introduction peirce and education the conflicting processes of learning and discovery

VINCENT COLAPIETRO, TORJUS MIDTGARDEN and TORILL STRAND

INTRODUCTION: PEIRCE AND EDUCATION:

THE CONFLICTING PROCESSES OF LEARNING

AND DISCOVERY

The revival of American pragmatism has attracted widespreadattention and debate, even within the international community ofphilosophers of education. Among others, Jim Garrison and AlvinNeiman in the newly published Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy ofEducation claim pragmatism to be an ideal philosophy for any eldof theory and practice, including the eld of education1. Nevertheless,despite the growing interest, the distinct contribution of CharlesSanders Peirce (1839 1914) is partly neglected. Yet, since Peirce iswidely credited as the founder of pragmatism, we hope that thisspecial issue will contribute to make his philosophy better known.

Peirce came to philosophy with a rigorous training in the nat-ural sciences and tried to use this training as an aid in trans-forming philosophical inquiry into a scientic or experimentalendeavor wherein deductive arguments play a subordinate role(Colapietro, 1998). We nd at the heart of experimental investi-gation (at least, as far as the thoroughgoing experimentalist Peircewas concerned) the task of framing and testing hypotheses. Peircecalled the logical process by which hypotheses are framed (orguesses made) by the name of abduction (see, e.g., CP 6.525). Inour actual investigations, the role of deduction is that of derivingthe necessary implications from our conjectures, so that theseguesses might be brought to the test of experience. This role is,accordingly, subordinate to that of abduction and also to that ofexperience in determining which of our hypotheses is tenable. Noamount of speculation can take the place of experience (CP1.655).

1 Garrison, Jim and Alven Neiman (2003). Pragmatism and Education. In: Blake,N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R., and Standish, P. (eds.). The Blackwell Guide to thePhilosophy of Education (pp. 2137). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Studies in Philosophy and Education (2005) 24: 167177 Springer 2005DOI 10.1007/s11217-005-3842-3

He went so far as to claim his own philosophy may be describedas the attempt of a physicist to make such conjecture as to the con-stitution of the universe as the methods of science may permit, withthe aid of all that has been done by previous philosophers (CP 1.7).This emphasis is, however, likely to generate a misimpression, for it islikely to convey the image of Peirce as an ally of those forms ofpositivism which are militantly hostile to metaphysics. In truth, thecast of Peirces mind was as boldly speculative as it was insistentlyexperimental. Some readers (e.g., Justus Buchler, W. B. Gallie,Thomas Goudge, and even to some extent Christopher Hookway)have judged there to be a logical inconsistency between Peircespragmatic, experimental temper and his architectonic, speculativebent. Others (T.L. Short, Sandra Rosenthal, Carl Hausman, DouglasAnderson, and Vincent Colapietro) see no such inconsistency here,contending that no absolutely sharp line can be drawn between sci-ence and metaphysics. They also tend to agree with Peirces insistencethat Whether we have an anti-metaphysical metaphysics or a pro-metaphysical metaphysics, a metaphysics we are sure to have. Andthe less pains we take with it the more crudely metaphysical it will be(EP 1,108; cf. CP 1.129).

Even so, Peirce claimed to have come to the study of philosophynot for its teachings about God, Freedom, and Immortality, butintensely curious about Cosmology and Psychology (CP 4.2). In thecourse of his life, however, he did reect upon the nature of divinity,the complex constitution of human autonomy, and the possibility ofimmortality. But the focus of his concern tended to be methodolog-ical and, in the broad sense in which he used the word, logical.2 Asmuch as anything else, he was preoccupied with methods of inquiryappropriate for the diverse subjects to which human beings havedevoted their critical, interrogative attention. He conceived his workto be a quest of quests, an inquiry into the nature, forms, andprospects of inquiry. This quest was nothing less than a historicallyinformed, systematically articulated, and formally normative account

2 Peirce suggests, the proper sphere of any science in a given stage of develop-ment of science is the study of such questions as one social group of men [and

women] can properly devote their lives to answering [CF. 1.236]; and it seems to methat in the present state of our knowledge of signs, the whole doctrine of the clas-sication of signs and of what is essential to a given kind of sign, must be studied by

one group of investigators. Therefore, I extend logic to embrace all the necessaryprinciples of semeiotic ... (CP 4.9). Logic, envisioned as a theory of inquiry,embraces semeiotic, dened as a truly general theory of signs.

