[peirce-l] Modus Dolens
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/05/10/modus-dolens/ ;} -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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] Peirce forum migration on 17-May-2012
Bill, That reminds me, some of the information on the Gmane archive didn't get updated about the move from Texas Tech, so you might want to look at that, too. Cf. http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce Under Detailed Statistics it still gives the URL as: http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/people/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm It seems to say that anyone can edit this, but it wouldn't let me. TIA, Jon Stuckey, William E wrote: PEIRCE-L subscribers, On 17-May-2012, the PEIRCE-L list will be migrating to a new environment, the IU List System. This is because the current LISTSERV is being discontinued. 1) Once the list has been migrated, please check your Junk Mail folder to make sure that mail from the migrated list isn't being treated as SPAM. 2) Once the list has been migrated, please use peirc...@iulist.iupui.edu instead of PEIRCE-L@listserv.iupui.edu when sending to the list. We'll send a message to the list when it has been migrated, but we wanted you to be prepared for the change. 3) We expect that list members' current individual settings will be be preserved. Information will be forthcoming on how to modify settings, view archives, etc. The peirce-l page at Arisbe will be modified accordingly. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Bill Stuckey Network Information Systems IUPUI School of Liberal Arts Cavanaugh Hall 001C 425 University Blvd. Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-274-2978 wstuc...@iupui.edu -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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] What Peirce Preserves
Re: Studies in Logic and Its Vicissitudes At: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8116 Irving All, Between 1865 and 1870, C.S. Peirce had already begun to set out the rudiments of an information-theoretic semantics for inquiry, communication, and thought in general, along with a logic of relatives that is powerful enough to handle polyadic relations, in particular, the triadic relations that one requires in the theory of signs and throughout mathematics. This is the palette of ideas that Peirce found himself forced to develop to paint a picture of inquiry that could even hope to be “true to life”. Many of these ideas we would not see again until the late 20th century. When it comes to the reception of this picture, this style, by judges from another school, I think we have to sort the aesthetic or affective impacts from the cognitive or intellectual factors. Personally, I don't suppose I will ever have the investigative resources or skills to find out what really happened in the case of Peirce, but common sense tells me that handing out his relics like favors at a scalping party must betoken some form of active, if unconscious hostility. And if I were to speculate on the springs and catches of that hostility, I would guess that there is probably a link between fearing the message and counting coup on the messenger. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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
Re: Jim Willgoose At: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8141 JA = Jon Awbrey JW = Jim Willgoose JA: Just to be sure we start out with the same thing in mind, are you talking about the notion of judgment that was represented by the judgment stroke in Frege's “Begriffsschrift” and that supposedly got turned into the turnstile symbol ( ⊦ ) or “assertion symbol” in later systems of notation? JW: Sluga ties the priority of judgement in Frege to Kant's favoring judgements over concepts in the Critique of Pure Reason. The article is open source. I can see a connection with the judgement stroke /- since one asserts the truth; a trick that is hard to do with only concepts or objects. Sluga includes a quote from Frege where he says something to the effect that he (Frege) never segments the signs of even an incomplete expression in any of his work. (ie. x is never separated from F as in Fx.) Jim, With this token and this turnstile then we enter on a recurring issue, revolving on the role of assertion, evaluation, or judgment of truth, in contradistinction to “mere contemplation”, as some of my teachers taught me to bracket it, of a “proposition”, whatever that might be. If I have not made it clear before, this is one of the points where I see the so-called “Fregean Revolution”, more French than American, if you catch my drift, begin to take a downward turn. But I cannot decide yet whether to assign that to Frege's account, taken in full view of his work as a whole, or whether it is due to the particular shards that his self-styled disciples tore off and took to extremes. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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] Mathematics, Phenomenology, Normative Science, Metaphysics
o~o~o~o~o~o I began to be curious about the recurrence of the following passage from Peirce in internet discussions over the last dozen years or so. Syllabus : Classification of Sciences (1.180-202, G-1903-2b) • http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/peirce/cl_o_sci_03.htm o-o | | | o Metaphysics | | /| | |/ | | | / | | |Normative Science o | | | / \ | | |/ \ | | | / \| | | Mathematics o o Phenomenology| | | | Normative science rests largely on phenomenology and on mathematics;| | metaphysics on phenomenology and on normative science. | | | | Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 1.186 (1903) | | | o-o Here is just the sample of occurrences that I could find right off hand. Most of these were cross-posted to several different logic and ontology lists: Arisbe, CG, SUO, the list on Peirce topics that Mary Keeler ran, and various incarnations of the Peirce List, but it's usually easier to find the copies that I posted to the Arisbe and Inquiry Lists. • 2000 Nov • Referenced in later posts but no longer live or archived • 2004 Mar • http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-March/001262.html • 2005 Jun • http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-June/002804.html • 2010 May • http://cs.nyu.edu/pipermail/fom/2010-May/014789.html • 2010 Jun • http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2010-June/003640.html • 2011 Nov • http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2011-November/003730.html • 2011 Dec • http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/7563 o~o~o~o~o~o academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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
JW = Jim Willgoose JW: I followed up on two paper suggestions by Irving (Sluga and Van Heijenoort) in the context of the language or calculus topic. With Sluga, I detect the idea that the Begriffsshrift is a universal language because it is meaningful in a way that the Boolean logic is not. Sluga sees his paper as an extension and adjustment of Van Heijenoort's paper on logic as language or calculus. He places great emphasis on the priority principle. He quotes from Frege, I begin with judgments and their contents and not with concepts ... The formation of concepts I let proceed from judgments. (Posthumous writings) Sluga says, This principle of priority, in fact, constitutes the true center of his critique of Boolean logic. That logic is a mere calculus for him because of its inattention to that principle, while his own logic approximates a characteristic language because of its reliance on it. (Sluga, Frege against the Booleans) The Frege quote above is from around 1879 and the material focus is on 1884 or earlier; especially Boole's calculating logic and the Begriffsshrift. (a response to Schroder's criticism). There is a lot more to this article, including linking the priority principle to the better known context principle. (words have meaning only in sentences) What I am doing is reading these two papers concurrently with Mitchell and Ladd-Franklin from Studies in Logic. (1883) JW: ps. I like the way you diagram a thread on your site. Jim, Sorry, I was away on several excursions and missed that part of the context. My main concern, here and elsewhere, resides with the potential contribution of Peirce to our understanding of inquiry. If I were starting a new project today, instead of trying to dig my way out of unfinished business, it would get a title like The Unrealized Potential of Peirce's Thought or maybe The Unmet Challenge of Peirce's Work. My feeling is that only a small fraction of Peirce's potential contribution to our understanding has yet been realized and that something critical has been lost in the years between Peirce and Russell. Consequently, my concern is less with Boole and Frege than with the clues their work provides to what was found and what was lost. It has long been my experience that we cannot grasp the full import of Peirce's work from the shadows that are cast on the analytic, atomistic, logistic, reductive plain. I prefer looking at the work of what came after from Peirce's conceptual perspective, instead of the other way around. I think that affords a much clearer view of things. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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
JW = Jim Willgoose JW: List, Irving, John et. al., Sluga (Frege against the Booleans; Notre Dame Journal of Formal logic 1987)) places great emphasis upon the priority principle in Frege, which stresses that the judgement is epistemically, ontologically, and methodologically primary. He tries to show that Frege thought that Schroder's view exhibited a bias towards the methodological primacy of concepts by drawing on Schroder's Introductory parts of the Algebra of Logic. I think the central claim of the Sluga paper is that this supposed bias of the Booleans towards abstraction and the treatment of concepts as extensions of classes leads to a confusion over the relation between abstract or pure logic and predicate logic. How this is, is not always easy to see, but the segmenting of the judgement relation does seem to lead to a problem in seeing the abstract logic as a special case of predicate logic. How serious any of this is I don't know. For instance, Mitchell took issue with a Mr. Peirce for speaking of a universe of relation instead of a universe of class terms. (Studies in Logic; Johns Hopkins 1883). Maybe Peirce was vaguely aware of something which the products of analysis would end up obscuring. Jim, Just to be sure we start out with the same thing in mind, are you talking about the notion of judgment that was represented by the judgment stroke in Frege's “Begriffsschrift” and that supposedly got turned into the turnstile symbol ( ⊦ ) or “assertion symbol” in later systems of notation? Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache - 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] What Peirce Preserves
Re: Peirce Preservation (Studies in Logic and Its Vicissitudes) At: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8116 Irving All, The question of how logic, mathematics, phenomenology, and philosophy in general relate to one another has come up again several times in recent discussions, so let me refer once again to a statement from Peirce that I always find enlightening on that score, at least, with respect to how Peirce himself viewed their dependencies and their relative standings as foundations. | Normative science rests largely on phenomenology and on mathematics; | Metaphysics on phenomenology and on normative science. | | C.S. Peirce, CP 1.186 (1903) Here is a digram of these relations, with the more basic inquiries at the bottom and those that rest on them higher up in the ordering. | | | o Metaphysics | /| |/ | | / | |Normative Science o | | / \ | |/ \ | | / \| | Mathematics o o Phenomenology | Cf. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-March/001262.html 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] What Peirce Preserves
Re: Peirce Papers Preservation At: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8116 Irving, Turning to your list of points ... IA: My points were -- to put them as simplistically and succinctly as possible -- that: IA: (a) _Studies in Logic_ did not get laid aside because of the diffusion of its contents (Epicurean logic; probability, along with algebraic logic) but because: IA: (i) philosophers either mathophobic or innumerate were unprepared or unable to tackle the algebraic logic; while: IA: (ii) the mathematician who were capable of handling it did not ignore _Studies in Logic_ in the pre-Principia day (witness Dodgson's being inspired to devise falsifiability trees by Ladd-Franklin's treatment of the antilogism and Marquand's contribution on logic machines; witness the praise for _Studies in Logic_ by Venn, Schröder, and even Bertrand Russell's recommendation to Couturat that he read _Studies in Logic_); IA: (b) once the Fregean revolution began taking effect, in the post-Principia era, not only _Studies in Logic_ slid off the radar even for those capable of handling the mathematics, but so did most of the work in algebraic logic from Boole and De Morgan through Peirce and Schröder to even the pre-Principia Whitehead, in favor of logistic, that is in favor of the function-theoretic approach rather than the older algebraic approach to logic, and THAT was why, in 1941, Tarski expressed surprise and chagrin that the work of Peirce and Schröder hadn't been followed through and that, in 1941, algebraic logic languished in the same state in which it had existed forty-five years earlier. Incidentally, Gilbert Ryle attributed the interest of philosophers in logistic preeminently to the advertisements in favor of it by Bertrand Russell, convincing philosophers that the new mathematical logic could help them resolve or eliminate philosophical puzzles regarding language and epistemology (at the same time, we might add, that Carnap was arguing for the use of the logical analysis of language in eliminating metaphysics). IA: (I do not believe that in my previous posts I said anything to the contrary or said anything that could be construed to the contrary.) I need to say something about the use of the terms algebraic and functional, as they tend to have a diversity of meanings, and some of their connotations have shifted over the years, even in the time that I have observed them being applied to styles of logical notation. We used to use terms like algebraic logic and algebra of logic almost as pejoratives for the older tradition in symbolic logic, going back even as far Leibniz, but that was due to using the term algebra in a very narrow sense, connoting a restriction to finitary operations, those that could be built up from a finite basis of binary operations. More often lately, algebraic tends to be used for applications of category theory, but category theory is abstracted from the concrete materials of functions mapping one set to another, making category theory the apotheosis of functions as a basis for mathematical practice. Moreover, Peirce's use of ∏ and ∑ for quantifiers is actually more functional in spirit than the later use of symbols like ∀ and ∃. These are just some of the reasons that I find myself needing another criterion for distinguishing Peirce's paradigm of logical notation from later devolutions. 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] What Peirce Preserves
Re: Peirce Preservation (Studies in Logic and Its Vicissitudes) At: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8116 IA = Irving Anellis (also, Intelligence Augmentation) IA: Jon Awbrey wrote: I would tend to sort Frege more in a class with Boole, De Morgan, Peirce, and Schröder, since I have the sense when I read them that they are all talking like mathematicians, not like people who are alien to mathematics. IA: I would thoroughly concur. IA: Although Peirce had, perforce, deliberately identified himself as a logician in _Who's Who_, and part 2 of his 1885 AJM paper, after being accepted by Sylvester, was refused publication by Simon Newcomb (who succeeded Sylvester as AJM editor) because Peirce insisted that the paper was logic rather than mathematics, each of these people worked in mathematics as mathematicians (Boole, De Morgan Peirce, Schröder primarily in algebra, but also contributing to differential and integral calculus and function theory; Frege primarily in function theory, but also working in algebra; and all to some extent in geometry as well). Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that logicians and mathematicians are mutually exclusive categories. I don't see any necessary contradiction between being a logician and being a mathematician, but logicists distinguish themselves as striving to reduce mathematics to logic — and even that need not be extreme in its aims, depending on what an individual inquirer means by logic — but when someone sets out to reduce logic itself to a style of purely syntactic analysis, then I find myself needing to draw a line. Thanks a million for the summary below, as it will help me catch up after many distractions of travel and daily events. Regards, Jon IA: My points were -- to put them as simplistically and succinctly as possible -- that: IA: (a) _Studies in Logic_ did not get laid aside because of the diffusion of its contents (Epicurean logic; probability, along with algebraic logic) but because IA: (i) philosophers either mathophobic or innumerate were unprepared or unable to tackle the algebraic logic; while IA: (ii) the mathematician who were capable of handling it did not ignore _Studies..._ in the pre-Principia day (witness Dodgson's being inspired to devise falsifiability trees by Ladd-Franklin's treatment of the antilogism and Marquand's contribution on logic machines; witness the praise for _Studies..._ by Venn, Schröder, and even Bertrand Russell's recommendation to Couturat that he read _Studies..._); IA: (b) once the Fregean revolution began taking effect, in the post-Principia era, not only _Studies in Logic_ slid off the radar even for those capable of handling the mathematics, but so did most of the work in algebraic logic from Boole and De Morgan through Peirce and Schröder to even the pre-Principia Whitehead, in favor of logistic, that is in favor of the function-theoretic approach rather than the older algebraic approach to logic, and THAT was why, in 1941, Tarski expressed surprise and chagrin that the work of Peirce and Schröder hadn't been followed through and that, in 1941, algebraic logic languished in the same state in which it had existed forty-five years earlier. Incidentally, Gilbert Ryle attributed the interest of philosophers in logistic preeminently to the advertisements in favor of it by Bertrand Russell, convincing philosophers that the new mathematical logic could help them resolve or eliminate philosophical puzzles regarding language and epistemology (at the same time, we might add, that Carnap was arguing for the use of he logical analysis of language in eliminating metaphysics). IA: (I do not believe that in my previous posts I said anything to the contrary or said anything that could be construed to the contrary.) -- 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] Not Preserving Peirce
Jack, All histories of logic written that I've read so far are very weak on Peirce, and I think it's fair to say that even the few that make an attempt to cover his work have fallen into the assimilationist vein. Regards, Jon Jack Rooney wrote: Despite all this there are several books on the history of logic eg Kneale Kneale[?]. -- 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] Manifolds of Sense and Interpretation
