Gary f,
Sorry for inexact expressions. I should have made a distinction between
just interpreting a quote and going beyond it. Paraphrasing is
customarily marked with expressions like "as XXX says elsewhere...".
If I had problems with understanding where you were paraphrasing Peirce,
and where you were stating your own inferences, I was just one reader
amongst many. Why the tone?
My point has been that words and ideas are not in any kind of identity
relation. And that the relation between signs and meanings is a tricky
question, not a simple one.
If you disagree, why can't we just agree to disagree?
Surely you are well aware that Peirce did not mean something like a
college chemistry lab with laboratory and seminary philosophy.
He does offer many very detailed precepts for thought experiments as
well as practical everyday experimentations he conducted himself, many
of them for many years, even decades.
Most of these I have conducted myself. Following his descriptions as
accurately as I can. Very often Peirce points out that everyone should
do so. In order to find out oneself. Instead of only following the
method of authority. - Which is OK, if and after....
I really meant to thank youn and wish you a happy new year.
Best wishes anyway, Kirsti
[email protected] kirjoitti 31.12.2017 22:29:
Kirsti, you quoted my post in yours and commented that you “cannot
understand the use of quotation marks & the lack of use fo them in
what follows.”
It’s quite simple: The part enclosed in quotation marks is a direct
quote of Peirce’s exact words, and the rest is my own words. This is
what I always do in my posts, whenever I am commenting on something
Peirce (or anyone) wrote; I “try to keep quotes and interpretations
so marked that any reader can tell which is which” (quoting you, in
that case). In my post, I included the link to my blog so that anyone
who wanted the exact source citation could find it there. I don’t
see the problem with that.
I also don’t see how your claim — that Peirce’s own choice of
term, such as “phaneron,” is “inconsistent with his deeper
views” — can be tested in any laboratory, as you appear to
suggest. I don’t know any way of comprehending Peirce’s “deeper
views” about matters except to study what he wrote about them, on
the DEFAULT assumption that he meant exactly what he wrote, and “it
is quite indifferent whether it be regarded as having to do with
thought or with language, the wrapping of thought, since thought, like
an onion, is composed of nothing but wrappings” (Peirce, EP2:460).
Perhaps you do have a better way of gaining insight into Peirce’s
deeper thoughts, but if so, I think it’s up to you to demonstrate it
rather than ask the rest of us to take it on faith.
And Happy New Year to you too!
Gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 31-Dec-17 10:25
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.6
Gary f, list
My source on Eucleides was Grattan-Guinness (The Fontana history of
the mathematical sciences) and my thirty years old notes on the topic.
(& Liddell and Scott, of course.)
It is important to keep in mind that no such divisions (or
classifications) between sciences that are taken for granted today did
not exist in ancient times. - Still, Eucleides was studied by
mathematicians for centuries. It was taken for granted. Up till
non-Euclidean math. Even the Bible came much, much later.
Meaning is context-dependent, that much we all agree. We have signs
from old times, no dispute on that. But do we have meanings?
I have problems with the following:
GARY f.: My
answer to the question of whether a sign has parts was, I thought,
implied by the Peirce quote in the blog post I linked to,
http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2017/11/stigmata/ [1] [1]: “upon a
continuous line
there are no points (where the line is continuous), there is only
room
for points,— possibilities of points.” But if you MARK a point
on the
line, one of those possibilities is actualized; and if the line has
a
beginning and end, then it has those two points
(discontinuities) already.
I cannot understand the use of quotation marks & the lack of use fo
them in what follows.
Peirce took up in several contexts his point of marking any points and
thus breaking continuity. He took care to set down rules for (logical)
acceptability for doing so.
In order to understand his meaning three triads are needed.
Possibility, virtuality and actuality makes one of them. (But only one
of them.)
CSP wrote on Ethics of Terminology. - Did he follow these ethical
rules?
- I'd say YES and NO. To the despair of his readers he chanced his
terminology over the decaces very, very often. But it was HIS to
change, in order to accommondate with renewed understanding of his
whole conceptual system, his new findings along the way in making it
move...
I firmly believe he had a reason every time for those changes. BUT he
also experimented with words he took into a kind of test driving for
his concepts. Such as "phaneron". An experiment doomed to fail.
Why do I believe so? - I have never read him explicitly saying so. But
the term (etymology etc) did get the idea twisted in such ways which
were inconsistent with his deeper views. - So when I read those texts
by him using "phaneron", I took note of the year and looked forward to
see him stop using it.
It not a job for me to search whether he did or not. It is job for
seminary minded philosophers. Not for the laboratory minded ones.
I wish to take up Ethics of Interpretation in a similar spirit. In
order to make our ideas more clear, it may be good to try to keep
quotes and interpretations so marked that any reader can tell which is
which.
It is an impossible task, I know. Just as impossible to any human
being as is Christian ethics. But a very good guideline to keep in
mind & to follow as best one can.
The links in any post may get read or not. - It takes too much time to
read all those offered.
What cannot be included in the verbal response, I find informative.
Still, I may not have the time at my disposal to open them.
Looking forward to forthcoming chapters in Lowell lectures. My thanks
for the most valuable job you are doing Gary f.
Best regards, Kirsti
Links:
------
[1] http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2017/11/stigmata/
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
