Agency and Normativity: A Study in the Philosophy of Peirce and Dewey

The central role played by normativity in pragmatism has become in the past years a center of renewed interest from different sides. Not only the pragmatist scholarship has recently produced new studies in ethics (LaFollette 2000; Pappas 2008; de Waal and Skowronki 2012; Frega 2012), but also thinkers trained in the analytic tradition came to endorse some of the pragmatist views on normativity in relation to the pragmatics and semantics of language. In particular, Robert B. Brandom defends a form of “inferentialism” according to which, roughly put, the meaning of a proposition is given by the normative function that that proposition plays within an inference (e.g. 2000; see Thibaud 1997; Pape 2009). The aim of my dissertation is to go back to the tenets of two central figures of the so-called classic American pragmatism, namely, Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, in order to point out in which ways the problem of normativity emerges in the womb of human agency and experience. As a consequence, my perspective is broader than contemporary inferentialism in semantics, since it includes topics such as the nature of the human actor, the problem of ethical normativity, the constitution of the objects of experience, the nature of truth, and some others. The choice to circumscribe my analysis to Peirce and Dewey is due to both scholarly and theoretical reasons: first, not much work has been done to identify the specific problems related to normativity on which both Peirce and Dewey focus (see however Colapietro 2004b; Pihlstrom 2004); second, I believe that Peirce and Dewey are the two authors within the tradition of classic pragmatism who better developed, in the light of a strong pragmatic epistemology, the problem of the different figures that normativity assumes in human experience. As a consequence, authors such as William James, Josiah Royce, George H. Mead and Clarence I. Lewis are only mentioned when needed, but never studied directly. It is the reader’s onus to find out at the end of this dissertation whether the choice of the author’s is flawed or not. As Vincent M. Colapietro insightfully observes, “Dewey saw his own work in logic as an extension of Peirce’s efforts in this field” (2004b: 107). I would subscribe one further remark in Colapietro’s article, in which we read that “for Dewey, no less than for Peirce … it is more appropriate to speak of a semiotic turn rather than the linguistic turn, a turn toward signs in all of their variety and not just toward that form of symbolization so prominent in our lives” that is “language” narrowly taken (2004b: 112). Thus, a broad semeiotic approach constitutes the common ground for both Peirce and Dewey. Working on the assumption that this approach is correct, I will show its many implications in developing Peirce’s and Dewey’s theory of human agency, experience and normativity. My aim is not to develop a point-to-point comparison between the two authors’ tenets, rather to show that they addressed the same questions and worked with a pragmatically semeiotic approach. I proceed as follows. Chapter 1 aims to provide a theory of the human individual understood as an agent on the basis of Peirce’s reflections on the notions of “individual,” “self-consciousness” and “developmental teleology.” In particular, my analysis moves from an appraisal of how Peirce scholarship has struggled with a confused account of the notion of individuality in the so-called “philosophies of process,” including not only Peirce’s philosophy but also Dewey’s. By arguing against those interpretations that take Peirce to be a nihilist about the human individual, I try to offer a different reading in which Peirce’s alleged “intellectual embarrassment” about the concept of individuality is actually the mark of a complex and sound account of that notion. The chapter is divided in three parts, in which I develop the three ideas that represent the three aspects of Peirce’s understanding of the individual human agent. These three ideas are: (1) “individual” = the continuity of each, unique series of spatio-temporal instantiations of bundles of habits; (2) “individual” = the human being as able of self-consciousness and psychological self-ascriptions; (3) “individual” = the human being as called to a unique mission in the ongoing process of creation. The section on Peirce’s theory of individual objects aims to show that the only possible way to make sense of Peirce’s theory of individuals is in the light of his three universal categories, 1stness, 2ndness and 3rdness, understood in their semeiotic, phaneroscopic and metaphysical meanings. In particular, I try to underscore that different notions used by Peirce (such as “actual fact,” “permanent fact,” “subject,” “existence quasi-existence,” “influx” relation) are meant to describe from different viewpoints the reality of an individual as a modal organism, in which actuality (2ndness, “will-be”), possibility (1stness, “might-be”) and non-deterministic necessity (3rdness, “would-be”) are all constitutive and irreducible elements. The