Part 325** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**28 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 526]-x-In the paradox Achilles must first cover half yje distance, but before thathe must cover a quarter, and before that an eighth, and so on ad infinitum, so that he will neversucceed in catching up with the tortoise. It has been observed, however, that,although this process of fractalization can continue infinitely, its result cannever be greater than one – as occurs in any case with irrational numbers, sothat 3.14, however successful we may be in analyzing it, will never be 4 [GCM: “virtual as “never” (Scotus) vs.“almost”(approximately true: pragmatism)].¶-x-If we apply this argument to the fractal length of a coast, where the“potential” process of division could be infinite, as least insofar as we canalways postulate smaller and smaller microbes, then this does not preventAchilles in practice covering the space in a single stride. Achilles will covera unit of distance appropriate to him in a unit of time appropriate to him.¶-x-Already Aristotle (PHYSICS III, 8. 206) objected to Zeno that, amongmagniyudes, there exist infinity by addition (I can always find an even numbergreater than thr preceeding one) but not by division, insofar as the infinityof the subetervals into which a unit of length is divisible is always containedin a limited totality (never greater than one) which may constitute the objectof an empirical intuition.¶-x-In other words, if, cosmologically speaking, there is never perhaps aFirstness that is NOT the result of a previous Thirdness, cognitively there isa limit to our perceptive abilities, which experience as undivided somethingthat, cosmologically speaking, is “in posse” [in potential but notactually] capable of being further divided. What is “in posse” belongs tocosmology. What is “in actu” belongs to the agent subject.¶ ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:39 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 324** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**27 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 525]-x-We can construct a semiotics without a subject or (what amounts to the samething) in which the subject is everywhere. In this semiotics there will neverbe a “priman” because interpretation will proceed by “miseen abyme”. But, if from the cosmological point of view the inferentialprocess is infinite, because there are no intuitions, then we cannot ignore thecognitive instance, that is, that edge of semiosis that is formed when asubject (any instance capable of saying “I” that somehow inters into thesemiosis from the material and corporal outside – what I am speaking about is abrain) installs itself and touches off a chain of inferences under the stimulusof something that, from its own point of viewand only in this precisespatiotemporal segment, ATTRACTS ITS ATTENTION [footnote 7: At this point wemight be tempted to open up another can of worms: Why does one thing attract myattention at the expense of another? But reconstructing a theory of attentionin Peirce lies beyond my capabilities, and beyond the scope of this chapter.]The “I”in this case stands on that edge where on the one hand there stands, let us say,the dog – the thing that interests him at the moment – and, on the other hand,evcerything else – which does not interest him.¶-x-In this phase Firstness, as we saw, is a presence “such as it is”, nothingbut a positive characteristic , like a purple color perceived without any senseof the beginning or end of the experience, without any self-awareness separatefrom the sensation of the color; it is potentiality without existence, thesimple possibility of a perceptual process. In order to contest these “qualia”[page 526]that precede any inference, we must take as our point of departure theprinciple that they constitute an intuitive moment, without our being able toconceive further inferential processes behind it, in a sort of infinitefractalization. But I would like to remind the reader that the infinitefractalization of a sea coast does not prevent a human subject, who has a molarview compared with the molecular view of an ant, from covering in a single stepwhat would be for the ant an extremely long and tortuous trajectory.¶-x-We are back, if you will, to the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, inwhich we must take into account the distinction between POTENTIAL INFINITY andINFINITY IN ACT, already present in Aristotle.¶-x-
----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2014 6:22 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 323** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**27 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 524]-x-15.5. PEIRCE AND THE TORTOISEWhen reading Peirce, we must not confuse cosmology and gnoseology. As Ialready remarked in K & P, two different but mutually interdependentperspectives are interwoven in Peirce’s thought: the metaphysical-cosmologicaland the cognitive. Unless we read them in a semiotic key, Peirce’s meyaphysics andcosmology remain incomprehensible. But we would have to say the same thing ofhis semiotics with respect to his cosmology. Categories such as Firstness,Secondness, Thirdness and the concept of interpretation itself not only define“modisignificandi”, that is, the ways in which the world can be known: theyare also “modi essendi”, ways in which the world BEHAVES, proceduresthrough which the world, in the course of evolution, interprets itself. [page 525]In K& P, I cited Matteo Mameli, “Synechism: Aspetti del pensiero di C.S. Peirce”, 1997: 4: “Given that Peirce thinks and demonstrates thatintelligibility is not an accidental characteristic of the universe, that it isnot, that is, a mere epiphenomenon of how things are, but a characteristic that‘shapes’ the universe, it follows that a theory of intelligibility is also ametaphysical theory of the structure of the universe” K & P, p. 399, n.28). The theory of intelligibility and metaphysical theory, however, mustsometimes be kept separate.¶-x-Kant said that the fact that we believe we know things on the basis of themere evidence of our senses depends on a “vitium subreptionis” or subreption:we are so accustomed from childhood to grasp things as if they appeared to usalready given to us in intuition that we have never thematized the role playedby the intellect in this process. Therefore even what were for him evenempirical intuitions were already the result of a work of inference.¶-x-We can construct a semiotics without a subject or (what amounts to the samething) in which the subject is everywhere. In this semiotics there will neverbe a “priman” because interpretation will proceed by “miseen abyme”. But, if from the cosmological point of view the inferentialprocess is infinite, because there are no intuitions, then we cannot ignore thecognitive instance, that is, that edge of semiosis that is formed when asubject (any instance capable of saying “I” that somehow inters into thesemiosis from the material and corporal outside – what I am speaking about is abrain) installs itself and touches off a chain of inferences under the stimulusof something that, from its own point of viewand only in this precisespatiotemporal segment, ATTRACTS ITS ATTENTION [footnote 7: At this point wemight be tempted to open up another can of worms: Why does one thing attract myattention at the expense of another? But reconstructing a theory of attentionin Peirce lies beyond my capabilities, and beyond the scope of this chapter.]The “I”in this case stands on that edge where on the one hand there stands, let ussay, the dog – the thing that interests him at the moment – and, on the otherhand, evcerything else – which does not interest him.¶-x- From: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> To: Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 10:20 PM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Thread: JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15230 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15235 SJ:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15236 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15237 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15238 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15239 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15240 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15241 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15243 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15244 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15246 Helmut, One should not take that illustrative example too literally. I was simply making another try at clarifying my use of the word "cosmos" and replying to Sung about anthropocentricity. Regards, Jon Helmut Raulien wrote: > Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to > do > with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist > liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against > any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying > to > find out. Best, Helmut. -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . 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