Michael, List: Thank you very much for this delightful breath of fresh air! I for one would welcome more posts of this nature. A few specific comments stand out to me.
MM: When a post is styled as a statement, it is still a question. MM: Surely propositions in a thread starter act as invitation, implicitly. Yes! I have often been misinterpreted as making rigid assertions and then maintaining them regardless of what anyone else says. On the contrary, I am usually offering a hypothesis that I am currently entertaining, and then supporting it to the best of my ability in order to see whether it holds up. The appropriate response by those who think that I have gotten something wrong is not merely to say so over and over, but to make a better argument. MM: I'd love to see more paraphrasing (anything worth saying can be said your way in addition to everybody else's), metaphor, and analogy (partial metaphor). Yes! Contrary to the contention of some, paraphrasing is both unavoidable and often helpful for tying together different statements made at different times and/or in different writings. Otherwise, the List--and, for that matter, all the secondary literature--would have to consist entirely of verbatim Peirce quotations. MM: Concretes are living theory, and theory is the spirit of concretes. Yes! Again, in my view it is important to work out the details of a theory before attempting to investigate its concrete applications--especially if the theory in question is supposed to be Peirce's (or recognizably Peircean), rather than our own creation. MM: The very nicest thread titles are those many we've had with a slightly surprising combination of vocabulary. Yes! I find that we (myself included) tend to pay too little attention to our subject lines, which are the closest List equivalents of abstracts for published papers. We should phrase them carefully and change them whenever the actual topic of discussion changes. MM: We can't have the meaning without the texts OR the texts without the meaning. Yes! Since Peirce obviously cannot participate directly in our conversations here, the only voice that he has in them is through the texts that we cite and quote to support our interpretative hypotheses. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, May 13, 2020 at 5:34 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > I always dread when the "spectre" of a "row" appears to appear. As a > rejoicing spatial thinker, please can I offer not only some ground but > several "ways out", "ways through" and "ways over". > > I don't understand the notations very well, but I intuitively follow > chunks of the descriptive prose. This is a beautiful and vital area. > > Any contributor has a finite piece of mental energy at any moment. In > inviting a range of examples be offered, we are surely inviting everybody > else as well. Also, we should not be afraid to ask, "is it a bird? is it a > plane?" because in objective terms this neither shows us up as stupid for > asking nor does it show up a thread starter for not happening to go that > way in a single post. In 1 st century Aramaic speaking society the way to > display intellectual calibre was in question-asking not in answer-giving. > Universities should set papers in which one gets a mark docked for every > sentence that doesn't end in a question mark. In our sort of context, even > closed questions are open. When a post is styled as a statement, it is > still a question. > > And if individuals should be seen to, as policy, not give examples, please > can we work with that and compensate, jointly and collectively. > > In my young day I tried to get into Saussure and now I understand why I > couldn't. I was right about that even when I was uninformed and > incapable. Intuition and logic make an infallible team. > > Children know the unity subsisting among metaphysics, epistemology, logic, > aesthetics and ethics. The usages of the word "square". Education is to > collectively renew, as we go. > > I'd love to see more paraphrasing (anything worth saying can be said your > way in addition to everybody else's), metaphor, and analogy (partial > metaphor). This is not instead of anything, this is extra, and extras can > surely come from anybody. > > We must boldly go into "Yes Jim but not as we know it" territory in our > concepts about concepts about concepts, knowing this doesn't take us away > from concretes (even when a particular individual doesn't mention some), it > can keep us just as near, and let's not feel it's not the done thing for > someone - anyone - to throw in some concretes, and if they are "wrong" > concretes we can fill in the gaps in our discussion, rather than regard it > as having been "pooped". > > I had work in general translating (foreign languages) for some years. I > am slow and small of contributing, but I don't consider myself > disqualified. I imagined members were contributing or not, on "pragmatic" > grounds rather than feeling too overawed to do so. Surely propositions in > a thread starter act as invitation, implicitly. > > Now the ground: this reminds me of when Duns debated with the followers of > Aquinas as between equivocity of analogy and analogy of equivocity. The > chicken and the egg (of theory and concretes) "are" the same, in a > strangely familiar way. The "opposite" of theory isn't pragmatics, but > concretes. Concretes are living theory, and theory is the spirit of > concretes. It's amazing how Peirce could use words like this without > becoming a mystic as so many (sadly) did. > > As a beginner I see Peirce-like territory in Husserl, Gilson, Young, > Aristotle, and the dry humour of Stanley Jevons. A yardstick of mine is > Newman's degrees of inference. (Edwina, I had a thought about an inverse > relationship between fallibility and inference.) I hold with multi-theory > hypothesis and multi-hypothesis theory. Nature is logic having a ball. > Poetry (such as Pope's) is highly Peircean. We can free ourselves from > reifying & nominalising kinds of mimetics / dialectic. > > My colleagues used to comment not only that I was a great theorist (though > untrained) but that my vocabulary was very concrete. > > We ourselves, uniquely interacting week by week, are a lattice pastry, a > shimmering crystal. We shouldn't forget to be like those twins, or > couples, that finish each other's statements. The "full" performance can't > be pinned on one individual. The enabling of location is a thing we should > all pitch in & do. > > Lattice-pastry as diagram of continual fisticuffs & bust-up over > "leanings". > > Enjoyment can take many forms: not excluding sparse pure pursuance. I > hope my views don't come over as patronising to professionals, and > apologies for my spiral style of discourse. The very nicest thread titles > are those many we've had with a slightly surprising combination of > vocabulary. > > Pragmatics = theory + concretes? Thus it is the whole lot, as well as > being diagrammed as a section of it. Nice topology! > > If it could be demonstrated by a range of members that the "focus" (great > to have) of the List, in and around (more than "on") pure theory (which > pragmatics very much embraces), is being MADE TO "block" examination of its > illustration(s), I would be concerned. > > We can't have the meaning without the texts OR the texts without the > meaning. Rhetoric isn't an add-on. > > Picture a sun-dappled orchard, where white shirts aren't worn, and matrons > bring out the best lasagna of the best grandmother in Italy - that's how > multi-layered I see reality. The equations are rhetoric too! > > Michael Mitchell > former translator > armchair philosopher >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
