Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

Gary, list,



Yes, I also thought the aspect of Peirce’s semiotics that might be helpful was 
precisely his methodeutic or rhetoric -  corresponding, I believe, to what 
today, following Charles Morris, is generally referred to as pragmatics. And 
that was indeed the drift of Eugene Halton’s suggestions, in particular. 
However much it might help my sister – somewhat, I think – I think it has been 
a valuable discussion, with a number of interesting viewpoints represented. I 
certainly have not found the discussion disappointing, and I want to thank all 
who have contributed.


Best,

Peter


From: Gary Richmond 
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 5:49:25 PM
To: Peirce-L
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

List,

Well, whether or not much of this discussion has been very helpful to Peter's 
sister, there has certainly been considerable interest in continuing it. While 
beyond the topic at hand, I think a meta-analysis of the discussion might prove 
valuable on other levels than the semiotic one of the nativity scene (of which 
more a little later).

But even at the semiotic level it is perhaps helpful to recall that for Peirce 
semeiotics is a much broader study than theoretical grammar and critical logic 
(the later being what we normally think of as logic, "logic as logic" in 
Peirce's phrase). It is completed by a third branch:

Methodeutic or philosophical rhetoric . . . studies the principles that relate 
signs to each other and to the world: "Its task is to ascertain the laws by 
which in every scientific intelligence one sign gives birth to another, and 
especially one thought brings forth another" (CP 2.229).

An important facet of Peirce's rhetoric is, of course, his pragmatism 
involving, among other things, a theory of learning. Perhaps had Peter stated 
his question in terms of what Peirce's pragmatism might have to offer to an 
analysis of the nativity scene, his sister might have gotten more useful 
material for her investigation (I thought Gene's analysis attempted to do this 
in part, but not everyone agreed). Meanwhile, it would appear that she did not 
get nothing.

But returning to the possible meta-analysis of the content, I would like to 
throw out a few possibly provocative comments.

It seems to me that Peirce's semiotic, when taken in its fullest sense as 
including all three of its branches including rhetoric, has in fact contributed 
a great deal to the understanding of many issues and problems of our modern 
world and even a brief survey of the literature of just this new century will 
show that to be the case. Is that really in doubt?

As to the question of what this list "owes" Peter's sister or, for that matter, 
anyone, I would answer simply, "nothing whatsoever." If it can or does offer 
something of value to participants and others, well that is all to the good. 
Certainly in the present discussion there has been at least the good faith 
attempt to respond to Peter's question. But there is no requirement that list 
members do anything more than discuss Peirce and Peirce-related concepts as 
best they can given all manner of constraints (of time, interest, direction of 
their own intellectual pursuits, etc.)

As to the notion that there's some problem with this forum perhaps being too 
"philosophical," one needs to keep in mind that the three branches of logic as 
semeiotic are included in Peirce's cenoscopic philosophy. And while he probably 
contributed the lion's share of his intellectual efforts to logical pursuits, 
that not only is pragmatism an important facet of semeiotic and cenosocpic 
philosophy, but that cenoscopy also famously includes phenomenology, 
theoretical esthetics and ethics, and metaphysics, and that Peirce contributed 
to all of these philosophical sciences, more to some than to others. (I won't 
comment here on his extensive and original work in parts of mathematics and 
certain special sciences as well as the classification of the sciences included 
in review science, but his philosophical work constitutes, I think it's safe to 
say, the largest part of it).

So, one gives and gets from this small forum (under 400 members) what he/she 
can. And the occasional complaint that the forum be other than it is seems to 
me to be empty.  Still, from my couple of decades on it, I have seen more 
positive assessment of what goes on here than negative, and while I have been 
frustrated at times, I have learned a great deal here over the years (and many 
have said the same thing on and off-list).

I consider this to be a kind of intellectual home (Arisbe?) where I can hang 
whatever philosophical 'hat; I care to as long as I'm respectful of others 
views (and when I've lapsed in this for some reason--for example, I'm dealing 
now with the double whammy of having just had a major flood of my entire 
apartment at the same time as I'm suffering from a bad case of bronchitis--I 
have made a point of 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

John,


Thank you for your, as usual, astute observations and for the links to your 
papers, which I gresatly look forward to reading.


