May 10 2008
How to be clear and distinct
via Popular Science, a vintage 1878 piece by Charles Peirce on ‘How to Make our Ideas Clear’.
The article ends thus…“How to give birth to those vital and procreative ideas which multiply into a thousand forms and diffuse themselves everywhere, advancing civilization and making the dignity of man, is an art not yet reduced to rules, but of the secret of which the history of science affords some hints”.
Dear Amit,
Thanks for the wonderful reference.Have sifted through it but would surely read it at length when time permits.
“subjective feeling of mastery” is what stuck and stayed with me - that innate feeling of premature judgment that mars, more than makes, any piece of creation - whether in arts or science. How often we see creators across fields faking bliss halfway in proclaiming “break-through” artifacts. In a world of more followers than leaders, nothing could prove more fatal.
“It is certainly important to know how to make our ideas clear, but they may be ever so clear without being true.”
It still rings true…..to this day!
Peirce is no doubt pioneering but like most Westerners relies heavily on Descartes on matters philosophical. That cannot be termed a limitation as it was in sync with his times, but Indian Vedic literature has a more detailed and all inclusive approach to matters of logic and certainty.
It’s tragic that we Indians have buried the treasure in a tug of war between two extremes - between the fanatics, busy unveiling the saffron flag in a mindless crusade - and - the pseudo intellectuals invariably advertising an impotent and apologetic stance in rubbishing anything ancient.