> On Nov 20, 2015, at 1:01 PM, Søren Brier <sb....@cbs.dk> wrote: > > I agree but Peirce is integrating it with an emptiness ontology inspired by > Buddhism. Hartshorne describes it as his Buddhisto-Christianism. Bishop > writes a paper on Peirce and Eastern Thought. See my > Pure Zero paper attached.
I just finished it. Very interesting. I hadn’t known that Peirce was connected with Suzuki before. (Again as I said I know just enough Buddhism to be dangerous but not enough to really be able to say much) One tangental comment that came to mind in one of your quotes. You have Peirce commenting on his famous relationship of mind and matter. I believe the law of habit to be purely psychical. But then I suppose matter is merely mind deadened by the development of habit. While every physical process can be reverse without violation of the law of mechanics, the law of habit forbids such reversal. (CP 8.318) I assume here meaning we can’t lose a habit once developed. Does Peirce ever defend this position? I confess it seems a dubious position to hold although I understand why his ontology requires it. On much else I’ve taken Peirce, contra say the scientific realists, to reject any kind of convergence. That is there can be periods of rapid development and then because of fallibilism falling away or change. To use the metaphors James Burke famously did in the 70’s and 80’s about science, it is less convergence than pinball process. That’s always seemed more persuasive as a view of habit-forming too. Yet the reversibility is something that in at least a few places Peirce denies. Of course Peirce is inconsistent on this in certain ways. After all he conceives of belief as habit yet the ability to change belief entails the ability to reverse habit. So I’m never quite sure how to take this. In practice it seems sufficient to merely accept that some habits are more ingrained than others. Habits as laws are much less reversible. With Peirce’s conception of substance (at least in his early period) as extremely congealed habit. At the end of your paper you say, Like the Buddhists, Peirce sees this order as no-thing. Niemoczynsk (2011) shows that both Eckhart and Böhme posited a pre-personal ground within God’s own being, where this ground was called “the godhead” or “the abyss”. It contains infinite potential, the absolute freedom to be, and even the will or desire to be. Which order are you speaking of here? Plotinus, among the neoplatonists has two classes of absolute otherness. On the one is the One which is pure potency and the origin of all the emanations. Yet somewhat following Aristotle he has matter as pure privation which is also absolutely Other. Peirce makes a similar move in his early works with pure Being to pure Substance and his three categories in between. In the quote you have in your paper what he compares to the Hebrew tohu bohu is the infinite past with pure chaotic emptiness. Within Hebrew mysticism, especially certain forms of Kabbalism, there’s a notion of Tzimtzum. (I tend to follow the traditional interpretation that the Jewish mystics got this from gnosticism and neoplatonism but there’s a strain that argues for the influence going the other way or at least co-evolution. In any case the major form is Lurianic Kabbalism which is a 16th century phenomena) This is the idea of God withdrawing to create a space within himself that creation can take place. In other words a primal nothing creates a secondary nothing. This enables finitude to take place. The reason to see connection to platonism is the parallel to the creation of the elements from the forms and place or khora in the Timaeus. The khora is receptical or empty space and the origin of the forms would be the One of Plotinus. Getting back to Peirce and your paper you say that Eckhart and Bohme have a pre-personal ground within God’s being called the godhead or abyss. This seems similar. And of course Duns Scotus who also was a big influence on Peirce has some writings on the ground of the Godhead that makes a similar move. I’ve studied this more in connection to Heidegger but it seems like there are some similar moves with Peirce. Within Peirce how do you see this notion of the Nothing as source and Nothing as end as well as the distinction between God’s being and this space within God’s being (or even its ground)? I confess it’s not something I’ve studied in the least.
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