Hello Edwina, Jon S, Gary R, Gary F, all, Let me start by saying that I’ve not engaged much with the secondary literature on Peirce’s views concerning religion. It is on my to-do list, but I’ve not spent the time needed to understand the debates among scholars.
Having said that, my approach to interpreting the various texts where Peirce says things that bear on questions you are discussing is to distinguish various purposes Peirce might have when writing about religious matters in notes, essays and letters. For instance, I assume that Peirce sometimes expressed his personal views on matters of religion—such as in his letters and personal notes--and I don’t assume they are offered as a part of his philosophical inquiries and theorizing. When it comes to philosophical inquiry, I try to distinguish between the expressions of (1) his personal views, (2) the ideas he takes to be part of the common understanding of modern American society at his time and (3) the deeper common sense of a larger culture in a given millennium. The ideas that are part of the (3) common sense understanding of a larger culture with respect to the Divine, the nature of God, etc., can form a starting point for philosophical analysis and subsequent inquiry, but I don’t assume the views he draws from as part of inquiries in philosophy necessarily match, point for point, with his own personal hopes, beliefs and convictions on matters of religion. Such an approach seems to run at odds with an orientation that is both critical and commonsense in its methods. Peirce directly says that he did not engage in his inquiries in philosophy to answer questions about God, immortality, and the like. Rather, he is taking up questions in phenomenology, the normative sciences and metaphysics in a way that is largely motivated by his interests in logic. After all, his central aim is to make philosophical inquiry in each of these areas more scientific and exact. I’m curious as to how the various participants in this discussion sort the different things Peirce says about religious matters into the relevant buckets. To what degree should we read statements about his personal views on matters of religion to be relevant or irrelevant, peripheral or central, for understanding his theoretical inquiries in logic, metaphysics, etc.? For my part, I tend to think Peirce’s personal views on matters of religion should be kept separate from the interpretation of the scientific inquiries and resulting theories. Having said that, I’m not yet very clear on how far I would push this in my own interpretation of Peirce’s writings or in my own inquiries in philosophy. For the most part, I try to draw a separation between my personal views about matters of religion, ethics, etc. and my philosophical inquiries in the normative sciences and metaphysics. Yours, Jeff From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 7:46 AM To: Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Cc: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>, Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Speculative Grammar (was Semiosic Synechism: A Peircean Argumentation) Gary R, List I’m not sure of the point of your post which seems to be that you support JAS’s posts [without argumentation] as definitive and correct replications of Peirce’s views. I haven’t seen anyone else post either in favour of or rejecting JAS’s views - ie - that HIS views are also exactly those of Peirce. Is it the case that all others who post to this list are also correct - or are they incorrect? You write: "You and I may argue that there are, within Peirce's trichotomic semeiotic and cosmology, passages and argumentations, etc. that support cosmological and religious views (perhaps even non-religious and scientific views and interpretations) far different from Peirce’s.” I disagree - the passages and arguments that Peirce writes are not “far different from Peirce’s’! Peirce wrote them!! You also write that ‘Jon is prone to supporting Peirce’s views with incontovertible text”! Well- me too! Same with others! But what you are ignoring is that no-one is iconic to Peirce’s texts! Each person who reads Peirce’s texts is interpreting it - and it is not up to any one of us to declare: Aha - that person is exactly repeating, incontrovertibly, what Peirce meant!. That is for the community of scholars - over time. I don’t think that you alone can declare that his view is ’the truth of what Peirce saw’ while….others..are not doing so. And I disagree with JAS. I disagree that, for instance, he sees the universe as ‘a sign’ [ ONLY the mediate process and only ONE?]