COLAPIETRO ET AL.168

of objective inquiry (the sort of endeavor exemplied by the dramaticsuccess of various branches of natural science). Intimately associatedwith oering such an account of inquiry, Peirce articulated a generaltheory of signs (using semeiotic as the name to designate this newlyidentied eld of experimental investigation). The principal purposefor which Peirce designed and developed his theory of signs howeverdoes not exhaust the possible uses to which this comprehensive theorymight be put. Indeed, the power and fecundity of Peirces semeioticare most evident in coming to realize the extent to which this theoryilluminates elds of inquiry other than the one for which he designedit, not least of all the eld of education.

Peirces pragmatism was rst enunciated as a maxim to facilitatethe conduct of inquiry.3 As such, its purpose was to force philoso-phers and other investigators to break out of the circle of words andto clarify the meanings of their terms through explicit reference tohuman experience (in particular, what things disclose themselves tobe in our experiential encounters and transactions with them). Butthe pragmatist character of his philosophical project extends farbeyond the narrow scope of this particular maxim. It extends at leastto arming the primacy of practice, of the historically evolved andevolving activities of somatic, social, and fallible actors. This does notmean that theory is subordinated to practice; rather it means thattheory itself names a family of practices, related to countless otherpractices having a markedly dierent character from that of ourtheoretical endeavors. In other words, Peirce strove to do justice toboth the irreducibly dierent character of theoretical inquiry and thelimited authority of the highly dierential perspective of the theo-retical inquirer. For the sake of theory, inquiry cannot be subordi-nated to what are ordinarily called practical concerns or exigencies.Peirce is so driven to protect the integrity of theory that he asserts:True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For theuseful things will get studied without the aid of science. To employthose rare minds on such work is like running a steam engine byburning diamonds (CP 1.76).

For the sake of humanity, however, the highly dierential per-spective of the theoretical inquirer should not be granted the cultural

3 In what is most likely his most famous essay, How to Make Our Ideas Clear,Peirce formulated his maxim in this fashion: Consider what eects, that might

conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception tohave. Then, our conception of these [experiential eects] is the whole of our con-ception of the object (CP 5.402).

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY 169

authority to discredit common sense or such historically importantpractices as traditional religious worship and artistic innovation. Inparticular, the appeal to science (the form of theory accorded themost prestige and authority within Peirces culture and indeed ourown) should not be wielded as a weapon against religion. The vari-eties of human experience those owing from the irreducible het-erogeneity of human practices ought to be treated with the utmostrespect. Hence, while Peirce was a champion of science, he was not anideologue of this practice. His pragmatism is, far more than evenmany of his most sympathetic interpreters seem to realize, pluralistic(however, see Rosenthal, 1994). For it embraces the plurality ofpractices and, among this plurality, selects theoretical inquiry as anextended family of historical practices deserving his lifelong study.His critical commonsensism (see, e.g., CP 5.439.) and sentimentalconservatism (see, e.g., CP 1.661) are accordingly intertwined withPeirces pragmatism, in the broad sense suggested here.

Peirce was, at once, a deeply traditional thinker and a radicallyinnovative one. He identied tradition as an indispensable resourcefor eective innovation and, in turn, innovation (at least as it resultsfrom an ongoing, immanent dissatisfaction with some specic aspectof an inherited practice) as a way the present can pay homage to itspast. What is distinctive about Peirces pragmatism, especially vis-a`-vis William James, is its emphasis upon the communal character ofhuman practices, while what is distinctive about his pragmatism,especially vis-a`-vis John Dewey, is a more acute sensitivity to thedeeply traditional roots of even our most innovative practices.Insofar as the revival of pragmatism continues to inuence debates ineducation, then, it seems especially important to hear the voice ofPeirce in its diering emphases and valorizations.

