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}Gary, list:
1] The 'Five Ways' or Quinque viae, refers to the very famous
purely logical arguments by the scholastics [ Aquinas Summa
Theologiciae but see also Anselm's Proslogian] for the reality of
God. I know that JAS didn't refer to these arguments but I am very
sure as a theist himself that he would have to know of them; after
all - they form the analytic backbone of theistic Arguments for the
Reality of God. It isn't enough to say: I believe God exists'; that's
not an argument but a Fixation of Belief from ...a priori,
Authority..whatever. There has to be an Argument - and the Five Ways
is The Argument. I consider each one actually illogical and thus
inadequate, but...many accept them...and there have been over the
years, many volumes devoted to both support and rejection of the Five
Ways.
2] I disagree with you that Peirce was a theist. His references to
'Mind', do not, in my reading, outline it or even examine it as the
Mind of God. After all- to do so, would require an analysis of God
himself - and Peirce doesn't do this. His cosmological arguments, his
evolutionary arguments do not outline this 'Reality', this
metaphysical Being. Instead - what he outlines in his analysis of
What is Matter/Life.....are the three basic categories of MIND:
Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. He sees them as 'ens
necessarium' in themselves and I see no correlation of these
operations with any specific Mind of God'.
3] As for Judeo-Christian traditions, I consider these societal
rather than religious traditions. All religions, after all, besides
their metaphysical outlines, are methods of forming and continuing a
sense of 'community'. Our species is a social species - and this
sense of belonging to a community is vital for our rational and
psychological health. Anyone who lacks this - is a psychopath.
So- we'll have to disagree on this issue.
Edwina
On Sat 12/05/18 3:56 PM , Gary Richmond [email protected]
sent:
Edwina, Jon S, list,
In my view the central question here is not whether JAS is a theist
and that he is interpreting Peirce in that light, but whether Peirce
was a theist and that his remarks on God and Mind ought to be
interpreted in light of his theism. I would maintain that there there
can be little, if any, doubt that he was a theist. Just a cursory
glance at this page from Gary Furhman's blog should at least suggest
as much. https://www.gnusystems.ca/CSPgod.htm [1] But the literature
is now packed with analyses of his theism.
So, contrary to your atheistic interpretation of, for example, Mind
as not referring to God, I would say that Mind most certainly ought
be interpreted in Peirce's work in light of his theism such that Mind
(so capitalized) in Peirce's thinking is the Mind of God. I do not see
a moment in his comments from his youth through the more extended
arguments near the end of his life, notably in his writing "A
Neglected Argument for the Reality of God," where he ever--even
once--expresses doubts regarding that Reality. If anyone knows of
such an expressed doubt, I would be most eager to read it.
On the other hand, his view of God seems to me to be essentially a
non-standard and decidedly scientific one (Peirce was, for example,
notably critical of theology and theologians). There are, however,
other moments when he seems to align himself with the Judeo-Christian
religious traditions, say, in the interest of participating in a
larger community of faith (see, for example, his comments on why he
says the Apostle's Creed with his fellow congregates in which he
seems to suggest that he does so in the spirit of Christian
brotherhood and community).
As for Jon's remarks to which you responded, I do not see that he
speaks of or even hints at "the Five Ways" or "a First Cause."
Where'd that come from?
So, in a word, it seems to me much more natural to interpret Mind as
Peirce employs it, as well as his arguments relating to the earliest
cosmology --which, btw, are not definitively stated in the passage
you most frequently quote regarding this matter, viz., CP 1.411-412,
and which early cosmological views are, in fact, modified
dramatically categorially in the last of the 1898 lectures (I'm
thinking of the famous "Blackboard" analogy: see Jon Alan Schmidt's
excellent paper which includes a discussion of this, "A Neglected
Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God," in
which, btw way, he acknowledges your help, through discussions on
Peirce-L, in honing his argumentation)--again, it is natural to
interpret Mind and his Early Cosmological discussions through
Peirce's theism.
As an atheist you will no doubt continue to disavow theism; but
there have been not only many articles and papers, but now also a
number of books analyzing Peirce's theism. This has always been a
contentious matter for some Peirce scholars (I mean especially the
ones who are atheists or agnostics), but in my view Peirce's
arguments regarding the Reality of God speak for themselves.
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690
On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 2:47 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Jon Alan, list:
If one is, unlike you, not a theist, then, your answers don't
provide any rationale for 'the nature of existence'. Your assertion
that one simply has to accept the 'reality of god' is a Fixation of
Belief by..what, authority, tenacity? But it isn't based on reason or
empiricism - and as far as I am concerned, the famous Five Ways
[Anselm, Aquinas] are semantic expressions - that's all.
