神话理论+(皮尔斯)+(英文论文).pdf

Peirce s Theory of Methodology Otto Bird Philosophy of Science Vol 26 No 3 Jul 1959 187 200 Stable URL http links jstor org sici sici 003 1 8248 28 195907 2926 3A3 3C 187 3APTOM 3E2 O CO 3B2 H Philosophy of Science is currently published by The University of Chicago Press Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR s Terms and Conditions of Use available at http www jstor org about terms html JSTOR s Terms and Conditions of Use provides in part that unless you have obtained prior permission you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal non commercial use Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work Publisher contact information may be obtained at http www j stor org journals ucpress html Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission For more information on JSTOR contact jstor info umich edu 02003 JSTOR http www jstor org Thu Nov 13 06 27 06 2003 PEIRCE S THEORY OF METHODOLOGY OTTO BIRD University of Notre Danze Peirce conceived of methodology or methodeutic as he preferred to call it as one of the three major parts of logic taken broadly the other two being the theory of signs and formal logic Unlike these two however his theory of methodology remained mostly programmatic and there is little more than fragmentary suggestions about it scattered through his writings But by gathering them together and pursuing their insights it is possible to indicate how he might have divided and developed it 1 The nature of scientific discourse and how it differs from non scientific 2 The logic of inquiry both heuristic and systematic according to the modes of argument as deduc tive inductive or abductive i e hypothesis or a combination or all three 3 The assurance of science considered in the factors that thwart or promote inquiry Peirce was interested throughout his life in the methods of the sciences During the few years he taught at Johns Hopkins he seems to have exerted every effort to make it into a university of methods 7 62 In his tri partite division of logic the study of methods occupies a prominent place and is sometimes described as the highest and most living branch of logic 2 333 destined with the development of modern logic to grow into a colossal doctrine 3 454 Yet among the many papers left from a life time of devoted work there is as his editors note no systematic treatment of this subject 2 105 n Methodology like esthetics and ethics belongs to what Burks has called the programmatic portion of Peirce s philo ophy What we have of it consists of little more than stray remarks and references scattered through his papers But as with so much of Peirce s writing these remarks are highly suggestive and illuminating not only of Peirce s thought but of the whole field of logical studies No attempt has been made that I have been able to discover to bring these remarks together and to pursue the suggestions so as to outline his theory of methodology as a whole and for itself Weiss has recently followed up some of them in his paper on The Logic of the Creative Pro ess The book length studies of Peirce have not done much more than to note and describe its place in his philosophy 1 Its Place in Logic First it will be well to place the study of methods within the field of logic even though this entails going over welltrod ground Received January 1959 Citations in bracketed numerals are by volume and paragraph number to the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce Vols 1 6 edited by C Hartshorne and P Weiss Vols 7 8 edited by A W Burks Cambridge Harvard 1931 35 1958 ARTHUR W BUKKS The Logical Fo mdations of the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce doctoral dissertation Ann Arbor 1941 In Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Smclers Peirce edlt P P Wiener and F H Young Cambridge Harvard 1952 p 166 1 82 188 OTTO BIRD From the early papers of 1847 to the last letters to Lady Welby Peirce maintained that it is possible to distinguish a trivium of formal sciences of symbols in general 4 1 16 This trivium constitutes logic in the broad sense 1 444 and consists of 1 the general theory of the nature and meaning of signs 1 191 which is usually called Speculative Grammar and sometimes stecheotic or stoicheology 2 the theory of the general conditions of the reference of symbols and other signs to their professed objects that is it is the theory of the conditions of truth 2 93 and is concerned with classifying arguments and the validity and force of each 1 191 this is called variously logic in the strict sense Critic critical logic or obsistent logic 3 the last part is the object of our concern Since it receives the greatest variety of names and descriptions it will prove helpful to look at the leading texts in the chronological order of their com position a The third would treat of the formal conditions of the force of symbols or their power of appealing to a mind that is of their reference in general to interpretants and this might be called formal rhetoric 1 559 1867 b It treats of the laws of the evolution of thought which since it coincides with the study of the necessary conditions of the transmission of meaning by signs from mind to mind and from one state of mind to another ought for the sake of taBing ad antage of an old association of terms be called rhetorics speculativu but which I content myself with inaccurately calling objecti ue logic because that conveys the correct idea that it is like Hegel s logic 1 44 4 1896 c Thirdly the general doctrine must embrace the study of those general conditions under which a problem presents itseif for solution and those under which one question leads on to another As this completes a tries of studies or trivium we might not inappropriately term the last study Speculative Rhetoric 3 430 1896 d The third in imitation of Kant s fashion of preserving old associations of words in finding nomenclature for new