Over at Strictly Speaking Alex asked a bit about the meaning of Peirce's "ideal community of inquirers" and the "in the long run" that are so key in many ways to his thought. This was in response to my comments on Peirce and Schelling relative to mind like aspects to reality. Now clearly there is more to Peirce's panpsychism than just his notion of truth. And I make no claims to fully grasp Peirce's panpsychism. The meaning of "in the long run," while still somewhat mysterious to me, I at least understand a tad better. So let me start with that.
I think a compelling case can be made that Peirce's notion of "in the long run" or the "ideal community of inquirers" aren't mysterious and don't really have a strong metaphysical meaning. Rather they are regulative principles. Peirce is quite clear that the final opinion is what sufficient inquiry would lead to. Further he is quite clear that for many of our views, we likely already are at the final opinion. (1) (Say, my belief that I'm typing on a computer right now) However even if we do hold to the final opinion, we can't infallibility say that we hold to the final opinion.
That's a key point. I should also, in passing, once again point out that I think this is true of Derrida, who has unfortunately been taken to argue against truth. Rather Derrida's point, especially in the Gadamer debate, is that we never can know when a successful communication has taken place. That would include our inquiry of reality itself.
The point is that the ideal inquirers really is just the idea that truth, being what it is, has an effect on us. So long as inquiry takes place, eventually truth affecting it will lead it to truth. He doesn't really offer much support for this. But I don't think one ought to take his language as implying anything too mysterious, as I said.
I should also mention that this is tied to Peirce's discussion, or rather lack of discussion on epistemology. For most modern philosophy it is important to understand what knowledge is and how we know. For Peirce it really wasn't. As Joseph Ransdell has pointed out, Peirce is rather reticent to use "knowledge" and its cognates. That's because we use "know" as a way of pointing out what has already been established. That is, even if we give lip service to fallibilism, we really think that we have a kind of static present truth. It is that which I think Peirce is very skeptical of. Further, he clearly doesn't think it the best way to approach to issue.
An other way of looking at the issue is in terms of the old fact/theory distinction. I think science and philosophy of science largely recognizes this as a problematic notion. But it still affects us. Back in Peirce's time the notion was very entrenched. Yet labeling something as a fact tends to follow naturally if we claim to know it. But what are the implications of this? It tends to cut off inquiry. We take those issues as settled and don't look at them. In effect the very notion of fact is counter to Peirce's whole sense of science as inquiry. (And Peirce actually goes so far as to say beliefs have nothing to do with science, although I think he's clearly inconsistent there.)
Why this worry about "know" and even some reticence to use belief in science? Peirce appears to equate belief with holding as true. That is, something we are prepared to act upon. But it is more in the sense of a game theoretic sense of belief as something you are prepared to defend. In certain ways in anticipates Wittgenstein. The focus is in terms of what we are prepared to do with our thoughts and not necessarily how we got there. In a sense I think one could say that Peirce views modern epistemology as reversing the proper analysis. Justification isn't what gives us knowledge. Justification is what we do when we have knowledge. (Oversimplifying again)
So how does this relate to the ideal community of inquirers? Well if we are talking about how one would act with a belief, then inquiry leads to a kind of potential set of actions. Thus to speak of truth one always is really speaking of belief and thus one is always speaking of potential actions. This then is tied into Peirce's notion of thirdness as a kind of standing for something in something. That is a word causes us to think of the meaning of the word. Three parts. The physical token that we see on the computer screen, the type which is what we think of as the meaning of the word, and then us, who it affects. In the same way we can talk of any meaning in that way. The effect is always important, if only as a potential effect. And it always has consequences in terms of action. Gravity affects a planet leading it to move. Truth affects inquirers eventually (or potentially) causing them to act on the belief it engenders.
1. "On many questions the final agreement is already reached, on all it will be reached if time enough is given." in "Fraser's The Works of George Berkeley" (1872)
Just to add to the above, I'm not sure I buy Peirce's thesis that everything is knowable. Consider the past. It seems Peirce is commited to the idea that given enough time, we could know everything about the past. While I'm certainly sympathetic to Peirce's rejection of Kant's "things-in-themselves" I think as a practical matter information can be lost as time progresses. Thus some aspects of the past are practically unable to be known.
Thanks for the follow-up. This seems to fit well with the little I have grasped of Peirce from various lectures and textual references. Also, I agree with your doubt regarding Peirce's claim that we might, eventually, know Everything. The earlier Wittgenstein handles this, I believe, by pointing out that we would need to know everything, plus know the fact that it everything. And it's hard to imagine how one might come across evidence for that.
There is a way in which one might rescue Peirce on this point. If we live in a closed universe and holistically any event's information is still within the universe and, in theory, obtainable however scattered, then some ideal community could recover it. However clearly this doesn't mean they could know everything about everything. Merely that they might know anything about anything.
Now whether one buys that or not depends upon how one views holism and information. (As you note, Wittgenstein would disagree with Peirce on this point - but I think one can take holism slightly different from Wittgenstein)
Further there are other problems such as black holes and the like.
I should also add that I don't think as a practical point Peirce would say we could know everything. Indeed I think he clearly doesn't think we can. Rather I think he is making a general philosophical point that might best be illuminated as the rejection of Kantian transcendence - that is the things in themselves. Peirce explicitly denies this and argues that, given enough time, we can know the things in themselves. Yet simultaneously we never have enough time.
As an other practical point there are issues such as the speed of light, the shape and expansion of the universe and so forth. But I think Peirce is more just making a general philosophical point in terms of semiotics.
Just a full quote
Reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it ... On the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks (5.408; see also 5.257, 7.336)
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
Number of unique visitors:
Blogged by Clark Goble