Jon, Jeff, list, Many thanks for all this, Jon! I find it very helpful in sorting out the many concepts (and analyses of the composition of concepts) which inhabit Peirce’s “Prolegomena” and the many unpublished drafts that he wrote before and after its publication. Digging through all this, I personally feel that I need all the help I can get — rather like a paleontologist who has come across a site littered with scattered bones of what may (or may not) belong to an entirely new species, but will have to spend months and years trying to figure out how the pieces fit together. And the challenge is even greater because the pieces are not physical artifacts but entia rationis, as Peirce would say. They are in themselves concepts, which are signs, which entails that the names of these concepts are signs of signs. This brings to mind Peirce’s onion metaphor, which is a sign of signs of signs:
[[ Now what is Logic? I early remarked that it is quite indifferent whether it be regarded as having to do with thought or with language, the wrapping of thought, since thought, like an onion, is composed of nothing but wrappings. ] EP2:460; see also CP 4.87, R403:11, EP2:392, CP 4.6 (R298). ] This exegetical process wouldn’t be so complex if Peirce (and the caretakers of his writings) hadn’t kept so many of his drafts. But the bright side of this is that it preserves a record of his writing process — which, as he said himself, was also his thinking process — rather than just the end products of that process. When we look at his manuscripts it’s obvious that he revised as he wrote, crossing out words and making insertions between the lines, but also that he frequently started over instead of continuing the draft he was working on. We get the distinct impression that he is viewing his subject matter from slightly different angles in each draft, and this is a great help in building up the collateral experience which indicates what the symbols of his finished and published works actually refer to. Each draft is another “skin” of the same onion. All right, enough of these metasemiotic remarks, I wanted to take up the composition of concepts, which was one of the major problems Peirce was dealing with in the Prolegomena and the draft material around it. But now I have an appointment to get to, and will have to pick up this thread a bit later. There are still many pieces to be fit into our model of this prehistoric and living creature, semiosis. Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: 3-Apr-19 21:10 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic List: I should have checked the Pietarinen transcriptions before posting. CSP: The nature of the universe or universes of discourse (for several may be referred to in a single assertion) in the rather unusual cases in which such precision is required, is denoted either by using modifications of the heraldic tinctures, marked in something like the usual manner in pale ink upon the surface, or by scribing the graphs in colored inks. In the former method it is usual to employ the different metals (or, argent, fur, and plomb) to mark the different kinds of existence or actuality, the different colours (azure, gules, vert, purpur) for the different kinds of possibility,—possibility consisting of ignorance, of variety, of power, of futurity; and the furs (sable, ermine, vair, potent), for the different kinds of intention. (R 670:19-20[18-19]; 1911 June 12-13) This confirms that according to Peirce, there are exactly four different kinds of actuality, possibility, and intention; but he only names them in the case of possibility, and does not elaborate on exactly what ignorance, variety, power and futurity mean in this context. I also just discovered that Don Roberts, on page 93 of The Existential Graphs of Charles S. Peirce, quotes the following explanation. CSP: Different states of things may all be Actual and yet not Actual together; and the same is true of the Possible and the Destined. Two graphs in the same Province, i.e. on the same continuously tinctured surface will be asserted, not merely as True, but as True together. Hence, since four tinctures are necessary to break the continuity between any two parts of any ordinary surface, four metals, four colors, and four furs will be required. (R 295:44; 1906) It seems that the basis for providing four tinctures within each mode was primarily practical, rather than theoretical. On page 94, Roberts offers his guess as to what Peirce might have intended each tincture to represent, along with a suggested color as an alternative. * Metal (Actuality) * Argent (white) - "The actual or true in a general or ordinary sense." * Or (cream) - "The actual or true in some special sense." * Fer - not used * Plomb - not used * Color (Possibility) * Azure (blue) - "Dark blue: logical possibility. Light blue: subjective possibility." * Gules (red) - "Objective possibility." * Vert (green) - "What is in the interrogative mood." * Purpure (purple) - "Freedom or ability." * Fur (Intention) * Sable (gray) - "The metaphysically, or rationally, or secondarily necessitated." * Ermine (yellow) - "Purpose or intention." * Vair (brown) - "The commanded." * Potent (orange) - "The compelled." Regards, Jon S. On Wed, Apr 3, 2019 at 6:34 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jeff, Gary F., List: The footnote quoted by Jeff about "the quaternion of metals" is from "Prolegomena" (1906), while the comment quoted by Gary F. about "different dimensions of the logical Universe" is from "Bedrock" (1908). (This is not obvious in the electronic version of CP, where all of the footnotes--both Peirce's own and those provided by the editors--are jumbled together; I had to look at the original published version <http://www.pragmaticism.net/works/csp_ms/P01128.pdf> of "Prolegomena" in order to disentangle them.) Consequently, it seems quite tenuous to link the two concepts, such that "the quaternion of metals" somehow corresponds to "four dimensions--one real and three imaginary." In fact, Peirce wrote that all four Metal tinctures correspond to Actuality, while Color is used for Possibility and Fur is used for Intention (CP 4.554). However, he did not spell out in "Prolegomena" why there are exactly four tinctures for each Mode of Being. On the other hand, in "Bedrock" he referred to "the different tints representing different kinds of possibility" (CP 4.578). Can we perhaps infer from this that there are exactly four different kinds of Possibility, as well as exactly four different kinds of Actuality and exactly four different kinds of Intention? If so, what are they? As for the "different dimensions of the logical Universe," Peirce explicitly attributed this concept to his former student, O. H. Mitchell; and in two alternative drafts of "Bedrock," he stated the following. CSP: Yet since the Universe, which force[s] upon us all those enduring thoughts that we call truths, makes its power felt in three ways so utterly different that we may well liken them to a set of three mutually perpendicular directions from which any object may be viewed, we must distinguish, Firstly ... the Universe of Real Capacities; then, Secondly ... the Universe of Actual Fact; and Thirdly ... the Universe of Tendencies ... I have suggested [in "Prolegomena"] that we resort to the heraldic tinctures; to wit, to color for the Universe of Capacities, to metal for the Universe of actuality, and to fur for the universe of tendencies ... (R 300:72-75[37-40]) CSP: As to the Mitchellian Dimensions of the Universe, it is easy to see that their mutual relations,--imaged by perpendicularities in sets of three,--are relations between different Modalities. (R 300:76[38]) Hence there are only three such dimensions, not four; and they correspond directly to the three Universes of Capacities, Actualities, and Tendencies--i.e., the three Modes of Tincture, not the four different tinctures within any one of them. It thus seems clear to me that in the "Prolegomena" footnote, Peirce intended only the first sense of "quaternion," and not also the third sense as Jeff conjectured. 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>
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