Peter


From: Ben Novak 
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 2:35:58 PM
To: John F Sowa
Cc: PEIRCE-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

Dear John F. Sowa:

You write in your email of 30 Dec., at 11:45 am:

Ben
> I have long been wondering why there is so little discussion
> of relating Peirce's concepts and methodologies to concrete
> examples, or other 20th and even 21st century thinkers.

>> I strongly with that criticism.

Regarding this, it seems something is missing--agree? disagree?

Kindly advise:

Ben Novak


Ben Novak
5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142
Telephone: (814) 808-5702

"All art is mortal, not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts 
themselves. One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart 
will have ceased to be—though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes 
may remain—because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message 
will have gone." Oswald Spengler

On Sat, Dec 30, 2017 at 11:45 AM, John F Sowa 
> wrote:
Ben, Helmut, Peter, and Edwina,

Ben
I have long been wondering why there is so little discussion
of relating Peirce's concepts and methodologies to concrete
examples, or other 20th and even 21st century thinkers.

I strongly with that criticism.

To understand Peirce's writings and their implications, five kinds
of studies are important:

 1. Analyze the development of his thought by relating his many
publications and his many more unpublished manuscripts.

 2. Relate his writings to his sources in various fields from the
ancient Greeks to the latest developments of his day.

 3. Analyze the effects of his work on his contemporaries and
successors.

 4. Analyze developments in the 20th and 21st centuries that could
have been improved if the developers had studied Peirce.

 5. Compare Peirce's methods for analyzing the world and how we talk
and act in and about it to the methods used by other philosophers,
past and present.

Ben
All [Peter] asked was the relevance of Peirce's semiotics to
a presently existing symbolic representation.

Helmut
whether the picture/diorama is insufficient of being analyzed with
Peirce, or Peirce´s theory is insufficient, because it does not
cover this example.

Peter
I tend to agree with those who have opined that there is just not
much to be said, from a Peircean point of view, about this analogy.

I agree with Peter that a pre-theoretical literary analysis is
sufficient to determine the intentions of the people who designed
the scene and the implications they wanted to express.  Peirce's
semiotic could carry the analysis to a deeper level.  But that
would require a 20-pages of details, not a short email note.

Edwina
I ... tend to run from many of the philosophical discussions that
dominate this list. My focus is on biosemiotics and the societal
system as a complex adaptive system - which does function within
the Peircean triad.

I agree that examples from biosemiotics, societal systems,
and complex adaptive systems would be far more useful than
the nativity scene for understanding all five issues above.

Re philosophical discussions:  My major interest in Peirce was
originally stimulated by and continues to be focused on points
3 to 5 above, but I also found that 1 and 2 are important for
understanding 3 to 5.

For some of those issues, see my article "Peirce's contributions
to the 21st century":  
http://jfsowa.com/pubs/csp21st.pdf

Re logic:  Before I discovered Peirce, I had learned 20th c
logic from the so-called "mainstream" of a Frege-Russell-Carnap-
Quine-Kripke-Montague perspective.

What led me to Peirce were the criticisms of that mainstream
by Whitehead, Wittgenstein, and linguists who recognized that
there is more to language than Montagovian "formal semantics".
I discuss that in 
http://jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.pdf

John


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Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

dl8H-RbXeAdbMI2MFE1TXqA=FDb_MiuBhz-kalFUhg0uAyMl7SzpVFxovBRZ5FwNBJY=mDTQvhdi6nraYOISC6m2VntlymMLRiv313Xuaoisa9g=sg4Qrh1f0ACqZMxVtjBIsHeA8oYXSCEoE_Lv8ImSNsk=>
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On Thu, Dec 28, 2017 at 1:00 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:

Jerry, list - but apart from the perhaps-not-quite-accurate analogy of 
'destitute in a foreign land' - don't you consider that it is rationally 
dangerous to set up an analogy that might imply that the attributes of one set 
can possibly be fully applied to the second set?

Human compassion has nothing to do with this attempt at analogous comparison 
and to me, it doesn't make sense to suggest that To Make Such An Analogy is an 
Act-of-Compassion.

It's a similar false analogy as in the common logical fallacy of:

All cats are animals

All dogs are animals

Therefore, all dogs are cats.

