Post 3

Family history
1) After a talk with my mom I found a few interesting things about my family’s roots and the life they lead so long ago. I was told that my great grandmother Tollina Hanson grew up in Norway in the late 19th century around the time the early pragmatist were doing their thing here in America. She grew up as the youngest in a family of thirteen kids in a small town in norweigh. Their family was big and their father would have had quite a tough time feeding them if it wasn’t for the fact that he was the town butcher. I was told that both Tollina's parent were illiterate and my mom explained to me this was very common among poorer families. I can imagine the literacy rate may have been pretty low in America at the time as well although of course the two areas were in very different stages of development with the industrial revolution in full force in the states at the time. The development of industry had an impact though in Norway at the time. Industy output had began to overtake agricultural outpuit in effect insighting a changing dynamic in socity. Out of this rose a new social class, neigboors, and politics in a more condensed townships in which my ancestors took part. My great grandmother came over to the states at 16 just before the turn of the century in fear being left alone, as her brother, the second youngest came over with his logtime girlfriend. They went through Elise Island and eventually settled up in Massachusetts where most of my family lives now. I know this may not have particular bearing on American society at the time but think it is relevant in representing the changing dynamic of America at the time with the emergence of a more industrialized nation and the influx of immigrants. The reasoning for coming here must have been so diverse and unique for each person their differing ambitions talents took part in shaping american society at the time.

Emerson
2) One should not strive to be consistent in day to day action and thought. Emerson puts no weight in what others think of you. Reverence for past act or word is debilitating in the development of self and of self reliance. People carry the weight of their past impressions in to each new situation and inquiry this is painfully limiting to individual thought. We should not fear contradiction in our previous appearances to others or to our own thought. There is nothing worse for even the best are may as well stare at shadows if they fear contradiction. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”(38 Sturh) This hobgoblin Emerson depicts is the burden of past experience and being unable to break free from it to look and inquire in a new way and search for truth without limit. Consistency in thought and principle in ones life is not a bad thing for Emerson. There is a distinction is between foolish and wise consistency but he does not really explain the difference directly. Emerson writes on what you think now and tomorrow. You should speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradicts everything you said today. For him it is far greater sin to hold back than to contradict yourself in thought and practice. This to me echoes Empedocles conception of change. The world is in constant flux the only real principle is change. I think this applies to thoughts and actions as well without following every path of inquiry with conviction and determination I think great thinkers would have not accomplished what they did. There is variation in thought and inquiry is a daily changing process it can be a great limitation to avoid new very different ideas.


In the beginning and throughout his essay on self reliance the issue of conformity lay at the forefront. This is closely related to the consistency and the hobgoblin example. He stresses with the utmost importance the need for individuality and not conforming mindlessly to the standards, institutions, and practices of society. Holding strong to ones convictions whatever they may be is the only way to do this. He says earlier 29 “There is a point in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him through his own toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till” . This sentiment applies not only to the development of original thought I think but even to stance on you’re own experience. It reminded me a lot of Hamilton Holt and Dewey’s influence on his thought regarding education. This is a movement away from past knowledge and imitation is a true way to develop and move towards originality and individuality. It is very philosophical and reminds me of the value of philosophical education. That stress on argumentation and constantly being subject to different views and answers to questions where one must move forward and decide for yourself the line of argumentation to follow. Instead of buying into one it requires you to take the views of the past not as answers but a method and stimulus for further inquiry in the present. Emerson I think was all about this kind of thinking and it is ever present in Self-reliance (if the title isn’t a dead give away). He is all for thinking against the grain, why is this it because there is truth out there to be found and as he explains in detail society doesn’t seem to have it. The minds of the public change as easily and as often as the breeze and propaganda spread by the media is part of the problem. His thinking aligned with the belief that there is a correspondence of truth and that can reveal itself but in order to find it you’re thought cant just be pushed in one direction by the traditions of society and history. For one to truly be strong in there conviction and to think against the grain they need to be more then an individual thinker their action needs to mirror their values and philosophical theory. Emerson puts this most pragmatic unification in better worlds then I can…

