[FRIAM] Peirce's "What Pragmatism is."

[uǝlƃ ☣]

OK.  It's interesting that you, Eric, start your post making the same claim (that I cannot doubt everything) and repeating Peirce's criticism that we may pretend to doubt (or doubt some few things, against a system in which we largely believe).  Yet you go on to say that you think Peirce is discussing "gradations of certainty", things that are more doubted, less doubted, more believed, less believed.

How do I reconcile these two seemingly contradicting suggestions.  If we could take the average certainty of the average belief in the average person, we might be able to say that Person X has less overall certainty than Person Y.  And if we can establish a partial order like that, then we could posit a Person P who doubts more than any other person.  (Or a Person Q who believes more than any other person.)  Why not say Person P "doubts everything"?  Why make the indefensible assumption that even Person P *must* hold some things with 100% certainty?

To make my question clearer, let me cite 2 more examples: 1) saccade (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade) and 2) control strategies for an inverted pendulum.  Rather than pontificate on how these examples relate, I'll simply skip to the end. 8^)  It's difficult to read Peirce's metaphysics charitably, given his cartoonish conception of reality.  But if I do so, I would posit that the *tightness* of a given control loop indicates certainty.  *Tight* loops imply significant doubt and *loose* loops imply significant belief. And every behavior we have engages control loops of one kind or another.

Why would we claim what Peirce claims in "What is Pragmatism?", that there must be some things without a control loop at all? ... or with such a loose control loop that it may never iterate in one's lifetime?  Why not simply admit the truth up front and allow that we doubt all things to some extent, even those things we (think we) believe to our core?

Another philosopher suggested we turn Peirce's conception of belief on its head: That those of you who *say* you believe some thing are only *pretending* to believe that thing. When pressed, you will admit that you doubt even your most closely held beliefs. Although some of us might be resistant to things like hypnosis, my guess is none of us is completely immune to the evolution (or even hijacking) of our beliefs.  And there seems to be plenty of real data to back up this way of thinking (and little data to back up what Peirce seems to be saying, at least in this essay).

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☣ uǝlƃ