Re: [peirce-l] ORDINARY DISCOURSE AS THE FINAL CAUSE OF ALL INTELLECTUAL ENDEAVORS
on a distinction between sign and representamen). But for Deely and some others, _sign_ refers to the whole semiotic triad of the representamen, the object (or the significate, or significate object, as Deely calls it), and the interpretant. Best, Ben On 5/13/2012 5:39 AM, Gary Moore wrote: Dear Benjamin Udell, Gary Moore: Although John Harvey’s reply was extremely good and very thought provoking, this is the best argued and most informative and just downright practically effective letter I have ever received on a philosophy thread on the internet in twelve years! I appreciate the distinction made in paragraph 2] very much. I did have trouble trying to find any sort of definition for precisely the terminological combination “prime necessity” which, though it combines two well known terms, is not at all self-explicative together as obviously Peirce wants them to be together. You are perfectly right in saying Peirce is just using it as an example. ¶ [_Addendum_ ] Gary Moore: To explain my interest I need to show an ongoing conflict with S. J. McGrath over another such combination term with a violent and variegated history: the /analogia entis/ which he says is the primary concept of Thomas Aquinas. He says it is absolutely necessary to all thinking as such as well as to any meaningful theology. He obviously treats it as a form of logical argument. But it is not. It is a literary trope. Now, that does not diminish its importance because literary explication always goes with using language. Literary explication shows that psychology, explicit and implicit, governs all our expression. Yet in logic and philosophy it is only rarely acknowledged, and then only as a minor concern when it fact it is the overwhelming concern of the whole of language. Its formation of language comes long before logic and philosophy. Deely demonstrates that the /analogia entis/ is NOT/a logical argument/ but does show the analysis of the word “God”, which Aquinas definitively says we can never really say anything ‘real’ about, acts as I see it as a black whole around which theology, philosophy, and psychology revolve around and . . . The term /analogia entis/ McGrath is so hot and bothered about does not even occur in Aquinas anywhere. Gary Moore: But your further analysis, as well as the Peirce you quote [3], have been vastly rewarding! You quote “Necessity /de omni/ is that of a predicate which belongs to its whole subject at all times.” I take this to refer to “Firstness”. In turn, I take these to refer to John Deely’s use of Aquinas’ /ens ut primum cogitum/ which is literally the first ‘thing’ you know and gives you the ability to know everything else. This is the key to all of Deely’s thinking. I searched for /ens ut primum cogitum / at Arisbe and found absolutely nothing which is probably my fault. Is the identification accurate? ¶ [Addendum] Gary Moore: In */A Thief of Peirce: The Letters of Kenneth Laine Ketner and Walker Percy/ * , Percy makes the strange statement [page 6] that “To tell the truth, I’ve never seen much use in CSP’s “Firstness”, except to make the system more elegant.”] Gary Moore: At paragraph 8], you say, “ordinary discourse itself can evolve and become less vague and more specialized”. This is true. That this evolution occurs is undeniable. But this indicates the nature of language itself which I am always ‘within’ and yet is the only viewpoint I have of it. This is why I disagree with Deely about his blanket condemnation of solipsism which, like Kant’s categories for the same reason, he is forced to do an about face. */FOUR AGES OF UNDERSTANDING/ * , page 588, “ “But this is not sufficient for the preclusion of solipsism for the species anthropos , and hence for each individual within it; for whatever may be the mechanism of representative consciousness, that does not change the basic situation admitted on all hands: nothing directly experienced has as such an existence also apart from our experiencing of it. This view is the hallmark of modernity. But the moderns never succeeded in figuring out /why/ they were speculatively driven, over and over again, into a solipsistic corner from which, as Bertrand Russell summarized the modern dilemma in the historical twilight of its dominance in philosophy, there seems no way out. For only the sign in its proper being can effect the needed passage. And ideas as /representations/ are emphatically not signs, but the mere vehicles and foundations through which the action of signs works to achieve, over and above individual subjectivity, the interweave of mind and nature that we call experience.”¶ Gary Moore: And on page 645, Deely grudgingly gives Kant credit for influencing Peirce: “ The second great scheme of categories was that of Kant. We passed over Kant’s categories without any discussion of their detail, except to point out that, in the nature of the case, they could provide no more than
Re: [peirce-l] ORDINARY DISCOURSE AS THE FINAL CAUSE OF ALL INTELLECTUAL ENDEAVORS
Gary M., list, In the passage that you quote from EP 2: 266, what Peirce says is, [] This scholastic terminology has passed into English speech more than into any other modern tongue, rendering it the most logically exact of any. This has been accomplished at the inconvenience that a considerable number of words and phrases have come to be used with a laxity quite astounding. Who, for example, among the dealers in Quincy Hall who talk of articles of /prime necessity/, would be able to say what that phrase prime necessity strictly means? He could not have sought out a more technical phrase. There are dozens of other loose expressions of the same provenance. Peirce isn't praising the phrase prime necessity by calling it most technical. He's just pointing out that people use, without knowing their meanings, phrases that are supposed to be reserved for technical senses. That much seems clear enough from the context. Less obvious is that prime necessity was no doubt in Peirce's view a good example because he thought pretty much nobody really knew what it meant. Still another threefold distinction, due to Aristotle (I Anal. post., iv), is between necessity /de omni/ (/tò katà pantós/), /per se / (/kath autó/), and /universaliter primum / (/kathólou prôton/). The last of these, however, is unintelligible, and we may pass it by, merely remarking that the exaggerated application of the term has given us a phrase we hear daily in the streets, 'articles of prime necessity.' Necessity /de omni/ is that of a predicate which belongs to its whole subject at all times. Necessity /per se/ is one belonging to the essence of the species, and is subdivided according to the senses of /per se/, especially into the first and second modes of /per se/. (Peirce, 1902, from his portion of Necessity in Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, James Mark Baldwin, editor, v. 2, p. 145 via Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=Dc8YIAAJpg=PA145lpg=PA145dq=%22Still+another+threefold+distinction%22 and via Classics in the History of Psychology http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Baldwin/Dictionary/defs/N1defs.htm#Necessity . I don't know what Latin word is being translated as necessity in that paragraph but, given the neuter adjective in /universaliter primum/ (literally, universally first), if it's a word with the necess- element in it, then it is /necesse/ (= /necessum/) or /necessarium/ (necessary, neuter adjectives) rather than /necessitas/ or /necessitudo/ (necessity, feminine abstract nouns). Peirce can be terminologically demanding, but fortunately he defined many terms and phrases, in the Century Dictionary and in the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology. As for Peirce's own terminology, he defines some of it in those books, but the first place to look is the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html , edited by Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola, U. of Helsinki, and containing Peirce's own definitions, often many per term across the decades. Gary Fuhrman very helpfully took a list of Peirce entries at the DPP that I started in Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography in Wikipedia, and expanded it to include Peirce entries for letters P-W (which aren't at the Classics in the History of Psychology). http://www.gnusystems.ca/BaldwinPeirce.htm . Where he has not also provided the text, he still provides the page number so that one can find it via Google Books' edition http://books.google.com/books?id=Dc8YIAAJpg=PA145lpg=PA145dq=%22Still+another+threefold+distinction%22 or via Internet Archive's edition http://www.archive.org/details/philopsych02balduoft . The Century Dictionary is online for free http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/; it's bigger and more encyclopedic than the OED. I recommend installing the DjVu reader rather than settling for jpg images of pages. A list of the entries written or supervised/approved by Peirce is at http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep . Peirce's work on the Century Dictionary will be in Writings vol. 7, now scheduled for 2013. Online software for W 7 is now planned (Peirce Edition Project April 2012 Update http://www.iupui.edu/%7Epeirce/PEP-Update-April%202012.pdf ). As regards ordinary discourse as the final cause of all intellectual endeavors, I'd say that ordinary discourse itself can evolve and become less vague and more specialized. Some ordinary discourse contains hundreds of ways to characterize snow; but not ordinary discourse in English, and most of us will not accumulate enough experience with snow to get what those characterizations are about. Yet for some those characterizations are very practical, often needful. Between highly developed ideas and ordinary ideas, there will usually be some struggle, it's a two-way street. Best, Ben On 5/12/2012 12:25 PM, Gary Moore wrote: Dear John
Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans
Jon, The way I learned it, (formal) implication is not the /assertion/ but the /validity/ of the (material) conditional, so it's a difference between 1st-order and 2nd-order logic, a difference that Peirce recognized in some form. If the schemata involving p and q are considered to expose all relevant logical structure (as usually in propositional logic), then a claim like p formally implies q is false. On the other hand, a proposition /à la/ if p then q (or p materially implies q) is contingent, neither automatically true nor automatically false. I agree that you can see it as the same relationship on two different levels. That seems the natural way to look at it. Another kind of implication is expressed by rewriting a proposition like Ax(Gx--Hx) as G=H. In other words All G is H gets expressed G implies H. In first-order logic, at least, it actually comes down to a material conditional compound of two terms in a universal proposition. If in addition to logical rules one has postulated or generally granted other rules, say scientific or mathematical rules, then these lead to scientific or mathematical implications, the associated conditionals being true by the scientific or mathematical rules, not just contingently on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, all these kinds of implication do seem like the same thing in various forms. It's not clear to me how any of this figures into the concept-vs.-judgment question. The only connection that I've been able to make out in my haze is that when we say something like p formally implies p, we're thinking of the proposition p as if it were a concept rather than a judgment; our concern is limited to validity. If we say 'p, ergo p' or, in a kindred sense, p proves p, we're thinking of p as a judgment, and our concern includes soundness as well as validity. Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 2:25 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: Ben, Just to give a prototypical example, one of the ways that the distinction between concepts and judgments worked its way through analytic philosophy and into the logic textbooks that I knew in the 60s was in the distinction between a conditional ( → or - ) and an implication ( ⇒ or = ). The first was conceived as a function (from a pair of truth values to a single truth value) and the second was conceived as a relation (between two truth values). The relationship between them was Just So Storied by saying that asserting the conditional or judging it to be true gave you the implication. I think it took me a decade or more to clear my head of the dogmatic slumbers that this sort of doctrine laid on my mind, mostly because the investiture of two distinct symbols for what is really one and the same notion viewed in two different ways so obscured the natural unity of the function and the relation. Cf. http://mywikibiz.com/Logical_implication Regards, Jon - 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] Frege against the Booleans
Hi, Jim
Thanks, but I'm afraid that a lot of this is over my head. Boolean
quantifier 'v' ? Is that basically the backward E? A 'unity' class? Is
that a class with just one element? Well, be that as it may, since I'm
floundering here, still I take it that Frege did not view a judgment as
basically fragment of an inference, while Peirce viewed judgments as
parts of inferences; he didn't think that there was judgment except by
inference (no 'intuition' devoid of determination by inference).
Best, Ben
On 5/11/2012 3:08 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote:
Hi Ben;
My interest was historical (and philosophical) in the sense of what
did they say about the developing work of symbolic logic in their
time. The period is roughly 1879-1884. The anchor was two references
by Irving (the historian of logic) to Van Heijenhoort and Sluga as
worthy start points. But the issue of simply language/calculus(?)
need not be the end. This is not a Frege or Logic forum per se, but I
wanted to keep the thread alive and focused on symbolic logic
because I get curious how the (darn) textbook came about periodically.
The priority principle, as extracted by Sluga, with Frege following
Kant, takes the judgment as ontologically, epistemologically, and
methodologically primary. Concepts are not.
I will suppose, for now, that the content of a judgment is obscured in
a couple of ways. First, if you treat the concept as the extension of
classes, and then treat the class as a unity class or use the Boolean
quantifier v for a part of a class, you end up with an abstract
logic that shows only the logical relations of the propositional
fragment. (especially if the extensions of classes are truth values)
Frege might say that this obscures the content of the judgment. Thus,
I would say that the propositional fragment is not primary at all for
Frege, and is just a special case.
You are on to something with the rheme and dicisign. But in 1879, the
systems of symbolic logic did not appreciate the propositional
function, the unrestricted nature of the quantifier, and the confusion
that results from a lack of analysis of a judgment and the poverty of
symbolism for expressing the results of the analysis.
Jim W
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 12:24:33 -0400
From: bud...@nyc.rr.com
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Jim, Jon, list,
I'm following this with some interest but I know little of Frege or
the history of logic. Peirce readers should note that this question of
priority regarding concept vs. judgment is, in Peirce's terms, also a
question regarding rheme vs. dicisign and, more generally, First vs.
Second (in the rheme-dicisign-argument trichotomy).
Is the standard placement of propositional logic as prior to term
logic, predicate calculus, etc., an example of the Fregean
prioritization?
Why didn't Frege regard a judgment as a 'mere' segment of an inference
and thus put inference as prior to judgment?
I suppose that one could restate an inference such as 'p ergo q' as a
judgment 'p proves q' such that the word 'proves' is stipulated to
connote soundness (hence 'falsehood proves falsehood' would be false),
thus rephrasing the inference as a judgment; then one could claim that
judgment is prior to inference, by having phrased inference as a
particular kind of judgment. Some how I don't picture Frege going to
that sort of trouble.
Anyway it would be at the cost of not expressing, but leaving as
implicit (i.e., use but don't mention), the movement of the reasoner
from premiss to conclusion, which cost is actually accepted when
calculations are expressed as equalities (3+5 = 8) rather than as
some sort of term inference ('3+5, ergo equivalently, 8').
If either of you can clarify these issues, please do.
