Lists, Howard quoted Peirce:
The idea of the absolutely First must be entirely separated from all conception of or reference to anything else; for what involves a second is itself a second to that second. The First must therefore be present and immediate, so as not to be second to a representation. It must be fresh and new, for if old it is second to its former state. It must be initiative, original, spontaneous, and free; otherwise it is second to a determining cause. It is also something vivid and conscious; so only it avoids being the object of some sensation. It precedes all synthesis and all differentiation; it has no unity and no parts. It cannot be articulately thought: assert it, and it has already lost its characteristic innocence; for assertion always implies a denial of something else. Stop to think of it, and it has flown! What the world was to Adam on the day he opened his eyes to it, before he had drawn any distinctions, or had become conscious of his own existence - that is first, present, immediate, fresh, new, initiative, original, spontaneous, free, vivid, conscious, and evanescent. Only, remember that every description of it must be false to it. Then wrote: "What I see is Peirce's logical mind arbitrarily excluding every observable aspect of time, space, object, and motion in order to satisfy a "realist" model of entirely abstract generalities." The Peirce quotation you offered concerns *only* an "absolute" first and that, no doubt, is an abstraction and, as such, cannot be experienced. On the other hand, Peirce offers many examples of firsts which can be. Indeed, I would maintain that all normal human beings experience firsts "all the time"` as embodied qualities. On the Peirce list I once gave a simple but, for me, memorable personal example of this. One summer day at a annual picnic I attend, I found myself on top of one of the foothills of the Catskills overlooking the Tappan Zee, where the Hudson suddenly broadens tremendously so that that bulge looks more like a lake or a "sea" than a river. It was a warm and slightly breezy day so that clouds passed overhead rather quickly. I left my friends at one point and found a quiet grassy place to enjoy the natural scene. Lying in the grass there looking up at the many trees of that old forest which were directly above me, I fell into a kind of reverie, a daydream with no content, and devoid of thought. As I "came out of it" I noted, admittedly retrospectively, that the movement of the clouds in conjunction with the bright sunshine of that day had changed the color of the self-same leaves of these trees through various shades of light to dark green to an almost black hue back through those greens to a golden hue, then almost a platinum 'white' and again and again. And I thought, not only had I experienced those various hues before I thought to give names to them (before I was "thinking" at all), but that they were so many and varied that I couldn't give adequate names to the variety of hues I'd been experiencing even if I had tried. So when John writes "I don't think that firstness can be directly experienced" and adds.At best it would be an indeterminate mush. James called it "a blooming, buzzing confusion", and C I Lewis called it "ineffable". I find their arguments convincing. while Howard iterates this putative impossible "experience" in writing: I don't need an argument to know I have never experienced it, I have no idea what they're talking about. For although firstnesses are *never* experienced apart from secondnesses, they are clearly an ordinary facet of our experience of qualities (which, by the way, are not the only type of firstnesses we experience, just the most common). Best, Gary R [image: Gary Richmond] *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>* On Sat, Nov 29, 2014 at 8:40 PM, Howard Pattee <[email protected]> wrote: > At 12:32 AM 11/29/2014, John Collier wrote: > >> We've discussed this before. I don't think that firstness can be directly >> experienced. >> At best it would be an indeterminate mush. James called it "a blooming, >> buzzing confusion", and C I Lewis called it "ineffable". I find their >> arguments convincing. >> > > HP: I don't need an argument to know I have never experienced it. I > reviewed one of Peirce's definitions: > > Peirce: The idea of the absolutely First must be entirely separated from > all conception of or reference to anything else; for what involves a second > is itself a second to that second. The First must therefore be present and > immediate, so as not to be second to a representation. It must be fresh and > new, for if old it is second to its former state. It must be initiative, > original, spontaneous, and free; otherwise it is second to a determining > cause. It is also something vivid and conscious; so only it avoids being > the object of some sensation. It precedes all synthesis and all > differentiation; it has no unity and no parts. It cannot be articulately > thought: assert it, and it has already lost its characteristic innocence; > for assertion always implies a denial of something else. Stop to think of > it, and it has flown! What the world was to Adam on the day he opened his > eyes to it, before he had drawn any distinctions, or had become conscious > of his own existence - that is first, present, immediate, fresh, new, > initiative, original, spontaneous, free, vivid, conscious, and evanescent. > Only, remember that every description of it must be false to it. > > HP: What I see is Peirce's logical mind arbitrarily excluding every > observable aspect of time, space, object, and motion in order to satisfy a > "realist" model of entirely abstract generalities. > > Howard > > > >
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