Dear Jeff
A marvelous answer. I agree in your great formulation of the difference between
Husserl and Peirce, which hardly any of my philosophical colleagues here in
Danmark understand. I too agree that you have to start in phenomenology, but I
do think that from there it is difficult to establish an outer world of nature
and a society of embodied conscious subjects. In cybernetics we see the
problem in George Spencer Browns mathematical philosophy of distinction, which
is part of the foundation of Luhmann's systems theory. Merleau-Ponty tried to
work out a solution for the body and ended pretty much the same place in his
Phenomenology of Perception as I do in my Cybersemiotics. It is necessary as a
prerequisite for any philosophy of knowing and science to postulate not only an
experiential world as the phenomenologists, but also an embodied self and
other, plus something all these embodied selves are existing in and have
experiences about. I can find no easy way from phenomenology alone - not even
from Peirce's triadic phaneroscophy - to the reality of an outer world and
other embodied conscious subjects. I do not think Peirce solves this problem.
Do you?
Best
Søren
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 20. oktober 2016 15:50
Cc: Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universes and Categories (was Peirce's Cosmology)
Soren, Jon S, Gary R,
Soren suggests there are two problems with Peirce's semiotic theory. One
problem is the phenomenological starting point--which starts with a set of
mathematical reflections on formal relations. Another problem is the attempt to
build a realistic ontology in the semiotic theory.
Let me offer the converse argument. The real strengths of Peirce's semiotic
theory--as compared to the theories of other 20th century philosophers--such as
Russell and Quine or Husserl and Heidegger--are the following. First, the
phenomenological theory is guided by a remarkably deep set of mathematical
reflections on what is really essential as a set of elemental formal relations
in the phenomena that might be observed. Husserl, for example, is working
towards the same sort of end in his phenomenological theory, but his
mathematical reflections are overly guided by ideas drawn from arithmetic and
metrical geometries--and he misses real insights about the character of the
continuous and discrete features in our observations can be drawn from graph
theory and topology. As such, he (and Heidegger following him) simply do not
provide the kind of phenomenological analysis of the elemental formal and
material features of experience that is really needed. Our aim in generating
the phenomenological account is to properly analyze the observations,
articulate what is necessary for the formal elements to be well ordered,
correct for the various sources of observational error, and determine how it is
possible to make reasonable comparisons and apply various forms of measurement
to those observations. Neither Husserl nor Heidegger provides an account of the
formal elements that are essential for accomplishing these goals.
One reason that Peirce does not start in the phenomenological inquiries with
a division between internal experience and the outside world is that he doesn't
want to prejudice the analysis. He wants to develop the tools that are needed
to analyze any sort of phenomena that might be observed--regardless of whether
those observations are directed inwardly or outwardly. Those who import
metaphysical conceptions concerning the real nature of external objects or
internal thoughts into the account will struggle to articulate those formal
categories that are elemental in any sort of experience--real or imagined.
Peirce's reason for setting those distinctions aside is that we don't want, at
the outset, to prejudge the question of which features in our observations of
the phenomena are erroneous and which are not. Rather, we want to arrive at
conclusions about the character of our observational errors in a way that can
be both trusted in some degree and corrected upon further inquiry.
So, I do not think that the phenomenological theory of the categories starts
from an assumption that realism is true and nominalism is false. Peirce seeks
to develop a theory of semiotics that starts with a phenomenological analysis
of the observations that are needed to develop clear explanations of the sign
relations that are essential for assertions to be true or false and significant
or meaningless (in the speculative grammar), and for patterns of inference to
be valid or invalid (in the critical logic)--and that can be put to the test.
He wants to keep open the question of whether realism or nominalism is true
about any given sort of question. He seeks to answer those sorts of questions
in the development of his theory of metaphysics in a manner that is well-guided
by an adequate semiotic theory. Russell and Quine prejudge the answers to these
questions because they import metaphysical conceptions and commitments for
nominalism in some places and for idealism in others into theory formal systems
of logic and into theory philosophical theories of sign relations and logical
inferences.
