> On Oct 28, 2015, at 9:40 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > For my part, I don't think the point Peirce is making in this sentence itself > is all that simple: "Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as > it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other." (CP 8.328) > > There are a number of ways of trying to diagram such a relation. Does one of > the possible ways capture something that Peirce is trying to say is really > basic?
The simple can often be complex in certain ways. While the relation here seems simple there are many ways in which they are related which is complex. All those complexities are mediated by thirdness but take a lot to work out in practice. I should note that I think “second and third” in the sentence don’t mean secondness and thirdness but more that there are three terms. The first is the sign and the second and third are the object and interpretant. That might be firstness and secondness as I mention in my prior post, but he means it much more broadly. Peirce in these paragraphs to Welby is speaking as general as possible but that means the applications apply to many areas of firstness, secondness and thirdness. The full quote is useful. I was long ago (1867) led, after only three or four years’ study, to throw all ideas into the three classes of Firstness, of Secondness, and of Thirdness. This sort of notion is as distasteful to me as to anybody; and for years, I endeavored to pooh-pooh and refute it; but it long ago conquered me completely. Disagreeable as it is to attribute such meaning to numbers, and to a triad above all, it is as true as it is disagreeable. The ideas of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are simple enough. Giving to being the broadest possible sense, to include ideas as well as things, and ideas that we fancy we have just as much as ideas we do have, I should define Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness thus: Firstness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, positively and without reference to anything else. Secondness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, with respect to a second but regardless of any third. Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other.
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