Tom that is a great quote in this context, thank you!
Gene your passionate warning against a “Pyrrhic victory of eviscerated, abstract intelligence in the service of ideals” is important I think. It would seem that Peirce did criticize himself along these lines at one point where he compared his character unfavorably with that of James as “a mere table of contents…a snarl of twine” (or similar words). Having said that, however, I worry that your comments, Gene, are predicated on a Romantic view of thought and feeling as mutually undermining opposites, which is actually the tail-end of modernism. Peirce’s semiotics on the other hand gives us the means to get past that dichotomy - to be able to see for the first time the elegant feelings of fine mathematicians and logicians, and the rigorous critical structure of great art. I see Terry’s post on sociality as logic driving at this point from a different direction. Cathy *From:* C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Tom Gollier *Sent:* Monday, 26 March 2012 3:47 a.m. *To:* [email protected] *Subject:* Re: Book Review: "Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism" Cathy, I'll have to wait for this discussion to develop further and/or the talk to get posted, but I thought this quote from Peirce might be pertinent. The artist introduces a fiction; but it is not an arbitrary one; it exhibits affinities to which the mind accords a certain approval in pronouncing them beautiful, which if it is not exactly the same as saying that the synthesis is true, is something of the same general kind. [CP 1.383] Tom On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 12:44 AM, Catherine Legg <[email protected]> wrote: On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: I want to conclude this note with a passage near the end of the book which I very much liked and have been reflecting on since. Forster writes: On [Peirce's] view, human beings are not cogs in a vast cosmic mechanism, but rather are free, creative agents capable of transforming the world though the active realization of intelligent ideals. The ultimate fate of the world is indeterminate and there is no guarantee that the forces of reasonableness will triumph. Nevertheless, the potential for victory is there. All it requires, he thinks, is a community of individuals who devote their energy to the pursuit of truth and goodness, a community united, not by mutual self-interest, but by a common love of reasonableness" (Forster, op. cit., 245). Cathy, this brought to my mind the discussion of Peirce's esthetics following Tom Short's fine talk in the Robin session at SAAP. Any thoughts on that in this connection? *** Yes that discussion was interesting - I wish we had had the time to pursue it further. This might not mean so much to people who were not at the talk (perhaps Tom Short might be persuaded to post a copy of it here). But anyway, Tom claimed the subject matter of Peirce's aesthetics was not the beautiful but the *admirable*. To test this, and because I was worried that the talk had mainly spoken at the general level, I asked about a specific example - the Mona Lisa, and whether a Peircean aesthetics as described by Tom might have anything to say about that work, and if so, what. I was worried it looked like I hadn't really understood the very point Tom was trying to make, and Tom suggested that a painting of a beautiful woman is not the sort of thing Peirce has in mind, but Felicia Cruse said she wanted to hear what Tom had to say about it, and artworks in general. Then Rosa Mayorga pointed out that Peirce himself describes the subject matter of aesthetics as 'the growth of concrete reasonableness' (here is the connection Gary is pointing out) so we should work with that. So I guess the question is whether a painting by Leonardo da Vinci might somehow contribute to the growth of human concrete reasonableness. Doesn't seem to me it couldn't. That painting in particular, apparently people have been known to stand in front of it for hours and not necessarily be able to articulate why. I hope I have captured an accurate enough snapshot of the discussion as memory of such things is inevitably selective. Regards to all, Cathy --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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]
