Arguing at Play in the Fields of the Lord; or, Abducting Charles Peirce's Rhetorical Theory in

21 Pages·2009·1.16 MB·English

neWcomb / arguing at play in the fields of the lord
Matthew J. Newcomb
Arguing at Play in the Fields of the Lord; or,
Abducting Charles Peirce’s Rhetorical Theory in
“A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God”
This article argues that the ideas of “play” and “abduction” in Charles Peirce’s work
represent an inventive theory of argument that opens up the kinds of activities that
can be called “arguments” and avoids some of the struggles over imposed beliefs with
which recent argument theory has grappled.
A
n ‘Argument’ is any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a
definite belief” (Peirce, “Neglected” 119). There is quite a bit to unpack in this
short definition, and I hope to usefully labor at that process in a portion of this
essay. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), by most accounts the founder of
American pragmatism (although he later attempted to distance himself from
William James, John Dewey, and others by calling himself a pragmaticist1),
discussed rhetoric a bit in his work but never fully fleshed out his theories
about this area of study. However, the concept of argument was central to this
theorist of signs, and the definition of argument that he offers in the sentence
above is a first obvious sign for the potential historical and theoretical value of
including further study of Peirce in contemporary rhetorical work.2 As in the
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case of Kenneth Burke’s religious analyses, Peirce’s arguments about God in his
“Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” and about religious language are
more about rhetoric and language as a whole than they are about God. Most
significantly, Peirce offers an understanding of argument that emphasizes play-
ful exploration of new knowledge in a way that moves beyond recent debates
(as seen in scholars focusing on classical work and often those doing feminist
work) about the (potentially) negative coerciveness of most contemporary
models of argument.
I am not suggesting that Peirce is fundamentally a rhetorician. His interests
in logic, philosophy, and science can, of course, border on rhetoric in many ways,
but one might still use those first three terms in labeling his work. Neverthe-
less, Peirce’s understanding of argument is quite expansive while remaining
meaningful. His is another valuable voice to put into discussion with Aristotle,
Burke, and feminist writers who critique the notion of argument itself. Here I
analyze what I consider to be three of his main rhetorical principles as found
in his “Neglected Argument for the Reality of God” (1908) (which Peirce often
shortens to “NA”), a piece from fairly late in his life and philosophical develop-
ment. It is, as the title indicates, an argument: an attempt to impact the ideas
and attitudes of readers, particularly in how they think of reality, belief, and God.
I choose the “Neglected Argument” partially because it is a later work of his,
after some of his ideas had developed through a few phases, partially because
it is not as obsessed with traditional logic as some of his work is, and partially
because the NA itself is an argument and is about arguments.
In this essay, I develop Peirce’s definition and approach to argument and
argumentation, his notion of the “play” of “musement,” and his constant em-
phasis on the creative activity of retroduction (also called abduction)—as an
aspect of persuasion. I opened with a brief definition of argument from Peirce,
a term that he contrasts with more methodical “argumentation” (as in the
case of Toulmin and other more formalized methods), which is “an Argument
proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses [sic]” (119). “Play,” for Peirce,
is a purposeless wandering of the mind, done “perhaps during a stroll,” which
“has no rules, except this very law of liberty” (120). In this sense, play is based
in freedom and is therefore quite different than the typical scientific mode of
inquiry and argument, since it is specifically without direction or controls.
As for abduction or retroduction (those two terms are used interchangeably
by Peirce), this is the moment of putting together disparate observations and
experiences into a hypothesis that then can be examined further. Peirce says
that this hypothesis-making activity, as well as experiences leading to it, is a
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form of argument. Peirce gives rhetoricians and teachers an understanding of
argument that makes play, experience, and hypothesis making central to argu-
ment, making argument something prior to convincing others of something
you already think.
