Dear Gary, All ...
AvB:
It seems to come down to: never consider the textual production
of a scientist only in itself, but also look at the reality the
text tries to explain.
I read this as an admirably succinct statement of the difference
between scriptural hermeneutics — I would have preferred to call
it "corpus hermeneutics" if it weren't for the risk of confusion
with Corpus Hermeneticum — and scientific interpretation, or any
reading in relation to an object domain outside the text at hand.
What I wrote in response to Auke was this:
Auke,
Exactly!
We interpret texts
in relation to
the object in view.
Regards,
Jon
All I did there was mention the three roles in a sign relation.
For my part, I value Peirce's work as signs of an object world,
one with respect to which other writers, artists, signifactors
of all sorts have generated signs worthy of our interpretation.
I would not take the words "in view" too literally. I just as
easily could've said "at hand" (tactile) or "in mind" (mental)
but I went with "object in view" as influenced by the fondness
one of my old teachers had for Dewey's signature "end in view".
As far as indicial signs are concerned, we're all embroiled in
concernful situations all the time, which makes us the initial
signs of those pragmata, from which we derive all that remains.
Peirce's distinction between theorematic and corollarial reasoning
is another one of those questions I can vaguely remember discussing
here before. The gist I recall is that we should not read the word
"theorematic" in too reductive or purely deductive, syntactic sense.
Years ago it was something of a commonplace even outside Peircean
circles to call attention to the etymology of "theorem" as having
an observational, even "visionary" sense, cognate with "theatre",
and some would even point to the sacred origins of theatre, though
maybe that's a bridge too far ...
When it comes to the iconic aspects of mathematics, or even our
knowledge representations in general, they are nice when you can
get them, but I'm careful not to stress them too far, as it's far
too easy to "fall victim to a picture", in Wittgenstein's phrase,
or even fall into the utter debacle of Russell's isomorphismism.
Regards,
Jon
On 8/3/2020 12:17 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Jon et al.,
The basic point of my post was that the interpreter of a sign can keep its
dynamic object “in view” only by means of the indexical function of the sign,
which connects it to actual experience. Diagrammatic signs are not so good at
that.
The relevance to John's original post, as i see it, is this: if theorematic
reasoning is only a mathematical procedure, it leaves out the experiential
element of Peirce's methodology and his pragmatism.
Mathematics is not a positive science, meaning that it involves no actual experience
(other than the experience of doing mathematics, in which the universe of discourse
is entirely imaginary). All positive sciences (including phaneroscopy, logic and
semiotic) deal with what Peirce calls real relations as opposed to relations of
reason (CP 1.365, for instance). A proposition in a positive science thus must employ
a genuine Index <http://gnusystems.ca/TS/snm.htm#gndx> , as opposed to a
degenerate index such as ‘the letters attached to a geometrical or other diagram’
(EP2:172).
Gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>
Sent: 3-Aug-20 11:35
To: Peirce List <[email protected]>
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragma, Pragmata, Pragmatitude!
Dear Gary, All ...
I was obviously having a lot more fun with words in those days ...
sigh, good times ... the point of it all being I always see the whole complex of meanings
associated with the Greek root "pragma, pragmata" through the more threadbare veil of the
Latin "object".
That complex contains all the senses of aims, concerns, ends, goals, intentional objects, and
purposes we tend to express more obliquely through the use of "object" to mean
"objective". Still, the latter use does have some currency in cybernetics, operations
research, and systems theory, so it's a handy sense to keep in mind.
Cf: Liddell & Scott
<http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma>
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma
Regards,
Jon
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