Best, Ben
On 5/11/2012 11:41 AM, Jim Willgoose wrote:
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Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans
Sorry, corrections in bold: Jon, The way I learned it, (formal) implication is not the /assertion/ but the /validity/ of the (material) conditional, so it's a difference between 1st-order and 2nd-order logic, a difference that Peirce recognized in some form. If the schemata involving p and q are considered to expose all relevant logical structure (as usually in propositional logic), then a claim like p formally implies q is false. On the other hand, a proposition /à la/ if p then q (or p materially implies q) is contingent, neither automatically true nor automatically false. I agree that you can see it as the same relationship on two different levels. That seems the natural way to look at it. Another kind of implication is expressed by rewriting a proposition like Ax(Gx--Hx) as G=H. In other words All G is H gets expressed G implies H. In first-order logic, at least, it actually comes down to a material conditional compound of two terms in a universal proposition. If in addition to logical rules one has postulated or generally granted other rules, say scientific or mathematical rules, then these lead to scientific or mathematical implications, the associated conditionals being true by the scientific or mathematical rules, not just contingently on a case-by-case basis. Anyway, all these kinds of implication do seem like the same thing in various forms. It's not clear to me how any of this figures into the concept-vs.-judgment question. The only connection that I've been able to make out in my haze is that when we say something like p formally implies p, we're thinking of the proposition p as if it were a concept rather than a judgment; our concern is limited to validity *as of an argument* p ergo p. If we *_/say/_* 'p, ergo p' or, in a kindred sense, p proves p, we're thinking of p as a judgment, and our concern includes the soundness as well as validity *of the argument p ergo p*. Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 2:25 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: Ben, Just to give a prototypical example, one of the ways that the distinction between concepts and judgments worked its way through analytic philosophy and into the logic textbooks that I knew in the 60s was in the distinction between a conditional ( → or - ) and an implication ( ⇒ or = ). The first was conceived as a function (from a pair of truth values to a single truth value) and the second was conceived as a relation (between two truth values). The relationship between them was Just So Storied by saying that asserting the conditional or judging it to be true gave you the implication. I think it took me a decade or more to clear my head of the dogmatic slumbers that this sort of doctrine laid on my mind, mostly because the investiture of two distinct symbols for what is really one and the same notion viewed in two different ways so obscured the natural unity of the function and the relation. Cf. http://mywikibiz.com/Logical_implication Regards, Jon - 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] Frege against the Booleans
Hi, Jim, Sorry, I'm not following you here. F and a look like logical constants in the analysis. I don't know how you're using v, and so on. I don't know why there's a question raised about taking the judgment as everything that implies it, or as everything that it implies. Beyond those things, maybe you're suggesting, that Frege didn't take judgments as mere fragments of inferences, because he wasn't aware of some confusion that would be clarified by taking judgments as mere fragments of inferences? But I'm afraid we're just going to have to admit that I'm in over my head. Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 7:36 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: Ben, I suppose you could take the judgment as everything which implies it. (or is implied by it) In this way, you could play around with the judgment stroke and treat meaning as inferential. But, using a rule of substitution and instantiation, I could show the content of the following judgment without any logical constants /- ExFx Fa x=a ExFx But if I say vx, is v a or is it another class G? Further, vx is a logical product. The above analysis has no logical constants. I guess the point is that once you segment Fx and then talk of two interpretations; boolean classes or propositions, you create some confusion which Frege (according to Sluga) traces back to favoring concepts over judgments with resulting totalities such as m+n+o+p that are not rich enough, lacking in meaning and content. But this is in 1882. Jim W Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 16:41:32 -0400 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Hi, Jim Thanks, but I'm afraid that a lot of this is over my head. Boolean quantifier 'v' ? Is that basically the backward E? A 'unity' class? Is that a class with just one element? Well, be that as it may, since I'm floundering here, still I take it that Frege did not view a judgment as basically fragment of an inference, while Peirce viewed judgments as parts of inferences; he didn't think that there was judgment except by inference (no 'intuition' devoid of determination by inference). Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 3:08 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: Hi Ben; My interest was historical (and philosophical) in the sense of what did they say about the developing work of symbolic logic in their time. The period is roughly 1879-1884. The anchor was two references by Irving (the historian of logic) to Van Heijenhoort and Sluga as worthy start points. But the issue of simply language/calculus(?) need not be the end. This is not a Frege or Logic forum per se, but I wanted to keep the thread alive and focused on symbolic logic because I get curious how the (darn) textbook came about periodically. The priority principle, as extracted by Sluga, with Frege following Kant, takes the judgment as ontologically, epistemologically, and methodologically primary. Concepts are not. I will suppose, for now, that the content of a judgment is obscured in a couple of ways. First, if you treat the concept as the extension of classes, and then treat the class as a unity class or use the Boolean quantifier v for a part of a class, you end up with an abstract logic that shows only the logical relations of the propositional fragment. (especially if the extensions of classes are truth values) Frege might say that this obscures the content of the judgment. Thus, I would say that the propositional fragment is not primary at all for Frege, and is just a special case. You are on to something with the rheme and dicisign. But in 1879, the systems of symbolic logic did not appreciate the propositional function, the unrestricted nature of the quantifier, and the confusion that results from a lack of analysis of a judgment and the poverty of symbolism for expressing the results of the analysis. Jim W Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 12:24:33 -0400 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Jim, Jon, list, I'm following this with some interest but I know little of Frege or the history of logic. Peirce readers should note that this question of priority regarding concept vs. judgment is, in Peirce's terms, also a question regarding rheme vs. dicisign and, more generally, First vs. Second (in the rheme-dicisign-argument trichotomy). Is the standard placement of propositional logic as prior to term logic, predicate calculus, etc., an example of the Fregean prioritization? Why didn't Frege regard a judgment as a 'mere' segment of an inference and thus put inference as prior to judgment? I
Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans
Jim, Sorry, I'm just getting more confused. I've actually seen a, b, etc. called constants as opposed to variables such as x, y, etc. Constant individuals and variable individuals, so to speak, anyway in keeping with the way the words constant and variable seem to be used in opposition to each other in math. But if that's not canonical, then it's not canonical. Also, I thought F was a predicate term, a dummy letter, and at any rate a (unknown or veiled) constant as I would have called it up till a few minutes ago. I thought ~ was a functor that makes a new predicate ~F out of the predicate F. If ~ and the other functors are logical constants, then isn't the predication relationship between F and x in Fx also a logical constant, though it has no separate symbol? Really, I think the case is hopeless. I need to read a book on the subject. I don't see why conceptual analysis would start with the third trichotomy of signs (rheme, dicisign, argument) and move to the first trichotomy of signs (qualisign, sinsign, legisign). Maybe you mean that conceptual analysis would start with Third in the trichotomy of rheme, dicisign, argument and move to that trichotomy's First. I.e. move from argument back to rheme. But I don't see why the conceptual-analysis approach would prefer that direction. On your P.S., I don't know whether you're making a distinction between propositions and sentences. Thanks but this all seems hopeless! Let's drop this sub-thread for at least 24 hours. Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 10:06 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: Ben, I made it too complicated. Sorry. It didn't help that /- was brought into the discussion. You had the basic idea earlier with dicent and rheme. Fx and Fa have to be kept together. So, the interpretant side of the semiotic relation has priority. Conceptual analysis would move from the third trichotomy back to the first. Synthesis would move from the first to the third. If this is close, the priority principle would place emphasis on the whole representation. (By the way, F is a function and a is an individual, ~+-- are the logical constants.) Jim W PS If words have meaning only in sentences (context principle), does this mean that term, class, and propositional logics are meaningless? Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 20:30:53 -0400 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Hi, Jim, Sorry, I'm not following you here. F and a look like logical constants in the analysis. I don't know how you're using v, and so on. I don't know why there's a question raised about taking the judgment as everything that implies it, or as everything that it implies. Beyond those things, maybe you're suggesting, that Frege didn't take judgments as mere fragments of inferences, because he wasn't aware of some confusion that would be clarified by taking judgments as mere fragments of inferences? But I'm afraid we're just going to have to admit that I'm in over my head. Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 7:36 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: Ben, I suppose you could take the judgment as everything which implies it. (or is implied by it) In this way, you could play around with the judgment stroke and treat meaning as inferential. But, using a rule of substitution and instantiation, I could show the content of the following judgment without any logical constants /- ExFx Fa x=a ExFx But if I say vx, is v a or is it another class G? Further, vx is a logical product. The above analysis has no logical constants. I guess the point is that once you segment Fx and then talk of two interpretations; boolean classes or propositions, you create some confusion which Frege (according to Sluga) traces back to favoring concepts over judgments with resulting totalities such as m+n+o+p that are not rich enough, lacking in meaning and content. But this is in 1882. Jim W Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 16:41:32 -0400 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com mailto:bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Frege against the Booleans To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Hi, Jim Thanks, but I'm afraid that a lot of this is over my head. Boolean quantifier 'v' ? Is that basically the backward E? A 'unity' class? Is that a class with just one element? Well, be that as it may, since I'm floundering here, still I take it that Frege did not view a judgment as basically fragment of an inference, while Peirce viewed judgments as parts of inferences; he didn't think that there was judgment except by inference (no 'intuition' devoid of determination by inference). Best, Ben On 5/11/2012 3:08 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: Hi Ben; My interest was
Re: [peirce-l] Beginning to answer On Information Technology
Ernesto, There are extensive links to online materials on EGs at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_graph#References. Also, Ahti-Veikko J. Pietarinen has just posted some new material including Ten Myths about Existential Graphs at his webpages at http://www.helsinki.fi/~pietarin/. Once there, click in the lefthand sidebar on TALKS. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: ernesto cultura To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2012 10:50 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Beginning to answer On Information Technology Dear Jon, and list, as I said to you and list I was keeping these answers of yours for future reading and consideration as I was very busy some weeks ago. The links seem to be very insteresting. I found a Professor in Germany who studies Existential Graphs and IT: the link is http://www.dr-dau.net/eg_readings.shtml I dont know him and I dint make any contact with him until now! In fact it is the result of a mere and simple search on google. I'm very busy and bored with some tasks in my doctorate program (where I am a student). Boring questions that relates Brazilian art and Brazilian (always imature) policy. I'm feeling distant from this marvellous path where Peirce's theory can be found. Still keeping myself close to all of you, Ernesto. Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 12:04:36 -0500 From: jawb...@att.net To: pachito_profes...@hotmail.com CC: peirce-l@listserv.iupui.edu; ari...@stderr.org; inqu...@stderr.org Subject: Re: On Information Technology - 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
[peirce-l] Technical support
List, The previous tech support person for peirce-l, Ali Zimmerman, has left her position. From now on, for subscription problems, please contact me and Gary, and if we cannot resolve the problem, we will contact the new tech person who is currently settling into place. A few of you have notified us of problems, and we hope that they can be resolved with the new tech person's help during the coming work week. Thank you for your patience. Ben Udell and Gary Richmond - 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
[peirce-l] Arisbe to IUPUI and may temporarily appear gone
List, Arisbe has now been transferred to IUPUI server (but the url remains and will remain http://www.cspeirce.com/) . Now, it takes a while for the changed server location to propagate through the Internet, so it Arisbe may seem to be down when you try to access it. But don't worry, everybody will be able to access it soon enough! Thanks to Nathan Houser, David Pfeifer, Bill Stuckey, and people behind the scenes for making this possible. Best regards, Ben Udell, for myself and Gary Richmond - 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 Pragmatic Cosmos
I said this wrong. Changed below between pairs of asterisks. Sorry! - Best, Ben - Original Message - Jason, list, That's interesting. What aspects of synechism do they reject? a.. Continuity of space and time? Lorentz symmetries seem to make such continuity pretty credible. b.. Idea of espousing continuity of space and time for philosophical reasons instead of physics reasons? c.. Real infinitesimals? d.. Continuity of semiosis and of inference process? **Idea that incapacities such as that of a cognition devoid of determination by inference help** prove the reality of the continuous and therefore of the general? (Some Consequences of Four Incapacities) Or if discussions of synechism don't get into such detail, still what do they say is wrong with synechism? Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Khadimir To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 1:44 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] The Pragmatic Cosmos Steven, This seems to be a plausible judgment of contemporary scene, if a sparse one. If I continue with this, then might I ask exactly what constitutes being a scientific dualist on your view? I would agree that many contemporary positions are prima facie crypto-dualist, if that is what you mean, a hypothesis that would be verified or not in individual cases (thinkers). However, when I claim that of a view and indicate why, they always reject the view, and about the only widespread commonality that I've seen is a rejection of scholastic realism (realism about universals) and of continuity (synechism). Best, Jason On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Dear Cathy, Non-Peirceans, if you will forgive the over simplification, are in two camps: 1. the religious dualist, 2. the scientific dualist. Often they are in both. One does not know how to ground what Peirce calls Thirdness (more generally, the mind) in their conception of God, the other does not know how to ground Thirdness in their conception of Physics. In-other-words, there are two dogmas working against the Peircean. It produces precisely the problem that Stanley Fish alludes to, and that I respond to (see my comment at the bottom of the page), here: Citing Chapter and Verse: Which Scripture Is the Right One? http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/26/citing-chapter-and-verse-which-scripture-is-the-right-one/?comments#permid=72 This is a reference to an article that Stephen Rose gave a few days ago. Peirce's objection to the Russelization of logic is relevant here, because the eradication of psychologism placed the mind (esp. Thirdness) beyond the reach of 20th Century science and logic. It has become clear to me that Charles Peirce, and his father Benjamin, did indeed conceive of the mind, and in particular what Charles called Thirdness, as grounded in both a conception of God and a conception of Physics. Now I rush to add that, despite the language of the time, this God conception is not the usual one but one that is really non-theistic in the modern sense, in that it is without personification and clearly not the god of popular western conception. This, in my view, is the proper way to interpret the apparent contradiction in this matter when it is naively read into Benjamin Peirce's Ideality in the physical sciences and in the writings of Charles Peirce. Their view is more like that of Taoism than Judeao-Christianity (although it maintains the passion of the later). So, in presenting Peirce's view in relation to contemporary arguments it is important, I think, to highlight these points and challenge the dogma. If you do, then Peircean concerns and questions may become more clear to the audience unfamiliar with them. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info On Mar 29, 2012, at 2:08 AM, Catherine Legg wrote: 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
Re: [peirce-l] C.S. Peirce • A Guess at the Riddle
Jon, Terry, list, I've seen it suggested in a thread somewhere on the Web that the reason that the position-velocity-acceleration trichotomy is a good one is that that there are universal laws of acceleration and velocity (and position?) but not of the third or higher derivatives. (The third derivative of position is informally known as jerk, also, jolt, surge, and lurch.) I don't know why there shouldn't be a universal law of jerk, becoming very salient when two strongly gravitating masses drift toward each other. But I'm no physicist. In fact, a two-ton truck does put on a few pounds as it moves from mountain top to sea level. The weight difference wouldn't make it fall faster, but I think that the difference in the strength of the gravitational field would. Otherwise one should be falling earthward at 32ft per sec. per sec. no matter how far from Earth one is. Also toward everything else in the universe. Then they'd all cancel each other out and there'd be no gravitation. I'd better stop before I drift too far out into space myself. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jon Awbrey jawb...@att.net To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 4:56 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] C.S. Peirce • A Guess at the Riddle TB = Terry Bristol TB: I like it up to this statement that I find obscure. CSP: Now an acceleration, instead of being like a velocity a relation between two successive positions, is a relation between three; so that the new doctrine has consisted in the suitable introduction of the conception of Threeness. On this idea, the whole of modern physics is built. TB: I very much look forward to your comments on the overall passage. Terry, This just says that we estimate the velocity of a particle moving through a space by taking two points on its trajectory and dividing the distance traveled between them by the time it takes to do so. To get the instantaneous velocity at a point on the trajectory we take the limit of this quotient as pairs of points are chosen ever closer to the point of interest. We estimate acceleration by taking three points, taking the velocity between the first two, taking the velocity between the last two, then taking the rate of change in the velocities as an estimate of the acceleration. We get the instantaneous acceleration by choosing the three points ever closer and taking the limit. By the way ... This is probably a good time to mention an objection that is bound to arise in regard to Peirce's use of the series of quantities, Position, Velocity, Acceleration, to illustrate his 3 categories. There is nothing about that series, which can of course be extended indefinitely, to suggest that the categories of monadic, dyadic, and triadic relations are universal, necessary, and sufficient. Not so far as I can see, not right off, at least. So making that case for Peirce's Triple Threat will probably have to be mounted at a different level of abstraction. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey word press blog 1: http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/ word press blog 2: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ - 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
[peirce-l] Links to more Peirce MS images - GEP
List, I've added links at http://www.cspeirce.com/digitized.htm to pages leading to Peirce manuscript images Los manuscritos de C. S. Peirce http://www.unav.es/gep/MSCSPeirce.html at Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos. I've translated the Spanish annotations into English. This currently includes MSS: (year 1866) 732, (year 1873) 380 381, (years 1893-1914) 717, 1395, 865, 867, 732, 569, 599, 600, 1246, 7, 449, 776, 280, 1334, 339C, 339D, 792, 793, 283, 322, 200, 618, 634, 640, 654, 664, 670, 675, 676, (undated) 499, 801, 840, 866, 868, and Letters 67, 98, 181, 261, 387, 390. I hadn't realized how much Jaime Nubiola and his colleagues had posted there. Way to go, G.E.P.! There are also some transcriptions and Spanish translations of the manuscripts. I know that there's still more to dig up at G.E.P. 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 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
[peirce-l] Reply versus Reply All
Steven, list, The need to click on Reply All in order to reply _on list_ to a message is not unique to peirce-l. It avoids a recurrent problem. Under peirce-l's old system, people sometimes accidentally sent to peirce-l personal messages unintended for peirce-l, and in some cases it led to considerable embarassment. We will, however, seek to add text about using Reply All to the message appended by the server to the bottom of each peirce-l message. Best regards, Ben Udell and Gary Richmond - Original Message - From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:06 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] The family of Benjamin Peirce First: someone needs to fix the reply-to on the list so that replies are directed to it and not the author. - 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] Inquiry and Analogy in Aristotle and Peirce
Jon, list, Let's toss Michael Shapiro's blog a link while we're at it. Language Lore http://www.languagelore.net/. Shapiro persistently brings a pragmatist's perspective to linguistics. I actually ventured into the S.A.A.P. session in honor of Richard Robin on Thursday and met some of the people whom I slightly know from online. Contrary to the reputations of philosophers in general as mean, they were a bunch of what Gary Richmond called sweethearts. One person self-identified as a linguist and made an interesting statement (but I wasn't taking notes). I wondered whether it was Michael Shapiro. Later I realized that I had omitted Shapiro's five-volume _Peirce Seminar Series_ from the Arisbe page of journals and book series. I've added it now http://www.cspeirce.com/journals.htm Some blogs and home pages are listed at http://www.cspeirce.com/individs.htm The blogs are those of some peirce-l members and, I've notice, aren't always focused on Peirce, but, well, they're blogs, we're not all focused on Peirce all the time. If anybody has a more-or-less Peirce-related blog or a home page that s/he would like to see added, please let me know. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jon Awbrey To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2012 1:40 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Inquiry and Analogy in Aristotle and Peirce Peircers, A recent blog post by Michael Shapiro on “The Pragmatistic Force of Analogy in Language Structure” reminded me of some work I started on “Inquiry and Analogy in Aristotle and Peirce”, parts of which may be of service in our discussions of the “Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction”. Here is the link -- • http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Functional_Logic_:_Inquiry_and_Analogy Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey word press blog 1: http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/ word press blog 2: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ - 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] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition
Irving, all,
In my previous post I said that I would include the full Peirce quotes, but
for the first Peirce quote I included only the portion included in the Commens
Dictionary. For the full quote (CP 4.233), go here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=3JJgOkGmnjECpg=RA1-PA193lpg=RA1-PA193dq=%22Mathematics+is+the+study+of+what+is+true+of+hypothetical+states+of+things%22
- Original Message -
From: Benjamin Udell
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce
edition
Irving, Gary, Malgosia, list,
Irving, I'm sorry that I gave you the impression that I think that a lemma is
something helpful but unproven inserted into a proof. I mean a theorem placed
in among the premisses to help prove the thesis. Its proof may be offered then
and there, or it may be a theorem from (and already proven in) another branch
of mathematics, to which the reader is referred. At any rate it is as Peirce
puts it a demonstrable proposition about something outside the subject of
inquiry.
