List, I neglected to mention in yesterday’s post that the molecules mentioned by Peirce in his explanation of valency are represented on EP2:363 more iconically than they are in the rendition I copied into my post. For instance, the methane molecule appears as the letter C surrounded by four Hs to represent the carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms (the bonds themselves are not represented), rather than the ‘algebraic’ notation [CH4]. This looks more like an Existential Graph than the ‘algebraic’ notation does.
I also forgot to mention the medad, which is an ‘element’ that does not enter into combination at all. One of the questions we’ll have to deal with shortly is whether the category of Firstness corresponds to a medad or a monad in “phanerochemy.” The quote I’m presenting today is from EP2:363-4, and it is still concerned with the “mental preparation” required before we can begin observing the phaneron. We should notice that this “preparation” draws ideas from logic, and even from metaphysics, to flesh out the phanerochemical hypothesis: [[ … sound logic does distinctly recommend that the hypothesis of the indecomposable elements of the Phaneron being in their general constitution like the chemical atoms be taken up as a hypothesis with a view to its being subjected to the test of an inductive inquiry. There are further considerations, however, which warrant our expecting more confidently to find in elements of the Phaneron certain forms than to find certain others. Thus, unless the Phaneron were to consist entirely of elements altogether uncombined mentally, in which case we should have no idea of a Phaneron (since this, if we have the idea, is an idea combining all the rest), which is as much as to say that there would be no Phaneron, its esse being percipi if any is so; or unless the Phaneron were itself our sole idea, and were utterly indecomposable, when there could be no such thing as an interrogation and no such thing as a judgment (as will appear below), it follows that if there is a Phaneron (which would be an assertion), or even if we can ask whether there be or no, there must be an idea of combination (i.e., having combination for its object thought of). Now the general idea of a combination must be an indecomposable idea. For otherwise it would be compounded, and the idea of combination would enter into it as an analytic part of it. It is, however, quite absurd to suppose an idea to be a part of itself, and not the whole. Therefore, if there is a Phaneron, the idea of combination is an indecomposable element of it. This idea is a triad; for it involves the ideas of a whole and of two parts (a point to be further considered below). Accordingly, there will necessarily be a triad in the Phaneron. Moreover, if the metaphysicians are right in saying (those of them who do say so) that there is but one absolutely necessary idea, which is that of the Triune God, then this idea of the Triune God must in some way be identical with the simple idea of combination. But out of triads exclusively it is possible to build all external forms, medads, monads, dyads, triads, tetrads, pentads, hexads, and the rest. The figure below suggests one way. ]] This figure shows that we can make higher polyads by combining triads, but also that we can make medads, monads and dyads by combining triads. What this shows is that neither medads nor monads are internally simple, because -adicity is entirely a matter of external relations. The -adicity of each example shown in Peirce’s figure is the number of uncombined or “unsaturated” bonds, which could also be referred to as “tails” or “loose ends.” But since “the simple idea of combination” is already a triad, we can reasonably expect to find that such a triad (let’s call it Thirdness) can be found as an indecomposable element of the phaneron. I’m out of time for today so I’ll leave it here, for now … Questions welcome of course. Gary f. From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: 25-Mar-19 10:55 To: Peirce list <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic List, First I’d like to thank Jon A.S. and Francesco Bellucci for their posts in another thread which help to clear up a basic misconception about Peirce’s application of his categories to his semiotic analysis. To further my aim of getting “back to basics” in this thread, I’ll try to state one key point in more general terms: Each of the ten trichotomies in Peirce’s late classification of signs can be (and usually is) arranged in order of increasing complexity. Within each trichotomy, the simplest sign type is “first” in relation to the other two. Thus Seme is first in the trichotomy Seme/Pheme/Delome. But that is the only sense in which “A Seme is a First” (as John S. put it). Only one trichotomy of signs — Qualisign/Sinsign/Legisign (as Peirce called them in 1903) — is made according to the “mode of being” or ontological nature of the sign itself as possible/actual/necessary. All the other trichotomies classify signs according to their various relations to the other correlates within the basic triadic relation Sign-Object-Interpretant. Within the Seme/Pheme/Delome trichotomy, which (as Jon said) is made according to the sign’s relation to its interpretant, the Seme is certainly not First in an ontological sense as claimed by John S. This feature of Peirce’s trichotomic analyses should be borne in mind as we look further into his development of the “valency” analogy. The next Peirce text I’m selecting from here was “probably written in December 1905” according to EP2, where it is Selection 26, “The Basis of Pragmaticism in Phaneroscopy.” I have highlighted certain key terms by using bold type; the italics are Peirce’s (i.e. they mark words he underlined in the manuscript). [[ I propose to use the word Phaneron as a proper name to denote the total content of any one consciousness (for any one is substantially any other), the sum of all we have in mind in any way whatever, regardless of its cognitive value. This is