Re: [peirce-l] Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism
Dear Terry, Gary, Cathy, et al., Thanks for your comments. But I don't think you quite get my point, namely; that the idealizing of the passions, including the idealization of love, as a means of creative agents capable of transforming the world though the active realization of intelligent ideals is wrongheaded. The statement I quoted suggests that narrow model of inquiry (for which it is a good statement) can generalize to become a general vehicle of world transformation. In my view Peirce would suggest that is pushing it too far. I say that it is precisely such idealizing of life to ratiocentric ends that has wrongly put the biosphere in jeopardy today, and nominalistic science has been a key player. Replacing in Forster's words, the vast cosmic mechanism with transforming the world though the active realization of intelligent ideals, may seem a better option, but does not to my mind go to the heart of the problem of idealizing conduct as determinant of practical life. Yes, Gary, I agree that is where the common-sensist element of Peirce's critical common-sensism allows more. Cathy, I don't see a Romantic view of thought and feeling as mutually undermining opposites. Quite the, uh, opposite. The idealizing of the passions by thought, so that sentiment becomes a value rather than passionate reasonableness was part of my criticism. The problem of modern idealization involves what Max Weber called rationalization, but it also involves the colonization of the sentiments by idealizing rationality, in effect, disabling the spontaneous self and its spontaneous reasonableness. The community of variescent life, inclusive of humans, rather than a community of human inquirers, might be the better agent of world transformation. But the human element of it would have to be more than inquirers, in Peirce's sense. It would have to be whole human beings, passionately alive to their living habitats rather than to idealized conduct. That might also be a virtual definition of an artist engaged in creating a work. Consider, Terry, where the gospel of greed that Peirce names in his essay on evolutionary love derives from. Dostoyevsky and D.H. Lawrence understood, in my view, that the idealization of love (and more broadly the idealization of the sentiments) would culminate in its opposite, the idealization of hate or greed. The nominalistic state of nature of Thomas Hobbes seems a good example of that, nature as the warre of every man against every man. Melville in 1851, Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov, and Lawrence in various writings, each showed how the idealizing of life and love is a mark of the tragic nature of modern life. But each also showed alternatives, which seem to me congruent with Peirce's larger outlook, involving yes, sociality, but the sociality of the community of the earth and of the spontaneous self. The living self bodying forth here and now and not fixed by some idealized horizon. Lawrence: Every single living creature is a single creative unit, a unique, incommutable self. Primarily, in its own spontaneous reality, it knows no law. It is a law unto itself. Secondarily, in its material reality, it submits to all the laws of the material universe. But the primal, spontaneous self in any creature has ascendance, truly, over the material laws of the universe; it uses 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
Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition
Dear Irving, A digression, from the perspective of art. You quote probability theorist William Taylor and set theorist Martin Dowd as saying: The chief difference between scientists and mathematicians is that mathematicians have a much more direct connection to reality. This does not entitle philosophers to characterize mathematical reality as fictional. Yes, I can see that. But how about a variant: The chief difference between scientists, mathematicians, and artists is that artists have a much more direct connection to reality. This does not prevent scientists and mathematicians to characterize artistic reality as fictional, because it is, and yet, nevertheless, real. This is because scientist's and mathematician's map is not the territory, yet the artist's art is both. Gene Halton -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Irving Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 4:34 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition Ben, Gary, Malgosia, list It would appear from the various responses that. whereas there is a consensus that Peirce's theorematic/corollarial distinction has relatively little, if anything, to do with my theoretical/computational distinction or Pratt's creator and consumer distinction. As you might recall, in my initial discussion, I indicated that I found Pratt's distinction to be somewhat preferable to the theoretical/computational, since, as we have seen in the responses, computational has several connotations, only one of which I initially had specifically in mind, of hack grinding out of [usually