Welcome Cathy, and thank you for placing the renewed interest in Peircean phaneroscopy into its current social context. Also for providing the quotation from CP 1.286-287, which is an important one for developing the practice of phaneroscopy. We need to distinguish this practice from that of applying its categories (of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness) to other sciences, including social sciences and normative sciences such as ethics. Phaneroscopy, in the context of Andre De Tienne’s slideshow at least, is the science (or science-egg) which generates those “universal” concepts from single-minded observation of the appearances, or as he put it later, from the phaneron.
I think Andre’s talk assumed some familiarity with Peirce’s writings on the subject, and his slides will quote some of them, but we’ll probably need to quote more in order to address the questions raised in Andre’s slides. Here is one from Peirce's “Adirondack Lectures” of 1905: [[ Phaneroscopy is the description of the phaneron; and by the phaneron I mean the collective total of all that is in any way or in any sense present to the mind, quite regardless of whether it corresponds to any real thing or not. If you ask present when, and to whose mind, I reply that I leave these questions unanswered, never having entertained a doubt that those features of the phaneron that I have found in my mind are present at all times and to all minds. So far as I have developed this science of phaneroscopy, it is occupied with the formal elements of the phaneron.]] (CP 1.284) For those who aren’t familiar with Peirce’s writings on the subject, it might be best to start with his lectures devoted to phenomenology, such as the second Harvard Lecture of 1903 (EP2:145), or his “Syllabus” introduction to it (EP2:267-72). Gary f. From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> On Behalf Of Synechism Center Sent: 12-Jun-21 09:35 Edwina, list, 1904 | Logic viewed as Semeiotics. Introduction Number 2. Phaneroscopy | CP 1.286-287 What I term phaneroscopy is that study which, supported by the direct observation of phanerons and generalizing its observations, signalizes several very broad classes of phanerons; describes the features of each; shows that although they are so inextricably mixed together that no one can be isolated, yet it is manifest that their characters are quite disparate; then proves, beyond question, that a certain very short list comprises all of these broadest categories of phanerons there are; and finally proceeds to the laborious and difficult task of enumerating the principal subdivisions of those categories. It will be plain from what has been said that phaneroscopy has nothing at all to do with the question of how far the phanerons it studies correspond to any realities. It religiously abstains from all speculation as to any relations between its categories and physiological facts, cerebral or other. It does not undertake, but sedulously avoids, hypothetical explanations of any sort. It simply scrutinizes the direct appearances, and endeavors to combine minute accuracy with the broadest possible generalization. The student’s great effort is not to be influenced by any tradition, any authority, any reasons for supposing that such and such ought to be the facts, or any fancies of any kind, and to confine himself to honest, single-minded observation of the appearances. The reader, upon his side, must repeat the author’s observations for himself, and decide from his own observations whether the author’s account of the appearances is correct or not.
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