[FRIAM] IS: "...useful". WAS:: whackadoodles go mainstream!

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Glen, 

 

I would love to take this

 

Things that help me construct metal, shitting ducks are useful.

 

To the Pragmatism chat-site and watch it light up.  But you have taught me that that would be trolling, and I believe that trolling is an unequivocally Bad Thing, so I won’t.  

 

Now, I am going to poke Eric Charles with it tho, by saying that THIS is what William James means by pragmatism.  He will say that I am an idiot!  (Stipulated)  He may even begin his letter with, “Listen, Bucko!”  (So I suppose I AM trolling Eric.)  But what he will say will be interesting.  

 

This is part of argument, that has been going on for weeks in which I am trying to get Eric to alter the Pragmatic Maxim, a thesis about the meaning of concepts, as follows, 

 

Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical practicial bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.

 

Because it’s inventor, Peirce, would not have tolerated a definition of “useful” in terms of “making metal ducks that shit,” and William James would have.  Peirce was concerned not with practical effects generally but with those effects that are heuristically practical, ie scientific practices, etc., in the broadest sense.  (Hence my argument with Dave.)  

 

Nick 

 

 

Nick 

 

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2020 1:04 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] IS: "...useful". WAS:: whackadoodles go mainstream!

 

Sure, I'll bite, since I'm waiting for criticism of a recent status report.

 

My naïve first attempt is to say that which is useful is that which *I* can use to make things do what I want them to do. E.g. program a computer to output data with a particular quality. In comparing 1) the attribution of qualities of the world to a mysterious god to 2) picking apart the features of the world and identifying ways to manipulate them, then it seems clear to me the latter helps me manipulate the world more than the former.

 

Even *if* I were trying to be a cult leader, I think I'd find more success being a Dr. Oz (or Gwyneth Paltrow or Wim Hoff) than a Reverend Moon. Manipulating the world through the *mediation* of a huge swath of morons seems difficult *if* your targets are particular outcomes. Blanket, vague "burn it down" or "trend toward True" manipulation is *not* what I would deem useful. Making a metal duck that shits is the type of thing I'm after. Things that help me construct metal, shitting ducks are useful.

 

 

On 4/20/20 11:51 AM,  <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:

> If ever you wanted to explore what you meant by "useful" in your message below, I am your man.  

> 

> Such a discussion would get at the soul of pragmatism,  the war between Peirce and his benefactor William James, and my war with Eric Charles concerning whether we should talk not about the practical consequences of our conceptions but about their "practicial" consequence, i.e., their consequences for practices of discovery.  

 

--

☣ uǝlƃ

 

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