numerical] solutions to particular problems, the other generally thought of as those parts of mathematics taught in catch-all undergrad courses that frequently go by the name of Finite Mathematics and include bits and pieces of such areas as probability theory, matrix theory and linear algebra, Venn diagrams, and the like). Pratt's creator/consumer is closer to what I had in mind, and aligns better, and I think, more accurately, with the older pure (or abstract or theoretical) vs. applied distinction. The attempt to determine whether, and, if so, how well, Peirce's theorematic/corollarial distinction correlates to the theoretical/computational or creator/consumer distinction(s) was not initially an issue for me. It was raised by Ben Udell when he asked me: Do you think that your theoretical - computational distinction and likewise Pratt's creator - consumer distinction between kinds of mathematics could be expressed in terms of Peirce's theorematic - corollarial distinction? I attempted to reply, based upon a particular quote from Peirce. What I gather from the responses to that second round is that the primary issue with my attempted reply was that Peirce's distinction was bound up, not with the truth of the premises, but rather with the method in which theorems are arrived at. If I now understand what most of the responses have attempted to convey, the theorematic has to do with the mechanical processing of proofs, where a simple inspection of the argument (or proof) allows us to determine which inference rules to apply (and when and where) and whether doing so suffices to demonstrate that the theorem indeed follows from the premises; whereas the corollarial has to do with intuiting how, or even if, one might get from the premises to the desired conclusion. In that case, I would suggest that another way to express the theorematic/corollarial distinction is that they concern the two stages of creating mathematics; that the mathematician begins by examining the already established mathematics and asks what new mathematics might be Ben Udell also introduces the issue of the presence of a lemma in a proof as part of the distinction between theorematic and corollarial. His assumption seems to be that a lemma is inserted into a proof to help carry it forward, but is itself not proven. But, as Malgosia has already noted, the lemma could itself have been obtained either theorematically or corollarially. In fact, most of us think of a lemma as a minor theorem, proven along the way and subsequently used in the proof of the theorem that we're after. I do not think that any of this obviates the main point of the initial answer that I gave to Ben's question, that neither my theoretical/computational distinction nor Pratt's creator and consumer distinction have anything to do with Peirce's theorematic/corollarial distinction. In closing, I would like to present two sets of exchanges; one very recent (actually today, on FOM, with due apologies to the protagonists, if I am violating any copyrights) between probability theorist William Taylor (indicated by '') and set theorist Martin Dowd (indicated by ''), as follows: More seriously, any freshman philosopher encounters the fact
Re: [peirce-l] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite !
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach. Dear Stephen, It seems to me Marx's words could be taken as a variant of your statement: It seems to me we would do well to frame (at least) non-scientific inquiry not as interpretation but as use. So could Wittgenstein's meaning as use. It might be interesting in this context to consider Peirce's understanding of science as essentially useless, though you do state that you mean non-scientific. Still, semiosis as inferential interpretation, Peirce's understanding, is broader than use. Pragmatic meaning as conceivable consequence is more than use. But let me throw back another perspective. A symbol has a life of its own, more than simply the use we put it to. Of what use is a literary symbol, if not that it is a portal to interpretation? Consider D. H. Lawrence's view of symbols: Symbols are organic units of consciousness with a life of their own, and you can never explain them away, because their value is dynamic, emotional, belonging to the sense-consciousness of the body and soul, and not simply mental. An allegorical image has a meaning. Mr. Facing-both-ways has a meaning. But I defy you to lay your finger on the full meaning of Janus, who is a symbol. Gene Halton From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Stephen C. Rose Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 1:24 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite ! For what it may be worth, else ignore. I have just started Peter's book which is now 30 years old which seems young to me as most of mine were published before the 80's. I want to make what may be a cliched observation or a simplistic one. It seems to me we would do well to frame (at least) non-scientific inquiry not as interpretation but as use. I am serious. Interpretation is inherently