Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Hello Michael and John,

Nice to hear from you on the List, Michael.

I agree with your suggestions in (1) and (2). How might we further draw out 
some of Peirce’s suggestions for explaining the evolution of cooperation in a 
wide variety of systems, ranging from ecosystems to human economic and 
political systems? Complex emergent phenomena, such as the flow of information 
across the world wide web, provide us with fruitful case studies for modeling 
and explaining the growth of order in systems having parts that stand in 
relations of reciprocity and interdependence.

I think Peirce’s central model for explaining the growth of order in physical, 
chemical, biological, and human social systems is the cycle of logical inquiry. 
Let me know if you are interested in exploring these ideas further on the list 
or as part of a small research and discussion group.

Yours,

Jeff Downard
Flagstaff, AZ
Philosophy, NAU

From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  on 
behalf of Michael J.J. Tiffany 
Date: Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 10:57 AM
To: s...@bestweb.net 
Cc: Peirce List 
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)
John, List:

I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.

I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that 
time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company 
(HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). Two 
personal observations:

1. Agapism has greater predictive power than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce 
railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. In 
evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in 
Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > 
individual selection.

However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about 
socio-economic evolution. Wealth creation -- distinct from zero sum wealth 
transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many 
examples of successful wealth aggregators whose success could be predicted with 
naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or even 
"greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the extraordinary 
wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of the most 
successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they shepherded. 
Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a literally more useful 
model for understanding and predicting reality, especially complex emergent 
phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once 
put it).

2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates 
understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained 
transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's another, 
vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to write 
qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you can 
understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the 
reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of abduction 
as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at.


Warm regards,

Michael J.J. Tiffany
Portsmouth, New Hampshire


On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa 
mailto:s...@bestweb.net>> wrote:
Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of Peirce's 
writings for our time (the 21st C).

Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
present.

John



Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
To: John Sowa mailto:s...@bestweb.net>>
Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

John,

I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead in 
philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass extinction. 
Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in his opposition 
to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in his day and since, 
the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views would have led to a 
radically different paradigmatic foundation of the sciences than the 
‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched nearly a century 
later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a revolution.

In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford Encyclopedia 
of Philosophy, Rober Burch seems 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Mark Token Type

[John F Sowa]

Jon, List,

We acknowledge that Peirce introduced the trichotomy (Tone Token Type) in the 
Prolegomena article of 1906, and his choice of the name 'Tone' was based on one 
example, "a tone of voice".  After two more years of intensive study, analysis, 
and writings, he presented a more precise specification of the trichotomy 
(Potisign, Actisign, and Famisign) in a letter to Welby (EP2, p.

"Thirdly, that which is stored away in one's Memory; Familiar, and as such, 
General. Consequently, Signs, in respect to their Modes of possible 
Presentation, are divisible (o) into:

"A. Potisigns, or Objects which are Signs so far as they are merely possible, 
but felt to be positively possible; as for eample the seventh ray that passes 
through the three intersections of opposite sides of Pascal's hexagram.8

"B. Actisigns, or Objects which are Signs as Experienced hie et nunc; such as 
any single word in a single place in a single sentence of a single paragraph of 
a single page of a single copy of a Book. There may be repetition of the whole 
paragraph, this word included, in another place. But that other occurrence is 
not this word. The book may be printed in an edition of ten thousand; but THIS 
word is only in my copy."

Peirce defined this trichotomy without making any reference to (Tone Token 
Type).   We don't know what he was thinking when he specified it.  But later 
(EP2, pp. 485-488) he continued to discuss Potisigns, Actisigns, and Famisigns 
without making any references to the signs he defined in 2006.  He also 
discussed universes in considerable detail.  That is a topic he began to 
discuss in the Prolegomena, where he introduced (Tone Token Type).  But he is 
now introducing this new triad without making any reference to it.  But he is 
discussing this new version in quite a bit of detail, and he is referring to 
universes repeatedly.

Then on p. 488, he writes:  "From the summer of 1905 to the same time in 1906,1 
devoted much study
to my ten trichotomies of signs.9 It is time I reverted to the subject, as I 
know I could now make it much clearer. But I dare say some of my former names 
are better than those I now use. I formerly called a Potisign a Tinge or 
Tone,an Actisign a Token. a Famisign a Type  I think Potisign Actisign 
Famisign might be called Mark Token Type (?)...

