List: The new subject line is the title of the paper by Matthew E. Moore that I quoted below. It turns out that there are two versions available online--the original, delivered as a conference presentation in 2012 ( https://www.pucsp.br/pragmatismo/dowloads/lectures_papers/mattew-moore-paper.pdf), and a somewhat longer text that appeared in a 2013 issue of *Cognitio *( http://revistas.pucsp.br/cognitiofilosofia/article/download/16603/12457). Moore gives a negative answer to his own question, provocatively suggesting that continuity can be eliminated as a core component of Peirce's late philosophical system. However, he focuses specifically on the "supermultitudinous" conception of continuity, rooted in Peirce's mathematical theory of collections, as deployed in the 1903 Harvard Lectures.
My response is that this is effectively much ado about nothing--as I already noted in a recent post <https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2019-07/msg00072.html>, Peirce *himself *abandoned (or at least significantly modified) the "supermultitudinous" conception around 1906, adopting instead the "topological" conception as dubbed by Jerome Havenel in his 2008 paper, "Peirce's Clarifications of Continuity" ( http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.473.9336&rep=rep1&type=pdf). Again, the difference between the two is what I have in mind when contrasting a "bottom-up" approach with a "top-down" one--for any discrete *collection*, the parts are real and the whole is an *ens rationis*; but for any true *continuum*, the whole is real and the parts are *entia rationis*. The latter obviously *cannot *be derived from the former; a continuum is not properly characterized as an *aggregate *of parts, even if those parts are considered potential rather than actual. CSP: I conceive that a Continuum has, IN ITSELF, no definite parts, although to endow it with definite parts of no matter what multitude, and even parts of lesser dimensionality down to absolute simplicity, it is only necessary that these should be marked off, and although even the operation of thought suffices to impart an approach to definiteness of parts of any multitude we please. *This indubitably proves that the possession of parts by a continuum is not a real character of it. For the real is that whose being one way or another does not depend upon how individual persons may imagine it to be. It shows, too, that Continuity is of a Rational nature. But it conveys no gleam of evidence that Continuity itself is Unreal ... (S30 [Copy T:6-7]; c. 1906) Although Moore briefly acknowledges this later "topological" conception of continuity, he makes no attempt to assess whether it might have been able to do the work in 1903 for which he finds the "supermultitudinous" conception inadequate. My sense is that it would have gotten the job done, and that it is as indispensable for properly understanding and applying Peirce's overall thought as Peirce himself clearly considered it to be. CSP: After that, readers might be prepared to take an interest in a proof that the doctrine [of pragmaticism] is true,--a proof which seems to the writer to leave no reasonable doubt on the subject, and to be the one contribution of value that he has to make to philosophy. For it would essentially involve the establishment of the truth of synechism. (CP 5.415, EP 2:335; 1905) CSP: We here reach a point at which novel considerations about the constitution of knowledge and therefore of the constitution of nature burst in upon the mind with cataclysmal multitude and resistlessness. It is that synthesis of tychism and of pragmatism for which I long ago proposed the name, Synechism, to which one thus returns; but this time with stronger reasons than ever before. (CP 4.584; 1906) Regards, Jon S. On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 8:33 AM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary R., List: > > Your comments about Deacon reflect remarks that I came across recently in > a 2012 paper > <https://www.pucsp.br/pragmatismo/dowloads/lectures_papers/mattew-moore-paper.pdf> > by > Matthew E. Moore--"We who are already convinced of Peirce’s greatness tend > to forget how impenetrable he can look to the rest of the human race. The > conceptual overhead of Peirce’s philosophy is almost prohibitively high > ..." I suspect that this contributes to at least some of the recurring > disputes here on the List--each of us has absorbed different amounts and > different portions of that vast "conceptual overhead"--and I have found it > to be a formidable obstacle to overcome whenever I want to explain Peirce > to a non-Peircean. The "curse of knowledge > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge>" comes into play; I > tend to forget that others are utterly unfamiliar with certain ideas and > principles that I have come to take for granted. > > Moore went on to suggest that "we will need at least something answering > to his categories and his theory of signs if we are to get much > philosophical mileage out of Peirce," and the purpose of that particular > paper is to question whether "the continuum" also needs to be included, as > Peirce seemed to believe. What else (if anything) qualifies as bare > minimum for understanding and appreciating Peirce's thought overall? What > resources (if any) have you and others found especially helpful for > enabling the uninitiated to get up to speed? > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > >>
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