Hi Gary R., Gary F., (and Nathan and Ben if you reading this), List, My aim is to see how the methods for attaining the three grades of clarity about the conceptions of relative, relationship and relation might give us insight into the phenomenological account of the categories in their more genuine and more degenerate forms. One reason I am focusing on this approach to the problem is that, in the Carnegie Application, Peirce characterizes the techniques we should use in phenomenology in the following way:
"My aim in this paper, upon which I have bestowed more labor than upon any other, beginning two years before my first publication on the subject in May 1867, is far more ambitious than that of Kant, or even that of Aristotle, or even the more extended work of Hegel. All those philosophers contented themselves mainly with arranging conceptions which were already current. I, on the contrary, undertake to look directly |103| upon the universal phenomenon, that is, upon all that in any way appears, whether as fact or as fiction; to pick out the different kinds of elements which I detect in it, aided by a special art developed for the purpose; and to form clear conceptions of those kinds, of which I find that there are only three, aided by another special art developed for that purpose.*" In his discussion of this passage, Joe Ransdell asked on the Arisbe site what this second special art might amount to. I tried to answer his question by lining these special arts up with Peirce's account in the Harvard Lectures of 1903 of the faculties we need to employ in doing phenomenology. Here is what he says there: 1. The first is "that rare faculty, the faculty of seeing what stares one in the face, just as it presents itself, unreplaced by any interpretation, unsophisticated by any allowance for this or supposed modifying circumstance." 2. The second faculty "is a resolute discrimination which fastens itself like a bulldog upon the particular feature that we are studying, follows it wherever it may lurk, and detects it beneath all its disguises." 3. The third faculty "is the generalizing power of the mathematician who produces the abstract formula that comprehends the very essence of the feature under examination purified from all admixture of extraneous and irrelevant accompaniments." (Essential Peirce, vol. 2, p. 147). On my interpretation of the remarks in the Carnegie application, the faculty described in (1) is the first of the special arts he describes, and the faculty described in (3) is the second special art. My hunch is that, for the purposes of phenomenological analysis (as opposed to logical analysis), the first of the faculties is essential for arriving at the first grade of clarity, the second of the faculties is essential for arriving at the second grade of clarity, and the third faculty is essential for arriving at the third grade of clarity. The efforts made at the later stages in clarifying our ideas build on the results arrived at the earlier stages. In doing so, we need to correct for possible errors made in the earlier stages. So, if we put these three faculties to work, how might we arrive at a third grade of clarity about the phenomenological categories? This, I think, is not an easy question. For starters, let just compare the different sets of terms that Peirce uses in the various drafts of the Carnegie application to describe the universal categories to the table that Nathan provides in his essay. Here is the list the Joe Ransdell provides: 1. quality, relation, representation 2. flavor, reaction, mediation 3. qualities of feeling, reaction, mediation 4. qualities, occurrences, meanings 5. qualities, things, meanings 6. simple qualities, subjects of force, mind 7. quality, reaction, mediation 8. quales, relates, representation 9. feeling or immediate consciousness, sense of fact, conception or mind strictly Once again, here is Nathan's list: Structure of the Phaneron 1. Universal categories: forms of firstness a. Firstness b. Secondness c. Thirdness 2. Universal categories: forms of secondness a. Qualia (facts of firstness) b. Relation (facts of secondness) c. Representamen (facts of thirdness) 3. Universal categories: forms of thirdness a. Feeling (signs of firstness) b. Brute fact (signs of secondness) c. Thought (signs of thirdness) I see that Nathan is taking the most general terms used for the universal of the categories (firstness, secondness and thirdness), which he takes to be forms of firstness, and he is trying to line these up with forms of secondness and forms of thirdness. The main idea in picking out a list for forms of secondness is that a representamen is taken to be a token instance of a continuous process of representation. If we follow that general idea, we might try to picture qualia and relation as token instances of an occurance of a quality of feeling, and an occurrence of a relation of secondness as a singular fact of experience. Then, the forms of thirdness might be thought of as have the general character of feeling, and a statement of a general fact along with a continuous process of thought as a general phenomena as signs in minds. That does match some of the features that Peirce appears to be emphasizing in the terminology he employs in some cases in the Carnegie application. If this is what Nathan is doing, then the rationale does make some sense to me. The problem, as I see it, is that this is only one way to slice the pie. Another way to carve things up is to focus on the various forms of degeneracy and genuineness, and to make this the basis of the division between the kinds of categories. Peirce is following this line of thought in the Lowell Lectures of 1902, and it isn't clear to me how we might map from one way of dividing things onto another. My interpretative hypothesis is that the general line of thought that Nathan is trying to develop emphasizes the first and second of the faculties we need to employ in arriving at a second grade of clarity. That is, he is drawing on the powers of the artist to see the nuances in the phenomena we observe "unreplaced by any interpretation" along with the power of resolute discrimination which "fastens itself like a bulldog upon the particular feature that we are studying, follows it wherever it may lurk, and detects it beneath all its disguises." In order to work our way up to a third grade of clarity about the universal categories found in all phenomena that can possible be observed, we need to draw on the faculty that mathematicians employ in setting up their hypotheses and reasoning theorematically about those