Bernard, I wish I could converse about this aspect of language in French, but unfortunately I don’t have that ability.
BM: But I am wholly astonished by the rigorus property you are attaching to definitions or descriptions made by Peirce. He was not God the Father. Surely we have to refer to his rights as first inventor but then, our ideas on what he called phaneroscopy can / have to be freely expressed and spread. GF: You are asserting that “what he called phaneroscopy” — the dynamic object of that sign — is what it is independently of anything Peirce said about it. Would you also say that about “pragmaticism,” or “synechism”? I find this a very odd way of using technical terms, especially those invented by an expert lexicographer like Peirce. After studying what he called “high philosophy,” and then “phenomenology,” and finally “phaneroscopy,” including his explicit reasons for the latter name change, I decided to venture forth on my own practice of that type of investigation, and it didn’t seem right to call it “phaneroscopy” because that would claim its exact identity with what Peirce called by that name. So I chose a different name, “cenoscopy,” citing the Century Dictionary definition of it (Turning Signs 0: Phenoscopy (gnusystems.ca) <https://gnusystems.ca/TS/pheno.htm> ). There is in fact no definition of “phaneroscopy” in either the Century Dictionary or the current Oxford English Dictionary, which indicates to me that it is indeed a technical term of philosophy, defined by its inventor, rather than a standard English term. Maybe in French you treat such terms differently, but in English I think we are bound to use it, if at all, as a technical term that is not independent of Peirce’s usage of it. We are of course free to disagree with Peirce’s “ethics of terminology” on this point, I’m just giving my own reasons for agreeing with it. I notice you didn’t comment on the “Macbeth” scenario I offered as a possible example of what Peirce meant in his reference to a “process of thought” by which the elements of experience “must be picked out of the fragments that necessary reasonings scatter.” Since you are, as you said, primarily interested in the practice of phaneroscopy, I’d like to know (in more concrete terms) how you interpret Peirce’s statement about that. Gary f. From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu <peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu> On Behalf Of Bernard Morand Sent: 14-Aug-21 09:35 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] André De Tienne: Slow Read slide 25 Gary F, list Le 13/08/2021 à 15:41, g...@gnusystems.ca <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> a écrit : Bernard, list, BM: I have no definitive opinion on the validy of this later arrangement but I note that 1) hierarchical structures emblematic of the gender / species distinction can be superseded by network structures … GF: I assume you mean genera/species distinction, and yes, we do need to pay more attention to network structures than Peirce did. I have no personal interest in the Comtean classification of sciences, but it is so deeply intertwined with Peirce’s definition of phaneroscopy that we can’t ignore it when we focus on that subject. And if we’re going to develop our practice of phaneroscopy, it’s Peirce’s phaneroscopy that we have to focus on, because it was Peirce who originated and named this “science” (which is not the case with mathematics). So it’s his verbal definitions and his descriptions of the practice of it that we have to take as “given,” not our own ideas (or even Peirce’s ideas) about mathematics or logic. Apologies for the confusion about gender, a trap installed by French language which has in this case one unique word "genre" heavily polysemic But I am wholly astonished by the rigorus property you are attaching to definitions or descriptions made by Peirce. He was not God the Father. Surely we have to refer to his rights as first inventor but then, our ideas on what he called phaneroscopy can / have to be freely expressed and spread. BM: I noticed the quote given by John Sowa of which I was unaware before: CSP: Phaneroscopy... is the science of the different elementary constituents of all ideas. Its material is, of course, universal experience, -- experience I mean of the fanciful and the abstract, as well as of the concrete and real. Yet to suppose that in such experience the elements were to be found already separate would be to suppose the unimaginable and self-contradictory. They must be separated by a process of thought that cannot be summoned up Hegel-wise on demand. They must be picked out of the fragments that necessary reasonings scatter; and therefore it is that phaneroscopic research requires a previous study of mathematics. (R602, after 1903 but before 1908) GF: Yes, that last sentence is very interesting. If we take “the fragments that necessary reasonings scatter” as general (rather than vague), so that it “turns over to the interpreter the right to complete the determination as he pleases” (EP2:394, CP 5.448), we ought to come up with an example from the experiential realm. Let’s say that I (like Macbeth) see a dagger in the air before me, but when I try to grasp it, find that it is intangible. If I conclude, as Macbeth did, that “there’s no such thing” — i.e. make the phaneroscopic judgment that the dagger lacks the element of genuine Secondness to the extent that it is a figment of my imagination rather than an existing thing — am I relying on “fragments that necessary reasoning scatters” in order to make that judgment? I suppose so, if it is a premiss of necessary (mathematical) reasoning that an intangible thing cannot exist even though it visibly appears. Personally I don’t find this very convincing, or even informative, but it seems to me that Peirce must have something like this in mind if his statement above is to be taken as an assertion. Perhaps others can come up with a better example of “mathematics acting as some kind of precondition for the phaneroscopist” (as you put it, Bernard). BM: Is it Marty's idea of isomorphies between classes grouped by affinities, his podium architecture ? I tend to think so because I have showed before that such an isomorphy could be described between the architecture of 10 classes of signs and that of 66 classes, which I suspect to be related to phanerons and called "my SECOND WAY of dividing signs" by Peirce. GF: I have no problem recognizing that the one is isomorphic to the other in either of these cases, but I don’t accept the reasoning that “A is isomorphic with B” proves that “A is prior and B must be derived from it.” Stricly speaking isomorphy does not imply a sequential order between the one and the other. On the contrary it is a reciprocal relation of equality indicated by the prefix "iso". In fact one can read the technical word "isomorphy" defined by maths as the more usual (and vague) "resemblance" which Peirce often uses to qualify the icons in relation to their objects. GF: Obviously the reverse conclusion could be just as logically (or illogically) drawn from the same “evidence.” Isomorphism does not imply asymmetry. Marty’s argument, if I may call it that, is based solely on the assumption that mathematical observations have logical priority over phaneroscopic observations. In other words he is simply begging the question, assuming what he claims to be proving. BM: I don't think that the cycle abduction -> deduction -> induction which are logical types of reasoning be of concern here: Phenomenology is, according to the classification, a Priman and consist mainly in free observation of the phaneron, not in producing conclusions. GF: Peirce is very clear that phaneroscopy produces generalizations, and it seems quite arbitrary to me to deny them the label “conclusions.” Anyway, according to R602 as quoted above, the phaneroscopic elements “must be separated by a process of thought” which calls upon the “necessary reasoning” of mathematics to do so. How does this differ from “producing conclusions”? No. Generalization of A into B consist in removing some attribute(s) from A in order to make B. We say also, then, that A falls under B. There is no conclusion in such an operation in the sense of the same word conclusion used for an argument. Bernard
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