Jon, list; Yes, this is how I interpret Peirce. You interpret him differently.
Again, as I've said before, I will not get into any interaction with you if you
self-define YOUR interpretation as 'the true Peirce'.
And yes, I know that some people on this list agree with your interpretations
and others agree with mine - and I'm sure others agree with neither.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: Peirce-L
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking
Edwina, List:
ET: And I don't consider that Signs have ' being' independent of any
interaction! ... And I don't define the modal categories as having any
objective reality outside of the semiosic articulation ... I don't think that
the modal categories are merely 'aspects of phenomena' but are instead integral
modes of organization of that phenomena. As for Firstness and Thirdness as
'being Real' outside of instantiation within Signs - I don't agree with that
... Firstness, as 'feeling', as 'quality', has to be feeling OF something/a
quality OF something. And Thirdness, as habits, has to be habits OF something.
Thirdness as mediation obviously has no 'reality' without an embodiment ...
I acknowledge that these are your views. Just to be clear--do you also
believe that they were Peirce's views?
Thanks,
Jon
On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 2:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, list:
Yes, we do indeed interpret Peirce very differently.
As noted, my view is that semiosis is dynamic and interactional.
ET: 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 - I don't confine Signs [the triad] as operational only within
the mode of Secondness [individual separate existence]. That would, for
example, deny both the Qualisign, the Iconic Legisign, the Rhematic Symbol and
the Argument as Signs.
And I don't consider that Signs have ' being' independent of any
interaction! By this I include even a crystal as a Sign - in interaction with
its past formation and its current situation.
And I don't define the modal categories as having any objective reality
outside of the semiosic articulation.
I don't think that the Representamen is itself a triad, but it operates
within a triad of relations: the R-O; R-R; and R-I. Each can be in a different
categorical mode. The Full Triad - I refer to as the Sign.
I don't think that the modal categories are merely 'aspects of phenomena'
but are instead integral modes of organization of that phenomena.
As for Firstness and Thirdness as 'being Real' outside of instantiation
within Signs - I don't agree with that, for I don't agree with the separation
of modes of organization from instantiative existentiality. After all,
Firstness, as 'feeling', as 'quality', has to be feeling OF something/a quality
OF something. And Thirdness, as habits, has to be habits OF something.
Thirdness as mediation obviously has no 'reality' without an embodiment.
Neither Firstness nor Thirdness can exist without such embediment within the
particular. And the only way to embody...is within the semiosic triad.
What is, to me, the Real? I consider, as Peirce wrote, "there are Real
things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them"
5.384. This, i think, was to act as a rejection of relativism and
conceptualism/nominalism.
This is not the same as 'realism', which refers to the
reality-of-universals or generals, which means, to my understanding, that the
commonality, or the universal is not a 'post hoc' concept but a truth - even if
we don't current perceive it.
So- obviously, we interpret Peirce very differently. I think we will have
to acknowledge this - and continue to examine and explore.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: Peirce-L
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 2:54 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking
Edwina, List:
ET: 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 agree that no one should assume that one of us is right here. Peirce,
even more so than many other philosophers, seems to require the hard work of
doing your own thinking in response to his writings. The NA, in particular, is
something that he specifically said could not be directly argued or explained
to someone, only described to and then experienced by someone.
ET: 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.
These comments highlight what seem to be our three most fundamental
points of disagreement. My very different understanding of Peirce's views is
as follows.
a.. While signs indeed "exist only within interaction" (Secondness),
both Qualisigns (Firstness) and Legisigns (Thirdness) have Being that is
independent of any interaction; i.e., they are Real apart from actually being
instantiated as Sinsigns.
b.. Both "sign" and "Sign" refer to a tradic representamen that has
relations with its object and interpretant, rather than the capitalized word
referring instead to a triad that includes the representamen, object, and
interpretant, along with all of the relations among them.
c.. The categories are three distinct "Universes of
Experience"--aspects of phenomena that we distinguish when we analyze the
Phaneron, which is whatever is present to any mind at any time--rather than
"the method-of-organization of matter/concepts."
Your notions strike me as going beyond anything that Peirce himself
wrote, which (in my opinion) makes it challenging to maintain clarity about how
we are using the terms.
ET: Plus, no-one has yet defined 'God'...and I think that would have
to be a basic first step in discussing any 'reality'.
Presumably we should start with Peirce's definitions in "A Neglected
Argument" as published, and one of its drafts.
CSP: The word "God," so "capitalized" (as we Americans say), is the
definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief Really creator
of all three Universes of Experience. (CP 6.452)
CSP: The first proposition of Natural Theology: what single other
subject has been worn so threadbare! Moreover, whoever, from prelate to
ploughboy, has deeply pondered the matter is, I suppose, familiar with the
chain of thought which this paper is to consider, and which it will be
convenient to designate as "the neglected argument." Indeed, meaning by "God,"
as throughout this paper will be meant, the Being whose Attributes are, in the
main, those usually ascribed to Him, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Infinite
Benignity, a Being not "immanent in" the Universes of Matter, Mind, and Ideas,
but the Sole Creator of every content of them, without exception,—when we
consider how much an assurance of His Reality would help men to govern their
conduct by the best attainable lights, how can we refrain from expecting of His
Benignity, in case He really is, that we shall find some sound reason to
believe in Him that is open to every human mind, high and low? Now if such
reason there be, it will be for the reader to judge, after he has learned what
"the neglected argument" is, whether such sound reason can be any other than
"the neglected argument." (R 843)
Note also Peirce's designations here for the three Universes--Matter
(Secondness), Mind (Thirdness), and Ideas (Firstness).
CSP: But I do not, by 'God,' mean, with some writers, a being so
inscrutable that nothing at all can be known of Him. I suppose most of our
knowledge of Him must be by similitudes. Thus, He is so much like a mind, and
so little like a singular Existent (meaning by an Existent, or object that
Exists, a thing subject to brute constraints, and reacting with all other
Existents,) and so opposed in His Nature to an ideal possibility, that we may
loosely say that He is a Spirit, or Mind. (R 843)
Presumably this is why Peirce, in the published (second) additament,
referred to the NA as "that course of meditation upon the three Universes which
gives birth to the hypothesis and ultimately to the belief that they, or at any
rate two of the three, have a Creator independent of them" (CP 6.483). Since
God may be loosely characterized as a Mind, that Universe (Thirdness) is in
some sense primoridal relative to the other two.
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 12:39 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
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