John characterized Aristotle: “5. Rational psyche of an animal having logos
(zôon logon echein).
Each psyche inherits all the abilities of the more primitive
psyches.
For Aristotle, the rational psyche of humans is the most advanced.”
I prefer “Rational psyche of an animal having logos (zôon logon echein).”
The idea that humans adequately meet that criterion, if that is Aristotle’s
opinion and if I am correctly understanding it, is problematic.
It would be typical of humans to overrate the rational capacity and to
self-glorify the rational as the most “advanced.” One could also say that
the rational psyche of humans is the most advanced in destructive
irrationality. The human rational psyche’s most notable achievement
retrospectively may be the now developing anthropocene extinction event,
which will likely have virtually extinguished the current model of humans
and decimated life more generally.
Another perspective is that the “rational psyche of humans,” rather
than being the most advanced, is the most dependent on the rest of the
community of life. This is the way it was and still is usually conceived by
peoples of the earth, with understanding of the need for limits on the
overweening rational human psyche. And it may prove to be the more proper
balance, of a piece with Peirce’s ideas on rational mind as “Unmatured
Instinctive Mind”:
“The conception of the Rational Mind as an Unmatured Instinctive Mind which
takes another development precisely because of its childlike character is
confirmed, not only by the prolonged childhood of men, but also by the fact
that all systems of rational performances have had instinct for their first
germ” CP 7.381.
The others, us, the civilized peoples who in various ways thought and still
think that the earth could be controlled and transcended through
technology, religions of transcendence, and the progress of power, are in
the process of having that hubris brought down to earth.
James Lovelock, who invented the electron capture detector in 1957, with
which he was the first to measure CFCs in the atmosphere, and who later,
while working for NASA, proposed the Gaia hypothesis, said in an interview
in 2008:
"There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very
similar to the one that’s just about to happen. I think these events keep
separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we’ll have a human on
the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly.
That’s the source of my optimism.” For more of his optimism of the long
run:
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
Gene Halton
On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 10:48 PM Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Jon, list,
>
> Thanks for this post as it appears to me from these passages (and many
> other which I'm sure could be cited and which I vaguely recall) that I will
> *not* have to revise/upend/reverse everything I've ever thought about how
> Peirce viewed form and matter; and that I can continue to safely associate
> form with 1ns, matter with 2ns.
>
> Whew! I was worried there for a moment!
>
> Best,
>
> Gary
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>
> *718 482-5690*
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 9:52 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Gary F., List:
>>
>> Here is what Peirce actually wrote at EP 2:373 (1906).
>>
>> CSP: *The idea of growth,*--the stately tree springing from the tiny
>> grain,--was the key that Aristotle brought to be tried upon this intricate
>> grim lock. In such trials he came upon those wonderful conceptions, *δύναμις
>> *and *ἐ**νέργεια*, *ὕ**λη *and *μορφή *or *ε**ἶ**δος*, or, as he might
>> still better have said, *τύπος*, the blow, the *coup*. (*A propos* of
>> what was said above about the way to read, the sentence just set down is an
>> instance of one beyond which a reader had better not proceed, until he
>> pretty nearly understands the point of view from which the force of that
>> remark appears.) This idea of Aristotle's has proved marvellously fecund;
>> and in truth it is the only idea covering quite the whole area of cenoscopy
>> that has shown any marked uberosity.
>>
>>
>> Notice what he stated immediately after mentioning *τύπος*.
>> Unfortunately, per the EP endnotes, the earlier pages where he apparently
>> discussed "the way to read" are missing. That only gives greater weight to
>> his warning about not proceeding without understanding "the point of view
>> from which the force of that remark appears."
>>
>> It seems very tenuous to me to conclude from this one sentence that "
>> *form* is the active and forceful side of the matter/form duality, while
>> *matter* is the passive side," such that "*matter* corresponds to
>> Firstness and *form* to Secondness." On the contrary, Peirce quite
>> unambiguously associated Form with 1ns and Matter with 2ns, not only in
>> "New Elements" but also in "Sketch of Dichotomic Mathematics" (NEM
>> 4:292-300; 1904) and other contemporaneous manuscripts. For example ...
>>
>> CSP: A *Quality*, or *Form*, of which qualities of feeling, such as
>> *red*, are examples, is something which is whatever it is quite
>> regardless of anything else ... A *Quoddam*, or *Matter* ... of which a
>> *non-ego*, or resisting something, is an example, is such that its being
>> consists entirely in its reactions with other quoddams. As reacting, it
>> really exists and is *individual* ... (R 5:25-26[6-7]; 1904)
>>
>>
>> And even more so ...
