The objectivity of invariance consists in its being reliably observed and in such observations being intersubjectively corroborated. So contra Hume we do have a rational basis for believing that induction is a reliable means of knowledge. The basis is not purely rational (unless you follow Kant's solution) but practically rational. What more do you want?

It's just as invalid as your argument, with the benefit of being briefer. :P — Banno

I had thought the argument is valid. You say it is invalid; can you tell me why you think so?

As to Peirce's influence on Popper; I seem to remember reading about it in Unended Quest, but its a helluva long time since I read it and I could be mistaken. In any case, even if there is little or no influence, the commonality of ideas seems obvious. The model of conjecture and refutation is basically a pragmatist one.

Are you then a dualist in asserting that the mind is something distinct from the brain?

The problem still remains that if the activity of the mind is the source of the creative process we need some way of distinguishing between truths inherent in the world and patterns created by the mind.

That's exactly the point I'm making. I'm not saying that our beliefs can either be justified or not (that's an entire epistemological position) I'm disputing that there is any good grounds for specify that science cannot justify the passions, as if there were some other group of things that it could justify. If there's nothing that science can justify (in that way) then the comment is entirely specious, claiming to provide some in formation about 'the passions', when in fact it is merely reporting the limits of science in general. — Pseudonym

I don't understand your point. Science does what it does - it provides explanations of a certain sort. What it does not do is provide warrant for every belief - indeed, for most beliefs. I do not require a scientific explanation of vision in order to believe that there is a table in front of me - all I need is to look and see.

This rather presumes a position on conciousness which is far from agreed upon. — Pseudonym

No, I do not take any metaphysical positions about consciousness. I am making straightforward observations about beliefs and justifications.

'Hungry' would be typically held as being that disposition which (in the absence of competing forces) would cause a person to eat. It is perfectly possible that your brain could be in that state, but the part of your brain responsible for generating the epiphenomenon of concious awareness erroneously reports that you are not. In that sense you would be incorrect about your assertion 'I'm hungry'. — Pseudonym

A belief, even a justified belief, does not have to be inerrant.

Are you then a dualist in asserting that the mind is something distinct from the brain? — Perplexed

No. It is all the same - one - just moving in opposite directions. Life is organizing while matter is decaying. But they are the same stuff.

The problem still remains that if the activity of the mind is the source of the creative process we need some way of distinguishing between truths inherent in the world and patterns created by the mind. — Perplexed

I don't think so. Life is creating. One understands life by engaging in need the creative process. Looking for truths can be an engaging game, but it is parenthetically to creating and understanding the process of creating.

This still does not sound like enough to qualify as being "objectively invariant". One could imagine many things that are reliably observed and intersubectively corroborated that are not objectively true. Political associations or stock markets maybe?

The thing is, if we concede that knowledge is only practically rational does this not mean that there is truth only with regards to certain ends?

This still does not sound like enough to qualify as being "objectively invariant" — Perplexed

It isn't. Life is a game without rules. We create them as we go along. People, cultures, religions, countries, ethic groups all create their own game. The patterns are similar and different and a good observer may pick up on them. There is no one way. There may not be any way for all I know. I just observe and learn.

I never look for truth, only something new that may be a clue.

I had a quick look and Peirce hardly gets a mention in Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery. Pragmatism is only mentioned in passing. — Banno

As to Peirce's influence on Popper; I seem to remember reading about it in Unended Quest, but its a helluva long time since I read it and I could be mistaken. — Janus

Popper wasn't directly influenced by Peirce, but did recapitulate the same line of thought. They were especially close on propensities. And Peirce of course was concerned with a much larger metaphysical project of how epistemology could be also ontology.

Later on in his career, Popper found Peirce had been saying the same things and acknowledged this in saying he wished he had known of Peirce's work earlier (Of Clocks and Clouds) and that Peirce was "one of the greatest philosophers of all times" (Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach).

Similarly when Bertrand Russell learnt about Peirce in later life - having waged his war against Jamesian pragmatism - he took the view, that "beyond doubt [Peirce] was one of the most original minds of the later nineteenth century, and certainly the greatest American thinker ever."

Cheryl Misak has now documented the subterranean influence that Peirce had on Wittgenstein via Ramsey and Lewis - https://jhaponline.org/jhap/article/view/2946

Peirce was so much ahead of his time - and also working in unfortunate circumstances - that it is only recently he has started to have his rightful impact on academic thought.

