Gary R, list
That's a nice outline.
With reference to the Platonic world[s] ...plural...of which only ONE has been
existential - I'm OK with that. And that can be acceptable even if one defines
these atemporal aspatial Platonic world[s] as nothing for in a very real
sense, they WERE 'nothing' - being aspatial and atemporal.
With regard to Jon's point: Continuity is generality, and generality of any
kind is impossible in the absence of super-order and super-habit; i.e., the
Reality of God. [see ** below]...
I don't see this; I don't see why continuity and generality require a
'super-order and super-habit'. I think they merely require self-organization of
order and habit and Peirce outlines this in 1.410. That is, order and habit
emerge WITHIN the particularization of matter. They don't pre-exist. I think
this is a basic disagreement among those of us who are theists vs non-theists!
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Richmond
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2016 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Cosmology
Jon, Edwina, List,
I think one way of looking at this Platonic vs Aristotelian question is to,
at least in a sense and for the purposes of this kind of cosmological
discussion, restrict Peirce's Platonism (which, imo, ought not be conflated
with other versions of Platonism) to his consideration of the proto-cosmos;
then seeing that once there is an actually existent universe, that Peirce's
attitude becomes at least predominantly Aristotelian.
This way of looking at the Platonic vs Aristotelian matter is strongly
suggested--at least to me--by this passage which has occasionally appeared in
forum discussions, snippets of which I've quoted in this thread, and which was
given at greater lengh by Jon. For the purpose of this message I'll quote but
one salient passage from Jon's extended quote:
In short, if we are going to regard the universe as a result of evolution
at all, we must think that not merely the existing universe, that locus in the
cosmos to which our reactions are limited, but the whole Platonic world, which
in itself is equally real, is evolutionary in its origin, too ... At the same
time all this, be it remembered, is not of the order of the existing universe,
but is merely a Platonic world, of which we are, therefore, to conceive that
there are many, both coordinated and subordinated to one another; until finally
out of one of these Platonic worlds is differentiated the particular actual
universe of existence in which we happen to be. (CP 6.200, 208; 1898)
So I think it might be helpful in these discussions to clearly distinguish
between "the whole Platonic world, which in itself is equally real" and the
"existing universe" where "finally out of one of these Platonic worlds is
differentiated the particular actual universe of existence in which we happen
to be." The first is out of (or 'before') time, the latter establishing(?) the
continuum of time (and space, for that matter) in this universe.
For those for whom the question as to what came before the putative Big Bang
the answer is "nothing" (while, as previously mentioned, I personally find the
Big Bang singularity itself problematic), Peirce's several discussions
throughout his life concerning his conception of God, will probably have little
resonance. So I would also like to repeat my sense that it may be
counter-productive to insert the God of Genesis much into this discussion of
"the first stages of development, before time yet existed" as all Peirce claims
is that such discussions "must be as vague and figurative as the expressions of
the first chapter of Genesis" (emphasis added by me). So, as I suggested by
introducing the dominant early cosmological myth of Atum in Nun, there are
other "vague and figurative" ways of conceiving of "the first stages of
development, before time yet existed."
On the other hand, if one studiously avoids specific religious allusions, as
Peirce does, for example, in his discussion of super-order (which, btw, Jon, I
would say is masterfully analyzed by you such that I think it deserves a
threaded discussion of its own, one in which I'd be eager to participate), and
if one is not an atheist, in light not only of the N.A. but of the various
things Peirce wrote throughout his life regarding God, it is hard not to find
your argument sound and your conclusion regarding the super-order convincing.
Jon: Continuity is generality, and generality of any kind is impossible in
the absence of super-order and super-habit; i.e., the Reality of God. [see **
below]
As Jon suggested, the super-order material is complex and difficult to
interpret and analyze. But the connection of the God-idea to ur-continuity,
primordial 3ns, super-order, and super-habit is well worth pursuing for those
of us who want to get a better grasp of what characterizes Peirce's theism. I
have already suggested that I do not myself see Peirce as a doctrinaire or
dogmatic theist, that is, his view of God appears to me very unlike that of any
theistic sect past or present.
**[There is a remark on super-order and super-habit in the context of
Peirce's religious thought in West and Anderson's, Consensus on Peirce's
Concept of Habit, but I don't know of any extended discussions of super-order
and I haven't read much of CPCH yet.]
