> From: Eugene Halton > > Dear Drake, > You make it seem as though the meaning of Aristotle could not grow, > just because Aristotle the man happened to be dead. That is the curious view > of materialism, and legacy of Cartesianism, with its dualism of mind and body. >
Eugene, I have no idea what you mean by the phrase "the meaning of Aristotle". Do you mean "the meaning expressed in Aristotle's writings"? I ask this because you immediately (below) conflate "the conceivable consequences signs engender" with "the conceivable consequences [the self] engenders". I see no reason for positing or hypothesizing a notion that human consciousness has a "meaning" in the sense that words have meaning. I certainly wouldn't take such a notion as axiom and build a theory on that basis! Aristotle's texts are concrete, and final. This is historical fact that has nothing to with "Cartesianism" or "dualism of mind and body". Some ideas expressed in Aristotle's texts have been further developed, even considerably so -- but this development doesn't owe to Aristotle except as Aristotle's texts have been concretely given. Other ideas expressed in his texts have been debunked, and this also doesn't owe to Aristotle except as his texts are given to be debunked. > But consider that if pragmatic meaning is the conceivable > consequences signs engender, that the pragmatic meaning of a self is the > conceivable consequences it engenders. As such, the self is a sign-complex, a > communicative medium in transaction with its inner and outer environment. > A self's conceivable consequences do not end with the death of the > individual bodily portion. These words you are reading are the true > expression of my self, even if I were no longer living. But there is also an > element of social consciousness inherent to a self, such that, "a man's spirit is > embodied in others, and which continues to live and breathe and have its > being very much longer than superficial observers think" (Peirce [1893] > 1998:3). > Agreed that the common language of a people is independent of specific persons, although such a thing exists only because individual persons coin the terms. But there are a lot of ellipses in any jump to "a man's spirit is embodied in others", e.g., what is the exact definition of "spirit"? What is the connection? > As I tried to put it in an essay titled "Mind Matters," "It is the life of > signs of the body social, in which we are participant. Suppose, for example, I > perished after tapping out these words you are gazing at. They, and hence a > part of me, would live and breathe as social consciousness, independent of > my carnal consciousness, through you. They would continue minding both as > signs and as conceivable consequences, as Peirce also does in this discussion, > which can also be considered as one of the conceivable consequences of > pragmaticism. I disagree with the notion that if you perished after typing those words, the words "would live and breathe". I altogether disagree with the notion that words "live and breathe", except in explicitly metaphorical usage, so I disagree with this method of extending the meaning of the term 'consciousness' to an imaginary realm in which words, as such, "live and breathe as social consciousness". That particular invention of a "social consciousness" is unintelligible to me, so a distinction between it and a so-called "carnal consciousness" makes no sense to me. > By claiming that humans are capable of spiritual consciousness, Peirce > does not mean religion in the everyday sense but participation in truth, > however that comes about. His doctrine of synechism is an aspect of his > scientific philosophy, though he saw it as conducive to eventually reconciling > religion and science. In Peirce's semiotic sense of 'spiritual,' the life of science > is an example of spiritual consciousness. > It is inquiry into the truth of those eternal forms such, as Peirce the > mathematician would put it, that mathematics makes us aware of, or of > those generals that result from a specific research, or in a different context, > that art manifests. Science and art "parasitize" the bodies they incorporate, > as all mind, in mattering, might be said to do...." (Halton 2008: 126). > Here you're making many jumps. From "spiritual consciousness" to "truth", and to "science" and "religion", then to "the life of science" which is equated to a kind of "spiritual consciousness", and from there to "eternal forms", to "mathematics" to finally to "art". To my mind these jumps are nonsensical. > Indeed, one might say that the idea of pragmatism engendered by > Peirce is still engendering further consequences through "parasitizing" the > body-minds of all of us here. Not to worry though, some would say that the > parasite is conceivably curative. > > Gene > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to [email protected] with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to [email protected]