conceptions I call pure rhetoric Its task is to ascertain the laws by which in every scientific illtelligence one sign gives birth to another and especially one thought brings forth another 2 229 1897 e Transuasional logic which I term Speculative Rhetoric is substantially what goes by the name of methodology orbetter of methodezltic ltis the doctrine of the general conditions of the reference of Symbols and other Signs to the Interpretants which they aim to deter mine 2 931 1902 f Methodeutic or Speculative Rhetoric The practical want of a good treatment of this subject is acute a general doctrine about methods of solving problems the logical study of the theory of inquiry the general theory of how research must be performed a purely logical doctrine of how discovery must take place The next step will surely be to find a method of discovering methods This can only come from a theo y of the method of discovery In order to cover every possibility this should be founded on a general doctrine of methods of attaining purposes in general and this in turn should spring from a still more general doctrine of the nature of teleological action in general 2 105 108 1902 First a word about the names not all of which need be retained Noting even in first using it in b that objective logic is inaccurate Peirce came to separate the concern that it names from Methodology and from Logic as the general theory of signs Objective logic S la Hegel considers whether there be a life in signs so that they will go through a certain order of PEIRCC S TJIEORY OF METHODOLOGY 189 development and whether that order is repetitive in history 2 111 In distinguishing such a consideration from logic even taken broadly Peirce in effect is remarking that there are two ways of viewing how one idea follows from another One which is the way taken by the history of philosophy considers the actual course of ideas in history as they are taken up from one thinker to another Thus one might trace the development of philosophy from Descartes through Loclie Berkeley and Hume To analyse such a development and if possible to discern laws in it constitutes the work of Objective Loglc The other way is logical9 in the more usual sense in that it concerns the formal relations through which one idea follows another and the methods used to achieve it quite apart from their actual historical embodi ment and development It seeks what is necessary logically not historically to get one idea from another so as to achieve a certain result This fact is emphasized by the adjectives that Peirce uses to qualify the study when he calls it formal pure or universal rhetoric From the chronoiogical order of the texts it is apparent that as Peirce thought about it he came to place greater weight on the study of methods as the proper object for this part of logic The fullest description excerptcd in f is all ir terms of the method of solving problems inquiry discovery In keeping with this he tends to use the name Methodeutic for this study although he notes that it is more commonly called Wethodology As still the most common this would seem to be the most readily intelligible name for the general kind of study that he envisages Yet throughout he is strongly attracted to the name Rhetoric At times fond of preserving old associations of words he may have wanted to link his triadic division of logic with the mediaeval Trivium as is suggested in c Since he has correlated the first two parts with grammar and logic rhetoric is left as the name for the third part He has a more substantial reason in the fact that some of the tasks he assigns to this part are commonly associated with rhetoric in ordinary usage Thus he speaks of the conditions of the force of symbols or their power of appealing to a mind a of the conditions of the transmission of meaning b and of methods of attaining purposes f Furthermore in assigning to it particularly the study of the Interpretant he finds the strongest reason for correlating it with rhetoric 2 The Division of Methodology A full discussion of the Interpretant and its many kinds would carry us into the whole theory of signs Fortunately however the major distinctions are sufficient for suggesting and indicating how Peirce might have analysed and divided the field of Meth dology The Interpretant is one of the three essential ingredients that Peirce For the whole question of Peirce s complex division of signs cf P WEISS and A BURKS Peirce s Sixty Six Signs in Journal of Philosophy XLII 1945 p 383 388 repeated with minor changes in Lieb cited below in n 5 I am much indebted to it In the divisions I use I give usually only one of the many names that Peirce at various times assigned to them all of them are included in this article by Weiss and Burks 190 OTTO BIRD distinguishes in the sign the others being the sign itself as a thing and the object that it presents The object is presented in a certain respect or capacity 2 228 as having its own peculiar interpretability LW 36 5 so as to produce a certain effect i e a determinate interpretation and this is the Interpretant It is perhaps most briefly described as the aspect of use which belongs to a sign i e its purpose It accordingly belongs to the category of purpose which Peirce calls Thirdness Thus besides being one of the terms of the triadic relation constituted by the sign the Interpretant is itself a Third and hence divisible into three This division which is the funda mental one for the Interpretant yields what Peirce calls the Immediate the Dynamical and the Final Interpretant To illustrate these three Peirce cites as example his wife awaking and asking him What sort of a day is it 8 314 Here the Immediate Interpretant is what the question expresses all that it immediately expresses The Dynamical Interpretant is my answering her question the actual effect that it has upon me its interpreter The Final or Ultimate Interpretant is the significance