First couple sections of the current draft of my exegesis of the first paragraph of section III of C.S. Peirce's 1878 "How to Make Our Ideas Clear"
A Reader’s Guide to the First Paragraph of Section III of C.S. Peirce’s “How to Make Our Ideas Clear”
1: Introduction
Charles Sanders Peirce’s “How To Make Our Ideas Clear” is the second article in a five-article series entitled The Logic of Science which appeared in 1877/1878 in The Popular Science Monthly. The first two articles of Peirce’s series are foundational articles in American Pragmatism1: “The Fixation of Belief” (FOB, 1877) and “How To Make Our Ideas Clear” (HTM, 1878). Peirce often moves very quickly in these articles, often making very sweeping and dismissive statements about the history of logic and philosophy and while Peirce can be quite clear when he wants to, he can also be extremely indirect when he wants to. This article is an exegesis of the extremely long first paragraph of section III (FP3) of HTM wherein Peirce covers a lot of ground and is also quite indirect. In other words, I will not argue that Peirce is right or wrong in the first paragraph of section III (FP3) but instead I will unpack and attempt to make explicit. The remainder of this introduction will provide a few more details about FOB and HTM before stepping through FP3 very slowly.
FOB
In FOB, C.S. Peirce (CSP) presents four methods of “the settlement of opinion”. In other words: methods of forming beliefs (in the parlance of our times). Peirce’s four methods of settling opinion (aka fixing belief, alleviating doubt, settling doubt) are: tenacity, authority, a priori, science. There is an implicit hierarchy in this order and an implication that the dominance of each has superseded the last over history. Tenacity is rudimentary. Science is meticulous.
A second and equally influential idea in FOB is that doubts disturb beliefs. Belief is logically and temporally prior to doubt and beliefs are what remain when doubt is assuaged. Doubt is an irritation and we instinctively strive to eliminate or ameliorate doubt as we would strive to alleviate pain or an itch. CSP’s is a very psychologistic “natural drive” account of doubt which hearkens back to at least the sentimentalists Adam Smith and Francis Hutcheson and is echoed again later in Sigmund Freud and B.F. Skinner. A consideration/question becomes a belief when it falls out of thinking and is assumed—it works (for now). Peirce would also say that beliefs are evident in acts, the facts that actually make a difference.
HTM
In HTM Peirce distinguishes the third grade of clearness of conception from the two grades that logicians have hitherto been concerned with. HTM has four sections and in section I Peirce discusses these first two grades of clearness: clearness and distinctness, as discussed by both Descartes2 and Liebniz3.
1GC and 2GC
Peirce attributes the first and second degrees of clearness to the “logicians”, by which he means the likes of Descartes and Leibniz. Peirce sums up this first grade that it “only amounts to a subjective feeling of mastery which may be entirely mistaken… and nothing more than such a familiarity with an idea… a small merit” (ital. mine). The first grade of clearness can be easily grasped through a fairly common phrase: I know it when I see it. This means that I can identify instances and make judgements, yet I may not have precise criteria for doing so. I am operating on an implicit and unreflective conception. We can be “entirely mistaken” about our 1GC conceptions.
For an everyday example, when I take walks I encounter many people with (canine) companions. These companions are distinct particular organisms with their own numerically distinct material substrate and their own life and experience. And there is also something that makes these companions alike and distinct from each other and their owners, who are all analogously alike. But I don’t need to have a precise definition of ‘dog’ and ‘human’ to be able to tell one from another; we read this intuitively out of our experience. We make these judgements—that these are two very different types of organisms and yet they are all particulars of a kind—immediately and without reflection. Even rats can distinguish between particulars of different species. 4
Thus, 1GC is a kind of certitude, i.e. ordinary unreflective certitude—intuitive judgements. Rephrased in terms of beliefs: if you are certain, you believe, but you need not be certain to believe. Afterwards you can realize you were wrong, but you aren’t when you are certain. Thus, you can be less than certain of your beliefs. But if you entertain the question what is that something that makes humans humans and dogs dogs? then your previously intuitive certainty is disturbed. To answer this question we must formulate a universal description of dogs to the limit of my ability to do so adequately. The many particular dogs have something in common that is different from the commonality between the people. History records Plato and Aristotle as the first two to take positions on this question. Plato said that the something that the particulars have in common is above and beyond the particulars in an relatively ethereal realm. Aristotle said it isn’t above and beyond, but within the particulars.
