Jeff Kasser | Colorado State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Jeff Kasser
Genuine belief and genuine doubt in Peirce
European Journal of Philosophy, 2018
Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weake... more Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weaker and a stronger reading. The weaker reading permits and the stronger reading forbids the possibility that one can be in a state of doubt and of belief with respect to the same proposition at the same time. The stronger claim is standardly attributed to Peirce, for textual and philosophical reasons. This paper maintains that this standard construal is excessively strong. It argues that the secondary literature tends to presuppose the strong reading and that it often does so by confusing sufficient conditions for belief with necessary ones. It acknowledges some textual evidence on behalf of the strong reading but maintains that the relevant passages are as friendly to the weak as to the strong interpretation of Peirce. The paper then links the doubt-belief theory of “The Fixation of Belief” to the papers on probability that occupy the bulk of the Illustrations of the Logic of Science. It shows that Peirce’s discussion of probability, strength of belief, and weight of evidence makes room for confidence, but not belief, to be undermined and thus offers a more flexible version of Peirce’s theory of inquiry.
Cheryl Misak has presented a reading of Peirce's " The Fixation of Belief " that preserves both t... more Cheryl Misak has presented a reading of Peirce's " The Fixation of Belief " that preserves both the essay's ambitious naturalism (reflected in the thesis that inquiry aims only at the settlement of opinion) and its sensible normativism (reflected in the thesis that belief aims at the truth in some important sense). This essay fleshes out Misak's proposal, formulates some challenges to it, and articulates an alternative. Misak's argument rests on the plausible claim that " it is very hard really to settle beliefs. " 1 As she interprets this claim, it could also be expressed as " it is very hard really to settle beliefs. " Misak extracts a potentially strong source of normativity from Peirce's notion of belief; that concept, she argues, has sensitivity to experience and argumentation built into it. This paper criticizes Misak's interpretation and proposes to do without the sensitivity condition on which she relies. It instead proposes to stick closely to the surface reading of Peirce's paper, according to which the needed normativity can and must be drawn from the notion of stable or settled belief.
Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weake... more Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weaker and a stronger reading. The weaker reading permits and the stronger reading forbids the possibility that one can be in a state of doubt and of belief with respect to the same proposition at the same time. The stronger claim is standardly attributed to Peirce, for textual and philosophical reasons. This paper maintains that this standard construal is excessively strong. It argues that the secondary literature tends to presuppose the strong reading and that it often does so by confusing sufficient conditions for belief with necessary ones. It acknowledges some textual evidence on behalf of the strong reading but maintains that the relevant passages are as friendly to the weak as to the strong interpretation of Peirce. The paper then links the doubt-belief theory of “The Fixation of Belief” to the papers on probability that occupy the bulk of the Illustrations of the Logic of Science. It shows that Peirce’s discussion of probability, strength of belief, and weight of evidence makes room for confidence, but not belief, to be undermined and thus offers a more flexible version of Peirce’s theory of inquiry.
Peirce is articulate and emphatic about the need for inquirers to remain ready to learn while als... more Peirce is articulate and emphatic about the need for inquirers to remain ready to learn while also resisting disabling and fraudulent versions of skepticism. The need to learn and the need to believe do not, however, combine readily. Peirce sometimes copes with this tension by distinguishing sharply between science, in which the will to learn reigns supreme, and practice, in which the need for confidence predominates. As several recent commentators have noted, this strategy carries costs of its own. Distinguishing too sharply between theory and practice can itself seem implausible and can leave Peirce with an excessively Cartesian approach to science and an excessively tenacious approach to matters of vital importance. But without such a distinction, the tension with which we began threatens to return. After a critical engagement with recent treatments of the theory-practice divide in Peirce, this essay suggests that the task has been somewhat misconceived. Instead of trying to figure out how to combine the right amount of pure doubt with the right amount of pure belief, we can make progress by recognizing that the doubt-belief theory allows for motivated variations in the confidence with which beliefs are held. This recognition allows Peirce the flexibility needed to motivate sensibly distinct norms governing science and practice. Peirce’s innovative discussion of weight of evidence in “The Probability of Induction,” I suggest, helps us to see that, even in 1878, Peirce’s theory of inquiry contained resources that help render this tension tractable.
