GaryF., List: Thank you for your comments and perspectives. Your perspective on the role of chemistry in CSP writings has changed in the past decade, has it not?
Next, a comment on a critical historical facet of chemistry. Inorganic chemistry developed from mining, smelting, coinage, weaponry, etc. Organic chemistry developed from food preservation, fermentation, dyestuffs and natural healing agents and the like. Relatively little cross-over between the two practices because of different ends and different methods. Conceptually, inorganic chemistry became the study of transformations by fire and heat, acids, bases and salts as electrical combinations of cations and anions that combined by pairings. Organic chemistry was defined in terms of Life and destruction of organics by heat and fire to form acids bases and salts. In both forms, the nature of chemical transformations was largely unfathomable. Mysterious. How this did “this” become “that”? This mystery remains in public mindset yet today, does it not? WRT the term, medad, it seems that CSP used the term in a grammatical sense in respect to the completeness of a sentence, in logical terms in the sense of completeness of propositions, in a chemical sense with regard to the inert gases and in a different chemical sense with regard to completeness or saturation of hypothetical valences. Context appears to determine the desired meaning. With regard to your sentences: > In that post, was not trying to say anything about the chemical sciences as > they exist today; and Peirce himself was not trying to inform his readers > about chemical science when he adopted the “valency” analogy to construct a > hypothesis about the elements of the phaneron. This thread is about > phaneroscopy, and about Peirce’s development of that science. When I use the > term “chemistry” in this thread, I am referring to the universe of discourse > from which Peirce drew the concept of valency — which was, of course, the > chemical science of his time. > my only comment is to wish you luck for the following reasons. CSP’s knowledge of math, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy and languages are intermingled and interbraided and interlaced and intermixed in such ways that I am skeptical that we will be able to untangle them. Was he justified in creating so many new words? Probably. But, without comparable knowledge of late 19 th Century math, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy and languages, each reader searches for an interpretation that fits their individual philosophy. Will anyone ever recreate the linguistic space that he created and mined and extended and bastardized? At least that’s my opinion this evening because it is now clear that several related symbol systems and logics are needed to make manifest the exact representation of things as forms and/or as information about things. With regard to the Bedrock paper, why did CSP use this word, “bedrock”? Is it merely a metaphor? Or, is it an analogy for sensible connects between the terminology of organic chemistry and his notions of existential graphs? Clearly, it is not homologous usages of organic terms between then and now. I remain very grateful for your transcription of this paper because it substantially clarifies the underlying roles of chemistry in his logic WITHOUT necessitating any direct relationships or propositions or connections or functions or mappings. Cheers Jerry > On Mar 31, 2019, at 7:18 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Jerry C, to answer your question, > > In that post, was not trying to say anything about the chemical sciences as > they exist today; and Peirce himself was not trying to inform his readers > about chemical science when he adopted the “valency” analogy to construct a > hypothesis about the elements of the phaneron. This thread is about > phaneroscopy, and about Peirce’s development of that science. When I use the > term “chemistry” in this thread, I am referring to the universe of discourse > from which Peirce drew the concept of valency — which was, of course, the > chemical science of his time. In the context you are quoting from, I was > trying to distinguish among three applications of the term “medad.” I don’t > know whether anyone other than Peirce ever used that term to denote an > element (such as argon) which does not react or combine with others; I’m only > concerned with Peirce’s own usage of it in phaneroscopic analysis. > > By the way, I didn’t respond to your earlier question as to what Peirce had > in mind when he referred to the “dark Mamoth cave of inorganic chemistry” > because I have no better idea of what he’s talking about than you do. > Actually, I am leaning toward the possibility that Peirce, in drafting the > “Bedrock” essay, simply and accidentally switched the terms “organic” and > “inorganic” in that passage. One hesitates to ascribe such a mistake to > Peirce, but there are several such mistakes in that draft which indicate to > me that Peirce abandoned the draft and never went back to revise it. The > misspelling of the name of the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is another clue that > points in this direction. I have no better suggestion to account for Peirce’s > rather strange remarks about inorganic chemistry in the “Bedrock” draft — > actually I was hoping someone else would! > > Gary f. > > > From: Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]> > Sent: 30-Mar-19 20:02 > To: Peirce List <[email protected]> > Cc: Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic > > List, Gary: > >> On Mar 30, 2019, at 2:21 PM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> In chemistry, a medad is an atom of valency zero, > > As far as I am aware, the term “medad” > is not now used in the chemical sciences and > I can not recall ever seeing this term in the > technical literature of the chemical sciences. > > Gary, is this phrase of your personal construction? > > Cheers > > Jerry > > ----------------------------- > 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] > . 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