subject:"\[PEIRCE\-L\] nominalism"

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - ???

2017-02-24 Thread Helmut Raulien

Jerry, John, List,

It would be interesting to ask somebody who has been born blind. A word is a string of letters, and a melody a string of sounds. But the perceived thing of a word is a term, and that is not a string. A melody perceived neither is.

Maybe to call that, what it is, a picture or a diagram is too narrowly told, and it would be better to call it an icon? Maybe "icon" is not necessarily bound to a two-dimensional screen- or canvas-like visual substrate.

Like, when a composer has a piece for a whole orchestra in his or her head, before writing it down, or a mathematician or a philosopher is pondering about very complex interdependencies, trying to have the whole anticipated situation in the consciousness in order to regard it, all aspects and all relations between them are in the consciousness at one time, and form an icon. This icon, I guess, may have more than two or three dimensions, or it may even be the elements and interactions that make their own dimensions, perhaps of a non-integer number, like a fractal.

So I think, that this icon is different from a picture or a diagram, at least in the common (two-dimensional) understanding of picture or diagram. What is characteristical for it being an icon, I think, is, that it is a composition of aspects and their relations, present in the consciousness all at the same time.

Best,

Helmut

22. Februar 2017 um 21:40 Uhr
"Jerry LR Chandler"

John, List:

On Feb 16, 2017, at 7:17 AM, John Collier wrote:

From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and others, like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings that I attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I am surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I have little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words. Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this.

Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this respect

In my opinion, this topic of how different individuals “think”, that is, relate their experiences to their symbolic representations is a critical issue, a highly critical issue.

Do readers of this list serve have favorite modes of thinking?

And how closely connected are modes of thinking with modes of explanation?

If one reads much in the philosophy of science, one finds a wide range of claims about how we experience the molecular dynamics of brain function. Usually biased toward one method or another.

It is a topic that cuts across disciplines.

It cuts across logical forms.

It cuts across visualizations of abstractions.

I have run an inquiry into this topic with numerous friends and colleagues, simply asking if they think in words, or pictures or equations, or “emotions”.

One of my hypotheses is that philosophers tend to think in words and struggle with pictures or geometry. Particular in drawing diagrams among arguments. This severely constrains communications between scientists and philosophers of science.

Another hypothesis is that chemists almost always think in terms of pictures (images) or diagrams. It appears that this skill is essential to represent relations.

Mathematicians vary widely in answering my query - it appears to be correlated to the domain of study. Often, first class mathematicians are extremely skilled with diagrams but stumble on the simplicity of chemical diagrams because the logical pre-suppositions do not correspond with the mathematical notions of relations.

In any case, I find it useful to try to understand the mode of thinking of colleagues because it is often useful in facilitating communication and selecting the mode of explanation.

Cheers

Jerry

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - ???

2017-02-22 Thread Stephen C. Rose

It is interesting and clear that there is a spectrum of thinking that goes
from images through words.

Someone with brain chops will figure that out and create a theory no doubt,
But it seems obvious to me that regardless of how anyone thinks words are
the basis of the entire crucial area of existence Wittgenstein called
nonsense.

Exclude mystery and supposition and theorizing when no theory can be
proven. What I see is just what I saw when I was trying to deal with
freedom and will. A language of images and a language of words, verbal and
nonverbal communication, are, with several other things, UTILITIES within
consciousness, enablers and can best be understood in that way.

Thus it makes no difference how we communicate and we can give no
ontological status to one or another mode. Do they work? Clearly, they do.
It matters not that I am at the other end of the spectrum from John. If
there were tests for verbal or nonverbal I would get 100 for the former and
nada for the latter.

That said, theologically there is no substitute for words. At least in the
sense of how we understand them, as written communication. Words in
themselves are like anything written. They radically diminish the full sign
that existed before the word. I cannot stress how important this issue is.
There is no either-or in communication that says words are superior to
images or the opposite. But there is the role of the word in creation
itself. Without words, we would be literally insensible. As it is we are
borderline sensible. That is progress of a sort.

amazon.com/author/stephenrose

On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 3:40 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <
jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com> wrote:

>
> John, List:
>
> On Feb 16, 2017, at 7:17 AM, John Collier  wrote:
>
> From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and
> others, like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings
> that I attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I
> am surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I
> have little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite
> differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic
> philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in
> words. Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this.
>
> Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this
> respect
>
>
> In my opinion, this topic of how different individuals “think”, that is,
> relate their experiences to their symbolic representations is a critical
> issue, a highly critical issue.
>
> Do readers of this list serve have favorite modes of thinking?
>  And how closely connected are modes of thinking with modes of
> explanation?
>
> If one reads much in the philosophy of science, one finds a wide range of
> claims about how we experience the molecular dynamics of brain function.
> Usually biased toward one method or another.
>
> It is a topic that cuts across disciplines.
> It cuts across logical forms.
> It cuts across visualizations of abstractions.
>
> I have run an inquiry into this topic with numerous friends and
> colleagues, simply asking if they think in words, or pictures or equations,
> or “emotions”.
>
> One of my hypotheses is that philosophers tend to think in words and
> struggle with pictures or geometry. Particular in drawing diagrams among
> arguments.  This severely constrains communications between scientists and
> philosophers of science.
>
> Another hypothesis is that chemists almost always think in terms of
> pictures (images) or diagrams.  It appears that this skill is essential to
> represent relations.
>
> Mathematicians vary widely in answering my query - it appears to be
> correlated to the domain of study.  Often, first class mathematicians are
> extremely skilled with diagrams but stumble on the simplicity of chemical
> diagrams because the logical pre-suppositions do not correspond with the
> mathematical notions of relations.
>
> In any case, I find it useful to try to understand the mode of thinking of
> colleagues because it is often useful in facilitating communication and
> selecting the mode of explanation.
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>
>
>
>
>
> -
> 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
> .
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - ???

2017-02-22 Thread Jerry LR Chandler

John, List:

> On Feb 16, 2017, at 7:17 AM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and others, 
> like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings that I 
> attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I am 
> surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I have 
> little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite 
> differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic 
> philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in 
> words. Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this.
>  
> Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this respect

In my opinion, this topic of how different individuals “think”, that is, relate 
their experiences to their symbolic representations is a critical issue, a 
highly critical issue. 

Do readers of this list serve have favorite modes of thinking? 
 And how closely connected are modes of thinking with modes of explanation? 

If one reads much in the philosophy of science, one finds a wide range of 
claims about how we experience the molecular dynamics of brain function. 
Usually biased toward one method or another.  

It is a topic that cuts across disciplines. 
It cuts across logical forms.
It cuts across visualizations of abstractions.

I have run an inquiry into this topic with numerous friends and colleagues, 
simply asking if they think in words, or pictures or equations, or “emotions”. 

One of my hypotheses is that philosophers tend to think in words and struggle 
with pictures or geometry. Particular in drawing diagrams among arguments.  
This severely constrains communications between scientists and philosophers of 
science. 

Another hypothesis is that chemists almost always think in terms of pictures 
(images) or diagrams.  It appears that this skill is essential to represent 
relations.

Mathematicians vary widely in answering my query - it appears to be correlated 
to the domain of study.  Often, first class mathematicians are extremely 
skilled with diagrams but stumble on the simplicity of chemical diagrams 
because the logical pre-suppositions do not correspond with the mathematical 
notions of relations.

In any case, I find it useful to try to understand the mode of thinking of 
colleagues because it is often useful in facilitating communication and 
selecting the mode of explanation. 

Cheers

Jerry

-
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Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-16 Thread Helmut Raulien

List,

I think that I mostly think in diagrams and pictures, even when I think about words. I think that at this point, there is helpful Peirces three modes of consciousness: Primisense, Altersense and Medisense. They are connected with the three categories, and with the three object relations as well: Iconic, Indexical, Symbolic. The Primisense, I think, does not only picture things that come from the outside via the senses (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting), but also from the denoting and pondering process itself, that (I suppose) would be from Altersense and Medisense, so I guess, indexical and symbolical interactions are iconized again all the time in the Primisense (into something like diagrams). I think, this might be called "Re-entry", a term used by Spencer-Brown, Luhmann, and Edelman/Tononi, and I think it fits into the Peircean concept of Primi-, Alter-, and Medisense.

Best,

Helmut

16. Februar 2017 um 16:53 Uhr
"Clark Goble" wrote:

On Feb 16, 2017, at 6:17 AM, John Collier wrote:

One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words.

Yes, the undue focus on the language turn in analytic philosophy has not necessarily been positive. I think the neglect of other ways of reasoning have let to lots of improper conclusions.

Your point about physics is apt too. That’s definitely a discipline that incentivizes thinking diagrammatically. At least I found back in my college days that many problems could more easily be solved by moving out of the calculus/tensor/algebra arena of manipulating symbols (really tokens) and into broader diagrams. At a minimum it’d give the proper way to think about manipulating ones symbols. (Say doing change of coordinates for instance)

My guess is that Peirce’s background in the hard sciences of physics and chemistry helped him in terms of thinking through practical logic of this sort. Although it is odd that more of the physicists who have entered philosophy haven’t taken these up quite as much. Perhaps due to the expectations especially in analytic philosophy towards linguistic methods.

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-16 Thread Clark Goble

On Feb 16, 2017, at 6:17 AM, John Collier wrote:One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words.Yes, the undue focus on the language turn in analytic philosophy has not necessarily been positive. I think the neglect of other ways of reasoning have let to lots of improper conclusions.Your point about physics is apt too. That’s definitely a discipline that incentivizes thinking diagrammatically. At least I found back in my college days that many problems could more easily be solved by moving out of the calculus/tensor/algebra arena of manipulating symbols (really tokens) and into broader diagrams. At a minimum it’d give the proper way to think about manipulating ones symbols. (Say doing change of coordinates for instance)My guess is that Peirce’s background in the hard sciences of physics and chemistry helped him in terms of thinking through practical logic of this sort. Although it is odd that more of the physicists who have entered philosophy haven’t taken these up quite as much. Perhaps due to the expectations especially in analytic philosophy towards linguistic methods.
-
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to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-16 Thread e...@coqui.net


John:
In "Quest for the Essence of Language" Roman Jakobson borrowed  
Peirce's statements about diagrams as relational icons.  Jakobson  
conceived them as constitutive for all levels of language  (phonemes,  
morphemes, syntax, rhetorical figures  as well as its disposition and  
composition: an iconic relation through all its levels  sound and  
sense.  Besides being indexical and referential, a quest for the  
essence language should also consider quality and firstness..

