Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jerry; the context lay with interpreting and using Couterat's algebra of logic. Maybe for chemistry it is inadequate. There are not enough symbols to express what needs to be said. It also lacks a monadic predicate and associated symbols for variables in the object language. It also does not seems to have an existential quantifier. (It is tempting to treat the universal class as both individual and function)This makes it inferior, I believe, at the time (1900-1905) to the logic of Peano/Russell. The context of the discussion was historical.JimW Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic From: jerry_lr_chand...@me.com Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 01:07:54 -0500 To: jimwillgo...@msn.com; PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Jim, List. Your response is to terse to decipher the source of reasoning. So, lets go through it line by line. On Dec 8, 2011, at 2:14 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote:Thanks Jerry. Picturesque. ? In the sense of images? Icons? or your value judgment? But that is the problem. The molecule is an individual but non-atomic. In the symbolic mathematics and logic of chemistry, a molecule is defined as a polyatomic thing where every atom is referenced as an atomic number with a commutative relationship to physical and electrical properties. Thus, the molecule is a class of some or all of the children. What is the mathematical concept / logic concept you are following?Every molecule is assigned a unique name that corresponds with the unique distinctions that differentiate it from all other molecules.The set theory notion of class is terms a population of molecules.Lattice theory is not applicable to either individuals or populations of molecules because every atom has an internal structure. The individual molecule shifts from individual constant to function. I have no idea what you are seeking to communicate here... cf. molecule is a universal class (constant) ???In the sense of predicate logic?In the sense of the points of a geometric line? universal billy is some or all of the molecule (function) ??? JimW Trans-disciplinary communication is never easy Keep in mind that the iconic structures created by mathematics of symbolic chemistry distinguishes between an individual as a unique form yet allows separation into chemical atoms with a graphic structures without the arithmetic operation of division. In turn, chemical atoms (represented as electrical graphs) can be separated into parts (Rutherford / Moseley 1912, 1914? ) Separation of a whole into parts does not infer a logical division. Cheers Jerry Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 11:46:36 -0500 From: jerry_lr_chand...@me.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Jim, Irving, list: A simple comment. On Dec 8, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote:In any case, there is something discomforting to think with syntactical objects which are interpreted as individuals but non-atomic, Molecules, as syntactical objects, are interpreted as individuals. Indeed, a DNA molecule (as a pair of graphs) in a simple cell is an individual that gives rise to the individual child of that cell. Cheers Jerry- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message tolists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message tolists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jim, List. Your response is to terse to decipher the source of reasoning. So, lets go through it line by line. On Dec 8, 2011, at 2:14 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: > Thanks Jerry. > > Picturesque. ? In the sense of images? Icons? or your value judgment? > But that is the problem. > The molecule is an individual but non-atomic. In the symbolic mathematics and logic of chemistry, a molecule is defined as a polyatomic thing where every atom is referenced as an atomic number with a commutative relationship to physical and electrical properties. > Thus, the molecule is a class of some or all of the children. What is the mathematical concept / logic concept you are following? Every molecule is assigned a unique name that corresponds with the unique distinctions that differentiate it from all other molecules. The set theory notion of class is terms a population of molecules. Lattice theory is not applicable to either individuals or populations of molecules because every atom has an internal structure. > The individual molecule shifts from individual constant to function. I have no idea what you are seeking to communicate here... > > cf. molecule is a universal class (constant) ??? In the sense of predicate logic? In the sense of the points of a geometric line? > universal billy is some or all of the molecule (function) ??? > > JimW Trans-disciplinary communication is never easy Keep in mind that the iconic structures created by mathematics of symbolic chemistry distinguishes between an individual as a unique form yet allows separation into chemical atoms with a graphic structures without the arithmetic operation of division. In turn, chemical atoms (represented as electrical graphs) can be separated into parts (Rutherford / Moseley 1912, 1914? ) Separation of a whole into parts does not infer a logical division. Cheers Jerry > Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 11:46:36 -0500 > From: jerry_lr_chand...@me.com > Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate > for Semiotic > To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > > > Jim, Irving, list: > > A simple comment. > > On Dec 8, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: > > In any case, there is something discomforting to think with syntactical > objects which are interpreted as individuals but non-atomic, > > Molecules, as syntactical objects, are interpreted as individuals. > > Indeed, a DNA molecule (as a pair of graphs) in a simple cell is an > individual that gives rise to the individual child of that cell. > > Cheers > > Jerry > - > You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L > listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message > tolists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of > the message. To post a message to the list, send it to > PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > - > You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L > listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message > tolists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of > the message. To post a message to the list, send it to > PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Thanks Jerry. Picturesque. But that is the problem. The molecule is an individual but non-atomic. Thus, the molecule is a class of some or all of the children. The individual molecule shifts from individual constant to function. cf. molecule is a universal class (constant)universal billy is some or all of the molecule (function) JimWDate: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 11:46:36 -0500 From: jerry_lr_chand...@me.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Jim, Irving, list: A simple comment. On Dec 8, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote:In any case, there is something discomforting to think with syntactical objects which are interpreted as individuals but non-atomic, Molecules, as syntactical objects, are interpreted as individuals. Indeed, a DNA molecule (as a pair of graphs) in a simple cell is an individual that gives rise to the individual child of that cell. Cheers Jerry- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jim, Irving, list: A simple comment. On Dec 8, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Jim Willgoose wrote: > In any case, there is something discomforting to think with syntactical > objects which are interpreted as individuals but non-atomic, Molecules, as syntactical objects, are interpreted as individuals. Indeed, a DNA molecule (as a pair of graphs) in a simple cell is an individual that gives rise to the individual child of that cell. Cheers Jerry - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Irving. It is the 1905 L'Algebra de Logique translated by P.E.B Jourdain in 1914. (open source) The 1901 Baldwin entry for symbolic Logic (also open source) translates one way into French as L'Algebra de Logique ou Algorithmique. In any case, there is something discomforting to think with syntactical objects which are interpreted as individuals but non-atomic, and as you point out, it would be nice to have the concept of "proper part." The metalinguistic function symbols Sx or Px do not appear in the object language and it is hard to tell where the argument places are and whether the type order can shift at will. It seems like set theory but without sets. But it is not 1st order predicate logic either. I was curious whether he talked with Peano, Frege, or Russell much at this time. thanks,Jim W > Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 10:04:06 -0500 > From: ianel...@iupui.edu > Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate > for Semiotic > To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > > Assuming that you are referring to Louis Couturat and the First > International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900, the answer is: > Yes. > > He was one of the congress organizers, and the organizer for the > section on logic and philosophy of science. He also spoke at that > congres, on "Le système de Platon exposé dans son développement". > > > On the issue of his treatment of functions, should I also assume that > you are referring to his _Traité de logique algorithmique_. > > Message from jimwillgo...@msn.com - > Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 19:30:58 -0600 > From: Jim Willgoose > Reply-To: Jim Willgoose > Subject: RE: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience > Appropriate for Semiotic > To: peirce-l@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks again Irving. Do you know if L. Couterat was at the 1900 Paris > > conference? My historical curiosity lies with both his contribution > > to the 1901 Baldwin entry "symbolic logic, algebra of logic," which > > Peirce supervised, but also the intoductory textbook which he wrote a > > few years after that Baldwin entry. He seems to have the concept of > > an open function, symbolizing "Px" or "Sx" for the purpose of > > defining binary functions for Product and Aggregate. He replaces the > > variable "x" in "Px" with the disjunction of individual classes > > thereby suggesting existential quantification. But what is missing > > are the individual argument places! The effect appears to be to > > distribute functions across the binary functions. There are no > > "zero-place" individuals. > >> Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 08:19:57 -0500 > >> From: ianel...@iupui.edu > >> Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience > >> Appropriate for Semiotic > >> To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > >> > >> Once again, there is a complex of related dichotomies that van > >> Heijenoort applied to distinguish the Aristotelian-Boolean stream (of > >> which Peirce was a part, according to Van) from the Fregean, including > >> logic as calculus/logic as language,model-theoretic (or > >> intensional)/set-theoretic, > >> (or extensional, so as to include both Russell's use of set theory and > >> Frege's course-of-values semantic), syntactic/semantic, and, finally, > >> relativism/absolutism. > >> > >> I think that what Ben intends by his neologism "unic-universalist" is > >> essentially what Ben has in mind for Van's use of absolutism, namely, > >> (a) a universal universe of discourse (Frege's Universum); (b) a fixed > >> universe, that includes all objects and functions; and (c) a single > >> logic. These properties, and the entire interrelated complex of > >> properties, together make, for Van, Frege's Begriffsschrift (and > >> Whitehead & Russell's Principia Mathematica), both logic as language > >> AND logic as calculus, and preeminently -- first and foremost -- a > >> language, whereas, with the intensional or class-theoretic semantic > >> tied to a subject-predicate or merely relational syntax, together with > >> a restricted, pre-defined, universe of discourse, makes the logical > >> systems of Boole, De Morgan, Jevons, Peirce, Schröder, et al., mere > >> calculi. > >> > >> Beyond that, it was the failure to distinguish between sets and classes > >> or, more properly, subsets and proper subsets (or for Frege, between &
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Assuming that you are referring to Louis Couturat and the First International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900, the answer is: Yes. He was one of the congress organizers, and the organizer for the section on logic and philosophy of science. He also spoke at that congres, on "Le système de Platon exposé dans son développement". On the issue of his treatment of functions, should I also assume that you are referring to his _Traité de logique algorithmique_. Message from jimwillgo...@msn.com - Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 19:30:58 -0600 From: Jim Willgoose Reply-To: Jim Willgoose Subject: RE: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: peirce-l@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Thanks again Irving. Do you know if L. Couterat was at the 1900 Paris conference? My historical curiosity lies with both his contribution to the 1901 Baldwin entry "symbolic logic, algebra of logic," which Peirce supervised, but also the intoductory textbook which he wrote a few years after that Baldwin entry. He seems to have the concept of an open function, symbolizing "Px" or "Sx" for the purpose of defining binary functions for Product and Aggregate. He replaces the variable "x" in "Px" with the disjunction of individual classes thereby suggesting existential quantification. But what is missing are the individual argument places! The effect appears to be to distribute functions across the binary functions. There are no "zero-place" individuals. Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 08:19:57 -0500 From: ianel...@iupui.edu Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Once again, there is a complex of related dichotomies that van Heijenoort applied to distinguish the Aristotelian-Boolean stream (of which Peirce was a part, according to Van) from the Fregean, including logic as calculus/logic as language,model-theoretic (or intensional)/set-theoretic, (or extensional, so as to include both Russell's use of set theory and Frege's course-of-values semantic), syntactic/semantic, and, finally, relativism/absolutism. I think that what Ben intends by his neologism "unic-universalist" is essentially what Ben has in mind for Van's use of absolutism, namely, (a) a universal universe of discourse (Frege's Universum); (b) a fixed universe, that includes all objects and functions; and (c) a single logic. These properties, and the entire interrelated complex of properties, together make, for Van, Frege's Begriffsschrift (and Whitehead & Russell's Principia Mathematica), both logic as language AND logic as calculus, and preeminently -- first and foremost -- a language, whereas, with the intensional or class-theoretic semantic tied to a subject-predicate or merely relational syntax, together with a restricted, pre-defined, universe of discourse, makes the logical systems of Boole, De Morgan, Jevons, Peirce, Schröder, et al., mere calculi. Beyond that, it was the failure to distinguish between sets and classes or, more properly, subsets and proper subsets (or for Frege, between functions and higher-order functions, where a lower-order function could serve as the indeterminate argument for a higher-order function) -- i.e. the very universality, that caused the introduction of the Russell paradox. The idea of universality disabling the possibility for Frege or Russell to step out of their logical systems to ask metalogical questions about the model-theoretic or proof-theoretical properties of their system was dealt with by Van in "Système et métasystème chez Russell". The only point in my book on van Heijenoort where I essentially disagreed with Philippe de Rouilhan was on the question of whether Van came down on the side of relativism or on the side of absolutism. (Incidentally, de Rouilhan has agreed to provide a revised and extended discussion and translation into English of his article "De l'universalité de la logique" for the issue of Logica Universalis that I am guest-editing to celebrate the centenary of Van's birth. That issue of L.U. is scheduled for publication precisely on Van's 100th birthday, 23 July 2012.) In his unpublished research notes on the nature of logic, Van made multiple efforts to sort out whether there is *one* logic (absolutism, -- or "unic-universalism"?) or several logics(relativism). (The idea of the medieval terminology logica magna -- not logica docens -- and logicae utenses has to be understood, when dealing with van Heijenoort, in the sense of one logic, a logic tout court (he calls it in his notes), versus several logics. And in doing this, he attempted to understand the connection of logic and [ordinary] language. He never really decided; what we end up with is the question of whether [ordinary] language can be applied to study the n
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Thanks again Irving. Do you know if L. Couterat was at the 1900 Paris conference? My historical curiosity lies with both his contribution to the 1901 Baldwin entry "symbolic logic, algebra of logic," which Peirce supervised, but also the intoductory textbook which he wrote a few years after that Baldwin entry. He seems to have the concept of an open function, symbolizing "Px" or "Sx" for the purpose of defining binary functions for Product and Aggregate. He replaces the variable "x" in "Px" with the disjunction of individual classes thereby suggesting existential quantification. But what is missing are the individual argument places! The effect appears to be to distribute functions across the binary functions. There are no "zero-place" individuals. > Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2011 08:19:57 -0500 > From: ianel...@iupui.edu > Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate > for Semiotic > To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU > > Once again, there is a complex of related dichotomies that van > Heijenoort applied to distinguish the Aristotelian-Boolean stream (of > which Peirce was a part, according to Van) from the Fregean, including > logic as calculus/logic as language,model-theoretic (or > intensional)/set-theoretic, > (or extensional, so as to include both Russell's use of set theory and > Frege's course-of-values semantic), syntactic/semantic, and, finally, > relativism/absolutism. > > I think that what Ben intends by his neologism "unic-universalist" is > essentially what Ben has in mind for Van's use of absolutism, namely, > (a) a universal universe of discourse (Frege's Universum); (b) a fixed > universe, that includes all objects and functions; and (c) a single > logic. These properties, and the entire interrelated complex of > properties, together make, for Van, Frege's Begriffsschrift (and > Whitehead & Russell's Principia Mathematica), both logic as language > AND logic as calculus, and preeminently -- first and foremost -- a > language, whereas, with the intensional or class-theoretic semantic > tied to a subject-predicate or merely relational syntax, together with > a restricted, pre-defined, universe of discourse, makes the logical > systems of Boole, De Morgan, Jevons, Peirce, Schröder, et al., mere > calculi. > > Beyond that, it was the failure to distinguish between sets and classes > or, more properly, subsets and proper subsets (or for Frege, between > functions and higher-order functions, where a lower-order function > could serve as the indeterminate argument for a higher-order function) > -- i.e. the very universality, that caused the introduction of the > Russell paradox. The idea of universality disabling the possibility for > Frege or Russell to step out of their logical systems to ask > metalogical questions about the model-theoretic or proof-theoretical > properties of their system was dealt with by Van in "Système et > métasystème chez Russell". > > The only point in my book on van Heijenoort where I essentially > disagreed with Philippe de Rouilhan was on the question of whether Van > came down on the side of relativism or on the side of absolutism. > (Incidentally, de Rouilhan has agreed to provide a revised and extended > discussion and translation into English of his article "De > l'universalité de la logique" for the issue of Logica Universalis that > I am guest-editing to celebrate the centenary of Van's birth. That > issue of L.U. is scheduled for publication precisely on Van's 100th > birthday, 23 July 2012.) > > In his unpublished research notes on the nature of logic, Van made > multiple efforts to sort out whether there is *one* logic (absolutism, > -- or "unic-universalism"?) or several logics(relativism). (The idea of > the medieval terminology logica magna -- not logica docens -- and > logicae utenses has to be understood, when dealing with van Heijenoort, > in the sense of one logic, a logic tout court (he calls it in his > notes), versus several logics. And in doing this, he attempted to > understand the connection of logic and [ordinary] language. He never > really decided; what we end up with is the question of whether > [ordinary] language can be applied to study the nature or properties of > logic, or whether we can even conceive of alternative logics, because > we require a "basic logic of language" to do so. Without making it > explicit, he appears to be on the verge of stepping here into a > Carnapian metalinguistic regress. And here his notes "Logic, nature of" > end. > > I tie all this together, and g
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
y wrong by
following the instructions on Wikipedia. And that's my anti-Wikipedia
rant. Suffice it to say:, with apologies to Ben: Wikipedia is NOT the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Irving
- Message from bud...@nyc.rr.com -----
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 17:19:01 -0500
From: Benjamin Udell
Reply-To: Benjamin Udell
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Jim, list,
Yes, I was just reading an article that said that Van Heijenoort said
that Frege's logic has just one universe of discourse, whereas others
allowed variations. Frege as "unic-universalist" (my word) rather
than merely universalist.
Van Heijenoort lists two further consequences of the lingua-calculus
distinction and the universality of Fregean logic. Whereas Boole's
universal class or De Morgan's universe of discourse can be changed
at will, Frege's quantifiers binding individual variables range over
all objects. There is no change of universes: 'Frege's universe
consists of all that there is, and it is fixed' (ibid. ["Logic as
Calculus and Logic as Language"], 325). Furthermore, Frege's system
is closed, nothing can be outside the system. There are no
metalogical questions and no separate semantics. - Volker Peckhaus,
"Calculus Ratiocinator vs. Characteristica Universalis? The Two
Traditions in Logic, Revisited" (16.5.2003), page 4,
http://kw.uni-paderborn.de/fileadmin/kw/institute/Philosophie/Personal/Peckhaus/Texte_zum_Download/twotraditions.pdf
I particularly need to read/re-read an article or two by Irving.
(Meanwhile my days will be increasingly busy through Friday).
An insistence on limiting logic to a single monolithic universe of
discourse has long seemed strange to me. Makes me think of Russell's
worry (during some period) that mathematics deals with numbers larger
than the number of particles in the (physical) universe. Anyway that
insistence weakens the affinity between the idea of a total
population and the idea of a universe of discourse, though I guess
one doesn't need to admit various universes of discourse in order to
admit various total populations. Of course there are other reasons
that one might like not to be limited to a grand and single universe
of discourse.
Anyway, the Wiki sentence as written is a statement about the
supposed opinions of van Heijenoort, Hintikka, and Brady. Irving has
indicated that it is mistaken as to van Heijenoort's view of the
dichotomy. So even if we start to see how the stated opinion makes
partial sense in a way that suggests how to salvage it, then there's
still the problem of attribution. So I've ratched down my personal
sense of urgency about it by removing it from the article for the
time being. I'd like to get it repaired and put it back in since it
does broach important issues in the development of logic and Peirce's
role in it.
Jean Van Heijenoort (1967),[85] Jaakko Hintikka (1997),[86] and
Geraldine Brady (2000)[79] divide those who study formal (and
natural) languages into two camps: the model-theorists /
semanticists, and the proof theorists / universalists. Hintikka and
Brady view Peirce as a pioneer model theorist.
79. a b Brady, Geraldine (2000), From Peirce to Skolem: A Neglected
Chapter in the History of Logic, North-Holland/Elsevier Science BV,
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
85. ^ van Heijenoort (1967), "Logic as Language and Logic as
Calculus" in Synthese 17: 324-30.
86. ^ Hintikka (1997), "The Place of C. S. Peirce in the History of
Logical Theory" in Brunning and Forster (1997), The Rule of Reason:
The Philosophy of C. S. Peirce, U. of Toronto.
Best, Ben
- Original Message -
From: Jim Willgoose
To: bud...@nyc.rr.com ; peirce-l@listserv.iupui.edu
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:47 PM
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben,
One quick further thought. If the pretension to a "universal
language" is so great that one does not consider a comparison of
models, then it becomes easier to see the pairing of
"proof-theoretic/universalist." So, maybe Frege would historically be
seen this way. (absolute model) On the other hand, if Lowenheim
finishes something he sees philosophically in Peirce/Schroder, then
you might get the pairing "model theorist/particularist."
jim W - Original Message -
From: Jim Willgoose
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben,
Thanks for all the work on Wiki. Here is a quick distillation
of the idea. A signature such as { ~, &, NEG, POS} might be adequate
for modeling the Bool
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jim, list,
Yes, I was just reading an article that said that Van Heijenoort said that
Frege's logic has just one universe of discourse, whereas others allowed
variations. Frege as "unic-universalist" (my word) rather than merely
universalist.
Van Heijenoort lists two further consequences of the lingua-calculus
distinction and the universality of Fregean logic. Whereas Boole's universal
class or De Morgan's universe of discourse can be changed at will, Frege's
quantifiers binding individual variables range over all objects. There is no
change of universes: 'Frege's universe consists of all that there is, and it is
fixed' (ibid. ["Logic as Calculus and Logic as Language"], 325). Furthermore,
Frege's system is closed, nothing can be outside the system. There are no
metalogical questions and no separate semantics. - Volker Peckhaus, "Calculus
Ratiocinator vs. Characteristica Universalis? The Two Traditions in Logic,
Revisited" (16.5.2003), page 4,
http://kw.uni-paderborn.de/fileadmin/kw/institute/Philosophie/Personal/Peckhaus/Texte_zum_Download/twotraditions.pdf
I particularly need to read/re-read an article or two by Irving. (Meanwhile my
days will be increasingly busy through Friday).
An insistence on limiting logic to a single monolithic universe of discourse
has long seemed strange to me. Makes me think of Russell's worry (during some
period) that mathematics deals with numbers larger than the number of particles
in the (physical) universe. Anyway that insistence weakens the affinity between
the idea of a total population and the idea of a universe of discourse, though
I guess one doesn't need to admit various universes of discourse in order to
admit various total populations. Of course there are other reasons that one
might like not to be limited to a grand and single universe of discourse.
Anyway, the Wiki sentence as written is a statement about the supposed opinions
of van Heijenoort, Hintikka, and Brady. Irving has indicated that it is
mistaken as to van Heijenoort's view of the dichotomy. So even if we start to
see how the stated opinion makes partial sense in a way that suggests how to
salvage it, then there's still the problem of attribution. So I've ratched down
my personal sense of urgency about it by removing it from the article for the
time being. I'd like to get it repaired and put it back in since it does broach
important issues in the development of logic and Peirce's role in it.
Jean Van Heijenoort (1967),[85] Jaakko Hintikka (1997),[86] and Geraldine
Brady (2000)[79] divide those who study formal (and natural) languages into two
camps: the model-theorists / semanticists, and the proof theorists /
universalists. Hintikka and Brady view Peirce as a pioneer model theorist.
79. a b Brady, Geraldine (2000), From Peirce to Skolem: A Neglected Chapter
in the History of Logic, North-Holland/Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam,
Netherlands.
85. ^ van Heijenoort (1967), "Logic as Language and Logic as Calculus" in
Synthese 17: 324-30.
86. ^ Hintikka (1997), "The Place of C. S. Peirce in the History of Logical
Theory" in Brunning and Forster (1997), The Rule of Reason: The Philosophy of
C. S. Peirce, U. of Toronto.
Best, Ben
- Original Message -
From: Jim Willgoose
To: bud...@nyc.rr.com ; peirce-l@listserv.iupui.edu
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:47 PM
Subject: RE: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben,
One quick further thought. If the pretension to a "universal language" is
so great that one does not consider a comparison of models, then it becomes
easier to see the pairing of "proof-theoretic/universalist." So, maybe Frege
would historically be seen this way. (absolute model) On the other hand, if
Lowenheim finishes something he sees philosophically in Peirce/Schroder, then
you might get the pairing "model theorist/particularist."
jim W - Original Message -
From: Jim Willgoose
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben,
Thanks for all the work on Wiki. Here is a quick distillation of the
idea. A signature such as { ~, &, NEG, POS} might be adequate for modeling the
Boolean functions of propositional logic. (In fact, G. Hunter in "Metalogic,
1970 U. Cal. Press attributes the discovery that {~,&} is the smallest
signature adequate for modeling the Boolean functions to Peirce). Now, if
every tautology is satisfied in the model you are half way to having a logic!
In so far as it is formal, it can apply to any material propositions. Thus, it
is "universal" i
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben, One quick further thought. If the pretension to a "universal language" is so great that one does not consider a comparison of models, then it becomes easier to see the pairing of "proof-theoretic/universalist." So, maybe Frege would historically be seen this way. (absolute model) On the other hand, if Lowenheim finishes something he sees philosophically in Peirce/Schroder, then you might get the pairing "model theorist/particularist." jim W Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 13:57:46 -0500 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Jim, Irving, John, Peter, list, Thank you for the added comment, Jim. I've been stealing time to try to rummage through online sources but this subject is very abstract for me. I'll just have to remove the problematic sentence pending clarification. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jim Willgoose To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Ben, Irving, John, Peter et. al. I do not grasp the pairing of model theorist/semanticist or proof theorist/universalist either. It seems that a "universal grammar" ( a term adopted once by Peirce) need not be understood in only one of the following ways. First, it need not be understood as strong enough to represent or express any domain of knowledge. But secondly, it need not be understood solely as relating to proof. Thus, if a formal grammar is presupposed by both logic and methodology, it seems an open choice whether one wants to write a proof in it for a limited domain of knowledge, or use a fragment of it to "model" other domains of knowledge. Putnam seems to suggest that Peirce was in the vanguard of treating model theory as particularist. ( I will look for the paper) Experience teaches us what the limitations are. But I will say (following Putnam) that model theory as a body of knowledge appears a posteriori. Jim W. Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:52:56 -0500 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Irving, list, - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben, Thanks for all the work on Wiki. Here is a quick distillation of the
idea. A signature such as { ~, &, NEG, POS} might be adequate for modeling the
Boolean functions of propositional logic. (In fact, G. Hunter in "Metalogic,
1970 U. Cal. Press attributes the discovery that {~,&} is the smallest
signature adequate for modeling the Boolean functions to Peirce). Now, if
every tautology is satisfied in the model you are half way to having a logic!
In so far as it is formal, it can apply to any material propositions. Thus, it
is "universal" in that sense. But it is hardly universal with repect to Truth
writ large. It lacks universality in so far as the full predicate logic
generates truths that cannot be written with that signature. So, if you compare
the expressiveness of the two models, you begin to see that the semantic power
of a model is relative to another. (particularist) So, it is questionable
just what is being claimed by a "universal language." Jim W
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 13:57:46 -0500
From: bud...@nyc.rr.com
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate
for Semiotic
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Jim, Irving, John, Peter, list,
Thank you for the added comment, Jim. I've been stealing time
to try to rummage through online sources but this subject is very abstract
for me. I'll just have to remove the problematic sentence pending
clarification.
Best, Ben
- Original Message -
From: Jim Willgoose
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience
Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben, Irving, John, Peter et. al.
I do
not grasp the pairing of model theorist/semanticist or proof
theorist/universalist either. It seems that a "universal grammar" ( a
term adopted once by Peirce) need not be understood in only one of the
following ways. First, it need not be understood as strong enough to
represent or express any domain of knowledge. But secondly, it need not
be understood solely as relating to proof. Thus, if a formal grammar is
presupposed by both logic and methodology, it seems an open choice whether one
wants to write a proof in it for a limited domain of knowledge, or use a
fragment of it to "model" other domains of knowledge. Putnam seems to suggest
that Peirce was in the vanguard of treating model theory as particularist. ( I
will look for the paper) Experience teaches us what the limitations
are. But I will say (following Putnam) that model theory as a body of
knowledge appears a posteriori.
Jim W.
Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:52:56 -0500
From: bud...@nyc.rr.com
Subject: Re:
[peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for
Semiotic
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Irving, list,
-
You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L
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-
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Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Jim, Irving, John, Peter, list, Thank you for the added comment, Jim. I've been stealing time to try to rummage through online sources but this subject is very abstract for me. I'll just have to remove the problematic sentence pending clarification. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jim Willgoose To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2011 3:47 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Ben, Irving, John, Peter et. al. I do not grasp the pairing of model theorist/semanticist or proof theorist/universalist either. It seems that a "universal grammar" ( a term adopted once by Peirce) need not be understood in only one of the following ways. First, it need not be understood as strong enough to represent or express any domain of knowledge. But secondly, it need not be understood solely as relating to proof. Thus, if a formal grammar is presupposed by both logic and methodology, it seems an open choice whether one wants to write a proof in it for a limited domain of knowledge, or use a fragment of it to "model" other domains of knowledge. Putnam seems to suggest that Peirce was in the vanguard of treating model theory as particularist. ( I will look for the paper) Experience teaches us what the limitations are. But I will say (following Putnam) that model theory as a body of knowledge appears a posteriori. Jim W. Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:52:56 -0500 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Irving, list, - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Steven, You wrote: > Dear Kristi, > I feel in some sense that I offered you a trick question, and for this I > apologize. I did think your question was posed as a trick question. But I chose not to take it that way. I chose to take it as a true question. - You feel a need to apologize? - It tells a lot. > The first sentence is simply a concise restatement of the thesis put forth, > removing redundancy and substituting a refinement of terms. So, are you saying here that Joe wrote in a redundant and unrefined manner? And that you are just correcting the way he chose to express his thoughts? - Surely not. - What then was - exactly - your aim in doing the substitution? > It applies the thesis of the paper to itself. I wouldn't be so sure about that. > "Semeiotic theory" is simply a less ambiguous way to say "Semiotics," and > this usage was the subject of discussion with Joe and others here a while ago. For my part, I can't see anything simple in interpreting any text with any complexity. - Or even with interpreting ordinary everyday conversations. The works of Harvey Sacks, for example, makes this quite clear. > What is "semiotics" exactly if it is not "semeiotic theory?" This, sorry to say, I find a misuse of the word 'exact'. - As exact as Peirce was in numerous writings, he was not a single-minded proponent of exactness as the one and only aim for philosophy. Peirce's concept of vagueness is to be taken in earnest. You then write: > If we are to be guided by Peirce then we must consider his variety of views > on Ethics: Well, I can't see Peirce's views as a variety of views. What I can see, consists - in the main - in two kinds of comments on & elaborations of ethics. The first kind consists of critical comments on the prevailing ethics in his time.The second kind consists of his views on what ethics (proper) should be. I'll respond to your reading of Joe's paper later. Kirsti - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
rties - such as mass, volume, length, density and so forth. When CSP, in his primitive triad, wrote of Things - Representation - Form, he did not include the term 'object' as it fails the representational quality. Peirce considered Archimedean mechanics to be philosophical, and that seems to have implications for his conception of philosophical objects as to measurable properties. But in any case I don't see why you'd have me stopping amid a general discussion to note that, rather obviously, mathematical and philosophical objects (usually) lack mass, physical velocity, etc. I suspect that you've accepted some transference of sense where the word "thing" or "object" starts to imply "physical/material thing/object with measurable physical properties" as a result of habitual use of the word "thing" or "object" in context of physical or material science, so that the use of "object" in another sense sounds odd and worth noting to you. Many people accept such a transference of sense, which is why I periodically note that, by "object," Peirce means anything you can talk or think about and that he doesn't usually mean "object" in some narrower sense. As regards the difference between "thing" and "object" aside from formality of expression (and Heideggerian approaches), you haven't expressed, and I don't see, _what_ is the difference between them that you refer to. In general, you seem to be getting at an idea that seems like it could well be interesting, but it might be a whole lot clearer if you weren't trying to confine it to the form of an objection to a pretty unobjectionable rendition of Peirce's notion of 'object.' As regards "Things - Representation - Form," back on October 5th you quoted Peirce from W1, p. 256, Harvard Lecture VIII, Forms of Induction and Hypothesis - from 1865 which is very early. > The first distinction we found it necessary to draw - the first set of of conceptions we have to signalize-form a triad > Thing Representation Form. > ... The thing is that for which a representation might stand prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with with any representation. The form is the respect in which a representation might stand for a thing, prescinded from both thing and representation It's hard to see why you think that Peirce used "Thing" instead of "Object" because it fails the representational quality. He did not explain it in that way, and he did say that the thing is "prescinded from all that would constitute a relation with any representation," even though the representation stands for said thing. As to conjecture, it is possible that he preferred "Thing" because he was more Kantian back in 1865, and Kant often said "Ding"; also Peirce was discussing the "Thing" as hypothesized and unknowable, whereas "Object" suggests something thrown upon the thinker (or whatever person) and not so hidden noumenally. Peirce soon enough rejected the idea of the unknowable thing-in-itself. One also sees that Peirce there defines 'Thing', 'Representation', and 'Form' pretty much as he later defined (in "On a New List of Categories" 1867) 'Object', 'Representamen', and 'Ground', respectively. His 'Thing' became his 'Object'. Again, I get the sense that you're trying to raise interesting issues that shouldn't depend on particular ways of construing or misconstruing Peirce, and maybe you should raise them more directly and clearly. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: Jerry LR Chandler To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Cc: Benjamin Udell Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 10:49 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Gary, Ben, Steven, List: With regard to alternative interpretations of Steven's philosophy, a few further comments appear to be called for. Ben, while I admire your faithfulness to Peircean text, I do think that we must constantly keep in mine that between 100 and 150 years have past sense CSP wrote. During this time, the sciences and mathematics have created new meaning for many.many, many terms that CSP used. Knowledge of the history of science becomes a key element in interpreting CSP views. Experience. One way to get a handle on what Joe is saying about experience and the empirical is Peirce's emphasis on mathematics as experimentation on diagrams. The result of this in Peircean discussions on peirce-l that I've noticed, is an avoidance of the phrase 'empirical science.' Special sciences (physical, chemical, biological, human/social) involve reliance on _spe
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben, Irving, John, Peter et. al. I do not grasp the pairing of model theorist/semanticist or proof theorist/universalist either. It seems that a "universal grammar" ( a term adopted once by Peirce) need not be understood in only one of the following ways. First, it need not be understood as strong enough to represent or express any domain of knowledge. But secondly, it need not be understood solely as relating to proof. Thus, if a formal grammar is presupposed by both logic and methodology, it seems an open choice whether one wants to write a proof in it for a limited domain of knowledge, or use a fragment of it to "model" other domains of knowledge. Putnam seems to suggest that Peirce was in the vanguard of treating model theory as particularist. ( I will look for the paper) Experience teaches us what the limitations are. But I will say (following Putnam) that model theory as a body of knowledge appears a posteriori. Jim W. Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2011 13:52:56 -0500 From: bud...@nyc.rr.com Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Irving, list, Thank you for your response, erudite and to the point as always. I agree, it's hard even to imagine a mathematician simultaneously abjuring abstraction and not abjuring mathematics itself. The main kind of abstraction that I've read that mathematicians traditonally abjured in earlier centuries was the abstraction not made to solve an already standing problem (e.g., imaginaries are needed for some roots of polynomials). In that narrower sense, in his Britannica article Dieudonné called "abstractionists" the mathematicians who abstract freely and exploratively. How did I go so wrong in my previous post? Well, I believed a sentence (quoted below) that has long been in the Wikipedia Peirce article. It had references that I was in a poor position to check. You're saying in effect that the article is wrong about van Heijenoort's opinion. So it may be wrong about the two others' opinions as well. Is there an easy way to revise it without adding much to its length? Will it be okay if I just get rid of the word "semanticists"? Replace it with "particularists" (a word that I just made up)? Jean Van Heijenoort (1967),[85] Jaakko Hintikka (1997),[86] and Geraldine Brady (2000)[79] divide those who study formal (and natural) languages into two camps: the model-theorists / semanticists, and the proof theorists / universalists. Hintikka and Brady view Peirce as a pioneer model theorist. 79. a b Brady, Geraldine (2000), From Peirce to Skolem: A Neglected Chapter in the History of Logic, North-Holland/Elsevier Science BV, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 85. ^ van Heijenoort (1967), "Logic as Language and Logic as Calculus" in Synthese 17: 324–30. 86. ^ Hintikka (1997), "The Place of C. S. Peirce in the History of Logical Theory" in Brunning and Forster (1997), The Rule of Reason: The Philosophy of C. S. Peirce, U. of Toronto. If you can help me with that sentence, I'd much appreciate it. You wrote, > Setting aside, therefore, the issue of abstraction, the more complex issue under consideration is that regarding the perceived distinction between model theorists and semanticists on the one hand and proof theorists on the other. This is an erroneous distinction insofar as the historical and philosophical literature, from van Heijenoort forward, distinguishes between two types of semantics [SEMANTICS, with some added formatting] Model-theoretic (or intensional) semantics. (Actually, van Heijenoort's terminology is itself at first somewhat misleading, insofar as he initially associated the limited universes of discourses of the algebraic logicians with the set-theoretic, and not with the course-of-values of Frege and the set theory of Russell; although he then immediately corrected himself by associating the Russello-Fregean extensional semantics with the set theoretical.) Set-theoretic (or extensional, which would also include Frege's course-of-values, or Werthverlauf) semantics If I've got it right, you're saying below that the model-theoretic approach implies logic-as-calculus but not vice versa. > Having said that, there is, for van Heijenoort and those who came after him, a complex of dichotomies that are bound together to distinguish [LOGICS, with some added formatting and futzing] Algebraic logic of De Morgan, Boole, Peirce, and Schröder Quantification-theoretic - or more properly, despite van Heijenoort - function-theoretic and set-theoretic logic of Frege, Peano, and Russell Logicae utentes, which are logic as calculus only, exten
