suggest itself. We all have some idea of continuity.- Continuity is fluidity, the merging of part into part.? Contrary to what may be expected, the rich imaginative ex perience of being drawn into an ever changing, constantly flowing world of conceived forms does not lead reasoning astray to madness. Now continuity, it is not too much to say, is the ^Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.538. 2Ibld.. 1.48. 3Ibid.. V.44Q. ________lib Id_____1.163__ j ib Id---I..16A----------------- 167 leading conception of science. The complexity of the conception of continuity is so great as to render it im portant wherever it occurs. Now it enters into every fundamental and exact law of physics that is known. Throughout their school years, students would have the ex perience of thinking through imaginary experiments and ap- plying the conclusions in results concretely conceived. If pragmatism is the doctrine that every conception is a conception of conceived practical effects, it makes conception reach far beyond the practical. It allows any flight of imagination, provided the imagination ultimately alights upon a possible practical effect; and thus many hypotheses may seem at first glance to be excluded by the pragmatical maxim that are not really so excluded.3 Education Should Develop the Ability to Recall Past Experience.— The importance of memory in knowing cannot be belittled. The past is the storehouse of knowledge.4" In fact the only conclusions that can be made are past con clusions. The conclusion reached now stems from only what is past. To remember is not to recall exact reproductions, but the essential character of the idea.y The efficiency of remembering depends upon attention. Attention is defined as the ability to abstract certain 6 percepts, from the flow of reality through the senses. 1Ibid.. 1.62. 2Ibid.. V.167. 3IMsL. > V.196. ^Ibid. < V.460. ^See page 46 of this study. ^Peirce, Collected Papers. V.295 * 168 Thus, it was assumed that curricular content of a text, class demonstration, etc. should be organized so that it stands out and calls attention. The principles to be learned would be few. They would not be cluttered with a maze of accompanying characters. They should be as sharply delineated as possible. Digressive and obtuse explanation would be at a minimum. The curriculum would afford oppor tunity for using and reusing the principles in conceived and actual applications within the curriculum. Education Should Foster* the Development of Good Habits of Reasoning and Conduct.— No aim of education is more vital. Habit formation is growth by exercise. Growth by exercise is learning.^* In other words, growth occurs through habit formation. Through habit, desired reactions tend to be performed when the conditions leading to such o reactions are repeated. However, simple rote repetition is not the only nor the best way of producing desired habits. Rote habituation may be necessary when the modifications of functions are so hidebound by habit that they are mechanical. If I wish to acquire the habit of speaking of "speaking, writing, thinking”, etc., instead of "speakin*, writin1, thinkin1” . . . all I have to do is to make the desired enunciations a good many times; and to do this | as thoughtlessly as possible, since it is an inattentive habit that I am trying to create.3 1 2 3 Ibid.. VI.301. Ibid., V.487. Ibid.. V.479 169 Another means of formation of habits is by attention. If the abstraction from the extraneous influences of the environment is great enough, a Single effort may produce a habit of thinking or a habit of conduct which is retained.^* Consequently, the curricular content should be of such a nature that it strikingly compels attention. The curriculaij experiences would be arranged to be of the nature of surprise. But precisely how does this action of experience take place? It takes place by a series of surprises . . . nothing can possibly be learned from an experi ment that turns out just as anticipated. It is by sur prises that experience teaches all she deigns to teach us. In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read - and they have been many, big, and heavy - I don’t re member that anyone has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, .... That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience. She says, Open your mouth and shut your eyes and I’ll give you something to make you wise; 2 and therefore she keeps her promise. However, all learning may not come so effectively without repetition and without effort to analyze the conditions of the situation. Nevertheless, monotonous repeating of a process over and over again is more harmful than beneficial in habit formation. The classroom activities must be as varied as possible without totally disrupting the learning situation. Everybody knows that the long con’ tinuence of a rou-^ tine of habit makes us lethargic, while a succession of 1Ibid.._V. 47JZ, jlbld y_.51. 