Re: [peirce-l] Aesthetics, Axiology, and Artistic Truth

2012-03-29 Thread Catherine Legg
Thank you for posting your thoughts on this, Michael!

How does the concept of style which you elaborate below relate to Peirce's
distinction of 'tone' from 'token' and 'type'?

Cheers, Cathy

-Original Message-
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On
Behalf Of Michael Shapiro
Sent: Tuesday, 27 March 2012 9:59 a.m.
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Aesthetics, Axiology, and Artistic Truth

Dear Peirce Listers,

Apropos of the recent messages regarding the Peirce
Society meeting at SAAP earlier this month in New York, yes, I was there too
and
heard Tom Short's responses after his paper (unsatisfactory, in my
estimation;
but he told me that he hadn't slept the night before) with regard to
aesthetics.
One shouldn't forget that Peirce himself is completely unsatisfactory when
it
comes to aesthetics (as he is on ethics).

Whenever I teach my course on Peirce's theory of
interpretation, I tell my students (only half in jest) that my definition of
a
philosopher is someone who only solves problems of their own devising. By
contrast, someone who is confronted with the problem of having to explain
the
facts of language or literature or music is in a rather different position
vis-à-vis the data. My long experience with the analysis of aesthetic
objects
(mostly poetry and prose) convinces me that ultimately one has to deal with
them
axiologically, so to speak, by acknowledging the necessity of seeing them as
repositories of values. In that light, the question as to why the Mona Lisa
is
admirable always comes under the concept of STYLE and its
HISTORY. It is, moreover, on the grounds of style that one
can begin to approach the problem of artistic truth in the spirit of
pragmaticism.

In case this line of thought is of interest, here are
some further observations on the specific role of style. (Comments always
welcome.)

Style suffuses so much of what it means to be human, and
has been the subject of so much analysis, that in order to move it away from
problems of introspection and self-awareness one needs to redirect the
age-old
discussion into a more public arena where the contrast with custom allows
insight into the ontology of human activity in general. This can be
accomplished
when style as a phenomenon that cuts across disciplinary boundaries is
viewed
TROPOLOGICALLY as a fundamentally COGNITIVE category. A global theory of
style entails arguing more
closely for the concept of STYLE AS A TROPE OF
MEANING; and demonstrating how stylistic analysis can reveal itself
not just as a compendium of traditionally taxonomized information but as the
means whereby individual manifestations of style, their structural
coherences,
and their mirroring of signification can be identified and evaluated.


I. Form and content. Insofar as the
distinction can be clear at all, it does not actually coincide with but cuts
across the boundary between what is style and what is not. Style then
comprises
characteristic features both of what is said or performed or made and of how
it
is said/performed/made. If it is obvious that style is the regard that what
pays to how the faults of this formula are equally obvious. Architecture,
nonobjective painting, and most music have no subject, nor do they literally
say
anything. So the what of one activity may be part of the how of another.
No
rule based on linguistic form alone could determine, for instance, whether
or
not a discursive meaning is ironic. In considering linguistic style at
least,
and perhaps even style generally, it soon emerges that the relation between
form
and content must in part be described metaphorically.
II. Content and expression. One famous theory of
style, that of the French scholar Charles Bally, identifies linguistic style
with the affective value of the features of organized language and the
reciprocal action of the expressive features that together form the system
of
the means of expression of a language. From this Roman Jakobson fashioned a
definition of style as a marked––emotive or poetic––annex to the neutral,
purely cognitive information. Aside from the impossibility of consistently
separating cognitive from affective information without remainder, it is
equally
transparent that definitions of style that trade in feelings, emotions, or
affects go awry by overlooking not only structural features that are neither
feelings nor expressed but also features that though not feelings ARE
expressed.
III. Difference between stylistic and
nonstylistic. A feature of style may be a feature of what is said, of what
is exemplified, or of what is expressed. But not all such features are
necessarily stylistic. Similarly, features that are clearly stylistic in one
work may have no stylistic bearing in another locus. Nelson Goodman writes:
A
property––whether of statement made, structure displayed, or feeling
conveyed––counts as stylistic only when it associates a work with one rather
than another artist, 

Re: [peirce-l] The Pragmatic Cosmos

2012-03-29 Thread Catherine Legg
Gary R wrote:
*
For my own part, I tend--as perhaps Jon does as well--to see
esthetic/ethics/logic as semeiotic as being in genuine tricategorial
relation so that they *inform* each other in interesting ways. Trichotomic
vector theory, then, does not demand that one necessarily always follow
the order: 1ns (esthetic), then 2ns (ethics), then 3ns (logic). One may
also look at the three involutionally (logic involves ethics which, in
turn, involves esthetic) or, even, according to the vector of
representation (logic shows esthetic to be in that particular relation to
ethics which Peirce holds them to be in). But only a very few scholars
have taken up tricategorial vector relations. Indeed, R. J. Parmentier and
I are the only folk I know of who have published work on possible paths of
movement (vectors) through a genuine trichotomic relation which does *not*
follow the Hegelian order: 1ns then 2ns then 3ns.

This is very interesting, thanks Gary :-)

Indeed, with a  few exceptions, there appears at present to be
relatively little interest in Peirce's categories generally speaking.
Given the way they pervade his scientific and philosophical work, and
considering how highly he valued their discovery, this has always struck
me as quite odd.
*

I have found that presenting on these concepts to non-Peirceans in
seminars and conference papers can be very hard work. It doesn't make much
sense to people who aren't already thinking within Peirce's system.

Cathy

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[peirce-l] Idealization (was: Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism)

2012-03-29 Thread Catherine Legg
 these laws and converts them in
the mystery of creation.” Lawrence’s philosophy of living spontaneity is of
a piece with Peirce’s outlook on this one point in my opinion—despite
Peirce’s antipathy to the “literary” mind—each allowing qualitative
uniqueness and a living spontaneity.

Perhaps there is similarity of Lawrence’s idea of an
incommutable, non-idealizing spontaneous self, in Peirce’s idea of “Now it
is energetic projaculation (lucky there is such a word, or this untried
hand might have been put to inventing one) by which in the typical
instances of Lamarckian evolution the new elements of form are first
created. Habit, however, forces them to take practical shapes, compatible
with the structures they affect, and, in the form of heredity and
otherwise, gradually replaces the spontaneous energy that sustains them.”



Gene Halton













*From:* C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] *On
Behalf Of *Catherine Legg
*Sent:* Sunday, March 25, 2012 9:42 PM
*To:* PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
*Subject:* Re: [peirce-l] Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism



Tom that is a great quote in this context, thank you!



Gene your passionate warning against a  “Pyrrhic victory of eviscerated,
abstract intelligence in the service of ideals” is important I think. It
would seem that Peirce did criticize himself along these lines at one point
where he compared his character unfavorably with that of James as “a mere
table of contents…a snarl of twine” (or similar words).



Having said that, however, I worry that your comments, Gene, are predicated
on a Romantic view of thought and feeling as mutually undermining
opposites, which is actually the tail-end of modernism. Peirce’s semiotics
on the other hand gives us the means to get past that dichotomy - to be
able to see for the first time the elegant feelings of fine mathematicians
and logicians, and the rigorous critical structure of great art.



I see Terry’s post on sociality as logic driving at this point from a
different direction.



Cathy



*From:* C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] *On
Behalf Of *Tom Gollier
*Sent:* Monday, 26 March 2012 3:47 a.m.
*To:* PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
*Subject:* Re: Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism



Cathy,

I'll have to wait for this discussion to develop further and/or the talk to
get posted, but I thought this quote from Peirce might be pertinent.

The artist introduces a fiction; but it is not an arbitrary one; it
exhibits affinities to which the mind accords a certain approval in
pronouncing them beautiful, which if it is not exactly the same as saying
that the synthesis is true, is something of the same general kind. [CP
1.383]


Tom

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 12:44 AM, Catherine Legg cl...@waikato.ac.nz
wrote:



On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
wrote:

I want to conclude this note with a passage near the end of the book
which I very much liked and have been reflecting on since. Forster
writes:

On [Peirce's] view, human beings are not cogs in a vast cosmic
mechanism, but rather are free, creative agents capable of
transforming the world though the active realization of intelligent
ideals. The ultimate fate of the world is indeterminate and there is
no guarantee that the forces of reasonableness will triumph.
Nevertheless, the potential for victory is there. All it requires, he
thinks, is a community of individuals who devote their energy to the
pursuit of truth and goodness, a community united, not by mutual
self-interest, but by a common love of reasonableness (Forster, op.
cit., 245).

Cathy, this brought to my mind the discussion of Peirce's esthetics
following Tom Short's fine talk in the Robin session at SAAP. Any
thoughts on that in this connection?

***


Yes that discussion was interesting - I wish we had had the time to pursue
it further. This might not mean so much to people who were not at the talk
(perhaps Tom Short might be persuaded to post a copy of it here). But
anyway, Tom claimed the subject matter of Peirce's aesthetics was not the
beautiful but the *admirable*. To test this, and because I was worried that
the talk had mainly spoken at the general level, I asked about a specific
example - the Mona Lisa, and whether a Peircean aesthetics as described by
Tom might have anything to say about that work, and if so, what.



I was worried it looked like I hadn't really understood the very point Tom
was trying to make, and Tom suggested that a painting of a beautiful woman
is not the sort of thing Peirce has in mind, but Felicia Cruse said she
wanted to hear what Tom had to say about it, and artworks in general.
Then Rosa Mayorga pointed out that Peirce himself describes the subject
matter of aesthetics as 'the growth of concrete reasonableness' (here is
the connection Gary is pointing out) so we should work with that.





So I guess the question is whether a painting by Leonardo

Re: [peirce-l] Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism

2012-03-25 Thread Catherine Legg
On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.comwrote:

 I want to conclude this note with a passage near the end of the book
 which I very much liked and have been reflecting on since. Forster
 writes:

 On [Peirce's] view, human beings are not cogs in a vast cosmic
 mechanism, but rather are free, creative agents capable of
 transforming the world though the active realization of intelligent
 ideals. The ultimate fate of the world is indeterminate and there is
 no guarantee that the forces of reasonableness will triumph.
 Nevertheless, the potential for victory is there. All it requires, he
 thinks, is a community of individuals who devote their energy to the
 pursuit of truth and goodness, a community united, not by mutual
 self-interest, but by a common love of reasonableness (Forster, op.
 cit., 245).

