Jerry - I disagree that scepticism towards the validity of someone else's interpretation is also a 'loss of morality' or a movement towards pluralism/relativism.
After all - should I, centuries ago, have accepted the Church's view that the sun went around the earth? Should I have accepted that disease was caused by malevolent thoughts? Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Jerry Rhee To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: Peirce-L Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 2:14 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking Hi list: “Ben - I don't think that you should 'assume that any of us is 'right' in our interpretations of Peirce.” This is the first dangerous step toward loss of morality induced by a move toward pluralism when it is not warranted. But then again, why not this when the alternative is no better? Why should this not be warranted? Plus, no-one has yet defined 'God'...and I think that would have to be a basic first step in discussing any 'reality'. Seth: That never came up. I do remember him saying, toward the end of his life, "Oh, I now realize you always knew this. But I've just come to recognize how central the question 'Quid sit deus?'is." ~Benardete on Bloom, Encounters and Reflections “Hegel above all, and his numerous successors have failed to pay proper attention to the philosophic concept of the city as exhibited by classical political philosophy. For what is “first for us” is not the philosophic understanding of the city but that understanding which is inherent in the city as such, in the pre-philosophic city, according to which the city sees itself as subject and subservient to the divine in the ordinary understanding of the divine or looks up to it. Only by beginning at this point will we be open to the full impact of the all-important question which is coeval with philosophy although the philosophers do not frequently pronounce it- the question quid sit deus.” ~Strauss, The City and Man Can we be good without God? Can we be just without Nature? Can we know truth without revelation? Can we recognize the Beautiful without a clear conception of the Divine? What would God be? Hth, Jerry Rhee On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 1:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: Ben - I don't think that you should 'assume that any of us is 'right' in our interpretations of Peirce. You'll have to come to your own conclusions. BUT - there is a great difference in our interpretations - of that, there is no doubt. I see Peircean semiosis as necessarily interactional; there is no such thing as a Sign [the triad] or even the Relations, as an isolate 'thing-in-itself'. Signs exist only within interaction. And, I see the categories as the method-of-organization of matter/concepts. And, as noted, this organization takes place within interactions. Therefore, in differentiation from Jon, for example, I don't see Firstness as having any isolational reality. ALL of the three categorical modes funcion only within the interactional dynamics that is semiosis. My interpretation, as I said, is that an interaction [which is itself a Relation or a triadic Sign] can function in a mode of Firstness - which is to say, it is a qualitative feeling in that instant of the interaction. The brute or immediate reaction to this stimuli is in a mode of Secondness. The habitual reaction that might guide this first brute reaction and decision of 'what to do' would be in a mode of Thirdness. As for the other questions on God's reality - as an atheist - I'll stay out of that. Plus, no-one has yet defined 'God'...and I think that would have to be a basic first step in discussing any 'reality'. And if one moves into nominalism - as the Anselm conceptualism seems to do - well...that's not going into reality! Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Ben Novak To: Jon Alan Schmidt ; Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 10:54 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking Dear Jon: There are several issues floating around. 1. Example of firstness, secondness, thirdness You disagree with my example, as well as its amendment, but give a definition of secondness that, unfortunately, does not compute for me. I assume you are right, but you may be at a level of abstraction that is way above my pay grade, as it were. In any event, I suggest that you think, at least in relation to me, on a pedagogical level, i.e., teaching at the level of the student. For example, in physics, I am told, introductory courses still begin with the old idea of the atom with planet-like things called electrons whirling around a nucleus--even though in more advanced courses in quantum physics these rudimentary examples will be shown to be quite inaccurate. Nevertheless, once a clear, simple, and elementary example is implanted, it is far easier to correct an elementary example later by adding complicating factors, than to insist on the most complications at the beginning, because the latter will likely prevent the student from ever grasping the concept. In other words, start simple. There is an old saying that wherever you have two philosophers together, there are at least three opinions. In this regard, I am honored that Edwina agrees with my example. Thank you, Edwina, for chiming in. You make things much more lively. 