I am not going to fish it out but I arrived as my initial understanding of the three categories from reading Brent who is largely discredited I think because of his conclusions about Peirce's personal life. But I sense in reading him that his was a real effort to understand Peirce's unique contribution: I had a distinct impression that for Brent the three categories consisted of Icon, Index and Symol. I saw them as a sequential one two three that led from a vague Reality to a (brute) Index and then to a Symbol which I took to be at the border if not beyond the border or actuality -- of the coveted pragmaticist outcome in something actual, factual, real. These three categories (I see them in different terms as Reality, Ethics and Aesthetics) are indeed semiotic in the sense of being operative stages of the way our minds work, the way thought is achieved and so forth. So yes the three categories exist within reality -- they are not the mind -- a designation which for me is of modest importance. Reality from its very vagueness and its universality is both the first in terms of the semiotic process and the totality of all there is. I think Peirce is pivotal beyond all other thinkers because he created a basis for conceiving of how we think consciously and how the results of that thinking issue in acts and expressions which can in fact be measured. That to me is seismic.
Books http://buff.ly/15GfdqU On Fri, Sep 9, 2016 at 4:52 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Sep 8, 2016, at 3:41 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > > My use of the term 'universal' refers to its use in the analysis of > reality. > > i frequently refer to that 4.551 quote about Mind - but, in my view, Mind > is not the same as Thirdness. Thirdness is a semiosic process, one of the > three categorical actions of the actions of Mind - but the two are not > identical. > > > > I remain convinced that some terms are used in such a variety of > incompatible ways in philosophical history that they come to have a baggage > that makes them perfect tools of confusion. I suspect mind is one of those > terms. Quite frequently I wish we could do away with the term entirely. For > all the problem of neologisms in philosophy (including Peirce’s own use of > them at times) they do avoid that baggage. > > Your point is very important. I can’t recall if someone quoted it already > but this quote of Peirce’s is useful. “I desire to defend the three > Categories as the three irreducible and only constituents of thought.” (EP > 2.165 “The Categories Defended”) > > > > > > > ----------------------------- > 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [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 > . > > > > > >
----------------------------- 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [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 .
