Transcendental Hope: Peirce, Hookway, and Pihlström on the Conditions for Inquiry

Elizabeth Cooke Transcendental Hope: Peirce, Hookway, and Pihlström on the Conditions for Inquiry All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? — Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (A805/B833)1 1. Introduction Hope has been a significant theme in pragmatism ever since Charles S. Peirce first articulated his theory of inquiry. In fact, many pragmatists since Peirce have relied on this idea of hope as a kind of alternative to the excesses of traditional epistemological foundationalism. And much of this discussion regards just what we should hope for — i.e., consensus, truth in the long run, objectivity, keeping the conversation going ... or, simply hope itself. All of these have been proposed as leading possibilities in the debate over the proper goal of inquiry.2 And certainly each is a viable candidate in the matter of inquiry and is important for a robust debate on pragmatic inquiry. Yet, for all their value, this discussion remains somewhat on the surface of inquiry. For debates over the goal of inquiry concern mainly what we may hope for — indeed, they are all reasonable answers to Kant's original question, "What may I hope?" Here, however, I want to ask the deeper question, the more transcendentally fundamental question (in the Kantian sense), "What must I hope for?" This question is particularly relevant to pragmatism, for while Peirce emphasizes the role of hope in inquiry, he does not unpack its precise function — and this paper is meant to do just that. I take my point of departure from Peirce and Christopher Hookway, both of whom see hope as a key condition for inquiry. But in some contrast to Peirce and Hookway, I argue that hope functions as a "necessary" condition for the possibility of even asking the questions which initiate inquiry. In this I follow the recent work of Sami Pihlström who argues for a synthesis of the transcendental Kantian project with pragmatic naturalism. On the present count, hope has a distinctiy Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society Summer, 2005, Vol. XLI, No. 3 652 Elizabeth Cooke transcendental function in both thought and inquiry; and as the underlying formal structure of inquiry, it also conditions the content of particular inquiries. In developing this account, as a supplement to Peirce's views on hope (and those I wish to put forward here), I also draw on the pragmatist philosopher George Herbert Mead — in particular, his notion of the socialization of meaning. What will emerge is the idea that hope is conditioned in part by one's past experiences with questions and their responses. 2. Peirce on Hope Peirce's project of synthesizing the human evolutionary biological dimensions of inquiry with the goal of truth is often interpreted as requiring creativity in the form of the logic of abduction — mixed with the all-important communicative aspect of inquiry, which requires individual altruism. Genuine altruism is, for Peirce, a distinctiy logical attitude which is necessary for the progress of inquiry, since we are not likely to see the results of our efforts in this lifetime. We work on a scientific problem today knowing, at best, it will be solved only in the distant future. There are no guarantees, only rational hopes and rational hypotheses that help to push inquiry forward. Science's value lies in its ability to advance inquiry into reality. Indeed, the scientific democratic community has an internal logic, such that it will slowly progress toward truth. And hope is an essential component of this logic. Our particular hopes in this process of inquiry primarily regard humanity's ability to discover new ideas. That is, Peirce with his dynamic and creative view of science does not see "progress" as better and better justifications of the discoveries we have already made. Rather he sees progress as improving our minds so that we can make more and more discoveries. On this Peircean view, which emphasizes a very complex and ever evolving universe, reality always contains incredible hidden treasures just waiting to be found. And we find these by pushing inquiry up to...