unsatisfactory and need not be claimed as an objective. Use is what I think Pierce might have wanted. Meaning we do not present our thoughts as apt interpretations of Peirce or attempts to argue for this or that system. But as our own thoughts where our debt is to Peirce but our thoughts have the temerity to stand naked before whoever encounters them, to be accepted or rejected. Let them be misinterpreted as they would be anyway - inevitably. Peirce would say they are not final. Why do you think he never finished a system? Does he not leave clues? I seize on things I derive from Peirce to claim that are ideal or ontological values and to name them. And to claim that history is the cumulative exercise of willed values. And that ontological values can be experienced and when they are we make better history than when they are not. I feel the task of creating a cadre of public intellectuals (at some point) would be advanced by championing the idea that it is not the necessary function of scholars to interpret (come up with the right take on) Peirce. Perish the thought. It is tu use Peirce to take the strands and improve on them, use them, profit from them. Best, S - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] The new issue of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
Dear list, The new issue of the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (Volume 3, Number 2, 2011) is now available online as of today. http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/ I am listing the table of contents below. It involves symposia on “Pragmatism and the Social Sciences: A Century of Influences and Interactions,” as well as one dealing with Richard Bernstein's recent book The Pragmatic Turn. Plus other essays. My contribution, Pragmatic E-Pistols, involves previously unpublished, unknown, and unarchived pragmatist letters (I say this merely as a humorous tease to archivalists out there), among other things. http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/halton.pdf Cheers, Gene Halton European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy (Volume 3, Number 2, 2011). Guest editors: Roberto Frega (IEA Paris), Filipe Carreira da Silva (University of Lisbon) Roberto Frega, Filipe Carreira da Silva, Editor’s Introduction to The Symposia (pdf) Section I. Pragmatism and the Margins of Mainstream Social Sciences Peter Manicas, American Social Science: The Irrelevance of Pragmatism (pdf) Patrick Baert, Neo-Pragmatism and Phenomenology: A Proposal (pdf) Eugene Halton, Pragmatic E-Pistols (pdf) Section II. Empowering the Margins of Society Susan Haack, Pragmatism, Law, and Morality: The Lessons of Buck v. Bell (pdf) Patricia Hill Collins, Piecing Together a Genealogical Puzzle: Intersectionality and American Pragmatism (pdf) Bill E. Lawson, Of President Barack H. Obama and Others: Public Policy, Race-talk, and Pragmatism (pdf) Section III. Pragmatist Appropriations Mitchell Aboulafia, Through the Eyes of Mad Men: Simulation, Interaction, and Ethics (pdf) Louis Quéré, Towards a social externalism: Pragmatism and ethnomethodology (pdf) James Johnson, Between Political Inquiry and Democratic Faith: A Pragmatist Approach to Visualizing Publics (pdf) Kenneth W. Stikkers, Dewey, Economic Democracy, and the Mondragon Cooperatives (pdf) David H. Brendel, Can Patients and Psychiatrists be Friends?: a Pragmatist Viewpoint (pdf) A Symposium on Richard Bernstein’s The Pragmatic Turn, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2010 Organiser: Roberto Frega (IEA Paris) Roberto Frega, Richard Bernstein and the challenges of a broadened pragmatism (pdf) James R. O’Shea, Objective Truth and the Practice Relativity of Justification in the Pragmatic Turn (pdf) Ramón del Castillo, A Pragmatic Party. On Richard Bernstein’s The Pragmatic Turn (pdf) Sarin Marchetti, Richard J. Bernstein on Ethics and Philosophy between the Linguistic and the Pragmatic Turn (pdf) Richard Bernstein, Continuing the Conversation (pdf) Essays David Ludwig, Beyond Physicalism and Dualism? Putnam’s Pragmatic Pluralism and the Philosophy of Mind (pdf) Vitaly Kiryushchenko, Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics: Some Consequences of Kant’s Critiques in Peirce’s Early Pragmatism (pdf) Giovanni Tuzet, Legal Judgment as a Philosophical Archetype: A Pragmatist Analysis of Three Theses (pdf) Book Review Rosa M. Calcaterra, New Perspectives on Pragmatism and Analytic Philosophy, Rodopi, Amsterdam-Ney York, 2001, by Anna Boncompagni (pdf) Filipe Carreira da Silva, Mead and Modernity. Science, Selfhood and Democratic Politics, Lanham MD: Lexington Books 2008. By Anna M. Nieddu (pdf) George Herbert Mead, The Philosophy of Education, Paradigm Publishers, 2008, edited and introduced by Gert Biesta and Daniel Tröhler. By Filipe Carreira da Silva. (pdf) J. R. Shook and J. A. Good, John Dewey’s Philosophy of Spirit, with the 1897 Lecture on Hegel, Fordham University Press, New York 2010, pp. 197, by Roberto Gronda. (pdf)
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION
