Chapter 3.1
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14236
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14249
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14264
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14265
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14267
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14273
JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14276
CG:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14280
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14285
CG:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14289
GR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14293
CG:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14294
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14295
GR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14296
Gary,
I read Peirce the same way I read anyone else who puts forward a description or
a depiction of anything. I observe a principle of charitable interpretation,
which means that I seek an interpretation of what they propose that does not
result in a contradiction. There are times when I can find no way of doing
that. It could be just my own limitations, but depending on the person, the
subject, and the context, the contradictions may be almost immediate and quite
unavoidable so far as I can tell. Peirce is rarely ever like that, of course,
but that's not to say I don't have to work at it to avoid the possible aporias
looming and lurking on every side.
I read Peirce also as a logician and a mathematician, which means that I take
very seriously the axioms and definitions he sets down as anchoring a subject,
and once that is done then everything he says about the subject thereafter has
to be judged for its logical consistency with the logical consequences of those
founding principles.
There are specific techniques for exercising interpretive charity. For example,
it may happen that we run up against an apparent contradiction in passing from
one context to another because we did not detect an assumption that divides the
two situations, either because it was so understood by all concerned that no one
bothered to mark it expressly or because it was so unrecognized by all concerned
that no one recognized the need to mark it. Marking the unmarked assumption is
quite frequently all it takes to resolve the impasse.
So now that you know my method, let's all get a good night's rest and take this
up fresh in the morning.
Regards,
Jon
Gary Richmond wrote:
Jon, lists,
Would you say that Peirce, is in such a passage as this one (of which I could
quote several), guilty of your putative fallacy of misplaced essence?
A Symbol is a sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a
law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the
Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object. It is thus itself a
general type or law, that is, is a Legisign. As such it acts through a
Replica. Not only is it general itself, but the Object to which it refers is
of a general nature. Now that which is general has its being in the
instances which it will determine. There must, therefore, be existent
instances of what the Symbol denotes, although we must here understand by
"existent," existent in the possibly imaginary universe to which the Symbol
refers. The Symbol will indirectly, through the association or other law, be
affected by those instances; and thus the Symbol will involve a sort of
Index, although an Index of a peculiar kind. It will not, however, be by any
means true that the slight effect upon the Symbol of those instances accounts
for the significant character of the Symbol. CP 2.249
If not — since this is all I meant to suggest by the snippets I quoted, then
I don't see a problem, a fallacy, here.
Best,
Gary
*Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690*
On Wed, Sep 24, 2014 at 4:22 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
Gary, List,
We all want to get at the essential essence of things, the necessary forms
that govern the material contents of whatever domains we investigate. But
we have to be on guard against the Fallacy Of Misplaced Essence (FOME), the
error of fixing absolute, monadic, permanent predicates on things that are
merely filling a role a relation where the only real reality lies.
Regards,
Jon
Gary Richmond wrote:
Gary F., Jeff, Clark, lists,
I've been reading the passages you pointed to from *Kaina Stoicheia*
("New Elements") in EP2, Gary, and I tend to agree with you that, while I
too will be very interested in the special direction that Jeff would like
to take the discussion of this chapter of NP, that for the purposes of
the seminar more can be accomplished of general interest and value to
members of *both* lists if we don't get too distracted by reflections on
the history of Whewill, Mill, and Kant conceptions of the proposition, at
least just yet (one can imagine that a deep reflection on those accounts
in relation to Peirce's own might itself warrant a seminar of several to
many weeks; in fact, it sounds like a good dissertation topic).
In any event, I'm finding section 4. of "New Elements" of especial
interest and want to discuss the passage discussing the copula as an
index and the way that in the proposition "Socrates is wise," for
example, that ". . .it is not the two *signs* 'Socrates' and 'wise' that
are connected, but the *replicas* of them used in the sentence" (EP2:110,
emphasis added).
This paragraph is very rich and I'd like to return to it later in the
week. Just now I'm considering it in the light of something which Peirce
says in the very next paragraph and which relates to Clark's question
regarding the relation between logic and mathematics as well as to the
nature of logic as semiotic itself.
Three snippets: "Logic is a science little removed from pure
mathematics." "Logic is the study of the essential nature of signs. A
sign is something which exists in replicas." ". . . logic, [. . .] is a
study, not of replicas, but of signs" (EP2.311).
So taken together, I take this to mean that although signs exist as
replicas, logic is *not *the study of those replicas at all, but rather
the study of the *essential *nature of signs. That is to say that it is
not the study of anything existential, but of something more *general*
which *can be* instantiated. It is the nature of *that* reality behind
the replicas, so to speak, which semiotics (and mathematics) study, one
of the reasons why, in my understanding so far, that the study of
dicisigns has direct application to biosemiotics.
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*
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