Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear list,



I suppose the agreement we have achieved regarding Perfect Sign is what
Peirce must have meant when distinguishing between absolute truth and what
we do not doubt.  This analysis of our ultimate end of action is ready to
be deliberately adopted because it recommends itself in itself.  It is an
admirable ideal.  It possesses esthetic goodness.



I think this opinion is true.

I judge it to be good.

This is the upon which I am prepared and willing to act.



That is, it is assured that I am not engaged in “moral evil”,

for I am engaged in the active pursuit of *this*.



*In accordance with this, what you cannot in the least help believing is
not, justly speaking, wrong belief.  In other words, for you it is the
absolute truth.  *

*True, it is conceivable that what you cannot help believing to-day, you
might find you thoroughly disbelieve to-morrow. *



*In every stage of your excogitations, there is something of which you can
only say, “I cannot think otherwise,” and your experientially based
hypothesis is that the impossibility is of the second kind.  *



*Of course, that ultimate state of habit to which the action of
self-control ultimately tends, where no room is left for further
self-control, is, in the case of thought, the state of fixed belief, or
perfect knowledge.  *



*Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of and to remember.  *



*The first is that a person is not absolutely an individual.  *

*The second thing to remember is that the man’s circle of society is a sort
of loosely compacted person, in some respect of higher rank than the person
of an individual organism.  **But when a person finds himself in the
society of others, he is just as sure of their existence as of his own,
though he may entertain a metaphysical theory that they are
all hypostatically the same ego.*



*It is these two things alone that render it possible for you,- but only in
the abstract, and in a Pickwickian sense,- to distinguish between absolute
truth and what you do not doubt.  *

With best wishes,
Jerry R

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:29 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> Helmut, List:
>
> Obviously one should read the entire context of the quote, and not jump to
> conclusions based on the mere snippet that I offered to address a very
> specific point.
>
> CSP:  ... an ultimate end of action *deliberately *adopted,--that is to
> say, *reasonably *adopted,--must be a state of things that *reasonably
> recommends itself in itself* aside from any ulterior consideration. It
> must be an *admirable ideal*, having the only kind of goodness that such
> an ideal *can *have, namely, esthetic goodness. From this point of view
> the morally good appears as a particular species of the esthetically good.
> (CP 5.130, EP 2:201; 1903)
>
>
> Any end of action that fails this test is "An aim which cannot be adopted
> and consistently pursued ... It cannot properly be called an *ultimate
> aim* at all."  Therefore, anyone who actively pursues it is engaged in
> "moral evil."
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:13 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:
>
>> List,
>> the quote:
>>
>> CSP: But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate
>> end of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for
>> or against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which
>> can be consistently pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly
>> adopted, beyond all possible criticism, except the quite impertinent
>> criticism of outsiders. An aim which cannot be adopted and consistently
>> pursued is a bad aim. It cannot properly be called an *ultimate aim* at
>> all. The only moral evil is not to have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP
>> 2:202; 1903)
>>
>> is completely evil, isn´t it? It could be from Hitler or the IS. Had
>> Peirce eaten, drunk, or smoked something wrong before writing it?
>> Best, Helmut
>> 16. März 2018 um 22:34 Uhr
>>
>>  "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
>> wrote:
>> Gene, List:
>>
>> Thanks for your comments and questions.
>>
>> To clarify, all that I meant by "morally responsible Persons" was how I
>> defined "Person" in the previous thread on "Metaphysics of
>> Semiosis"--namely, "an embodied metaphysical Quasi-mind who additionally
>> has a *center of consciousness*, which provides a *unity of feeling* to
>> coordinate the corresponding continuity of reactions and bundle of habits,"
>> which "is what makes it possible to recognize the *Inner World* and
>> distinguish it from the *Outer World*," and thus exercise *self-control*.
>> As such, *every* Person is (by definition) "morally responsible"; i.e., 
>> subject
>> to moral approval *or *disapproval, praise *or *blame.
>>
>> The idea of *voluntary *participation comes from Peirce's remark that "the
>> ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of
>> the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Helmut, List:

Obviously one should read the entire context of the quote, and not jump to
conclusions based on the mere snippet that I offered to address a very
specific point.

CSP:  ... an ultimate end of action *deliberately *adopted,--that is to
say, *reasonably *adopted,--must be a state of things that *reasonably
recommends itself in itself* aside from any ulterior consideration. It must
be an *admirable ideal*, having the only kind of goodness that such an
ideal *can *have, namely, esthetic goodness. From this point of view the
morally good appears as a particular species of the esthetically good. (CP
5.130, EP 2:201; 1903)


Any end of action that fails this test is "An aim which cannot be adopted
and consistently pursued ... It cannot properly be called an *ultimate aim*
at all."  Therefore, anyone who actively pursues it is engaged in "moral
evil."

Regards,

Jon S.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 5:13 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:

> List,
> the quote:
>
> CSP: But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate
> end of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or
> against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which can
> be consistently pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted,
> beyond all possible criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of
> outsiders. An aim which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a
> bad aim. It cannot properly be called an *ultimate aim* at all. The only
> moral evil is not to have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)
>
> is completely evil, isn´t it? It could be from Hitler or the IS. Had
> Peirce eaten, drunk, or smoked something wrong before writing it?
> Best, Helmut
> 16. März 2018 um 22:34 Uhr
>
>  "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
> wrote:
> Gene, List:
>
> Thanks for your comments and questions.
>
> To clarify, all that I meant by "morally responsible Persons" was how I
> defined "Person" in the previous thread on "Metaphysics of
> Semiosis"--namely, "an embodied metaphysical Quasi-mind who additionally
> has a *center of consciousness*, which provides a *unity of feeling* to
> coordinate the corresponding continuity of reactions and bundle of habits,"
> which "is what makes it possible to recognize the *Inner World* and
> distinguish it from the *Outer World*," and thus exercise *self-control*.
> As such, *every* Person is (by definition) "morally responsible"; i.e., 
> subject
> to moral approval *or *disapproval, praise *or *blame.
>
> The idea of *voluntary *participation comes from Peirce's remark that "the
> ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of
> the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable
> whenever, as the slang is, it is 'up to us' to do so."  I have no objection
> to your suggestion that people can and do also participate unwittingly, or
> even unwillingly; but my point was to highlight the specific *ethical 
> *implication
> that Peirce drew from his identification of the *esthetic *ideal, the *summum
> bonum*.
>
>
> CSP:  But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate
> end of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or
> against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which can
> be consistently pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted,
> beyond all possible criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of
> outsiders. An aim which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a
> bad aim. It cannot properly be called an *ultimate aim* at all. The only
> moral evil is not to have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)
>
>
> As you might expect, my own rather traditional Christian theism is such
> that I part ways with Peirce on certain matters of religious philosophy.
> Statements like "sin is a creation of God" and "God delights in evil,"
> which are from R 890 (no date), are very much in that category.  What he
> wrote in "Evolutionary Love," amid various quotes from the Gospel and
> Epistle of John, is similar but somewhat less problematic for me.
>
>
> CSP:  Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller ... made the One Supreme
> Being, by whom all things have been made out of nothing, to be
> cherishing-love. What, then, can he say to hate? ... His statement that
> God is love seems aimed at that saying of Ecclesiastes that we cannot
> tell whether God bears us love or hatred. "Nay," says John, "we can tell,
> and very simply! We know and have trusted the love which God hath in us.
> God is love." There is no logic in this, unless it means that God loves all
> men ... We are to understand, then, that as darkness is merely the defect
> of light, so hatred and evil are mere imperfect stages of {agapé} and
> {agathon}, love and loveliness ... That is to say, God visits no
> punishment on them; they punish themselves, by their natural affinity for
> the defective. Thus, the love that God is, 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Helmut Raulien]

List,

the quote:



CSP: But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate end of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which can be consistently pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted, beyond all possible criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of outsiders. An aim which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a bad aim. It cannot properly be called an ultimate aim at all. The only moral evil is not to have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)


is completely evil, isn´t it? It could be from Hitler or the IS. Had Peirce eaten, drunk, or smoked something wrong before writing it?