hypotheses. If this is on the right track, then I think we need to take our lead from the mathematicians and examine the kinds of diagrams that are used to study the kinds of topological continuities and furcations that are possible in the simplest system of all--which is the topology of one dimension. With this in hand, we can then look at kinds of systems of graphs that would result if we made all three kinds of relations--monadic, dyadic and triadic--as perspicuous as possible (and not just the first two, as Kempe does in developing his system). That, at least, has been my strategy in working up to a third grade of clarity about the categories. Does this seem like an approach that is faithful to the methods that Peirce recommends for developing better answers to the kinds of questions about the universal categories that Aristotle, Kant and Hegel were having such trouble answering? --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2015 8:16 PM To: Peirce-L Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Gary R., List, My suggestion was that we look at what Peirce has to say about degenerate cases in the Lowell Lectures of 1903. Let's start with the examination of seconds and secondness at CP 1.528. Let me try to provide a little bit of order to what he says so that we can pinpoint anything that catches our attention: 1. Thus we have a division of seconds into those whose very being, or Firstness, it is to be seconds, and those whose Secondness is only an accretion. a. This distinction springs out of the essential elements of Secondness. b. For Secondness involves Firstness. c. The concepts of the two kinds of Secondness are mixed concepts composed of Secondness and Firstness. d. One is the second whose very Firstness is Secondness. e. The other is a second whose Secondness is second to a Firstness. 2. The idea of mingling Firstness and Secondness in this particular way is an idea distinct from the ideas of Firstness and Secondness that it combines. a. It appears to be a conception of an entirely different series of categories. b. At the same time, it is an idea of which Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are component parts, since the distinction depends on whether the two elements of Firstness and Secondness that are united are so united as to be one or whether they remain two. 3. This distinction between two kinds of seconds, which is almost involved in the very idea of a second, makes a distinction between two kinds of Secondness; a. namely, the Secondness of genuine seconds, or matters, which I call genuine Secondness, and b. the Secondness in which one of the seconds is only a Firstness, which I call degenerate Secondness; c. so that this Secondness really amounts to nothing but this, that a subject, in its being a second, has a Firstness, or quality. Notice that, in (1) and (3), he points to two distinctions: two kinds of seconds; and two kinds of secondness. It would help, I think, if we could pair up some examples of each of these things. What would count as an example of the two sorts of seconds, and what would count as an example of each of the two sorts of secondness? As we reflect on these distinctions and try to come up with some examples, I wonder how these distinctions compare to the table that Nathan has offered for the universal categories. One thing that bothers me about Nathan's table is that it does not appear to match Peirce's account of these different sorts of degeneracy and genuiness of seconds and secondness. The same holds when it comes to thirds and thirdness. My aim is to trace, as best as we are able, Peirce's suggestions for how we should bring better clarity to our understanding of relatives, relationships and relations. His recommendation is that we draw on the pragmatic maxim for clarifying our understanding of the key notions. At the second grade of clarity, here is what we have: I. A relative, then, may be defined as the equivalent of a word or phrase which, either as it is (when I term it a complete relative), or else when the verb "is" is attached to it (and if it wants such attachment, I term it a nominal relative), becomes a sentence with some number of proper names left blank. II. A relationship, or fundamentum relationis, is a fact relative to a number of objects, considered apart from those objects, as if, after the statement of the fact, the designations of those objects had been erased. III. A relation is a relationship considered as something that may be said to be true of one of the objects, the others being separated from the relationship yet kept in view. Thus, for each relationship there are as many relations as there are blanks. This account is meant to help us clarify our conceptions of logical relatives, relationships and relations. How might this logical analysis help clarify the tones and conceptions that we are working with in phenomenology? My hunch, and it is only a guess, is that it might help to think of what is first, second or third as kinds of relations, and of firstness, secondness and thirdness as relationships. My reason for venturing this guess is that he says this at 1.526: i. When we think of Secondness, we naturally think of two reacting objects, a first and a second. And along with these, as subjects, there is their reaction. ii. But these are not constituents out of which the Secondness is built up. iii. The truth is just reverse, [in] that the being a first or a second or the being a reaction each involves Secondness. So, the terms "first" and "second" pertain to the objects thought of as standing a particular sort of relation. The objects themselves may be different sorts of things. Peirce distinguishes in the "The Logic of Mathematics" between essential dyads and accidental dyads, where the latter kind of dyad is separated into inherential and relative dyads. These kinds of dyads are the only ones that are distinguished based on the the kinds of subjects (i.e., the kinds of objects) are being brought into relation with one another. The secondness pertains to the kind of relationship that we attend to when we consider the manner of connection separately from the objects. In order to make more progress, I suspect that we will need to move from the second to the third grade of clarity about the character of relatives, relationships and relations. In doing so, we will need to turn our attention from logical analyses of concepts to the study of the formal relations that are fundamental, for instance, in mathematics. That, at least, is what Peirce seems to suggest in "The Logic of Relatives" when he turns