Background on Peirce
The three aspects of Peirce’s rhetoric in his “Neglected Argument for the Real-
ity of God” require some background on Peirce’s philosophy and on his rather
non-intuitive terminology. Peirce’s primary claim to fame is his status as the
reputed founder of pragmatism. Peirce’s friend William James, in his first lecture
in his Pragmatism series entitled “The Present Dilemma in Philosophy,” cites
Peirce indirectly as the “founder of pragmatism” whose lectures were “flashes
of brilliant light relieved against Cimmerian darkness!” (7). Later, Cornel West
puts Peirce squarely in the tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson and those who
evade the problems of certainty-centered European Enlightenment epistemol-
ogy (42). This development of a rather unique view of knowledge developed, of
course, in a community. In Peirce’s case it was a community of academics and
debate in a time when questions of scientific method were central, when the
theory of evolution had a powerful impact on philosophy, and when statistical
knowledge was growing in importance. Louis Menand, who includes Peirce as
a key figure but not a focal point of his social history of pragmatism, describes
Charles Peirce as an intriguing, intelligent, and arrogant figure (151).3 The son
of Harvard professor Benjamin Peirce, Charles Peirce struggled financially and
personally for much of his life. Although he was a professor in the early years
of Johns Hopkins University (he also spent a fair amount of time in the first
part of his life working for the U.S. Coast Survey), often as a result of character
shortcomings he never kept a faculty position for long. Menand asserts that
Peirce, “had a better nature; but he knew, even at twenty, that his personality
was his enemy, and his entire adult life was a continual cycle of self-indulgence
and self-rebuke” (159; emphasis in original). Peirce’s social difficulties did not
prevent him from being a vital part of a small intellectual community—em-
phasizing the social character he imputes to knowledge.
Peirce is less social in his very particular way of using terms. For example,
“belief” is an important term in a context where the goal of many arguments
is to lead to a change in belief or to a new belief. By “belief” Peirce usually
means a fairly standard pragmatic notion of the term: any idea that is strong
enough that you act on it is a belief. As Peirce says in the “Neglected Argument,”
“Now to be deliberately and thoroughly prepared to shape one’s conduct into
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conformity with a proposition is neither more nor less than the state of mind
called Believing that proposition, however long the conscious classification
of it under that head be postponed” (“NA” 124–25). Consequently, labeling
something a belief or not is less important than being willing to act on that
notion or proposition. Douglas Anderson’s detailed analysis of the “Neglected
Argument” provides some additional nuance to Peircian belief:
For Peirce full and living belief is neither the Bainian belief of practice nor the
purely provisional belief of science; rather, it is a transactional process in which
we are committed to acting on a belief as if it were indubitable while at the same
time leaving it open to criticism. In this way, the practical dimension of belief
underwrites the possibility of practicing science, and the theoretical dimension
underwrites the possibilities of tempering and altering our modes of practice. (182)
In short, belief requires the difficult combination of enough intellectual, emo-
tional, and behavioral investment in an idea that it is treated as True, even while
the behavior maintains a sense of epistemological fallibility that could let a belief
be criticized and even changed. Peirce’s notion of belief here asserts a value for
strong conviction (suggesting that there is an emotional, not just intellectual,
aspect to belief), yet it needs the same kind of openness to alteration that is a
necessary precursor to most effective rhetorical acts.
Peirce’s use of the word “Reality” in his title is also important. Central to
much of his work is a tri-partite system of reality. “Real” things could be Firsts,
Seconds, or Thirds. (He was somewhat obsessed with threes.) Much of his sys-
tem was a response to what he saw as the emptiness and ultimate ineffectiveness
of a nominalism that did not allow for the reality of concepts or generalizations.
Peirce thought that this sort of nominalism ultimately removed all connections
between things, making science and language rather pointless. In Peirce’s work,
therefore, he supplied those connections. Firstness is connected to freedom
and the possible. It is “what is merely possible, what is a suchness, and what
is associated primarily with feeling” (Anderson 39). Secondness, on the other
hand, is more readily identifiable by the senses. It is the realm of science and
includes individual objects that Peirce speaks of as “existing.” Thirdness, then,
is the category that creates connections and relations between things in the
first two categories. Thirdness is the realm of concepts, laws, and, notably for
our purposes, signs.4 Peirce discusses Thirdness, his main area of focus of the
three realms, in the “Neglected Argument:”
The third Universe comprises everything whose being consists in active power
to establish connections between different objects, especially between objects in
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different Universes. Such is everything which is essentially a Sign—not the mere
body of the Sign, which is not essentially such, but, so to speak, the Sign’s Soul,
which has its Being in its power of serving as intermediary between its Object
and a Mind. (“NA” 119)
Some aspect of a sign, a thing that mediates between minds and objects, has
reality for Peirce. In his system only the second Universe has existence, but
all three realms are equivalent in their reality. By calling something real, then,
Peirce defines things in all three realms as having characteristics independent
of what is thought about them (Anderson 141). An example from Peirce is that
the substance of a dream is not Real, since it was such as it was, merely in that a
dreamer so dreamed it; but the fact of the dream is Real, if it was dreamed; since if
so, its date, the name of the dreamer, etc., make up a set of circumstances sufficient
to distinguish it from all other events; and these belong to it, i.e. would be true if
predicated of it, whether A, B, or C Actually ascertains them or not. (“NA” 118)
The reality of God in Peirce’s argument is in the third Universe: it is not the
same thing as saying that God “exists” like my desk does, or that God necessarily
interacts with other objects in a particular existent location.5
So what does the “Neglected Argument” actually argue? It has some con-
nections to arguments for the existence of God based on design. To oversimplify
for a moment: people are made in such a way that when their minds are given
free play and turn to spiritual things, they will inevitably believe (using Peirce’s
definition of belief) in the reality (not necessarily the existence) of God. Later
forms of testing and induction can then be used to alter or confirm this belief.