Best, Helmut


 

16. März 2018 um 22:34 Uhr
 "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
wrote:


Gene, List:
 

Thanks for your comments and questions.

 

To clarify, all that I meant by "morally responsible Persons" was how I defined "Person" in the previous thread on "Metaphysics of Semiosis"--namely, "an embodied metaphysical Quasi-mind who additionally has a center of consciousness, which provides a unity of feeling to coordinate the corresponding continuity of reactions and bundle of habits," which "is what makes it possible to recognize the Inner World and distinguish it from the Outer World," and thus exercise self-control.  As such, every Person is (by definition) "morally responsible"; i.e., subject to moral approval or disapproval, praise or blame.

 

The idea of voluntary participation comes from Peirce's remark that "the ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is, it is 'up to us' to do so."  I have no objection to your suggestion that people can and do also participate unwittingly, or even unwillingly; but my point was to highlight the specific ethical implication that Peirce drew from his identification of the esthetic ideal, the summum bonum.

 


CSP:  But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate end of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which can be consistently pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted, beyond all possible criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of outsiders. An aim which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a bad aim. It cannot properly be called an ultimate aim at all. The only moral evil is not to have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)


 

As you might expect, my own rather traditional Christian theism is such that I part ways with Peirce on certain matters of religious philosophy.  Statements like "sin is a creation of God" and "God delights in evil," which are from R 890 (no date), are very much in that category.  What he wrote in "Evolutionary Love," amid various quotes from the Gospel and Epistle of John, is similar but somewhat less problematic for me.

 


CSP:  Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller ... made the One Supreme Being, by whom all things have been made out of nothing, to be cherishing-love. What, then, can he say to hate? ... His statement that God is love seems aimed at that saying of Ecclesiastes that we cannot tell whether God bears us love or hatred. "Nay," says John, "we can tell, and very simply! We know and have trusted the love which God hath in us. God is love." There is no logic in this, unless it means that God loves all men ... We are to understand, then, that as darkness is merely the defect of light, so hatred and evil are mere imperfect stages of {agapé} and {agathon}, love and loveliness ... That is to say, God visits no punishment on them; they punish themselves, by their natural affinity for the defective. Thus, the love that God is, is not a love of which hatred is the contrary; otherwise Satan would be a coordinate power; but it is a love which embraces hatred as an imperfect stage of it, an Anteros--yea, even needs hatred and hatefulness as its object. For self-love is no love; so if God's self is love, that which he loves must be defect of love; just as a luminary can light up only that which otherwise would be dark ...

 

Everybody can see that the statement of St. John is the formula of an evolutionary philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love, from I will not say self-sacrifice, but from the ardent impulse to fulfill another's highest impulse ... Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in the hateful, gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely. That is the sort of evolution which every careful student of my essay "The Law of Mind" must see that synechism calls for. (CP 6.287-289; 1893)


 

From my own perspective, rather than Peirce's--the bad news of the Law is that all men (and women) are evil and inclined to hatred, and separated from God accordingly; but the good news of the Gospel 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Matt, List:

Have you read my essay on "A Neglected Additament" yet?  It touches on
these kinds of considerations.  Briefly ...

CSP:  But is it a fact that man possesses this magical faculty? Not, I
reply, to the extent of guessing right the first time, nor perhaps the
second; but that the well-prepared mind has wonderfully soon guessed each
secret of nature is historical truth. All the theories of science have been
so obtained ... There is a reason, an interpretation, a logic, in the
course of scientific advance; and this indisputably proves to him who has
perceptions of rational, or significant, relations, that man's mind must
have been attuned to the truth of things in order to discover what he has
discovered. It is the very bedrock of logical truth. (CP 6.476, EP 2:444;
1908)


Spontaneous conjectures that qualify as genuine insights are only likely to
arise "wonderfully soon" in a mind that is "well-prepared."  While I
believe that we can become more and more "attuned to the truth of things"
through deliberate training, especially when we concentrate on a particular
field of inquiry, I readily acknowledge that some people are also simply
more gifted in this way than others.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 4:04 PM, Matt Faunce 
wrote:

> Jon, Edwina, and List,
>
> If each of us has a connection to the infinite world, in that world, for
> every one truth there are infinite falsehoods. We have a connection to
> those falsehoods too. So, given infinity, we search for what's true despite
> the fact that 1/infinity=zero. If the world isn't infinite, but some
> astronomical number, the problem of scientific progress isn't that
> good-luck guesses are impossible but that these guesses would still only
> yield an exceedingly slower rate of discovery than what we witness.
>
> Here's Peirce on the problem:
>
> "It is evident that unless man had some inward light tending to make his
> guesses on these subjects much more often true than they would be by mere
> chance, the human race would long ago have been extirpated for its utter
> incapacity in the struggles for existence; or if some protection had kept
> it continually multiplying, the time from the tertiary epoch to our own
> would be altogether too short to expect that the human race could yet have
> made its first happy guess in any science."
>
> He continues with this explanation:
>
> "The mind of man has been formed under the action of the laws of nature,
> and therefore it is not so very surprising to find that its constitution is
> such that, when we can get rid of caprices, idiosyncrasies, and other
> perturbations, its thoughts naturally show a tendency to agree with the
> laws of nature."
>
> So, we have an "inward light" due to our minds having been "formed under
> the action of the laws of nature."
>
> Does synechism have a feature, called "inward light", which favors
> connections to true propositions over false propositions? It must, but how
> can that be explained?
>
> Is this problematic? Some men *seem* to have a brighter light than others:
>
> "But it is one thing to say that the human mind has a sufficient magnetic
> turning toward the truth to cause the right guess to be made in the course
> of centuries during which a hundred good guesses have been unceasingly
> occupied in endeavoring to make such a guess, and a far different thing to
> say that the first guess that may happen to possess Tom, Dick, or Harry has
> any appreciably greater probability of being true than false."
>
> Formation "under the action of the laws of nature" doesn't explain why
> this light seems brighter in some men than in others. Peirce explains (or
> suggests?) differences in abductive abilities by the differences of their
> methods:
>
> "It is necessary to remember that even those unparalleled intelligences
> would certainly not have guessed right if they had not all possessed a
> great art of so subdividing their guesses as to give to each one almost the
> character of self-evidence."
>
> However, recent research, led by Zach Hambrick, has been showing that
> people are not equally endowed; method and practice do not explain the
> ability gap. I find this problematic for Peirce's explanation of "inward
> light."
>
> It still seems like magic to me, especially as compared with how
> contructivism in a 'robust relative' philosophy explains how discovery of
> truths is possible, viz., that people discover only what people have
> created (including artifacts, or spandrels, i.e., consequences of what
> people created), and each discovery was merely of what is most useful from
> the lot which was actually searched, rather than each discovery being what
> is eternally true and found from searching the whole world: the problem for
> Margolis isn't <1/infinity> or 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Gene, List:

Thanks for your comments and questions.

