I don't find anything on /ens ut primum cognitum/ at Arisbe, and I find
very little about it in connection with Peirce on the Internet. Be sure
to put quotes around Peirce's name as well as around the sought phrase
(like so: "Peirce" "ens ut primum cognitum"), otherwise Google includes
results for "Pierce". Also be sure to type it cognitum, not cogitum, a
typo that probably results from associating cognition with cogitation,
but the words are not cognate.
I've read little Deely or Kant and no McGrath. There are a few passages
of Aquinas that I read many times many years ago. Anyway I won't be able
to address a good deal of what you've said. I might point out /à la/
Merleau-Ponty that one is in language as one is in one's body. (Also, as
Peirce said, as the body is /in/ motion, so one is /in/ thought, all
thought is /in/ signs, etc.) One can't get out of one's body but one can
self-relate as by thumb against finger, hand against hand, etc., some
sort of interplay of external and internal where the circuit is never
quite closed. It's one's own body, extended and flexible in space and
lingering with one in time, that lets one deals with one's own body from
outside. One also finds other bodies that, from the outside, are like
one's own. Body and language can access themselves from outside so to
speak. Moreover, in or as one's body, one moves in the world. One pushes
against the ground and thus moves oneself, and so on; motion is relative
but, for example, a center of gravity is not merely perspectival.
Something like pushing against or standing upon the past is how one can
conceive of volition regarding the past, /pace/ the scholastics. We
empower ourselves in one sense with things that our beyond our power in
another sense. One does get to test, and learn about, oneself, one's
body, one's language, in their interplay with things over which one has
often very little control, and so external perspectives get further into
one's awareness. The distinction and indeed struggle, between self and
other, seem to appear within a whole of experience (or maybe I should
say like Peirce, within the whole phaneron) which is already there. If
one thinks of that interface and struggle as 'external', then one can
get Peirce's view that knowledge of the internal world comes by surmise
from external facts. At least from the external as struggled with by
oneself. Now, a solipsistic world in which one has little or no control
over many things and in which one is often surprised and is often
unable, for example, to fully anticipate or emulate another's mind, -
such a supposedly solipsistic world seems to lack any conceivable
/practical difference/ from the world as we usually think of it.
Something like that seems to be Peirce's view of it. Then solipsism
seems as superfluous as the idea of the Ptolemaic epicycles, or the idea
of the luminiferous ether. However, I don't know whether that view would
keep philosophy from continually sliding toward solipsism as Deely
describes; it feels above my paygrade to make an assertion about that.
Peirce's view of self-other relations seems to have its locus in his
phaneroscopy, or phenomenology, i.e., prior to logic (as formal
semiotic). Now, I'm kind of ignorant here; I'm not sure to what extent
he would view the idea of representation as the solution against
solipsism; maybe he thought the problem needs to be revisited in
semiotic in order to be solved, or maybe he could address representation
enough to deal with solipsism in his phaneroscopy since representation
and mediation are Thirdness, a topic in phaneroscopy. But in any case
representation is how he has one expand beyond one's direct acquaintance
with things, in prospective, generalizing, and at least conceivably
testable ways.
As to ordinary discourse as the final cause of all intellectual
endeavor, it's not clear to me why one shouldn't just as well view all
intellectual endeavor as at least one of the final causes of ordinary
discourse. Among such things it seems to me a two-way street, or a whole
concourse, what with endeavors of imagination, sensory and so-called
intuitive faculties, and concrete perception. A further final cause of
all these things would seem some sort of evolution of humanity, or
intelligent life, including the evolution both of ordinary discourse and
of cognitive endeavors, among others.
I should note for the sake of some readers reading your Deely quote that
Deely and a few others use the word "sign" otherwise than how Peirce
uses it. For Peirce, "representamen" is a technical term just in case
/sign/ as theoretically defined turns out to diverge from /sign/ as
commonly understood. See "Representamen
<http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/representamen.html> " at
the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms . Peirce eventually stopped
using the word "representamen" (except in at least one late manuscript
in which he seems to be working anew on a distinction between sign and
representamen). But for Deely and some others, _sign_ refers to the
whole semiotic triad of the representamen, the object (or the
significate, or significate object, as Deely calls it), and the
interpretant.
