MS 292-295 (1906) - Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism

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πλ 1 Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmatism

Come, reader, let us construct a diagram to illustrate the general course of thought. "Why do that when the thought itself is present to us?" Such, substantially, has been the objection raised by more than one or two superior intelligences, among them by an eminent General. Recluse that I am I was not ready with the counter-question, which should have been, "General, you make of use of maps during a campaign, I believe. Why do you so, when the country they represent is right there?" Thereupon, had he replied, that he found details in the maps that were not "right there", but were in the enemy's lines, I should have pressed the question, " Am I to understand, then, that if you were thoroughly and perfectly familiar [...]

Last edit over 3 years ago by Jannyp
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πλ 2

with the country, no man of it would ever be of the slightest use to you in laying out your detailed plans? To that he must have rejoined, "I do not say that because I might wish to stick in pins in order to trace out and study the daily changes of the situations." To that, again, my surrejoinder should have been, "Well, General, that precisely corresponds to the advantage of a diagram of the course of thought. Indeed, just there is the advantage of diagrams in general. Namely, one can make exact experiments upon diagrams, and look out for unintended change thereby brought about in the relations of different parts of the diagram to one another. These operations in reasoning take the place of the experiments upon real things that one performs in chemical and physical research. Chemists have sometimes described

Last edit over 3 years ago by Jannyp
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πλ 3 experimentation as putting questions to "nature," experiments upon diagrams are questions not to the nature of the relations concerned." Maybe, the general would suggest that there is a good deal of difference between experiments like the chemists, which are trials made upon the very substance whose behavior is in question, and experiments made upon diagrams, which has no real connexion with the things the diagrams represent. The proper response to that and the only proper one making a point that a novice in logic would be pretty sure to miss, would be "You are entirely right in saying that the chemist experiments upon the very object under investigation, although, after the experiment is done, the particular sample operated upon may be thrown away, as having no further

Last edit almost 4 years ago by RAMJu
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πλ 4 no futher interest. For it is not the particular sample that the chemist is investigating it is the molecular structure. Now he is already in possession of overwhelming evidence that all samples of the same molecular structure react chemically in exactly the same way. The object of the chemist's investigation, that which he experiments upon, that to which his question put to nature relates, in the molecular structure and this has in all samples as complete an identity as it belongs to molecular structure to posses. Accordingly he does as you say experiment upon the very object under investigation. But if you stop a moment to consider it, you will see that you tripped in saying that it is otherwise with experiments made upon diagrams. For what is here the object of investigation? It

Last edit over 5 years ago by hniehus1
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πλ 5 is the form of a relation. Now this form of relation is the very form of the relation between the two corrisponding parts of the diagram. For example, let F, and F2 be the two distances of the two foci of a lens from the lens. Then,

1 + 1 = 1 F F2 F0

This equation is a diagram of the form of the relation between the focal distances and the principal focal distance; two foci, and the conventions of algebra, [Dr?] in [conjunction?] with the writing of the equation, establish a relation between the very letters F1, F2, F3, regardless of their significance, the form of which relation is the very same as the form of the relation between the three focal distances that these letters denote. This is a proposition quite beyond dispute. Thus, this

Last edit over 5 years ago by hniehus1
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