Gary M.,
The passage in Deely to which you refer defines Peirce’s concept of Firstness by collecting several quotations from Peirce that refer to it. I’m not sure why you have singled out one of those quotations in connection with “metaphysical concerns”, but i think a better acquaintance with Peirce’s phaneroscopic (phenomenological) categories would serve you better in the task of interpreting both Peirce’s text and Deely’s. Both of them are referring primarily to logic, i.e. semiotic, and while it is true that just about any principle of logic “potentially refers to metaphysical concerns”, those concerns are secondary and derivative. Comparisons with Heidegger’s terminology are even more remote, in this context. I think you’d be better advised to peruse Selection 28 in EP2; the passage from Peirce that Deely quotes from CP 5.469 is a variant reading from that same MS (318), the MS in which he introduces the term “semiosis”. Gary F. } The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work. [Wittgenstein] { <http://www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm> www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary Moore Sent: April-26-12 2:38 AM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] Fw: [peirce-l] PEIRCE QUOTATION FROM JOHN DEELY LOCATION Dear Doctor Rose, Thank you for your reply! -- The quote from John Deely had an important original context because it potentially referred to metaphysical concerns with “positive internal characters of the subject”. --------------- Now, in my incredibly small experience with Peirce, I have noticed there are times when he pays strict logical attention and times when he is more ‘colloquial’. Sometimes the ‘colloquial’ is not just ‘ordinary discourse itself – which I have argued elsewhere in relation to Umberto Eco ALWAYS triumphs over philosophical discourse [which is always a mere interruption to ‘ordinary discourse’ that always goes on to render philosophy insignificant] – but rather refers to old style ‘metaphysics’ as he does here. ------------ Deely has several special [to himself] issues that would put the Peirce quote into a completely different light possibly. One such issue is the theological ‘soul’. Another relates to his very good book on and continuing high regard for Martin Heidegger. I would think neither Peirce nor Heidegger would accept literally the metaphysical connotation of “positive internal characters of the subject”. Heidegger, in whom Deely most properly and almost uniquely recognizes the semiotic aspect of Heidegger [something I was lucky enough to see in Heidegger’s 1916 doctoral thesis on the categories of John Duns Scotus whom Peirce admired]. ---------------- Heidegger would unreservedly reject any literal reference to “internal” and to “subject” in his “Dasein” or Being-there since it is a field of experience presented to the human being which, as far as it is ‘known’ is completely ‘external’ and open to be delimited by language. It would seem to me Peirce would do the same since it seems to me that for him experience is an undelimited whole or totality. But I could very well be wrong on this for Peirce. ---------------- Heidegger does recognize obscurely an unknown aspect of Dasein. But since such a ‘thing’ is not experienced directly and is not related to language as either ‘ordinary’ nor ‘philosophical’ discourse, it can only be approached obliquely or asymptotically. The Heideggerian scholar William J. Richardson SJ does this with Lacanian psychoanalysis which, it seems anyway, Deely disapproves of. The point is, it seems with both Heidegger and Peirce, the popular phrase “What you see is what you get” is taken in a strict and radical sense. I think also both consider the ‘unconscious’ as a matter of historicity being logically being teased out of the long dream of language which completely overwhelms any one individual. ----------------- Another issue with Deely and Heidegger related to this is Deely’s seemingly strict separation between human consciousness, which dreams the dream of language, and the ‘animal’ which largely does not do so. Heidegger also separates the two but simply as an observation and method of trying to delimit language within manageable bounds, and not because of a religious agenda since he explicitly holds for an “atheistic methodology”. In other words, if he had found another animal than human being he could converse with, he would have no ideological or theological problem, being more attuned to Nietzsche in this matter. ---- Therefore I raise another question: “Does Peirce raise a distinct separation between the human being as the only linguistic animal, and if so, where, and if not, where?” ----------------- Gary C. Moore --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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