Then he continues:  "I have now given as much time to this letter as I can 
afford and I cannot now reexamine the remaining Trichotomies, although I must 
do so as soon as possible. So I just give them as they stood two years and more 
ago. In particular, the relations I assumed between the different classes were 
the wildest guesses and cannot be altogether right I think...

In short, Peirce himself called some of his earlier discussions of trichotomies 
"the wildest guesses".  That should not encourage anyone to consider them as 
having any reliable status.  The best definition of (Mark Token Type) should be 
considered the equivalent of (Potisign Actisign Famisign) with the definitions 
stated in EP pp. 485-488.  For the definition of Mark, by itself, his 
definition in Baldwin's dictionary should be considered and compared to what he 
wrote about Potisign.

I also strongly recommend the writings by Tony Jappy, since he has made far 
deeper and more extensive analysis of the "evolving" thoughts and writings by 
Peirce in the decade from 1903 to 1908.   As you know, his existential graphs 
also evolved during that time, and they didn't reach their fully complete 
specification until the June 1911 for Alpha and Beta.  For Gamma, the 1903 
version was quickly cobbled together for the Lowell lectures.  Peirce used 
metalanguage for specifying modality and a version of higher-order logic in 
1903.

But he made a major revolution for his Delta graphs of 1911.

There is much more to say.

John


From: "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
Sent: 4/7/24 6:27 PM
To: Peirce-L 
Cc: Ahti Pietarinen , Francesco Bellucci 

Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Mark Token Type

John, List:

JFS: A tone or mark is not "opposed to a token". It is that part of an image 
that determines it as a token of some type. The image, the mark, and the token 
are the same physical "thing". They are not three separable things.

Whatever these sentences are supposed to be describing, it is certainly not 
what Peirce ever defines as the first member of the trichotomy for sign 
classification "according to the Mode of Apprehension of the Sign itself" (CP 
8.344, EP 2:482, 1908 Dec 24), the other two members of which are "token" and 
"type." A tone (or mark) is "an indefinite significant character" (CP 4.537, 
1906)--it is not itself a physical thing, but it can be possessed by a token, 
which is a physical thing (or event) that exists (or occurs) at a single place 
and time (ibid). A type is "a definitely significant form" that can be embodied 
in any number of different tokens (ibid), each of which might also embody 
different tones/marks 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Edwina Taborsky]

Jerry
This section is, I believe,from 1868 - and there are more descriptions of the 
categories elsewhere., eg. 8/328 1904.

The three terms you reference - quality, relation, representation] can be 
understood to refer to Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.The categories, are 
‘modes of being’, or the form of the substance in which information is 
functioning,  and are basic to the Peircean framework.  And he explains them in 
the preceding and following paragrdaphs. But you can also see his outline in 
5.41 and on-150. And 1.23; And 1.300 and on [1894] 1:277 and on….

I am not sure of your agenda re: icon, index, symbol…which are Relations 
between the Represetnamen and Object in the mode of Firstness, Secondness and 
thirdness [ but I assume you know that already]…

I think my analogy of the three categorical modes of chance/freedom; current 
state interaction; and new habits of organization [aka Firstness, Secondness 
and Thirdness] ae pretty obvious within an economic process.  After all- an 
economy operates within entrepreneurship [ Firstness] where novel ideas are 
generated and developed. It operates within a steady state daily life process 
of local interactions [Secondness] - which process takes up most of the 
‘energy’ of an economic mode. And - it operates within the development of new 
economic modes and goods and services - which require the development of 
new‘habits of organization’ to produce and deliver the products. 

Even such a system as the use of symbolic units [ money[ went through these 
three categories, with the introduction of the symbol [Firstness]; and then, 
the common use in local interactions [ Secondness] and the legislated 
overseeing of the common value of these ‘bits of metal and paper’ [Thirdness]. 
And now -we are developing new symbols and new habits of the use of ‘money’..as 
a symbol of value. ..

I analyze economic modes with a triad of Investment/Production/Consumption [and 
these can even. E understood within 3ns, 2ns, 1ns!!!