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary R., list, Thanks for the correction as to your not having previously mentioned _metaphysica utens_ on list before. I agree with your points and I think that their logic points to _normativa utens_ (_esthetica, ethica, logica utentes_) and _philosophia utens_ generally. In his brief 'intellectual autobiography' (1904), Peirce wrote, Philosophy merely analyzes the experience common to all men. The truth of this experience is not an object of any science because it cannot really be doubted. All so-called 'logical' analysis, which is the method of philosophy, ought to be regarded as philosophy, pure or applied. Note that it's the experience common to everybody, not our theories (_docens_ and _utens_ alike, I assume) about it, that Peirce says "cannot really be doubted." I'd go further. The _docens/utens_ distinction seems applicable to all kinds of knowledge whatsoever, although, in order to pursue just this or that subject, one doesn't need the _utens_ knowledge of every single subject. I suspect that Peirce might add that, in the case of a mathematician, the metaphysica utens does not require, Quine-style, a literalist commitment to the full-blooded existence of abstract non-linguistic objects or a pragmaticist's commitment to their real being. It could instead be some sort of _metaphysica-hypothetica utens_. (To practicing mathematicians, the ontological status of mathematical objects doesn't seem the most burning issue anyway. That status, in Peircean terms at least, is a topic that comes after mathematics.) Best, Ben - Original Message - From: "Gary Richmond" To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 6:40 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Ben, list, Thanks for this interesting and, personally, highly valuable post. Just one point for now regarding the relationship between mathematics and reality. You quote Peirce (from CP 5.567): CSP: The pure mathematician deals exclusively with hypotheses. Whether or not there is any corresponding real thing, he does not care. His hypotheses are creatures of his own imagination; but he discovers in them relations which surprise him sometimes. A metaphysician may hold that this very forcing upon the mathematician's acceptance of propositions for which he was not prepared, proves, or even constitutes, a mode of being independent of the mathematician's thought, and so a _reality_. And comment: BU: Hence a metaphysician, and I'd say especially one with a pragmaticist view, would indeed say that mathematics is about the real, the real defined as that which is independently of particular minds or gatherings of minds but would be discovered by enough investigation. For my part, I'd say that it's the real in that very aspect for which the transformative imagination is the cognitive access - the "mathematical sense." Insofar as mathematics far precedes metaphysics, Gary Richmond suggests a _metaphysica utens_ (I talked to him the other day) in the case of those pure mathematicians who think that they're studying something real, something objective and discoverable. He's discussed _metaphyica utens_ on peirce-l in the past. GR: I'm not sure I've discussed *metaphysica utens* on the list, although it is possible as I've been thinking about it for some time. I am, however, certain that I have written here not infrequently on the distinction between *logica utens* and *logica docens* (==logic as semeiotic, for Peirce), and a while back I extrapolated from that distinction to a possible one distinguishing Peirce's science of metaphysics (*metaphysica docens*) from our ordinary sense of reality preceding metaphysical investigation, a *metaphysical utens*. Although it certainly applies to mathematics in the way in which you argued in your post, I was thinking much more generally. Of, if I was reflecting on this in relation to any particular scientific fields, it was principally about those sandwiched between mathematics and metaphysics. At the Semiotic Society of America conference this past October I revisited that possible distinction as a way of responding to a presentation by Anthony Kreider, "On Peirce and the Relations Between Logic and Metaphysics." Kreider argued that since Peirce makes numerous metaphysical assumptions before he tackles logic as semeiotic, that metaphysics should be placed before logic in the classification of sciences. In the Q & A I remarked that since Peirce maintains that we necessarily enter inquiry *in media res*, that our as yet uncriticized (or not fully analyzed and criticized) notions of reasoning and reality are always already with us until they've been clarified and corrected through our inquiries, our logical inquiries necessarily pre
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
that logica utens was logic used in practice rather than acquired by theoretical study. I guess the idea is that their algebraic logic was concerned with formalizing and rendering theoretically explicit the kinds of logic that people 'automatically' use or might use (which connects with particularity, relation to context, etc.). I end with a Latin digression: Since the phrases _logica utens_ and _logica docens_ have long seemed a bit odd to me in view of their seeming Latin meanings, what with the present (and active) participles, I took the opportunity to look them up in the Century Dictionary. Under "logic": Abstract logic, the general theory of logic (also called _logica docens_, _general_ and _theoretical logic_): opposed to _concrete logic_, or logic as an element of active thought in the prosecution of science (also called _logica utens_, _special_ and _practical logic_). The terms _logica utens_ and _docens_ are derived from _logicus utens_, he who draws conclusions, and _logicus docens_, he who frames demontrations. But the corresponding distinction of branches of science is not very clear, and the terms are often used vaguely and incorrectly. Now it makes sense. It comes from the idea of the _reasoner_ teaching (docens) / using (utens). From logicus to logica for logic itself, one might have expected _logica docta_ and _logica usa_ but obviously that didn't happen. (Note to any Latin students: _utens_ is from _utor_, a deponent verb, i.e., conjugated in the passive voice with the sense of active voice, but a deponent verb's present (active) participle does not follow the "reverse voice" rule, and it has active, not passive, sense. I'm not expert enough by any means, but I've seen the deponent past (and passive) participle use in active sense when part of a verb, and in passive sense when used as an adjective.) End of Latin digression. Best, Ben ----- Original Message - From: "Irving" To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2011 5:07 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Ben Udell wrote [begin quote]: > Gary F., list, > ... > You wrote: >> Abstraction (in the sense above) obviously has its uses in the process of learning from experience, but not to the degree that it can *replace* experience. My guess is that this is the same issue that Irving and others have been dealing with in this thread with regard to ?formalism?, but not being a mathematician, i don't always follow their idiom. > I'm not a mathematician either, and Irving can correct me if he wants to plow through my prose, but I agree that the issue is related. There's a related issue of model theorists and semanticists, versus proof theorists, who are more like formalists. Model theorists and semanticists see formal languages as being _about_ subject matters which are 'models' for the formalism. Somebody once told me that when I say that, in a deduction, the premisses validly imply the conclusions, that's proof-theoretic in perspective, but when I say that, in a deduction, if the premisses are true then the conclusion is true, that's model-theoretic in perspective. > Peirce is usually classed on the model theorist/semanticist side, and Goedel's aim is said to have been to show that mathematics can't be regarded as pure formalism, a show about nothing. Proof theorists and formalists are more inclined to see math as formal calculi, systems of marks transformable according to rules, not as language _about_ things. Now, calculation, as far as I can tell, is (deductive mathematical) reasoning with terms. E.g., (trivially) "5 ergo 5"*, instead of "there is a horse ergo there is a horse". I can kind of see how propositions (a.k.a. zero-place terms) versus (other) terms, would align with facts, real objects, etc., versus marks. If you look at propositions as marks, then they're like term-inviting clumpish things (as opposed to proposition-inviting facts or states of affairs.) > But it's an alignment by some sort of affinity or correlation, not identity. Semantics is concerned not just with reference by propositions but with reference by terms to things; the terms are not ideally non-referring marks in semantics. For a formalist, the marks _are_ the things. [end quote] If I understand aright, one of the issues being raised by Ben and Gary is the link between abstraction and formalism, and whether there is a connection as well between model theorists and semanticists on the one hand, and proof theorists on the other, where the latter are close to formalists as being abstractionist. The first part of my reply in this case is that neither intuitionists (such as Brouwer) or logicists (such as Frege or Russell) abjure abstraction any more
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, I finish up the slow read with a summary of my remarks and some secondary considerations. The paper was "originally delivered orally at a meeting of the Semiotic Society of America in Lubbock, Texas in 1980 and first published in Semiotics 1980, eds. Michael Herzfeld and Margot Lenhart, New York: Plenum Press, 1982, 427-438" and lightly revised April 1, 1998, with a promise, unfulfilled, of "a more extensive revision ... in process." Regrettably, many of us make such promises and I think it suggests that the author is not entirely satisfied with the results and feels either that there is more to say or that what has been said can be better articulated. In summary, Ransdell proposes that the distinction between empirical and non-empirical is unjustified in semeiotic theory and that it leads us to a "rather shaky and ramshackle" categorization scheme for the categories of apprehension. We are mislead by this distinction and these categories, he suggests, are the product of Western culture, and not the product of rigorous and systematic thinking. He asks us to eliminate redundancies in our distinctions and to recognize that empiricism is not optional but is rather a natural (intrinsic) aspect of any semeiotic theory. We cannot separate the process of empirical inquiry from the intuition and reasoning that precedes and follows our "trying out" of our ideas. As a final comment on the paper, what have we learned? Ransdell is, in 1980, addressing an audience that has not yet fully grasped the goals and details of either Peircean Semeiotic Theory and is, perhaps, unfamiliar with the developments in the "philosophy of science" in the early 20th Century. And this may be illustrated by his choice of example, literary criticism, which he calls upon to apply the same systematic rigor in its semeiotic theory as any science may. It is an appeal that is essentially Positivist in the sense that it implies that the methods of science, as refined by semeiotic theory, can be universally applied. This is not a formal paper in semeiotic theory as such, it makes a social observation more than it provides any deep technical insight that would surprise Peirce or Peircean scholars, it is more a conversation with colleagues about how to proceed. Ransdell is at the helm of a ship transporting fellow travelers that he hopes to steer into a deeper understanding of the subject that is their shared concern by applying the principles of the subject to itself. And, indeed, this is consistent with my fond recollection of Joe's influence upon us all here on Peirce-l. That wise, constant and gentle hand is now, and will continue to be, sorely missed. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering http://iase.info http://senses.info - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary, Ben, Steven, List: With regard to alternative interpretations of Steven's philosophy, a few further comments appear to be called for. Ben, while I admire your faithfulness to Peircean text, I do think that we must constantly keep in mine that between 100 and 150 years have past sense CSP wrote. During this time, the sciences and mathematics have created new meaning for many.many, many terms that CSP used. Knowledge of the history of science becomes a key element in interpreting CSP views. > Experience. One way to get a handle on what Joe is saying about experience > and the empirical is Peirce's emphasis on mathematics as experimentation on > diagrams. The result of this in Peircean discussions on peirce-l that I've > noticed, is an avoidance of the phrase 'empirical science.' Special sciences > (physical, chemical, biological, human/social) involve reliance on _special_ > classes of experience, _special_ experiments, to study _special_ classes of > positive phenomena. The title of the book _The Mathematical Experience_ is > entirely congenial to the Peircean outlook. Cenoscopic philosophy, in > Peirce's view, deals with positive phenomena in general, not by special > classes. I once found Peirce discussing what he meant by "positive" but > unfortunately I didn't make a note of it. I don't recall Peirce anywhere > saying that mathematics studies 'hypothetical phenomena' or something like > that. But he does see experimentation and experience in mathamatics, in its > study - there are all kinds of things in mathematics that one cannot make do > whatever one wishes. The archaic term "special sciences" has little if any meaning in the structure of science today. I wonder what you are seeking to communicate by repeating the notion of "special" in this context? > > As regards Peirce's use of the word 'object,' one could call it a fancy word > for 'thing.' The modern usage of "object", either mathematical or philosophical, is, in my opinion, remote from the notion of thing. In the modern sciences a thing is marked by its properties - categorized in terms of the systems of units and measured in terms the same system of units. CSP refers to these as "qualisigns" and, if the reference is specific, to "sinsign" (inferring indexical representation.) > It's a semi-technical term for 'thing' and indicates that one is speaking at > least somewhat formally, while the word 'thing' indicates a minimum of > formality of reference. 'Object' can refer to anything that one can think of, > anything that one can discuss. It can be a countable object or it can be > stuff (a term which some philosophers embraced at some time during the 20th > Century). It can fictive, like Prince Hamlet. It's a very bare conception - > hard to say how it differs from _ens_. While this listing is useful, it misses the basic point. That is, a philosophical object or a mathematical object does not carry the notion of necessity of measurable properties - such as mass, volume, length, density and so forth. When CSP, in his primitive triad, wrote of Things - Representation - Form, he did not include the term 'object' as it fails the representational quality. Thus I think Gary wrote a very perceptive analysis of the original posting. Cheers Jerry > > - Original Message - > From: "Gary Fuhrman" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 11:51 AM > Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate > for Semiotic > > Steven, i had to read through your post three times before venturing a reply, > because i couldn't believe that you would actually interpret JR's paper -- > and the most straightforward part of it, at that -- as saying the opposite of > what it really says. But further reading of both your post and JR's paper > forces that conclusion. It seems that when you describe your approach as > “rigorous”, what you mean is that it gives you a license to bend any text to > your own preconceived purpose; and your reading of JR's text carries out that > program recursively by ascribing that very idea to JR's text. > > JR himself, on the other hand, says that “there is experience when and only > when one finds oneself in a confrontation with something other than oneself > and one's ideas that has the power to do something to one if one is not doing > right by it.” (Notice the inclusion of the idea of “right” here.) This i take > to be a paraphrase of Peirce's concept of the “outward clash” or reaction > between ego and non-ego, i.e. Secondness, as the essentia
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, In the finishing up of the slow read of: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm We consider the ADDENDUM. I'll follow this posting up with a summary review of the reading and make some secondary comments as seem appropriate and will then re-engage with the commentary. > John Locke's conception of sense-perception, referred to in the third > paragraph of this oral address, was imperfectly stated. To be exact, > “perception” was Locke's generic term for the immediate apprehension of > “ideas:” all of which are said to come from “experience” and perception is of > two types: sensation and reflection. The words “perception” and “experience” > are extensionally equivalent and — though differing somewhat in connotative > stress — generally function equivalently in his Essay Concerning Human > Understanding: the first stresses the immediacy of apprehension; the second > stresses its involuntary and adventitious character. Concerning reflection, > though, Locke said: . > > ❝ This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not > sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, > and might properly enough be called internal sense [emphasis mine]. But as I > call the other sensation, so I call this reflection, the ideas it affords > being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within > itself. > > John Locke. Bk. II, Ch,1, Par. 4,Essay Concerning Human Understanding.(1690) > Bk. II, Ch,1, Par. 4. > > In saying that reflection “might appropriately enough be called internal > sense” — which is to say that the sensation/reflection distinction is a > distinction between external and internal sense — Locke was not being > innovative simply in recognizing an internal (or “inner” ) sense, for the > phrases “outer sense” and “external sense” were already in use. However, the > identification of internal sense with the perception of “mental operations” > may have been innovative, as the term “internal sense” was probably commonly > used somewhat as “sixth sense” and “intuition” are still used colloquially, > namely as denoting any immediate apprehension not assignable to the > traditionally recognized five “external” senses, whereas Locke's “internal > sense,” (i.e. “reflection” ) is similar in epistemic function to the > scholastic logician's “second intention,” which is not coordinate with but > rather presupposes a “first intention” (just as Locke's internal sense > presupposes external sense). In general, the words “perception,” > “experience,” and “sense” alike function in contrast with the ideas of the > voluntary, discursive, inferential, active, and so on. Ransdell is referring to: > [3] > Take, for example, the category of sense-perception, now commonly regarded as > essentially connected with the idea of physical sense-organs which somehow > mediate the perceptions. So recent is this conception that John Locke, in the > latter part of the 17th Century, could say that all of our ideas come from > the senses, and then go ahead to explain that this includes the “inner > sense,” by which he did not mean a physical organ for detecting sensations > internal to the body but rather the ability to perceive the various ways in > which our ideas can combine, dissociate, be abstracted from one another, and > so on. And even more recently, the nature of the so-called “kinesthetic” > sense — the ability to know the position of our limbs without looking at them > or relying upon tactile sensations — constituted a topic for lively debate in > 19th Century psychology even though there were no known physical organs > connected with this sense, its existence being inferred from the fact that we > can have a certain kind of immediate apprehension that cannot be accounted > for in terms of any of the traditionally recognized five sense organs. ..." And as I noted earlier, based on the available evidence, certainly unavailable to John Locke, all sense, "external" and "internal," are indeed "of the same stuff." That is, they are born of a common feature of the world about which many questions still remain - not least of which is the unity or "non-locality" they manifest in individuals. But I confess that I am left to wonder about the final sentence, that I do not fully understand in this context: > In general, the words “perception,” “experience,” and “sense” alike function > in contrast with the ideas of the voluntary, discursive, inferential, active, > and so on. It seems fragmentary and I can make no sense of it. With respect, Steven - 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...@list
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
s.htm CP 2.64 Whether or not there is, at all, any such thing as Reality, the logician need not decide. He cannot hide from himself, any more than another man can, that objects very nearly like real things there are; and he cannot pretend to doubt it. But he sees, perhaps more clearly than other men, that approximation to reality and absolute reality itself are two different things. The mathematicians' _i_, of which the square is negative unity, _approximates_ to reality. All that it is incumbent upon the logician to learn is what inferential habits are conducive to knowledge, and to positive knowledge, in case there be any reality of which it is possible to have positive knowledge, and are conducive to such semblance of positive knowledge as we can have, in case there is no perfect reality or in case otherwise true positive knowledge is impossible. But in order to solve even that problem, he has first to ascertain, in case there be any successful quest for knowledge, what the nature of knowledge would be; and for his purpose, knowledge may be something written down in a book. >From "Reasoning" in _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_, vol. 2 (1902), pp. 426-28 from CP 2.778 Fallacies in pure mathematics have gone undetected for many centuries. It is to ideal states of things alone * or to real states of things as ideally conceived, always more or less departing from the reality * that deduction applies. >From "Truth and Falsity and Error" in _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_ vol. 2 (1902) pp. 718-20. http://www.gnusystems.ca/BaldwinPeirce.htm#Truth http://books.google.com/books?id=punn721pFwoC&pg=PA718 CP 5.567. These characters equally apply to pure mathematics. Projective geometry is not pure mathematics, unless it be recognized that whatever is said of rays holds good of every family of curves of which there is one and one only through any two points, and any two of which have a point in common. But even then it is not pure mathematics until for points we put any complete determinations of any two-dimensional continuum. Nor will that be enough. A proposition is not a statement of perfectly pure mathematics until it is devoid of all definite meaning, and comes to this * that a property of a certain icon is pointed out and is declared to belong to anything like it, of which instances are given. The perfect truth cannot be stated, except in the sense that it confesses its imperfection. The pure mathematician deals exclusively with hypotheses. Whether or not there is any corresponding real thing, he does not care. His hypotheses are creatures of his own imagination; but he discovers in them relations which surprise him sometimes. A metaphysician may hold that this very forcing upon the mathematician's acceptance of propositions for which he was not prepared, proves, or even constitutes, a mode of being independent of the mathematician's thought, and so a _reality_. But whether there is any reality or not, the truth of the pure mathematical proposition is constituted by the impossibility of ever finding a case in which it fails. This, however, is only possible if we confess the impossibility of precisely defining it. "A Neglected Argument" (1908 _Hibbert Journal_, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 90-112) Section 1 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Neglected_Argument_for_the_Reality_of_God http://www.gnusystems.ca/CSPgod.htm#na0 CP 6.455. Of the three Universes of Experience familiar to us all *1, the first comprises all mere Ideas, those airy nothings to which the mind of poet, pure mathematician, or another _might_ give local habitation and a name within that mind. Their very airy-nothingness, the fact that their Being consists in mere capability of getting thought, not in anybody's Actually thinking them, saves their Reality. The second Universe is that of the Brute Actuality of things and facts. I am confident that their Being consists in reactions against Brute forces, notwithstanding objections redoubtable until they are closely and fairly examined. The third Universe comprises everything whose being consists in active power to establish connections between different objects, especially between objects in different Universes. Such is everything which is essentially a Sign * not the mere body of the Sign, which is not essentially such, but, so to speak, the Sign's Soul, which has its Being in its power of serving as intermediary between its Object and a Mind. Such, too, is a living consciousness, and such the life, the power of growth, of a plant. Such is a living institution * a daily newspaper, a great fortune, a social "movement." - Original Message - From: Gary Fuhrman To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 7:25 AM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Thanks for this, Ben, it gives a little more nuance to what i was trying to say.
