John, Edwina, List: Like Gary, I would prefer not to engage in another back-and-forth on this well-worn ground, so I will just offer a few comments and hopefully leave it at that.
JFS: The position he recommended was the Linnaean conventions for naming biological species. Peirce did not so much recommend those conventions *themselves *as the underlying *motivation *that prompted biologists to embrace them. CSP: The problem of the biological taxonomists has, however, been incomparably more difficult; and they have solved it (barring small exceptions) with brilliant success. How did they accomplish this? Not by appealing to the power of congresses, but by appealing to the power of the idea of right and wrong. ... [W]hoever deliberately uses a word or other symbol in any other sense than that which was conferred upon it by its sole rightful creator commits a shameful offense against the inventor of the symbol and against science, and it becomes the duty of the others to treat the act with contempt and indignation. (CP 2.224, EP 2:265, 1903) That is why the portion of "A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic" where this passage appears bears the title, "The Ethics of Terminology"--it advocates *voluntary *cooperation by the practitioners of any particular branch of science to use scrupulously consistent terminology. In fact, Peirce acknowledges up-front that it would *violate *his own principles "to make the smallest pretension to *dictate* the conduct of others in this matter" (CP 2.219, EP 2:263; emphasis mine). Our disagreement over "tone" vs. "mark" is a good example--we have each attempted to *persuade *the other (and those reading along) to adopt one of these and abandon the other, but since Peirce himself considered both without definitively choosing one, neither of us can rightly *impose *his preference on the other (or anyone else). JFS: And if you look at Peirce's own practice, he replaced 'phenomenology' with 'phaneroscopy' just a couple of years later. I believe that he was justified in coining the new term 'phaneroscopy', but there is enough overlap that he could have continued to use 'phenomenology'. Indeed, this change in terminology for a subtle distinction in meaning was perfectly consistent with the principles that Peirce spelled out--"for philosophical conceptions which vary *by a hair's breadth* from those for which suitable terms exist, to invent terms with a due regard for the usages of philosophical terminology and those of the English language, but yet with a distinctly technical appearance" (CP 2.226, EP 2:266; emphasis mine). He coined "the phaneron" for whatever is or could be present to any mind in any way because this is a slightly different conception from "the phenomenon" as introduced by Hegel and later adopted by Husserl, and he renamed the corresponding science "phaneroscopy" because it is more about direct observation than systematic study. JFS: It is the practice of taking the advice of an expert in a field for choosing terminology for that field. I recommend that practice. In the field of Peirce scholarship, the expert whose advice on choosing terminology should be given the most weight is obviously Peirce himself. Otherwise, how can we legitimately claim to be expounding *his *ideas and applying *his *framework? Unfortunately, when the terminology of modern research fields is used instead, it is not always clear that those different terms really have the same meanings as *Peirce's *terms. Consequently, it can be inaccurate or at least misleading to describe the resulting framework as *Peircean*--the terminological differences reflect underlying *conceptual *differences. Frankly, that is one of my concerns about "mark"--perhaps it *seems *congenial to audiences today because they already have a sense of what it means, but in fact they *do not* have in mind "Objects which are Signs so far as they are merely possible, but felt to be positively possible" (CP 8.363, EP 2:488, 1908 Dec 25). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sat, Apr 13, 2024 at 12:07 PM Edwina Taborsky <edwina.tabor...@gmail.com> wrote: > John, List > > I think that Peirce’s focus on the ethics of terminology points to his > claim that a term that he uses means, so to speak, ’this but not that’.In > other words, his focus was that a term has a specific meaning..and I see > absolutely nothing wrong with this!! > > My point is different - What I’m saying is that other scholars have > focused on the same issues as Peirce, but they have used different terms. > When we refer to these issues and this includes within a Peircean > discussion, I think we should feel free to use those different terms and > thus, show how Peirce and other scholars have similar or even different > analyses of these realities…even though they use different terms for the > same phenomena. > > I think it is vital to move the Peircean framework into modern research > fields; It is a powerful analytic framework and has a great deal to teach > us - and to do so, I feel, requires that we use terminology that these > other fields feel comfortable with. … > > Edwina > > On Apr 13, 2024, at 12:53 PM, John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > > Edwina, Gary, Robert, List, > > I'm sure that we're all familiar with Peirce's note about the ethics of > terminology. But it's not clear whether its influence was good, bad, or > indifferent. The position he recommended was the Linnaean conventions for > naming biological species. But very few things in the world are so rigidly > classifiable. And those that are have been classified by international > conventions: the integers, the chemical elements, and the chemical > compounds. > > And if you look at Peirce's own practice, he replaced 'phenomenology' with > 'phaneroscopy' just a couple of years later. I believe that he was > justified in coining the new term 'phaneroscopy', but there is enough > overlap that he could have continued to use 'phenomenology'. As for the > choice of 'mark' vs 'tone', I believe that 'tone' was a poor choice, and > his vacillation in 1908 indicates that he had some misgivings. That > vacillation nullifies any obligation to continue his practice. > > Another poor choice on Peirce's part was to make 'logic' a synonym for > 'logic as semeiotic'. Until 1902, he used 'logic' as a synonym for the > symbolic logic of Boole and his followers (of which he was one). Instead, > he chose the usage for the title of books, such as Whateley's. I believe > that Peirce made a serious mistake, and Fisch (in his 1986 book) > deliberately chose the term 'semeiotic' as the abbreviation for 'logic as > semeiotic'. In my recent article on phaneroscopy, I adopted Fisch's > recommendation. > > And by the way, my citation of Fisch is *NOT *an appeal to authority. It > is the practice of taking the advice of an expert in a field for choosing > terminology for that field. I recommend that practice. > > John > >
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