Hello Jerry, List, An additional thing we probably need to consider as we reflect on Peirce's 19th century understanding of chemistry and physics is his engagement with Maxwell's approach to magnetic and electrical fields. I suspect that he draws on these kinds of models in his account of the experience of qualities of feeling (e.g., such as the experience of the color black spread through space and time). As such, I interpret Peirce's account of quality as reference to a ground in light of the formal features that are involved in such models.
--Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Jerry LR Chandler [[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2014 12:17 PM To: Peirce List Cc: Stephen C. Rose; U Pascal; Søren Brier Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 3, Phenomenology and the Categories, Zero / One Soren, List: (Jeffrey: This post is not directly to your questions, but highly relevant to your queries.) Sorry for the long delay in this response. Soren, I will not address the meta-physical issues you appropriately raise (see your post below). But, I find the scientific / logical distinctions between the conceptualization of zero and one are critical to separating the logic of physics and mathematics from the logic of chemistry. The correspondence principle of truth is applicable to the existence of factual objects as well as the order of the symbols for chemical elements. (Such facts did not exist during CSP's lifespan.) Metaphysical discourse is often in terms of the coherence theory of truth - I did a paper on this topic, perhaps in the late 1990's. Facts form the foundational basis of the order of the chemical table of elements and the now-a-days accepted fact that each element is in orderly relationships with all other elements, that is, they are all relatives of one-another. The biological terms of "family of elements" is a close analogy. The chemical elements are not independent variables. The order of the "logic of relatives" of existential matter is a direct consequence of physical measurements (Lavoisier, Dalton, Thompson, Rutherford, Lewis, ...). The counting system for this natural set of relatives is the usual order of the positive integers, 1,2,3,... Hydrogen is assigned the number one for a factual reason, it is the lightest relative among the family of relatives; all other relatives are heavier. Helium is assigned the number two because of the logic of relatives, it is heavier than hydrogen. Lithium is assigned the number three because of the logic of relatives. And so forth, through the entire set of unique irreducible forms of matter. (In other words, CSP's logic of relatives can be viewed as including a transitivity factor.) All molecules and higher order organic structures (including life) are extensions of these number assignments, that is, the atomic numbers. Thus, the logic of relatives starts with the number one, not zero. Such CSP assertions of the form: "The lover of the servants of the women..." and "John sold the horse to Fred for N dollars" are examples of the chemical influence on the development of his logic. Similarly for his theory of "medads" as chemical radicals. (I have extended this logic of relatives systematically, but that is a topic for another day.) This set of unique irreducible forms of matter now numbers 92 "natural" identities within the family of relatives and roughly 20 "artificial" unique identities, produced from natural elements by physical methods. CSP did not have access to the modern version of the graphic structures of molecules, the chemical icons, such as the double helix of DNA,or the indices of the logic of relatives, as gathered by spectrographic means. But he was knowledgable of the state of the chemical arts as they stood in his day. His views, as of 1891, were expressed in terms of only the relative weights of relatives and their potential ordering into categories with analogous weights (valence.) His interpretation of his categorization is in terms of "Boscovichian points", with iconic forms that he imagines to be reducible attractive parts of an atom and it's mathematical forms. (W8:284) The Boscovichian concept of an 'atom' was abandoned following the work of many in the early part of the 20 th Century, including N. Bohr. In this way, CSP was able to preserve his views of the logic of relatives as an idealization of chemical relatives (much as Goethe in Elective Affinities) and, at the same time, hold his views on continuity and its relationships to his METAPHYSICS AND to his PHILOSOPHY of MATHEMATICS. Contrary to the views of many, CSP was not a relative of Ned Lud and was not a Chemo-Luddite. Indeed, a substantial if not major portion of his original works on the logic of relatives can be inferred from the tensions between his beliefs in the logic of chemistry and the logic of mathematics. In summary, CSP distinction between the mathematical concepts of zero and one appear to be grounded (rooted) in his beliefs about chemistry as they existed in the latter part