John Sowa wrote, “I like to quote a comment that Hilary Putnam made about Aristotle: "Whenever I become clearer about a subject, I find that Aristotle has also become clearer."
I would make that same comment about Peirce.” Amen to that! And if I may clarify more minutely: Becoming clearer about a subject begins with assuming — provisionally at least — that it has a reality, in some mode of being, which is independent of what anyone thinks about it. This reality involves the possibility of perceiving the real difference between true and false thoughts about it. Finding that Peirce has become clearer about that subject means perceiving the real relations between its reality and Peirce’s actual words about it. The reality of those relations consists in the fact that they are what they are independently of what anyone thinks about them. But the increase in clarity which I find in Peirce is a result of my thoughts about the real subject coming into greater conformity with Peirce’s actual words about it. This clarity may turn out (upon further study of both the subject and Peirce’s words) to be an illusion. But in any case, it results from Peirce’s actual words redirecting my attention to the subject, to some extent. Only in this way can my thoughts about the subject (or about Peirce’s thoughts) gain a measure of independence from my own previous habits of language usage (or of reading Peirce). To me, “becoming clearer” refers to a modification of those habits. I know, it’s like explaining a joke, which takes all the fun out of it. But what could be more Peircean? Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: John F Sowa [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 3-Jan-18 03:04 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Modal logic On 1/1/2018 7:07 AM, Auke van Breemen wrote: > I am quite sure Peirce felt rationally necessitated to be of the > opinion that it is not allowed to favor his suggestions after they pop > up only on the basis that they are written by him. I agree. But Peirce would also insist that readers should make a clear distinction between his exact words and anybody else's interpretation. Note how strongly he objected to the version of pragmatism by William James. He even replaced the word 'pragmatism' with 'pragmaticism' to avoid any confusion. As I said in my note about ways of studying Peirce, the first is trying to determine exactly what he said. But there may be 5, 7, or indefinitely (infinitely?) many ways of interpreting, building on, using, and extending his work. > Filling in gaps tentatively due to inaccessible manuscripts offers a > chance to check our understanding at some future time, as well of the > text as of the object the text tries to understand. Yes, of course. There has been a century of developments that Peirce could not have known. Even for those subjects he knew very well, he did not provide an exhaustive analysis of every detail. We must fill in those gaps, but we also have to be clear about the sources. And by the way, I like to quote a comment that Hilary Putnam made about Aristotle: "Whenever I become clearer about a subject, I find that Aristotle has also become clearer." I would make that same comment about Peirce. John
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