John,
You wrote:
I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
them, but* I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact
I think that this is required if all thought is via signs (emphasis added).*
Your last sentences are, I think, key towards resolving this issue. My
point would be that those direct 'feels' are *not* thoughts, that they are
unanalyzed experiences of qualities. The analysis--should it happen at
all--happens after the fact.
An example: I remember once being in an apple orchard on one of the autumn
days when the wind briskly moves stratocumulus clouds across the sky,
creating all sorts of rapidly changing shadows on the earth. Upon
reflection I analyzed the colors of the apples as I'd experienced them as
bright red, dark red, cherry red, almost purple, almost black, etc., the
last 'color' experience ('almost black') being the most remarkable for me.
Indeed, in the totality of my phaneron I recall that I wasn't even
experiencing 'colors' as such so that my sense of them was just what it
was, and that experience could only be (inadequately and partially)
analyzed *after the fact* as experience of firsts as qualities, at times
changing so very rapidly and melding into other hues so subtly that I
couldn't have analyzed them--couldn't have found descriptive adjectives to
name the colors--had I tried (the only reason that I had tried at all was
that the 'black'-red apple sensation shocked me into a moment of analysis).
At such moments of pure experience nothing is being represented at all. I
wouldn't and couldn't think of all those hues as having color-names as they
were experienced and, in some cases, even upon reflection I couldn't (that
color between 'almost purple' and 'almost black' doesn't have a name for
me).
So, all thought is via signs, but the experience of a quality is not a
thought. So, I do not see why you say that you "don't think we ever
experience them (qualities, firsts) directly." Isn't my example one of the
direct experience of qualities before analysis?
Best,
Gary R.
*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*
On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:03 PM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote:
> Edwina,
>
> I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
> firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
> other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
> I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
> real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
> directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
> them, but I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact I
> think that this is required if all thought is via signs.
>
>
>
> I agree that Stephen and I have been talking past each other. We had a
> short exchange privately that I am content with.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Edwina Taborsky [mailto:[email protected]]
> *Sent:* August 3, 2014 10:00 PM
> *To:* Stephen C. Rose; John Collier
> *Cc:* Peirce List
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since
> you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is
> confusing. Yes - we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and
> Secondness - but Firstness is without analytic awareness: a pure
> feeling...which we don't even yet know what it is a feeling OF. To move
> into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's hot'...requires a second step of
> differentiation of the Self from this other source. Secondness is that
> direct physical contact but - we do react to it - i.e., to withdraw from
> the heat.
>
>
>
> No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you
> outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some
> semiosic expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for
> a sign.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose <[email protected]>
>
> *To:* John Collier <[email protected]>
>
> *Cc:* Peirce List <[email protected]>
>
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may
> seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own
> accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what
> exists at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through
> some sort of index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made
> no assumptions of the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!
>
>
> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>
> The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
> matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra
> which I infer from direct experience.
>
>
> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so
> stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience
> is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
>
> Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not
> mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including
> things to which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers
> to something which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real
> I mean they are universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly
> all theoretical, but it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing
> is something you take to be fundamental to reality.
>
>
> Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure
> firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience
> directly.
>
> John
>
> ----------
>
> Professor John Collier
> [email protected]
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>
>
>
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