Best to all,
Eduardo Forastieri-Braschi
On Feb 16, 2017, at 9:17 AM, John Collier wrote:

From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and  
others, like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical  
feelings that I attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many  
cases). Although I am surprised when I find someone who believes  
they think in words only, I have little reason to doubt them, as it  
seems these people also think quite differently from me. One of the  
hardest things for me in learning analytic philosophy (after  
original training and work in physics) was to think in words. Dick  
Cartwright helped me immensely with this.


Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this  
respect.


John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:baud...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 8:16 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017  
message originate with Peirce.


Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams  
and not only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw  
all three kinds of signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so  
defined 'symbol' that plenty of symbols are not words and some words  
are not symbols.


You wrote in your subsequent message:

One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all  
evidence) have lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e.,  
they cannot dolanguage), and yet those people otherwise seem to  
think perfectly well.


I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the  
professor discussed patients who could no longer think about absent  
things. He said that they had lost their "symbolic function" -  
taking "symbol" in an old traditional sense as sign of something not  
perceived, especially something not perceivable, picturable, etc. I  
can't say off-hand whether those patients had completely lost their  
ability to think in symbols in Peirce's sense.


I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in  
words or in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would  
have offered for the claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical  
statement, but a psychological statement, and Peirce was as adverse  
to basing cenoscopic philosophy (including philosophical logic) on  
psychology as he was to to basing pure mathematics on psychology.  
When he discusses semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one  
ought to think, not how people actually do think.


Peirce said of himself:

I do not think that I ever _reflect_ in words. I employ visual  
diagrams, firstly because this way of thinking is my natural  
language of self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced  
that it is the best system for the purpose
[MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S.  
Peirce_, p. 126, by Don D. Roberts]


Google preview: 
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC=PA126=PA126=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22

Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical,  
and theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He  
seemed to have a higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual  
for a mathematician.


Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read  
that a considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings,  
I seem to remember "60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those  
drawings (and accumulating an archive of reproductions ofthem)  
resulted in the publication of a book:


http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola

Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce.  [Visual Thinking:  
Charles S. Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel,  
Moritz Queisner, Tullio Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21,  
2012. Hardcover http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194


346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in  
color.
Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes  
discusses vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for  
thought. For example in his critical common-sensism.


Peirce thought that there are logical conceptions of mind based not  
on empirical scienc

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-16 Thread Edwina Taborsky

I fully agree. I think mostly in diagrams and feeling - certainly not in words.
The words, if they can do it, come after and quite frankly, don't really fully
express those diagrams/feelings.

Words are, I think, 'post-diagram/feeling'. They are symbols, and symbols have
to be learned, while diagrams and feelings are more direct, non-learned
indexical and iconic connections. Therefore, to me at least, words are more
'removed' from my basic thoughts than are the diagrams/feelings.

Edwina
- Original Message -
From: John Collier
To: Benjamin Udell ; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2017 8:17 AM
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and others,
like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings that I
attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I am
surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I have
little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite
differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic
philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words.
Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this.

Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this respect.

John Collier

Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate

Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal

http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:baud...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 8:16 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017 message
originate with Peirce.

Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams and not
only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw all three kinds of
signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so defined 'symbol' that plenty of
symbols are not words and some words are not symbols.

You wrote in your subsequent message:

One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all evidence)
have lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e., they cannot do
language), and yet those people otherwise seem to think perfectly well.

I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the professor
discussed patients who could no longer think about absent things. He said that
they had lost their "symbolic function" - taking "symbol" in an old traditional
sense as sign of something not perceived, especially something not perceivable,
picturable, etc. I can't say off-hand whether those patients had completely
lost their ability to think in symbols in Peirce's sense.

I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in words or
in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would have offered for the
claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical statement, but a psychological
statement, and Peirce was as adverse to basing cenoscopic philosophy (including
philosophical logic) on psychology as he was to to basing pure mathematics on
psychology. When he discusses semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one
ought to think, not how people actually do think.

Peirce said of himself:

I do not think that I ever _reflect_ in words. I employ visual diagrams,
firstly because this way of thinking is my natural language of
self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced that it is the best
system for the purpose
[MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S. Peirce_, p.
126, by Don D. Roberts]

Google preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC=PA126=PA126=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22

Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical, and
theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He seemed to have a
higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual for a mathematician.

Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read that a
considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings, I seem to remember
"60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those drawings (and accumulating an
archive of reproductions ofthem) resulted in the publication of a book:

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola

Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce. [Visual Thinking: Charles S.
Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel, Moritz Queisner, Tullio
Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21, 2012. Hardcover
http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194

346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in color.

Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes
discusses vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for thought.
For exam

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-16 Thread John Collier

From talking with colleagues, some say they think only in words and others, 
like me, say they think mostly in diagrams or in physical feelings that I 
attach no words to (and probably couldn’t in many cases). Although I am 
surprised when I find someone who believes they think in words only, I have 
little reason to doubt them, as it seems these people also think quite 
differently from me. One of the hardest things for me in learning analytic 
philosophy (after original training and work in physics) was to think in words. 
Dick Cartwright helped me immensely with this.

Surely it is a psychological issue, if people differ so much in this respect.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Benjamin Udell [mailto:baud...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, 15 February 2017 8:16 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -


Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017 message 
originate with Peirce.

Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams and not 
only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw all three kinds of 
signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so defined 'symbol' that plenty of 
symbols are not words and some words are not symbols.

You wrote in your subsequent message:

One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all evidence) have 
lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e., they cannot do language), and 
yet those people otherwise seem to think perfectly well.

I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the professor 
discussed patients who could no longer think about absent things. He said that 
they had lost their "symbolic function" - taking "symbol" in an old traditional 
sense as sign of something not perceived, especially something not perceivable, 
picturable, etc. I can't say off-hand whether those patients had completely 
lost their ability to think in symbols in Peirce's sense.

I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in words or 
in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would have offered for the 
claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical statement, but a psychological 
statement, and Peirce was as adverse to basing cenoscopic philosophy (including 
philosophical logic) on psychology as he was to to basing pure mathematics on 
psychology. When he discusses semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one 
ought to think, not how people actually do think.

Peirce said of himself:

I do not think that I ever _reflect_ in words. I employ visual diagrams, 
firstly because this way of thinking is my natural language of 
self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced that it is the best 
system for the purpose
[MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S. Peirce_, p. 126, 
by Don D. Roberts]

Google preview: 
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC=PA126=PA126=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22

Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical, and 
theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He seemed to have a 
higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual for a mathematician.

Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read that a 
considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings, I seem to remember 
"60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those drawings (and accumulating an 
archive of reproductions ofthem) resulted in the publication of a book:

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola>

Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce.  [Visual Thinking: Charles S. 
Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel, Moritz Queisner, Tullio 
Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21, 2012. Hardcover 
http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194
346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in color.

Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes discusses 
vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for thought. For example 
in his critical common-sensism.

Peirce thought that there are logical conceptions of mind based not on 
empirical science of psychology nor even on metaphysics. See for example Memoir 
11 "On the Logical Conception of Mind" in the 1902 Carnegie Application:

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-05.htm<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-05.htm>

As to how linguistic people actually are or how linguistic one needs or ought 
to be, that will depend at least partly on the definition of language. In the 
quote of him above, Peirce uses the word "language" more loosely than some 
would.

Best, Ben

On 2/15/2017 11:16 AM

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread gnox

Eric, this excerpt from my book (http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/cls.htm#3thought) 
may be helpful in adapting to Peirce’s usage of the word “thought”:

 

Gary f.

 

 

Peirce's concept of thought is both broader and deeper than the common usage of 
the word.

 

Peirce wrote to William James in 1902 that ‘one must not take a nominalistic 
view of Thought as if it were something that a man had in his consciousness. 
Consciousness may mean any one of the three categories. But if it is to mean 
Thought it is more without us than within. It is we that are in it, rather than 
it in any of us’ (CP 8.256; we will look further into ‘nominalism’ in Chapter 
12). Thought is thus the formal component of the Big Current, not merely the 
little current of someone's private stream of consciousness. We often call that 
inner stream ‘thinking,’ and sometimes call it ‘thought,’ in the sense defined 
by the Century Dictionary as the ‘subjective element of intellectual activity.’ 
But the specifically Peircean sense (often marked by his capitalization of the 
word) is defined in the  <http://www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm#Century> CD as 
‘the objective element of the intellectual product’ of thinking. To illustrate 
this exact sense of the word in the CD, Peirce cited the following quotation: 

[[Thought is, in every case, the cognition of an object, which really, 
actually, existentially out of thought, is ideally, intellectually, 
intelligibly within it; and just because within in the latter sense, is it 
known as actually without in the former.]] 

— G.J. Stokes, The Objectivity of Truth (1884), p. 53

 

Here ‘cognition’ appears as a self-bounding process, so that it has an inside 
and an outside. Indeed we can take Stokes' sentence as equivalent to the 
proposition that the world is inside out. The causal reciprocity between the 
intelligence and the reality external to it, considered as different things, is 
essential to cognition as a teleodynamic process (defined above 
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/cls.htm#teleod> ). Deacon emphasizes this by 
contrasting cognition with computation (the italics are his): 

[[computation only transfers extrinsically imposed constraints from substrate 
to substrate, while cognition (semiosis) generates intrinsic constraints that 
have a capacity to propagate and self-organize. The difference between 
computation and mind is a difference in the source of these formal properties. 
In computation, the critical formal properties are descriptive distinctions 
based on the selected features of a given mechanism. In cognition, they are 
distinctive regularities which are generated by recursive dynamics, and which 
progressively amplify and propagate constraints to other regions of the nervous 
system.]] — Deacon 2011, 498

 

This of course refers to the dialogue within the brain, which for a symbolic 
species like ourselves is continuously informed (constrained) by participation 
in the dialogue which constitutes the community of minds. Thoughts uttered and 
interpreted in that dialogue also propagate constraints (information) from mind 
to mind, body to body and brain to brain through the circular causality of the 
meaning cycle. This is possible because thought has generality: the same 
thought can be shared by many people in many situations, just as a single law 
of nature governs (regulates) a whole range of events. It is, as Gregory 
Bateson (1979, 8) put it, the ‘pattern that connects.’ 