 Cathy, this brought to my mind the discussion of Peirce's esthetics
 following Tom Short's fine talk in the Robin session at SAAP. Any
 thoughts on that in this connection?

***


 Yes that discussion was interesting - I wish we had had the time to pursue
 it further. This might not mean so much to people who were not at the talk
 (perhaps Tom Short might be persuaded to post a copy of it here). But
 anyway, Tom claimed the subject matter of Peirce's aesthetics was not the
 beautiful but the *admirable*. To test this, and because I was worried that
 the talk had mainly spoken at the general level, I asked about a specific
 example - the Mona Lisa, and whether a Peircean aesthetics as described by
 Tom might have anything to say about that work, and if so, what.



 I was worried it looked like I hadn't really understood the very point Tom
 was trying to make, and Tom suggested that a painting of a beautiful woman
 is not the sort of thing Peirce has in mind, but Felicia Cruse said she
 wanted to hear what Tom had to say about it, and artworks in general.
 Then Rosa Mayorga pointed out that Peirce himself describes the subject
 matter of aesthetics as 'the growth of concrete reasonableness' (here is
 the connection Gary is pointing out) so we should work with that.




 So I guess the question is whether a painting by Leonardo da Vinci might
 somehow contribute to the growth of human concrete reasonableness. Doesn't
 seem to me it couldn't. That painting in particular, apparently people have
 been known to stand in front of it for hours and not necessarily be able to
 articulate why.


I hope I have captured an accurate enough snapshot of the discussion as
memory of such things is inevitably selective.

Regards to all, Cathy

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Re: [peirce-l] Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism

2012-03-13 Thread Catherine Legg
Michael I just read the book review from Nathan Houser you shared - it is
lucidly written over 6 pages and gives a commanding overview of Peirce's
realism. I really enjoyed reading it, thanks for posting it.

Cathy

On Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 6:13 PM, Michael DeLaurentis
michael...@comcast.netwrote:

 If there has already been a post about this, my apologies. Book review
 just in on CSP and nominalism. 

 ** **

 Michael J DeLaurentis

 ** **

  

 ** **

 ** **

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Re: [peirce-l] Proemial: On The Origin Of Experience

2012-03-06 Thread Catherine Legg
...To suggest such a thing seems no more outrageous than Copernicus
proposing that our planet is not the center of things or Newton suggesting
that the observations made before him suggest a universal previously
unconsidered. Of course, I am well aware of the reluctance to make such
associations, they appear arrogant and immodest. But must we not be
immodest to challenge received authority and dream of new and grander
conceptions?...

Hi Steven,

As I suspected you're putting forward a hypothesis. That's fine, but one of
the greatest dangers in speculative thought I think is mistaking the
hypothesis generation stage, the making of suggestions, for the full
inquiry. All manner of suggestions abound about all manner of things - the
hard work is to show which suggestions are *true*.

There's a good discussion by Peirce of all this buried somewhere in the
History of Science volumes (ed Eisele), where he describes many suggestions
that have been made about the Egyptian pyramids, how the builders
consciously aligned them with all manner of astronomical observations. The
problem was that the suggestions 'explained' the data that existed
beautifully, but were never tested on new data. Peirce found new data for
them and they fell over.

How such 'new data' might be obtained in your chosen area of inquiry is not
clear to me, but I would say the need for it is no less crucial.

Thank you for sharing your searching inquiries with us on the list.
Cheers, Cathy





On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@iase.uswrote:


 Dear Cathy,

 Let us ignore for a moment the contents of the book, which presents for a
 general audience a theory dealing with the foundations of logic and
 apprehension, considered by many audiences on first sight to be a tired
 subject.

 Today's audience will require some motivation to read the book in the face
 of an education and professional dogma that considers that work in logic is
 complete. In the face also of late twentieth century presentations of logic
 in the media, whose ambassador is Star Trek's Spock, where logic is
 ridiculed as an art, the domain of aliens, lacking the passion of the human
 endeavor.

 Is it not the case that life created by an evolved intelligent species and
 placed into environments in which it would not otherwise appear suggests
 that such species may play a role in the bigger picture, that in fact, it
 may be necessary for the universe to evolve and realize its potential? How
 many times in the unfolding of life in the universe will such an
 opportunity appear? If we are presented with it how can we, how dare we,
 ignore it?

 To suggest such a thing seems no more outrageous than Copernicus proposing
 that our planet is not the center of things or Newton suggesting that the
 observations made before him suggest a universal previously unconsidered.
 Of course, I am well aware of the reluctance to make such associations,
 they appear arrogant and immodest. But must we not be immodest to challenge
 received authority and dream of new and grander conceptions?

