Jeff, Jon S, List,
Jeff, I agree that indeed this entire final lecture ("The Logic of
Continuity" in RLT) is challenging. I also at first glance tend to agree
with your suggestions as to what Peirce is up to in the several sections of
that lecture. For example, concerning Peirce's "mathematical survey" and
"phenomenological experiment" involving the cave odors you wrote:
JD: 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.
JD: [. . .] One goal of [the mathematical] 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.
[. . .] The goal of the [phenomenological experiment, the odor caves] 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.
And, as you point out, what he concludes from the survey and experiment 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)
He then, as you noted, transitions to the metaphysical questions involving
the blackboard diagram. You suggested that before considering further "the
questions of theological metaphysics" that it might be helpful to reflect
on Peirce's conception of super-order in the N.A. as being perhaps an aid
in interpreting the blackboard diagram; or, vice versa, that the RLT
diagram might help us get a firmer grasp of super-order.
I think that that's an excellent idea. If Jon agrees, I recall his posting
a nice summary of what he drew from Peirce's discussion of super-order a
short while back, so that if he were to cut and paste that here, it might
be a good way to get the discussion going. Hoping that this will happen,
I've changed the Subject of the thread.
Best,
Gary R
*cation Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 5:39 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <
[email protected]> 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
> ________________________________________
> From: Gary Richmond [[email protected]]
> Sent: Friday, November 4, 2016 1:04 PM
> To: Peirce-L
> Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's
> Cosmology)
>
> Helmut, List,
>
> Whatever you or Edwina may think, whatever the 'truth' of the matter may
> prove to be (if any such proof were possible, which I greatly doubt),
> Peirce wrote this (embedded in an argument which makes his position-- that
> there is a Platonic cosmos from which this, shall we say, Aristotelian one
> issues--quite clear).
>
> Peirce: "[A]ll 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 one of these Platonic worlds is differentiated the
> particular actual universe of existence in which we happen to be." (RLT,
> 263, emphasis added).
>
> The immediate question as I see it is: How did Peirce conceive of this
> matter? I would highly recommend that anyone looking into that question
> read carefully RLT, esp. 261-264.
>
> 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
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 3:52 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]<mailto:
> [email protected]>> wrote:
> Edwina, list,
> I my humble (being a layman about all these things) opinion, I agree with
> Edwina, because the big bang is said to have been a singularity, and I
> guess, that "singularity" is not only a matter of physics, but of
> everything, such as philosophy, black boards, metaphysical meanings of
> metaphors, whatever. So there can not be a "pre" of it, the less as the big
> bang is said to be not only the origin of space, but of time too. Lest you
> suggest a meta-time, in a meta-universe, but then the problem of beginning
> is merely postponed to that: Did the meta-universe come from a
> meta-big-bang? I only have two possible explanations for this problem of
> origin/beginning: Either there was no beginning/creation, and no big bang
> (I had supposed a multi-bubble-universe some weeks ago) , or there is a
> circle of creation, like: A creates B, B creates C, C creates A. But this
> would mean, that creation is atemporal, otherwise it would not work. But I
> like it, and maybe it is good for some quite funny science-fiction story.
> But perhaps it is not far fetched: Creation is everywhere, is "God", and it
> forms circular attractors of recreation. Stop! This is getting weird, I
> have to think some more about it first.
> Best,
> Helmut
>
> 04. November 2016 um 19:44 Uhr
> "Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
>
> Gary R - again, it is my strong sense that I am accurately representing
> Peirce's views on this issue. I don't see that I disagree with him at all -
> but I do disagree with you and Jon on this issue [and, obviously, on
> theistic issues as well].
>
> That is - I don't see a Nothing, which is to say, the pre BigBang world,
> as a set of Platonic worlds. If this were the case, then, it would not be
> nothing but would be sets of ideal potentialities. Instead, it is nothing,
> 'pure zero', pure freedom, no variety of Platonic worlds which after all,
> establish different perspectives, it is "absolutely undefined and unlimited
> possibility' ...not a SET of Platonic worlds. [1.412, 6.217].