Weight of evidence continues to be a powerful metaphor within formal approaches to epistemology. ... more Weight of evidence continues to be a powerful metaphor within formal approaches to epistemology. But attempts to construe the metaphor in precise and useful ways have encountered formidable obstacles. This paper shows that two quite different understandings of evidential weight can be traced back to one 1878 article by C.S. Peirce. One conception, often associated with I.J. Good, measures the balance or net weight of evidence, while the other, generally associated with J.M. Keynes, measures the gross weight of evidence. Conflations of these two notions have contributed to misunderstandings in the literature on weight. This paper shows why Peirce developed each conception of weight, why he distinguished them, and why they are easily mistaken for one another.
This paper argues that sustained attention to the highlighted structure of William James’s “The W... more This paper argues that sustained attention to the highlighted structure of William James’s “The Will to Believe” yields surprising insights into the essay. “Highlighted structure” includes James’s announcements of his intentions, his section breaks, and, especially, patterns of repetition and contrast within the work. Particular attention is paid to a criticism to which James frequently returns, viz. that evidentialists are driven by their passions to adopt evidentialism. I argue that James does not take this to constitute an objection to evidentialism as such. This is because James construes evidentialism more charitably than has been recognized. Evidentialism, as James understands it, claims, not that our willing nature should play no role in our believings, but instead that the cognitive role of our willing nature should be minimized. Consequently, I argue that the thesis of James’s famous essay has generally been misidentified and mischaracterized.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 2011
This paper offers a new interpretation of Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” one that pays specia... more This paper offers a new interpretation of Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” one that pays special attention to the notion of what it is for a belief to be fixed or stable. Drawing on Louis Loeb’s stability-centered readings of the epistemologies of Descartes and Hume, I argue that Peirce does not make much direct use of a Cartesian notion of permanently stable belief. He is instead relying on a comparatively modest, Humean notion according to which a fixed belief is stable for a given inquirer at a given time. A belief is settled if it resists being undermined too readily by experience and reflection. I try to show how such a reading allows Peirce to object to unscientific methods of fixing belief purely on grounds of their ineffectiveness. And I try to show how Peirce establishes the superior effectiveness of the method of science at delivering stable beliefs in the relevant sense.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 2013
This essay offers an elucidation and a critical examination of Joe Ransdell’s striking suggestion... more This essay offers an elucidation and a critical examination of Joe Ransdell’s striking suggestion that Peirce is the first real heir of Socrates other than Plato. Ransdell links Socratic perplexity and Peircean genuine doubt in a communicative conception of epistemology and philosophy of science. This approach, which makes actual acceptance the key to understanding success in inquiry, is contrasted with the dominant criterial approach to these matters. Criterial conceptions maintain that formal standards for successful inquiry are crucial to the explanation of successful inquiries. The paper argues that Ransdell is right about the importance of actual acceptance and also that he is right to acquit Socrates and Peirce of the charge of psychologism. But, drawing on recent work by Hintikka and Mayo, the essay argues that Ransdell overdraws the contrast between communicative and criterial approaches. Ransdell’s Socratic tradition can and should find more room for formal evaluations of hypotheses and inferences than Ransdell seems to realize. That said, mainstream epistemology and philosophy of science would do well to see themselves as engaged in the study of perplexity management.
Social Epistemology, 2006
We argue that an expressivist interpretation of “The Will to Believe” provides a fruitful way of... more We argue that an expressivist interpretation of “The Will to Believe” provides a fruitful way
of understanding this widely-read but perplexing document. James approaches questions
about our intellectual obligations from two quite different standpoints. He first defends an
expressivist interpretation of judgments of intellectual obligation; they are “only expressions
of our passional life”. Only then does James argue against evidentialism, and both his
criticisms of Clifford and his defense of a more flexible ethics of belief presuppose this independently-
defended expressivism. James puts forward his ethics of belief as healthy or
appropriate, rather than as correct.
