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}Jon, list:
1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce,
please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote
below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in
the original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these
are incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the
clear difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it.
Therefore - please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are
your additions...that's all.
2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are
simply opinions.
Edwina
On Fri 16/03/18 8:58 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected]
sent:
List:
If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect
Sign, what would be its Object? What is perpetually acting upon it
with new Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously
dormant energy? What has the absolute freedom to introduce
spontaneous changes into it? In other words, what sustains the
Universe as something that is living and growing, rather than
succumbing to "the complete induration of habit reducing the free
play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to complete
death" (CP 6.201; 1898)?
CSP: ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of
God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now
every symbol [3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices
of Reactions [2ns] and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as
these reactions and these qualities play in an argument, that they of
course play in the Universe, that Universe being precisely an
argument. (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-194; 1903)
Consistent with the conclusion of my recently published essay, "A
Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of
God," the Dynamic Object of the Universe as the Perfect Sign is its
perfect Utterer, God Himself, infinitely incomprehensible to us. Its
Immediate Object is God's purpose, which is the development of Reason,
including the growth of our knowledge of God and of this Universe that
He has created--and is still creating.
CSP: This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in
embodiment, that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe,
which did not take place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004
B.C., but is going on today and never will be done, is this very
developement of Reason. I do not see how one can have a more
satisfying ideal of the admirable than the development of Reason so
understood. The one thing whose admirableness is not due to an
ulterior Reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its fullness, so
far as we can comprehend it. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
This is the summum bonum in accordance with the normative science of
esthetics. Peirce went on to draw the corresponding ethical and
logical implications, since what he described as "Practice" and
"Theory" in EP 2:304 correspond to "embodiment" and "manifestation"
here, respectively.
CSP: Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute
our little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand
toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is,
it is "up to us" to do so. In logic, it will be observed that
knowledge is reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be to
follow such methods as must develop knowledge the most speedily. (CP
1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
As embodied metaphysical Quasi-minds, we are both constituents and
interpreters of the Universe as God's great Symbol and Argument.
Furthermore, as morally responsible Persons, we can also be
contributors to it--we have the opportunity (and privilege) to
participate voluntarily in God's still-unfolding creative activity.
The Perfect Sign thus serves as an ideal, or regulative hope, which
would be achieved if all of us were to become fully welded with the
eternal Mind who is our Creator.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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