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Pragmatic Maxim • Introduction
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-2/

The “pragmatic maxim”, also known as the “maxim of pragmatism” or the “maxim of pragmaticism”, is a maxim of logic formulated by Charles Sanders Peirce. Serving as a practical recommendation or regulative principle in the normative science of logic, its function is to guide the conduct of thought toward the achievement of its purpose, advising the addressee on an optimal way of “attaining clearness of apprehension”.

Charles Sanders Peirce
• https://mywikibiz.com/Charles_Sanders_Peirce

Normative Science
• https://mywikibiz.com/Normative_science

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Seven Ways of Looking at a Pragmatic Maxim • 1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-2/

Peirce stated the pragmatic maxim in many different ways over the years, each of which adds its own bit of clarity or correction to their collective corpus.

The first excerpt appears in the form of a dictionary entry, intended as a definition of pragmatism.

❝Pragmatism. The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of the following maxim for attaining clearness of apprehension:

❝Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical 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.❞

(Peirce, CP 5.2, 1878/1902).

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Seven Ways of Looking at a Pragmatic Maxim • 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-2/

The second excerpt presents another version of the pragmatic maxim, a recommendation about a way of clarifying meaning that can be taken to stake out the general philosophy of pragmatism.

❝Pragmaticism was originally enounced in the form of a maxim, as follows:

❝Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.

❝I will restate this in other words, since ofttimes one can thus eliminate some unsuspected source of perplexity to the reader. This time it shall be in the indicative mood, as follows:

❝The entire intellectual purport of any symbol consists in the total of all general modes of rational conduct which, conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances and desires, would ensue upon the acceptance of the symbol.❞

(Peirce, CP 5.438, 1878/1905).

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#Pragmatism #EffectiveDefinition #ExtensionalDefinition #OperationalDefinition
#Representation #RepresentationPrinciple #ClosurePrinciple #ConceptionOfEffects

Seven Ways of Looking at a Pragmatic Maxim • 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2023/08/07/pragmatic-maxim-2/

The third excerpt puts a gloss on the meaning of a practical bearing and provides an alternative statement of the maxim.

❝Such reasonings and all reasonings turn upon the idea that if one exerts certain kinds of volition, one will undergo in return certain compulsory perceptions. Now this sort of consideration, namely, that certain lines of conduct will entail certain kinds of inevitable experiences is what is called a “practical consideration”. Hence is justified the maxim, belief in which constitutes pragmatism; namely:

❝In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result by necessity from the truth of that conception; and the sum of these consequences will constitute the entire meaning of the conception.❞

(Peirce, CP 5.9, 1905).

#Peirce #Logic #Inquiry #PragmaticMaxim #StandardOperatingProcedure #Semiotics
#Pragmatism #EffectiveDefinition #ExtensionalDefinition #OperationalDefinition
#Representation #RepresentationPrinciple #ClosurePrinciple #SumOfConsequences

@abuseofnotation

Much the same intention of clearing up bootless metaphysics