Edwina



> On Apr 7, 2024, at 8:45 PM, Jerry LR Chandler  
> wrote:
> 
> Dear Edwinia, List 
> 
>> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
>> interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
>> interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
>> Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 
>> 
> 
> Your exuberant assertions are a bit beyond my amateurish  reach. 
> 
> I am curious about these theses from the perspective of CSP theory of 
> categories with respect to your understandings of semiosis and semantic 
> closures. 
> 
> In the “A New List of Categories”, CSP describes the meaning of his terms and 
> then asserts:
> 
> "BEING
>   Quality (Reference to a Ground)
>   Relation(Reference to a Correlate)
>   Representation  (Reference to an Interpretant)
> SUBSTANCE
> 
> The three intermediate conceptions may be termed accidents.”
> 
> (The punctuation is reproduced from the Essential Peirce, Vol 1., page 6)
> 
> I am attempting to sort through the terms in light of “icons, indices, and 
> symbols”.
> 
> Can you briefly connect to an understanding of “BEING”? 
> Can you briefly elucidate the threads of reasoning that connect this view of 
> “SUBSTANCE”  to the conclusions in economics?
> 
> Yes, I know that you may find these to be “Philosophy 101” questions, but I 
> have been reading a bit of Metaphysics in recent months…
> 
> Michael, your thoughts are equally welcomed.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Jerry 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Jerry LR Chandler]

Dear Edwinia, List 

> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
> interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
> interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
> Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 
> 

Your exuberant assertions are a bit beyond my amateurish  reach. 

I am curious about these theses from the perspective of CSP theory of 
categories with respect to your understandings of semiosis and semantic 
closures. 

In the “A New List of Categories”, CSP describes the meaning of his terms and 
then asserts:

"BEING
Quality (Reference to a Ground)
Relation(Reference to a Correlate)
Representation  (Reference to an Interpretant)
SUBSTANCE

The three intermediate conceptions may be termed accidents.”

(The punctuation is reproduced from the Essential Peirce, Vol 1., page 6)

I am attempting to sort through the terms in light of “icons, indices, and 
symbols”.

Can you briefly connect to an understanding of “BEING”? 
Can you briefly elucidate the threads of reasoning that connect this view of 
“SUBSTANCE”  to the conclusions in economics?

Yes, I know that you may find these to be “Philosophy 101” questions, but I 
have been reading a bit of Metaphysics in recent months…

Michael, your thoughts are equally welcomed.

Cheers

Jerry 










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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Mark Token Type

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

John, List:

JFS: A tone or mark is not "opposed to a token". It is that part of an
image that determines it as a token of some type. The image, the mark, and
the token are the same physical "thing". They are not three separable
things.


Whatever these sentences are supposed to be describing, it is certainly not
what *Peirce *ever defines as the first member of the trichotomy for sign
classification "according to the Mode of Apprehension of the Sign itself"
(CP 8.344, EP 2:482, 1908 Dec 24), the other two members of which are
"token" and "type." A tone (or mark) is "an indefinite significant
character" (CP 4.537, 1906)--it is not *itself *a physical thing, but it
can be *possessed *by a token, which *is *a physical thing (or event) that
exists (or occurs) at a single place and time (ibid). A type is "a
definitely significant form" that can be embodied in any number of
different tokens (ibid), each of which might *also *embody different
tones/marks as *indefinite *characters.

Consequently, two different tokens of the same type can possess different
tones/marks, and two different tokens of two different types can possess
the same tone/mark--there is no strict alignment between indefinite
tones/marks and definite types.

JFS: But Peirce explicitly defined 'mark' or 'tone' as a 'potisign' -- a
sign of a possibility.


To help avoid mistakes, I recommend providing exact quotations when
attributing explicit definitions to Peirce. In this case, he *never*
defines a tone/mark/potisign as a sign *of *a possibility, as if its
(dynamical) *object *were a possibility. Instead, he defines it as a sign
that is *itself *merely possible. "A Sign may *itself *have a 'possible'
Mode of Being ... For a 'possible' Sign I have no better designation than a
Tone, though I am considering replacing this by 'Mark.' Can you suggest a
really good name?" (EP 2:480, 1908 Dec 23). "Consequently, Signs, in
respect to their Modes of possible Presentation, are divisible into: A.
*Potisigns*, or Objects which are Signs so far as they are merely possible,
but felt to be positively possible" (CP 8.347, EP 2:483, 1908 Dec 24).