Edwina

On Thu 28/12/17 1:47 PM , Jerry LR Chandler jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com sent:

Peter, List:

Is it possible that what is missing from this philosophical discussion is 
simple human compassion?

The Holy Family were destitute in a foreign land.

in parallel sentence structure for the image (icon) without regard to the facts 
not stated of the two images,

The refuges are destitute in a foreign land.

Of course, the concept human compassion is seldom an acceptable argument in 
semeiotics, or is it?

Cheers

Jerry

On Dec 28, 2017, at 8:33 AM, Skagestad, Peter <peter_skages...@uml.edu> wrote:

Listers,

I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art History thesis 
on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance. An example is one at a 
street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting the Holy Family as present-day 
refugees from the Middle East. Now the question is what, if anything, might 
semiotics have to say about such depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it 
escapes me, at least for the moment. Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Peter


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

representation of the 
earthly family. Marx took it further by claiming that the holy family symbol of 
the earthly family is also a projection of the bourgeois family in his time.
 A year ago Pope Francis adapted the symbol to the refugee situation by 
including a Maltese fishing boat in the nativity scene at the Vatican, a 
reference to refugees arriving by boat.
 Perhaps George Herbert Mead can have more to say on this than Peirce, in 
Mead's description of what he termed "the significant symbol." In Mead's 
significant symbol the other is included reflectively in the meaning of the 
symbol:
"it is through the ability to be the other at same time that he is himself that 
the symbol becomes significant."
(From "A Behavioristic Account of the Significant Symbol").
The implication here is that the experience of the nativity scene, with 
refugees representing today as echoing Jesus as a refugee, imparts in the 
witness an ability to empathize with "the other."
 Gene H

On Dec 28, 2017 9:34 AM, "Skagestad, Peter" 
<peter_skages...@uml.edu<mailto:peter_skages...@uml.edu>> wrote:

Listers,

I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art History thesis 
on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance. An example is one at a 
street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting the Holy Family as present-day 
refugees from the Middle East. Now the question is what, if anything, might 
semiotics have to say about such depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it 
escapes me, at least for the moment. Any suggestions?

Cheers,

Peter

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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

Edwina, list,


Of course I only had a question - no particular answer in mind. On reflection, 
though, I suspect semiotics would pertain, not to the analysis of this analogy, 
but rather to the social uses to which the analogy is put. And that use, it 
seems fairly clear, is the evocation of empathy.


Peter


From: Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2017 3:19:17 PM
To: tabor...@primus.ca; Jerry LR Chandler
Cc: Peirce List; Skagestad, Peter
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes


Jerry: I am quite aware of your post and don't need to re-read it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "your response with its conjectures that give a 
hint as to the identity your character' means - but it sounds rather insulting 
and out of line on this thread.

There is no room for compassion in semiotics. Just as there is no room for 
hatred, anger, lust and so on.. in semiotics.

Semiotics is a logical process of reality and existence. There may definitely 
be, within this semiotic action, the feeling of compassion or the feeling of 
anger - but that is part of the semiosic triad, where, for example: An 
expression of emotion...is mediated by knowledge...to be interpreted as a 
feeling of compassion. But the logical triad does not operate by compassion but 
by reason.

Again - that was not the original question - which was whether semiotics could 
be used to compare war-refugees with the Holy Family as refugee. The emotion of 
compassion was not in the question.

Edwina



On Thu 28/12/17 2:54 PM , Jerry LR Chandler jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com sent:

Edwinia:

Please re-read my post.

It simply states two parallel sentences.

Does your response, with its conjectures that give a hint as to the identity 
your character, confirm my suggestion that there is no room for compassion in 
semiotics?  :-)

Best Wishes to All for a New year filled with compassion.

Cheers

Jerry


On Dec 28, 2017, at 1:00 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
<tabor...@primus.ca<javascript:top.opencompose('tabor...@primus.ca','','','')>> 
wrote:

Jerry, list - but apart from the perhaps-not-quite-accurate analogy of 
'destitute in a foreign land' - don't you consider that it is rationally 
dangerous to set up an analogy that might imply that the attributes of one set 
can possibly be fully applied to the second set?