During the last 60 years, however, the ways of reading Peirce havechanged in several respects. While in the 1940s and 1950s Peircespragmatism was primarily regarded as the precursor of logicalempiricism, Peirce-scholars have more recently reconstructed fromhis work a broader conception of learning than that involved intesting and conrming scientic theories. For philosophers of edu-cation it is important to note that the dierent ways of reading Peirceare to a large extent due to dierences in exegetic focus.

By emphasizing Peirces early work in epistemology (186869),and also his early pragmatic writings (187778), one might still tendto see his relevance restricted to issues concerning the justication ofcognitive claims in science. This way of reading Peirce is typical of


Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, although they stress withPeirce a pragmatic basis for scientic knowledge in terms of longterm learning processes in the community of scientic investigators.By shifting the focus to Peirces metaphysical system in the early1890s one gets a dierent picture developed by Carl R. Hausman(Charles S. Peirces evolutionary philosophy, 1993). Attention is nowon the alleged instinctual basis for making correct guesses in life aswell as in the forming of scientic hypotheses; Peirce even suggeststhat human creativity is anchored in the very evolution of laws innature. Along these lines of thought, educational processes, includingmoral development in individuals, would reect evolutionary andcosmic processes.

Peirces later semiotic, however, oers other ways of conceptual-izing educational processes. By focusing on works from shortly afterthe turn of the 20th century Helmut Pape (Erfahrung und Wirklichkeitals Zeichenprosess, 1989) has insisted that Peirces semiotic notion ofcognitive agency is primarily spelled out, not in terms of a communityof scientic investigators, but in terms of an individual subjectlearning from ordinary, everyday life experience. On this interpreta-tion, Peirce analyzes the ways in which individual learning processesare conditioned by a language system, as well as signs of other kinds.Yet, such conditioning is no mere constraint; already the early Peirceheld that men and words reciprocally educate each other (CP 5.313)and he now investigates how our linguistic (and other semiotic)capacities are resources for becoming educated.

However, educational processes should also be situated in socialspace. Thus, Peircescholars and semioticians interested in socialinteraction and human communication have criticized Peircessemiotic for its abstractness and generality. Although K.-O. Apel hassuggested how Peirces semiotic might be appreciated in hermeneu-tical terms, the fact that Peirce more often than not provides highlyformal analyses of signs and sign processes has made him lessassessable for those coming from the continental side in philosophy.Nevertheless, Jrgen Dines Johansen has taken pains to show how adialogic model of semiosis may be extracted from Peirces work(Dialogical Semiosis, 1993). Taking such scholarship seriously, phi-losophers of education may consider Peirces semiotic as a suitableframework for analyzing educational processes in terms of a Socratic,moral, or cultural dialogue.

Peirce never explicitly addressed education as an autonomouseld of theory and practice. But as shown in Torill Strands


introduction to Barbara Thayer-Bacon and Torjus Midtgardensessays he addressed the topic of higher education in a few minorpublications. In these texts, which should be read in the context ofPeirces normative logic of science, he discusses the aims and meansof higher education, making the assertion that the function of auniversity is the production of knowledge (Peirce, 1880/1958, p.334). The aim of higher education is to improve the studentslogical power and knowledge of method (Peirce, 1882/1958, p.337). Peirce sums up his 1882 petite on Liberal Education in thisway:

In short, my view is the true one, a young man wants a physical education and anaesthetic education, an education in the ways of the world and a moral education,and with all these logic has nothing in particular to do; but so far as he wants an

intellectual education, it is precisely logic that he wants; and whether it be in onelecture room or another, his ultimate purpose is to improve his logical power and hisknowledge of methods. To this great end a young mans attention ought to be

directed when he rst comes to the university; he ought to keep it steadily in viewduring the whole period of his studies; and nally, he will do well to review his wholework in the light which an education in logic throws upon it (Peirce, 1882/1958, p.

