On 3/25/2017 3:27 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
"I declared myself long ago as one who sees more continuity
of development than radical shift in Peirce's thought over
his lifetime."
That is one reason why I'm not interested that much in the dates of the
writings; my focus is on the content, and I view that content as a
coherent long term exploration - without radical shifts.
I agree that there is more continuity than radical development
in Peirce's writings.
I find the same kind of development in my own writings. For example,
when I compare what I wrote in my 1984 book, my 2000 book, and my
more recent articles and slides, I still agree with what I wrote
in those books. But I would correct, revise, clarify, qualify,
and elaborate many of the points I wrote earlier.
When I'm quoting, citing, or building on Peirce's writings,
I have found good reasons for preferring his later terminology
and methods of organizing the subject matter.
For existential graphs, most people cite and use his published version
of 1906 as the most definitive. But I believe that his MSS around 1909
are clearer, better integrated, and a more solid foundation for further
development:
1. For some MSS, he was rethinking the issues and writing them for
specific correspondents, such as Lady Welby. That forced him
to summarize and restate the basic points more succinctly.
2. In those revisions, he could not include all the details, but he
did not "water down" anything he wrote. What he did was to pull
out the barest minimum and restate it more clearly -- exactly
what's necessary for a formalization or "rational reconstruction".
3. For example, his publications distinguished Alpha (Boolean logic),
Beta (FOL), and Gamma (metalanguage, HOL, and modal logic). That
led him to state different versions of his rules of inference for
the different subsets.
4. But in his later version, he started with a subset of Beta. I won't
go into detail right now, but see slides 1 to 15 of my tutorial:
http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/egintro.pdf
5. The remaining 35 slides (36 to 50) cover much more. For the
full details, see http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/egtut.pdf
There are other areas of his semiotic, for which I believe that some
of his late MSS introduce important terminology and ways of organizing
his material. If he had the time and opportunity to develop that
material, I believe that he would have used that as the foundation.
See http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signs.pdf
But I would emphasize: adopting the later material as the foundation
does not mean the earlier writings can be ignored. It's important to
compare the later writings to the earlier writings -- to make sure
that all essential issues are covered.
John
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