Steven, There are the sounds of things in your overture that resonate with many themes of long-standing interest to me -- the possibility of integrating dynamic and symbolic aspects of intelligent systems, the logical analogues of differential manifolds and the triadic relations that anchor their most general definitions, the potential of geometric, graph-theoretic, or topological syntaxes for logic, just to name a few -- but other notes strike more dissonant chords in my mind's ear, for instance, the apparent confounding of descriptive sciences, this time biology, biophysics, and physics, with the normative science of logic. However much descriptive sciences and normative sciences may bear on one another, their characters and objectives remain distinct. I don't foresee that biologism will fare any better than psychologism when it comes to supplying a basis for logic. But maybe that is not what you're saying? Regards, Jon cc: Arisbe, Inquiry, Peirce Lists Manifolds Of Sense And Interpretation, Logic And Computation As Biophysics (or why logicians are rightly theoretical biophysicists too) In 1904 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) objected to the “Russellization” of logic on the basis that logical expressions consisting of dyadic relations are not reducible to the interpretant manifold, to the manifest non-local quality of our ongoing experience in bringing the distribution and variety of sense to actionable unity, observing that beyond the immediate composition of cause and effect statements this action is necessarily deferred to the logician. Mechanical inference from dyadic relations neglects something immediate and deferred that is actionable. The illusive mechanics that Peirce suggests is by definition the mechanics of biophysics, describing how sense is characterized by the structures involved and how the biophysical structure is moved from apprehension to action. I will argue that this mechanics is fundamental to the inquiry of logic, determining the natural laws of logic, and that it is time for logicians to return to these foundational issues as theoretical biophysics, a field in which a wealth of new data promises to inform us. I present the state of my own inquiry: a new logic and model of computation based upon the function of flexible closed manifolds describing how sense is characterized, symbolic processing, and covariant response potentials, the analogs of biophysical cells and multicellular membranes and their associated mechanics. The mathematization of this approach formally requires a unification of logic and geometry. I will present steps toward the specification of such a logic and its geometric implementation in dynamic structure designed to enable the explanation and reproduction of biophysical function. And I will speak to the predictions of the theory concerning the mechanisms that remain to be discovered. Manifolds of sense and interpretation, logic and computation as biophysics by Steven Ericsson-Zenith is the abstract for a presentation at Stanford University Mathematical Logic Seminar on May 8th, 2012. 4:15pm at Math corner, room 380-X. -- 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] Paradisaical Logic The After Math
Peircers, Not too coincidentally with the mention of Peirce's existential graphs, a tangent of discussion on another blog brought to mind an old favorite passage from Peirce, where he is using his entitative graphs to exposit the logic of relatives. Here is the observation that I was led to make: | Paradisaical Logic | | Negative operations (NOs), if not more important than | positive operations (POs), are at least more powerful | or generative, because the right NOs can generate all | POs, but the reverse is not so. | | Which brings us to Peirce’s amphecks, NAND and NNOR, | either of which is a sole sufficient operator for all | boolean operations. | | In one of his developments of a graphical syntax for logic, | that described in passing an application of the Neither-Nor | operator, Peirce referred to the stage of reasoning before | the encounter with falsehood as “paradisaical logic, because | it represents the state of Man’s cognition before the Fall.” | | Here’s a bit of what he wrote there — | | C.S. Peirce • Relatives of Second Intention | http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/04/07/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-relatives-of-second-intention/ 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] A Question About Categories
hi claudio, I am traveling through the middle of next week, with only my iphone to hand. that was a rather abbreviated way of explaining categories and would require supplementation. if it were only a matter of mathematics, that would suffice, but we are talking about phenomenology, categories of appearance, so the question is what complexity of mathematical models are forced on us by the complexity of the phenomenal domain before us. regards, jon On Mar 29, 2012, at 1:15 PM, Claudio Guerri claudiogue...@gmail.com wrote: Dear Jon, thanks for the constant 'help' that to give to all listers I have found your explanation of the categories very practical (below in red), and since I'd like to quote it, I wanted to ask you if it is yours or if you can give me the origin. Thanks again Best CL -- Prof. Dr. Arch. Claudio F. Guerri Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo Universidad de Buenos Aires Home address: Gral. Lemos 270 (1427) Buenos Aires – Argentina Telefax: (0054-11) 4553-4895 or 4553-7976 Cell phone: (0054-9-11) 6289-8123 E-mail: claudiogue...@fibertel.com.ar Jon Awbrey said the following on 14/03/2012 03:14 p.m.: Diane, Between any 2 sets of 3 there are 3! (count 'em, 6) ways of forming a 1-to-1 correspondence, and there may be reason for considering the sense of each 1. When it comes to Peirce's categories, which are best understood as the dimensions of relations, roughly speaking, what monadic, dyadic, triadic relations, respectively, have in common, it is also good to recall that Peirce often stressed the order: 1st, 2nd, 3rd = First, Last, Middle. | By the third, I mean the medium or connecting | bond between the absolute first and last. | The beginning is first, the end second, | the middle third. | | Peirce, CP 1.337 Regards, Jon Diane Stephens wrote: In the book *Semiotics I* by Donald Thomas, he includes a chart which shows concepts associated with firsts, seconds and thirds. For example, a first is *quality*, a second is *fact* and a third is *law.* I understand all but second as past as in: First - *present * Second - *past * Third - *future * I would appreciate some help. Thanks. -- Prof. Dr. Arch. Claudio F. Guerri Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo Universidad de Buenos Aires Home address: Gral. Lemos 270 (1427) Buenos Aires – Argentina Telefax: (0054-11) 4553-4895 or 4553-7976 Cell phone: (0054-9-11) 6289-8123 E-mail: claudiogue...@fibertel.com.ar - 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
Peircers, Here's another prospectus on normative inquiry that I wrote up in September 1992. Prospects For Inquiry Driven Systems 1.3.1. Logic, Ethics, Esthetics The philosophy I find myself converging to more often lately is the pragmatism of C.S. Peirce and John Dewey. According to this account, logic, ethics, and esthetics form a concentric series of normative sciences, each a subdiscipline of the next. Logic tells how one ought to conduct one's reasoning in order to achieve the stated goals of reasoning in general. Thus logic is a special application of ethics. Ethics tells how one ought to conduct one's activities in general in order to achieve the good appropriate to each enterprise. What makes the difference between a normative science and a prescriptive dogma is whether this telling is based on actual inquiry into the relationship of conduct to result, or not. In this view, logic and ethics do not set goals, they merely serve them. Of course, logic may examine the consistency of an arbitrary selection of goals in the light of what science tells about the likely repercussions in nature of trying to actualize them all. Logic and ethics may serve the criticism of certain goals by pointing out the deductive implications and probable effects of striving toward them, but it has to be some other science which finds and tells whether these effects are preferred and encouraged or detested and discouraged relative to a particular form of being. The science which examines individual goods, species goods, and generic goods from an outside perspective must be an esthetic science. The capacity for inquiry into a subject must depend on the capacity for uncertainty about that subject. Esthetics is capable of inquiry into the nature of the good precisely because it is able to be in question about what is good. Whether conceived as empirical science or as experimental art, it is the job of esthetics to determine what might be good for us. Through the exploration of artistic media we find out what satisfies our own form of being. Through the expeditions of science we discover and further the goals of own species' evolution. Outriggers to these excursions are given by the comparative study of biological species and the computational study of abstractly specified systems. These provide extra ways to find out what is the sensible goal of an individual system and what is the perceived good for a particular species of creature. It is especially interesting to learn about the relationships that can be represented internally to a system's development between the good of a system and the system's perception, knowledge, intuition, feeling, or whatever sense it may have of its goal. This amounts to asking the questions: What good can a system be able to sense for itself? How can a system discover its own best interests? How can a system achieve, from the evidence of experience, a cognizance, evidenced in behavior, of its own best interests? http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Essays/Prospects_For_Inquiry_Driven_Systems#1.3.1._Logic.2C_Ethics.2C_Esthetics 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] Book Review: Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism
A Facebook acquaintance posted this on my wall ... Bakhtin Meets Pocahontas -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GITVPh7GVSE Cheers, 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] Book Review • “Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism”
Peircers, Yet another attack of synchronicity -- I just now happened to be working on the markup of some old work and I ran across this bit where I was trying to puzzle out a sensible picture of how the normative science fit together within a pragmatic perspective on their objects. | Questions about the good of something, and what must be done to get it, | and what shows the way to do it, belong to the normative sciences of | aesthetics, ethics, and logic, respectively. | } Aesthetic knowledge is a creature's most basic sense | of what is good or bad for it, as signaled by the | experiential features of pleasure or pain, | respectively. | | Ethical knowledge deals with the courses of action | and patterns of conduct that lead to these ends. | | Logical knowledge begins from the remoter signs | of what actions are true and false to their ends, | and derives the necessary consequences indicated by | combinations of signs. | | In pragmatic thought, the normative disciplines can be imagined as three | concentric cylinders resting on their bases, increasing in height as they | narrow, from aesthetics to ethics to logic, in that order. Considered with | regard to the plane of their experiential bases, logic is subsumed by ethics, | which is subsumed by aesthetics. And yet, in another sense, logic affords | a perspective on ethics, while ethics affords a perspective on aesthetics. | | http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_:_Part_6#6.2._A_Candid_Point_of_View 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] C.S. Peirce • A Guess at the Riddle
Re: Benjamin Udell At: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8026 Re: Terry Bristol At: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/8029 In the passage I quoted, Peirce is describing a critical juncture in the evolution of our physical understanding. One of the things we can see in the formula F = ma is the transition from an intuitive, dualistic, cause-effect conception of force to a geometric description of change in differential, relative terms. To observe all that in the physics of his day was not only perceptive but downright prescient. But my present interest is more directed to this question: “Is there a similar transition to be expected in the evolution of semiotics, the theory of signs, or the theory of inquiry itself?” Developing a conceptual framework that allows us to consider that question in any productive way will require us to pursue the matter of “Thirdness as it naturally arises … more generally in systems theory.” 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] 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] C.S. Peirce • A Guess at the Riddle
Peircers, Here is a passage from Peirce that I find telling and personally compelling, for reasons I hope to tell later on. It often comes up in explaining Thirdness as it naturally arises in physics, and more generally in systems theory. Selections from C.S. Peirce, “A Guess at the Riddle”, CP 1.354–416 [quote] 359. First and Second, Agent and Patient, Yes and No, are categories which enable us roughly to describe the facts of experience, and they satisfy the mind for a very long time. But at last they are found inadequate, and the Third is the conception which is then called for. The Third is that which bridges over the chasm between the absolute first and last, and brings them into relationship. We are told that every science has its Qualitative and its Quantitative stage; now its qualitative stage is when dual distinctions,— whether a given subject has a given predicate or not,— suffice; the quantitative stage comes when, no longer content with such rough distinctions, we require to insert a possible half-way between every two possible conditions of the subject in regard to its possession of the quality indicated by the predicate. Ancient mechanics recognized forces as causes which produced motions as their immediate effects, looking no further than the essentially dual relation of cause and effect. That is why it could make no progress with dynamics. The work of Galileo and his successors lay in showing that forces are accelerations by which a state of velocity is gradually brought about. The words cause and effect still linger, but the old conceptions have been dropped from mechanical philosophy; for the fact now known is that in certain relative positions bodies undergo certain accelerations. 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. The superiority of modern geometry, too, has certainly been due to nothing so much as to the bridging over of the innumerable distinct cases with which the ancient science was encumbered; and we may go so far as to say that all the great steps in the method of science in every department have consisted in bringing into relation cases previously discrete. [/quote] — Charles S. Peirce, “A Guess at the Riddle”, MS 909 (1887–88). • First published in CP 1.354–416. Reprinted in EP1, 245–279. • http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/03/21/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-a-guess-at-the-riddle/ 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] Peirce Community Blogs Home Pages
Thanks, Ben, that is some rockin' blog roll ! • http://www.cspeirce.com/individs.htm cc: Arisbe, Inquiry, Peirce List -- 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] 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] A Question About Peirce's Categories
Steven, I think the point about sequentiality is correct. Relations are ordered according to their arities or dimensions, and Peirce holds that three are enough to generate all others, but not all relations of constraint or determination, that is, information, are causal or temporal in nature, not even if we try to imagine some order of triadic causality or temporality. Attempting to understand the relational categories by setting out ordered lists of terms that are regarded as naming absolute, monadic, non-relational essences is a sign that our understanding has gone off track and fallen into yet another rut of reductionism. I don't know what to call it -- absolutism? monadicism? non-relativism? -- but it's just as bad a form of reductionism as nominalism. Regards, Jon Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Dear Diane, I agree with those that question whether Peirce would be comfortable using notions of linear time, as Jon's quote highlights. In the context of time conceptions (for me, time is simply a way of speaking) I would prefer: 1st = the immediate experience 2nd = the accessible record 3rd = the manifold of unity In brief: immediacy, record, unification. It would be important for me to observe that no sequential nature should be read into the process suggested by these categories, they covary in what I would call the eternal moment. The conception of time is a product of the unifying effect of what Peirce calls thirdness. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info On Mar 14, 2012, at 8:56 AM, Diane Stephens wrote: In the book Semiotics I by Donald Thomas, he includes a chart which shows concepts associated with firsts, seconds and thirds. For example, a first is quality, a second is fact and a third is law. I understand all but second as past as in: First - present Second - past Third - future I would appreciate some help. Thanks. -- Diane Stephens Swearingen Chair of Education Wardlaw 255 College of Education University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 803-777-0502 Fax 803-777-3193 -- 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Peircers, I think it's true that some of the difficulties of this discussion may be due to different concepts of predicates, or different ways of using the word predicate in different applications, communities, and contexts. If I think back to the variety of different communities of interpretation that I've had the fortune or misfortune of passing through over the years, I can reckon up at least this many ways of thinking about predicates: 1. In purely syntactic contexts, a predicate is just a symbol, a syntactic element that is subject to specified rules of combination and transformation. As we pass to contexts where predicate symbols are meant to have meaning, most disciplines of interpretation will be very careful, at first, about drawing a firm distinction between a predicate symbol and the object it is intended to denote. For example, in computer science, people tend to use forms like constant name, function name, predicate name, type name, variable name, and so on, for the names that denote the corresponding abstract objects. When it comes to what information a predicate name conveys, what kind of object the predicate name denotes, or finally, what kind of object the predicate itself is imagined to be, we find that we still have a number of choices: 2. Predicate = property, the intension a concept or term. 3. Predicate = collection, the extension of a concept or term. 4. Predicate = function from a universe domain to a boolean domain. It doesn't really matter all that much in ordinary applications which you prefer, and there is some advantage to keeping all the options open, using whichever one appears most helpful at a given moment, just so long as you have a way of moving consistently among the alternatives and maintaining the information each conveys. Regards, Jon SE = Steven Ericsson-Zenith SE: Ben and I appear to be speaking across each other and, possibly, agreeing fiercely. SE: Recall that in the 1906 dialectic Peirce is drawing a distinction between the wider usage of Category at the time, i.e., Aristotle's Categories considered by you in the dialog, and saying that he prefers to call these Predicaments. Having made this distinction he then speaks about the indices that are his categories. SE: As I said earlier, the index in this case does not point to the elements of the category but the category itself. There is Firstness as opposed to x is a first. The confusion may be that Ben thinks I am saying that a category is some set of indices to its members. That is not the case, a category stands alone and we can point to it (index). Icons are the selection mechanisms of properties of classes, not indices. SE: Predicaments are higher order, assertions about assertions, predicates of predicates, I prefer to say predicated predicates or assertions about assertions which is more generally understood today. SE: Being as careful as he is, I see no evidence to cause us to suppose that the categories that Peirce attributes to himself in 1906 are different than those he identifies as early as 1866. -- 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
