Toward a Peircean logic of meditation

Peirce’s philosophy, to a great extent, continues to be neglected as a potentially valuable resource for theologians and scholars of religion. This essay represents an attempt to rectify that state of affairs, albeit focused narrowly on how some of Peirce’s ideas might help to illuminate the role that attention plays in transforming consciousness and shaping certain meditative practices. Such practices display a logic consistent with the one that Peirce described in the process of developing his semiotic theory and his theory of inquiry. While his writings on logic are voluminous, Peirce produced only a very few scattered remarks about the “logic of meditation,” broadly conceived. One purpose of this essay is to collect and to examine carefully those remarks. Another is to evaluate their significance for contemporary philosophers of religion who are invested in the task of trying to understand the nature and purpose of meditation, not as a single type of exercise, but in its various forms and manifestations.

John Dewey's theory of inquiry. Quantum physics, ecology and the myth of the scientific method

The modern philosophy of science has not succeeded in defining conclusively what the scientific method consists in. On the contrary, scientific practice seems to consist in a methodological pluralism, a definition that connects with essential fragments of John Dewey's Logic, the Theory of Inquiry. For Dewey, even the forms of logic emerge from the problems defined in indeterminate situations. A historical example was the introduction of the notion of complementarity in physics, which allowed the interpretation of two confusingly paradoxical experiments in a coherent way. Dewey's thought demonstrates its relevance by helping us to define the pattern of inquiry. Methodological pluralism and the dependence of logic on research problems is not something that will happen, it is something that has happened and does happen in scientific practices.

Theology as Inquiry, Therapy, Praxis

In this chapter, theology is portrayed as a form of inquiry, a kind of therapy, and a mode of praxis. These are not perfectly separable roles for theology but can be distinguished for purposes of analysis. Peirce’s theory of inquiry, adapted here for theosemiotic purposes, is shown to be more complex than the standard account, organized around doubt as the stimulus for inquiry, tends to suggest. After a lengthy survey of the links between philosophical pragmatism and certain forms of contemporary psychotherapy, a theosemiotic grounded in pragmatic insights is presented as potentially therapeutic in its strategy and effects. The chapter concludes with an analysis of theology as praxis, as it must be conceived if it is grounded in pragmatism; the resonance of such a conception with liberation theology is also explored here.

The Epistemic and the Zetetic

Call the norms of inquiry zetetic norms. How are zetetic norms related to epistemic norms? At first glance, they seem quite closely connected. Aren't epistemic norms norms that bind inquirers qua inquirers? And isn't epistemology the place to look for a normative theory of inquiry? While much of this thought seems right, this paper argues that the relationship between the epistemic and the zetetic is not as harmonious as one might have thought and liked. In particular, this paper argues that some familiar contemporary epistemic norms are in tension with, and even in conflict with, central zetetic norms.

Big Data's Call to Philosophers of Education

This paper investigates the intersection of big data and philosophy of education by considering big data’s potential for addressing learning via a holistic process of coming-to-know. Learning, in this sense, cannot be reduced to the difference between a pre- and post-test, for example, as it is constituted at least as much by qualities of experience as it is the situation, process of inquiry and its consequences. Long a perennial concern of philosophers of education, the author suggests that big data offers a budding opportunity for philosophers to engage in dialogue with empirical research in order to better understand the process of learning as coming-to-know. Drawing on John Dewey’s theory of inquiry and his philosophy of experience, the author demonstrates ways that both empirical and philosophical research stands to benefit from cross-dialogue. In offering an unprecedented glimpse of empirical detail, the author proposes that big data stands to afford new insights into this most complex human process and that Dewey’s philosophy offers a vital lens of interpretation that can help philosophers of education to make use of this data in addressing the perennial question of how humans come-to-know.

Introduction

Pyrrhonian skepticism is defined by its commitment to inquiry. The Greek work skepsis means inquiry. The introduction proposes that Sextus Empiricus’ legacy is that he developed an epistemology of inquiry—not as a theory of inquiry, but as a practice. Sextus provides a fresh take on contemporary debates because he approaches issues of perception, disagreement, induction, and ignorance from the perspective of inquiry. The volume’s contributions, which are summarily sketched in the introduction, address four core themes of Sextus’ skepticism: (1) appearances and perception, (2) the structure of justification and proof, (3) belief and ignorance, and (4) ethics and action. These themes are explored in some historical authors whose work relates to Sextus, including Peripatetic logicians, Locke, Hume, Nietzsche, and German idealists; and they are explored as they figure in today’s epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and ethics.

On the Edge of the Unknown

The present paper intends to discuss the process of design and its peculiar location at the threshold between the unknown (the insecure place with unknown order) and already established, well-accepted knowledge. The process of design is known for its catalyzing possibilities, often suggesting connections between conceptions, ideas, and solutions to problems by linking an initial formulation with the innovative and upcoming development of a project within a given design context. Thus, the process of design has the power to provide a space for playing, where experiments of thought, the testing of conceptions, the assembling of elements of these conceptions, and the serendipitous conflation of different parts of ideas can take place. Charles S. Peirce’s theory of inquiry—with especial emphasis on the systemic character of semiotics in relation to phaneroscopy, esthetics, logic of abduction and pragmatism—informs the chosen theoretical framework of this paper. Because it also emphasizes the process of discovery, Peirce’s theory of inquiry will be here mobilized to analyze, within the theory of the design process, the transition between critical predicament and an undecided—still to be formed—future. This task consists of stating in futuro the unthinkable in order to render any design project feasible.