337).

Addressing the aims and means of an intellectual education, Peircepoints to logic as the prime endeavor. However, logic heredenotes a broad, general study, comprising not only logic in theformal sense, but also a general theory of signs and a theory ofscientic methods. Accordingly, Peirces conception of a LiberalEducation may be recognized as parallel to the medieval conceptionof Bildung, while the study of logic should make the students able tokeep an overview, a superior perspective, to go beyond the strict rulesand narrow borders of the artes liberales, the dierent subjectmatters or sciences taught at the university. An intellectual educa-tion should thus improve the students logical power and hisknowledge of methods, regardless in whichever lecture room ithappens. Consequently, Peirces conception of Liberal Educationis close to his conception of common sense, or sensis communis, interms of a critical commonsensism. A liberal education is about theuniversity students dedicating themselves to the knowledge-produc-ing culture of a university4.

4 See Peirces review of Clark University (Peirce, 1900/1958, pp. 331334), dis-cussed in Strands Peirce on Education: Nurturing the First Rule of Reason.


So, Peirce should not be read as a way of providing any narrowmodel of education or some rigid educational recipes. Rather,Peirces philosophy should be interpreted as part of a long-lastingphilosophical discourse, all from the ancient paideia, through themedieval notion of Bildung,5 to the modern conceptions of emanci-pation and empowerment.6 Consequently, as the various authors ofthese articles clearly points out, Peirces most signicant contributionto the philosophy of education is not his explicit texts on highereducation, interpreted as some guiding principles on what and how toeducate. Peirces most valuable contribution is rather his semeiotics,7

or in other words, his general logic. To Peirce, semeiotic is an ana-lytical study of sign relations. The aim is to detect what must be thecharacters of all signs and what would be true of signs in all cases(CP 2.227). Refusing a mentalist account of signs and embracingeveryday experience as philosophically relevant, Peirce holds that allthought is in sign. Hence, as signs are socially shared habits of minds,Peirces philosophy comes forward as a fruitful contribution to the

5 In Pragmatism and Peirces denition of the Purpose of a University TorjusMidtgarden points to the way in which Peirces semiotic trivium is based on the

model of a medieval trivium. While pointing to the fact that Peirce stresses thereciprocal dependency and continuity between the life-world and scientic practices,Peirces discussion exposes a Humboltian ideal of Bildung. Peirces notion of Bildung

is also at the heart of Jim Garrisons Curriculum, Critical Common-Sensism,Scholasticism, and the growth of Democratic Character and Vincent ColapietrosCultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Criticism.

6 The German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel (1995) holds that an essentialadvantage of Peirces semeiotic is the concomitant theories of a meaning criticalrealism and the normative-procedural relatedness of all possible criteria of truth to a

consensual theory of truth (p. iii). After recognizing a neo-Marxist social philosophy,and thus admitting the societal shortcomings of pragmatism, Apel closes his book onPeirce with the statement that Marxism ... will have to learn from Pragmatism to

overcome the spirit of dogmatism [...]. This will have to be replaced by the spirit ofthe communication and experimentation community that Peirce and Dewey had inmind (p. 196). Barbara Thyer-Bacon, in her Discussion of Peirces Denition of a

University, also points to some empowering aspects of a Peircean pragmatism,while simultaneously questioning some socio-political limitations in Peirce.

7 Peirce denes semeiotic, the study of sign relations, as the analytic study of the

essential conditions to which all signs are subjects (EP 2,327). Peirces semeiotictrivium consists of speculative grammar, critic, and speculative rhetoric. Speculativegrammar studies the conditions for the various forms of meaning and signs. Critic

studies the relations between signs and their preferred objects; i.e. the conditions forthe truth of signs. Speculative rhetoric studies the relation between sign and inter-pretant, the method, or the production of knowledge itself.


ways of reading educative processes, meaning the conicting pro-cesses of learning and discovery.