Best,
Gary R
PS I just read your last post Jon and find your solution to the ur-continuity
issue promising (although I'll have to further study it). So, this seems to me
like yet another reason to move this part of the discussion to another thread.
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 12:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
Edwina, List:
ET: I consider the two arguments, one that explains the universe is
self-organized and evolving with its full identity only emerging as the Final
Interpretant in the future; and the other that the universe relies on an a
priori Mind/God - to be incompatible.
Peirce stated in what you quoted from CP 1.412, "Our conceptions of the
first stages of development, before time yet existed, must be as vague and
figurative as the expressions of the first chapter of Genesis." This is
relevant in at least two ways--something "vague and figurative" is subject to
subsequent clarification, which is what I am suggesting that CP 6.490
accomplished; and "the first chapter of Genesis" obviously presents a cosmology
that explicitly includes a divine Creator.
ET: Realities are generalizations - and generals do not 'exist' except
within the particular. Your outline is Platonic - with Ideal Forms that are
Real. Again, Peirce was not a Platonist and his generals, even though real, are
part of the particular instantiation.
As I quoted previously, Peirce's outline in "The Logic of Continuity" is
explicitly Platonic in precisely this sense. By 1898, Peirce clearly held that
everything in all three categories (or Universes) is Real, even though only
that which belongs under Secondness is Actual--i.e., Ideas (or ideal
possibilities) and Signs (or Mind) are Real, not just Brute Actuality (or
physical facts).
CSP: Another doctrine which is involved in Pragmaticism as an essential
consequence of it ... is the scholastic doctrine of realism. This is usually
defined as the opinion that there are real objects that are general, among the
number being the modes of determination of existent singulars, if, indeed,
these be not the only such objects. But the belief in this can hardly escape
being accompanied by the acknowledgment that there are, besides, real vagues,
and especially real possibilities. For possibility being the denial of a
necessity, which is a kind of generality, is vague like any other contradiction
of a general. Indeed, it is the reality of some possibilities that
pragmaticism is most concerned to insist upon. (CP 5.453; 1905)
CSP: In other places, I have given many other reasons for my firm belief
that there are real possibilities. I also think, however, that, in addition to
actuality [Secondess] and possibility [Firstness], a third mode of reality must
be recognized in that which, as the gipsy fortune-tellers express it, is "sure
to come true," or, as we may say, is destined [Thirdness] ... (CP 4.547; 1906)
I know that you disagree, but I honestly think that it is abundantly clear
from these and other writings that Peirce was a "three-category realist" from
about 1896 until the end of his life, as Max Fisch argued.
ET: I don't see that 'matter as effete mind' means that mind and matter
are separate.
I did not say that they are separate, I said that mind is more fundamental.
In Peirce's terminology (CP 6.24-25), mind is "primoridal," while matter is
"derived and special." Thus matter cannot exist without mind, but mind can be
real (note the difference) without matter. In fact, Peirce's cosmology seems
to indicate that matter exists as discontinuity of mind.
CSP: The whole universe of true and real possibilities forms a
continuum, upon which this Universe of Actual Existence is, by virtue of the
essential Secondness of Existence, a discontinuous mark--like a line figure
drawn on the area of the blackboard. (NEM 4.345; 1898)
Regards,
Jon
On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 7:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, list - I'll try to reply below
1) ET: I consider that the two descriptions of the emergence of the
universe are not compatible.
JON:I just offered a lengthy argument showing that they are compatible.
This obviously does not prove the correctness of either or both accounts, but
it does demonstrate that they are not contradictory.
EDWINA: Sorry- but your argument despite its length does not convince
me. I consider the two arguments, one that explains the universe is
self-organized and evolving with its full identity only emerging as the Final
Interpretant in the future; and the other that the universe relies on an a
priori Mind/God - to be incompatible.
----------------------------
2) ET: The 1.412 description is specific in 'the original chaos,
therefore, where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere
indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened 1.411.
JON:That "nothing existed or really happened" means that nothing was
actual; it does not entail that nothing was real.
EDWINA: Realities are generalizations - and generals do not 'exist'
except within the particular. Your outline is Platonic - with Ideal Forms that
are Real. Again, Peirce was not a Platonist and his generals, even though real,
are part of the particular instantiation.