To clarify, all that I meant by "morally responsible Persons" was how I
defined "Person" in the previous thread on "Metaphysics of
Semiosis"--namely, "an embodied metaphysical Quasi-mind who additionally
has a *center of consciousness*, which provides a *unity of feeling* to
coordinate the corresponding continuity of reactions and bundle of habits,"
which "is what makes it possible to recognize the *Inner World* and
distinguish it from the *Outer World*," and thus exercise *self-control*.
As such, *every* Person is (by definition) "morally responsible"; i.e., subject
to moral approval *or *disapproval, praise *or *blame.

The idea of *voluntary *participation comes from Peirce's remark that "the
ideal of conduct will be to execute our little function in the operation of
the creation by giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable
whenever, as the slang is, it is 'up to us' to do so."  I have no objection
to your suggestion that people can and do also participate unwittingly, or
even unwillingly; but my point was to highlight the specific *ethical
*implication
that Peirce drew from his identification of the *esthetic *ideal, the *summum
bonum*.

CSP:  But the instant that an esthetic ideal is proposed as an ultimate end
of action, at that instant a categorical imperative pronounces for or
against it ... So then, it appears to me that any aim whatever which
can be consistently
pursued becomes, as soon as it is unfalteringly adopted, beyond all possible
criticism, except the quite impertinent criticism of outsiders. An aim
which cannot be adopted and consistently pursued is a bad aim. It cannot
properly be called an *ultimate aim* at all. The only moral evil is not to
have an ultimate aim. (CP 5.133, EP 2:202; 1903)


As you might expect, my own rather traditional Christian theism is such
that I part ways with Peirce on certain matters of religious philosophy.
Statements like "sin is a creation of God" and "God delights in evil,"
which are from R 890 (no date), are very much in that category.  What he
wrote in "Evolutionary Love," amid various quotes from the Gospel and
Epistle of John, is similar but somewhat less problematic for me.

CSP:  Nevertheless, the ontological gospeller ... made the One Supreme
Being, by whom all things have been made out of nothing, to be
cherishing-love. What, then, can he say to hate? ... His statement that God
is love seems aimed at that saying of Ecclesiastes that we cannot tell
whether God bears us love or hatred. "Nay," says John, "we can tell, and
very simply! We know and have trusted the love which God hath in us. God is
love." There is no logic in this, unless it means that God loves all men ... We
are to understand, then, that as darkness is merely the defect of light, so
hatred and evil are mere imperfect stages of {agapé} and {agathon}, love
and loveliness ... That is to say, God visits no punishment on them; they
punish themselves, by their natural affinity for the defective. Thus, the love
that God is, is not a love of which hatred is the contrary; otherwise Satan
would be a coordinate power; but it is a love which embraces hatred as an
imperfect stage of it, an Anteros--yea, even needs hatred and hatefulness
as its object. For self-love is no love; so if God's self is love, that
which he loves must be defect of love; just as a luminary can light up only
that which otherwise would be dark ...

Everybody can see that the statement of St. John is the formula of an
evolutionary
philosophy, which teaches that growth comes only from love, from I will not
say self-*sacrifice*, but from the ardent impulse to fulfill another's
highest impulse ... Love, recognizing germs of loveliness in the hateful,
gradually warms it into life, and makes it lovely. That is the sort of
evolution which every careful student of my essay "The Law of Mind" must
see that *synechism *calls for. (CP 6.287-289; 1893)


>From my own perspective, rather than Peirce's--the bad news of the Law is
that all men (and women) are evil and inclined to hatred, and separated
from God accordingly; but the good news of the Gospel is that God indeed
loves all men (and women) anyway, and sent His only Son ("the Word became
flesh," John 1:14) to die and rise again in order to redeem us and restore
us to a right relationship with Him.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 3:27 PM, Eugene Halton 
wrote:

> Dear Jon S,
>  I enjoyed reading your Additament article.
>  In your post from this morning you say: " As embodied metaphysical
> Quasi-minds, we are both constituents and interpreters of the Universe as
> God's great Symbol and Argument.  Furthermore, as morally responsible
> Persons, we can also be contributors to it--we have the opportunity (and
> privilege) to participate voluntarily in God's still-unfolding creative
> activity.  The Perfect Sign thus serves as an ideal, or regulative hope,
> which would be 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Matt Faunce]

Jon, Edwina, and List,

If each of us has a connection to the infinite world, in that world, for
every one truth there are infinite falsehoods. We have a connection to
those falsehoods too. So, given infinity, we search for what's true despite
the fact that 1/infinity=zero. If the world isn't infinite, but some
astronomical number, the problem of scientific progress isn't that
good-luck guesses are impossible but that these guesses would still only
yield an exceedingly slower rate of discovery than what we witness.

Here's Peirce on the problem:

"It is evident that unless man had some inward light tending to make his
guesses on these subjects much more often true than they would be by mere
chance, the human race would long ago have been extirpated for its utter
incapacity in the struggles for existence; or if some protection had kept
it continually multiplying, the time from the tertiary epoch to our own
would be altogether too short to expect that the human race could yet have
made its first happy guess in any science."

He continues with this explanation:

"The mind of man has been formed under the action of the laws of nature,
and therefore it is not so very surprising to find that its constitution is
such that, when we can get rid of caprices, idiosyncrasies, and other
perturbations, its thoughts naturally show a tendency to agree with the
laws of nature."

So, we have an "inward light" due to our minds having been "formed under
the action of the laws of nature."

Does synechism have a feature, called "inward light", which favors
connections to true propositions over false propositions? It must, but how
can that be explained?

Is this problematic? Some men *seem* to have a brighter light than others:

"But it is one thing to say that the human mind has a sufficient magnetic
turning toward the truth to cause the right guess to be made in the course
of centuries during which a hundred good guesses have been unceasingly
occupied in endeavoring to make such a guess, and a far different thing to
say that the first guess that may happen to possess Tom, Dick, or Harry has
any appreciably greater probability of being true than false."

Formation "under the action of the laws of nature" doesn't explain why this
light seems brighter in some men than in others. Peirce explains (or
suggests?) differences in abductive abilities by the differences of their
methods:

"It is necessary to remember that even those unparalleled intelligences
would certainly not have guessed right if they had not all possessed a
great art of so subdividing their guesses as to give to each one almost the
character of self-evidence."

However, recent research, led by Zach Hambrick, has been showing that
people are not equally endowed; method and practice do not explain the
ability gap. I find this problematic for Peirce's explanation of "inward
light."

It still seems like magic to me, especially as compared with how
contructivism in a 'robust relative' philosophy explains how discovery of
truths is possible, viz., that people discover only what people have
created (including artifacts, or spandrels, i.e., consequences of what
people created), and each discovery was merely of what is most useful from
the lot which was actually searched, rather than each discovery being what
is eternally true and found from searching the whole world: the problem for
Margolis isn't <1/infinity> or <1/astronomical-number>, but it's  where Tyche isn't such
a devil.

All Peirce quotes are from MS 692.

