Joe,
Let's just say that I misunderstood what you were saying and read too much
into it about inquiry priorities. It certainly was not a "blatant diversionary
tactic." It was what I thought at the time.
If neurons have a lot of triadicity, that's fine with me. At some level,
we're biological information processes and I wouldn't expect to see a
recipient/recognizant role distinctly embodied all the way down.
It's clear to me at this point that you have some recondite conception of
verification. I really don't know what you're thinking of in regard to it.
I have specified that I'm using "verification" as a "forest" term for the
various "trees" of confirmation, corroboration, proof, etc.
Maybe you think that I'm talking only of a conscious deliberate act, or
some sort of counterpart thereto at a neuronal level. I have already specified
otherwise.
Any time you enter a situation with some conjectures, expectations,
understandings, memories, etc., you are testing them, whether that's your
purpose or not. And you're always entering a situation with such orientations.
And you see what happens, and are surprised, unsurprised, etc. As an intelligent
system, you learn from the result and accordingly revise, even if only slightly
in particular cases, the system which you are. That is evolution (as
opposed, say, to pre-programmed development).
The "universal category" of _accidens_ involved is that of
consistency, truth, validity, soundness, legitimacy, etc.
Now, looking at the four (the first three are similar to Peircean
ones):
1. reaction, force, connection ~ ~ ~ ~ 3. meaning, importance, import,
good/ill
2. aptness, tendency, etc. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 4. truth, legitimacy, etc.
You can see that I'm actually relating categories and semiosis back to more
traditional philosoophical structures. Or maybe you can't see it, haven't
thought about the four causes and related conceptions that much, don't "get" a
strong-apt-good-true 4-chotomy, just aren't familiar enough with those byways to
see the structure there, and so on.
But actually I've argued these subject matters all in much more detail
elsewhere. I'm growing tired of this.
Best,
Ben
Ben, let's focus on the following interchange:
[JR] The universal categories are analytical elements involved in all cases
alike and any individual case must already be fully constituted as being of the
nature of a cognition of some sort before the question of its verificational
status can even arise. The verificational factor therefore cannot be on par with
the sort of universal element we are concerned with when we are concerned with
the categories.
[BU] In other words, never mind pointing out a contradiction in semiotics
and arguing for a given solution as most common-sensical and accordant with
general experience, though it would undermine the category theory, instead, do a
whole new category theory before critically looking at semiotics.
REPLY: No, those are not other words for the same thing, but merely a
blatant bit of diversionary rhetorical ploy.
[BU continuing] Even for those for whom Peirce's category theory is
_that well established_, that argument should not be valid, at least as it is
formulated, since the truth is that a problem arising in a special area can
_lead_ to revisions in a more general area; it really depends on the case, and
no theory is allowed such sheer monolithicism as to immunize it from revision.
REPLY: The specific point I made is simply ignored in favor of
inveighing against a supposed commitment of mine to some general thesis about
special cases and general areas which is supposedly designed to immunize
Peirce's view from all criticism. Come on, Ben.
[BU continuing:] But Peirce's category theory is not even well
established among philosophers generally, so this sort of requirement has that
much less credibility.
REPLY: What sort of requirement? You say nothing about what I
actually said. Skipping over a paragraph about a past message in which you
outlined "an alternate category theory", you then go on to say:
[BU]: But where Joe really goes wrong is in saying _that a cognition must
be fully constituted before the question of its verificational status can even
arise_. At this point I have no idea what Joe means by "verification," surely he
doesn't think that it's something that only professional scientists do. It's
something, instead, that children do every day, and shout about, often enough.
"Prove it!" "Yeah, I don't need to prove it!" "Oh yes you do!" And so on. On
some subjects their standards of verification will leave something to be
desired, but standards indeed they do have. Even a dog can learn to check
whether a stick has actually departed from the throwing hand. Anybody who thinks
that a cognition can be fully constituted without a verificational aspect which
helped form it, is saying that cognition is nothing but whistling in the dark.
If verification is not a dimension of cognition, then we're mere vegetable
organisms, blindly and quasi-robotically pursuing ends which don't evolve in
one's lifetime. Of course, if we state a genuinely human end in a most general
form, as being, for instance, "the good in its rational character," then we can
say, lo, the end evolves not. But that's just a trick.
REPLY: If you were actually to say anything about how verification does and
must plays a role in every cognition, it would be to the point, Ben. But
how many cognitions do you suppose have occurred in your thinking or mine just
in the last ten minutes, let us say? Hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands? You know of course of the mind-boggling complexity of the
neural system and how much processing at an unconscious level must be going on
in the nervous system which, even in ten minutes time, will underlie what must
be hundreds or thousands of more or less conscious perceptions that are going on
at a low level of perceptual consciousness. Of course one might be dozing
off and nothing much is happening consciously, but if one is conscious at all,
how many distinguishable cognitions might one discern over even a brief period
like ten minutes. To the extent that those occurrences really do or should
count as cognitions it should be possible to analyze them relying upon the
categorial conceptions for the basic structural order of them considered as
processes. I can imagine (vaguely) the possibility of coming up with a
persuasive reason for saying that the elementary conceptions of firstnes,
secondness, and thirdness, with the latter understood as a
sign-object-interrpetant structure, and with those conceptions further
distinsuishable in accordance with the many trichotomic distinctions that he
makes in the sign classification part of his theory -- given all of that, I can
still imagine someone saying "Not enough; a tetradic relationship related to
Peirce's triad as it relates to the dyad, etc., must also be involved" and
giving a good reason for thinking that there must be some such additional factor
which Peirce overlooked. And that even goes for a claim about a necessary
five-place relation, too, though I have no idea why anyone would say it. I
am by no means cloaed to these possibiliteis. But what I do not
understand is why you would think that in fact there will be for every
discriminable cognition something called a verification involved in it
implicitly, which is what would be required for it to be a categorial element in
the relevant sense of "category".
As far all the rhetoric about us otherwise being mere vegetable organisms,
"whistling in the dark" (whistling vegetables?): the fact is that we are merely
"whistling in the dark" in most of our understanding of things, and your
rhetoric about that so far overshoots its mark as to be a reductio ad absurdem
even as rhetoric. We need not turn to low-level micro-perceptions for
cases of cognition showing no apparent trace of anything that could be called
verification, but need only turn on the evening news to see how entire nations
can fall into the hands of leaders with university degrees who work
systematically at making sure that no idea of theirs is ever subjected to
verification until its stupidity has insured that the catastropic consequences
of acting upon it forces refutation of the bloodiest sort upon them, and even
then find it difficult to appreciate it AS such. Of course
verification is humanly important. But there is surely good reason to say
that it is not of the nature of a UNIVERSAL categorial conception, and I do not
find the kind of argument you have been giving persuasive because it does not
seem to address what is most implausible about proposing it as such.
Joe
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