GF: Good point, Jon -- we should not neglect the element of performance art in philosophy! :-) GF: However I'm not sure it's right to say that the metaphysical order is more fundamental than the phenomenological. It doesn't seem to jibe with Peirce's classification of the sciences, either. JA: Yes, we always have the choice between first in nature and first for us. I have no strong feelings about which first comes first -- I was just going by Peirce's statement: CSP: Besides, it would be illogical to rely upon the categories to decide so fundamental a question. JA: But you are right, one could just as well say that independent foundations are both fundamental without one foundation being more fundamental than the other. -- 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] [Inquiry] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Peircers, There is a continuity of purpose that unites all the various category systems, from Aristotle through the present day. Clearly, the categories of Aristotle, Kant, Peirce, and contemporary mathematics are the same in neither number nor content, but the logical function and semiotic utility they serve is the same. The problem for which categories are proposed as a solution by Aristotle is that signs are equivocal, perhaps inherently and even necessarily, at least, for creatures like us, and so we have need of additional signs for reducing their ambiguities to the point where logic can begin to apply, as it cannot apply to words that are used in incompatible categories of meaning or sense. Here is the that inaugural passage from Aristotle again — | Things are equivocally named, when they have the name only in common, | the definition (or statement of essence) corresponding with the name | being different. For instance, while a man and a portrait can properly | both be called animals (ζωον), these are equivocally named. For they | have the name only in common, the definitions (or statements of essence) | corresponding with the name being different. For if you are asked to | define what the being an animal means in the case of the man and the | portrait, you give in either case a definition appropriate to that | case alone. | | Things are univocally named, when not only they bear the same name but the | name means the same in each case — has the same definition corresponding. | Thus a man and an ox are called animals. The name is the same in both cases; | so also the statement of essence. For if you are asked what is meant by their | both of them being called animals, you give that particular name in both cases | the same definition. | | Aristotle, Categories, 1.1a1–12. | | Translator's Note. “Ζωον in Greek had two meanings, that is to say, living creature, and, | secondly, a figure or image in painting, embroidery, sculpture. We have no ambiguous noun. | However, we use the word ‘living’ of portraits to mean ‘true to life’.” (H.P. Cooke). | | http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Notes/Precursors#Aristotle As I commented — In the logic of Aristotle categories are adjuncts to reasoning that are designed to resolve ambiguities and thus to prepare equivocal signs, that are otherwise recalcitrant to being ruled by logic, for the application of logical laws. The example of ζωον illustrates the fact that we don't need categories to make generalizations so much as we need them to control generalizations, to reign in abstractions and analogies that are stretched too far. 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Ben, Steven, All ... I may have missed a few posts but I don't understand the fuss about indices. The types of signs not in one-to-one correspondence with the types of objects. You can refer to the same object by means of a pronoun or some other index -- for example, Looky there!, Voila!, or I don't know what it is, but there it goes again -- or you can refer to it by means of a noun, or some figure of speech with iconic properties. It is simply a matter of convenience in certain cases that we use an index or icon when a more definitive symbol might take a lot of work to fashion. Regards, Jon Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Ben and I appear to be speaking across each other and, possibly, agreeing fiercely. Recall that in the 1906 dialectic Peirce is drawing a distinction between the wider usage of Category at the time, i.e., Aristotle's Categories considered by you in the dialog, and saying that he prefers to call these Predicaments. Having made this distinction he then speaks about the indices that are his categories. As I said earlier, the index in this case does not point to the elements of the category but the category itself. There is Firstness as opposed to x is a first. The confusion may be that Ben thinks I am saying that a category is some set of indices to its members. That is not the case, a category stands alone and we can point to it (index). Icons are the selection mechanisms of properties of classes, not indices. Predicaments are higher order, assertions about assertions, predicates of predicates, I prefer to say predicated predicates or assertions about assertions which is more generally understood today. Being as careful as he is, I see no evidence to cause us to suppose that the categories that Peirce attributes to himself in 1906 are different than those he identifies as early as 1866. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info -- 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] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
Peircers, Short on time till Monday, but I was able to redo the Objective Logic excepts as a blog post, that may be easier to read all in one piece: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/03/09/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-objective-logic/ 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] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
o~o~o~o~o~o Note 2 o~o~o~o~o~o Objective Logic (cont.) The first question, then, which I have to ask is: Supposing such a thing to be true, what is the kind of proof which I ought to demand to satisfy me of its truth? Am I simply to go through the actual process of development of symbols with my own thoughts, which are symbols, and am I to find in the sense of necessity and evidence of the following of one thought upon another an adequate assurance that the course followed is the necessary line of thought's development? That is the way the question has usually been put, hitherto, both by Hegelians and by Anti-Hegelians. But even if I were to find that the sequence of conceptions in Hegel's logic carried my mind irresistibly along its current, that would not suffice to convince me of its universal validity. Nor, on the other hand, does the mere fact that I do not find a single step of Hegel's logic, or any substitute for it that I have met with, either convincing or persuasive, give me any assurance whatever that there is no such life- history. It seems to me natural to suppose that it would be far easier satisfactorily to answer the question of whether there is such a thing than to find out what particular form that life-history would take if it were a reality; and not only natural to suppose so, but made as certain by solid reasons as any such anticipation in regard to proofs could well be. — Charles S. Peirce, “Minute Logic” (1902), CP 2.112 o~o~o~o~o~o 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] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
o~o~o~o~o~o Note 3 o~o~o~o~o~o Objective Logic (cont.) But whatever be the kind and degree of our logical assurance that there is any real world, external or internal, that same kind and degree of assurance we certainly have that there not only may be a living symbol, realizing the full idea of a symbol, but even that there actually is one. I examine the question from this point of view. It certainly seems as if the mere hypothesis of such a thing as a symbol sufficed to demonstrate such a life-history. Still, a fallacy is to be suspected. How can a mere hypothesis prove so much as this seems to prove, if it proves anything? I call in the data of experience, not exactly the every-minute experience which has hitherto been enough, but the experience of most men, together with the history of thought. The conclusion seems the same. Yet still, the evidence is unsatisfactory. The truth is that the hypothesis involves the idea of a different mode of being from that of existential fact. This mode of being seems to claim immediate recognition as evident in the mere idea of it. One asks whether there is not a fallacy in using the ordinary processes of logic either to support it or to refute it. — Charles S. Peirce, “Minute Logic” (1902), CP 2.114–115 o~o~o~o~o~o 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] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
Gary, Sorry, the incitement for this reading is that array of questions that arose in regard to the relations among Peirce's categories, predicates of predicates, the possibly finite sequence of intentions, and the modes of being that he mentioned in his passage about Predicaments. I had to include a lot of Peirce's set-up, but I think the connection with categories and modes of being will be clear toward the end of the section. Regards, Jon Gary Richmond wrote: Jon, It would be helpful if you'd add some context to a message which is entirely a quotation. Best, Gary -- 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] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
o~o~o~o~o~o Note 4 o~o~o~o~o~o Objective Logic (cont.) Aristotelianism admitted two modes of being. This position was attacked by William Ockham, on the ground that one kind sufficed to account for all the phenomena. The hosts of modern philosophers, to the very Hegels, have sided with Ockham in this matter. But now the question comes before us for reëxamination: What are the modes of being? One might antecedently expect that the cenopythagorean categories would require three modes of being. But a little examination will show us that they could be brought into fairly presentable accordance with the theory that there were only two, or even only one. The question cannot be decided in that way. Besides, it would be illogical to rely upon the categories to decide so fundamental a question. The only safe way is to make an entirely fresh investigation. But by what method are we to pursue it? In such abstract questions, as we shall have already found, the first step, often more than half the battle, is to ascertain what we mean by the question — what we possibly ''can'' mean by it. We know already how we must proceed in order to determine what the meaning of the question is. Our sole guide must be the consideration of the use to which the answer is to be put — not necessarily the practical application, but in what way it is to subserve the ''summum bonum''. Within this principle is wrapped up the answer to the question, what being is, and what, therefore, its modes must be. It is absolutely impossible that the word “Being” should bear any meaning whatever except with reference to the ''summum bonum''. This is true of any word. But that which is true of one word in one respect, of another in another, of every word in some or another respect, that is precisely what the word “being” aims to express. There are other ways of conceiving Being — that it is that which manifests itself, that it is that which produces effects — which have to be considered, and their relations ascertained. — Charles S. Peirce, “Minute Logic” (1902), CP 2.116 o~o~o~o~o~o 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Ben All, At any rate, there is no particular hurry to come to a decision. As I get time, I'll go back and review the passage in the context of that paper and others. For now, let me make a first pass over your comments and say what I can say off the cuff, subject to the usual risk of backtracking later. BU = Ben Udell JA = Jon Awbrey BU: The passage by Peirce that you quoted below has nagged at me for some time. On your mywikibiz page to which you linked, as regards that passage, you said The first thing to extract from this passage is the fact that Peirce's Categories, or 'Predicaments', are predicates of predicates. Let us call that H_1. Categories = Predicates of Predicates. I was tempted into that interpretation, despite the possibility of becoming the foil of a subsequent aporia, by the simple fact that it appears to help me make sense, not only of what Peirce might mean by a category, but of all the other claims that he makes for their properties. As a general rule, I interpret Peirce's categories as categories of relations. I suppose I am led to do this by the fact that Peirce makes very strong claims about his categories -- the claim that three are necessary and sufficient, etc. -- and I see nothing else that could anchor these claims except the extremely hard facts of mathematics that he emphasizes throughout his work under the heading of triadic irreducibility. If Peirce intends to explain his categories by means of words like Actuality, Possibility, Destiny -- words whose meanings are hardly fixed across traditions of interpretation but range from the fluid to the flighty and fanciful -- then I can but take him at his word, at any given moment, whether he means the same thing by them as he means by First, Last, Middle, in that order or some other, or then again Quality, Reaction, Representation, or any of the other terms. But if he means to turn it about, and explain those arrays of highly variable and traditionally volatile terms by means of mathematical relations, where we have some hope of probating, proving or disproving, the properties attributed to these categories, then that is reason to think we are moving in a positive direction, clarifying obscure words in the light of more determinate concepts. BU: In the editors' footnote to CP 4.549, the editors say that what there Peirce calls the Modes of Being are Usually called categories by Peirce. See vol. 1, bk. III. Maybe they're wrong, but what here he calls the Modes of Being -- Actuality, Possibility, and Destiny (or Freedom from Destiny) do at least comprise one of his formulations of his categories, even if not the definitive formulation. BU: Peirce says [...] what you have called Categories, but for which I prefer the designation Predicaments, and which you have explained as predicates of predicates ... Peirce everywhere else prefers the name Categories for his own categories and who is the you who would have been speaking of Peirce's own categories? In Peirce's dialogue, formally speaking, you addresses the Reader. I initially read you as referring to Peirce's alter ego in a dialogue with himself, but it occurs to me that another possibility might be Hegel. BU: Peirce says, CSP: [...] the divisions so obtained 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 is different in the different Modes of Being. Given what I said above, I am content to leave it open at present whether Categories, Modalities, Modes of Being, Predicaments, Predicates of Predicates, and all the rest are exemplifying the same formal structure or not. What is less variable for me is the fact that no other reason is given anywhere in Peirce's work for claiming the necessity and sufficiency of three categories except the mathematical facts about the valences of relations. Regards, Jon BU: Where else does he say that the successions of his categories are different in the different Modes of Being? Where in his other writings does he call his own categories predicates of predicates? It's hard not to think that by Predicates of Predicates he does not mean his own categories, and instead that, at most, 1st-intentional, 2nd-intentional, and 3rd-intentional entities, on which he says that his thoughts are not yet harvested, will end up being treated by him as Firsts, Seconds, Thirds -- instances or applications of his categories. JA: We have of course discussed the bearing of Peirce's categories on his other triads several times before, even to the point of going through his early writings in excruciating detail. I do not think I have the strength to do that again, but it may be possible to recover the gist of those examinations from various archives here and there on the web. JA: One of the nagging things
[peirce-l] C.S. Peirce • Objective Logic
| Objective Logic | | With Speculative Rhetoric, Logic, in the sense of Normative Semeotic, | is brought to a close. But now we have to examine whether there be a | doctrine of signs corresponding to Hegel's objective logic; that is to | say, whether there be a life in Signs, so that — the requisite vehicle | being present — they will go through a certain order of development, | and if so, whether this development be merely of such a nature that | the same round of changes of form is described over and over again | whatever be the matter of the thought or whether, in addition to | such a repetitive order, there be also a greater life-history that | every symbol furnished with a vehicle of life goes through, and what | is the nature of it. | | C.S. Peirce, CP 2.111, “Minute Logic” (1902) - 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] Proemial: On The Origin Of Experience
Steven, Here's a snippet from Boole that I think well illustrates his take on the relation between logic and the psychology of the thinking process. | In proceeding to these inquiries, it will not be necessary | to enter into the discussion of that famous question of the | schools, whether Language is to be regarded as an essential | instrument of reasoning, or whether, on the other hand, it | is possible for us to reason without its aid. I suppose this | question to be beside the design of the present treatise, for | the following reason, viz., that it is the business of Science | to investigate laws; and that, whether we regard signs as the | representatives of things and of their relations, or as the | representatives of the conceptions and operations of the | human intellect, in studying the laws of signs, we are | in effect studying the manifested laws of reasoning. | | (Boole, Laws of Thought, p. 24.) Boole is saying that the business of science, the investigation of laws, applies itself to the laws of signs at such a level of abstraction that its results are the same no matter whether it finds those laws embodied in objects or in intellects. In short, he does not have to choose one or the other in order to begin. This simple idea is the essence of the formal approach in mathematics, and it is one of the reasons that contemporary mathematicians tend to consider structures that are isomorphic. Peirce uses this depth of perspective for the same reason. It allows him to investigate the forms of triadic sign relations that exist among objects, signs, and interpretants without being blocked by the impossible task of acquiring knowledge of supposedly unknowable things in themselves, whether outward objects or the contents of other minds. Like Aristotle and Boole before him, Peirce replaces these impossible problems with the practical problem of inquiring into the sign relations that exist among commonly accessible objects and publicly accessible signs. • http://www.mywikibiz.com/User:Jon_Awbrey/PEIRCE#Formal_perspective • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Sanders_Peirce/Cache#Formal_perspective Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Thanks Jon. Recall that my goal is ultimately a calculus for biophysics, in addition to a logic constructed upon it. Following your suggested approaches there is no way to bind the characterization of sense with response potentials. So, different goals perhaps. On Boole and Frege, I am using the titles of the books only to highlight the overall concern of the authors, rather than the particular approach of each author. I decided to avoid the psychologistic divide in logic in this short piece. I'll review that decision. Steven -- 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Hi Phyllis, Do you know the work of Sorrentino and Roney on orientations to uncertainty? | Sorrentino, Richard M., and Roney, Christopher J.R. (2000), | The Uncertain Mind : Individual Differences in Facing the Unknown, | (Essays in Social Psychology, Miles Hewstone (ed.)), Taylor and Francis, | Philadelphia, PA. We had been discussing this on The Wikipedia Review a few years ago, so there will be a few excerpts and additional links on this thread: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=15318 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Peircers, Gary brings us evidence that Peirce continued to find favor with his original opinion about the connections of the three categories with the principal types of signs and the principal types of inference, even when all the second guessing and third guessing had settled down, and yet leaves the question undecided in his own mind at that time. Working from the understanding that all semiotic phenomena are irreducibly triadic, taking irreducibile in the strictest sense of the word, specific reasons must be given for assigning any number less than 3 to the arity of any aspect or component of a semiotic species, for example, a type of sign relation or a type of inference, in effect, exhibiting an approximate reduction in some looser sense of reduction. There are plenty of examples in Peirce's early work where he demonstrates the form of reasoning that he uses to make these categorical associations and connections, and I had intended to go hunt a few of these up, but the niche of the web where I last copied them out is down right now, so I will have to try again later. Regards, Jon CL = Cathy Legg GR = Gary Richmond CL: I don't see how one might interpret induction as secondness though. Though a *misplaced* induction may well lead to the secondness of surprise due to error. GR: And yet that's exactly how Peirce saw it for most of his career (with the brief lapse mentioned in my earlier post and commented on by him in the 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism). There he wrote: CSP: Abduction, or the suggestion of an explanatory theory, is inference through an Icon, and is thus connected with Firstness; Induction, or trying how things will act, is inference through an Index, and is thus connected with Secondness; Deduction, or recognition of the relations of general ideas, is inference through a Symbol, and is thus connected with Thirdness. ... [My] connection of Abduction with Firstness, Induction with Secondness, and Deduction with Thirdness was confirmed by my finding no essential subdivisions of Abduction; that Induction split, at once, into the Sampling of Collections, and the Sampling of Qualities. CSP, ''Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking : The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism'', Turrisi (ed.), 276-277. GR: Shortly after this he comments on his brief period of confusion in the matter. CSP: [In] the book called ''Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University'', while I stated the rationale of induction pretty well, I confused Abduction with the Second kind of Induction, that is the induction of qualities. Subsequently, writing in the seventh volume of the Monist, sensible of the error of that book but not quite understanding in what it consisted I stated the rationale of Induction in a manner more suitable to Abduction, and still later in lectures here in Cambridge I represented Induction to be connected with the third category and Deduction with the Second [op. cit., 277]. GR: [You can also read the entire deleted section by googling At the time I first published this division of inference and 'Peirce'.] GR: So, as he sees here, for those few years Peirce was confused about these categorial associations. In that sense Peirce is certainly at least partially at fault in creating a confusion in the minds of many a thinker about the categorial associations of the three inference patterns. Still, he continues in that section by stating: GR: At present [that is, in 1903] I am somewhat disposed to revert to my original opinion yet adds that he will leave the question undecided. Still, after 1903 he never associates deduction with anything but thirdness, nor induction with anything but 2ns. GR: I myself have never been able to think of deduction as anything but thirdness, nor induction as anything but 2ns, and I think that I mainly have stuck to that way of thinking because when, in methodeutic, Peirce employs the three categories together in consideration of a complete inquiry — as he does, for example, very late in life in *The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God* in the section the CP editors titled The Three Stages of Inquiry [CP 6.468–6.473; also, EP 2:440–442] — he *explicitly* associates abduction (here, 'retroduction' of the hypothesis) with 1ns, deduction (of the retroduction's implications for the purposes of devising tests of it) with 3ns, and induction (as the inductive testing once devised) with 2ns. GR: But again, as these particular categorial associations apparently proved confusing even for Peirce, constituting one of the very few tricategorial matters in which he changed his mind (and, then, back again!), I too will at least try to leave the question undecided (for now). -- academia:
