Gene, List:
Thanks for your comments and questions.
To clarify, all that I meant by "morally responsible Persons" was how I
defined "Person" in the previous thread on "Metaphysics of
Semiosis"--namely, "an embodied metaphysical Quasi-mind who additionally
has a *center of consciousness*, which provides a *unity of feeling* to
coordinate the corresponding continuity of reactions and bundle of habits,"
which "is what makes it possible to recognize the *Inner World* and
distinguish it from the *Outer World*," and thus exercise *self-control*.
As such, *every* Person is (by definition) "morally responsible"; i.e., subject
to moral approval *or *disapproval, praise *or *blame.
The idea of *voluntary *participation comes from Peirce's remark that "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." I have no objection
to your suggestion that people can and do also participate unwittingly, or
even unwillingly; but my point was to highlight the specific *ethical
*implication
that Peirce drew from his identification of the *esthetic *ideal, the *summum
bonum*.
CSP: But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate end
of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or
against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which
can be consistently
pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted, beyond all possible
criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of outsiders. An aim
which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a bad aim. It cannot
properly be called an *ultimate aim* at all. The only moral evil is not to
have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)
As you might expect, my own rather traditional Christian theism is such
that I part ways with Peirce on certain matters of religious philosophy.
Statements like "sin is a creation of God" and "God delights in evil,"
which are from R 890 (no date), are very much in that category. What he
wrote in "Evolutionary Love," amid various quotes from the Gospel and
Epistle of John, is similar but somewhat less problematic for me.
CSP: Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller ... made the One Supreme
Being, by whom all things have been made out of nothing, to be
cherishing-love. What, then, can he say to hate? ... His statement that God
is love seems aimed at that saying of Ecclesiastes that we cannot tell
whether God bears us love or hatred. "Nay," says John, "we can tell, and
very simply! We know and have trusted the love which God hath in us. God is
love." There is no logic in this, unless it means that God loves all men ... We
are to understand, then, that as darkness is merely the defect of light, so
hatred and evil are mere imperfect stages of {agapé} and {agathon}, love
and loveliness ... That is to say, God visits no punishment on them; they
punish themselves, by their natural affinity for the defective. Thus, the love
that God is, is not a love of which hatred is the contrary; otherwise Satan
would be a coordinate power; but it is a love which embraces hatred as an
imperfect stage of it, an Anteros--yea, even needs hatred and hatefulness
as its object. For self-love is no love; so if God's self is love, that
which he loves must be defect of love; just as a luminary can light up only
that which otherwise would be dark ...
Everybody can see that the statement of St. John is the formula of an
evolutionary
philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love, from I will not
say self-*sacrifice*, but from the ardent impulse to fulfill another's
highest impulse ... Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in the hateful,
gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely. That is the sort of
evolution which every careful student of my essay "The Law of Mind" must
see that *synechism *calls for. (CP 6.287-289; 1893)
>From my own perspective, rather than Peirce's--the bad news of the Law is
that all men (and women) are evil and inclined to hatred, and separated
from God accordingly; but the good news of the Gospel is that God indeed
loves all men (and women) anyway, and sent His only Son ("the Word became
flesh," John 1:14) to die and rise again in order to redeem us and restore
us to a right relationship with Him.
Regards,
Jon S.
On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 3:27 PM, Eugene Halton <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Dear Jon S,
> I enjoyed reading your Additament article.
> In your post from this morning you say: " 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."
>
> Accepting for the moment the context of your argument, I'm wondering,
> if I understand you correctly, why you seem to limit human contribution to
> ongoing creation to "morally responsible Persons," and participation to
> "voluntarily." What about "aesthetically expressive Persons" contributing,
> and participating, say, from a deeply enraptured wonder beyond simply
> voluntary?
>
> And, and I realize I am pushing it, what about the possibility of
> "morally irresponsible Persons," or even of evil as a contributor to
> ongoing creation? I realize this is an offputting idea, it is for me. But
> Hillary Putnam quoted a passage from a Peirce unpublished manuscript (I
> don't have its number): "The only solution to the problem of evil is to
> recognize that the Supreme Love embraces hate as a variety of itself, and
> that sin is a creation of God, and as such, is good in certain stage[s] of
> development. God delights in evil."
>
> Gene Halton
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:58 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> 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, USA
>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>>
>
-----------------------------
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 .
