FOUCAULT. We are happy to be here.

HAYEK. We know that we have interests in common, but until now we had not had the opportunity to discuss our views collectively, to see where we agree and (possibly) disagree.

PEIRCE. As you know, we have agreed to be responsive to the questions as you pose them, knowing that this will facilitate our discussions, and enable them to be recorded for future readers.

WARFIELD. This discussion is being held and recorded for The International Society for Panetics, an organization started by Dr. Ralph Siu, focused upon the theme of infliction of suffering, and ways to reduce suffering. That is a multi-dimensional topic. Today, I want to focus on one aspect which was of great importance to Dr. Siu. That is, the introduction of Panetics into higher education. For this to happen, the subject must take on a scientific air, while retaining its focus on infliction of suffering. A suitable literature must be developed. So far, Dr. Siu has produced several books, but in order to be competitive with the existing disciplines, it seems that additional high-quality writings can only help.

Question 1. Your Relevant Experience With Suffering. Just for the record, let me begin by asking you how your own life experiences and research may relate to infliction of suffering. We will go to each of you alphabetically. But, before you begin to respond to my first question, please remind us of a bit of your personal history, along with your life span, so we can take into account the timing as it has to do with our own interpretation of the relationships among your studies.

FOUCAULT Self-History. I was born in Poitiers, France, in 1926; and I died in Paris on June 25, 1984. My father was a physician and this, no doubt, contributed to my lifelong interest in medical institutions in France and elsewhere. I studied at the École Normale Supérieur in Paris, with Louis Althusser. a well-known Marxist philosopher. From age 34 until my death I was basically an academic. From 1970 until my death, I was professor of the history of systems of thought at the Collège de France.

My studies dealt largely with institutions and power relations, but I was always conscious of the demands of science, and eschewed polemics in deference to my constant effort to be be responsive to the highest ideals of science in presenting descriptions and analyses, though I cannot say that I have always been successful. I studied the views of other scholars working in similar areas, and also pursued extensive historical studies of human behavior from ancient times until the present. I concerned myself especially with power and its connections to political philosophy and its reflection in social matters.

I view linguistics as a fundamental concern in my writings, because of my belief that accurate perception of what is happening can only be conveyed to others when the most careful attention is given to language. I found myself frequently inventing language to replace or supplement what I considered to be polluted language received from the past, after having undergone distortions and misinterpretations over the years, decades, and centuries.

Foucault Response to Question 1. Relevant Experience With Suffering. My connection to infliction of suffering can be seen in my writings having to do with the early formation and the evolution of such institutions as prisons and hospitals. The study of these institutions involved giving attention to the conditions under which people were placed in these institutions, and under which they lived in them. It is also worth noting that I lived through World War II in France, which provided daily reminders of human suffering, both locally and throughout much of Europe and other war sites.

HAYEK Self-History. I was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1899, and I died in 1992. Like both Foucault and Peirce, I grew up in a somewhat academic setting, since my father was Professor of Botany at the University of Vienna. I received degrees in law and political science at the University of Vienna. In my late twenties, I became Director of the Austrian Institute for Trade Cycle Research. It is generally well-known that my economic thinking was heavily influenced by Ludwig von Mises. At age 32, I moved to England, where I was professor of economic science and statistics for almost 20 years at the University of London. The next 12 years were spent as professor of social and moral science at the University of Chicago. I then spent about 6 years at the University of Freiburg. During my career, I was a visiting faculty member at six universities in the U. S. A. and Austria.

Hayek Response to Question 1. Relevant Experience With Suffering. With respect to suffering, I spent time on the Italian front in World War I as a member of the Austro-Hungarian Army, where suffering was all around me. But in scholarly terms, I think my close connection to human suffering is found in my book titled THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE: STUDIES IN THE ABUSE OF REASON. This book grew in my mind as a consequence of my fascination with the historical question of where and how the ideas arose that inspired and supported dictatorial governments; whether communist, socialist, or fascist. I was curious about how these ideas moved through philosophical and governmental circles, leading to massive suffering in World War II. Americans may wonder about this focus, but as many of them know there is much greater awareness and interest in philosophy in Europe than in the U. S., possibly because the countries are much smaller, with much more opportunity for interaction.

As Foucault now knows, my study focused upon events in Paris in the early 1800s, and certain figures at the Ecole Polytechnique. There Henri Saint-Simon and his young associate Auguste Comte devised the philosophy of positivism and connected it to the beginnings of socialism. This philosophy spread and infected both communist and fascist movements in Europe and, I firmly believe, and as I have documented carefully in my book titled THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE: STUDIES IN THE ABUSE OF REASON, provided a philosophical base for authoritarian government. The Comte philosophy can be said to be a direct antecedent of Hitler and his colleagues and of Stalin and his intellectual supporters such as Engels and Marx.