Matt


On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 2:31 PM Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> Matt, List:
>
> There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's
> philosophy.  It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things
> (synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between
> Reality and Mind, including human minds.  While Reality is indeed
> independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual 
> *minds
> may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*.  This
> is precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at
> the end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every *
> Sign--*would *perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the
> perfect (or absolute) Truth.  In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs
> may turn out to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we
> have no good reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and
> until we are confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an
> unpleasant surprise that forces us to reconsider it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Matt Faunce 
> wrote:
>
>> Edwina,
>>
>> In Margolis's philosophy, habits are bound to eventually be overcome by

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Eugene Halton]

Dear Jon S,
 I enjoyed reading your Additament article.
 In your post from this morning you say: " As embodied metaphysical
Quasi-minds, we are both constituents and interpreters of the Universe as
God's great Symbol and Argument.  Furthermore, as morally responsible
Persons, we can also be contributors to it--we have the opportunity (and
privilege) to participate voluntarily in God's still-unfolding creative
activity.  The Perfect Sign thus serves as an ideal, or regulative hope,
which would be achieved if all of us were to become fully welded with the
eternal Mind who is our Creator."

 Accepting for the moment the context of your argument, I'm wondering,
if I understand you correctly, why you seem to limit human contribution to
ongoing creation to "morally responsible Persons," and participation to
"voluntarily." What about "aesthetically expressive Persons" contributing,
and participating, say, from a deeply enraptured wonder beyond simply
voluntary?

And, and I realize I am pushing it, what about the possibility of
"morally irresponsible Persons," or even of evil as a contributor to
ongoing creation? I realize this is an offputting idea, it is for me. But
Hillary Putnam quoted a passage from a Peirce unpublished manuscript (I
don't have its number): "The only solution to the problem of evil is to
recognize that the Supreme Love embraces hate as a variety of itself, and
that sin is a creation of God, and as such, is good in certain stage[s] of
development. God delights in evil."

 Gene Halton


On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:58 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> List:
>
> If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect Sign,
> what would be its Object?  What is perpetually acting upon it with new
> Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously dormant energy?
> What has the absolute freedom to introduce spontaneous changes into it?  In
> other words, what *sustains* the Universe as something that is living and
> growing, rather than succumbing to "the complete induration of habit
> reducing the free play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to
> complete death" (CP 6.201; 1898)?
>
>
>
> CSP:  ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's
> purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol
> [3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions [2ns]
> and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as these reactions and
> these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the
> Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument. (CP 5.119, EP
> 2:193-194; 1903)
>
>
>
> Consistent with the conclusion of my recently published essay, "A
> Neglected Additament:  Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of
> God," the Dynamic Object of the Universe as the Perfect Sign is its perfect
> Utterer, *God Himself*, infinitely incomprehensible to us.  Its Immediate
> Object is *God's purpose*, which is the development of Reason, including
> the growth of our knowledge of God and of this Universe that He has
> created--*and is still creating*.
>
>
>
> CSP:  This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in
> embodiment, that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe, which
> did not take place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004 B.C., but
> is going on today and never will be done, is this very developement of
> Reason. I do not see how one can have a more satisfying ideal of the
> admirable than the development of Reason so understood. The one thing whose
> admirableness is not due to an ulterior Reason is Reason itself
> comprehended in all its fullness, so far as we can comprehend it. (CP
> 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
>
>
>
> This is the *summum bonum* in accordance with the normative science of
> esthetics.  Peirce went on to draw the corresponding ethical and logical
> implications, since what he described as "Practice" and "Theory" in EP
> 2:304 correspond to "embodiment" and "manifestation" here, respectively.
>
>
>
> CSP:  Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute our
> little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand toward
> rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is, it is "up to
> us" to do so. In logic, it will be observed that knowledge is
> reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be to follow such methods
> as must develop knowledge the most speedily. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)
>
>
>
> As embodied metaphysical Quasi-minds, we are both *constituents* and
> *interpreters* of the Universe as God's great Symbol and Argument.  
> Furthermore,
> as morally responsible Persons, we can also be *contributors* to it--we
> have the opportunity (and privilege) to participate *voluntarily *in
> God's still-unfolding creative activity.  The Perfect Sign thus serves as
> an ideal, or regulative hope, which *would* be achieved if all of us
> *were* to become fully welded 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

It is a very common and well-established practice--certainly in the
secondary literature on Peirce, as well as in general--to employ [brackets]
when inserting clarifying content into a quotation, and (parentheses) when
the author used either parentheses or brackets in the original work.  For
example, see http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/brackets.html.

In my opinion, given his own unmistakably explicit statements about his
metaphysical and religious views, it is indefensible to argue that Peirce
was anything other than a committed theist, especially late in his life.
Where did the Universe as symbol, argument, work of art, poem, symphony,
and painting come from, if not "a metaphysical agency"?  As genuine Signs,
Symbols and Arguments require an Utterer; and works of art require an
artist, whether poet, composer, or painter.  What are the three Universes
as "Modalities of Being" (EP 2:478; 1908), if not metaphysical
manifestations of the three Categories?  One certainly need not be a
theist *oneself
*in order to interpret Peirce correctly, but--again, in my opinion--one
cannot claim to be interpreting Peirce correctly while insisting that *he *was
not a theist.  He did not leave that option open to us; here are just two
obvious examples.

CSP:  So, then, the question being whether I believe in the reality of God,
I answer, Yes. (CP 6.496; c. 1906)


CSP:  The word "God," so "capitalized" (as we Americans say), is *the
*definable
proper name, signifying *Ens necessarium*: in my belief Really creator of
all three Universes of Experience. (CP 6.452, EP 2:434; 1908)


Regards,

Jon S.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:57 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Gary R, list:
>
> 1] Of course I know that the terms 1ns, 2ns, 3ns are your terms. But
> others who are not familiar with Peirce's work or the habits-of-this-list
> might not be so aware. So, nit-picking it may be, but I'll stand by my
> request to differentiate one's insertions from that of a copied text.
>
> 2] With regard to the 'reality' of God - I am aware that JAS is a deeply
> committed theist - but - I reject the view that Peirce Is such.  Certainly
> Peirce wrote:
>
> "I shall reply that the universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol
> of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities" 5.119
>
> He also wrote:: "The Universe as an argument is necessarily a great work
> of art, a great poem - for every fine argument is a poem and a symphony -
> just as every true poem is a sound argument. But let us compare it rather
> with a painting...".5.119
>
> And - his discussion in 'the Reality of God [6.490 - compares this 'force
> with Pure Mind' -
>
> So- I think one has to compare the descriptions of the common conception
> of 'god' s a metaphysical agency with Peirce's description - and there is
> frankly, nothing metaphysical about Peirce's description. Instead, Peirce
> roots the term 'god' in the operation of the three categories - which are
> NOT metaphysical but operations of pragmatic semiosis.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Fri 16/03/18 2:05 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina, Jon, list,
>
> Edwina wrote:
>
> ET: 1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce,
> please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote below
> from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in the
> original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these are
> incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the clear
> difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it. Therefore -
> please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are your
> additions...that's all.
>
> To me this sounds like so much nit-picking. Not only does Peirce not use
> brackets in this way to my knowledge, but 3ns, 2ns, 1ns are abbreviations I
> invented a couple of decades ago and which some, including Jon, use rather
> than the more cumbersome thirdness, secondness, and firstness. I doubt that
> anyone on this list would think that 1ns, 2ns, 3ns reflect Peirce's own
> usage within or with out brackets.
>
> ET: 2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
> irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply
> opinions.
>
> Again, I completely disagree with you that Jon's analysis is simply an
> opinion. He brings together Peirce's own conception of "the Universe [as]
> a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose" with recent
> discussions of and his own reflections on the Quasi-Mind,
> Utterer-Interpreter, and Perfect Sign--all from Peirce's late work in
> semeiotic and in the context of his extraordinarily compelling, in my
> opinion (and, of course, this is simply my opinion) analysis in his
> paper, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality
> of God (see the link below).
>
> He does this--and even in this recent post--in a way which to my mind
> complements Peirce's own 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Gary Richmond]

Jon, list,

Jon wrote:

JAS: There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's
philosophy.  It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things
(synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between
Reality and Mind, including human minds.  While Reality is indeed
independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual *minds
may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*.  This is
precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at the
end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every *Sign--
*would *perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the perfect (or
absolute) Truth.  In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs may turn out
to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we have no good
reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and until we are
confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an unpleasant surprise
that forces us to reconsider it.


