Jeffrey - if I may comment on your list
1) This would be, to my mind, a difficult analysis. How does one
know 'whether or not it really was the position he adopted...etc'?
That leads to endless volumes of what any philosopher really meant. I
know that this is a big area in philosophical research and huge
numbers of publications - but - I'm not 'into that'.
2) I can see the constructive aspect of this area of research -
3) Seems rather similar to point 2.
4) This is a difficult area, since we don't know if the
modifications would really be functional within the Peircean
framework.
5) I do know of those who have claimed that Peirce was 'likely
wrong' - but I'm not one of them.
6) Irrelevant.
I'd say that I'm in Section 3. The reality is - that Peirce wasn't
just dealing in philosophy. As a scientist - he was involved in the
real world of matter. Not just thoughts - and therefore, my focus on
his semiosis in the material world - has a legitimate Peircean role.
The fact that I don't agree with the interpretations and definitions
made and used by some people who operate in Section 1 doesn't mean
that they are right - or that I am wrong.
Edwina
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On Thu 30/03/17 12:19 PM , Jeffrey Brian Downard
[email protected] sent:
Edwina, Jon S., List, All,
As I have suggested on other occasions, it will likely improve the
quality of our discussions if we make our aims clearer when we make a
remark or engage in a line of inquiry. That way, we'll have some
assurance that different people aren't working at cross purposes or
talking past each other. Here are some of the purposes I see guiding
our various discussions:
1. We want to understand some conclusion that Peirce has drawn and
determine whether or not it really was the position that he adopted
at some point in his inquiries, or perhaps was his considered view
all things considered.
2. We seek to reconstruct some of the arguments found in one or
another text to see we might gain a better understanding of how the
arguments work--and how they fit with other arguments Peirce made.
3. We want to better understanding Peirce's own aims and methods. He
says that one of his major aims was to develop a method of methods. As
such, we're trying to learn better how to employ these methods in our
own inquiries.
4. We are guided by a hunch that Peirce had some useful ideas, and
we want to borrow some of those ideas, modify as needed for our own
purposes, and then engage in our own inquiries.
5. We are pursuing our own inquiries using our own methods and, for
the sake of curiosity, we want to see how our own methods and
conclusions compare to some of Peirce's. At times, when the views
diverge, some might want to suggest that Peirce was likely wrong or
seriously misguided--at least when viewed in from the perspective of
our own methods and conclusions.
6. We have our own views and methods and we don't care much about
what Peirce really thought--except to point out that some things he
said appear, on their face, to be entirely crazy.
Posts that fit the description under (6) seem out of place on the
list. They are distracting and tend to undermine the health of the
discussion of those pursuing the other aims. The aims expressed in
1-3 have, I take it, been guiding much of the discussion on the list
since its inception when Joe expressed the guidelines for engaging in
the dialogue. Personally, I have found myself doing the things
listed in 4-5 at various times in my own reading thinking, but much
of my work is guided by the aims expressed in 1-3. Having said that,
each of us needs to make a decision about when it is appropriate to
make posts to the list when our aims fall under (4) or
(5)--especially when we are jumping into a conversation between
people who are really guided by aims (1-3). For those who do think it
is reasonable to jump into such conversations and make remarks that
are really guided by such different purposes, it will help to spell
out the purposes so others don't waste their time trying to respond
by showing, based on textual evidence, that such a view does not
reasonably reflect what is found in the texts.
Finally, to respond to your remark about those who spend time
focusing on the way Peirce defined key terms--such work is essential
to doing 1-3 well. It certainly isn't the only thing that needs to be
done, but for such purposes, it is an important starting point.
I fully recognize that there is a considerable difference between
the aim of seeking to find the truth about Peirce's own views and how
he arrived at such conclusions, and the aim of pushing inquiry further
and seeking the truth, all things considered. Both are admirable
goals, and those of us who seek to engage in the more scholarly task
usually do so with a longer term goal of drawing on the arguments and
methods for the sake of finding the truth about the questions at hand.