--Jeff
Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354
________________________________
From: Søren Brier <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2016 5:56 AM
To: 'Jon Alan Schmidt'; Gary Richmond
Cc: Peirce-L
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universes and Categories (was Peirce's Cosmology)
Dear Gary, Jon and list
I suggest that the problem is with a phenomenological foundation of his
semiotics and Peirce's attempt to build a realistic ontology. In the
phenomenological view there is no basic difference between experience and the
outside world because there is no fundamental distinction between inside and
outside from the start. Peirce establishes in his phaneroscophy his three
categories from a pure mathematical and epistemological argument as a minimum
conditions for cognition in the form of semiosis to function. Thus inside the
ontology of phaneroscophy I think it is fair to say that the categories do
form three distinct different universes.
Best
Søren
From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 20. oktober 2016 00:09
To: Gary Richmond
Cc: Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universes and Categories (was Peirce's Cosmology)
Gary R., List:
GR: It seems to me that the Universes are a metaphysical expression of the
categories, and not at all a complete break from them. Do you agree?
Yes; I actually see no significant inconsistency between your statement here
and Jappy's hypothesis that Peirce changed theoretical frameworks from
phenomenological Categories to ontological Universes. That is why I began my
post with the six different characterizations from your PowerPoint file; they
all reflect common notions of Firstness/Secondness/Thirdness.
GR: To the extent that Jappy's analysis suggests a complete break in this
matter of Categories and Universes, I believe it confuses the issue.
Like Ransdell, I tend to view the development of Peirce's thought over time as
evolutionary, rather than catastrophic (so to speak). As such, I think that
the shift from Categories to Universes is not so abrupt as calling it "a
complete break" makes it sound, and Jappy never uses those words; in fact, he
recognizes that the transition occurred over several years. He simply observes
in a footnote that "after 1906 Peirce never again employed his categories as
criteria in the classification of signs."
GR: Nonetheless, Peirce's comments from the Prolegomena which you quoted, Jon,
would surely seem to suggest the need to distinguish Universes from Categories
in such ways as you pointed to (e.g., Subjects in Universes, Predicates in
Categories).
Yes, I think that this is key; I somehow missed it when I read that passage
right after Gary F. first brought it to my attention in this context. Am I
right to think that relations are Predicates, rather than Subjects, and thus
belong in Categories, rather than Universes?
In light of the above--do we need to come up with a different term that
encompasses both Universes of Subjects and Categories of Predicates?
Modalities, perhaps? Then the three Universes would be Modalities as they
pertain to Subjects (Ideas/Things-Facts/Habits-Laws-Continua), while the three
Categories would be Modalities as they pertain to Predicates
(possibility/actuality/habituality).
Any comments on my hypothesis that the distinctions between the two kinds of
Objects (Dynamic/Immediate) and among the three kinds of Interpretants
(Immediate/Dynamic/Final) are based on the phenomenological Categories, while
the trichotomy of each individual correlate is based on the ontological
Universes? What about the feasibility of constructing a 66-sign classification
with six correlates divided by Universe and four relations divided by Category?
Regards,
Jon
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 4:34 PM, Gary Richmond
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Jon, List,
I'm not sure I can fully agree with Jappy's/Short's analysis, at least when the
language Jappy uses seems to imply that the three Universes represent a break
from the categories. It seems to me that the Universes are a metaphysical
expression of the categories, and not at all a complete break from them. Do you
agree?
One of Short's principal theses in his work of, say, the last decade on
Peirce's semiotic is that at several points in his career Peirce thoroughly
rejected whole portions of his previous thinking, replacing them with entirely
new theories. But scholars like Joseph Ransdell were critical of Short in this
(for example, Ransdell wrote a searingly critical review of Short's Peirce's
Theory of Signs) for they consider Peirce's thought as essentially evolving
over his career. To the extent that Jappy's analysis suggests a complete break
in this matter of Categories and Universes, I believe it confuses the issue.
Nonetheless, Peirce's comments from the Prolegomena which you quoted, Jon,
would surely seem to suggest the need to distinguish Universes from Categories
in such ways as you pointed to (e.g., Subjects in Universes, Predicates in
Categories).
But, in truth, I've only begun to think about these distinctions.
Best,
Gary R
[Gary Richmond]
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690<tel:718%20482-5690>
On Wed, Oct 19, 2016 at 2:28 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
List:
I was digging through my burgeoning collection of Peircean secondary literature
this morning and came across Gary Richmond's PowerPoint presentation on
"Trikonic"
(http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/richmond/trikonicb.ppt).
It helpfully summarizes various characterizations of the three
Categories/Universes.
* Basic Categories: unit, correlate, medium.
* Universes of Experience: ideas, brute events, habits.
