Jon, list, JAS: I acknowledge the ambiguity of words like "logic," "phenomenology," and "semeiotic" in Peirce's writings taken as a whole,
Then the difference between us is that you do not acknowledge the ambiguity of the word “Normative” in CP 1.191. As Auke pointed out, the main reason this matters is that if you wrongly attribute normativity (uncapitalized) to Peirce’s “speculative grammar,” you miss the whole point of Peirce’s expanding the scope of “logic” beyond normativity in the usual sense of that word. Logic as semeiotic is no longer limited to the classification of arguments as good or bad, or to the conditions of signs being true; it now includes the conditions of signs being signs, i.e. meaning anything. John has a point in that Logic as Semeiotic shares with phenomenology an emphasis on observation and analysis — which must indeed precede any judgments of good or bad in the practice of science. By the way, Peirce’s classification of sciences is itself ambiguous, in that it follows Comte in placing the most general sciences at the top, so that “lower” sciences take their principles from the “higher” (and sometimes their data from the lower still) — but Peirce also tries to define and classify sciences according to the natural groupings of their practitioners into communities. In some cases, such as Logic, this pragmatic aspect complicates the simple picture of top-down dependency. Hence the significance of Peirce claiming that logicians will have to study “the physiology of signs” simply because nobody else is going to do it (R 499 as quoted by Bellucci). This complicates the traditional classification of logic as one of the three Normative sciences. Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: 10-Mar-19 18:55 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] The Bedrock Beneath Pragmaticism Gary F., List: I acknowledge the ambiguity of words like "logic," "phenomenology," and "semeiotic" in Peirce's writings taken as a whole, and (especially) in philosophical discourse generally. However, the current topic of discussion is really quite narrow--where Semeiotic is situated in Peirce's classification of the sciences; specifically, "his last complete version" (CP 1.180-202), which supposedly was the primary basis for John Sowa's diagram. CP 1.191 unambiguously equates all three branches of Semeiotic--Speculative Grammar, Critic, and Methodeutic--with Logic as the third branch of Normative Science. Nothing in the rest of CP 1.180-202 states or implies that any aspect of Semeiotic belongs anywhere else in Peirce's classification. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 5:22 PM <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jon, On the contrary, your reply to JS does not address the points I raised at all — the chief of which was the ambiguity of the word “logic” in Peirce’s usage, which he managed to gloss over in CP 1.191, the one place where he did use “logic” in the broad sense (i.e. as semeiotic) while also referring to it as “Normative.” My post (plus correction) was an attempt to account for that example, and for the other passage you quote below, by situating them in their context. If my attempt doesn’t work for you, or you prefer to use these terms inflexibly rather than admit their ambiguity in Peirce’s usage, there’s nothing further I can do. As for your dispute with John S, rather than taking sides on the issue, I prefer to attribute the dispute itself to the ambiguity of the words “phenomenology” and “semeiotic.” This is the same ambiguity which caused Joe Ransdell, a very responsible scholar, to say that almost all of Peirce’s phenomenology really came under the heading of semeiotic. I don’t agree with that position, or with John’s, or with yours for that matter, because I think you are all assuming that the references of these classificatory terms are more exact than they actually are, and coming to different conclusions about what they (so exactly) mean. I think it would help to consider all of Peirce’s “Ethics of Terminology,” and not only the recommendation that every scientific term should have a single exact meaning. That simply doesn’t work with terms that are in widespread use; it only works in highly specialized disciplines. (I think it was rather quixotic on Peirce’s part to try to make cenoscopy, or philosophy, into such a specialized discipline.) Ironically, Peirce himself recognizes this kind of problem in the very text named in our subject line. It’s the problem that in the discourse of positive sciences, generalization necessarily leads to simplification which amounts to falsification if considered too precisely. I’ve quoted it before, but here it is again: [[ in speaking above of a “generalized” icon, I used the qualification in a sense of “generalize” common among designers, especially among cartographers, as well as in vernacular talk, though it is not the proper logical sense of the verb, since it does not signify the removal of any constituent of logical depth from a condition, nor confers any liberty on the interpreter, but implies some almost microscopic items that are really falsifications committed in the interest of simplification. Thus, a map “generalizes” its image of a river in representing the latter as not making sundry small windings that it really does make. So recollection may be said to “generalize” the remembered perception in representing this to be without many insignificant details that really did belong to it; and although an icon is not, properly speaking, general, so far as it is a pure icon, yet every icon must “generalize,” more or less, in this peculiar sense. ]] Peirce is referring specifically to icons here, but it is obviously true of verbal descriptions, and even more so of class-names, that they tend to “generalize,” “falsify” and “simplify” simultaneously. I would argue that this happens whenever Peirce refers to “logic” as a “normative science.” As I think I have shown, the term “normative” does much more than distinguish one kind of logic (“normative”) from another (“formal logic”). Hence the need for Peirce to explain, as he does in your quote, that some adjustments are needed in our concept of what “normative” means in the phrase “normative sciences.” Those rivers have windings which are glossed over by the usual signification of the term “normative.” Also relevant here, I think, are Peirce’s remarks about thinkers getting into “ruts” which prevent them from presenting their own theories as well as they might be presented by somebody else. He is talking specifically about improvements to his system of Existential Graphs, but he is also generalizing from that: [[ Experience seems further to show, what is credible enough a priori, the needful improvements are more likely to be discerned by some second person, whose mind is free from any deep ruts that may probably have been formed in that of the original inventor, by the particular way in which he has happened long to ponder the problem while it was not yet solved, passing over and over again one roadway of thought; not to speak of the effect of those same ruts in causing the original inventor to regard his way of solving the problem as simpler, that is to say, more facile and natural, than others that, in the absence of such ruts, are far superior to it in that respect. This consideration has encouraged me to publish my proof in the simplest form in which I can present it in a limited time; since I am led to believe that it is not my part, but that of some other thinker, to metamorphose my proof into a new form, in which it shall be vastly superior to its first incorporation, alike in point of evidence and in that of simplicity. ]] I might surmise that the “simplest form” in which he tried to publish his “proof” of pragmaticism turned out to be MS 318 (simply entitled “Pragmatism” in EP2), which was unfortunately rejected by two publishers and did not appear in Peirce’s lifetime. In any case, he was hoping that “some other thinker” would improve on what he had done because it would avoid his own “ruts.” Whether that has happened, I am not prepared to say. Anyway, I think one’s attempt to regularize terminology that is naturally multivalent is likely to deepen whatever ruts one already tends to get stuck in. 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 [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 .
