Steven Ericsson Zenith wrote:
I must confess to being a little bewildered by Gary's strongly worded rhetoric - nothing against Ben or Frances but the case does seem to be overstated fro my POV.
What case? Overstated how? I have been severely critical of positions held by Frances as well as more recently those held by Ben, but I both feel that they have every right to express themselves here. Engaging in the consideration of their respective points of view has been productive for me. It is likely that my "strongly worded rhetoric" meant merely to express that. But I have hardly hidden the fact that I've been exceedingly frustrated at times with each of their approaches, their neologisms, etc.
But, and n a word Steven, what is your point here and your POV in the matter? Mine, to state it somewhat baldly, is that Frances has recently been engaging Ben's ideas in ways that, for one thing, have tended--at least for me--to clarify some of what I find problematic in them and perhaps even in the direction of possibly helping to resolve the tension between Ben's fours and Peirce's threes creatively (on the other hand, Ben has made it clear that he is "not granting the Peircean categorial & intuitional framework as it stands" and is rather "arguing for a variant framework" (quoted from a personal message from Ben). As you probably know, I perhaps more fully than most accept Peirce's trichotomic philosophy and semeiotic, etc., his valency theory, the reduction thesis, etc. (although hardly uncritically) and I am also hardly alone in finding great power in Peirce's trichotomic world view. There indeed appear to me a rather long list of respected philosophers and logicians who, shall we say, pragmatically employ this power in their own work. On the other hand I have found Ben's tetrastic approach unsatisfactory for reasons which I have given here and on his blog (not to mention our personal correspondence and conversations) and he has rejected all these arguments as so far he has rejected all arguments tending to see Peirce's trichotomic as "necessary and sufficient." Frances has it seems to me put a fresh slant on all this (especially as it relates to collateral observation and the status of the object) and out of respect for her thoughtful engagement I wrote my last post (as noted, I continue to find her mode of expression problematic). What exactly is it then which I've overstated?
Gary
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