 

[[ Thirdness is found wherever one thing brings about a Secondness 
<http://www.gnusystems.ca/TS/ldm.htm#bring2>  between two things. In all such 
cases, it will be found that Thought plays a part. By thought is meant 
something like the meaning of a word, which may be “embodied in,” that is, may 
govern, this or that, but is not confined to any existent. Thought is often 
supposed to be something in consciousness; but on the contrary, it is 
impossible ever actually to be directly conscious of thought. It is something 
to which consciousness may conform, as a writing may conform to it. Thought is 
rather of the nature of a habit, which determines the suchness of that which 
may come into existence, when it does come into existence. Of such a habit one 
may be conscious of a symptom; but to speak of being directly conscious of a 
habit, as such, is nonsense.]] — Peirce, EP2:269

 

 

From: Eric Charles [mailto:eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 15-Feb-17 11:17
To: Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

 

Jerry, Clark,

Thank you for the thoughtful replies. 

 

I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that I love 
less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to forget the parameters of 
his own argument. Peirce tells us what clear thinking is, while fully and 
responsibly acknowledging that most people do not think clearly most of the 
time. On that basis, if anyone thinks of anyone else's thoug

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread Jerry Rhee

Eric, list:

You said:

“I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that I love
less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to forget the
parameters of his own argument.”

If there should be inconsistencies in Peirce, my reaction is typically to
treat myself as defective, not Peirce.  That is, I treat Peirce as a
perfect writer; that if he should blunder, he blunders intentionally for
our benefit (cf., logographic necessity and Strauss’ method of interpreting
perfect writers).

You said:

“Peirce tells us what clear thinking is, while fully and responsibly
acknowledging that most people do not think clearly most of the time. On
that basis, if anyone thinks of anyone else's thoughts as entailing at all
times the third degree of clarity, something is seriously amiss.”

It would be foolish to think Peirce went around thinking that we always
think at all times with the third degree of clarity.  For instance:

*“I understand pragmatism to be a method of ascertaining the meanings, not
of all ideas, but only of what I call ‘intellectual concepts’, that is to
say, of those upon the structure of which, arguments concerning objective
fact may hinge.”* ~Pragmatism

His theory is for a community of inquirers and not specifically for the
individual, for that would be too complicated.  The method of ascertaining
the meaning of ‘intellectual concepts’, he examines in many places but also
demonstrates in the Neglected Argument.

Moreover, he divested himself of the idea that the original maxim
sufficiently treats the third grade of clearness.  He does this in many
places (cf., *What Pragmatism Is*) but for some reason, you (and many
others, including academicians) routinely ignore this.  For instance:

“Moreover, my paper of 1878 was imperfect in tacitly leaving it to appear
that the maxim of pragmatism led to the last stage of clearness. I wish now
to show that this is not the case and to find a series of categories of
clearness.”

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-09.htm

You said:

Further, when Peirce elsewhere starts making broad pronouncements about
"thought" it oftentimes seems that he is referring solely to those rare
instances of clear thinking, but other times is referring to the typical
thinking, or all thinking?

I can’t speak to whether he, throughout greater than 40 years of writing,
maintained a single unitary definition for Thought.  Yet, he does treat
Thought in a technical sense as a theory, with the understanding that he is
constructing a philosophical definition, one that will satisfy all who
investigate. A complete logical form of thought is so given in its three
elements; the three categories, set in argument form.  It is the predicate
term, *C*, that limits Thought.

You said:

The later is particularly suspicious. Assertions regarding the nature of
*all* thinking would presumably be subject to extreme empirical scrutiny.
As we have rejected traditional metaphysics, and denied any special powers
of introspection, one would expect "thought" to be examined in the same way

I don’t find your criticism here to be well thought out.  What makes you
think that “we” have rejected “traditional metaphysics”?  Who do you even
consider as belonging to “traditional metaphysics”?  Have you ever read
Aristotle?  For he says things like:

‘The fact that he has a fever

is a sign

that he is ill’,

or,

‘The fact that she is giving milk

is a sign

that she has lately borne a child’.

Here we have the infallible kind of Sign, the only kind that constitutes a
complete proof, since it is the only kind that, if the particular statement
is true, is irrefutable.” ~Aristotle, *Rhetoric*

Compare, for instance, against Peirce:

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.

As per what Peirce said on signs, in particular a Complete Sign, I will
leave for you to investigate.  For instance, if you decide to take
metaphysics (“the science of unclear thinking”) seriously, I think you will
find fruit in comparing against *Posterior Analytics* I-23.

Moreover, you shouldn’t reject traditional metaphysics until you even have
an inkling of what is meant by a syllogism addressing the discourse in the
soul.

Hth,

Jerry Rhee

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 12:36 PM, Stephen C. Rose 
wrote:

> Words are not merely psychological counters or tokens as it were. They are
> philosophical in nature because word and language occupy a crucial point in
> reality.
>
> The fundamental action of words is to massively limit the immense reality
> of the vagueness from which the word springs, somewhat as ovulation
> involves the selection of an egg or a few eggs from an unfathomable pool.
>
> The existence of language and word is theologically relevant because it
> gets at the matter of reality itself and its fundamental nature. If as I
> infer reality

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread Benjamin Udell

Eric, none of the statements that you quoted in your 2/14/2017 message
originate with Peirce.

Peirce held that logic generally involves icons (including diagrams and
not only graphic-looking ones), indices, and symbols, and he saw all
three kinds of signs as needed. Remember also that Peirce so defined
'symbol' that plenty of symbols are not words and some words are not
symbols.

You wrote in your subsequent message:

One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all
evidence) have lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e.,
they cannot /do/ language), and yet those people otherwise seem to
think perfectly well.

I remember a course on Merleau-Ponty decades ago in which the professor
discussed patients who could no longer think about absent things. He
said that they had lost their "symbolic function" - taking "symbol" in
an old traditional sense as sign of something not perceived, especially
something not perceivable, picturable, etc. I can't say off-hand whether
those patients had completely lost their ability to think in symbols in
Peirce's sense.

I don't know whether Peirce held that actual people usually think in
words or in any particular kind of signs, and what basis he would have
offered for the claim; anyway it wouldn't be a philosophical statement,
but a psychological statement, and Peirce was as adverse to basing
cenoscopic philosophy (including philosophical logic) on psychology as
he was to to basing pure mathematics on psychology. When he discusses
semiotics and logic, he is discussing how one ought to think, not how
people actually do think.

Peirce said of himself:

I do not think that I ever _/reflect/_ in words. I employ visual
diagrams, firstly because this way of thinking is my natural
language of self-communication, and secondly, because I am convinced
that it is the best system for the purpose
[MS 629, p. 8, quoted in _The Existential Graphs of Charles S.
Peirce_, p. 126, by Don D. Roberts]

Google preview:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Q4K30wCAf-gC=PA126=PA126=%22I+do+not+think+I+ever+reflect+in+words:+I+employ+visual+diagrams%22

Peirce described corollarial deduction as verbal and philosophical, and
theorematic deduction as diagrammatic and mathematical. He seemed to
have a higher opinion of the latter, which is not unusual for a
mathematician.

Peirce left innumerable drawings among his papers. I somewhere read that
a considerable percentage of his papers consisted in drawings, I seem to
remember "60%" but I'm not sure. A project involving those drawings (and
accumulating an archive of reproductions ofthem) resulted in the
publication of a book:

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/newbooks.htm#engel_queisner_viola

Das bildnerische Denken: Charles S. Peirce. [Visual Thinking:
Charles S. Peirce].Actus et Imago Volume 5. Editors: Franz Engel,
Moritz Queisner, Tullio Viola. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, March 21,
2012. Hardcover http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/224194

346 pages., 82 illustrations in black & white, 31 illustrations in
color.

Peirce, as you say, often focuses on clear thought, but he sometimes
discusses vague thought, and says that vagueness is often needed for
thought. For example in his critical common-sensism.

Peirce thought that there are logical conceptions of mind based not on
empirical science of psychology nor even on metaphysics. See for example
Memoir 11 "On the Logical Conception of Mind" in the 1902 Carnegie
Application:

http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-05.htm

As to how linguistic people actually are or how linguistic one needs or
ought to be, that will depend at least partly on the definition of
language. In the quote of him above, Peirce uses the word "language"
more loosely than some would.

Best, Ben

On 2/15/2017 11:16 AM, Eric Charles wrote:

Jerry, Clark,

Thank you for the thoughtful replies.

I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that I
love less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to forget the
parameters of his own argument. Peirce tells us what clear thinking
is, while fully and responsibly acknowledging that most people do not
think clearly most of the time. On that basis, if anyone thinks of
anyone else's thoughts as entailing at all times the third degree of
clarity, something is seriously amiss. Further, when Peirce elsewhere
starts making broad pronouncements about "thought" it oftentimes seems
that he is referring solely to those rare instances of clear thinking,
but other times is referring to the typical thinking, or all thinking?

The later is particularly suspicious. Assertions regarding the nature
of /all/ thinking would presumably be subject to extreme empirical
scrutiny. As we have rejected

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread Clark Goble

Whoops, neglected the end.

> On Feb 15, 2017, at 9:16 AM, Eric Charles  
> wrote:
> 
> One can readily, for example, find individuals who (by all evidence) seem to 
> think more readily and more commonly in words than in "images and diagrams". 
> One can also find people with limited brain damage who (by all evidence) have 
> lost their ability to coherently verbalize (i.e., they cannot do language), 
> and yet those people otherwise seem to think perfectly well. 
> 

Yes. I think that’s a good criticism of Peirce who I think is biased towards 
thinking through questions in terms of people with a bias toward logic or the 
hard sciences. While ultimately I think that a plus in his writing rather than 
a negative, it does mean that his generalizations can be problematic. 

While I don’t think this ultimately affects his argument I’d say that people 
often have a bias towards either linguistic or visual thinking. The way a 
logician thinks will typically be different from a musician or a sculptor, 
broadly speaking. At least that has been my experience. That said I think most 
people think some of the time in wide range of styles.

