Hi Jon, Colleagues You say: “As I already said in another thread, I find it highly implausible that there could be a pronounced difference between Peirce's personal views and his philosophical system.”
Peirce says his approach to philosophy is both (1) critical and (2) commonsense. He explains these two pillars by appeal to the traditions of Kant’s Critical philosophy, and the commonsense approaches of figures including Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart. Drawing on Kantian ideas, he aims to build theories of phenomenology, the normative sciences and metaphysics that are exact, rigorous, and can be put to the test. Drawing on the common-sense tradition, he recognizes that competing philosophical hypotheses and theories are rather speculative in character. For large questions, it may take centuries or even millennia for the principles to be put to the test by entire cultures. Many common-sense beliefs, on the other hand, have already been put to the test—at least in a practical way—for quite some time. As such, we shouldn’t expect a perfect fit between Peirce’s commonsense beliefs that guide his everyday life and his philosophical theories. When it comes to practical affairs, he suggests it would be foolish for a philosopher to disregard common sense beliefs in favor of high-level philosophical theories when the two seem to conflict—as they often do. I’m not surprised to find that any philosopher—historical or contemporary--holds or acts on personal beliefs that appear to be direct conflict with the theories they hold or are developing. Hope that helps, Jeff From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Date: Friday, October 4, 2024 at 3:25 PM To: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] God is an active participant in the semeiotic unfolding of the universe, was, More on Ens necessarium Gary R., List: I think that it is very difficult to have a fruitful exchange of ideas when the well-established definitions of key terms are not being carefully maintained. I trust that I do not need to quote Peirce's ethics of terminology to justify my position on this. As I already said in another thread, I find it highly implausible that there could be a pronounced difference between Peirce's personal views and his philosophical system. He also does not strike me as someone who would disingenuously attempt to present his ideas in a certain way, just to make them more palatable to a particular audience. GR: Where do Christ and the Holy Spirit stand in Peirce's cosmic religious understanding and yours, that is if they do at all? Peirce very rarely even mentions the Trinity, and best I can tell, he never incorporates it into any of his cosmological writings. I have speculated before (as have others) that this reflects his Unitarian upbringing prior to becoming an Episcopal so that he could marry his first wife, Melusina Fay. In fact, I am not aware of any passage whatsoever where he affirms the deity of Jesus Christ or distinguishes the Holy Spirit from God more generally as "a disembodied spirit." I suspect that this is because he considered trinitarianism to be an example of making the conception of God more precise, and thus more controversial, instead of allowing it to remain vague. My own "cosmic religious understanding" is irrelevant--as I keep saying, this is Peirce-L, not Schmidt-L. Nevertheless, it should be clear by now that I carefully distinguish metaphysical hypotheses from religious doctrines. For me, religion is much more personal than cosmic--it is about how I (and others) can be reconciled with God despite my sins, for which I (with everyone else) deserve to be separated from God forever. My response to the suggestion "that there is no place for cosmic love in [my] theism" is a reminder that, just a couple of weeks ago, I concluded a post (https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2024-09/msg00093.html) by quoting two verses from Peirce's favorite Gospel, that of my near-namesake--"For God so loved the world (cosmos), that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16); "And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). Accordingly, as a religious doctrine, God's eternal loving purpose in creation, redemption, and sanctification--traditionally associated respectively with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, although all three Persons are understood to be involved in all three activities--is for humans to know God. On the other hand, as a metaphysical hypothesis that is fully consistent with this yet not derived from it, such that it stands or falls on its own merits, the entire universe is conceived as one immense sign whose dynamical object is God the Creator and whose final interpretant is God completely revealed. 