display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
7 ideas
| 19218 | Metaphysics is pointless without exact modern logic [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysician who is not prepared to grapple with the difficulties of modern exact logic had better put up his shutters and go out of the trade. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: This announcement comes before Russell proclaimed mathematical logic to be the heart of metaphysics (though it is contemporary with Frege's work, of which Peirce was unaware). It places Peirce firmly in the analytic tradition. |
| 21489 | Super-ordinate disciplines give laws or principles; subordinate disciplines give concrete cases [Peirce, by Atkin] |
| Full Idea: In Peirce's system, a super-ordinate discipline provides general laws or principles for subordinate disciplines, which in turn provide concrete examples of those general laws. | |
| From: report of Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 1 'System' | |
| A reaction: Does he really mean that subordinate disciplines have no principles or laws? That can't be right. |
| 6947 | Metaphysics does not rest on facts, but on what we are inclined to believe [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical systems have not usually rested upon any observed facts, or not in any great degree. They are chiefly adopted because their fundamental propositions seem 'agreeable to reason', which means that which we find ourselves inclined to believe. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This leads to Peirce's key claim - that we should allow our beliefs to be formed by something outside of ourselves. I don't share Peirce's contempt for metaphysics, which I take to be about the most abstract presuppositions of our ordinary beliefs. |
| 14799 | Metaphysics rests on observations, but ones so common we hardly notice them [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics really rests on observations, whether consciously or not. The only reason this is not recognised is that it rests upon kinds of phenomena with which every man's experience is so saturated that he pays no particular attention to them. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Approach to Metaphysics [1898], p.311) | |
| A reaction: I think this is entirely right. I would say that the only thing that distinguishes metaphysical thought is its extreme level of generality, which makes it very hard to substantiate, because it is so remote from its evidential base. |
| 19229 | Metaphysics is the science of both experience, and its general laws and types [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the science of being, not merely as given in physical experience, but of being in general, its laws and types. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. The question then is whether such a science is possible. Dogmatic empiricists think not. Explanatory empiricists (me) think it is. |
| 19219 | Metaphysical reasoning is simple enough, but the concepts are very hard [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical reasonings, such as they have hitherto been, have been simple enough for the most part. It is the metaphysical concepts which it is difficult to apprehend. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], I) | |
| A reaction: Peirce is not, of course, saying that it is just conceptual, because for him science comes first. It is the woolly concepts that alienate some people from metaphysics. Metaphysicians should challenge the concepts they use much, much more! |
| 14767 | The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Concerning the Author [1897], p.2) |