Re: [peirce-l] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Peircers, Here are the excerpts I copied out and the notes I took on Peirce's treatment of information and inquiry in relation to the principal types of sign relations and the principal types of inference, all from his Lectures on the Logic of Science at Harvard (1865) and the Lowell Institute (1866). • http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Information_=_Comprehension_%C3%97_Extension Here is a link to an archival copy in case the current web page goes off-line again: • http://web.archive.org/web/20100702011126/http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Information_=_Comprehension_%C3%97_Extension 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
Thanks, Gary, this is a very helpful summary. Jon cc: Arisbe, Inquiry, Peirce List Gary Richmond wrote: Cathy, Stephen, list, Cathy, you wrote: I don't see how one might interpret induction as secondness though.Though a *misplaced* induction may well lead to the secondness of surprise due to error. And yet that's exactly how Peirce saw it for most of his career (with the brief lapse mentioned in my earlier post and commented on by him in the 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism). There he wrote: Abduction, or the suggestion of an explanatory theory, is inference through an Icon, and is thus connected with Firstness; Induction, or trying how things will act, is inference through an Index, and is thus connected with Secondness; Deduction, or recognition of the relations of general ideas, is inference through a Symbol, and is thus connected with Thirdness. . . [My] connection of Abduction with Firstness, Induction with Secondness, and Deduction with Thirdness was confirmed by my finding no essential subdivisions of Abduction; that Inducion split, at once, into the Sampling of Collections, and the Sampling of Qualities. . . (*Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism*, Turrisi, ed. 276-7). Shortly after this he comments on his brief period of confusion in the matter. [In] the book called *Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University*, while I stated the rationale of induction pretty well, I confused Abduction with the Second kind of Induction, that is the induction of qualities. Subsequently, writing in the seventh volume of the Monist, sensible of the error of that book but not quite understanding in what it consisted I stated the rationale of Induction in a manner more suitable to Abduction, and still later in lectures here in Cambridge I represented Induction to be connected with the third category and Deduction with the Second [op. cit, 277]. [You can also read the entire deleted section by googling At the time I first published this division of inference and 'Peirce'.] So, as he sees he, for those few years Peirce was confused about these categorial associations. In that sensePeirce is certainly at least partially at fault in creating a confusion in the minds of many a thinker about the categorial associations of the three inference patterns. Still, he continues in that section by stating: At present [that is, in 1903] I am somewhat disposed to revert to my original opinion yet adds that he will leave the question undecided. Still, after 1903 he never associates deduction with anything but thirdness, nor induction with anything but 2ns. I myself have never been able to think of deduction as anything but thirdness, nor induction as anything but 2ns, and I think that I mainly have stuck to that way of thinking because when, in methodeutic, Peirce employs the three categories together in consideration of a complete inquiry--as he does, for example, very late in life in *The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God* in the section the CP editors titled The Three Stages of Inquiry [CP 6.468 - 6.473; also, EP 2:440 - 442]--he *explicitly* associates abduction (here, 'retroduction' of the hypothesis) with 1ns, deduction (of the retroduction's implications for the purposes of devising tests of it) with 3ns, and induction (as the inductive testing once devised) with 2ns. But again, as these particular categorial associations apparently proved confusing even for Peirce, constituting one of the very few tricategorial matters in which he changed his mind (and, then, back again!), I too will at least try to leave the question undecided (for now). Best, Gary -- 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] Categorical Aspects of Abduction, Deduction, Induction
GR = Gary Richmond JD = Jonathan DeVore JD: It might be useful to bear in mind that we don't have to think about 3rdnss, 2ndnss, 1stnss in an all-or-nothing fashion. Peirce might have us recall that these elements will be differently prominent according to the phenomenon under consideration -- without being mutually exclusive. JD: So while 3rdnss is prominent and predominant in deduction, there is also an element of compulsion by which one is forced to a particular conclusion. That compulsive element could be thought of as the 2ndness of deduction -- which is put to good use by the predominantly mediated character of deduction: i.e., it serves as the sheriff to the court (of law). GR: I think your point is well taken, Jonathan. I agree with Gary that this point is well taken. If we understand Peirce's categories in relational rather then non-relative terms, that is to say, as a matter of the minimum arity required to model a phenomenon, then all semiotic phenomena, all species of inference and types of reasoning, are basically category three. Nevertheless, many triadic phenomena are known to be degenerate in the formal sense that monadic and dyadic relations can account for many of their properties relatively well, at least, for many practical purposes. That recognition allows the categorical question to be re-framed in ways that can be answered through normal scientific means. Regards, Jon -- 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] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite❢
Peircers, My exploratory, glacial, back-tracking style of thinking is more suited to wikis than blogs, so my blog posts, like Peircean signposts, tend to grow over time. At any rate, here's the updated postings on subjects related to the open access revolution, more lately, of course, the reactionary pushback against it that is being mounted by entrenched private interests. • http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/02/02/knowledge-workers-of-the-world-unite%E2%9D%A2/ • http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/02/18/the-big-picture/ • http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/elsewhere%E2%9D%A2/ 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] A New Dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce
Peircers, Synchroncity In The Asynchronous World (SITAW) !!! We recently had a discussion of related issues on PolicyMic ... http://www.policymic.com/articles/why-the-pope-can-t-be-tried-at-the-icc#comment-16229 Regards, Jon Benjamin Udell wrote: 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 - 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
Re: [peirce-l] A new dissertation on Walker Percy and Charles Peirce
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 -- 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] Michael K. Bergman • “Give Me a Sign : What Do Things Mean On The Semantic Web?”
Michael K. Bergman • “Give Me a Sign : What Do Things Mean On The Semantic Web?” | The logic behind these distinctions and nuances leads us to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). | Peirce (pronounced “purse”) was an American logician, philosopher and polymath of the first rank. | Along with Frege, he is acknowledged as the father of predicate calculus and the notation system | that formed the basis of first-order logic. His symbology and approach arguably provide the logical | basis for description logics and other aspects underlying the semantic Web building blocks of the RDF | data model and, eventually, the OWL language. Peirce is the acknowledged founder of pragmatism, the | philosophy of linking practice and theory in a process akin to the scientific method. He was also the | first formulator of existential graphs, an essential basis to the whole field now known as model theory. | Though often overlooked in the 20th century, Peirce has lately been enjoying a renaissance with his | voluminous writings still being deciphered and published. | | http://www.mkbergman.com/994/give-me-a-sign-what-do-things-mean-on-the-semantic-web/ -- 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] Poem
Something there is that loves a war? http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html Stephen C. Rose wrote: Would this qualify as a Peircean poem? How about no war in Iran http://ping.fm/kCcFs *ShortFormContent at Blogger* http://shortformcontent.blogspot.com/ -- 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] Elsewhere❢
Precocious comments set aside to simmer … http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/elsewhere%E2%9D%A2/ 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] Dangerous Method
Peircers, I haven't had a chance to hunt down the passages that came to mind, but it happens that I was currently reviewing a favorite text from Peirce that falls into roughly the same ballpark, at least it does within the play on my own field of dreams. At any rate, I found it worth the while to blog a choice bit of it for further reflection: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/02/22/ouch%E2%9D%A2/ Regards, Jon Jon Awbrey wrote: EC = Ernesto Cultura EC: Dear List, without pretension. I hope you like this: https://www.createspace.com/3788010 It is on Object (Peirce), and Das Ding (Freud, etc. ...) obvious relationship. I also wrote this (2002) about Peirce and Chinese concept of Tao https://www.createspace.com/3798955 I will search for this book of John Muller. Thanks, Ernesto (Brazil) Ernesto, Thanks, noted for comment later, but I'll have to do some searching first before I can find the passages in Peirce and Freud that it brings to mind. 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] Dangerous Method
Peircers, Here are the passages from Peirce and Freud that always strike me as resonating with each other, throwing light in one direction on pragmatic objects in the context of inquiry as conceived by Peirce and reflecting light in the other direction on Freud's Project of 1895, in which later commentators would not only see the first signs of object relations theory but also distinct hints of cybernetic ideas. It looks like I copied these passage out on at least two occasions, once in 2003 on the Arisbe List and again in 2004 in the Inquiry List: Expectation, Satisfaction, Disappointment Arisbe List * http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2003-February/thread.html#1628 # http://stderr.org/pipermail/arisbe/2003-February/001628.html Inquiry List * http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/thread.html#1867 # http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/001867.html I might try blogging about these passages and what I see in them ... maybe tomorrow ... 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] Perennial Themes • Tri, Tri Again
Stephen, Steven, and All, Here are links to a collection of wiki-works where I made an old college try at introducing the necessary elements from the ground up. • http://mywikibiz.com/Inquiry_Live • http://mywikibiz.com/Logic_Live I was experimenting with a distributed architecture of a sorts, hoping to incite developments across a number of different wikis where I had been working at the time. In my mind I had an image of Inquiry Live and Logic Live as the two foci of an ellipse, about which a group of other topics would revolve in their orbit. The epithet Live is partly a reflection of my intention to use more and more semiotic animations as the work proceeds. These are works in progress, as ever, and I would be interested in any reactions to my expository trials that anyone might have, either on the Peirce List, or on the talk pages of the articles. On reflection, I probably ought to change the subject line, not wishing to hijack Steven's thread. Regards, Jon cc: Arisbe, Inquiry, Peirce List Stephen C. Rose wrote: I think one key to this is to create arguments that are comprehensible to people like me. I do not mean that they should not be mathematical, etc., only that they be applicable generally, universally. I am a case study in mathematical inability, vastly more the case than anything you can imagine. But my grasp of the triadic is just as tangible as if I could understand Fermat or whoever. Triadic thinking is culturally and intellectually relevant to everything there is. We need to find more ways of buttressing the philosophical salience of triadic thinking. Regards, S -- 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] Philosophia Mathematica articles of interest
Irving, All I get when I follow that link is an IU Webmail login page, but I don't have an account. Regards, Jon Irving wrote: The newest issue of Philosophia Mathematica, vol. 20, no. 1 (Feb. 2012) has some items that may be of interest to members of PEIRCE-L; in particular: Catherine Legg, The Hardness of the Iconic Must: Can Peirce's Existential Graphs Assist Modal Epistemology?, pp. 1-24 Philip Catton Clemency Montelle, To Diagram, to Demonstrate: To Do, To See, and to Judge in Greek Geometry, pp. 25-27 [the title alone of this one puts me in mind of Reviel Netz's book, The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: A Study in Cognitive History, which argues that the demonstrations in Euclid's Elements involved diagrammatic reasoning, rather than logical deductions, using proof to mean argumentation rather than, say, syllogistic logic, and I suspect that Peirce would have loved to have read this and Netz's book]; and Thomas McLaughlin's review of Matthew Moore's edition of Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings of Charles S. Peirce, pp. 122-128. You can find the preview at: https://webmail.iu.edu/horde/imp/view.php?popup_view=1index=17992mailbox=INBOXactionID=view_attachid=1mimecache=c8c67315bb4e056828f0a08507e94ea0 Irving H. Anellis Visiting Research Associate Peirce Edition, Institute for American Thought 902 W. New York St. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN 46202-5159 USA URL: http://www.irvinganellis.info -- 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] Conceptions Of Locality In Logic And Computation
Steven, Having only your abstract to go on, I can certainly recognize perennial themes out of Peirce's school, but they have been just as perennially met with incomprehension as they have been brought to the general lack of attention. Most notable among those themes is no doubt the irreducibility of triadic relations, a formal fact that flies in the face of naive reductionism and nominal thinking, no matter how often the fashion in philosophy will resort to them. Then again, having exhausted several decades trying to get these basic facts across, what can I do but repeat what you recited? | The criticism which I make on that algebra of dyadic relations … | is that the very triadic relations which it does not recognize | it does itself employ. For every combination of relatives to | make a new relative is a triadic relation irreducible to | dyadic relations. | | Charles Sanders Peirce, Letter to Victoria Welby, October, 1904 Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Dear List, I am giving a presentation at CiE 2012 in Cambridge (England) in June that may interest list members: Conceptions Of Locality In Logic And Computation, A History http://iase.info/conceptions-of-locality-in-logic-and-computat Your review welcome. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science Engineering http://iase.info -- 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] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite !
Peircers, A few reflections that I posted on Gowers's Weblog that may be pertinent here -- Re: What’s wrong with electronic journals? At: http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/whats-wrong-with-electronic-journals/ Having spent a good part of the 1990s writing about what the New Millennium would bring to our intellectual endeavours, it is only fair that I should have spent the last dozen years wondering why the New Millennium is so late in arriving. With all due reflection I think it is time to face up to the fact that the fault, [Dear Reader], is not in our technology, but in ourselves. Here is one of my last, best attempts to get at the root of the matter: • http://org.sagepub.com/content/8/2/269.abstract • http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/integrat.htm There are indeed Big Picture questions that open up here — the future of knowledge and inquiry, the extent to which their progress will be catalyzed or inhibited by collaborative versus corporate-controlled information technologies, the stance of knowledge workers, vigilant or acquiescent, against the ongoing march of global corporate feudalism — and maybe this is not the place or time to pursue these questions, but in my experience discussion, like love and gold, is where you find it. Being questions of this magnitude, they will of course arise again. The question is — who will settle them, and to whose satisfaction? Re: Abstract thoughts about online review systems At: http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/abstract-thoughts-about-online-review-systems/ What is inquiry? And how can we tell if a potential contribution makes an actual contribution to it? Questions like these often arise, as far as mathematical inquiry goes, in trying to build heuristic problem solvers, theorem-provers, and other sorts of mathematical amanuenses. Charles S. Peirce, who pursued the ways of inquiry more doggedly than any thinker I have ever read, sifted the methods of “fixing belief” into four main types — Tenacity, Authority, Plausibility (à priori pleasingness), and full-fledged Scientific Inquiry. I posed the question — “What part do arguments from authority play in mathematical reasoning?” — on MathOverFlow some time ago and received a number of interesting answers. • http://mathoverflow.net/questions/28089/what-part-do-arguments-from-authority-play-in-mathematical-reasoning 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] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite !
Peircers, I added the following comment on Gowers's Weblog — The late Joseph Ransdell (1931–2010), who did more to keep C.S. Peirce's thought alive on the Web than anyone else I know, had a particular interest in the issues surrounding open peerage and publication. Synchronicity being what it is, the members of the Peirce List have being conducting a slow reading of one of Joe's papers on the subject, where he examined the work of Paul Ginsparg on open access and Peter Skagestad on intelligence augmentation in the light of Peirce's theory of signs, a.k.a. semiotic. Here is the paper: The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation • http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/ia.htm 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] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite !
Ben All, My own interest in this topic has more to do with the ways that economic, social, and technological systems facilitate or inhibit the dynamics of inquiry -- and only incidentally with publication and publishers per se -- but one has to play the ball of concrete application where it lies ... Yes, I've struggled to find the most felicitous one-word description of the 3rd method, hoping to find one that fills out the rhyme by ending in y, so I've experimented with words like a priori, apriority (ugh), agreeability, congruity, confluity (borrowing that one from the Gestalt psychologists), and so on. This time I tried to draw on the link of plausible to pleasing and praiseworthy and the archaic senses of plausive as pleasing but with a hint of specious. The quest continues ... Jon BU: I hope I don't seem pedantic, but this post is about Peirce's methods of inquiry in The Fixation of Belief. (I know next to nothing about professional or academic journals, so I've little to say about them.) JA: Charles S. Peirce, who pursued the ways of inquiry more doggedly than any thinker I have ever read, sifted the methods of “fixing belief” into four main types — Tenacity, Authority, Plausibility (à priori pleasingness), and full-fledged Scientific Inquiry. BU: There is a certain striking similarity between the focus of the third method and valuing of plausibility. Still I think that Peirce would oppose calling the third method that of Plausibility, and I'd agree with him. CSP: By plausibility, I mean the degree to which a theory ought to recommend itself to our belief independently of any kind of evidence other than our instinct urging us to regard it favorably. (Peirce, A Letter to Paul Carus 1910, Collected Papers v. 8, see paragraph 223). BU: In A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God, http://www.gnusystems.ca/CSPgod.htm#na0 Peirce discusses plausibility and instinctual appeal at some length in Sections III IV, identifies it with Galileo's natural light of reason, and says: CSP: it is the simpler hypothesis in the sense of the more facile and natural, the one that instinct suggests, that must be preferred This plausibility is a question of the critique of arguments and of abductive inference in particular. BU: The third method of inquiry a question of inquiry's methodology (methodeutic), and not of assessing whether a given abductive inference is plausible and worth drawing prior to or apart from inductive tests and observations. Peirce calls the third method the method of congruity or the a priori or the dilettante or 'what is agreeable to reason.' CSP: It makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste; but taste, unfortunately, is always more or less a matter of fashion, and accordingly metaphysicians have never come to any fixed agreement, but the pendulum has swung backward and forward between a more material and a more spiritual philosophy, from the earliest times to the latest. (Peirce, The Fixation of Belief, 1878 http://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html). BU: In a sense it _is_ a matter of taste and fashion — not about clothes, food, music, etc. — but instead about that which we now call 'paradigms' of inquiry - and the key point is that it involves a preference for the _pleasing_ paradigm, the tasteful paradigm, etc. But proper abductive plausibility depends on a preference for the pleasing _only to the extent_ that one's pleasure depends on the plausibility of an explanation of a phenomenon. The dependence simply circles back to the plausibility as the determining variable. BU: A method of plausibility extended to arguments in general seems a non-starter. As extended to inquirial methodology in general, such that it would be a method of inquiry on a level with those of tenacity, authority, congruity, and science, it might be a method of devil-may-care gambling rather than one of taste and fashion in paradigms. BU: I grant the striking similarity nevertheless. It's interesting to pursue the resemblances of the methods. I've tended in the past to think of the first three methods as involving mis-embodied Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness, respectively. -- 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,
Re: [peirce-l] Knowledge Workers of the World, Unite !
Peircers, Gary Fuhrman wrote: GF: I would agree that Peirce's third method of fixing belief is the most difficult to give a suitable name to, but I think Peirce's own choice eventually fell on fermentation of ideas, based on this paragraph dated c. 1906: CSP: [[[ My paper of November 1877, setting out from the proposition that the agitation of a question ceases when satisfaction is attained with the settlement of belief, and then only, goes on to consider how the conception of truth gradually develops from that principle under the action of experience; beginning with willful belief, or self-mendacity, the most degraded of all intellectual conditions; thence rising to the imposition of beliefs by the authority of organized society; then to the idea of a settlement of opinion as the result of a fermentation of ideas; and finally reaching the idea of truth as overwhelmingly forced upon the mind in experience as the effect of an independent reality. ]] CP 5.564 ] GF: Fermentation of ideas is not very elegant -- i prefer simply dialogue -- but it does imply that the third method is fully social, and both more reasonable and more democratic than the method of authority; the only thing that stops it from being scientific is the lack of appeal to direct experience. Indeed I think the Ransdell conception of peer review implies that it is a prerequisite to a fully developed science (note the developmental approach Peirce takes in the paragraph above). Fermentality would preserve the rhyme among reasons, bringing to mind the venerable motto: In Vino Veritas. Was it Peirce who spoke of the solera method, or was it some other sommelier? We know the truth we find in wine must be taken with a grain of salt, not to mention the hair of the dogma that inspired it, later on in sober reflection, so all those connotations are fitting cautions vis-a-vis the wrath of grapes. Among other y-words I remember using, there is sagacity, which is kin in folk etymology to sapience and good taste, but allusions to etymology tend to go flat after a while. There is also salubrity, if we think to drink to the health of ideas. And on that note what can I say but, Cheers, 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] Paul Ginsparg • “Can Peer Review Be Better Focused?”
Peircers, Here is an essay from arXiv.org blurb (http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/) that Joe Ransdell recommended in one of his notes to “The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation”, and that I am seeing pop up more and more in current discussions across the blogosphere: Paul Ginsparg • “Can Peer Review Be Better Focused?” http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~ginsparg/blurb/pg02pr.html 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] Logical Graphs
Peircers, Here are links to a couple of articles on Logical Graphs, newly migrated from Google Knol to WordPress. The first is meant as an informal tour of essential points and selected sidelights, focusing on motivation. The second presents the subject more formally. I took some pains to clarify a number of distinctions that are often the source of much confusion, namely; 1. The relation between arithmetic and algebra in logical systems. 2. The relation between entitative and existential interpretations. 3. The relation between equational and implicational proof systems. Logical Graphs : 1 http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/07/29/logical-graphs-1/ Logical Graphs : 2 http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/09/19/logical-graphs-2/ By the way, there are extended treatments of Logical Graphs in progress on MyWikiBiz. These are still a bit rough, but they include many more examples of proof animations: Logical Graph http://mywikibiz.com/Logical_graph Propositional Equation Reasoning Systems http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Propositional_Equation_Reasoning_Systems 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] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION
Peircers, There have been some related developments occurring in the mathematical community lately. It is beyond my powers to summarize the issues, so here are just a couple of recent links that may serve to give onlookers a hint of what's afoot: http://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/publishers-wars/ http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/whats-wrong-with-electronic-journals/ 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] SLOW READ: THE RELEVANCE OF PEIRCEAN SEMIOTIC TO COMPUTATIONAL INTELLIGENCE AUGMENTATION
Looks interesting ... I created a topic for Peirce — http://www.researchgate.net/topic/Charles_Sanders_Peirce/ I can nominate any other curators who will serve if nominated ... Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache 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] Timeless law or lawness time? That´s the question!
Friends, Romanini, Peircers ... Re: http://pirsa.org/11100113 The archetype whose avatar we find in The Holographic Universe (THU) is one that recurs eternally all through the arcana and mystical lore I used to read in the 60s and 70s, for instance, in the hermetic or neoplatonistic theme expressed in the words, as above, so below. One of the writers I follow most avidly of late has taken notice of it and written as follows: • http://theodoragoss.com/2011/12/29/the-holographic-universe/ For my part I am reminded of the pregnant line from Leibniz: | It is one of the rules of my system of general harmony, | that _the present is big with the future_, and that he | who sees all sees in that which is that which shall be. • http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/the-present-is-big-with-the-future/ Regards, Jon facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache 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/ Vinícius Romanini wrote: I always had the same impression, Tori. I have been musing for some time if his holographic principle should not be called a semeiotic principle. What would be like to describe a black hole in semeiotic terms? It would be wounderful if Smolin tried it someday. best, Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org www.semeiosis.com.br De: Tori Alexander vnalexan...@gmail.com Para: Vinícius Romanini vinir...@yahoo.com Cc: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Enviadas: Quinta-feira, 12 de Janeiro de 2012 17:45 Assunto: Re: [peirce-l] Timeless law or lawness time? That´s the question! Thank Vinicius for that. Lee Smolin is the speaker in the conference link you provided. When I read his books I always hear Peirce in the background. So glad you confirmed the relationship. In my last book I made a causal guess that it was so. Best, Tori Victoria N. Alexander, Ph.D. www.biologistsmistress.com www.torialexander.com On Jan 12, 2012, at 12:58 PM, Vinícius Romanini wrote: What if a group of modern theoretical Physicists interested in quantum gravity gather to discuss a Peirce idea? see: http://pirsa.org/11100113 Vinicius Romanini, Ph.D. Professor of Communication Studies School of Communications and Arts University of Sao Paulo, Brazil www.minutesemeiotic.org www.semeiosis.com.br Victoria N. Alexander, Ph.D. www.biologistsmistress.com www.torialexander.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] Knol --- Annotum -- WordPress
Peircers, I gave up trying to convert my Knol articles into Annotom articles. The latter platform is too undeveloped at the present time to allow for continued development of the imported articles. The best I could manage was archiving static copies of the Knol articles on one blog, then starting a new blog under a standard WordPress theme as a place to keep working on their content. Here's the blog where I'll keep the archived articles: http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/ The articles that I converted into standard WordPress posts are here: Differential Logic http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/07/29/differential-logic/ Hypostatic Abstraction http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/08/08/hypostatic-abstraction/ Logical Graphs : 1 http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/07/29/logical-graphs-1/ Logical Graphs : 2 http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/09/19/logical-graphs-2/ Logic of Relatives http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/07/31/logic-of-relatives/ Peirce's Law http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/10/06/peirce-s-law/ Praeclarum Theorema http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/10/05/praeclarum-theorema/ Pragmatic Maxim http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/08/07/pragmatic-maxim/ Semeiotic http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2008/07/30/semeiotic/ Regards, Jon Awbrey http://jonawbrey.wordpress.com/ http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/about/ -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] Pathemata : Affections or Impressions of the Soul
Peircers, Recall that Aristotle makes the cognitive aspect of signs derivative of their affections or impressions on the soul. Words spoken are symbols or signs (symbola) of affections or impressions (pathemata) of the soul (psyche); written words are the signs of words spoken. As writing, so also is speech not the same for all races of men. But the mental affections themselves, of which these words are primarily signs (semeia), are the same for the whole of mankind, as are also the objects (pragmata) of which those affections are representations or likenesses, images, copies (homoiomata). (Aristotle, On Interpretation, i.16a4–9) As for Peirce, the irritation of doubt that instigates inquiry is an affective tension that we suffer in the mind on account of entropy or uncertainty, statistically speaking, distributions of options for action or expression that are distressingly uniform. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] Doctrine Of Individuals
Peircers, Here's one gloss on what Peirce meant by the term division -- CSP: The moment, then, that we pass from nothing and the vacuity of being to any content or sphere, we come at once to a composite content and sphere. In fact, extension and comprehension — like space and time — are quantities which are not composed of ultimate elements; but every part however small is divisible. CSP: The consequence of this fact is that when we wish to enumerate the sphere of a term — a process termed division — or when we wish to run over the content of a term — a process called definition — since we cannot take the elements of our enumeration singly but must take them in groups, there is danger that we shall take some element twice over, or that we shall omit some. Hence the extension and comprehension which we know will be somewhat indeterminate. But we must distinguish two kinds of these quantities. If we were to subtilize we might make other distinctions but I shall be content with two. They are the extension and comprehension relatively to our actual knowledge, and what these would be were our knowledge perfect. CSP: Logicians have hitherto left the doctrine of extension and comprehension in a very imperfect state owing to the blinding influence of a psychological treatment of the matter. They have, therefore, not made this distinction and have reduced the comprehension of a term to what it would be if we had no knowledge of fact at all. I mention this because if you should come across the matter I am now discussing in any book, you would find the matter left in quite a different state. CSP: Peirce 1866, Lowell Lecture 7, Chron. Ed. 1, p. 462. Cf: http://mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Information_%3D_Comprehension_%C3%97_Extension#Selection_12 -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] Doctrine Of Individuals
, and it is of such a nature that it | might react, or have reacted, against my will. | | This is the stoical definition of a reality; but since the Stoics were | individualistic nominalists, this rather favours the satisfactoriness | of the definition than otherwise. | | It may be objected that it is unintelligible; but in the sense | in which this is true, it is a merit, since an individual is | unintelligible in that sense. It is a brute fact that the | moon exists, and all explanations suppose the existence | of that same matter. That existence is unintelligible | in the sense in which the definition is so. That is | to say, a reaction may be experienced, but it cannot | be conceived in its character of a reaction; for | that element evaporates from every general idea. | | According to this definition, that which alone immediately presents itself as | an individual is a reaction against the will. But everything whose identity | consists in a continuity of reactions will be a single logical individual. | Thus any portion of space, so far as it can be regarded as reacting, is | for logic a single individual; its spatial extension is no objection. | | With this definition there is no difficulty about the truth that whatever | exists is individual, since existence (not reality) and individuality are | essentially the same thing; and whatever fulfills the present definition | equally fulfills the former definition by virtue of the principles of | contradiction and excluded middle, regarded as mere definitions of | the relation expressed by not. | | As for the principle of indiscernibles, if two individual things are | exactly alike in all other respects, they must, according to this | definition, differ in their spatial relations, since space is | nothing but the intuitional presentation of the conditions of | reaction, or of some of them. But there will be no logical | hindrance to two things being exactly alike in all other | respects; and if they are never so, that is a physical | law, not a neccesity of logic. This second definition, | therefore, seems to be the preferable one. | | C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 3.613 | |'Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology', | J.M. Baldwin (ed.), Macmillan, New York, NY, | Volume 1, pp. 537-538, 2nd edition 1911. o~o~o~o~o~o DOI. Doctrine of Individuals -- 2002 00. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd24.html#04332 01. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04332.html 02. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04348.html 03. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04352.html 04. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04353.html 05. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04354.html 06. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04363.html o~o~o~o~o~o DOI. Doctrine of Individuals -- 2003 Ontology List 00. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/thrd24.html#04754 01. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04754.html 02. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04756.html 03. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04757.html 04. http://suo.ieee.org/ontology/msg04758.html Inquiry List 00. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/thread.html#408 01. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/000408.html 02. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/000410.html 03. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/000411.html 04. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/000412.html o~o~o~o~o~o DOI. Doctrine of Individuals -- 2005 00. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/thread.html#2320 01. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/002320.html 02. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/002321.html 03. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/002322.html 04. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/002323.html o~o~o~o~o~o facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Yes, 1-Dimensional Man and 2 Cultures were part of the canon on the 60s. Later I would encounter Polanyi in Personal Tacit Knowledge and Raymond Wilder on Mathematics as a Cultural System. Jon On Dec 4, 2011, at 10:20 AM, Irving ianel...@iupui.edu wrote: Jon, Just out of curiosity, how, if at all, does C P Snow's work on the two cultures and his argument against the asserted artificial separation between science and the humanities play into this? There is also Snow's rather crude dismissal of mathematics education at Cambridge University, likening the Mathematics Tripos to a horse race. I recall Judith V. Field's book The invention of Infinity: Mathematics and Art in the Renaissance going far beyond the typical mathematics history textbooks, going in a -- pardon the pun -- surface skimming way, to show how Renaissance artists used projective geometry to obtain visual perspective in their work. - Message from jawb...@att.net - Date: Sun, 04 Dec 2011 07:18:24 -0500 From: Jon Awbrey jawb...@att.net Reply-To: Jon Awbrey jawb...@att.net Subject: Re: [peirce-l] ?On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic? To: Steven Ericsson-Zenith ste...@semeiosis.org Steven ( All), I am sympathetic with any effort to bring the humanities and the full variety of the sciences, special or unspecial, into cross-cultural dialogue with each other. As a matter of fact, Susan Awbrey and I have written at length on the scholarship of integration and the architectonic difficulties that stand in its way, for instance, here: Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (May 1991), ?An Architecture for Inquiry : Building Computer Platforms for Discovery?, Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Technology and Education, Toronto, Canada, pp. 874?875. Online at http://www.abccommunity.org/tmp-a.html - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peircers, I would like to return to an earlier point in the discussion and continue with the thoughts that I had in mind at the time. JA: One of the things we do in empirical science is collect data. JA: Data is often collected in the form of relational data bases. Relational data bases, at their most basic level, are simply finite sets of relation elements or elementary relations, which are finite sequences, k-tuples, of a given data type. It is usual to visualize such a data base as arranged in the form of a rectangular table with columns and rows, with each row recording one relation element (k-tuple) and each column headed by a name for the type of datum that goes in the j-th place of the k-tuple. JA: If we ask ourselves: What is the paradigm or pattern of data appropriate for semiotic? -- the answer is a data table with three columns, headed Object, Sign, Interpretant. (The order of the columns does not matter so long as we know what it is.) My mind is drawn back to the decade of the 1980s, when at long last I completed a Master's degree in Mathematics, concentrating as much as the department would let me on the eminently fascinating and fun subjects of combinatorics, graph theory, and group theory, and I found my mind wandering, as it had a habit of doing, back to old interests in psychology, computation, and artificial intelligence. I spent that decade cycling through that array of interests at a number of universities in the Midwest, working a while at the Institute for Social Research in Ann Arbor, and spending my spare time developing a computer program that was designed to integrate basic functions of learning and reasoning, that is, empirical and rational faculties, over a core set of algorithms and data structures. To be continued ... Jon CC: Arisbe, CG, Inquiry, Peirce List -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “The Relevance Of Peircean Semiotic To Computational Intelligence Augmentation”