--------------------------------------------
3) ET: THought separate from matter????
JON: Well, yes. This is not problematic at all for me--or for Peirce,
since he affirmed "the physical law as derived and special, the psychical law
alone as primordial," because "matter is effete mind"; i.e., there can be mind
without matter, but not matter without mind (CP 6.24-25). I addressed this in
the past thread about "Peirce's Objective Idealism."
EDWINA: I disagree with your interpretation. I don't see that 'matter
as effete mind' means that mind and matter are separate. My interpretation is
that - as in the frog and the crystal - they are not separate.
---------------------------------------
4) ET: My reading of this - a pure disembodied mind - is that it is
Platonic - and this contradicts Peirce's basic Aristotelianism which does not
allow for Mind separated from Matter.
JON: Although Peirce self-identified more with Aristotle, there are
still Platonic aspects of his thought, some of them quite explicit. For
example, with respect to cosmology, we have already brought up the last
Cambridge Conferences lecture, "The Logic of Continuity," in this thread.
CSP: From this point of view we must suppose that the existing
universe, with all its arbitrary secondness, is an offshoot from, or an
arbitrary determination of, a world of ideas, a Platonic world; not that our
superior logic has enabled us to reach up to a world of forms to which the real
universe, with its feebler logic, was inadequate ... The evolutionary process
is, therefore, not a mere evolution of the existing universe, but rather a
process by which the very Platonic forms themselves have become or are becoming
developed ... In short, if we are going to regard the universe as a result of
evolution at all, we must think that not merely the existing universe, that
locus in the cosmos to which our reactions are limited, but the whole Platonic
world, which in itself is equally real, is evolutionary in its origin, too ...
At the same time all this, be it remembered, is not of the order of the
existing universe, but is merely a Platonic world, of which we are, therefore,
to conceive that there are many, both coordinated and subordinated to one
another; until finally out of one of these Platonic worlds is differentiated
the particular actual universe of existence in which we happen to be. (CP
6.192, 194, 200, 208; 1898)
Peirce clearly stated here--several times, in multiple ways--that "a
world of ideas, a Platonic world" (i.e., mind) precedes "the existing universe,
with all its arbitrary secondness" (i.e., matter). Just because something is
"Platonic" does not entail that Peirce rejected it.
EDWINA: I consider the above quotation to be an analysis of
conceptualization [our ideas, our factual experiences] - and not of the three
categories and of matter and mind nor of the integral embodiment of the one
with the other - as in the decapitated frog or the crystal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
5) ET: I think you and even Peirce are, indeed, using the arguments
for the 'existence of God' from Anselm, the classical ontological argument,
that If one can think of a perfect Being, then, this perfect being is
real....and..if such a belief is common, then, this is 'evidentiary' proof that
such a being exists.
JON: This is definitely not the argument that I am using, nor the one
that Peirce used. What we are discussing is more akin to the so-called
"cosmological" and "transcendental" arguments, since it is grounded primarily
in the reality of order and intelligibility in the existing universe. It has
nothing to do with what "one can think" or "a perfect Being."
ET: I consider that this analysis is insufficient as proof ...
Who said anything about "proof"? We have different hypotheses, for
which we have marshaled our supporting evidence; and as previously agreed,
"many others have to read Peirce - and - your and my comments - and make up
their minds as to how 'accurately' we interpret him."
EDWINA: Agreed.
--------------------------------------------------
ET: I cannot explain these two, to my reading, very different
descriptions of the emergence and evolution of the universe of mind and matter
- and simply have to leave it as that: I cannot explain it.
Jon: You really should not give up so easily. As I am sure you are
aware, Peirce would not countenance throwing up our hands and deeming anything
to be inexplicable; it is one of the "solutions" that he identified as blocking
the way of inquiry. Besides, I already offered you an alternative
explanation--maybe he just changed his mind between 1887-1888 and 1908. Of
course, another is that at least one of your readings is incorrect.
EDWINA: Your explanation is that both of his analyses are compatible
[mine is that they are incompatible]. So...did he change his mind? Am I
incorrect? I simply don't know and so far, your explanations have not convinced
me to agree with your view that the two are compatible. So....I DO have to
leave it at that!
