Frances Kelly wrote:
Frances to Jean-Marc...
Hi, see the quote below - it's from the collected papers 1.365.
especially:
"... besides genuine Secondness, there is a degenerate sort *which does
not exist as such*, but is only so conceived."
Peirce calls them 'internal', 'relations of reason', 'degenerate thirds,
seconds'.
Firsts have no degenerate species.
One can say without much of a doubt that the Firsts, Seconds and Thirds
used to refer to the elements of a triadic relation (taken with respect
to one another of course) are of that type. Their existence is due to
the mind that creates them by analysing the relation.
see also CP 1.530
This muse is somewhat off topic, but may be related to the subject.
You recently stated here that Peirce wrote some thirds and seconds are
degenerate, which means that they have no real existence. The
statement that degenerate categories have no real existence is
intriguing, but it does confuse me somewhat in that my understanding
of Peircean degeneracy is that such categories will have real
existence, but will fail to be true to the conditions of their ground.
In regard to symbols for example, there are three categories called
abstract symbols and singular symbols and genuine symbols, but only
genuine symbols are not degenerate, because they are faithful to their
conventional ground in that they are formally arbitrary, unlike the
other symbols. In any event, degenerate symbols and genuine symbols
would both continue to have real existence, regardless of the absence
or presence of degeneracy.
At issue here perhaps is likely the strict Peircean meaning of such
terms as "object" and "real" and "existence" in that say representamen
that are not signs have no objects, and are not real if not sensed,
yet might have existence as representamen even if not sensed and not
real. My reading of meaning into these Peircean terms may of course be
off base here. The term "have" here for the thing categories might
possess as a sensible objective property, independent of say life and
mind, is also a problem for me. For example, would genuine symbols
like some lingual words "have" existence or "have" arbitrarity within
their form, merely waiting to be sensed and thus be real. The
dependence of reality on sense also seems to imply that what is real
might be a mental construct, unlike factuality and even actuality
which might be held as a material construct. In other words, if an
existent fact and whether it is actual or not is not sensed, then it
simply is not real, so that a fact is only as real as sense.
Jean-Marc Orliaguet partly wrote...
"Peirce was a "three-category realist" acknowledging the reality of
Firsts and Seconds and Thirds early on. ...Peirce acknowledged the
reality of actuality or of secondness...the reality of firsts (the
universe of possibility) and of course the reality of thirdness (the
universe of thought or signs)...However he wrote that some thirds and
seconds are degenerate, meaning that they have no real existence."
Peirce: CP 1.365ššš
>ššš365. Thus, the whole book being nothing but a continual
exemplification of the triad of ideas, we need linger no longer upon
this preliminary exposition of them. There is, however, one feature of
them upon which it is quite indispensable to dwell. It is that there
are two distinct grades of Secondness and three grades of Thirdness.
There is a close analogy to this in geometry. Conic sections are
either the curves usually so called, or they are pairs of straight
lines. A pair of straight lines is called a degenerate conic. So plane
cubic curves are either the genuine curves of the third order, or they
are conics paired with straight lines, or they consist of three
straight lines; so that there are the two orders of degenerate cubics.
Nearly in this same way, besides genuine Secondness, there is a
degenerate sort which does not exist as such, but is only so
conceived. The medieval logicians (following a hint of Aristotle)
distinguished between real relations and relations of reason. A real
relation subsists in virtue of a fact which would be totally
impossible were either of the related objects destroyed; while a
relation of reason subsists in virtue of two facts, one only of which
would disappear on the annihilation of either of the relates. Such are
all resemblances: for any two objects in nature resemble each other,
and indeed in themselves just as much as any other two; it is only
with reference to our senses and needs that one resemblance counts for
more than another. Rumford and Franklin resembled each other by virtue
of being both Americans; but either would have been just as much an
American if the other had never lived. On the other hand, the fact
that Cain killed Abel cannot be stated as a mere aggregate of two
facts, one concerning Cain and the other concerning Abel. Resemblances
are not the only relations of reason, though they have that character
in an eminent degree. Contrasts and comparisons are of the same sort.
Resemblance is an identity of characters; and this is the same as to
say that the mind gathers the resembling ideas together into one
conception. Other relations of reason arise from ideas being connected
by the mind in other ways; they consist in the relation between two
parts of one complex concept, or, as we may say, in the relation of a
complex concept to itself, in respect to two of its parts. This brings
us to consider a sort of degenerate Secondness that does not fulfill
the definition of a relation of reason. Identity is the relation that
everything bears to itself: Lucullus dines with Lucullus. Again, we
speak of allurements and motives in the language of forces, as though
a man suffered compulsion from within. So with the voice of
conscience: and we observe our own feelings by a reflective sense. An
echo is my own voice coming back to answer itself. So also, we speak
of the abstract quality of a thing as if it were some second thing
that the first thing possesses. But the relations of reason and these
setting one part of a notion into relation to another. All degenerate
seconds may be conveniently termed internal, in contrast to external
seconds, which are constituted by external fact, and are true actions
of one thing upon another.
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