In short, a tone/mark is a *possible *sign, distinguished from a token as
an *existent *sign and a type as a *necessitant *sign. Again, none of this
is at all controversial among Peirce scholars.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 1:47 PM John F Sowa  wrote:

> Jon, List,
>
> See the recent notes about the ZOOM talk on Friday.  It is essential for
> Peirce scholars to bring his philosophy and its applications to the
> attention of philosopher, scientists, and engineers in the 21st century --
> Peirce worked in all three professions.
>
> The word 'tone' is a special case that Peirce himself forgot when he
> coined the new term 'potisign'.  He later recalled his definition for
> 'mark' in Baldwin's dictionary (consciously or not) when he suggested it as
> a replacement for 'tone'.  I have lectured and adopted Peirce's logic and
> semeiotic for a broad modern audience, and I realize that 'mark' is far
> more natural, more understandable, and more memorable than 'tone' for any
> purpose other than a detailed textual criticism of  the MS.  As Peirce
> himself said, if nobody else adopted a word he coined, he was under no
> obligation to keep it.
>
> JFS:  Every tone is a mark, which may also be a token of some type.
>
> JAS:  A tone of voice is merely the *example *that Peirce gives in CP
> 4.537 (1906) to illustrate what he has in mind. His *definition *of a
> tone in that passage is "an indefinite significant character," as opposed
> to a token as a "Single event which happens once and whose identity is
> limited to that one happening or a Single object or thing which is in some
> single place at any one instant of time, such event or thing being
> significant only as occurring just when and where it does," and a type as
> "a definitely significant Form."
>
> No.  A tone or mark is not "opposed to a token".  It is that part of an
> image that determines it as a token of some type.  The image, the mark, and
> the token are the same physical "thing".  They are not three separable
> things..
>
> Bur the word 'tone' is an poor choice, which caused the misunderstanding.
>Lady Welby assumed that the word 'tone' was an actisign that referred
> to an existing thing -- some feeling of the speaker.   But Peirce
> explicitly defined 'mark' or 'tone' as a  'potisign' -- a sign of a
> possibility.
>
> As another example, consider the images on Mayan temples.  For years, they
> were considered decorations or images of some significant things.  But
> linguists discovered that they could be interpreted as a notation for Mayan
> words.  By assuming that ancient Mayan was an earlier stage of modern
> spoken Mayan, linguists learned to read those "decorations" as a 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Mark Token Type

[John F Sowa]

Jon, List,

See the recent notes about the ZOOM talk on Friday.  It is essential for Peirce 
scholars to bring his philosophy and its applications to the attention of 
philosopher, scientists, and engineers in the 21st century -- Peirce worked in 
all three professions.

The word 'tone' is a special case that Peirce himself forgot when he coined the 
new term 'potisign'.  He later recalled his definition for 'mark' in Baldwin's 
dictionary (consciously or not) when he suggested it as a replacement for 
'tone'.  I have lectured and adopted Peirce's logic and semeiotic for a broad 
modern audience, and I realize that 'mark' is far more natural, more 
understandable, and more memorable than 'tone' for any purpose other than a 
detailed textual criticism of  the MS.  As Peirce himself said, if nobody else 
adopted a word he coined, he was under no obligation to keep it.

JFS:  Every tone is a mark, which may also be a token of some type.

JAS:  A tone of voice is merely the example that Peirce gives in CP 4.537 
(1906) to illustrate what he has in mind. His definition of a tone in that 
passage is "an indefinite significant character," as opposed to a token as a 
"Single event which happens once and whose identity is limited to that one 
happening or a Single object or thing which is in some single place at any one 
instant of time, such event or thing being significant only as occurring just 
when and where it does," and a type as "a definitely significant Form."

No.  A tone or mark is not "opposed to a token".  It is that part of an image 
that determines it as a token of some type.  The image, the mark, and the token 
are the same physical "thing".  They are not three separable things..

Bur the word 'tone' is an poor choice, which caused the misunderstanding.
Lady Welby assumed that the word 'tone' was an actisign that referred to an 
existing thing -- some feeling of the speaker.   But Peirce explicitly defined 
'mark' or 'tone' as a  'potisign' -- a sign of a possibility.