After all - I am reading the early outline as explaining a
self-organized, evolving universe where both Mind and Matter co-evolve together
- focused on Final Cause/ Interpretant; that is, there is no pre-determined
agenda. Evolution is open to spontaneity, even when constrained by habits.
The later outline sets up an a priori Mind, separate from Matter and
with a certain amount of determination [Truth] in its nature.
I simply don't see the two outlines as compatible....and so, must run
and bury myself in the fictional haven of Downton Abbey for an hour or two. But
..I appreciate our discussion.
Edwina
Regards,
Jon
On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 4:47 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>
wrote:
Jon, list - I'm going to continue to disagree with your
interpretation. I consider that the two descriptions of the emergence of the
universe are not compatible. But - as to why Peirce wrote the two - of course,
that is beyond me.
The 1.412 description is specific in 'the original chaos, therefore,
where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy, in
which nothing existed or really happened 1.411. And his outline of the
emergence of both matter and mind seem to me, [I've provided the quotes before]
a clear outline of the self-organization and evolution of both.
There is, in this outline, no a priori Mind - pure or otherwise.
Then, in 6.490, Peirce talks about the 'disembodied spirit or pure
mind, has its being out of time' - This is clear - that we have here an a
priori agency which "is destined to think all that is is capable of
thinking".THought separate from matter???? This means, also, that this Pure
Mind is NOT a 'state of utter nothingness'.
My reading of this - a pure disembodied mind - is that it is
Platonic - and this contradicts Peirce's basic Aristotelianism which does not
allow for Mind separated from Matter.
That is, throughout Peirce's many discussions of Mind and Matter and
his discussion of the three categories - we do not read [as far as i can
recollect] any hint of their separation, any suggestion that Mind is
'disembodied' and 'full-of-its truths'. Indeed, Thirdness is, as embedded
within Secondness/Firstness - always able to change and evolve its habits,
something a pure Mind would not do.
So- my reading of these two sections is that they are two completely
different outlines, and are incompatible with each other. I think you and even
Peirce are, indeed, using the arguments for the 'existence of God' from Anselm,
the classical ontological argument, that If one can think of a perfect Being,
then, this perfect being is real....and..if such a belief is common, then, this
is 'evidentiary' proof that such a being exists. I consider that this analysis
is insufficient as proof - and that the very notion of a 'pure mind'
contradicts the outline of a self-organized mind-matter universe that Peirce
provided in 'A guess at the riddle'.
I cannot explain these two, to my reading, very different
descriptions of the emergence and evolution of the universe of mind and matter
- and simply have to leave it as that: I cannot explain it. As an atheist and
someone who accepts the power of self-organization and evolution, I admit to
being drawn to the 1.412 Guess at the Riddle [and other outlines of agapasm and
evolution] rather than the agential power-of-god outline. But that doesn't mean
anything conclusive - other than an awareness of my own predeliction for the
one outline versus the other! But - I do think they are incompatible.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2016 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Cosmology
Edwina, List:
ET: I think you will have to admit that neither you nor I know
for sure which of the two arguments for the emergence of the universe are
'really held' by Peirce.
On the contrary--I think that we do know for sure, or at least have
to assume, that Peirce "really held" what he said in "A Guess at the Riddle" in
1887-1888, and "really held" what he said in "A Neglected Argument" in 1908.
This is why I always try to include the date with any quotation from him--it is
important to recognize its timing within the overall development of his
thought, which was far from static.
The question, then, is simply whether the 1908 statements that I
have cited represent a significant change in his views over two decades, or if
they are compatible with the 1887-1888 paragraph that you quoted below. Again,
I think that CP 6.490--which also dates to 1908, and in fact was intended
precisely to serve as a supplement to "A Neglected Argument"--strongly suggests
the latter conclusion. My apologies in advance for the lengthy excerpts this
time.
A full exposition of the pragmaticistic definition of Ens
necessarium would require many pages; but some hints toward it may be given. A
disembodied spirit, or pure mind, has its being out of time, since all that it
is destined to think is fully in its being at any and every previous time. But
in endless time it is destined to think all that it is capable of thinking.
Order is simply thought embodied in arrangement; and thought embodied in any
other way appears objectively as a character that is a generalization of order,
and that, in the lack of any word for it, we may call for the nonce,
"Super-order." It is something like uniformity. The idea may be caught if it is
described as that of which order and uniformity are particular varieties.