170 surprises wonderfully brightens the ideas. Where there is a motion, where history is a-making, there is the focus of mental activity . . . The classroom atmosphere is not sufficient to bring about habit formation of the desired sort. The student must use reason and deliberate effort to acquire skills in physical processes, such as throwing a ball, operating a machine or the learning of any skill. In learning skills, the student must apply inductive reasoning. He must observe and review the various motions involved in the action until the general unitary concepts about which the action revolves are grasped. Then, he must practice the various units which comprise the total action, kt the same time he must observe which efforts are needed to perform each unit of action. When he sees the general idea of the total action, a little more practice will enable him to perform the action with facility.2*3 In learning the principles of a subject, such as Biology or Geology, the student will follow the abductive process of reasoning. When reasoning by abduction, the student assumes that a special case belongs to a general principle simply because that general principle explains the special case. For example, a student of botany is ex amining a drop of pond water under a microscope. He observe 1Ibld.. VI.301. 2Ibld.. VI.145. 3Ibid.. V.479. 171 an object'which moves, reacts to light, heat and pressure, but which has a green color. Upon examining the nature of the color, the student discovers that it is composed of a mixture of pigments which are found only in plants in those particular proportions. Therefore, he concludes that the object is a plant.^ In mathematics the student applies and acquires the habit of deductive reasoning. Thus, through the medium of a varied curriculum, the three major types of reasoning may become habituated. There is a danger that such expositions of reasoning may be from the teacher, through the student, and back, to the teacher without any real learning on the student’s part. The student will have to use principles which he cannot discover for himself. Thus, it would be requisite that the student “examine the professor’s argument with searching criticism”.2 This attitude becomes increas ingly important as the student progresses to university education. In some way curricular activities must habituate this attitude of constant inquiry. Otherwise, education reduces to nothing more than education by authority.^ It was apparent that the habits of reasoning, as ^The object discussed here is the Buglena. ^Peirce, Collected Papers« V.517* 3lbid.« V.517. 172 discussed'above, lead to generalized conceptions rather than particular applications of subject content. This would be Peirce's intention for "the most important opera tion of the mind is that of generalization".^ Generalization broad, luminous, and solid must enter into an intellectual performance in order to command much admiration* Such generalization which teaches a new and clear lesson upon the truth of which reliance 2 can be placed requires to be drawn from many specimens. The Educational Environment Shoytlff Be Conducive to the Development of the Perceptive and Rational Abilities of the Student.— If the aims discussed above are to be accom plished, the educational environment must be an active environment. The activities of the student should lead him to the discovery and understanding of the general principles about which the subject is centered. The knowledge to be acquired is theoretical knowledge.-^ Applications should be made, but the applications of the principles should be in relating them to the stream of sense perceptions, feelings, hopes, desires, and other mental activities which adjust 4 thought to thought which is life. The teacher must be permissive. His first consid-* 5 eration should be to be helpful. If the learner is to develop a consuming interest for inquiry into truth, the ^bid., 1.82. 2Ibid.. 1.224. 3Ibld.. 1.75. 4Ibld.. 1.220.___ l ? Ibld. . . —I.-657-___. _____________ 173 teacher must accept and encourage searching inquiry and valid criticisms of his teaching. In this educational environment the learners would be diligently at work solving examples, drawing graphs, conducting experiments, and making applications until they had a thorough grasp of the principles of the subject. The teacher would be guiding the student's efforts with inter spersed explanations and words of encouragement. The whole temper of the class would be that there is something to study, for there is something to discover. Education Should Bring About Brotherly Love and Moral Conduct.— The ethical aim of education does not look to science for its principles, but to religion and racial conscience. It centers around the principle of love evident in all religions, but taught explicitly by Christ.^* The curriculum content would consist of the teaching of the 2 apostles shorn of all sectarian additions. Peirce would agree to the use of an agreed upon syllabus, for any syl labus which was accepted by sects would be distilled to its most general and acceptable doctrines.^ Supplementary cur ricular materials would be the biographies and the history of the efforts of great men who are exemplars of the creed 1Ibid.. VI.441-442. 2Ibld.. VI.440. - 3IbidTT~VlT44V.— - ------------- : - 174 of brotherly love in science, politics, and religions The basis of all education is the actual practicing of love whose ideal is "that the whole world shall be united in the bond of a common love of God accomplished by each man’s loving his neighbor11. Unless education succeeds in accom plishing this aim of uniting all people so that immorality is measured by the extent of separation among people^ and morality is measured by the extent that one man works only for the other, the growth of reason to truth cannot be ful- filled.4 Those that have loved themselves and not their neighbors will find themselves &prll fools when the great fcpril opens the truth that neither selves nor neighborselves were anything more than vicinities.5 The Organization of the Curriculum In order to determine the organization of curriculum which would be in accordance with Peirce’s thought, an effort was made to discover, if possible, some aspect of Peirce’s thought which would bring together his diverse statements on learning. What was wanted was a general theory of growth. This principle was found in Peirce’s writings on continuity and evolution. ' [Evolution] in general throws great light upon history and especially upon the history of science - 1Itild.. VI.503. 