Edwina, list,
You're welcome. In fact, I wanted to add a line to the effect of "Edwina
will be happy to hear about this!" but I got bogged down in trying to
word it to strike quite the right note and so on.
Best, Ben
On 4/13/2015 8:12 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Ben, thanks for the correction. It makes a LOT of sense. As you know,
I've used that quote many many times on the list - and using
'inorganic' rather than organic - well, from all of Peirce's
writings, that focus makes more sense. He did refer to the inorganic
realm as also engaged in semiosis. And clearly explained how it became
'hidebound' with habits.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Benjamin Udell <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Monday, April 13, 2015 8:01 PM
*Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Nathan Houser's papers at academia.edu
List,
Nathan Houser has been uploading many of his papers to academia.edu.
http://iupui.academia.edu/NathanHouser
One does not need to actually download a PDF to read one of his
papers. Once one clicks on the "close" X of the download popup,
the paper itself appears in HTML form on the webpage.
I've been reading his "The Scent of Truth" on abductive inference,
and came upon this tidbit of which I had been unaware. Nathan
quotes Peirce and adds and end note.
Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It
appears in the work of bees,of crystals, and throughout
the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that
it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes,
etc., of objects are really there.... Not only is thought
in the inorganic*³* world, but it develops there. (CP 4.551)
3. As reported in Houser 2000, in the faircopy manuscript that
Peirce submitted to _The Open Court_, he clearly wrote
'inorganic,' but the word was set in type for publication in
_The Monist_ as 'organic' and that reading was carried over to
the _Collected Papers_.
[End quote]
It makes the sentence work better. If he had meant 'organic', it
would have been better to write, "In the organic world, not only
is there thought, but it develops there...." Still, could Peirce
have let 'organic' stand on purpose? After all, he could have
corrected in the subsequent errata. But I think he simply missed
it, and that 'inorganic' was the word that he intended. In the
past I had put some weight on Peirce's (seemingly) saying that
thought originates in the organic world and his seeming silence
about whether it originates also in the inorganic world.
Best, Ben
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