Philosophica, 2002
The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appea... more The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appear from a distance to be a cacophony of different voices, with every single one speaking at cross-purposes to each and every other. A closer inspection reveals identifiable fault lines running through the field separating some voices from others -the rhetoricians from the dialecticians, for example, and both of them from the logicians -but still not enough organization to make all that noise into a symphony. It would seem a foolish optimism to think that what is necessary is the addition of yet another voice. However, when the voice belongs to Hilary Putnam, philosophically good things happen.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 1999
This paper argues against a common view in the secondary literature according to which Peirce sli... more This paper argues against a common view in the secondary literature according to which Peirce slipped into a version of psychologism in his famous papers of the late 1870's. The essay explains what Peirce takes psychologism to involve and argues that Peirce correctly regarded himself as an anti-psychologistic logician throughout his career.
Book Reviews by Jeff Kasser
Reiss begins by telling us what just about everybody from Hume to Woodward has gotten right and w... more Reiss begins by telling us what just about everybody from Hume to Woodward has gotten right and wrong about causation. None of these approaches holds much promise, Reiss thinks, of sustaining a full account of causation. Since appropriately privileged ordinary usage allows absences to be legitimate causes, for instance, causation cannot be identified with a transfer of energy or information from cause to effect, dooming process theories. And since not all causes are difference-makers, counterfactual approaches to causation face fatal objections. The reader rightly expects Reiss to defend causal pluralism. But when Anscombe's Wittgensteinian causal pluralism gets subjected to the same sort of appreciative rejection as its monistic competitors one starts to wonder what Reiss is up to. The answer is intriguing if a long time in coming. Reiss proposes an inferentialist theory of causation; causation is a species of entitlement to infer. The meaning of causal claims consists in the evidence from which they can be inferred and in the inferences that they license. But causation is constituted by inferential connections that differ importantly in kind.
Teaching Philosophy, 2015
Announcements by Jeff Kasser
Philosophica, 2002
The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appea... more The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appear from a distance to be a cacophony of different voices, with every single one speaking at cross-purposes to each and every other. A closer inspection reveals identifiable fault lines running through the field separating some voices from others-the rhetoricians from the dialecticians, for example, and both of them from the logicians-but still not enough organization to make all that noise into a symphony. It would seem a foolish optimism to think that what is necessary is the addition of yet another voice. However, when the voice belongs to Hilary Putnam, philosophically good things happen. Throughout his career, Putnam has repeatedly struck notes that resonate with what others say about argumentation. His insights on commensurability and revisability, his analyses of meaning and rationality, and his articulation of internal realism all bear importantly on the processes of critical reasoning. One good point of entry is provided by the striking harmonic convergence of Putnam's arguments about realism and relativism and the tightly focused debate over the truth-requirement as a criterion in the evaluation of arguments. Putnam, we will argue, defends the importance of a norm of truth distinct from rational acceptability. But he does so while taking our practices of inquiry and argumentation as primary. He offers a defense, from within our practices, of a notion of truth that permanently transcends our practices. §1. The ThreeFold Word: Much of the fragmentation of the fields of Informal Logic and Argumentation Theory is due to the presence of three very different root metaphors for thinking about arguments. 1 One conception of arguments is as proofs, the products of logicians and mathematicians. 2 An argument in that sense is a sequence of sentences with a specifiable inferential structure. Since this model completely ignores any arguers, the argument-as-proof model is of limited help for understanding any actual, embodied arguments. At the other extreme, arguments are thought of as verbal wars, agonistic moments in discourse. Arguments are born of disagreement, so the adversarial 1 For discussions of metaphors for arguments, see Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Ayim 1988, and Cohen 1995.
