[FRIAM] abduction and casuistry

[Prof David West]

perhaps relevant to Nicks question:

1. a secondary definition of casuistry is "resolving moral problems by application of theoretical rules." 

2. A Jesuit practice, "reform of the individual," seems to incorporate a sense (not definition) of "individual" consistent with Duns Scotus' concept of haecciety and, because Peirce used that term in his work, to explain what he meant by the individual, there seems to be a thread to medieval Catholicism.

3. Jesuit values, e.g. "Respect For The World, Its History And Mystery" and especially, Learning From Experience lead to philosophical thought that is not contradictory to Peircian notions of experience.

4. But, Jesuits are dualists, not in the objective world / experience of it sense (there they seem to be quite close to Peirce) but in the sense that TRUTH can come, not just from experience (and science) but from revelation - the direct word of God.

5. Jesuits, among many others (Galileo), often found themselves at odds with the Church over the issue of whether or not a thing could be true in philosophy but not in theology, or vice versa. The Jesuits focused on truth in philosophy and their method for identifying that truth would, again, not be incompatible with Peirce. So only point four would be contrary to Peirce's ideas.

6. No intellectual lineage is evident from any Jesuit philosopher and Charles Sanders.

davew


On Tue, Aug 20, 2019, at 9:25 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Hi, all,

> 

> Once you become aware of abduction as a mental operation, you start to see it everywhere. I saw it in Malcom Gladwell’s three part series ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-standard-case/id1119389968?i=1000444756825; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-rocks-taxonomy/id1119389968?i=1000445285031; https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/descend-into-the-particular/id1119389968?i=1000445850049)on Jesuitical casuistry. I always thought of casuistry as a form of sophistry or hypocrisy, but apparently it began is as method for incorporating the new experiences that global travel brought to the 16th Century Catholic World. As an inquiry into the identity of a particular case, it looks a lot like abduction to me. Because many of you live in NM, you may take particular interest in the third episode, which presents an analysis of the Angelo Navarro shooting by Albuquerque police. Was it case of a violent man charging the police with a weapon? Or was it the case of a racially motivated firing squad of unarmed men by heavily armed police? Or, ….? You would get a lot of benefit from just listening to this one episode, but to fully understand its philosophical impact, you need the other two to set the context.

> 

> Enjoy. Or not.

> 

> Nick 

> 

> P. S., Does anybody know anything about the relation between Peirce and the Jesuits? 

> 

> Nicholas S. Thompson

> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

> Clark University

> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

> 

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