pretty vague: I intentionally leave it so. I will only point out that I do not limit the reference to an instantaneous state of consciousness; for the clause “in any way whatever” takes in memory and all habitual cognition. The reader will probably wonder why I did not content myself with some expression already in use. The reason is that the absence of any contiguous associations with the new word will render it sharper and clearer than any well-worn coin could be. I invite the reader to join me in a little survey of the Phaneron (which will be sufficiently identical for him and for me) in order to discover what different forms of indecomposable elements it contains. On account of the general interest of this inquiry, I propose to push it further than the question of pragmaticism requires; but I shall be forced to compress my matter excessively. It will be a work of observation. But in order that a work of observation should bring in any considerable harvest, there must always be a preparation of thought, a consideration, as definite as may be, of what it is possible that observation should disclose. That is a principle familiar to every observer. Even if one is destined to be quite surprised, the preparation will be of mighty aid. As such preparation for our survey, then, let us consider what forms of indecomposable elements it is possible that we should find. The expression “indecomposable element” sounds pleonastic; but it is not so, since I mean by it something which not only is elementary, since it seems so, and seeming is the only being a constituent of the Phaneron has, as such, but is moreover incapable of being separated by logical analysis into parts, whether they be substantial, essential, relative, or any other kind of parts. Thus, a cow inattentively regarded may perhaps be an element of the Phaneron; but whether it can be so or not, it is certain that it can be analyzed logically into many parts of different kinds that are not in it as a constituent of the Phaneron, since they were not in mind in the same way as the cow was, nor in any way in which the cow, as an appearance in the Phaneron, could be said to be formed of these parts. We are to consider what forms are possible, rather than what kinds are possible, because it is universally admitted, in all sorts of inquiries, that the most important divisions are divisions according to form, and not according to qualities of matter, in case division according to form is possible at all. Indeed, this necessarily results from the very idea of the distinction between form and matter. If we content ourselves with the usual statement of this idea, the consequence is quite obvious. A doubt may, however, arise whether any distinction of form is possible among indecomposable elements. But since a possibility is proved as soon as a single actual instance is found, it will suffice to remark that although the chemical atoms were until quite recently conceived to be, each of them, quite indecomposable and homogeneous, yet they have for half a century been known to differ from one another, not indeed in internal form, but in external form. Carbon, for example, is a tetrad, combining only in the form [CH4] (marsh gas), that is, with four bonds with monads (such as is H) or their equivalent; boron is a triad, forming by the action of magnesium on boracic anhydride, [H3B], and never combining with any other valency; glucinum [the old name for beryllium] is a dyad, forming [GCl2], as the vapor-density of this salt, corroborated by many other tests, conclusively shows, and it, too, always has the same valency; lithium forms LiH and LiI and Li3N, and is invariably a monad: and finally helion, neon, argon, krypton, and xenon are medads, not entering into atomic combination at all. We conclude, then, that there is a fair antecedent reason to suspect that the Phaneron's indecomposable elements may likewise have analogous differences of external form. Should we find this possibility to be actualized, it will, beyond all dispute, furnish us with by far the most important of all divisions of such elements. ]] A tetrad (valency 4) is called so because it forms four bonds with monads, i.e. with atoms that form only single bonds with anything else. A triad (valency 3) forms three bonds with monads, and a dyad (valency 2) forms two bonds with monads. Peirce is proposing that this division of the chemical elements according to their external form (i.e. their mode of combination with other atoms) can serve as a hypothetical model for a division of indecomposable elements of the phaneron. This is the preparation which (we hope) “will be of mighty aid” for the observation of the phaneron which is the inductive stage of the science of phaneroscopy. In practice, the key to such observation of the phaneron is the control of attention. “Thus, a cow inattentively regarded may perhaps be an element of the Phaneron,” but since it can be analyzed in many ways, it is certainly not an indecomposable element. This shows that Peirce’s phaneroscopic observation leads us directly into logical analysis — so directly that, in my view, logical analysis is in practice part of phaneroscopy. (There are other versions of phenomenology in which such analysis is not so directly involved — which is why I have described Peirce’s brand of phenomenology as more analytical than others.) If we ask how logic, or logic as semeiotic, can depend on phaneroscopy as Peirce says it does, the only way we can avoid circularity is to say that logica docens does depend on phaneroscopy, but the latter makes use of a logica utens as part of its process. (Or, as has been suggested, we can give other names to parts of the process; but personally I’d rather not introduce even more terminology into an already jargon-filled discourse.) There are probably other questions raised by the excerpt above, or by my commentary, so I’ll stop here for today to see if anyone wants to raise them before we continue. Gary f.
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