Gary F - thanks for this post. I fully agree with your outline.
Excellent analysis - both in the outline of Form functioning within
the three categories - and the view of Matter...and..your outline of
3ns/entelechy ..and also, the notion of the Perfect Sign.
Edwina
On Sun 16/12/18 12:10 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
Jon, list,
You’ve been pointing out an apparent discrepancy between “New
Elements” (and other 1904 texts) and MS 283 of 1906 (selection 27
in EP2), which I’ve been quoting in this thread. The question is
whether Aristotelian matter and form correspond to Peircean
firstness and secondness respectively, or the other way round. I’ve
argued that this is a metaphysical question and it’s better for a
logician to “remain aloof” from it, as Peirce said, rather than
try to settle on a definitive answer — especially considering the
fact that Peirce does not explicitly mention “firstness” or
“secondness” in either “New Elements” or MS 283. Now I’d
like to suggest an alternative to the question.
In his defining phaneroscopy at CP 1.284 (1905), Peirce says that
“So far as I have developed this science of phaneroscopy, it is
occupied with the formal elements of the phaneron” (my italics). My
suggestion is that Peirce’s three categories or “elements” can
be regarded as elements of Aristotelian Form: Quality is the
Firstness of Form, Actuality is the Secondness of Form, and Growth is
the Thirdness of Form. As for Aristotelian Matter, it is simply
indeterminate substance, or the capacity to be determined (by Form),
thus gaining embodied individuality or determinate existence.
We could use entelechy instead of Growth for Thirdness, with the
understanding that it is a process (“perfecting growth” as Peirce
says in MS 283) rather than the completed (or ideal) form at the end
of the growth process, which is what Aristotle seems to mean by
ἐντελέχεια. That could also explain the difference between
a sufficiently complete sign — well defined, I think, in your
response to Jerry (below) — and the perfect sign which Peirce
describes in MS 283. The perfect sign is never complete but always
in a process of becoming; the complete sign which comprises both
denotation and signification is a kind of hypostatic abstraction,
conceived as an entity which plays a key role in semiosis.
We had a brief discussion offlist in which you raised some other
important points, but I’ll have to leave that to you, as I’m
being called away right now …
Gary f.
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
Sent: 15-Dec-18 19:36
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] the sexuality of methodeutic
Jerry C., List:
In this context, I understand "sufficiently complete" in two ways.
*A pure Icon would signify something without denoting anything,
while a pure Index would denote something without signifying anything
(cf. EP 2:307; 1904). Only a Symbol is sufficiently complete to do
both.
*A Replica of a Rheme, by itself, has only an Immediate Object
and an Immediate Interpretant--a range of things and characters that
it possibly could denote and signify, respectively, within the Sign
System to which it belongs. It is only when it is employed in an
Instance of a Dicisign that it has a Dynamic Object and Dynamic
Interpretant--individual thing(s) and character(s) that it actually
does denote and signify, respectively, on that particular occasion.
Only an Instance of a Dicisign is sufficiently complete to be an
event of semiosis, although it always involves Instances of Rhemes.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
-----------------------------
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 .