A fun experiment to illustrate this I used to use in college classes was to 
count to 100 and try to do something else at the same time. Depending upon the 
method you use mentally to count you’ll find that some things you can do while 
others you can’t. You’ll find that some people think visually with a number 
line to count and are able to speak while counting. Most people count 
linguistically and thus can’t easily speak or listen to words at the same time.

I would dispute the limited brain damage example though. We have to be really 
careful there since ones cognitive linguistic systems may be functional yet key 
parts of the brain necessary for expression may be damaged. So we have to be 
very careful how we draw inferences from this. However that said we know of 
examples where children were not exposed to language and reach a point where 
they appear to be unable to develop those skills. Clearly they are still 
thinking but their brain simply hasn’t developed in a normal way.

Peirce I think avoids the problems some models of the mind by philosophers end 
up with. (Of course most contemporary philosophers of the mind are at least 
somewhat familiar with the science of the brain and avoid a lot of these older 
problems) Peirce simply doesn’t think that thinking is only conscious 
deliberation the way that especially in early modernism many philosophers 
assumed. 
-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread Clark Goble

> On Feb 15, 2017, at 9:16 AM, Eric Charles  
> wrote:
> 
> Further, when Peirce elsewhere starts making broad pronouncements about 
> "thought" it oftentimes seems that he is referring solely to those rare 
> instances of clear thinking, but other times is referring to the typical 
> thinking, or all thinking?

I think in places Peirce does wax dogmatic at times. At least rhetorically. But 
I think the better way to read him typically when making broad pronouncements 
is that he’s postulating a theory and is more than happy to see it critiqued. 
That his own views changed as he continues to think about the ideas is a good 
indication that this is how he himself takes such views. 

I’d add that I think the style of late 19th century writing is just alien to 
us. We expect that when reading early 19th or 18th century German idealists but 
I think we expect Americans writing in English to write in a style we’re more 
familiar with. However I tend to think most philosophers, especially the great 
ones, are pretty bad writers. Of all the great writers probably only Mill and 
Peirce are the ones I enjoy reading the most. Yet even with Peirce we have huge 
paragraphs and examples of annoying writing and neologisms. 

Part of the problem is often that it’s simply hard. Many philosophers invent 
neologisms because they want to avoid the habits of thinking that older words 
invoke. They want to break us out of those habits to rethink the issues without 
that baggage. This leads to difficulty especially when talking about broad 
foundational ideas. The ideas and words closest to us are often the hardest to 
examine closely. (Thus the traditional problem of “to be” in philosophy)
-
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to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-15 Thread Eric Charles

Jerry, Clark,
Thank you for the thoughtful replies.

I have great love for Peirce and his work. But there are parts that I love
less, particularly where Peirce ... seems to me to forget the
parameters of his own argument. Peirce tells us what clear thinking is,
while fully and responsibly acknowledging that most people do not think
clearly most of the time. On that basis, if anyone thinks of anyone else's
thoughts as entailing at all times the third degree of clarity, something
is seriously amiss. Further, when Peirce elsewhere starts making broad
pronouncements about "thought" it oftentimes seems that he is referring
solely to those rare instances of clear thinking, but other times is
referring to the typical thinking, or all thinking?

The later is particularly suspicious. Assertions regarding the nature of
*all* thinking would presumably be subject to extreme empirical scrutiny.
As we have rejected traditional metaphysics, and denied any special powers
of introspection, one would expect "thought" to be examined in the same way
Peirce's exemplars, the early bench chemists, examined their subject
matter. All the same challenges and limitations, and the same potential for
novel triumph. Thus when Peirce talks about clear thinking he seems on
steady ground, and when he talks about how a scientist-qua-scientists
thinks about the world he seems on steady ground, but when there are no
caveats regarding what "thinking" he is referring to, I get nervous.

To Clark's question: While one could certainly find people who would find
those assertions uncontroversial, there are problems. One can readily, for
example, find individuals who (by all evidence) seem to think more readily
and more commonly in words than in "images and diagrams". One can also find
people with limited brain damage who (by all evidence) have lost their
ability to coherently verbalize (i.e., they cannot *do* language), and yet
those people otherwise seem to think perfectly well.

---
Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
Supervisory Survey Statistician
U.S. Marine Corps

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 3:24 PM, Jerry Rhee  wrote:

> Eric, list:
>
>
>
> Here is how I understand the nature of your thought:
>
>
>
> You consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings,
> you conceive the object of claiming about the nature of other people’s
> thoughts to have.  Then your conception of these effects, which makes you
> raise your eyebrow and get twitchy, is the whole of your conception of the
> object.
>
>
>
> And so, now what?  What does the Jamesian maxim and not Peircean
> recommend?
>
>
>
> For a Peircean would recognize that some “perversity of thought of whole
> generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation”.
>
> ~*What Pragmatism Is  *
>
>
>
> “Nevertheless in the nature of the case the essential elements of
> demonstration are three: the subject, the attributes, and the basic
> premisses.
>
>
>
> I say ‘must believe’, because *all syllogism*, and therefore a fortiori
> demonstration, *is* *addressed* *not to the spoken word, but to the
> discourse within the soul*, and though we can always raise objections to
> the spoken word, to the inward discourse we cannot always object.
>
>
>
> That which is capable of proof but assumed by the teacher without proof
> is, if the pupil believes and accepts it, hypothesis, though only in a
> limited sense hypothesis-that is, relatively to the pupil; if the pupil has
> no opinion or a contrary opinion on the matter, the same assumption is an
> illegitimate postulate. Therein lies the distinction between hypothesis and
> illegitimate postulate: the latter is the contrary of the pupil’s opinion,
> demonstrable, but assumed and used without demonstration (*Post. An*.
> I-10).
>
>
> And therefore, “I have long ago come to be guided by this maxim: that as
> long as it is practically certain that we cannot directly, nor with much
> accuracy even indirectly, observe what passes in the consciousness of any
> other person, while it is far from certain that we can do so (and
> accurately record what [we] can even glimpse at best but very glibberly)
> even in the case of what shoots through our own minds, it is much safer to
> define all mental characters as far as possible in terms of their outward
> manifestations.”
>
> *~An Essay toward Reasoning in Security and Uberty*
>
>
> That is,
>
> What is C?
>
> What is A?
>
> What is B?
>
>
>
> Hth,
>
> Jerry R
>
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Clark Goble  wrote:
>
>>
>> On Feb 14, 2017, at 8:41 AM, Eric Charles 
>> wrote:
>>
>> Yikes! My inner William James just raised an eyebrow. This is probably a
>> separate thread... but how did we suddenly start making claims about the
>> nature of other people's thoughts?
>>
>> "People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams..." They
>> do? How many people's thoughts have we interrogated

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-14 Thread Jerry Rhee

Hi Soren,

EP 2: 463.

Best,
Jerry

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 5:23 PM, Søren Brier <sbr@cbs.dk> wrote:

> Where can I find Peirce’s:  *An Essay toward Improving our Reasoning in
> Security and Liberty*,  from 1913??
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Søren
>
>
>
> *From:* Jerry Rhee [mailto:jerryr...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 14. februar 2017 21:24
> *To:* Clark Goble
> *Cc:* Peirce-L
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>
>
>
> Eric, list:
>
>
>
> Here is how I understand the nature of your thought:
>
>
>
> You consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings,
> you conceive the object of claiming about the nature of other people’s
> thoughts to have.  Then your conception of these effects, which makes you
> raise your eyebrow and get twitchy, is the whole of your conception of the
> object.
>
>
>
> And so, now what?  What does the Jamesian maxim and not Peircean
> recommend?
>
>
>
> For a Peircean would recognize that some “perversity of thought of whole
> generations may cause the postponement of the ultimate fixation”.
>
> ~*What Pragmatism Is  *
>
>
>
> “Nevertheless in the nature of the case the essential elements of
> demonstration are three: the subject, the attributes, and the basic
> premisses.
>
>
>
> I say ‘must believe’, because *all syllogism*, and therefore a fortiori
> demonstration, *is* *addressed* *not to the spoken word, but to the
> discourse within the soul*, and though we can always raise objections to
> the spoken word, to the inward discourse we cannot always object.
>
>
>
> That which is capable of proof but assumed by the teacher without proof
> is, if the pupil believes and accepts it, hypothesis, though only in a
> limited sense hypothesis-that is, relatively to the pupil; if the pupil has
> no opinion or a contrary opinion on the matter, the same assumption is an
> illegitimate postulate. Therein lies the distinction between hypothesis and
> illegitimate postulate: the latter is the contrary of the pupil’s opinion,
> demonstrable, but assumed and used without demonstration (*Post. An*.
> I-10).
>
>
>
> And therefore, “I have long ago come to be guided by this maxim: that as
> long as it is practically certain that we cannot directly, nor with much
> accuracy even indirectly, observe what passes in the consciousness of any
> other person, while it is far from certain that we can do so (and
> accurately record what [we] can even glimpse at best but very glibberly)
> even in the case of what shoots through our own minds, it is much safer to
> define all mental characters as far as possible in terms of their outward
> manifestations.”
>
> *~An Essay toward Reasoning in Security and Uberty*
>
>
>
> That is,
>
> What is C?
>
> What is A?
>
> What is B?
>
>
>
> Hth,
>
> Jerry R
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 10:20 AM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Feb 14, 2017, at 8:41 AM, Eric Charles <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Yikes! My inner William James just raised an eyebrow. This is probably a
> separate thread... but how did we suddenly start making claims about the
> nature of other people's thoughts?
>
>
>
> "People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams..." They
> do? How many people's thoughts have we interrogated to determine that?
>
>
>
> "Consciousness is inherently linguistic." It is? How much have we studied
> altered states of consciousness, or even typical consciousness?
>
>
>
> Sorry, these parts of Peirce always make me a bit twitchy. I'm quite
> comfortable when he is talking about how scientists-qua-scientists think or
> act, but then he makes more general statements and I get worried.
>
>
>
> Are those two statements really controversial? Honestly asking. It seems
> much of our consciousness isn’t primarily linguistic. We are, admittedly,
> deciding this both upon introspection as well as reports of how other
> people experience it. This gets into the question of what we mean by
> thinking of course. Peirce was much more open to thinking not primarily
> being about what we’re conscious of. To the linguistic point I’m not sure
> that’s controversial either. The idea that our consciousness of objects has
> an “as” structure seems common. That is the idea that we don’t just see a
> blue sky as raw sense data we then consciously interpret. Instead we see
> the sky as blue with blue and sky having those linguistic aspects even if
> we don’t pay much attention to it.
>
>
>
> None of this is to deny that we

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-12 Thread Jerry Rhee

Stephen, list:



That was very nice.