The second grade of clearness (2GC) is distinctness and is an answer to the above question: what is that something that makes humans humans and dogs dogs? In other words, “when we can give a precise definition of [something] in abstract terms” (CP 5.390, HTM). Definitions are necessary and sufficient conditions with universal scope.5 More particularly, definitions attempt to formulate a universal statement using the common copula in your respective language—(all) vixens are female foxes.6 What is a bachelor? In English the statement is of the form: X is/are Y (where Y can be individually necessary and only jointly sufficient conditions). 2GC definitions such as this are also called essential definitions; they are formulations of the essence that all the particulars have in common. Going back to Plato and Aristotle again, either this essence is above and beyond and singular or else it is many and particular.
1GC/2GC Conclusion
At a glance I can tell that these two organisms walking down the street are different kinds of organisms. I can see another pair with the same disparity coming the other way down the street. I conclude that these are general types. I may not be able to give you a precise statement of the criteria distinguishing the two, this is 1GC ordinary certitude. This ordinary certitude can turn out to be wrong, but at the time you were certain.
Essence is a term with a history in philosophy. Essence is what the distinct particulars share and is what a definition attempts to express in words. It is intuitively obvious that dogs and humans are different and all these very distinct walking companions are of the same kind. People clearly belong to a very different type of organism from dogs. We don’t need to have an essential definition to make this judgment.
I think Peirce might say that 1GC and 2GC are susceptible to bad metaphysics. By bad metaphysics, I mean metaphysics that hinders further investigation—that’s just the way it is and we shouldn’t pursue the matter further—dogmatic metaphysics. These universal statements using the common copula of necessarily and sufficient conditions provide a feigned objectivity. We probe our intuitions and attempt to step back and view the situation from nowhere, and it feels like we have reached objectivity and universality. The impression of 1GC and 2GC can be very cunning and Peirce says we are well overdue for a higher grade of clearness.
3GC
Peirce doesn’t lodge any particular complaints against 1GC and 2GC, but Peirce says that they have long proved to be inadequate. Peirce implies that this higher grade has existed for some time, but logicians have failed to recognize it as a distinct grade of clearness. Section II of HTM presents the third grade of clearness of conception and II culminates in the last sentence with Peirce’s famous pragmatic maxim (PM) : “Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.” The third grade of clearness (3GC) is a statement of just the effects—the facts.
Rather than try to parse what PM means, here are some examples Peirce gives. Hardness is when something is difficult to scratch. Weight is when things fall in the absence of an opposing force. My favorite examples is Peirce’s pragmatic definition of ‘lithium’. In this passage, he begins with a 2GC definition, followed by the 3GC definition:
If you look into a textbook of chemistry for a definition of lithium, you may be told that it is that element whose atomic weight is 7 very nearly. But if the author has a more logical mind he will tell you that if you search among minerals that are vitreous, translucent, grey or white, very hard, brittle, and insoluble, for one which imparts a crimson tinge to an unluminous flame, this mineral being triturated with lime or witherite rats-bane, and then fused, can be partly dissolved in muriatic acid; and if this solution be evaporated, and the residue be extracted with sulphuric acid, and duly purified, it can be converted by ordinary methods into a chloride, which being obtained in the solid state, fused, and electrolyzed with half a dozen powerful cells, will yield a globule of a pinkish silvery metal that will float on gasolene; and the material of that is a specimen of lithium. (CP 2.330)
From these examples it is clear that 3GC is a kind of definition. 1GC is more immediate than a definition, but 2GC is the classic conception of an essential definition. 3GC is a more advanced kind of definition. The 3GC definition of lithium is a description of the process of isolating lithium in a laboratory and it is in as fine detail as the language allows and you are allowed to coin new words. The 2GC definition of lithium is “that element whose atomic weight is 7”. Scientific procedure is clearly the paradigm for Peirce, but he considers some more ordinary conceptions like hardness and abstract metaphysical like free will, so Peirce is not limiting it to technical scientific distinctions.
In this spirit, consider the common go to examples of bachelors and vixen. The 3GC definition of a vixen would be a definitive test for determining whether a given specimen is a female fox. The 3GC definition of a bachelor is similar: the test for maleness and a name check of every marriage database in the world and/or the personal attestation of eternal union between individuals.
The unspoken conclusion of FOB and HTM is that CSP is presenting the true essence of science and precision thinking. CSP doesn’t claim to be establishing new ground; he is just describing what hasn’t been isolated but already occurs and gives it a name. Perhaps there are or will be higher grades that we haven’t reached or found the conceptional facility to isolate, but it is impossible to say now.
As Peirce and James admit, pragmatism is not new. People have been doing it from time immemorial. Here I am talking about the pragmatism of the American philosophical tradition.
Meditations on First Philosophy
New Essays on Human Understanding
Frogs and snakes don’t seem to have much distinction. They will try to eat anything that enters their vision.
‘All men are mortal.’ is not a definition because not all mortals are men. When the statement can be read in either order without loss of exclusion or including too much or little.
Using the copula in this way changes the perspective of the statement to being “from nowhere”, applying universally.