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Ben Udell wrote [begin quote]: Gary F., list, ... You wrote: Abstraction (in the sense above) obviously has its uses in the process of learning from experience, but not to the degree that it can *replace* experience. My guess is that this is the same issue that Irving and others have been dealing with in this thread with regard to ?formalism?, but not being a mathematician, i don't always follow their idiom. I'm not a mathematician either, and Irving can correct me if he wants to plow through my prose, but I agree that the issue is related. There's a related issue of model theorists and semanticists, versus proof theorists, who are more like formalists. Model theorists and semanticists see formal languages as being _about_ subject matters which are 'models' for the formalism. Somebody once told me that when I say that, in a deduction, the premisses validly imply the conclusions, that's proof-theoretic in perspective, but when I say that, in a deduction, if the premisses are true then the conclusion is true, that's model-theoretic in perspective. Peirce is usually classed on the model theorist/semanticist side, and Goedel's aim is said to have been to show that mathematics can't be regarded as pure formalism, a show about nothing. Proof theorists and formalists are more inclined to see math as formal calculi, systems of marks transformable according to rules, not as language _about_ things. Now, calculation, as far as I can tell, is (deductive mathematical) reasoning with terms. E.g., (trivially) "5 ergo 5"*, instead of "there is a horse ergo there is a horse". I can kind of see how propositions (a.k.a. zero-place terms) versus (other) terms, would align with facts, real objects, etc., versus marks. If you look at propositions as marks, then they're like term-inviting clumpish things (as opposed to proposition-inviting facts or states of affairs.) But it's an alignment by some sort of affinity or correlation, not identity. Semantics is concerned not just with reference by propositions but with reference by terms to things; the terms are not ideally non-referring marks in semantics. For a formalist, the marks _are_ the things. [end quote] If I understand aright, one of the issues being raised by Ben and Gary is the link between abstraction and formalism, and whether there is a connection as well between model theorists and semanticists on the one hand, and proof theorists on the other, where the latter are close to formalists as being abstractionist. The first part of my reply in this case is that neither intuitionists (such as Brouwer) or logicists (such as Frege or Russell) abjure abstraction any more than formalists. Indeed, Piaget formulated his genetic "constructive epistemology" for his developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, describing abstract reasoning as the final stage of cognitive development by referring directly to Brouwer. The expression "constructivist epistemology" was first used by Piaget in 1967, in the article "Logique et Connaissance scientifique" in the Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. Piaget refers directly to the Brouwer and his radical constructivism. (See, e.g., my "La psicologia di Piaget, la matematica costruttivista e l'interpretazione semantica della verita secondo la teoria degli insiemi" (Nominazione: Rivista Internazionale di Logica 2 (1981), 174-188) on how Piaget's psychology describes the epistemology of number and set theory. Setting aside, therefore, the issue of abstraction, the more complex issue under consideration is that regarding the perceived distinction between "model theorists and semanticists on the one hand and proof theorists on the other. This is an erroneous distinction insofar as the historical and philosophical literature, from van Heijenoort forward, distinguishes between two types of semantics, namely the set-theoretic (or extensional, which would also include Frege's course-of-values, or Werthverlauf, semantics) and the model-theoretic (or intensional). (Actually, van Heijenoort's terminology is itself at first somewhat misleading, insofar as he initially associated the limited universes of discourses of the algebraic logicians with the set-theoretic, and not with the course-of-values of Frege and the set theory of Russell; although he then immediately corrected himself by associating the Russello-Fregean extensional semantics with the set theoretical.) Having said that, there is, for van Heijenoort and those who came after him, a complex of dichotomies that are bound together to distinguish the algebraic logic of De Morgan, Boole, Peirce, and Schröder on the one hand from the "quantification-theoretic -- or more properly, despite van Heijenoort, function-theoretic and set-theoretic logic of Frege, Peano, and Russell. All of the elements of this complex are to be brought together in my forthcoming "Van Heijenoort's Conception of Modern Logic, in Historical Perspective" for the special issue of Logica Universalis commenmorating the van Heij
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Forgive my delay here. I have been effected by power outages on the West Coast due to high winds and even now, after 72+hrs, still have no power at the mountain retreat where I live and work. Continuing the slow read of: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm > [13] > ... I can illustrate what I am trying to say only by taking a single sort of > case; but I will take one which would appear prima facie to be especially > difficult to conceive as exemplifying a scientific or empirical approach, > namely, the case of a semiotic analysis of a literary text, a story with > purely fictitious characters. > > [14] > There are many reasons why a literary critic might be interested in a certain > novel or short story or epic or folk tale or whatever, and many different > sorts of things a semiotic analysis of it might aim at revealing. Semiotic > does not prescribe a special agenda in application but rather a putatively > coherent analytical framework that has to interpreted in application > according to the intellectual needs of the field of inquiry. But let us > suppose that the aim is simply that of conveying to others a certain > interesting reading of the text which the critic has discovered, or at least > believes to have discovered, and thinks worthy of communicating to others. > The starting point could be — though this is not suggested as the normal > starting point, which is up to the literary critic or theorist to decide — > with the marks, the configurations, on the pages of a text. These marks will > normally have multiple sign-values of several basically different sorts — > symbolic, indexical, and iconic — which, when well-interpreted, will reveal > certain phenomenal objects, such as people, places, situations, events, and > so forth. (This is the story proper, and it is, as a whole, a phenomenal > object.) Now these objects are not themselves either physical or mental per > se: they are simply phenomena which become present to us when we interpret > the configurations on the page intelligently. (We might say that these > phenomenal beings are imaginary, but I don't know what this would add to what > is already assumed when the work is identified as a work of fiction. In fact, > that is perhaps what we mean in identifying it as a work of fiction: namely, > that one is to regard the phenomenal entities which compose the story simply > as phenomenal entities -- at least on the first level of interpretation. ) In > any case, these phenomenal objects (people, situations, events, etc.) may > themselves be profitably regardable as signs of various types having various > sorts of interpretability, and the intelligent interpretation of them will in > turn reveal or make present a new set of objects. And then it may be that > some or all of this further set of objects will also be profitably regardable > as signs the interpretation of which will reveal still further objects, and > so on, to whatever point it finally becomes unprofitable to seek still > further objects in this way. I acknowledge, but ignore for the moment, the comments that have been made by Gary and Ben regarding the notion of "phenomenal object" and will return to them in my later remarks. Ransdell makes remarks here that appear to intuitively identify what the term "phenomenal objects" may refer to. According to this account the "phenomenal object" under discussion is "the story proper" and its elements. These "elements" include, he says, "people, situations and events." I have to say that this analysis does not satisfy me. It is, perhaps, the set of signs and relations that appear to the mind, that enter semeiosis, in the course of apprehending (reading) the story and linger there after. Hence the "objects" that concern us are distinct differentiations of the story itself and its parts. But it seems to me that there is not point in which the entire story with its elements is laid out before us as this account suggests. It is too static and, perhaps, too absolute. That is, the account of "phenomenal object" is a convenience, it foregoes the ongoing semeiotic process as the story is constructed and considered by the apprehender. The nature of these "objects" is that they play against the landscape of that which is previously apprehended and established in the mind, such that one individual may apprehend the elements of the story and another may not, that the "objects" will bring to mind (draw into semeiosis) previous accounts of a similar kind that will vary according to the established state of the individual mind. I may, for example, associate "Beatrice" and her predicament with a girl of my past that the description may conjure. Similarly, my comprehension of the text may be limited or shaped by the competencies of language and culture. Inde
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
pure
mathematician, or another _might_ give local habitation and a name within that
mind. Their very airy-nothingness, the fact that their Being consists in mere
capability of getting thought, not in anybody's Actually thinking them, saves
their Reality. The second Universe is that of the Brute Actuality of things and
facts. I am confident that their Being consists in reactions against Brute
forces, notwithstanding objections redoubtable until they are closely and
fairly examined. The third Universe comprises everything whose being consists
in active power to establish connections between different objects, especially
between objects in different Universes. Such is everything which is essentially
a Sign — not the mere body of the Sign, which is not essentially such, but, so
to speak, the Sign's Soul, which has its Being in its power of serving as
intermediary between its Object and a Mind. Such, too, is a living
consciousness, and such the life, the power of growth, of a plant. Such is a
living institution — a daily newspaper, a great fortune, a social "movement."
- Original Message -
From: Gary Fuhrman
To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 7:25 AM
Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate
for Semiotic
Thanks for this, Ben, it gives a little more nuance to what i was trying to
say. I’m in total agreement concerning words like “object” and “phenomenon” –
including their necessary vagueness. “Positive” is another one of the words
Peirce defined for the CD (at great length, in this case), from which i gather
that a positive science is simply one that makes propositions, i.e. affirms
something to be true of the real world (which is what it is independently of
anyone’s beliefs about it). Mathematics doesn't do that, as Peirce says in CP
3.428 (The Regenerated Logic, 1896) -- another passage that clarifies its
relation to experience and logic:
[[[ When the mathematician deals with facts, they become for him mere
“hypotheses”; for with their truth he refuses to concern himself. The whole
science of mathematics is a science of hypotheses; so that nothing could be
more completely abstracted from concrete reality. Philosophy is not quite so
abstract. For though it makes no *special* observations, as every other
positive science does, yet it does deal with reality. It confines itself,
however, to the universal phenomena of experience; and these are, generally
speaking, sufficiently revealed in the ordinary observations of every-day life.
I would even grant that philosophy, in the strictest sense, confines itself to
such observations as *must* be open to every intelligence which can learn from
experience. Here and there, however, metaphysics avails itself of one of the
grander generalisations of physics, or more often of psychics, not as a
governing principle, but as a mere datum for a still more sweeping
generalisation. But logic is much more abstract even than metaphysics. For it
does not concern itself with any facts not implied in the supposition of an
unlimited applicability of language. ]]]
Abstraction (in the sense above) obviously has its uses in the process of
learning from experience, but not to the degree that it can *replace*
experience. My guess is that this is the same issue that Irving and others have
been dealing with in this thread with regard to “formalism”, but not being a
mathematician, i don't always follow their idiom. Anyway all i'm trying to do
is to emphasize the element of Secondness in “experience”, which i think was
Joe's main point in this paper, although he chose not to use that term. I
gather that Steven (and Kirsti?) think the point is something else, but it's
not so clear to me what that is. Although there can be genuine surprises, and
thus “experience” of a sort, even in the realm of abstractions (or fictions) --
which is also part of Joe's point -- it seems to me that “mathematization” of
logic would necessarily move it even further from actual experience than it
already is. To make that move in the name of “rigor” strikes me as a kind of
obfuscation.
Gary F.
} By their fruits ye shall know them. [Matthew 7:20] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU]
On Behalf Of Benjamin Udell
Sent: November-29-11 3:33 PM
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Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Just a brief note to say how I will proceed and wrap up this slow read. I plan three more postings relevant to the paper. 1. The remainder of the paper proper. 2. The addendum. 3. Final remarks. I should be complete with the slow read by the end of the week. Then, of course, I'll have more time to return to discussion. In the meantime, let me thank Ben for his excellent response that accurately corrected Gary's perceptions of my reading and made interesting comments on the notion of "object." I'll have more to say on these postings later. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering http://iase.info http://senses.info - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Thanks for this, Ben, it gives a little more nuance to what i was trying to
say. I’m in total agreement concerning words like “object” and “phenomenon” –
including their necessary vagueness. “Positive” is another one of the words
Peirce defined for the CD (at great length, in this case), from which i gather
that a positive science is simply one that makes propositions, i.e. affirms
something to be true of the real world (which is what it is independently of
anyone’s beliefs about it). Mathematics doesn't do that, as Peirce says in CP
3.428 (The Regenerated Logic, 1896) -- another passage that clarifies its
relation to experience and logic:
[[[ When the mathematician deals with facts, they become for him mere
“hypotheses”; for with their truth he refuses to concern himself. The whole
science of mathematics is a science of hypotheses; so that nothing could be
more completely abstracted from concrete reality. Philosophy is not quite so
abstract. For though it makes no *special* observations, as every other
positive science does, yet it does deal with reality. It confines itself,
however, to the universal phenomena of experience; and these are, generally
speaking, sufficiently revealed in the ordinary observations of every-day life.
I would even grant that philosophy, in the strictest sense, confines itself to
such observations as *must* be open to every intelligence which can learn from
experience. Here and there, however, metaphysics avails itself of one of the
grander generalisations of physics, or more often of psychics, not as a
governing principle, but as a mere datum for a still more sweeping
generalisation. But logic is much more abstract even than metaphysics. For it
does not concern itself with any facts not implied in the supposition of an
unlimited applicability of language. ]]]
Abstraction (in the sense above) obviously has its uses in the process of
learning from experience, but not to the degree that it can *replace*
experience. My guess is that this is the same issue that Irving and others have
been dealing with in this thread with regard to “formalism”, but not being a
mathematician, i don't always follow their idiom. Anyway all i'm trying to do
is to emphasize the element of Secondness in “experience”, which i think was
Joe's main point in this paper, although he chose not to use that term. I
gather that Steven (and Kirsti?) think the point is something else, but it's
not so clear to me what that is. Although there can be genuine surprises, and
thus “experience” of a sort, even in the realm of abstractions (or fictions) --
which is also part of Joe's point -- it seems to me that “mathematization” of
logic would necessarily move it even further from actual experience than it
already is. To make that move in the name of “rigor” strikes me as a kind of
obfuscation.
Gary F.
} By their fruits ye shall know them. [Matthew 7:20] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Benjamin Udell
Sent: November-29-11 3:33 PM
Gary, Steven,
Steven's discussion of his own view of ethics is a little less clearcut than
Gary seems to see it as. On one hand Steven says "In my own terms I refer to
"natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and inevitable behaviors and
the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved (without judgement or
notion of "right" or "wrong")." Steven says,
In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and
inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved
(without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). My view does not concern
"the should," "the right" or "the wrong." Rather, if you behave one way you
will get one outcome, if you behave differently you will get another. My aim in
the social case is to prefer the "good and productive" (the discussion of which
I leave for another day).
Steven is saying that he regards ethics in two ways:
* Natural ethics: Natural and inevitable behaviors and their means.
* Social ethics The good and productive. (I.e., good and productive
behaviors). That seems to be simply to regard what is _right_, what _should
be_, as what is _good and productive_ in behavior.
I'm not sure what Steven means by natural and inevitable behaviors - do they
include behaviors of forces and matter? If so, why call it ethics? Or perhaps
Steven means instinctive behaviors of living things - but in that case the
'ethics' that evolution imposes on organisms is not one of effectiveness of a a
given behavior for a given (near-term) end, but of what are forms or modes of
conduct good and productive for the species.
Mathematization. When Steven says "broad mathematization of semeiotic theory,"
I strongly suspect that he does not mean reduction of semiotics to a deductive
discipline about purely hypothet
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
' doesn't seem to me to prejudge the question of whether the given phenomenal object is anything more than a bare appearance. But the word 'object' does suggest something with a least a little resistance to us, even if it turns out to be a mere figment. It is ob-ject, thrown upon or onto something such as us. As Jack Spicer wrote of Dante, Beatrice, Newton, and gravity, "Hello says the apple // Both of us were object". Anyway, I don't know why one would want to get rid of such vague general terms as 'thing' or 'object'. Likewise 'appearance' and 'phenomenon.' If we believe that sometimes one apprehends something such that one has apprehended a kind of surface suggestive of a hidden depth about which one might learn for the sake of prudence, curiosity, etc., then we accept the idea of appearance, soever vague. Some terms are useful in their vagueness, which is why we use plenty of terms that are not terms of art. Best, Ben - Original Message - From: "Gary Fuhrman" To: Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2011 11:51 AM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Steven, i had to read through your post three times before venturing a reply, because i couldn't believe that you would actually interpret JR's paper -- and the most straightforward part of it, at that -- as saying the opposite of what it really says. But further reading of both your post and JR's paper forces that conclusion. It seems that when you describe your approach as “rigorous”, what you mean is that it gives you a license to bend any text to your own preconceived purpose; and your reading of JR's text carries out that program recursively by ascribing that very idea to JR's text. JR himself, on the other hand, says that “there is experience when and only when one finds oneself in a confrontation with something other than oneself and one's ideas that has the power to do something to one if one is not doing right by it.” (Notice the inclusion of the idea of “right” here.) This i take to be a paraphrase of Peirce's concept of the “outward clash” or reaction between ego and non-ego, i.e. Secondness, as the essential characteristic of “experience” in the context of scientific inquiry. There are many statements of this crucial idea in Peirce, perhaps the most well-known occurring in his second Harvard Lecture, “On Phenomenology” (EP2:150-55; see also CP 1.431, from The Logic of Mathematics, c. 1896). This is the “paradigm of experience” that JR sets out in his paper to “disentangle ... from certain other complexes of ideas”. It's also the idea that your commentary seems designed to deny. For instance (enclosing your words in [[ double brackets]]): [[ In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved (without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). ]] In other words, your "ethics" consists of avoiding any inquiry that might interfere with your arbitrary choice of "outcome" (i.e. that which *you* consider to be “natural and inevitable” and therefore do not question). Such inquiry might involve paying attention to other people's opinions and arguments as to the desirability of the outcome, or attention to its predictable consequences (predictable by inference from previous *experience*, of course). This kind of inquiry would involve an “outward clash”, which apparently you prefer to avoid -- which effectively reduces your idea of practicality to the “low and sordid sense” which Peirce (CP 5.402 n2) contrasted to his pragmatic sense of the word. [[ Although Ransdell does not get there in this paper, the inevitable destination of this approach is the broad mathematization of semeiotic theory (including ethics) beyond logic itself. ]] “Mathematization” could be another way of avoiding experience as “outward clash”; for as Peirce says (CP 1.55, c.1896), “success in mathematics would necessarily create a confidence altogether unfounded in man's power of eliciting truth by inward meditation without any aid from experience.” More germane to the point of JR's paper, though, is Peirce's attempt to show that even deductive reasoning which does not involve any physical apparatus can still incorporate experience, insofar as it makes diagrams and observes the results that follow from operations on them quite independently of the reasoner's intentions. The observation of the diagram thus constitutes an “outward clash”. This argument implicitly counters “the metaphysical conception of the physical” which is perhaps the main idea from which JR is trying to disentangle “the paradigm of experience”, at least in [11]. Since the dynamic *object* is whe