I was in a similar position. Via cognitive neurobiology, theoretical biology and paleoanthropology, I had arrived at a generally semiotic position. And then decent digests of Peirce's voluminous unpublished thoughts began to pop up. Along with a whole circle of biologists and systems scientists, it just became obvious that Peirce had sorted out the metaphysics 100 years earlier. Within a few years, we were all calling ourselves biosemioticians.

I suppose 18th century science could be said to "assert determinism". The question is, does our modern science allow for non-deterministic events to take place? — Perplexed

Of course. There are both deterministic and indeterministic models in science. As for metaphysical determinism, science as such does not take any position on it. If, for instance, you are a population geneticist, you work with probabilities, and it does not matter to you as a scientist whether those probabilities originate from some fundamentally chancy process or whether they are merely epistemic (or whether there actually is a distinction). It takes a lot of philosophical posturing to get from science to metaphysics. For example, you will probably have to take a stance on reductionism. And once you do, you may also have to bet on future physics. None of this is part of science.

This still does not sound like enough to qualify as being "objectively invariant". — Perplexed

It's enough for phenomena to be accepted as being objectively invariant until proven otherwise, though. What other possible criteria for judgements of objectivity could we employ, to replace intersubjective criteria?

One could imagine many things that are reliably observed and intersubectively corroborated that are not objectively true. — Perplexed

How would you know they are not "objectively true" though, other than by reliable observation and intersubjective corroboration?

The thing is, if we concede that knowledge is only practically rational does this not mean that there is truth only with regards to certain ends? — Perplexed

I don't understand this question. Humans desire knowledge in order to accomplish practical ends, and they also desire knowledge just for its own sake.

The basis is not purely rational (unless you follow Kant's solution) but practically rational. What more do you want? — Janus

Heh. The glass that pragmatism knows to be 99.99 percent full is always going to be frustratingly empty for those who still ache for Platonic certainty. If you believe in all or nothing, then that's what you want to be the case, despite the facts.

Yes, I remember reading Russell's statement of admiration for Peirce. To me the similarities between Popper's approach and Peirce's pragmatism seem clear. I am coming to think of Peirce as one of the most underrated philosophers; the fact that he may not have had much (acknowledged) influence on the mainstream thus far says more about the mainstream than it does about Peirce. In my view much the same can be said about Whitehead.

The glass that pragmatism knows to be 99.99 percent full is always going to be frustratingly empty for those who still ache for Platonic certainty. — apokrisis

Right, how could certainty ever be anything more substantial than a feeling? We may say that it can be a more or less warranted feeling and that what constitutes warrant is clear, but that will never convince those whose feeling is not consonant with our own notion of warrant.

Perhaps you're right. But it could also be a recipe for mass conformism. How does one tell the difference?

The thing is, if we concede that knowledge is only practically rational does this not mean that there is truth only with regards to certain ends? — Perplexed

That is how you attack the Jamesian strawman version of pragmatism.

The actual story here is that truth is the limit of rational inquiry. It is what we will believe in the end following an exhaustive pursuit. And so it is what becomes invariant within our belief structure.

So yes, this is not the good old fashioned truth of the transcendental kind - that which is true even despite there being no one around doing the knowing. The rationalist pipedream that has had such a manic grip on so many.

It is truth defined in terms of the concerns of a knower. It is a search for justified answers to the point of exhaustion - which itself is in turn a search to the point that further details cease to matter.

Pragmatism only seeks to constrain uncertainty. It can't be eliminated. And so truth - as a natural limit on a reasoned process of inquiry - is found at the point where we can afford to become indifferent to the uncertainties not yet eliminated. Our purposes - in whatever sense they exist - are sufficiently satisfied. We can't then pretend to continue to doubt - to be entranced by the remaining uncertainties - if that is merely unsatisfied knowledge that is also held by us to be of no account.

So pragmatism includes the self in its world. Truth is defined relative to the wants of the observer.

Of course that then does bring in a new issue. We can distinguish between the highly subjective view and the highly objective one. Most folk think of "true truth" as being the kind of completely invariant knowledge that scientific-strength inquiry will bring.

But even this is very slippery. The invariances that pop out of science are general principles - ideally, the mathematical symmetries encoded in foundational equations. They seem rather ... abstract. Platonic even.

The material particulars of the world become numbers - more abstracta! - that we plug into the equations. The subjective observer is suddenly rediscovered at the heart of this maximally objectivised knowledge as the entity who must informally carry out an "act of measurement". To turn the phenomenal experience of the world into the values input into an equation is a tricky and un-formalisable step.

