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CACOPHONIES_AND_SOLOS

                                             February 15, 2010
                                             August   12, 2011
                                             May      11, 2022


http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ideas/id-main.htm#CP5.393

A quote, from Charles S Peirce, "How to Make our Ideas Clear" (1897):


    "To know what we think, to be masters of our own
    meaning, will make a solid foundation for great
    and weighty thought. It is most easily learned by
    those whose ideas are meagre and restricted; and
    far happier they than such as wallow helplessly
    in a rich mud of conceptions. A nation, it is
    true, may, in the course of generations, overcome
    the disadvantage of an excessive wealth of
    language and its natural concomitant, a vast,
    unfathomable deep of ideas. We may see it in
    history, slowly perfecting its literary forms,
    sloughing at length its metaphysics, and, by
    virtue of the untirable patience which is often a
    compensation, attaining great excellence in every
    branch of mental acquirement. The page of history
    is not yet unrolled that is to tell us whether           Is he talking
    such a people will or will not in the long run           about English
    prevail over one whose ideas (like the words of          speakers?
    their language) are few, but which possesses a           English is a
    wonderful mastery over those which it has. For an        pack rat of
    individual, however, there can be no question            a language,
    that a few clear ideas are worth more than many          it shows few
    confused ones."                                          signs of
                                                             simplification.

                                                         And if anything,
                                                         the scientific
                                                         era has threatened
                                                         to drown us in
   Somewhere in there may be                             waves of specialized
   a sensible recognition of                             jargon.
   the limitations of human
   intellect...                                          And English compared
                                  UNINTENDED             to what?   Is he
                                                         comparing it to
   But it sounds much like a man                         French or German?
   chasing mathematical elegance in
   fields where it isn't relevant...                         Maybe the idea
                                                             is that Latin
                                        THE_PERL_AFFAIR      is Babel-17.



    "For an individual, however,
    there can be no question            Peirce clearly                (Apr 2022)
    that a few clear ideas are          never met a             Perhaps by
    worth more than many                Randroid.               "worth" he's
    confused ones."                                             talking about
                                        Or the                  what makes
                                        equivalent.             you feel
                                                                happy, rather
                             (Apr 2022)                         than what's
  On second though, the passage quoted                          likely to get
  above strikes strikes me as Peirce doing                      you closer to
  some very creative thinking-- he's                            truth?
  willing to concede that the diverse
  cacophany of opinion in the public realm
  may be a fundamental, useful feature of     It's an interesting
  democratic society, but suggests that       additional complication
  the analogous condition inside of your      that the passage is also
  head would be very bad.                     shot through with the
                                              assumption that there's
  Having warring factions inside your         some correspondence between
  own head is admittedly not terribly         words and ideas.
  pleasant...
                                                  Peirce is ever and always
  On the other hand, I'm not inclined to          going in too many directions
  celebrate monomania.  "A few clear ideas"       at once.
  would be great, provided they were also
  correct ideas.                                     (Which can be a problem
                                                     when you're after a few
                                                     clear ideas.)




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