 The observations upon which the arguments of Copernicus and Newton are
 founded are no less compelling that recent advances in biophysics. The veil
 is being lifted and whether it be my theory or another that enables it, it
 now seems inevitable that we will understand the nature of living systems
 to the degree possible in order to create them by our design and for our
 purpose.

 This view is surely more plausible than the alternative in popular
 culture, which is to see this potential in descendants of current computing
 systems and robotics, which relies upon sterile machines to awaken and tell
 us what to do.

 I understand the caution, and in large part it is the reason for my
 seeking feedback outside of my immediate circle. It is a simple and
 startling observation. As I note, it is one that amuses me but is
 none-the-less seriously made.

 How does one know such a thing? It is an abduction, a speculation from
 current circumstance. The bigger question is, can it be verified or
 falsified by science? And surely, it can. It is not merely plausible in the
 fictional sense, it is plausible in fact. To which discipline must we turn
 to ensure this verification or denial? Who has given greater and deeper
 consideration to the operation of the senses, to the function of the mind,
 if it is not the logicians, and especially Peirce?

 How does one understate such a thing?

 With respect,
 Steven

 --
Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith
Institute for Advanced Science  Engineering
http://iase.info







 On Mar 5, 2012, at 7:52 PM, Catherine Legg wrote:

  Hi Steven,
 
  I'm afraid I must join my voice to those who feel they would not pick
  up the book based on your blurb (or preface - why call it a
  'Proemial'? What is a 'proemial'??) below.
 
  Though many of the component ideas are interesting, your overall
  expression of them seems to display a grandiosity which

Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction

2012-03-05 Thread Catherine Legg
Very interesting - thanks, Phyllis!
Cathy

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Phyllis Chiasson ath...@olympus.net wrote:
 Gary, Cathy and Listers,

 I have been a Peirce-list lurker for some time and have enjoyed reading
 discussions. Until I finished galley proofs for my latest book I did not
 allow myself to post. I have a short window here before I have to clean up
 my next book and send it in.

 Yes, Cathy, we have been applying these concepts to human subjects since
 1978 when the non-verbal assessment was first developed, first in school
 settings and in day treatment programs (mostly for adolescents). We began
 applying the assessments in business settings in 1986 by performing
 site-specific validations. In 2002, we received a grant to begin formal
 validity and reliability studies; these were performed at the University of
 Oregon decision sciences center. The study found very high inter-rater
 reliability and good re-test reliability (though the re-tests were performed
 too close to the original for us to feel comfortable with those results).
 Discriminate validity studies found a strong correlation between different
 non-verbal thinking processes and The Need for Cognition Scale, which is a
 paper and pencil questionnaire that addresses intellectual curiosity.

 However, thoroughgoing validity studies will require operational
 evaluations, which is why Jayne and I wrote this new book: Relational
 Thinking Styles and Natural Intelligence: Assessing inference patterns for
 computational modeling.

 This information should be a useful platform for developing predictive
 models of the operations and outcomes of human systems and programs modeled
 on human systems. We refer throughout the book to E. David Ford's book:
 Scientific Method for Ecological Research. It is a thoroughly Peircean guide
 to researching complex open systems, as are eco-systems. These patterns will
 require a similar approach. We are hoping to interest someone(s) with
 research/computer modeling backgrounds (which neither of us possess) to
 carry on this work.

 Regards,
 Phyllis

 BTW Cathy: I see that you are in Auckland. My husband and I love New
 Zealand! We visited our daughter and her family there (Torbay, to be exact)
 during the years that her husband was posted there. They are now in Sydney.

 -Original Message-
 From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On
 Behalf Of Catherine Legg
 Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2012 6:03 PM
 To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
 Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction,
 Induction

 Phyllis I also want to say how nice it is to have you back on the list!

 The research into the three types of problem-solving which you outline
 below is fascinating. Would you like to say a little more about how
 you derived these results - you seem to have experimented with live
 human subjects, but how / where /when?

 Best regards, Cathy

 On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 5:32 PM, Phyllis Chiasson ath...@olympus.net wrote:
 This discussion is interesting to me, as Jayne Tristan and I address this
 issue from a different perspective in our upcoming book (available in
 April
 from IGI Global).

 When thinking about the categories from the perspective of habitual
 (automatic, non-deliberate applications), we notice that abductive-like
 Relational thinkers tend to spend quite a bit of time in a sort of
 exploratory phenomenological messing about (Firstness) before beginning to
 juxtapose (Secondness) things together. They operate as Peirce describes a
 phenomenologist ought to do. Often the process of juxtaposing and
 re-juxtaposing takes even longer and returns them back to more
 phenomenological exploration, so that before deciding upon what ought to
 be
 represented (if they ever do), they consider many potential possibilities
 and relationships. Based upon many years of observation by means of a
 non-verbal assessment, very few people operate this way and almost all of
 them use qualitative induction (which is also observable) as they proceed.

