Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

Wed, 14 Sep 2016 19:25:11 -0700

Hi Jon,

I think this is inquisitory in tone, and not appropriate here. Also, both of you: I appreciate your differences, but this is getting tiresome.

Thanks, Mike


On 9/14/2016 8:32 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Edwina, List:

I am not asserting anything, just asking a sincere question.  As an atheist (by your own description), do you acknowledge that your view is clearly different from that of Peirce regarding the Reality of God?  No interpretation is required here, just a simple yes or no.

Thanks,

Jon

On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 7:54 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, list:
What a bizarre question. You can't be asserting that an atheist cannot interpret Peirce's analysis of God - for such a claim would be untenable. You can't be asserting that I SHOULD interpret his claim - since I was very clear that I would not discuss it. Therefore, I've no idea of the intentionality of your question.
 
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2016 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking

Edwina, List:

Since you mentioned earlier that you are an atheist, do you acknowledge that your view is clearly different from that of Peirce regarding the Reality of God?

Thanks,

Jon

On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 3:12 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
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 -----
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 -----
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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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
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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