Re: Dispersion, Uncertainty, Doubt, Entropy (DUDE❢)

Thread:
JA:http://web.archive.org/web/20140630220000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13446
SR:http://web.archive.org/web/20140701002000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13447
JA:http://web.archive.org/web/20140701003000/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13448
SR:http://web.archive.org/web/20140701024001/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13449
PC:http://web.archive.org/web/20140701031800/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/13450

Stephen, Phyllis, List,

I do not think Peirce is being dogmatic so much as simply making a definition.  He wraps a boundary 
about a class of processes that he finds worthy of interest for all sorts of reasons and he affixes 
the word "inquiry" to that class.  He knows the name is not always so apt but what's in a name is 
the object class and not the name for its own sake.

| The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief.
| I shall term this struggle ''inquiry'', though it must be admitted
| that this is sometimes not a very apt designation.
|
| http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html

If we peer through the cloud of words surrounding the class of phenomena thus labeled, we find many 
features in common.  There is a tension among two or more alternatives.  Hence the words ambiguity, 
doubt, double take, dubiety, duplicity, equivocality, perplexity, and so on.  The alternatives may 
come in different flavors, intensities, or modes, and they may arise from different sources.  Hence 
the words anomaly, novelty, and surprise that reflect a tension between what we expect or what is 
familiar and what we observe in actuality.  All these words point in their own nuanced ways to 
roughly the same sort of affective-cognitive situation.

Once the general idea of inquiry is settled enough to inquire further, there are any number of 
questions we might ask next.

I have a few in mind ...

Jon

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