Sorry, addendum at end of my message.
On 12/10/2014 1:09 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Stan, lists,
You wrote,
S: Viewed as I do (as subsumption), there is no difference here.
‘Mammal’ subsumes mongoose ){mammal {mongoose}} just as playing
subsumes pinochle {playing {pinochle}}. The principle is
inheritance with increased informational constraints, the form is a
tree
[End quote]
Your view of classificatory divisions coarse-grains out the differences
between taxa, kinds of divisions, etc. Even in a largely natural
classification such as a biological taxonomy, the taxa are not all the
same kind of taxa.
You wrote:
S: It is logical to view the Second Law of thermodynamics as a final
cause. This division is unjustified today.
[End quote]
I agree about the Second Law and hold that it is also logical to view
the conservation of certain quantities as a final cause. However, final
causes are correlated to elaborate specializations in life beyond
anything seen in merely dynamic and material phenomena. Function has
special explanatory roles in biology well beyond anything in physics and
matter science. So the division by kind of cause seems still justified
today.
ADDENDUM: I realize I've broached a disagreement with Peirce in the
paragraph above. I really would put biology in the final-causal wing of
idioscopy, though I'm not prepared to call that 'psychical' or
'psychognosic'. Peirce sometimes defines mind (psyche) very broadly, but
in his system, the psychical sciences pertain to mind and intelligence
in a more usual sense - they're psychological and sociological. END OF
ADDENDUM.
Best, Ben
On 12/9/2014 10:59 AM, Stanley N Salthe wrote:
Ben -- adlibbing:
Peirce was using not his own trichotomical principles, but Comte's
ordering principle, to /guide/ his classification of the sciences as
living pursuits by actual groups of people.
S: As social disciplines
He was also looking for embodiments of his trichotomical principles in
actual divisions of the sciences that he surveyed. The
physical-psychical case seems the biggest case in which he didn't find
those principles embodied even though the classificational level was
sufficiently broad that one would think that the classificational
divisions would be more logical than genealogical. (Genealogical
divisions such as the study of vertebrates, the study of molluscs, etc.)
S: Viewed as I do (as subsumption), there is no difference here.
‘Mammal’ subsumes mongoose ){mammal {mongoose}} just as playing
subsumes pinochle {playing {pinochle}}. The principle is inheritance
with increased informational constraints, the form is a tree.
He didn't find what I strongly suspect he was looking for, but he
didn't try to fudge the data - which is why I say that the
trichotomies were not his _/guide/ _ in the classifications. What's
more, the division into physical (efficient-causal) and psychical
(final-causal) seems nowhere near as rooted in natural history as,
say, the prokaryote-eukaryote distinction.
S: It is logical to view the Second Law of thermodynamics as a final
cause. This division is unjustified today.
Instead it seems quite like a Peircean trichotomy with a missing
department. Why didn't Peirce classify biology as a department neither
physical nor psychical?
S: Possibly because it IS physical.
In his "Detailed Classification of the Sciences" written for _Minute
Logic_ (1902), he regards biology largely as chemistry, though a very
special kind of chemistry,
S: I concur with that.
STAN
On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 4:37 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
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