Agreed - that immediate/dynamic interpretant as cut off from the final
interpretant is nominalism. But, i still see Derrida as the ultimate
kabbalistic mystic, with The Word as the 'primal cause'; that is, it isn't
speech and its 'presentness' that is primary but the non-present 'writing'
...existing outside even of the 'differance' between words..As we know, Derrida
rejected logic (i.e., reason) as the basis of language and instead opted for
'utterances' in actual discourse. He obviously wasn't that interested in the
objective world. I'm not an expert on Derrida, having been turned off by his
rejection of logic and reason and the objective world....so - the above are
only my vague memories of my readings on him.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Clark Goble
To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L
Sent: Friday, October 23, 2015 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Seeing things
On Oct 23, 2015, at 11:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Clark - yes, the Heidegger-Derrida mysticism of The Word. That was/is -
truly terrible! Pure nominalism - but made authoritative by the aspatial and
atemporal mystic essentialism of The Word.
Yes, I just don’t think Heidegger and Derrida were doing word mysticism. Just
that a lot of people who missed the key phenomenology part were able to ape the
language. To me both Heidegger and Derrida were realists in the same mold as
Peirce (albeit with a very different style of language focused on metaphor). To
see this one need only look at the place of key scholastic realists on the
thought of Heidegger and Derrida.
And yes - Peirce's outline of the Final Interpretant - which is how 'every
mind' would act. Perfect. But nominalism instead rejects this Final
Interpretant and instead, focuses strictly on the Immediate Interpretant. Is
it tied up with metaphor? I think the dynamic interpretant can be aligned with
metaphor. And agreed - that we may never reach the 'final truth' - but Peirce
was well aware of that as you know.
The real issue are what are the implications for philosophy of the final
interpretant being at best off in an infinite future.
I think in particular the problem for Derrida was that most of philosophy at
the time thought that the final interpretant was here in the present in our
presence. This is key for say the positivists but is really part of what
Descartes introduces as epistemology. I don’t think we appreciate in these
years where few are epistemological foundationaglists just how widespread this
view affected philosophy.
Arguably the whole reason Peirce critiques most philosophy as nominalistic is
wrapped up with this legacy of Plato and Descartes. The idea of a present final
interpretant. If under Descartes we have thoughts that correlate with things
then the immediate thoughts take the place of the final interpretant. However
if you recognize the problem with this then all you’re left with are the names
in the mind. That is the immediate and dynamic interpretant without the final
interpretant is nominalism. Nominalism arises because of how the mind is cut
off from reality. The combination of shifting the nature of truth plus
scholastic realism avoids all this.
-----------------------------
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] . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