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Steven, i had to read through your post three times before venturing a reply, because i couldn't believe that you would actually interpret JR's paper -- and the most straightforward part of it, at that -- as saying the opposite of what it really says. But further reading of both your post and JR's paper forces that conclusion. It seems that when you describe your approach as “rigorous”, what you mean is that it gives you a license to bend any text to your own preconceived purpose; and your reading of JR's text carries out that program recursively by ascribing that very idea to JR's text. JR himself, on the other hand, says that “there is experience when and only when one finds oneself in a confrontation with something other than oneself and one's ideas that has the power to do something to one if one is not doing right by it.” (Notice the inclusion of the idea of “right” here.) This i take to be a paraphrase of Peirce's concept of the “outward clash” or reaction between ego and non-ego, i.e. Secondness, as the essential characteristic of “experience” in the context of scientific inquiry. There are many statements of this crucial idea in Peirce, perhaps the most well-known occurring in his second Harvard Lecture, “On Phenomenology” (EP2:150-55; see also CP 1.431, from The Logic of Mathematics, c. 1896). This is the “paradigm of experience” that JR sets out in his paper to “disentangle ... from certain other complexes of ideas”. It's also the idea that your commentary seems designed to deny. For instance (enclosing your words in [[ double brackets]]): [[ In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved (without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). ]] In other words, your "ethics" consists of avoiding any inquiry that might interfere with your arbitrary choice of "outcome" (i.e. that which *you* consider to be “natural and inevitable” and therefore do not question). Such inquiry might involve paying attention to other people's opinions and arguments as to the desirability of the outcome, or attention to its predictable consequences (predictable by inference from previous *experience*, of course). This kind of inquiry would involve an “outward clash”, which apparently you prefer to avoid -- which effectively reduces your idea of practicality to the “low and sordid sense” which Peirce (CP 5.402 n2) contrasted to his pragmatic sense of the word. [[ Although Ransdell does not get there in this paper, the inevitable destination of this approach is the broad mathematization of semeiotic theory (including ethics) beyond logic itself. ]] “Mathematization” could be another way of avoiding experience as “outward clash”; for as Peirce says (CP 1.55, c.1896), “success in mathematics would necessarily create a confidence altogether unfounded in man's power of eliciting truth by inward meditation without any aid from experience.” More germane to the point of JR's paper, though, is Peirce's attempt to show that even deductive reasoning which does not involve any physical apparatus can still incorporate experience, insofar as it makes diagrams and observes the results that follow from operations on them quite independently of the reasoner's intentions. The observation of the diagram thus constitutes an “outward clash”. This argument implicitly counters “the metaphysical conception of the physical” which is perhaps the main idea from which JR is trying to disentangle “the paradigm of experience”, at least in [11]. Since the dynamic *object* is where Secondness lives in the basic triadic sign relation, it is probably natural that you prefer to “avoid "object" language”, as you say in your comment on [11]: [[ Now we begin to head into difficult territory because the term "phenomenal," in my view, has the very problem that Ransdell observes. He defines "phenomenal object" as "the object unqualified per se by such notions as that of the physical, the sense-perceptible, and the like." ]] This is not a definition but an observation on JR's part, which is clearly part of his effort toward disentanglement. It is obvious from the context that a "phenomenal object" is anything that can be *experienced* in the sense common to Peirce and JR as stated above: it is anything present to the mind in such a way that the mind can attend to it. (If you want a definition of “phenomenon” or “object”, both were defined by Peirce for the Century Dictionary and you can find the appropriate entries online.) [[ I confess that I find the variety of uses of the term "phenomena" to be highly ambiguous and uncertain. ]] The CD gives separate entries for its use in philosophy and in science; beyond that, attention to context is usually sufficient to disambiguate, if the interpreter is honestly trying to grasp the utterer's idea even (or especially) when it clashes with his o
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Continuing the slow read of: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm > [10] Such is, in part, the complex of ideas involved in the words > "experience", "experiment", and "empirical" in their earlier forms, and it is > substantially what we associate with the notion of taking a scientific > attitude towards our ideas, meaning, namely, not satisfying ourselves as to > their truth or falsity simply on the basis of the fact that we find it > pleasing or displeasing to think of something as being so, but rather an > attitude which leads to seeking out or to arranging a situation wherein that > which the ideas are about — the object of the ideas — will have its chance to > confront one's ideas of it and be able to exercise its own independent being > and power in defending itself forcefully against these ideas if they > misrepresent it. It is, I believe, more than a mere metaphor to regard the > things we try to understand as having a power of self-defense relative to the > ideas with which we try to capture or ensnare them, though it has been > increasingly characteristic of the Western mind since the Renaissance to > regard the world — that is, anything external to our ideas and plans — as > passive, defenseless, infinitely plastic: the perfect victim, as it were. > This is perhaps what is at the root of — among other things — the absolute > idealisms of the 19th Century and their thinly disguised and historically > relativized versions in the conventionalistic philosophies of science which > are currently fashionable. Here Ransdell addresses the question that has arisen in the discussion of the the last paragraphs, though he does not mention "ethics" explicitly. "... not satisfying ourselves as to their truth or falsity simply on the basis of the fact that we find it pleasing or displeasing ... but rather an attitude which leads to seeking out or to arranging a situation ..." This is, indeed, the ethics of Peirce, the "philosophy of aims." In my own terms I refer to "natural ethics" as the consideration of natural and inevitable behaviors and the means by which effective outcomes may be achieved (without judgement or notion of "right" or "wrong"). My view does not concern "the should," "the right" or "the wrong." Rather, if you behave one way you will get one outcome, if you behave differently you will get another. My aim in the social case is to prefer the "good and productive" (the discussion of which I leave for another day). Ransdell is advocates the methods of science in order for semeiotic theory to be most effective, to produce good and productive results. His aim calls for semeiotic theory to apply the rigorous and systematic methods of science to itself and he provides an account commonly found when a discipline moves from its initial rambling course toward necessary mathematics. Although Ransdell does not get there in this paper, the inevitable destination of this approach is the broad mathematization of semeiotic theory (including ethics) beyond logic itself. These and the earlier arguments may appear obvious to those in scientific disciplines here but it will become clear in the discussion of the later paragraphs concerning literary criticism just why this direction and advocacy is necessary. I say that it "may" appear obvious only because semeiotic theory and the matters that concern it remains something of a mystery to most scientists, who sadly have too little understanding of epistemology and the issues of apprehension and what they do know is most often learned from convention, they have not explored the matter themselves. > [11] What I want to convey is that the idea of the empirical, the > experiential, and the experimental have mistakenly come to be associated > almost exclusively with the metaphysical conception of the physical, on the > one hand, and with the highly questionable mentalistic category of > sense-perception, on the other, whereas in fact there is no essential > connection with either of these; and that what has been lost sight of is that > there is experience when and only when one finds oneself in a confrontation > with something other than oneself and one's ideas that has the power to do > something to one if one is not doing right by it. This is semeiotic holism, in which semeiotic theory is applied to itself, and reminiscent of a central concern in my work that challenges us to consider the difference between integrative and differential reasoning. When we isolate our distinctions from the contextual background of the underlying whole we are inclined to produce exactly the conceptual artifacts and redundancy that Ransdell notes. > [11] Now, our present categories of apprehension stand in no systematic > relation to those objects, entities, things, events, et
Re: [peirce-l] Fwd: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Stefan, Steven, List, I hope this conversation isn't taking us too far away from the reading, but there are a couple of points to keep in mind when talking about Peirce's Ethics. First and foremost, that ethics is not about overthrowing ideals, but simply the study of activity in conformity with ideals--the study of self-controlled conduct. Second, that it is one of the normative sciences and has to be understood relative to the functioning of Esthetics (the study of the admirable or ideals), Ethics (the study of self-controlled conduct in conformity with ideals), and Logic (the study of self-controlled thought). It is true that in the 1898 lectures (CP1.616-1.648, for example), Peirce didn't say much of anything positive about ethics. This, according to some, was largely a result of James' request that Peirce be a good boy and lecture on topics of vital importance. Peirce then rejected the function of reason as doing little more than satisfying the teasing 'why?' of the ego. Near the end of the lecture, though, Peirce will talk about the mechanics of the billiard player and how that best fulfills familiar uses. It is in this sense that we get Peirce saying things like, so much better on the whole is it to feel right than to reason deeply. His criticism of ethics, as I understand it, is that ethics cannot provide a foundation for itself, that it needs esthetics in order to articulate the ideals that it is following. It can then turn back on those ideals and critically evaluate them (see the five step process in CP 1.591-1.615 for this evaluation), but for the most part ethics is limited to self-controlled activity in conformity with ideals. Though the general spirit might be in favour of a critical evaluation of those ideals that guide our activity, and by extension a condemnation of those who do not critically evaluate those ideals, he does not say that this is something we should do. The closest he gets to an ethical imperative, I think, occurs in a letter to Lady Welby from 1909: If I had a son, I should instill into him this view of morality (that is, that Ethics is the science of the method of bringing Self-Control to bear to gain satisfaction) and force him to see that there is but one thing that raises one individual animal above another,--Self-Mastery; and should teach him that the Will is free only in the sense that, by employing the proper appliances, he can make himself behave in the way he really desires to behave. As to what one ought to desire, it is, I should teach him, what he will desire if he sufficiently considers it, and that will be to make his life beautiful, admirable. Now the science of the Admirable is true Esthetics. (As quoted in Brent, Peirce: A Life, p49). Given the way that Peirce's life turned out, that has to be one of my favourite quotes. I hope this has been helpful. Aaron -- Aaron Massecar, PhD Department of Philosophy University of Guelph Guelph, ON N1G 2W1 - Original Message - From: "Stefan Berwing" To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Sent: Saturday, 26 November, 2011 9:31:27 PM Subject: [peirce-l] Fwd: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic Steven, in a negative sense ethics is about paracharattein to nomisma . To overthrow the false nomos , the nomos that is not general. So there are two "shoulds" the general and the not-general. My interpretation is that Peirce ire is about the false nomos and the people that don't follow the logon didonai . Best Stefan Dear Kristi, I feel in some sense that I offered you a trick question, and for this I apologize. The first sentence is simply a concise restatement of the thesis put forth, removing redundancy and substituting a refinement of terms. It applies the thesis of the paper to itself. "Semeiotic theory" is simply a less ambiguous way to say "Semiotics," and this usage was the subject of discussion with Joe and others here a while ago. What is "semiotics" exactly if it is not "semeiotic theory?" If we are to be guided by Peirce then we must consider his variety of views on Ethics: "CP 1.667. Ethics, then, even if not a positively dangerous study, as it sometimes proves, is as useless a science as can be conceived. But it must be said, in favor of ethical writers, that they are commonly free from the nauseating custom of boasting of the utility of their science." or "669. As long as ethics is recognized as not being a matter of vital importance or in any way touching the student's conscience, it is, to a normal and healthy mind, a civilizing and valuable study -- somewhat more so than the theory of whist, much more so than the question of the landing of Columbus, which things are insignificant not at all because they are useless, nor even because
[peirce-l] Fwd: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Steven, in a negative sense ethics is about /paracharattein to nomisma/. To overthrow the false /nomos/, the /nomos/ that is not general. So there are two "shoulds" the general and the not-general. My interpretation is that Peirce ire is about the false /nomos/ and the people that don't follow the /logon didonai/. Best Stefan // Dear Kristi, I feel in some sense that I offered you a trick question, and for this I apologize. The first sentence is simply a concise restatement of the thesis put forth, removing redundancy and substituting a refinement of terms. It applies the thesis of the paper to itself. "Semeiotic theory" is simply a less ambiguous way to say "Semiotics," and this usage was the subject of discussion with Joe and others here a while ago. What is "semiotics" exactly if it is not "semeiotic theory?" If we are to be guided by Peirce then we must consider his variety of views on Ethics: "CP 1.667. Ethics, then, even if not a positively dangerous study, as it sometimes proves, is as useless a science as can be conceived. But it must be said, in favor of ethical writers, that they are commonly free from the nauseating custom of boasting of the utility of their science." or "669. As long as ethics is recognized as not being a matter of vital importance or in any way touching the student's conscience, it is, to a normal and healthy mind, a civilizing and valuable study -- somewhat more so than the theory of whist, much more so than the question of the landing of Columbus, which things are insignificant not at all because they are useless, nor even because they are little in themselves, but simply and solely because they are detached from the great continuum of ideas." And exactly Peirce's usage: CP 2.120 "... I fear that logic, as a definite theory, can be of no avail until one knows what it is that one is trying to do, which is precisely what ethics has to determine." Thus when Peirce praises the virtues of Ethics, as he certainly does in this exact sense, he is referring to "what it is that one is trying to do" with it, and not what "should" or "should not" be done. Ethics is "the philosophy of aims" for Peirce (CP 4.240) and not useful when defined as the philosophy of "what should (or should not) be done" (a definition that is the subject of his ire above). So, in summary, it isn't clear to me that your analysis, and analysis of this type in general, is useful and I am surprised by your interpretation which appears to both be unjustifiable and misleading. You neglect the very thesis that Joe is trying to make and mistakenly introduce the distinction between practice and theory - which not only does not appear in the paper but is an incorrect interpretation of what is said. With respect, Steven On Nov 26, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Määttänen Kirsti wrote: Steven, list, On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Dear Kristi, By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in semeiotic theory." And Joe's first sentence? " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the substitution rule (which I took up earlier). If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the meaning attached to ' logical'& 'substantial'. If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may seem, that there is no difference. But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not) be done. Which means that both Joe's sentence and your abbreviation of it deal with ethics, in the first place. - Which means that propositional logic, as such, does not do the job needed. It does not do to deal with them as simple statements with simple truth claims. The logic of ethical questions and ethical claims needs a quite different, a much wider ground& different methods. In this case, the question is about ethics of research: what should or should not be done. Ethics of research has, of course, to do with the question of findi
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Kirsti, On Nov 26, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Määttänen Kirsti wrote: > ... Well then. Back to your question: >> if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? > > These two I have taken up, become - I hope - pretty clear if and when anyone > compares the two sentences, the original and the proposal for an > abbreviation. The third difference - or rather - the the third kind of > differences, can only be appreciated by actually doing the test, that is, > erasing Joe's first sentence and putting the proposed abbreviation in its > place as the first sentence in Joe's paper: > >> On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic > >>> No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in >>> semeiotic theory. >> 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. > > > I bet you do see a difference between starting a paper with a sentence of > this kind, compared to the original sentence. - Is the difference of a > logical kind and is is substantial, may well be debatable. - I do think it is > a logical and a substantive difference, from a Peircean stand. > > Doing the substitution makes a clumsy and uninviting start for the paper (any > paper, for that matter). - I guess this was not what you had in mind in > proposing the abbreviation. Actually doing the substitution (as a test) > brings us to the realm of style of writing. Which involves taking the realm > of the aesthetical into consideration. > > Did you exclude style of writing from possible 'logical and substantial' > differences at the outset? - If so, could you explicate your grounds for > that. I do separate style of presentation from the content of that presented, especially in scientific text, since I may present the same content in a variety of styles without substantively changing the content. Style may improve accessibility for one audience or another, but the content does not change. This speaks to Joe's aim here which I take to be to persuade us to eliminate our cultural redundancies. Since I read a lot of scientific and mathematical presentations, my proposed substitution does not appear to me clumsy. Indeed, I prefer it :-) With respect, Steven - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Steven, is the subject of Peirce ire really "what should (or should not) be done"or is it the moral terrorism he speaks of in "Fixation of Belief"? If ethics is the philosophy of aims, then there must be goog or bad aims and also aims one should reach and aims that one should not reach. So the difference is between "the others say you should do this or that" and "after careful consideration i accept that i should do this and not that". Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne. KpV A54 If the thing i accept really is a principle, which could be the basis of general legislation, then it is definitely attached to the "the great continuum of ideas". So, i doubt that the distinction you make between "should/ should not" and "aims" makes a difference that makes a difference. Best Stefan Dear Kristi, I feel in some sense that I offered you a trick question, and for this I apologize. The first sentence is simply a concise restatement of the thesis put forth, removing redundancy and substituting a refinement of terms. It applies the thesis of the paper to itself. "Semeiotic theory" is simply a less ambiguous way to say "Semiotics," and this usage was the subject of discussion with Joe and others here a while ago. What is "semiotics" exactly if it is not "semeiotic theory?" If we are to be guided by Peirce then we must consider his variety of views on Ethics: "CP 1.667. Ethics, then, even if not a positively dangerous study, as it sometimes proves, is as useless a science as can be conceived. But it must be said, in favor of ethical writers, that they are commonly free from the nauseating custom of boasting of the utility of their science." or "669. As long as ethics is recognized as not being a matter of vital importance or in any way touching the student's conscience, it is, to a normal and healthy mind, a civilizing and valuable study -- somewhat more so than the theory of whist, much more so than the question of the landing of Columbus, which things are insignificant not at all because they are useless, nor even because they are little in themselves, but simply and solely because they are detached from the great continuum of ideas." And exactly Peirce's usage: CP 2.120 "... I fear that logic, as a definite theory, can be of no avail until one knows what it is that one is trying to do, which is precisely what ethics has to determine." Thus when Peirce praises the virtues of Ethics, as he certainly does in this exact sense, he is referring to "what it is that one is trying to do" with it, and not what "should" or "should not" be done. Ethics is "the philosophy of aims" for Peirce (CP 4.240) and not useful when defined as the philosophy of "what should (or should not) be done" (a definition that is the subject of his ire above). So, in summary, it isn't clear to me that your analysis, and analysis of this type in general, is useful and I am surprised by your interpretation which appears to both be unjustifiable and misleading. You neglect the very thesis that Joe is trying to make and mistakenly introduce the distinction between practice and theory - which not only does not appear in the paper but is an incorrect interpretation of what is said. With respect, Steven On Nov 26, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Määttänen Kirsti wrote: Steven, list, On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: Dear Kristi, By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in semeiotic theory." And Joe's first sentence? " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the substitution rule (which I took up earlier). If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the meaning attached to ' logical'& 'substantial'. If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may seem, that there is no difference. But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not)
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Kristi, I feel in some sense that I offered you a trick question, and for this I apologize. The first sentence is simply a concise restatement of the thesis put forth, removing redundancy and substituting a refinement of terms. It applies the thesis of the paper to itself. "Semeiotic theory" is simply a less ambiguous way to say "Semiotics," and this usage was the subject of discussion with Joe and others here a while ago. What is "semiotics" exactly if it is not "semeiotic theory?" If we are to be guided by Peirce then we must consider his variety of views on Ethics: > "CP 1.667. Ethics, then, even if not a positively dangerous study, as it > sometimes proves, is as useless a science as can be conceived. But it must be > said, in favor of ethical writers, that they are commonly free from the > nauseating custom of boasting of the utility of their science." or > "669. As long as ethics is recognized as not being a matter of vital > importance or in any way touching the student's conscience, it is, to a > normal and healthy mind, a civilizing and valuable study -- somewhat more so > than the theory of whist, much more so than the question of the landing of > Columbus, which things are insignificant not at all because they are useless, > nor even because they are little in themselves, but simply and solely because > they are detached from the great continuum of ideas." And exactly Peirce's usage: > CP 2.120 "... I fear that logic, as a definite theory, can be of no avail > until one knows what it is that one is trying to do, which is precisely what > ethics has to determine." Thus when Peirce praises the virtues of Ethics, as he certainly does in this exact sense, he is referring to "what it is that one is trying to do" with it, and not what "should" or "should not" be done. Ethics is "the philosophy of aims" for Peirce (CP 4.240) and not useful when defined as the philosophy of "what should (or should not) be done" (a definition that is the subject of his ire above). So, in summary, it isn't clear to me that your analysis, and analysis of this type in general, is useful and I am surprised by your interpretation which appears to both be unjustifiable and misleading. You neglect the very thesis that Joe is trying to make and mistakenly introduce the distinction between practice and theory - which not only does not appear in the paper but is an incorrect interpretation of what is said. With respect, Steven On Nov 26, 2011, at 11:01 AM, Määttänen Kirsti wrote: > Steven, list, > > On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: > >> Dear Kristi, >> >> By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, >> aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: >> >> "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the >> nonempirical in semeiotic theory." >> >> And Joe's first sentence? >> >> " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." >> >> In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a >> difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? > > I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in > this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the > substitution rule (which I took up earlier). > > If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does > it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. > > What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - > The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the > meaning attached to ' logical' & 'substantial'. > > If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, > dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may > seem, that there is no difference. > > But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a > simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not) be done. > Which means that both Joe's sentence and your abbreviation of it deal with > ethics, in the first place. - Which means that propositional logic, as such, > does not do the job needed. > > It does not do to deal with them as simple statements with simple truth > claims. The logic of ethical questions and ethical claims needs a quite > different, a much wider ground & different methods. In this case, the > question is about ethics of research: what should or should not be done. > Ethics of research has, of course, to do with the question of finding, of > approaching the truth. So their always is a connection, but not a > straight-forward one. It is mediated by the 'would-be's. - Familiar to all > Peirceans. > > If and when the ethical is taken
