[8.] Extreme Scholastic Realism

 

We have already seen that early on, Peirce was committed to a view he called “scholastic realism,” the metaphysical theory according to which there are real generals.

 

Peirce intended this theory to occupy a middle-ground in the ancient debate between nominalists (who defined the real as that which is the external cause of cognition and denied that generality is real) and Platonic realists (who believe that “universals” are existing entities).

 

By the early 1890s, Peirce had come to believe that the question of the reality of generals was, in essence, the same as the question of the reality of modality.[1]

 

In 1893’s “Grand Logic,” immediately after responding to the anticipated criticism that the information-relative (IR) account of modality implies that “there is nothing analogous to possibility and necessity in the real world,” Peirce wrote:

 

The question of realism and nominalism, which means the question how far real facts are analogous to logical relations, and why, is a very serious one, which has to be carefully and deliberately studied, and not decided offhand, and not decided on the ground that one or another answer to it is “inconceivable.” Nothing is “inconceivable” to a man who sets seriously about the conceiving of it. (CP 4.68, modality handout, selection 1)

 

So even before the modal shift, Peirce had come to associate the debate over whether there are real generals, including real natural laws, with the question of the reality of modality.

 

One of the consequences of Peirce’s adoption of strong modal realism (his view that modality is real and that not all types of modality can be defined in terms of states of information) was a change in his scholastic realism. In this set of notes, we will examine that change and what Peirce’s scholastic realism looks like after his adoption of strong realism.

 

As we will see, the theory becomes, in addition to the view that generals are real, also the view “vagues” are real.

 

What’s more, we will see that Peirce comes to associate vagueness with possibility, and so his new attitude towards possibility (that not all types of possibility can be defined by the IR account) is especially important for this later version of the theory.

 

To distinguish this later, more developed theory from its earlier antecedent, I will refer to it as extreme scholastic realism.[2]

 

Our next reading is “The Seven Systems of Metaphysics,” the fourth in a series of lectures Peirce delivered at Harvard in 1903.[3]

 

Before we look directly at this later form of Peirce’s scholastic realism and how it is developed in this lecture, we need to revisit his universal categories.

 

 

[8.1] The Universal Categories Revisited.

 

As we have already seen, Peirce holds that there are three fundamental categories of being. Anything at all, be it external or internal, real or[4] fictional, can be categorized according to this scheme. This table presents three examples:

 

	Firstness	Secondness	Thirdness
in terms of semiotics (1868 ... Peirce later modified this application to semiotics)	Quality (of Feeling)   The properties that a sign has in itself, … [e.g.] in the word “man” its consisting of three letters—in a picture, its being flat and without relief.” (EP 1:40, CP 5.287)	Dyadic Relation   The “real, physical connection of a sign with its object” (EP 1:40, CP 5.287)	Representation   The representative function of the sign
in terms of relations	1-place relations e.g. “... is large”, “... is blue”, “... is cold”	2-place relations e.g. “... loves ...” “... is larger than ...” “... is the mother of ...”	3-place relations e.g. “... gives ... to ...”, “... is between ... and ...”
in terms of phenomenology	Quality   “that which is such as it is, regardless of anything else” (EP 2:160)	Reaction   “that which is such as it is as being Second to some First, regardless of anything else and in particular regardless of any law although it may conform to a law.”	Representation   “that which is such as it is as being a Third, or Medium, between a Second and its First.”

 

The three categories should not be thought of as completely isolated from or independent of each other. There are complicated systems of relationship among them:

 

                To treat the three categories simply as three units, regardless of their distinctiveness and of their essential correlations, will be a crude procedure from which no useful approximation to the truth of Nature were to be expected. (EP 2:179, 1903)

 

But there is no harm in treating them as if they were isolated from one another if we are doing so in order to understand the history of metaphysics, and in particular, to understand how Peirce’s own metaphysical system differs from that of his predecessors:

 

                But when it is not the truth of Nature that we aim to represent, but all the aberrations of the philosophers in their illogical and helter-skelter rummagings after a just conception of the world, nothing perhaps could be better than to suppose every conceivable combination of the categories, rational or irrational, to have emerged during the history of metaphysics. (EP 2:179, 1903)

 

Peirce divided up various metaphysical systems according to which of the three categories each system accepted as “real constituents of nature.” See diagram and table at EP 2:180.