This is what strikes directly at the fantasy of deduction being somehow foundational. A valid syllogism is only ever going to be as truthful as the semantic cargo we plug into it.

But anyway, we have quantum theory now. Nature is really rubbing our noses in the impossibility of knowledge that is objectively true in the absence of an observer who actually does something to constrain the outcome with a choice.

We know the rationalist pipedream to be physically impossible in a foundational fashion.

Of course one could just get on with the business of science without any need for contemplating its foundations and why it works but this always strikes me as avoiding the most interesting questions.

Perhaps you're right. But it could also be a recipe for mass conformism. How does one tell the difference? — Perplexed

From experience, I can relate to you it is diametrically opposite. It happens thus when each person seeks their own path.

...the fact that he may not have had much (acknowledged) influence on the mainstream thus far says more about the mainstream than it does about Peirce. — Janus

The social reasons for his relative obscurity are well documented. And many factors combined.

It did not help that he was American in that era of European domination. It did not help that most of his best work was unpublished jottings and he never wrote a cannonical book. It did not help that he was overwhelmingly ambitious in the scale of his metaphysical project exactly when the mood was harshly against that. It did not help that he was also a real working scientist and approached philosophy from that direction. It did not help that he was plunged into great poverty and academic disgrace by having an affair - something scandalous in prim Harvard, which would have been laughed off back in Europe.

Personally, I thought Peirce was pretty cranky when I was first introduced to his stuff. Then I thought, well some of his ideas certainly seem to foretell of what we are discovering now. And then eventually I found that on any deep issue at all, Peirce seemed to have it covered.

Give it another 100 years. His due will be given.

And finish with a question: if there is a legitimate inductive logic, someone ought be able to set it out. What we have seen is some handwaving towards statistical analysis, but of course that is not induction. It has a base firmly in deductive mathematical logic. — Banno

Inductive logic: Every crow ever seen is black. Joe has a crow. Joe's crow is probably black.
Deductive logic: Every crow is black. Joe has a crow. Joe's crow is black.

It's set out now.

Statistical analysis is validated empirically and is therefore rooted in inductive logic. Primacy rests with inductive logic, not deductive. Deduction doesn't even tell us what crows are, black is, or who Joe is.

What other possible criteria for judgements of objectivity could we employ, other than intersubjective criteria? — Janus

I was not suggesting to look outside of intersubjective criteria, but rather that we may need a better method of assessing those criteria. Otherwise we could be in a position where I can objectify as true anything with which I can obtain consensus.

How would you know they are not "objectively true" though, other than by reliable observation and intersubjective corroboration? — Janus

My point was that those two things alone are not enough to confirm or deny objectivity.

I don't understand this question. Humans desire knowledge in order to accomplish practical ends, and they also desire knowledge just for its own sake. — Janus

In which case is the truth not an arbitrary product of the particular ends which we select?

I was not suggesting to look outside of intersubjective criteria, but rather that we may need a better method of assessing those criteria. Otherwise we could be in a position where I can objectify as true anything with which I can obtain consensus. — Perplexed

Universal consensus can come, through further observations, to be believed to have been mistaken. This happens mostly in science, though; not in regard to commonsense understandings of how to do things. When it comes to commonsense methodologies it is improvement instead of refutation.

My point was that those two things alone are not enough to confirm or deny objectivity. — Perplexed

What else do you imagine might come into play then?

In which case is the truth not an arbitrary product of the particular ends which we select? — Perplexed

It seems you are conflating truth with knowledge. The knowledge we have of how to do things is not "arbitrary"; it is based on workability. The knowledge-for-its-own-sake we have of how the world is is not arbitrary either: it is based on observation, conjecture, experiment and intersubjective corroboration.

So yes, this is not the good old fashioned truth of the transcendental kind - that which is true even despite there being no one around doing the knowing. — apokrisis

Was Kant's transcendentalism not rationally derived from the foundation of all possible forms of intuition? "Empirically real but transcendentally ideal"

It is truth defined in terms of the concerns of a knower. It is a search for justified answers to the point of exhaustion - which itself is in turn a search to the point that further details cease to matter. — apokrisis

Do we have to assume here that the concerns of the knower are paramount? How can we be justified in stating that further details cease to matter?

