Helmut, Gary F, List,
On my reading of Kant and Peirce, Kant's reasons for holding that the fundamental principle of morality expresses unconditional requirements for the validity of practical reasoning are consonant with Peirce's reasons for holding that the laws of logic express unconditional requirements for the validity of all reasoning generally. Having said that, I should point out that Kant uses the term a priori to characterize quite a number of cognitions and their parts including inferences, judgments, conceptions, and other elements of cognition. As an example of an a priori element in moral cognition, consider the role of the feeling of respect in deliberation about the what is required as a matter of duty. As an example of an a priori element in aesthetic judgment, consider the condition of seeking harmony in the experience of the beautiful. As an example of an a priori element in mathematical cognition, consider the role of the intuition of the whole of ideal space in geometrical reasoning. In each case, I tend to think that Peirce agrees with Kant that these are a priori and not merely a posteriori elements in our practical, aesthetic and mathematical cognition. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2019 9:00:46 AM To: Jeffrey Brian Downard Cc: 'Peirce-L'; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic Jeffrey, list, I wonder, whether the concept of "a priori" is different with Kant and with Peirce. E.g. the categorical imperative is "a priori" for Kant (a synthetic a priori statement), because it is logically necessary, comes from pure reasoning, and not from empiric. For Peirce, the "a priori" method of fixating belief, I guess, is rather a matter of intuition and not so much of reasoning, that would be the scientific method. Is that so? Best, Helmut Sonntag, 07. April 2019 um 17:35 Uhr "Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote: Gary F, Gary R, Jon S, List, Is Cenoscopy an empirical science? It is clear that, on Peirce's account, it is a positive science. Having said that, let me narrow the question down a bit. Within the larger branch of the cenoscopic sciences, are the normative sciences empirical sciences? Let's try to clarify the question. In Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill argues that the only evidence anything is good is empirical evidence. In the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that our cognitions concerning the fundamental principles of morality and logic are a priori and not a posteriori in character. The reason, I take it, is that both logic and ethics study what ought to be. Ethics studies how we ought to act and logic studies how we ought to think. On his account, there would be no imperatives in thinking logically or ethically if the principles that serve as the grounding for those imperatives were not laws of reason. For my part, I take Peirce to be saying that one reason cenoscopy (and not pure mathematics) is a positive science is that it rests on positive observations, and those sorts of observations can help us determine what really is the case. In the pure normative sciences of logic and ethics, the key observations do not appear to be based on the "impressions of the senses", to use the account of that word "empirical" that Hume and Mill favor. Rather, the observations are evaluative in character. The primary kind of observations that form the data for a theory of critical logic are judgments that some examples of reasoning are good (i.e., valid) and that others are bad (i.e., invalid). It is interesting, I think, that Peirce offers a very definition of the word "empirical" in the Century Dictionary. The first definition is wide enough to cover normative evaluations of the goodness of argument--including practical arguments that might form the basis of a theory of ethics. In calling them empirical in this broad way, however, it will be good to keep in mind that it is a much broader notion of the term than often is used by classical British empiricists as well as contemporary empiricists of a more analytical orientation. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: g...@gnusystems.ca <g...@gnusystems.ca> Sent: Sunday, April 7, 2019 7:18:12 AM To: 'Peirce-L' Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic Gary R, Jeff, list, Jeff’s question is an open-ended one, which indicates to me that we cannot expect an exhaustive answer to it. There is no end to the loose ends … I think Gary R’s points are well taken, and will add just one more to it, with a focus on the concept of “observation.” In any empirical science (including cenoscopy), perception is certainly a component of observation, but it wouldn’t be a science if the observer didn’t also report the observation and say or think something about what has been perceived — i.e. utter a sign — and that formulated sign is also called an “observation.” The perceived object is one constituent of the phaneron, and the sign of which it is object is another. The relation between a sign and its object is yet another constituent of the phaneron, and is in fact the central concern of logic. But according to Peirce (and me too), one can’t attend to (or observe) all three of those constituents at once, and every shift of attention loses its grip, so to speak, on the previous object of attention. Likewise in sense perception itself, regarded as semiosic, the percept is a Seme, but the perceptual judgment which immediately follows is a Pheme which both interprets the Seme and renders it “elusive” as a constituent of the