Jerry, You wrote, > The archaic term "special sciences" has little if any meaning in the structure of science today. I wonder what you are seeking to communicate by repeating the notion of "special" in this context? The main reason that it has little if any meaning today is that the word "special" has become redundant in the phrase "special sciences," a process already underway in Peirce's time. A "science" today in everyday parlance is that which Peirce called a "special science." I was explaining why, on peirce-l, people somehow don't use the phrase "empirical science" and I was explaining it in Peircean terms.
The _idea_ expressed by the phrase "special sciences" certainly remains relevant to the structure of science. Even today, when distinctions need to be made, people sometimes resort to the positivists' 'formal science - factual science' distinction, usually putting math and logic in formal science, and sciences of forces, matter, life, and people into the factual sciences - pretty much Peirce's 'idioscopy' or 'special sciences.' People (including philosophers) now don't seem sure how to class philosophy even when they do think that it is a discipline of knowledge and research (rather than a literary pursuit or whatever). Statistics might be placed in the formal sciences because it's so mathematical, or placed in the factual sciences if one regards it as empirical like physics, biology, etc, perhaps, like Russell, regarding it as the first and most general empirical science. That sort of classificational uncertainty suggests a classificational paradigm that's just too weak But what's going on today, as far as I can tell, is that most people to whom such questions might occur for a moment in the course of their work don't care. They already know that math (deductive), statistics (inductive), philosophy (people disagree), and natural/human sciences (hypothetico-deductive when possible) are all different things, how much more do they feel a need to know about it? Peirce's classification of the sciences (and maths) remains one of the last serious 'deep' efforts at science classification (excepting the American Mathematics Society's Mathematics Subject Classification and Bourbaki's efforts at math classification). Birger Hjørland (Denmark): "There is not today (2005), to my knowledge, any organized research program about the classification of the sciences in any discipline or in any country. As Miksa (1998) writes, the interest for this question largely died in the beginning of the 20th century." http://www.iva.dk/bh/Core%20Concepts%20in%20LIS/articles%20a-z/classification_of_the_sciences.htm. You wrote, > The modern usage of "object", either mathematical or philosophical, is, in my opinion, remote from the notion of thing. In the modern sciences a thing is marked by its properties - categorized in terms of the systems of units and measured in terms the same system of units. CSP refers to these as "qualisigns" and, if the reference is specific, to "sinsign" (inferring indexical representation.) I was talking about Peirce's conception of object, not contemporary ones. I don't know how the word "object" is used in biology. In Anglo-American philosophy, people seem to use "object" as a formal word for "thing." Quine, a recent philosopher, said that mathematical existence statements commit one to the existence of "abstract non-linguistic objects." Abstract non-linguistic things. There is an inclination to restrict the use of the word "object" to particular things (as opposed to generals). E.J. Lowe http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~weltyc/fois/fois-2001/keynote/ has a four-category ontology: _kinds_ (substantial universals), _attributes_ (relational universals and property-universals), _objects_ (substantial particulars), and _modes_ (relational particulars and property-particulars, also known as "tropes"). Peirce does not define the qualisign as a thing that is marked by properties, measured or otherwise. He defines the qualisign as a quality, a First, that stands as a sign. He does not define the sinsign as a thing marked by properties, measured or otherwise. He defines the sinsign as an individual, a particular fact, a Second, that stands as a sign. In Peirce's system, a sinsign does not 'infer' or imply indexical representation; it may be an index or an icon, and that icon may be an image lacking an attached index referring to a particular object. You wrote, > While this listing is useful, it misses the basic point. That is, a philosophical object or a mathematical object does not carry the notion of necessity of measurable properties - such as mass, volume, length, density and so forth. When CSP, in his primitive triad, wrote of Things - Representation - Form, he did not include the term 'object' as it fails the representational quality. Peirce considered Archimedean mechanics to be philosophical, and that seems to have implications for his conception of philosophical objects as to measurable properties. But in any case I don't see why you'd have me stopping amid a general discussion to note that, rather obviously, mathematical and philosophical objects (usually) lack mass, physical velocity, etc. I suspect that you've accepted some transference of sense where the word "thing" or "object" starts to imply "physical/material thing/object with measurable physical properties" as a result of habitual use of the word "thing" or "object" in context of physical or material science, so that the use of "object" in another sense sounds odd and worth noting to you. Many people accept such a transference of sense, which is why I periodically note that, by "object," Peirce means anything you can talk or think about and that he doesn't usually mean "object" in some