Jon,
Anyone is welcome to claim that Satan (or anything else) is that
Object [of the semeiotic proof], but thereby accepts the burden
of making a case for it based on the attributes that such an Object
must have. I suspect that it would amount to nothing more than
equating the proper names "Satan" and "God."
That's true. But nothing in that argument that depends on the nature
of the creator as benign or malevolent, perfect or imperfect, necessary
or contingent. In the Timaeus, Plato attributes the creation to a
demiurge (craftsman) who seems to be distinct from the supreme God.
To explain the origin of evil, the Gnostics later claimed that the
demiurge was flawed, imperfect, or even malevolent.
The Neoplatonists, following Plotinus, identified the creator with
the omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God (which they called The One
-- to Hen). The Neoplatonists had a strong influence on both
Christianity and Islam. ('Al Lah' is Arabic for 'The One'.)
Nothing in the semeiotic argument depends on any of these issues.
I have consistently referred to my Semeiotic Argumentation...
What I have said is that Peirce affirmed each of its premisses,
and I have provided ample evidence from his explicit statements
to support that claim.
You quoted Peirce, but you claim that the argument is unavoidable.
Peirce was the world expert in logic and semeiotic. He also had
a high regard for Thomas Aquinas, who is generally regarded as one
of the most profound theologians who ever lived. If there was
any "unavoidable" argument that linked those topics, Peirce would
certainly have noticed it.
The absence of any hint in any of his MSS raises a serious doubt
that Peirce would approve the reasoning that led to that argument.
Such a strong claim requires a methodeutic for exact thinking:
"What is needed above all, for metaphysics, is thorough and mature
thinking; and the particular requisite to success in the critic of
arguments is exact and diagrammatic thinking." (CP 3.406)
Ideally, that would require a translation of each premise and every
step of the reasoning to existential graphs and an application of
the EG rules of inference. But the critical step, which is necessary
for EGs, predicate calculus, or clear thinking in any language, is
the selection of a set of predicates. The next step is to restate
each of Peirce's statements in terms of the names of those predicates
and no words other than the six basic words of first-order logic:
and, or, not, if-then, some, every. Instead of pronouns, use letters
(AKA selectives in EGs or variables in predicate calculus).
If you perform this translation, that would make every step of
reasoning so clear that any logician could translate the argument
to his or her favorite version of logic. In fact, you would even
have a publishable paper.
But -- and this is a very big **BUT** -- there are three critical
assumptions, which I have been criticizing in every one of my
notes about this argument:
1. The claim that the object of every sign must be in a different
universe of discourse than the physical sign of that object.
2. The claim the Creator (God, Satan, or some demiurge) cannot
be in the same universe as the creation.
3. The claim that Peirce's three universes (Possibility, Actuality,
and Necessity) are insufficient as a home for the Creator.
I'll accept the point that the object of a sign must be different
from the sign itself. But every proposition of any kind and every
step of any argument can be stated on a single sheet of assertion.
I doubt that Peirce would accept assumption #1.
For #2, note that Peirce allowed modal statements on the same SA
as ordinary FOL statements. That means that a single universe of
discourse may include a mix of statements from more than one of
his three universes.
For #3, any reasoning must be carried out on a single SA. That
implies a single universe of discourse. Any reasoning that could
not be stated on an SA would violate the foundations of Peirce's
logic. If he had ever considered such a violation, there would be
many hints and comments scattered throughout his thousands of MSS.
JFS: Look at the eleven senses of the word 'sign' that Peirce defined
for the Century Dictionary. Each one defines 'sign' as a physical
thing. None of them mentions the word 'percept'.
JAS: I would be glad to do so, if you would be so kind as to quote
them.
I forgot to mention that I had uploaded some of Peirce's definitions
to http://jfsowa.com/peirce/defs/ See sign1.jpg and sign2.jpg .
For Peirce's definition of 'universe' in the Century Dictionary, see
defs/universal.jpg. The same page includes the definition of universe.
In that definition, Peirce included all the senses that were in common
usage in the 19th c. He distinguished three major senses, with God
included in 1a, excluded in 1b and 1c:
CSP, Century Dictionary for 'universe'
1. The totality of all existing things; all that is in dynamical
connection with general experience taken collectively -- embracing
(a} the Creator and creation; or (b) psychical and material objects,
but excluding the Creator; or (c) material objects only.
Then in sense 3, he defines the universe of discourse in logic, and
includes quotations by De Morgan and Venn.
Sense 1 describes common usage with variations that include and
exclude God. Sense 3 describes the universe of discourse in logic,
but it does not mention his own variation with a universe of all
possibilities, a universe of actualities, and a universe of
necessities. Which version applies to the following?
CSP (EP 2:304)
The entelechy of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact,
will be that Universe in its aspect as a sign, the "Truth" of being.
The "Truth," the fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the
ultimate interpretant of every sign.
This does not sound like senses 1 or 2 from the Century Dictionary.
The words 'fact', 'sign', and 'truth' indicate that Peirce is
talking about a universe of discourse that could be described by
the EGs on a Sheet of Assertion.
I admit Peirce wrote those definitions in the 1890s, before he
developed his EGs and his more profound semeiotic. But they
show that he was aware of the issues about God and the universe.
He could not have avoided any "unavoidable" implication.
I also admit that a doubt is not a refutation. But any claim
that the argument follows from his writings requires a detailed
methodeutic to make the ideas clear. It must be stated in terms
that could support diagrammatic reasoning, and it must answer
the three criticisms above.
John
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