I know that you like to bring Peircean concepts together in as complete yet
as succinct a way that you can while retaining the complexity of the
relations of the component ideas in your summary synthesis. In this
paragraph you've seemed to outdone yourself in bringing together in a most
cogent manner: *retroduction*, *continuity*, *synechism*, *(independent)*
*Reality*, *Mind*, *regulative hope*, *final opinion*, *infinite inquiry,
ultimate interpretant*, *perfect (absolute) Truth*, and *fallibilism*.

I have put this in my file of thoughts "to be inscribed on every wall of
the city of philosophy"--well, at least on the walls of Arisbe :-)
This is to simply to say that I view it as a very rich summary of certain
essential concepts of Peirce's Realism.

See, also, Susan Haack's *Transactions* paper, "Do not block the way of
inquiry" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2612013 as
your brief comments immediately made me think of it, esp. the section of
its Abstract which capsule content I've put in boldface below.

Abstract

The first goal is to understand why Peirce describes his motto, "Do Not
Block the Way of Inquiry," as a corollary of the "first rule of reason,"
why he believes it deserves to be inscribed on every wall of the city of
philosophy, and what he has in mind when he characterizes the various
barricades philosophers set up, the many obstacles they put in the path of
inquiry. *This soon leads us to important, substantive themes in Peirce's
meta-philosophical, cosmological, metaphysical, logical, and
epistemological work* (§1). However, it also leads us to what might seem to
be a tension in his account of the motives for inquiry. So the second goal
is to track the source of this apparent tension, and to show how Peirce
resolved it (§2). But the ultimate goal is to explain why Peirce's warning
against blocking the way of inquiry is no less important, given the
condition of philosophy today, than it was when he offered it more than a
century ago-perhaps even more so (§3).


I don't know whether there is a *strong* connection here, but that the
"first rule of reason" and its corollary are important precepts in Peirce's
theory of inquiry within pragmaticism, occurring as they do in the third
branch of logic as semeiotic--preceding the possible application of what
has been discovered in semeiotic to considerations in the last of the
cenoscopic sciences, metaphysics--*that* may be what brought Haack's paper
to my mind.

Best,

Gary




*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690*

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 2:31 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> Matt, List:
>
> There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's
> philosophy.  It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things
> (synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between
> Reality and Mind, including human minds.  While Reality is indeed
> independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual 
> *minds
> may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*.  This
> is precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at
> the end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every *
> Sign--*would *perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the
> perfect (or absolute) Truth.  In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs
> may turn out to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we
> have no good reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and
> until we are confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an
> unpleasant surprise that forces us to reconsider it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:02 PM, 

[PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Matt, list:

I am unaware that 'abuction' provides any 'magical power. And I
don't think that Peirce considers that objective reality is
'independent of finite minds'. That is - what is unknowable by our
minds is unknowable. Peirce's objective reality is that it exists -
regardless of what you or I think about it - but - we can THINK about
it. I  don't understand how you see abduction fitting into this
interaction.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/03/18  2:02 PM , Matt Faunce matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina,
 In Margolis's philosophy, habits are bound to eventually be overcome
by the flux of life. So if he's right, everything about Margolis's own
philosophy will eventually pass into irrelevance except the rule that
flux > habit. (Flux is greater than habit.) That rule looks to me to
be his achilles heel, because it needs to stay true; whereas Peirce's
achilles heel is the magical power of abduction to bridge the
correspondence gap between a reality that's independent of finite
minds and the finite minds that inquire into reality. 
 "Insufferably arrogant" was a bit of an exaggeration, as I'm willing
to suffer through reading his arrogant comments in order to learn what
I can.
 Matt 
 On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:41 AM Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Matt, list:

You wrote:
 "He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly
the truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
irrelevance."

I'm uncertain of your meaning. Are you defining Peirce as
'insufferably arrogant' and declaring that his philosophy was merely
relative to the time - and is certain [bound] to become irrelevant? 

Edwina Taborsky
 On Thu 15/03/18  9:39 PM , Matt Faunce matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com
[2] sent:
 Yeah. Apparently Nathan Houser pointed that CP 5.555 mistake,
because Margolis apologized for it in Rethinking Peirce's
Fallibilism. (bottom of pg. 243 into the top of pg. 244 of
Transactions, vol. 43, no. 2. from 2007.)
 Anyway, the only reason I brought up Margolis was as an example of
an equal competitor to Peirce's realism; and that point was merely to
highlight that fact that given the fact that empirical support for
Peirce's realism is so-far very weak, the thing that kept Peirce so
passionately driven to defending it must have been a belief in some
rationalistic support for it. The reason I brought that up was
because of his quip scoffing at rationalism in the same breath as he
scoffed political/social views that he opposed: 
 Peirce: "Being a convinced Pragmaticist in Semeiotic, naturally and
necessarily nothing can appear to me sillier than rationalism; and
folly in politics can go no further than English liberalism. The
people ought to be enslaved..." 
 Although Margolis has his moments of arrogance, e.g., calling
Peirce's experiment of dropping the stone "comical", Joseph Margolis
much more often strikes me as more humble than Peirce. For example,
at the end a short overview of one of his books, an article called
"Joseph Margolis on the Arts and the Definition of the Human", he
writes this: 
 "I don't pretend to determine whether the world is a flux or depends
in some ultimate invariance. I think we must decide for ourselves,
however, if the conception of a fluxive world can complete
effectively with the usual commitments to invariance." 
 He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly
the truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
irrelevance. 
 I still have yet to read Parker and Hausman. I'll keep in mind your
point about Savan.
 Matt
 On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 7:10 PM Jon Alan Schmidt  wrote:
  Matt, List:
 Those two articles are indeed on JSTOR--that is how I was able to
access them--and so is a 1998 one by Margolis, "Peirce's
Fallibilism."  Having just finished reading the latter, I am afraid
that it includes yet another clear misinterpretation of Peirce--in
fact, a blatant misrepresentation.
 JM:  Let me put one paradox before you that is particularly baffling
but well worth solving. In discussing the nature and relationship
between truth and reality, Peirce says the following two things,
which strike me as required by his doctrine but incompatible with it
as well: 
 the act of knowing a real object alters it. (5.555)
 Reality is that mode of being by virtue of which the real thing is
as it is, irrespectively of what any mind or any definite collection
of minds may represent it to be. (5.565) 
 It would be hard to find two brief remarks as closely juxtaposed
Peirce's texts as these that are as central to fallibilism as they
are, are as characteristically Peircean, and that are as completely
incompatible as they seem to be. (p. 549)
 I was quite startled by the first quote, because elsewhere 

: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gary R, list:

1] Of course I know that the terms 1ns, 2ns, 3ns are your terms. But
others who are not familiar with Peirce's work or the
habits-of-this-list might not be so aware. So, nit-picking it may be,
but I'll stand by my request to differentiate one's insertions from
that of a copied text.