As another example, consider the images on Mayan temples.  For years, they were 
considered decorations or images of some significant things.  But linguists 
discovered that they could be interpreted as a notation for Mayan words.  By 
assuming that ancient Mayan was an earlier stage of modern spoken Mayan, 
linguists learned to read those "decorations" as a notation for the words of 
the Mayan language.  The same images from one point of view are marks of tokens 
of decorations.  From another point of view, they are marks of tokens of 
morphemes of the Mayan language.

In textual criticism, Peirce's exact words in any MS must be recorded exactly.  
But in publications about  Peirce's intentions, the terminology must be adapted 
to the way modern readers would interpret the words.  Max Fisch, for example, 
realized that Peirce's decision to use the word 'logic' as an abbreviation for 
'logic as semeiotic'.  In his 1986 book, Fisch stated that he was using the 
word 'semeiotic' as the abbreviation for 'logic as semeiotic".

Fisch is certainly a respectable authority on the subject, and I believe that 
we should follow his example in choosing which of Peirce's options to consider 
as a standard for the 21st C..

John


From: "Jon Alan Schmidt" 

John, List:

Anyone is welcome to make a case for the opinion that "mark" is a better choice 
than "tone" for the first member of the trichotomy for sign classification 
whose other two members are "token" and "type," but no one can accurately claim 
that "mark" was Peirce's final and definitive choice. He used "tone" in the 
last known manuscript where he presented that trichotomy, and he heard from 
Lady Welby a few weeks later--in response to his specific request for her 
advice on the matter--that she preferred "tone." Again, I agree with her.

JFS: The word 'tone' in that example is a very special case that is limited to 
the sound of a voice that is speaking something.

A tone of voice is merely the example that Peirce gives in CP 4.537 (1906) to 
illustrate what he has in mind. His definition of a tone in that passage is "an 
indefinite significant character," as opposed to a token as a "Single event 
which happens once and whose identity is limited to that one happening or a 
Single object or thing which is in some single place at any one instant of 
time, such event or thing being significant only as occurring just when and 
where it does," and a type as "a definitely significant Form." Accordingly, a 
tone is a quality of a token that affects its dynamical interpretant.

JFS: Every tone is a mark, which may also be a token of some type.

In that case, "mark" is a terrible choice--a sign must be classified as either 
a mark/tone, a token, or a type; unlike icon/index/symbol, this trichotomy is 
not a matter of degree. Consider its terminological predecessor--a qualisign 
cannot also be a replica (sinsign) of some legisign. Instead, a 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Edwina Taborsky]

Michale

Thank you for this excellent post. You are exactly right 

Peirce's agapastic  semiosis is a dynamic and generative process- and it 
explains not merely the increasing complexity of the physicochemical and 
biological realms [which are, indeed, complex adaptive systems,]  but also, 
explains the socioeconomic world of our species. 

As you say - wealth creation, which is all about a growth economy- - is quite 
different from the no-growth zero sum wealth transfer which is found in all no 
growth steady state populations [ before the industrial age]. 

And I also am a strong supporter of Peirce’s three categories, with the 
interplay between Firstnerss [ randomnness, chance, freedom]; steady-state 
interaction [Secondness] and the development of new habits of organization [ 
Thirdness]. One can explain a capitalist economy using all three categories. 

Again - thank you for an excellent post, and moving Peirce out of the seminar 
room into the real world.

Edwina 

> On Apr 7, 2024, at 1:57 PM, Michael J.J. Tiffany 
>  wrote:
> 
> John, List:
> 
> I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.
> 
> I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In that 
> time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity company 
> (HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies 2023). 
> Two personal observations:
> 
> 1. Agapism has greater predictive power than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce 
> railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open Court. 
> In evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now than in 
> Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group selection > 
> individual selection. 
> 
> However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking about 
> socio-economic evolution. Wealth creation -- distinct from zero sum wealth 
> transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are many 
> examples of successful wealth aggregators whose success could be predicted 
> with naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the fittest" or 
> even "greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account for the 
> extraordinary wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the motivations of 
> the most successful creators and the massive amount of cooperation they 
> shepherded. Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more inspiring. It's a 
> literally more useful model for understanding and predicting reality, 
> especially complex emergent phenomena (the "worlds hidden in plain sight" as 
> the Santa Fe Institute once put it).
> 
> 2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically accelerates 
> understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of large pretrained 
> transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy that there's 
> another, vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence having to 
> write qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't see how you 
> can understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're calling the 
> reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an understanding of 
> abduction as a kind of activity that you could be better or worse at. 
> 
> 
> Warm regards,
> 
> Michael J.J. Tiffany
> Portsmouth, New Hampshire
> 
> 
> On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa  > wrote:
>> Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
>> about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of 
>> Peirce's writings for our time (the 21st C).
>> 
>> Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
>> contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
>> present.   
>> 
>> John
>>  
>> 
>> Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
>> To: John Sowa mailto:s...@bestweb.net>>
>> Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of 
>> science (U Pitt)
>> John,  
>> 
>> I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
>> ‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
>> positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead 
>> in philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
>> existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass 
>> extinction. Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in 
>> his opposition to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in 
>> his day and since, the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views 
>> would have led to a radically different paradigmatic foundation of the 
>> sciences than the ‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched 
>> nearly a century later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a 
>> revolution. 
>> 
>> In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford 
>> Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[Michael J.J. Tiffany]