of it her purpose in asking it what effect its answer will have as to her plans for the ensuing day Peirce was never fully satisfied with these distinctions and as late as 1909 speaks of his gropings after the three kinds of Interpretant LW 35 Nor was he always consistent in what he has to say about them and he proposes many different names for them 4 Yet from this one example it seems clear enough what he is after Since the Interpretant is the use purpose or effect of a sign we may consider it in any one of three ways 1 As expressed in the sign including its whole context so as to give it a peculiar interpretability before it gets any interpreter LW 36 i e the Immediate Interpretant 2 As the direct effect actually produced by a sign upon an interpreter of it LW 39 which as such is a singular event different for each inter pretation the Dynamical Interpretant 3 As the effect to be achieved the Final Interpretant Thus in the example we have a sign that is respectively 1 a question that 2 provokes the husband s answer 3 so as to settle the wife s plans for the day Of these three the Final Interpretant is the controlling one and according to Peirce s categorical scheme it alone is a true Third and hence Interpretant in the full sense He describes it more fully as the effect the sign would produce upon any mind upon which circumstances should permit it to work out its full effect 1 W 35 or again as the one Interpretative result to which every Interpreter is destined to come if the sign is sufficiently con sidered LW 36 The difference in effects or results intended by the sign provides the ground for dividing the Final Interpretant into three Gra tific To produce Action To produce self control 8 372 But self control is for Peirce the mark of reasoned thought 1 606 and since it is here distinguished from action I take it to be that or generally as scientific thought This is Titations by bracketed LU7 and numeral refer by page number to Charles S Peirce s Letters to Lady Welby edit I C Iieb New Haven Whitlock s 1953 borne out by his elsewhere calling the three Gratific Practical and Pragma tistic According to this division Peirce would then be saying that a sign may have as its ultimate purpose to produce something to be enjoyed to produce an action or to produce scientific thinking If so we have in this division of the Final Interpretant the basis for distinguishing the major forms or kinds of discourse into Poetic Practical and Scientific Peirce so far as I have been able to discover does not speak in these terms Yet there are certain passages in which what he as to say seems to bear on this and to do so in ways that illuminate the division of the Final Interpretant a The object of a sign is one thing its meaning is another Its object is the thing or occasion however indefinite to which it is to be applied Its meaning is the idea which it attaches to that object whether by way of mere SUPPOSITION or as a COMMAND or as an ASSERTION 5 6 1905 b That which the sign produces in the Quasi mind that is the Interpreter by determining the latter to a FEELING to an EXERTION or to a SIGN which determination is the Interpretant 4 536 1906 c What is man s proper function if it be not to embody general ideas in ART CREATIONS in UTILITIES and above all in THEORETICAL COGNITION 6 476 1908 Peirce s thought abounds in triads and the problem is always to know how to correlate them But if these three sets which I have emphasized by placing in capital letters can be equated they suggest the subdivision of the Final Interpretant Suppose we are given a statement in symbols e g a sentence in words What is its intended or interpretable effect i e what kind of response can it demand There is good reason for thinking that there are but three possibilities 1 It can demand that we see and enjoy the object that is presented e g the wanderings and home coming of an Odysseus or 2 it can tell us to do something as a question or a command or as a recipe tells us what practical steps to take to get a pie or 3 it can ask us to know theoretically as Galileo s words for example enable us to know the law of falling bodies In other words we are presented with the possibibility of three different kinds of discourse These are distinguished I would suggest by Peirce s division of the Final Interpretant By it we are able to separate scientific discourse from other kinds and this is to isolate the major object of Methodology In fact on the basis of this division it might be claimed that the first task of Methodology as concerned with the methods of the sciences is to distinguish scientific discourse and argument from other kinds particularly from poetic or Gratific and Practical If either of the latter raises any peculiar kind of logical problem it would receive consideration here I do not know whether poetry would Practical discourse can be divided on Peirce s classi fying imperatives and interrogatives together LW 32 into command and question and here questions of particular interest to logic might arise which would not properly fall into either Speculative Grammar or Critic but would 192 OTTO RXRD suppose both of these Recent work on the logic of questions and the logic of commands would appear to fit here in Peirce s classification of logic However the main task of Methodology is obviously the analysis of scientific discourse or argument Within the classification of signs Peirce places argument as one of the three sub divisions along with term and proposition coming from consideration of the relation between the sign and the Final Interpretant 8 344 8 373 4 This is the place for what is the major relation among signs namely the illative relation or inference Thus Peirce writes the purpose of signs which is the purpose of thought is to bring truth to expression The law under which a sign must he true is the law of inference and the signs of a scientific intelligence must above all other