2Ibld.. VI.443. 3Ibid .. VI.445 4Ibld V_.28.9-. _jlbid I V . . . 6 . 9 - __. __________: ______ 175 both Its public history and the account of its develop ment in an individual intellect.! According to Peirce, evolution f l means nothing but 2 growth in the widest sense of that word**. Growth is a 4 - continuous process-5 working toward a definite end. Evo lutional development is a growth process which advances from the simple to the complex^, the less organized to the 6 » 7 more organized , and the homogeneous to the heterogeneous • g Now a continuum is general and a general is a Third. We have seen that third relates First as first and Second as last.^ In the cosmos, that which relates first and last is time. Therefore, time is Third. Peirce demonstrates that time is continuous and cyclic in character.10 Therefore, Third is continuous and cyclic in character. Thus, Thought is continuous and cyclic in character. In discussing the relationship between mind and matter, Peirce wrote Mind . . . has a continuous extension in space . . . . Now, in obedience to the principle, or maxim* of continuity, that we ought to assume things to be con tinuous as far as we can, it has been urged [on the other hand] that we ought to suppose a continuity Peirce, Collected Papers. 1.103# 2Ibld.. 1.174. 3Ibld.. 1.174. 4Ibid.. 1.395. 5lbid.. VI.58. 6Ibid.. 1.175. 7Ibid.. 1.174. 8Ibid.. VI.204. 9See page 28 of this study. ________^Peirce Collect ed_Papers._VI-.-210..________________ __] I between the characters of mind and matter, so that j matter would be nothing but mind that had such indu rated habits as to cause it to act with a peculiarly high degree of mechanical regularity, or routine. Thus, matter is f , not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits** This indicates, then, that the evolutionary process is nothing but the growth of thought becoming more diverse. It is in diversity that there is life. Finally, it was concluded that growth has and is taking place by a cyclical process of proceeding from one stage to another toward greater organization in working out its end. The principle to be applied in the organi zation of the curriculum is that the child develops phys ically and mentally by a cyclic process. While one stage of growth is completing its organization, another is beginning. It seemed logical to assume that the content of the curri culum would pace the growth of the child. In keeping with the principle of growth as proceed ing from the less organized to the more organized, the cycles of growth were named: exploration (pre-school and primary), attention4 (elementary), colligation5' (junior £ high school), generalization (senior high school), and ratiocination^ (university). These cycles of growth must 1Ibid.. VI.227. 2Ibid.. VI.158. 3Ibid.. VI.158. 4Ibld.. V.295. IV.45. 6Ibid.. 1.82. 7Ibid.. IV.49.________________________________________ 177 not be assumed as discrete. They are not sharply separate, for growth is continuous. Therefore, it was assumed that the transition from one stage of growth to another would be gradual, and that they would merge one into the other. Exploration.— Since the child can learn only through experience1, it is requisite that he manipulate objects and events. Non-objective art experience with "mobiles", "merg ing forms”, and "live-in structures" might be fitting ex perience begun at this level. The non-objective realm of art seems to represent continuity in concrete media better than "realistic" art. Moreover, the child’s art expression is non-objective in character. Peirce indicates that the continuous character of the cosmos is easily comprehended by a child. The child . . . naturally looks upon the world as chiefly governed by thought; for thought and expression are really one. &s Wordsworth truly says, the child is quite right in this; he is an "eye among the blind, "On whom those truths do rest "Which we are toiling all our lives to find." But as he grows up, he loses this faculty; and all through his childhood he has been stuffed with such a pack of lies, which parents are accustomed to think are the most wholesome food for the child - because they do not think of his future - that he begins real life with the utmost contempt for all the ideas of childhood; and the great truth of the immanent power of thought in the universe is flung away along with the lies.2 1 See page 112 of this study. ^Peirce. Collected Papers. 1.^49. 178 Peirce defines intuition as the regarding of the i abstract in a concrete form. Surely, the child learns by intuition. Consider how intently he regards a "mobile*1, his fascination with sounds, colors, tastes, and odors. His investigation and imagination would be allowed free play. Stories and plays, songs and paints would fill the p child’s life. Through such rich experiences, the child would be acquiring the basic tools of learning. The cur ricular emphasis would be on communication through common experience. The child is filled with spontaneous inquiry. He searches for and finds ideas in the world about him through his natural genius for language.