2] With regard to the 'reality' of God - I am aware that JAS is a
deeply committed theist - but - I reject the view that Peirce Is
such.  Certainly Peirce wrote:

"I shall reply that the universe is a vast representamen, a great
symbol of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living
realities" 5.119

He also wrote:: "The Universe as an argument is necessarily a great
work of art, a great poem - for every fine argument is a poem and a
symphony - just as every true poem is a sound argument. But let us
compare it rather with a painting...".5.119

And - his discussion in 'the Reality of God [6.490 - compares this
'force with Pure Mind' - 

So- I think one has to compare the descriptions of the common
conception of 'god' s a metaphysical agency with Peirce's description
- and there is frankly, nothing metaphysical about Peirce's
description. Instead, Peirce roots the term 'god' in the operation of
the three categories - which are NOT metaphysical but operations of
pragmatic semiosis.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/03/18  2:05 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, Jon, list,

Edwina wrote:

ET: 1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from
Peirce, please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In
the quote below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns]
are NOT in the original text but are your own commentary. I'm not
saying these are incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader
ought to know the clear difference between Peirce's text and your own
additions to it. Therefore - please inform the reader that the
bracketed terms are your additions...that's all.
To me this sounds like so much nit-picking. Not only does Peirce not
use brackets in this way to my knowledge, but 3ns, 2ns, 1ns are
abbreviations I invented a couple of decades ago and which some,
including Jon, use rather than the more cumbersome thirdness,
secondness, and firstness. I doubt that anyone on this list would
think that 1ns, 2ns, 3ns reflect Peirce's own usage within or with
out brackets. 

 ET: 2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply
opinions.

Again, I completely disagree with you that Jon's analysis is simply
an opinion. He brings together Peirce's own conception of "the
Universe [as] a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose"
with recent discussions of and his own reflections on the Quasi-Mind,
Utterer-Interpreter, and Perfect Sign--all from Peirce's late work in
semeiotic and in the context of his extraordinarily compelling, in my
opinion (and, of course, this  is simply my opinion) analysis in his
paper, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the
Reality of God (see the link below). 

He does this--and even in this recent post--in a way which to my
mind complements Peirce's own analysis of the universe as a symbol of
God's work. Along with other better known Peircean phenomenological
and semiotic notions (the categories, icon/index/symbol) he seems
moving in the direction of a deepening of that part of Peirce's
metaphysics which explicitly concerns God by applying these late
semiotic ideas.  

Finally, Jon offers this most recent message as the beginning of the
unpacking of a hypothesis. JAS: "If my latest hypothesis is correct
that the Universe is the Perfect Sign, what would be its Object?" You
may argue against his analysis on phenomenological, semeiotic, or
metaphysical grounds, but to dismiss it out of hand seems to me much
more like mere opinion than Jon's message (which, as I see it, is not
opinion at all). Peirce *was* a theist, and those who are theists (and
even those who aren't) may find Jon's work of considerable interest as
in effect developing and deepening these semeiotic/metaphysical ideas
of Peirce. See, especially, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic,
Cosmology, and the Reality of God, published recently in the journal,
Signs.  

https://tidsskrift.dk/signs/article/view/103187/152244 [1]

Best,

Gary 
  Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690 [2]
 On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Jon, list:

1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce,
please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote
below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in
the 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Matt, List:

There is nothing "magical" about the power of retroduction in Peirce's
philosophy.  It is a direct result of the *continuity *of all things
(synechism), which entails that there is no "correspondence gap" between
Reality and Mind, including human minds.  While Reality is indeed
independent of what you or I or any *discrete* collection of *individual *minds
may think about it, it is not independent of thought *in general*.  This is
precisely the basis for the regulative hope that the final opinion at the
end of *infinite *inquiry--the *ultimate *Interpretant of *every *Sign--*would
*perfectly conform to Reality, and thus constitute the perfect (or
absolute) Truth.  In the meantime, any or all of our beliefs may turn out
to be mistaken--that is the principle of fallibilism--but we have no good
reason to doubt any one of them in particular, unless and until we are
confronted by the "outward clash" of experience with an unpleasant surprise
that forces us to reconsider it.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 1:02 PM, Matt Faunce 
wrote:

> Edwina,
>
> In Margolis's philosophy, habits are bound to eventually be overcome by
> the flux of life. So if he's right, everything about Margolis's own
> philosophy will eventually pass into irrelevance except the rule that flux
> > habit. (Flux is greater than habit.) That rule looks to me to be his
> achilles heel, because it needs to stay true; whereas Peirce's achilles
> heel is the magical power of abduction to bridge the correspondence gap
> between a reality that's independent of finite minds and the finite minds
> that inquire into reality.
>
> "Insufferably arrogant" was a bit of an exaggeration, as I'm willing to
> suffer through reading his arrogant comments in order to learn what I can.
>
> Matt
>
> On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:41 AM Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Matt, list:
>>
>> You wrote:
>> "He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
>> arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly the
>> truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
>> irrelevance."
>>
>> I'm uncertain of your meaning. Are you defining Peirce as 'insufferably
>> arrogant' and declaring that his philosophy was merely relative to the time
>> - and is certain [bound] to become irrelevant?
>>
>> Edwina Taborsky
>>
>

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Gary Richmond]

Edwina, Jon, list,

Edwina wrote:

ET: 1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce,
please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote below
from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in the
original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these are
incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the clear
difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it. Therefore -
please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are your
additions...that's all.

To me this sounds like so much nit-picking. Not only does Peirce *not* use
brackets in this way to my knowledge, but 3ns, 2ns, 1ns are abbreviations I
invented a couple of decades ago and which some, including Jon, use rather
than the more cumbersome thirdness, secondness, and firstness. I doubt that
anyone on this list would think that 1ns, 2ns, 3ns reflect Peirce's own
usage within or with out brackets.

ET: 2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply
opinions.

Again, I completely disagree with you that Jon's analysis is simply an
opinion. He brings together Peirce's own conception of "the Universe [as] a
vast representamen, a great symbol of God's purpose" with recent
discussions of and his own reflections on the Quasi-Mind,
Utterer-Interpreter, and Perfect Sign--all from Peirce's late work in
semeiotic and in the context of his extraordinarily compelling, in my
opinion (and, of course, this *is* simply my opinion) analysis in his
paper, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality
of God (see the link below).

He does this--and even in this recent post--in a way which to my mind
complements Peirce's own analysis of the universe as a symbol of God's
work. Along with other better known Peircean phenomenological and semiotic
notions (the categories, icon/index/symbol) he seems moving in the
direction of a deepening of that part of Peirce's metaphysics which
explicitly concerns God by applying these late semiotic ideas.

