Clark:
Agreed - Firstness has a character while Nothing does not. That's also how I
read Peirce's outline of the three categories - that they operate within
'character' or boundaries, which means that none of the categories can be
primordial or 'pre-matter'.
Mind, which in my reading of Peirce, operates within all three modal
categories, emerges with the emergence of the material universe. He notes this
in his outline of the emergence of matter in 1.412, and one can also read, that
he considers "a state of things in which the three universes were completely
nil. Consequently, whether in time or not, the three universes must actually be
absolutely necessary results of a state of utter nothingness" 6.490.
The three universes operate within the three modal categories and therefore,
none of them are prior to matter, for 'the universe of mind..coincides with the
universe of matter' [6.501] by which I understand that the modal categories are
correlated with each other and none is primordial. After all, 'habit-taking is
intimately connected with nutrition' 6.283, i.e., Thirdness is correlated with
matter.
As for WHAT the term of god means, Peirce says 'the analogue of a mind' [6.502]
and since he has already considered that Mind and Matter are correlated - the
one cannot exist without the other [Aristotle].
Yes, I agree that original sources are vital - and that they disagree within
texts and with each other.
Would you say that agapasm is a 'drive towards unity' or is it a 'feeling' of
attraction to Otherness, and an action of the development of some, just some,
commonalities. That is, agapasm requires diversity of matter, for 'love' exists
only within an attraction to the Not-Self and the 'power of sympathy' towards
this otherness 6.307.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Clark Goble
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] nominalism
On Jan 24, 2017, at 12:11 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:
This nothing is limitless possibilities BUT, after those first two
'flashes' outlined by Peirce, these flashes which introduce particular matter
also introduce Thirdness or habits of formation, and these then start to limit
and constrain the possibilities. So, I don't consider that the 'Nothing' is
like Firstness, since my reading of Peirce posits that Firstness operates as a
mode of organization of matter...and this requires matter to exist! That is, my
reading of Peirce is that the three modal categories only develop when matter
develops. So, before there was matter, this 'Nothing' is not Firstness. As
Peirce outlines it - it is 'nothing'. Firstness is a powerful mode of
organization of matter, rejecting closure, limits, borders. And certainly,
since matter at this pretemporal phase hasn't developed any laws of modal
organization, it doesn't yet function within Thirdness.
As I understand it the main difference between nothing (or the zeroth
category) and firstness is just how bounded it is. Firstness has a character
whereas Nothing does not. Again Peirce is here following several types of
neoPlatonism from the latter period of late antiquity that divide the One into
two types of Oneness, one more primordial.
It’s worth reading the SEP here although it doesn’t get into the nuances of
differing schools of neoPlatonism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoplatonism/#One
You’ll note that the neoPlatonic notion of everything having an inner and an
outer aspect is also part of Peirce’s thought. Even Peirce’s agapism is pretty
much the neoPlatonism of Iamblichus where love is the drive towards unity.
Within the One (unthinking limit) are two aspects — an inner and an outer. The
One and the Many. (This is where he and a few other prominent neoPlatonists
split with other schools) Unformed chaotic matter is the ultimate unlimited
which is the One in its inner form. Limit is the other principle. These then
mix with each other in weird ways (this neoPlatonism was primarily religious
rather than straightforwardly philosophical) allowing the emanation of the
Forms (firstness for Peirce) and then to the World Soul which is roughly the
neoPlatonic idea of thirdness.
I don’t recall if Peirce read Iamblichus (although I assume he did) although
I know he read Proclus who was influenced by both Iamblichus and Plotinus.
Again this to me is where Peirce is at his most controversial. But when
reading these passages about limit, difference, and chaos of pure potency it’s
worth reading the original sources Peirce is likely drawing upon. One should
also note that the sources themselves didn’t always agree with each other in
the details.
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