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 Fri, Oct 4, 2024 at 3:13 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Jon, List, I am not much interested in conforming to 'classic' definitions of 'immanence" or "theism" or even "panentheism." That is to say that while you seem to cleave to these classic definitions, this is not necessarily how I and others look at definition as it seems to deny that definitions change and grow, and even in time sometimes get closer to more accurately expressing the meaning of the definiendum. So for the present purpose I am not primarily with how Peirce and the 19th century and classic theism might have defined these words. Further, and as I have previously said, I think there may be a kind of cosmic semeiotic over-reach in Peirce's thinking on this matter, that his personal religious beliefs (as you have admitted, so have yours) may have influenced his religious metaphysics and cosmology. I have also suggested that perhaps Peirce thought that making a 'scientific argument' for classic theism, wholly dominant in his day among at least the religious minded, was the most likely way to bring others, including atheistic and agnostic philosophers and scientists, to a belief in the divine, something which he thought would be a great gift to humanity. I agree. I am solidly on the side of the belief that the universe is infused with the spirit of God. As I see it, much (but perhaps not all) of contemporary atheism has tended towards seeing the universe as a mindless effect of that putative singularity, the Big Bang, so reducing the Great Cosmic Drama into little more than a chance accident which, through some mysterious 'power' -- which continues to evade me -- starts to spontaneously self-organize. Such forms of reductionism can lead to thinking of the universe as a kind of material (and subatomic, etc.) clockwork universo so that when the human is finally evolved even 'consciousness' -- even love! -- are seen as merely epiphenomena. I'm with Dante (and Peirce!) as opting for "the Love which moves the sun and other stars." But continuing with the principal point: Although I've asked you to do so, you continue not to address an essential idea of the Cosmic Christian viewpoint I've been expounding, namely that of the triune God. So, again I ask: Where do Christ and the Holy Spirit stand in Peirce's cosmic religious understanding and yours, that is if they do at all? I have already outlined my panentheism position, no doubt missing a great deal of nuance especially as it does indeed involve a division of divine resources, so to speak, thus involving both transcendence and immanence. So here it is again expressed as succinctly (and metaphorically) as I can: God the Father, the first Person of the Trinity, sits immovable in His heaven having created the world. Well, there would appear to have been yet one additional 'movement' of the Father: He sends his only begotten Son into the world, in a panentheistic view not only the earthly world that Jesus inhabited when on this planet, but the cosmic world as a whole. Here, as the second Person, Christ is tasked with, and through the Holy Spirit, of 'saving' the world, that is, bringing it to God, evolutionary love moving the cosmos and each one of us towards that saving grace. It would appear that there is no place for cosmic love in your theism, Jon; but if I'm mistaken, please correct me. Meanwhile, it certainly appears to be there in Peirce's, I would say. So that appears to me to be a kind of contradiction in his religious cosmology as you have explicated it: What's love got to do with it? In my view, the expressions 'Father', 'Son', and 'Holy Spirit' as descriptions of the triune God are meant to help us understand the relationship between the three Persons of the Trinity -- including the Cosmic Trinity. And I believe that Peirce's semeiotic and trichotomic can be developed in ways which both enhance our understanding of the sacred underpinnings of the cosmos, but which are also more likely than a traditional and dogmatic theism to bring many to an understanding that the cosmos is through and through infused with the spirit and love of the triune God. To state this from a rather differently conceived scientific cosmology: I believe that metaphysically developing Peirce's semeiotic and trichotomic in the direction of seeing the persons of the trinity as vital symbols of a universal interplay of the 3 universes, might serve to enhance our understanding of the fundamental principles underlying the cosmos as expression of the divine at work in this, a living cosmos. Such an approach would be rooted in the semeiotic interaction of 1ns, 2ns, and 3ns, that through this dynamic interplay of the 3 worlds that it might more clearly and intensely come to be seen that the universe is inherently infused with the spirit of evolutionary love expressed through the relationships among the three universal categories, the Three Worlds. That, of course, is a mere hypothesis. So, to sum up: I tend to think that Peirce employed his trichotomic semeiotic within his religious cosmology essentially in the interest of attempting to support his own religious views (which, however, like mine might have changed over time), that it is possible to imagine a metaphysical use of them in another direction, that of panentheism and, ultimately, a kind of semeiotic trichotomic, so, scientific panentheism where the divine is indeed actively involved in the created universe. Best, Gary R
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