You said:  “Thinking is what consciousness does…”



And Peirce said:



“…the whole logical form of *thought* is so given in its elements…

These are obviously simply forms of Thirdness, Secondness, and Firstness…

… the conception of inference, the conception of otherness, and the
conception of a character.” ~ *Lecture VII*



Clearly, ordering matters.  If you seek to understand how such things are
subsumed in the Peircean maxim, then I would suggest looking toward
Peirce’s gift.



Best,

Jerry R

On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 1:28 PM, Stephen C. Rose <stever...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thinking is what consciousness does. While it may be the case that most
> things rise from the vague and might appear in a form different than words,
> there is nothing fixed about that. By the time a thought achieves what I
> would call an indexical status, it is most of time a word or phrase which
> becomes the subject of an inquiry one has within oneself.
>
> In my efforts, I determine that the index consist of values and I submit
> any thought to these values. That index I would call a second stage of
> thought.
>
> When that ethical interaction is complete, chronology leads to a final or
> third stage when the considered sign (word) is examined from the standpoint
> of actualization — what I will do or say (or both) as a result of the
> consideration. I call this the aesthetic phase because I see aesthetic as
> doing, as action, as the making of such history as we may make.
>
> The need to order or rank modes of perception — images, words, geometric
> forms — seems to me subsumed in the Peirce maxim that all thinking is in
> signs. I am not sure what he means, but I am reasonably sure that he would
> admit words and images and forms are all necessary aspects of consciousness
> and give to words the due their existence seems to demand.
>
> Words are the basis of language. Consciousness is inherently linguistic.
> There are non verbal languages but they are not the general rule for
> ordinary communication.
>
> amazon.com/author/stephenrose
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Jerry - I'm sure you are joking. The format of a syllogism is:
>> Major Premise
>> Minor Premise
>> Conclusion
>> ...with the additional format rules about 'universal', distribution,
>> negatives, etc etc..' Nothing to do with words per se.
>>
>> Words are meaningful, in my view, only in specific contexts; they gain
>> their meaning within the context...and the context operates within a format.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
>> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
>> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 2:02 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>
>> Dear Edwina, list:
>>
>> When you say it's not the words but the format that counts; is that like
>> saying, it's not the argumentation but the argument that counts?
>>
>> For example, do you mean that it's CP 5.189 that counts and not C A B?
>> But what is CP 5.189 without C A B?
>> And what is C, A, B, without
>> syllogism, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
>> pragmatic maxim, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
>>
>> That is, if I were only to take you literally, then I could ask,
>>
>> *Among all words, is there a word?*
>>
>> Best,
>> Jerry Rhee
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Sorry, Jerry, I don't agree. It's not the words; it's the format that
>>> counts. People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams 
>>>
>>> Edwina
>>>
>>> - Original Message -
>>> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
>>> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>>> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
>>> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>>> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:25 PM
>>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>>
>>> Dear list:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If words are only birds, then:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “CP 5.189 is NOT a syllogism!”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> “CP 5.189 is not *the* pragmatic maxim, nor even *a* pragmatic maxim in
>>&g

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-12 Thread Stephen C. Rose

Thinking is what consciousness does. While it may be the case that most
things rise from the vague and might appear in a form different than words,
there is nothing fixed about that. By the time a thought achieves what I
would call an indexical status, it is most of time a word or phrase which
becomes the subject of an inquiry one has within oneself.

In my efforts, I determine that the index consist of values and I submit
any thought to these values. That index I would call a second stage of
thought.

When that ethical interaction is complete, chronology leads to a final or
third stage when the considered sign (word) is examined from the standpoint
of actualization — what I will do or say (or both) as a result of the
consideration. I call this the aesthetic phase because I see aesthetic as
doing, as action, as the making of such history as we may make.

The need to order or rank modes of perception — images, words, geometric
forms — seems to me subsumed in the Peirce maxim that all thinking is in
signs. I am not sure what he means, but I am reasonably sure that he would
admit words and images and forms are all necessary aspects of consciousness
and give to words the due their existence seems to demand.

Words are the basis of language. Consciousness is inherently linguistic.
There are non verbal languages but they are not the general rule for
ordinary communication.

amazon.com/author/stephenrose

On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:

> Jerry - I'm sure you are joking. The format of a syllogism is:
> Major Premise
> Minor Premise
> Conclusion
> ...with the additional format rules about 'universal', distribution,
> negatives, etc etc..' Nothing to do with words per se.
>
> Words are meaningful, in my view, only in specific contexts; they gain
> their meaning within the context...and the context operates within a format.
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 2:02 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>
> Dear Edwina, list:
>
> When you say it's not the words but the format that counts; is that like
> saying, it's not the argumentation but the argument that counts?
>
> For example, do you mean that it's CP 5.189 that counts and not C A B?
> But what is CP 5.189 without C A B?
> And what is C, A, B, without
> syllogism, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
> pragmatic maxim, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
>
> That is, if I were only to take you literally, then I could ask,
>
> *Among all words, is there a word?*
>
> Best,
> Jerry Rhee
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, Jerry, I don't agree. It's not the words; it's the format that
>> counts. People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams 
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
>> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
>> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:25 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>
>> Dear list:
>>
>>
>>
>> If words are only birds, then:
>>
>>
>>
>> “CP 5.189 is NOT a syllogism!”
>>
>>
>>
>> “CP 5.189 is not *the* pragmatic maxim, nor even *a* pragmatic maxim in
>> the same sense, so it is certainly not *the best* pragmatic maxim.”
>>
>>
>>
>> 5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. ~Tractatus
>>
>>
>>
>> Best, Jerry R
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 8:16 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Very nice comments, John. I fully agree: 'words are birds' - and some of
>>> the focus on this list on 'this word' having 'just that meaning' has been,
>>> in my view, unfruitful...because it ignores what's going on within that
>>> semiosic action.
>>>
>>> Edwina
>>>
>>> - Original Message -
>>> *From:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
>>> *To:* Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com> ; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2017 8:40 PM
>>> *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>>
>>> Interesting, Ben. How word

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-12 Thread Jerry Rhee

Dear Edwina, list:



J



Well, you’re not wrong but you’re not quite right, either.  If words were
merely birds, would we not simply just move on with the limits of our
world?  That is, what is "syllogism", a word?



I have recently been working through Aristotle’s *Organon*.  I played with
the syllogism in context of CP 5.189 and discovered its many hidden
fruits.



I would recommend others on the list to submit themselves to Peirce’s
greatest gift and discover on your own that “activity of thought by which
we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal.”



With best wishes,
Jerry Rhee

On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 1:07 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:

> Jerry - I'm sure you are joking. The format of a syllogism is:
> Major Premise
> Minor Premise
> Conclusion
> ...with the additional format rules about 'universal', distribution,
> negatives, etc etc..' Nothing to do with words per se.
>
> Words are meaningful, in my view, only in specific contexts; they gain
> their meaning within the context...and the context operates within a format.
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 2:02 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>
> Dear Edwina, list:
>
> When you say it's not the words but the format that counts; is that like
> saying, it's not the argumentation but the argument that counts?
>
> For example, do you mean that it's CP 5.189 that counts and not C A B?
> But what is CP 5.189 without C A B?
> And what is C, A, B, without
> syllogism, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
> pragmatic maxim, CP 5.189, growth of concrete reasonableness?
>
> That is, if I were only to take you literally, then I could ask,
>
> *Among all words, is there a word?*
>
> Best,
> Jerry Rhee
>
> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 12:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, Jerry, I don't agree. It's not the words; it's the format that
>> counts. People think, not so much in words, but in images and diagrams 
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> *From:* Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com>
>> *To:* Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> *Cc:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> ; Benjamin Udell
>> <baud...@gmail.com> ; Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, February 12, 2017 1:25 PM
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>
>> Dear list:
>>
>>
>>
>> If words are only birds, then:
>>
>>
>>
>> “CP 5.189 is NOT a syllogism!”
>>
>>
>>
>> “CP 5.189 is not *the* pragmatic maxim, nor even *a* pragmatic maxim in
>> the same sense, so it is certainly not *the best* pragmatic maxim.”
>>
>>
>>
>> 5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. ~Tractatus
>>
>>
>>
>> Best, Jerry R
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 8:16 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Very nice comments, John. I fully agree: 'words are birds' - and some of
>>> the focus on this list on 'this word' having 'just that meaning' has been,
>>> in my view, unfruitful...because it ignores what's going on within that
>>> semiosic action.
>>>
>>> Edwina
>>>
>>> - Original Message -
>>> *From:* John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
>>> *To:* Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com> ; peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
>>> *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2017 8:40 PM
>>> *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>>>
>>> Interesting, Ben. How words change in meaning and connotation. Although
>>> mist of the negative references are to the medical use, some of them
>>> certainly apply to a sort of (Francis) Baconian science. Thanks for posting
>>> this.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As I said, I was referring to the method, not the word. As my Tai Chi
>>> master was fond of saying, “Words are birds”, and he changed the meanings
>>> for basic movements just to help us focus on what really mattered.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Interesting that some of the definitions have the modern meaning of both
>>> evidence and meanings being grounded in the senses, but still have negative
>>> connotations. I suppose that the rise of posi

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-11 Thread John Collier

The reference is to the method, not the word. There is an historical continuity 
between the Medieval empiricists like Roger Bacon, and Galen’s followers (he 
died about 299 AD (who go back to Arabic predecessors, perhaps influenced by 
Galen – medical usage, of course, but he seemed to extend it in his views of 
the natural world)  and the later ones who came to called The British 
Empiricists, though not by that name at that time. On source puts the general 
use of the modern accepted sense at 1796, well after the British Empiricists.

Typical definition:

empiricist

ɛmˈpɪrɪsɪst/

PHILOSOPHY

noun

1.

a person who supports the theory that all knowledge is based on experience 
derived from the senses.

"most scientists are empiricists by nature"

adjective

1.

relating to or characteristic of the theory that all knowledge is based on 
experience derived from the senses.

"his radically empiricist view of science as a direct engagement with the world"

The term in its present form originated in 1660-70; some say about 1700. If you 
think that words determine thoughts, than there was no empiricism except in 
medicine before these dates.

