[peirce-l] Re: The composite photograph metaphor
Gary, This is to say that I am gratified and somewhat relieved to learn that you found something worthwhile in my "as if" post, and that I am not ignoringyour responses to my recent posts. On the contrary, you have prompted me to reexaminemy "Three Worlds"speculationtogether with some of the Peirce material that I included (especially CP 5.119 in connection with CP 4. 157) with the result that I am now thinking in terms both of some revision and expansion. It may take a while as I am now under some time constraints from which I had some reprieve over the last three weeks. In any case, if and when I think I have something cogent in hand I will post it. Charles PS The answer to your question off listabout who and where I am is yes. On Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:41:44 -0400 Gary Richmond [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Charles, list, One of the Peirce quotations in your "as if" post strongly supports your notion, reiterated here, that it is possible and, indeed, desirable to make a double trichotomic distinction of Sign - External Object - Interpreter and Sign - Immediate Object - Interpretant, and that especially the relation between these Inner and Outer semeiotic trichotomies might prove fertile grounds for further inquiry. I've myself (and bouncing off your "as if" post) have begun work reflecting upon and diagramming some of your questions, ideas, also my own abductions as to the relationship holding between the two triads, etc. However, it's much too early for me to offer a report on any of this except to say that you are asking some very stimulating questions, Charles, which have certainly gotten me thinking in refreshing new directions. In any case, here is the quotation in your "as if" post which I'm pointing to: Were I to undertake to establish the correctness of my statement that the cardinal numerals are without meaning, I should unavoidably be led into a disquisition upon the nature of language quite astray from my present purpose. I will only hint at what my defence of the statement would be by saying that, according to my view, there are three categories of being; ideas of feelings, acts of reaction, and habits. Habits are either habits about ideas of feelings or habits about acts of reaction. The ensemble of all habits about ideas of feeling constitutes one great habit which is a World; and the ensemble of all habits about acts of reaction constitutes a second great habit, which is another World. The former is the Inner World, the world of Plato's forms. The other is the Outer World, or universe of existence. The mind of man is adapted to the reality of being. Accordingly, there are two modes of association of ideas: inner association, based on the habits of the inner world, and outer association, based on the habits of the universe. (CP 4.157)Commenting on this passage you wrote: CR: I am also thinking that Consciousness as such is First for the Inner World, that the Present as such is First in the Outer World, and that Actionresponsiveness reactivenessthat mediates relations between the Inner and Outer Worlds creates a Third World and Third Worlds within worlds among which is the Human World, which, as I see it, would be to say that, as Peirce puts it, MAN is a Signa Representamen.Your present extension of this idea seems to me generally sound, while I am thinking at this point that one might extend the notion of Interpreter quite a bit further than you seem to be doing. For example, in biological evolution higher and more complex systems and structures tend to entrain less complex systems (making them sub-systems in respect to the evolutionary advances made) suggesting to me that there is something which receives contributes "as if" it were Interpreter, and so this sentient 'something' need not necessarily be human in contributing to "acts of representation". In other words, while it would appear to be true that from the standpoint of the further evolution of consciousness it is necessary that we humans direct ourselves to the reflective self-control of our own form of evolution (and all that this implies for re-presentation); yet without any help from us the cosmos apparently "represented" to itself exactly the patterns necessary for the evolution of that creature -- homo sapiens -- which could eventually undertake that very human self-reflective task (and where else would our power of representation come from if not from Firstness and Thirdness active in the Universe itself?--however, you may see my use of "represented" here as too vague and loose as to be useful). I might add that while we humans have seemingly not yet fulfilled our own evolutionary vocation--this being epitomized in my thinking of the past few year by especially the Engelbartian abduction of the
[peirce-l] Re: The composite photograph metaphor
Dear Ben, Joe, Folks -- Ben, are you saying that Peirce's categories (including representation) are inadequate to account for comparisons betweenknowledge gainedfrom direct aqauintance with a collateral object andknowledge gainedfrom a signofa collateral object? That when we make these sorts of comparisons weengage insome category of experience (such as checking, recognition. verification or the like) that is not accounted for in the Peircean categories? Is that basically what you are saying or am I missing your point? I want to make sure I'm stating the issue to your satisfaction before I launch into further reasons why I disagree with that view.I fear wewe may be talking past one another if we don't share a common understanding of what is at issue.So I want to make sure I'm correctly understanding what you take to be at issue. When and if you have the energy and interest, Ben. I admire your stamina and good cheer. And yours, too, Joe.I think that dispite its frustrating moments this has been a worthwhile discussion.For me the notion of what we can know and how we know it is atthecore of Peirce's philosophy.Each timethe listrevisits this issue in one form or another I gain a better understandingof what is a stake-- and also of someerroneous assumptions or conclusions that I have beenmaking.Thanks to all -- Jim Piat Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: Peirce Discussion Forum Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 3:15 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The "composite photograph" metaphor Joe, list, [Joe] I was just now rereading your response to Charles, attending particularly to your citation of Peirce's concern with verification, and I really don't see in what you quote from him on this anything more than the claim that it is the special concern for making sure that something that someone -- perhaps oneself -- has claimed to be a fact or has concluded to be so (which could be a conviction more or less tentatively held) really is a fact by putting the claim or acceptation of that conclusion to the test, in one way or another. This verificational activity could involve many different sorts of procedures, ranging from, say, reconsidering the premises supporting the claim as regards their cogency relative to the conclusion drawn to actively experimenting or observing further for the same purpose, including perhaps, as a rather special case, the case where one actually attempts to replicate the procedure cited as backing up the claim made. Scientific verification is really just a sophistication about ways of checking up on something about which one has some doubts, driven by an unusually strong concern for establishing something as "definitively" as possible, which is of course nothing more than an ideal of checking up on something so thoroughly that no real question about it will ever be raised again. But it is no different in principle from what we do in ordinary life when we try to "make sure" of something that we think might be so but about which we are not certain enough to satisfy us. The purpose (http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu/msg01288.htmlalso at http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/1344) of my quoting Peirceon verification was to counter Charles' claim that verification amounts to nothing more than one's acting as if a claim were true, and Charles'making it sound like there's something superfluous about verification, that it's somehow meaningless to think of really verifying or disverifying a claimed rule like "where there's smoke, there's fire," meaningless insofar as it supposedly involves indulging in Cartesian doubt and insofar one has already done whatever verificationone can do, by acting as if the claimed rule were true -- as if the way to understand verification were to understand it as a piece of symbolism about a rule only hyperbolically doubtable, understand verification as an act which stands as symbol (or, for that matter, as index or whatever) to another mind,rather than as an observing of sign as truly corresponding to object, and of interpretant as truly corresponding to sign and object. Verification does not need to be actually public and shared among very distinct minds, though it should be, at least in principle, sharable, potentially public in those ways. (Of course, _scientific_ verification has higher standards than that.) I quoted Peirce on verification to show that, in the Peircean view,the doubting of a claimed rule is not automatically a universal, hyperbolic, Cartesian doubt of the kind which Peirce rejects, especially rejects as a basis on which (a la Descartes)only deductive reasoning will be allowed to build -- a Cartesian needle's eye of doubt through which all philosophical ideas are mistakenly forced to pass or be
