John:
In "Quest for the Essence of Language" Roman Jakobson borrowed
Peirce's statements about diagrams as relational icons. Jakobson
conceived them as constitutive for all levels of language (phonemes,
morphemes, syntax, rhetorical figures as well as its disposition and
composition: an iconic relation through all its levels sound and
sense. Besides being indexical and referential, a quest for the
essence language should also consider quality and firstness..
Best to all,
Eduardo Forastieri-Braschi
On Feb 16, 2017, at 9:17 AM, John Collier wrote:
From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and
others, like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical
feelings that I attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many
cases). Although I am surprised when I find someone who believes
they think in words only, I have little reason to doubt them, as it
seems these people also think quite differently from me. One of the
hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after
original training and work in physics) was to think in words. Dick
Cartwright helped me immensely with this.
Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this
respect.
John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier
From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 8:16 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017
message originate with Peirce.
Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams
and not only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw
all three kinds of signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so
defined 'symbol' that plenty of symbols are not words and some words
are not symbols.
You wrote in your subsequent message:
One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all
evidence) have lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e.,
they cannot dolanguage), and yet those people otherwise seem to
think perfectly well.
I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the
professor discussed patients who could no longer think about absent
things. He said that they had lost their "symbolic function" -
taking "symbol" in an old traditional sense as sign of something not
perceived, especially something not perceivable, picturable, etc. I
can't say off-hand whether those patients had completely lost their
ability to think in symbols in Peirce's sense.
I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in
words or in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would
have offered for the claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical
statement, but a psychological statement, and Peirce was as adverse
to basing cenoscopic philosophy (including philosophical logic) on
psychology as he was to to basing pure mathematics on psychology.
When he discusses semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one
ought to think, not how people actually do think.
Peirce said of himself:
I do not think that I ever _reflect_ in words. I employ visual
diagrams, firstly because this way of thinking is my natural
language of self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced
that it is the best system for the purpose
[MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S.
Peirce_, p. 126, by Don D. Roberts]
Google preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22
Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical,
and theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He
seemed to have a higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual
for a mathematician.
Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read
that a considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings,
I seem to remember "60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those
drawings (and accumulating an archive of reproductions ofthem)
resulted in the publication of a book:
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola
Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce. [Visual Thinking:
Charles S. Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel,
Moritz Queisner, Tullio Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21,
2012. Hardcover http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194
346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in
color.
Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes
discusses vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for
thought. For example in his critical common-sensism.
Peirce thought that there are logical conceptions of mind based not
on empirical science of psychology nor even on metaphysics. See for
example Memoir 11 "On the Logical Conception of Mind" in the 1902
Carnegie Application:
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-05.htm
As to how linguistic people actually are or how linguistic one needs
or ought to be, that will depend at least partly on the definition
of language. In the quote of him above, Peirce uses the word
"language" more loosely than some would.
Best, Ben
On 2/15/2017 11:16 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
Jerry, Clark,
Thank you for the thoughtful replies.
I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that
I love less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to.... forget
the parameters of his own argument. Peirce tells us what clear
thinking is, while fully and responsibly acknowledging that most
people do not think clearly most of the time. On that basis, if
anyone thinks of anyone else's thoughts as entailing at all times
the third degree of clarity, something is seriously amiss. Further,
when Peirce elsewhere starts making broad pronouncements about
"thought" it oftentimes seems that he is referring solely to those
rare instances of clear thinking, but other times is referring to
the typical thinking, or all thinking?
The later is particularly suspicious. Assertions regarding the
nature of all thinking would presumably be subject to extreme
empirical scrutiny. As we have rejected traditional metaphysics, and
denied any special powers of introspection, one would expect
"thought" to be examined in the same way Peirce's exemplars, the
early bench chemists, examined their subject matter. All the same
challenges and limitations, and the same potential for novel
triumph. Thus when Peirce talks about clear thinking he seems on
steady ground, and when he talks about how a scientist-qua-
scientists thinks about the world he seems on steady ground, but
when there are no caveats regarding what "thinking" he is referring
to, I get nervous.
To Clark's question: While one could certainly find people who would
find those assertions uncontroversial, there are problems. One can
readily, for example, find individuals who (by all evidence) seem to
think more readily and more commonly in words than in "images and
diagrams". One can also find people with limited brain damage who
(by all evidence) have lost their ability to coherently verbalize
(i.e., they cannot do language), and yet those people otherwise seem
to think perfectly well.
On 2/14/2017 10:41 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
Yikes! My inner William James just raised an eyebrow. This is
probably a separate thread... but how did we suddenly start making
claims about the nature of other people's thoughts?
People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams..."
They do? How many people's thoughts have we interrogated to
determine that?
"Consciousness is inherently linguistic." It is? How much have we
studied altered states of consciousness, or even typical
consciousness?
Sorry, these parts of Peirce always make me a bit twitchy. I'm quite
comfortable when he is talking about how scientists-qua-scientists
think or act, but then he makes more general statements and I get
worried.
Best,
Eric
-----------
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps
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