Best, Ben
On 5/13/2012 5:39 AM, Gary Moore wrote:
Dear Benjamin Udell,
Gary Moore: Although John Harvey’s reply was extremely good and very
thought provoking, this is the best argued and most informative and
just downright practically effective letter I have ever received on a
philosophy thread on the internet in twelve years! I appreciate the
distinction made in paragraph 2] very much. I did have trouble trying
to find any sort of definition for precisely the terminological
combination “prime necessity” which, though it combines two well known
terms, is not at all self-explicative together as obviously Peirce
wants them to be together. You are perfectly right in saying Peirce is
just using it as an example. ¶
[_Addendum_ ] Gary Moore: To explain my interest I need to show an
ongoing conflict with S. J. McGrath over another such combination term
with a violent and variegated history: the /analogia entis/ which he
says is the primary concept of Thomas Aquinas. He says it is
absolutely necessary to all thinking as such as well as to any
meaningful theology. He obviously treats it as a form of logical
argument. But it is not. It is a literary trope. Now, that does not
diminish its importance because literary explication always goes with
using language. Literary explication shows that psychology, explicit
and implicit, governs all our expression. Yet in logic and philosophy
it is only rarely acknowledged, and then only as a minor concern when
it fact it is the overwhelming concern of the whole of language. Its
formation of language comes long before logic and philosophy. Deely
demonstrates that the /analogia entis/ is NOT/a logical argument/ but
does show the analysis of the word “God”, which Aquinas definitively
says we can never really say anything ‘real’ about, acts as I see it
as a black whole around which theology, philosophy, and psychology
revolve around and . . . The term /analogia entis/ McGrath is so hot
and bothered about does not even occur in Aquinas anywhere.
Gary Moore: But your further analysis, as well as the Peirce you quote
[3], have been vastly rewarding! You quote “Necessity /de omni/ is
that of a predicate which belongs to its whole subject at all times.”
I take this to refer to “Firstness”. In turn, I take these to refer to
John Deely’s use of Aquinas’ /ens ut primum cogitum/ which is
literally the first ‘thing’ you know and gives you the ability to know
everything else. This is the key to all of Deely’s thinking. I
searched for /ens ut primum cogitum / at Arisbe and found absolutely
nothing which is probably my fault. Is the identification accurate? ¶
[Addendum] Gary Moore: In */A Thief of Peirce: The Letters of Kenneth
Laine Ketner and Walker Percy/ * , Percy makes the strange statement
[page 6] that “To tell the truth, I’ve never seen much use in CSP’s
“Firstness”, except to make the system more elegant.”]
Gary Moore: At paragraph 8], you say, “ordinary discourse itself can
evolve and become less vague and more specialized”. This is true. That
this evolution occurs is undeniable. But this indicates the nature of
language itself which I am always ‘within’ and yet is the only
viewpoint I have of it. This is why I disagree with Deely about his
blanket condemnation of solipsism which, like Kant’s categories for
the same reason, he is forced to do an about face. */FOUR AGES OF
UNDERSTANDING/ * , page 588, “ “But this is not sufficient for the
preclusion of solipsism for the species anthropos , and hence for each
individual within it; for whatever may be the mechanism of
representative consciousness, that does not change the basic situation
admitted on all hands: nothing directly experienced has as such an
existence also apart from our experiencing of it. This view is the
hallmark of modernity. But the moderns never succeeded in figuring out
/why/ they were speculatively driven, over and over again, into a
solipsistic corner from which, as Bertrand Russell summarized the
modern dilemma in the historical twilight of its dominance in
philosophy, there seems no way out. For only the sign in its proper
being can effect the needed passage. And ideas as /representations/
are emphatically not signs, but the mere vehicles and foundations
through which the action of signs works to achieve, over and above
individual subjectivity, the interweave of mind and nature that we
call experience.Ӧ
Gary Moore: And on page 645, Deely grudgingly gives Kant credit for
influencing Peirce: “ The second great scheme of categories was that
of Kant. We passed over Kant’s categories without any discussion of
their detail, except to point out that, in the nature of the case,
they could provide no more than the essential categories of
mind-dependent being insofar as it enters into discourse since,
according to Kant, all phenomena are wholly the mind’s own construct.
Nonetheless, do not be deceived by this fact into thinking that the
Kantian scheme is not worth studying. It is filled with triads, which
Peirce found very suggestive in finally arriving at his own
categories, even though Peirce’s are categories of experience in
precisely the sense that Kant tried to rule out and foreclose upon for
all future philosophy.Ӧ
Gary Moore: The point is that, though solipsism must be ruled out as
an overall system such as Berkeley’s, nonetheless it is based on one’s
own and irrevocable experience. The problem is, how then does one then
reconcile that one’s knowledge of language came from ‘elsewhere’ than
one’s own creation in oneself as the only possible point of experience
at all? Obviously, then, the ‘other’ truly and necessary exists but
can only be interpreted from one’s absolutely unique vantage point. If
all knowledge as known in the acting of knowing is wholly mine, then
how do I come about having a language that is given to me somehow? The
evolution of language, then, is inexplicable, paradoxical, and yet a
fact. It truly comes from a process of learning which, from completely
within one’s own experience, must acknowledge a source of experience
from ‘elsewhere’ completely unmediated by myself. ¶
Gary Moore: Therefore “ordinary discourse” I only partially share in
and partially change, and, being out of my control per se, is “the
final cause of all intellectual endeavors.” That it becomes, as you
say, “less vague and more specialized” shows an existential interface
between myself and the ‘other’ to and for whom I write and speak.
