Steven, i had to read through your post three times before venturing a reply,
because i couldn't believe that you would actually interpret JR's paper -- and
the most straightforward part of it, at that -- as saying the opposite of what
it really says. But further reading of both your post and JR's paper forces
that conclusion. It seems that when you describe your approach as “rigorous”,
what you mean is that it gives you a license to bend any text to your own
preconceived purpose; and your reading of JR's text carries out that program
recursively by ascribing that very idea to JR's text.
JR himself, on the other hand, says that “there is experience when and only
when one finds oneself in a confrontation with something other than oneself and
one's ideas that has the power to do something to one if one is not doing right
by it.” (Notice the inclusion of the idea of “right” here.) This i take to be a
paraphrase of Peirce's concept of the “outward clash” or reaction between ego
and non-ego, i.e. Secondness, as the essential characteristic of “experience”
in the context of scientific inquiry. There are many statements of this crucial
idea in Peirce, perhaps the most well-known occurring in his second Harvard
Lecture, “On Phenomenology” (EP2:150-55; see also CP 1.431, from The Logic of
Mathematics, c. 1896). This is the “paradigm of experience” that JR sets out in
his paper to “disentangle ... from certain other complexes of ideas”. It's also
the idea that your commentary seems designed to deny.
For instance (enclosing your words in [[ double brackets]]):
[[ In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural
and inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be
achieved (without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). ]]
In other words, your "ethics" consists of avoiding any inquiry that might
interfere with your arbitrary choice of "outcome" (i.e. that which *you*
consider to be “natural and inevitable” and therefore do not question). Such
inquiry might involve paying attention to other people's opinions and arguments
as to the desirability of the outcome, or attention to its predictable
consequences (predictable by inference from previous *experience*, of course).
This kind of inquiry would involve an “outward clash”, which apparently you
prefer to avoid -- which effectively reduces your idea of practicality to the
“low and sordid sense” which Peirce (CP 5.402 n2) contrasted to his pragmatic
sense of the word.
[[ Although Ransdell does not get there in this paper, the inevitable
destination of this approach is the broad mathematization of semeiotic theory
(including ethics) beyond logic itself. ]]
“Mathematization” could be another way of avoiding experience as “outward
clash”; for as Peirce says (CP 1.55, c.1896), “success in mathematics would
necessarily create a confidence altogether unfounded in man's power of
eliciting truth by inward meditation without any aid from experience.” More
germane to the point of JR's paper, though, is Peirce's attempt to show that
even deductive reasoning which does not involve any physical apparatus can
still incorporate experience, insofar as it makes diagrams and observes the
results that follow from operations on them quite independently of the
reasoner's intentions. The observation of the diagram thus constitutes an
“outward clash”. This argument implicitly counters “the metaphysical conception
of the physical” which is perhaps the main idea from which JR is trying to
disentangle “the paradigm of experience”, at least in [11].
Since the dynamic *object* is where Secondness lives in the basic triadic sign
relation, it is probably natural that you prefer to “avoid "object" language”,
as you say in your comment on [11]:
[[ Now we begin to head into difficult territory because the term "phenomenal,"
in my view, has the very problem that Ransdell observes. He defines "phenomenal
object" as "the object unqualified per se by such notions as that of the
physical, the sense-perceptible, and the like." ]]
This is not a definition but an observation on JR's part, which is clearly part
of his effort toward disentanglement. It is obvious from the context that a
"phenomenal object" is anything that can be *experienced* in the sense common
to Peirce and JR as stated above: it is anything present to the mind in such a
way that the mind can attend to it. (If you want a definition of “phenomenon”
or “object”, both were defined by Peirce for the Century Dictionary and you can
find the appropriate entries online.)
[[ I confess that I find the variety of uses of the term "phenomena" to be
highly ambiguous and uncertain. ]]
The CD gives separate entries for its use in philosophy and in science; beyond
that, attention to context is usually sufficient to disambiguate, if the
interpreter is honestly trying to grasp the utterer's idea even (or especially)
when it clashes with his own.