>
> Then, with the BigBang, this set up the Blackboard 'the original vague
> potentiality' and moved into that set of multiple possible Platonic worlds
> within the phase of Firstness and Secondness. At this time, these 'bits'
> were without habits [Thirdness] - that's what provides them with their
> potentiality; it is possible that many chalkmarks appeared..... "Many such
> reacting systems may spring up in the original continuum; and each of these
> may itself acts as a first line from which a larger system may be built, in
> which it in turn will merge its individuality" 6.207. This is POST BigBang.
>
> With these multiple sets - the universe could have gone anywhere; some of
> those 'bits' could have dissipated; others could have emerged; some could
> have stayed. But THEN - came the development of habits, Thirdness - and
> these habits established our particular world rather than one of the other
> 'Platonic worlds'. By chance [tychasm], habits developed within ONE TYPE
> of 'Platonic world'...and the others, I presume, dissolved, as our
> particular universe took over.
>
> The multiple Platonic worlds are not pre BigBang, in my reading, but post.
> And Thirdness quickly isolated and privileged one 'Set' - which then became
> our particular universe.
>
> Therefore, I equally don't read Peirce as having the three categories
> 'existential' in the pre BigBang phase; my reading is that these three
> categories, which are fundamental laws of matter/mind...emerged WITH the
> emergence of matter/mind...and are not separate from it.
>
> Therefore - you and Jon, and others, may certainly reject my reading of
> Peirce, just as I reject yours and Jon's - but, I don't think we are at the
> stage where we can definitely say that only ONE reading is The Accurate
> One. I offer my reading; some on the list may agree; some may not. That is
> as far as a scholarly list can go, I think.
>
> Edwina
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gary Richmond<mailto:[email protected]>
> To: Peirce-L<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 1:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
>
> Edwina, Jon S, List,
>
> I certainly do not intend to get into a long (or even a short) discussion
> with you, Edwina, on this as both your position and Jon's (and mine) have
> been rather thoroughly and repeatedly articulated. I must say, however,
> that I do not see your "reading" of the blackboard passages as 'fair
> minded' at all, but rather it seems to me to impose your own conceptual
> framework on Peirce's very different one.
>
> For example, at RLT, 263, in the midst of the long and complex blackboard
> discussion, RLT, 261-4, which blackboard Peirce himself refers to as "a
> sort of Diagram of the original vague potentiality," RLT, 261), he comments
> (and I've pointed to this passage before):
>
> "[A]ll 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 one of these Platonic worlds is differentiated the
> particular actual universe of existence in which we happen to be." (RLT,
> 263, emphasis added).
>
> Now you may disagree with Peirce in this matter, but this is what he
> wrote--the blackboard diagram would seem to represent what he no doubt
> believed to be the character of the cosmos before "one of these Platonic
> worlds is differentiated the particular actual universe of existence in
> which we happen to be," that is, before what corresponds to the Big Bang.
>
> It is my strong sense that Jon has consistently accurately presented
> Peirce's views as they appear in the 1898 lecture, and that your remarks
> contra his do not represent Peirce's clearly articulated views (as, for
> example, given in the quotation above), but rather your own. They seem to
> me less an interpretation than a misreading of Peirce, one which your
> conceptual framework apparently requires.
>
> 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
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 1:03 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Gary R, list:
>
> Well, I consider myself a 'fair-minded reader of Peirce' and I certainly
> don't agree with Jon S's view that the blackboard is pre-Big Bang and that
> the three Categories are pre-Big Bang, with Thirdness primordial.
>
> Of course the blackboard is a metaphor - set out as a diagram...but that
> diagram is a metaphor of what we assume is that 'original vague
> potentiality or at any rate of some early stage of its determination'.
> 6.203. As I said in my earlier post today, my reading is that this
> blackboard is POST Big Bang, which is why it is a 'continuum of some
> indefinite multitude of dimensions'. 6.203. This is NOT the same as the
> pre Big Bang Zeroness - which is NOTHING.
>
> And by 'continuum', I certainly don't see this as Thirdness, for Thirdness
> is a continuum of some particular habits, not just a 'continuum and
> certainly not of 'indefinite multitude of dimensions. The very nature of
> Thirdness is its function to constrain novelty and insert morphological
> habits.
>
> As for quibbling about whether the chalk mark is a point or a line -
> that's irrelevant. It is a unique 'bit' of matter/mind - that is
> differentiated from what-it-is-not ["the limit between the black surface
> and the white surface} 6.203]. It's the differentiation from
> 'what-it-is-not' that is important, for this is obviously Secondness.
