> On Oct 24, 2016, at 8:43 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Edwina, List: > > ET: After all, chaos IS something - i.e., it is the absence of order within > a collection of bits of unorganized matter. > > Not according to Peirce--he explicitly held that chaos is nothing.
It’s worth noting that the word ‘nothing’ is ambiguous in most western languages. An obvious example of this is the infamous debate between Heidegger and Carnap over nothing. Carnap and most positivists came away thinking Heidegger a loon because of statements like ‘the nothing nothings.’ If one reads Peirce, particularly the passages from the late 80’s that Edwina brought up, as a neoplatonist then he’s clearly much more in that Heidegger camp. The main distinction is between nothing as ‘empty set’ versus ‘not a thing.’ With the neoplatonic conception you have ‘thingness’ as ideas, soul, spirit and so forth. You then have the One which typically is a nothing that is not a thing but clearly also not an empty set. In some forms of platonism in late antiquity such as Plotinus’ you also have prime matter which is conceive of as not a thing but a place to receive things and make them possible. All of this ends up going back to the Timaeus and the notions there - especially that of chora or khora which is usually translated as receptacle or space. When you look at Peirce subject is a kind of place for predication. So chaos for him is this receptical or space. It’s very much the prime matter that was common in neoplatonism (and which obviously arose out of Aristotle as much as Plato’s Timaeus) I’d add that Duns Scotus’ conception of the ouisia of God as nothing might also be playing into Peirce’s conception. I don’t know if anyone’s done anything on that though. One of the quotes you provided also is quite platonic in its nature. If what is demanded is a theological backing, or rational antecedent, to the chaos, that my theory fully supplies. The chaos is a state of intensest feeling, although, memory and habit being totally absent, it is sheer nothing still. Feeling has existence only so far as it is welded into feeling. Now the welding of this feeling to the great whole of feeling is accomplished only by the reflection of a later date. In itself, therefore, it is nothing; but in its relation to the end it is everything. (CP 6.612; 1893) This is very much a kind of relationship of prime matter to the One in neoplatonism. The big shift from Platonism is that prime matter is put first rather than the One. Although this inversion of the usual process of emanation can be found in various types of neoPlatonism as well despite its more heretical character. It’s also common in 20th century post-Husserlian phenomenology. I should add that 6.215-219 is well worth reading on this subject as well, especially relative to the Heidegger/Carnap debate. Again, let me note that this part of Peirce’s thought seems to me to be the most controversial. I’m not sure it’s necessary for his thought as a whole. > "Chaos" in Peirce's usage means no regularity, no determinacy, no existence, > no happenings, no relations, no connection, no law, no memory, no habit, no > causation, no generality--sheer nothing, blank nothing, pure nothing--and > that is precisely how he characterized mere feeling (Firstness) and action > (Secondness) without continuity (Thirdness). In other words, unless the > blackboard (Thirdness) is already in place--"theological backing, or rational > antecedent"--there can never be a spontaneous chalk mark with its whiteness > (Firstness) and boundary (Secondness) in the first place. In a similar way, I might add, to us from a platonic point of view without Soul there is nothing. Peirce’s notion of thirdness is very similar to the third emanation in Plotinus’ system of emanations. It’s interesting that for some, such as Proclus, each of these is a separate god. It’s also here that the late platonists tended to inject a lot of Stoicism into their thought. The third god who is at the level of soul is the sensible world that is able to think discursively. Going back to the Neglected Argument I should note that a lot of how Peirce talks about God parallels Proclus. But this isn’t an area I’m really that well versed. Peirce clearly is well read on these authors though. They do form an important context for a lot of his thinking. (Although shouldn’t be reduced to it) While it’s not an area I’m that well versed on, some have dealt with the issue. https://books.google.com/books?id=zHDnlYfrbMcC&pg=PA85&dq=peirce+proclus&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwirysj57PPPAhVH1WMKHc-HDfgQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=peirce%20proclus&f=false The relationship of abduction to Proclus in that paper is quite interesting. (As an aside, this is the same book that Kelly Parker’s paper on Peirce as a neoPlatonist appears)
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