question that remains open in this section is the following: if it is true that a series of instantiations is unified by the general laws that govern it, and if it is true that an entity is a bundle of habits, what is that provides a bundle of habits with its unity? The answer can be found, I believe, in Peirce’s theory of final causality, which is reintroduced by him in every field of knowledge. I focus on Peirce’s theory of final causality in the third section of this chapter, with particular attention to its realization in the life of the human being. The second section dwells upon Peirce’s account of self-consciousness on the basis of first-person, indexical self-referential statements (or all statements that can be transformed into first-person statements). In so doing, I sketch Peirce’s semeiotic classification of the types on indices, with particular attention to the personal pronoun “I.” I try to show how the conditions of use of “I” are fulfilled not only by some weak experiences, usually mentioned by Peirce scholarship in order to account for Peirce’s tenets (e.g. the experiences of linguistic testimonies and error), but also by two stronger cases of “perception,” i.e. the consciousness of the present and the sense of effort in agency (which I name conjointly the “present&effort-perception”). Thus, I also reconstruct Peirce’s account of perception as the basic epistemic unity of experience. The conclusion is that the present&effort-perception represents the informational index (almost pure index, “reagent”) on the basis of which the possibility of self-referential statements with monstrative indices (e.g. “I”) emerges. For reasons that will be clear in the chapter, the presence of something like the present&effort-perception guarantees that our belief in a “private self” or “I” has an existent object and not only a hypothetical object in a Logical Universe. I conclude the section with some remarks on Peirce’s partial rejection of Kant’s “I think” and on a interpretative issue present in Peirce scholarship on the nature of corporate personalities, i.e., higher-order persons such as nations, corporations, churches, etc. On this second point, I argue against those interpretations that take Peirce’s defense of the reality of higher-order personalities to imply the belief in the reality of higher-order self-consciousnesses. The third section focuses on Peirce’s tenet that human individuality is further grounded in the strong teleological nature of the human being. The human being is called to realize a unique mission or function in the ongoing process of creation. Such a “mission” is the final cause that unifies, as a vocation to be realized, all the habits and concrete actions of an agent. The human being, who is “rational instinct” in her deepest reality, ought to realize her rational function in the universe. How so? Moreover, Peirce adds that the human teleology is always “in evolution.” How should we understand this claim? In order to answer these questions, I focus on an early manuscript (R1116), in which Peirce introduces two important notions, i.e. “Incarnation” and “Carnification.” These notions show that a final cause (or a “plan” or “function”) can be realized in a “matter” in a multiplicity of degrees: while “Incarnation” means any one of the manifold partial realizations of the final cause in a matter, “Carnification” stands for its full and flawless realization. I believe that Peirce’s later metaphysical claims on “destined habits” develop the germinal and inchoate ideas present in “Incarnation” and “Carnification.” In the reminder of this third section, I explain that according to Peirce the partial realization of the final cause should be understand as a “vague” realization. In order to do this, I sketch some of Peirce’s distinctions between different forms of indeterminacy (ambiguity VS. generality) and different forms of vagueness (subjective vagueness and objective vagueness). My conclusive thesis is that the final cause is “developmental” insofar as its vague realization asks for a determination. The way in which the human being determines the vague final cause is through an adequate “semeiosis” of the signs of her experience. The first-person viewpoint identifies in particular those signs with propositions, beliefs, interests, desires, and ultimate ideals. How should the individual interpret those signs and produce actions, beliefs and further propositions? In particular, what habits of action are good and what evil? As it is clear, the problem of the determination of the vagueness of the human being’s rational end opens to the problem of normativity. Chapter 2’s task is to analyze critically Peirce’s doctrine of the “Normative Sciences,” which include logic, ethics and aesthetics. The chapter is divided in three parts. First, I try to reconstruct what Peirce has truly said about the normative sciences, given the fact that Peirce’s classification of the normative sciences has had a troubled story, both from the point of view of their genesis and the point of view of their interpretation by the scholarship. From a general standpoint, Peirce