…and inserts God as the outside-the-universe Dynamic Object of determination. Peirce actually wrote “The entire universe - not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as ’the truth’- that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs”. I repeat: that the universe is ‘composed exclusively of signs’. [5.488f. Note; signs - is plural. ]. So- this is a Quote directly from Peirce. It HAS to be interpreted - by anyone who reads it, since any one of us is NOT Peirce but is engaged, ourselves, in a semiotic interaction with the text - and as a triadic semiosic interaction, this means that the result is AN INTERPRETATION of the text. Is this interpretation iconic, indexical, symbolic? So- does this text mean what JAS interprets - as only the mediate relation and only one? And did Peirce mean by these plural signs the triad or only the mediate relation??? Just because JAS posts his interpretation of a text does not automatically mean that he, alone, has direct and Truthful access to ‘how Peirce saw things’. I - and others - have, over this list, rejected such a conclusion. As for using non-Peircean terminology to interpret Peirce’s arguments - as Peirce wrote, “How concepts are named makes little difference’ [4.4]- and I am puzzled by JAS’s shock when I use such terms as ‘information’, data, nodes….I feel as if I should , when writing, provide brandy to calm the nerves of shocked readers who tell me that ‘Peirce never used such words!!’. Again - none of us has the ‘hubris’ to feel that we alone have direct and truthful access to Peirce’s meaning. .We are, each of us, operating within a semiotic process and that means - we interpret Peirce’s text. All that can be done, in my view, is that we can discuss our different views; support them with text AND analysis - and leave it at that. I don’t think that anyone should then decide - ah- X person is ‘more truthful to Peirce’ than Y person. I don’t think the small number of postings on this list has the power to do that. The community of scholars has to be broader and over a longer time. Edwina On Sep 8, 2024, at 1:35 AM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: Edwina, Jon, List, While Jon and I have had serious disagreements on many topics over the years, none more so than in our discussions of religious metaphysics (and especially of late, of religious beliefs which, as I see it, are problematic when they are exclusionary; but Jon never discusses these on List), it is my very measured opinion that he is quite correct in his analysis and conclusions (which are not mere idiosyncratic interpretations) of Peirce's views regarding synechism, the categories, early/proto-cosmology, and his (Peirce's) argument regarding God as Ens Necessarium. You and I, Edwina, most certainly do disagree with some of those views of Peirce. Still, Jon has well supported his argumentation that these are indeed Peirce's views. He has shown this, not rather definitively, but quite definitively with more than ample textual support. Truth is, that Jon himself doesn't agree with all of Peirce's cosmological-religious views (of course with the major exception of his irrefutable theism). One might argue, as I have occasionally done, that theism was the only real option for Peirce in the interest of bringing his contemporaries to a sense that the universe was not 'mechanical', nothing-but-accident, etc., and that to contribute scientifically to a sense that the universe is alive with meaning was more than a desideratum, but a (quasi-?) scientific truth that it was his moral duty to support and promote. Promoting a religious sense of the cosmos was for Peirce a desideratum. As for my religious beliefs, they are most certainly currently in flux as regards Christianity. For me, instructed first in the Episcopal Church, that one ought see Christ (God) in the person facing you, your neighbor, your brother or sister, Jon's rejection of my admittedly unorthodox understanding of Christianity, was profoundly unsettling, especially as I saw Peirce himself as standing far apart from the traditional and orthodox Christian views. But all that discussion was off-List, and Jon has not discussed his orthodox Lutheran views in this forum at all nor ever. That I now bring this up is entirely my doing, and not his. Does Jon's research and philosophical thinking mean to support his theistic views? Well, perhaps. But the truth is, that there is much in Peirce to support, at very least, theism. You and I may argue that there are, within Peirce's trichotomic semeiotic and cosmology, passages and argumentations, etc. that support cosmological and religious views (perhaps even non-religious and scientific views and interpretations) far different from Peirce's. Jon has not denied that there is that in Peirce's writing. So, there's disagreement to go all around! As long as there is mutual respect, I'd say that that's a good thing! So, while Jon is prone to supporting Peirce's views with incontrovertible textual support, and while this seems to irritate some members of this forum (occasionally me, included), his having done so regarding many facets of Peirce's philosophy has been of really inestimable value for those who are truly interested in how Peirce saw things, whether one agrees with Peirce or not. Jon has made it clear that that is all that he's attempting to do. And, I have always -- and always will -- support his right to do that on this forum. Gary R Best, Gary R On Sat, Sep 7, 2024 at 10:48 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: List, JAS 1] Not everyone knows ’standard practice’ ; therefore, I consider it courteous to let the ignorant and uneducated reader of your post know that it is YOU who have inserted the word… and even, to further explain WHY. Why would you add such a word [‘merely] without explaining your intention? 