Jon, list - 1) Your insistence that an interpretation of Peirce is bonded to 'either he meant what [I interpret as his meaning] or he did not' - is not logical evidence - but almost a threat.
2) My response to his NA is not to ignore it but to acknowledge that I cannot interpret it within his full body of work - which includes his earlier writings. Note - I am not ignoring it; I cannot correlate it except as metaphoric, with his earlier writings. 3) Your claim that you have indeed correlated the NA with his earlier writings remains your claim - you haven't convinced me of your having done so. 4) Your claim that IF I declare that my current writings 'more accurately reflect' my 'considered' views [And what does 'considered views' mean?] THEN, this nullifies my previous views is illogical. My current views [I don't know what 'considered views' means] are based on and grounded in my previous work. I don't subscribe to an axiom that 'a later view is a more accurate view' for such a mechanical perspective has nothing to do with how the mind works - which is not the same as the mechanical design process. Indeed, my later views might well be weakened by a current inaccurate 'fad' attachment on my part; there is no evidence that I am less susceptible to such emotions as I age. 5) Nor do I declare, anywhere, that Peirce rejected his later writings. Would you please provide me with evidence for where I declare or even suggest that he did so? I have said that I, myself, am not able to correlate his NA with the rest of his body of work - and again, your insistence that YOU have done so, has not convinced me of such a result. Since I don't insert assumptions of 'the principle of charity' which is a rather sanctimonious claim - then, I am not going to claim that the NA IS or IS NOT consistent with Peirce's other work. I am only talking about MYSELF - which is that I don't see that it, read 'in itself' rather than metaphorocally, correlates with the rest of his work. Your insistence that it does; that your interpretation is 'beyond debate' ; that 'it is incontrovertible' ..etc...are indeed powerful statements but these phrases are not arguments. So- I don't see the point of such counterclaims. They have less to do with Peirce than with ourselves. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Alan Schmidt To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: Peirce-L Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 10:15 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology) Edwina, List: If Peirce wrote what he meant and meant what he wrote, then it is incontrovertible that in 1908 he believed that God as Ens necessarium was the Creator of all three Universes of Experience and all of their contents, without exception. By what valid method of interpretation can anyone plausibly deny this? You have admitted that your response to "A Neglected Argument" is to ignore it, because you cannot explain it; it does not and cannot align with your favored interpretation of Peirce's earlier cosmological writings. I, on the other hand, do not reject the latter, as you keep (wrongly) alleging; on the contrary, as I have said before, I seek to harmonize them with his later writings, under the principle of charity--we should assume consistency between two passages, unless there is no viable way to reconcile them. At the same time, I do believe that later writings should generally be given priority over earlier ones, in accordance with the presupposition that they reflect additional contemplation and refinement of the ideas discussed. Again, which more accurately presents your considered views--something that you wrote twenty years ago, or something that you wrote yesterday? I hope you realize that the sword you are now wielding cuts both ways. The FACT that you, yourself, are a firm non-believer in such a 'pre-existent Creator' seems to me, to encourage you to declare that Peirce, without proof, rejected his later writings. Regards, Jon On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 8:46 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: Jon, list - and that's my point. You insist that 'there is really no debating whether he (at least eventually) believed that there is a non-immanent Creator involved; he said so explicitly, in "A Neglected Argument" and its manuscript drafts. " But there IS a debate. You choose to ignore his other arguments against such a pre-existent Creator as 'irrelevant' because you declare, without proof, that since he wrote such views earlier in his life that he thus, according to you, 'evolved' out of them. The FACT that you, yourself, are a firm believer in such a 'pre-existent Creator' seems to me, to encourage you to declare that Peirce, without proof, rejected his earlier writings. You insert the same focus in other areas, such as the notion of a pre-world 'ur-Thirdness' - since you, yourself, firmly believe in a prior Force. And since you tend to immediately reject any attempts to suggest that your interpretations of Peirce's beliefs and yours are not identical - then, this thread moves away from discussion to circularity with you insisting that you have 'proved your case' and 'there is no debate'. But - I don't see such finality. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Alan Schmidt To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: Gary Richmond ; Peirce-L Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 9:33 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology) Edwina, List: ET: I, for one, don't see in Peirce that there is a 'pre-Big Bang universe' of 'ur-continuity' nor that there is a 'creator' involved in this 'ur-continuity'. Nor that there is a 'different kind of pre-Big Bang Thirdness. Gary R. and I have laid out our reasons for seeing all of that in Peirce. In particular, there is really no debating whether he (at least eventually) believed that there is a non-immanent Creator involved; he said so explicitly, in "A Neglected Argument" and its manuscript drafts. One can argue that he was wrong about that, but not that he himself was an atheist, even though atheists can certainly gain many valuable insights from him; ditto for pantheists and panentheists. ET: It seems to me that we are moving into a discussion based around our own firmly-held personal beliefs about god, the world, creation etc, and are using Peirce, searching for and 'interpreting' his writings, to support our own personal beliefs. There is always a danger--a likelihood, even--that our own personal biases will influence our "readings" of someone else's writings; but that extends to all aspects of Peirce's thought, not just these particular metaphysical matters. By discussing them in a forum like this, we are giving others the opportunity to help us recognize when we fall into such patterns and adjust our thinking accordingly. Some of us have even changed our minds as a result of these conversations. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 8:04 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: I, for one, don't see in Peirce that there is a 'pre-Big Bang universe' of 'ur-continuity' nor that there is a 'creator' involved in this 'ur-continuity'. Nor that there is a 'different kind of pre-Big Bang Thirdness. But I am concerned about the focus of this thread. It seems to me that we are moving into a discussion based around our own firmly-held personal beliefs about god, the world, creation etc, and are using Peirce, searching for and 'interpreting' his writings, to support our own personal beliefs. I don't see the point of such a discussion. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Richmond To: Peirce-L Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 12:05 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology) Soren, Jon, List. Soren wrote: But if the Logos is logic as semiotics and is emerging as thirdness or the tendency to take habits in all nature of Secondness as Stjernfelt argues so Well in Natural propositions and feeling is present in all matter (Hylozoism) and all three categories arise as universes from pure Zero. . . Jon and I (and others) have argued that the 3ns which "emerges" following the creation of this Universe (that is, after the Big Bang, so to loosely speak) is *not* the same as the 3ns which is the ur-continuity represented by the black board example in the last of the 1898 lectures. It seems to me that much hinges on whether or not one sees our Universe as presupposing this ur-continuity (nothing in particular but everything in general, with yet a tendency toward habit-taking because of this ur-continuity, otherwise termed the zero of pure potential, which is, for Peirce, certainly not "nothing at all"). It has further been noted that Peirce suggests that the Creator is, or in some way participates, in this ur-continuity. Once *this* Universe is "in effect," then, yes, all that you and Stjernfelt argue may follow (although, I remain, as was Peirce, I firmly believe, a theist and not a panentheist, so I tend to reject that part of your argumentation, at least in consideration of the early cosmos). Best, Gary R Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690
----------------------------- 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 .
