Gary, That is the most anti-Peircean statement imaginable: GR> It would once again appear that Edwina and John expect everyone to have always and only the same interests as they do. Edwina, for example, characterizes anything else, notably, theorizing, as "an irrelevant exercise" undertaken only by people who "prefer the isolation and comfort of what [she calls] 'the seminar room'. . . far, far, far from the real empirical objective world." Well, that's her opinion. I, for one, do not share it. Theorizing is absolutely esssential for understanding anything. But Peirce insisted that any theory that has any claim to be scientific must be exhaustively tested against observations. And that most definitely includes his categories, which depend on the most careful possible testing against "experiences in the phaneron". You cannot understand anything Peirce wrote unless you repeat the kind of disciplined testing that he did in developing and revising his theories. Just quoting Peirce without repeating his very careful methods of analysis and testing produces nothing but superficial verbiage. John
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