[MD] humpty dumpty

[MarshaV]

Hello Arlo,

The paper didn't really work for me. I had read it before, and it is interesting with its reference to "habit of mind", but there is more in it that doesn't sit right.

"Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else.
...

"The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry, though it must be admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation."

     (Peirce, Charles S., 'The Fixation of Belief)

Marsha:
These statements make no sense to me.  I am not so _uncomfortable_ with doubt, and I don't see that inquiry maps to the MoQ.  I just don't see it.  I did, though, find the method of authority quite distasteful and all too familiar.  

 Perhaps if you read this paper by Jonah Winters addressing Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika you'll find a different way of considering 'beliefs'.    


http://bahai-library.com/winters_nagarjuna 
 

Marsha




On Jul 26, 2012, at 2:47 PM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:

> [Marsha]
> By dropping off the question's context between conflicting beliefs (static patterns of value), you've changed the topic to Pierce's addressing 'belief' and 'doubt'.  I really meant to be addressing static patterns and not believing versus doubting.  I should have been clearer in my initial post.  
> 
> [Arlo]
> The essay is larger than belief/doubt, but about 'conflicting' ways of fixing belief (Peirce orders them hierarchically). Do we 'fix' our beliefs on the basis of what we are told (authority), by reason (a priori), to satisfy a need that overrides alternate options (tenacity), by inquiry and alignment with experience (science). This particular essay does not map 1-1 to Pirsig's writings, but I think it leans towards his 'inquiry' being aligned with Pragmatism/James and hence a criticism of S/O thinking ('inquiry', for Peirce, was not a pursuit of Truth but a method for aligning activity and experience), where 'a priori' (reason) maps as the S/O view, 'authority' as social and 'tenacity' (by virtue of its psychological comforting) to (near-) 'biological'.
> 
> Maybe a "satisfies" map like:
> Inquiry - intellectual level (MOQ)
> Reason - intellectual level (S/O)
> Authority - social level
> Tenacity - biological level(ish).
> 
> The inorganic level has no mapping here, but as I read more about biosemiosis/cybersemiotics (just getting into these) maybe something will jump out.
> 
> Anyway, if this still misses what you are asking, I apologize.
> 
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