^ Therefore, much time should be spent in learning language and its applica tion in communication. In the cycle of exploration there is little system, everything is forcing its attention. Experience is assert ing the reality of otherness1, and is full of surprises. Attention.--Recognizable system enters the curri culum at this level. The child would begin to separate and relate the various data of the senses. Conceptions and intuitions gathered by the child would take on organi zation. He would begin definite habituation of reasoning 1Ibld.. 1.383. 2Ibld.. 1.4-7. 3Ibid.. 1.349. ..See page_32. . o f this, study. ----- -------------- 179 by induction. The curriculum would include grammar, writing, reading, and arithmetic. Colligation.--The child begins to bring the princi ples of language together and forms a generalized conception of language as a whole. His mastery of language becomes more precise. Deductive and abduetive reasoning would make its systematic beginnings. The curriculum would include classical and foreign languages, mathematics (algebra and geometry), history, biology, and literature (great men, poetry, prose, etc.). Generalization.--The learner begins to discover the most general of principles. The curriculum content would be physics, chemistry, advanced algebra, advanced geometry, and perhaps simplified calculus. Logic would make its en trance into the curriculum at this cycle. The teacher would emphasize the right way to approach reasoning. He would notj teach rules to be applied in reasoning. Thus, the student would not become smugly assured of his logical accomplish ments.1 In literature, history, and the natural sciences, the student would begin a "great books" program. Hatiocination.--The curriculum at the university ^-Peirce, C o lie cted„Papers-. —I.. 6 5 . 7 - . 180 level would be organized much the same as at the lower levels. That is to say, there would be a graduated heir- archy of courses corresponding in character to those at the lower levels. However, the work of the lower levels would not be repeated. There would be an emphasis on research as research. Throughout all levels, the learning of a few generalized precise principles which the student would apply would be the keynote of the curriculum. The curriculum for university studies would includes advanced and theoretical mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, history, literature, art, music, bio graphy, classical languages, foreign languages, and the comparative sciences. Philosophic studies would include phenomonology. The author of this study must make clear that this chapter is only exploratory in nature. The test for Peirce's aims and the application of his thought was in accordance with Peirce's pragmatic maxim of meaning. In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical conse quences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception: and the sum of these conse quences will constitute the entire meaning of the con ception.^ The writer did not intend to indicate that the curricular organization as outlined was abstracted speci- 1Ibid.. V.9. 181 fically from Peirce’s writings. The author applied abductive inferences in the conceived action of a school situation. It is the belief of this writer that such inferences as were made concerning the curriculum in a ’ ’Peircean” school are in keeping with the spirit of Peirce’s thought and con tains, at least, a modicum of truth. Summary of the Chapter Peirce's distinction between theory and practice implies a dual curriculum in education. The ideal curri culum would be that which develops reason. The control of the curriculum in this school would be determined only by social conscience and the principles of scientific research. The control of the curriculum in education for practice woul be determined by social conscience and the science of edu cation. The content of the curriculum at the university level would be in accordance with Peirce’s classification of science and the kinds of reasoning principally employed. Deductive reasoning would be taught through mathematics. Inductive reasoning would be taught through the classifi- catory sciences, such as botany, zoology, taxonomy, ethnol ogy, grammar, and chemistry. Biology, geology, history, and biography represent sciences which demonstrate the process of abductive reasoning. The epitome of the special 182 sciences, physics, astronomy, psychology, represent the best combination of inductive-abductive reasoning. Analogy would be taught through such subjects as comparative anat omy, comparative physiology, general studies'in history, and comparative literature. i Philosophy would form an integral part of the curri-j culum functioning at various levels through logic, ethics, esthetics, phenomenology, and metaphysics. Music, art, languages, and literature would foster the development of the several abilities which make the rational man. Although the emphasis of the curriculum is on the development of reasoning, content would not be neglected. Hcwever, only the fundamental principles of the subject would be stressed. They would be known well and applied widely in the various appropriate curricular content. The attitude accompanying curricular activities would be an abiding interest in inquiry. This attitude would be brought about through actual participation in the activities, both mental and physical, of the curriculum by the student. Education for conduct would follow the text of the Christian apostles, and an agreed syllabus on morals. Growth is a continuous cyclic process proceeding from the less organized to the more organized end. This principle_was_applied_in_the_dev_elopment_of_the_child..