Therefore this is not an offhand observation of yours but an
observation of the /aporia/ of existence itself. The fundamental real
problem is not ‘fixing’ terminology but of aligning myself with others
to communicate on the same plain of actual existence.
Regards,
Gary
*From: * Benjamin Udell <[email protected]>
*To: * [email protected]
*Sent: * Saturday, May 12, 2012 2:10 PM
*Subject: * Re: [peirce-l] ORDINARY DISCOURSE AS THE FINAL CAUSE OF
ALL INTELLECTUAL ENDEAVORS
Gary M., list,
In the passage that you quote from EP 2: 266, what Peirce says is,
[....] This scholastic terminology has passed into English speech
more than into any other modern tongue, rendering it the most
logically exact of any. This has been accomplished at the
inconvenience that a considerable number of words and phrases have
come to be used with a laxity quite astounding. Who, for example,
among the dealers in Quincy Hall who talk of "articles of /prime
necessity/ ," would be able to say what that phrase "prime
necessity" strictly means? He could not have sought out a more
technical phrase. There are dozens of other loose expressions of
the same provenance.
Peirce isn't praising the phrase "prime necessity" by calling it most
technical. He's just pointing out that people use, without knowing
their meanings, phrases that are supposed to be reserved for technical
senses. That much seems clear enough from the context. Less obvious is
that "prime necessity" was no doubt in Peirce's view a good example
because he thought pretty much nobody really knew what it meant.
Still another threefold distinction, due to Aristotle (I Anal.
post ., iv), is between necessity /de omni/ (/tò katà pantós/ ),
/per se / (/kath autó/ ), and /universaliter primum / (/kathólou
prôton/ ). The last of these, however, is unintelligible, and we
may pass it by, merely remarking that the exaggerated application
of the term has given us a phrase we hear daily in the streets,
'articles of prime necessity.' Necessity /de omni/ is that of a
predicate which belongs to its whole subject at all times.
Necessity /per se/ is one belonging to the essence of the species,
and is subdivided according to the senses of /per se/ , especially
into the first and second modes of /per se/ . (Peirce, 1902, from
his portion of "Necessity" in Dictionary of Philosophy and
Psychology , James Mark Baldwin, editor, v. 2, p. 145 via Google
Books
<http://books.google.com/books?id=Dc8YAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=%22Still+another+threefold+distinction%22>
and via Classics in the History of Psychology
<http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Baldwin/Dictionary/defs/N1defs.htm#Necessity>
.
I don't know what Latin word is being translated as "necessity" in
that paragraph but, given the neuter adjective in /universaliter
primum/ (literally, "universally first"), if it's a word with the
"necess-" element in it, then it is /necesse/ (= /necessum/ ) or
/necessarium/ ("necessary", neuter adjectives) rather than
/necessitas/ or /necessitudo/ ("necessity", feminine abstract nouns).
Peirce can be terminologically demanding, but fortunately he defined
many terms and phrases, in the Century Dictionary and in the
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology . As for Peirce's own
terminology, he defines some of it in those books, but the first place
to look is the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms
<http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html> , edited by
Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola, U. of Helsinki, and containing Peirce's
own definitions, often many per term across the decades.
Gary Fuhrman very helpfully took a list of Peirce entries at the DPP
that I started in "Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography" in Wikipedia,
and expanded it to include Peirce entries for letters P-W (which
aren't at the Classics in the History of Psychology ).
http://www.gnusystems.ca/BaldwinPeirce.htm . Where he has not also
provided the text, he still provides the page number so that one can
find it via Google Books' edition
<http://books.google.com/books?id=Dc8YAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=%22Still+another+threefold+distinction%22>
or via Internet Archive's edition
<http://www.archive.org/details/philopsych02balduoft> .
The Century Dictionary is online for free
<http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/> ; it's bigger and more
encyclopedic than the OED. I recommend installing the DjVu reader
rather than settling for jpg images of pages. A list of the entries
written or supervised/approved by Peirce is at
http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep . Peirce's work on the Century
Dictionary will be in Writings vol. 7, now scheduled for 2013. Online
software for W 7 is now planned (Peirce Edition Project April 2012
Update <http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/PEP-Update-April%202012.pdf> ).
As regards ordinary discourse as the final cause of all intellectual
endeavors, I'd say that ordinary discourse itself can evolve and
become less vague and more specialized. Some ordinary discourse
contains hundreds of ways to characterize snow; but not ordinary
discourse in English, and most of us will not accumulate enough
experience with snow to get what those characterizations are about.
Yet for some those characterizations are very practical, often
needful. Between highly developed ideas and ordinary ideas, there will
usually be some struggle, it's a two-way street.
Best, Ben
On 5/12/2012 12:25 PM, Gary Moore wrote:
Dear John Harvey,
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