 On the other hand, Deductive-like thinkers, who tend to be analytical in
 nature, determine options, qualities, possibilities, etc. relatively
 quickly, but spend quite a bit of time relating elements before
 determining
 a plan for representing these. Because they do not engage significantly in
 the exploratory stage (Firstness), once they decide their general goal,
 all
 of further choices are limited to those that will be most appropriate for
 achieving that goal. These individuals shut down the discovery process,
 except for often clever or ingenious adaptations that help them achieve
 the
 general goal. They are naturally complex thinkers, but without the
 abductive-like goal generating process, their goals are necessarily
 derivative.

 Crude inductive-like (Direct) thinkers quickly apprehend a terminal goal
 and
 apply familiar methods for achieving it, so that they are neither
 exploratory, nor analytical

[peirce-l] Varieties of Analytic Pragmatism

2012-03-05 Thread Catherine Legg
Read a paper the other day which I really enjoyed and wanted to share the
reference here:

*Danielle Macbeth, Varieties of Analytic Pragmatism, Philosophia 40
(1):27-39.*

*http://philpapers.org/rec/MACVOA*

Basically Macbeth dissects the version of pragmatism put forward by Robert
Brandom in his recent John Locke lectures, and argues that what he is doing
with logical diagrams is not at all what Kant and Peirce were doing.
Previously she had mainly worked on logical diagrams in Frege, so I'm
interested that she is turning to Peirce.

Anyway here is the official abstract:

In his Locke Lectures Brandom proposes to extend what he calls the project
of analysis to encompass various relationships between meaning and use. As
the traditional project of analysis sought to clarify various logical
relations between vocabularies so Brandom’s extended project seeks to
clarify various pragmatically mediated semantic relations between
vocabularies. The point of the exercise in both cases is to achieve what
Brandom thinks of as algebraic understanding. Because the pragmatist
critique of the traditional project of analysis was precisely to deny that
such understanding is appropriate to the case of natural language, the very
idea of an analytic pragmatism is called into question by that critique. My
aim is to clarify the prospects for Brandom’s project, or at least
something in the vicinity of that project, through a comparison of it with
what I will suggest we can think of as Kant’s analytic pragmatism as
developed by Peirce.

Cheers, Cathy

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Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction

2012-03-04 Thread Catherine Legg
Phyllis I also want to say how nice it is to have you back on the list!

The research into the three types of problem-solving which you outline
below is fascinating. Would you like to say a little more about how
you derived these results - you seem to have experimented with live
human subjects, but how / where /when?

Best regards, Cathy

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 5:32 PM, Phyllis Chiasson ath...@olympus.net wrote:
 This discussion is interesting to me, as Jayne Tristan and I address this
 issue from a different perspective in our upcoming book (available in April
 from IGI Global).

 When thinking about the categories from the perspective of habitual
 (automatic, non-deliberate applications), we notice that abductive-like
 Relational thinkers tend to spend quite a bit of time in a sort of
 exploratory phenomenological messing about (Firstness) before beginning to
 juxtapose (Secondness) things together. They operate as Peirce describes a
 phenomenologist ought to do. Often the process of juxtaposing and
 re-juxtaposing takes even longer and returns them back to more
 phenomenological exploration, so that before deciding upon what ought to be
 represented (if they ever do), they consider many potential possibilities
 and relationships. Based upon many years of observation by means of a
 non-verbal assessment, very few people operate this way and almost all of
 them use qualitative induction (which is also observable) as they proceed.

 On the other hand, Deductive-like thinkers, who tend to be analytical in
 nature, determine options, qualities, possibilities, etc. relatively
 quickly, but spend quite a bit of time relating elements before determining
 a plan for representing these. Because they do not engage significantly in
 the exploratory stage (Firstness), once they decide their general goal, all
 of further choices are limited to those that will be most appropriate for
 achieving that goal. These individuals shut down the discovery process,
 except for often clever or ingenious adaptations that help them achieve the
 general goal. They are naturally complex thinkers, but without the
 abductive-like goal generating process, their goals are necessarily
 derivative.

 Crude inductive-like (Direct) thinkers quickly apprehend a terminal goal and
 apply familiar methods for achieving it, so that they are neither
 exploratory, nor analytical. Instead, they jump almost immediately to
 representation, which means that they tend to produce direct copies of
 something they have seen, learned, copied, or previously done. Given
 sufficient intelligence, Direct thinkers also tend to make excellent
 students in many fields.


 -Original Message-
 From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On
 Behalf Of Jon Awbrey
 Sent: Friday, March 02, 2012 10:12 PM
 To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
 Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction,
 Induction

 GR = Gary Richmond
 JD = Jonathan DeVore

 JD: It might be useful to bear in mind that we don't have to
     think about 3rdnss, 2ndnss, 1stnss in an all-or-nothing
     fashion. Peirce might have us recall that these elements
     will be differently prominent according to the phenomenon
     under consideration -- without being mutually exclusive.

 JD: So while 3rdnss is prominent and predominant in deduction,
     there is also an element of compulsion by which one is forced
     to a particular conclusion.  That compulsive element could be
     thought of as the 2ndness of deduction -- which is put to good
     use by the predominantly mediated character of deduction: i.e.,
     it serves as the sheriff to the court (of law).

 GR: I think your point is well taken, Jonathan.

 I agree with Gary that this point is well taken.