Aristotle had some things I common with empiricists, but his requirement for a 
rationalist/ essentialist middle term undermined that because it required the 
active nour. The Medieval ones gave that up. But so did many of the stoics, who 
were therefore empiricists.

The term goes back to the Greeks, not that I think that some magic connects 
terms to ideas:

Etymology

The English term empirical derives from the Greek word ἐμπειρία, empeiria, 
which is cognate with and translates to the Latin experientia, from which are 
derived the word experience and the related experiment. The term was used by 
the Empiric school of ancient Greek medical practitioners, who rejected the 
three doctrines of the Dogmatic school, preferring to rely on the observation 
of "phenomena".[5]

NB the restriction to medicine here, similar to the early restriction of 
semiotics to medicine.

Peirce relevance: Peirce is usually included among those who tried to combine 
elements of empiricism and rationalism, though for my money he doesn’t fit 
either camp very well

In any case, the recent attempts on this list to try to tie empiricism to the 
use of the word are pretty poor examples of scholarship.

John Collier

Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, University of 
KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier

> -Original Message-

> From: kirst...@saunalahti.fi [mailto:kirst...@saunalahti.fi]

> Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2017 5:58 PM

> To: Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com>

> Cc: Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>; John Collier

> <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@list.iupui.edu>

> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

>

> I share your surprise, Jerry.

>

> Kirsti

>

> Jerry LR Chandler kirjoitti 5.2.2017 19:26:

> > John, Edwina, List:

> >

> > I am more than a bit surprised by the assertions that the Middle

> > Ages gave birth to "Empirism".

> >

> > Does anyone have a convenient reference to the historical emergence

> > of this term in philosophy?

> >

> > Cheers

> > Jerry

> >

> > Sent from my iPhone

> >

> > On Feb 5, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>

> > wrote:

> >

> >> John:

> >>

> >> Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is

> >> that no 'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an

> >> observable if peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the

> >> shift towards empowering individuals.

> >>

> >> I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum

> >> but co-exist with political ideologies. My point is which ones are

> >> dominant?

> >>

> >> No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]with scientific

> >> logic. [I hate the term _sociological_ for the abuses of thought

> >> found within so many sociology treatises]... Philosophic ideology

> >> is not the same as scientific logic. I am suggesting that a

> >> philosophical ideology is correlated with a societal ideology - and

> >> that empiricism, which began at least to emerge in open discourse

> >> in the 13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that

> >> affirmed support for individual interaction with the world.

> >>

> >> I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only

> >> that HIS analysis, with its three categories, works very well to

> >> disempower the extremes of both empiricism and ide

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-06 Thread Clark Goble

> On Feb 6, 2017, at 7:19 AM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> Yes, I agree with your outline of the neglect of Aristotle during the period 
> when the Church controlled knowledge - and the 13th c. re-emergence of his 
> works [Aquinas etc]..

I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. A lot of the texts, for whatever reason, 
simply weren’t widely available. I’d add that they heyday of Aristotle in the 
13th century was still a period of Church controlled knowledge - thus the 
various condemnations at the University of Paris largely tied to Aristotelian 
works. Even those who became dominant in this era (Scotus and Ockham) arguably 
did so because they engaged with Aristotle and frequently disagreed with him. 
So that’s not really neglect. It’s later as Aquinas becomes more popular (he 
was always popular with the Dominicans) that an Aristotilean fused Christianity 
becomes more acceptable. Although of course other major figures from the early 
13th century like Albertus Magnus were thoroughly engaged with Aristotle. 

Anyway I think while one can blame the church for the condemnations at Paris 
it’s unfair to blame them for a lack of engagement with Aristotle. And the 
condemnations occurred precisely because everyone had engaged seriously with 
him.

One should also note that the identities of Plato and Aristotle weren’t always 
clear in the texts. That affected how people read them. The relative clarity of 
who wrote what we have today is of much more recent development. I’m not sure 
the timing on all that but I assume it’s a product of early modernism even if 
some roots go back earlier.

-
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-06 Thread Clark Goble

> On Feb 5, 2017, at 11:12 PM, John F Sowa  wrote:
> 
> At the beginning of the 13th c, the translations of Aristotle
> were denounced by theologians who had a vested interest in Plato.
> The fact that they were translated from Arabic sources also raised
> suspicions of heresy.  But scientists such as Roger Bacon were
> inspired by the science, and Thomas Aquinas made Aristotle safe
> for Christianity.

To be fair there were some theological reasons they were distrustful of the new 
innovations in scholastic thinking by Aristotle. A lot of the condemnations of 
1210-1277 have fairly compelling reasons behind them (even if we don’t in the 
least buy the theology they were defending). Some seem a bit silly admittedly, 
like the debate about whether there was a single shared intellect or separate 
intellects for each person. (Roughly a debate about whether propositions were 
individual or shared - although it often came to have a form more akin to what 
platonic mystics asserted of a shared mind)

It’s interesting that the greatest of the Aristotilean influenced scholastics, 
Aquinas, really had his heyday in the early Renaissance rather than during his 
life or the immediate years following.

> Crosby, Alfred W. (1997) The Measure of Reality: Quantification
> and Western Society, 1250-1600, Cambridge University Press.
> 
> Sample factoid:  In 1275, there were no mechanical clocks in Europe.
> By 1300, every town of any size had a church with a clock tower,
> and neighboring towns were competing with each other in building
> the most elaborate clocks.  The European emphasis on measuring time
> is a major difference between European civilizations and traditional
> societies everywhere else.  And it started in the 13th c.

This is an important feature often overlooked. It’s very hard to do 
reproducible empirical studies without accurate time keeping. There were some 
primitive methods like using hour glasses but having ubiquitous and 
synchronizable clocks probably transformed the world more than anything else 
before the age of steam and plumbing.

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-06 Thread John F Sowa


On 2/6/2017 9:19 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:

I myself tend to view causality as more economic and population-size
driven than ideologically driven.


I agree.  In fact, that's a major reason why the Homo saps were
so far ahead of the neanderthals in technology:  they had a warmer
climate in Africa that made food more abundant to support a larger
population.  The most rapid advances occurred after the development
of farming, when the food supply and population grew rapidly.


Bernal's "The Extension of Man'- a very detailed outline of
technology development 'extending' man's physical capacities
to interact with the world...


In places where the two overlapped (middle east), the neanderthals
adopted the new technology.  And the anthropologists today are
discovering innovations that the neanderthals had invented on their
own (some of which the anthropologists still have not been able
to duplicate with the kind of technology available then).


"the development of capitalism as the leading method of production
also witnessed that of experiment and calculation as the new method
of natural science"


I wasn't considering the metaphysical differences between Plato and
Aristotle, but the different emphasis on the value of observation
and record keeping.  The "experiment and calculation" was introduced
a century before banking and capitalism.  (And both depended on
Arabic numerals, which the Muslims adopted from the Hindus, who
were influenced by the Chinese number system.)

Plato was a mathematician, who considered the mathematical forms as
the ideal source of knowledge.  But Aristotle's father was a physician
who emphasized careful observation and detailed record keeping of what
was observed and the results of various procedures.

Aristotle was a pioneer in experimental science.  A famous example
is his experiment with chicken eggs.  He and his students collected
a batch of eggs laid on the same day.  Then they broke open one egg
each day and made detailed observations of the embryos.

Philosophically, Galen was more of a Platonist, but he was very
strongly influenced by Aristotle's biological writings.  When the
Arabs took over the middle east, they weren't interested in Greek
literature.  Greek medicine (Galen) was their first interest, and
that led them to Aristotle and Greek science and mathematics.

By the 11th c, Arabic technology and economic power was the greatest
in the world.  But the crusaders (AKA Christian terrorists) came
from a primitive civilization (Europe) and were amazed at the glories
of Muslim economic achievements.

Unfortunately, those invasions gave the Islamic conservatives the
upper hand.  They squelched the liberals with their "infidel" books.
They burned libraries, banished teachers, and destroyed their own
economic and technological foundation.

John

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-06 Thread Edwina Taborsky

John- I fully agree.  Yes, I agree with your outline of the neglect of 
Aristotle during the period when the Church controlled knowledge - and the 
13th c. re-emergence of his works [Aquinas etc]..
Although I myself tend to view causality as more economic and 
population-size driven than ideologically driven. That is, I think that 
Aristotle's re-emergence was linked to the rise in population of that era 
and the need to provide more means of wealth production than the local 
feudal holding.


Your Crosby book sounds exactly right.  I'll try to get ahold of it. The 
sources I've used are


J.D. Bernal's five volumes of 'Science in History'.  In this era, it's Vol. 
2..the era of the beginning of market trade...and 'money payments rather 
than forced services' and.."the development of capitalism as the leading 
method of production also witnessed that of experiment and calculation as 
the new method of natural science" .
These volumes detail the emergence and development of all kinds of methods 
of 'measuring the world'. Bookkeeping and banking methods would have been 
vital to the development of larger economies and trade.


Then, there's J.D. Bernal's "The Extension of Man'- a very detailed outline 
of technology development 'extending' man's physical capacities to interact 
with the world...i.e., moving away from basic human labour, to adding more 
power, via such things as the horse harness, water mills, the compass, the 
magnet


And, Fernand Braudel's volumes on 'Civilization and Capitalism', 
Particularly Vol 1, 'The Structures of Everyday life, which focuses on 
population sizes and economies.
And Vol.3, 'The Perspective of the World', which focuses on economics, 
city-states, and technology.


Ideologically - one saw the emergence of a focus on the individual capacity 
to observe and reason.


Edwina


- Original Message - 
From: "John F Sowa" <s...@bestweb.net>

To: <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 1:12 AM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -



On 2/5/2017 12:38 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:

that knowledge is derived from the evidence of the senses, is as old
as Aristotle - who espoused just that [along with the use of reason].

But as a societal force, with its insistence that the individual and
that individual's direct contact with the world, is the source of
knowledge - that emerged, in my view, from at least the 13th century


I agree, but I'd add that the rediscovery of Aristotle in the 13th c
led to revolutionary innovations in logic and science.

Before the 12th c translations of Aristotle from Arabic to Latin,
Plato and Neoplatonism had the strongest influence on the Greek
Church Fathers -- and through them -- the Latins.