Here is a clear instance where the pen was mightier than the sword, and the result of embracing of the posItivist philosophy (which, among other things, denied the validity of any religion) brought about the bloody wars that spread all across Europe in the 1940s. I think that the insights documented in my book qualify me to speak about the infliction of suffering and some of its causes. But even more to the point, my study of how a "science" was developed and evolved into what was proposed to take on the role of a "religion" by some of its advocates, qualifies me most strongly to take part in a discussion about evolution of an idea into a science. I am not at all sure that a science of Panetics is possible, but I certainly hope that it is. I am sure that if it is to be successful in the long run, and take a prominent place in higher education, its development will have to be very sensitive to quality concerns, and avoid the errors and gross extremes displayed by the Comte positivists.

PEIRCE Self-History. I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1839, and I died in Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1914 after a long and painful illness. At the strong urging of my dearest friend, William James, professor at Harvard, the Department of Philosophy at that institution purchased my archives for an amount sufficient to enable my widow to continue to survive in Milford. My ashes were scattered in that area. My home Arisbe is located on US Highway 6 near Milford town center. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has erected a small road marker to identify my former home. Even my own ability to live in Milford was made possible by the Pinchots, a family well-known in Pennsylvania.

My father, Benjamin, was a well-known mathematician, and was head of the Department of Mathematics at Harvard University. He served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and (with six others) was a founder of the U. S. National Academy of Science during the Lincoln administration. The mathematics library at Harvard is named after my father. He spent a lot of time with me when I was young, teaching me and inspiring me. He challenged me to read the writings of all the philosophers and determine where they were wrong.

I am afraid that I was not a very attentive student in high school. Because of the learning experiences with my father, I had become very independent, and had a hard time paying much attention to what I considered to be rather boring lectures. I received two degrees from Harvard University: A. M. in mathematics and Sc. B. in chemistry, summa cum laude. I guess you could say that I matured somewhat in my relationship to formal instruction between the time I started my education in high school and the end of my degree work at Harvard.

In Cambridge, in the 1860s, I gathered around me a group of friends, and we formed The Metaphysical Club—with the express provision that we would not waste time in the typical "business activities" of taking minutes, publishing agendas, etc., but rather use our weekly meetings to discuss various philosophical ideas. It was in one of those meetings that I set forth the concept of pragmatism—ideas that were later, and constantly—attributed wrongly to John Dewey and William James, neither of whom adequately grasped the foundations of that subject. Most people know that William James was my closest friend, and that he frequently acknowledged his debt to me; but not so many know that John Dewey was a student in one of my logic classes at Johns Hopkins University.

The highlights of my employment were my few years as a faculty member teaching logic and mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, followed by a lengthy position with the U. S. Coastal Survey, which was engaged in precision mapping. I spent several years testing the use of pendulums in precise measurements of gravity, using gravity as one of the measurements of position.

This activity took me to Europe where I made friends with some of the outstanding scientists there, and became very familiar with the European scientific community—so much so, for example, that I was asked to write the obituary of the British engineer, Charles Babbage, for The Nation, a journal to which I contributed often as a way of earning funds, of which I was almost constantly in short supply.

Among those whom I met and talked with during a trip to Europe was Augustus De Morgan—the inventor of the "theory of relatives" or "theory of relations". He had become head of the Department of Mathematics at the University of London at the age of 22—what must have been an unprecedented achievement. Later I wrote a paper connecting this work to the work of George Boole, who had been a student of De Morgan. I note for later reference that this connection was resurrected in the 1960s in the USA by Frank Harary, one of the world’s leading graph theorists, who integrated it with the theory of matrices and digraphs to form an outstanding theory of structural models—the appropriate successor to my theory of "existential graphs".

My love of mathematics and philosophy, and especially of logic, gradually took over my life, and I could no longer tolerate the bureaucracy and political nonsense in Washington, D. C. I moved to Milford, Pennsylvania, where I lived the rest of my life in our home titled Arisbe. In this home I would work for almost 24 years, engaged in writing on many subjects. I continued to write extensively for The Nation while pursuing my philosophical aims. I am happy that Professors Ketner and Cook at the Texas Tech University saw fit to publish reports that contain many of the articles that I wrote for The Nation, since these articles furnish credible evidence of the extent of my research, and of other relevant scientific developments in the 19th century.

As you may know, my writings mostly languished for a long time, being resurrected in part during the Depression Era, when part of them were published in a series of volumes. Later the Indiana University Press began a project which continues to this day, aimed at publishing about half of my works in a planned 30-volume, chronologically-arranged series, estimated to be completed around 2010. (If you go to their web site, you can see photographs of Arisbe.)

Peirce Response to Question 1. Relevant Experience With Suffering. As to my experience with suffering, it is now well-known, thanks to my biographer, Joseph Brent, that I suffered from many maladies, one of the worst being trigeminal neuralgia (from which my father also suffered). As a result of this, it was necessary to take various drugs to ease the terrible pain, including ether, opium, morphine, and cocaine. These drugs caused personality disorders, in which I would switch from friendly, well-mannered, pleasant, etc., to angry, combative, etc., all stemming from attempts to diminish the pain of trigeminal neuralgia, now acknowledged as perhaps the worst pain known to medicine.

I also suffered personally from unyielding attacks on my character throughout my professional life. These attacks, both overt and covert, kept me from finding suitable academic employment after my departure from Johns Hopkins University. Thankfully, the attacks have virtually vanished, and have been replaced with major recognition during the past few decades.