>>
>> CSP: *Form*,--the true, Aristotelian form,--brings matter together, but
>> is quite passive, being all that it is within itself ... When we ask what a
>> form is, we set out from the immediately known qualities of feeling and
>> suppose that there is something of the same sort beyond feeling, out of
>> consciousness. When we ask what matter is, we set out from the directly
>> experienced resistance of an obstacle against which we push, and suppose
>> that something like that fills the outer world. This philosophy cannot be
>> improved upon ... (R 5:48-49[33-34]; 1904)
>>
>>
>> He even highlighted a key difference between Aristotle's concepts of Form
>> vs. Matter and those of the scholastics, characteristically aligning
>> himself with the latter.
>>
>> CSP: Aristotle's metaphysics undoubtedly belongs to the general type of
>> evolutionary systems ... Matter is, for him, that which is what it is
>> in itself. Form is that which is only so far as it is embodied in matter,
>> and is essentially dichotomic, as Plato made it. The scholastic
>> metaphysics, on the other hand, looks upon the pure nature, or Form, as
>> that which is what it is in itself, and as prior to any embodiment of it
>> ... From this point of view, matter (it is always the Aristotelian matter I
>> speak of, or that which simply exists) ought to be held to exist only by
>> reaction, and so to be that which is what it is by force of *another*.
>> It is not necessary for the logician to embrace either of these theories
>> (of which I prefer the second.) (R 517:92-93[18-19]; 1904)
>>
>>
>> Lest anyone wonder if perhaps Peirce changed his mind about all of this
>> over the ensuing two years ...
>>
>> CSP: Matter is that by virtue of which an object gains Existence, a fact
>> known only by an Index, which is connected with the object only by brute
>> force; while Form, being that by which the object is such as it is, is
>> comprehensible. (NEM 4:322; 1906)
>>
>>
>> He even discussed Form and Matter as they specifically pertain to
>> Existential Graphs.
>>
>> CSP: ... I ask you to recall the definitions of Matter and Form that go
>> back to Aristotle (though it is hard to believe they are not earlier; and
>> the metaphysical application of *ϋλη* sounds to me like some late Ionic
>> philosopher, and not a bit like Aristotle, whom it would also have been
>> more like to claim it, if it were his). Form is that which makes anything
>> such as it is, while matter makes it to be. From this pair of beautiful
>> generalizations are born a numerous family of harmonious and
>> interresemblant acceptions of the two words. In speaking of Graphs we may
>> well call the Principles of their Interpretation (such as the Endoporeutic
>> Principle) the Form; the way of shaping and scribing them (such as leaving
>> the Line without barbs) the Matter. Nothing could be in better accord with
>> the general definitions of Form and of Matter. (NEM 4:329-330; 1906)
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 5:15 PM <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> John S, list,
>>>
>>> Speaking of Aristotle’s influence on Peirce, and in particular the
>>> connection between *De Anima* and Peirce’s concept of *quasi-mind*,
>>> there is a very explicit example in one of Peirce’s 1906 drafts for his
>>> *Monist* series on pragmatism, the one beginning at EP2:371. Peirce
>>> deals here not with the mind-matter distinction but with the Aristotelian
>>> distinction between *form* and *matter*. A close look at this shows
>>> that the concept of *matter* emerging from this distinction is very
>>> different from the concept of *matter* that is usually contrasted with
>>> *mind* in current metaphysical thinking.
>>>
>>> This essay, “The Basis of Pragmatism in the Normative Sciences,” points
>>> out that “Idioscopy,” which includes all of the “special sciences” (such as
>>> physics, biology, psychology and sociology), depends for its basic
>>> principles on “cenoscopy” (which “embraces all that positive science which
>>> rests upon familiar experience”). “A sound methodeutic requires heuretic
>>> science to found its researches upon cenoscopy, passing with as slight a
>>> gap as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar” (EP2:373). But
>>> formulating this methodeutic “presents a certain difficulty” because it
>>> involves reconsidering some of our own beliefs, which requires critical
>>> thinking. “Each criticism should wait to be planned, and each plan should
>>> wait for criticism. “Clearly, if we are to get on at all, we must put up
>>> with imperfect procedure.” This is where Peirce appeals to Aristotle’s *De
>>> Anima* (as the EP2 editors point out in an endnote) for a “key … to be
>>> tried upon this intricate grim lock.”