My hope in making these points is to remind myself that my purposes
may not always match the purposes of others, and I want to avoid the
confusion and conflicts that arise when people work at cross
purposes. My hope is that others, too, will make their purposes
clearer--especially when they say things that, on their face, do not
fit well with the arguments and explanations Peirce gives. As Jon S.
has pointed out, your remarks about definitions do not fit with
Peirce's methods--both with respect to doing the history of
philosophy and also with respect to doing philosophy.
Yours,
Jeff
Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354
-------------------------
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 6:52 AM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: RE: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] semantic problem with the term
Edwina, List:
Just one (hopefully last) comment here.
ET: But a thing that bothers me about some of the focus of this
list is its isolation from reality; that is, it's all about words and
definitions. But Peirce wasn't focused on that.
Peirce was certainly not only focused on words and definitions--I
agree that his interests and contributions were far broader than
that--but he was often focused on them. After all, he wrote reams of
definitions for the Century Dictionary and Baldwin's Dictionary of
Philosophy and Psychology. More to the point, he advocated a
scrupulous ethics of terminology (EP 2:263-266; 1903) and diligently
sought to adhere to it himself, resulting in the plethora of
neologisms that he invented in an effort to avoid misunderstanding
or confusion with the ideas of others.
CSP: ... the woof and warp of all thought and all research is
symbols, and the life of thought and science is the life inherent in
symbols; so that it is wrong to say that a good language is important
to good thought, merely; for it is of the essence of it.
CSP: The body of the symbol changes slowly, but its meaning
inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off old ones.
But the effort of all should be to keep the essence of every
scientific term unchanged and exact; although absolute exactitude is
not so much as conceivable.
CSP: ... when a man has introduced a conception into science, it
naturally becomes both his privilege and his duty to assign to that
conception suitable scientific expressions, and that when a name has
been conferred upon a conception by him to whose labors science is
indebted for that conception, it becomes the duty of all,—a duty to
the discoverer, and a duty to science,—to accept his name ...
whoever deliberately uses a word or other symbol in any other sense
than that which was conferred upon it by its sole rightful creator
commits a shameful offense against the inventor of the symbol and
against science, and it becomes the duty of the others to treat the
act with contempt and indignation.
CSP: Having thus given some idea of the nature of the reasons which
weigh with me, I proceed to state the rules which I find to be binding
upon me in this field ... Seventh, to regard it as needful to
introduce new systems of expression when new connections of
importance between conceptions come to be made out, or when such
systems can, in any way, positively subserve the purposes of
philosophical study.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer,
Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [1]
On Thu, Mar 30, 2017 at 7:30 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
John, list - yes, I agree with your comments.
But a thing that bothers me about some of the focus of this list is
its isolation from reality; that is, it's all about words and
definitions. But Peirce wasn't focused on that. As John points out,
he used his terms in a variety of ways; - and his focus was on the
pragmatism of semiosis. That is - what is the pragmatic function of
Peircean semiosis?
In Peirce, we read about semiosis within protoplasm, within
crystals, within the formation of matter [matter is effete Mind].
None of this deals with terminology but with the pragmatic function
of semiosis - which Peirce sees, as far as I can understand, as the
gradual evolution of Mind. Mind is NOT a synonym of the human mind or
consciousness but of the natural world. And we see this dynamic
flexible action within the ten classes - which, as triads, enable
this adaptive evolving capacity of Mind into Matter.
If one focuses only on words and terms, then, it is just as easy,
indeed easier, to use the semiotics of such as Saussure or Morris
..for these are all about 'this' means 'that' - and one can get
readily into the seeming joy of 'hidden meanings'. But Peirce
doesn't deal with this; his semiotics is an active, adaptive and
evolving process of generation of Mind-into-Matter - a much more
difficult analysis.
Matter, to exist, obviously has a form. A form obviously must have
continuity of type; therefore, to consider that Peirce didn't 'say
these words' is to ignore the basic focus of his work. ..which is a
vast, vast exploration of the nature of and the function of, this
universe.
Edwina
Links:
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http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
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