 

Peirce classed himself among those philosophers who recognized the reality of all three universal categories.

 

And he says that those who accept the reality of Firstness and Secondness only (and so deny the reality of Thirdness) are nominalists (he calls this view “ordinary nominalism.” EP 2:180, 1903).

 

He offered separate arguments for the reality of each of the categories. In his argument for the reality of Thirdness, we will see his new version scholastic realism.

 

 

[8.2] Peirce’s Stone Experiment.

 

In this lecture, Peirce presents an argument for the reality of generals in the form of an experiment he offers to conduct in front of his audience:

 

Here is a stone. Now I place that stone where there will be no obstacle between it and the floor, and I will predict with confidence that as soon as I let go my hold upon the stone it will fall to the floor. I will prove that I can make a correct prediction by actual trial if you like. But I see by your faces that you all think it will be a very silly experiment. Why so? Because you all know very well that I can predict what will happen, and that the fact will verify my prediction. (EP 1:181, CP 5.93)

 

Peirce is noting that he can predict with justification that if he lets go of the rock, it will fall. He knows that it will fall, even before he lets it go.

 

Peirce asks: how do I know this?

 

Not by “clairvoyance.” It is not as if the future event of his dropping the rock is somehow having an effect on him, as might be the case with an event in his immediately previous past. The future event of his dropping the rock does not stand in a relationship of backwards causation with him; it is not affecting him backwards through time.

 

According to Peirce, he knows that the rock will fall because he knows from past experience that objects of this kind always do fall. That is, he knows from past experience that “all solid bodies fall in the absence of any upward forces or pressure.” (EP 2:181, 5.96)

 

And “[i]f I truly know anything, that which I know must be real.”

·         A necessary condition of knowledge is truth. If I know that p, then at the very least, I believe that p, and it is true that p (on most accounts, true belief is not sufficient for knowledge, but it is necessary for knowledge).

·         And according to Peirce’s pragmatic explanation of reality, the real (that which is independent of what anyone in particular thinks about it) is the object of a true belief.

·         It follows that if someone knows that p, what “p” represents must be real.

 

So that which is represented by the general proposition “All solid bodies fall in the absence of any upward forces or pressure” is real.

 

Peirce jokingly tests whether his audience agrees with him about this:

 

I know that this stone will fall if it is let go, because experience has convinced me that objects of this kind always do fall; and if anyone present has any doubt on the subject, I should be happy to try the experiment, and I will bet him a hundred to one on the result. (EP 1:181, CP 5.95)

 

 

[8.3.] “...Of the Nature of a Representation.”

 

At this point Peirce describes the general proposition “All solid bodies fall in the absence of any upward forces or pressure” as being “of the nature of a representation.” (EP 2:181, CP 5.96)

 

We have seen this idea before

 

Cognitionism about Generals (CG): generality does not occur outside “of cognition and signification generally,” i.e., outside of what is cognizable.

 

His view is that that this is something that nominalists and scholastic realists actually agree about (recall that early on he referred to this as the “nominalistic” aspect of his scholastic realism. (W 2:180, 1868, not in EP).

 

 

But nominalists, who deny the reality of Thirdness or Representation, will say that this general proposition “is a mere representation,—the word mere meaning that to be represented and really to be are two very different things.” (EP 2:181, CP 5.96)

 

But Peirce denies the nominalist claim that natural laws are mere formulae or representations.

 

He acknowledges that to be represented is not ipso facto to be real. That is, from the fact that X is represented (in a belief, say) it does not follow that X is real.

·         My example: a six-year-old’s belief that Santa Claus rides a sleigh represents Santa Claus; but it does not follow that Santa Claus is real.

·         Peirce’s example: “If I were to predict that on my letting go of the stone it would fly up in the air, that would be mere fiction; and the proof that it was so would be obtained by simply trying the experiment.” (EP 1:182, CP 5.96) Suppose that someone were actually to believe that “All solid bodies rise in the absence of any upward forces or pressure.” This belief represents the world as being a specific way; but it is not really that way.

