Tychism () is a thesis proposed by the American philosopher

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...

that holds that absolute chance, or

indeterminism Indeterminism is the idea that events (or certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, or are not caused deterministically. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance. It is highly relevant to the philosophical pr ...

, is a real factor operative in the universe. This doctrine forms a central part of Peirce's comprehensive evolutionary

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', with the meaning of "a speaking of the wo ...

. It may be considered both the direct opposite of

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

's oft quoted dictum that: " God does not play dice with the universe" and an early philosophical anticipation of

Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...

uncertainty principle The uncertainty principle, also known as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position a ...

The thesis

In his theory of tychism, Peirce sought to deny the central position of the doctrine of necessity which maintains that "the state of things existing at any time, together with certain immutable laws, completely determine the state of things at every other time." One of the principal arguments of the necessitarians is that their position involves a presupposition of all science. Peirce attacks this idea asserting: "To 'postulate' a proposition is no more than to hope it is true." Thus an avenue is opened up allowing the entry of chance as a fundamental and absolute entity. Peirce does not, of course, assert that there is ''no'' law in the universe. On the contrary, he maintains that an absolutely chance world would be a contradiction and thus impossible. Complete lack of order is itself a sort of order. The position he advocates is rather that there are in the universe both regularities and irregularities. To explain the presence of such a universal "law" Peirce proposes a ''cosmological theory of evolution'' in which law develops out of chance. The hypothesis that ''out of irregularity, regularity constantly evolves'' seemed to him to have decided advantages not the least being its explanation of "why laws are not precisely or always obeyed, for what is still in a process of evolution can not be supposed to be absolutely fixed."

Underpinnings

Attempting to provide an explanation of some of the more general observable traits of the universe, Peirce formulates four reasons in support of his hypothesis: # Growth and increasing complexity # Variety and diversity # Regularity (laws of nature) # Mind/consciousness/feeling He then asks us to consider how these features could possibly be explained by a strictly determined, mechanistic theory of the way of all things.

Evolution

Peirce very pointedly observed that all the scientifically viable theories of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

are based on tychistic formulations.

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...

had argued that evolution was an inevitable upwards progress driven by the law of the

conservation of energy The law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant; it is said to be Conservation law, ''conserved'' over time. In the case of a Closed system#In thermodynamics, closed system, the principle s ...

. Peirce rejected this idea, pointing out that energy conservation, like other laws of classical physics, is time-symmetric. Turning to Darwin he points out that the fundamental driver of his theory is accidental variation, noting that "Darwinian evolution is evolution by the operation of chance, and the destruction of bad results." Even the catastrophism of Clarence King and others, which postulates an acceleration in evolutionary change via sudden environmental dislocations, naturally falls under the rubric of tychism. This evolutionary aspect of tychism compels Peirce to expand Darwin's view to a cosmological level, sending its operations back to the origin of the universe under the regulative principle of his synechism.

Notes

References

*Hamblin, Francis Murphy, "A Comment on Peirce's 'Tychism'", ''The Journal of Philosophy'', v. 42, n. 14. (July 5, 1945), pp. 378–383. *Peirce, C. S., '' Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Volumes V and VI: Pragmatism and Pragmaticism and Scientific Metaphysics'', editors: Hartshorne and Weiss, Harvard University Press, January 1935, *Reynolds, Andrew, ''Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 2002,

The thesis

Underpinnings

Evolution

See also

Notes

References

Further reading