Jeff, List: Thank you for this very interesting suggestion. In order to facilitate such a discussion (hopefully), here is the passage about "Super-order" from CP 6.490.
CSP: 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 ... 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. For example, to suppose a thing to have any particular character is to suppose a conditional proposition to be true of it, which proposition would express some kind of super-order, as any formulation of a general fact does. To suppose it to have elasticity of volume is to suppose that if it were subjected to pressure its volume would diminish until at a certain point the full pressure was attained within and without its periphery. This is a super-order, a law expressible by a differential equation. Any such super-order would be a super-habit. Any general state of things whatsoever would be a super-order and a super-habit. Obviously I have been focusing on the blackboard diagram recently, so I will need to review the earlier portions of the lecture in RLT with this in mind. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 4:39 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard < jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote: > Gary R, Jon S, List, > > The pages you and Jon are examining (RLT 261-4) are quite challenging. The > guiding aims of the lecture, he tells us on the first page, are (1) to work > out the logical difficulties involved in the conception of continuity, and > then (2) to address the metaphysical difficulties associated with the > conception. What is needed, he says, is a better method of reasoning about > continuity in philosophy generally. > > It looks to me like the mathematical survey of the relationships he notes > between topology, projective geometry and metrical geometries are being > used to set up the arguments. Likewise, the phenomenological thought > experiment involving the cave of odors is also doing some work. > > The mathematical examples he offers are meant, I am supposing, to offer us > with some nice case studies that we can use to study the methods that have > been taking shape in the 19th century in order to handle mathematical > questions about continuity in topology and projective geometry. One goal of > this discussion, I assume, is to analyze these examples in order to see how > those mathematical methods might be applied to the logical difficulties > involved in working with the conception. > > Then, the phenomenological experiment is designed as an exercise that > helps to limber us up for the challenges we face. The goal is to provide us > with some exercises of the imagination in which we are being asked to > explore arrangements of odors in spaces that are markedly different from > our typical experience of how things that are spatially arranged. One of > the key ideas, I believe, is that this imaginative exploration does not > involve any kind of optical ray of light or any physical straight bar that > might be used to apply projective or metrical standards to the spatial > arrangements. > > The big conclusion he draws from both the mathematical and > phenomenological investigations is logical in character: "A continuum may > have any discrete multitude of dimensions whatsoever. If the multiude of > dimensions surpasses all discrete multitudes there cease to be any distinct > dimensions. I have not as yet obtained any logically distinct conception of > such a continuum. Provisionally, I identify it with the uralt vague > generality of the most abstract potentiality." (253-4) On page 257, he > makes the transition from the attempt to draw on mathematics and > phenomenology for the sake of addressing the logical difficulties > associated with the concept of continuity, and the then takes up the > metaphysical difficulties. > > Before turning to the questions of theological metaphysics that he takes > up on 258-9 or the example of the diagrams on the blackboard shortly > thereafter, let me ask a question. In the Additament to the Neglected > Argument, he makes use of the conception of Super-order. I am wondering if > there is anything in his discussion of mathematics and phenomenology in the > first part of this last lecture in RLT that might help us to clarify this > conception of Super-order? What I'd like to do is to work towards a more > adequate understanding of that conception and then see if it could be used > to shed some light on the points he is making on pages 258-64--or vice > versa. > > --Jeff > > Jeffrey Downard > Associate Professor > Department of Philosophy > Northern Arizona University > (o) 928 523-8354
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
