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}Jon - I don't think you realize what you are doing. There is no need
to be so defensive about what others write to you with regard to your
comments/interpretations! That's what I said - that if anyone
critiques you, you get defensive and write back almost immediately
with a long post [with quotations] that declares that the other
person didn't 'really understand' your point ..and on and on. See my
comments with reference only to my comment - below:
Edwina
On Wed 19/06/19 3:37 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt [email protected]
sent:
John, List:
JFS: All my objections would vanish if Jon would make one simple
change: replace every occurrence of 'harmony' with 'hypothesis'.
As an alternative, I respectfully request that you accept my
explanations and not try to dictate how I express myself.
JFS: My interpretation: Jon is trying to produce a a definitive
version of Peirce's philosophy.
Again, your interpretation is incorrect. I agree that this would be
a herculean and likely impossible task.
1} JAS to ET, 3 Nov 2016: Acknowledging that something you wrote
yesterday more accurately presents your considered views does not
nullify what you wrote twenty years ago--unless you changed your mind
during the intervening two decades. As I have said before, that is
one viable explanation that would be consistent with your view on
this matter--Peirce changed his mind sometime between 1887-1888 and
1908. All I have tried to show is that such an explanation is not
necessary; i.e., it is possible to harmonize everything that Peirce
wrote about the origin and order of our existing universe--and
therefore preferable to do so, rather than positing a discontinuity
in the development of his thought.
JAS today: I have provided a longer excerpt to include the context.
I was attempting to reconcile seemingly contradictory passages that
Peirce wrote two decades apart by proposing a coherent synthesis with
respect to a specific topic; namely, cosmogeny and cosmology.
Reasonable minds can (and did) disagree about whether it was
successful, especially since the alternative--Peirce simply changed
his mind over the twenty-year interval--is quite plausible.
EDWINA It's now THREE years later. I don't keep archives. I've no
idea what you are talking about here - but I've no idea why it is
preferable to harmonize everything vs a change in mind. Why is the
one preferable to the other? [my emphasis]. And I note that your
comment of today leaves out the 'preferable' and instead claims a
different view - that a change of mind is plausible which is a nicer
way to say it that 'discontinuity in the development of his thought'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JAS to GF, 2 Aug 2018: As I have said before, ideally our different
approaches to Peirce's texts and the ideas that they convey will
eventually converge on similar conclusions more often than not.
Eventually I will be going back to see whether and how I can
harmonize this recent line of thinking with my earlier one that
focused on Form/Matter/Entelechy.
Here I was obviously talking about harmonizing my own thinking from
two different time periods. Surely there is nothing objectionable
about that.
JAS to GR, 24 Aug 2018: At least, that is my current proposal;
discerning its implications for the DO/IO distinction requires
further contemplation. I also still need to work out whether and how
it harmonizes with the different sense in which "the Dynamoid
[Dynamic] Object determines the Immediate Object, which determines
the Sign itself, which determines the Destinate [Final] Interpretant,
which determines the Effective [Dynamic] Interpretant, which
determines the Explicit [Immediate] Interpretant" (EP 2:481; 1908).
I have corrected the date. This came after a paragraph spelling out
my thinking at the time about the different relations of determination
between the two Objects, the Sign, and the three Interpretants. I
recognized that determination has another sense in accordance with
the quoted sentence, and acknowledged (by the word "whether") the
possibility that the two could not be harmonized.
JAS to JD, 11 May 2019: My purpose (as usual) is to interpret
Peirce by attempting to harmonize each passage that I encounter with
his corpus taken as a whole, in accordance with my systematizing and
regularizing tendencies.
I have corrected the addressee. Here I was self-consciously
comparing my approach to Jeff's, which he described in this case as
"trying to interpret Peirce's account [of] triadic relations and
square it with what he says about tetradic and higher ordered
relations." I understood the specific passage that he was
considering to be inconsistent with what Peirce had written
elsewhere, in various places. Since I could not harmonize it, I
expressed doubt about its usefulness, but encouraged Jeff to continue
exploring it as long as he was finding it fruitful to do so.
JFS: Jon is trying to force every quotation by Peirce into his
preconceived harmony. That violates every principle of Peirce's
methodeutic.
There is that word "preconceived" again. On the contrary, I do not
have a particular "harmonious synthesis" of Peirce's thought already
in mind; I am just trying to follow the hermeneutical principle of
charity [1], by which we do not attribute self-contradiction to any
writer unless there is no other reasonable explanation for a
perceived discrepancy.
JFS: Those words "systematizing and regularizing" imply new
sentences and changes to Peirce's sentences. Jon's many examples
show those changes.
Indeed, and I have never said otherwise. In fact, I have explicitly
acknowledged that putting things into my own words is part of my
learning process. Everyone does this, in any discussion of someone
else's ideas that is not a verbatim quote. I honestly do not see how
any fair-minded reader would get the impression that I am claiming to
be somehow "channeling" Peirce himself, rather than merely offering
my opinions as prompted by his statements, especially since I quote
him liberally--probably more than anyone else on the List, and always
with careful citations, in most cases clearly setting off his words
from mine.