The idea that theorematic reasoning often involves a lemma comes not from me
but from Peirce. Theorematic reasoning, in Peirce's view, involves
experimentation on a diagram, which may consist in a geometrical form, an array
of algebraic expressions, a form such as All __ is __, etc. I don't recall
his saying anything to suggest that theorematic reasoning is particularly
mechanical. I summarized Peirce's views in a paragraph in my first post on
these questions, and I'll reproduce it, this time with the full quotes from
Peirce. He discusses lemmas in the third quote.
Peirce held that the most important division of kinds of deductive reasoning is
that between corollarial and theorematic. He argued that, while finally all
deduction depends in one way or another on mental experimentation on schemata
or diagrams,[1] still in corollarial deduction it is only necessary to imagine
any case in which the premisses are true in order to perceive immediately that
the conclusion holds in that case, whereas theorematic deduction is deduction
in which it is necessary to experiment in the imagination upon the image of the
premiss in order from the result of such experiment to make corollarial
deductions to the truth of the conclusion.[2] He held that corollarial
deduction matches Aristotle's conception of direct demonstration, which
Aristotle regarded as the only thoroughly satisfactory demonstration, while
theorematic deduction (A) is the kind more prized by mathematicians, (B) is
peculiar to mathematics,[1] and (C) involves in its course the introduction of
a lemma or at least a definition uncontemplated in the thesis (the proposition
that is to be proved); in remarkable cases that definition is of an abstraction
that ought to be supported by a proper postulate..[3]
1 a b Peirce, C. S., from section dated 1902 by editors in the Minute Logic
manuscript, Collected Papers v. 4, paragraph 233, quoted in part in
Corollarial Reasoning in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms,
2003-present, Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola, editors, University of Helsinki.:
How it can be that, although the reasoning is based upon the study of an
individual schema, it is nevertheless necessary, that is, applicable, to all
possible cases, is one of the questions we shall have to consider. Just now, I
wish to point out that after the schema has been constructed according to the
precept virtually contained in the thesis, the assertion of the theorem is not
evidently true, even for the individual schema; nor will any amount of hard
thinking of the philosophers' corollarial kind ever render it evident. Thinking
in general terms is not enough. It is necessary that something should be DONE.
In geometry, subsidiary lines are drawn. In algebra permissible transformations
are made. Thereupon, the faculty of observation is called into play. Some
relation between the parts of the schema is remarked. But would this relation
subsist in every possible case? Mere corollarial reasoning will sometimes
assure us of this. But, generally speaking, it may be necessary to draw
distinct schemata to represent alternative possibilities. Theorematic reasoning
invariably depends upon experimentation with individual schemata. We shall find
that, in the last analysis, the same thing is true of the corollarial
reasoning, too; even the Aristotelian demonstration why. Only in this case,
the very words serve as schemata. Accordingly, we may say that corollarial, or
philosophical reasoning is reasoning with words; while theorematic, or
mathematical reasoning proper, is reasoning with specially constructed
schemata. (' Minute Logic', CP 4.233, c. 1902)
2. Peirce, C. S., the 1902 Carnegie Application, published in The New Elements
of Mathematics, Carolyn Eisele, editor, also transcribed by Joseph M. Ransdell,
see From Draft A - MS L75.35-39
Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition
Malgosia, Irving, Gary, list, I should add that this whole line of discussion began because I put the cart in front of the horse. The adjectives bothered me. Theoretical math vs. computational math - the latter sounds like of math about computation. And creative math vs. what - consumptive math? consumptorial math? Then I thought of theorematic vs. corollarial, thought it was an interesting idea and gave it a try. The comparison is interesting and there is some likeness between the distinctions. However I now think that trying to align it to Irving's and Pratt's distinctions just stretches it too far. And it's occurred to me that I'd be happy with the adjective computative - hence, theoretical math versus computative math. However, I don't think that we've thoroughly replaced the terms pure and applied as affirmed of math areas until we find some way to justly distinguish between so-called 'pure' maths as opposed to so-called 'applied' yet often (if not absolutely always) mathematically nontrivial areas such as maths of optimization (linear and nonlinear programming), probability theory, the maths of information (with laws of information corresponding to group-theoretical principles), etc. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 1:14 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition Malgosia, list, Responses interleaved. - Original Message - From: malgosia askanas To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 12:31 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition [BU] Yes, the theorematic-vs.-corollarial distinction does not appear in the Peirce quote to depend on whether the premisses - _up until some lemma_ - already warrant presumption. BUT, but, but, the theorematic deduction does involve the introdution of that lemma, and the lemma needs to be proven (in terms of some postulate system), or at least include a definition (in remarkable cases supported by a proper postulate) in order to stand as a premiss, and that is what Irving is referring to. [MA] OK, but how does this connect to the corollarial/theorematic distinction? On the basis purely of the quote from Peirce that Irving was discussing, the theorem, again, could follow from the lemma either corollarially (by virtue purely of logical form) or theorematically (requiring additional work with the actual mathematical objects of which the theorem speaks). [BU] So far, so good. [MA] And the lemma, too, could have been obtained either corollarially (a rather needless lemma, in that case) [BU] Only if it comes from another area of math, otherwise it is corollarially drawn from what's already on the table and isn't a lemma. [MA] or theorematically. Doesn't this particular distinction, in either case, refer to the nature of the _deduction_ that is required in order to pass from the premisses to the conclusion, rather than referring to the warrant (or lack of it) of presuming the premisses? [BU] It's both, to the extent that the nature of that deduction depends on whether the premisses require a lemma, a lemma that either gets something from elsewhere (i.e., the lemma must refer to where its content is established elsewhere), or needs to be proven on the spot. But - in some cases there's no lemma but merely a definition that is uncontemplated in the thesis, and is not demanded by the premisses or postulates but is still consistent with them, and so Irving and I, as it seems to me now, are wrong to say that it's _always_ a matter of whether some premiss requires special proof. Not always, then, but merely often. In some cases said definition needs to be supported by a new postulate, so there the proof-need revives but is solved by recognizing the need and conceding a new postulate to its account. [MA] If the premisses are presumed without warrant, that - it seems to me - does not make the deduction more corollarial or more theorematic; it just makes it uncompleted, and perhaps uncompletable. [BU] That sounds right. 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 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] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition
Jason, all, If I had bothered to search on computational mathematics I would have found that the potential ambiguity that worried me is already actual, as you clearly show. Do you think that the phrase computative mathematics is too close to the phrase computational mathematics for comfort? I hope not, but please say so if it is. Problem is, the applied in applied mathematics is used in various ways that, as Dieudonné of the Bourbaki group pointed out in his Britannica article (15th edition I think), jumbles trivial and nontrivial areas of math together, and has all too many, umm, applications. One area of pure math X may be _applied_ in another area of math Y, whih is to say that Y is the guiding research interest. If on the other hand Y is applied in X, then that's to say that X is the guiding research interest. And both X and Y remain areas of 'pure' math. Then there are areas of so-called 'applied' but often nontrivial math like probability theory. Then there are applications in statistics and in the special sciences. Then there applications in practical/productive sciences/arts. And of course, sometimes theoretical or 'pure' math is developed specifically for a particular application. (All in all, we won't be able to get rid of the term applied, but in some cases we may be find an alternate term with the same denotation in the given context). Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Khadimir To: Benjamin Udell Cc: PEIRCE-L@listserv.iupui.edu Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 2:14 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition This latest post caught my attention. Since my first degree was a B.S. in computational mathematics, I thought that I would weigh-in. One can make the distinctions as follows, beginning with pure vs. applied mathematics. I will give a negative definition, since I am not so skilled with the Peircean terminology used so far; applied mathematics is the use of mathematics as a formal, ideal system to specific problems of existence. For instance, consider the use of statistical confidence intervals to solve problems in manufactoring relating to the rate of production of defective vs. non-defective goods. Pure mathematics is not bound by existent conditions, but pure becomes applied when used in that context. Hence, I am treated applied mathematics as an informal, existential constraint that alters the purpose and use of pure mathematics. Computational mathematics is for the most part a subset of applied mathematics, which focuses on how to adapt computational formulas so that they may be run or run more efficiently on a given computation system, e.g., a binary computer. Computational mathematics, then, is primarily focused on formulas and computation of said formulas, which is to be more specific about the limits that make it an applied mathematic. I offer this as a different viewpoint, one coming from where the distinction has practical effects. Jason H. On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 12:47 PM, Benjamin Udell bud...@nyc.rr.com wrote: Malgosia, Irving, Gary, list, I should add that this whole line of discussion began because I put the cart in front of the horse. The adjectives bothered me. Theoretical math vs. computational math - the latter sounds like of math about computation. And creative math vs. what - consumptive math? consumptorial math? Then I thought of theorematic vs. corollarial, thought it was an interesting idea and gave it a try. The comparison is interesting and there is some likeness between the distinctions. However I now think that trying to align it to Irving's and Pratt's distinctions just stretches it too far. And it's occurred to me that I'd be happy with the adjective computative - hence, theoretical math versus computative math. However, I don't think that we've thoroughly replaced the terms pure and applied as affirmed of math areas until we find some way to justly distinguish between so-called 'pure' maths as opposed to so-called 'applied' yet often (if not absolutely always) mathematically nontrivial areas such as maths of optimization (linear and nonlinear programming), probability theory, the maths of information (with laws of information corresponding to group-theoretical principles), etc. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 1:14 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition - 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Dear Steven, In your previous post, you said, Although the dialogic makes these passages a little difficult to read, it seems very clear to me that Peirce, in CP 4.549, is explicitly not referring to his own categories as predicated predicates, or assertions on assertions. I think the question of what is a category is clearly addressed earlier, in CP 4.544, Peirce says: ... of superior importance in Logic is the use of Indices to denote Categories and Universes, which are classes that, being enormously large, very promiscuous, and known but in small part, cannot be satisfactorily defined, and therefore can only be denoted by Indices. Now you say, After some consideration I think this is an incorrect interpretation Ben. Peirce is indeed referring to his own categories (it is difficult to read the dialogic and to see how he is not) and he answers the question concerning predicates of predicates' in the text of the Prolegomena to which I referred earlier. The categories stand alone in his view, independent and identifiable, i.e., they are indices, we can point to them and they cannot be decomposed. Peirce doesn't say in Prolegomena (CP 4.530-572) that categories _are_ indices, instead he says that, for categories are denotable only by indices, and the reason that he gives is not indecomposibility, but instead their being enormously large, very promiscuous, and known but in small part such that they cannot be satisfactorily defined.. But the supposed indecomposibility of Prolegomena-categories was the only specific positive reason you give for thinking that by Category in Prolegomena he means the same that he means by Category pretty much everywhere else. Meanwhile you've left untouched the positive reasons for thinking that it is not the same Category as everywhere else: 1. He says: I will now say a few words about what you have called Categories but for which I prefer the designation Predicaments and which you have explained as predicates of predicates. Peirce usually calls his own categories Categories, not Predicaments, and usually uses Predicaments as an alternate term for Aristotle's categories (substance, quantity, relation, quality, position (attitude), state, time (when), place, action, passion (undergoing). 2. He calls Modes of Being three things whose terms, as the CP editors note, he often enough uses as terms for his own categories - Actuality, Possibility, and Destiny (or Freedom from Destiny) - that is, Secondness, Firstness, and Thirdness, respectively. 3. He says that the divisions so obtained - i.e., 1st-intentional, 2nd-intentional, 3rd-intentional - must not be confounded with the different Modes of Being: Actuality, Possibility, Destiny (or Freedom from Destiny). On the contrary, the succession of Predicates of Predicates - i.e., the Prolegomena-categories - is different in the different Modes of Being. And on those successions, he says, and remember the year is 1906, his thoughts are not yet harvested. Seems unlikely indeed that the Prolegomena-categories are the same Categories that he has been discussing since 1867. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Cc: Benjamin Udell Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2012 5:20 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction Dear Ben, After some consideration I think this is an incorrect interpretation Ben. Peirce is indeed referring to his own categories (it is difficult to read the dialogic and to see how he is not) and he answers the question concerning predicates of predicates' in the text of the Prolegomena to which I referred earlier. The categories stand alone in his view, independent and identifiable, i.e., they are indices, we can point to them and they cannot be decomposed. In my terms, Peirce argues that they are necessary distinctions. The world forces them upon us, we do not force them upon the world. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info On Mar 9, 2012, at 2:44 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote: - 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Gary F., Jon, Gary R. list, I agree, Gary F., all your points are good. Also I did a search on predicament in the CP and usually it turned out to be when he discussed Aristotle's Categories, or Predicaments. I don't think that he means his own categories by Category in the Prolegomena. And the Modes of Being in Prolegomena correspond to what he says of his own categories elsewhere: Firstness, quality, possibility, chance, some, vagueness, etc. Secondness, reaction, actuality, brute fact, this, determinateness, etc. Thirdness, representation, necessity/destiny, habit, rule, all, generality, etc. Still, Jon, I have to agree with you that it's hard to see why Peirce would refuse to see his categories as predicates of predicates - not predicates as merely grammatical entities but as _accidentia_, just as Peirce tended to regard subject and _substantia_ as nearly the same thing. Peirce even calls his categories accidents (not coincidences but descriptive attributes), see Section 11 in both A New List of Categories (1867) and corresponding section in his rewrite The Categories (1893) (both papers interleaved at http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/ms403/categories.htm). Peirce also has his own Universes correlated to Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness - the Universes of (1) Ideas, (2) Brute facts, (3) Habits. So the idea of Universes and Categories being not so very different is not what makes it hard to believe that the Prolegomena's Categories are not his own Categories, though the Prolegomena's idea that one needs indices to distinguish Categories (Predicaments) does make it seem unlikely that the Prolegomena's Categories are Peirce's own Categories. Your point about looking for arity or valence because of the mathematical underpinnings of the categories is well taken. Regarding the Prolegomena's Modes of Being and their lack of perspicuous arity, Peirce's use of the word Destiny in place of Necessity suggests that he is not thinking quite about the classical three modalities, or even the simplest Booleanized version (with a hypothetical necessity a la the hypothetical universal) but instead where the hypothetical or conditional necessity or destiny is not simply A(G-H) but something a little more complicated. So one might get closer, if not all the way, to arity or valence by thinking of it a la the classical concept/judgment/reasoning trichotomy, as Possibility - Blue (term, rheme) Actuality - Socrates was a man. (proposition, dicisign) Destiny - If you do X, then Y will result. (argument, more or less). I also agree with Gary R. about all those Objective Logic posts. Sending on one day post after post with nothing but quotes is a bit much. Can't you just send a bunch of quotes together like Joe used to do, then in a next post proceed to a discussion? Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Fuhrman To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 10:40 AM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction Ben, Jon and list, I'm a little confused as to what the question is here. It seems clear to me that in the Prolegomena of 1906, which is the source of the passage in question, Peirce does NOT use the term Categories in reference to what he elsewhere calls categories, or elements of the phaneron, or even sometimes universes -- i.e. the triad of Firstness/Secondness/Thirdness. The Prolegomena is all about diagrams, specifically Existential Graphs, and the purpose of these diagrams is to facilitate the analysis of propositions. The first use of the term in the Prolegomena, namely CP 4.544-5: [[[ As for Indices, their utility especially shines where other Signs fail But of superior importance in Logic is the use of Indices to denote Categories and Universes, which are classes that, being enormously large, very promiscuous, and known but in small part, cannot be satisfactorily defined, and therefore can only be denoted by Indices. Such, to give but a single instance, is the collection of all things in the Physical Universe Oh, I overhear what you are saying, O Reader: that a Universe and a Category are not at all the same thing; a Universe being a receptacle or class of Subjects, and a Category being a mode of Predication, or class of Predicates. I never said they were the same thing; but whether you describe the two correctly is a question for careful study. ]]] Peirce then proceeds to take up the question of Universes, returning to Categories much later, in the passage Jon quoted; and he begins by saying that he prefers the term Predicaments for classes of predicates, no doubt because this avoids confusing them with the different Modes of Being which are elsewhere called categories. And indeed he never mentions Categories again in this very long article; nor does he make any explicit reference in the whole article to Firstness, Secondness or Thirdness. I can only