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”(29 Sturh)

Pierce
3) Descartes foundationalism was a subject of much criticism for Pierce and had implications relating directly to pragmatism. Descartes was so sure that he had discovered infallible knowledge of his own existence while it seems giving up the entire outside world including his own body in the process. Pierce argues against any real conception of absolute truth being attainable. Though Pierce accepts much of the experience we gain from the world is from signs not all of it is. Trying to develop a foundation while giving up reality of external stimuli seems wrong. He is still attached to empiricism in a strong way and unwilling to give up the world for the promise of solid footing, this is his view on semiotics.
Descartes went wrong in asserting this foundation as infallible i.e. cogito eros sum. This human project Pierce argues has been undertaken in failed attempts by authoritative scriptural interpretation and instead Descartes project only moves the process from external to internal. Descartes error is in the rejection of all knowledge that isn’t certain knowledge. There is a big difference between the being unable to attain infallible knowledge and out rightly asserting that we can have no knowledge. So in this critique Pierce moves away from the infallibility that Descartes held so highly and from modern empiricism and skepticism as well. Pierce basically argues that we may be able to obtain only knowledge of x when we seek to gain that of x, y, and z and if idealization and approximation are all that can be obtained this effort should be made to further overall understanding in our project of inquiry. The singular human conscious is insufficient grounding to provide sufficient for knowledge This seems to me in direct relation to the pragmatic epistemological stance of fallibalism. He takes and accepts the limits of our cognitive capabilities and assert still that we have the ability to create approximate maps of the world in our thought. The goal is instrumental coherence of thought and a process that will lead to better understanding and one that will prove most useful in the endeavourer.
The difference between mapping and blue print is the later suggests a beginning but the former trips to be taken into unmapped areas of inquiry. What Descartes was trying to do was create the foundation, the blue print. In Pierces rejection he leads more to a conception of mapping or a guideline for correcting past and future inquiry instead of the Cartesian limiting case of finding a true beginning point. Certainty aside there is the possibility of approximate knowledge the chance that we may be wrong does not afford the drastic position of Cartesian foundationalism. Stur explains how his views are essentially pragmatic in that the focus now shifts from origins to outcomes and towards a method of inquiry. The outcomes are pragmatic the utmost sense. And methodological shift employs one with the tools for comparative inquiry and the ability to really approach and compare theory in a scientific manner. This acquisition of knowledge is a journey in itself and not the building of an edifice. He seeks to employ the tools to learn from recognize and correct our mistakes along the way instead of searching for starting point. This shifts the conception of knowledge in a different direction. Hopefully one that Pierce actually works out but I haven’t been exposed to his theory enough to know if he makes a true attempt at this and is truly pragmatic in his critique or whether it stands as just that a critique and nothing more.
Secondly another central conception in pierces philosophy is phenemology. In the most basic sense phenomology is the study of the natural external phenomena of the natural world. This study can be attributed to the hard sciences as will as philosophy. Where philosophy differs fro the sciences is it unaided inquiry into phenomological study. The philosopher’s tools of inquiry are the objects of direct experience. For Pierce he is concerned with the categories and method of inquiry into phenomena of conscious thought. Sturh explains that he goes to great lengths in his attempt to categorize internal phenomena. He aims are to incorporate scientific objectivity and tight methodology as a guide and measure of philosophical inquiry. He believed that the grounding for philosophical inquiry were of course the objects of every day experience. For him this was a way to approach the familiar experience in a new way to raise to re raise questions in a new light from a new direction. Pragmatically this makes a lot of sense and ties into the empiricist sort of approach that he has maintained. These questions bear fruitful inquiry and answers when reexamined. There is no end to inquiry and once a corner has been reached in this sort of inquiry there are always more detail to uncover new approach in finding a coherent set of beliefs or a better map on route to knowledge.