At the beginning of the 13th c, the translations of Aristotle
were denounced by theologians who had a vested interest in Plato.
The fact that they were translated from Arabic sources also raised
suspicions of heresy.  But scientists such as Roger Bacon were
inspired by the science, and Thomas Aquinas made Aristotle safe
for Christianity.

As an interesting history of the upsurge in observation and
measurement in the 13th c and later, I suggest

Crosby, Alfred W. (1997) The Measure of Reality: Quantification
and Western Society, 1250-1600, Cambridge University Press.

Sample factoid:  In 1275, there were no mechanical clocks in Europe.
By 1300, every town of any size had a church with a clock tower,
and neighboring towns were competing with each other in building
the most elaborate clocks.  The European emphasis on measuring time
is a major difference between European civilizations and traditional
societies everywhere else.  And it started in the 13th c.

Although Aristotle didn't say much about music or money, the
emphasis on logical notation and measurement also inspired the
development of modern musical notation, bookkeeping, and banking.

John









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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread Jerry LR Chandler

Edwina:

Thank you for your opinion.
But, who are you referring to?
Two possibilities come to mind.
Thomas?
Thomas of Erfurt? (Pseudo-Scotus?)
Peter of Spain?
Otherwise?

Anyone else care to offer an opinion?

Cheers
Jerry 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 5, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
> 
> Jerry - the concept of empiricism, i.e., that knowledge is dervied from the 
> evidence of the senses, is as old as Aristotle - who espoused just that 
> [along with the use of reason].
>  
> But as a societal force, with its insistence that the individual and that 
> individual's direct contact with the world, is the source of knowledge - that 
> emerged, in my view, from at least the 13th century, which rebelled against 
> the church and theistic ownership of knowledge, which was defined as 
> non-sensual and purely rational.
>  
> As for the historical emergence of the term in philosophy.I'm sure 
> someone can answer that.
>  
> Edwina
> - Original Message -
> From: Jerry LR Chandler
> To: Edwina Taborsky
> Cc: John Collier ; Peirce-L
> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 12:26 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
> 
> John, Edwina, List:
> 
> I am more than a bit surprised by the assertions that the Middle Ages gave 
> birth to "Empirism".
> 
> Does anyone have a convenient reference to the historical emergence of this 
> term in philosophy?
> 
> Cheers
> Jerry 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Feb 5, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
>> 
>> John:
>>  
>> Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is that no 
>> 'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an observable if 
>> peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the shift towards empowering 
>> individuals.
>>  
>> I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum but 
>> co-exist with political ideologies. My point is which ones are dominant?
>>  
>> No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]with scientific logic. [I 
>> hate the term sociological for the abuses of thought found within so many 
>> sociology treatises]... Philosophic ideology is not the same as scientific 
>> logic. I am suggesting that a philosophical ideology is correlated with a 
>> societal ideology - and that empiricism, which began at least to  emerge in 
>> open discourse in the 13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that 
>> affirmed support for individual interaction with the world.
>>  
>> I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only that HIS 
>> analysis, with its three categories, works very well to disempower the 
>> extremes of both empiricism and idealism.
>>  
>> Edwina
>> - Original Message -
>> From: John Collier
>> To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L
>> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 11:12 AM
>> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>> 
>> I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went 
>> through periods of profound social transformation since while being changed 
>> relatively little.
>> I don’t think it is a political ideology.
>> I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each together 
>> leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say about 
>> empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples I 
>> won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any 
>> political ideologies.
>> I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or 
>> methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the 
>> conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, 
>> and I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though.
>> John Collier
>> Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
>> Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
>> http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>> From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] 
>> Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM
>> To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>> I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
>> empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure.
>> Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to 
>> say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any 
>> political system must give political power to that section of the population 
&g

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread Edwina Taborsky

Jerry - the concept of empiricism, i.e., that knowledge is dervied from the 
evidence of the senses, is as old as Aristotle - who espoused just that [along 
with the use of reason].

But as a societal force, with its insistence that the individual and that 
individual's direct contact with the world, is the source of knowledge - that 
emerged, in my view, from at least the 13th century, which rebelled against the 
church and theistic ownership of knowledge, which was defined as non-sensual 
and purely rational.

As for the historical emergence of the term in philosophy.I'm sure someone 
can answer that. 

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Jerry LR Chandler 
  To: Edwina Taborsky 
  Cc: John Collier ; Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 12:26 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -


  John, Edwina, List:


  I am more than a bit surprised by the assertions that the Middle Ages gave 
birth to "Empirism".


  Does anyone have a convenient reference to the historical emergence of this 
term in philosophy?


  Cheers
  Jerry 

  Sent from my iPhone

  On Feb 5, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:


John:

Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is that no 
'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an observable if 
peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the shift towards empowering 
individuals.

I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum but 
co-exist with political ideologies. My point is which ones are dominant?

No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]with scientific logic. [I 
hate the term sociological for the abuses of thought found within so many 
sociology treatises]... Philosophic ideology is not the same as scientific 
logic. I am suggesting that a philosophical ideology is correlated with a 
societal ideology - and that empiricism, which began at least to  emerge in 
open discourse in the 13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that 
affirmed support for individual interaction with the world.

I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only that 
HIS analysis, with its three categories, works very well to disempower the 
extremes of both empiricism and idealism.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: John Collier 
  To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 11:12 AM
  Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -


  I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went 
through periods of profound social transformation since while being changed 
relatively little.



  I don’t think it is a political ideology.



  I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each 
together leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say 
about empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples 
I won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any 
political ideologies.



  I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or 
methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the 
conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, and 
I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though.



  John Collier

  Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate

  Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal

  http://web.ncf.ca/collier



  From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] 
  Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM
  To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU>
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -



  I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure. 



  Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to 
say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any 
political system must give political power to that section of the population 
that produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority 
of the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional 
political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the 
case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be 
dysfunctional.



  What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in 
the societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal 
impact of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to 
interact, as they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that 
it easily moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos.



  What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the 
individual from sole access to 'tru

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread Jerry LR Chandler

John, Edwina, List:

I am more than a bit surprised by the assertions that the Middle Ages gave 
birth to "Empirism".

Does anyone have a convenient reference to the historical emergence of this 
term in philosophy?

Cheers
Jerry 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 5, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
> 
> John:
>  
> Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is that no 
> 'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an observable if 
> peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the shift towards empowering 
> individuals.
>  
> I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum but 
> co-exist with political ideologies. My point is which ones are dominant?
>  
> No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]with scientific logic. [I 
> hate the term sociological for the abuses of thought found within so many 
> sociology treatises]... Philosophic ideology is not the same as scientific 
> logic. I am suggesting that a philosophical ideology is correlated with a 
> societal ideology - and that empiricism, which began at least to  emerge in 
> open discourse in the 13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that 
> affirmed support for individual interaction with the world.
>  
> I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only that HIS 
> analysis, with its three categories, works very well to disempower the 
> extremes of both empiricism and idealism.
>  
> Edwina
> - Original Message -
> From: John Collier
> To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L
> Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 11:12 AM
> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
> 
> I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went through 
> periods of profound social transformation since while being changed 
> relatively little.
>  
> I don’t think it is a political ideology.
>  
> I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each together 
> leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say about 
> empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples I 
> won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any 
> political ideologies.
>  
> I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or 
> methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the 
> conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, 
> and I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though.
>  
> John Collier
> Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
> Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>  
> From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] 
> Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM
> To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -
>  
> I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
> empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure.
>  
> Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to 
> say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any 
> political system must give political power to that section of the population 
> that produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the 
> majority of the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most 
> functional political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and 
> this was the case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy 
> would be dysfunctional.
>  
> What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the 
> societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal 
> impact of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to 
> interact, as they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is 
> that it easily moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos.
>  
> What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the 
> individual from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. 
> This removes randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based 
> around general rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just 
> that: individual and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life 
> power except as versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of 
> fundamental determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world 
> history, including modern times.
>  
>  Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his 
> view that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and ad

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread Edwina Taborsky

John:

Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is that no 
'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an observable if 
peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the shift towards empowering 
individuals.

I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum but co-exist 
with political ideologies. My point is which ones are dominant?

No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]with scientific logic. [I hate 
the term sociological for the abuses of thought found within so many sociology 
treatises]... Philosophic ideology is not the same as scientific logic. I am 
suggesting that a philosophical ideology is correlated with a societal ideology 
- and that empiricism, which began at least to  emerge in open discourse in the 
13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that affirmed support for 
individual interaction with the world.

I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only that HIS 
analysis, with its three categories, works very well to disempower the extremes 
of both empiricism and idealism.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: John Collier 
  To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L 
  Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 11:12 AM
  Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -


  I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went through 
periods of profound social transformation since while being changed relatively 
little.

   

  I don’t think it is a political ideology.

   

  I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each together 
leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say about 
empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples I 
won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any 
political ideologies.

   

  I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or 
methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the 
conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, and 
I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though.

   

  John Collier

  Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate

  Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal

  http://web.ncf.ca/collier

   

  From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] 
  Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM
  To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU>
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

   

  I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure. 

   

  Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to 
say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any 
political system must give political power to that section of the population 
that produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority 
of the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional 
political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the 
case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be 
dysfunctional.

   

  What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the 
societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal impact 
of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to interact, as 
they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that it easily 
moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos.

   

  What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the 
individual from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. 
This removes randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based 
around general rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just 
that: individual and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life 
power except as versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of 
fundamental determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world 
history, including modern times.

   

   Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his 
view that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and adapt. This would enable a society 
to have a rule of law, with local variations - something required in a 'growth 
society' - i.e., a modern society as differentiated from a no-growth or 
pre-industrial society.

   

  Edwina

   

   

- Original Message - 

From: John Collier 

To: Jerry LR Chandler 

Cc: Peirce List ; Eric Charles ; Helmut Raulien 

Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:18 AM

Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units 
unifies the unity”

 

Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the 
classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a

RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread John Collier

I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went through 
periods of profound social transformation since while being changed relatively 
little.

I don’t think it is a political ideology.

I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each together 
leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say about 
empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples I 
won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any 
political ideologies.

I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or 
methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the 
conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, and 
I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM
To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure.

Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to say, 
for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any political 
system must give political power to that section of the population that 
produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority of 
the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional 
political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the 
case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be 
dysfunctional.