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary, You are right, I should have expressed myself in some other way than > Which is exactly what Joe's explicit thesis was against. ]] As far as I can see Joe's explicit thesis (as expressed in the first paragraph) was not in favour of the distinction between theory and practice. But you are right, Joe does not argue against the distinction between theory and practice. Best, Kirsti On 26.11.2011, at 23.30, Gary Fuhrman wrote: > Kirsti, > > It seems to me quite a stretch to interpret "Joe's explicit thesis" as being > against "the common distinction between theory and practice", as you wrote in > your message to Steven: > > [[ With putting in the word 'theory' you implicate the common distinction > between theory and practice. > If you really meant that, i think you'd better explain how Joe's explicit > thesis (or indeed anything explicit in the whole paper) argues against the > distinction between theory and practice. (And manages to do "exactly" that > without even mentioning the distinction explicitly.) > > Gary F. > > -Original Message- > From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On > Behalf Of Määttänen Kirsti > Sent: November-26-11 2:02 PM > > Steven, list, > > On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: > >> Dear Kristi, >> >> By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, >> aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: >> >> "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the >> nonempirical in semeiotic theory." >> >> And Joe's first sentence? >> >> " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." >> >> In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a >> difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? > > I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in > this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the > substitution rule (which I took up earlier). > > If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does > it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. > > What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - > The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the > meaning attached to ' logical' & 'substantial'. > > If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, > dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may > seem, that there is no difference. > > But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a > simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not) be done. > Which means that both Joe's sentence and your abbreviation of it deal with > ethics, in the first place. - Which means that propositional logic, as such, > does not do the job needed. > > It does not do to deal with them as simple statements with simple truth > claims. The logic of ethical questions and ethical claims needs a quite > different, a much wider ground & different methods. In this case, the > question is about ethics of research: what should or should not be done. > Ethics of research has, of course, to do with the question of finding, of > approaching the truth. So their always is a connection, but not a > straight-forward one. It is mediated by the 'would-be's. - Familiar to all > Peirceans. > > If and when the ethical is taken as the prime concern, I do find a difference > (or rather several ones) between your wording and that of Joe's. And quite > substantial, too. - Your proposal for a substitution was: >> "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in >> semeiotic theory." > > > While Joe wrote: >> ... it is doubtful that any distinction should be drawn between empirical >> and nonempirical semiotics... > > You make a command, resembling a divine commandment, while Joe presents a > doubt to his readers-to-be on whether ANY (whatsoever) distinction should be > drawn between (this and that). A doubt about a distinction he recommends his > readers to take up and see for themselves, after taking into account the > whole of his paper. > > I feel quite confident in claiming that there will be a general agreement > amongst the listers that Joe's ethical approach is a Peircean one. > > Note also that you have added the word 'theory' in your abbreviated sentence, > which does not appear in Joe's original sentence. According to the rules in > my method, no such additions are allowed. > > Does it make a difference? - Oh yeah, it does! > > In doing so, you make an assumption, unwarranted by the text. You make the > assumption that the difference Joe is taking up is about a difference w
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Kirsti, It seems to me quite a stretch to interpret "Joe's explicit thesis" as being against "the common distinction between theory and practice", as you wrote in your message to Steven: [[ With putting in the word 'theory' you implicate the common distinction between theory and practice. Which is exactly what Joe's explicit thesis was against. ]] If you really meant that, i think you'd better explain how Joe's explicit thesis (or indeed anything explicit in the whole paper) argues against the distinction between theory and practice. (And manages to do "exactly" that without even mentioning the distinction explicitly.) Gary F. -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Määttänen Kirsti Sent: November-26-11 2:02 PM Steven, list, On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: > Dear Kristi, > > By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, > aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: > > "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the > nonempirical in semeiotic theory." > > And Joe's first sentence? > > " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." > > In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a > difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the substitution rule (which I took up earlier). If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the meaning attached to ' logical' & 'substantial'. If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may seem, that there is no difference. But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not) be done. Which means that both Joe's sentence and your abbreviation of it deal with ethics, in the first place. - Which means that propositional logic, as such, does not do the job needed. It does not do to deal with them as simple statements with simple truth claims. The logic of ethical questions and ethical claims needs a quite different, a much wider ground & different methods. In this case, the question is about ethics of research: what should or should not be done. Ethics of research has, of course, to do with the question of finding, of approaching the truth. So their always is a connection, but not a straight-forward one. It is mediated by the 'would-be's. - Familiar to all Peirceans. If and when the ethical is taken as the prime concern, I do find a difference (or rather several ones) between your wording and that of Joe's. And quite substantial, too. - Your proposal for a substitution was: > "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in > semeiotic theory." While Joe wrote: > ... it is doubtful that any distinction should be drawn between empirical and > nonempirical semiotics... You make a command, resembling a divine commandment, while Joe presents a doubt to his readers-to-be on whether ANY (whatsoever) distinction should be drawn between (this and that). A doubt about a distinction he recommends his readers to take up and see for themselves, after taking into account the whole of his paper. I feel quite confident in claiming that there will be a general agreement amongst the listers that Joe's ethical approach is a Peircean one. Note also that you have added the word 'theory' in your abbreviated sentence, which does not appear in Joe's original sentence. According to the rules in my method, no such additions are allowed. Does it make a difference? - Oh yeah, it does! In doing so, you make an assumption, unwarranted by the text. You make the assumption that the difference Joe is taking up is about a difference within semiotic theory and theoretical concerns. - There is nothing in the text to support this kind of assumption. Quite the contrary. With putting in the word 'theory' you implicate the common distinction between theory and practice. Which is exactly what Joe's explicit thesis was against. If you now feel tempted to say that you did not mean it that way, it will be of no avail. This distinction is commonly made, and belongs to our habits of interpretation, no matter how anyone may opine. (This may alter, in some distant future, of course. But
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Steven, list, On 25.11.2011, at 13.02, Steven Ericsson-Zenith wrote: > Dear Kristi, > > By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, > aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: > > "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the > nonempirical in semeiotic theory." > > And Joe's first sentence? > > " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." > > In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a > difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? I'll answer to the second wording of your question first, with a precept, in this case with a recommendation to try it out, to test the case using the substitution rule (which I took up earlier). If you substitute the first sentence of Joe's paper with your sentence, does it make a difference? - I'm quite assured that all agree that it does. What is the difference, then? - Is it "logical or otherwise substantial"? - The possible answers to this question may be variable, depending on the meaning attached to ' logical' & 'substantial'. If, for instance, 'logical' is taken in the sense of propositional logic, dealing with (referential) truth values of (single) propositions, then it may seem, that there is no difference. But your abbreviated sentence (and Joe's sentence, for that matter) is not a simple proposition.. Both are about what should (or should not) be done. Which means that both Joe's sentence and your abbreviation of it deal with ethics, in the first place. - Which means that propositional logic, as such, does not do the job needed. It does not do to deal with them as simple statements with simple truth claims. The logic of ethical questions and ethical claims needs a quite different, a much wider ground & different methods. In this case, the question is about ethics of research: what should or should not be done. Ethics of research has, of course, to do with the question of finding, of approaching the truth. So their always is a connection, but not a straight-forward one. It is mediated by the 'would-be's. - Familiar to all Peirceans. If and when the ethical is taken as the prime concern, I do find a difference (or rather several ones) between your wording and that of Joe's. And quite substantial, too. - Your proposal for a substitution was: > "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in > semeiotic theory." While Joe wrote: > ... it is doubtful that any distinction should be drawn between empirical and > nonempirical semiotics... You make a command, resembling a divine commandment, while Joe presents a doubt to his readers-to-be on whether ANY (whatsoever) distinction should be drawn between (this and that). A doubt about a distinction he recommends his readers to take up and see for themselves, after taking into account the whole of his paper. I feel quite confident in claiming that there will be a general agreement amongst the listers that Joe's ethical approach is a Peircean one. Note also that you have added the word 'theory' in your abbreviated sentence, which does not appear in Joe's original sentence. According to the rules in my method, no such additions are allowed. Does it make a difference? - Oh yeah, it does! In doing so, you make an assumption, unwarranted by the text. You make the assumption that the difference Joe is taking up is about a difference within semiotic theory and theoretical concerns. - There is nothing in the text to support this kind of assumption. Quite the contrary. With putting in the word 'theory' you implicate the common distinction between theory and practice. Which is exactly what Joe's explicit thesis was against. If you now feel tempted to say that you did not mean it that way, it will be of no avail. This distinction is commonly made, and belongs to our habits of interpretation, no matter how anyone may opine. (This may alter, in some distant future, of course. But for now this possibility makes no difference.) I do take your putting in the word 'theory' into what you thought was just an abbreviation of Joe's sentence a clear mistake in interpreting and understanding the meaning of Joe's sentence. - These kinds of mistakes are very, very common. I, for my part, used to catch myself with such mistakes frequently. And still do, if I read carelessly. That's why I started with developing a method, using Peirce as a guide. Well then. Back to your question: > if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? These two I have taken up, become - I hope - pretty clear if and when anyone compares the two sentences, the original and the proposal for an abbreviation. The third difference - or rather - the the third kind of differences, can only be appre
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Here I continue the slow read of On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm The story so far: in the first part of the paper [1 - 5], Ransdell has proposed that the distinction between empirical and non-empirical is unjustified in semeiotic theory and that it leads us to a "rather shaky and ramshackle" categorization scheme for the categories of apprehension. We are mislead by this distinction and these categories, he suggests, are the product of Western culture, and not the product of rigorous and systematic thinking. He continues: > [6] > The way out of this is, I believe, in the adoption of a phenomenological > point of view (in Peirce's — not Husserl's — sense), according to which a > thing — in the broadest and vaguest possible sense of the word "thing" — is > to be regarded, first of all, as a phenomenon, that is, as something which is > not conceived ab initio in relation to this or any other set of categories of > apprehension, and therefore not implicitly regarded ab initio as falling into > this or that metaphysical category; for these categories of apprehension are > intimately, if not altogether coherently, connected with metaphysical > categories of a Cartesian type, such that, for example, anything > sense-perceived is usually regarded as “physical,” anything hallucinated is > regarded as “mental,” and so on. Since anything can be a sign, this means > that, by taking the phenomenological stance, we thereby free the conception > of a sign from any a priori metaphysical conceptions. Supposing, then, that > we adopt the phenomenological view as basic, it may indeed be necessary or > desirable, for this or that special purpose or in this or that special type > or area of inquiry, to deal only with such signs as are, let us say, physical > in character (whatever that may mean). But if so then it should be made clear > just what it does mean for something to be physical and why it is necessary > or desirable to deal only with signs of that particular metaphysical > category. In other words, the adoption of a phenomenological stance as basic > does not preclude the adoption of a more limited conception of what is to > count as a sign, but it would require us to be more explicit than usual as to > what our working metaphysical assumptions actually are and for what purpose > it is desirable to adopt them. Here Ransdell makes two very essential observations: 1. Anything can be a sign. In my terms, signs are differentiations of sense. 2. There is no notion of categorization a priori associated with a sign. This leads us to the view that any categorization or narrowing of this broad stance arises according to the need of a given inquiry. Which explains why there is the seemingly endless, and certainly fruitless, refinement of Peircean categories when the subject of the inquiry is too general, such as the inquiry into the "categories of signs." Continuing: > [7] > I began with some sceptical comments on our present categories of > apprehension because the conceptions of the empirical, the experiential, and > the experimental have become entangled in this dubious organizational scheme, > though I believe they can be disentangled from it fairly easily, and can be > understood in such a way as to have prior application on the phenomenological > or pre-metaphysical level. For the first time Ransdell adds "experiential" and "experience" into the mix and we must infer that this was implied all along. His apparently redundant use of "empirical" and "experimental" (for me at least, the one implies the other) is that Ransdell is, I suggest, very conscious of his audience and the diverse usage of terms therein. He is speaking to as diverse an audience as he suspects may listen, hence he makes sure that he will be understood by applying this redundancy. And this is, after all, the very problem that he argues we must overcome. > [7] > Thus, for example, although it is usually thought that being empirical, that > is, making appeal to experience to settle a matter of inquiry, is essentially > connected with the idea of an appeal to sense-perception, there is no such > necessary connection, since it is quite possible to ground our work in > semiotic on appeals to the experience of entities which, according to our > usual categories of apprehension, might be classified as merely imaginary or > dreamt or hallucinated or whatever. And similarly with regard to the idea of > experimentation. The usual assumption is that experimentation is primarily a > matter of physical manipulation, with the idea of the "thought experiment" > recognized as a sort of ghostly but sometimes useful supplement. But there is > in fact no general need for the idea of experimentation to be qualified in > either respect (i.e. as being ph
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Kristi, By your analysis is there any logical or otherwise substantive distinction, aside from the syntax, between the abbreviated statement: "No distinction is to be drawn between the empirical and the nonempirical in semeiotic theory." And Joe's first sentence? " 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 or nonexperimental semiotics." In other words, can the first be substituted for the second without making a difference. And if it cannot, what exactly is that difference? With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering On Nov 24, 2011, at 6:20 PM, Määttänen Kirsti wrote: > Gary F.,Jon, list, > > I'll continue now with slow reading Joe's paper. Along with dealing with the > paper, I wish to share at least parts of the method I I've used in my > classes on text interpretation and argument analysis. So I'm just as > interested in any comments on the method, as I am in any comments on my > interpretations on the text at hand. > > I'll start with stating some rules. (Very trivial ones, still to my mind > worth stating).- Any method is about rules.) > > First rule: We must always start with what we have. - Not with what we think > we have, but what we unequivocally have. > > We have a text, a writing. - What else? > > Just marks on a paper (or a screen) and our habits of interpretation. > > And we have a task. - Any method is related to a task.- That of > interpreting (i.e. understanding) the text in a methodical, orderly way. > > Second rule: All interpretations of any text can be divided into five classes > (the number of classes may be debatable): > > 1) Interpretations unequivocally evidenced by the text > 2) Interpretations soundly and convincingly evidenced by the text > 3) Interpretations weakly evidenced by the text > 4) Interpretations poorly or not at all evidenced by the text > 5 Interpretations proved false by the text > > Well, then: Most of our habits of interpretation are - as I would call them > - quasi-instinctual, that it is they take place without awareness. They just > occur to our minds. And we act on the basis of them. (Which is a state of > things absolutely necessary for survival etc. ) We can't control what occurs > to our minds. > > A side tract here: I once made experiments on word association, in 1980's. > Back then, I frequently got comments like: What's the point, people will say > whatever comes to their minds. - I then responded: Yes, they do. But there is > one thing absolutely certain. No one can say anything which does NOT come to > her/his mind. > > Peirce often took up the limits of our abilities with critical thinking in > connection with what we can and cannot control. - Here, with this method, one > aim is to make ourselves, anyone, better aware of the kinds of > interpretations which come to mind as a matter of course, by making the > demand of making clear to oneself (& others, if one chooses) how - exactly - > the interpretation is evidenced by the text at hand. With the above classes > in mind. > > In order to do this, a third rule is needed. > > Third rule: The text can and must be taken as evidence for (or against) the > interpretation in an orderly, sequential manner, taking each unit of the text > as answering to a specific subquestion of the (main) question the text as a > whole can - on good and valid grounds - be taken as an answer for. > > Mind you, the result of the analysis may quite often turn out to be different > from the question possibly stated by the author in the beginning as the > question the text is supposed (by him or her) to give an answer. > > Well, with my classes I did not proceed in this - quite boring - manner. Now > I'm trying to make explicit the rules I made them follow. I proceeded much > more freely and spontaneously. Still sticking strictly to the rules. - And as > a rule (pun intended), the students at first, when demanded to really stick > to the rules, got annoyed, even exasperated. But soon (a gave very short > tasks in the beginning) they got so surprised and delighted over the results > of their work, that they became excited and really interested & wanted more. > - That's why I took up writing this boring stuff to you listers in the first > place. (I'll probably never write on this elsewhere in English.) > > Well, then. To the paper & the task at hand: > > The first unit of the paper is, of course, the title: "On the Paradigm of > Experience Appropriate for Semiotic". > > Unequivocally evidenced by it is that the focus of the paper to follow is on > the concept of experience. Moreover, the title, just as unequivocally, gives > a context, which is semiotic. Further, it gives a specification to the > concept of experience to be dealt with, when s
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary F.,Jon, list, I'll continue now with slow reading Joe's paper. Along with dealing with the paper, I wish to share at least parts of the method I I've used in my classes on text interpretation and argument analysis. So I'm just as interested in any comments on the method, as I am in any comments on my interpretations on the text at hand. I'll start with stating some rules. (Very trivial ones, still to my mind worth stating).- Any method is about rules.) First rule: We must always start with what we have. - Not with what we think we have, but what we unequivocally have. We have a text, a writing. - What else? Just marks on a paper (or a screen) and our habits of interpretation. And we have a task. - Any method is related to a task.- That of interpreting (i.e. understanding) the text in a methodical, orderly way. Second rule: All interpretations of any text can be divided into five classes (the number of classes may be debatable): 1) Interpretations unequivocally evidenced by the text 2) Interpretations soundly and convincingly evidenced by the text 3) Interpretations weakly evidenced by the text 4) Interpretations poorly or not at all evidenced by the text 5 Interpretations proved false by the text Well, then: Most of our habits of interpretation are - as I would call them - quasi-instinctual, that it is they take place without awareness. They just occur to our minds. And we act on the basis of them. (Which is a state of things absolutely necessary for survival etc. ) We can't control what occurs to our minds. A side tract here: I once made experiments on word association, in 1980's. Back then, I frequently got comments like: What's the point, people will say whatever comes to their minds. - I then responded: Yes, they do. But there is one thing absolutely certain. No one can say anything which does NOT come to her/his mind. Peirce often took up the limits of our abilities with critical thinking in connection with what we can and cannot control. - Here, with this method, one aim is to make ourselves, anyone, better aware of the kinds of interpretations which come to mind as a matter of course, by making the demand of making clear to oneself (& others, if one chooses) how - exactly - the interpretation is evidenced by the text at hand. With the above classes in mind. In order to do this, a third rule is needed. Third rule: The text can and must be taken as evidence for (or against) the interpretation in an orderly, sequential manner, taking each unit of the text as answering to a specific subquestion of the (main) question the text as a whole can - on good and valid grounds - be taken as an answer for. Mind you, the result of the analysis may quite often turn out to be different from the question possibly stated by the author in the beginning as the question the text is supposed (by him or her) to give an answer. Well, with my classes I did not proceed in this - quite boring - manner. Now I'm trying to make explicit the rules I made them follow. I proceeded much more freely and spontaneously. Still sticking strictly to the rules. - And as a rule (pun intended), the students at first, when demanded to really stick to the rules, got annoyed, even exasperated. But soon (a gave very short tasks in the beginning) they got so surprised and delighted over the results of their work, that they became excited and really interested & wanted more. - That's why I took up writing this boring stuff to you listers in the first place. (I'll probably never write on this elsewhere in English.) Well, then. To the paper & the task at hand: The first unit of the paper is, of course, the title: "On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic". Unequivocally evidenced by it is that the focus of the paper to follow is on the concept of experience. Moreover, the title, just as unequivocally, gives a context, which is semiotic. Further, it gives a specification to the concept of experience to be dealt with, when stating "- paradigm of - - for -". Here I'm using the triad of "theme-rheme-seme", taking first up the second: "rheme" , though not in the manner I've seen Peirce use it, except his use of it as a method of erasing some parts of a proposition to clarify its logical form. I've generalized the use I've seen to apply for purposes I've not seen Peirce use it for. Anyone, who googles on Peirce and rheme, finds a rather hard-to-handle collection of definitions given by Peirce at different times and in different contexts. Here and now I take rheme as the second of the triad "theme-rheme-seme". In this triad I take "theme" as the topic under discussion, "rheme" as the logical form of the discussion on the theme, both in any unit of discussion, as well as in the argument (the paper in question) as a whole. For those googling i may add, that in the triad "seme-pheme- delome", the seme, which now, in this context, appears as the third, is ta