------- 183 Five cycles of growth were assumed. The cycle of explora tion extends from the pre-school to the primary age level. The activities of the curriculum would be designed to enable a varied, rich, unsystematic wealth of experience. The cycle of attention introduces system and reasoning into the curriculum. It extends from the primary to the junior high school. The cycle of colligation extends from the junior to the senior high school. The child would begin his studies in mathematics and the classificatory sciences. Language has been generalized and the classical and foreign languages would be studied. In the cycle of generalization, the student would begin to generalize the principles of the subjects and would make applications extending through the curriculum. This cycle would extend through the senior high school. At the final cycle (ratiocination) the re search would begin. The cycles of growth are continued in * different functions and with appropriate curricular mate rials . In this chapter Peirce^ pragmatic maxim has been applied in testing educational aims derived from his think ing. The next chapter will summarize the findings and suggest recommendations on the basis of the findings of this study. CHAPTER VIII CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Review of the Problem The Problem*— It was the original purpose of this study to determine the educational aims which grew out of the epistemology of Peirce* The investigation sought to determine the relationship between these aims and those of Dewey, and to determine their implications in curricular problems* Importance of the Problem* — Recent writings on Peirce have confused his pragmatic tenets with the pragma tism of Dewey* Furthermore, much of the present criticism of our public schools is leveled at what is said to be the relativism inherent in Deweyfs thinking. Since Peirce was a pragmatist who hypothesized a priori reals, It was appar ent that the monism of Dewey is not a necessary corollary of pragmatism. Therefore, it was important to determine the educational implications of Peirce so that more accurate evaluations of his thinking as it applies to edu cation can be made* Scope of the Problem*— This study was confined to 185 determining the epistemology of Peirce from his Collected Pacers. The problem of epistemology was considered to fall into two major categories, the immediate and mediate. The immediate category was concerned with the content of consciousness. The mediate category was concerned with the value and potentiality of knowledge. The ontology, logic, and psychology of Peirce were not separately considered. However, the emphasis was on the psychological aspects of epistemology, for it was felt that this emphasis would facilitate the abstraction of educational aims. The edu cational aims of John Dewey were derived from Democracy and 2 Education. The application of Peirce’s aims was confined to three problems of the curriculum: the control, the content, and the organization. Methods of Procedure.— From the writings of Peirce, data pertaining to the problem were recorded, read; and grouped to show Peirce’s thinking in epistemology as defined in this study. From John Dewey’s Democracy and Education , educational aims were abstracted and compared to those ^Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papeys. eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931), Vols. I-VI, 2 John Dev/ey, Democracy and Education (N.Y.: Mac millan Co., 1916). 3Ibid. 186 derived from Peirce*s thought. The consequences of Peirce’s educational aims were tested by applying them in curricular problems. Organization of the Study.— The problem and its scope were defined in Chapter I. A limited treatment of the three fundamental categories of Peirce followed in Chapter II. In Chapter III the content of consciousness was dis cussed. The relation between knowing and truth was dis cussed in Chapter XV. Chapter V continued the discussion of truth and related it to the good. Derived aims of education from Peirce’s epistemology were compared with educational aims abstracted from Dewey in Chapter VI. In Chapter VII the consequences of Peirce’s aims applied to curricular problems were determined. The summary of the dissertation, the conclusions, and recommendations are presented in Chapter VIII. The Categories of Peirce According to Peirce, there are three fundamental and universal categories appearing in phenomena. These catego ries are termed First, Second, and Third. First.— 4 First is absolutely simple. It bears no relation to anything other than itself. In the cosmos, Firs is quality. In consciousness, First is feeling. 411 Firsts 187 are general. Second.--Second involves complexity. Firsts when in relation form Seconds. Through Second, qualities become actual. Second appears in phenomena as force (action and reaction). In the cosmos, Second is fact. In consciousness, Second is volition. Third.--Thirdness involves complexity. Third is general and mediates between Firsts and Seconds; In the cosmos, Third is law. In consciousness, Third is thought. Third differs from First in that Third is a triadic relation. The Content of Consciousness Reality.