defines the normative sciences as the study of the normative “forms,” or “normative facts,” of human, self-controlled behavior. This comprises principles of logical inference in reasoning, norms of behavior in a broader sense and affective dispositions. After unpacking the evaluative categories of each one of the normative sciences (truth and veracity for logic, or semeiotic; adequateness and effectiveness of a mean for an end – assuming that the end is good – for ethics; the admirable in itself beyond any reasons for aesthetics), I clarify that for Peirce only the aesthetic ideal constitutes the ultimate justification of the dimension of ethical and logical values. The aesthetic values, which Peirce identifies with the “development of concrete reasonableness,” is therefore the teleological ground of any value. A further point is what type of perspective Peirce’s semeiotic brings to the problem of the metaphysical status of normative facts. In particular, the idea of “final logical interpretant” (= habit) allows for an understanding of normative facts as human virtues. This does not prevent Peirce from stressing the importance of “norms” understood as linguistic formulations of a good purpose. The metaphysical status of the normative facts is further developed in the third section of the chapter, in which I inquiry into the nature of Peirce’s metaethical “realism” in relation to the so-called contemporary moral realism. Second, I bring my attention to the influence that Peirce’s growing confidence in the normative sciences had on his more mature pragmatism. However, the influence does not go only in one direction. As a matter of fact, I claim that Peirce’s more mature reflection on the nature of semeiotic and meaning led him to see the need for a normative perspective within pragmatism itself. In particular, I deal with the consequences that the normative sciences have on the evolution of Peirce’s pragmatic maxim. As it is know, the pragmatic maxim, formulated by Peirce in 1978 “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” for the first time, is mainly a principle of semantic clarification, according to which the meaning a believed proposition is ultimately given by the habits of action that that proposition would bring about in the believer. By studying the development of the maxim both from a historical and theoretical viewpoint, it becomes clear that the maxim shows an internal tension between two irreducible functions. The first function, the pragmatic-explicating, is simply aimed to determine what is the pragmatic level of the meaning of any proposition whatsoever. The second function, the pragmatic-normative, is not only meant to clarifying, but also to point at the direction in which the interpretation of the signs ought to be pursued, and, as a consequence, which propositions ought to be believed and for what purposes a proposition ought to be applied. Third, I go back to the problem of the metaphysical status of the normative facts, trying to establish a comparison between Peirce and some contemporary moral realists. In particular, I argue against four main theses of these contemporary moral realists, according to which, in order to avoid some form of moral constructivism (both relativistic and non-relativistic), it is necessary to claim that (i) moral language and knowledge are descriptive in nature; (ii) the task of moral knowledge is to provide an adequate account of what is genuinely good from a moral viewpoint; (iii) the reality of moral facts and properties is independent from any type of human function or disposition; (iv) at least some of our moral propositions are true. In the light of Peirce’s understanding of a normative fact, I show that the claim that Peirce is a non-relativistic moral constructivist is misplaced, if the assumption of this claim is that a normative fact is only something that is existent “out there” in the world, independently from the human mind. On the contrary, a normative fact is for Peirce the result of a practical self-comprehension by the human agent as a able of self-controlled agency. Chapter 3 concludes the section of the dissertation devoted specifically to Peirce with a reflection on Peirce’s understanding of deliberation and his alleged “moral sentimentalism.” In some passages (in particular the lecture “Philosophy and the Conduct of Life”), Peirce asserts that in “vitally important matters” sentiment should have a greater weight than reason in guiding human decision. This claim has led some interpreters to say that Peirce is a non-cognitivist in ethics. On the contrary, I show how Peirce’s statements can be given a more convincing reading by in the broader framework of his philosophy, which includes both the normative sciences and what he called “critical-common sensism.” It is highly improbable that Peirce is advocating for a non-cognitivist position in ethics in so far as his normative sciences also include a theory of deliberation, whose centrality would be at odds with an alleged non-cognitivist position. In particular, the incompatibility between a strong theory of deliberation and non-cognitivism in ethics is