of the 19 th Century. Cheers Jerry Headwater House Little Falls,Mn. On Mar 2, 2014, at 2:29 PM, Søren Brier wrote: Dear Stephen and Gerry Peirce has an interesting metaphysical notion of zero or nothingness, which is pretty close to modern Buddhism. He writes: If we are to proceed in a logical and scientific manner, we must, in order to account for the whole universe, suppose an initial condition in which the whole universe was non-existent, and therefore a state of absolute nothing. … We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility -- boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom. (CP 6.215–217)[1] The quotation above is from a draft of “The Logic of Continuity,” 8th and last of Peirce’s Cambridge Lectures of 1898. It is published in Ketner and Putnam’s Reasoning and the Logic of Things (RLT), which is an edited version of the lecture series thataims to provide an accessible introduction to Peirce’s mature thought. The passage above seems to be parallel to what can be found on pp. 258-260 in RLT. (I think it was Gary Fuhrman who provided me with this information. Thanks.). The quotation’s idea of nothingness behind and before Firstness reveals a deep foundational issue in Peirce’s metaphysics. In CP 6.490 he uses the Old Testament concept of Tohu Bohu which I think is crucial to understanding the kind of philosophical system that his transdisciplinary semiotics developed into. The idea of placing ones ontology, not on matter, or energy or information but on emptiness is also close to the foundation that George Spencer Brown[2] (1979) explores in his book Laws of form and especially in the footnotes of Only Two Can Play This Game (Spencer Brown, 1974). This nothing is cosmological, as it is the origin of the universe and all manifest laws of any kind (physics) rests upon it, as all knowing rests precisely on this particular unknown. It is interesting that this view of emptiness as the source of everything also coincides with Feynman’s development of quantum electrodynamics, which is a field-ontology—or a synechism as Peirce calls it. It is a plenum view like the Greek philosopher Parmenides had, that Aristotle developed a less absolutist version of, and which inspired Peirce’s hylozoist ontology. Peirce made his theory’s relation to Parmenides question quite clear: “There is a famous saying of Parmenides, . . . ‘being is, and not-being is nothing.’ This sounds plausible, yet synechism flatly denies it, declaring that being is a matter of more or less, so as to merge insensibly into nothing” (CP 7.569). Best wishes Søren Fra: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:[email protected]] Sendt: 2. marts 2014 19:25 Til: Stephen C. Rose; U Pascal Cc: Peirce List Emne: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 3, Phenomenology and the Categories Stephen, List On Mar 2, 2014, at 11:37 AM, Stephen C. Rose wrote: 0 is part of reality like everything else and thus finite and real like everything else. Of course, one can speak of zero in such a manner. Everything is related to everything. Fine. But the first question about zero (no-thing) is HOW is it related to any-thing else, even itself! Cheers Jerry On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Gary, Ulysses, List: On Mar 2, 2014, at 7:08 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: Ulysses, thatʼs a tricky question! It is not a tricky question, it resembles a conundrum. It is a straight forward question, rather unanchored, of considerable depth. The narrative of Gary's Post is extremely imaginative but is it Peircian? I find very little of relevance in GaryF's approach to the concept of zero as none of the cited texts contain either the symbol for zero or the word "zero". In any case, one must keep in mind that the concept of zero can be made as a mark on a sheet of assertion. And, the arithmetic symbol for zero serves as the logical identity operator for arithmetic addition for counting symbols, both negative and positive. Cheers Jerry From: U Pascal [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 1-Mar-14 9:49 PM Concerning the intersection of Peirce's graph theory & the phaneron, I was wondering how medads (represented by graphs with a valence of zero) figure into the phaneron. Do "Zeros" have a place among Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds or does their very nature -- being closed off from accepting subjects -- preclude them from being part of the phaneron? ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ________________________________ [1] The quote is “From “The Logic of Events”, 1898, the last of a proposed set of eight lectures. See 212n, Cf. also ch. 7, which appears to be an alternative draft. The listing in the Robin Catalogue is: 940. Logic of Events (LE) A. MS., G-1898-1, pp. 1-11. Published in two places with minor deletions: 6.1-5; 6.214-221. Thanks to Gary Fuhrman for providing this information. [2] A philosophy closely connected to Niklas Luhmann’s cybernetic and autopoietic inspired systems theory. <Pure Zero.docx> On Mar 2, 2014, at 2:29 PM, Søren Brier wrote: Dear Stephen and Gerry Peirce has an interesting metaphysical notion of zero or nothingness, which is pretty close to modern Buddhism. He writes: If we are to proceed in a logical and scientific manner, we must, in order to account for the whole universe, suppose an initial condition in which the whole universe was non-existent, and therefore a state of absolute nothing. … We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility -- boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom. (CP 6.215–217)[1] The quotation above is from a draft of “The Logic of Continuity,” 8th and last of Peirce’s Cambridge Lectures of 1898. It is published in Ketner and Putnam’s Reasoning and the Logic of Things (RLT), which is an edited version of the lecture series thataims to provide an accessible introduction to Peirce’s mature thought. The passage above seems to be parallel to what can be found on pp. 258-260 in RLT. (I think it was Gary Fuhrman who provided me with this information. Thanks.). The quotation’s idea of nothingness behind and before Firstness reveals a deep foundational issue in Peirce’s metaphysics. In CP 6.490 he uses the Old Testament concept of Tohu Bohu which I think is crucial to understanding the kind of philosophical system that his transdisciplinary semiotics developed into. The idea of placing ones ontology, not on matter, or energy or information but on emptiness is also close to the foundation that George Spencer Brown[2] (1979) explores in his book Laws of form and especially in the footnotes of Only Two Can Play This Game (Spencer Brown, 1974). This nothing is cosmological, as it is the origin of the universe and all manifest laws of any kind (physics) rests upon it, as all knowing rests precisely on this particular unknown. It is interesting that this view of emptiness as the source of everything also coincides with Feynman’s development of quantum electrodynamics, which is a field-ontology—or a synechism as Peirce calls it. It is a plenum view like the Greek philosopher Parmenides had, that Aristotle developed a less absolutist version of, and which inspired Peirce’s hylozoist ontology. Peirce made his theory’s relation to Parmenides question quite clear: “There is a famous saying of Parmenides, . . . ‘being is, and not-being is nothing.’ This sounds plausible, yet synechism flatly denies it, declaring that being is a matter of more or less, so as to merge insensibly into nothing” (CP 7.569). Best wishes Søren Fra: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:[email protected]] Sendt: 2. marts 2014 19:25 Til: Stephen C. Rose; U Pascal Cc: Peirce List Emne: Re: [PEIRCE-L] de Waal Seminar: Chapter 3, Phenomenology and the Categories Stephen, List On Mar 2, 2014, at 11:37 AM, Stephen C. Rose wrote: 0 is part of reality like everything else and thus finite and real like everything else. Of course, one can speak of zero in such a manner. Everything is related to everything. Fine. But the first question about zero (no-thing) is HOW is it related to any-thing else, even itself! Cheers Jerry On Sun, Mar 2, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Gary, Ulysses, List: On Mar 2, 2014, at 7:08 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: Ulysses, thatʼs a tricky question! It is not a tricky question, it resembles a conundrum. It is a straight forward question, rather unanchored, of considerable depth. The narrative of Gary's Post is extremely imaginative but is it Peircian? I find very little of relevance in GaryF's approach to the concept of zero as none of the cited texts contain either the symbol for zero or the word "zero". In any case, one must keep in mind that the concept of zero can be made as a mark on a sheet of assertion. And, the arithmetic symbol for zero serves as the logical identity operator for arithmetic addition for counting symbols, both negative and positive. Cheers Jerry From: U Pascal [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: 1-Mar-14 9:49 PM Concerning the intersection of Peirce's graph theory & the phaneron, I was wondering how medads (represented by graphs with a valence of zero) figure into the phaneron. Do "Zeros" have a place among Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds or does their very nature -- being closed off from accepting subjects -- preclude them from being part of the phaneron? ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ________________________________ [1] The quote is “From “The Logic of Events”, 1898, the last of a proposed set of eight lectures. See 212n, Cf. also ch. 7, which appears to be an alternative draft. The listing in the Robin Catalogue is: 940. Logic of Events (LE) A. MS., G-1898-1, pp. 1-11. Published in two places with minor deletions: 6.1-5; 6.214-221. Thanks to Gary Fuhrman for providing this information. [2] A philosophy closely connected to Niklas Luhmann’s cybernetic and autopoietic inspired systems theory. <Pure Zero.docx>
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
