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Here begins my serialized posting of Peirce's third Lowell Lecture, given on Nov. 30, 1903. He began by answering a written question about Lecture 1, and then delivered much of what he had written for Lecture 2 about beta graphs, because he had for some reason been unable to give that part of Lecture 2 as scheduled. All this is explained in the website version of my transcription of the whole lecture, http://www.gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm, but I am skipping it here because it's already been covered in my previous postings of the Lowells. So I begin where Peirce makes the transition from existential graphs to Phenomenology, the main subject of Lecture 3. On the SPIN site, this manuscript page (with my transcription) is at https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-low ell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13872. gary f. The beta part of the system of existential graphs is distinguished from the alpha-part by the presence of ligatures in its graphs; and it is therefore natural to think that the distinction between alpha-possibility and beta-possibility lies in the latter's taking account of the relation of identity. But it could easily be demonstrated that this is not the truth of the matter. The true distinction lies in the fact that beta possibility takes account of individuals, so that whereas in the alpha part all the spots are regarded simply as propositions and may be general, in the beta part, besides these, individuals which form an entirely different category, enter into the graphs. I now go on to a preface to the gamma part of the subject, which is by far the most important of the three, and which is distinguished by its taking account of abstractions. I begin by a remark drawn from Phenomenology. Phenomenology is the science which describes the different kinds of elements that are always present in the Phenomenon, meaning by the Phenomenon whatever is before the mind in any kind of thought, fancy, or cognition of any kind. Everything that you can possibly think involves three kinds of elements. Whence it follows that you cannot possibly think of any one of those elements in its purity. The most strenuous endeavors of thinking will leave your ideas somewhat confused. But I think I can help you to see that there are three kinds of elements, and to discern what they are like. I begin with that one which the rough and tumble of life renders most familiarly prominent. We are continually bumping up against hard fact. We expected one thing, or passively took it for granted, and had the image of it in our minds. But experience forces that idea into the background, and compels us to think quite differently. You get this kind of consciousness in some approach to purity when you put your shoulder against a door, and try to force it open. You have a sense of resistance and at the same time a sense of effort. There can be no resistance without effort: there can be no effort without resistance. They are only two ways of describing the same experience. It is a double consciousness. We become aware of ourself in becoming awaare of the not-self. The waking state is a consciousness of reaction; and as the consciousness itself is two-sided, so it has also two varieties; namely, action, where our modification of other things is more prominent than their reaction on us, and perception, where their effect on us is overwhelmingly greater than our effect on them. And this notion of being such as other things make us is such a prominent part of our life, that we conceive other things also to exist by virtue of their reactions against each other. The idea of other, of not, becomes a very pivot of thought. To this element I give the name of Secondness. http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm }{ Peirce's Lowell Lectures of 1903
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