That is, for example, to declare that we as finite, cannot 'know'
the infinite...and that we can yet declare that the infinite IS REAL
- is, in my mind, not a valid argument--- for its validity rests
solely on semantics and the necessity-to-believe.
To declare that there must be either a First Cause or a Supreme
Cause - is yet again, an exercise in semantics.
Peirce's outline "there are three elements ...active in the world:
first, chance; second, law; and third, habit-taking" 1.409. And his
outline of the emergence of finite matter from "a state of mere
indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened"....Out of
the womb of indeterminacy we must say that there would have come
something, by the principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash.
Then by the principle of habit there would have been a second flash"
1.411-12. Thus, both Secondness or finite matter and Thirdness or
habits, emerge.
I note that in this outline of the emergence of matter, there is no
mention of any hierarchical or first or final cause [god]; supreme
agenda or 'unmoved Mover [of god]; contingency [god] etc.
And Peirce's equally famous 4.551 comment of 'Thought is not
necessarily connected with a brain" has no reference to god.
Now, if one wants to argue, against the Five Reasons, for the
reality of Mind within Matter - that is another argument and one that
I would consider to have validity. Peirce's outline [6.490] of this
'disembodied spirit or pure mind'' which has a "character related to
the habit-taking capacity".
But - in contrast to the axioms of Anselm/Aquinas, to Peirce "the
Unknowable is a nominalistic heresy" 6.492..and Peirce's view of god,
as I read him, is that it is a force akin to Mind - the
introduction/generation of [old and new] habits of formation within
matter. Period.
Edwina
On Fri 11/05/18 1:39 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected]
[3] sent:
Stephen J., List:
I have no desire (and no time these days) to engage in a debate
here, but ...
SJ: I don’t understand what insights a creator/designer provides
as to the nature of existence.
Why is there existence at all? Why is there something, rather than
nothing? Peirce's answer was the Reality of God as Ens necessarium.
SJ: What phenomenology explains His motivation to be? Why should He
care to create life? Where is His workshop? What tools does He use?
Does He have hands with which to wield a hammer or use a soldering
iron? Does he have eyes with which to read a blueprint? ... I’m not
big fan of Richard Dawkins, but he does have a point when he asks,
sarcastically, who created god? A god-god? Then who created god-god?
A god-god-god? God as a creator makes no sense and explains nothing.
These kinds of questions reveal a profound misunderstanding, or
perhaps willful ignorance, of what classical theists actually believe
about the nature of God.
SJ: Here’s my prediction… whatever the right theory is, it MUST
make sense… and we will know it when we see it. A godly designer
does not make sense.
Your faith in human reason is impressive, but sadly misplaced. Why
would anyone expect an infinite God, if Real, to be entirely
comprehensible to finite beings like us?
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer,
Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran
Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [4] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [5]
On Fri, May 11, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Stephen Jarosek wrote:
Hi Colin,
I don’t understand what insights a creator/designer provides as to
the nature of existence. What phenomenology explains His motivation to
be? Why should He care to create life? Where is His workshop? What
tools does He use? Does He have hands with which to wield a hammer or
use a soldering iron? Does he have eyes with which to read a
blueprint?
Many of us might be receptive to a God as a unity, as Kashyap
suggests, in the laws of nature around us. It would make more sense
for God’s emergence to be bootstrapped with the emergence of the
universe as a unity, not as a meddler in a workshop working to a
blueprint. God and the universe as one. Or maybe a systems-theory
view of nested hierarchies, where autopoiesis (self-organisation) can
be considered a form of creation/design. But not god as a visitor in
some kind of workspace.
I’m not big fan of Richard Dawkins, but he does have a point when
he asks, sarcastically, who created god? A god-god? Then who created
god-god? A god-god-god? God as a creator makes no sense and explains
nothing.
Isaac Newton provided the axiomatic framework for a physics that did
not make sense at the time. Now it makes perfect sense, and we bear
witness to its relevance in our engineering and technological
achievements. We need a similar awakening with the life sciences.
What axiomatic framework does God the Creator/Designer relate to?
Here’s my prediction… whatever the right theory is, it MUST make
sense… and we will know it when we see it. A godly designer does
not make sense. There is no phenomenology that explains his
motivations or existence.
And you raise the topic of mutations again. Natural selection based
on mutations violates the principles of entropy, as the tendency to
disorder. Nobody’s proven the relevance of mutations to evolution.
Pure, unsubstantiated conjecture. Calvin Beisner, with reference to
the work of RH Byles, dispenses tidily with the mutation mumbo jumbo:
https://www.icr.org/article/270 [6]
Regards
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