Jeffrey, Ben, lists, Jeff wrote: 3. The immediate quality of what is present to consciousness in sensation, desire or emotion, considered apart from all activity of thought; the pure sense element in consciousness.
In was in this sense that I offered my examples yesterday of feeling as firstness. 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* On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 12:47 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard < [email protected]> wrote: > Ben, Lists, > > Here are paraphrases from three definitions that Peirce wrote for the > century dictionary. > > Sensation (n): > 1. The action, faculty, or immediate mental result of receiving a > mental impression from any affection of the bodily organism; sensitive > apprehension; corporeal feeling; any feeling; also, the elements of feeling > or immediate consciousness and of consciousness of reaction in perception; > the subjective element of perception. > 2. A state of interest or of feeling; especially, a state of excited > interest or feeling. > 3. That which produces sensation or excited interest or feeling: as, > the greatest sensation of the day. > > Feeling (n): > 1. The act of sensing or perceiving by sensation > 2. A sensation > 3. The immediate quality of what is present to consciousness in > sensation, desire or emotion, considered apart from all activity of > thought; the pure sense element in consciousness. > > Think (v): > 1. To judge; to form as a judgment or conception > 2. To form a mental image of; to recollect, recall, reconsider > 3. To cognize, apprehend; grasp intellectually > > The contrast between feeling and thinking seems instructive. > > --Jeff > > Jeff Downard > Associate Professor > Department of Philosophy > NAU > (o) 523-8354 > ________________________________________ > From: Benjamin Udell [[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, December 01, 2014 7:39 AM > To: Peirce-L > Cc: [email protected] > Subject: [biosemiotics:7619] Re: Peirce categories > > Gary R., Joseph, > > Peirce did not regard pleasure, pain, and other kinds of affectivity > mainly as qualities of feeling. By "feeling" Peirce seems to mean something > more like sensation, although across his work it has seemed to me that he > doesn't mean only sensation. > > 1. Feeling, sensation (feeling of red, etc.). Pleasure and pain are, at > most, feelings of states of volition (1905) or > secondary feelings, feelings of attraction and repulsion which in turn are > actions (1906) > 2. Sense of reaction (including will and, more or less, pain and, in 1905, > pleasure). > 3. General conception (he tends to put or correlate pleasure with this in > 1903). > > In particular, Peirce doesn't think that there is any feeling-quality > common to all pleasurable experience or to all painful experience. > > Lectures on Pragmatism (1903), Lecture 4, "The Reality of Thirdness", > Peirce start a paragraph (CP 5.112) saying "It is a great mistake to > suppose that the phenomena of pleasure and pain are mainly phenomena of > feeling." In CP 5.113, he goes on to say about pleasure and pain, that > > [Peirce quote] > [...] these phenomena themselves do not mainly consist in any common > Feeling-quality of Pleasure and any common Feeling-quality of Pain, even if > there are such Qualities of Feeling; but they mainly consist [in a] Pain > [which lies] in a Struggle to give a state of mind its _quietus_, and [in > a] Pleasure in a peculiar mode of consciousness allied to the consciousness > of _making a generalization_, in which not Feeling, but rather Cognition is > the principal constituent. [....] > > In that view of the matter, the objection to the doctrine that the > distinction Moral approval and disapproval is ultimately only a species of > the distinction Esthetic approval and disapproval seems to be answered. > [End quote] > > Section 6 "Ego and Non-Ego" in "Phaneroscopy or the Natural History of > Concepts," c. 1905, CP 1.333. > > [Peirce quote] > As for pleasure and pain, which Kant and others have represented to be of > the essence of feeling, whether it be merely because they and the section > of the psychological world for which at this moment I have the presumption > to speak apply the word feeling to different modifications of awareness, or > whether there be a faulty analysis on the one part or the other, we > certainly do not think that unadulterated feeling, if that element could be > isolated, would have any relation to pain or to pleasure, For in our > opinion if there be any quality of feeling common to all pleasurable > experiences or components of experience, and another one quality of feeling > common to all that is painful (which we are inclined to doubt, to say the > least), then we hold the opinion that the one is the feeling of being > attracted, the other that of being repelled, by the present state of > experience. If there be two such feelings, they are feelings of states of > volition. But perhaps pleasure and pain are n > othing more than names for the state of being attracted and that of being > repelled by present experience. Of course, feelings accompany them, but > under the latter hypothesis no feeling would be common to all pleasures , > and none to all pains, > > If we are right, the position of the hedonists is preposterous, in that > they make mere feelings to be active agencies, instead of being merely > conscious indications of real determinations of our subconscious volitional > beings. [I may mention that their _talk_ (however it may be with their > thought) is further preposterous as seeming to make pain a mere privation > of pleasure, although it is plain that it is pain that indicates an active, > and pleasure only a passive, determination of our volitional being.] > [End quote, brackets in text in the original] > > CP 5.552, from "The Basis of Pragmaticism" (1906). Here he ties the > ideally mature person's pleasure and pain to esthetic good and evil, but > still regards pleasure and pain as secondary feelings or generalizations of > such feelings and as really pertaining to action. > > [Quote Peirce] > Esthetic good and evil are closely akin to pleasure and pain. They are > what would be pleasure or pain to the fully developed superman. What, then, > are pleasure and pain? The question has been sufficiently discussed, and > the answer ought by this time to be ready. They are secondary feelings or > generalizations of such feelings; that is, of feelings attaching themselves > to, and excited by, other feelings. A toothache is painful. It is not pain, > but pain _accompanies_ it; and if you choose to say that pain is an > ingredient of it, that is not far wrong. However, the quality of the > feeling of toothache is a simple, positive feeling, distinct from pain; > though pain accompanies it. To use the old consecrated terms, pleasure is > the feeling that a feeling is "sympathetical," pain that it is > "antipathetical." The feeling of pain is a symptom of a feeling which > repels us; the feeling of pleasure is the symptom of an attractive feeling. > Attraction and repulsion are kinds of action. Feelin > gs are pleasurable or painful according to the kind of action which they > stimulate. In general, the good is the attractive -- not to everybody, but > to the sufficiently matured agent; and the evil is the repulsive to the > same. Mr. Ferdinand C.S. Schiller informs us that he and James have made up > their minds that the true is simply the satisfactory. No doubt; but to say > "satisfactory" is not to complete any predicate whatever. Satisfactory to > what end? > [End quote] > > Best, Ben > > On 11/30/2014 5:40 PM, Gary Richmond wrote: > > Joseph wrote: Firstness is a happy land . . . > > Not at all! The following are also all qualities of feeling (or complexes > of them): > suffering, pain (physical, say, toothache, or emotional, say, heartache), > agony, distress, anxiety, fear, despair, fatigue, worry, etc. > > Good or bad, painful or pleasurable, it is the "living" character of the > feeling which matters. Yet the feeling must be present (even if it presents > itself in, say, an intense memory of a feeling which comes to > consciousness). > > 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 Sun, Nov 30, 2014 at 4:14 PM, Joseph Brenner > <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>: > > Gary R., > > Thank you for this note which helps me understand what is embodied in > Firstness. > Firstness is a happy land in which there is no absence, delay, staleness, > wear, > slavery, vagueness, dullness, repetition, unconsiousness and permanence. > Happy, then, the biosemiotician or any scientist who can live and work in > that land. > > Joseph B. >
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