2. Original thread topic Moving on, there is another issue raised in Jon's email of 11:18 yesterday. First, he thanks me for "steer(ing) the the discussion back to the original thread topic". The original thread topic listed four questions that needed to be addressed: 1.. To what specifically was Peirce referring here as "a theory of the nature of thinking"--the three stages of a "complete inquiry" and their "logical validity," as laid out in sections III and IV of the paper, or something else? 2.. How exactly is "this theory of thinking" logically connected with "the hypothesis of God's reality"? 3.. What would be some "experiential consequences of this theory of thinking" that we could, with comparatively little difficulty, deductively trace and inductively test? 4.. What exactly would it mean to "prove" Peirce's "theory of the nature of thinking," such that "the hypothesis of God's reality" would thereby also be "proved. My suggestion was that the best way to answer the question posed in #1, is to begin with the questions posed in #2, #3, and #4. In his most recent email, however, Jon disagrees, writing, I am not asking about the NA itself; I am asking about the "theory of the nature of thinking" that Peirce does not clearly identify, but claims is logically connected with "the hypothesis of God's Reality" in such a way that a proof of the former would also constitute a proof of the latter. Now, I appreciate Jon's desire to attack the problem of the Peirce's theory of thinking frontally, but sometimes the best way to attack it is to go around it, i.e., search out a weakness in the flanks or rear (to use a military analogy). Such an opening is suggested in the very quotation from Peirce that Jon offers, where Peirce says: "the hypothesis of God's Reality is logically not so isolated a conclusion as it may seem." Further, Jom summarizes Bowman as pointing out that Peirce "acknowledged that the retroductive conjecture of the Reality of God is unlike a typical scientific hypothesis--it is not amenable to deductive explication and inductive corroboration. Peirce proposed the alternative of going through those steps with his "theory of the nature of thinking" instead, because "the hypothesis of God's Reality is logically ... connected so with" this theory that "proving" the latter would suffice to "prove" the former." Now, while Peirce says that if we prove the theory of thinking, then the proof of God's reality is sufficiently proved, the search Jon wants to conduct is to find the theory of thinking. If that is what we don't know, then its connection to the hypothesis of God's reality would seem to be the place to begin. In other words, we need to think backward from the hypothesis of God's reality to discover the theory of thinking that proves it Syllogism: The fact that Peirce states that a theory of the nature of thinking will .prove the hypothesis of God's reality is a surprising fact. But if we knew what would (or would be required to) prove God's Reality, we would understand (or at least have an example of) the theory of the nature of thinking. Therefore, the thing to investigate is the hypothesis of God's reality. Which, by the way, is exactly the course that Peirce takes by suggesting a theory of the nature of thinking in a work called A or The "Neglected Argument for the Reality of God." So, I suggest that we all help Jon in his quest to discover Peirce's theory of the nature of thinking, by following both the logic dictated by the situation, and and by following Peirce's example of tying it to an understanding of what it may take to prove the hypothesis of God's Reality. Let me just add one--kind of--snarky remark. If we were to follow this course with any degree of success, we would undoubtedly have to engage with other disciplines and lines of thought, and could possibly even make some contribution to the thought of other thinkers, philosophers, and disciplines. Heaven forfend! I hope you all enjoy the humor in that... Ben Ben Novak 5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142 Telephone: (814) 808-5702 "All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be—though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes may remain—because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message will have gone." Oswald Spengler On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 9:23 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: Edwina, List: Apparently we disagree once more, and I will try to be more careful going forward about how I express my interpretation of Peirce. My understanding is that he classified anything "singular," any event that happens or occurs, as Secondness; and that he considered any "interaction" to be Secondness, because it entails (at least) two subjects reacting with each other. Again, Firstness is that which is as it is, independent of anything else. An extended excerpt from "The Logic of Mathematics: An Attempt to Develop My Categories from Within" (1896) is pertinent here. CSP: We remark among phenomena three categories of elements. The first comprises the qualities of phenomena, such as red, bitter, tedious, hard, heartrending, noble; and there are doubtless manifold varieties utterly unknown to us ... It is sufficient that wherever there is a phenomenon there is a quality; so that it might almost seem that there is nothing else in phenomena. The qualities merge into one another. They have no perfect identities, but only likenesses, or partial identities. Some of them, as the colors and the musical sounds, form well-understood systems. Probably, were our experience of them not so fragmentary, there would be no abrupt demarcations between them, at all. Still, each one is what it is in itself without help from the others. They are single but partial determinations. The second category of elements of phenomena comprises the actual facts. The qualities, in so far as they are general, are somewhat vague and potential. But an occurrence is perfectly individual. It happens here and now. A permanent fact is less purely individual; yet so far as it is actual, its permanence and generality only consist in its being there at every individual instant. Qualities are concerned in facts but they do not make up facts. Facts also concern subjects which are material substances. We do not see them as we see qualities, that is, they are not in the very potentiality and essence of sense. But we feel facts resist our will. That is why facts are proverbially called brutal. Now mere qualities do not resist. It is the matter that resists. Even in actual sensation there is a reaction. Now mere qualities, unmaterialized, cannot actually react ... All that I here insist upon is that quality is one element of phenomena, and fact, action, actuality is another. We shall undertake the analysis of their natures below. The third category of elements of phenomena consists of what we call laws when we contemplate them from the outside only, but which when we see both sides of the shield we call thoughts. Thoughts are neither qualities nor facts. They are not qualities because they can be produced and grow, while a quality is eternal, independent of time and of any realization ... A thought then is not a quality. No more is it a fact. For a thought is general. I had it. I imparted it to you. It is general on that side. It is also general in referring to all possible things, and not merely to those which happen to exist. No collection of facts can constitute a law; for the law goes beyond any accomplished facts and determines how facts that may be, but all of which never can have happened, shall be characterized. There is no objection to saying that a law is a general fact, provided it be understood that the general has an admixture of potentiality in it, so that no congeries of actions here and now can ever make a general fact. As general, the law, or general fact, concerns the potential world of quality, while as fact, it concerns the actual world of actuality. Just as action requires a peculiar kind of subject, matter, which is foreign to mere quality, so law requires a peculiar kind of subject, the thought, or, as the phrase in this connection is, the mind, as a peculiar kind of subject foreign to mere individual action. Law, then, is something as remote from both quality and action as these are remote from one another. (CP 1.418-420) This is also another example of where I see Peirce rather explicitly associating all thought(s) with Thirdness. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 7:54 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: Ben - I think you are correct in your example and definition of Firstness and Secondness. That is, the sound/shock wave that you feel in your body IS an example of Firstness. As Peirce writes, this is a STATE, not a reaction [which would be Secondness]. "A feeling, then, is not an event, a happening, a coming to pass....a feeling is a state, which is in its entirety in every moment of time as long as it endures". 1.307. Think of Firstness as a STATE, a singular experience, a whole feeling. Firstness is a state that affects another body, so to speak. It is not just the sound/shock wave isolate from interaction but is instead the interaction of that sound/shockwave with another. That interaction, which is a qualitative state, is Firstness. Remember, Peircean semiosis requires a network, an interaction; nothing is isolate-in-itself. Secondness develops when the other part of the interaction reacts. So, Secondness, just as you point out, is your body's flinching or other reaction. All of this is part of the process of Mind. Again, as Peirce writes "Every operation of the mind, however complex, has its absolutely simple feeling, the emotion of the tout ensemble" 1.311. This points to, again, the fact that Firstness is not an isolate state but an interactional state. Edwina ----------------------------- 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] . 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