The very rst article in this collection Jim Garrisons Curric-ulum, Critical Common-Sensism, Scholastiscism, and the Growth ofDemocratic Character reveals the ways in which Peirces prag-maticism hosts a valuable notion of democratic Bildung. ReadingPeirces 1905 essay, Issues of Pragmaticism, Garrison identiescritical common-sensism and Scotistic realism as the two primaryproducts of Peirces pragmaticism. After an in-depth analysis anddiscussion, Garrison concludes by arguing that rationality itself is butthe form and structure of poetic creation.

The next two articles illustrate the ways in which Peirces semeioticmay serve as a useful framework for the reading of the educativeprocesses of learning and discovery. Mats Bergman, in C. S. PeircesDialogical Conception of Sign Processes, provides an excellentstudy of Peirces semeiotic, while examining the contention that thecentral concepts of Peirces semeiotic are inherently communica-tional. Bergman argues that a Peircean approach avoids the pitfalls ofobjectivism and constructivism, as it neither pictures the sign-user asa passive recipient nor as an omnipotent creator of meaning. Con-sequently, Bergman draws attention to Peirces semeiotic as a fruitfulperspective on learning processes.

Taking the Meno paradox, or the learning paradox, as a startingpoint, Saami Paavola and Kai Hakkarainen argue in ThreeAbductive Solutions to the Meno Paradox that Peirces notion ofabduction provides a way of dissecting the processes of learning anddiscovery. To Peirce, abduction, as a way of creative inferences,guessing, or free play with ideas, is the only form of inference thatgenerates new knowledge. Paavola and Hakkarainen present threecomplementary perspectives on abduction: First, abduction as a sortof guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious cluesare important. Second, abduction as a form of inference, where astrategic point of view is essential. Third, abduction as a part ofdistributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interactionwith the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized.

Drawing on, among others, Karl-Otto Apels reading of Peircesnormative logic of science, Torill Strand contends that Peircesmethod of inquiry may be fruitful in sorting dogmatism from prag-matism. In Peirce on Educational Beliefs, she elaborates on edu-cational beliefs as mediated, socially situated and future-oriented,and points to Peirces method of inquiry as a scientic ethos. To


Peirce, the method is not judged by the conclusions it leads to or theknowledge it may produce. Rather, the method is held to be fruitfuldue to the norms guiding the inquiry: (1) The Pragmatic principle, (2)The Social Principle, (3) Fallibilism and (4) Abduction. In sum, aPeircean conception of educational research, theory building andpractice should be characterized as a mutual commitment towardsshared processes of joint learning.

In the next article, Peirce and the Art of Reasoning, DougAnderson draws attention to Peirces virtually unknown 1887 circularfor his correspondence course on The Art of Reasoning. Readingthis circular, Anderson nds not surprisingly that the study oflogic stood at the center of Peirces liberal arts education. However,as Peirces notion of logic embraces creativity and the practice ofobservation and imagination, Peirces course foreshadowed a numberof developments within the twentieth century curriculum theory.First, the belief that non-traditional students should be educated.Next, the claim that the art of critical reasoning was important to alltheoretical practices. Third, that the art of reasoning was importantto the overall growth of a person.

Peirces conception of the growth of a person is at the heart of thenext article. Here, Michael Ventimiglia in Tree Educational Ori-entations: A Peircean Perspective on Education and the Growth ofthe Self explores Peirces notion of growth, before discussing threedierent educational orientations which tend to foster or frustratethis growth. He concludes that the growth of the student depends,rst, upon the educators intentions and, next, upon an appropriatemediation between freedom and constraint in the educational setting.Ventimiglia reveals that a commitment to such an orientation has tobe characterized as a resistance towards the narrowing ends ofbusiness-minded educational institutions. Thus, his argument goeswell together with Peirces, as Peirce eagerly holds that the utilitarianfunction of higher education by all means should ...be put out ofsight (CP 1.641).