--There are reals in the universe whose characters are independent of being represented. Reals may be actual or potential, for each of the categories is real. There are non-reals termed figment by Peirce, but no real distinction can be made between reality and figment until thought (community thought) is ultimately fixed. Consciousness.— Consciousness is real. It's the reality of the inner. Consciousness is nothing but the qualities of feeling. The three categories of consciousness are feeling, volition, and thought. There is no intuitive self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is a result of .learning.._______________________________________________________ 188 Perception.— Knowing arises in perception. 411 knowledge results from sensing and experiencing. The per cept as a percept is First. The percept we perceive is a Second. The percept lasts only as long as the object acts. Therefore, percepts are only known as they are past. Third ness enters into knowing as soon as the percept enters con sciousness. What is known are perceptual facts which are the products of judgments about percepts. The function of perception is to provide perceptual facts. Imagination.--Imagination is the process of infer ring images. 4n image is a mental reconstruction of a per cept. Imagination functions in invention and discovery by relating the expectation of what would occur with what occurs. Imagination functions in habit formation through the relation of expectation and occurrence. Memory.— Memory is the process of recalling the essential idea of a concept. Through memory, percepts are retained for judgment which provides perceptual facts. Memory and imagination interact. Memory immediately pre sents data to the imagination. From these data, imagination constructs an image. Memory is a bridge to the past and the foundation for future action. Thought and control of future activity can only come from what is past. The funct.ion_of_memoiiy_ls_-to_prov-ide_the_data_for__futur_e_cons=--- 189 ditional (conceived) action. f I Conception.--The symbol-parts of signs are concepts. Symbols are Thirds relating signs as Firsts and signs as Seconds. The concept signifies its object by virtue of a habitual connection of perceptual facts. The function of conception is to reduce the manifold of sense impressions to unity. Concepts grow by means of an evolutionary process. Judgment.--Judgment constitutes the very first cog nitive act. The first judgment of consciousness is per ceptual judgment. The perceptual judgment is a mental pro position asserted. Perceptual judgments are the first judg ments of all reasoning. There are judgments which are not perceptual judgments. These are judgments of perceptual judgments which infer universal propositions. Perceptual judgment functions by providing the first premises of reason. They are the starting points of critical and controlled thinking. Judgments of perceptual judgments function by asserting belief. Desire.--Desire is a strong, vague sense of need. It causes action. Desire is general in that it refers to a kind of thing rather than a particular thing. Desire readily accepts substitutes for the thing desired. These characters i of desire function in the creation of broad general classes 190 of qualities. Desire averages qualities. Desire also functions to remove the stimuli which incite activity. Volition.--Volition is the dual character of con sciousness. It is the duality of active effort and inhi bition, of acting on self and of acting on external objects. Volition is the polar sense of consciousness which contains the element, active will and passive will. Active will is the acting on external objects. Passive will is the acting on self. The active will acts upon a particular object on a particular occasion, thereby overruling the generalizing character of desire. The passive will brings about self- control by resisting the external forces acting on the per son. Volition functions in determining conduct through the active will, and providing self-control through the passive will. Belief.— Belief is an intelligent habit of conscious ness. It is the belief-habit of imagination. Belief-habits are the products of reason. They tend to become fixed under the influence of inquiry. The most acceptable method of inquiry is the scientific method. Belief functions by re moving the dissatisfying state of doubt, and by affirming a rule for action. Cognition.— Cognition Is not a fundamental modifi- 191 cation of consciousness, but there is an element of cogni tion which has unique characters. This element is, the sense of learning or synthesis. As the sense of learning, cogni tion is the informing thought. It is the locus of contact between the consciousness and the object. Through informing thought the perceptual fact develops in a growth process. Within this process, reason functions in inferring conclusions from the premises of perceptual judgment. There are three kinds of reasoning: deduction, induction, and abduction. Reason operates in the sub-consciousness in the same fashion as it functions in the waking-consciousness. The function of reason is to relate judgments. Reason grows and develops. Potentially, reason is more certain than racial conscience. The Potentialities of Knowing Truth and Reality.--Truth is the conformity of a representamen with its object. Therefore, truth is real. Truth is an aspect of each category, but can only be known as Third. Thus, truth is potential rather than actual. The knowledge of truth depends ultimately upon community thought. Truth and Desire.