Besides, how is this any different from your approach--for example,
in your article [2] about "Peirce's Tutorial on Existential Graphs"?
You did not simply reproduce his words and diagrams from the June 22,
1911 letter to Mr. Kehler; you added plenty of commentary in your own
words--including the understandable mistake of dating the material to
1909, because the manuscript was misfiled with R 514. On the List,
you have asserted on multiple occasions that this was Peirce's "final
preferred version" of EGs, even though he never called it that
himself. You even claimed [3] not long ago that he "explicitly said
so in a letter to Risteen," but as I responded [4] at the time, he
instead referred to "The better exposition of 1903." Nevertheless,
as I added then, I agree with your assessment that the 1911
presentation is more perspicuous than anything that came before it;
especially in conjunction with R 669-670 [5], which he wrote only
days and weeks earlier.
My point is not to engage in tit-for-tat, it is simply to show that
we are all passionate about Peirce--and about the various conclusions
that we each have drawn from his writings. Rather than trying to
impose and enforce rigid rules for how everyone must participate on
the List, I suggest that we cut each other some slack and follow the
principle of charity not only in our reading of Peirce, but also in
our reading of each other's posts.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [6] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [7]
On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 9:52 AM John F Sowa wrote:
Ben and Gary,
The phrase "harmonize and synthesize" is not mine. Jon stated it
as his goal, many times over several years.
BN
> I want to know what Peirce thought, and that is why I most value
> what Jon is doing. John Sowa may be right that Peirce valued a
> constantly growing thought process. Fine, and I recommend John
> show that to us.
I agree completely. I appreciate Jon's selection of quotations,
and his *suggestions* about relationships among them. Sometimes I
agree with them. And sometimes I show that he's going out on a limb
to make dubious connections to support his preconceived "harmony".
All my objections would vanish if Jon would make one simple change:
replace every occurrence of 'harmony' with 'hypothesis'.
GR
> Would you please finally tell us 1. what exactly you mean by
> a "harmonized synthesis" and 2. why you so strenuously object to
> it (whatever you mean by it, which is not at all clear, certainly
> not to me)?
Since it's Jon's phrase, I'll let him say what he means by it. My
interpretation: Jon is trying to produce a a definitive version of
Peirce's philosophy.
As I wrote to Jon, it would be the height of hubris for anyone to
claim that they could accomplish a task that Peirce himself could
not complete. Peirce made several attempts to produce a definitive
version of his logic and semeiotic, but never finished them.
An example of good editing is Esposito's reorganized paragraphs
from all six versions of L75 to produce a continuous text. But he
never changed any sentence by Peirce or added any words of his own:
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/intro/l75intro.htm
[9]
GR
> please offer some quotations (cherry picked as you please) which
> reflect someone here attempting this apparently grand "harmonized
> synthesis"
Following are just a few of many, many occurrences of the word
'harmonize' in notes by JAS.
JAS to ET, 3 Nov 2016
> Peirce changed his mind sometime between 1887-1888 and 1908. All
> I have tried to show is that such an explanation is not necessary;
> i.e., it is possible to harmonize everything that Peirce wrote
about
> the origin and order of our existing universe--and therefore
preferable
> to do so, rather than positing a discontinuity in the development
of
> his thought.
JAS to GF, 2 Aug 2018
> ideally our different approaches to Peirce's texts and the ideas
> that they convey will eventually converge on similar conclusions
> more often than not. Eventually I will be going back to see
whether
> and how I can harmonize this recent line of thinking with my
earlier
> one that focused on Form/Matter/Entelechy.
JAS to GR, 29 Aug 2018
> discerning its implications for the DO/IO distinction requires
> further contemplation. I also still need to work out whether and
> how it harmonizes with the different sense in which "the Dynamoid
> [Dynamic] Object determines the Immediate Object, which determines
> the Sign itself, which determines the Destinate [Final]
Interpretant,
> which determines the Effective [Dynamic] Interpretant, which
determines
> the Explicit [Immediate] Interpretant" (EP 2:481; 1908).
JAS to JR, 11 May 2019
> My purpose (as usual) is to interpret Peirce by attempting to
> harmonize each passage that I encounter with his corpus taken
> as a whole, in accordance with my systematizing and regularizing
> tendencies.
When I read that passage, I see red flags and hear a warning siren.
Jon is trying to force every quotation by Peirce into his
preconceived
harmony. That violates every principle of Peirce's methodeutic.
Those words "systematizing and regularizing" imply new sentences and
changes to Peirce's sentences. Jon's many examples show those
changes.
That goes far beyond anything Esposito did for his version of L75.
John
Links:
------
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
[2] http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/egtut.pdf
[3] https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2019-04/msg00107.html
[4] https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2019-04/msg00111.html
[5]
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/AHTI_Pietarinen2/publication/271419583_Two_Papers_on_Existential_Graphs_by_Charles_Peirce/links/54c753d30cf289f0ceccf607.pdf
[6] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[7] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[8]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[9]
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/intro/l75intro.htm
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