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Kirsti, I'll keep this short so that you can get back to the subject of Joe's paper. You wrote, [[ I'm sorry you did not find my post informative, but rather a distraction. ]] What i wrote -- with emphasis added to correct the apparent misreading -- was: "i wouldn't want *you* to be any further distracted by my question than *you* already have been." Unfortunately your reply shows that you're still distracted by it -- or rather by the one sentence you chose to pull from my original post for special attention (for reasons still unclear to me). If you disapprove of historical questions generally, or if the one i posted is as bad as you say, why not just drop it and turn to something more productive? As i said before, i look forward to your exegesis (or minute analysis or whatever you have in mind) of Joe's paper. Jumping to your final paragraph (since it appears to ask for a reply from me): [[ Joe's thesis in the first sentence may seem obvious to you. ]] My comment did not refer to Joe's first sentence, but to the thesis of his paper as a whole. [[ But if you take a look at the next sentence (a paragraph being the unit of interpretation), you find there the distinction between the sciences and the humanities. - Do you think this distinction is not generally made in the community of inquiry? ]] The distinction is certainly a common one; but i'm not sure exactly what you are referring to as "the community of inquiry". [[ Or do you think this distinction should not be made? ]] I don't have a problem with it, as long as it's not made "with an axe" (as Peirce would say). Why do you ask? (Please ignore that last question if it's a bad one!) Gary F. -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Määttänen Kirsti Sent: November-13-11 4:33 PM Gary F., list Thanks for an informative reply to my post. I'm sorry you did not find my post informative, but rather a distraction. In many respects, you are right to view it as such. I just hope you did not find reading it a waste of time. You wrote: > GF: You seem to have a lot to say about the paper we are slow-reading, and i > look forward to that. But since you have no information to offer in reply to > my factual question about the occasion and audience of JR's paper, i wouldn't > want you to be any further distracted by my question than you already have > been. Indeed you've read so much into what i thought was a simple question > that i'd better explain why i thought it so simple. Here you say that your factual question was about the occasion and audience of JR's paper. With all respect, this was not how you stated your question in your earlier post. > GF: Since i had never heard (until now) of anyone wanting to make such a > distinction, i couldn't help wondering why JR thought it important enough to > write a whole paper one the question of how (or whether) such a distinction > should be made. Can you see the difference? In my post, I tried to warn you that no answer is to be expected. Instead, I focused on slow read as a method, starting from the relation of your question - as it was then posed - to the task of interpreting and understanding JR's first paragraph. I agree with you in that : > GF: ...for Peirce, semiotic is necessarily experiential... But not with: > GF: ...simply because it is a science. I can't see anything simple in that. Nor do I see that: > GF: It follows that terms like “experimental semiotics” and “empirical > semiotics” would be simply redundant for anyone deploying a strictly > Peircean conception of “experience” (as explicated by JR in the paper > we are reading) Hm. There may be many who take themselves to be deploying "a strictly Peircean conception of 'experience'" But, unhappily, there is no general agreement in the community of inquiry what a strictly Peircean conception of experience is. Not even on what Peirce's conception of experience strictly taken involves. And, further, if and when the community of inquiry is taken as including not only Peirceans, there is no general agreement (i.e. something simple and self-evident to all) of a valid concept of experience (which would necessarily involve a theory). To cut it short, I think you miss the main point in JR's introduction in the paper. First: Note the wording in JR's title. It is not "The Paradigm of Experience Appropriate..., but: "ON the paradigm of... Which is to interpreted - if the interpretation keeps strictly to the evidence at hand (i.e. the title) - that JR was not giving a presentation of THE paradigm (etc), but dealing with issues relevant FOR developing such a paradigm. - So, there is no evidence in the title that the paper was meant to be an explication of a strictly Peircean conception of experience. It is only telling us that something relevant for developing such a paradigm is dealt with. In his mature work, Peirce consid
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Gary F., list Thanks for an informative reply to my post. I'm sorry you did not find my post informative, but rather a distraction. In many respects, you are right to view it as such. I just hope you did not find reading it a waste of time. You wrote: > GF: You seem to have a lot to say about the paper we are slow-reading, and i > look forward to that. But since you have no information to offer in reply to > my factual question about the occasion and audience of JR's paper, i wouldn't > want you to be any further distracted by my question than you already have > been. Indeed you've read so much into what i thought was a simple question > that i'd better explain why i thought it so simple. Here you say that your factual question was about the occasion and audience of JR's paper. With all respect, this was not how you stated your question in your earlier post. > GF: Since i had never heard (until now) of anyone wanting to make such a > distinction, i couldn't help wondering why JR thought it important enough to > write a whole paper one the question of how (or whether) such a distinction > should be made. Can you see the difference? In my post, I tried to warn you that no answer is to be expected. Instead, I focused on slow read as a method, starting from the relation of your question - as it was then posed - to the task of interpreting and understanding JR's first paragraph. I agree with you in that : > GF: ...for Peirce, semiotic is necessarily experiential... But not with: > GF: ...simply because it is a science. I can't see anything simple in that. Nor do I see that: > GF: It follows that terms like “experimental semiotics” and “empirical > semiotics” would be simply redundant for anyone deploying a strictly Peircean > conception of “experience” (as explicated by JR in the paper we are reading) Hm. There may be many who take themselves to be deploying "a strictly Peircean conception of 'experience'" But, unhappily, there is no general agreement in the community of inquiry what a strictly Peircean conception of experience is. Not even on what Peirce's conception of experience strictly taken involves. And, further, if and when the community of inquiry is taken as including not only Peirceans, there is no general agreement (i.e. something simple and self-evident to all) of a valid concept of experience (which would necessarily involve a theory). To cut it short, I think you miss the main point in JR's introduction in the paper. First: Note the wording in JR's title. It is not "The Paradigm of Experience Appropriate..., but: "ON the paradigm of... Which is to interpreted - if the interpretation keeps strictly to the evidence at hand (i.e. the title) - that JR was not giving a presentation of THE paradigm (etc), but dealing with issues relevant FOR developing such a paradigm. - So, there is no evidence in the title that the paper was meant to be an explication of a strictly Peircean conception of experience. It is only telling us that something relevant for developing such a paradigm is dealt with. In his mature work, Peirce considered himself first and foremost a synechist. That is, he took continuity as the most basic ground in his philosophy. (Not classification of signs, for example, which has been so popular amongst Peirceans. For a reason I can see, still not a good reason, I think.) One of all the myriads of aspects involved in continuity and synechism, is that no jumps are allowed. - You make jumps, Gary. You jump into conclusions and interpretations leading to premature questions. As we all do, most of the time. But that is not a Peircean way. - The Peircean way, as I see it, involves meticulous work and a critical stance to the workings of our own minds, our own thinking. Which, then, involves a critical stance in relation with the questions we pose, not only in relation to the answers, whoever gives them. - We ourselves, or others. A critical stance towards ourselves, our own thinking and doing, is the hardest part of the way. On some occasions Peirce laments that people ask him to give the evidence for his theories, but when he proceeds to give it, they get bored and do not listen. Peirce also wrote that no one should just believe what he wrote, but try it out themselves. - This is a rule I have followed as best I can. - Therefrom comes the understanding I have gained. You wrote: > GF: You might ask why there's any need for such guesses about the occasion > and audience of JR's paper. The simple answer is that Joe's thesis in this > paper seems to me so obvious that i can't help wondering why he would bother > to write a whole paper on it. Yes, I do not see any need for such guesses. But, more importantly, I view such guesses harmful to an attempt to understand the paper. That is what I'm trying to convey, not only to you, but to those in the list who may be interested. Joe's thesis in the first sentence
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Kirsti,
You seem to have a lot to say about the paper we are slow-reading, and i look
forward to that. But since you have no information to offer in reply to my
factual question about the occasion and audience of JR's paper, i wouldn't want
you to be any further distracted by my question than you already have been.
Indeed you've read so much into what i thought was a simple question that i'd
better explain why i thought it so simple.
Last week, Jon posted a bit of Peirce's 1897 fragment (CP 2.227) which says in
part:
[[ Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown, only another
name for *semiotic* (σημειωτικη), 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. ]]
>From this and many other statements, it seems clear that for Peirce, semiotic
>is necessarily experiential simply because it is a science. (The same is true
>of “philosophy, in the strictest sense,” according to CP 3.428 1896, and
>Steven has objected to that ‘strict sense’ of “philosophy”, but i think even
>he would allow that it applies to any Peircean semiotic, no matter how you
>spell it.) It follows that terms like “experimental semiotics” and “empirical
>semiotics” would be simply redundant for anyone deploying a strictly Peircean
>conception of “experience” (as explicated by JR in the paper we are reading).
>But as a quick Google search shows, some writers have actually used those
>terms as if they were not redundant. Hence my tentative hypothesis that JR was
>addressing his paper questioning the rhetorical viability of such terms
>primarily to an audience interested in semiotics but perhaps not deeply
>grounded in Peirce, who therefore might be tempted to use such questionable
>terms. (My impression is that many European semioticians are not very well
>acquainted with Peirce, or at least that was the case 30 years ago when JR's
>paper was originally written.)
You might ask why there's any need for such guesses about the occasion and
audience of JR's paper. The simple answer is that Joe's thesis in this paper
seems to me so obvious that i can't help wondering why he would bother to write
a whole paper on it. But perhaps it's only obvious to me because i had already
dealt with the role of experience in sciences (from a Peircean point of view)
in a chapter of my work in progress. Of course i may be missing some hidden
depths in JR's paper, precisely because i see in it some points i had already
written down myself before reading it; and i'll be happy if you show me some
things i might have missed in this paper. Presently, though, i'm just
explaining why i asked what seemed to me a simple historical question when i
posted it.
Gary F.
} Judge people by truth, not truth by people. [Al-Ghazali] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
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Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Hi Gary F., First, thank you, and Gene & Gary R. for your kind posts welcoming my re-appearance. Greatly appreciated! Then, to your post. Well, it involves a couple of inter-related questions, not just one. - On the question resulting from you Google search, sorry to say, I'm simply not able to answer. So, let's leave it aside. But your main question, concerning JR's first sentence, i'm delighted to deal with. Although in a manner you may not expect. Still, I trust my response may put your mind at ease with the question bothering you. What I'll deal with is the relation of your question to the task at hand: Understanding JR's paper. - And further, understanding it using a slow read method. Mind you, this is all about method. Answers are like buckets of water, while method is the well. > GF: You may be able to suggest an answer to a question that's been bothering > me since i read the first sentence of JR's paper: " 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." Since i had never heard (until now) of anyone wanting to make > such a distinction, i couldn't help wondering why JR thought it important What you are doing here, is that you get stuck with the word 'semiotics' used in connection with 'empirical' & 'nonempirical' and 'experimental' & 'nonexperimental' . You then make a Google search of this particular unit of words. - The result gives rise to new questions, which - to my mind- leads you even further astray from the task at hand. Peirce, in his mathematical writings on number theory, takes a clear stand on the question which are primary, cardinals or ordinals. For him, ordinals are. There is quite much involved in this, relevant for all kinds of methodical issues, including methods of interpreting and understanding texts. For instance, the type of questions to be meaningfully ( and fruitfully) posed changes with the stand taken. - With cardinals taken as primary, the stand lures into questions like "How much?", "How many?", " One or two, or more?" etc. In short, it leads into taking UNITS (whatever they may be) as matters of primary concern. This is what I think you do, when you take this particular unit of words the ground for your questions. On the other hand, if and when ordinals are taken as primary, the ground for questions changes. What comes to the fore, are questions like: "What next?", "What follows?". That is: the question of steps (and the nature of steps) comes to the fore. - Ordinals are all about sequences! This is in line with Peirce's view that logic (in the narrow sense) basically amounts to "If - then" -relation. So, when you got puzzled by JR's first sentence, the first step you took (most probably without noticing) was to take this particular unit of words as your primary concern. - It then acted as a ground for further questions & attepts to find an answer. There is another way. I'll try to describe it. - Or rather, using Peirce's almost totally neglected concept, give a precept for finding the way. Here, a marginal note: To my mind the concept of precept is more important than the concept of concept in Peircean theory. Although it is not frequent in his writings. The neglect is evidenced by it not appearing in the index in EP. - Continuing, then. If you take a new look at JR's first sentence, dissolving the unit your mind got obsessed with, you will find that taking up a distinction between empirical and nonempirical, or between experimental and nonexperimental does not surprise you at all. - Although it is not commonplace to use words 'nonempirical' or 'nonexperimental'. Your choice in Googling shows an understanding of this. You did not Google *nonempirical semiotics'. I assume your intuitive expectation of finding anything (even if and when you were not aware of making a choice here) was close to zero. So, it must have been the use of 'semiotics' in this particular union of words, used by JR. which was the root of your puzzle. - How to solve it, then? There are two fruitful options, to my mind, for the next step. The first is to look back & to look a bit ahead within the context of the paper. Steven omitted the title of the paper in introducing this slow read. - Not good! - The title is always a key, even The Key, for understanding what the paper is about. But I won't go into this now. Perhaps later. (Suffice it to say that I have often spent about 90 % of the time used in writing a paper with the title and the first sentence. This mentioned to illustrate the importance I take these to have.) Taking a close look at the title and reading the next sentence, or rather the whole paragraph, I find the most fruitful step in attempting to solve any puzzle met at the beginning of any paper (or book, or whatever). Which brings us to the question
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Kirsti, Welcome back to the list. I'm sorry to hear about your health setback and hope you are now feeling better. Your timing is absolutely serendipitously beautiful for me, as I was literally just about to search out your email address in the next hour, for an email I began to write you last night. I wanted to contact you about your "Baby Dance Method," that we discussed on the list about five years ago or so in connection to a paper I just completed. So I will be doing so offlist. Cheers, Gene -Original Message- From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Määttänen Kirsti Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2011 5:16 PM To: PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU Subject: Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic List, First, I feel a need for a short note of apology to those engaged in the list some years back, especially to Bernard. In the midst of a lively and deeply interesting discussion, I disappeared. - My health then failed me. So frail, so frail is life. And yet - so strong! Which means, amongst other (myriads of) things, that I'm back, biting in the tail (or head?) of life, conversing with you listers again. I do miss Joe. - Miss with a new note now, after reading this article of Joe's under discussion. - Now I understand, what I missed when I did not read it earlier, when I would have had the opportunity of discussing it with him, personally. Well, then. To the issues at hand. I'll start at the beginning. Steven starts with the first paragraph of the article: > Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins: > > "[1] 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." > > 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. With this I cannot agree. - I am a European thinker, and it would't cross my mind to tackle with the phrase "it is doubtful". And further: I do not think it reveals any unnecessary caution. The distinction Joe takes up is commonly made, and is (and has been) taken as self-evident. > Ransdell here sees the development of Semeiotic Theory as the activity of > "philosophers" and they are clearly his audience, so I should make it clear > from the start - in order to contextualize my comments - that I do not think > this. Semeiotic Theory is, for me, the first activity of scientific thinking. > I further believe that it should be the first activity in mathematical > thinking, though today it is not. Well, Steve. You use quotation marks with "phIlosophers". - To me, this causes problems. Joe does not use the word in this paragraph. So you do not quote Joe. - Why the quotation marks, then? > This is no criticism of Ransdell, I'm quite sure he would agree, but it is > important to the reading of the paper and to understanding my comments. Hm. I'm not so sure Joe would. > > In any case, what Ransdell says here is, on the face of it, radical. > Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical > and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. Indeed, > as the paper progresses Ransdell argues that these distinctions are simply > ways of speaking - derived from convention - and unnecessary With your first sentence, I fully agree.- But it just is not so that in this paragraph, or in this article for that matter, Joe recommends avoiding the distinction. - On the contrary, he deals with it. The very fact of Joe's writing this article can only be taken as a prompt - and more than a prompt - to others to deal with it, too. And the fact of his taking it up and taking the effort of dealing with it , in a beautiful and eloquent style, bears evidence of a recommendation to be concerned about it, to think about it, and tackle it - in a new way. With respect, Kirsti -
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Kirsti, it's good to hear from you again, especially to hear that you've
recovered from a health setback.
You may be able to suggest an answer to a question that's been bothering me
since i read the first sentence of JR's paper: " 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." Since i had never heard (until now) of anyone wanting to make such
a distinction, i couldn't help wondering why JR thought it important enough to
write a whole paper one the question of how (or whether) such a distinction
should be made. So i did a Google search on "empirical semiotics" (or
"semeiotics"), hoping to get some idea of the history of the concept. The hits
were surprisingly few, and most of those listed at the top seem to be Finnish
sites. Being a Finn yourself, i thought you might have some insight into this
history.
Since JR doesn't bother to introduce the concept to his audience, i can only
assume that the subject must have been a current one at the time JR wrote the
paper, so that he assumed his audience was familiar with it. (Which implies, to
me at least, that it must have been an audience familiar with the field of
semiotics as it existed at the time -- not just an audience of "philosophers".)
But perhaps Steven knows more than he has yet said about the occasion and the
audience for which this paper was originally written.
And by the way, i agree with just about everything you've said in your post.
Gary F.
} Truth is truth, whether it is opposed to the interests of society to admit it
or not. [Peirce] {
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
-Original Message-
From: C S Peirce discussion list [mailto:PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf
Of Määttänen Kirsti
Sent: November-10-11 5:16 PM
List,
First, I feel a need for a short note of apology to those engaged in the list
some years back, especially to Bernard. In the midst of a lively and deeply
interesting discussion, I disappeared. - My health then failed me.
So frail, so frail is life. And yet - so strong!
Which means, amongst other (myriads of) things, that I'm back, biting in the
tail (or head?) of life, conversing with you listers again.
I do miss Joe. - Miss with a new note now, after reading this article of Joe's
under discussion. - Now I understand, what I missed when I did not read it
earlier, when I would have had the opportunity of discussing it with him,
personally.
Well, then. To the issues at hand. I'll start at the beginning.
Steven starts with the first paragraph of the article:
> Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins:
>
> "[1] 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."
>
> 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.
With this I cannot agree. - I am a European thinker, and it would't cross my
mind to tackle with the phrase "it is doubtful". And further: I do not think
it reveals any unnecessary caution. The distinction Joe takes up is commonly
made, and is (and has been) taken as self-evident.
> Ransdell here sees the development of Semeiotic Theory as the activity of
> "philosophers" and they are clearly his audience, so I should make it clear
> from the start - in order to contextualize my comments - that I do not think
> this. Semeiotic Theory is, for me, the first activity of scientific thinking.
> I further believe that it should be the first activity in mathematical
> thinking, though today it is not.
Well, Steve. You use quotation marks with "phIlosophers". - To me, this causes
problems. Joe does not use the word in this paragraph. So you do not quote Joe.
- Why the quotation marks, then?
> This is no criticism of Ransdell, I'm quite sure he would agree, but it is
> important to the reading of the paper and to understanding my comments.
Hm. I'm not so sure Joe would.
>
> In any case, what Ransdell says here is, on the face of it, radical.
> Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinct
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Let me note that my approach to this slow read is linear. That is, I am reading it with the minimum of forward references and attempting to response constructively to the immediate text. This has already confused one or two people, so I beg forgiveness although I plan to continue in the same vein. I also find little to criticize in the paper and much to support, and so my own comments have this bias and tend to be clarifications from my perspective for the verification of the ideas here coming from the work in science since the paper. I hope that a few readers will step forward with comments that begin "Well, remember, at the time ..." because I suspect that these ideas were less clear then. On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm To continue: " [3] Take, for example, the category of sense-perception, now commonly regarded as essentially connected with the idea of physical sense-organs which somehow mediate the perceptions. So recent is this conception that John Locke, in the latter part of the 17th Century, could say that all of our ideas come from the senses, and then go ahead to explain that this includes the “inner sense,” by which he did not mean a physical organ for detecting sensations internal to the body but rather the ability to perceive the various ways in which our ideas can combine, dissociate, be abstracted from one another, and so on. And even more recently, the nature of the so-called “kinesthetic” sense — the ability to know the position of our limbs without looking at them or relying upon tactile sensations — constituted a topic for lively debate in 19th Century psychology even though there were no known physical organs connected with this sense, its existence being inferred from the fact that we can have a certain kind of immediate apprehension that cannot be accounted for in terms of any of the traditionally recognized five sense organs. ..." [SEZ] I think it is worth adding here that recent work in biophysics, since this paper was written, it has become increasingly clear that sense is not constrained to the "five senses" although the sensory architectures are differentiations of different kinds - pain, for example, is distinct from the other senses - it is becoming increasingly accepted that all of "thinking" is sensory in nature, and that our ideas are made of the same stuff as any sensation. In terms of my own, senses are characterized by the biophysical structure. [3] ... Or consider the distinction between being asleep and being awake, in virtue of which we distinguish dreams, on the one hand, from daydreams, imaginings, and hallucinations, on the other, but which, curiously enough, does not enable us to distinguish dreaming from sense-perceiving (since we have some sense-perception while asleep). Obvious as this sleeping/waking distinction may seem it has recently been put into question by psychological research, such that some psychologists have proposed that this commonsense dichotomy might best be replaced by a coordinate trichotomy of waking, REM sleep, and non-REM sleep, in view of the fact that REM sleep has about as much in common with waking as it does with non-REM sleep. But such a reconceiving of this presupposition of some of our categorial distinctions might well call for significant revisions in the categories themselves. And quite apart from this, it is surely questionable, on the face of it, that the sleeping-waking distinction as commonsensically conceived in the modern West is really the same distinction as would be drawn by, say, an itinerant hunting people." [SEZ] Ransdell is laying down a case that I will argue has subsequently been shown to be correct. The categories established at the time are ways of speaking about our experience and must be revised or rejected on the basis of their verification. There are natural biophysical states, necessary distinctions, that characterize our experience and that are rightly the basis of any distinction. [4] Moreover, although it seems reasonable, on a commonsense level, to say that the various kinds of apprehending listed above are all “mental” operations or activities, there is little reason to suppose that what is expressed by the word “mental” in this particular context is actually a unitary and coherent idea. On the contrary, it seems rather more likely that the idea of the mental, in this context, has actually been functioning as a sort of catch-all for accommodating a variety of things which, for various unrelated reasons, are not regarded as assimilable to any commonly recognized non-mental categories. The content of visionary religious experiences, for example, are usually relativized to the category of hallucination simply because no non-mental category which can accommodate them is recognized as valid, and, indeed
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
List, First, I feel a need for a short note of apology to those engaged in the list some years back, especially to Bernard. In the midst of a lively and deeply interesting discussion, I disappeared. - My health then failed me. So frail, so frail is life. And yet - so strong! Which means, amongst other (myriads of) things, that I'm back, biting in the tail (or head?) of life, conversing with you listers again. I do miss Joe. - Miss with a new note now, after reading this article of Joe's under discussion. - Now I understand, what I missed when I did not read it earlier, when I would have had the opportunity of discussing it with him, personally. Well, then. To the issues at hand. I'll start at the beginning. Steven starts with the first paragraph of the article: > Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins: > > "[1] 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." > > 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. With this I cannot agree. - I am a European thinker, and it would't cross my mind to tackle with the phrase "it is doubtful". And further: I do not think it reveals any unnecessary caution. The distinction Joe takes up is commonly made, and is (and has been) taken as self-evident. > Ransdell here sees the development of Semeiotic Theory as the activity of > "philosophers" and they are clearly his audience, so I should make it clear > from the start - in order to contextualize my comments - that I do not think > this. Semeiotic Theory is, for me, the first activity of scientific thinking. > I further believe that it should be the first activity in mathematical > thinking, though today it is not. Well, Steve. You use quotation marks with "phIlosophers". - To me, this causes problems. Joe does not use the word in this paragraph. So you do not quote Joe. - Why the quotation marks, then? > This is no criticism of Ransdell, I'm quite sure he would agree, but it is > important to the reading of the paper and to understanding my comments. Hm. I'm not so sure Joe would. > > In any case, what Ransdell says here is, on the face of it, radical. > Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical > and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. Indeed, > as the paper progresses Ransdell argues that these distinctions are simply > ways of speaking - derived from convention - and unnecessary With your first sentence, I fully agree.- But it just is not so that in this paragraph, or in this article for that matter, Joe recommends avoiding the distinction. - On the contrary, he deals with it. The very fact of Joe's writing this article can only be taken as a prompt - and more than a prompt - to others to deal with it, too. And the fact of his taking it up and taking the effort of dealing with it , in a beautiful and eloquent style, bears evidence of a recommendation to be concerned about it, to think about it, and tackle it - in a new way. With respect, Kirsti - 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] FW: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear Irving, I did not intend to draw the association between Peirce and Hilbert that concerns you. My use of Hilbert's well-known line, thought now to be a matter of some embarrassment after Goedel's result, is only a reflection of my own view and not that of Peirce. I acknowledge the context of Hilbert's original statement. In the years after that context I have come to believe that the statement gained a broader context, that of what was widely described as "Hilbert's Program" - in which all science is tractable to mathematics. I cannot tell if Peirce would have agreed with Hilbert. I personally believe that Hilbert was right but too optimistic in 1900, and this should caution us. I certainly do not think we should give up on the program, though clearly new ways of thinking about mathematics and epistemology are required and I personally believe that Peirce and Semeiotic Theory more generally can eventually get us there. In the context of the current slow read I suspect that Hilbert would have agreed with the position that Joe Ransdell outline (though surely with insufficient rigor to satisfy Hilbert), and then to the degree that this view reflects that of Peirce it reflects that of Hilbert. Hilbert certainly knew of Peirce and gave him the highest praise in the introduction to his work on Mathematical Logic with Ackermann. Hilbert's reference to "Bar Stools and Beer Mugs" appears in his "Foundations of Geometry" as I recall (I do not immediately have access to my copy of the work). I agree that Hilbert's remark reflects his formal view, echoed in his and Ackermann's work on mathematical logic, but I am unclear as to whether this reflects his view of Logic in general as a subject of study (esp. given his appreciation of Peirce). Perhaps you can clarify for me the Kantian phrase that Google translates as: "Thus all human cognition begins with intuitions, proceeds from thence to concepts and ends with ideas." What are the distinctions that Kant seeks though the notions of "cognition," "intuition," "concept" and "idea." I'll accept both that Google's translation is imperfect and that my appreciation of Kant is lacking a good understanding of German. From the point of view of the argument given in Joe Ransdell's paper (and consistent with my own view) these notions are ways of speaking about one and the same thing and Kant's statement on the face of it would appear to be empty (or, at least, redundant). I agree when you say: I think that what is wanted is a deep clarification of what Peirce may > or may not have meant in asserting that logic is "an experiential, or > positive science." I can't say that I am in a position to perform this "deep clarification" but I suspect a simplistic analysis is not far from the truth. For Peirce, Logic relies upon Semeiotic Theory and not merely the syntax of "Symbolic Logic" and it's semantic rules. While Hilbert was no doubt the great formalist, I have never believed from my reading of him and his biography that Hilbert ignored semeiotic considerations. Indeed, I either read or I dreamed that I read that Hilbert rather wished that Tarski had used the notion of "valid" rather than "truth" - which reflects a concern with matters of apprehension. This is one of two references - the other being a reference to something that Benjamin Peirce said about "Will" in an astronomy lecture at Harvard - that I can no longer find and that cause me to be more disciplined in future scholarship. I also recall that Hilbert wanted at various times to return to these matters but that the war and the more tractable formal exercise always got in the way. Although my recall of dreaming analysis of Hilbert and the immediate study of Hilbert need to be confirmed by hard references*. *I make this point in the context of Joe Ransdell's paper. With respect, Steven On Nov 6, 2011, at 1:44 PM, Irving wrote: > > Steven, > > You quote Peirce as saying in CP 7.526 that "Logic is a branch of > philosophy. That is to say it is an experiential, or positive science, > but a science which rests on no special observations, made by special > observational means, but on phenomena which lie open to the observation > of every man, every day and hour. There are two main branches of > philosophy, Logic, or the philosophy of thought, and Metaphysics, or > the philosophy of being. Still more general than these is High > Philosophy which brings to light certain truths applicable alike to > logic and to metaphysics. It is with this high philosophy that we have > at first to deal." > > A few paragraphs later, you then say: > > 'To echo Hilbert, "We can know, we will know." Only it is not > mathematics alone that will inform us (and a revolution in the > Foundations of Logic is required).' > > > I do not think that Hilbert would have accepted the interpretation that > seems to be implied in placing his remark in juxtaposition with the > quote from Pe
Re: [peirce-l] FW: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
On Nov 6, 2011, at 8:39 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: > Steven, thanks for getting our next slow read started – i have a couple of > questions and a comment on your first post. > > In your comments on JR's opening, you say that “Semeiotic Theory is, for me, > the first activity of scientific thinking.” I take “Semeiotic Theory” to be > your shorthand for “development of Semeiotic Theory” (since “Theory” is not > in itself an “activity”). When I say that "Semeiotic Theory is the first activity of scientific thinking" I mean that Semeiotic Theory is the subject of that activity. Your interpretation of my, admittedly idiosyncratic phraseology at times, is correct. You may be more comfortable using the term "Semeiotics" wherever I use "Semeiotic Theory," as Joe does. > Given the usual Peircean concept of “philosophy” as “an experiential, or > positive science, but a science which rests on no special observations, made > by special observational means, but on phenomena which lie open to the > observation of every man, every day and hour” (CP 7.526), the proposition > that “the development of Semeiotic Theory is the first activity of scientific > thinking” would seem to imply that it *is* the activity of philosophers (as > well as thinkers in more specialized sciences). Yet you say that you “do not > think this.” Should we infer then that the term “philosopher” for you denotes > something other than a practitioner of “philosophy” as Peirce defined it? Or > did you mean to say that Semeiotic theorizing is the first activity *not > only* of philosophers but of all scientific thinkers? Peirce says in CP 7.526: "Logic is a branch of philosophy. That is to say it is an experiential, or positive science, but a science which rests on no special observations, made by special observational means, but on phenomena which lie open to the observation of every man, every day and hour. There are two main branches of philosophy, Logic, or the philosophy of thought, and Metaphysics, or the philosophy of being. Still more general than these is High Philosophy which brings to light certain truths applicable alike to logic and to metaphysics. It is with this high philosophy that we have at first to deal." I do not use this definition, and nor do most "philosophers." It's not exactly a "disagreement" with Peirce, it's more of a "refinement." For me, Logic is a branch of Semeiotic Theory (speaking of it as a subject). Semeiotic Theory deals with Logic and Apprehension and is (or should be IMHO) the foundation of the disciplines we call "Mathematics" and "Physics" at their broadest. Mathematics deals with ways of speaking about structure and its transformation. Physics deals ways of speaking of observed behavior in order to provide explanation (the identification of causes). Combined one may refer to this as "Existential Thinking" or "Thinking About Existence." Indeed, as a Positivist (aka "a Pragmaticist in Semeiotic"), I believe that this discipline must eventually underpin all of our thinking - including medicine, economics and other social science (where it is sadly absent today). I shouldn't hesitate to say in the context of this paper that all criticism, literary or otherwise, all passion, all art and all thinking from intuition to formal structure must eventually become a part of this thinking. This is a position, expressed most often by Logical Positivist and Existentialist thinkers, that rejects the broad manifest, and mostly unsystematic, activity of "Philosophy" (as opposed to Peirce's definition) and "Metaphysics" in general. To echo Hilbert, "We can know, we will know." Only it is not mathematics alone that will inform us (and a revolution in the Foundations of Logic is required). > One comment on your paraphrase of JR's opening: > [[ Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the > empirical and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. > ]] Yet JR does make this distinction explicitly, in paragraphs 9 and 10, in > order that it may be “possible for us to regard *all* applied semiotics as > empirical semiotics” [8 -- emphasis JR's]. This latter claim would be > meaningless if there were no difference between empirical and non-empirical. > JR's point, then, is not that Semeiotic Theory must avoid the distinction > altogether, but that we must “disentangle the conceptions of the > experiential, the experimental and the empirical from certain other complexes > of ideas with which they have become associated” [1]. And that is what JR > proceeds to do – after several paragraphs of beating about the bush of > entanglements from which he wishes to free those conceptions. Indeed, and we will get there, you are skipping to the punchline. My comments relate here not to paragraphs [9] and [10] but to paragraph [1]. You'll note that I said "on the face of it." > > One more question, regarding “Semeiotic Theory”: would you chara
[peirce-l] FW: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Steven, thanks for getting our next slow read started – i have a couple of
questions and a comment on your first post.
In your comments on JR's opening, you say that “Semeiotic Theory is, for me,
the first activity of scientific thinking.” I take “Semeiotic Theory” to be
your shorthand for “development of Semeiotic Theory” (since “Theory” is not in
itself an “activity”). Given the usual Peircean concept of “philosophy” as “an
experiential, or positive science, but a science which rests on no special
observations, made by special observational means, but on phenomena which lie
open to the observation of every man, every day and hour” (CP 7.526), the
proposition that “the development of Semeiotic Theory is the first activity of
scientific thinking” would seem to imply that it *is* the activity of
philosophers (as well as thinkers in more specialized sciences). Yet you say
that you “do not think this.” Should we infer then that the term “philosopher”
for you denotes something other than a practitioner of “philosophy” as Peirce
defined it? Or did you mean to say that Semeiotic theorizing is the first
activity *not only* of philosophers but of all scientific thinkers?
One comment on your paraphrase of JR's opening:
[[ Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical
and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. ]] Yet JR
does make this distinction explicitly, in paragraphs 9 and 10, in order that it
may be “possible for us to regard *all* applied semiotics as empirical
semiotics” [8 -- emphasis JR's]. This latter claim would be meaningless if
there were no difference between empirical and non-empirical. JR's point, then,
is not that Semeiotic Theory must avoid the distinction altogether, but that we
must “disentangle the conceptions of the experiential, the experimental and the
empirical from certain other complexes of ideas with which they have become
associated” [1]. And that is what JR proceeds to do – after several paragraphs
of beating about the bush of entanglements from which he wishes to free those
conceptions.
One more question, regarding “Semeiotic Theory”: would you characterize your
“technical excursion” on JR's paragraph [2] as an instance or an application of
it? Or is it an excursion *from* “Semeiotic Theory”? For me at least, your
answer might help to clarify your intention to “to lay a more rigorous
foundation for the discussion of the rest of the paper,” as i'm finding it
difficult to see the point of your “excursion.”
Gary F.
} How do you know you are on the path? Reality checks you at every turn. [gnox]
{
www.gnusystems.ca/Peirce.htm }{ gnoxic studies: Peirce
-Original Message-
Sent: November-06-11 1:08 AM
Dear List,
Herein begins the slow read of:
On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph
Ransdell
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm
This paper was originally presented in 1980 and last modified as the above
version in 1998.
I have delayed starting in order to review the notes that I have made in
preparing for this reading. I want to ensure that my comments take into account
the full context of the paper and in the past few days I have spent some more
time with the paper in order to achieve this.
I have also taken the opportunity to review comments that relate to this
subject that Joe made in conversations with myself and others over the past
decade on Peirce-l. Readers of this paper should also reference the following
paper that was the subject of a slow read in July.
Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?
http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/phenom.htm
This paper provides an informal discussion of "categories of apprehension" and
advocates, explores and clarifies the unified view of science and the nature of
verification as advocated by Peirce and numerous thinkers that came after
Peirce, notably Rudolf Carnap.
Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins:
"[1] 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."
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
Re: [peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, Herein begins the slow read of: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm This paper was originally presented in 1980 and last modified as the above version in 1998. I have delayed starting in order to review the notes that I have made in preparing for this reading. I want to ensure that my comments take into account the full context of the paper and in the past few days I have spent some more time with the paper in order to achieve this. I have also taken the opportunity to review comments that relate to this subject that Joe made in conversations with myself and others over the past decade on Peirce-l. Readers of this paper should also reference the following paper that was the subject of a slow read in July. Is Peirce a Phenomenologist? http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/phenom.htm This paper provides an informal discussion of "categories of apprehension" and advocates, explores and clarifies the unified view of science and the nature of verification as advocated by Peirce and numerous thinkers that came after Peirce, notably Rudolf Carnap. Ransdell's approach is provocative. He begins: "[1] 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." 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. Ransdell here sees the development of Semeiotic Theory as the activity of "philosophers" and they are clearly his audience, so I should make it clear from the start - in order to contextualize my comments - that I do not think this. Semeiotic Theory is, for me, the first activity of scientific thinking. I further believe that it should be the first activity in mathematical thinking, though today it is not. This is no criticism of Ransdell, I'm quite sure he would agree, but it is important to the reading of the paper and to understanding my comments. In any case, what Ransdell says here is, on the face of it, radical. Semeiotic Theory, he says, must avoid the distinction between the empirical and the nonempirical, between experimental and the nonexperimental. Indeed, as the paper progresses Ransdell argues that these distinctions are simply ways of speaking - derived from convention - and unnecessary. In my following comments concerning paragraph [2] I am going to take a technical excursion dealing with apprehension and then leave it at that for today. I do this in order to lay a more rigorous foundation for the discussion of the rest of the paper. Continuing then: "[2] Things which are or become present to us, such that we can recall them sufficiently well to be able to refer to and describe them in some manner -- let us call these things "phenomena" -- are usually classified or classifiable by us as things sense-perceived, remembered, foreseen, dreamed, daydreamed, imagined, hallucinated, inferred, supposed, conceived, envisioned, and so forth. That is, they are classified in relation to what I will call, for want of a better phrase, "categories of apprehension." This, or a roughly similar classification scheme, is shared by the peoples of the contemporary Western world, and, of course, by a great many others who have become "Westernized," but it is not a "human universal"; for it is a classification of phenomena considered in relation to what we think of as our faculties of awareness, and although it may be debatable whether the idea that there are such things as faculties of this sort is a humanly universal idea, it is certain, in any case, that this particular set of ways of conceiving them is far from being universal. It is not even necessary to turn to anthropological evidence or to histories of non-Western civilizations in this connection, for even the ideas of remembering and foreseeing -- which are, on the face of it, the most likely candidates for universality in this set -- are implicitly qualified by their relations to conceptions of time and history which have developed well within the recorded history o
[peirce-l] SLOW READ: On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic
Dear List, This is a brief note to remind you that during November I will be leading the slow read of On the Paradigm of Experience Appropriate for Semiotic by Joseph Ransdell http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/ransdell/paradigm.htm In honor of Joe. Joe was instrumental in easing my own path through the work of Charles Peirce. He always encouraged me in my own work and there was a great deal of respect that developed between us quickly. In a Peirce-l posting of the 25th of January 2009, Joe wrote: > "In another message, not yet composed, I want to explain something about > Steven Ericsson-Zenith's relationship to Peirce as a theorist with > philosophical ambitions remarkably similar to Peirce's though not conceived > by him as a continuation of Peirce's work but rather of Rudolf Carnap's > instead. I think that someone with an extensive acquaintance with Peirce > will be inclined at first to think of Steven's project as Peirce modified > (for good or ill) by Carnap, though Steven would probably want to correct > that immediately by saying it would be closer to the truth to regard his > theory as Carnap modified by Peirce, though Steven may or may not have > actually derived its Peircean aspects from Peirce but arrived at them quite > independently. (This is of course an exaggerated description but intended > only to be suggestive: it testifies to the quality of Steven's thought that > such a comparison can profitably be made.) I characterize Steven's > theoretical work in this way in order to be able to convey in a few words > why a good many people on the list may -- I am inclined to say should -- > want to investigate Steven's theory further, if for no other reason than as > an opportunity to sharpen their understanding of what Peirce is all about. > This is not to be construed as patronizing Steven in any way. One thing one > can learn from this is why Peirce regarded the derivation of the categories > in the New List as being of fundamental importance: Steven is clearly > laboring at much the same task. To anyone interested I recommend taking a > look at work in progress by Steven, called "Explaining experience in nature" > http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/5196 I hope that you will not consider it too self serving to repeat this here, I present it only to illustrate the high mutual regard that we felt for each other. As far as I am aware, Joe never composed the message to which he refers and he never sent a message of this kind to me directly. I am greatly saddened by this because I would surely have learned a great deal from it. As it is, I shall always be appreciative of his wisdom, support and encouragement. I will begin the slow read in a little over one week from now. Since the term "Experience" plays a central role in my own theory, this paper seems a most appropriate choice for me to review. With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering http://iase.info http://senses.info - You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