— Man desires truth. In so far as the object desired is real, truth is desired. It is only as a result of ignorance and error that man desires falsity. 192 Truth and Volition,— Volitional action is action for the attainment of truth, even though truth is not a neces sary attribute of all present volitional action. Truth and Belief.— Ultimately, all belief is true belief, for the ultimate belief is community belief. i Truth and Cognition.-~4s the informing thought, cognition is truth in so far as it conforms to true reality. The Judgments of cognition are susceptible to all the errors which may arise in perceptual Judgment. Thus, there must be a continuous process of analysis and synthesis through reason. Truth and Certitude.— Truth cannot be known with certainty. Under arduous and continous scientific investi gation propositions become established as established truths. These truths must be held tentatively and relinguished when further investigation reveals the error in established truth. * Ultimately, truth will be fixed through thought. The Values of Knowing Good and Reality.--The good is the single ideal of all endeavor. Thus, the ultimate good is truth. Therefore, that which is good is real. Good and Desire.— Desire stimulates man to work toward the good, but does not specify man’s actions toward 193 that good. Hence, man may desire non-good* In the long run, man will attain the good through the working of desire Good and Volition*— Volition selection of good is immediate, and in matters of right action instinctively moves toward the good* Good and Cognition.--The relation between reason and right conduct is mediate not immediate* There are interven ing relations. Consequently, there is a greater possibility of error when reason selects the good. Reason is more fal lible than direct volitional choice. Since the ultimate end is potential, reason, as it develops, will exceed the voli tion selection of good. Good and Belief.— Belief as intelligent action shoul|d be guided by reason. In so far as reason is more fallible than immediate volitional choice, beliefs of right conduct should be guided by racial conscience. Belief should not be permanently fixed, but open to inquiry. Ultimately, beliefs will be fixed by reason through the community inquiry* The Educational &ims of Peirce and Dewey Educational Aims of Peirce*— Out of the epistemology of Peirce as discussed in Chapters II, III, IV, and V, the primary aim and nine corollary aims for education were de rived. The_prlmaryL_aim_of_educa_tiQn_is__the_grow_th_and_____ 194 development of man. Educational Aims of Dewey.— From Democracy and Edu cation^. Dewey’s primary aim of education and ten corollary aims were abstracted. The primary aim of education is growth as an on-going process. The Aims Compared.--Both Peirce and Dewey recognize growth as a fundamental process in education. However, the activities of growth for Peirce are dual. There is a phys ical growth and mental growth. For Dewey, activities of growth are unitary. Physical and mental growth in the or ganism are not distinct. Both Peirce and Dewey recognize learning as an active process which must be carried out through the learner’s own efforts. However, Peirce empha sizes the cognitive aspect of learning. - Dewey emphasizes the behavioral. Both Peirce and Dewey find the ethical aim in cooperation and sharing among men. However, Peirce’s ethical aim seeks the summum bonum through social conscience and Christianity. Dewey's ethical aim seeks melioration through science and the democratic process. Consequences of Peirce’s Aims in Curricular Problems General Curricular Implications.--The application of ewey. o p. cit. 195 Peirce’s distinction between theory and practice would re sult in two types of curricula: a curriculum for the edu cation of future scientists and a curriculum for education in professional and vocational applications of science. Control of the Curriculum.— At the graduate (re search) level of the university, the determination of cur ricula r content would arise from the principles governing the scientific method and from the religous and racial her itage of the community. The determination of the curricular content for professional and vocational education would arise from the science of education and from the religious and racial heritage of the community. Content of the Curriculum.— The curriculum would consist of all the activities necessary to develop the attitudes and reasoning processes required in scientific research, and in the scientific application of research. The content to be known would consist of the most general and fundamental principles of the particular subject fields being studied, and their applications in the special and related subject areas. Organization of the Curriculum.--The curriculum would be organized to pace the cyclic and general character of growth. The subject content and subject levels would be 196 determined by the emergence of the special functions char acterized in the maturation of the child. The summary of the findings presented in this sec tion are themselves immediate conclusions arising from the data. In the next section the mediate conclusions flowing from the data will be listed. Conclusions of the Investigation 1. The data on the categories of Peirce revealed that the structure of consciousness and the external world are similar. There is system in the universe. The universe is cosmos not chaos. 