Fallacy Of Misplaced Essence (FOME)
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
CG:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14297
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14299
GR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14301
Gary, List,
I am introducing a new subject line for this topic as it seems slightly tangent
for now to the main line of NP and ยง3.1, if not without bearing in the long run.
Let me go back to what I wrote, correcting one typo:
"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
in a relation where the only real reality lies."
I am sorry if that seemed like some kind of J'accuse...! I am not inditing you
but simply indicating a general problem of interpretation that we need to be on
guard against, especially in navigating the complexities of Peirce's odysseys.
I could have written that remark almost any time in the last couple of
decades, and probably have in one variation or another on many occasions. It's
an issue that is constantly on my mind in reading Peirce and all his
interpretations by others. All your last citations and comments did was to
instance the issue more succinctly than is usual around here, so that's what you
get for being succinct.
Right now, I need more coffee ...
Regards,
Jon
Gary Richmond wrote:
> Jon, lists,
>
> Just a few interleaved remarks for now.
>
> JA: 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.
>
>
> I consider this "principle of charitable interpretation" to be the* most*
> admirable for both reading and assessing another's work. The scholar whom I
> very closely associate this, essentially ethical, principle with is Joe
> Ransdell. Of course I didn't learn it from him, but, let's say, he 'brought
> it home' for me' (perhaps for Ben Udell also) as quintessential for doing
> science and philosophy properly and well, and I've tried to apply it wherever
> and whenever I can. It's not that I've been wholly successful in this, but
> that whenever I've 'lapsed' I've felt at least 'uncomfortable' and typically
> much worse. For me it is a great intellectual ideal to approach as closely as
> I can.
>
> But I could say, and as you wrote, "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." Perhaps, however,
> I've learned most--at least about myself--from such cases.
>
> You seem to suggest that interpreting Peirce for you is exceptional in this
> regard.
>
> JA: 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.
>
>
> But you can't mean, can you, that you almost always get Peirce 'right'?
> Perhaps I misunderstood you here. Be that as it may, I too look for a
> consistency in him--even over the course of the development of his work--and
> not only of the "axioms and definitions" which he sets down; even as these do
> indeed 'anchor' his work for me as well. I've found only a few significant
> inconsistencies, most of which Peirce himself eventually discovered and
> corrected (but I don't interpret him, as Tom Short does in his book on
> Peirce's semiotic, as himself finding radical faults and aporias in his
> thinking, significantly correcting these, and more or less reinventing his
> philosophy every decade or so; rather, for me the thrust of his work is
> continuous and evolutionary--no doubt with some necessary corrections and
> emendations and additions--from the early papers through to his late, great
> works in pragmatism and semiotics in the first decades of the 20th century).
>
> But returning to our theme of intellectual charity, you wrote:
>
> JA: 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 [. . . ] Marking the unmarked assumption is
> quite frequently all it takes to resolve the impasse.
>
>
> I wholly agree. And I think this 'marking' ought be done as clearly and
> precisely as is possible. So it is in part a matter closely related to the
> ethics of terminology.
>
> JA: So now that you know my method, let's all get a good night's rest and
> take this up fresh in the morning.
>
>
> I would say that this is pretty much my method as well. So, since this
> 'marking' seems to be a desideratum for both of us, I have hopes that in the
> morning--and in the weeks and months ahead--that we will both approach the
> topics we discuss freshly and optimally charitably.
>
> 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 10:56 PM, Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> 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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