>>>
>>> This “key” is “*The idea of growth*,— the stately tree springing from
>>> the tiny grain” (Peirce’s italics). Now, *growth* is one of the key
>>> *semeiotic* ideas in Peirce’s late philosophy, which frequently asserts
>>> an analogy (if not an identity) between *sign* processes and *life*
>>> processes. The example (or metaphor) he gives here, and indeed nearly all
>>> of Peirce’s uses of the term “growth” in semeiotic contexts, suggest that
>>> the idea is very close if not identical to what we now call
>>> *self-organization*. Peirce does not quote a Greek term which Aristotle
>>> used for this idea of “growth,” but he does quote some other Greek terms
>>> which he calls “wonderful conceptions” that Aristotle “came upon” in
>>> developing the idea: “δύναμις and ἐνέργεια, ὕλη and μορφή or εἶδος, or,
>>> as he might still better have said, τύπος, the blow, the *coup*.”
>>>
>>> The terms δύναμις and ἐνέργεια are typically translated as
>>> “potentiality” and “actuality” respectively; ὕλη and μορφή or εἶδος are
>>> the terms for “matter” (ὕλη) and “form” (either μορφή or εἶδος). This
>>> gives us a pair of metaphysical dualities, which is itself significant in
>>> that Peirce focusses in this essay on the “hard dualism” of *Normative
>>> Science*, which “forms the midportion of cenoscopy and its most
>>> characteristic part” (EP2:376). Peirce had earlier introduced the concepts
>>> of Aristotelian *matter* and *form* as a complementary pair in his “New
>>> Elements” essay (EP2:304), where they correspond to subject and predicate,
>>> or denotation and signification. But in this 1906 essay he gives a new
>>> twist to this matter/form distinction by saying (as quoted above) that
>>> instead of μορφή or εἶδος, Aristotle might better have used the term
>>> “τύπος, the blow, the *coup*.” (As I showed in a blog post recently,
>>> the earliest meaning of τύπος — which later evolved to mean the same as the
>>> English “type” — was “a blow.”)
>>>
>>> This suggests that *form* is the active and forceful side of the
>>> matter/form duality, while *matter* is the passive side. In
>>> phaneroscopic terms, *matter* corresponds to Firstness and *form* to
>>> Secondness. This is a bit startling at first — at least it struck me that
>>> way — but as Peirce explains it (using the duality of the sexes as a
>>> metaphor) it does become a key to the methodeutic of cenoscopy and thus to
>>> the very nature of reasoning, inquiry and semiosis itself. Perhaps I don’t
>>> need to show how this duality plays out in Peirce’s 1906 essay (but I will
>>> in another post if anyone wants me to). But I think it’s significant that
>>> around this same time, Peirce was saying to Lady Welby that “the Form is
>>> the Object of the Sign,” and defining the Sign as a “medium for the
>>> communication or extension of a Form” (EP2:477). He was saying this in a
>>> draft which dealt largely with Existential Graphs, for a reason which he
>>> explained in this paragraph (SS:195):
>>>
>>> I should like to write a little book on ‘The Conduct of Thoughts’ in
>>> which the introductory chapter should introduce the reader to my
>>> existential graphs, which would then be used throughout as the apparent
>>> subject, the parable or metaphor, in terms of which everything would be
>>> said,—which would be far more scientific than dragging in the “mind” all
>>> the time, in German fashion, when the mind and psychology has no more to do
>>> with the substance of the book than if I were to discourse of the
>>> ingredients of the ink I use.
>>>
>>> He goes on to explain that in EGs, “the blank leaf itself [i.e. the
>>> sheet of assertion] is the quasi-mind.” Now, if we apply the matter/form
>>> distinction to EGs, I think we would have to say that the blank sheet is
>>> the *matter* which gets *determined* by some *form* being scribed upon
>>> it, just as any sign is determined by its object to determine an
>>> interpretant. For Peirce, what is essential both to quasi-minds and to
>>> symbols is that they are *indeterminate*, i.e. subject to further
>>> determination. That is pretty close to the concept of *matter* (ὕλη) as
>>> Aristotle defined it in Book 2 of *De Anima.* In this sense, then,
>>> *mind* is *matter*, not form. No wonder, then, that the *mind/matter*
>>> distinction seems quite foreign to Peirce’s late semeiotic.
>>>
>>> I don’t know how much sense this makes to readers of the list, but I’ll
>>> try to clarify if necessary. I do find it significant in that this same
>>> period saw the publication of Peirce’s “Prolegomena to an Apology for
>>> Pragmaticism,” his most elaborate attempt to connect his EGs with his
>>> “proof” of pragmatism and thus with the rest of his philosophy.
>>>
>>> Gary f.
>>>
>>
-----------------------------
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
