[6.6.3.] A Priori Arguments for Determinism.

 

Having disposed of a number of empirical arguments in support of determinism, Peirce now turns to a priori arguments for the doctrine.

 

A priori argument #1: we cannot help but believe determinism.

 

Peirce’s response: even if it is true that we cannot help but believe it, this does not mean that we won’t eventually reject it: “that which has been inconceivable to-day has often turned out indisputable on the morrow.” (EP 1:305)

 

an empirical counter-response: the belief in determinism is “natural” for us, and “natural beliefs have generally been confirmed by experience.” (EP 1:305)

 

Peirce’s response: “The general approximation to truth in natural beliefs is, in fact, a case of the general adaptation of genetic products to recognizable utilities or ends.” In other words, our natural beliefs do tend to be true, and this is an example of a trait that we have because of our evolutionary history working to our advantage. “Now, the adaptations of nature, beautiful and often marvelous as they verily are, are never found to be quite perfect; so that the argument is quite against the absolute exactitude of any natural belief, including that of the principle of causation.” (EP 1:306, CP 6.50) [note the connection to Peirce’s critical common-sensism, according to which some of our beliefs are of the nature of instincts, and those beliefs are “invariably vague” (EP 2:350, CP 5.446). We will examine these doctrines in more detail soon.]

 

A priori argument #2: “absolute chance is inconceivable.” (EP 1:306)

 

Peirce’s response: the word “inconceivable” is ambiguous, and in each of its many senses, either there is no reason to think absolute chance really is inconceivable, or the fact that it is inconceivable is no reason for thinking it isn’t real. (Peirce himself used the word “inconceivable” in his response to the previous argument, presumably such that to say that absolute chance is inconceivable is to say that that we cannot help but believe that there is no absolute chance; this would be one of the latter senses of inconceivable mentioned above.)

 

A prior argument #3: absolute “chance is unintelligible.”  (EP 1:306) He considers three different versions of this claim, each of which is weaker than the one before.

 

(3a): There can be no good abductive argument for tychism. The hypothesis that there is real absolute chance can never render any phenomenon intelligible, i.e., it can never explain anything. So as a hypothesis, it is unjustified.

 

(3b): Tychism may actually explain some facts of which we are not yet aware, but it does not explain anything we know now. So as any hypothesis, it is simply unneeded.

 

(3c): We never infallibly observe a departure from a law. So “chance is not a vera causa, and ought not unnecessarily be introduced into a hypothesis.”

 

In a footnote in the fourth article in the 1891-3 Monist series, Peirce explains this term: “By a vera causa, in the logic of science, is meant a state of things known to exist in some cases and supposed to exist in other cases, because it would account for observed phenomena.” (EP 1:336, CP 6.242 n.)

 

 

[6.6.4.] Peirce’s Arguments Against Determinism.

 

Before Peirce responds to those three a priori arguments, he turns his attention to the fact that the universe is characterized by diversity and variety. And he considers two ways of understanding this fact:

 

the determinist’s view of variety: “all the arbitrary specifications of the universe were introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a beginning, and that the variety and complication of nature has always been just as much as it is now.” (EP 1:307, 6.57)

 

the tychist’s view of variety: “the diversification, the specification, has been continually taking place” (EP 1:307, CP 6.57).

 

He goes on to give five reasons in support of the second view, and in doing so gives what amounts to an argument for tychism, his version of indeterminism.

 

 

1.       “Everywhere the main fact is growth and increasing complexity. ... [T]here is probably in nature some agency by which the complexity and diversity of things can be increased; and … consequently the rule of mechanical necessity meets in some way with interference.” (EP 1:308, CP 6.58)

 

2.       “By ... admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the universe,” tychism explains “the variety and diversity of the universe, in the only sense in which the really sui generis [completely unique, in a class of its own] and new can be said to be accounted for.” (EP 1.308, CP 6.59) So tychism provides the best possible explanation of growth and diversity.

 

3.       Determinists are forced to say that neither lawfulness nor irregularity can be explained (and thus, on Peirce’s view, to “barricade the road of discovery”). But by adopting tychism, Peirce can explain lawfulness [I think he means that he can explain both lawfulness in general and specific laws], and he can also explain irregularity, in one sense: tychism “explains the general fact of irregularity, though not, of course, what each lawless event is to be.” (EP 1:308, CP 6.60)

 

4.       Determinists make consciousness “a forgotten trifle” (EP 1:309, CP 6.61) and renders free will an illusion. Tychism, even if asserts only an infinitesimal degree of chance, avoids both consequences.

