C. S. Peirce said [EP2:258] , "Whenever we set out to do
anything we ‘go upon’, we base our conduct on facts already known."
He adds that our conduct can only rise from memory when our
investigations have been "made and reduced to a memorial maxim.”
Although
I have operated, along with all manner of others, on this premise - our capacity
to remember songs is obvious proof of such inner resources - it is heartening
to find in Peirce this contention stated this way.
Peirce
seems to be saying that maxims are a source of our conduct. This spins out into
the incredible influence of advertising jingles and the like
and
the viral phenomena connected with the Internet.
