{"title":"Psyche as Agent: Overcoming the \"Free/Unfree\" Dichotomy","authors":"Jessica Wahman","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.2.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.2.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:I argue that the dichotomous treatment of agency and free will is problematic because it rests on a Cartesian interpretation of self and world that many present-day thinkers take themselves to be denying. I do so in order to reconstruct the concept of human agency using the psychologies of American philosophers John Dewey and George Santayana. Identifying the self with the entire organism, as these thinkers do, allows for an importantly different sense of agency. In embracing an organismic interpretation of the self, we achieve a more realistic yet mitigated sense of agency, where real responsibility for action is placed in a context of biological and environmental (including social, cultural, and historical) influences.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88951799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Charles S. Peirce on the University’s Political Potential","authors":"Yael Levin Hungerford","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:To better understand Peirce’s practical conservatism, this paper examines Peirce’s views on a liberal arts education and the political potential of the university. Peirce’s views on education raise a puzzle for his political thought: Given his practical conservatism, why does Peirce think it is important to teach citizens and future leaders how to think, not what to think? If tradition, sentiment, and instinct are the best guides for the active life, why should those who lead active lives receive an education that focuses on strengthening and improving reasoning abilities? Why not simply teach them traditional wisdom and morality—as is often the case with conservative institutions and societies? This examination reveals an understanding of both the potential and limits of reason in the practical realm, resulting in a moderate practical conservatism. We also learn of the important moral lessons offered by institutions devoted to the noble pursuit of truth for its own sake.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77217141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Environmental Pragmatism and the Revision of Values","authors":"Henrik Rydenfelt","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.04","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Environmental pragmatism grew out of dissatisfaction with the inefficaciousness of environmental philosophy in influencing environmental decision-making and policy. Its most central proponent, Bryan G. Norton has provided an extended account of ecological management as a process of revision of the beliefs and values of a community through experience and deliberation. In this article, two lines of criticism of Norton’s view are examined. The first maintains that environmental pragmatism offers limited tools for dealing with major, global environmental crises such as climate change. According to the second, environmental pragmatism cannot provide a viable account of how social learning improves our values rather than that it merely changes them. It is argued that, while the first criticism largely misses its mark, the second points to an important issue that has broad relevance to pragmatist accounts of inquiry and democracy. Norton’s position—like that of many other pragmatists —oscillates between a constructivist and a realist approach to inquiry; it is only the latter approach, however, that can offer an account of the revision of values that can meet this criticism.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77989502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Term “Experience” as a Tool of Inquiry","authors":"Laurence E. Heglar","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.58.1.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:My purpose here is to take seriously Dewey’s insistence that the term “experience” be considered from a methodological, rather than a substantive, point of view. To consider its methodological import we must examine the purpose it served in his overall account of inquiry. As a technical term, Dewey considered “experience” to serve an instrumental function of control. By this he meant that the term was to serve a purpose in aiding us in the description of concrete situations, as well as drawing attention to our use of language. Dewey eventually gave up on the term because, although it was useful up to a point, it no longer served the methodological functions for which he originally adopted it. Three issues will be considered. I will discuss the implications of Dewey’s instrumental approach for the status we should award our “conceptual apparatus,” or use of language terms; show why traditional philosophical methods, which make a priori assumptions about the nature of reality, were inadequate for the analysis of the actual conditions of living, or the individual case; and, finally, examine how the term “experience,” if its meaning were refashioned and considered as a methodological term, could do so and in that way served as a means of control within inquiry. A consideration of the third issue will help us see why the term, viewed as a tool, proved expendable.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89365351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Edwin Bissell Holt (1873–1946): A Missing Portrait of a Forgotten Pioneer","authors":"J. Jarocki","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper explores the biography of Edwin Bissell Holt (1873—1946), an American psychologist and philosopher. Although today Holt is almost completely forgotten, he was one of the leading figures in early twentieth century American science. In my work I am going to show that Holt's impact was remarkable and long-lasting both in psychology and in philosophy. In psychology, Holt was a pioneer of behaviorism (plausibly preceding John Watson), academic psychoanalysis and so-called ecological psychology. In philosophy, he arguably influenced the late philosophy of his teacher and cordial friend, William James. Holt was also one of the founders of the New Realism, a tradition that—although short-lived—transferred to American soil many ideas of British analytic movement and paved the way for American analytic philosophy. Unfortunately, due to Holt's early withdrawal from academic life, some of his achievements were adopted by his students (e.g., by Edward Chase Tolman and James Gibson), while other fell into oblivion. By following Holt's biography, I try to give him a proper place in the history of American science and—at the same time—to offer a kind of a prolegomena to more detailed studies on his thought that are certainly needed.