Genuine belief and genuine doubt in Peirce
European Journal of Philosophy, 2018
Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weake... more Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weaker and a stronger reading. The weaker reading permits and the stronger reading forbids the possibility that one can be in a state of doubt and of belief with respect to the same proposition at the same time. The stronger claim is standardly attributed to Peirce, for textual and philosophical reasons. This paper maintains that this standard construal is excessively strong. It argues that the secondary literature tends to presuppose the strong reading and that it often does so by confusing sufficient conditions for belief with necessary ones. It acknowledges some textual evidence on behalf of the strong reading but maintains that the relevant passages are as friendly to the weak as to the strong interpretation of Peirce. The paper then links the doubt-belief theory of “The Fixation of Belief” to the papers on probability that occupy the bulk of the Illustrations of the Logic of Science. It shows that Peirce’s discussion of probability, strength of belief, and weight of evidence makes room for confidence, but not belief, to be undermined and thus offers a more flexible version of Peirce’s theory of inquiry.
Cheryl Misak has presented a reading of Peirce's " The Fixation of Belief " that preserves both t... more Cheryl Misak has presented a reading of Peirce's " The Fixation of Belief " that preserves both the essay's ambitious naturalism (reflected in the thesis that inquiry aims only at the settlement of opinion) and its sensible normativism (reflected in the thesis that belief aims at the truth in some important sense). This essay fleshes out Misak's proposal, formulates some challenges to it, and articulates an alternative. Misak's argument rests on the plausible claim that " it is very hard really to settle beliefs. " 1 As she interprets this claim, it could also be expressed as " it is very hard really to settle beliefs. " Misak extracts a potentially strong source of normativity from Peirce's notion of belief; that concept, she argues, has sensitivity to experience and argumentation built into it. This paper criticizes Misak's interpretation and proposes to do without the sensitivity condition on which she relies. It instead proposes to stick closely to the surface reading of Peirce's paper, according to which the needed normativity can and must be drawn from the notion of stable or settled belief.
Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weake... more Peirce makes it clear that doubt and belief oppose one another. But that slogan admits of a weaker and a stronger reading. The weaker reading permits and the stronger reading forbids the possibility that one can be in a state of doubt and of belief with respect to the same proposition at the same time. The stronger claim is standardly attributed to Peirce, for textual and philosophical reasons. This paper maintains that this standard construal is excessively strong. It argues that the secondary literature tends to presuppose the strong reading and that it often does so by confusing sufficient conditions for belief with necessary ones. It acknowledges some textual evidence on behalf of the strong reading but maintains that the relevant passages are as friendly to the weak as to the strong interpretation of Peirce. The paper then links the doubt-belief theory of “The Fixation of Belief” to the papers on probability that occupy the bulk of the Illustrations of the Logic of Science. It shows that Peirce’s discussion of probability, strength of belief, and weight of evidence makes room for confidence, but not belief, to be undermined and thus offers a more flexible version of Peirce’s theory of inquiry.
Peirce is articulate and emphatic about the need for inquirers to remain ready to learn while als... more Peirce is articulate and emphatic about the need for inquirers to remain ready to learn while also resisting disabling and fraudulent versions of skepticism. The need to learn and the need to believe do not, however, combine readily. Peirce sometimes copes with this tension by distinguishing sharply between science, in which the will to learn reigns supreme, and practice, in which the need for confidence predominates. As several recent commentators have noted, this strategy carries costs of its own. Distinguishing too sharply between theory and practice can itself seem implausible and can leave Peirce with an excessively Cartesian approach to science and an excessively tenacious approach to matters of vital importance. But without such a distinction, the tension with which we began threatens to return. After a critical engagement with recent treatments of the theory-practice divide in Peirce, this essay suggests that the task has been somewhat misconceived. Instead of trying to figure out how to combine the right amount of pure doubt with the right amount of pure belief, we can make progress by recognizing that the doubt-belief theory allows for motivated variations in the confidence with which beliefs are held. This recognition allows Peirce the flexibility needed to motivate sensibly distinct norms governing science and practice. Peirce’s innovative discussion of weight of evidence in “The Probability of Induction,” I suggest, helps us to see that, even in 1878, Peirce’s theory of inquiry contained resources that help render this tension tractable.
Weight of evidence continues to be a powerful metaphor within formal approaches to epistemology. ... more Weight of evidence continues to be a powerful metaphor within formal approaches to epistemology. But attempts to construe the metaphor in precise and useful ways have encountered formidable obstacles. This paper shows that two quite different understandings of evidential weight can be traced back to one 1878 article by C.S. Peirce. One conception, often associated with I.J. Good, measures the balance or net weight of evidence, while the other, generally associated with J.M. Keynes, measures the gross weight of evidence. Conflations of these two notions have contributed to misunderstandings in the literature on weight. This paper shows why Peirce developed each conception of weight, why he distinguished them, and why they are easily mistaken for one another.
This paper argues that sustained attention to the highlighted structure of William James’s “The W... more This paper argues that sustained attention to the highlighted structure of William James’s “The Will to Believe” yields surprising insights into the essay. “Highlighted structure” includes James’s announcements of his intentions, his section breaks, and, especially, patterns of repetition and contrast within the work. Particular attention is paid to a criticism to which James frequently returns, viz. that evidentialists are driven by their passions to adopt evidentialism. I argue that James does not take this to constitute an objection to evidentialism as such. This is because James construes evidentialism more charitably than has been recognized. Evidentialism, as James understands it, claims, not that our willing nature should play no role in our believings, but instead that the cognitive role of our willing nature should be minimized. Consequently, I argue that the thesis of James’s famous essay has generally been misidentified and mischaracterized.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 2011
This paper offers a new interpretation of Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” one that pays specia... more This paper offers a new interpretation of Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” one that pays special attention to the notion of what it is for a belief to be fixed or stable. Drawing on Louis Loeb’s stability-centered readings of the epistemologies of Descartes and Hume, I argue that Peirce does not make much direct use of a Cartesian notion of permanently stable belief. He is instead relying on a comparatively modest, Humean notion according to which a fixed belief is stable for a given inquirer at a given time. A belief is settled if it resists being undermined too readily by experience and reflection. I try to show how such a reading allows Peirce to object to unscientific methods of fixing belief purely on grounds of their ineffectiveness. And I try to show how Peirce establishes the superior effectiveness of the method of science at delivering stable beliefs in the relevant sense.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 2013
This essay offers an elucidation and a critical examination of Joe Ransdell’s striking suggestion... more This essay offers an elucidation and a critical examination of Joe Ransdell’s striking suggestion that Peirce is the first real heir of Socrates other than Plato. Ransdell links Socratic perplexity and Peircean genuine doubt in a communicative conception of epistemology and philosophy of science. This approach, which makes actual acceptance the key to understanding success in inquiry, is contrasted with the dominant criterial approach to these matters. Criterial conceptions maintain that formal standards for successful inquiry are crucial to the explanation of successful inquiries. The paper argues that Ransdell is right about the importance of actual acceptance and also that he is right to acquit Socrates and Peirce of the charge of psychologism. But, drawing on recent work by Hintikka and Mayo, the essay argues that Ransdell overdraws the contrast between communicative and criterial approaches. Ransdell’s Socratic tradition can and should find more room for formal evaluations of hypotheses and inferences than Ransdell seems to realize. That said, mainstream epistemology and philosophy of science would do well to see themselves as engaged in the study of perplexity management.
Social Epistemology, 2006
We argue that an expressivist interpretation of “The Will to Believe” provides a fruitful way of... more We argue that an expressivist interpretation of “The Will to Believe” provides a fruitful way
of understanding this widely-read but perplexing document. James approaches questions
about our intellectual obligations from two quite different standpoints. He first defends an
expressivist interpretation of judgments of intellectual obligation; they are “only expressions
of our passional life”. Only then does James argue against evidentialism, and both his
criticisms of Clifford and his defense of a more flexible ethics of belief presuppose this independently-
defended expressivism. James puts forward his ethics of belief as healthy or
appropriate, rather than as correct.
Philosophica, 2002
The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appea... more The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appear from a distance to be a cacophony of different voices, with every single one speaking at cross-purposes to each and every other. A closer inspection reveals identifiable fault lines running through the field separating some voices from others -the rhetoricians from the dialecticians, for example, and both of them from the logicians -but still not enough organization to make all that noise into a symphony. It would seem a foolish optimism to think that what is necessary is the addition of yet another voice. However, when the voice belongs to Hilary Putnam, philosophically good things happen.
Transactions of the C.S. Peirce Society, 1999
This paper argues against a common view in the secondary literature according to which Peirce sli... more This paper argues against a common view in the secondary literature according to which Peirce slipped into a version of psychologism in his famous papers of the late 1870's. The essay explains what Peirce takes psychologism to involve and argues that Peirce correctly regarded himself as an anti-psychologistic logician throughout his career.
Reiss begins by telling us what just about everybody from Hume to Woodward has gotten right and w... more Reiss begins by telling us what just about everybody from Hume to Woodward has gotten right and wrong about causation. None of these approaches holds much promise, Reiss thinks, of sustaining a full account of causation. Since appropriately privileged ordinary usage allows absences to be legitimate causes, for instance, causation cannot be identified with a transfer of energy or information from cause to effect, dooming process theories. And since not all causes are difference-makers, counterfactual approaches to causation face fatal objections. The reader rightly expects Reiss to defend causal pluralism. But when Anscombe's Wittgensteinian causal pluralism gets subjected to the same sort of appreciative rejection as its monistic competitors one starts to wonder what Reiss is up to. The answer is intriguing if a long time in coming. Reiss proposes an inferentialist theory of causation; causation is a species of entitlement to infer. The meaning of causal claims consists in the evidence from which they can be inferred and in the inferences that they license. But causation is constituted by inferential connections that differ importantly in kind.
Teaching Philosophy, 2015
Philosophica, 2002
The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appea... more The discourse of Argumentation Theory, like every other vital philosophical discussion, can appear from a distance to be a cacophony of different voices, with every single one speaking at cross-purposes to each and every other. A closer inspection reveals identifiable fault lines running through the field separating some voices from others-the rhetoricians from the dialecticians, for example, and both of them from the logicians-but still not enough organization to make all that noise into a symphony. It would seem a foolish optimism to think that what is necessary is the addition of yet another voice. However, when the voice belongs to Hilary Putnam, philosophically good things happen. Throughout his career, Putnam has repeatedly struck notes that resonate with what others say about argumentation. His insights on commensurability and revisability, his analyses of meaning and rationality, and his articulation of internal realism all bear importantly on the processes of critical reasoning. One good point of entry is provided by the striking harmonic convergence of Putnam's arguments about realism and relativism and the tightly focused debate over the truth-requirement as a criterion in the evaluation of arguments. Putnam, we will argue, defends the importance of a norm of truth distinct from rational acceptability. But he does so while taking our practices of inquiry and argumentation as primary. He offers a defense, from within our practices, of a notion of truth that permanently transcends our practices. §1. The ThreeFold Word: Much of the fragmentation of the fields of Informal Logic and Argumentation Theory is due to the presence of three very different root metaphors for thinking about arguments. 1 One conception of arguments is as proofs, the products of logicians and mathematicians. 2 An argument in that sense is a sequence of sentences with a specifiable inferential structure. Since this model completely ignores any arguers, the argument-as-proof model is of limited help for understanding any actual, embodied arguments. At the other extreme, arguments are thought of as verbal wars, agonistic moments in discourse. Arguments are born of disagreement, so the adversarial 1 For discussions of metaphors for arguments, see Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Ayim 1988, and Cohen 1995.