It is also a hypothesis that runs into the problem that many people have given
a form of freedom to their musings and have not come to believe in the reality
of God. Peirce’s full essay is really more of a nesting of three arguments. Sandra
Rosenthal provides a useful summary of the “Neglected Argument”6:
The first argument, which is an immediate and direct experience for the muser,
is “entirely honest, sincere and unaffected [. . .] meditation upon the Idea of God,
into which the Play of Musement will inevitably sooner or later lead, and which
will produce a truly religious” belief in the reality of God. The second concerns
the universality and naturalness of the experience involved in the first. It is “a
vindicatory description—of the mental operations which the Humble Argument
actually and actively lives out.” The third argument identifies the humble argument
as exemplifying induction, which is the first step of scientific method. In this way
the living belief in God is a first step for scientific inquiry. (239)
Peirce calls his argument “humble” because any person (supposedly) could
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have access to it. In fact, he claims, some form of this argument is how most
people do actually come to believe in God. Some form of musement, perhaps
while out on a walk in the woods, leads a person to consider and without
strong reason feel the reality of God. Peirce claims that this is a fairly universal
experience—indicating something about the design of humans, although one
could also argue that humans have this experience of belief that they can act
on because of common social factors or because of the value of belief in God
for evolutionary survival. Peirce then completes his case by asserting that his
argument for God’s reality is a key example of how inquiry works. Argument is
a happening; it occurs in the free wandering of a mind as that mind (or group
of minds—because knowledge is quite social for Peirce) hypothesizes patterns
and explanations for a diversity of seemingly unconnected data.
Peirce on Argument
As I noted earlier, according to Peirce’s definition, “An ‘Argument’ is any process
of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief. An ‘Argumentation’
is an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premises” (“NA” 119).
An argument, then, does not have to be one or more speakers influencing oth-
ers. Lyne helpfully notes that “discourse” for Peirce “is an engagement of two or
more minds, or ‘quasi-minds,’ in a semiotic process. The ‘quasi-mind’ designa-
tion is useful when there is an interchange between entities not regarded as
persons—the ‘parts’ of consciousness for instance” (158). For Peirce, you can
be your own audience, and argument is broad enough to include anything that
you might be interacting with through signs—perhaps even your environment
(to broaden the point beyond where Lyne and maybe Peirce as well would take
it). So argument can be any “process of thought” that has the right “tendency”
and a level of reasonableness. Peirce disallows gibberish or total irrationality
with his focus on reason, but keeps argument open to feeling, instinct, intu-
ition, and impulse. Much of what rhetorical scholars have studied is closer to
“argumentation” (Toulmin on argument, for example). It involves working from
logical premises, going by deduction or induction, and articulating tactics
used in an argumentative method. This is useful, and Peirce does not suggest
it is a negative thing either. But he does want to distinguish it from the more
experiential process of living and of argument. An argument in this definition
(also in keeping with his valuation of play) is often what happens to someone,
not what one sets out to do.
Peirce again is open with his definition of argument. Belief does not have
to be firm for an argument to exist; all that is needed is a process that tends
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to produce a specific belief. Belief is something that a person can and is will-
ing to act on, even though it is held open to later change. In this sense, Peirce
keeps argument as a continuous activity. Future experiences, bits of data to
include in a hypothesis, or alternative arguments: all are not only possible
factors in changing belief, but are also expected. Belief’s connection to action
potentially makes argument, in Peirce’s formulation, the basis behind virtu-
ally all actions. An argument is a causal force or set of causal factors. How far
can we take this point? Is a virus an argument for the symptoms it produces?