Peter, Peircers, ... How exciting to return to this topic ! Seeing as how this falls within my chief area of interest for the past several decades I would like to archive the full discussions at the old Arisbe-Dev List and also at the Inquiry List that I've been using to collect my musements on cabbages and kings, et alia, both of which lists Elijah Wright set up and currently maintains. So if no one has any objection, I will just go ahead and do that? Regards, Jon CC: Arisbe, Inquiry, Peirce List -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] Mathematics, Phenomenology, Normative Science, Metaphysics
o-o | | | o Metaphysics | | /| | |/ | | | / | | |Normative Science o | | | / \ | | |/ \ | | | / \| | | Mathematics o o Phenomenology| | | | Normative science rests largely on phenomenology and on mathematics;| | metaphysics on phenomenology and on normative science. | | | | Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 1.186 (1903) | | | o-o Cf. http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2010-June/003640.html -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Re: Comments by Auke van Breemen Auke, I thought it best to go back and recover the context before attempting to address your comments. The subject of Peirce's categories arose this time around in connection with Claudio Guerri's comments on the remarks I made about the paradigm or pattern of data appropriate for semiotic. For ease of reference that note is recorded here: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2011-November/003720.html Claudio raised an issue that often arises in our discussions of sign relations, namely, whether there is a correspondence between the roles in a sign relation (Object, Sign, Interpretant Sign) and Peirce's categories (First, Second, Third) or whatever names we find most evocative for them. Although the definition of a sign relation is so highly abstract and general that it certainly leaves room for all sorts of additional relationships to exist among the components and elements of an arbitrary sign relation, it is only those extra relationships that follow logically from the bare definition itself that can rank as essential or necessary properties of sign relations. Regards, Jon AB: You wrote a sentence that raises some questions, at least in my mind. JA1: An equivocation is a variation in meaning, or a manifold of sign senses, and so Peirce's claim that three categories are sufficient amounts to an assertion that all manifolds of meaning can be unified in just three steps. AB: In comparison with the sentence you wrote earlier in the same mail there are two differences: JA2: Peirce's claim that three categories are necessary and sufficient for the purposes of logic says that a properly designed system of logic can resolve all equivocation in just three levels or steps. AB: a. unification of all manifolds of meaning is not without further qualifications the same as disambiguation. So, in principle at least I could support JA2 and not support JA1. AB: b. In JA1 the problem of the meaning of 'meaning' presses itself upon the reader, in JA2 meaning is given, the only problem that remains is to make a choice between alternatives that are supposed to be given. AB: So, JA1 is a much stronger claim than JA2. Since you wrote in JA2 about levels or steps, but in JA1 just about steps, your claim seems to amount to the proposition that all manifolds of meaning can be unified in a single run of a procedure that consists of three steps. Of course unification can be taken as quite empty (for instance as signs written on the same sheet are unified, but then unification of all manifolds of meaning, is rather unsatisfying on the meaning side of the issue. AB: I am inclined to reason that, given: JA3: Peirce's distinctive claim is that a type hierarchy of three levels is generative of all that we need in logic. AB: It is possible to design a procedure with the three steps of JA1 that unifies all manifolds of meaning, not in three steps. -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] Thoughts On Normative Sciences
A distinction can be made between prescriptive ethics, which advises what a person should do in absolute terms, and normative or pragmatic ethics, which advises what a person should do in order to achieve the admirable or the good in itself that is determined by a prior consideration of esthetics. People of the prescriptive persuasion typically criticize people of the pragmatic persuasion for being misled by notions of ethics that are far too relative and utilitarian. Be that as it may, one observes from the pragmatic perspective that logic is a special case of ethics that provides the norms for guiding the conduct of our thought in the most optimal way. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
is that a type hierarchy of three levels is generative of all that we need in logic. Part of the justification for Peirce's claim that three categories are both necessary and sufficient appears to arise from mathematical facts about the reducibility of k-adic relations. With regard to necessity, triadic relations cannot be completely analyzed in terms or monadic and dyadic predicates. With regard to sufficiency, all higher arity k-adic relations can be analyzed in terms of triadic and lower arity relations. Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Claudio, List ... I realize that many of us have been through these sorts of discussions many times before, so let me just highlight what I consider to be some of the most important points. 1. We must not confuse the roles in a sign relation or the components of a sign relational 3-tuple, that is, Object, Sign, Interpretant, with the Peircean categories of Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness. These two sets of concepts reside at very different logical levels, as one can tell from the fact that Peirce described his Categories as Predicaments, that is, predicates of predicates. Cf. http://mywikibiz.com/Charles_Sanders_Peirce#Theory_of_categories Sorry, I have to break here ... Jon CG = Claudio Guerri CG: I apologize for not having participated in slow reading yet... I have a very 'heavy' year... but just by chance I have read Jon's post... CG: Of course, I agree on the need of collecting data, but since we are in Semiotics, and in a Peirce List, I consider more important to organize data in an explicit, logic, and relational way. CG: The double entry, three column, data table is of course a good way of presenting it, and there is already a long experience on that devise called: the Semiotic Nonagon (I have written already about this subject on this List, I have to admit... with very low success). But the order of the columns and rows should not be changed from the logical sequence of 1ness, 2ness, and 3ness or we will lose the logical relation of the parts. CG: Of course, Peirce was not fond of that idea... or he would have draw that table himself, since he worked out the 10 classes 'triangle' and worked on existential graphs. The construction of a 9 square grid means a 'flattening' of Peirce's very complex philosophical proposal... but also, the possibility of a practical use of the very fruitful Peircean semiotic proposal. CG: I don't know if the SN that follows can be seen, but something SIMILAR was already shown by different scholars, beginning by Max Bense in the 60's, but with a very wrong idea, that is: to show the 9 aspects of the sign in 'some graphical order'... If the purpose is limited to this intention, it is a severe distortion of Peirce's philosophical proposal, that should probably been represented in an hiperspatial diagram... but then, very difficult or impossible for practical use. ... -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Jerry, As far as grammar goes, I read semiotic as formed on the pattern of logic and I read semiotics as formed on the pattern of mathematics. US speakers typically abbreviate mathematics as math while UK speakers call it maths. I have no idea what to make of that. The definition of a sign relation that Peirce gives is highly general. The concept of determination implied in it is a formal determination, much like the sense of determination in x points determine y lines. It covers all the species of informational and causal determination that I can imagine, but who knows what species might evolve one day? Taking the question of one or many more substantially than grammatically, the definition of a sign relation is much like the definition of another very important species of triadic relations that arises in mathematics, namely, the axioms that define a mathematical group. They are alike in the sense that many different sign relations satisfy the definition of a sign relation, just as many different groups satisfy the definition of a group. When it comes to the idiomatic expressions that we can scarcely help using even in formal definitions, I wouldn't try to make too much hay out of them. Jon JA: Peirce's most detailed definition of a sign relation, namely, the one given in 2 variants in NEM 4, 20-21 54. CSP: Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C. It is from this definition, together with a definition of formal, that I deduce mathematically the principles of logic. JC: My question is simple and regards the singular and the plural as grammatical units. JC: In the sentence, Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic., is the term 'semiotic' singular or plural? JC: Did CSP assert that only one formal semiotic exists? Or, does this sentence allow for multiple formal semiotics? JC: For example, would the formal semiotic of Aristotelian causality be necessarily the same as the formal semiotic of material causality? By extension, signs for music, dance, electrical circuits, genetics,...; the same formal semiotic or different? JC: This sentence reflects on the meaning of the following sentence: CSP: Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B,... JC: In short, what is the nature of the active process of brings - the same meaning for all formal semiotic, or is the fetching process tailor-made for the category of the sign? -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Kirsti, I was of course thinking of the pragmatic maxim, which is a regulative principle whose function is to guide the conduct of thought toward the object of its aim, advising the addressee on a way to “attain clearness of apprehension”. http://knol.google.com/k/pragmatic-maxim That is why Peirce calls it a maxim of logic, in other words, placing it among the norms of the normative science whose objective is truth. As abstractions from the concrete experience of inquiry, descriptive and normative aspects of inquiry are united in the act itself, since the normative rules of inquiry are precepts for clarifying descriptions and concepts. Jon P.S. I don't know if you were signed on for the earlier posts of this slow reading, but I archived most of what I had to say with regard to descriptive and normative faces of semiotics at this site: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2011-November/thread.html Määttänen Kirsti wrote: Jon, Thanks for bringing into my attention 'maxim', in relation to 'precept'. I'm not so sure, though, that 'precept' and 'maxim' are interchangeable. So-called synonyms seldom, if ever, are. The relation between synonyms I view as something depicted in Venn's diagrams. There is an overlap, but always partial. To my mind, with precept, the meaning 'rule of conduct' is the dominant one, while with maxim 'a well-known truth (etc), comes to the fore. - I may be wrong, of course. You are interested in the distinction between 'concept' and 'precept', as well as in the distinction between descriptive and normative. I, for my part, am not so much interested in the distinction. Rather, I'm interested in the nature of the relation between these. - Which, of course, are interrelated. Could you be a bit more explicit with taking this bringing us to the distinction between descriptive and normative. - Do you think concepts are descriptive? Kirsti On 13.11.2011, at 6.00, Jon Awbrey wrote: Kirsti, Another word for precept is maxim. The distinction between concept and precept brings us again to the distinction between descriptive and normative. -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Kirsti, Another word for precept is maxim. The distinction between concept and precept brings us again to the distinction between descriptive and normative. -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peirce List, Here is the reply I made to John Sowa's earlier remarks on the CG List: I am not saying that Peirce didn't use the word formal in the same sense as *some* 20th century logicians. But not all subsequent philosophers of logic and mathematics used the word formal in the same sense as that, or even all the time, and it often becomes necessary in certain discussions to point that out. It is clear that one of the connotations of formal for Peirce is non-psychological, but that is precisely to differentiate the normative science of logic from the descriptive science of psychology. It is also necessary to distinguish Peirce's use of formal semiotics, referring to the forms of sign relations that connect objects with signs and their interpretant signs, from any use of formal to suggest wholly detached from all connection to meanings or objects or purposes outside the sheer game of manipulating meaningless tokens according to arbitrary rules, because there have arisen now and again tendencies to use formal that way. Jon --- JA = Jon Awbrey JS = John Sowa JA: Those remarks were tailored to the ears of a particular body of readers who are accustomed to hearing the word formal used as something akin to a pejorative term, as in mere formalism or merely formalistic. JS: But note the date of 1869 -- that was a year before Peirce's famous paper on relatives. It was also ten years before Frege's famous Begriffsschrift, which everybody cites as the first complete version of FOL with the first complete *formal* rules of inference. CSP (1869): All that the formal logician has to say is, that if facts capable of expression in such and such forms of words are true, another fact whose expression is related in a certain way to the expression of these others is also true The proposition ‘If A, then B’ may conveniently be regarded as equivalent to ‘Every case of the truth of A is a case of the truth of B.’” JS: See http://www.peirce.org/writings/p41.html for the full article. JS: He used the word 'formal' several times in that article, and in each case, he used it in the same sense as the 20th century logicians. He also contrasted that use with psychological discussions of 'thought'. JA: But Peirce also used the word formal in another, more specialized sense, in which it became the practical equivalent of normative. In that sense, his definition of logic as formal semiotic places logic within the sphere of the normative sciences, where it normally belongs. JS: Peirce was very precise in his choice of worlds. He often referred to logic as normative. Since he frequently used both words, one should not assume that he might sometimes use one of them to mean the same as the other. In the following statement, he would have written 'normative' if that had been the point he was trying to make: CSP: Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. JS: Here he is using the word 'formal' in contrast with a psychological interpretation. He makes a similar contrast in his earlier article of 1869. Since he is trying to make a similar point both articles, the most reasonable interpretation is that he is using the word 'formal' in the same sense. --- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peirce List, I copied some of my earlier comments on the current slow reading to the Conceptual Graphs list, and John Sowa made a number of pertinent remarks that he asked me to forward, so I will include the CG List on my copy list for the time being. Here is John's first reply: On 11/7/2011 2:30 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote: One of the continuing problems that we have in reading Peirce is the fact that logical atomists, logical positivists, and later writers tend to attach rather different meanings to words like formal, logical atom, and positive than Peirce did himself. The meaning of formal is especially critical for the present discussion, since it figures most prominently in Peirce's most detailed definition of a sign relation, namely, the one given in 2 variants in NEM 4, 20-21 54. Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. I agree that Peirce often used words in ways that are different from common current usage. But in this example, he used the word 'formal' in the same sense as modern logicians and computer scientists. Following is another quotation by CSP, in which he uses the word 'formal' in the modern sense. And he wrote it in 1869. Compare that to what Tarski wrote in 1936: Peirce (1869): “All that the formal logician has to say is, that if facts capable of expression in such and such forms of words are true, another fact whose expression is related in a certain way to the expression of these others is also true The proposition ‘If A, then B’ may conveniently be regarded as equivalent to ‘Every case of the truth of A is a case of the truth of B.’” Tarski (1936): “In terms of these concepts [of model], we can define the concept of logical consequence as follows: The sentence X follows logically from the sentences of the class K if and only if every model of the class K is also a model of the class X.” John - To unsubscribe, e-mail: cg-unsubscr...@conceptualgraphs.org For additional commands, e-mail: cg-h...@conceptualgraphs.org CC: Arisbe, Inquiry, Conceptual Graphs, Peirce 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peirce List, Here is John Sowa's second reply to comments shared on the CG List: On 11/8/2011 12:18 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote: Those remarks were tailored to the ears of a particular body of readers who are accustomed to hearing the word formal used as something akin to a pejorative term, as in mere formalism or merely formalistic. But note the date of 1869 -- that was a year before Peirce's famous paper on relatives. It was also ten years before Frege's famous Begriffsschrift, which everybody cites as the first complete version of FOL with the first complete *formal* rules of inference. CSP (1869) All that the formal logician has to say is, that if facts capable of expression in such and such forms of words are true, another fact whose expression is related in a certain way to the expression of these others is also true The proposition ‘If A, then B’ may conveniently be regarded as equivalent to ‘Every case of the truth of A is a case of the truth of B.’” See http://www.peirce.org/writings/p41.html for the full article. He used the word 'formal' several times in that article, and in each case, he used it in the same sense as the 20th c logicians. He also contrasted that use with psychological discussions of 'thought'. JA But Peirce also used the word formal in another, more specialized sense, in which it became the practical equivalent of normative. In that sense, his definition of logic as formal semiotic places logic within the sphere of the normative sciences, where it normally belongs. Peirce was very precise in his choice of worlds. He often referred to logic as normative. Since he frequently used both words, one should not assume that he might sometimes use one of them to mean the same as the other. In the following statement, he would have written 'normative' if that had been the point he was trying to make: CSP Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. Here he is using the word 'formal' in contrast with a psychological interpretation. He makes a similar contrast in his earlier article of 1869. Since he is trying to make a similar point both articles, the most reasonable interpretation is that he is using the word 'formal' in the same sense. John -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peirce List, CG List, It's a little too late for Halloween, but probably about time to revisit our old friend, Peirce's skeleton diagram, that often pops up in connection with his use of formal. CSP: Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown, only another name for semiotic (Greek semeiotike), the quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine of signs. By describing the doctrine as quasi-necessary, or formal, I mean that we observe the characters of such signs as we know, and from such an observation, by a process which I will not object to naming Abstraction, we are led to statements, eminently fallible, and therefore in one sense by no means necessary, as to what must be the characters of all signs used by a scientific intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable of learning by experience. As to that process of abstraction, it is itself a sort of observation. CSP: The faculty which I call abstractive observation is one which ordinary people perfectly recognize, but for which the theories of philosophers sometimes hardly leave room. It is a familiar experience to every human being to wish for something quite beyond his present means, and to follow that wish by the question, Should I wish for that thing just the same, if I had ample means to gratify it? To answer that question, he searches his heart, and in doing so makes what I term an abstractive observation. He makes in his imagination a sort of skeleton diagram, or outline sketch, of himself, considers what modifications the hypothetical state of things would require to be made in that picture, and then examines it, that is, observes what he has imagined, to see whether the same ardent desire is there to be discerned. By such a process, which is at bottom very much like mathematical reasoning, we can reach conclusions as to what would be true of signs in all cases, so long as the intelligence using them was scientific. C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers, CP 2.227. (Eds. Note. From an unidentified fragment, c. 1897) Cf. http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory_talk:Jon_Awbrey/Projects/Notes_And_Queries#Excerpt_1.__Peirce_.28CP_2.227.29 Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
