On 2/26/2019 9:49 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
I am not /your /student, and we are /both /students of Peirce.
Yes. But you have a lot to learn about recognizing the precision
in Peirce's writings. If you prefer, I won't call you a student.
I'll call you a "loose thinker".
I am not willing to accept someone else's dogmatic pronouncements
as if they were beyond questioning.
I never make dogmatic statements. I recognize that everything,
including my own writing is fallible. And I always appreciate
corrections or additional points I may have missed.
But before you reject what I've written or what Hartshorne and
Weiss have written, you must address the issues at the same or
deeper level of precision.
I consistently quote Peirce's own writings to back it up--as much
as or more than anyone else on the List these days,
A quotation is not a proof. Until you do the analysis at the level
that Peirce was writing, all you did was cut and paste a bunch of
words. An analysis of the passages you quoted confirms the fact
that you did not understand the points that Peirce was making.
sometimes that process produces surprises, forcing us to reconsider
views that we previously considered to be settled.
Yes indeed. But the issues aren't settled by juxtaposing passages.
All of us must do the much harder work of (1) analyzing those passages
at the level that Peirce was writing, (2) considering the unstated
background knowledge (i.e., collateral experience) that Peirce assumed
his readers would have, and (3) using relevant knowledge developed
during the past century.
In conclusion, I'll repeat what I wrote in my reply to Stephen:
Many people, including me, have found that in most publications,
even by prominent Peirce scholars, the quotations by Peirce are
more precise than the discussions about them.
The explanations by Peirce scholars are certainly helpful, because
they highlight points that we may have missed on first reading.
But when we reread Peirce's originals, we marvel at how clearly,
succinctly, and precisely they make their point.
Peirce's writings deserve that depth of analysis.
John
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