This speculation moves beyond Peirce’s limitation of a “process of thought”
(at least as “thought” is usually defined), but one could open up his rhetoric in
this direction. If I observe an increase in gasoline prices, that increase, along
with my thoughts about it, are both aspects of an argument that results in my
riding my bicycle more often.
Peirce himself showed some interest in having a broad notion of argument
and rhetoric. In an unpublished manuscript from 1904 he concluded, “Evidently
our conception of rhetoric has got to be generalized; and while we are about it,
why not remove the restriction of rhetoric to speech? [. . .] Let us cut short such
objections [that something is “too rhetorical”] by acknowledging at once, as
an ens in posse, a universal art of rhetoric, which shall be the general secret of
rendering signs effective” (470, MS 774: 3–5). While Peirce specifically referred
to artwork that had been critiqued for being “too rhetorical,” his point applies
to other phenomena. Rhetoric is not restricted to speech, or even to words, at
this point, but Peirce pushes this openness to the side of the observer, reader,
or listener. He is interested in the “effectiveness” of signs, which is indicated by
action from belief. Peirce’s rhetorical theory would seemingly include a large
space for responses, not just in thought or words, but in actions. A Peircian
rhetorical study could start with behaviors or actions by specific people and
then work an analysis back to the often wide set of experiences, observations,
words, and thoughts that led through retroduction to belief that brings action.
Peirce’s mix of elements in argumentation suggests his belief that reason
and emotion are mixed in lived experience. Rosenthal elaborates on this point,
noting the surprising fact that Peirce considers the “Neglected Argument” to
be an argument at all.
That the humble argument is seen as an argument at all shows the inseparable
intermingling of reason and feeling at the primal level. The “argument” is not
rationally developed but felt in the immediacy of experience; what is emphasized
is the emotive, spiritual nature of religious belief, the source of its vitality. [. . .]
Religious belief must have verifiable consequences not in offering its own kind
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of abstract, formalized “explanation” of the world but in the kind of effects it has
on the vitality of concrete human existence.” (239)
Argument can be quite instantaneous in this description—and it can at least
feel experiential and instantaneous to someone who changes a belief. Rosenthal
does not spend more time on the surprising fact that the “humble argument is
seen as an argument at all,” but it supports the work on Peircian argument that
I have done above in that the humble argument is an experienced process, does
not have to involve others, may include a wide variety of forces and observa-
tions, and is instinctive or intuitive. Argument is experienced as much as it is
made, spoken, or outlined.
Persuasion versus/with Understanding
So what does Peirce’s idea of argument have to say to current debates about
argument as a concept? Peirce provides a valuable perspective on the connec-
tions between argument and the creation of new knowledge.7 His “Neglected
Argument” shifts recent debates about argument toward an emphasis on
playful inventive work that happens earlier in a rhetorical process than current
argument theories. Much recent work on argument has provided a dichotomy
between argument as persuasion (through reason, emotion, or both) and argu-
ment as understanding and invitation (particularly through feminist critiques
of the dominating aspects of persuasion). In a 2006 College Composition and
Communication article, for instance, Suzanne Bordelon addresses debates
about argumentation through George Pierce Baker’s work. She identifies
Baker as someone who is “typically associated with a logic-based approach to
argumentation by scholars such as Albert R. Kitzhaber, Gregory Clark and S.
Michael Halloran, and, particularly, Robert J. Connors” (“Reassessment” 764).
One standard understanding of argument is through logic and tied to persua-
sion. Bordelon argues that Baker used a practical logic (rather than a strictly
formal logic) for argument and was concerned with the relationships between
rhetors. Bordelon mentions Baker’s definition of argumentation that involves
creating particular thoughts or attitudes in the mind of another, claiming that
“Baker describes argument in psychological terms, rather than emphasizing it
as a process of merely proving or disproving propositions” (768). Peirce follows
Baker about thirteen years later in focusing on the practical aspects of argument
and the more psychological and relational possibilities for argument; however,
Peirce’s NA takes a further step away from particular structures and strategies
to promote even surprising observations as unintended aspects of argument.