Pure mind, as creative of thought, must, so far as it is manifested in time,
appear as having a character related to the habit-taking capacity, just as
super-order is related to uniformity.
I have already discussed the hint that Ens necessarium is "pure
mind." The rest of this passage implies that thought is always "embodied" in
some kind of "super-order," of which order and uniformity are two examples.
Peirce then draws an analogy--the thought-creating character of pure mind is to
the habit-taking capacity as super-order is to uniformity. Since he just said
that uniformity is a particular variety of super-order, the habit-taking
capacity must be a particular variety of the thought-creating character of pure
mind. Recall that the "second flash" of CP 1.412 came about "by the principle
of habit"; so evidently it was a manifestation of pure mind, as creative of
thought. Likewise for the "other successions ever more and more closely
connected, the habits and the tendency to take them ever strengthening
themselves." While CP 1.412 might plausibly be interpreted in isolation as
describing "the self-organized emergence of the Universe" with "no metaphysical
Agent" involved, CP 6.490 indicates that the habit-taking capacity depends on
there being such an Agent.
Now imagine, in such vague way as such a thing can be imagined, a
perfect cosmology of the three universes. It would prove all in relation to
that subject that reason could desiderate; and of course all that it would
prove must, in actual fact, now be true. But reason would desiderate that that
should be proved from which would follow all that is in fact true of the three
universes; and the postulate from which all this would follow must not state
any matter of fact, since such fact would thereby be left unexplained. That
perfect cosmology must therefore show that the whole history of the three
universes, as it has been and is to be, would follow from a premiss which would
not suppose them to exist at all. Moreover, such premiss must in actual fact be
true. But that premiss must represent a state of things in which the three
universes were completely nil. Consequently, whether in time or not, the three
universes must actually be absolutely necessary results of a state of utter
nothingness. We cannot ourselves conceive of such a state of nility; but we can
easily conceive that there should be a mind that could conceive it, since,
after all, no contradiction can be involved in mere non-existence. A state in
which there should be absolutely no super-order whatsoever would be such a
state of nility. For all Being involves some kind of super-order.
This is a difficult passage, but it s me to strikes me as a kind of
reductio ad absurdum for any claim that the universe came about without the
Reality of God. A "perfect cosmology" conforming to such a claim "must not
state any matter of fact," but must instead "follow from a premiss which would
not suppose [the three universes] to exist at all." As a result, "the three
universes must actually be absolutely necessary results of a state of utter
nothingness"; that is, "A state in which there should be absolutely no
super-order whatsoever." But in such a state, absolutely nothing is absolutely
necessary; in fact, there cannot be any Being whatsoever, since "all Being
involves some kind of super-order." Hence the Reality of God--an eternal
Being, Ens necessarium--is the only premiss that can account for the reality of
the three universes, without already assuming it.
Any such super-order would be a super-habit. Any general state of
things whatsoever would be a super-order and a super-habit. In that state of
absolute nility, in or out of time, that is, before or after the evolution of
time, there must then have been a tohu bohu of which nothing whatever
affirmative or negative was true universally. There must have been, therefore,
a little of everything conceivable.
Peirce explicitly mentioned the first chapter Genesis in CP 1.412,
and invoked it again here--tohu bohu is the Hebrew expression in verse 2 that
is usually translated as something like "without form and void." The notion of
a state where "nothing whatever affirmative or negative was true universally,"
which thus involves "a little of everything conceivable," is consistent with
Peirce's late theory of a continuum. It does not consist of discrete points,
as Cantor and others defined it, but of potential points that are welded
together and thus indistinct. Even this description is misleading, because the
contiguous points do not comprise the continuum; the latter is the more
fundamental concept. The principles of non-contradiction and excluded middle
thus do not apply, unless and until an actual point is determined, which is a
discontinuity. Continuity is generality, and generality of any kind is
impossible in the absence of super-order and super-habit; i.e., the Reality of
God.
There must have been here and there a little undifferentiated
tendency to take super-habits. But such a state must tend to increase itself.
For a tendency to act in any way, combined with a tendency to take habits, must
increase the tendency to act in that way. Now substitute in this general
statement for "tendency to act in any way" a tendency to take habits, and we
see that that tendency would grow. It would also become differentiated in
various ways.