John, List:

I agree with John regarding the urgent relevance of Peirce to this century.

I have been a subscriber to this list for 17 years (since I was 26). In
that time, among other things, I co-founded a billion dollar cybersecurity
company (HUMAN Security, also one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies
2023). Two personal observations:

1. Agapism has *greater predictive power* than the "Gospel of Greed" Peirce
railed against in "Evolutionary Love", his fifth article for the Open
Court. In evolutionary biology, I think this is substantially clearer now
than in Peirce's time, with the careful study of countless cases of group
selection > individual selection.

However, Peirce's insight is still underappreciated in today's thinking
about socio-economic evolution. Wealth *creation* -- distinct from zero sum
wealth transfer -- comes from a kind of sustainable generosity. There are
many examples of successful wealth *aggregators* whose success could be
predicted with naive selection pressure heuristics like "survival of the
fittest" or even "greed is good." However, those heuristics cannot account
for the extraordinary wealth creation of the past 200 years nor the
motivations of the most successful creators and the massive amount of
cooperation they shepherded. Peirce's model isn't just nicer or more
inspiring. It's a literally more useful model for understanding and
predicting reality, especially complex emergent phenomena (the "worlds
hidden in plain sight" as the Santa Fe Institute once put it).

2. An understanding of Peirce's notion of abduction dramatically
accelerates understanding of the (surprising!) emergent functionality of
large pretrained transformer models like GPT-4. (BTW it is a CRAZY tragedy
that there's another, vastly less useful, meaning of "abduction" now, hence
having to write qualifiers like "Peirce's notion of...".) In fact, I don't
see how you can understand how this emergent behavior arises -- what we're
calling the reasoning capabilities of these models -- without an
understanding of abduction as a kind of activity that you could be better
or worse at.


Warm regards,

Michael J.J. Tiffany
Portsmouth, New Hampshire


On Sun, Apr 7, 2024 at 11:58 AM John F Sowa  wrote:

> Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note
> about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of
> Peirce's writings for our time (the 21st C).
>
> Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value
> his contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which
> is our present.
>
> John
>
>
> --
> *Sent*: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
> *To*: John Sowa 
> *Subject*: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of
> science (U Pitt)
>
> John,
>
> I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s
> ‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical
> positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the
> beachhead in philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to
> the global existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of
> mass extinction. Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more
> widely in his opposition to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna
> Circle in his day and since, the affinities of those two men’s
> philosophical views would have led to a radically different paradigmatic
> foundation of the sciences than the ‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently
> remains entrenched nearly a century later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re
> long overdue for a revolution.
>
> In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the *Stanford
> Encyclopedia of Philosophy *,
> Rober Burch seems to report some similar thoughts about Peirce’s
> perspective …
>
> An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce’s evolutionism is
> that in Peirce’s view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.”
> Peirce speaks of evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most
> fundamental engine of the evolutionary process is not struggle, strife,
> greed, or competition. Rather it is nurturing love, in which an entity is
> prepared to sacrifice its own perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of
> its neighbor. This doctrine had a social significance for Peirce, who
> apparently had the intention of arguing against the morally repugnant but
> extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of the late nineteenth century.
> The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic significance, which Peirce
> associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John and with the mystical
> ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the third of Peirce’s
> six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine of Chances,”
> Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the ethics of
> self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole
> 

[PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science (U Pitt)

[John F Sowa]

Following is an offline note endorsing my note that endorses  Jerry's note 
about the upcoming talk on Friday, which emphasizes the importance of Peirce's 
writings for our time (the 21st C).