Re: [peirce-l] Mathematical terminology, was, review of Moore's Peirce edition
Irving, 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? That identification seems not without issues but still pretty appealing to me, but maybe I've missed something. (For readers unfamiliar with Peirce's way of distinguishing theormatic from corollarial, see further below where I've copied my Wikipedia summary with reference links in the footnotes.) Peirce at least once said that theorematic deduction is peculiar to mathematics, though he didn't say that it was peculiar to pure mathematics. He tended to regard probability theory as mathematics applied in philosophy, and I don't recall him saying that (at its theoretical level) probability theory tends to draw mainly corollarial conclusions. He also allowed of theorematic deduction, when needed, in the formation of scientific (idioscopic) predictions. Obviously some pretty deep math has been and continues to be inspired by problems in special sciences, e.g., in 1990 Ed Witten won a Fields Medal from the International Union of Mathematics for math that he developed for string theory. In case like those of Newton, Leibniz, Hamilton, Witten, etc., one can say that they were doing theorematic math for computational use in special sciences, but should we say that mathematical physics in general is a theorematic, or mathematically theoretical, area? The question seems still more acute as to probability theory and the 'pure'' maths of information. I've seen it said that probability theory can be considered a mathematical application of enumerative combinatorics and measure theory, and that the laws of information have turned out to have corresponding group-theoretic pinciples. It seems hard not to call nontrivial areas like probability theory and such information theory theorematic, yet they are traditionally regarded as applied. Bourbaki's Dieudonné in his math classifications article in (I think) the 15th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica complained that the term applied mixes trivial and nontrivial aras of math together. What I'm wondering is whether the pure-applied distinction would tend to re-assert itself (in cases like that of measure and enumeration vs. probability theory) as theorematic pure mathematics and theorematic applied mathematics, or some such. I've noticed, about these mathematically nontrivial areas of applied mathematics, that they tend to pay special attention to total populations, universes of discourse, etc., and to focus on structures of alternatives and implications, among cases (or among propositions, or whatever), often with regard to the distribution or attribution of characters to objects. They seem to be sister sciences (to use the old-fashioned phrase) - John Collier once said at peirce-l that among probability theory, such information theory, and mathematical logic, he found that he could base any two of them on the remaining third one. (But Peirce classified mathematics of logic as the first of three divisions of pure mathematics.) How, if this subject interests you, do you think one might best capture the difference between these something-like-applied yet mathematically nontrivial areas, and so-called 'pure' mathematics? Best, Ben(summary of Peirce views on corollarial vs. theorematic appears below) Charles Sanders Peirce held that the most important division of kinds of deductive reasoning is that between corollarial and theorematic. He argued that, while finally all deduction depends in one way or another on mental experimentation on schemata or diagrams,[1] still in corollarial deduction it is only necessary to imagine any case in which the premisses are true in order to perceive immediately that the conclusion holds in that case, whereas theorematic deduction is deduction in which it is necessary to experiment in the imagination upon the image of the premiss in order from the result of such experiment to make corollarial deductions to the truth of the conclusion.[2] He held that corollarial deduction matches Aristotle's conception of direct demonstration, which Aristotle regarded as the only thoroughly satisfactory demonstration, while theorematic deduction (A) is the kind more prized by mathematicians, (B) is peculiar to mathematics,[1] and (C) involves in its course the introduction of a lemma or at least a definition uncontemplated in the thesis (the proposition that is to be proved); in remarkable cases that definition is of an abstraction that ought to be supported by a proper postulate..[3] 1.. 1 a b Peirce, C. S., from section dated 1902 by editors in the Minute Logic manuscript, Collected Papers v. 4, paragraph 233, quoted in part in Corollarial Reasoning in the Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms, 2003-present, Mats Bergman and Sami Paavola, editors,
Re: [peirce-l] Proemial: On The Origin Of Experience
Dear Steven, That's what I increasingly thought after re-reading your thread-commencing post again after sending my post about it. You did not think the things that you at times had seemed to me to think. It was really about stylistics and word choice. In one case I noted that you had not literally said that which you somehow seemed to me to say, - instead you had indeed said the thing that made more sense - you had not said, as I somehow had thought, that a certain _discovery_ would impact the human species and the universe, instead you spoke of the discovery of _something_ that would impact the human species and the universe, and that thing was something on the order of nature's plan. How did I go astray? Impacting us sounds like something that a _discovery_ would do, not something that _nature's plan_ would do. Nature's plan does something deeper than that, it plans or plots us. I suppose that one could speak of something with radical significance for the human species and the universe. Well, maybe I'm too sleepy to make suggestions right now. Now, you have a right to expect a reader to attend to what you actually say and not just to vague impressions of what you say. But when one writes a book blurb, it's best to write it in extra-hard-to-misconstrue ways, as if the reader may be a bit groggy, like I am right now! Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Cc: Benjamin Udell Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2012 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Proemial: On The Origin Of Experience Dear Ben, I appreciate your very useful response. I said the entire species and that the universe could not proceed, not the entire universe. So I would not expect the impact to fill the eternal moment, only localized parts. Similarly, I would hesitate to suggest that the entire mass/energy complex of the world could eventually be structured to become a single organism. It seems implausible 'though it is perhaps worth some consideration equally as a theme for a Science Fiction novel or as a potential solution to the dark-energy problem (I do, after all, propose a weak universe effect that may, I suppose, accumulate at very large scales to increase thinning edge-wise expansion). Your points, however, are well taken. If it continues in its current form I should define more clearly what I mean by proceed. For example: ... the universe itself could not proceed, could not further evolve beyond the stage that we represent ... Thanks. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info - 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
[peirce-l] Fw: Peirce Society: Program and Business Meeting Agenda
Forwarded. - Original Message - From: Robert Lane To: The Charles S. Peirce Society Sent: Monday, March 05, 2012 4:58 PM Subject: Peirce Society: Program and Business Meeting Agenda Dear Members and Friends of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Below is the program for our upcoming meeting, as well as the agenda for the subsequent business meeting. The program and agenda are also available at the Peirce Society's website: http://www.peircesociety.org/agenda-2012-04-05.html I hope to see you in Seattle! Best regards, Robert Lane Secretary-Treasurer, Charles S. Peirce Society *** Meeting of the Charles S. Peirce Society 7-9:00 p.m., Thursday April 5, 2012 Westin Seattle Seattle, Washington, USA Program Chair: Robert Lane (University of West Georgia) Presidential Address: Risto Hilpinen (University of Miami), Types, Tokens, and Words Jean-Marie Chevalier (Collège de France), Peirce's Critique of the First Critique: A Leibnizian False Start (Winner of the 2011-12 Peirce Society Essay Contest) Business Meeting Agenda 1. Approval of minutes of the 2011 meeting (Risto Hilpinen) http://www.peircesociety.org/minutes/minutes-2011-04-21.html 2. Report from the Executive Committee (Risto Hilpinen) 3. Report from the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 4. Financial statement (Robert Lane) 5. Report from the Peirce Edition Project 6. Report from the Nominating Committee and election of new officers (Rosa Mayorga) 7. New business 8. Adjournment (Risto Hilpinen) -- Robert Lane, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Director of Philosophy Editor, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society Secretary-Treasurer, Charles S. Peirce Society Department of English and Philosophy University of West Georgia Carrollton, GA 30118 [telephone and email] http://www.westga.edu/~rlane - 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] A Question about Metaphysics and Logic
Jason, Universal is an ambiguous word sometimes used to translate Aristotle's _katholos_ even when Aristotle means merely that which in everyday English is called general, something true of more than one object. Some philosophers say universals and particulars where Peirce (with his better English) said generals and singulars or individuals. In logic, a universal proposition has the form All G is H, and a particular proposition has the form Some G is H and is not singular but merely vague as to which singular or singulars are being referred to. Universal in its etymological sense means that which is true of everything, or at least of everything in a given class. Such a universal is maximally general in some sense. So Peirce's arguments that there are real generals and not only singulars also support the reality of universals. I'm willing to distinguish universals such as numbers from among other kinds of generals, but I haven't found philosophers interested in doing that. I'd also allow a universal that is singular (but usually polyadic) and non-general, e.g., a total population cdefgab etc. of a universe of discourse. So, as far as I know, in something like a response to your question, I'm not aware of philosophers dealing with universals differently than with generals, although I'd sure like to know of philosophers who do so. The word universal also has some other senses. See universal in the Century Dictionary. The entry looks like it could well have been written by Peirce. Djvu version http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/08/index08.djvu?djvuoptspage=415 JPG version http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=08page=415 Google version http://books.google.com/books?id=MPdOYAAJpg=PA6623 See entry below. - Best, Ben universal (u-ni-ver'sa??l), a. and n. [ F. universel = Sp. Pg. universal = It. universale, L. universalis, of or belonging to all or to the 'whole, universus,all together, whole, entire, collective, general: see universe. Hence colloq. abbr. vernal, varsal.] I. a. 1. Pertaining to the universe in its entirety, or to the human race collectively. Sole monarch of the universal earth. Shak., K. and J., ilL 2. 94. All partial evil, universal good. Pope, Essay on Man, i. 292. 2. Pertaining to all things or to all mankind distributively. This is the original and most proper signification. Those men which have no written law of God to shew what Is good or evil carry written in their hearts the universal law of mankind, the Law of Reason, whereby they judge, as by a rule which God hath given unto all men for that purpose. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, L 16. Nothing can be to us Catholic or universal in Religion but what the Scripture teaches. Milton, Eikonoklastes, xiii. Which had the universal sanction of their own and all former ages. Story, Speech, Salem, Sept. 18,1828. 3. Belonging to or predicated of all the members of a class considered without exception: as, a universal rule. This meaning arose In logic, where it is called the complex sense of universal, and has been common in Latin since the second century. Hearing applause and universal shout. Shak., M. of V..11L 2. 144. We say that every argument which tells in favour of the universal suffrage of the males tells equally in favour of female suffrage. Macaulay, West. Rev. Def. of Mill. 4. In logic, capable of being predicated of many individuals or single cases; general. This, called the simple sense of universal, in which the word is precisely equivalent to general, is quite opposed to its etymology, and perpetuates a confusion of thought due to Aristotle, whose ??? it translates. (See II., 1 (b).) In Latin it is nearly as old, perhaps older, than def. 3.- Universal agent, in law, on agent with unqualified power to act, in place of his principal, in all things which the latter can delegate, as distinguished from a general agent, who has unrestricted power in respect to a particular kind of business or at a particular place.-Universal arithmetic, algebra.-Universal chuck, a form of chuck having a face-plate with dogs which can move radially and simultaneously, to hold objects of different sizes.- Universal church, in theol., the church of God throughout the world.-Universal cognition. See cognition. -Universal compass, a compass with extension legs adapted for striking circles of either large or small size.- Universal conception, a general concept.-Universal conversion. See conversion, 2.-Universal coupling, a coupling so made that the parts united may meet at various angles, as a gimbal Joint-Universal deluge. See deluge, 1.-Universal dial. See dial.-Universal ferment. See ferment.-Universal Friends, an American sect of the eighteenth century, followers of Jemima Wilkinson, who professed to have prophetic and miraculous powers.-Universal galvanometer, a galvanometer capable of measuring either currents or
Re: [peirce-l] A new dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce
James, list, Theology, Catholic or otherwise, is hardly my forte, and I find on first look into infallibilism (i.e., Wikipedia) that Catholic infallibilism is itself largely a theoretical idea, like you say, and the list of supposedly infallible statements is a matter of debate, but the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary seem widely agreed upon as examples. Papal infallibilism became official only in the 19th Century and could grow. Peirce would seem likely to take the long view even if he did not already on principle prefer to stick to his fallibilist (and therefore tychist and synechist) principles; his allowance for practical infallibility along the line of something like that which is called moral certainty seems as far as he could go. I was barely acquainted with van Fraassen - a paper of his is among those linked at Arisbe. So this mornng I've been reading that paper http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/docs-publd/FalseHopesEpist.pdf The False Hopes of Traditional Epistemology Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LX, No. 2, March 2000. Peirceans will find something to argue with in his views of scientific method, induction, and abduction (he seems not to glimpse a cenoscopic level logically between math and special sciences). Also, FWIW in my semi-Peircean view, application of the distinction between _ordo essendi_ and _ordo cognoscendi_ would invert, along at least one axis, van Fraassen's epistemological landscape and abduction's place in it. On the other hand his view that values (and virtues) matter in the formation of scientific understanding and his anti-foundationalism suggest congeniality with Peirce. He has an engaging style and one feels that one can hear him talking, then one wants to start talking too! More by van Fraassen is at http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/index.html , and there I found his synopsis http://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/abstract/SynopsisES.htm of his book The Empirical Stance. There he sketches his argument that empiricists need not embrace a secular orientation and says that he attempts to provide a more positive content for other orientations. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: James Albrecht To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 8:58 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] A new dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce Worth taking a look at Bas Van Fraasen's The Empirical Stance related to the progress of inference and the secular/religious outlook. (Wikipedia says van fraasen is a catholic convert, which puts an interesting light on the work.) Also seems worth pointing out that catholic infallibilism is a purely theoretical construct even in the context of catholic theology: no one can tell you with precision what the exact set of infallible teachings are, such that the practical reality of the idea has subsisted entirely in a historical conformation of the individual to a teaching tradition. On Friday, February 24, 2012, Benjamin Udell bud...@nyc.rr.com wrote: Stephen, Gary, Jon, Ken, list, I don't know whether it supports Stephen Rose's point or not, but Peirce once said that he would embrace Roman Catholicism if it espoused _practical_ infallibility instead of _theoretical_ infallibility. See C. S. Peirce an G. M. Searle: The Hoax of Infallibilism by Jaime Nubiola, Cognitio IX/1 (2008), 73-84, at http://www.unav.es/users/PeirceSearle.html . In at least one other writing (I forget which), Peirce said that fallibilism is about propositions about _experience_, or something much like that. I don't know whether that involves a variation in Peirce's viewpoint or merely of perspective and terminology. More information on the dissertation: Walker Percy and the Magic of Naming: The Semeiotic Fabric of Life by Karey L. Perkins Dissertation information including abstract: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/76/ Even shorter link than Jon's* to the PDF: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079context=english_diss *Competitiveness in link-shortening benefits the polis as a whole. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond - 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] A new dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce
Stephen, Gary, Jon, Ken, list, I don't know whether it supports Stephen Rose's point or not, but Peirce once said that he would embrace Roman Catholicism if it espoused _practical_ infallibility instead of _theoretical_ infallibility. See C. S. Peirce and G. M. Searle: The Hoax of Infallibilism by Jaime Nubiola, Cognitio IX/1 (2008), 73-84, at http://www.unav.es/users/PeirceSearle.html . In at least one other writing (I forget which), Peirce said that fallibilism is about propositions about _experience_, or something much like that. I don't know whether that involves a variation in Peirce's viewpoint or merely of perspective and terminology. More information on the dissertation: Walker Percy and the Magic of Naming: The Semeiotic Fabric of Life by Karey L. Perkins Dissertation information including abstract: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/english_diss/76/ Even shorter link than Jon's* to the PDF: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079context=english_diss *Competitiveness in link-shortening benefits the polis as a whole. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 11:21 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] A new dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce I would tend to agree with you, Stephen. Gary Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York E202-O 718 482-5700 *** *** *** *** Stephen C. Rose 02/24/12 10:24 PM ‘Belief. Truth. Values. These are relative things’ ” (LR 113). Percy, however, believes in absolutes. The above from the dissertation speaks volumes to me. Percy's Catholicism can hardly be perceived as transcendent because it is based on supposition. Peirce believed (I think) that such transcendence as he knew was demonstrable, provable. The only way transcendence can be understood going forward is as something accessible within the immanent frame, in everyday life. I believe the new paradigm will come by taking one word of the above - values - and suggesting that there are indeed ontological values and that these are willed. Precisely for this reason they can be proved to be the engine of such progress as we have in history. I think the words above contain impossibility of Percy's position. His Catholicism is a belief which to him may be true. The only thing that breaks into the transcendent and absolute are willed values. Such as come to life in the experience of those who achieve a measure of justice in the world, of love in their lives, of life beyond the binary. Percy understood the problem but not the answer. Peirce understood both. ShortFormContent at Blogger On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 6:28 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: Kenneth, Thanks, very interesting. Here's a slightly shorter link, with out the search operation: http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079context=english_disssei-redir=1 Regards, Jon Kenneth Ketner wrote: digitally available at http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079context=english_disssei-redir=1#search=%22semeiotic%20religion%22 - 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: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION
Peter, list, Thanks for your response. The augmentationist vision itself in its essence does not seem a conceptually difficult one. In the 1970s I had some amateur notion of it though I knew nothing of practical developments in IA. Without the initial government funding and without the early time-sharing? I'd guess maybe ten years' delay for email, word processors, personal computers, etc. That would be my current bet if it were possible to bet on such things. Economic and cultural factors via entrepreneurs etc. soon enough would have come into powerful play, just as such factors came into play against such things via IBM and its particular agenda earlier. Maybe it's just me, watching too many Jetsons cartoons when I was a kid, expecting tsunamis of progress (and in some ways we got The Simpsons instead, which I think is the point of the latter's theme song's resemblance to the former's). I'd agree that the Internet might have developed quite differently, and with less built-in freedom. You wrote, PS: I think this is absolutely true, and I just want to add that Engelbart's particular vision of IA has largely failed to materialize, due to the general unwillingness of corporations to provide training for their employees I think that the common lack of skills in using the augmentations is not due mainly to insufficient training programs offered by employers, but instead due first of all to the nature of the beast. I've know plenty of people who did take employer-offered courses but soon forgot most of it because they didn't put it quickly to use, and this is because (A) most people get bored easily with such things, as we already know, (B) no amount of training is a substitute for habitual exploration when it comes to using computer programs, and that is something that should be but never is drummed in in every common computer application training course (in fact the courses should be structured whenever possible (after an elementary level of rote learning of procedures), to engrain practices of exploration and of trying things out) and (C) workplace pressures urgently favor getting work done as soon as possible, quick and dirty. It's the old busy reader problem, mutatis mutandis a user, this time one who is interested only when too busy to absorb much. The problem is, that one doesn't really want to deal with figuring out a more efficient way to do things with an application except when one is actually confronted by work to be done, but that's also when one doesn't have extra time to find a more efficient way using advanced features. For my part, I didn't like to do the same tedious work twice, and I found that the best short cut was the trek through the mountains (advanced features), and I simply concealed from my superiors that it was for such purposes that I was taking a little extra time. Except in the case of one very helpful boss, it was only after I started showing and explaining the results, that they started to appreciate its practicality. But I had almost no success in convincing co-workers to use my great secret, the key for which they kept asking me - but which was not some magical little set of series of key strokes or menu item clicks but instead resisting to some extent the boredom, work pressures, and temptations to chat, and practicing curiosity, exploration, front-loading (i.e., the mountain trek), etc., so that one would have an easier time in dealing with the problems that arose every day. I.e., grasping that, unlike a typewriter, a computer was always a learning experience, pleasant and otherwise. Well, that was all ten and more years ago, maybe some things have changed. I just googled on intelligence augmentation affectivity and found little. I found more with intelligence augmentation emotion. It looks like a subject more of the future than of the past! Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Skagestad, Peter To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, December 16, 2011 9:19 AM 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
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jim, Irving, John, Peter, list, Thank you for the added comment, Jim. I've been stealing time to try to rummage through online sources but this subject is very abstract for me. I'll just have to remove the problematic sentence pending clarification. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jim Willgoose To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Ben, Irving, John, Peter et. al. I do not grasp the pairing of model theorist/semanticist or proof theorist/universalist either. It seems that a universal grammar ( a term adopted once by Peirce) need not be understood in only one of the following ways. First, it need not be understood as strong enough to represent or express any domain of knowledge. But secondly, it need not be understood solely as relating to proof. Thus, if a formal grammar is presupposed by both logic and methodology, it seems an open choice whether one wants to write a proof in it for a limited domain of knowledge, or use a fragment of it to model other domains of knowledge. Putnam seems to suggest that Peirce was in the vanguard of treating model theory as particularist. ( I will look for the paper) Experience teaches us what the limitations are. But I will say (following Putnam) that model theory as a body of knowledge appears a posteriori. Jim W. Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:52:56 -0500 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Irving, list, - 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: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Irving, list, Thank you for your response, erudite and to the point as always. I agree, it's hard even to imagine a mathematician simultaneously abjuring abstraction and not abjuring mathematics itself. The main kind of abstraction that I've read that mathematicians traditonally abjured in earlier centuries was the abstraction not made to solve an already standing problem (e.g., imaginaries are needed for some roots of polynomials). In that narrower sense, in his Britannica article Dieudonné called abstractionists the mathematicians who abstract freely and exploratively. How did I go so wrong in my previous post? Well, I believed a sentence (quoted below) that has long been in the Wikipedia Peirce article. It had references that I was in a poor position to check. You're saying in effect that the article is wrong about van Heijenoort's opinion. So it may be wrong about the two others' opinions as well. Is there an easy way to revise it without adding much to its length? Will it be okay if I just get rid of the word semanticists? Replace it with particularists (a word that I just made up)? Jean Van Heijenoort (1967),[85] Jaakko Hintikka (1997),[86] and Geraldine Brady (2000)[79] divide those who study formal (and natural) languages into two camps: the model-theorists / semanticists, and the proof theorists / universalists. Hintikka and Brady view Peirce as a pioneer model theorist. 79. a b Brady, Geraldine (2000), From Peirce to Skolem: A Neglected Chapter in the History of Logic, North-Holland/Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 85. ^ van Heijenoort (1967), Logic as Language and Logic as Calculus in Synthese 17: 324-30. 86. ^ Hintikka (1997), The Place of C. S. Peirce in the History of Logical Theory in Brunning and Forster (1997), The Rule of Reason: The Philosophy of C. S. Peirce, U. of Toronto. If you can help me with that sentence, I'd much appreciate it. You wrote, Setting aside, therefore, the issue of abstraction, the more complex issue under consideration is that regarding the perceived distinction between model theorists and semanticists on the one hand and proof theorists on the other. This is an erroneous distinction insofar as the historical and philosophical literature, from van Heijenoort forward, distinguishes between two types of semantics [SEMANTICS, with some added formatting] Model-theoretic (or intensional) semantics. (Actually, van Heijenoort's terminology is itself at first somewhat misleading, insofar as he initially associated the limited universes of discourses of the algebraic logicians with the set-theoretic, and not with the course-of-values of Frege and the set theory of Russell; although he then immediately corrected himself by associating the Russello-Fregean extensional semantics with the set theoretical.) Set-theoretic (or extensional, which would also include Frege's course-of-values, or Werthverlauf) semantics If I've got it right, you're saying below that the model-theoretic approach implies logic-as-calculus but not vice versa. Having said that, there is, for van Heijenoort and those who came after him, a complex of dichotomies that are bound together to distinguish [LOGICS, with some added formatting and futzing] Algebraic logic of De Morgan, Boole, Peirce, and Schröder Quantification-theoretic - or more properly, despite van Heijenoort - function-theoretic and set-theoretic logic of Frege, Peano, and Russell Logicae utentes, which are logic as calculus only, extensional, but with restricted universe(s) of discourse, relativism/particularity, and for some, model-theoretic (possibly with an intensional, rather than extensional, semantic) The classical Boole-Schröder calculus. Logica magna, which is logic as language preeminently, but also as calculus, extensional semantic, absolutism/universality. Systems such as Frege's. Van Heijenoort would agree that it was the incorporation of the model-theoretic or logic as calculus approach of the Booleans or algebraic logicians, by Löwenheim, Skolem, and Herbrand, [continued next right] ...into the pure lingusitic approach of the Fregeans, that gave modern mathematical logic its character as first-order functional (or predicate) logic and enabled them and their successors, Gödel preeminently among them, the possibility of tying the model-theoretic conception of satisfiability to the proof-theoretic conception of validity, and enabled them to explore the model-theoretic and proof-theoretic properties of systems such as Hilbert's and the Principia. And Hilbert, somewhere in between, according to van Heijenoort. The association of logica utens with algebraic logic and calculus only was a bit surprising to me; I thought that logica utens was logic used in practice rather than acquired by theoretical study. I guess the idea is that their algebraic logic was concerned with formalizing and rendering
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
objects as to measurable properties. But in any case I don't see why you'd have me stopping amid a general discussion to note that, rather obviously, mathematical and philosophical objects (usually) lack mass, physical velocity, etc. I suspect that you've accepted some transference of sense where the word thing or object starts to imply physical/material thing/object with measurable physical properties as a result of habitual use of the word thing or object in context of physical or material science, so that the use of object in another sense sounds odd and worth noting to you. Many people accept such a transference of sense, which is why I periodically note that, by object, Peirce means anything you can talk or think about and that he doesn't usually mean object in some narrower sense. As regards the difference between thing and object aside from formality of expression (and Heideggerian approaches), you haven't expressed, and I don't see, _what_ is the difference between them that you refer to. In general, you seem to be getting at an idea that seems like it could well be interesting, but it might be a whole lot clearer if you weren't trying to confine it to the form of an objection to a pretty unobjectionable rendition of Peirce's notion of 'object.' As regards Things - Representation - Form, back on October 5th you quoted Peirce from W1, p. 256, Harvard Lecture VIII, Forms of Induction and Hypothesis - from 1865 which is very early. The first distinction we found it necessary to draw - the first set of of conceptions we have to signalize-form a triad Thing Representation Form. ... The thing is that for which a representation might stand prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with with any representation. The form is the respect in which a representation might stand for a thing, prescinded from both thing and representation It's hard to see why you think that Peirce used Thing instead of Object because it fails the representational quality. He did not explain it in that way, and he did say that the thing is prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with any representation, even though the representation stands for said thing. As to conjecture, it is possible that he preferred Thing because he was more Kantian back in 1865, and Kant often said Ding; also Peirce was discussing the Thing as hypothesized and unknowable, whereas Object suggests something thrown upon the thinker (or whatever person) and not so hidden noumenally. Peirce soon enough rejected the idea of the unknowable thing-in-itself. One also sees that Peirce there defines 'Thing', 'Representation', and 'Form' pretty much as he later defined (in On a New List of Categories 1867) 'Object', 'Representamen', and 'Ground', respectively. His 'Thing' became his 'Object'. Again, I get the sense that you're trying to raise interesting issues that shouldn't depend on particular ways of construing or misconstruing Peirce, and maybe you should raise them more directly and clearly. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jerry LR Chandler To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Cc: Benjamin Udell Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 10:49 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Gary, Ben, Steven, List: With regard to alternative interpretations of Steven's philosophy, a few further comments appear to be called for. Ben, while I admire your faithfulness to Peircean text, I do think that we must constantly keep in mine that between 100 and 150 years have past sense CSP wrote. During this time, the sciences and mathematics have created new meaning for many.many, many terms that CSP used. Knowledge of the history of science becomes a key element in interpreting CSP views. Experience. One way to get a handle on what Joe is saying about experience and the empirical is Peirce's emphasis on mathematics as experimentation on diagrams. The result of this in Peircean discussions on peirce-l that I've noticed, is an avoidance of the phrase 'empirical science.' Special sciences (physical, chemical, biological, human/social) involve reliance on _special_ classes of experience, _special_ experiments, to study _special_ classes of positive phenomena. The title of the book _The Mathematical Experience_ is entirely congenial to the Peircean outlook. Cenoscopic philosophy, in Peirce's view, deals with positive phenomena in general, not by special classes. I once found Peirce discussing what he meant by positive but unfortunately I didn't make a note of it. I don't recall Peirce anywhere saying that mathematics studies 'hypothetical phenomena' or something like that. But he does see experimentation and experience in mathamatics, in its study - there are all kinds of things in mathematics that one cannot make do whatever one wishes. The archaic term special sciences has little if any meaning in the structure
[peirce-l] TITLES OF POSTS
List, Gary and I have a request to people replying in a slow read: that people please do not change the titles of posts replying _in_ the slow read. The single automatic Re: is good (don't delete it!) but please change nothing else - the letter case, the wording, etc., of the post's title. The previous slow read did get splintered via post titles. Our request is for the sake of _most simply and easily_ keeping together the posts that belong in the slow-read thread, not only in current archives, but also in people's email programs when they sort by email title, and in currently unknown future archives. We can't count on every store of thread posts having the power to make all the proper thread connections independently of post titles. Best regards, Ben Udell and Gary Richmond - 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] Reply to Steven Ericsson-Zenith Jerry Chandler re Hilbert Peirce
Irving, Jerry, Steven, list,
Irving, thanks for your response, more interesting and informative than what I
have to say!
Irving wrote,
Is there some sort of causality, Aristotelian or otherwise, in [application
of] inference rules? Once again, I am at a loss here to comprehend how this
issue of causality relates to the nature of axiom systems or to formalism.