 If we understand Peirce's categories in relational rather then non-relative
 terms,
 that is to say, as a matter of the minimum arity required to model a
 phenomenon,
 then all semiotic phenomena, all species of inference and types of
 reasoning,
 are basically category three.

 Nevertheless, many triadic phenomena are known to be degenerate in the
 formal sense
 that monadic and dyadic relations can account for many of their properties
 relatively
 well, at least, for many practical purposes.  That recognition allows the
 categorical
 question to be re-framed in ways that can be answered through normal
 scientific means.

 Regards,

 Jon

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Re: [peirce-l] A Question about Metaphysics and Logic

2012-03-04 Thread Catherine Legg
Dear Jason,

I've published a paper which distinguishes between 'universals' as
discussed in contemporary Australian metaphysics (most particularly in
the work of D.M. Armstrong), and 'generals' as discussed by Peirce.

Here is the abstract:
This paper contrasts the scholastic realists of David Armstrong and
Charles Peirce. It is argued that the so-called 'problem of
universals' is not a problem in pure ontology (concerning whether
universals exist) as Armstrong construes it to be. Rather, it extends
to issues concerning which predicates should be applied where, issues
which Armstrong sets aside under the label of 'semantics', and which
from a Peircean perspective encompass even the fundamentals of
scientific methodology. It is argued that Peirce's scholastic realism
not only presents a more nuanced ontology (distinguishing the existent
front the real) but also provides more of a sense of why realism
should be a position worth fighting for.

If that sounds of interest, the link is here:
http://hdl.handle.net/10289/2918

Cheers, Cathy
And here is the abstract:
The link

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Khadimir khadi...@gmail.com wrote:
 Greetings,

 I have a question for those knowledgeable and willing to answer a general
 question for those more steeping in classical metaphysics and logic than I.

 What are the distinctions between claiming the reality of universals vs.
 generals?  How would one argue that universals are not merely merely
 generals?  By the latter, for example, I mean general concepts created
 through a process of induction or what Locke called abstraction.  I offer
 an example to indicate what I mean by generality, though the definition is
 informal.  I am familiar with Peirce's article on Berkeley, which I enjoy,
 and I would look forward to Peircean and other views on the matter.
  Citations and references with limited explanation would be a fine way to
 answer, as I would not ask too much of anyone's time.

 Best and Thank You,
    Jason Hills
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Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition

2012-03-02 Thread Catherine Legg
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Gary!

The issue you raise about how deduction and induction should be
categorised is an interesting one. I had always thought of deduction
as falling clearly under secondness, due to the compulsion involved.
But you are right to note that in theorematic deduction the mind is
not passive but active, and that this form of reasoning was very
important to Peirce.

I don't see how one might interpret induction as secondness though.
Though a *misplaced* induction may well lead to the secondness of
surprise due to error. H...

Cheers, Cathy

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:49 PM, Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com wrote:
 Cathy, list,

 When I first read your remark suggesting that the birth, growth and
 development of new hypostatic abstractions should be in the position
 of 3ns rather than argumentative proof of the validity of the
 mathematics as I had earlier abduced, I thought this might be another
 case of the kind of difficulty in assigning the terms of 2ns and 3ns
 in genuine triadic relations which had Peirce, albeit for a very short
 time in his career, associating 3ns with induction (while before and
 after that time he put deduction in the place of 3ns as necessary
 reasoning--I have discussed this several times before on the list and
 so will now only refer those interested to the passage, deleted from
 the 1903 Harvard Lectures--276-7 in Patricia Turrisi's edition--where
 Peirce discusses that categorial matter).

 I think his revision of his revision to his original position may have
 been brought about by the clarification resulting from thinking of
 abduction/deduction/induction beyond critical logic (where they are
 first analyzed as distinct patterns of inference), then in methodeutic
 where a complete inquiry--in which  hypothesis formation is 1ns, the
 deduction of the implications of the hypothesis for testing is 3ns,
 and, finally, the actual inductive testing is 2ns--provides a kind of
 whetstone for categorial thinking about these three. (Yet, even in
 that 1903 passage he remarks that he will leave the question open.)

 Be that as it may, I am beginning to think that you are clearly on to
 something and that that transforming of a predicate into a relation
 which we call hypostatic abstraction certainly ought to be in the
 place of 3ns. Re-reading parts of Jay Zeman's famous and fine article
 on hypostatic abstraction further strengthened that opinion. See:
 http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/jzeman/peirce_on_abstraction.htm  Zeman
 writes:

 It is hypostatic or subjectal abstraction that Peirce is interested
 in; a hint as to why he is interested in it is given in his allusions
 in these passages to mathematical reasoning [. . .] Jaakko Hintikka
 has done us the great service of bringing to our attention and tying
 to contemporary experience one of Peirce's central observations about
 necessary—which is to say mathematical—reasoning: this is that
 nontrivial deductive reasoning, even in areas where explicit
 postulates are employed, always considers something not implied in the
 conceptions so far gained [in the particular course of reasoning in
 question], which neither the definition of the object of research nor
 anything yet known about could of themselves suggest, although they
 give room for it.