2] So what if Peirce doesn’t use the words of ‘information sites where information is processed’. Is it heretical to explain his concepts using different terms?? Are you suggesting that this action of information processing doesn’t happen? What do you think analysis actually does? Just quote texts without examination of their meaning? What’s the point of that? The function of analysis is to understand the texts - and usually, this means explaining them in other ways..- multiple ways - using different terms and examples - and in different disciplines. Just robotically repeating the terms is not an analysis. 23 I have outlined Peirce’s analytic process - where as he pointed out in his reference to the semiotic process in his determining the weather [8.314] - he does indeed refer to ’the Object as expressed, is the weather at that time’ - and is quite different from the Dynamic Object. He also frequently refers to the Real Object - which is outside of the semiotic process. So- despite your claim - Peirce himself does often refer to an object outside of the semiosic process. 3] WITHIN the semiosic process, in its basic format, it is an irreducible triad of Object-Representamen/Sign- Interpretant…and in its more detailed format: …the full semiosic process is: Dynamic Object- ImmediateObject - Representamen/Sign - Immediate Interpretant- Dynamic Interpretant-Final Interpretant. I note again that the Real Object is outside of the semiosic process - but - it exists. 4]The above irreducible format of Object-Representamen/Sign-Interpretant is a key reason why I also reject your claim that the Dynamic Object is outside of the ’sign’. You stated that “every [dynamical] object stands outside of every sign that it determines . Therefore, if the entire universe is one immense sign, then its ‘[dynamical] object must nevertheless be external to it, independent of it, and unaffected by it”. I disagree with the above - because NONE of the three correlates of the semiotic triad and NONE of the six correlates of the semiosic process stand alone and independently . There is no such thing as a singular sign/representamen on its own. No such thing as a Dynamic Object on its own - independent of the other correlates. Peirce's outline of the semiosic process is that the Sign is a TRIAD; and is irreducible. [See for example, 1.480..where “representation necessarily involves a genuine triad. For it involves a sign, or representamen, of some kind, outward or inward mediating between an object and an interpreting thought” . And all Peirce’s definitions off the sign refer to its triadic nature..eg, “A representamen, or sign is anything [ not necessarily real] which stands at once in a relation of correspondence to a second third, its object and to another possible representamen, its interpretant….” 1901. R 1147. . Are you really saying that the Universe is ONLY the mediate relation [S/R] in the triad? Is ONLY the middle term of the triad of O-S-I?? And that the Dynamic Object, which Peirce himself defines as “the reality which by some means contrives to determine the Sign to its Representation” 4.536…”the dynamical object does not mean something out of the mind. It means something forced upon the mind in perception" SS 197. That is - the Dynamic Object is already taking part in the semiotic triadic process of determining meaning. Therefore - it is not, in my understanding, “standing outside of every sign that it determines’. The Dynamic Object, in my understanding, functions only within the semiosic process. And the same with the mediative term, the Representamen/Sign- it functions only within a triadic process. I simply cannot understand a universe understood as ONLY the singular mediative term…without the correlates of the Object and Interpretant - and don’t see how or why you break up the triad into independent parts.. Edwina On Sep 7, 2024, at 8:39 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: List: I do not ascribe my beliefs to Peirce, I scrupulously quote his own statements. It is standard practice to put any words added within a quotation in square brackets, which signals that they are not in the original text. In Peirce's speculative grammar, the sign, object, and interpretant are not "informational sites where information is processed." He never describes them that way. As I observed before, Peirce also never states nor implies that a sign has three objects. The key to understanding his different references to objects in CP 8.314 (EP 2:498, 1909 Mar 14) is in its very first sentence. CSP: We must distinguish between the Immediate Object,--i.e. the Object as represented in the sign,--and the Real (no, because perhaps the Object is altogether fictive, I must choose a different term, therefore), say rather the Dynamical Object, which, from the nature of things, the Sign cannot express, which it can only indicate and leave the interpreter to find out by collateral experience. As Peirce repeatedly confirms elsewhere, a sign has only these two objects, immediate and dynamical. Accordingly, in his first example later in the same paragraph, the "Object, as expressed" is not some third object, it is the immediate object. Likewise, for any sign that has a real (not fictive) object, it is not some third object, it is the dynamical object. Peirce confirms all this in his second example later in the same paragraph. CSP: I reply, let us suppose: "It is a stormy day." Here is another sign. Its Immediate Object is the notion of the present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine,--not the character of it, but the identity of it. The Dynamical Object is the identity of the actual and Real meteorological conditions at the moment. Again, there is no third object. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Sat, Sep 7, 2024 at 2:21 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: List, JAS I’ll continue to disagree with you - I do think that you post your own beliefs -[ and I don’t see what is wrong with this!] for example, where you ascribe to god, ‘creating and writing on the blackboard. My only complaint is when you ascribe your beliefs to Peirce. And you ignore the definition of Peirce that God means ‘Mind’. [6.502] Indeed, you tried to denigrate this quotation by adding your own term of [merely] ..in brackets, before the word ‘mind’ - without informing us that this addition was your own. Peirce didn’t write ‘[merely] mind’. He said - ’the analogue of a mind..is what he means by “God”. And, “the pragmaticistic definition of ens necessariium would require many pages; but some hints toward it may be given. A disembodied spirit or pure mind” [6.490 my emphasis]. So what if I use the term of nodes to describe the informational sites where information is processed? That’s a red herring tactic. What’s your problem with that? I didn’t declare their use as Peirce’s! But- these terms do, in my view, help to clarify what is going on within the semiosic triad. ..which is an active processing of hard data from an external site into an interpretation. And most certainly, there is a basis for Peirce explaining that there are three objects!! He specifically details them in 8.314 - which quotation I already gave, where he refers to the “This is a sign, whose Object, as expressed, is the weather at that time, but whose Dynamical Object is the impression which I have presumably derived from peeping between the window curtains”. See the difference? This third Object, which is external and not necessarily sensed - is “There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; …5.384. The Real Object [the weather] only became the Dynamic Object when Peirce looked at it. That is, I consider that you err in assigning the term of ‘Dynamic Object to these external ‘Real things’ with which we are not, at the time, semeosically interacting. . I consider that the term of Dynamic Object is, as Peirce outlines, that first contact of external stimuli into the senses. …which the semiosic triad will ‘indicate [8.314] …via the actual acceptance of stimuli. The actual acceptance of stimuli is The Immediate Object - “the Object as represented in the sign” 8.314. To give an example - if a dog is running around in he woods - there are lots of ‘Real Objects’..which the dog doesn’t interact with. But they are real! BUT - if it stops and sniffs the air, then - it has interacted with a Real Object, by ‘connecting, semiotically, with it - and thus, accepting the external stimuli which is coming from that Real Object. That Real Object is now, a Dynamic Object..because it is connected to the dog’s senses. BUT - not all the data of that external object can be sensed by the dog..so..what IS sensed and semiotically worked on, is the Immediate Object. It is this internal data - just a part of the full informational content of the Dynamic Object and just a part of the full informational content of the Real Object - that forms the Immediate Object, and it is this IO data that is transformed by the mediative laws of the Representamen into the various Interpretants. Edwina _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com<https://cspeirce.com/> and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com<https://www.cspeirce.com/> . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► 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]<mailto:[email protected]> . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the body. More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com<https://cspeirce.com/> and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com<https://www.cspeirce.com/> . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► 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]<mailto:[email protected]> . ► To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message NOT to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the body. More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ARISBE: THE PEIRCE GATEWAY is now at https://cspeirce.com and, just as well, at https://www.cspeirce.com . It'll take a while to repair / update all the links! ► 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 UNSUBSCRIBE PEIRCE-L in the SUBJECT LINE of the message and nothing in the body. More at https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/help/user-signoff.html . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
