Abstract
How to account for the interplay of change and permanence in human identity? I discuss Peirce’s contribution to solve a paradox: the certainty of humans of always being themselves, always the same person, despite the overtly evolving nature of the self. Intriguingly, what epitomizes the regular and predictable nature of habit and of habit-taking centrally involves the incidence of the most volatile element in Peirce’s theory, namely, Orience (“free originality”), spontaneity. To describe the emergence of change in identity construed as a process of habit-taking, this chapter examines three decades of Peircean writings on habit (1878–1908). A conclusion of this study is how fundamental in his account is the role of the imagination when it comes to the shaping of habits. That elusive element in humanity bears tangible consequences, since imaginary considerations “will affect my real action should those circumstances be realized” (CP 2.148). Phaneroscopy provides an essential support to Peirce’s mature account of habit.
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- 1.
This quote also comes from the 1902 Minute Logic, specifically from Chap. 2, “Why study logic?” This is relevant for my approach since in that text, Peirce discusses the notion of logica utens, namely, a non-systematic but still basically reliable manner of making inferences in everyday life: “Every reasoner, then, has some general idea of what good reasoning is. This constitutes a theory of logic: the scholastics called it the reasoner’s logica utens. Every reasoner whose attention has been considerably drawn to his inner life must soon become aware of this” (CP 2.186, 1902).
- 2.
In the 1907 version, it is a lady who is a visitor to the Peirce household and not his mother who is the victim of the accident that could have been far more harmful: “one day, as the whole family were at table, some spirit from a “blazer,” or “chafing-dish,” dropped on the muslin dress of one of the ladies and was kindled” (CP 5.487, fn1).
- 3.
I have drawn this notion from Miller’s (1995) well-argued paper on “Peirce’s conception of habit”.
- 4.
In one of its most sinister moments, DLA shows a young bureaucrat at the cafeteria of the headquarters of the East German secret police telling a joke about the Secretary of the ruling Party, Erich Honecker. When he realizes that there is a high-ranking officer nearby, the bureaucrat stops dead in his tracks, but it is too late. In an eerily cheerful way he is enticed to finish it, and then his career is over.
- 5.
That was the motto of the dreaded Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, the East Germany secret police popularly known as Stasi.
- 6.
This is one of the three-dimensional modes of experience about which Ransdell (2002) gives an enlightening account in his article on the artwork considered from a semiotic perspective.
- 7.
Emulation is the “ambition or endeavor to equal or excel others (as in achievement)”, Merriam-Webster, 2008.
- 8.
The surveillance has been ordered by this powerful figure, in order to get rid of his rival, the playwright Dreyman.
- 9.
“An indefinite significant character such as a tone of voice can neither be called a Type nor a Token. I propose to call such a Sign a Tone” (CP 4.537, 1906).
- 10.
As it appears in the title of Erving Goffman’s classic 1959 monograph: The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life.
- 11.
This theoretical distinction I drew from Wiley’s (1994) study of the semiotic self.
- 12.
My quotes from MS 318 (1907) come from Miller’s (1995) discussion of habit change.
- 13.
I owe this reference to Michel’s (2006) research on the semiotic study of subjectivity.
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Andacht, F. (2016). The Habit-Taking Journey of the Self: Between Freewheeling Orience and the Inveterate Habits of Effete Mind. In: West, D., Anderson, M. (eds) Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45920-2_19
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