[2.2.] Four Incapacities.

 

Having criticized what he takes to be the four mistakes that characterize “the spirit of Cartesianism,” Peirce goes on to list four abilities that he says we do not have:

 

1. introspection

2. intuition

3. the ability to think without signs

4. the ability to conceive of the incognizable

 

We will look at each of these and see how it relates to Peirce’s criticism of Descartes.

 

 

[2.2.1.] Incapacity #1: Introspection.

 

Says Peirce:

 

1. “We have no power of Introspection, but all knowledge of the internal world is derived by hypothetical reasoning from our knowledge of external facts.” (EP1:30)

 

The term “introspection” derives from the Latin for looking inside. By “introspection,” Peirce means: direct and immediate knowledge of the contents of one’s own mind (“the internal world”). It is “any knowledge of the internal world not derived from external observation.”[1]

 

Here Peirce is anticipating his later distinction between that which is internal (that which depends on what someone or other thinks) and that which is external (that which does not depend on what anyone thinks).[2]

 

By “hypothetical reasoning,” Peirce means: reasoning intended to explain something. It is reasoning that begins with facts (perhaps surprising facts), and infers an explanation of those facts—an explanation which, if true, would render those facts unsurprising (e.g., I come home to find a window broken, my front door wide open, and my television gone. I infer that someone broke into my house and stole the TV).

 

Elsewhere, Peirce calls this sort of reasoning retroduction and abduction; today it is sometimes called inference to the best explanation. (We will return to this sort of reasoning shortly.)

 

Says Peirce that in accepting the claim that “[w]e have no power of introspection,”

 

we must put aside all prejudices derived from a philosophy which bases our knowledge of the external world on our self-consciousness. We can admit no statement concerning what passes within us except as a hypothesis necessary to explain what takes place in what we commonly call the external world. (EP 1:30, CP 5.266)

 

 

 

So his claim seems to be: we cannot know that we are in a given mental state (having a sensation, experiencing an emotion, in a state of belief, etc.) simply by “looking inward.” Rather, any knowledge a person has of her mind is derived from her knowledge of the external world, the world outside her mind.

 

Peirce gave the following example in the first article of the cognition series[3]: how does a man know that he is angry? According to Peirce, he does not know this by “looking within” and immediately sensing the emotion of anger. Rather, there is always some object external to the mind about which he is angry (you are always angry about something), e.g., that someone has poured paint all over your new car. You see this and say heatedly, “Damn it, someone poured paint on my car!” To explain this behavior, you infer that you are angry.

 

What this has to do with Descartes:

 

·         The only justification for a claim about what is “happening within us,” including Descartes’ claim that he is thinking, is that it potentially explains something that we experience in the external world. Descartes sought (certain) knowledge of the external world by beginning with (allegedly certain) knowledge of his own mind. On Peirce’s view, this strategy must fail, because we can know things about our own mind only by reasoning from what we know about the external world.

 

 

[2.2.2.] Incapacity #2: Intuition.

 

Says Peirce:

 

2. “We have no power of Intuition, but every cognition is determined logically by previous cognitions.” (EP1:30)

 

Peirce claims that, once we have adopted an hypothesis about the mind in order to explain something about the external world, we should not adopt any new hypotheses to explain further things about the world if that first hypothesis will explain it just as well. So far as we can, we should “reduce all kinds of mental action to one general type.” (EP 1:30)

 

He then goes on to consider a specific hypothesis about the mind. It is a hypothesis that asserts that human beings have a specific “faculty or mode of action”: cognition.

 

 

[2.2.2.1.] Cognition.

 

Peirce never says straightforwardly what he takes a cognition to be, but I think this is what he has in mind:

 

·         A cognition is a thought in the mind;

·         but not just any thought; it is a thought that is structured like a proposition—it has an object, and it predicates some characteristic of that object.

 

e.g....

·         consider the sensation I have when I see something red, or when I taste something sweet;  that sensation does not have a propositional structure; it is simply a sensation.

·         the thought that apples are red, or that this apple is sweet, or that I like apples, etc. does have a propositional structure—it says something about something and thus predicates a trait of an object.

·         this sort of thought can be expressed in language by way of a declarative sentence.

 

Peirce seems also to use the word “cognition” in a second, slightly different way, to refer to the process by which cognitions (as explained above) arise in the mind.[4]

 

 

[2.2.2.2.] The Process of Cognition.