Was Kant's transcendentalism not rationally derived from the foundation of all possible forms of intuition? "Empirically real but transcendentally ideal" — Perplexed

That's a different issue. I was talking about the belief in mind-independent truth - the world as it would be experienced even when not being experienced. :)

Do we have to assume here that the concerns of the knower are paramount? How can we be justified in stating that further details cease to matter? — Perplexed

We know that further details cease to matter because they cease to make a difference. How we understand things to be has become sufficiently invariant.

So yes, we are the ones drawing that line. But also, we can do it in a methodical fashion. That is what the scientific method seeks to codify as best as it is able.

Collectively we get together and develop some standards of acceptable evidence. We can get pretty rigorous - like when insisting an experimental effect must pass five sigma significance to be publishable.

We know our inquiry has been exhaustive when we feel sufficiently exhausted by it!

If we are searching for our lost house keys, we might look in the bread bin twice or maybe even three times just to be sure. But much more is OCD. Doubt becomes pathological when it ceases to achieve a different result.

DEDUCTION

1. If it rains, the grass gets wet.
2. It rained.
3. Therefore, the grass is wet.

ABDUCTION

1. The grass is wet.
2. If it rains, the grass gets wet.
3. Therefore, it rained.

INDUCTION

1. It rained.
2. The grass is wet.
3. Therefore, if it rains, the grass gets wet.

Both deduction and induction rely on rules, which is to say higher level concepts, in order to arrive at their conclusions. This suggests to me that they are superficial forms of reasoning in relation to induction which operates on observations, which is to say lower level concepts. You cannot "promote" inductive argument to a deductive or an abductive argument. You can only "demote" it. This means you can turn it into a deductive or an abductive argument only by simplifying it. However, you can "promote" a deductive or an abductive argument to an inductive argument which means you make such arguments complex, that you enrich them with detail, when you turn them into an inductive argument. What this suggests to me is quite simply that . . . induction is fundamental.

Within the context of this post, the three different types of reasoning are defined narrowly to mean different ways of describing the process of arriving at our conclusions. Abduction and deduction are different from induction in that they rely on higher level concepts such as rules. This is what makes them simplistic in relation to induction. By relying on high level concepts, they get rid of a lot of detail. High level concepts = abstractions. Abstractions = simplifications of reality.

They are not equal in rank. Thus, they do not complement each other. Induction can do everything deduction and abduction can do and then some more but deduction and abduction can only do a subset of what induction can do.

So deduction and abduction are simpler than induction. There is one more thing. They are equally simplistic. Deduction is no more simplistic than abduction. This is if we take the definition of abduction to be what it is said to be. There is absolutely nothing complex about the following argument:

1. The grass is wet.
2. If it rains, the grass gets wet.
3. Therefore, it rained.

So what is the algorithm of abduction? You choose some observation (some "surprising fact") and you do so arbitrarily. You can choose any. It does not matter whether it is imaginary or real. Then you choose a conditional that is related to that observation. The conditional must be in the form "if something occurs, then the observation that you previously chose occurs". This something can be any observation of your choice (just like the first time.) Finally, in order for the conclusion to follow from the premises, and for the argument to be logically valid, the conclusion must be the unconditional part from the conditional in the premise #2 stated in the past tense. That's all. These are the rules of abduction. Very simple, right? Anyone can learn these rules and follow them.

I am sure people will say this is not abduction proper but merely a simplification of the process. Sure. What is missing? Oh, that the premises must be true? We need to add that rule? Okay, we'll add it. But wait a second, what exactly does that mean? It's rather vague, isn't it? What does it mean for a premise to be true? You have to define that rule first. And if you want, we can do it right now. Let's say we somehow manage to do it. Would that be enough? It would? Well, Peirce would disagree. If I remember correctly, Peirce revised the definition of abductive reasoning several times. Apparently, some additional rules were missing. Sure, we can add these rules too but would that be enough? Did Peirce ever arrive at a definition of abductive reasoning that he was satisfied with? No? Is abductive reasoning something that escapes definition? Is it like mystical phenomena? Simply impossible to define? Or is it merely so complex that it is difficult to define? Either way, this means we don't actually know what abductive reasoning is. We know some of its features but not all of them. And this means that these features could be anything. So what are we going to do?

This would be the argument that abduction is more complex than deduction it's just that our description of it cannot capture it. The problem with this argument is that we can say the same thing about deduction. If it looks simple, it's only because our description of it is simplistic. It is possible that deduction is infinitely complex and that it only appears to be simple because when we describe it we do so without taking into account all of its features (which would be impossible to do if it is infinitely complex.)