>
> The first chalkmark exhibits only Firstness [its novel appearance] and
> Secondness [its differentiation from the blackness] but would only exhibit
> Thirdness if it stayed 'as it is' and if other chalkmarks appear and they
> develop common habits of formation. As Peirce notes 'However, the mark is a
> mere accident, and as such may be erased. It will not interfere with
> another mark drawn in quite another way. There need be no consistency
> between the two. But no further progress beyond this can be made, until a
> mark with stay for a little while; that is, until some beginning of a habit
> has been established by virtue of which the accident acquires some
> incipient staying quality, some tendency toward consistency. This habit is
> a generalizing tendency" 6.204.
>
> The three categories are fundamental laws of nature; their origin is with
> nature - which includes the physico-chemical as well as biological realms.
> Therefore - I disagree that they are pre-BigBang. I read Peirce that they
> originate, as natural laws, with the BigBang's potentiality.
>
> Edwina
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gary Richmond<mailto:[email protected]>
> To: Peirce-L<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 12:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
>
> Jon S, Edwina, List,
>
> Jon wrote:
>
>
> *
> * The Big Bang corresponds to our existing universe being
> differentiated out of one of these "Platonic worlds" (CP 6.208) as "a
> discontinuous mark" (NEM 4:345, RLT:162) on the whiteboard.
>
> Consequently, the blackboard--which precedes the whiteboard, and is the
> source of its continuity--cannot be post-Big Bang; and the three Categories
> must be pre-Big Bang, with Thirdness primordial among them.
>
> Minus your addition of the notion of a whiteboard--which additon I think
> is quite helpful in representing the "Aggregations of merged chalk marks
> represent[ing] "reacting systems" that aggregate further into "Platonic
> worlds" (CP 6.206-208"--this is certainly the way I have always seen
> Peirce's blackboard discussion and, I believe, a fair minded reader must
> see it (whether or not they agree with Peirce here). As I wrote just
> yesterday, in the blackboard diagram--not a metaphor (I stand
> corrected)--"Peirce seems not at all to be considering the semiosic
> universe we inhabit, but the conditions for any, perhaps many, possible
> universe(s) to arise."
>
> Thanks especially for succinctly putting the argumentation into bullet
> points (including pointers to the exact passages in CP 6.203-208), this
> constituting an excellent summary of Peirce's 1898 argument.
>
> 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
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 11:56 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Edwina, List:
>
> I could post a lengthy rebuttal, but it would basically just repeat what I
> have already laid out in considerable detail in this thread and the others
> associated with Peirce's Cosmology, so I will spare everyone (including
> myself) the dissertation. I will simply reiterate a few quick points about
> the blackboard illustration.
>
> * The blackboard is "a sort of diagram" (CP 6.203), not a metaphor;
> this means that it embodies the significant relations among the parts of
> whatever it represents.
> * The blackboard "is a continuum of two dimensions" that represents "a
> continuum of some indefinite multitude of dimensions" (CP 6.203); and a
> continuum is a paradigmatic manifestation of Thirdness.
> * The chalk mark is not a point, or even a line; it is a surface, and
> its continuity is entirely derived from and dependent on that of the
> underlying blackboard (CP 6.203).
> * The chalk mark exhibits all three Categories (CP
> 6.203&205)--Firstness (whiteness), Secondness (boundary between black and
> white), and Thirdness (continuity).
> * Aggregations of merged chalk marks represent "reacting systems" that
> aggregate further into "Platonic worlds" (CP 6.206-208), each of which I
> call a "whiteboard."
> * The Big Bang corresponds to our existing universe being
> differentiated out of one of these "Platonic worlds" (CP 6.208) as "a
> discontinuous mark" (NEM 4:345, RLT:162) on the whiteboard.
>
> Consequently, the blackboard--which precedes the whiteboard, and is the
> source of its continuity--cannot be post-Big Bang; and the three Categories
> must be pre-Big Bang, with Thirdness primordial among them.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 7:57 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Gary, list - yes, I think that both tone and repetition are getting
> tiresome, to say the least.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by your suggestion of differentiating the
> 'early cosmos' from 'this our existential one' contra an Aristotelian one
> 'once there exists a particular three category semiosic universe'.