Ben Udell asked: ...So, my question, which I find I have trouble posing clearly, is, granting that IA involves an extension of mind in its abilities/competences as well as its cognitions, does it much extend volition and feeling (including emotion)? In my view it clearly does, as does AI. The question for me is to what end? Clearly improved computation can serve scientific advance and human well-being. But the opposite is also true. Human cognition occurs in embodiment and involves that embodiment, regardless of the logic of the cognition. A pure intention to change direction while walking, though unacted upon, will show up in the track sign, because it gets subtly muscularized in the act of simply thinking it. Consider too what Peirce stated about the nominalist outlook that dominates modern mind and culture and science: The nominalist Weltanschauung has become incorporated into what I will venture to call the very flesh and blood of the average modern mind, CP 5.61. So what if that nominalist Weltanschauung has as its telos the progressive absorption of human purpose to the nominalist, materialist telos of alienated purpose, incorporated as the machine: a mythic expansive projection of the automatic that would define the universe itself as a vast machine, earlier a ticking clock, now a calculating computer? Then one might expect the very flesh and blood of the average modern mind to progressively take on characteristics of the schizoid machine. As Lewis Mumford put it, The new attitude toward time and space infected the workshop and the counting house, the army and the city. The tempo became faster, the magnitudes became greater; conceptually, modern culture launched itself into space and gave itself over to movement. What Max Weber called the 'romanticism of numbers' grew naturally out of this interest. In timekeeping, in trading, in fighting, men counted numbers, and finally, as the habit grew, only numbers counted (Technics and Civilization, 1934, p. 22). Technique outstrips purposive conduct. Intelligence augmentation is not necessarily the same as the augmentation of intelligence, because, at least as I understand it, the term means technical means, and not the growth of purpose. An ever increasing plethora of devices pour ever more information in today, but for the bulk of people, the likely result is what I term brain suck. One example: Children in the US between 8 and 18 now watch an average of 7 hours 38 minutes of screens per day, 7 days per week. That does not count school time. Some fragment of the information is probably augmenting intelligence, but the overwhelming bulk of it is augmenting the very flesh and blood of their minds by the moral equivalent of embedding emotional computer cookies to know marketed commodities and to desire new commodities permanently. The schizoid machine Weltanschauung works optimally by conditioning though augmenting pleasure, as though sensation were emotion, especially in a society that can redefine the purely commercial process benignly as intelligence augmentation. Gene Halton -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Skagestad, Peter Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:20 AM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION Ben, Thank you for your comments, which I have been chewing on. I wish I had some insightful responses, but this is all I come up with. You wrote: I find it very hard to believe that the second computer revolution could have very easily failed to take place soon enough after the first one, given the potential market, though as you say below, you were mainly concerned (and I agree with you) to reject a monocausal technological determinism. PS: We are in the realm of speculation here, and I cannot claim to be an economic historian, but I do not believe the evolution of either interactive or personal computing was market-driven. When you read, for instance, the Licklider biography The Dream Machine (I forget the author's name), you find Licklider knocking his head against the wall trying to persuade IBM to provide time-sharing, the first major breakthrough in interactive computing. Eventually there emerged entrepreneurs - notably Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mitch Kapor - who recognized the market potential of the new technology. But by then networking, word-processing, email, and GUIs had already been developed, mostly by government-funded researchers guided by the augmentationist vision. What would have happened if Licklider, Engelbart, and Sutherland had not been guided by this vision, or if they had not obtained government funding? I think the answer is that we simply do not know. This may be the place to add that, when I wrote Thinking With
Re: [peirce-l] Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic
From Jerry: Gene: What is the status of representation in the social sciences? Is it either prescinding or abstracting? Or what? Dear Jerry, I think it is fair to say that the social sciences are dominated by theories of conventional representation and signification. Signification (communication, meaning, etc.) is usually viewed as conventional, as social construction. A lot of echoes of Saussure's structural and conventional semiology. One popular example is Pierre Bourdieu's idea of habitus. Bourdieu makes interesting analyses of class and class domination, using the idea of habitus, but his view of what constitutes habit is constricted to convention and forms of domination, of implementing schemes. The broader view of habit as processual conduct proposed by the original pragmatists allows one to do much more. Habit can be viewed as more than a means of social distinction, as Bourdieu uses it; it can also be taken as capable of self-controlled correction, hence as an element of possible democratic common life. Habit can be taken as living conduct, not simply the implementation of a pre-existing scheme. As such, a person can be more than the function of social domination. The accepted views also tend to ignore other modalities of signification, as well as the possibilities of natural signification or of self-correcting sign-habits or conventions. Gene - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 5
Dear Sally,
The Nubiola article mentioned by Michael DeLaurentis is: Nubiola,
Jaime. 1996. Scholarship on the Relations between Ludwig Wittgenstein and
Charles S. Peirce. Proceedings of the III Symposium on History of Logic,
edited by I. Angelelli and M. Cerezo. Berlin: Gruyter. Retrieved December 5,
2007, from: http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/nubiola/scholar.htm
Re: the compatibility of Wittgenstein and Peirce. I have a brief
discussion of early Wittgenstein from a Peircean perspective on pp. 240-243 in
the last chapter of my book Meaning and Modernity. It is in a section titled
Principia Diaboli, and I criticize the broader culture of nominalism; its
split between thought and things, and denial of the reality of the symbol. I
contrast the diabolic (to throw apart) with the symbolic (to throw together).
Later Wittgenstein's broader idea of meaning as use still seems
to me be far more contracted than Peirce's idea of meaning as found in
conceivable consequences.
Perhaps this might also have some interest, in the context of
communicative community virtues. In a recent blog, Michael Weinman attempted to
apply Peirce's idea of fallibilism to a conception of political fallibilism:
http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/08/two-forms-of-political-fallibilism/
My attempt at a Peircean response to him is also there.
Gene
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Sally Ness
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2011 5:51 PM
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities
Segment 5
Gary F., List,
Thanks, Gary, for this response. I didn't really know what to make of JR's
assertion regarding the distributive vs. collective existence of the
communicational community--the translation into Peircean terms is very helpful.
I take your point about JR having the life of a Peircean symbol in mind in
paragraph 23, with all that that concept implies. When this is factored in, it
is clear that the form of life is something to which the inquirer belongs, not
one that is coterminous with the inquirer's individual being (my initial
reading). This is one moment in the paper when it seems particularly difficult
to speak in the spirit of Peirce, as JR certainly is doing, without also
speaking in his exact terms as well--without using explicitly Peirce's
definition of the symbol and making all that that definition entails clear. In
this respect, JR's use of form of life does seem to be a good alternative,
however. Even if the physicists weren't familiar with Wittgenstein's
distinctive notion of grammar and its relation to the practices of language
games and the forms of life they sustain, the phrase still conveys in a common
sensical way that there is a larger reality to which an individual inquirer, as
an inquirer, necessarily belongs.
The compatibility of Wittgenstein and Peirce is a topic of interest to me. I
have been struck repeatedly by how closely Wittgenstein's thinking can align
with Peirce's. If any listers know of work done that compares these two
philosophers, I would appreciate any references. Perhaps this needs a
different thread, however.
Thanks again,
Sally
Sally,
JR's overall form of life does sound more like Wittgenstein's Lebensform than
a Peircean idiom, but as i think you mentioned before, he seems to be going out
of his way here to avoid Peircean terminology that might put off the people
he's addressing. However it does seem to me quite compatible with Peirce's
ideas on scientific inquiry. I don't think i'd agree that JR locates truth
entirely within the life of the inquirer, not in the subject matter that
determines the inquirer's inquiry, and not in any relation that the inquirer
and the subject-matter might be maintaining to one another. We're talking
about the life of a symbol here, and a genuine symbol must involve both
indexical and iconic components in generating an interpretant, which does imply
a relation between the inquirer and the subject-matter (to put it in less
Peircean terms).