phaneron. We might say that the inevitability of this sort of thing occurring as part of the perceptual process renders the phaneron itself, considered as a collective whole, “elusive” despite its being open to observation. Regarding Peirce’s use of the plural “phanerons”, Gary R may be right about Peirce’s motivation for that usage, but we should bear in mind that it is quite exceptional: the singular “phaneron” is the default in Peirce’s usage, and sometimes he is quite insistent about it being one. Yet in the sense that all experience is private, or subjective, there must be a phaneron for each subject of experience. It’s another aspect of the great difficulty of saying anything meaningful about the phaneron, beyond Peirce’s observation that the formal elements of it are three. One more observation I’d like to make about the connection between existential graphs and phaneroscopy. In one of his posts in another thread, Jon A.S. quoted Peirce as follows: [[ It is, however, important to state that the relations of identity and of coexistence are but degenerate Secundan, and that these two are the only simple dyadic relations which are symmetrical, that is, which imply each its own converse. All other symmetrical relations are compounded and involve asymmetric elements ... In existential graphs,--that is, in the usual, "Beta," form of the system,--there are equally these two modes of connection, the lines signifying identity and the absence of lines coexistence. But, of course, no relations other than these can be expressed except by giving relative significations to spots; and if a spot signifies an asymmetric relation, it is necessary to distinguish connection with one part of it as meaning something different from connection with another side. Of course, if a great variety of colors or other qualities of lines were recognized, although their two ends were alike, a corresponding variety of asymmetric relations could be built up, since, for example, a friend of a cousin is not necessarily a cousin of a friend. (R 284:88,94-96[83,89-91]) ]] Jon’s work in that other thread has been a great help in clarifying that the line of identity in EGs is a mode of connection as well as an assertion that “something exists” in the universe of discourse. But it took me a while to recognize that the absence of lines is also a mode of connection, as Peirce says above, and that both of these are “degenerate Secundan,” i.e. symmetrical dyadic relations in which there is no reaction of one correlate upon the other where one is relatively active and the other relatively passive. The relation of coexistence being marked by the absence of lines was also explained, though somewhat differently, in Peirce’s 1906 letter draft to Welby (http://gnusystems.ca/PeirceWelbyMarch1906.htm), and in “PAP” (R 293, from the same year) in his explanation of valency: [[ We call a Spot a Medad, Monad, Dyad, Triad, Tetrad, or by some other such name, according as its Valency, or the number of its Pegs, is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. It is to be remarked that a Graph not only has attachments to other Graphs through its Pegs and through Lines of Identity, but is also attached to the Area on which it is scribed, this Area being a Sign of a logical Universe. But it is not the same kind of attachment, since the Entire Graph of the Area is after a fashion predicated of that Universe, while the Lines of Identity represent Individual Subjects of which the two connected Spots are predicated either being regarded as determining the other. There would therefore be a confusion of thought in adding one to the number of Pegs and calling the sum the Valency. It would rather be the sum of two different categories of Valency. But in the case of the Medad, where there is no Peg, the possibility of scribing the Graph upon an Area is the only Valency the Spot has,—the only circumstance that brings it and other thoughts together. For this reason, we can, without other than a Verbal inconsistency, due to the incompleteness of our Terminology, speak of a Medad as a Monad. For some purposes, it is indispensable so to regard it. ] NEM 4:322] Thus the difference between the two modes of connection (representing identity and coexistence respectively) leads to a “Verbal inconsistency” so that we “speak of a Medad as a Monad.” The iconicity of EGs avoids such verbal inconsistency by minimizing the use of words; but the system only works as a representation of Thought if we recognize the absence of lines as a mode of connection. The system appears to involve invisible icons! If this isn’t odd enough, I just discovered that Peirce recognized the need for this kind of iconicity as far back as 1892, years before his invention of Existential Graphs. In his first article on logic written for Open Court, Peirce described (and highly recommended) a graphical system devised by A.B. Kempe. He does this in the context of the three categories as he saw them in 1892, so I will begin the excerpt with that (CP 3:422): [[ Nature only appears intelligible so far as it appears rational, that is, so far as its processes are seen to be like processes of thought. I must take this for granted, for I have no space here to argue it. It follows that if we find three distinct and irreducible forms of rhemata, the ideas of these should be the three elementary conceptions of metaphysics. That there are three elementary forms of categories is the conclusion of Kant, to which Hegel subscribes; and Kant seeks to establish this from the analysis of formal logic. Unfortunately, his study of that subject was so excessively superficial that his argument is destitute of the slightest value. Nevertheless, his conclusion is correct; for the three elements permeate not only the truths of logic, but even to a great extent the very errors of the profounder logicians. I shall return to them next week.†1 I will only mention here that the ideas which belong to the three forms of rhemata are firstness, secondness, thirdness; firstness, or spontaneity; secondness, or dependence; thirdness, or mediation. 423. But Mr. A. B. Kempe, in his important memoir on the “Theory of Mathematical Forms,” presents an analysis which amounts to a formidable objection to my views. He makes diagrams of spots connected by lines; and it is easy to prove that every possible system of relationship can be so represented, although he does not perceive the evidence of this. But he shows (§68) that every such form can be represented by spots indefinitely varied, some of them being connected by lines, all of the same kind. He thus represents every possible relationship by a diagram consisting of only two different kinds of elements, namely, spots and lines between pairs of spots. Having examined this analysis attentively, I am of opinion that it is of extraordinary value. It causes me somewhat to modify my position, but not to surrender it. For, in the first place, it is to be remarked that Mr. Kempe's conception depends upon considering the diagram purely in its self-contained relations, the idea of its representing anything being altogether left out of view; while my doctrine depends upon considering how the diagram is to be connected with nature. It is not surprising that the idea of thirdness, or mediation, should be scarcely discernible when the representative character of the diagram is left out of account. In the second place, while it is not in the least necessary that the spots should be of different kinds, so long as each is distinguishable from the others, yet it is necessary that the connections between the spots should be of two different kinds, which, in Mr. Kempe's diagrams, appear as lines and as the absence of lines. Thus, Mr. Kempe has, and must have, three kinds of elements in his diagrams, namely, one kind of spots, and two kinds of connections of spots. In the third place, the spots, or units, as he calls them, involve the idea of firstness; the two-ended lines, that of secondness; the attachment of lines to spots, that of mediation. ] CP 3:422-3 ] I have bolded the part where Peirce refers to the absence of lines as a necessary mode of connection in Kempe’s diagrams. And there we have it — proof of the relationship between Peircean phaneroscopy and existential graphs, even before EGs were invented (late 1896) and phaneroscopy was named (1904). Maybe this is a good place to wrap up my contributions to this thread (except replies to other people’s contributions). I now see the connections between phaneroscopy and EGs much more clearly than I did a month ago, and now I need to ponder the implications for my own phenomenology (or phenoscopy as I’ve been calling it lately). I do look forward to seeing what others think of all this, especially of things I might have missed or got wrong. And more questions are always welcome. Gary f. From: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> Sent: 7-Apr-19 00:22 To: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy and logic Jeff, Gary f, Jeff wrote: "What are the different options open for interpreting the "could ever be" part of "Let us call the collective whole of all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense, the Phaneron"? Good question. Note that Peirce immediately says after what you quoted: "Then the substance of every Thought (and of much beside Thought proper) will be a Constituent of the Phaneron." My immediate thought (including my thought of that which is "much beside Thought") is that, just as there are semiotic and metaphysical 'may-bes' (1ns), 'is's==existents, (2ns)) and 'would-bes' (3ns), there are phaneroscopic forms of these in "all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense." (See, for example, Peirce's Approach to the Self: A Semiotic Perspective on Human Subjectivity, Vincent Colapietro, p. 17, for a brief discussion of 'may-bes', 'is's' and 'would-bes'. There are also variations on these: 'can-bes' and 'might-bes'.) Albert Adkin concludes his Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Peirce's pragmatism https://www.iep.utm.edu/peircepr/ by remarking: Peirce’s [. . . ] mature take on modal notions, as we know, is to be a realist about “would-bes.” This makes his pragmatism focus less on actual occurrences and more on potential effects. It also has the further effect of making his pragmatism take the idea of laws and long run habit more seriously; the idea of natural law concerning the “hardness” of diamonds is, after all, part of his explanation of why the destroyed diamond can count as hard. Best, Gary R Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York On Sat, Apr 6, 2019 at 9:03 PM Jeffrey Brian Downard <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu<mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu>> wrote: Gary R, Gary F, List, What are the different options open for interpreting the "could ever be" part of "Let us call the collective whole of all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense, the Phaneron"? --Jeff ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . 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