Gary R, Jon AS, and Robert, There are many ways of thinking, and no method is ideal for all purposes. But when trying to understand what Peirce wrote, it's essential to interpret his words according to his way of thinking. GR> I must immediately add that I do not see Jon as distorting Peirce's thinking in any way, and in particular in consideration of the type-token distinction and the commens. In my opinion, Jon's use of quotations has been apt and judicious in supporting his interpretations. The reason why you always agree with Jon is that you both happen to think in the same way. Robert and I are not claiming that your way is a bad way. We're just saying that it's not the way Peirce was thinking. Therefore, it's unreliable as a method for deriving any conclusions from his writings.RM> I think you [JAS] are distorting Peirce's thinking in this way, and I am clearly opposed to it. I also think you are trying to compensate for the weakness of your arguments with incessant "literalist" activism. Yes. I strongly agree with Robert's objections to a "literalist' method of just quoting words. See the excerpts from CP 1.6 and 1.7 (copied below). Note Peirce's emphasis on mathematics and science, and his point about metaphysicians. Since Jon has an engineering background, he would have had enough training in science and mathematics that he could learn to appreciate Peirce's way of thinking. Unfortunately. Peirce's late writings present his conclusions without going into the details of how he derived his results. Those writings are good for learning Peirce's conclusions, but they don't show how to draw any further inferences from them. To understand Peirce's way of analyzing any subject and systematically working through the evidence, I suggested his book _Photometric Researches_ (1878). That book is an excellent companion to his article "How to make our ideas clear", which was also published in 1878. Together, they show Peirce's mind at work. For 16 pages of excerpts from that book, see http://jfsowa.com/peirce/PRexcerpts.pdf . That is sufficient for a start, but browsing through the rest of the book is also useful. John ________________________________________________________________ CP 1.6: The works of Duns Scotus have strongly influenced me. If his logic and metaphysics, not slavishly worshipped, but torn away from its medievalism, be adapted to modern culture, under continual wholesome reminders of nominalistic criticisms, I am convinced that it will go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science. But other conceptions have to be drawn from the history of science and from mathematics. CP 1.7. Thus, in brief, my philosophy may be described as the attempt of a physicist to make such conjecture as to the constitution of the universe as the methods of science may permit, with the aid of all that has been done by previous philosophers. I shall support my propositions by such arguments as I can. Demonstrative proof is not to be thought of. The demonstrations of the metaphysicians are all moonshine. The best that can be done is to supply a hypothesis, not devoid of all likelihood, in the general line of growth of scientific ideas, and capable of being verified or refuted by future observers
Gary R, Jon AS, and Robert,
There are many ways of thinking, and no method is ideal for all purposes. But when trying to understand what Peirce wrote, it's essential to interpret his words according to his way of thinking.
GR> I must immediately add that I do not see Jon as distorting Peirce's thinking in any way, and in particular in consideration of the type-token distinction and the commens. In my opinion, Jon's use of quotations has been apt and judicious in supporting his
interpretations.
The reason why you always agree with Jon is that you both happen to think in the same way. Robert and I are not claiming that your way is a bad way. We're just saying that it's not the way Peirce was thinking.
RM>
Gary,We've gone over these issues before, and you keep missing the point.
GR> I must immediately add that I do not see Jon as distorting Peirce's thinking in any way, and in particular in consideration of the type-token distinction and the commens. In my opinion, Jon's use of quotations has been apt and judicious in supporting his interpretations.
Peirce's writings are an important *starting point* . They represent the end result of deep thinking by a brilliant mathematician, logician, scientist, and philosopher who was -- in some areas -- a century ahead of his time. Just reading his writings provides a useful, but superficial overview of what he thought.
Benjamin P. taught Charles mathematics, Greek, and Latin from early childhood._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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 no subject, and with the sole line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by The PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