 As is well known, Peirce calls this kind of reasoning theorematic
 (in contrast to corollarial reasoning) because it introduces novel
 elements into the reasoning process in the form of icons, which are
 then 'experimented upon in imagination.' 

 Zeman quotes Hintikka to the effect that Peirce himself seems to have
 considered a vindication of the concept of abstraction as the most
 important application of his discovery [of the theorematic/corollarial
 distinction] and then remarks that Peirce would indeed have agreed
 that the light shed on necessary reasoning by this distinction helps
 greatly to illuminate the role of abstraction. . .

 See, also: EP2:394  where Peirce comments that it is hypostatic
 abstraction that leads to the generalizality of a predicate and, of
 course, what is general is 3ns. In short, I think you are quite right
 Cathy to have suggested that correction of my categorial assignments.
 As Peirce notes near the end of the Additament to the Neglected
 Argument, hypothetic abstraction concerns itself with that which
 necessarily would be *if* certain conditions were established
 (EP2:450).

 Best,

 Gary

 On 2/21/12, Catherine Legg cl...@waikato.ac.nz wrote:
 Gary wrote:


 For the moment I am seeing these
 three as forming a genuine tricategorial relationship, which I'd diagram
 in my trikonic way, thus:

 Theoretical mathematics:

 (1ns) mathematical hypothesis formation (creative abduction--that piece
 of mathematics)
 | (3ns) argumentative proof (of the validity of the  mathematics)
 (2ns) the mathematics itself

 [...]

 Wouldn't argumentative proof be the 2ness, and the 3ness would be
 something like the birth, growth

Re: [peirce-l] Philosophia Mathematica articles of interest

2012-02-14 Thread Catherine Legg
Thank you for publicising that, Irving! Both papers were part of a
mini-conference myself and Clemency Montelle organized at the NZ Division
of the Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference, in Dec '09.
Peirce featured prominently in discussions on the day, which is unusual
for Australasian philosophy.

Another paper from that mini-conference which is still in advance access,
and has a similar theme to the Catton  Montelle paper, is Danielle
Macbeth, Seeing How It Goes: Paper-and-Pencil Reasoning in Mathematical
Practice:

http://philmat.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/58.abstract?sid=2b61ff33-ea
82-434f-9c8d-67675faf094b

I would love to hear more about recent publications on Peirce from other
list members, though at the same time cognisant of the danger of tipping
off a bibliographic deluge.

Cheers, Cathy

-Original Message-
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On
Behalf Of Irving
Sent: Tuesday, 14 February 2012 8:36 a.m.
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Philosophia Mathematica articles of interest

The newest issue of Philosophia Mathematica, vol. 20, no. 1 (Feb. 2012)
has some items that may be of interest to members of PEIRCE-L; in
particular:

Catherine Legg, The Hardness of the Iconic Must: Can Peirce's
Existential Graphs Assist Modal Epistemology?, pp. 1-24

Philip Catton  Clemency Montelle, To Diagram, to Demonstrate: To Do,
To See, and to Judge in Greek Geometry, pp. 25-27

[the title alone of this one puts me in mind of Reviel Netz's book, The
Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: A Study in Cognitive
History,  which argues that the demonstrations in Euclid's  Elements
involved diagrammatic reasoning, rather than logical deductions, using
proof to mean argumentation rather than, say, syllogistic logic,
and I suspect that Peirce would have loved to have read this and Netz's
book];

and

Thomas McLaughlin's review of Matthew Moore's edition of Philosophy of
Mathematics: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce, pp. 122-128.

You can find the preview at:
https://webmail.iu.edu/horde/imp/view.php?popup_view=1index=17992mailbox
=INBOXactionID=view_attachid=1mimecache=c8c67315bb4e056828f0a08507e94ea
0




Irving H. Anellis
Visiting Research Associate
Peirce Edition, Institute for American Thought
902 W. New York St.
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5159
USA
URL: http://www.irvinganellis.info

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Re: [peirce-l] Call for papers: Special Issue of the Transactions: Joseph Ransdell and His Legacy

2012-02-07 Thread Catherine Legg
Ben – thank you for posting the CFP on the Peirce blog – for taking the
trouble to redo the Transactions masthead in the same style, and for
chivalrously protecting my email address from the spambots I might have
naively exposed it to.



You correctly traced the source of the   *bolded black Trebuchet MS * - I
cut and pasted some irreplaceable sentences into the CFP from
you-know-where, and it took over.



I hope many on this list will feel inspired to submit something – whether
solely or in collaboration.



All best regards,

Cathy



*From:* C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] *On
Behalf Of *Benjamin Udell
*Sent:* Wednesday, 8 February 2012 11:07 a.m.
*To:* PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
*Subject:* Re: Call for papers: Special Issue of the Transactions: Joseph
Ransdell and His Legacy



Cathy, list,



It's good to have you back.  Very gratifying Call for Papers!  Not only
would Joe feel honored, he'd feel the fondness for him in the call's
faithful use of his favorite font at Arisbe, *bolded black Trebuchet
MS.*You can usually tell when you're at Arisbe.



