Jeff, list,
Jeff, you wrote,
[Quote]
First, what are the other key developments in Peirce's normative
science of semiotics that—in addition to a deeper appreciation of
the role of diagrams in deductive reasoning--are driving this
rearticulation of the cognitive field?
Second, if the normative science of semiotics is being broadened,
how might we understand the boundaries of this science? That is,
where does normative science of semiotics stop and special science
of biology or psychology start?
[End quote]
In those years Peirce broadened normative science in general in the
discovery sciences, adding esthetics and ethics as prior to
philosophical logic as formal semiotic. Although all three are
theoretical, esthetics and ethics have particular focuses on the
'feeling' and volitional fields, respectively. So something pertaining
to the relationships among cognition, volition, and feeling is perhaps
involved in the rearticulation of the cognitive field. (For those not
very familiar with Peirce's views, let me add that Peirce's idea of
'feeling' is not to be directly conflated with the usual ideas of
affectivity, emotions, etc., about things as being good or bad. In
particular, Peirce regarded pleasure and pain as either not feelings or
as secondary feelings. In particular he didn't think that either all
pleasure, or all pain, has a distinctive quality of feeling in common.)
Generally I've taken the broadening of term, proposition, argument, into
rheme, dicisign, argument, to reflect the idea that logic, logicality,
is not confined to textbooks, either to conventional language or to
abstract formulas or printed diagrams, any more than probability,
stochastic processes, information, communication & control processes,
etc., are. Signs are the bridge to seeing logic or logicality as
positive phenomenon in general, not just as a special class such as
subatomic forces, molecular matter, earthly life, humans, etc.
(Conventional language seems our evolutionary solution to the need for a
'common language' or common semiotic field among all the symbol & sign
systems (in a way, symbols are translations) - even if it is not the
optimal sign system for every purpose, conventional language is still
the 'lingua franca', or perhaps I should say the pidgin, whereby we can
negotiate our way, sometimes stumblingly, with other sign systems, and
in which maybe we can discern, in concentrated exemplification, more
general logical patterns.)
Anyway, if there is some generalized cognition or quasi-cognition "out
there," say in the trial-&-error quasi-learning process of biological
evolution, then one might ask likewise about volition and feeling. I'm
not sure how useful that is in the present discussion, I'm just tossing
it in there. But maybe some idea about the expansion of the whole
normative field would be useful to look at.
As to your second question, in Peirce's classifications, even before his
expansion of the theoretical normative sciences to include esthetics and
ethics, he consistently placed metaphysics (ontology, religious
metaphysics, and physical metaphysics) in between philosophical logic on
one side and special sciences such as biology or psychology on the other
side. So there questions suggest themselves:
1. Where does philosophical logic (as formal semiotic) end and
metaphysics begin? This is important for Peirce since he insists (for
example in "F.R.L.," 1899,
http://web.archive.org/web/20100425060724/http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/frl_99.htm
<http://web.archive.org/web/20100425060724/http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ebatke/peirce/frl_99.htm>
on not basing logic on metaphysical principles and findings. Peirce
comes to insist that pragmaticism - a doctrine in philosophical logic -
commits one to the reality of generals, modalities, etc., but Peirce
regards the reality of generals, reality of modalities, etc., as
metaphysical questions. The idea, I think, is that metaphysics is where
one fleshes out metaphysical implications of logical commitments.
2. Where does philosophy (that is, cenoscopic philosophy, philosophy in
the discovery sciences) begin and the special sciences begin? Usually he
said that special sciences begin where one requires special experiences
and experiments in order to settle questions - where the subject matter
is not positive phenomena in general, available to any waking person,
but special classes of phenomena - where, in the case of thinking, the
question is that of how we or anything actually _/do/_ think, a question
not fully met through answers to the question of how we or anything
_/should/_ think.
So one wouldn't say, X is logical because all psychologists have found
that people think according to X. But one might not have noticed X
before, and may inquire whether one can generalize X to a logical basis
in how one should think. For example: Now, I don't know, but I doubt
that modern psychologists were the first to notice that, regarding
pleasure and pain, strategic choices are not so much between pleasure
and pain, as between both and neither, both pleasure and pain being
likelier when one seeks to maximize pleasure and the absence of both
being likelier when one seeks to minimize pain. Opportunity = risk,
safeness = futility, and so on. Psychologists, if not the first to
notice such things, have pursued them in detail, and one risks naivety
if simply ignores such work and the larger patterns that may be
exemplified there in concentrated forms. One doesn't need to embrace
hedonism in order to see the potential ethical pertinence of the issues.
(I think that we touched on these issues during the peirce-l de Waal
seminar but I can't think of key words whereby to search it out.) End of
example.
Best, Ben
On 9/6/2014 1:32 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:
Lists,
One of the claims made in the first chapter of Natural Propositions
that caught my eye is that "Peirce's redefinition of propositions
under the generalized notion of "Dicisign", however, forms but one
node in a vast redefinition of the whole field of cognition . . . ."
(NP, 2) I'd like to ask a couple of questions about how we should
think aboutthis redefinition of the field. Let's take a closer look at
the way Frederik introduces this line of thought. He says: "At the
core of Peirce's rearticulation of the cognitive field, then, is a
daring generalization." There are two parts to this generalization:
1) "all of mathematics is developed by diagrammatical reasoning."
2) "all deductive reasoning is undertaken by such diagrammatical
reasoning" (NP, 3)
He then offers a long quote from MS 634 that sums up the ambitions
involved in rearticulating the cognitive field. After giving a short
overview of how the chapters fit together, he concludes by saying that
the most important offering of Peirce's semiotics is "a renewed
outlook of the whole of the 'cognitive field,' enabling us to envision
the exploration of routes not taken, both in terms of further
conceptual development and experimental investigations."
I agree with Frederik's claim that Peirce is dramatically reconceiving
the boundaries of logic as semiotic. Having said that, here are two
questions I'd like to think about a little more as we prepare to head
into chapters 2 and then 3:
First, what are the other key developments in Peirce's normative
science of semiotics that—in addition to a deeper appreciation of the
role of diagrams in deductive reasoning--are driving this
rearticulation of the cognitive field?
Second, if the normative science of semiotics is being broadened, how
might we understand the boundaries of this science? That is, where
does normative science of semiotics stop and special science of
biology or psychology start?
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
From: Gary Fuhrman
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 7:52 AM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] RE: Natural Propositions seminar
Greetings all,
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