even less likely given the fact that Peirce puts forth (somehow in an anti-Aristotelian way), that deliberation is mainly about ends and ideals, not about means (in so doing, he also avoids the possibility of being confused with a humean of some sort). For Peirce, therefore, deliberations is at work first and foremost in figuring out what ideals are truly good for the human beings, not what particular action ought to be performed in a particular context (this is why he also claims that the most important mental act in a particular situation is not deliberation, but perception). This set of considerations help us to put Peirce’s allegedly non-cognitivist claims in a clearer light. Furthermore, Peirce articulates a semeiotic theory of sentiments for which sentiments (but also emotions, affections, passions, which are not distinguished by Peirce) is a specific type of interpretant and has therefore cognitive nature, as much as any other interpretant. From all these considerations, it follows that when Peirce underscores the “wisdom” of sentiment in vitally important matters, he is actually claiming that sentimental has a higher epistemic authority than rational deliberation in order to grasp certain normative facts. In this sense, we understand what is Peirce’s thesis and what is the correct question we should ask about that thesis: if moral sentiment has a greater epistemic authority than rational deliberation in certain dimensions of life, what are Peirce’s reasons to justify such a claim? In order to tackle this issues, I deal briefly with Peirce’s doctrine of human “instincts” and their evolution, including that particular instinct that is the moral sentiment. Two points are interesting about this: first, Peirce sees a continuity between the way in which instinct apprehends certain actions as good (and other as evil) and the forms in which this instinct has been and is articulated by human traditions over time; second, Peirce also points out a normative discontinuity between the development of certain moral instincts and the free and critical endorsement of those instincts as reliable guides in moral issues. In order to clarify these two points, I develop an analysis of Peirce “critical common sensism” and a related justification of the superior epistemic value of sentiment over reason in vitally important matters. The second part of the dissertation deals in a specific way with two problems of agency and normativity in the philosophy of John Dewey. Chapter 4 focuses on Dewey’s theory of experience, on which virtually all Dewey scholars have written. However, in this chapter, I try to show that all the objections to Dewey’s alleged subjectivist idealism and reductionist naturalism partially fade away when we study Dewey’s theory of experience in semeiotic terms. In particular, by relying on Dewey’s study of the notion of “appearance” and his naturalistic theory of perception, I develop the idea of indexical existence. I believe that this notion can put in a new light fundamental tenets of Dewey’s philosophy such as the processes of constitution of the objects of experience, the struggle between constructivism and realism, the alleged incompatibility among different ontologies, and finally the notion of truth, on which I focus in one section by drawing from both Peirce and Dewey. My intention is to show that Dewey’s metaphysical question is mainly a normative question and how this question admits different answers. We could formulate the question in the following way: “how ought we think about indexical existences?”. In this sense, the common sense objects and the experimental sciences objects are not in contradiction among themselves; rather, they are different but equally legitimate articulations of the semeiotic potentialities of experience, in so far as the same types of indexical existences enter different systems of interactions with the human beings. Furthermore, in relation to the problem of truth, I show not only that Peirce’s and Dewey’s stances are not so distant as it scholars used to think, but also that their verificationism cannot be equated to the doctrines of the logical positivists. Peirce’s and Dewey’s doctrine of truth cannot even be interpreted as implying a “plastic” conception of truth, as it was maybe in the case of F. C. S. Schiller and William James. Although different in some details, Peirce’s and Dewey’s theory of truth does not state that true propositions are only those propositions that are experientially verified (now or in an indefinitely distant future), but that true propositions are those propositions that would be indefinitely verified (or non-falsified) on the basis of experience if all the necessary epistemic conditions occurred. In Chapter 5, which is the last chapter of the dissertation, I provide a critical reconstruction of Dewey’s theory of practical, moral judgment and his ethical contextualism. In fact, according to Dewey, practical judgment is the locus in which moral normativity emerges as such. This point is even more important if we think that Dewey’s proposal represents the most articulated example of an account of practical