I posted the Call for Papers at
http://csp3.blogspot.com/2012/02/call-for-papers-on-ransdell.html but my
presumption stopped short of including the Transactions masthead image, so
the masthead will look more or less odd, depending on what fonts are
available on the user's computer. Your email address there is shielded from
the average spambot by a javascript trick.



Best, Ben



- Original Message -

*From:* Catherine Legg

*To:* PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU

*Sent:* Tuesday, February 07, 2012 12:19 AM

*Subject:* [peirce-l] Call for papers: Special Issue of the Transactions:
Joseph Ransdell and His Legacy



Dear Peirceans,



Hello again! I don’t know whether this list accepts attachments. In case it
does not, the material is cut and pasted below, but I imagine it will not
come out properly on many email readers. If you do not receive a copy of
the attachment, and would like one, please email me.



All best regards,

Cathy

*CALL FOR PAPERS:*

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[peirce-l] FW: SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION

2012-02-06 Thread Catherine Legg
Dear Peirceans,

Just a short note to say that after a long absence from this list, I'm
back, and *how* nice it is to read such thoughtful and wide-ranging posts
as the below. I'm remembering the old magic that drew me to the list and
to Peirce studies back in the mid-90s, and the 'intellectual hope' that
Gary speaks eloquently of below, of creating (by 'bodying forth', rather
than arguing about it) a new paradigm in semiotics and philosophy, is one
that moves me too.

On the topic of which, I am about to post a Call For Papers for a very
specific project which hopefully will be of interest to this list.

Stand by...
Yours,
Cathy

Catherine Legg
Senior Lecturer, Philosophy Programme
University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
3240, Hamilton, New Zealand
http://waikato.academia.edu/CathyLegg



-Original Message-
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On
Behalf Of Gary Richmond
Sent: Friday, 3 February 2012 9:51 a.m.
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Re: SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO
COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION

Peter, Stephen, list,

Peter, you wrote:

PS:  I am a little surprised at the lack of follow-up from the list to
Steve's suggestions, below. I do not personally have any opinion
regarding the prospect of Peirceans forming a new generation of public
intellectuals, but this is a theme that I recall being raised on the
list in the past, and generating lively discussion.

Stephen had written:

SR: Did Peirce ever say anything relevant to the issue of peer review?
As for example implying a division between disciplines, in which
ordinary persons would have no relevant contribution to make, and areas
where anyone of ordinary capacities might be seen to have a valuable
contribution to make? The impression I have is that Peirce might be
quite iconoclastic regarding the vetting all of claims to truth, not to
mention the proliferation of specialization and its sequestration under
the umbrellas of academia and professions.

GR: For my own part, I would hope--and that's all that it is and can be
for now: a hope--that a more Peircean approach to forming a new
generation of public intellectuals might come to be. By a Peircean
approach I mean to include such thing as Socratic dialogue (that is, as
Peirce understood it, not as Plato misinterpreted it); critical
commonsensism (== pragmatism); a tripartite method of scientific inquiry
involving the individual abductive generation of hypotheses, the
deduction of the implications of certain hypotheses for testing, and the
actual inductive test occur, the results to be reviewed and reflected
upon by the relevant scientific communities of interest; the notion of
the significant differences (including methodological) between
Cenoscopic (philosophy) and Idioscopic (the 'special' sciences); the
assumption of an extreme realist metaphysic--countering nominalistic and
reductivistic tendencies--upon essentially pan-semiotic analyses
(following the findings of a tricategorial phenomenology); his ethics of
inquiry, etc.

Still, all of this--and much more--has been 'out there' for well over a
century, almost two (we are approaching the centenary of Peirce's death
in 2014), and, while there has been some progress especially in the
theory related to much that has been outlined above, for a philosophy
which has as its name, pragmatism, there has been scant little
application of it to communities of inquiry it seems to me.
Nevertheless, after decades of specialization, one can imagine that
we're beginning to see a new, growing ideal of interdisciplinary
semiotic thinking, this being one of the great possibilities of
biosemiotics as some are conceiving it,and certainly one of the
principal reasons why I'm drawn to it. Not only Deacon's work, but also
Eliseo Fernandez's and Soren Brier's (both of these scholars are on this
list, btw) tend towards this new interdisciplinary thinking. But the
terrain is vast and extraordinarily complex such that both Brier and
Deacon, for example, have had to write very long, very dense, very
complex books. On the other hand, I've recommended Fernandez's work here
since his short articles gives one--at least gave me--enough of a sense
of the value and importance of the possibilities inherent in this
relatively newly budding semiotic approach as to afford me the patience
and fortitude to tackle a tome like Deacon's *Incomplete Science*. So,
in a word, this is difficult material to take up as a individual or, a
fortiori, as a community because of its complexity. I've been talking
about beginning a discussion of Deacon's book here for some time, and
Gary Fuhrman made a good faith attempt at getting it going. But now I
think it'll take a great deal more preparation for us to get such a
discussion off the ground (at the moment we are both rereading the book,
btw).

Peirce clearly distinguishes kinds of sciences (theoretical and
practical, censocopic and specific, research/review/applied