* Comments on the Peirce List slow reading of Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm Peirce List, CG List, Without meaning to jump ahead of the slow reading, let me just give a preview of coming attractions by way of justifying the time a few of us have been spending trying to tease out the shades of meaning in Peirce's concept of the formal. JR: Let me now explain why I think the ideas of the empirical, the experiential, and the experimental can be disentangled from the complex of dubious distinctions and restrictions we usually associate with them, such that it is possible for us to regard all applied semiotics as empirical semiotics, which means, in effect, that the term empirical semiotics can cease to function as a term of contrast, and the semiotics movement in general thereby take a further step in the direction of unity. [8] JR: Now let us note three ideas which are implicit in the ideas of learning from trying out or attempting. JR: First, there is the idea of a certain possibility which is entertained seriously enough by the tryer to warrant actually making trial of it to see if there is any truth in it: in other words, there is implicit here the idea of a question to be answered, or a hypothesis to be verified or disverified. JR: Second, there is the idea of something other than or external to the tryer and his/her hypothesis, something with a being of its own which may turn out to be in agreement with what the tryer is trying to do or is testing, but which may turn out to be obstinately other than the tryer anticipates it as being; something stubborn, autonomous, independent: in short, the root idea of the brute fact against which the hypothesis may be dashed and perhaps destroyed or modified. JR: Then, third, there is the idea of learning which takes place in virtue of the trial, a modification of the learner and his or her ideas which results from the attempt, be it a success or a failure: the root idea of verification and disverification, not in the rarefied formal logical sense but rather in the more basic sense that the attempt will in fact tend to reinforce or to alter or to weaken the tryer's confidence or belief in the actuality of the possibility entertained and acted upon. [9] We have the assertion that it is possible for us to regard all applied semiotics as empirical semiotics, in other words, the study of semiosis as a process of learning to accept or reject hypotheses through concrete interaction with external realities, as opposed to inference in a rarefied formal logical sense. Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jerry, I remember NEM listing for something like a King's Ransom, like a lot of books out of Hyperborea. I was lucky enough to find all but the 1st volume in a used bookstore years ago, but I do not know if there are any online alternatives today. The analogy that connects the arity of relations and relative terms with the valence of chemical atoms is one that Peirce exploited to good effect in his logical graphs, entitative and existential, but all good analogies must come to their breaking points sooner or later, frequently cracking on both sides of the equation, and I can remember that valence bond theory was already giving way to molecular orbital theory way back when I was in school. In the section where I quoted Peirce's NEM 4 definition of the sign relation, I saw a need to flesh out his text with the necessary glosses on the meanings of the other terms he invoked, especially the notions of correspondence and and determination that he used elsewhere and that it would take to complete the sense of what he wrote. Regards, Jon Jerry LR Chandler wrote: Irving, Jon, List: Thanks for your posts on CSP and Logic. Irving: after reading your recent papers and your post here, I am curious about a two questions: Do you have a crisp exposition on what factors separate CSP's notion of logic from Hilbert's formalizations? Do you have a personal definition of inference? Jon: Thanks for posting NEM 4, 20-21. I do not have NEM in my library and now wonder if I should purchase it. In reading CSPs various writings, I find that he had a deep understanding of the logic of chemistry and his rhetoric about logic was consistent with the understanding of chemistry as it stood in his time. This includes the quote from NEM 4, 20-21. In reading your website, Cf. http://mywikibiz.com/Sign_relation#Definition I find that your narrative is not consistent with chemical signs in the sense of Things - Representation - Form and the calculations used by CSP to relate empirical observations to iconic representations. Thus, I conclude that you are adding something to CSPs meanings. Cheers Jerry -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
JR = Joe Ransdell SE = Steven Ericsson-Zenith Joseph Ransdell, On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic, http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm JR: The thesis of my paper is that it is doubtful that any distinction should be drawn between empirical and nonempirical semiotics or even between experimental and nonexperimental semiotics. Doing so tends to reproduce within the semiotics movement the present academic distinction between the sciences and the humanities which semiotics should aim at discouraging, rather than reinforcing. But to overcome this undesirable dichotomy, it is necessary to disentangle the conceptions of the experiential, the experimental and the empirical from certain other complexes of ideas with which they have become associated by accident rather than necessity. SE: I confess that on first reading the phrase it is doubtful that caused me some problems. I think it dilutes the impact of the paper and reveals a caution that I think is unnecessary. This is, I believe, because Ransdell is addressing a community of American philosophers, a European thinker would have been more confidently assertive. One of my favorite (philosophical) activities all throughout my undergrad years was a mental exercise I called erasing distinctions or seeing coincidences, and in that old spirit I found myself initially sympathetic with the project of seeking continuities between the humanities and the sciences, especially with regard to the spectrum of semiotic studies. But I lack the skill at erasing distinctions that I used to have, and one that I can remember trying to smudge as best I could to no truly long-lasting avail was the distinction between policy and theory, ought and is, in short, the difference between normative sciences and descriptive sciences. I'll be reading descriptive, empirical, positive, and special as near enough synonyms in regard to sciences and fields of study as will permit us to ignore the slight shades of difference among them. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Peirce used the word formal in a couple of senses, the first of which is closer to its general meaning of concerned with form, and here he can mean either the forms of objects or the forms of syntax, whereas the tradition following Russell tends to focus on syntax exclusively. In that sense of formal, Peirce's concept of logic as formal semiotic would incorporate both the syntactic or proof-theoretic forms of Russell and the semantic or model-theoretic forms of Tarski. But Peirce also used the word formal in another, more specialized sense, in which it became the practical equivalent of normative. In that sense, his definition of logic as formal semiotic places logic within the sphere of the normative sciences, where it normally belongs. Jon CC: Arisbe, Inquiry, Conceptual Graphs, Peirce List -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic”
Good One! That reminds me, I should probably correct what I wrote before to say that the definition of formal figures prominently in the definition of logic as formal semiotics, but not essentially in the definition of semiotics itself, which has both descriptive and normative subdivisions. Jon Benjamin Udell wrote: Aye, and let's recall Peirce's definition of normal ...the 'normal' is not the average (or any other kind of mean) of what actually occurs, but of what _would_, in the long run, occur under certain circumstances. - c. 1909 MS, _Collected Papers_ v. 6, paragraph 327. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jon Awbrey To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 12:30 AM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] “On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic” Peirce used the word formal in a couple of senses, the first of which is closer to its general meaning of concerned with form, and here he can mean either the forms of objects or the forms of syntax, whereas the tradition following Russell tends to focus on syntax exclusively. In that sense of formal, Peirce's concept of logic as formal semiotic would incorporate both the syntactic or proof-theoretic forms of Russell and the semantic or model-theoretic forms of Tarski. But Peirce also used the word formal in another, more specialized sense, in which it became the practical equivalent of normative. In that sense, his definition of logic as formal semiotic places logic within the sphere of the normative sciences, where it normally belongs. Jon CC: Arisbe, Inquiry, Conceptual Graphs, Peirce List -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey polmic: www.policymic.com/profiles/1110/Jon-Awbrey - 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] On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary, Irving, Steven, and All, One of the continuing problems that we have in reading Peirce is the fact that logical atomists, logical positivists, and later writers tend to attach rather different meanings to words like formal logical atom, and positive than Peirce did himself. The meaning of formal is especially critical for the present discussion, since it figures most prominently in Peirce's most detailed definition of a sign relation, namely, the one given in 2 variants in NEM 4, 20-21 54. Logic will here be defined as formal semiotic. A definition of a sign will be given which no more refers to human thought than does the definition of a line as the place which a particle occupies, part by part, during a lapse of time. Namely, a sign is something, A, which brings something, B, its interpretant sign determined or created by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in which itself stands to C. It is from this definition, together with a definition of formal, that I deduce mathematically the principles of logic. I also make a historical review of all the definitions and conceptions of logic, and show, not merely that my definition is no novelty, but that my non-psychological conception of logic has virtually been quite generally held, though not generally recognized. (C.S. Peirce, NEM 4, 20–21). Cf. http://mywikibiz.com/Sign_relation#Definition -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol profile: http://knol.google.com/k/Jon-Awbrey# policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] community of inquiry
John, I have missed all the earlier messages on this thread due to some changes in my email service, but I think I recall Royce using the phrase community of interpretation. Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences as Communicational Communities
SN = Sally Ness SN: 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. The critical distinction is that between a descriptive science and a normative science, psychology being one example of many descriptive sciences and logic being one of the Big Three normative sciences, along with Ethics and Aesthetics. Even though Logic and Psychology have a large degree of overlap in the phenomena they treat, they view it with very distinct aims in mind. SN: 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. I did once get a Masters in Psychology from a College of Social Science. We used to call it the Octopus because there were eight specializations that one could choose from. I was in Quantitative, which was mostly just statistics and systems theory, but I took a well-tempered mix of Clinical, Cognitive, and Industrial-Organizational. There was also Developmental, Experimental-General, Humanistic, and Social-Personality Psychology. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Occupy Evolution
So a miser is a beneficent power in a community, is he? With the same reason precisely, only in a much higher degree, you might pronounce the Wall Street sharp to be a good angel, who takes money from heedless persons not likely to guard it properly, who wrecks feeble enterprises better stopped, and who administers wholesome lessons to unwary scientific men, by passing worthless checks upon them -- as you did, the other day, to me, my millionaire Master in glomery, when you thought you saw your way to using my process without paying for it, and of so bequeathing to your children something to boast about of their father -- and who by a thousand wiles puts money at the service of intelligent greed, in his own person. Bernard Mandeville, in his Fable of the Bees, maintains that private vices of all descriptions are public benefits, and proves it, too, quite as cogently as the economist proves his point concerning the miser. He even argues, with no slight force, that but for vice civilization would never have existed. In the same spirit, it has been strongly maintained and is today widely believed that all acts of charity and benevolence, private and public, go seriously to degrade the human race. Charles S. Peirce, Evolutionary Love, 'The Monist', vol. 3, pp. 176-200 (1893) http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/evolove/evolove.htm -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic”
NH: But eventually we'll want to push on and one interesting question we may want to consider is what JR means by Peirce's basic semiotic model. He refers to this, although in different terms, on pp. 2, 3, and 8, and maybe elsewhere. Frequently it is supposed that the basic semiotic model is the triadic relational structure derived from mathematics but on p. 8 JR says that Peirce's basic model is derived from the truth-seeking tendency in human life. Nathan, Just off hand I do not see a conflict here. It was my impression from reading Peirce's early papers, especially the Harvard and Lowell lectures from 1865-1866, that Peirce was trying to understand the logic that informed scientific modes of inquiry, set implicitly within a theory of inquiry in general, and that it was pursuant to the task of analyzing the process of inquiry, truth-seeking, that he found himself having to investigate the nature of signs. Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] Slow Read : Sciences as Communicational Communities Segment 6
Steven, Jerry, and All -- Re: Communicational Communities The etymology of community tells us that munus means duty, gift, or service, so the original idea seems rooted in concepts of common duty and shared service. http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/gladiatr/origins.htm Our notion of communication appears to be a derivative of that, referring to the sort of signaling we do in order to coordinate collaborative work. So it doesn't seem like a complete tautology to reconnect those two ideas. Jon Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: I agree with Jerry's concern here and have a similar internal debate going on. Mine centers on the very notion of communication which appears to me to be a way of speaking about the pair: expression and apprehension. So that when speaking of communication in communities (or any other sense) one may be speaking about these pairs as they effect individuals in the information theoretic sense. Communities infers communication between a group of individuals and so I do see the notion of Communicational Communities as redundant. I can conceive of distributive as a property of expression within a community and collective as the sum of expression by a community but otherwise I cannot associate these notions with communication. With respect, Steven -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic”
NH = Nathan Houser JR = Joe Ransdell NH: Let me make a quick reply and later when I have more time I'll go back to Joe's paper to see if he may have had something like what you say in mind. I suppose a lot depends on precisely what Joe meant by directly concerned with semiotic when he wrote that 90% of Peirce's philosophical output was directly concerned with semiotic. And also on how much he was limiting the scope of his claim by his qualifying reference to Peirce's philosophical output. It would seem that to be directly concerned with semiotic is to be about semiotic, not just involved with sign usage. We wouldn't normally say, for example, that in completing one's tax return one is directly concerned with mathematics. I certainly think it is plausible to regard all of Peirce's writings about normative logic as semiotic works (I do not include the mathematical theory of relations in normative logic) but it seems to me that the rationale for Peirce's classification of the sciences precludes counting writings about phenomenology, esthetics, and ethics as belonging to semiotic proper, and this goes as well for the sciences that come after logic, including his metaphysical writings. Since mathematics, psychology, and physics are not philosophical sciences, presumably Joe was not including Peirce's considerable contributions in those areas. NH: Having said this, I nevertheless agree that a great deal of Peirce's philosophical output does, at least in part, deal directly with semiotic but I believe it is considerably less that 90%. I suspect this is in part because I do not believe that the bulk of Peirce's metaphysical writings can correctly be said to be directly concerned with semiotic. But, as I said, when I get more time I'll look at this question more carefully with more consideration of the breakdown between works on philosophy and works in other sciences and I'll see if I can get a better sense of how Joe defended, or would have defended, his claim. Perhaps there has been relevant discussion in earlier slow reads. Nathan, I suppose I read the phrase his prodigious philosophical output to be a general way of saying his thought and work rather than focusing on the more restrictive meanings of the word philosophy, as in works falling under particular numbers of a catalog, say. But reading Ransdell's note 2, I see both senses appearing again under the designations of philosophical interest and on philosophy, so I despair of drawing any hard and fast line. JR: [Note 2] The manuscript material now (1997) comes to more than a hundred thousand pages. These contain many pages of no philosophical interest, but the number of pages on philosophy certainly number much more than half of that. Also, a significant but unknown number of manuscripts have been lost. I see -- now -- the other sense of concerned with that you are indicating here. Still, a channel swimmer must be as concerned with the waters in which she swims as she is with the farther shore. So I guess it comes down to word directly, which I confess I probably just sloughed over in my casual reading. Then again: JR: For Peirce, everything was grist for semiotic That makes of semiotic neither wheat or chaff but the mill. Oh well ... Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences as Communicational Communities