I suspect that Jerry has in mind causal reasoning or something like model-based
reasoning. The latter is an AI subject that I don't know much about, but the
simplest examples in online texts consist of causal reasoning as opposed to
diagnostic reasoning, e.g., causally reasoning from stroke to confusion, as
opposed to diagnostically reasoning from confusion to stroke. I am not
convinced that those are just other words for predictive reasoning versus
explanatory reasoning, but there seems at least some parallelism. Anyway, if
one has a mathematical model of a mechanical system, and one runs it forward,
then the calculations might seem to reflect a causal process, though such model
runs are often not practically feasible, and I don't know whether Newtonian
mechanics, though deterministic, has been proven or disproven to be (in
principle) always computable; at this point I'm thinking of digital models,
while the broadest sense of 'model' could be very broad.
One can expand the idea of causal reasoning to the idea of following a
connection of reaction/resistance (or at least a connection of neighborhood).
For example, traversal of the GW bridge from Manhattan will lead a person to be
in New Jersey, or 'cause' a person to come to be in New Jersey. When one is
thinking in graph-theoretical terms of the problem of the Seven Bridges of
Königsberg, I'm not sure that one can still call that aspect of the reasoning
'causal' (and certainly proof of the problem's insolubility is not itself
'causal' or 'connectional' in a non-meta sense). Any deductive proof can be
considered as following a 'path' but my guess is that it is indeed somewhat
'meta', be it soever fruitful, to regard every deductive proof as a 'causal' or
'connectional' reasoning about where (i.e., to what logical conclusion) the
proof path leads the reasoner. If it's a meta view, then it would leave intact
a distinction between causal/connectional reasoning and other kinds. And of
course hovering in the background is a notion that concrete causal or
connection-traversing processes are nature's own kind of inference processes,
which we map with causal reasoning. At this point I tend to get confused (or
more confused than I was already). Clearly my mind is wandering now, don't take
this all too seriously. Is every natural process of decision or determination
an inference process, and is every inference process also a decision process? I
like to think that they are but in different senses, but I don't have a clear
idea what senses.
I'm not completely wandering. I'm thinking in terms of inference and
Aristotle's four causes. Peirce somewhere said that logic is governed by final
causality, and in MS 634 (Sept. 1909) quoted by Joe, Peirce says that the end
does _act_ (i.e., agentially) mentally as a cause. I remember Joe Ransdell and
John Collier discussing entropy's increase as a final cause, and that's how
I've come to think of it, but it's a case where the final cause does not
causally act in the sense of a causal agent (traditionally, 'agent cause' is
the same as 'efficient cause'). In Peirce's metaphysics, the three operative
principles are a 1stness-2ndness-3rdness trichotomy of (1st)
chance/spontaneity, (2nd) mechanical necessity (corresponding more or less to
efficient causation), and (3rd) creative love (corresponding more or less to
final causation). For Peirce in those terms, matter is a Second, and so
chance/spontaneity does not correspond more or less to the material cause,
though it seems to have a ghost of role there since matter and collections of
particles so lend themselves to statistical treatment and stochastic processes.
Also we won't find the formal cause as an alternative in Peirce except, I
guess, as an aspect of the final cause or a way of looking at the final cause.
It's tempting to think of mathematics as governed by formal causality, with
formal causes turning agential through active imagination submitting to and
honoring postulates, contractually as it were, as if they had the force of the
actual.
While my mind is wandering, here's a Peirce quote, and a table of mine
assembling some of the ideas I've discussed.
http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/object.html
[A sign] must be determined to correspond, according to some principle, and
by some species of causation, with something else, called its _Object_. In a
word, whether physically, rationally, or otherwise directly or indirectly, its
Object, as agent, acts upon the sign, as patient. ('The Basis of
Pragmaticism', MS 283, 1905)
Traditional
Re: [peirce-l] ³On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic²
Re: [peirce-l] On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for SemioticCORRECTION, sorry. - Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: Neal Bruss ; PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 4:07 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] ³On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic² Neal, list, Peirce's views on the classification evolved over time. I don't know of a single source with fully elaborated examples of each and every kind of sign. I hope other peirce-listers can chime in with some help. *The 'canonical' 9-fold classification was set forth in MS 540 from 1903, published in Collected Peirce v. 2 paragraphs 233-272 and contains a number of examples, though not always happily elaborate. This appears as Nomenclature of Triadic Relations, as Far as They Are Determined in The Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 289-299. The 9-fold consists of three trichotomies of classes of signs. The trichotomies are not fully independent; for example, legisigns include all symbols, some but not all indices, and [CORRECTION not 'no icons'] some but not all icons [END CORRECTION]. This works out so that the 9 classes intersect to form 10 (rather than 27) sign classes fully specified at the level of analysis constituted by the 9-fold. Peirce's Ten Classes of Sign (from CP 2.254-263 1903) (I put this table into Wikipedia) Sign's own phenome- nological category Relation to object Relation to interpretant Specificational redundancies in parentheses Some examples (I) Qualisign Icon Rheme (Rhematic Iconic) Qualisign A feeling of red (II) Sinsign Icon Rheme (Rhematic) Iconic Sinsign An individual diagram (III) Index Rheme Rhematic Indexical Sinsign A spontaneous cry (IV) Dicisign Dicent (Indexical) Sinsign A weathercock or photograph (V) Legisign Icon Rheme (Rhematic) Iconic Legisign A diagram, apart from its factual individuality (VI) Index Rheme Rhematic Indexical Legisign A demonstrative pronoun (VII) Dicisign Dicent Indexical Legisign A street cry (identifying the individual by tone, theme) (VIII) Symbol Rheme Rhematic Symbol (-ic Legisign) A common noun (IX) Dicisign Dicent Symbol (-ic Legisign) A proposition (in the conventional sense) (X) Argument Argument (-ative Symbolic Legisign) A syllogism *Decads (sets of ten) of trichotomies.* Peirce sought to analyze sign classes more finely, by adding more trichotomies. The general idea was that each added trichtomy would take the total number of sign classes up to the next triangular number T. So the number of classes would be the (n+1)th triangular number (i.e., T_(n+1)). One trichotomy, 3 classes. Two trichotomies, 6 classes. Three trichotomies, 10 classes, and so on. Peirce made various attempts to divide signs into ten trichotomies (leading to 66 classes) but he did not reach a satisfactory conclusion and left the work incomplete. I once read a paper online, something related to education, which gave good, interesting, elaborated examples of the kinds of representation and interpretation embodied by some of these trichotomies, but I can't remember the paper's name and I vaguely think that the author or one of the authors was Phyllis Chiasson. *Instances/replicas.* Additionally, Peirce discussed how sinsigns (tokens) can serve as 'instances' or 'replicas' of legisigns (types), and how legisigns (including all symbols) need such instances/replicas in order to be actually expressed. The general word 'horse' is a symbol, but its individual utterance is an indexical sinsign to your experience of a horse. Eventually Peirce also wrote of replicas that are not individual things/events. The term 'horse', apart from its expression in any particular language, is a symbol (and legisign) which has, as replicas, symbols (the words 'horse,' _caballo_, _equus_, etc.) that prescribe qualities of appearance (depending on language) for their individual replicas, which are individual indices (indexical sinsigns) such as individual utterances 'horse', 'caballo', etc. Peirce's sign theory's setting is not in a putative deductive formalism, so Quine's 'gavagai' questions of translational indeterminacy are not a burning issue in Peircean semiotics. *Images, diagrams, metaphors. Peirce also divided 'hypoicons' (icons apart from any attached indices) into images, diagrams, and metaphors. He had a great deal to say about diagrams. He held that mathematical thought proceeds diagrammatically, and he makes his distinction between corollarial and theorematic reasoning in terms of uses of diagrams. A diagram can be geometrical, or consist in an array of algebraic expressions or even in a common form like All ___ is ___ which is subject, like any diagram, to logical/mathematical transformation. I tried to cover much of the above, and to note some of Peirce's changes of view, and many of his
Re: [peirce-l] community of inquiry
John, Michael, list, I'd look harder, but right now I've a nasty cold. I've looked and don't find Peirce speaking in so many words of a community of inquiry, inquirers, research, researchers, investigation, or investigators. It's occurred to me that, given that Peirce (in the Fixation of Belief) defines inquiry as any struggle to move from uncertainty to belief, be it by tenacity, authority, congruence, or science, it wouldn't be surprising if Peirce regarded a 'community of inquiry' as no special kind of community; every community would be a community of inquiry among other things. On thee other hand, a scientific community would be a special kind of community. I do not call the solitary studies of a single man a science. It is only when a group of men, more or less in intercommunication, are aiding and stimulating one another by their understanding of a particular group of studies as outsiders cannot understand them, that I call their life a science. C. S. Peirce, The Nature of Science, MS 1334, Adirondack Summer School Lectures, 1905. http://www.unav.es/gep/index-en.html Best, Ben - Original Message - From: John Quay jq...@unimelb.edu.au To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 6:24 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] community of inquiry Thank you very much for sharing these Michael - they are very helpful. One thought that has been with me lately is that such references do not merely point to a community of inquiry, but rather to a community of practice for which inquiry is indispensible, whether this community is limited to a particular community or expanded to a generalized community (issue of truth). I suppose I am raising as a question Peirce's meaning of the term community as this connects with inquiry and practice - ? Does anyone else perceive such an issue? Kind regards John Quay On 1/11/11 11:55 PM, Michael J. DeLaurentis michael...@comcast.net wrote: By no means based on an exhaustive search, John, here are three passages which spring to mind, though not using the very phrase community of inquiry. (1) On the Doctrine of Chances... : passim, including the following -- ...three sentiments, namely, interest in an indefinite community, recognition of the possibility of this interest being made supreme, and hope in the unlimited continuance of the intellectual activity, as indispensable requirements of logic. (2) Some Consequences of Four Incapacities: Thus, the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially involves the notion of a COMMUNITY [caps in original], without definite limits, and capable of a definite increase in knowledge. (3) Critical Review of Berkeley's Idealism: And the catholic consent which constitutes the truth is by no means to be limited to men in this earthly life or to the human race, but extends to the whole communion of minds to which we belong You may be well aware of these already, in which case, my apologies. But these are the passages (in addition to what you cite below) I have found frequently cited in connection with the community of inquiry. Ben Udell is usually quite adept at scouring the entire oeuvre and coming up with relevant passages, so I expect, if he has the time, he may again come up with an exhaustive sourcing. -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of John Quay Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 5:59 AM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: [peirce-l] community of inquiry Hi Peirce-listers Just wondering if anyone can help me. The phrase community of inquiry is often attributed to Peirce and yet I cannot find any instance of his actually using this phrase. Sources of this attribution can be drawn to Matthew Lipman (amongst others), associated with his work in Philosophy for Children (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lipman) Peirce definitely speaks often of the importance of community and of inquiry, but does not tend to use these words in close association. I was wondering if anyone knew of a passage (or passages) in Peirce's work that would speak clearly to the association between community and inquiry? I understand that Peirce draws a close connection between notions of community and scientific or pragmatic truth, for example when he states that ³the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth² (Peirce, 1878, p. 299, CP 5.407). But is this the main source of the phrase community of inquiry? Any help appreciated. Kind regards -- John Quay, PhD Lecturer Melbourne Graduate School of Education 234 Queensberry Street The University of Melbourne VIC, 3010, Australia T: +61 3 8344 8533 / M: 0438 048 955 E: jq...@unimelb.edu.au http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/profile/John.Quay www.education.unimelb.edu.au CRICO Provider code 00116K
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 3
mathematicians to solve it), and that 'pure' maths and sociology are toward opposite ends of a spectrum. You can see an outline of Peirce's later spectrum or classification of research at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_the_sciences_(Peirce)#Sciences. Also http://www.uta.fi/~attove/peirce_syst.PDF (Tommi Vehkavaara's diagrams of Peirce's successive views over the years). A library scientist Birger Hjørland in Denmark wrote on a webpage of his (http://www.iva.dk/bh/Core%20Concepts%20in%20LIS/articles%20a-z/classification_of_the_sciences.htm): There is not today (2005), to my knowledge, any organized research program about the classification of the sciences in any discipline or in any country. As Miksa (1998) writes, the interest for this question largely died in the beginning of the 20th century. I don't think that that quite applies to mathematicians, but all the same it seems that people interested in Peirce and mathematicians are currently the main two groups with an abiding interest in a classification with some philosophical or logical basis. Anybody, please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks again for your remarks. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Sally Ness To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Monday, October 17, 2011 11:38 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 3 Ben, list, Thanks very much for this second response--I should say that I did not receive any Peirce posts for about 10 days, due to a change in the email system I use, so I may have missed a post from you--apologies for any lack of acknowledgment if that was the case. Anyway, I appreciate your adding to the record on this paper in such a detailed and thoughtful way. It is interesting, as you point out, that Peirce starts with economics as an example of a social science, and that he makes the connection (which certainly does seem to have ethical and practical aspects) to political economy so explicit in the 1902 quote. I hope that the classificational issues you raise might be addressed by other listers. I am not familiar with this manuscript, but it reads to me as though Peirce saw economics as having different parts to it, making it a science that could belong to more than one class of science with regard to differing parts of its character. Certainly, its mathematical part is larger, and more elaborately developed, than is the case with at least the main streams of many of the other social sciences. Regarding psychology, your comments led me to realize that the independence Peirce wanted to declare for logic in relation to psychological phenomena may have had consequences for the way in which other social sciences are understood in relation to Perice's logic as well, if psychology is taken as representative of all the social sciences in some way. This is quite a thought, and my first response would be, hold on a minute! I wonder if others have reflected on this. In my view, psychology would be the weakest candidate for representing the social sciences in general, focused as it has been on subject- matter that typically, in the mainstreams of the discipline, has been defined as basically individual in character (individual psyches). It would seem to have a special relationship to philosophy and to logic that is not replicated in the other social sciences in this regard. I haven't thought this through enough to say more, but I thank you for bringing it to my attention. Your comment here about mathematical work seems just right: Now, let's say that often enough sociological factors in mathematical work pale to the point that _usual_ sociological factors and explanations offer diminishing returns for sociology about mathematics. Indeed, mathematics would seem to be so pale as to be a special case. The spectrum of such paleness it might be understood to sit at the far end of might be worth fleshing out at some point, although I doubt there would be much hope for consensus on that! Your comment at the end of that paragraph is really what I was trying to articulate at a number of points in my posts--thank you for this clarification: So Joe's criticisisms of sociology of science might apply better to actual sociology, at least as he knew it, as actually or potentially abused for political ends, than to sociology at its ideal best. Finally, thanks for the reference to Feynman's work. His perspective does seem akin to a cultural anthropological one. I am not familiar with it, but hope to learn more of it. Thanks again, Sally On Oct 15, 2011, at 12:26 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote: - 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
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 3
