[PEIRCE-L] On esoteric and exoteric Peirce
Dear list, How are we to interpret Peirce based strictly on the printed word if the philosopher says such things as: “My book is meant for people who *want to find out; *and people who want philosophy ladled out to them can go elsewhere.” I mean, it’s not as though Peirce didn’t understand nuances of recovering an author’s intention. For example: “Now words, taken just as they stand, if in the form of an argument, thereby do imply whatever fact may be necessary to make the argument conclusive; so that to the formal logician, who has to do only with the meaning of the words according to the proper principles of interpretation, and not with the intention of the speaker as *guessed* at from other indications, the only fallacies should be such as are simply absurd and contradictory, either because their conclusions are absolutely inconsistent with their premisses, or because they *connect propositions by a species of illative conjunction*, by which they cannot under any circumstances be validly connected. “ ~*Some Consequences of Four Incapacities* If to understand irony is to understand that the philosopher may not to speak at all (which would then make it *up to us* to do so), then what does *this* perfect philosopher mean? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azd0dLu-Muo For example, consider contradictions in the following: *one; Some Consequences, 1883* If *A,* then *B;* But *A:* [Ergo,] *B.* *two; CP 2.718 (per JAS) 1886* *Rule. *If *A *is true, *C *is true, *Case. *In a certain case *A *is true; *Result. *.·. In that case *C *is true. *three, CP 5.189, 1903* The surprising fact, C, is observed; But if A were true, C would be a matter of course, Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. *Ergo* and *Hence* are illative conjunctions. But there is also contradiction. For example, what of the following sequence? For “This much Peirce had learnt from the medieval doctors, who “always called the minor premise the antecedent and the conclusion the consequent” (NEM 4, p. 178, 1898). ~ Bellucci and Pietarinen That is, if “A presents B with a gift C, is a triple relation”, or alternatively, “Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C”, then which is the consequent and where the predicate? In consequence of the identification in question, in S ^ P, I speak of S indifferently as *subject*, *antecedent*, or *premise*, and of P as *predicate*, *consequent*, or *conclusion*. (Peirce 1880; W4, p. 170, 170n5) In other words, when you examine one and two, the consequent is B and C. So, which is the consequent when taken whole? For what reasons B or C, when even conclusion of a suspicious A? That is, “Given the separate probabilities of the two consequences, “If A, then B,” and “If both A and B, then C (1878),” then perhaps multiple consequences sharing labels for different reasons? “But, first, if ‘being’ has many senses (for it means sometimes substance, sometimes that it is of a certain quality, sometimes that it is of a certain quantity, and at other times the other categories),” then what of the next situation in which there are many labels? In which direction is movement; one two or three? _ To determine consensus opinion on what Peirce said reflects the problem of speaking as a single, unified voice on something as difficult as man’s glassy essence. But what is our social principle for determination here? If we’re not allowed to apply the method of that philosopher who gave us his method for scientific guessing to his own philosophical writings, then where else should we test abduction? That is, why is it we are doing what we’re doing? What is the good in it? With best wishes, Jerry Rhee PS. If we were to bring into this conversation an old one, then CP 5.189 over CP 5.402 because illation and *consequentia, * which is surprising, for *“*a *consequentia* is an argument (A, therefore B), not a conditional proposition (if A, then B).” ~Francesco Bellucci - PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)
On 11/12/2016 12:55 PM, kirst...@saunalahti.fi wrote: You wrote: "Different languages have different options for the grammatical forms that express such relations. The number of options could lead to a combinatorial explosion, but the practical number is limited by human memory." I take your first sentence as a most important note. For decades I have been systematically observing the limitations due to knowing only one language. Yes. That is a very important point. Following is an excerpt from a note that I sent to a different email list: JFS Grammar is part of the Trivium that had been emphasized in elementary school (formerly called *grammar* school). While teaching Knowledge representation to programmers at IBM, I found that the knowledge of English grammar by typical native English speakers is abysmal. But the students from IBM Japan knew English grammar very well. Their speaking ability was not as good, but they did their homework assignments better than the natives. There is a huge difference between knowing how to do something (e.g., speak English) and knowing how to analyze that process and map it to another language (natural or artificial). KM The second sentence you wrote, my comment is: You take human memory as something well-known and well-understood. That is not the case. It is only something commonly spoken about. No. From a particular use of a word or phrase, one can assume a limited number of direct implications. It's not possible to assume that the speaker was unaware of other implications. In fact, what I was thinking about is Terry Deacon's point in the book, _Symbolic Species_: The primary constraints on the structures of natural languages result from the fact that they must be relearned by infants in every generation. Anything that a child cannot quickly learn and use will not be passed down from one generation to the next. KM [Finnish is] not at all related to English (the modern Latin) As an inflected language, Latin is closer (in spirit) to Finnish. Since English lost almost all inflections, English syntax is more closely related to Chinese. The dialect called "Chinese restaurant English" results from a word for word substitution of English words into a Chinese pattern. Even though Japanese uses Chinese characters, its syntax is closer to Latin: highly inflected verb-final sentences with "postpositions" on noun phrases that allow them to be moved freely. As a result, there is no dialect called "Japanese restaurant English". In studies of first-language learning, psycholinguists have found that infants learn some relations expressed by word inflections earlier than the same relations expressed by word order. However, a complete mastery of the syntax of a highly inflected language does take longer than the word-order syntax of English or Chinese. Historical linguists suspect that the loss of inflections in English began with the Danish invasions: At that time, Anglo-Saxon and Danish were sufficiently similar that the words were mutually intelligible, but the inflections were different. As a result, the speakers depended more heavily on word order. After the French invasion of 1066, almost all the inflections were gone. John - PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
[PEIRCE-L] Re: Time, Topology, Differential Logic
John, List, No, purple numbers are not my thing. These are just excerpts on basic topics from standard texts that I posted to various discussion groups way back when. I saved them wholesale as pre-formatted blocks of text and I've been segmenting them back into individual notes whenever I happen to find use for them again. For the moment, I am trying to work out the beginnings of an answer to Jeff's recent questions but there is a modicum of groundwork that needs to be laid down. I have finished segmenting the excerpts from Kelley's Topology: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/User:Jon_Awbrey/Mathematical_Notes#TOP._Topology All we really at this point is the definition of a topology from the very first paragraph, but I will get to that all in good time. Regards, Jon On 11/11/2016 4:26 PM, John F Sowa wrote: On 11/11/2016 9:36 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote: These are raw text copies right now but I'm in the process of segmenting them for ease of study and retrieving WayBak links for the discussion pages that are no longer live on the web. What do you mean by "segmenting"? Does that mean chopping them up into a jig-saw puzzle of tiny little pieces? I find that user hostile. A 500-page book is a bit much. A chapter (10 to 20 pages) is the ideal segment. John -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .