> On Dec 18, 2015, at 1:26 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: > > "If you have the form but not the matter then it’s degenerate.". Thank you: > This way eventually, after a long time, I think I understand why it is > called degenerate.
Yeah, it’s a terminology I kind of struggle with a lot too. I kept confusing it with the idea of simply one term missing but that’s not really right. While I don’t think the form/matter covers everything, it at least gets the mind oriented to the direction Peirce was thinking. I really liked that post from Jean-Marc back in the day here. First I think he correctly notes we have to distinguish between logical categories and metaphysical categories. (I’d add in phenomenological categories) I think conflating all those leads to confusion when reading Peirce in particular. (As I think we’ve seen with the extended discussion this month) Honestly reading a quick primer on medieval theories of relations helped me the most as I’m convinced those are the main influence on Peirce even if he’s also coming from the physics/chemistry of his day as well. The part of Jean-Marc’s post I especially liked was how degenerate secondness has mediation but that often this mediation is forgotten, erased or effaced. This has some big parallels to certain strains of semiotics/phenomenology in Continental philosophy as well as gets at the common critiques of that position from a Peircean perspective. (Which I think misses what’s going on due to the issue of degeneracy)
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