 

This is a difference between being represented and reacting. If something is represented, it may be a figment, a fiction; but if something reacts, then ipso facto (by that very fact) it has existence and therefore must be real (since anything that exists is real).

 

In a book review from around the same time, he writes:

 

... the external world, (that is, the world that is comparatively external) does not consist of existent objects merely, nor merely of these and their reactions; but on the contrary, its most important reals have the mode of being of what the nominalist calls “mere” words, that is, general types and would-bes. The nominalist is right in saying that they are substantially of the nature of words; but his “mere” reveals a complete misunderstanding of what our everyday world consists of. (CP 8.191, c.1904, emphasis added; review of Herbert Nichols's A Treatise on Cosmology)[5]

 

 

So X being of the nature of a representation does not mean that X is a figment, that X is unreal. On Peirce’s view, it is possible that X be both.

 

And now goes on to argue that the facts represented in some general propositions, propositions like “All solid bodies fall in the absence of any upward forces or pressure,” are real.

 

 

[8.4] Chance vs. Active General Principles.

 

At this point, Peirce describes the difference between general propositions that are true by chance and those that express real generality that is active in nature.

 

Consider his example of the man with the watch (EP 1:182-83, CP 5.99). Suppose we see a man wind his watch for 29 consecutive days. Peirce says there are two (and only two) ways of thinking about this regularity in his behavior:

1.       There is some “active principle or cause” that results in his winding his watch each of those days, in which case his having wound his watch for 29 days straight is very good evidence that he will wind it again on the 30^th day.

2.       It is a mere coincidence that he wound his watch each of those 29 days. There is no general principle or cause common to each of those instances of winding. In this case, the fact that he wound his watch for the last 29 days provides no evidence whatsoever that he will wind it again on the 30^th day. (no more so than the fact that someone has rolled double sixes with a pair of dice on three consecutive throws provides evidence that he will do so again on the fourth throw).

 

The situation with regard to “the operations of nature” is analogous. Suppose that in all of our past experience, stones which have been loosed in mid-air have fallen to the ground. There are two, and only two, ways of thinking about this uniformity:

1.       There is some “active principle or cause” that results in stones falling every time they are let go, “in which case it would be a strange coincidence that it should cease to act at the moment my prediction was based upon it.” (EP 1:183, CP 5.100)

2.       It is a mere coincidence that previous stones have fallen when let go. There is no general principle or cause common to each of those instances of falling. In this case, the fact that every single stone we’ve experienced up to now has fallen in the absence of upward pressure gives us no evidence whatsoever for thinking that the next stone will fall. [This is exactly the position taken by the British empiricist David Hume (711-1776). On his view, none of our beliefs about the future are justified; then fact that we have observed X following Y innumerable times in the past is no reason at all for thinking that X will continue to follow Y in the future. Hume says that we cannot help but believe that X will continue to follow Y; but he maintains that that involuntary belief is not evidentially supported by our past experience.]

 

And it’s not just the regularity of the stone’s falling. We encounter innumerable other instances of such regularity every day:

 

Of course, every sane man will adopt the latter hypothesis. If he could doubt it in the case of the stone—which he can't—and I may as well drop the stone once for all—I told you so!—if anybody doubts this still, a thousand other such inductive predictions are getting verified every day, and he will have to suppose every one of them to be merely fortuitous in order reasonably to escape the conclusion that general principles are really operative in nature. That is the doctrine of scholastic realism. (EP 1:183, CP 5.101, emphasis in original)

 

So his new argument for scholastic realism (which augments the argument from pragmatism we saw him give early on) is as follows:

 

1. We know by way of experience that up to now, regularity R has characterized the world.
2. R is the result either of chance or of an active general principle.
3. If R is the result of chance, then the prediction that R will continue is completely unjustified.
4. But that prediction is justified.
5. So R is not the result of chance.
6. So R is the result of an active general principle.[6]

 

But so far, we have only seen Peirce arguing for the reality of generals. He will now go on to expand his scholastic realism in a new direction, adding to it the claim that, in addition to real generals, there are also “real vagues.”

 

 

Stopping point for Monday October 22. For next time, read EP 2:183-86 (it’s OK if you do not understand the mathematics on p.185--just do your best).