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Bordelon’s use of Baker places a “cooperative approach to argument” against
what Bordelon calls the “traditional agonistic, persuasion-oriented view” (776).8
Much of the tension between these ideas of argument as agonistic persuasion
and argument as cooperative understanding can be traced to the development
of invitational rhetoric.
Sonya Foss and Cindy Griffin ask for a profound change in rhetorical
practices away from coercive persuasion models. They theorize “invitational
rhetoric,” which is “grounded in the feminist principles of equality, immanent
value, and self-determination. Its purpose is to offer an invitation to under-
standing” (2). This rhetoric does not have persuasion as a goal,9 but rather asks
the participants in conversations to understand how people construct the
worlds in which they live (Foss, Foss, and Griffin 7). Kathleen Ryan and Eliza-
beth Natalle have worked with invitational rhetoric to try to address critiques
made of invitational rhetoric for its isolated and essentialized subjects, for its
difficulty in explaining change, and for the lack of public uses for invitational
rhetoric (71–73). Nevertheless, the main split in issues of argumentation re-
mains between supposedly persuasive and cooperative models—both of which
assume the centrality of changing (persuading) or maintaining (understanding)
another person, but which differ over the primacy of influence and understand-
ing. These notions of argument assume that a person already has knowledge
or a viewpoint and must persuade another to that viewpoint or convey it in a
mutually understandable way. While arguing with another may create changes
in opinion, it does not emphasize the creation of knowledge not yet held by
any party involved. This focus on creating new knowledge is one of the main
things Peirce can add to rhetoricians’ understanding of argument. Peirce does
not finish or solve debates about persuasion and understanding but rather
shifts the debate to an earlier stage—where perspectives are not yet established.
Let me provide an example that is applicable to Peirce’s understanding
of argument. Recently my foot was hurting, and I went to the doctor. I already
had a belief of what the problem was—a certain kind of tendonitis in the bot-
tom of the foot. According to the persuasion notion of argument that involves
an attempt to change another person (where an individual has a belief and
attempts to lead another to agree with that belief), I made an argument to the
doctor about what I thought the problem was. I argued that plantar fasciitis was
likely my problem and gave information about the location, type, and times of
pain as evidence. I even made note of the research I had done. After X-rays, the
doctor agreed with me, but she in turn made an argument, using evidence from
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the X-rays, to persuade me that there might be another bone-related issue. My
opinion was changed by the authority and evidence presented by the doctor.
This example is nothing new and may even seem obvious—and that is
precisely because persuading someone to change his or her mind through con-
vincing language is still the main way rhetoricians think of argument. In the
same medical situation, if one considers it through the influence of invitational
rhetoric and its understanding of argument, there were other—perhaps more
important—moments of argument in my visit to the doctor. Yes, the above
examples are argument as well, but of the dominating kind (a kind that most
theorists regard as still useful at times). When the doctor and I chatted about
what I liked to do (particularly in reference to activities that would require me
to use my foot), about her husband’s interest in similar activities, and about how
the medical process in that visit might work, we were presenting aspects of our-
selves to be understood and to develop cooperation. This is a less agonistic form
of argument. I believe it has advantages in its focus on relationship-building
and avoiding dominating relationships, but it can make attempts to influence
others (still an important activity) difficult—or can simply hide that influence.
Musement and Play
Remember that Peirce began his meditations on argument by referring to the
notions of play and musement. “Pure Play” for Peirce is a “certain agreeable
occupation of mind” that “involves no purpose save that of casting aside all
serious purpose:” (“NA” 120).
Pure Play has no rules, except this very law of liberty. It bloweth where it listeth.
It has no purpose, unless recreation. [. . . Pure Play] may take the form of esthetic
contemplation, or that of distant castle building (whether in Spain or within one’s
own moral training, or that of considering some wonder in one of the Universes,
or some connection between two of the three, with speculation concerning its
cause. (“NA” 120)
Pure Play for Peirce is fundamentally an act of freedom by the mind. Given that
there is no total freedom from influences, and given the fact that Peirce seems
to allow for the influence of what one observes on this play, what is the freedom
from? The freedom of mind is from the structures and strictures of focused
thought or research. There is no conscious end goal for this play of the mind
(which is often connected to the body as well for Peirce—given his comments
about how observing nature and Playing often happen during walks). Play can
be the starting point for argument as it makes observations about the world.
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