2. The systematic character of Peirce’s categories is reflected in Peirce’s epistemology. Therefore, this systematic character would follow in any educational prac tice based on the educational aims derived from Peirce’s epistemology. 3. Consciousness is directly related to the object , through qualities. Both the objective world and the sub- i jective world are real. 4. There are only three primary modifications of consciousnesss feeling, volition, and thought. 411 other modifications of consciousness are relations of these three. Therefore, First, Second, and Third would appear in varying d e gxe e s_in~all_th e_mod i fie at ions_of_consciousness..---------- 197 5. The prime function relating the inner world with the outer world is reason. 6. Reasoning occurs in consciousness by a syllo gistic process. Therefore, reason should operate according to logical principles. 7* Truth is an acting force in the universe by means of which man grows toward his final end. 8. Man can acquire truth only through deliberate effort. 9. 411 truth must be subject to investigation. Therefore, no established truths should be held as absolute. 10. In choosing right conduct, knowing is of poten tial value rather* than actual value. 11. Moral laws should rise from the beliefs of society rather than from reason. 12. Men must cooperate with each other. It is only through community action and community thought that man can achieve the summum bonum. 13* There are fundamental differences between the aims of Peirce and the aims of Dewey which cannot be ig nored . 14. Peirce's educational aims, especially the ethical aim, would be more acceptable to the antagonist of "progressive1 1 education than Dewey’s. _________ 15-. Re.ir_c.e±s_educational_a.ims_wonld_b.e_o.bj.e.c_tiQn-__ 198 able to the protagonist of "progressive1 * education. 16. In recognizing the present limitations of science in matters of moral conduct, Peirce is more scien tific than Dev/ey. 17. Education for practice would find its objec tives and content in the professional and vocational inter est of the learner. 18. Education for theory would find its objectives in the content and principles of the theoretical sciences. Recommenda t ions 1. & series of researches or a cooperative research should be made in Peirce’s thought in order to determine its educational implications. Each phase of Peirce’s philosophy should be defined for clarity of exposition. Each phase should be carefully investigated, and the findings published. 2. In all such investigations, the general impli cations of Peirce’s thought should be tested through Peirce* pragmatic maxim of meaning in order to obtain a broader ex position of the meaning of his thought as it applies to edu cation. 3. Critical evaluations of the findings of research on Peirce’s thought should be made in order to determine whether his theories would bring about any real difference in practice. 199 4. The findings of the educational implications.of Peirce*s thought should be published in current media of communication besides research journals, in order that in vestigators in other areas of study might be stimulated to conduct inquiry into Peircefs thought. 5. Writers in educational philosophy should not confuse Peirce's pragmatism with that of Dewey unless thor ough investigations of the relationships of the two philos ophies dictates otherwise. Concluding Statement In conclusion, it appears that there would be advan tages and disadvantages in a system of education derived from Peirce*s philosophic thought. Peirce offers no panacea for educational problems, but there are areas of his thought which might bear fruit in educational practice. BIBLIOGRAPHY Books Buchler, Justus. Charles Peirce*s Empiricism. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1939* Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan Co., 1916. ________. The Quest for Certainty. New York: Minton, ~ BalchCo., 1929. . Reconstruction in Philosophy. New York: New American Library, 1951. Feibleman, James. An Introduction to Peirce*s Philosophy. New York: Harpers and Brothers, 19457 Freeman, Eugene. Categories of Charles Peirce. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co*, 1931. Goudge, Thomas A. The Thought of C. S. Peirce. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950. Hulburd, David. This Happened in Pasadena. New York: Macmillan Co., 1951. Maritain, Jacques. Education at the Crossroads* New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943 York: Macmillan Co., 194 Peirce, Charles Sanders. Chance. Love, Logic, (ed.) Morris R. Cohen. New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1923. ________. Collected Papers, (eds.) Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931. Vols. I-VI. Montague, William Pepperell 200 201 Rugg, Harold* Foundations for American Education* Yonkers^ on-Hudson: World Book. Co., 1947* Van Steenberghen, Fernard. Epistemology, Translated by Reverend Martin J. Flynn. New Yorks Joseph F. Wagner Inc., 1949* Woozley, A. D. Theory of Knowledge. Londons Hutchinson House, 1949* <Univer«??tv of Southern California Library

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Creator Maccia, George S. (author)

Core Title The epistemology of Charles S. Peirce and its implications for a philosophy of education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

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Document Type Dissertation

Rights Maccia, George S.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA