Re: The Power of Peirce’s Thought

Peircers,

Here's a slight revision of my second installment ...

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/10/04/the-power-of-peirces-thought-2/

The Power of Peirce’s Thought : 2
Posted on October 4, 2012

Kirsti Määttänen shared her reflections on my invocation of this theme, leading me to further 
thoughts that I add with minor edits below —

You give a good description of the encounter with uncertainty, that unsettled state of mind that 
irks a person to inquire after new grounds of belief. Viewed in biological perspective, it is only 
natural that evolution associates the affects it does with states of doubt. Animal fear befits the 
animal that does not know which way to turn in a situation of peril — and what situation is not 
potentially a situation of peril if a creature does not know what it ought to do next?

But one of the marks of a more evolved creature is a greater tolerance for uncertainty, a greater 
capacity for reflection on doubtful situations, not necessarily in the middle of the fray — that can 
be paralyzing — but in the cool of the afterthoughts that a creature can turn to good use in trying 
to anticipate similar situations in the future.

That greater capacity for reflection on one’s ongoing situation requires a greater ability to 
generate alternative descriptions and courses of action. That amounts to a capacity for creating or 
constructing a larger conceptual “search space” than the one assumed at the start, in the idiom, 
“thinking outside the box”.

Regards,

Jon

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