Human compassion has nothing to do with this attempt at analogous comparison 
and to me, it doesn't make sense to suggest that To Make Such An Analogy is an 
Act-of-Compassion.

It's a similar false analogy as in the common logical fallacy of:

All cats are animals
All dogs are animals
Therefore, all dogs are cats.


Edwina



On Thu 28/12/17 1:47 PM , Jerry LR Chandler 
jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com<javascript:top.opencompose('jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com','','','')>
 sent:
Peter, List:

Is it possible that what is missing from this philosophical discussion is 
simple human compassion?

The Holy Family were destitute in a foreign land.

in parallel sentence structure for the image (icon) without regard to the facts 
not stated of the two images,

The refuges are destitute in a foreign land.

Of course, the concept human compassion is seldom an acceptable argument in 
semeiotics, or is it?

Cheers

Jerry

On Dec 28, 2017, at 8:33 AM, Skagestad, Peter < 
peter_skages...@uml.edu<javascript:top.opencompose('peter_skages...@uml.edu','','','')>>
 wrote:

Listers,

I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art History thesis 
on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance. An example is one at a 
street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting the Holy Family as present-day 
refugees from the Middle East. Now the question is what, if anything, might 
semiotics have to say about such depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it 
escapes me, at least for the moment. Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Peter

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  .



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PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Re

[PEIRCE-L] Nativity scenes

[Skagestad, Peter]

Listers,


I have a somewhat unusual question. My sister is writing an Art History thesis 
on nativity scenes and their contemporary relevance. An example is one at a 
street mission in Trondheim, Norway, depicting the Holy Family as present-day 
refugees from the Middle East. Now the question is what, if anything, might 
semiotics have to say about such depiction? The answer may be obvious, but it 
escapes me, at least for the moment. Any suggestions?


Cheers,

Peter

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RE: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Seeing things

[Skagestad, Peter]

Drawing on my high-school German, I believe "power" encompasses "Macht" and 
"Kraft" - for whatever that is worth.



Peter


From: Helmut Raulien [h.raul...@gmx.de]
Sent: Saturday, October 24, 2015 4:56 PM
To: cl...@lextek.com
Cc: Peirce List
Subject: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Seeing things

Clark, List,
Sorry, I think, I have had a misunderstanding based on the problem of 
translating "power" to German: "Macht" (mightiness) is only the power, a human 
or an institution has to achieve their particular iterests, but English "power" 
is a much more general term: In this case perhaps a universal teleology or 
telos?
Best,
Helmut


 "Clark Goble"  wrote:


On Oct 23, 2015, at 1:21 PM, Helmut Raulien 
> wrote:

I thought, that "final interpretant" had something to do with truth. But you 
wrote, that it rather has to do with power.

Our meaning of truth is the final interpretant but the final interpretant 
functions due to a type of power. For Peirce this power is wrapped up in 
Charity or agape. (Interestingly in a way similar although not identical to how 
justice functions for Derrida)

Peirce adopts the notion of sunnum bonum from Aristotle although his use is 
more a mixture of Plato, Aristotle, and the scholastics with a bit of Kant as 
well. The sunnum bonum is this idea of the universe as beautiful and good. It 
is the fundamental explanatory hypothesis. For Peirce the universe is an 
argument working itself out to this final interpretant. The final interpretant 
is this end precisely because this place of the good or reasonableness of the 
universe acting upon us. So when we say power you can’t separate it from this 
notion of the good.


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RE: [PEIRCE-L]

[Skagestad, Peter]

Boler's book is excellent - highly recommended!



Peter


From: Gary Moore [peirce-l@list.iupui.edu]
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2014 5:09 PM
To: Daniel Brunson; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L]

Thank you! I ordered it.
GCM


On Saturday, June 21, 2014 5:55 AM, Daniel Brunson daniel.brun...@morgan.edu 
wrote:


This is the first work that comes to mind: 
http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Peirce-Scholastic-Realism-Relation/dp/B0007DTBFU
On Jun 21, 2014 6:26 AM, Gary Moore 
peirce-l@list.iupui.edumailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu wrote:
Is there any substantial paper or book on Peirce's use of Scholastic 
terminology?


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