But the evil inflicted upon me and my work continued until fairly recently, having been inflicted on Joseph Brent, my biographer, who has documented openly the frustrating problems that he had in getting access to my story—as it took him over 30 years of persistent, unyielding effort to gain access and permission to write the biography.

WARFIELD. Thank you all for your comments. I hope that our readers will decide that each of you has enough experience with suffering to be relevant to The Panetics Society in terms of the development of a science of Panetics that is suitable to back up academic offerings in that area.

I understand that each of you has had the opportunity to become familiar with the writings of the others. And in view of that, I want to pose this next question to you which, I believe, will be very relevant to the idea of developing a science of Panetics that could achieve academic acceptance in our institutions of higher learning.

Question 2. What have you found in the writings of the other members of this group of three with which you agree, and which you believe to be relevant to the development of a science of Panetics? Feel free to bring into your response anything that you think is relevant to high-quality scientific development, as long as you believe it to be consistent with the viewpoints of the others. I will ask you later to highlight any significant differences with the other two, stemming from your work.

FOUCAULT (Time-Scale Relationships). First, let me position myself on a time scale with the other two men. When I was born, Hayek was 27 years old, and yet he lived 8 years after I died. So, in his adulthood, he spanned my entire lifetime. Peirce, of course, had died 12 years before I was born.

Foucault Response to Question 2. In thinking about areas of agreement with Hayek and Peirce, I have wondered why I took no notice of either of these brilliant men in my research and in my writings, because their work is certainly highly relevant to mine. Also, it is somewhat surprising that Hayek seems to have taken no notice of me. I can only suppose that the specific nature of my research took me into social areas that Hayek did not delve into very much, in spite of the fact that Hayek was very concerned with the "abuse of reason" in the human science community, beginning largely with Saint-Simon and continuing with Comte: a philosopher that Peirce also had some knowledge of. My work, on the other hand, largely ignored Comte. In spite of this, I have found several areas of very strong agreement in my own work with their work. Moreover, it is clear that Peirce and I had a profound similarity, perhaps even an addiction, to thinking in sets. Hayek also was not averse to identifying sets occasionally and one of those that most interested him was Comte’s postulated set of three stages in the evolution of society.

(By "thinking in sets" I mean that, when faced with a concept involving considerable complexity, both Peirce and I were attracted to, and practiced, the idea of breaking out the concept into constituent parts, each of which could be dealt with separately and in relation to each of the others; rather than trying to cope with a category without delving into its constituents.) In addition to this strong similarity, quite noticeable in our writings, there are certain areas of substantive overlap in our work. I propose to discuss these in several areas.

Hayek clearly believed very strongly in what is today called "bottom-up thinking". He did not believe that broad categories stemming only from metaphysical thought were proper subjects for theory-building, much less for guiding high-level decision-making, especially in light of the fact that these categories were not inferred from understanding of the presumed components. He felt that, whenever possible, categories should evolve out of the careful study of observable (but certainly not necessarily quantifiable-) constituent elements, rather than being conceived metaphysically, and promptly factored into analyses that were heavily weighted down with such preemptive categories. One of the most outstanding contributions of Hayek is to stress the distinction between observability and quantifiability. Without this distinction, the human sciences cannot survive and prosper.

Like both Hayek and Peirce, I believe strongly in the criticality of linguistics to sound thought and to science. I believe that the foundation of science, namely the linkage between the theoretical and the empirical which gives science its robustness, is of the greatest importance. It seems to me that the development of Panetics science could do much worse than follow the model of careful presentation which each of us has tried very hard to achieve. An insightful statement of Hayek’s reads as follows:

"...it may indeed be claimed with some justification that it [linguistics] ‘is of strategic importance for the methodology of the social sciences’."

and, in discussing the difficulty of natural scientists in seeing any order in the social sciences Hayek notes that "at least language shows a definite order which is not the result of any conscious design".

Concerning the relative importance of reason and intuition, I think we are all close to agreement. While Comte denied the existence of intuition (a point of view that Hayek has destroyed to my satisfaction), and while Peirce was one of the world’s greatest logicians, none of the three of us seems to think that reason should be the foremost basis for forming beliefs in all situations. Since this point of view is totally at odds with positivist thinking, and since today’s rational thinkers may find this view repulsive, I think that I should at least verify my contention that the three of us saw oeil-á-oeil on this critical subject.

I think Peirce has made it very clear that he sees a hierarchical form that attaches to the way human belief is tapped for the purpose of making choices. He sees human decisions as based on reason, but a reason which is, itself, based on ethics (an idea repulsive to Comte and Marx, among others), and he sees ethics, in turn, as based on aesthetics, which is the base of the whole hierarchy of human belief. I am in total accord with this formulation. I hope Hayek will confirm his thoughts on this matter. In any case, I know that Hayek often speaks of the historical point of view that saw the human sciences as the "moral sciences", and that he makes clear that Saint-Simon, Comte, and other followers of the positivist line felt that ethics was entirely situational at best, and should not have any permanent status in society.

I summarize in the following "text boxes" additional support for my comments. First I show some views on reason drawn from our writings, and then some views on linguistics.