* Universal Categories: possibility, actuality, necessity.
* Existential Categories: feeling, action-reaction, thought.
* Logical Categories: vague, specific, general; or may be, actually is,
must be.
* Valencies: monad, dyad, triad.
I also found two papers by Tony Jappy that, upon re-reading them, I found to be
relevant to this topic--"Speculative Rhetoric, Methodeutic and Peirce's Hexadic
Sign-Systems" (2014) and especially "The Evolving Theoretical Framework of
Peirce's Classification Systems" (2016), both of which are available online at
https://univ-perp.academia.edu/TonyJappy/Papers. His book, Peirce's
Twenty-Eight Classes of Signs and the Philosophy of Representation, is coming
out in December
(http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/peirces-twenty-eight-classes-of-signs-and-the-philosophy-of-representation-9781474264839/);
unfortunately, it looks like the price will be quite steep ($128 list).
Jappy's hypothesis is that Peirce fundamentally changed his theoretical
framework for sign classification--from phenomenological Categories to
ontological Universes--during the time period between 1903 (three trichotomies,
10 sign classes) and 1908 (six or ten trichotomies, 28 or 66 sign classes).
From the conclusion of the second paper ...
TJ: The three categories, which, irrespective of their origin, had accompanied
all his work in the classification of signs from the earliest period until
approximately 1904, was superseded in 1908 by a broad ontological vision
embracing three universes, receptacles with respect to which the sign and its
correlates could be referred in the course of the classification of a sign. The
logical principles supporting this later typological approach to signs, the
fruit of an evolution in Peirce's conception of the object and of the rapid
theoretical development that his conception of sign-action experienced in those
years between 1904 and 1906, are, therefore, radically different from those of
the earlier approach, and it is doubtful that the two will ever be combined in
a satisfactory manner in the quest for the sixty-six classes that Peirce hoped
to identify.
In the body of the same paper, Jappy twice quotes from "Prolegomena to an
Apology for Pragmaticism" to explain the difference between Universes and
Categories in this context.
TJ: 1906 was the year, finally, in which Peirce explicitly introduced a
fundamental distinction between categories and universes ... making explicit
the universes to which the subjects mentioned in the extract (RL463 26-28)
quoted earlier belonged:
CSP: Oh, I overhear what you are saying, O Reader: that a Universe and a
Category are not at all the same thing; a Universe being a receptacle or class
of Subjects, and a Category being a mode of Predication, or class of
Predicates. I never said they were the same thing; but whether you describe the
two correctly is a question for careful study. (CP 4.545, 1906)
TJ: In short, the passage suggests that Peirce is turning his back on the
logico-phenomenological framework within which he had established his theory of
signs since the mid-1860s, and that he is evolving towards an ontological
approach to classification, anticipating in this field, too, the definitions
advanced in the 23 December 1908 letter ...
TJ: ... The theoretical framework within which Peirce is now working is
ontological in the widest sense, involving the three universes defined above,
three universes which are entirely different from the phenomenological
categories of 1903-1904. A universe, says Peirce, is not the same as a
category: "Let us begin with the question of Universes. It is rather a question
of an advisable point of view than of the truth of a doctrine. A logical
universe is, no doubt, a collection of logical subjects, but not necessarily of
metaphysical Subjects, or 'substances'; for it may be composed of characters,
of elementary facts, etc." (CP 4.546, 1906). In this way, the correlates
involved in semiosis figure ... as subjects susceptible of belonging to one or
other of these universes ... the correlates thus described are not subdivided
in any way by Firstness, Secondness or Thirdness but are subjects or members of
a given universe: the dynamic object is one subject, the sign is another, etc.
Unfortunately, Jappy confines his analysis to the six semeiotic
correlates--Dynamic/Immediate Object, Sign, Immediate/Dynamic/Final
Interpretants--and does not address the four semeiotic relations, except to
note how Peirce described them in a 1904 letter to Lady Welby (CP 8.327-341),
when he was still employing Categories rather than Universes. So I guess the
questions that I posed earlier today must be preceded by this one--are
relations in general, and semeiotic relations in particular, more properly
treated as Subjects in Universes or as Predicates in Categories? If the
latter, then that may explain why Peirce never managed to arrange all ten
trichotomies into a definitive order of determination to establish the 66 sign
classes, and why Jappy is skeptical that this can even be done.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
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