Basic point:  Peirce was writing for the future.  Those of us who value his 
contributions should emphasize his contributions to his future, which is our 
present.

John


Sent: 4/7/24 10:36 AM
To: John Sowa 
Subject: FW: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)

John,
I harbor a suspicion, perhaps more like a fantasy, that had Peirce’s 
‘pragmaticism’ carried the day against James & Dewey, logical and empirical 
positivism and the ‘linguistic turn’ wouldn’t have established the beachhead in 
philosophy of science that has pretty clearly, imho, led to the global 
existential crisis we’re facing today at the event horizon of mass extinction. 
Similarly, perhaps if Karl Popper had succeeded more widely in his opposition 
to the “Scientific World Conception” of the Vienna Circle in his day and since, 
the affinities of those two men’s philosophical views would have led to a 
radically different paradigmatic foundation of the sciences than the 
‘value-free’ paradigm that apparently remains entrenched nearly a century 
later. I imagine Kuhn would agree we’re long overdue for a revolution.
In this paragraph from his 2021 article on Peirce in the Stanford Encyclopedia 
of Philosophy, Rober Burch seems to report some similar thoughts about Peirce’s 
perspective …

An especially intriguing and curious twist in Peirce’s evolutionism is that in 
Peirce’s view evolution involves what he calls its “agapeism.” Peirce speaks of 
evolutionary love. According to Peirce, the most fundamental engine of the 
evolutionary process is not struggle, strife, greed, or competition. Rather it 
is nurturing love, in which an entity is prepared to sacrifice its own 
perfection for the sake of the wellbeing of its neighbor. This doctrine had a 
social significance for Peirce, who apparently had the intention of arguing 
against the morally repugnant but extremely popular socio-economic Darwinism of 
the late nineteenth century. The doctrine also had for Peirce a cosmic 
significance, which Peirce associated with the doctrine of the Gospel of John 
and with the mystical ideas of Swedenborg and Henry James. In Part IV of the 
third of Peirce’s six papers in Popular Science Monthly, entitled “The Doctrine 
of Chances,” Peirce even argued that simply being logical presupposes the 
ethics of self-sacrifice: “He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the 
whole world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences, 
collectively.” To social Darwinism, and to the related sort of thinking that 
constituted for Herbert Spencer and others a supposed justification for the 
more rapacious practices of unbridled capitalism, Peirce referred in disgust as 
“The Gospel of Greed.”
All merely hypothetical or purely conjectural, of course. But your admonition 
to relate Peirce to our 21st century world nudged me into sharing the idea.
From: peirce-l-requ...@list.iupui.edu  On 
Behalf Of John F Sowa
Sent: Saturday, April 6, 2024 5:53 PM
To: Jerry LR Chandler ; Peirce List 

Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Zoom lecture on the CSP's role in philosophy of science 
(U Pitt)
Jerry,
Thanks for that note.   The following sentence shows why we need to relate 
Peirce's writings to the latest and greatest work that is being done today:

>From the abstract:  "C.S. Peirce, however, is not generally considered a 
>canonical figure in the history of philosophy of science."

I have attended a few APA conferences where I gave a talk in a Peirce session 
and attended other talks in more general sessions.  And I have not heard 
anybody mention Peirce (except me in the discussions after a talk).

The logicians are constantly talking about Frege, despite the fact that nobody 
else had ever used his notation for logic.  But they don't mention Peirce, 
despite the fact that every logician uses his algebra of logic (with minor 
notational changes by Peano).

In fact, the reason why Peano changed the notation was for ease of publication. 
 Peirce used the Greek letters, sigma and pi, for the quantifiers, which were 
rarely available in those days.  But any typesetter could easily turn letters 
upside down and backwards.  So instead of mentioning Peirce, they give credit 
to Peano for the algebraic notation.

It's essential for Peirce scholars to relate his writings to the big, wide, 
modern world.  Susan Haack does that very well.  Some others do that.   And 
it's essential for Peirce scholars to do much, much more to relate Peirce's 
work to the hot topics of the 21st century.  Peirce himself expected his 
writings to be hot issues for 400 years.  We're almost halfway there, and we 
need to heat up the discussions.

John