Tomis Kapitan

Peirce and the Autonomy of Abductive Reasoning

Essential to Peirces distinction among three kinds of reasoning, deduction, induction and abduction, is the claim that each is correlated to a unique species of validity irreducible to that of the others. In particular, abductive validity cannot be analyzed in either deductive or inductive terms, a consequence of considerable importance for the logical and epistemological scrutiny of scientific methods. But when the full structure of abductive argumentation — as viewed by the mature Peirce — is clarified, every inferential step in the process can be seen to dissolve into familiar forms of deductive and inductive reasoning. Specifically, the final stage is a special type of practical inference which, if correct, is deductively valid, while the creative phase, surprisingly, is not inferential at all. In neither is abduction a type of inference to the best explanation. The result is a major reassessment of the relevance of Peirces views to contemporary methodological studies.

Deliberation and the Presumption of Open Alternatives

By deliberation we understand practical reasoning with an end in view of choosing some course of action. Integral to it is the agents sense of alternative possibilities, that is, of two or more courses of action he presumes are open for him to undertake or not. Such acts may not actually be open in the sense that the deliberator would do them were he to so intend, but it is evident that he assumes each to be so. One deliberates only by taking it for granted that both performing and refraining from any of the acts under consideration are possible for one, and that which is to be selected is something entirely up to oneself. What is it for a course of action to be presumed as open, or for several courses of action to present themselves as a range of open alternatives? Answering these questions is essential for an understanding of deliberation and choice and, indeed, for the entire issue of free will and responsibility. According to one common view, a deliberator takes the considered options to be open only by assuming he is free to undertake any of them and, consequently, that whichever he does undertake is, as yet, a wholly undetermined matter. Built into the structure of deliberation, on this theory, is an indeterministic bias relative to which any deliberator with deterministic beliefs is either inconsistent or condemned to a fatalistic limbo. An unmistakable challenge is thereby posed: is there an alternative conception of the presuppositions underlying deliberation more congenial to a deterministic perspective yet adequate to the data? Convinced that there is, I develop a partial account of deliberation which, though highly similar to the aforementioned view, diverges at a critical juncture.

The Incompatibility of Omniscience and Intentional Action: A Reply to David P. Hunt

In ‘Omniprescient Agency’ ( Religious Studies 28, 1992) David P. Hunt challenges an argument against the possibility of an omniscient agent. The argument – my own in ‘Agency and Omniscience’ ( Religious Studies 27, 1991) – assumes that an agent is a being capable of intentional action, where, minimally, an action is intentional only if it is caused, in part, by the agents intending. The latter, I claimed, is governed by a psychological principle of ‘least effort’, namely, that no one intends without antecedently feeling that (i) deliberate effort is needed to achieve desired goals, (ii) such effort has a chance of success, and (iii) it is yet contingent whether the effort will be expended and the goals realized. The goals can be anything from immediate intentional doings, tryings or basic actions, to remote and perhaps unlikely consequences of actions, e.g. global justice. The thrust of the principle is that it would be impossible for a wholly rational self-aware agent to intend without a background presumption of an open future as concerns the desired state and the means to it. But this presumption embodies a sense of contingency which, in turn, requires an acknowledged ignorance about what the future holds, otherwise the future would appear closed relative to present knowledge with the desired state presented as either guaranteed (necessary) or ruled out (impossible). Regardless whether this self-directed attitude is accurate, it follows that intentional action precludes complete knowledge of ones present and future. Consequently, no omniscient or omniprescient being can be an agent.

Ability and cognition: A defense of compatibilism

By using predicate and sentential operators to express the practical modalities -ability, control, openness, etc. -Peter van Inwagen, Carl Ginet, and others have given new life to a fatalistic argument against compatibilism. But the standard versions of the argument employ principles concerning the closure of the modalities under relations of consequence which are open to doubt. In particular, since an agent is not able to accomplish something without having a conception of how to do so, hence, a conception of what is to be accomplished, then the usual forms of closure cannot be sustained. Those closure principles that can be sanctioned, moreover, are too weak to generate the anti-compatibilist argument.

On the concept of material consequence

Everyday reasoning is replete with arguments which, though not logically valid, nonetheless harbor a measure of credibility in their own right. Here the claim that such arguments force us to acknowledge material validity, in addition to logical validity, is advanced, and criteria that attempt to unpack this concept are examined in detail. Of special concern is the effort to model these criteria on explications of logical validity that rely on notions of substitutivity and logical form. It is argued, however, that such a parallel is not easily located and that it is uncertain that a construal of material validity can be fashioned after traditional accounts of logical validity. Attention is also given to the topics of enthymemes and to the proper domain of logic.

On Depicting Indexical Reference

According to Hector-Neri Castaneda, indexical reference is our most basic means of identifying the objects and events that we experience and think about. Its tokens reveal our own part in the process by denoting what are “referred to as items present in experience” (Castaneda 1981:285-286). If you hear me say, “Take that box over there and set it next to this box here”, you learn something about my orientation towards the referents in a way that is not conveyed by, “Take the red box and set it next to the blue box”. My indexical tokens express what they do, not only because they issue from a unique spatio-temporal perspective that I happen to occupy, but also because they reflect my encounter with referents that are differently situated in that perspective. From your perspective, my here might be your there, my you your she, and, within my own perspective, a this differs from a that, and one this diverges from another. Encounter and orientation within a perspective are the essential ingredients in indexical identification without which particular ‘this’s, ‘that’s, ‘then’s, ‘here’s, and ‘beyond’s would be denuded of individuating prowess.1

ACTING AND THE OPEN FUTURE: A BRIEF REJOINDER TO DAVID HUNT

I have argued that since (i) intentional agency requires intention-acquisition, (ii) intention-acquisition implies a sense of an open future, and (iii) a sense of an open future is incompatible with complete foreknowledge, then (iv) no agent can be omniscient. Alternatively, an omniscient being is omni- im potent. David Hunt continues to oppose this reasoning, most recently, in Religious Studies 32 (March 1996). It is increasingly clear that the debate turns on larger issues concerning necessity and knowledge, but let me here offer a few comments in defence of my position.

Indexical Identification: A Perspectival Account

It is widely agreed that the references of indexical expressions are fixed partly by their relations to contextual parameters such as the author, time, and place of the utterance. Because of this, indexicals are sometimes described as token-reflexive or utterance-reflexive in their semantics. But when we inquire into how indexicals help us to identify items within experience, we find that while utterance-reflexivity is essential to an interpretation of indexical tokens, it is not a factor in a speakers identificatory use of indexicals. Tokens cannot be interpreted unless they are first produced, and obviously the speaker who produces them does not depend upon utterance parameters in order to identify their referents in the way that hearers do. Consequently, the standard reflexive accounts of indexicals are of little use in explaining the speakers identificatory use of indexicals, and must be either replaced or complemented by a further theory of the role of indexicals in thought. This paper provides an account of indexical identification that is attentive to a speakers as well as a hearers identification and reveals how indexicals are inextricably perspectival.

Report on the Castañeda Nachlass

Upon his death, Hector-Neri Castaneda left several file cabinets filled with papers at both his home office and his departmental office. His computer also contained numerous files dealing with a variety of philosophical topics. The papers were taken to the Lilly Library at Indiana University in accordance with his wishes. His son, Kicab Castaneda, obtained possession of the electronic files.