[FRIAM] Peirce & Postmordernism

[Prof David West]

Peirce:

"To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency—by something upon which our thinking has no effect. ... Such is  the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion."

The above quote is a context from which I am about to take words and ask questions. Those more familiar with the Peirce corpus in toto must admonish me if I am being unfair, i.e. this quote is an outlier or an exception to Peirce in general.

1- If "There are Real things, upon which our thinking has no effect," and there are"beliefs"" and "doubts" and "reasoning" that are, arguably, affected by our thoughts:
  a. Is Peirce a dualist? A Cartesian dualist that distinguishes between an external permanency and internal thought?
  b. Are beliefs, doubts, reasoning 'Real things'?

2- Quantum physics has an "observer problem" that seems to imply that the the "characters of Real things" are, in fact, affected by human thinking, or, at least, human attention."
  a. Are there 'Real things'?

3- Weak postmodern objection: all beliefs and all methods are determined by the human, technically the social, and there is no objective criteria by which to give privilege over one human determined method/belief over another..
  a. Does Peirce have grounds to privilege Reason over other methods/beliefs, e.g.  'meditation', 'faith'?

4- Stronger postmodern objection: "the laws of perception," [the rules of] reasoning," "sufficient experience," and "reason enough," taken together, constrain the possible 'solution space' too severely; the 'one [provisionally] True conclusion" is foregone — a product of the process, not congruence with any "external permanency."
  a. What are the "laws" that govern how the Real affects our senses?
  b. What are the "laws of perception?"
  c. Does "sufficient experience" and "reason enough" mandate a narrow, and intolerant, orthodoxy?

davew