Dear Lists - The below exchange jumped off lists, but here it is F
Start på videresendt besked: Fra: Tommi Vehkavaara <tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi<mailto:tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi>> Emne: Vedr.: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:8389] Re: Natural Propositions, Dato: 26. apr. 2015 00.09.36 CEST Til: Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk<mailto:stj...@hum.ku.dk>> Cc: Tommi Vehkavaara <tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi<mailto:tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi>> Dear Frederik Thank you for your patient explication, that cleared a lot - it is just that my understanding is too loaded on Kantian distinction of a priori and a posteriori (although that seems to be a distinction that cannot be clearly made) that my mind rebels against this kind of definition - why these "necessary relations" should be called "a priori" (compare Peirce's ethics of terminology). But obviously they are just two different concepts that are referred by the same word and if there is any meeting point it is in mathematics (and perhaps in logic too). However, it is still not clear to me does this your a priori concern concepts or directly objects, the necessity here, at least seems to be some kind of metaphysical (or just physiological in case of food?) necessity and not the logical/cognitive one. What bothers me that at least in my reluctant mind this seems to lead back to some kind of metaphysical priorism or even foundationalism. Yours, Tommi BTW, you sended your reply only to me, not to lists, and therefroe I too replied to you only though it could have gone to lists. Lainaus Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk<mailto:stj...@hum.ku.dk>>: Dear Tommi, lists - I have been busy all day and see the discussion has already run several rounds. But let me try to answer Tommi's question about P's "two gates" criterion. The same question could be posed not with "food" as an example, but pertaining to Peirce's characteristics of the whole apparatus of his own logic and semiotics as "the A Priori theoy of signs" which I quoted a few days ago. How could that be compatible with the passports-at-both gates claim which you quote? Obviously, A Priori could not mean "prior to senses" as you say. But that was not the definition I was discussing. I was discussing a definition which meant describable in terms of necessary relations. As the great quote which Jon cited from Ketner a couple of posts ago, "necessity" here should be understood as necessary in terms of relations between aspects of the object - not necessary in the sense that everybody thinking about that object will necessary think the right thing about it (hence fallibilist apriorism). It is the Kantian error to identify these two and thus place the a priori in the subject - the early-Husserlian alternative is to place it in the object. Peirce did not develop any more detailed doctrine about the a priori, but I think the way he uses it in the quote about his own logic - and his general stance that concepts are not ideas in the mind of a subject - places him closer to the objective conception than the Kantian one. The example about food would be, then, that both everyday and scientific experience points to the fact that the consumption of organized energy (in the shape of light rays, carbohydrates, proteins, etc, etc.) driving metabolism followed by the excretion of less organized energy forms a necessary part of what it means to be alive. There could be no life without energy exchange with its surroundings. It would be in that sense that "food* or "nourishment" would be an a priori category. Remark also that the passports-gates claim by Peirce does not amount to empiricism. He speaks about "the elements of every concept". It would be a misreading of that to think those elements were sense data or anything of the sort - cf. Peirce's idea about the direct observability of generality. Best F It is not clear to me how the "Austrian" (Brentano-Husserl-Smith) conception about "fallible apriori" categories like food, organism, etc. could be compatible with Peirce's conception of pragmatism, at least as formulated and argued in Peirce's Harvard lectures 1903: ?The elements of every concept enter into logical thought at the gate of perception and make their exit at the gate of purposive action; and whatever cannot show its passports at both those two gates is to be arrested as unauthorized by reason.? (EP 2:241, CP 5.212, 1903) For me at least this appears rather as a quite explicit denial that there could be room for a priori concepts or categories (and mathematics included), if by a priori is meant prior to senses. I cannot see how Peirce's idea that we are able to observe real generals directly, could change the situation in any way, because our access to generals (whether real or not) has nevertheless perceptual origin. So it is not clear what is your position here, is it that you favor the fallible a priori -doctrine over this Peirce's idea about the logical role of perception in cognition, or do you think they have no differing practical consequences, i.e. that they mean the same. Or perhaps you think that Peirce changed his view in this matter later so that his more mature view would be compatible? This is part of the greater problem that bothers me concerning the scope and applicability of Peirce's doctrine of signs and such (positive) metaphysics as he describes its source, but I will not go to these now. Yours, -Tommi
----------------------------- 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 .
