Ben, Lists, The quotes you've provided are helpful to me. I've not yet paid enough attention to his remarks about the differences between kingdom, phyla, class, order, family genus and species as these conceptions are applied to the classification of different sciences.
Having said that, I was questioning the grounds of Peirce's division of the class of idioscopic sciences into the subclasses of physical and psychical. In the 20th century, the division between the physical sciences, life sciences, and the psychological and social sciences seems quite prevalent. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Benjamin Udell [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2014 10:18 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [biosemiotics:7722] Re: Peirce's classifications Gary R., Jeff, lists, I didn't see this before I replied to Jeff's post the other day. Yes, in some places Peirce finds only dichotomies. But as I said to Jeff, Peirce in physical metaphysics found a tyche-anance-agape trichotomy of which two, but only two, members are represented by divisions of idioscopic research; moreover, the chief divisions of his broadest three departments of discovery sciences are, in number, 3, 3, 2, respectively. One would expect 1, 2, 3, or 3, 3, 3, because they are such broad divisions, where a Peircean would expect trichotomical logicality rather than idiosyncrasy. However, in reviewing the material, I've found that I've mistakenly omitted a consideration of taxon. Peirce in the Feb-April 1902 "Detailed Classification" divides the _class_ Idioscopy into two _subclasses_, physical and psychical. He divides the class Philosophy (cenoscopy) into two subclasses as well http://www.textlog.de/4260-2.html - epistemy (Peirce's usual idea of cenoscopic philosophy) and theoric (which resorts to special observations for certain "minute details"). In later classifications he drops the idea of theoric. Now, as to divisions of class into subclasses, Peirce does this: Mathematics: 1 (i.e., no distinct subclasses) Philosophy: 2 or 1 Idioscopy: 2 The divisions into phaneroscopy, normative science, and metaphysics is not a division into _subclasses_, but into _orders_. http://www.textlog.de/4260-2.html Definitions of class and order: 238. The first great division of science will be according to its fundamental purpose, making what I shall term branches of science. A modification of a general purpose may constitute a subbranch. All knowledge whatever comes from observation; but different sciences are observational in such radically different ways that the kind of information derived from the observation of one department of science (say natural history) could not possibly afford the information required of observation by another branch (say mathematics). I call groups based on such considerations _classes_, and modifications of the same nature _subclasses_. Observation is, in Agassiz's phrase, the "ways and means" of attaining the purpose of science. Of two departments of science A and B, of the same class, A may derive special facts from B for further generalization while supplying B with principles which the latter, not aiming so high, is glad to find ready-made. A will rank higher than B, by virtue of the greater generality of its object, while B will be richer and more varied than A. I call groups based on these considerations orders, or if based on modifications of the same sort of idea, _suborders_. [February-April 1902, "A Detailed Classification of the Sciences" http://www.textlog.de/4261.html ] If different sorts of conceptions are dealt with in the different families of a depart|353|ment, but the general type of inquiry is the same, I call it an _order_ of science. If the types of inquiry of the different orders of a department are different, yet these orders are connected together so that students feel that they are studying the same great subject, I call the department a _class_ of science. [July 1902, Memoir 1, Carnegie application http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-02.htm<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-02.htm> ] The quote from Peirce mentioning dreams and paranormal things discusses people's and other animals' being applied physicists and applied psychists because of how it serves their needs, and he brings up dreams and the paranormal as possibly a case where people and other animals _lack_ well-developed powers of grasping a mode of relations among things in space and time. I guess that, to Peirce, such would be why such things seem and indeed are fringy. Since Peirce already has essentially anancistic (physical) and agapistic (psychical) wings of idioscopy, I'd guess that he was trying to think of something tychistic, absolutely chancy stuff that doesn't obey strict laws. Now, If one tried to associate the odd things with quantum correlation, 'alternate' ways of connecting spacetime, the subjectivity of particular observations in quantum physics, it suggests that there would be no way to usefully transmit or receive information superluminally through dreams and paranormal-seeming things, and that would certainly fit in. Well, I don't really believe that there's a nontrivial connection between dreams, supposed 'spiritual' phenomena, etc. and quantum physics, but it's hard to completely close the door, and Peirce kept it a crack open in a similar way in his time. Best, Ben On 12/8/2014 3:33 PM, Gary Richmond wrote: Jeff, Ben, lists, The reason why Peirce includes only two branches of the special sciences in his classification of the sciences may simply be that there are some situations where there naturally are only dyads, and one sees this, for example, in places in mathematics and physics. The quotation Ben gave which perhaps hints at where one might look for a possible third special science doesn't suggest at all anything presently capable of scientific study: "Astrology, magic, ghosts, prophecies." So a third branch seems to me highly unlikely. One should note, however, that the classifications from 1902 on (the "perennial classification" as Kent calls it) do divide each of the two branches of the special sciences into three sub-branches, namely the descriptive, classificatory, and nomonological. So trichotomies do occur within the branches of the two special sciences 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 Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 2:44 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote: Ben, Lists, Given the principles that are being used to guide the formation of the classification of the sciences, why is the division between the physical and the physical sciences a dichotomy and not a trichotomy? If this is a natural divisions between kinds of special sciences, then there should be an explanation. What is it? --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Benjamin Udell Sent: Monday, December 08, 2014 9:32 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7705] Peirce's classifications - WAS Re: Natural Propositions Chapter 6 Dear Tommi, lists,
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