Gary R - exactly. Thanks for providing the quote. There is no 'immediate consciousness of generality' and 'no direct experience of the general'...and Thirdness is a factor of our perceptual judgments; that is, reasoning, which is to say, the act-of-Thirdness, (and I include physico-chemical and biological systems in this process) is grounded in the experience of perception.
Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Richmond To: [email protected] Cc: peirce-l at list.iupui.edu Sent: Friday, April 24, 2015 5:33 PM Subject: [biosemiotics:8435] Re: Natural Propositions, Ch. "If you object that there can be no immediate consciousness of generality, I grant that. If you add that one can have no direct experience of the general, I grant that as well. Generality, Thirdness, pours in upon us in our very perceptual judgments, and all reasoning, so far as it depends on necessary reasoning, that is to say, mathematical reasoning, turns upon the perception of generality and continuity at every step (CP 5.150) Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690 On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Tommi Vehkavaara <[email protected]> wrote: Edwina If I can see right you are disagreeing with Peirce, then. However, I have a suspicion that there is not much real disagreements, but you just use words differently as me (or Peirce). I can easily agree that "Generals (...) are not akin to discrete matter" or that "we don't directly experience them as 'things-in-themselves'. A general is not a separate existentiality." But your statement that "We extract/synthesize generals within our direct empirical experience via our reasoning/cognition" I do not think is the whole story when it comes to Peirce's logical theory of perception (in 1903). That is (approximately) what happens in abductive reasoning, but its limit case, the formation of perceptual judgment is not reasoned because there is no self-control, nor question about its validity - it is always valid about the percept. Yours, -tommi Edwina wrote: Tommi, I'm going to continue to disagree. Generals, which are Thirdness, are not akin to discrete matter in a mode of Secondness. Peirce is following Aristotle in asserting that we know the world only through our direct experience of it. BUT - as he said: 'the idea of meaning is irreducible to those of quality and reaction' (1.345) which is the 'directly perceptual'. That is, within our direct experiences, we can, by 'mind' (and I mean 'mind' in a broad sense) understand generals. This is not reductionism. But since generals are laws, then, they are a 'matter of thought and meaning' 1.345) . These are 'relations of reason' (1.365) and not of fact (sensual experience of Secondness). So, 'intelligibility or reason objectified, is what makes Thirdness genuine' 1.366. We extract/synthesize generals within our direct empirical experience via our reasoning/cognition - since generals are as noted, an act of Mind - but we don't directly experience them as 'things-in-themselves'. A general is not a separate existentiality. Dear Edwina That is Peirce's conception that "perceptual judgments contain elements of generality, so that Thirdness is directly perceived" presented in his Harvard lectures (that Frederik too refers to): A bit larger quote from EP 2:223-24: "I do not think it is possible fully to comprehend the problem of the merits of pragmatism without recognizing these three truths: first, that there are no conceptions which are not given to us in perceptual judgments, so that we may say that all our ideas are perceptual ideas. This sounds like sensationalism. But in order to maintain this position, it is necessary to recognize, second, that perceptual judgments contain elements of generality, so that Thirdness is directly perceived; and finally, I think it of great importance to recognize, third, that the abductive faculty, whereby we divine the secrets of nature, is, as we may say, a shading off, a gradation of that which in its highest perfection we call perception." Yours, -Tommi On Apr 24, 2015, at 8:24 AM, Tommi Vehkavaara <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Dear Frederik It is not clear to me how the "Austrian" (Brentano-Husserl-Smith) conception about "fallible apriori" categories like food, organism, etc. could be compatible with Peirce's conception of pragmatism, at least as formulated and argued in Peirce's Harvard lectures 1903: "The elements of every concept enter into logical thought at the gate of perception and make their exit at the gate of purposive action; and whatever cannot show its passports at both those two gates is to be arrested as unauthorized by reason." (EP 2:241, CP 5.212, 1903) For me at least this appears rather as a quite explicit denial that there could be room for a priori concepts or categories (and mathematics included), if by a priori is meant prior to senses. I cannot see how Peirce's idea that we are able to observe real generals directly, could change the situation in any way, because our access to generals (whether real or not) has nevertheless perceptual origin. So it is not clear what is your position here, is it that you favor the fallible a priori -doctrine over this Peirce's idea about the logical role of perception in cognition, or do you think they have no differing practical consequences, i.e. that they mean the same. Or perhaps you think that Peirce changed his view in this matter later so that his more mature view would be compatible? This is part of the greater problem that bothers me concerning the scope and applicability of Peirce's doctrine of signs and such (positive) metaphysics as he describes its source, but I will not go to these now. Yours, -Tommi You wrote as a response to Howard: FS: Haha! But that is not the argument. The argument that the categories food and poison are a priori, not which substances are nourishing or poisonous for the single type of organism. HP: I would say your statement that food and poison are a priori categories is only a proposition. It is not an argument. I agree that your realist mental construct of an abstract or universal category like food is logically irrefutable (except to me it violates parsimony). So I will only restate the empiricist's concept of food as whatever organisms actually eat that keeps them alive. In evolutionary terms survival is the only pragmatic test. How do logic and universal categories explain anything more? FS: I think we have been through this before. You say "Food as whatever organisms actually eat" - but this IS a universal category. It does not refer to empirical observations, individual occurrences, protocol sentences, measurements in time and space, all that which empiricism should be made from. It even involves another universal, that of "organism". It is no stranger than that. So I see no parsimony on your part. I see that you deny the existence of the universals you yourself are using. -- ******************************************************************* "Cousins to the ameba that we are, how could we know for certain?" - Donald T. Campbell ******************************************************************* University of Tampere School of Social Sciences and Humanities - Philosophy Tommi Vehkavaara FI-33014 University of Tampere Finland Phone: +358-50-3186122 (work), +358-45-2056109 (home) e-mail:[email protected] homepage:http://people.uta.fi/~attove https://uta-fi.academia.edu/TommiVehkavaara ******************************************************************* -- ******************************************************************* "Cousins to the ameba that we are, how could we know for certain?" - Donald T. Campbell ******************************************************************* University of Tampere School of Social Sciences and Humanities - Philosophy Tommi Vehkavaara FI-33014 University of Tampere Finland Phone: +358-50-3186122 (work), +358-45-2056109 (home) e-mail: [email protected] homepage: http://people.uta.fi/~attove https://uta-fi.academia.edu/TommiVehkavaara *******************************************************************
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