>
> 1) My confusion comes from my own view that our 'existential cosmos' IS a
> three category semiosic universe. That is, my view is that the three
> categories only emerge within the existentiality of the matter/mind
> universe. There are no categories before this 'Big Bang' or whatever began
> our universe.
>
> That is, in the pre-universe, "We start, then, with nothing, pure
> zero'....This pure zero is the nothing of not having been
> born......boundless freedom". 6.217. My reading of this is that this pure
> zero is NOT the same as Firstness, because, my reading of Firstness is that
> it is an embedded state of feeling, which means, that its nature is to
> express a quality of some form of matter/mind. Redness; heat; coldness....
> Therefore, my reading of this pre-universe state is that it was, as Peirce
> notes "unbounded potentiality'. This "Nothingness of boundless freedom
> 6.219..."is not, in my view, the same as the logic of freedom or
> possibility [which is Firstness].
>
> "What immediately resulted was that unbounded potentiality became
> potentiality of this or that sort - that is ,of some quality' 6.220. Now
> - my reading is that the unbounded Nothing [which again, is NOT Firstness
> or Thirdness]...suddenly moved into Firstness.
>
> Again, 'the zero of bare possibility, by evolutionary logic, leapt into
> the unit of some quality" 6.220. So again, the zero of nothing moved into
> Firstness, where 'something is possible/Red is something; therefore Red is
> possible'. 6.220. Again - the zero of bare possibility is NOT Firstness or
> Thirdness. It is Nothing. Then..it moved into being 'embedded' within
> matter - as Firstness....where something is possible. Not unbounded
> possibility but something is possible. This is already constrained
> possibility, very different from the 'zero of boundless possibility'.
>
> 2) His next phase seems to be, following the basic 'vague to the definite'
> 6.191, from a 'vague potentiality; and that either is or is followed by a
> continuum of forms having a multitude of dimensions too great for the
> individuals dimensions to be distinct" 6.196. These would be
> differentiated units in Secondness [and Firstness]. Then, habits of
> relations or Thirdness begin...and this vast multitude is 'contracted'.
> "The general indefinite potentiality became limited and heterogeneous"
> 6.199.
>
> 3) With regard to the blackboard metaphor, my reading of it is that the
> blackboard refers to 'the original vague potentiality, or at any rate of
> some stage of its determination' 6.203. My reading is that this blackboard
> is POST Big Bang. The blackboard is NOT the 'zero of bare possibility'.
> Instead, it is POST Big Bang - and suddenly, a singular point appears -
> that chalk line. [I'll leave out Peirce-as-God having drawn it]. As a
> point, it has identity, that continuity-of-being that Peirce refers to
> ['There is a certain element of continuity in this line" 6.203]..This is a
> unit in Secondness.
>
> The white chalk line appears within the act of Firstness, but is, in
> itself, operating ALSO within the mode of Secondness - because it is
> discrete and distinct.
>
> And then, habits or Thirdness, that generalizing tendency, develops. NOTE
> - Thirdness did not pre-exist on its own; it develops as the discrete units
> appear within Firstness and Secondness. That is, Thirdness is embedded
> within the existentialities of matter operating within Firstness and
> Secondness. It 'feeds and works' within these individual 'bits'...and
> develops generalizing laws.
>
> That's how I see this metaphor.
>
> Edwina
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gary Richmond<mailto:[email protected]>
> To: Peirce-L<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 11:46 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
>
> Jon, Edwina, Clark, List,
>
> Perhaps this back and forth--especially the tone and tendency towards
> repetition--has gotten "tiresome" for some readers as well as the most
> active participants.
>
> I had hoped my suggestion a while back of a Platonic cosmos pre-the Big
> Bang (note: of course I completely agree with Clark that one shouldn't
> really bring such very much later notions into the picture, which is why I
> used the modifier "loosely" when I last referred to it--but what language
> do we have to distinguish the early cosmos Peirce describes in the last
> lecture of the 1898 Reasoning and the Logic of Things from this, our,
> existential one?) contra a more Aristotelian cosmos once there exists a,
> shall we say, particular three category semiosic universe might be helpful
> in moving this discussion forward. So, my question: Are these two
> different? If so, how so? If not, why not?