What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the 
societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal impact 
of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to interact, as 
they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that it easily 
moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos.

What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the individual 
from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. This removes 
randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based around general 
rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just that: individual 
and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life power except as 
versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of fundamental 
determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world history, 
including modern times.

 Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his view 
that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and adapt. This would enable a society to 
have a rule of law, with local variations - something required in a 'growth 
society' - i.e., a modern society as differentiated from a no-growth or 
pre-industrial society.

Edwina


- Original Message -
From: John Collier<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
To: Jerry LR Chandler<mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com>
Cc: Peirce List<mailto:peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> ; Eric 
Charles<mailto:eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com> ; Helmut 
Raulien<mailto:h.raul...@gmx.de>
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:18 AM
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies 
the unity”

Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the 
classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a 
touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I am an empiricist 
in this latter sense, but not the former.



-
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http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism -

2017-02-05 Thread Edwina Taborsky

I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of 
empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure. 

Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to say, 
for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any political 
system must give political power to that section of the population that 
produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority of 
the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional 
political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the 
case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be 
dysfunctional.

What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the 
societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal impact 
of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to interact, as 
they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that it easily 
moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos.

What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the individual 
from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. This removes 
randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based around general 
rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just that: individual 
and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life power except as 
versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of fundamental 
determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world history, 
including modern times.

 Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his view 
that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and adapt. This would enable a society to 
have a rule of law, with local variations - something required in a 'growth 
society' - i.e., a modern society as differentiated from a no-growth or 
pre-industrial society.

Edwina


  - Original Message - 
  From: John Collier 
  To: Jerry LR Chandler 
  Cc: Peirce List ; Eric Charles ; Helmut Raulien 
  Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:18 AM
  Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies 
the unity”


  Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the 
classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a 
touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I am an empiricist 
in this latter sense, but not the former.

   


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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies the unity”

2017-02-05 Thread John Collier

Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the 
classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a 
touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I am an empiricist 
in this latter sense, but not the former.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com]
Sent: Friday, 03 February 2017 3:20 AM
To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
Cc: Peirce List <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>; Eric Charles 
<eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>; Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies 
the unity”

John, List:

On Jan 31, 2017, at 1:05 AM, John Collier 
<colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>> wrote:

5. The assertion "Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything more 
to do science.” appears rather problematic to me.

I don’t see this, Jerry. A typical example of a contemporary empiricist who 
argues specifically this is Bas van Fraassen, who specifically takes this view 
in his work, such as The Scientific Image. Classic empiricists like Locke, 
Berkeley and Hume also take this view. I would hasten to add that I distinguish 
between empiricism as a reductive sceptical constructivist movement and 
empiricism as the view that our interactions with the world are our only 
reliable touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I agree 
with the latter, and I don’t think it implies nominalism. But it also goes 
beyond classic empiricism, being more open to methods than reliance on 
observation and combining and projecting observations inductively. I would 
agree with Edwina and John Sowa that classic empiricism has been tied together 
with certain sociological views, but I don’t think that these are implied by 
the logic of empiricism. Stan Salthe is one who, it seems to me, ties the 
sociological aspects into a common “discourse” that he takes to define 
empiricism (but I think his alternative discourse makes the same errors). I am 
not keen on discourses as unanalysable wholes. I think they can be examined 
both internally and externally in a critical way. I think the external 
criticism is often opened up by internal criticism (e.g., Feyerabend’ s 
“Problems with empiricism” and Hanson’s work, as well as Kuhn’s, of course, and 
Quine’s “Two dogmas of empiricism”).

John

You touch many bases in this paragraph, often rather adroitly.  I agree with 
several points. But, more importantly, it is what I find missing from this 
paragraph is the essential need to expand the scope of view from the science of 
physics to the science of biology and medicine.  Belief in raw empiricism does 
not negate the need for deep abstractions. Internality and externality are 
essential to systems as well. This requires a grammar of speciation that is 
remote from predicate logic and your oft-cited set theoretical deductions.

It (empiricism) requires new symbolic competencies to integrate the meanings of 
the  symbol systems in the perplex or organic sciences.

It also requires elaboration on the roles of electrical symbols as parts of 
wholes and as attractors and repellers that contribute to the spontaneity of 
life.

Quine?  H…  From my perspective, I long ago discarded any role for Quine’s 
scientific illiteracy in the perplex number system or organic mathematics.

Why? Because his well known quote, ‘To be is to be a variable’ contradicts the 
logic of the table of elements and the derivation of the genetic code from it.

Let me suggest an alternative that can be derived from the table of physical 
elements:
"To be alive is to be a species.”

The logic of “The union of units unifies the unity”  under natural physical 
constraints (Newton’s and Coulomb’s laws) can be used to derive the graphic 
pathways.

Or, have I missed your point completely?

Cheers

Jerry





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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

2017-02-05 Thread John Collier

Jerry,

I haven't found it necessary to go beyond the logic that I was taught in 
University as an undergrad and graduate student, especially from Boolos, 
Church, Kalish and David Kaplan. From the former I learned set theory (which I 
later taught at Rice) in which arithmetic can be grounded (granted the 
incompleteness of both. From Kaplan I learned many-valued logic including three 
valued logic used by intuitionists and others who deny the excluded middle.

Incompleteness, undecidability and noncomputablity plays a major role in my 
dealings with nonreducible phenomena, and the application of information theory 
thereto, as well as to my work on causation and dynamical systems un general. 
To the best of my knowledge, the application (but not the logic) is novel.

I do not see any way in which CSP's logic is at odds with contemporary logic, 
though contemporary logic has included much that he never thought of or just 
had primordial thoughts about.

I agree that statistical methods are limited and are often misused, but I 
think, and have taught, that a proper understanding of the underlying logic can 
help to avoid this and help to put statistics in its proper place.

My work on natural kinds makes use of intensional logic, but argues that once 
we understand the isssues we can dispense with mere possibilities in the 
science of the natual world. Since 1994 I have been on an effort to minimize my 
metaphysics, best represented in Every Thing Must Go, though I prefer what I 
call dynamical realism to structural realism.

John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier

From: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@mac.com]
Sent: Friday, 03 February 2017 2:35 AM
To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce List <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Cc: Eric Charles <eric.phillip.char...@gmail.com>; Helmut Raulien 
<h.raul...@gmx.de>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism

John, List:
On Jan 31, 2017, at 1:05 AM, John Collier 
<colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>> wrote:

2.  Now, for the most important comment.  It is almost certain that CSP's 
notion of abduction as a method to generate a possibility space came directly 
from the concept of proof of structure.  It follows from his notions of medads 
and graphic relations and relatives and the concept of variable valences of 
elements.  The notion of abduction was a critical part of hybrid logic 
necessary to develop the simple algebra of labelled bipartite graph theory of 
the perplex number system.

I would have to put this terminology into terms of contemporary logic to see if 
I agree with this. I suspect I do, but right now I reserve judgement.

I think you are missing my point.
The mathematical nature of chemical logic does not fit into the terms of 
contemporary logic, yet chemist make calculations involving millions of atoms.

Why is that?

Neither does the nature of CSP's logic fit into contemporary logic.
Why?  Your personal research contributes to understanding some aspects of this 
problem.

The logic of natural sorts and kinds require numerical propositions that bridge 
the gap between the logics of physics and the logics of biology/medicine.  
Chemists developed methods to do calculations based on the atomic numbers. How 
does one formalize it?

Given the nature of species and reproduction, it is fairly obvious that 
statistical methods are of limited utility for such perplex problems.

That is one of my points.

Cheers

jerry



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies the unity”

2017-02-02 Thread Jerry LR Chandler

John, List:

> On Jan 31, 2017, at 1:05 AM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> 5. The assertion "Empiricists typically claim that we don't need anything 
> more to do science.” appears rather problematic to me. 
>  
> I don’t see this, Jerry. A typical example of a contemporary empiricist who 
> argues specifically this is Bas van Fraassen, who specifically takes this 
> view in his work, such as The Scientific Image. Classic empiricists like 
> Locke, Berkeley and Hume also take this view. I would hasten to add that I 
> distinguish between empiricism as a reductive sceptical constructivist 
> movement and empiricism as the view that our interactions with the world are 
> our only reliable touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the 
> truth. I agree with the latter, and I don’t think it implies nominalism. But 
> it also goes beyond classic empiricism, being more open to methods than 
> reliance on observation and combining and projecting observations 
> inductively. I would agree with Edwina and John Sowa that classic empiricism 
> has been tied together with certain sociological views, but I don’t think 
> that these are implied by the logic of empiricism. Stan Salthe is one who, it 
> seems to me, ties the sociological aspects into a common “discourse” that he 
> takes to define empiricism (but I think his alternative discourse makes the 
> same errors). I am not keen on discourses as unanalysable wholes. I think 
> they can be examined both internally and externally in a critical way. I 
> think the external criticism is often opened up by internal criticism (e.g., 
> Feyerabend’ s “Problems with empiricism” and Hanson’s work, as well as 
> Kuhn’s, of course, and Quine’s “Two dogmas of empiricism”).
>  
> John

You touch many bases in this paragraph, often rather adroitly.  I agree with 
several points. But, more importantly, it is what I find missing from this 
paragraph is the essential need to expand the scope of view from the science of 
physics to the science of biology and medicine.  Belief in raw empiricism does 
not negate the need for deep abstractions. Internality and externality are 
essential to systems as well. This requires a grammar of speciation that is 
remote from predicate logic and your oft-cited set theoretical deductions.  

It (empiricism) requires new symbolic competencies to integrate the meanings of 
the  symbol systems in the perplex or organic sciences. 

It also requires elaboration on the roles of electrical symbols as parts of 
wholes and as attractors and repellers that contribute to the spontaneity of 
life. 

Quine?  H…  From my perspective, I long ago discarded any role for Quine’s 
scientific illiteracy in the perplex number system or organic mathematics.

Why? Because his well known quote, ‘To be is to be a variable’ contradicts the 
logic of the table of elements and the derivation of the genetic code from it.

Let me suggest an alternative that can be derived from the table of physical 
elements:
"To be alive is to be a species.”

The logic of “The union of units unifies the unity”  under natural physical 
constraints (Newton’s and Coulomb’s laws) can be used to derive the graphic 
pathways.

Or, have I missed your point completely?

Cheers

Jerry

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