According to Prof. Silliman, C.S. Peirce was the smartest person to ever have lived in the U.S. Maybe the smartest philosopher. We've had some pristine writers. This is excerpted from Peirce's essay "The Red and the Black":
"[L]ogicality inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. This community, again, must not be limited, but must extend to all ages of beings with whom we can come into immediate or mediate intellectual relation.... Logic is rooted in the social principle.
To be logical men should not be selfish; and, in point of fact, they are not so selfish as they are thought. The willful prosecution of one's desires is a different thing from selfishness....
Now, it is not necessary for logicality that a man should himself be capable of the heroism of self-sacrifice.... So far as he thus refers his inferences to that standard, he becomes identified with such a mind."
This is a fun part of the essay where Peirce diverts from talking about his logical example of red and black cards. The last parts about the community and selfishness interest me the most. I think they're decent principles for governing a logical society but they wouldn't work ultimately. The selfishness I believe inherent, and while subvertable often blinding, would not be conducive to logical thought. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on his proposition that heroism of self-sacrifice isn't necessary for logicality. I'm guessing that that's the extreme end of selflessness and isn't necessary for a logical society. But if humans shouldn't be selfish, shouldn't they be totally selfless. There are some problems here.
