List, Over the years many scholars -- including Joseph Ransdell, creator, moderator, and manager of both Arisbe and Peirce-L until his death in December, 2010 -- have argued for Peirce's idea of *categorial involution* (Ransdell's affirmation of three-category involution as opposed to giving priority to 1ns is remarkable given that his philosophical speciality was iconicity which, of course, is rooted in 1ns).
*Categorial involution *simply holds that 3ns involves 2ns and 1ns, and 2ns involves only 1ns (which category is incapable of generating anything given its essential character as lacking, in itself, both law and matter). CSP: 2ns is an essential part of 3ns though not of 1ns, and 1ns is an essential element of both 2ns and 3ns. (CP 1.530, 1903) >From the cosmological perspective of the 1898 lectures the categories are always-already in place -- or virtually so. But note that the categories appear *upon* that *ur-continuity *(represented by a clean blackboard) in that metaphysical 'time before time' 'before' this universe was. Jon Alan Schmidt has suggested that it's certainly conceivable that the general substrate (3ns) and the other categories appear virtually simultaneously. Yet even if that were so, still continuity (3ns) must be 1st* in order that the other categories have a substrate upon which to appear.* Of course 1ns and 2ns are necessary for generality to have 'material' upon which a cosmos might be evolved. The principal point here is that once a universe has come into being and there is semiosis, the categories never appear except together. I am certainly not alone in finding that Peirce's Blackboard argument in the 1898 (so called "cosmic lectures") makes more sense -- in my view, is more *logical *-- than thinking that something -- a cosmos -- can come out of nothing, or out of 1ns. In fact, 1ns is no 'thing' at all! 1ns is but the mere *possibility* of a *quality or character* being manifest. And it has been noted by Jon and others that Peirce didn't abandon his early cosmological view. Rather, he came to see that if there were to be a Universe with an existential order of 1ns -> 2ns -> 3ns, then there *must* be a *ground* upon which it might come into being, an *ur-continuity*; an aboriginal generality. IN my view, that would appear to be the theme of the last lectures in the 1898 series. Perhaps the subtlest point regarding involution in all its expressions (not just the cosmic) is that *involution does not prioritize 3ns* -- that is, it doesn't make it "fundamental" or "basic" (*all three are 'basic'*). Rather, 3ns, as generality and continuity, is* necessary* for categorial and semiosic appearance and expression to occur *at all.* Involution merely describes how the categories are related to each other, nested like the famous Russian toy dolls. Many -- I would suggest most -- scholars agree with Peirce’s claim that the categories are “nested” and not parallel.. Here are just a few 21st century examples. *P. M. Borges* -- “Indeterminacy and final causation in the process of sign determination,” Cognitio – Revista de Filosofia (2022) “This corresponds to what occurs in the logic of the categories in which thirdness involves secondness and firstness, just as secondness involves firstness.” *Scott Metzger* -- Peirce’s Semeiotic Realism ( McMaster, 2024) “The categories are like Russian dolls: Thirdness involves Secondness and Firstness, Secondness involves Firstness, and Firstness is as it is apart from any Second or Third.” *Dinda L. Gorlée* -- “A sketch of Peirce’s Firstness and its significance to art” (2009) Secondness integrates Firstness … Thirdness must integrate Secondness and Firstness *Winfried Nöth* -- “Evolution of Peircean Key Terms and Topics,” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 47(4), 2011 “Whereas a sign or representation is a matter of genuine thirdness, its embodiment in a replica is a matter of ‘Secondness involved in Thirdness’ (cf. CP 1.530) …” I have also been keenly interested in the work of a number of scholars who have explored and creatively worked to go *beyond the** text**** in the interest of applying Peircean principles and methods in developing fresh resources in various domains. [***A Peirce text, say a quotation, is interpretively *not* mine, not *theirs*, *not **yours*, but Peirce's. In my opinion, even one writing a paraphrase of an excerpt ought to strive to represent the 'meaning' of that selected text as accurately and fully and richly -- *optimally* -- as a very good translator of, say, a poem from Italian to English would attempt to do.] I have drastically shortened the following list to include *only* scholars I've known personally (that is, as a colleague/friend), and a few others whose work I know well and with whom I've at least had discussions at conferences and workshops or via email. Here are some "beyond the text" scholars, in my view all being relatively true to Peirce's expressed meaning in his writings, and whether or not they agree with him on particular matters or not. The description of their work is in each case wholly inadequate at suggesting the depth and breath of their interests and scholarship. Eliseo Fernández -- semiotic constraints and habit-formation in technical des Fernando Zalamea -- Peirce’s logic of continuity applied within modern mathematics; Vinicius Romanini -- biosemiotics and the semiotic basis of life processes; Jon Alan Schmidt -- engineering ethics informed, in part, by Peirce's ethics of inquiry; Terrence Deacon -- teleodynamics and emergent mind-like processes in nature; Gary Fuhrman -- *Turning Signs, *which book discusses natural and cultural semiosis; Michael Shapiro -- Contributions to Peircean linguistics and semiotic phonology; Joseph Dauben -- applications of Peircean ideas in mathematics; John Deely -- the role of signs in animal behavior and the broader semiosphere; Simon Polovina -- inter-enterprise architecture using existential graphs and triadic logic. In my view, the folk above "got Peirce right" -- that is, they interpreted what he said correctly (to some considerable degree then tend to agree with each other on Peircean principles and methods), while they also tend to speak the same Peircean conceptual language (more or less). For me, the essential thing -- the first thing, the most important thing -- is to grasp Peirce's ideas clearly, even if -- perhaps *especially* if -- one strongly disagrees with some aspect of his philosophy. Only then will the real world application of his philosophy be adequately grounded and further developed. Best, Gary R
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