Jon, list 1) I don't deal with 'draft' vs 'final' version. I don't think that Peirce's thought was ever, in a way, a 'final complete statement'. So, I reject also your linear outline of Peirce, where you reject an earlier description as inaccurate and rely instead, only on the later description. I think he knew what he was talking about in much of the early as well as the later writings. So, I don't focus on the dates - early or late - while you do.
2) With regard to Firstness, and indeed, all the categories - I think we read Peirce very differently on them. I repeat my reading of Peirce that Firstness as experienced is a 'sensation', a holistic quality-of-feeling', [and no- sensation is NOT Secondness until it is experienced as 'other; its first stage is just and only the pure intellectually unaware feeling of the senses]. I don't use the term 'feeling' and 'sensation' on my own; Peirce uses those terms to describe FIrstness. As soon as we be come aware of that feeling - it becomes SECONDNESS; that brute awareness of 'otherness'. And then, analytic awareness of it - is within the mode of Thirdness. So- I reverse your outline. The quality of, eg, red, or hardness, in 1.422, is a sensual aspect of the material continuity of the red body or the piece of iron; i.e, it is, as continuity, in a mode of Thirdness. But -the experience of this quality- within the red body or the piece of iron [never mind within an external interaction] - is in a mode of Firstness. It remains there, as a possibility of experience. I disagree with your reading of Peirce that a categorical mode of Firstness is an Idea. An idea is a mental aspect. Certainly some STATE that is in a mode of Firstness is independent of thought and is 'existential' [you can't deny that feeling of heat!]..but - that feeling could be known, intellectually, at some later time. I can certainly see that the Relation of a Representamen, in a mode of Thirdness, to an Object -can be in a mode of Firstness, an iconic idea. But a pure mode of Firstness - a rhematic iconic qualisign? That's not an idea. Now- does the capacity-to-produce this feeling in an other [let's say the feeling of heat from a volcano] only exist in the interaction of the volcano with its envt? Of course not - the capacity-to-produce the feeling of heat [which is experienced by an other as a FEELING of HEAT - is a possibility within the volcano - just as the other attributes of the volcano; namely, its chemicals etc..are a definitive part of its identity]. But - my point is that the experience of Firstness is within interaction. I consider the Peircean semiosic world to be one that is continuously dynamic and interactive. 3) I see too many references to the role of Mind in Peirce - and his outlining of this Mind in the physico-chemical, biological and socioconceptual world - to reject its similarities within all three realms. I don't see the term 'god' as a synonym of Mind - and Mind is immanent in Nature - understanding that this Mind is a developing, evolving, complex process. 4) And I continue to read the NA as a metaphoric argument for the three modes of argumentation of Abduction, Induction, Deduction. What was before our universe: As Peirce wrote - nothing. [1.274 Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Alan Schmidt To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, October 10, 2016 11:31 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Cosmology Edwina, List: I know that we read Peirce differently, and again I leave it to our fellow List participants to judge for themselves which of our readings is more plausible. I will just make a few quick comments in response, and pose a few sincere questions. ET: I continue to consider Peirce a pantheist. How do you reconcile that with his clear and repeated insistence that God is not immanent in nature? I suppose you could argue that the quoted passages are from drafts, and that Peirce ultimately omitted the outright denial from the article. However, that approach becomes problematic when we consider that a lot of the "canonical" content in CP and EP also comes from unpublished draft manuscripts. ET: My reading of Peirce is that Firstness is a state of experience, a feeling - of what one interacts with. Therefore, Firstness operates within the existential world of discrete objects. Feeling/action/thought is one manifestation of Firstness/Secondness/Thirdness, but it is not the only one. There are also (among others) quality/reaction/mediation and possibility/actuality/habituality. In any case, what you call "feeling" here is really more like sensation, which falls under Secondness, since you explicitly invoke interaction (i.e., reaction) and "the existential world of discrete objects." There can be no interaction with feeling as Firstness, since it is a quality that is what it is independent of anything else. As soon as we consider it apart from the pure, unreflective experience of it in an instant of time (if that were even possible), it becomes a thought (Thirdness) that usually involves comparison with something else (Secondness). Note also that CP 1.304, which you subsequently quoted, dates to 1894--a couple of years before Peirce finally embraced the reality of Firstness, and thus became what Max Fisch called "a three-category realist." As I have observed before, I tend to give precedence to his later writings, while you seem to prefer earlier ones. ET: After all, an idea or ideal possibility is an aspect of Mind ... Not according to Peirce in 1908, when he clearly and repeatedly distinguished the Universe of Ideas or ideal possibilities from the Universe of Mind. Remember, his definition of Idea (capitalized) in "A Neglected Argument" is "anything whose Being consists in its mere capacity for getting fully represented, regardless of any person's faculty or impotence to represent it" (CP 6.452). After about 1896, Peirce consistently held that possibilities (Firstness) are real and independent of thought (Thirdness), regardless of whether they are ever actualized (Secondness)--as your own quote from CP 1.422 (1898) states, albeit using the term "quality." Feelings, Ideas, ideal possibilities, and qualities