Dear list,
How are we to interpret Peirce based strictly on the printed word if the philosopher says such things as: “My book is meant for people who *want to find out; *and people who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere.” I mean, it’s not as though Peirce didn’t understand nuances of recovering an author’s intention. For example: “Now words, taken just as they stand, if in the form of an argument, thereby do imply whatever fact may be necessary to make the argument conclusive; so that to the formal logician, who has to do only with the meaning of the words according to the proper principles of interpretation, and not with the intention of the speaker as *guessed* at from other indications, the only fallacies should be such as are simply absurd and contradictory, either because their conclusions are absolutely inconsistent with their premisses, or because they *connect propositions by a species of illative conjunction*, by which they cannot under any circumstances be validly connected. “ ~*Some Consequences of Four Incapacities* ____________ If to understand irony is to understand that the philosopher may not to speak at all (which would then make it *up to us* to do so), then what does *this* perfect philosopher mean? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azd0dLu-Muo For example, consider contradictions in the following: *one; Some Consequences, 1883* If *A,* then *B;* But *A:* [Ergo,] *B.* *two; CP 2.718 (per JAS) 1886* *Rule. *If *A *is true, *C *is true, *Case. *In a certain case *A *is true; *Result. *.·. In that case *C *is true. *three, CP 5.189, 1903* The surprising fact, C, is observed; But if A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. *Ergo* and *Hence* are illative conjunctions. But there is also contradiction. For example, what of the following sequence? For “This much Peirce had learnt from the medieval doctors, who “always called the minor premise the antecedent and the conclusion the consequent” (NEM 4, p. 178, 1898). ~ Bellucci and Pietarinen That is, if “A presents B with a gift C, is a triple relation”, or alternatively, “Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C”, then which is the consequent and where the predicate? In consequence of the identification in question, in S ^ P, I speak of S indifferently as *subject*, *antecedent*, or *premise*, and of P as *predicate*, *consequent*, or *conclusion*. (Peirce 1880; W4, p. 170, 170n5) In other words, when you examine one and two, the consequent is B and C. So, which is the consequent when taken whole? For what reasons B or C, when even conclusion of a suspicious A? That is, “Given the separate probabilities of the two consequences, “If A, then B,” and “If both A and B, then C (1878),” then perhaps multiple consequences sharing labels for different reasons? “But, first, if ‘being’ has many senses (for it means sometimes substance, sometimes that it is of a certain quality, sometimes that it is of a certain quantity, and at other times the other categories),” then what of the next situation in which there are many labels? In which direction is movement; one two or three? _________ To determine consensus opinion on what Peirce said reflects the problem of speaking as a single, unified voice on something as difficult as man’s glassy essence. But what is our social principle for determination here? If we’re not allowed to apply the method of that philosopher who gave us his method for scientific guessing to his own philosophical writings, then where else should we test abduction? That is, why is it we are doing what we’re doing? What is the good in it? With best wishes, Jerry Rhee PS. If we were to bring into this conversation an old one, then CP 5.189 over CP 5.402 because illation and *consequentia, * which is surprising, for *“*a *consequentia* is an argument (A, therefore B), not a conditional proposition (if A, then B).” ~Francesco Bellucci
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