Finally, Jon offers this most recent message as the beginning of the
unpacking of a hypothesis. JAS: "If my latest hypothesis is correct that
the Universe is the Perfect Sign, what would be its Object?" You may argue
against his analysis on phenomenological, semeiotic, or metaphysical
grounds, but to dismiss it out of hand seems to me much more like mere
opinion than Jon's message (which, as I see it, is not opinion at all).
Peirce *was* a theist, and those who are theists (and even those who
aren't) may find Jon's work of considerable interest as in effect
developing and deepening these semeiotic/metaphysical ideas of Peirce. See,
especially, A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the
Reality of God, published recently in the journal, Signs.

https://tidsskrift.dk/signs/article/view/103187/152244

Best,

Gary



*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>*

On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon, list:
>
> 1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce, please
> do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote below from
> CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in the original
> text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these are incorrect
> assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the clear difference
> between Peirce's text and your own additions to it. Therefore - please
> inform the reader that the bracketed terms are your additions...that's all.
>
> 2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
> irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are simply
> opinions.
>
> Edwina
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri 16/03/18 8:58 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> List:
>
> If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect Sign,
> what would be its Object?  What is perpetually acting upon it with new
> Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously dormant energy?
> What has the absolute freedom to introduce spontaneous changes into it?  In
> other words, what sustains the Universe as something that is living and
> growing, rather than succumbing to "the complete induration of habit
> reducing the free play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to
> complete death" (CP 6.201; 1898)?
>
>
>
> CSP:  ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's
> purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol
> [3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions [2ns]
> and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as these reactions and
> these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the
> Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument. (CP 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Matt Faunce]

Edwina,

In Margolis's philosophy, habits are bound to eventually be overcome by the
flux of life. So if he's right, everything about Margolis's own philosophy
will eventually pass into irrelevance except the rule that flux > habit.
(Flux is greater than habit.) That rule looks to me to be his achilles
heel, because it needs to stay true; whereas Peirce's achilles heel is the
magical power of abduction to bridge the correspondence gap between a
reality that's independent of finite minds and the finite minds that
inquire into reality.

"Insufferably arrogant" was a bit of an exaggeration, as I'm willing to
suffer through reading his arrogant comments in order to learn what I can.

Matt


On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 8:41 AM Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Matt, list:
>
> You wrote:
> "He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
> arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly the
> truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
> irrelevance."
>
> I'm uncertain of your meaning. Are you defining Peirce as 'insufferably
> arrogant' and declaring that his philosophy was merely relative to the time
> - and is certain [bound] to become irrelevant?
>
> Edwina Taborsky
>
>
> On Thu 15/03/18 9:39 PM , Matt Faunce matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Yeah. Apparently Nathan Houser pointed that CP 5.555 mistake, because
> Margolis apologized for it in Rethinking Peirce's Fallibilism. (bottom of
> pg. 243 into the top of pg. 244 of Transactions, vol. 43, no. 2. from 2007.)
>
> Anyway, the only reason I brought up Margolis was as an example of an
> equal competitor to Peirce's realism; and that point was merely to
> highlight that fact that given the fact that empirical support for Peirce's
> realism is so-far very weak, the thing that kept Peirce so passionately
> driven to defending it must have been a belief in some rationalistic
> support for it. The reason I brought that up was because of his quip
> scoffing at rationalism in the same breath as he scoffed political/social
> views that he opposed:
>
> Peirce: "Being a convinced Pragmaticist in Semeiotic, naturally and
> necessarily nothing can appear to me sillier than rationalism; and folly in
> politics can go no further than English liberalism. The people ought to be
> enslaved..."
>
> Although Margolis has his moments of arrogance, e.g., calling Peirce's
> experiment of dropping the stone "comical", Joseph Margolis much more often
> strikes me as more humble than Peirce. For example, at the end a short
> overview of one of his books, an article called "Joseph Margolis on the
> Arts and the Definition of the Human", he writes this:
>
> "I don't pretend to determine whether the world is a flux or depends in
> some ultimate invariance. I think we must decide for ourselves, however, if
> the conception of a fluxive world can complete effectively with the usual
> commitments to invariance."
>
> He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
> arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly the
> truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
> irrelevance.
>
> I still have yet to read Parker and Hausman. I'll keep in mind your point
> about Savan.
>
> Matt
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 7:10 PM Jon Alan Schmidt 
> wrote:
>
>> Matt, List:
>>
>> Those two articles are indeed on JSTOR--that is how I was able to access
>> them--and so is a 1998 one by Margolis, "Peirce's Fallibilism."  Having
>> just finished reading the latter, I am afraid that it includes yet another
>> clear misinterpretation of Peirce--in fact, a blatant misrepresentation.
>>
>> JM:  Let me put one paradox before you that is particularly baffling but
>> well worth solving. In discussing the nature and relationship between truth
>> and reality, Peirce says the following two things, which strike me as
>> required by his doctrine but incompatible with it as well:
>>
>> the act of knowing a real object alters it. (5.555)
>>
>> Reality is that mode of being by virtue of which the real thing is as it
>> is, irrespectively of what any mind or any definite collection of minds may
>> represent it to be. (5.565)
>>
>>
>> It would be hard to find two brief remarks as closely juxtaposed Peirce's
>> texts as these that are as central to fallibilism as they are, are as
>> characteristically Peircean, and that are as completely incompatible as
>> they seem to be. (p. 549)
>>
>>
>> I was quite startled by the first quote, because elsewhere Peirce
>> consistently makes it very clear that Dynamic Objects are not affected
>> in any way by the Signs that they determine; so I checked the Collected
>> Papers for the context.
>>
>> CSP:  It appears that there are certain mummified pedants who have never
>> waked to the truth that the act of knowing a real object alters it. They
>> are curious specimens of humanity, and as I am one of them, it may be
>> amusing 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Jon, list:

1] Just one suggestion. When you are providing a quote from Peirce,
please do not add your comments within that quoted text. In the quote
below from CP 5,119, the words in brackets [3ns, 2ns, 1ns] are NOT in
the original text but are your own commentary. I'm not saying these
are incorrect assumptions - but, I think the reader ought to know the
clear difference between Peirce's text and your own additions to it.
Therefore - please inform the reader that the bracketed terms are
your additions...that's all. 

2] I also don't agree with your analysis ...on God - but that's
irrelevant, since both your analysis and my rejection of it are
simply opinions.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/03/18  8:58 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 List:
If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect
Sign, what would be its Object?  What is perpetually acting upon it
with new Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously
dormant energy?  What has the absolute freedom to introduce
spontaneous changes into it?  In other words, what sustains the
Universe as something that is living and growing, rather than
succumbing to "the complete induration of habit reducing the free
play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to complete
death" (CP 6.201; 1898)? 
CSP:  ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of
God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now
every symbol [3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices
of Reactions [2ns] and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as
these reactions and these qualities play in an argument, that they of
course play in the Universe, that Universe being precisely an
argument. (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-194; 1903) 
Consistent with the conclusion of my recently published essay, "A
Neglected Additament:  Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of
God," the Dynamic Object of the Universe as the Perfect Sign is its
perfect Utterer, God Himself, infinitely incomprehensible to us.  Its
Immediate Object is God's purpose, which is the development of Reason,
including the growth of our knowledge of God and of this Universe that
He has created--and is still creating. 
CSP:  This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in
embodiment, that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe,
which did not take place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004
B.C., but is going on today and never will be done, is this very
developement of Reason. I do not see how one can have a more
satisfying ideal of the admirable than the development of Reason so
understood. The one thing whose admirableness is not due to an
ulterior Reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its fullness, so
far as we can comprehend it. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903) 
This is the summum bonum in accordance with the normative science of
esthetics.  Peirce went on to draw the corresponding ethical and
logical implications, since what he described as "Practice" and
"Theory" in EP 2:304 correspond to "embodiment" and "manifestation"
here, respectively. 
CSP:  Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute
our little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand
toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is,
it is "up to us" to do so. In logic, it will be observed that
knowledge is reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be to
follow such methods as must develop knowledge the most speedily. (CP
1.615, EP 2:255; 1903) 
As embodied metaphysical Quasi-minds, we are both constituents and
interpreters of the Universe as God's great Symbol and Argument. 
Furthermore, as morally responsible Persons, we can also be
contributors to it--we have the opportunity (and privilege) to
participate voluntarily in God's still-unfolding creative activity. 
The Perfect Sign thus serves as an ideal, or regulative hope, which
would be achieved if all of us were to become fully welded with the
eternal Mind who is our Creator. 
 Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]  