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77953710","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Peircean Approach to Programs for Routine Expansion of Belief","authors":"K. Stroh","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper engages with Isaac Levi's approach to justifying changes in our states of full belief and offers a Peircean criticism of his strategy for resolving conflicts between the results of what inquirers deem to be the most reliable programs for a given situation and the settled beliefs about which we have no doubts. In the first section, I discuss the central features of Levi's theory of justifying changes to our state of full belief. In the second section, I present a Peircean approach to evaluating the reliability of these programs for routine expansion of belief, and I argue that there is a conflict between Levi's approach to situations where an inquirer has expanded her beliefs into inconsistency and Peirce's criticisms of non-scientific methods for settling opinion. The third section presents two potential objections to the Peircean approach, objections that emphasize the importance of our concern to avoid error, and in the fourth section, I propose an original supplement to the Peircean approach that better addresses that concern. Ultimately, my aim is to develop and defend a Peircean approach that is in opposition to Levi's views about when it is appropriate to question the reliability of our programs for routine expansion of belief but that also addresses his legitimate worries about underemphasizing our concern to avoid error.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91276749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Toward a Global Discourse on Religion in a Secular Age: Essays on Philosophical Pragmatism by Ludwig Nagl (review)","authors":"Gary W. Slater","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.4.06","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75132870","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Peirce's Triadic Logic: Modality and Continuity","authors":"Odland","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In early 1909, Charles S. Peirce conducted a series of experiments with three-valued logic, anticipating the pioneering work of Jan Łukasiewicz and Emil Post by ten years. These experiments are entirely contained within six or seven pages of Peirce's Logic Notebook. Due to the work of Atwell Turquette, the formalisms contained in those pages are relatively well understood. What is less understood are Peirce's philosophical reasons for conducting those experiments. His explanation of the need for his \"triadic\" logic is very brief, taking up little more than a single short page in the Notebook. Here he gives us two clues about his motivations, one connected to modal notions and one to his views on continuity. There are two previous accounts of the philosophical motivations behind triadic logic, due to Max Fisch and Turquette, and to Robert Lane. In this paper, I re-evaluate those views and connect the two clues to Peirce's hypothetical cosmology. I argue that in conducting his three-valued experiments, Peirce was trying to create a logic to capture his notion of the evolving universe.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83671431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Peirce's Theories of Assertion","authors":"Stjernfelt","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.06","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Until well into the 1890s, Peirce did not pay special attention to the act of asserting a proposition, and he used \"proposition\" and \"assertion\" interchangeably. This began to change in the period of the \"Grand Logic\" and the \"Short Logic\", and in Peirce's vast semiotic development after 1902, no less than three theories of assertion are developed to account for the ability of certain signs to claim truth. One is assertion as a special self-reference of proposition signs, claiming that the sign itself is indexically connected to its object as a truth grant; another is the assumption of social responsibility for the sign's truth on the part of the utterer; the third is the purpose of asserting a proposition, namely to persuade some interlocutor about the truth of the sign. These three theories are oftentimes developed in isolation, but this paper argues they fit together in the way that the third presupposes the second, in turn presupposing the first.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79410297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Assertion, Conjunction, and Other Signs of Logic: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation","authors":"F. Bellucci, A. Pietarinen, Chiffi Daniele","doi":"10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.07","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2979/trancharpeirsoc.57.2.07","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper is about Peirce's understanding and notational realization of the relationship between the logical content of conjunction and the illocutionary force of assertion. The argument moves from an imaginary, subtextual dialogue between several authors in the history of logic and the philosophy of language (Aristotle, Ammonius, Boethius, Frege, Peirce, Geach, and Dummett) and shows that the problem of the relationship between conjunction and assertion is quite old and has received distinct and irreconcilable treatments. Peirce has an original take on the problem, which he addresses, as often happens in his mature writings, in notational terms: the anomaly of conjunction (i.e., the fact that, unlike the other connectives, conjunction is subject to assertion distribution) is not to be hidden behind a uniform notation, like standard sentential calculus, in which the conjunction connective is treated on a par with the other connectives. Rather, a sentential language is possible that embodies rather than conceals the anomaly, and this is Peirce's system of Existential Graphs, which from 1896 onwards understandably becomes his preferred instrument of logical analysis.","PeriodicalId":45325,"journal":{"name":"TRANSACTIONS OF THE CHARLES S PEIRCE SOCIETY","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76645215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}