Jeff D., Helmut, lists,
I agree, I found myself using, or at any rate thinking of, the word
'self' ambiguously, so I turned around and de-emphasized it. 'Self' goes
back to pretty basic ideas, as in 'self and other', 'same and other',
'one and another', 'oneself', 'selfsame', etc. Through the idea of
reflexivity it's taken on various special senses. In biology of course
the boundary between organism and outside is a big deal, so maybe I'd
say something about 'self' in one sense and the biologists here would
take it some well-established other sense.
Peirce's idea that personal self-control is always self-inhibitive is
quite interesting. Years ago I read, I forget where, that the human
nervous system seems a structure of inhibited or checked reflexes. Of
course, I should find not only Peirce but myself corroborated by that
since I'm the one who says that _/telos/_ or end as culmination should
be distinguished from entelechy, a 'check' or 'checkedness', i.e.,
checked and balanced, a more or less stable structure (even if it's not
static but active, flexible, energetic, etc.). But when one considers,
say, a building or a building's getting built or a science as a system
of checking and balancing, a third word tends to come to mind -
_/supporting/_, in a structural sense. Of course, such supporting
inhibits falling or failing, but still there seems in that picture a
kind of double negative that leads to a positive. And of course Peirce
would have taken into account that a self-inhibiting could amount to a
structural support, and still could rightly say what he said, so I'm not
even sure what keeps nagging at me here. Meanwhile something about this
self-control, the checking and balancing, seems essential not only to
(deliberate) reasoning, but to diagrammatic reasoning in particular in
some 'redoubled' sense.
Best, Ben
On 5/21/2015 11:58 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote:
Helmut, Ben, Lists,
I agree with what you say here, Helmut: "Pitifully, this sort of
distinction is not a scientific one." What I mean in saying this is
that I don't believe that the distinctions you are making are
problematic for the practice of doing science. That is, scientists
don't start by reflecting on the kinds of worries you are expressing
about the nature of the real relations between observer, observation,
and phenomena observed. For the most part, they get the enterprise of
scientific inquiry off the ground by just making observations and then
trying to explain the phenomena that have been observed. For my part,
I think there is much to be gained by starting in philosophy in a
similarly naive way. Where the phenomena are well explained by the
theories that have been developed, then there is no need to have
doubts about those theories. It is the surprising phenomena that lead
us to doubt some part of the accepted theories--and then we have
reason to search for better explanations.
Based on what I have seen so far about the recent discussions of the
"self" that has been taking place on the list--I don't yet see a
clearly delineated set of phenomena that call out for explanation. As
such, those who are taking up these questions would do well to focus
their attention at this observational stage of the process before
jumping to big conclusions about which kinds of explanations are or
not sufficient to account for the phenomena they are trying to explain.
Let me offer an example: one kind of phenomena that Peirce devotes
considerable attention to is the phenomena of how an individual person
is able to exert self-control over their thoughts. For his part,
Peirce does not think that the kinds of explanations offered by the
likes of Descartes, Leibniz, Hume or Mill are sufficient to account
for the phenomena associated with the exercise of logical self
control. As such, there are aspects of the phenomena of what a
person--such as a young child--realizes when he discovers that his
beliefs about something like the suitability of a stove for being
touched are in error. Peirce claims that the stages the child goes
through in learning about the logical conceptions of error and falsity
as well as the conceptions of self and other are entirely analogous to
the stages that the human species must have gone through as these
powers of rationality of thought and action evolved.
It isn't clear how this logical conception of the self is related to
the chemical or biological conception of a system that is auto (or
self) organizing. They seem to be very different conceptions that are
associated with very different kinds of phenomena we're trying to explain.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Helmut Raulien [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 1:37 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [biosemiotics:8672] Re: self-R
The difficult thing about a phenomenon is, that it is a phenomenon in
the observers mind. An observer who wants to distinguish a phenomenon
of his/her own mind from a phenomenon, that is a phenomenon of
another self, might ask: Have I asked to have this phenomenon? Or am
I observing something that can only be explained by some entity other
than me, having a phenomenon, because this special phenomenon is so
weird, that I never would have made it up. Pitifully, this sort of
distinction is not a scientific one. But it indicates, that a self
can only be detected by another self. Id say, a self is something
with a need. But assigning a need to something is always a
supposition, and a supposition is an action only a nother self can
do. So, at least, what remains is to say you have hit the nail on its
head by saying "preferably some that are surprising". A self is
something surprising, but surprise can only be felt by somebody who
is surprised. So maybe there is no way of getting a better grip, or
is there?
Helmut
Von: "Jeffrey Brian Downard"
Ben, Lists,
I, too, find the thread puzzling. In order to get a better grip on
what the discussion is about, I wanted to ask a simple question:
what are the phenomena that need to be explained? We use the word
'self' to talk about a wide range of things. As such, I was hoping
that someone might point to sample phenomena--preferably some that
are surprising in one respect or another--so that we could compare
different explanations in terms of their adequacy in accounting for
the phenomena.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Benjamin Udell
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 5:52 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [biosemiotics:8665] Re: self-R
Kalevi, Howard, list,
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