Links:
--
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Re: Perfect Sign Revisited

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

List:

If my latest hypothesis is correct that the Universe is the Perfect Sign,
what would be its Object?  What is perpetually acting upon it with new
Signs that give it fresh energy and kindle its previously dormant energy?
What has the absolute freedom to introduce spontaneous changes into it?  In
other words, what *sustains* the Universe as something that is living and
growing, rather than succumbing to "the complete induration of habit
reducing the free play of feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to
complete death" (CP 6.201; 1898)?



CSP:  ... the Universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's
purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol
[3ns] must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions [2ns]
and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]; and such part as these reactions and
these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the
Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument. (CP 5.119, EP
2:193-194; 1903)



Consistent with the conclusion of my recently published essay, "A Neglected
Additament:  Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God," the
Dynamic Object of the Universe as the Perfect Sign is its perfect Utterer, *God
Himself*, infinitely incomprehensible to us.  Its Immediate Object is *God's
purpose*, which is the development of Reason, including the growth of our
knowledge of God and of this Universe that He has created--*and is still
creating*.



CSP:  This development of Reason consists, you will observe, in embodiment,
that is, in manifestation. The creation of the universe, which did not take
place during a certain busy week, in the year 4004 B.C., but is going on
today and never will be done, is this very developement of Reason. I do not
see how one can have a more satisfying ideal of the admirable than the
development of Reason so understood. The one thing whose admirableness is
not due to an ulterior Reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its
fullness, so far as we can comprehend it. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)



This is the *summum bonum* in accordance with the normative science of
esthetics.  Peirce went on to draw the corresponding ethical and logical
implications, since what he described as "Practice" and "Theory" in EP
2:304 correspond to "embodiment" and "manifestation" here, respectively.



CSP:  Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be to execute our
little function in the operation of the creation by giving a hand toward
rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as the slang is, it is "up to
us" to do so. In logic, it will be observed that knowledge is
reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be to follow such methods
as must develop knowledge the most speedily. (CP 1.615, EP 2:255; 1903)



As embodied metaphysical Quasi-minds, we are both *constituents* and
*interpreters* of the Universe as God's great Symbol and Argument.
Furthermore,
as morally responsible Persons, we can also be *contributors* to it--we
have the opportunity (and privilege) to participate *voluntarily *in God's
still-unfolding creative activity.  The Perfect Sign thus serves as an
ideal, or regulative hope, which *would* be achieved if all of us *were* to
become fully welded with the eternal Mind who is our Creator.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the 
line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at 
http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .

[PEIRCE-L] Scientific inquiry does not involve matters

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Matt, list:

You wrote:
 "He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly
the truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
irrelevance."

I'm uncertain of your meaning. Are you defining Peirce as
'insufferably arrogant' and declaring that his philosophy was merely
relative to the time - and is certain [bound] to become irrelevant?

Edwina Taborsky
 On Thu 15/03/18  9:39 PM , Matt Faunce matthewjohnfau...@gmail.com
sent:
 Yeah. Apparently Nathan Houser pointed that CP 5.555 mistake,
because Margolis apologized for it in Rethinking Peirce's
Fallibilism. (bottom of pg. 243 into the top of pg. 244 of
Transactions, vol. 43, no. 2. from 2007.)
 Anyway, the only reason I brought up Margolis was as an example of
an equal competitor to Peirce's realism; and that point was merely to
highlight that fact that given the fact that empirical support for
Peirce's realism is so-far very weak, the thing that kept Peirce so
passionately driven to defending it must have been a belief in some
rationalistic support for it. The reason I brought that up was
because of his quip scoffing at rationalism in the same breath as he
scoffed political/social views that he opposed: 
 Peirce: "Being a convinced Pragmaticist in Semeiotic, naturally and
necessarily nothing can appear to me sillier than rationalism; and
folly in politics can go no further than English liberalism. The
people ought to be enslaved..." 
 Although Margolis has his moments of arrogance, e.g., calling
Peirce's experiment of dropping the stone "comical", Joseph Margolis
much more often strikes me as more humble than Peirce. For example,
at the end a short overview of one of his books, an article called
"Joseph Margolis on the Arts and the Definition of the Human", he
writes this: 
 "I don't pretend to determine whether the world is a flux or depends
in some ultimate invariance. I think we must decide for ourselves,
however, if the conception of a fluxive world can complete
effectively with the usual commitments to invariance." 
 He does this many other places too. It's hard to be as insufferably
arrogant as Peirce was when one's philosophy, even if it were clearly
the truest offered in a given time, is bound to eventually pass into
irrelevance. 
 I still have yet to read Parker and Hausman. I'll keep in mind your
point about Savan.
 Matt
 On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 7:10 PM Jon Alan Schmidt  wrote:
  Matt, List:
 Those two articles are indeed on JSTOR--that is how I was able to
access them--and so is a 1998 one by Margolis, "Peirce's
Fallibilism."  Having just finished reading the latter, I am afraid
that it includes yet another clear misinterpretation of Peirce--in
fact, a blatant misrepresentation.
 JM:  Let me put one paradox before you that is particularly baffling
but well worth solving. In discussing the nature and relationship
between truth and reality, Peirce says the following two things,
which strike me as required by his doctrine but incompatible with it
as well: 
 the act of knowing a real object alters it. (5.555)
 Reality is that mode of being by virtue of which the real thing is
as it is, irrespectively of what any mind or any definite collection
of minds may represent it to be. (5.565) 
 It would be hard to find two brief remarks as closely juxtaposed
Peirce's texts as these that are as central to fallibilism as they
are, are as characteristically Peircean, and that are as completely
incompatible as they seem to be. (p. 549)
 I was quite startled by the first quote, because elsewhere Peirce
consistently makes it very clear that Dynamic Objects are not
affected in any way by the Signs that they determine; so I checked
the Collected Papers for the context. 
 CSP:  It appears that there are certain mummified pedants who have
never waked to the truth that the act of knowing a real object alters
it. They are curious specimens of humanity, and as I am one of them,
it may be amusing to see how I think. It seems that our oblivion to
this truth is due to our not having made the acquaintance of a new
analysis that the True is simply that in cognition which is
Satisfactory. As to this doctrine, if it is meant that True and
Satisfactory are synonyms, it strikes me that it is not so much a
doctrine of philosophy as it is a new contribution to English
lexicography. (CP 5.555; 1906) 
 The words are taken verbatim from Peirce, but they constitute a
statement that he was actually repudiating in the passage as a whole,
using characteristic sarcasm.  He explicitly identified himself as one
of those "mummified pedants" and "curious specimens of humanity" who
did not hold "that the act of knowing a real object alters it,"
because he denied "that the True is simply that in cognition which is
Satisfactory," derisively calling this "a new contribution to English