Peircers,
For ease of reference, here's a copy of that previous post
that came to mind (you can thank, or maybe blame, Facebook's
new "memories of yesteryear" function for reminding me of it
at this particular time:
<QUOTE>
Ask Meno Questions • Discussion 1
Posted on October 14, 2012 by Jon Awbrey
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/10/14/ask-meno-questions-%E2%80%A2-discussion-1/
http://web.archive.org/web/20121015213156/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8791
Re: Victoria N. Alexander
http://web.archive.org/web/20121016233842/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8790
I think you are stating several important insights —
1. The word ''object'' in pragmatism and pragmatic semiotics has a much wider range of meanings than the extremely
reductive sense of a “compact physical object”. Anyone wishing to explore the richness of its meaning could hardly do
better than to sample the senses of the Greek ''pragma'' that imbue the Latin-derived ''object''.
☞http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma
2. There is reason to think that the sense of the word ''object'' that means objective, purpose, target, intention,
goal, end, aim, and so on is more fundamental than the more restrictive sense of a compact physical object. That is in
fact one of the most critical insights that comes down to us from long lines of physical theory and also from the
traditions known as “process thinking”, suggesting that our concepts of physical objects are derivative in relation to
our concepts of process, since they arise from our ability to discover “invariants under transformations”, that is, the
formal constructs that are preserved by the operations or processes that transform the states of a system.
3. As a general rule, we should avoid language that confuses signs and objects. In particular, referring to mental
representations as “ideal objects” is just asking for trouble, and that on several counts, including the risk of
confusing mental ideas with Platonic ideas. Language like that brings all the confusions of conceptualism, nominalism,
and psychologism down on our heads.
4. Given that Peirce’s critique of Cartesian philosophy is of a piece with the rest of his thought, it does not seem
wise to backslide on this score and reinfect semiotics with the dualisms that Peirce was so persistent in rooting out.
For example, so far as the mind/body dualism goes, Peirce regarded the body as one of the first objects that a
developing being would naturally “construct” from the flux of experience, that is, construe or conceptualize as an
object from the impressions available in the stream of awareness. One potential misunderstanding needs to be avoided
here. It is not that noticing a dualism is a bad thing — where one is operative it cannot be denied. The important thing
is this — by the time one notices a dualism, one has already become a third, a mediator, a synthetic operator, and so
one must recognize that more than two components are already in play.
</QUOTE>
Regards,
Jon
On 10/24/2015 1:28 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
Peircers,
What makes an object is a perennial question.
I can remember my physics professors bringing
it up in a really big way when I was still just
a freshman in college. They always cautioned us
then about extrapolating our everyday intuitions
about everyday objects beyond their native realms.
Anyone who has been graced or grazed by a modicum
of process thinking, say Whitehead or Bucky Fuller,
is aware of the trade-off between process thinking
and product thinking that rules our descriptions of
every domain of phenomena, but in a retrograde time
like the one we are currently experiencing it takes
a mighty effort to recollect the way that hidebound
objects are precipitated from more primal processes.
Here's an old post I happened on that may apply here:
Ask Meno Questions • Discussion 1
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/10/14/ask-meno-questions-%E2%80%A2-discussion-1/
http://web.archive.org/web/20121015213156/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8791
Regards,
Jon
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