List, I've been trying to sort through the points Peirce is making about topology and the mathematical conception of continuity in the last lecture of RLT. In the attempts to trace the development of the ideas concerning the conceptions of continua, furcations and dimensions in his later works, I've been puzzled by some later remarks he makes about cyclical systems in "Some Amazing Mazes" (Monist, pp. 227-41, April 1908; CP 4.585-641).
In a short addendum, Peirce indicates that he has, in the year since writing the paper, "taken a considerable stride toward the solution of the question of continuity, having at length clearly and minutely analyzed my own conception of a perfect continuum as well as that of an imperfect continuum, that is, a continuum having topical singularities, or places of lower dimensionality where it is interrupted or divides." (CP, 4.642) Here is a passage that has caught my attention: Now if my definition of continuity involves the notion of immediate connection, and my definition of immediate connection involves the notion of time; and the notion of time involves that of continuity, I am falling into a circulus in definiendo. But on analyzing carefully the idea of Time, I find that to say it is continuous is just like saying that the atomic weight of oxygen is 16, meaning that that shall be the standard for all other atomic weights. The one asserts no more of Time than the other asserts concerning the atomic weight of oxygen; that is, just nothing at all. I'm wondering if anyone can explain in greater detail what Peirce is suggesting in this passage in making the comparison between the atomic weight of oxygen and the continuity of Time--or if anyone knows of clear reconstructions of what he is doing in the secondary literature? The claim that the continuity of our experience of time can serve as a kind of standard for measure is, I think, quite a remarkable suggestion. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Jon Awbrey <jawb...@att.net> Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2017 1:26 PM To: Peirce List Cc: Arisbe List Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: The Difference That Makes A Difference That Peirce Makes A Flash From The Past ⚡⚡⚡ ========================= The Difference That Makes A Difference That Peirce Makes https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/02/07/the-difference-that-makes-a-difference-that-peirce-makes-1/ Being one who does not view Peirce's work as a flickering foreshadowing of analytic philosophy, logical whatevism, or anything else you want to call it, but leans more to thinking of the latter philosophies as fumbling fallbacks losing what ground Peirce had gained for our understanding of logic, mathematics, science, not to mention the life of inquiry in general, I am dropping this thread anchor toward the end of remembering the critical insights Peirce gave us, as they come to mind. cc: http://web.archive.org/web/20130212171424/http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/9562 http://web.archive.org/web/20130212171340/http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2013-February/thread.html#3911 http://web.archive.org/web/20130217050656/http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2013-February/thread.html#4054 o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o Peircers, My mind keeps flashing back to the days when I first encountered Peirce's thought. It was so fresh, it spoke to me like no other thinker's thought I knew, and it held so much promise of setting aside all the old schisms that boggled the mind through the ages. I feel that way about it still but communicating precisely what I find so revolutionary in Peirce's thought remains a work in progress for me. Many readers of Peirce share the opinion that there is something truly novel in his thought, a difference that makes a critical difference in the way we understand our thoughts and undertake our actions its light. The question has arisen once again, just what that difference might be. So I'll make another try at answering that ... Regards, Jon -- inquiry into inquiry: https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ academia: https://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey oeiswiki: https://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
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