So there is nothing inherent to deduction that makes it simpler than abduction and nothing inherent to abduction that makes it more complex than deduction. According to the manner in which these concepts are defined in this post, they are of equal complexity (which, no matter how great, is always lower than that of induction.)

Another belief related to the concept of deduction that I have to assassinate is that deduction merely extracts knowledge that is contained within the premises. If that's true then it is also true about induction and any other patterned (i.e. rule-based) method of reasoning. Induction employs the same mechanism as deduction. There is fundamentally no difference between the two. But it's not true; it's not true that deduction merely extracts knowledge from the premises. I can easily come up with a complex mathematical expression the result of which was never known to me. Calculating the result of a mathematical expression does not simply mean recalling its result. It means inventing a result. We invent a result and then check to see if its relation to the past is appropriate (i.e. that it does not violate the rules.) Chess is deductive but how many of us actually understand its possibility space in its entirety? The myth that deduction is uncreative is perpetuated by Eastern thinkers (who no doubt suffer from inferiority complex.) Anyone who buys into it is being brainwashed.

One last thing I want to say about deduction is that it does not necessarily proceed from a general statement towards a specific statement. But then this depends on what is meant by "general statement". A general statement, I assume, has the form "all Xs are Ys". Such a statement is equivalent to a genral conditional "if P is X then P is Y". I say general conditional to mean that P is a varible which means it does not refer to anything in particular. An example of a general statement would thus be something like "all men are mortal" and an example of a general conditional would be something like "if P is man then P is mortal". Let's take a look at some examples.

The standard deductive argument:

1. All men are mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

A variation of that argument:

1. If P is a man then P is mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

A specific version of that argument:

1. If Socrates is a man then Socrates is mortal
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal

The last argument has no general statements. It also has no general conditionals. Instead, it has a specific conditional.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that induction is justified by its universal acceptance and seeming indispensability - apparently, on the general epistemic principle that universal acceptance and indispensability provide an ipso facto justification. But here is how this justification can be undermined.

A plausible account of our inductive instincts is our evolutionary history as creatures that emerged in a relatively orderly, stable environment. Our instincts were thus shaped by our past, since evolution is not forward-looking. As with other adaptations, they will serve us well, as long as things continue as they have throughout our evolutionary history. But, of course, making that assumption begs the very question: will things continue as they have in the past? (This counter-argument echoes the standard charge of circularity leveled on those who seek to justify induction by past successes.)

Of course one could just get on with the business of science without any need for contemplating its foundations and why it works but this always strikes me as avoiding the most interesting questions. — Perplexed

Well, the very fact that science gets along quite well with little or no metaphysics - and in particular, without ever needing to resolve the question of metaphysical determinism - is suggestive. Are such questions really meaningful, or are they spurious pseudo-questions that a conceptual analysis can dissolve?

But how can tell you're not just seeking whatever path happens to be favourable to you. i.e.. because it confirms your biases rather than has genuine merit.

It seems you are conflating truth with knowledge. The knowledge we have of how to do things is not "arbitrary"; it is based on workability. The knowledge-for-its-own-sake we have of how the world is is not arbitrary either: it is based on observation, conjecture, experiment and intersubjective corroboration. — Janus

In this definition, knowledge-for-own-sake would correspond to truth. However, this too seems to be based on workability. i.e. the way we chose to observe, conjecture, experiment and the method of interpretation of intersubjectve corroboration.

We know that further details cease to matter because they cease to make a difference. How we understand things to be has become sufficiently invariant. — apokrisis

Can we be sure that this hasn't happened simply because we've traversed a significant course in one particular direction and thus obscured the other possible paths?

SophistiCat, just to let you know that I haven't been notified for the past two replies that you have sent me.

Well, the very fact that science gets along quite well with little or no metaphysics - and in particular, without ever needing to resolve the question of metaphysical determinism - is suggestive. Are such questions really meaningful, or are they spurious pseudo-questions that a conceptual analysis can dissolve? — SophistiCat

One could imagine any number of self contained systems that can articulate itself without the need for external verification but sooner or later its relationship to other fields of endeavour must come into question. Can you give any further details of such a conceptual analysis? Perhaps this would extend beyond the boundaries of science.

But how can tell you're not just seeking whatever path happens to be favourable to you. i.e.. because it confirms your biases rather than has genuine merit. — Perplexed

There is no intellectual way that I know of. It's more about the feeling that it brings to you. Long periods of sadness are usually an indication that a change in direction is necessary in life.