Listers,
Perhaps It is good to remember historical changes with names used for
geometrical point. Euclid introduced the word SEMEION, and defined it as
that which has no parts, and his followers started to that word instead
of the earlier STIGME . – But (with latin) the Romans & later Boethius
changed it to PUNCTUM in their commentaries.
Does a sign have parts? - How about meaning?
Best, Kirsti
[email protected] kirjoitti 18.12.2017 23:07:
List,
Aristotle's remarks at the beginning of _De Caelo_ go like this: "A
magnitude if divisible one way is a line, if two ways a surface, and
if three a body. Beyond these there is no other magnitude, because the
three dimensions are all that there are, and that which is divisible
in three directions is divisible in all. For, as the Pythagoreans say,
the world and all that is in it is determined by the number three,
since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and
the number they give is the triad." Peirce occasionally called this
triad the "cenopythagorean categories" -- but for him, there is much
more to them than we find in Aristotle's summary of the Pythagorean
notions. Although these elements are so fundamental that "confused
notions" of them go back to the beginning of philosophy, great
patience and effort is required to clarify them as they ought to be
clarified by anyone interested in philosophy.
Peirce's comments on his predecessors Kant and Hegel help to situate
Peirce's own efforts along these lines. His emphasis on "the
inexhaustible intricacy of the fabric of conceptions" -- referring I
think to conceptions _in general_, not just the three in question here
-- is remarkable, and his recognition of that (rather than modesty)
compels him to say "I do not flatter myself that I have ever analyzed
a single idea into its constituent elements." In the drafts of this
lecture and elsewhere, Peirce did give some account of his labors,
though he decided not to "inflict" such an account on his audience at
this time. I think we can be sure that if Peirce never managed to
"analyze a single idea into its constituent elements," it wasn't for
lack of effort or skill at logical analysis.
Gary f.
FROM: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
SENT: 17-Dec-17 15:07
TO: 'Peirce-L' <[email protected]>
SUBJECT: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.6
Continuing from Lowell Lecture 3.5,
https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-lowell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13896
[1]
Those of you, ladies and gentlemen, who are interested in philosophy,
as most of us are, more or less, would do well to get as clear notions
of the three elements of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness as you
can.
[CP 1.521] Very wretched must be the notion of them that can be
conveyed in one lecture. They must grow up in the mind, under the hot
sun-shine of hard thought, daily, bright, well-focussed, and well
aimed thought; and you must have patience, for long time is required
to ripen the fruit. They are no inventions of mine. Were they so, that
would be sufficient to condemn them. Confused notions of these
elements appear in the first infancy of philosophy, and they have
never entirely been forgotten. Their fundamental importance is noticed
in the beginning of Aristotle's _De Caelo,_ where it is said that the
Pythagoreans knew of them.
[522] In Kant they come out with an approach to lucidity. For Kant
possessed in a high degree all seven of the mental qualifications of a
philosopher,
1st, the ability to discern what is before one's consciousness;
2nd, Inventive originality;
3rd, Generalizing power;
4th, Subtlety;
5th, Critical severity and sense of fact;
6th, Systematic procedure;
7th, Energy, diligence, persistency, and exclusive devotion to
philosophy.
[523] But Kant had not the slightest suspicion of the inexhaustible
intricacy of the fabric of conceptions, which is such that I do not
flatter myself that I have ever analyzed a single idea into its
constituent elements.
[524] Hegel, in some respects the greatest philosopher that ever
lived, had a somewhat juster notion of this complication, though an
inadequate notion, too. For if he had seen what the state of the case
was, he would not have attempted in one lifetime to cover the vast
field that he attempted to clear. But Hegel was lamentably deficient
in that 5th requisite of critical severity and sense of fact. He
brought out the three elements much more clearly. But the element of
Secondness, of _hard fact,_ is not accorded its due place in his
system; and in a lesser degree the same is true of Firstness. After
Hegel wrote, there came fifty years that were remarkably fruitful in
all the means for attaining that 5th requisite. Yet Hegel's followers,
instead of going to work to reform their master's system, and to
render his statement of it obsolete, as every true philosopher must
desire that his disciples should do, only proposed, at best, some
superficial changes without replacing at all the rotten material with
which the system was built up.
[525] I shall not inflict upon you any account of my own labors.
Suffice it to say that my results have afforded me great aid in the
study of logic.
http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm [2] }{ Peirce's Lowell Lectures of
1903
Links:
------
[1]
https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-lowell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13896
[2] http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm
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