[[ Peirce was not adverse to the term but as clear a definition as I can find
of his view is in the following:
CP 1.270 ... That they are entirely physical every physicist must insist,
physics being sufficiently advanced to see that all phenomena, without
exception, are physical, for the purposes of physics. Soon we may hope that all
psychologists, on their side, may be equally at one that all phenomena without
exception are purely psychical for the purposes of psychics. ]]
This is of course not a *definition* of “phenomena”, or even of Peirce's view,
but it does clarify the normal usage of the term, by using it to say that
physics and psychics are special sciences -- as opposed to philosophy, which is
of course “an experiential, or positive science, but a science which rests on
no special observations, made by special observational means, but on phenomena
which lie open to the observation of every man, every day and hour.” But if you
eliminate experience and observation, which seems to be what you (as opposed to
JR) are proposing to do, then you also eliminate *any* positive science (along
with philosophy, which you have already dismissed in your first post of this
thread).
The final “definition” which you quote from Peirce, CP 1.440, is again *not* a
definition. But if you eliminate experience (as Secondness) from your
“semeiotic”, then i guess definitions are about all you're left with, so you
try to fit every text into that mold -- always according to your own
preconceived idea, of course. But the main question this leaves me with is why
you choose to call this program “semeiotic”.
Gary F.
} World visions can conceive of everything, except alternative world visions
... [Umberto Eco] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
-----Original Message-----
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Sent: November-28-11 4:35 AM
Dear List,
Continuing the slow read of:
On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph
Ransdell
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm
> [10] Such is, in part, the complex of ideas involved in the words
> "experience", "experiment", and "empirical" in their earlier forms, and it is
> substantially what we associate with the notion of taking a scientific
> attitude towards our ideas, meaning, namely, not satisfying ourselves as to
> their truth or falsity simply on the basis of the fact that we find it
> pleasing or displeasing to think of something as being so, but rather an
> attitude which leads to seeking out or to arranging a situation wherein that
> which the ideas are about — the object of the ideas — will have its chance to
> confront one's ideas of it and be able to exercise its own independent being
> and power in defending itself forcefully against these ideas if they
> misrepresent it. It is, I believe, more than a mere metaphor to regard the
> things we try to understand as having a power of self-defense relative to the
> ideas with which we try to capture or ensnare them, though it has been
> increasingly characteristic of the Western mind since the Renaissance to
> regard the world — that is, anything external to our ideas and plans — as
> passive, defenseless, infinitely plastic: the perfect victim, as it were.
> This is perhaps what is at the root of — among other things — the absolute
> idealisms of the 19th Century and their thinly disguised and historically
> relativized versions in the conventionalistic philosophies of science which
> are currently fashionable.
Here Ransdell addresses the question that has arisen in the discussion of the
the last paragraphs, though he does not mention "ethics" explicitly.
"... not satisfying ourselves as to their truth or falsity simply on
the basis of the fact that we find it pleasing or displeasing ... but rather an
attitude which leads to seeking out or to arranging a situation ..." This is,
indeed, the ethics of Peirce, the "philosophy of aims."
In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and
inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved
(without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). My view does not concern
"the should," "the right" or "the wrong." Rather, if you behave one way you
will get one outcome, if you behave differently you will get another. My aim in
the social case is to prefer the "good and productive" (the discussion of which
I leave for another day).
Ransdell is advocates the methods of science in order for semeiotic theory to
be most effective, to produce good and productive results. His aim calls for
semeiotic theory to apply the rigorous and systematic methods of science to
itself and he provides an account commonly found when a discipline moves from
its initial rambling course toward necessary mathematics.
Although Ransdell does not get there in this paper, the inevitable destination
of this approach is the broad mathematization of semeiotic theory (including
ethics) beyond logic itself.
These and the earlier arguments may appear obvious to those in scientific
disciplines here but it will become clear in the discussion of the later
paragraphs concerning literary criticism just why this direction and advocacy
is necessary.
I say that it "may" appear obvious only because semeiotic theory and the
matters that concern it remains something of a mystery to most scientists, who
sadly have too little understanding of epistemology and the issues of
apprehension and what they do know is most often learned from convention, they
have not explored the matter themselves.