deliberation in the pragmatist tradition. Somehow differently from Peirce, for Dewey the primary locus of exercise of deliberation is more the context of particular situations rather than the ultimate ideals (however, I am talking here of a nuanced difference in stress, without claiming that the two tendencies are mutually exclusive; as a matter of fact, both of them are present in Peirce and Dewey). After providing an overview of Dewey’s theory of the habits of action, I focus on the logical structure of moral deliberation in its various discursive components (experience of the problem, articulation of the problem, hypothesis of solution, final judgment/concrete act, passage from “is” to “ought”), including its virtues (rigor, epistemic productivity and creativity). Moreover, I dwell upon the non-discursive factors in deliberation, in particular what Dewey calls “qualitative thought,” understood as a semeiotic activity that is not alternative but complementary to the merely proposition and discursive dimensions of deliberation. It has also been usually claimed that the fact that Dewey speaks of practical deliberation as “construction of good” implies some for of anti-realism about values, or even some sort of moral subjectivism and relativism. On the contrary, I claim that not only Dewey’s account of deliberation as partially constructive of its object does not entail moral subjectivism or relativism (being on the contrary the crux of practical knowledge), but also that Dewey maintains that there is a dynamic in experience that “happens” to the subject and subverts any pretension of being lawless moral legislator. In other words, I believe that is not possible to put Dewey in the tradition of moral philosophers who, starting from the Modern age, tries to provide a normative theory of ethics without appealing to a human teleology. On the contrary, Dewey’s writings on ethics and mainly on logic and aesthetic show that Dewey is committed to a teleological conception of human experience, although cutting short with any that disagrees with the transactional paradigm. This teleological dimension of human experience is described by Dewey as “having an experience,” understood as a determinate situation in which the subject experiences an aesthetic teleology common to all the elements of that situation (it is for this reason that all the elements of the situation are unified in an experience). This teleology also includes the experience of the moral value, in which the subjects experience and acknowledge (more than reasoning by appealing to abstract principles) those tendencies that are then codified in different conceptions of the human nature. In this sense, the aesthetic experience of the good precedes and guides the constructive work of practical judgment (tentatively, without aestheticism or undifferentiated abandonment to the different particular experiences). A conspicuous part of this final chapter is also devoted to highlight how Dewey’s ethical fallibilism does not entail ultimately a radical skepticism about moral principles. Dewey’s doubts about the stability of moral principles can be traced back to the following three problems: (1) moral principles are known through specific experiences (see again the aesthetic teleology of experience); as a consequence, since new experiences are always possible, nothing excludes that the moral principles we acknowledge now can undergo serious changes; (2) when the principles (but the same can be said of ends and ideals) are maximally general, they do not determine a difference in human agency (pragmatic principle of semantics), or, in other words, they do not have the power of being “means” for action; as a consequence, they require a determination for become actually operable; the importance of this principle consists in having this or that determinate form; therefore, these moral principles are certainly subject to modifications; (3) a further, broader point is about the genuine use of general moral principles in moral deliberation. According to Dewey, deliberation appeals more often and effectively to exemplar cases of good morality rather than general principles. Just like the works of art in the aesthetic experience and the methodological norms in the scientific inquiry are the “forms” that result over time from the experience of generations of human beings, moral experience appeals to exemplars patterns of behavior, established as such by the common and individual experience. In this sense, I also focus on the notion of “formativity,” understood as the property of exemplar cases of morality that contribute to reconstruct the individual’s experience and make possible in her life the experience of certain teleologies. In conclusion, I dwell upon the topic of fallibilism and evolution of moral principles, showing that according to Dewey fallibilism does not mean necessary falsification. Moreover, I also point out that the exigency of ethical fallibilism is defended by Dewey is the necessary consequence of the constant possibility of an improvement and extension of the moral principles rather than the kernel of a moral skepticism.