Sally, Thanks for all your detailed work on this reading. I can't imagine that our meta-debate on the meaning of the word debate will dissipate entirely, since it appears to be yet another one of those perennial recurrences. I know a person who would often object to my use of the word discussion instead of his preference for conversation or dialogue on the grounds that its etymology meant to shake apart and he thought that implied an excess of violence. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] “Some Leading Ideas of Peirce's Semiotic”
NH = Nathan Houser NH: 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? From my sense of Peirce's work, I would have say that I agree with the claim that Joe makes on this point, even if I can't say whether it would be for any of the same reasons he had in mind. Understanding Peirce's pragmatism depends on understanding sign relations, triadic relations, and relations in general, all of which forms the conceptual framework of his theory of inquiry and his theory of signs. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences as Communicational Communities -- Academic Capitalism
Gene, Thank you for the link to your insightful essay. The paragraph from C. Wright Mills was so striking that I couldn't resist re-citing it in another context where we have been discussing these ever-recurring issues. PolicyMic : The Next Credit Crisis : Mary Dowell-Jones http://www.policymic.com/group/showCompetition/id/1806#comment-18643 Regards, Jon Eugene Halton wrote: Here is something I wrote earlier this week on centralized power that relates at another angle: http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/09/the-megapower-elite/ Gene -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Steven Ericsson-Zenith Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 3:28 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Sciences as Communicational Communities -- Academic Capitalism Sadly I agree with Jon's sense of despondency concerning the war on science. The problem, however, is the product of central planning. As a consequence we are Serfs (Hayek). Looking for a prescriptive solution that is other than the simple devolution of this centralized system will only make matters worse. With respect, Steven On Sep 30, 2011, at 7:06 AM, Jon Awbrey wrote: Sally, Gene, All, In relation to the purpose of a university and what's been happening to it lately, I earlier mentioned the themes of academic capitalism and the war on science. JA 30 Aug 2011 I think it is reasonable to be concerned with distorting influences on research and scholarship, whether we find them in the sciences or in the other disciplines. Looking around, the conflicts of interest appear to grow more pushy and more pervasive every day. I'm thinking of cautionary tales like Slaughter and Leslie on Academic Capitalism, or Chris Mooney in The Republican War on Science, just to name two that other contexts of discussion are constantly bringing to mind. But the question was: What to do about it? It appears that further inquiry is called for. /JA Here is a paper that summarizes the issues of academic capitalism: Susan M. Awbrey, Making the 'Invisible Hand' Visible: The Case for Dialogue About Academic Capitalism http://www2.oakland.edu/oujournal/files/5_Awbrey.pdf I fear that the situation has grown far worse since the time that paper was written, but it depresses me too much to talk about it, so I'll just leave it at that until I recover some trace of hope. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache policy mic: www.policymic.com/profile/show?id=1110 inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences as Communicational Communities -- Sincerity
Sally All, Just a brief note on the question of sincerity. A useful set of concepts for discussing this issue can be found in the work of Argyris and Schön, where they make a distinction between espoused goals, values, etc. and enacted or actual goals, values, etc. In these terms, honesty, integrity, sincerity, etc. would be measures of coherence or consistency between the espoused and the enacted. Jon Sally Ness wrote: Segment 4 Dear List, This post will address paragraphs 18 to 21 of the paper, Sciences as Communicational Communities. The paragraphs are reproduced below in their entirety. As I have mentioned before, this segment appears to be the crux of the paper, where JR lays out his vision of scientific communication (similar in most respects to that already discussed in this slow read in relation to the paper, Peirce and the Socratic Tradition). He then formulates his understanding of the relation of scientific communication to academia, and delivers his key insight regarding how, in practice, scientific communication can be maintained, despite the realities confronted in academic institutions. JR makes four important points in these paragraphs about the character of scientific communication: 1) [P18] Scientific communication must be sincere. Otherwise multiple perspectives on the subject-matter will fail to cohere in a coordinated manner, and the subject-matter will cease to control inquiry. 2) [P19] Scientific communication must be about subject-matter that is unitary and real. Otherwise, the subject-matter itself will fail to produce a coherence of perspectives. 3) [P19] Scientific communication must evidence objectivity, which can be defined both as an attitude of the inquirer and as a formal feature of the inquiry process. Otherwise, communication will tend toward chaos. 4) [P20] Scientific communication must regard all (sincere) participants as being peers, equal with respect to both the shared public understanding of the community's subject matter and with regard to being entitled to respect in relation to the perspectives they contribute to the community's communication. Otherwise the coordination of perspectives will become deranged (fail to cohere as the subject-matter, in truth, would dictate). JR then concludes with a final point about the relation between scientific communication and academia: 5) [P21] While the fundamentally hierarchical character of academia inevitably plagues the sciences, corrupting and compromising its practices, the norms of science remain unchanged by this corruption and stand in enduring opposition to those of academia. In this section, JR sets forward an alternative to the academic politician's negotiational view of the relation between scientific inquiry and academia. He grants that science is generally situated in academic contexts that disease and deform it politically. However, JR does not recognize the same degree of integration occurring at the science/academic interface that the sociologist of knowledge does. In JR's view, this interface does not permeate the sciences so completely as to have modified the community's basic norms of conduct. As a result, it is still possible to conceive of living a scientific life while also maintaining a separate status as a professor. The two identities may come into conflict when their norms are not in harmony, but they nonetheless each have their own discrete character. In this final point, JR is able to explain how the authoritarian, hierarchically-oriented, politically-governed behavior that scientists have been accurately documented as occasionally (even habitually) exhibiting can be seen to occur while science in general can remain apolitical. Because scientific norms remain uncorrupted and uninfluenced by academia, it is possible for scientists, even if they are also professors, to engage in scientific inquiry according to the norms of a scientific life proper. If they fail to do so, it is because they fail to conduct themselves according to the norms of science, not because science is nothing but a negotiational endeavor. A few questions arise in relation to JR's views presented in this segment: * How distinctly is JR speaking in the spirit of Peirce here, with regard to his 4-fold definition of scientific communication? Does Peirce place the same kind of stress on each of these four points as JR does? Is there any deviation or inclination, however subtle, that might identify a Ransdellian take on Peirce here? Would Short, or Ketner, or Houser, or de Tienne, or Apel, or deWaal, or even Eco, or other interpreters of Peirce put it quite the same way? * What, exactly, is unitary subject-matter as JR employs the term? A great deal is hanging on this concept, it would seem. Is inorganic subject-matter more unitary than organic subject-matter? If so, that would explain why the hard sciences have the superior
Re: [peirce-l] Sciences As Communicational Communities -- Objectivity
Sally All, Some of us are slower readers than others ... To tell the truth, I haven't been having much time to do more than skim, so let me just mention a few thoughts that come to mind while doing that. I am constantly reminded of this favorite line from Peirce: No longer wondered what I would do in life but defined my object. -- C.S. Peirce (1861), My Life, (Chron. Ed. 1, p. 3) The question of Objects, Objectives, and Objectivity is a persistent one. The Latin-rooted English object springs from deeper roots in the Greek pragma. It was a personal revelation to me on first looking into Liddell and Scott and reading all the meanings and ramifications of that pragmatic semantic complex: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma It is especially the senses of the word object that refer to aims and purposes, in other words, intentional objects and objects of intention, that we are likely to miss if we don't remind ourselves of their pertinence to pragmatic thinking. Regards, Jon -- Jon Awbrey wrote: Sally All, As I recall, one of Joe's abiding concerns was the idea that science refers to an objective world of real things, perhaps real possibles, as opposed to any kind of radical constructivism, Sophistic relativism, or so-called consensual theory of truth. So say we all, I'm guessing. However much we construct or invent our humanly erratic signs of reality, the reality itself is independent of our vagaries and our vicissitudes. That would be just my guess at this point. Jon Sally Ness wrote: Jon, List, Thanks much for this response. With regard to the first question, since it is most likely not a dualism between discovery and invention that JR had in mind, what would be the alternative. He wouldn't have italicized discovery had he not meant to contrast it with something else. Or, perhaps, there is a better way to read this passage? With regard to the second question, the logic/rhetoric distinction you mention would seem to fit. Thanks for bringing this out. Sally -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences As Communicational Communities -- Objectivity
Bill All, That definition of objective merges well with the definition of real that Peirce derived from Scholastic sources, namely, the real is that which has properties. The full strength of this definition is clear if we stress the sense of proper in properties, that which is proper to a thing, its own. It is no coincidence that this very sense of proper is conveyed by the German function word eigen. In physics, the operation of making a particular type of measurement or observation is represented by an algebraic matrix, and the possible results of that measurement or observation are given by real numbers called the eigenvalues of that matrix. Jon William R. Everdell wrote: Peirce's contemporary Frege defined objective as being perceivable by more than one observer as the same thing. I've always liked that. -Bill Everdell Vive la Republique! St Ann's School, Brooklyn On Sep 9, 2011, at 1:56 PM, Jon Awbrey jawb...@att.net wrote: Sally All, Some of us are slower readers than others ... To tell the truth, I haven't been having much time to do more than skim, so let me just mention a few thoughts that come to mind while doing that. I am constantly reminded of this favorite line from Peirce: No longer wondered what I would do in life but defined my object. -- C.S. Peirce (1861), My Life, (Chron. Ed. 1, p. 3) The question of Objects, Objectives, and Objectivity is a persistent one. The Latin-rooted English object springs from deeper roots in the Greek pragma. It was a personal revelation to me on first looking into Liddell and Scott and reading all the meanings and ramifications of that pragmatic semantic complex: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma It is especially the senses of the word object that refer to aims and purposes, in other words, intentional objects and objects of intention, that we are likely to miss if we don't remind ourselves of their pertinence to pragmatic thinking. Regards, Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences As Communicational Communities -- Segment 1
Peircers, Let me pick it up here: SN: The main idea or real issue that JR seeks to present via Kleinman's paper is brought out in paragraph 3: whether scientific inquiry is to continue to be recognized institutionally as a discovery process, guided ideally by the norms implicit in such ideas as that of truth, knowledge, reality, objectivity, and so forth, or is to be controlled instead by the principles of persuasion and accommodation that are used in negotiational and political activity (emphasis in JR's text). JR wants to argue in the rest of the paper that scientific inquiry should be guided by said norms. The either/or construction of JR's sentence seems worth pondering, as is the emphatic formatting of the term, discovery. Two questions come to mind in this regard: 1) Why does JR put stress on this concept of discovery? What is the implicit contrast to it (discovery/found vs inventive/made)? Is this a reference to some idea of Peirce here? 2) Perhaps more important: Are the two different ways that JR identifies of governing such discovery processes really, fundamentally, discrete alternatives? are they as completely separable and interchangeable as JR seems to think they are? In sum, is this really a Plan A or Plan B situation? I'm skeptical about it being accurate to think of discovery processes as guided either (and simply) by norms on the one hand, or by principles of the kind JR identifies on the other? I'm surprised to see JR even use the term principle in relation to the strategies and tactics of political activity he references (I'm not sure what JR has in mind by negotiational activity). It sounds as though JR's view of political life is very negative, lacking in norms implicit in its own ideas of truth, knowledge, reality, not to mention honor. Perhaps JR is simply saying that science ought to be governed by ideals that rise above the historical contingencies within which any given practice must be situated, ideals that relate to subject matter that is itself relatively enduring, general, and transcendent. Any thoughts about how to sort out this passage? For (1), I don't think we find the usual suspect dualism between discovery and invention in Peirce's account of the inquiry process. Haack made a recent attempt to characterize the pragmatic synthesis as foundherentism, but I think it's better to realize from the outset that working in sign-relational framework means never having to murder to dissect, that the object-referent aspect and the sign-processing aspect are mere projections from the whole sign relation in which we are participating at any given moment. For (2), I think this spectrum of difference reflects the classical distinction between logic (reasoning that proceeds independently of the peculiar conditions of interpreters) and rhetoric (reasoning that is tailored to the peculiar conditions of its interpreter). Jon -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Sciences as Communicational Communities -- Segment 1
Sally All, I think it is reasonable to be concerned with distorting influences on research and scholarship, whether we find them in the sciences or in the other disciplines. Looking around, the conflicts of interest appear to grow more pushy and more pervasive every day. I'm thinking of cautionary tales like Slaughter and Leslie on Academic Capitalism, or Chris Mooney in The Republican War on Science, just to name two that other contexts of discussion are constantly bringing to mind. But the question was: What to do about it? It appears that further inquiry is called for. Jon Sally Ness wrote: Lastly, JR's solution to the problems of politicization is clearly stated in paragraph 4: scientists must get clear on the meaning of truth, objectivity, and similarly important concepts. The benefit of this is identified in paragraph 5: it will prevent scientists from forgetting who they are -- which is not politicians -- and it will enable them to point out why they are best qualified to determine how their scientific work is to be conducted. The logic JR is using here would seem to have a few gaps at this point. How, for example, does getting clear on these concepts lead to preventing the unwanted infiltration of outsiders? and why can't non-scientists get equally clear on these concepts as well (it is not as though their meaning is mysterious to non-scientists) and then be qualified to share in the control of discovery processes? Filling in these gaps constitutes the main work of the rest of the paper. However, it appears that JR at this point is already seeking to convince the scientists in the audience that, if they can, for example, define themselves as objective in relation to their subject matter because and only because of how they investigate it, then they can define all those who do not engage in such work as less objective about it or as not objective at all, hence excluding them from legitimate participation in the governance of their inquiry. By the same token, they can define all non-scientists as less truthful, less knowledgeable, less realistic, and so on, on the basis of a relative lack of experience with their brand of scientific inquiry. This does seem to be a pragmatic approach to coping with the alleged invasion, particularly with regard to the role that it assigns to research experience. Perhaps, however, my reading is off the mark? -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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] Teleology and the Autonomy of the Semiosis Process --- Signs and Inquiry
Peirce List, There is a brief discussion of the relation between the theory of signs and the theory of inquiry, as illuminated by selections from Aristotle, Peirce, Dewey, and others, in the following paper: http://web.archive.org/web/19970626071826/http://chss.montclair.edu/inquiry/fall95/awbrey.html Jon Eugene Halton wrote: Dear Rafe, Yes, there are many similarities to be sure. But one problem in saying there is a parallel conjectural turn is that Peirce actually did develop a logic of conjecture, that is, abduction, whereas Popper, whose book ''Logik der Forschung'' was strangely translated into English as ''The Logic of Discovery'', did not have a logic of discovery, abduction, or conjecture. In Popper's words: The initial stage, the act of conceiving or inventing a theory, seems to me neither to call for logical analysis nor to be susceptible of it ... my view of the matter, for what it is worth, is that there is no such thing as a logical method of having new ideas, or a logical reconstruction of this process. My view may be expressed by saying that every discovery contains 'an irrational element' or a 'creative intuition,' in Bergson's sense (Popper 1968: 31-32). Here Popper expresses the common idea shared by rationalists and positivists alike, as I put it in my book ''Meaning and Modernity'', that inquiry begins with an irrational intuition, a creative insight that is not an inference from observed facts, and whose consequences somehow provide the guiding idea of an inquiry, despite the fact that the idea itself is utterly illogical. Peirce, by contrast, demonstrates that conjecture can be taken as reasonable, logical inference, and subject to further testing. Dewey also developed a theory of inquiry with similarities to Peirce's abduction, where inquiry is the progressive determination of a problem and its solution, beginning in the indeterminate situation. Gene -- facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ mwb: http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey knol: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3fkwvf69kridz/1 oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey - 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