The three essays under the joint heading Peirce on Education Torill Strands Peirce on Education: Nurturing the First Rule ofReason, Barbara Thayer-Bacons Discussion of Peirces Denitionof a University, and Torjus Midtgardens Pragmatism and PeircesDenition of the Purpose of a University discuss Peirces texts onthe denition and function of a university. In the introductory piece,Strand presents Peirces few texts on higher education before arguingthat to Peirce, the agenda seems to be the education of the rst rule


of reason. In the next essay, Thayer-Bacon, as a feminist, pragma-tist, and cultural studies scholar, addresses Peirces denition of auniversity. Thayer-Bacon embraces the ways in which Peircesnotions of fallibilism and critical common-sensism oer marginalizedand colonialized people a position of privilege, while regretting themore senior Peirces redrawing of a split between theory and prac-tice. In the third essay, Torjus Midtgarden reads Peirces 1900review of Clark University in light of Peirces changing conceptionsof pragmatism, while arguing that Peirces late pragmatism denes alocus for Bildung that moves the social, or political, aspects more tothe front.

In the very last article Cultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Inter-pretation, and Criticism: A Peircean Approach to EducationalPractices Vincent Colapietro holds that Peirces relevance to issuesof education is to be found in his modest, yet powerful character-izations of subjectivity and agency. While Jim Garrison in his articleconcludes that rationality, to Peirce, is but the form and structure ofpoetic creation, Vincent Colapietro aims at going one step farther byexploring a Peircean approach to educational practices. Since ourcapacities to learn from experience are at the heart of Peirces phi-losophy, a Peircean approach would be to assist the cultivation ofthese capacities, when doing justice to Peirces profound appreciationfor the aesthetic and the imaginative. A Peircean education will thusbe aiming at the continuous enhancement of our innate ability totransform our understanding, including our self-understanding.Consequently, education is not a preparation for life, rather life anopportunity to become educated. Or, as Peirce insists; surely thepurpose of education is not dierent from the purpose of life (Peirce,1900/1958, p. 333).

REFERENCES

Apel, K.O. (1995). Charles S. Peirce. From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press.Colapietro, V. (1998). Transforming philosophy into a science. American CatholicPhilosophical Quarterly, LXXII(2), 245278.

Garrison, J. & Neiman, A. (2003). Pragmatism and education. In N. Blake,P. Smeyers, R. Smith and P. Standish (Eds), The Blackwell guide to the philosophyof Education (pp. 2137). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Peirce, C.S. (1880/1958). Fourth of July address, Paris. In Philip P. Wiener (Ed),Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings. Values in a universe of change (pp. 334335).New York: Dover.


Peirce, C.S. (1882/1958). Logic and liberal education. In Philip P. Wiener (Ed),

Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings values in a universe of change (pp. 336337).New York: Dover Publications.

Peirce, C.S. (1900/1958). Clark University, 18891899: Decennial celebration. In

Philip P. Wiener (Ed), Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings values in a universe ofchange (pp. 331334). New York: Dover Publications.

Peirce, C.S. (19311958). Collected papers, 8 vols. In C. Hartsthorne & P. Weiss (Ed)(Vols. 16) and A. Burks (Vols. 78). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

The volume and paragraph number, seprated by a point, follows CP references.Peirce, C.S. (19921998). The essential Peirce: selected philosophical writings. 2 vols.In N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds) (vol. 1), & The Peirce edition project (vol. 2).

Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The volume and page number follows EPreferences .

Rosenthal, S. (1994). Charles Peirces pragmatic pluralism. Albany, NY: SUNY

Press.

Department of PhilosophyPennsylvania State University240 Sparks Building,University Park, PA 16802USAE-mail: [email protected]


introduction peirce and education the conflicting processes of learning and discovery

Documents