 

On Peirce’s view, there is no first cognition about any given object:

 

...there is no absolutely first cognition of any object, but cognition arises by a continuous process. (EP1:30)[5]

 

He infers from this that the hypothesis we should begin with, when considering what the mind is like, should not be the hypothesis that human beings have cognitions, in the sense of thoughts that are isolated from one another.

 

Rather, it should be that humans undergo a process of cognition:

 

We must begin, then, with a process of cognition, and with that process whose laws are best understood and most closely follow external facts. This is no other than the process of valid inference, which proceeds from its premise, A, to its conclusion, B, only if, as a matter of fact, such a proposition as B is always or usually true when such a proposition as A is true. It is a consequence, then, of the first two principles whose results we are to trace out, that we must, as far as we can, without any other supposition than that the mind reasons, reduce all mental action to the formula of valid reasoning. (EP 1:30, CP 5.267)

 

So by “the process of cognition,” Peirce seems to mean reasoning from one cognition to another. He goes on to distinguish three basic varieties of this process. This is an early appearance of his famous distinction among three types of reasoning: [6]

 

1.       deduction, a.k.a. deductively valid reasoning: necessary reasoning; an argument in which the truth of the premises would guarantee the truth of the conclusion.

• Today many logicians and philosophers refer to this sort of reasoning simply as “valid.” Peirce is using the word “valid” in a sense more common in his time, to mean logically strong to some degree, but not necessarily deductively valid.

 

2.       induction: probabilistic reasoning, such as from a sample of a population to a general claim about the population as a whole. Peirce’s example:

 

Suppose we count the number of occurrences of the different letters in a certain English book, which we may call A. Of course, every new letter which we add to our count will alter the relative number of occurrences of the different letters; but as we proceed with our counting, this change will be less and less. Suppose that we find that as we increase the number of letters counted, the relative number of e's approaches nearly 11 1/4 per cent of the whole, that of the t's 8 1/2 per cent, that of the a's 8 per cent, that of the s's 7 1/2 per cent, &c. Suppose we repeat the same observations with half a dozen other English writings (which we may designate as B, C, D, E, F, G) with the like result. Then we may infer that in every English writing of some length, the different letters occur with nearly those relative frequencies. (EP 1:32, CP 5.273)

 

3.       abduction, a.k.a. hypothetical reasoning, retroduction, and inference to the best explanation: an inference to a conclusion which, if true, would explain surprising facts expressed in the premises. Peirce was the first logician to distinguish this sort of reasoning from deduction and induction. His example:

 

Suppose, next, that a piece of writing in cipher is presented to us, without the key. Suppose we find that it contains something less than 26 characters, one of which occurs about 11 per cent of all the times, another 8 1/2 per cent, another 8 per cent, and another 7 1/2 per cent. Suppose that when we substitute for these e, t, a and s, respectively, we are able to see how single letters may be substituted for each of the other characters so as to make sense in English, provided, however, that we allow the spelling to be wrong in some cases. If the writing is of any considerable length, we may infer with great probability that this is the meaning of the cipher. (EP 1:32-33, CP 5.273)

 

 

[2.2.2.3.] Against Intuition.

 

So what does all this have to do with intuition, especially Peirce’s denial that human beings have intuition?

 

An intuition would be a cognition that “pops” into the mind without being the result or the effect of some previous cognition.

 

If, when we cognize some object (an apple, say), there were a first cognition about that object—a cognition not brought about in the mind by some earlier cognition—then we would have intuition.

 

E.g., suppose you see an apple and have the cognition that this apple is red. If that cognition just appeared in your mind without having been preceded by any earlier cognition, then it would be an example of intuition.

 

But on Peirce’s view, this never happens. You would not have the cognition that this apple is red without having earlier cognitions (about apples and redness, for example). You have previous cognitions about apples and redness that contribute to your having the cognition that this apple is red.

 

 

What this has to do with Descartes:

·         Descartes thinks that his belief “I am thinking” is basic, foundational, that it does not result from or receive any sort of support from earlier beliefs.

·         But on Peirce’s view, there are no cognitions that do not result from earlier cognitions. There is no “first cognition.” Descartes takes himself to be able simply to intuit that he is thinking; but on Peirce’s view, there is no such thing as intuition, so Descartes’ cognition that I am thinking (as well as his cognition that I exist) is not an intuition. It must have arisen as a result of other cognitions, through the process of cognition, i.e., reasoning from earlier cognitions.

 

 

 

 

Stopping point for Friday August 24. For next time, continue reading “Some Consequences” (pp.38-51).