> [11] What I want to convey is that the idea of the empirical, the
> experiential, and the experimental have mistakenly come to be associated
> almost exclusively with the metaphysical conception of the physical, on the
> one hand, and with the highly questionable mentalistic category of
> sense-perception, on the other, whereas in fact there is no essential
> connection with either of these; and that what has been lost sight of is that
> there is experience when and only when one finds oneself in a confrontation
> with something other than oneself and one's ideas that has the power to do
> something to one if one is not doing right by it.
This is semeiotic holism, in which semeiotic theory is applied to itself, and
reminiscent of a central concern in my work that challenges us to consider the
difference between integrative and differential reasoning. When we isolate our
distinctions from the contextual background of the underlying whole we are
inclined to produce exactly the conceptual artifacts and redundancy that
Ransdell notes.
> [11] Now, our present categories of apprehension stand in no systematic
> relation to those objects, entities, things, events, etc., which have enough
> vitality of their own to defeat one's ideas of them when those ideas are
> mistaken. Even some sense-perceived entities — mirages, for example — have a
> very' weak ability to stand their ground against our ideas of what is really
> there, external to us, whereas some entities we would regard as purely
> imaginary, such as persons in a well-constructed novel, have as much or more
> ability to defeat our ideas of what they are than do many persons we meet in
> what we call "real life," who live in a constant state of anxiety lest they
> fail to conform to what others expect or want them to be. Hence, if it is the
> confrontation with something autonomous enough to be genuinely experienceable
> which is what makes the difference between an empirical and a non-empirical
> subject-matter, and therefore the difference between an empirical and a
> non-empirical semiotics, I believe it is to the idea of the phenomenal object
> — the object unqualified per se by such notions as that of the physical, the
> sense-perceptible, and the like — which we should first turn in getting clear
> on what empirical objects are.
Now we begin to head into difficult territory because the term "phenomenal," in
my view, has the very problem that Ransdell observes. He defines "phenomenal
object" as "the object unqualified per se by such notions as that of the
physical, the sense-perceptible, and the like." But what then is such an
object? You will find in my own work a preference to avoid "object" language.
> [12]
> It is true, of course, that not all phenomenal objects are sufficiently
> independent of our ideas of them to warrant talking of them as
> experienceable, or at least not in the robust sense of "experience" needed
> for semiotics in general to be truly empirical. Many — perhaps most —
> phenomena are so evanescent that there really is no truth to be told or
> thought about them, which is to say that they are hardly experienced at all.
> But whether or not a given phenomenal object does or does not have sufficient
> staying power, power to stand its ground against us when we go against it in
> our thinking about it, cannot be determined in advance by applying to it this
> or that metaphysical label, including the label "physical", or by subsuming
> it under this or that special category of apprehension, at least as regards
> the jerrybuilt system of categories of apprehension we commonly recognize and
> use.
I wonder what most logicians make of this passage. It is my own view that the
term "phenomena" and what people mean by it is terribly vague and I was asked
recently by a Stanford logician (Sol Feferman) if when I speak of "reasoning
about natural behavior" would I use the term "phenomena?" I responded by saying
"perhaps, in a closed community" because in my experience "phenomena" is one of
those words that is poorly understood and abused in general (rather like the
term "semantics"). I'll try to say something about the categories of
apprehension in my closing remarks but I hope that from my early outline it
should be clear how such behaviors as "experience" and its forms as "dreaming"
or "illusion" are manifest in semeiosis.
I confess that I find the variety of uses of the term "phenomena" to be highly
ambiguous and uncertain.
Peirce was not adverse to the term but as clear a definition as I can find of
his view is in the following:
CP 1.270 ... That they are entirely physical every physicist must insist,
physics being sufficiently advanced to see that all phenomena, without
exception, are physical, for the purposes of physics. Soon we may hope that all
psychologists, on their side, may be equally at one that all phenomena without
exception are purely psychical for the purposes of psychics.
And the three categories of phenomena given in CP 1.418 - 1.420.
CP 1.440 I have taken no pains to make this promiscuous list of properties of
fact complete, having only cared that it should be sufficient to enable us to
compare the characters of fact with those of duality and thus ultimately to
attain an understanding of why all phenomena should be composed of quality,
fact, and law.
Are these definitions satisfactory and what, exactly, do they refer to? Things
that happen in general? "Natural behaviors?" "Dreams?" Illusions?" If so, what,
exactly, is a "phenomenal object?"
With respect,
Steven
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