BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}JAS, list
1] Peirce's 'Neglected Argument' is hardly comparable to the fame
and extensive analysis done on the Five Ways - with many books and
articles about these as theistic arguments. Therefore, the Five Ways
is not 'one approach', a comment by which you trivialize its hundreds
of years within both religious and philosophical research and
literature.
2] Peirce's outline of God is not, in my view, a theistic one nor is
it an argument, but is instead, purely semantic. He rejects the
traditional definition as incomprehensible - and we all know that he
said that it is useless to 'know' the incomprehensible. Instead -
Peirce defines 'god' as, instead, Mind. And his analysis of Mind is
always as a functioning of all three Categorical Modes: Firstness,
Secondness and Thirdness. That's it. And that definition is as far
removed from any theistic concept of a Supreme Power as it could be,
since it moves Power, so to speak, within all of Matter-as-Self
Organized.
Edwina
On Sat 12/05/18 10:02 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected]
sent:
Edwina, List:
1. The Five Ways constitute one approach to arguing for the
existence (or Reality) of God, but it is a considerable overstatement
to call them "the analytic backbone of theistic Arguments" or
(especially) "The Argument" as if there were no others--like Peirce's
"Neglected Argument," for example.
2. If Peirce was not a theist, then what other term should we use
instead for someone who very explicitly, on more than one occasion,
in no uncertain terms, affirmed his belief in the Reality of God?
So, then, the question being whether I believe in the reality of
God, I answer, Yes. (CP 6.496; c. 1906)
The word "God," so "capitalized" (as we Americans say), is the
definable proper name, signifying Ens necessarium; in my belief
Really creator of all three Universes of Experience. (CP 6.452; 1908)
By the proper name, God, I shall refer to that Being who possesses
those Attributes which I take to be most essential to the traditional
notion; that is to say, while His nature is incomprehensible, He
doubtless has Attributes called by proper extension of the terms
Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Infinite Benignity ... But I had better
add that I do not mean by God a being merely "immanent in Nature," but
I mean that Being who has created every content of the world of ideal
possibilities, of the world of physical facts, and the world of all
minds, without any exception whatever. For the argument that I am to
consider; and which, by the way, I will designate as 'The Neglected
Argument,' would not be true of any other being than God. But I do
not, by 'God,' mean, with some writers, a being so inscrutable that
nothing at all can be known of Him. I suppose most of our knowledge
of Him must be by similitudes. Thus, He is so much like a mind, and
so little like a singular Existent (meaning by an Existent, or object
that Exists, a thing subject to brute constraints, and reacting with
all other Existents,) and so opposed in His Nature to an ideal
possibility, that we may loosely say that He is a Spirit, or Mind. (R
843; 1908)
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 3:31 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
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
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
-----------------------------
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 .