This really says nothing different from the last sentence of CP
1.412 that you quoted. So it looks like Peirce has not changed his basic
cosmology over the intervening two decades; he has simply clarified the
necessity of the Reality of God before it ever could have gotten off the ground.
Regards,
Jon
On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Edwina Taborsky
<[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, list:
I think you will have to admit that neither you nor I know for
sure which of the two arguments for the emergence of the universe are 'really
held' by Peirce. There is, A, the self-organized emergence and evolution of
Mind and Matter within the axioms of the three categories - and this reference
to the embodiment and evolution of Mind with Matter is found all through
Peirce's writings. And, there is, B, the introduction of an a priori agency,
God, in a later text- without any real examination of the relation of Mind and
Matter in this god-created universe.
Your reliance on "IF it's written at a later date, THEN, this
means Peirce believed in its axioms even more' - is merely your view of linear
writing. Then, there is your own open declaration of theism - and my equally
open declaration of atheism. These have to affect each of us.
This leads me to conclude that - as I said, neither you nor I
know which of the two arguments is 'really held' by Peirce. I think we'll have
to leave it at that.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
To: [email protected] ; Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2016 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Cosmology
Edwina, List:
ET: What i read from the above is the self-organized
emergence of the Universe.
Peirce wrote "A Guess at the Riddle" in 1887-1888 and "A
Neglected Argument" in 1908. The latter, including its various drafts, states
explicitly that in Peirce's belief, God is Really creator of all three
Universes of Experience and everything in them, without exception. This means
that either (a) he changed his mind at some point during the intervening twenty
years, or (b) he saw no incompatibility between the two positions. His
cosmological remarks in CP 6.490, written only a little later in 1908 than the
article itself, suggest strongly that (b) is the case.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 8:26 AM, Edwina Taborsky
<[email protected]> wrote:
Gary R - you wrote:
"I am not an atheist because, for one thing, I refuse to
'reduce' the origins of this cosmos to an improbably singularity (a Big
Bang--and, as you probably know, there is not one version of this theory, but
several, and competing theories as well, although the current scientific dogma
won't allow for that).
Nor do I see self-organization (a sound enough principle) and
self-creation (whatever that may mean) as the only principles of semiosis, life
and evolution."
I certainly won't critique or comment on your rejection of
atheism as that's hardly my right, but I'd like to comment on the 'singularity
of origin of our universe' [Big Bang] and self-organization.
With regard to the singular explosive origin, there certainly
are numerous theories, including for or against the Big Bang. Since I am
rejecting a metaphysical origin [God] as the origin of the universe, I stick
with the Big Bang for now. I refer to Peirce's 'A Guess at the Riddle'...
"The original chaos, therefore, where there was no
regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy in which nothing
existed or really happened.
Our conceptions of the first stages of development, before
time yet existed, must be as vague and figurative as the expressions of the
first chapter of Genesis. Out of the womb of indeterminacy we must say that
there would have come something, by the principle of Firstness, which we may
call a flash. Then by the principle of habit there would have been a second
flash. Though time would not yet have been, this second flash was in some
sense after the first, because resulting from it. Then there would have come
other successions ever more and more closely connected, the habits and the
tendency to take them ever strengthening themselves, until the events would
have been bound together into something like a continuous flow.....' 1.412
What i read from the above is the self-organized emergence of
the Universe. There is no metaphysical Agent [God- which requires an a priori
agency, something which the Scholastics dealt with by not dealing with it
except within belief] - but - the basic principles of organization of the three
categories ARE there. And that's all three - pure spontaneity, discrete
instantiations, and regularity or habit-taking. These are all aspects of Mind -
and matter, as Peirce constantly wrote, is 'effete Mind'. So, Mind seems to be
primal...and even, self-organized.
As Peirce outlined in his examples of crystals as
instantiations of Mind, or the decapitated frog which, lacking a brain, 'almost
reasons. The habit that is in his cerebellum serves as a major premiss. The
excitation of a drop of acid is his minor premiss. And his conclusion is the
act of wiping it away. All that is of any value in the operation of
ratiocination is there, except only one thing. What he lacks is the power of
prepatory meditation" 6.286.
Just so- the above triad is a semiosic action - and equally
applicable to a crystal, which also lacks the power of prepatory meditation but
does have the entire semiosic act/syllogism within it.
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 .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------
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 .