 

5.       Peirce claims to have traced out many consequences of tychism with mathematical precision and then to have checked these consequences against his own experience.[1] “But the matter and methods of reasoning are novel, and I have no right to promise that other mathematicians shall find my deductions as satisfactory as I myself do, so that the strongest reason for my belief must for the present remain a private reason of my own, and cannot influence others.” (EP 1:309, CP 6.62)

 

 

[6.6.5.] Peirce’s Response to the A Priori Arguments.

 

 

Against (3a): The hypothesis of absolute chance does explain something, viz. the occurrence of regularity. But it is important to understand what Peirce is doing here. He is not trying to explain the reality of regularity or generality simply by saying that it results from chance (that would be “futile,” he says). Rather, his view is that by hypothesizing the reality of absolute chance, we make room for that which explains regularity, viz., “a principle of generalization, or tendency to form habits.”(EP 1:310)

 

I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle of generalisation, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities. ... I attribute [the whole specification of the world] to chance, it is true, but to chance in the form of a spontaneity which is to some degree regular. (EP 1:310)

 

 

Against (3b): Peirce gives the following examples of phenomena that have actually been observed and that tychism can explain: “growth and developing complexity,” “variety itself,” “the regularity of the universe,” “the regular relationships between the laws of nature,” and consciousness. (EP 1:310)

 

 

Against (3c): Again, a vera causa is “a state of things known to exist in some cases and supposed to exist in other cases, because it would account for observed phenomena.” (EP 1:336, CP 6.242 n.) To the argument that says absolute chance is not a vera causa because “we cannot know positively there is any such element in the universe,” Peirce replies in three ways (EP 1:310-11):

·         “...the doctrine of vera causa has nothing to do with elementary conceptions. Pushed to that extreme, it at once cuts off belief in the existence of a material universe; and without that necessitarianism could hardly maintain its ground.” In other words, determinism is no better off in this regard than tychism, since its defenders “cannot know positively” that material objects exist!

·         “...variety is a fact which must be admitted; and the theory of chance merely consists in supposing this diversification does not antedate all time.” [This sounds awfully nominalistic!]

·         “...the avoidance of hypotheses involving causes nowhere positively known to act is only a recommendation of logic, not a positive command. It cannot be formulated in any precise terms without at once betraying its untenable character,—I mean as rigid rule, for as a recommendation it is wholesome enough.”

 

 

Peirce ends the article with a plea that readers point out any errors that they detect in his arguments. Paul Carus, the editor of the journal (The Monist) in which this paper was published, took Peirce up on this offer and published two articles in that journal (in July and October, 1892) in response. Peirce himself then responded with another article, “Reply to the Necessitarians” (The Monist 3 (1893) 526-570; in CP 6.588-618).

 

 

[6.6.6.] Tychism and Modality.

 

The term “modality” refers to possibility, necessity, actuality and contingency (something is contingent if it is possible but not necessary).

 

Philosophers have spent a great deal of time trying to understand exactly what these modal terms mean. This is especially true within 20^th century analytic philosophy. But attempts to understand the modal notions go back at least to Aristotle.[2]

 

We can describe Peirce’s tychism (according to which there is real chance in the universe) using modal concepts, as follows:

 

• For the most part, the universe is law-governed; events that occur are determined to occur in exactly the way they do by past circumstances and the laws that govern them. So, for the most part, what actually does happen happens necessarily (given previous conditions and governing laws).

 

• But still, there is an element of chance in the world, such that (given previous conditions and the laws that govern them) it is both possible that X happen and possible that X not happen. (Important: this does not imply that it is possible that X both happen and not happen!) Whether or not X happens is not completely determined.

 

• So whether X happens is a contingent matter: it is possible but not necessary that X will happen, and it is possible but not necessary that X will not happen.

 

So Peirce’s tychism is the view that, in addition there being real necessity (real absolute lawfulness) in the world, there is real contingency.

 

So there is a sense in which tychism is a sort of realism about contingency.

 

 

Stopping point for Wednesday October 10. For next time (Monday October 13), read “The Law of Mind” (EP 1:312-15, 323-33). [I am leaving out a particularly thorny section in the middle of the article; feel free to read the entire article, if you like.]