[2.2.4.] Incapacity #4: Conceiving the “Absolutely Incognizable.”

 

Recall what Peirce says at the beginning of “Some Consequences”:

 

            Every unidealistic philosophy supposes some absolutely inexplicable, unanalyzable ultimate; in short, something resulting from mediation itself not susceptible to mediation. Now that anything is thus inexplicable can only be known by reasoning from signs. But the only justification of an inference from signs is that the conclusion explains the fact. To suppose the fact absolutely inexplicable, is not to explain it, and hence this supposition is never allowable. (EP 1:29, CP 5.265)

 

Part of what he is doing in this passage is rejecting the claim that there are “inexplicable” facts, facts for which no explanation is possible.

 

Towards the end of this article, he discusses the last of his four denials, a denial which is very closely related to his rejection of the inexplicable. This fourth denial is his claim that “[w]e have no conception of the absolutely incognizable,” (EP 1:30), i.e., “that the absolutely incognizable is absolutely inconceivable.”(EP 1:51)

 

In other words, it is impossible to have a concept of that which cannot be cognized.

 

On Peirce’s view, to adopt Cartesianism is to commit oneself to the view that “the very realities of things can never be known in the least.”(EP 1:51)

 

If (as Peirce claims) Descartes’ approach to inquiry commits him to the idea that there are facts that cannot be explained, then it also implies that there are aspects of reality that we can never understand, that we can never know, that are forever apart from our cognitive reach.

·         For example, if the fact that I am thinking is a simple, brute fact, a fact for which no evidence (and thus no explanation) can ever be provided, then the fact that I am thinking is inexplicable, and whatever aspects of reality “lie behind” that fact are forever outside my cognitive grasp.

·         In general, if a fact, S is P, is inexplicable, then there is some aspect of reality that cannot be cognized, namely, that part of reality that would explain why S is P were it knowable.

 

 

[2.2.4.1.] Cognitionism and Things-in-Themselves.

 

The principle now brought under discussion [that the absolutely incognizable is absolutely inconceivable] is directly idealistic; for, since the meaning of a word is the conception it conveys, the absolutely incognizable has no meaning because no conception attaches to it. It is, therefore, a meaningless word; and, consequently, whatever is meant by any term as “the real” is cognizable in some degree, and so is of the nature of a cognition, in the objective sense of that term. (EP 1:51-2, CP 5.310)

 

Here Peirce is arguing that everything real “is of the nature of a cognition, in the objective sense of that term,” i.e., of the term “cognition.”

 

This means that everything real is capable of being cognized, of being thought. There is nothing real that is incapable of being the object of thought.

 

As we have seen, this is Peirce’s cognitionism…

 

cognitionism (df.): the view that everything real is “of the nature of a cognition,” i.e. capable of being cognized or thought. [1]

 

In adopting cognitionism, Peirce is disagreeing not only with Descartes, but also with Immanuel Kant (1724-1804):

·         Kant divided the world into phenomena (things as they are experienced by us) and noumena (things as they are in themselves, apart from how we experience them).

·         On Kant’s view, humans can never know the world as it is in itself (“die Welt an sich”); we can only know the world as we experience it

·         Peirce is rejecting Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. On Peirce’s view, the idea of that which cannot be experienced or thought by humans is meaningless.

 

But towards the end of “Some Consequences...” it seems for a moment as if Peirce is acknowledging that there are things in themselves.

 

Peirce returns to the second denial, his view that we do not have intuitions (recall that an intuition is “a cognition not determined by a previous cognition of the same object, and therefore so determined by something out of consciousness.” (EP 1:11, “Questions Concerning...”):

 

At any moment we are in possession of certain information, that is, of cognitions which have been logically derived by induction and hypothesis from previous cognitions which are less general, less distinct, and of which we have a less lively consciousness. These in their turn have been derived from others still less general, less distinct, and less vivid; and so on back to the ideal* first, which is quite singular, and quite out of consciousness. This ideal first is the particular thing-in-itself. (EP 1:52, CP 5.311)

 

[Peirce’s footnote: *By an ideal, I mean the limit which the possible cannot attain.]

 

Here is the account of thinking that Peirce is suggesting:

 

• Any cognition of a given object (call it X) results from an earlier cognition of that same object.
• So, for any cognition of X, there is a series of cognitions leading back to an “ideal first,” which is X in itself.
• X in itself is “quite out of consciousness.”

