Edwina, John, list, Edwina wrote: The laws, per se, do not 'exist' on their own because they are laws/generals.
I agree that most certainly laws do not 'exist' *because* they are generals. But now you add: ET: They are only operable when they function as the habits/organization of actuality.So- they can certainly never be 'outside the universe of actually' [i.e., as Platonic Forms]; they are embedded within actuality [Aristotle]. But saying, as you do, that laws can never be 'outside the universe of actuality' and are merely 'embedded within actuality' is to in effect conflate the 2nd and 3rd universes, to claim that there are *not *three distinct Universes but *really *(I use that word advisedly as reality is reduced to existence) only two. However, Peirce sees it differently: I believe the law of habit to be purely psychical. But then I suppose matter is merely mind deadened by the development of habit. While every physical process can be reversed without violation of the law of mechanics, the law of habit forbids such a reversal. 1891-08-29 | Letters to Christine Ladd-Franklin | W 8:387 in Commens Dictionary And the generalizing law is "a universal tendency": I was led to the hypothesis that the laws of the universe have been formed under *a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking.* 1898 | Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things: Habit | RLT 241; CP 7.515 Commens (emphasis added) This "universal tendency. . .toward generalization" is, to my way of thinking, the third universe. To seemingly reduce three Universes to two (by conflating law, 3ns, and lawfulness, or law expressed in the existential world, 2ns, is, to my way of thinking, not only to undermine the reality of the third universe but the second existential universe as well. (Note just below that Peirce writes "existence (not reality).") 1901 | Individual | CP 3.613 …whatever exists is individual, since existence (not reality) and individuality are essentially the same thing… Existence has its own unique character, is "a special mode of reality." 1902 | Minute Logic: Chapter IV. Ethics (Logic IV) | CP 6.349 Existence […] is a special mode of reality, which, whatever other characteristics it possesses, has that of being absolutely determinate. Further, distinguishing the second and third universes, Peirce writes: 1905 | Letters to Mario Calderoni | MS [R] L67 That mode of being which we call existence, the reaction of everything in the universe against every other. . . brutally insisting on a place is Secundan. I say “brutally”, because *no law, so far as we know, makes any single object to exist. Law only determines in what way things shall behave, once they do exist *(emphasis added). The dynamic character (which you and JAS have argued at length about) is for Peirce clearly a characteristic of existence (secundan) which he here distinguishes from reality (tertian). 1905 [c.] | Pragmatism, Prag [R] | CP 5.503 …*reality *means a certain kind of non-dependence upon thought, and so is a cognitionary character, while *existence *means reaction with the environment, and so is a dynamic character… So, as Peirce sees it, your view "abolishes objective necessity" (the third university) in not fully accepting the independent reality of would-be's. And he ties this to that which would be *in futuro* (while existence is hic et nunc). 1905 | Issues of Pragmaticism | MS [R] 290:52 …Necessitarianism is the doctrine that there is no objective indetermination of Modality; it abolishes objective necessity and possibility together, and only conceives the future as that which *will* have been. Best, Gary *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinkingu* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *718 482-5690* On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 2:46 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > John, list > > Agreed, the entities of pure mathematics do not exist in the universe of > actuality. > > Now, with regard to the universe of necessity, i.e., Laws/Thirdness - > which you say are outside of the universe of actuality - I'll quibble with > the wording. > > The laws, per se, do not 'exist' on their own because they are > laws/generals. They are only operable when they function as the > habits/organization of actuality. > > So- they can certainly never be 'outside the universe of actually' [i.e., > as Platonic Forms]; they are embedded within actuality [Aristotle]. > > Edwina > > > > > > > On Wed 22/08/18 2:22 PM , John F Sowa [email protected] sent: > > On 8/22/2018 2:11 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote: > > "I defined actuality as anything that ever was, is, or will be > > anywhere in the universe. Most of us know more about the past > > and present than we do about the future, but our knowledge is > > irrelevant to its existence. " > > > > What's the difference, then, between your definition of actuality and > > the definition of possibility? > > I was using Peirce's three disjoint universes. The entities > of pure mathematics do not exist in the universe of actuality. > > The entities in the universe of necessity, such as laws, > are also outside the universe of actuality. > > John > > > >
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