>
> One thing I would be very interested in is what Edwina, Clark, and others
> make of the final 1898 lecture, esp. the blackboard metaphor. Here, as I
> interpret it, Peirce seems not at all to be considering the semiosic
> universe we inhabit, but the conditions for any, perhaps many, possible
> universe(s) to arise. Unlike the Neglected Argument essay, there is no
> explicit mention of God here, and Peirce seems to be making a purely
> scientific hypothesis. So, perhaps, dropping the God-talk for a moment,
> what is Peirce attempting in RLT?
>
> 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
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Edwina, List:
>
> Lest we get bogged down any further in yet another tiresome exegetical
> battle, I will simply say that I find almost nothing in your last post to
> be consistent with my understanding of Peirce's own thought. I once again
> leave it to the List community to decide which of us--if either of us--has
> demonstrated the more accurate interpretation.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 6:50 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> Jon - as Clark has been trying to point out, you and I are locked in
> terminological difficulties. Your insistence that YOUR use is identical
> with that of Peirce's use - is simply your own opinion.
>
> My reading of Peirce is that all three categorical modes only function
> within Relations. Firstness is NOT 'real' in the sense of it being a
> generality [ie., the reality of the laws of Thirdness] and it does exist as
> a state of 'existentiality; i.e., as a quality, a feeling, an openness,
> BUT, this state is itself an experience, entire in itself, and as such, it
> exists within that experience of its fullness. There is no such thing as an
> unembodied Firstness! Since it is a state of experience, then, it must be
> embodied. It is simply 'complete', so to speak and not open to the
> Otherness of analysis or reaction.
>
> You confine 'existence' to Secondness - which is, I feel, too narrow an
> understanding of the three categories and of the term 'existence'.
>
> I disagree that 'pure nothing' is Firstness and Secondness in the absence
> of Thirdness. I agree that without Thirdness - it would be chaos, but i
> don't see this as PURE nothing. After all, '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. My reading of that,
> is that there was no matter in a mode of Firstness or Secondness in this
> 'original chaos' - no 'existences' and no 'feelings'. Nothing.
>
> Now - of course, and as usual, you can disagree with me.
>
> Edwina
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jon Alan Schmidt<mailto:[email protected]>
> To: Edwina Taborsky<mailto:[email protected]>
> Cc: Peirce-L<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 7:25 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
>
> Edwina, List:
>
> Once again, I find your use of terminology inconsistent with Peirce's.
> Firstness is real, but does not exist. It has no Relations, because any
> Relation requires Secondness. "Pure nothing" is the chaos of Firstness and
> Secondness in the absence of Thirdness. Accepting any matter of fact--such
> as the origin of our existing universe--as inexplicable is unacceptable,
> because it blocks the way of inquiry. Nothing new here, so I will leave it
> at that.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 5:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> I think that 'actualization' and 'cause' are two entirely different
> actions.
>
> With regard to Firstness, I see it, as a spontaneous state of existence
> which might then act upon/be reacted to.., in the 'fullness of this state'.
> The point of all the categories is that they operate within Relations; they
> are not isolate in themselves. Firstness, as that spontaneous state of
> existence [which might dissipate in a nanosecond if it doesn't bond/relate
> to another entity]...can provide a novel form of existence.
>
> For example, a spontaneous mutation of a cell might be accepted by other
> cells and might become part of the organism's nature. Or, might not be
> accepted and its energy-content would dissipate.
>
> Or, a novel mode of transportation [Uber] might suddenly develop and might
> spread to other domains. Or, like many a new invention - it might disappear
> in a month.
>
> The causality of Firstness is the Relations that the novelty ir provides
> has on other organisms/entities. It can actually cause/effect changes in
> the larger system.
>
> Yes, I see the universe as self-emergent and self-organizing - and refer
> to 1.412 for the Peircean outline of these actions. But I don't see this as
> a transition from Firstness to Secondness, for I don't consider that the
> pre-universe was in any categorical mode [ie, not in a mode of Firstness,
> Secondness or Thirdness. It was simply nothing].
>
> Certainly, the 'somehow', i.e., the bridge between 'nothing' and
> 'something' is not explained beyond a 'chance flash'. But because there is
> no explanation, does not mean that I can or even should come up with one -
> certainly, science hasn't been able to do so, and since I'm an atheist,
> then, I'm not going to offer a self-organized belief in god as having been
> First Cause. I simply don't know.