 

This certainly sounds as if Peirce is admitting that there are Kantian things-in-themselves, of which we have no direct awareness but which cause the cognitions of which we are aware.

 

But Peirce goes on to explicitly deny that there are such ideal things-in-themselves:

 

... This ideal first is the particular thing-in-itself. It does not exist as such. That is, there is no thing which is in-itself in the sense of not being relative to the mind, though things which are relative to the mind doubtless are, apart from that relation. (EP 1:52, CP 5.311)

 

Here is what I think Peirce is saying in this passage:

 

• Things outside the mind do not exist as things-in-themselves, i.e., as incognizable causes of our cognition, things to which we never have cognitive access. All things that are, are “relative to the mind,” in the sense that we can cognize them. Everything that there is, is capable of being cognized, understood, known.[2]
• However, there are things outside the mind, and there being such things does not depend on our cognizing them. The things that there are, are, independently of our cognizing them.

 

What comes next is relatively mysterious:

 

The cognitions which thus reach us by this infinite series of inductions and hypotheses (which though infinite a parte ante logice [i.e., from the standpoint of logic], is yet as one continuous process not without a beginning in time) ...

 

• A cognition of some object X appears (or occurs) in the mind as a result of an infinite series of inferences from previous cognitions.
• This series is infinite in a peculiar sense: infinite from the standpoint of logic.
• But it nonetheless has a beginning in time, i.e., the series of cognitions that stretches backwards in time does not extend forever (how could it? no human being has existed forever, so no sequence of cognitions in one’s mind could stretch back that far!).
• Peirce probably has in mind the fact that a series of numbers can run infinitely far back towards an ideal limit and yet never reach that limit. Think of the real numbers between 0 and 1; counting back from 1, you would never reach 0, no matter how long you counted, even though that sequence of numbers does have a beginning, namely, zero. No matter how close you get in the series to zero, there will always be more numbers (in fact, an infinity of more numbers) between where you are and zero.

 

 

[2.2.4.2.] Truth and Reality.

 

Towards the end of “Some Consequences…”, Peirce gives an account of truth and reality (or the real).

 

He describes two types of cognition:

·         true cognitions: “cognitions whose objects are real”

·         untrue cognitions: “cognitions whose objects are unreal.”

 

And he explains the real as follows:

 

The real … is that which, sooner or later, information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase in knowledge. And so those two series of cognition -- the real and the unreal -- consist of those which, at a time sufficiently future, the community will always continue to re-affirm; and of those which, under the same conditions, will ever after be denied. Now, a proposition whose falsity can never be discovered, and the error of which therefore is absolutely incognizable, contains, upon our principle, absolutely no error. Consequently, that which is thought in these cognitions is the real, as it really is. (EP 1:52, CP 5.311)

 

What he says here about truth and reality constitute the first published statement of his pragmatic conception of truth and reality. We will return to this when we read “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” Peirce would later refer to this as the social theory of reality.[3]

 

The passage continues:

 

There is nothing, then, to prevent our knowing outward things as they really are, and it is most likely that we do thus know them in numberless cases, although we can never be absolutely certain of doing so in any special case. (EP 1:52, CP 5.311)

 

So true beliefs represent the real, i.e., they represent the world as it really is. Our true beliefs give us access to reality. We are not epistemically “trapped” within our own experiences, as Kant would have it.

 

But this is not to say that we are infallible. Although many of our beliefs are true, and thus represent the world as it really is, in no specific case is there any guarantee that a given belief is true. Recall Peirce’s fallibilism: any belief, no matter how seemingly secure, might turn out to have been false all along.

 

 

[2.2.4.3.] Scholastic Realism

 

At this point in “Some Consequences,” Peirce gives one of his earliest published defenses of a  metaphysical doctrine that he took to be of central importance:

 

scholastic realism (df.): there are real “generals,” i.e., universals, including natural kinds, types, laws, etc.

 

But it follows that since no cognition of ours is absolutely determinate, generals must have a real existence. Now this scholastic realism is usually set down as a belief in metaphysical fictions. But, in fact, a realist is simply one who knows no more recondite reality than that which is represented in a true representation. Since, therefore, the word "man" is true of something, that which "man" means is real. (EP 1:53, CP 5.312)

 

We will examine this doctrine at great length later on, when we read what Peirce has to say about it in later writings.[4]

 

 

Stopping point for Wednesday August 29. For next time, read sections I through III of “The Fixation of Belief” (EP1:109-114)