Speaking of the communicational community, JR's assertion that it exists
distributively not collectively looks at first more individualistic than
anything Peirce would say, but i think makes a more Peircean sense if we bear
in mind the typical Peircean distinction between reality and existence. I think
Peirce would say that the community as a form of life is more real than the
individual inquirer, but it only exists in the actual practice of individual
inquirers. And that practice, to be genuine, requires an objective focus on
subject-specific properties, as JR puts it in paragraph 23.
That's how i see it, anyway.
Gary F.
} Sincerity is incommunicable because it becomes insincere by being
communicated. [Luhmann] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htmhttp://www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process
Ben Udell: Regarding Peirce on singular versus individual, the distinction that he made (at least sometimes) was that which is in one place and time (a singular), and that which is in only one place at a time (an individual). In that sense, we are individuals but not singulars... But the singulars that Peirce in later years discusses in regard to perceptual judgments are usually that which he earlier called general individuals - you, me, a horse, etc. Dear Ben, You say we are individuals in Peirce's technical sense, in one place at a time. But then how can you and I be here, in these signs, when we are also there, reading and typing them? What about: A word may be in several places at once, six six, because its essence is spiritual; and I believe that a man is no whit inferior to the word in this respect. (Peirce. 7.591, W 1:498, 1866) Gene From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Benjamin Udell Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 7:09 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process Peter, Stefan, Gary R., list, That's a good point, Peter, about falsification's pertaining to general/universal judgments. Even a perceptual judgment that there are no animals (besides oneself!) in this room is, in Peirce's view, general only in its predicate - we can utter it All x... etc. but one perceptually judges of this, that, yon, etc. conjunctively, that this, that, and yon,etc., are such-and-such. A fallibilism about one's perceptually compelled judgments will itself be theoretical in some sense. Hence maybe one could say that scientific falsificationism is 'prefigured' or foreshadowed in fallibilism about perceptual judgments, but only given that such fallibilism is already somewhat theoretically oriented. The _fallibility_ of perceptual judgments does seem bound up with scientific falsificationism insofar as science depends on perceptual judgments, and involves inferring to universal propositions from perceptual judgments. But could one have a theoretical falsificationism, in particular a scientific falsificationism, without a theoretical falsificationism about perceptual judgments? It seems possible at first glance but seems kind of dicy when one tries to imagine how it would work. I'm left uncertain. Regarding Peirce on singular versus individual, the distinction that he made (at least sometimes) was that which is in one place and time (a singular), and that which is in only one place at a time (an individual). In that sense, we are individuals but not singulars. A singular in that sense is a single point in space and time. Even a mathematical point, when considered as being in motion or stationary in a timelike dimension, does not represent such singularness - it makes a temporoid line. However, later he often used singular in the sense that he had given to individual. In Questions on Reality http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms148.htm Winter-Spring 1868 (Three Drafts) MS 148 (Robin 931, 396): Writings 2.162-187, perhaps the section that Stefan was trying recall: With reference to individuals, I shall only remark that there are certain general terms whose objects can only be in one place at one time, and these are called individuals. They are generals that is, not singulars, because these latter [the singulars -B.U.] occupy neither time nor space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one date. The subject of individuality, in this sense, therefore, belongs to the theory of space rather than to the theory of logic. [] [] But here it is necessary to distinguish between an individual in the sense of that which has no generality [the singular -B.U.] and which here appears as a mere ideal boundary of cognition, and an individual in the far wider sense of that which can be only in one place at one time. It will be convenient to call the former a singular and the latter only an individual. So, at that time he held that there are two kinds of individuals, - singular individuals, called singulars, occupy neither space nor time and can only be at one point and can be only at one date. - general individuals, called individuals, can be only in one place at one time (one place at a time). Peirce goes on to say in that text that In short, those things which we call singulars exist, but the character of singularity which we attribute to them is self-contradictory. But the singulars that Peirce in later years discusses in regard to perceptual judgments are usually that which he earlier called general individuals - you, me, a horse, etc. Best, Ben - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu