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational CoSally, list, I can't resist trying to catch up somewhat, even if I'm slower than ketchup. I think that Joe would have taken your criticisms in your post below quite seriously. You might even have changed his mind, or at least gotten him to define sociology as he used it in his paper. Economics and science. Any study of people and society should be able to take logical determination into account - determination (causation in the broadest sense) by signs and evidences and interpretants as cognitive or semiosic factors. Economics continually considers the impacts of expectations and beliefs on decision-making about means. Science (along with mathematics) involves the active arranging for oneself (and the community of inquirers) to be determined by the object through signs to true interpretant propositions. Science is a deliberately redoubled form of logical determination, seeking bases for nontivial interpretant conclusions that are bases for further nontrivial interpretant conclusions and, to put it another way, seeking to know or learn in or on what lights or grounds one knows or learns things. As it happens, economics is a 'social science' that Peirce saw as suited to study and aid scientific research itself. Peirce wrote in Draft E - MS L75.180-181 in Memoir 28 his 1902 Application to the Carnegie Institute: [...] I examine the question of the kinds of knowledge of which the diffusion is most desirable, always in the interest of the advancement of science. I find the normative sciences, including economics, of greatest importance. If our people could only learn enough political economy to see that it is a difficult science in which it is needful to trust experts, there would be far more money to spend on science than the genius of the country could use to the best advantage. The analytical part of political economy is directly dependent on logical methodeutic. It is a question whether it is not a branch of logic. (The passage raises a host of classificational questions. Did Peirce think that some of economics is part of ethics? And if the analytical part of economics directly depends on logical methodeutic, but is not part of logic, then by Peirce's Comtean classificational rule, it must come at some point _after_ logic, which means that, though normative, it is either in metaphysics or in the special sciences - presumably it would be there as an application of philosophical normative science.) Psychology (and sociology) and science. Peirce also insisted in the Carnegie Application (in Memoir 15, in Draft D - MS L75.247-248) that logic (including methodeutic) as part of cenosocopic philosophy is independent of psychology as a special science. However, that is not to say that all study of science is in logic or in methodeutic in particular. There seems no reason in principle that a special science, aided by applications from broader or more abstract sciences, _cannot_ successfully study actual disciplines of science, mathematics, etc., as actually practiced. (I do see an inherent _difficulty_, though not an impossibility, in studying minds that may be more brilliant than one's own mind, minds studying subject matters that may be above one's paygrade, etc.) Now, let's say that often enough sociological factors in mathematical work pale to the point that _usual_ sociological factors and explanations offer diminishing returns for sociology about mathematics. The result seems much like what Joe says - one is not so much doing sociology (as usually understood) any more. The question is: so what? I grant the practical and theoretical difficulties, but not the theoretical impossibility. One's work becomes more interdisciplinary and might not entirely belong in the sciences of discovery at all - it could, in Peirce's (and I assume Joe's) view get into Science of Review which does depend on special sciences, cenoscopy, and mathematics, and endeavors to form a philosophy of them all. So Joe's criticisisms of sociology of science might apply better to actual sociology, at least as he knew it, as actually or potentially abused for political ends, than to sociology at its ideal best. Unity of subject matter. I'm also not sure that I agree with Joe about an importance of the unity of subject matter to a point where it seems (though Joe assuredly did not say this) that unities of means and of purpose don't invite or require being taken into account from the beginning. _Ulysses_ and sociology about Dublin are both about Dublin but have different purposes. Even among the sciences, Peirce for his part distinguishes by purposes and method as well as by subject matter. But that's a whole other discussion. Implicit norms. In regard to your identifying Joe's discussion of implicit norms as belonging to a theme in cultural anthropology, it's also hard to resist mentioning Feynman's view that
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 1
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational CoDear Sally, list, I've been occupied, and I guess that it's too late for me to catch up with the rest of the slow read, anyway I won't be miffed if nobody replies to this. Here's a cut-down version of the draft that I was working on for Segment 1. It's interleaved with a previous reply from you. Thank you for all your careful efforts, Sally, they've been a success. Best, Ben Original Message - From: Sally Ness To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, September 02, 2011 5:03 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 1 [SN] Dear Ben, List, [SN] Thanks for your response. Sorry about the subscription wall. If there are others who ran into this problem, I have a .doc copy that I can send off-list (I don't think the list serve will allow me to attach it to a post). [SN] Ben, I'm glad to see your comments about JR's commitment to developing new forms of communication that were not elitist--at least in the paper-credential sense as you put it. Elitism and arrogance are terms that reoccur in JRs paper and in the discourse relating to it. It would seem to afford the slow read an opportunity to reflect on how JR lived and worked in relation to these ideas as well. I think your examples of his working against elitism of certain kinds are very well chosen. Peirce seems obviously to have been a model for JR in this regard. However, Peirce seems also to have been painfully aware of forms of elitism that permeated his own character, and which left him far from perfect in his own view of himself (I wish I had quotes to back this up, but I'm mainly thinking vaguely back to some biographical material from Joseph Brent's and Kenneth Ketner's works, and various phrasing patterns in Peirce's writing--nothing easy to reference). Peirce wasn't just fighting the elitism out there. That is part of what imbues Peirce's work with such a moving spirit of humility, in my reading anyway. I imagine JR was similar in this regard, although I don't really get a strong sense of it in this particular paper. [BU] Elitism gets involved with arrogance and so on, but they're not the selfsame thing. Peirce confessed to and regretted his sometimes contemptuous manner (e.g., towards William James, see CP 6.174-182 or here), but his contempt didn't mean that he misunderstood the topic (one of Zeno's Paradoxes) that occasioned it. Peirce was also something of an elitist (e.g., in The Fixation of Belief, see CP 5.380), but never made a contrite kind of confession of it that I'm aware of, and I don't know that he ever saw it as a flaw. To judge of Joe's attitude in his article - was he getting into elitism? - it doesn't really depend, for example, on whether he had a peremptory tone about Kleinman. One needs collateral information both on Kleinman's topics and on what collateral information Joe had about those topics, because those topics involved particular circumstances, from 15 or more years ago. [SN] I'm not sure I'm following your analogies about the architects and engineers (they represent the scientist/insider, I think), ... [BU] Yes, I got mixed up. I'd have to revise to say, somebody playing engineer who yet lacks interest in developing something reliable and suchlike. That would be a closer parallel to people criticizing scientific methods from an unscientific standpont, in an unscientific spirit, etc. [SN] ... but your explanation of where JR sees the shadows springing up is very helpful, particularly when you foreground the role of official interests. JR's paper also makes this strong distinction between forms of expertise that are the consequences of technical practice and seemingly free of officialdom and forms of authority that are based in institutional contexts and are utterly disconnected form such practices. A lot would seem to be hanging on this dissociation. I'll try to zero in on this in the next segment or the one after. In any case, I do read JRs paper as being written with the science wars of the 1980s and 90s very much in mind (the original version was presented before the 1996 Sokal hoax, but it was still in the news when the revised versions were written). I have wondered if JR made a strong link between Kleinman's ideas and those of Foucault. Foucault seems more in the background here than Derrida to me, but that's not to say both aren't exerting an influence. [BU] Thanks to your generosity, I've read the Kleinman article in question, Why Science and Scientists are Under Fire (September 29, 1995). Also, I've found another one online cowritten by him that goes over some of the same territory, Democratizing Science, Debating Values by Abby J. Kinchy and Daniel Lee Kleinman, summer 2005, _Dissent_ http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=213. But Kleinman's earlier article in turn criticizes another unnamed article by
[peirce-l] Slow read: Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic
Forwarded at Nathan Houser's request. Thank you for your persistence, Nathan! - Best, Ben. === Message for Peirce-L The last thing I want to do is intrude on a good ongoing discussion but I guess I'd better take a moment to introduce the October slow read of Joe's early paper on Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic. JR originally presented this paper in 1976 in Atlanta at the inaugural meeting of the Semiotic Society of America and published it in the proceedings. It was republished with revisions in 1977 in Semiotica. It is worth remembering that in 1976 when Joe wrote this paper Peirce's semiotics was not widely known. (Yesterday I composed and posted an earlier version of this introductory message but it disappeared in cyberspace. I recomposed my message and tried sending it again twice failing both times. I'll give up for now and send it to Ben (Gary is on vacation) and ask him to post it on the forum and I'll work with the tech people at IUPUI to find out why my posts aren't going through. In the meantime, in case the cyber logjam breaks, you may receive three earlier versions of this post. In at least one of them my signature routine reverted to my pre-retirement signature with titles I no longer hold - my apologies to André De Tienne and David Pfeifer.) I should point out that shortly after agreeing to lead the October discussion, I lost contact with Peirce-L and only managed to restore my connectivity (apparently not entirely yet) in mid-September during the lively discussion of JR's Sciences as Communicational Communities. I missed all of the previous slow read discussions which probably dealt with many of the same issues I'll raise for the October read. Let me know if I ask you to consider topics you've already poured over in earlier slow reads and, of course, bring your own questions to the forum. As it happens, I'm just beginning an extended weekend family visit and won't be able to take up discussion of Leading Ideas until next Tuesday (the 4th). But I'll make some introductory remarks now and will try to at least comment on any posts that come in before the 4th. JR began this paper by pointing out that Peirce conceived of semiotics as a foundational theory capable of unifying sub-theories dealing with communication, meaning, and inference. This may call for some discussion. He then claims that 90% of Peirce's prodigious philosophical output is directly concerned with semiotic. This is an odd claim in a way since it does not seem to be straightforwardly true. How can we make sense of it? Issues that may require clarification or revision in light of earlier slow read discussions and/or further development in Joe's later writings: What are the so-called semiotical sciences (what JR also called special semiotic)? Why does JR equate mind with semiosis? It seems to me that mind is generally regarded as something like a system of signs, or a semiotic system, while thought, as dynamic, not static, is equated with semiosis. JR says that Peirce conceived of truth as a more generic . . . conception, namely the conception of a goal-directed activity which normally moves from a state of dissatisfaction to a state of satisfaction. Isn't this too broad? It seems to me that playing a game falls under this conception. What is the extra ingredient that makes such goal-directed activity truth seeking? More generally, what are the key elements, according to JR, of Peirce's basic model for science/semiosis/cybernetics, namely, the truth-seeking tendency in human life? And, perhaps more importantly, is this really a universal tendency? Is the end-state of every sign-interpretational process really the object of that process? Perhaps, we might ask, does truth merge with reality at the end of semiosis? This seems to be what JR is saying. Some Peirce scholars (Hookway, for example) say that this is not Peirce's mature view. A related question/concern is whether, as JR seems to have supposed, our only access to real objects is by way of the immediate objects of semiosis. Other things we may want to consider (although it's mainly up to you to decide this) are JR's interesting and rather brilliant way of explaining how the concept of a semiotic object might be derived from the concept of an utterer (with reference to MS 318 - of which the relevant parts are published in EP2); his suggestion that the need to account for the possibility of error in interpretation is a generic feature of all semiosis; and his account of Peirce's conception of symbolic signs and their relation to iconic and indexical signs. These are only suggestions to help focus your early reading of JR's Some Leading Ideas. We'll see where things go. Remember that the slow read discussions are not intended to dominate the Peirce-L forum. Joe would have been distressed over the thought that the normal give and take of Peirce-L might be
Re: [peirce-l] A change in the slow read schedule, and some Arisbe enhancements
Thanks, Gary and Irving. For my part I agree that it's best to postpone On Peirce's Conception of the Iconic Sign so that Fernando can do it. I'm sorry that I've been out of loops both on-list and off-list! I plan to get back into the current slow read. We all have our distractions, but I seem to cope with mine less well than, say, Gary copes with his. Thanks regarding also Arisbe. I'd appreciate it if people take a look at http://www.cspeirce.com/projects.htm and tell me of past or present Peirce centers/institutes/projects that are not listed there. If you have a link, even one that does not currently work, please send it along. In general, please send me Arisbe website suggestions, questions, updates, corrections. I'm usually pretty quick to repair a broken link when I learn of one. Yes, as I go along I'm adding links for More by the given author. Thanks, Irving, I've just added your preprint on truth tables. As to what else I've done: a.. Most of html effort: Late June to July, in a number of pages, reduced html markup by using css markup, replaced framesets with statically positioned elements, some scrollable. Haven't yet removed every vestige of old-fashioned kinds of html markup, for various reasons. Of course, every time I fiddle with something, it's a kind of html/css effort. Sometimes I go back and re-do things to be simpler or more consistent. Some of my effort is to make Arisbe look alive and kicking - variations in the appearance, while keeping Joe's basics - bolded fonts, certain colors, triangular bullets, often linen backgrounds, etc. I really like the bolded fonts. I don't know what it is these days with websites and their tiny grey fonts. b.. Have lately tried to make things easier for those using automated screen readers (this matter is known as accessibility). Separating myth from fact about accessibility is not alway easy. c.. I've added a few pages such as: a.. list of (more or less) Peirce-related journals ; b.. page of PEP links (not strictly necessary but I liked getting them all into one place); c.. page of links to Peirce manuscripts, letters, drawings online, especially those at Harvard's Houghton Library website. Harvard's color is crimson, so I used some clover, which they're not completely out of yet (colloquially speaking); and d.. if somebody has an idea for a new page, let me know. d.. Made a sortable table of Joe's compilation of data on 351 dissertations on Peirce. Joe had them compiled no later than February 1, 2007. I suppose that very plausibly a further compilation sits on a computer of his in Lubbock. e.. Many current websites don't delete broken links, thank goodness, so now links to old Peirce-related websites preserved on the Wayback Machine are in the page on Centers, Projects, Institutes, etc. f.. Added language tags for personal names all over the place. Now, say you have a name like Mihhail Lotman at U. of Tartu in Estonia. What language(s) do you put? I put lang=et (Estonian). g.. Recently linked at the Peirce-Related Papers page: papers by Tony Jappy, Eliseo Fernández, Gary Richmond, Paul Burgess, Irving Anellis, Fernando Zalamea, and Jaime Nubiola Sara Barrena. a.. Restored some links to papers by Ian Adam and John Upper that used to be there but were removed, I guess because the original links were broken. b.. Links to S.E.E.D. articles now repaired. Special case, some links broken not because a linked Website is gone or a paper has been moved, but mostly because of slightly inaccurate URLs and because S.E.E.D.'s server seems especially sensitive to capitalization in URLs and the S.E.E.D. articles are not consistent in their URL caps/non-caps. c.. Links atop page to other article collections. (Connect to the City, not just to the House). h.. Various little touchups. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond richmon...@lagcc.cuny.edu To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 11:12 PM Subject: [peirce-l] A change in the slow read schedule, and some Arisbe enhancements List, It's become necessary to make a change in the slow read schedule. Fernando Andacht, who this past January stepped up to open the slow read series with a thread centered on his interview with Joe Ransdell, and who was scheduled to emcee Joe's On Peirce's Conception of the Iconic Sign this month, will have to postpone that second read until the beginning of next year because of several new, unexpected, and wholly demanding professional obligations. Since the icon is a topic of Fernando's special interest and expertise, I look forward to his emceeing that read this coming January. Meanwhile, Ben Udell has, in my opinion, been doing quite extraordinary work on the Arisbe site, so that whenever I visit it (not frequently enough, I'm afraid) I think I find a new enhancement. On the other hand, much of Ben's greatest
Re: [peirce-l] A change in the slow read schedule, and some Arisbe enhancements