are all manifestations of Firstness, according to Peirce. ET: I read Peirces 'three universes of Experience' 6.455 [mere Ideas, Brute Actuality, Active Power of Connections] - as referring to intellectual concepts of argumentation and not to the three categories. How do you reconcile that with his clear and repeated insistence that God is the independent Creator of the three Universes, or at any rate two of the three; and his characterization of them in the R 843 drafts as consisting of Ideas or ideal possibilities, Matter or physical facts, and Mind? ET: I suggest that your view is more akin to Platonism than the Aristotelianism of Peirce. I know that you reject Platonism and resist any attribution of it to Peirce. How do you reconcile that with his explicit assertion in CP 6.208 (1898) that there are many "Platonic worlds," which are "both coordinated and subordinated to one another," only one of which led to "the particular actual universe of existence in which we happen to be"? Note that for Peirce, these "Platonic worlds" are real even though they do not exist. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 9:06 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: Jon, List: 1) You have outlined your views on these issues quite often - and I disagree. I think that your view on Peirce's view of 'God' is dependent on your own theism - and I continue to consider Peirce a pantheist. 2) First - with regard to the categories, I reject your view that Firstness and Thirdness are 'real' in the sense that they are 'universals' [which is what Scholastic Realism is all about]. My reading of Peirce is that Firstness is a state of experience, a feeling - of what one interacts with. Therefore, Firstness operates within the existential world of discrete objects. It is the experience of interaction of one object with another. This can be seen throughout the many discussions by Peirce of this 'freshness, life, freedom'; it is 'feeling'. And above all, "a feeling is not general, in the sense in which the law of gravitation is general'. 1.304. This means, that Firstness is not a Reality since the Reals-are-universals or generals. Peirce continues: "A true general cannot have any being unless there is to be some prospect of its sometime having occasion to be embodied in a fact, which is itself not a law or anything like a law. A quality of feeling can be imagined to be without any occurrence, as it seems to me". 1.304. Therefore - my reading of Peirce is that Firstness is a state of feeling that emerges within an interaction between two existential units. And therefore - it is NOT, as you outline, an 'idea' an ideal, an ideal possibility. After all, an idea or ideal possibility is an aspect of Mind - and this has nothing to do with Firstness..'Feeling as independent of Mind and Change' 1.305. As Peirce write, a quality 'is not anything which is dependent, in its being, upon mind, whether in the form of sense or in that of thought" 1.422. Therefore - I reject your reading of Peirce where you define Firstness as 'ideals', as 'an ideal possibility'. I read Peirces 'three universes of Experience' 6.455 [mere Ideas, Brute Actuality, Active Power of Connections] - as referring to intellectual concepts of argumentation and not to the three categories. 3) Equally, I reject your reading of Peirce where you define Thirdness as 'real', again, in the sense of a universal. Thirdness, in my reading of Peirce, is an ongoing process of the development of habits-of-organization which act as a process of transformative mediation in these interactions between existential units. That is, all three categories function WITHIN existentiality and none operate outside of it. I suggest that your view is more akin to Platonism than the Aristotelianism of Peirce. Thirdness is 'order and legislation' and is operative within interactions - not as a separate universal. "It is that which is what it is by virtue of imparting a quality to reactions in the future" 1.343. And 'the third is in its own nature relative' 1.362. ..- because Thirdness, as with the other two Categories, are actions within existentiality. Thirdness, which operates within mediation is 'the power of taking habits' 1.390 and as such, is adaptive, evolving, capable of change in these habits. These habits are uniformities BUT - are not 'real-in-themselves' outside of their embodiment, but are instead, capable of change. These habits, or 'uniformities in the modes of action of things have come about by their taking habits' 1.408. That is not the same, in my reading of Peirce, as a 'universal'. They are 'general' for that time - but, because of the influence of Firstness and Secondness on them, they are capable of change. [see 1.420] 4) And, I consider that your reading of Peirce, that he is a theist, depends on your own theism. My own reading of him as a pantheist, rests on his use of the three categories as embodied within the semiosic triadic process [Object-Representamen-Interpretant]..which therefore, sees this process as an action of Mind operating within/as Matter: "Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely phsycial world"...4.551. For "all mind is directly or indirectly connected with all matter"...6.268. Since habit is 'a primary property of mind, it must be equally so of matter'. 6.269 - which I read to mean that habit, or Thirdness, is a property of Mind and equally, of Matter. Therefore, I again reject your view that Thirdness has a reality separate from existentiality. And - in addition, view Mind or Thought as a basic property of Matter. Again, I read Peirces 'three universes of Experience' 6.455 [mere Ideas, Brute Actuality, Active Power of Connections] - as referring to intellectual concepts of argumentation and not to the three categories. That is why I tend to agree with those who read these pages [NA] as a metaphoric argument about abduction. That is - the three universes in order would be Abduction, Induction, Deduction. So- we each read Peirce in a different way. 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] . 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 .
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