>
> Edwina
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jon Alan Schmidt<mailto:[email protected]>
> To: Clark Goble<mailto:[email protected]>
> Cc: Peirce-L<mailto:[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2016 5:59 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
>
> Clark, List:
>
> Your points, as usual, are well-taken. Is it helpful at all to refer to
> "actualization," rather than "cause"? Edwina's position, as I understand
> it, is that our existing universe is not only self-organizing but also
> self-generating or self-originating; as Houser put it in his introduction
> to EP 1, "Somehow, the possibility or potentiality of the chaos is
> self-actualizing." This is the crucial transition from Firstness
> (possibility) to Secondness (actuality), and the word "somehow" reflects
> the fact that Houser's attempt to summarize Peirce's cosmology effectively
> leaves this step unexplained.
>
> 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<htt
> p://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
>
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 4:29 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]<mailto:clark
> @lextek.com>> wrote:
> On Nov 3, 2016, at 1:50 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> ET: Of course I didn't mean an individual [human or god] force by the
> term of 'chance'!. I find that Jon jumps to disagree with me as a matter of
> habit. Either that, or his tendency to read in a literal manner leads him
> to such conclusions. I meant 'chance or Firstness or spontaneity as a
> causal force - and there's plenty of comments in Peirce on just this state.
>
> No, I understood exactly what you meant. My disagreement is that I take
> "chance" (in Peirce's usage) to be freedom or spontaneity, rather than
> randomness or inexplicability; and it is certainly not something that could
> ever be "a causal force." I even quoted Peirce to support this view, but
> you refer to my "tendency to read in a literal manner" as if it were a bad
> thing!
> Again I think we're all talking past one an other by equivocating over the
> term 'cause.' In a certain cause pure freedom or spontaneity isn't causal
> and in an other sense it must be. Effectively each firstness is its own
> unmoved mover. The problem is that making sense of causality at all when
> little is necessary and most things are underdetermined is problematic.
>
> I think causality is problematic for a variety of other reasons too. For
> instance in terms of physics we could oppose the classic Newtonian
> formulation of mechanics in terms of forces and masses to the Hamiltonian
> or Lagrangian forms. They're mathematically equivalent yet metaphysically
> quite conceptually different. The Hamiltonian is the evolution of the wave
> function (what in quantum mechanics becomes the Dirac or Schrodinger
> equation) and it's hard to make sense of causality in terms of it.
>
> Likewise again turning to Duns Scotus we have classic arguments against
> causality being continuous. (Basically part of the same extended argument I
> linked to earlier for a first cause) For Peirce where any sign can be
> divided it's worth asking if we have causality at all.
>
> Despite these problems of causality we all use the term causality.
> He referenced the same series of articles in what was probably his very
> first draft of "A Neglected Argument" (1908), and made a few other comments
> about it that are relevant to this discussion.
>
> CSP: I there contended that the laws of nature, and, indeed, all
> experiential laws, have been results of evolution, being (such was my
> original hypothesis,) developments out of utterly causeless determinations
> of single events, under a certain universal tendency toward habit-forming
> ... But during the long years which have elapsed since the hypothesis first
> suggested itself to me, it may naturally be supposed that faulty features
> of the original hypothesis have been brought [to] my attention by others
> and have struck me in my own meditations. Dr. Edward Montgomery remarked
> that my theory was not so much evolutionary as it was emanational; and
> Professor Ogden Rood pointed out that there must have been some original
> tendency to take habits which did not arise according to my hypothesis;
> while I myself was most struck by the difficulty of so explaining the law
> of sequence in time, if I proposed to make all laws develope from single
> events; since an event already supposes Time. (R 842, emphasis added)
> I think this might be better read as there being no cause for firstness
> not that firstness can't be seen a not causal. Again I suspect we're
> talking past one an other again but the mere fact firstness can be an
> element in a triadic sign more or less entails a certain sense of
> causation. (Although I prefer Peirce's term determination although that too
> has the genealogy in problematic metaphysical understanding)
>
> I should add that this problem of language for this foundational event
> isn't new. You see similar debates in late antiquity over whether the
> platonic One is one or ought to be considered two emanation steps. While
> I'll confess to finding such matters idle talk there's usually a logical
> reason for the analaysis. (Much like the whole disparaged "how many angels
> could dance on a pin" makes sense in the context of the debates over kinds
> in medieval scholasticism)
>
>
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