P.S., regarding Arisbe website suggestions, you can make them on-list, but if you want to send an Arisbe suggestion off-list, send it to both me and Gary: richmon...@lagcc.cuny.edu gary.richm...@gmail.com bud...@nyc.rr.com Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Benjamin Udell To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:28 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] A change in the slow read schedule, and some Arisbe enhancements Thanks, Gary and Irving. For my part I agree that it's best to postpone On Peirce's Conception of the Iconic Sign so that Fernando can do it. I'm sorry that I've been out of loops both on-list and off-list! I plan to get back into the current slow read. We all have our distractions, but I seem to cope with mine less well than, say, Gary copes with his. Thanks regarding also Arisbe. I'd appreciate it if people take a look at http://www.cspeirce.com/projects.htm and tell me of past or present Peirce centers/institutes/projects that are not listed there. If you have a link, even one that does not currently work, please send it along. In general, please send me Arisbe website suggestions, questions, updates, corrections. I'm usually pretty quick to repair a broken link when I learn of one. Yes, as I go along I'm adding links for More by the given author. Thanks, Irving, I've just added your preprint on truth tables. As to what else I've done: a.. Most of html effort: Late June to July, in a number of pages, reduced html markup by using css markup, replaced framesets with statically positioned elements, some scrollable. Haven't yet removed every vestige of old-fashioned kinds of html markup, for various reasons. Of course, every time I fiddle with something, it's a kind of html/css effort. Sometimes I go back and re-do things to be simpler or more consistent. Some of my effort is to make Arisbe look alive and kicking - variations in the appearance, while keeping Joe's basics - bolded fonts, certain colors, triangular bullets, often linen backgrounds, etc. I really like the bolded fonts. I don't know what it is these days with websites and their tiny grey fonts. b.. Have lately tried to make things easier for those using automated screen readers (this matter is known as accessibility). Separating myth from fact about accessibility is not alway easy. c.. I've added a few pages such as: a.. list of (more or less) Peirce-related journals ; b.. page of PEP links (not strictly necessary but I liked getting them all into one place); c.. page of links to Peirce manuscripts, letters, drawings online, especially those at Harvard's Houghton Library website. Harvard's color is crimson, so I used some clover, which they're not completely out of yet (colloquially speaking); and d.. if somebody has an idea for a new page, let me know. d.. Made a sortable table of Joe's compilation of data on 351 dissertations on Peirce. Joe had them compiled no later than February 1, 2007. I suppose that very plausibly a further compilation sits on a computer of his in Lubbock. e.. Many current websites don't delete broken links, thank goodness, so now links to old Peirce-related websites preserved on the Wayback Machine are in the page on Centers, Projects, Institutes, etc. f.. Added language tags for personal names all over the place. Now, say you have a name like Mihhail Lotman at U. of Tartu in Estonia. What language(s) do you put? I put lang=et (Estonian). g.. Recently linked at the Peirce-Related Papers page: papers by Tony Jappy, Eliseo Fernández, Gary Richmond, Paul Burgess, Irving Anellis, Fernando Zalamea, and Jaime Nubiola Sara Barrena. a.. Restored some links to papers by Ian Adam and John Upper that used to be there but were removed, I guess because the original links were broken. b.. Links to S.E.E.D. articles now repaired. Special case, some links broken not because a linked Website is gone or a paper has been moved, but mostly because of slightly inaccurate URLs and because S.E.E.D.'s server seems especially sensitive to capitalization in URLs and the S.E.E.D. articles are not consistent in their URL caps/non-caps. c.. Links atop page to other article collections. (Connect to the City, not just to the House). h.. Various little touchups. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Richmond richmon...@lagcc.cuny.edu To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2011 11:12 PM Subject: [peirce-l] A change in the slow read schedule, and some Arisbe enhancements List, It's become necessary to make a change in the slow read schedule. Fernando Andacht, who this past January stepped up to open the slow read series with a thread centered on his interview with Joe Ransdell, and who was scheduled to emcee Joe's On Peirce's Conception of the Iconic Sign this month, will have to postpone that second read until the beginning of next year
[peirce-l] Note from Gary Richmond
List, Sorry I've been out of it for the last week or so. Gary Richmond has asked me to send the list a note that, if anyone needs to contact him, they should use his gmail account gary.richm...@gmail.com . 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 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
[peirce-l] Jerry Dozoretz
List, Jerry Dozoretz passed away earlier this month. Condolences to his beloved wife Ann and family. Ann emailed Nathan Houser, Gary Richmond, and me about it today. Denver Post obituary http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/denverpost/obituary.aspx?n=jerry-dozoretzpid=153047257 (August 12-14). Jerry had a Ph.D. in Philosophy from University of Californis, Santa Barbara. He was an Instructor and Assisstant Professor of Philosophy from 1970 to 1983. An article of his was published in _Peirce Studies_ 1. Starting in 1983 he worked in the private sector, eventually going into business for himself. He had five children. Jerry was the chief operating officer of the Peirce Group, which owns the Arisbe website and peirce-l, and was working on their relocation from Texas Tech to the Institute for American Thought at IUPUI. He was also working on the relocation of Joseph Ransdell's papers and library to the IAT. He was a pleasure to work with. I'm at a loss for words. In our last phone conversation Jerry told me that he and Joe had been friends since childhood. As usual he sounded well and upbeat and 20 years younger than he was. Ben Udell - 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
[peirce-l] Fw: Peirce Society: 2011-12 Essay Contest: Call for Submissions
Forwarded. - Original Message - From: Robert Lane To: The Charles S. Peirce Society Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 4:55 PM Subject: Peirce Society: 2011-12 Essay Contest: Call for Submissions CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS 2011-12 Charles S. Peirce Society Essay Contest Topic: Any topic on or related to the work of Charles Sanders Peirce. Awards: $500 cash prize; presentation at the Society's next annual meeting, held in conjunction with the Pacific APA (in Seattle, Washington, April 4-7, 2012); possible publication, subject to editorial revision, in the Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. Submission Deadline: January 16, 2012. Length: Because the winning essay may be published in the Transactions, the length of contest submissions should be about the length of an average journal article. The maximum acceptable length is 10,000 words, including notes. The presentation of the winning submission at the annual meeting cannot exceed 30 minutes reading time. Open to: Graduate students and persons who have held a Ph.D. or its equivalent for no more than seven years. Entries from students who have not yet begun their graduate training will not be considered. Past winners of the contest are ineligible. Joint submissions are allowed provided that all authors satisfy the eligibility requirements. Advice to Essay Contest Entrants: The winning entry will make a genuine contribution to the literature on Peirce. Therefore, entrants should become familiar with the major currents of work on Peirce to date and take care to locate their views in relation to published material that bears directly on their topic. Entrants should note that scholarly work on Peirce frequently benefits from the explicit consideration of the historical development of his views. Even a submission that focuses on a single stage in that development can benefit from noting the stage on which it focuses in reference to other phases of Peirce's treatment of the topic under consideration. (This advice is not intended to reflect a bias toward chronological studies, but merely to express a strong preference for a chronologically informed understanding of Peirce's philosophy.) We do not require but strongly encourage, where appropriate, citation of the Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition. Ideally, citation of texts found in both the Collected Papers and the Writings should be to both CP and W. Submissions should be prepared for blind evaluation and must not be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Cover letter or email should include complete contact information, including mailing address and phone numbers, and a statement that the entrant meets the eligibility requirements of the contest. Electronic submissions are preferred. Submissions should be sent as email attachments (Microsoft Word documents, RTF files, or PDF files only) to Robert Lane, secretary-treasurer of the Society: [email address at http://www.westga.edu/~rlane] Please include Peirce Essay Contest Submission in the subject line of your email. Submissions by traditional mail are also acceptable. Please mail submissions to: Robert Lane Philosophy Program University of West Georgia Carrollton, GA 30118 Attn: Peirce Essay Contest -- Robert Lane, Ph.D. Secretary-Treasurer, Charles S. Peirce Society Associate Professor and Director of Philosophy Department of English and Philosophy University of West Georgia Carrollton, GA 30118 [Phone email at webpage] http://www.westga.edu/~rlane - 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: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process
List, Steven, Peter, It may be a little more complicated. Peirce in his cotary propositions said that perceptual judgments amount to compelling abductions, which is very close to saying, compelling explanatory hypotheses. So fallibilism about one's perceptual judgments (at least in retrospect if not at the time of the compulsive judgment) already prefigures falsificationism. But it should be added that the fact that B _entails_ C does not mean that B is in fact a premiss or postulate for C. A is A is an axiom, but it entails very little. Rather, everything entails A is A. Thus we often say presupposes in the sense of entails. Thus fallibililism can be more basic than scientific falsificationism, yet the latter arguably entails the former, i.e., scientifice falsificationism entails/presupposes fallibilism. Jaime Nubiola treated of another angle on Peirce's fallibilism in C. S. Peirce and G. M. Searle: The Hoax of Infallibilism. http://www.unav.es/users/PeirceSearle.html Peirce at times wrote of allowing of practical certainty as opposed to theoretical certainty. Note to list: remember to delete the automatic text added by the server to posts' ends, when replying to a post. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 2:22 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process I agree with Peter. Steven On Aug 5, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Skagestad, Peter wrote: Gary, I agree that falsifiability entails the fallibility of scientific knowledge. But the fallibilty of perceptual judgements, which is affirmed by both Peirce and Popper, appears to me to be an independent conclusion, not entailed by the falsifiability of hypotheses. Peter From: Gary Richmond [richmon...@lagcc.cuny.edu] Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 12:56 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU; Skagestad, Peter Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process Peter, Gary F. Peter, thanks for this helpful clarification that a falsification is not ever conclusive. I would agree with you that Popper was a fallibilist as well as a falsificationist, and that that distinction certainly needs to be made. The point I wanted to make in passing, but which I clearly didn't express very well in my post addressed to Tori and the list ( suggesting that a lot more could be said about it--and has been, even recently on this list!) is exactly that both were fallibilists (and Tom Short, apparently, as well). See, for example, Susan Haack and Konstantin Kalenda, Two Fallibilists in Search of the Truth http://www.jstor.org/pss/4106816 , the two fallibilists being exactly Peirce and Popper. Btw, I too have found the swamp/bog metaphor in both their works eeiry given that Popper wasn't aware of Peirce's work. Anyhow, just a question for now: Would you agree that it is correct to say that falsifiability entails fallibilism as this writer remarks? What of his other claims? (In the light of your comments, at the moment I would tend to agree with him). See: http://science.jrank.org/pages/9302/Falsifiability-Popper-s-Emphasis-on-Falsifiability.html Moreover, falsifiability, as the ongoing risk of falsification in our world, is a permanent status for Popper. No amount of successful testing can establish a hypothesis as absolutely true or even probable: it forever remains conjectural. That all scientific theories remain falsifiable entails fallibilism, the view that our best epistemic efforts remain open to future revision. There can be no certain foundations to knowledge. Best, Gary R. Skagestad, Peter 8/5/2011 12:12 PM Gary, This is not exactly Popper's view, although this is how Popper has often been interpreted, e.g. by Ayer, in Language, Truth, and Logic. Popper's falsificationism is based on a purely logical asymmetry between falsification and verification in that a single counterexample will refute a universal statement, whereas no number of confirming instances will prove it. Thus no number of observed black ravens will prove the statement All ravens are black, whereas a single white raven will refute it. But it does not follow, nor did Popper ever say, that a falsification is ever conclusive, as I can of course be mistaken both in my belief that am looking at a raven and in my perception that it is white. Basic statements, Popper makes clear in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 105-111), are themselves testable; they are basic only in the sense that we have decided not to test them, at least for the time being. Thus Popper was a fallibilist as well as a falsificationist. His discussion of basic statements concludes: The empirical bases of objective science has thus nothing 'absolute' about it. Science does not rest on solid
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process
basic than falsification). Best, Gary Benjamin Udell 8/5/2011 2:53 PM List, Steven, Peter, It may be a little more complicated. Peirce in his cotary propositions said that perceptual judgments amount to compelling abductions, which is very close to saying, compelling explanatory hypotheses. So fallibilism about one's perceptual judgments (at least in retrospect if not at the time of the compulsive judgment) already prefigures falsificationism. But it should be added that the fact that B _entails_ C does not mean that B is in fact a premiss or postulate for C. A is A is an axiom, but it entails very little. Rather, everything entails A is A. Thus we often say presupposes in the sense of entails. Thus fallibililism can be more basic than scientific falsificationism, yet the latter arguably entails the former, i.e., scientifice falsificationism entails/presupposes fallibilism. Jaime Nubiola treated of another angle on Peirce's fallibilism in C. S. Peirce and G. M. Searle: The Hoax of Infallibilism. http://www.unav.es/users/PeirceSearle.html Peirce at times wrote of allowing of practical certainty as opposed to theoretical certainty. Note to list: remember to delete the automatic text added by the server to posts' ends, when replying to a post. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Steven Ericsson-Zenith To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDUmailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 2:22 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process I agree with Peter. Steven On Aug 5, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Skagestad, Peter wrote: Gary, I agree that falsifiability entails the fallibility of scientific knowledge. But the fallibilty of perceptual judgements, which is affirmed by both Peirce and Popper, appears to me to be an independent conclusion, not entailed by the falsifiability of hypotheses. Peter From: Gary Richmond Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 12:56 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDUmailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU; Skagestad, Peter Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process Peter, Gary F. Peter, thanks for this helpful clarification that a falsification is not ever conclusive. I would agree with you that Popper was a fallibilist as well as a falsificationist, and that that distinction certainly needs to be made. The point I wanted to make in passing, but which I clearly didn't express very well in my post addressed to Tori and the list ( suggesting that a lot more could be said about it--and has been, even recently on this list!) is exactly that both were fallibilists (and Tom Short, apparently, as well). See, for example, Susan Haack and Konstantin Kalenda, Two Fallibilists in Search of the Truth http://www.jstor.org/pss/4106816 , the two fallibilists being exactly Peirce and Popper. Btw, I too have found the swamp/bog metaphor in both their works eeiry given that Popper wasn't aware of Peirce's work. Anyhow, just a question for now: Would you agree that it is correct to say that falsifiability entails fallibilism as this writer remarks? What of his other claims? (In the light of your comments, at the moment I would tend to agree with him). See: http://science.jrank.org/pages/9302/Falsifiability-Popper-s-Emphasis-on-Falsifiability.html Moreover, falsifiability, as the ongoing risk of falsification in our world, is a permanent status for Popper. No amount of successful testing can establish a hypothesis as absolutely true or even probable: it forever remains conjectural. That all scientific theories remain falsifiable entails fallibilism, the view that our best epistemic efforts remain open to future revision. There can be no certain foundations to knowledge. Best, Gary R. Skagestad, Peter 8/5/2011 12:12 PM Gary, This is not exactly Popper's view, although this is how Popper has often been interpreted, e.g. by Ayer, in Language, Truth, and Logic. Popper's falsificationism is based on a purely logical asymmetry between falsification and verification in that a single counterexample will refute a universal statement, whereas no number of confirming instances will prove it. Thus no number of observed black ravens will prove the statement All ravens are black, whereas a single white raven will refute it. But it does not follow, nor did Popper ever say, that a falsification is ever conclusive, as I can of course be mistaken both in my belief that am looking at a raven and in my perception that it is white. Basic statements, Popper makes clear in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (pp. 105-111), are themselves testable; they are basic only in the sense that we have decided not to test them, at least for the time being. Thus Popper was a fallibilist as well as a falsificationist. His discussion of basic statements concludes: The empirical
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?
Category theory, theory of categories, and even categorial theory could be hard to distinguish in some languages. Anyway, we're getting into the territory of distinctions that are semantically nontrivial yet confusingly expressed, such as that between relation algebra and relational algebra, and that between algebraic topology and topological algebra. Another option would be to use Peirce's word categorics generally for philosophical category theories, rather than keeping it to Peirce-style categorics. Problem is that the accompanying adjective is categorical rather than categorial. Less sonorous options include categoriacs, categoristics, and categoriology. Another option would be to resist the transference of the sense of either philosophical or mathematical to phrases like category theory, and instead speak of mathematical categorics and philosophical categorics. Those phrases are rather long. My guess is that the best bets for philosophical theory of categories, Peircean or otherwise, are categoristics and categoriology. Categoristics has fewer syllables than categoriology, and its correlated adjective categoristical has quite that advantage over categoriological. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Gary Fuhrman To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Thursday, July 21, 2011 2:11 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read: Is Peirce a Phenomenologist? I don't think Doctrine of Categories would work because the word doctrine no longer means what it did in Peirce's time. As for Theory of Categories, a quick internet search shows that it's used by some mathematicians as a synonym for Category Theory, so unless they can be broken of that habit, that difference in name isn't enough to distinguish between the two disciplines. Maybe Gary needs to come up with an ugly neologism as Peirce would have done -- trichotomologics? -- if he needs to avoid confusing mathematicians. (I don't think category theory would be ambiguous for anybody else.) Gary F. -Original Message- From: Irving Sent: July-21-11 10:55 AM Not to continue to be overly fussy, but I propose Doctrine of Categories or Theory of Categories for the philosophical use, whether speaking of Aristotle, or Kant (Kategorienlehre) or Peirce, and reserve Category Theory for the the that branch of abstract algebra that formalizes a number of algebraic properties of collections of transformations between mathematical objects (such as binary relations, groups, sets, topological spaces, etc.) of the same type, subject to the constraint that the collections contain the identity mapping and are closed with respect to compositions of mappings, ... unless and until it is demonstrated that the philosophical concept, whether Aristotle's, Kant's, or Peirce's, is equivalent to, or at least in some important sense related to, the algebraists' concept. - 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 - 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