to Kempe's analysis of mathematical form as he works his way up to a third grade of clarify about these matters. In short, understanding Peirce's phenomenological analyses of the distinctions he is drawing between different sorts of seconds and secondness will require that we do what is necessary to move to this third grade of clarity. After all, Peirce points out that this mathematical manner of thinking about formal relations is one of the keys to doing inquiry in phenomenology. Any ideas about how we might go about doing this? --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Gary Richmond [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, December 05, 2015 3:37 PM To: Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Jeff, list, It would be helpful if you'd explain what exactly you find problematic in Nathan's outline. I may have some bones to pick with it myself--although I think it's generally useful--at very least for stimulating a discussion. But my 'bones' may be different from yours. So what bothers you here? Best, Gary R [Gary Richmond] Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690 On Sat, Dec 5, 2015 at 5:02 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hello Gary F., List, I'd like to learn more about the way Peirce is drawing on the phenomenological categories as he categorizes different kinds of signs and sign relations. Focusing on this first division between qualisign, sinsign and legisign, what guidance are we getting from Peirce's account of the more degenerate and more genuine features of the categories. In "Peirce, Phenomenology and Semiotics," (In the Routledge Companion to Semiotics), Nathan Houser provides the following table as a way of clarifying Peirce's account of the universal categories. Structure of the Phaneron 1. Universal categories: forms of firstness a. Firstness b. Secondness c. Thirdness 2. Universal categories: forms of secondness a. Qualia (facts of firstness) b. Relation (facts of secondness) c. Representamen (facts of thirdness) 3. Universal categories: forms of thirdness a. Feeling (signs of firstness) b. Brute fact (signs of secondness) c. Thought (signs of thirdness) While I like the general idea of trying to figure out how the different aspects of Peirce's account of the categories might be fitted together, I'm not able to square what Nathan is providing in this table with the various texts on phenomenology and phaneroscopy. Does anyone have suggestions for how we might either justify this account or how we might modify it to make it fit better with what Peirce says? The reason I ask is that Nathan offers a number of rich suggestions for thinking about the ways that Peirce is drawing on the universal categories in phenomenology for the purposes of setting up the 10-fold classification of signs in the semiotic theory. As such, I'd like work this out in some more detail. In order to stimulate some discussion, let me point out that Peirce offers some interesting remarks about the degenerate forms of the universal categories in the Collected Papers at 1.521-44. He describes, for instance, the differences involved in the firstness and secondness of a second, and the those involved in the firstness, secondness and thirdness of a third. Any ideas about how we might draw on these distinctions for the purposes of justifying or amending the kind of table that Nathan has offered? --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354<tel:928%20523-8354> ________________________________________ From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Thursday, December 03, 2015 9:31 AM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: [PEIRCE-L] RE: signs, correlates, and triadic relations Moving on to the first trichotomy of sign types in “Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations”: CP 2.244: According to the first division, a Sign may be termed a Qualisign, a Sinsign, or a Legisign. A Qualisign is a quality which is a Sign. It cannot actually act as a sign until it is embodied; but the embodiment has nothing to do with its character as a sign. [As a Sign, this “quality” must be a correlate of a triadic relation with its Object and Interpretant, “by which triadic relation the possible Interpretant is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the same Object, and for some possible Interpretant” (CP 2.242). Yet it cannot act as a sign until it is embodied, i.e. until it becomes involved in at least a dyadic relation, and thus enters the universe of existence. Yet its significance is its quality (not its embodiment), and qualities being monadic, there is no real difference between Sign and Object (or Interpretant either). So I think we might call this a doubly degenerate kind of triadic relation, where the Sign is virtually self-representing, and self-determining as its own Interpretant. Compare the “self-sufficient” point on a map which Peirce offers as an example of doubly degenerate Thirdness in his third Harvard Lecture, EP2:162.) Or, since this degeneracy is relative, we can say that the Qualisign is degenerate relative to the Sinsign and to the Legisign (just as the Icon is degenerate relative to the Index and the genuine Symbol, according to Peirce in both the third Harvard lecture of 1903 and “New Elements” of 1904). On the other hand, some semioticians say that all ten of the sign types defined in NDTR, including the Qualisign, are genuine Signs. This flags a possible ambiguity in the concepts of genuine and degenerate; and possibly this problem is related to the concepts of embodiment, just introduced, and of involvement, which is introduced in the next paragraph:] 245. A Sinsign (where the syllable sin is taken as meaning “being only once,” as in single, simple, Latin semel, etc.) is an actual existent thing or event which is a sign. It can only be so through its qualities; so that it involves a qualisign, or rather, several qualisigns. But these qualisigns are of a peculiar kind and only form a sign through being actually embodied. [Evidently it is the involvement of qualisigns in a Sinsign — which, I suppose, constitutes their embodiment — that makes them “peculiar,” because a “normal” Qualisign is disembodied (and does not act as a Sign). But perhaps this will be clarified by the definition of Legisign, which I’ll leave for the next post.] Gary f. ----------------------------- 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]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[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 .
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