narrower sense. As regards the difference between "thing" and "object" aside from formality of expression (and Heideggerian approaches), you haven't expressed, and I don't see, _what_ is the difference between them that you refer to. In general, you seem to be getting at an idea that seems like it could well be interesting, but it might be a whole lot clearer if you weren't trying to confine it to the form of an objection to a pretty unobjectionable rendition of Peirce's notion of 'object.' As regards "Things - Representation - Form," back on October 5th you quoted Peirce from W1, p. 256, Harvard Lecture VIII, Forms of Induction and Hypothesis - from 1865 which is very early. > The first distinction we found it necessary to draw - the first set of of conceptions we have to signalize-form a triad > Thing Representation Form. > ... The thing is that for which a representation might stand prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with with any representation. The form is the respect in which a representation might stand for a thing, prescinded from both thing and representation It's hard to see why you think that Peirce used "Thing" instead of "Object" because it fails the representational quality. He did not explain it in that way, and he did say that the thing is "prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with any representation," even though the representation stands for said thing. As to conjecture, it is possible that he preferred "Thing" because he was more Kantian back in 1865, and Kant often said "Ding"; also Peirce was discussing the "Thing" as hypothesized and unknowable, whereas "Object" suggests something thrown upon the thinker (or whatever person) and not so hidden noumenally. Peirce soon enough rejected the idea of the unknowable thing-in-itself. One also sees that Peirce there defines 'Thing', 'Representation', and 'Form' pretty much as he later defined (in "On a New List of Categories" 1867) 'Object', 'Representamen', and 'Ground', respectively. His 'Thing' became his 'Object'. Again, I get the sense that you're trying to raise interesting issues that shouldn't depend on particular ways of construing or misconstruing Peirce, and maybe you should raise them more directly and clearly. Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: Jerry LR Chandler To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Cc: Benjamin Udell Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 10:49 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Gary, Ben, Steven, List: With regard to alternative interpretations of Steven's philosophy, a few further comments appear to be called for. Ben, while I admire your faithfulness to Peircean text, I do think that we must constantly keep in mine that between 100 and 150 years have past sense CSP wrote. During this time, the sciences and mathematics have created new meaning for many.many, many terms that CSP used. Knowledge of the history of science becomes a key element in interpreting CSP views. Experience. One way to get a handle on what Joe is saying about experience and the empirical is Peirce's emphasis on mathematics as experimentation on diagrams. The result of this in Peircean discussions on peirce-l that I've noticed, is an avoidance of the phrase 'empirical science.' Special sciences (physical, chemical, biological, human/social) involve reliance on _special_ classes of experience, _special_ experiments, to study _special_ classes of positive phenomena. The title of the book _The Mathematical Experience_ is entirely congenial to the Peircean outlook. Cenoscopic philosophy, in Peirce's view, deals with positive phenomena in general, not by special classes. I once found Peirce discussing what he meant by "positive" but unfortunately I didn't make a note of it. I don't recall Peirce anywhere saying that mathematics studies 'hypothetical phenomena' or something like that. But he does see experimentation and experience in mathamatics, in its study - there are all kinds of things in mathematics that one cannot make do whatever one wishes. The archaic term "special sciences" has little if any meaning in the structure of science today. I wonder what you are seeking to communicate by repeating the notion of "special" in this context? As regards Peirce's use of the word 'object,' one could call it a fancy word for 'thing.' The modern usage of "object", either mathematical or philosophical, is, in my opinion, remote from the notion of thing. In the modern sciences a thing is marked by its properties - categorized in terms of the systems of units and measured in terms the same system of units. CSP refers to these as "qualisigns" and, if the reference is specific, to "sinsign" (inferring indexical representation.) It's a semi-technical term for 'thing' and indicates that one is speaking at least somewhat formally, while the word 'thing' indicates a minimum of formality of reference. 'Object' can refer to anything that one can think of, anything that one can discuss. It can be a countable object or it can be stuff (a term which some philosophers embraced at some time during the 20th Century). It can fictive, like Prince Hamlet. It's a very bare conception - hard to say how it differs from _ens_. While this listing is useful, it misses the basic point. That is, a philosophical object or a mathematical object does not carry the notion of necessity of measurable properties - such as mass, volume, length, density and so forth. When CSP, in his primitive triad, wrote of Things - Representation - Form, he did not include the term 'object' as it fails the representational quality. Thus I think Gary wrote a very perceptive analysis of the original posting. Cheers Jerry --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
