Robert and Jon, To determine whether students understand a topic, teachers often ask them to explain it in their own words. Since much of Peirce's terminology is radically different from common usage today, it would be a good exercise to translate or at least explain his comments in 21st c. English. For example, consider Jon's point: JAS> Again, Peirce explicitly defines "the commens" as "that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place ... It consists of all that is, and must be, well understood between utterer and interpreter, at the outset, in order that the sign in question should fulfill its function" (EP 2:478, 1906, bold added). In other words, the commens is clearly not "universal" and "independent of all these minds"; on the contrary, it is the one mind into which two or more minds are "welded" or "fused" by one sign. Peirce's use of the words 'mind' and 'fuse' is highly unusual. I don't believe that anyone other than Peirce has ever used those two words to explain how people communicate. For the word 'it' in "It consists of all that is, and must be, well understood between utterer and interpreter, at the outset, in order that the sign in question should fulfill its function", consider the following substitutions: (1) presupposition. (2) background knowledge. (3) common assumptions. (4) cultural background. (5) experience with the subject matter. Are any of those five phrases (or some combination of two or more) sufficient to explain how utterer and interpreter can understand one another? If not, why not? If so, what aspects of the answer correspond to Peirce's use of the words 'mind' and 'fuse'? In fact, Peirce's own ethics of terminology would require him to tailor his terminology to the common usage of the day. I doubt that Peirce himself would continue to talk about fusing minds if he were among us. John
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