Is nature habit-forming?

John Pickering

pp. 89-108

in: Myrdene Anderson (ed), Consensus on Peirce's concept of habit, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

The term "habit" as used in ordinary speech means a wide range of things. However, as used by C. S. Peirce, "habit" is generalized to such an extent that it seems to require a radical change in our worldview. Such a change is sketched by reviewing some developments in philosophy, physics, and the life sciences that seem to question the axioms of their disciplines in significantly similar ways. Panpsychism is once more being given serious consideration. Physicists are groping towards a phenomenological treatment of time. Biologists are turning towards a systems view, and psychologists are developing theories of cognition that do not separate mind from the body. These developments are brought together with Peirce's radical notion of habit, Whitehead's organic metaphysics, Gibson's theory of affordance, and biosemiotics, which blends Peirce's treatment of signs with the rational biology of Uexküll. The result is an organic worldview with intrinsic ethical entailments.

Cited authors

Whitehead Alfred North

Peirce Charles Sanders