Jim, list,
This remains interesting, but, generally, this forum is too addictive for
me! I have to get on with practical matters which are, at this point, getting
over my head. So I'm unsubscribing for a few months. Thanks for people's
interest, Gary, Joe, Jim P., Jim W., Bernard, and any others,
for discussing/arguing with me. More generally, keep peirce-l
bustling.
Best, Ben Udell
----- Original Message -----
---From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 3:50 PM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New
List
Ben,
You say,
"Saying that the NLC 'theory' of cognition (which seems to me no more a
cognition theory than Peircean truth theory is an inquiry theory even though it
references inquiry) is sufficient except when we talk about possibility,
feasibility, etc., is -- especially if that list includes negation (you don't
say) -- to deny that there is an issue of cognizing in terms of
alternatives to the actual and apparent, etc., even though then logical
conceptions of meaning and implication become unattainable. " (END)
It is not a sufficient theory. I see it as asking "what are the
most general elements in a process by which the mind forms propositions."
The example is a simple case of perceptual data. But, it is not a complete
theory of knowledge. In fact, it is more of a chapter in the history of
cognitive psychology. It is a logical description of a psychological
process;some parts of which may be empirically established. (For instance,
Peirce thinks it is questionable what the then current results of empirical
psychology have established with respect to acts of comparison and contrast.)
If the paper is coupled with some theses from the JSP series,
it seems clear to me that a theory of cognition emerges that could be of
interest to psycholinguists and cognitive scientists working in language
formation and even speech-act theory. Does it handle all epistemic interests,
propositional attitudes, modalities? No.
But it is not a special science since the results uncovered are precisely
the most general elements used in any inquiry. It is more nearly what the
1901 Baldwin entry suggests, namely, erkenntnislehre, a doctrine of
elements. Peirce struggled with where to assign this study. Is it a part
of logic or pre-logical? There doesn't seem to be much of the normative
concern that later demarcates logic proper. But there is a law-like element that
is presupposed in so far as "one can only discover unity by introducing it."
That transcendental point could easily mark a historical divide between
naturalists such as Quine and "static" modelists such as Chomsky. In some sense,
grammar is the issue, although generalized to the utmost. Both could take the
spirit of the paper and do things, Chomsky in the specialized application to
syntactic structures and transformational grammar, and Quine, in so far as the
theory is empirically testable, as shedding some light on know
Modern epistemology cannot even get off the ground with this NLC paper
unless the enterprise is so naturalized that the theory (historical curiosity or
not) is used to guide research in the relevant special sciences. The specific
perceptual cognition and cognitive assertion under discussion meet none of the
criteria for knowledge in the "classical" picture. The assertion "this stove is
black" need neither be justified, true, or even believed. The paper, at least in
part, is merely explanatory, if only insufficiently, of what is required to even
begin the classical assessment.
You say,
"But the point in philosophy is not rephrasability, but instead to
understand the result and end of such procedures, in which the description of
signs is a _means_ to _transformations_ of extension and
intension, transformations which themselves are a means to represent real
relationships. The research interest of smoothing and smoothly "encoding"
cognitions into common convenient keys or modes guides deductive maths of
propositions, predicates, etc.; but does not guide philosophy, which is more
interested in the corresponding "decoding." Philosophy applies deductive
formalisms but is no more merely applied deductive theory of logic than
statistical theory were merely applied probability theory." (END)
Well, I agree. It is not for nothing that normative science is
structured the way it is in Peirce's architecture. The purpose of logical
analysis, linguistic analysis, "theory criticism," can't be lost sight of.
Jim W
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:39 AM
Subject: [peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New
List
Jim,
>[Jim Willgoose:] I am playing at trying to reject it. ("poss.Bs &
poss.~Bs") I have accepted it more often than not.
Now you tell me.
>[Jim] I also understand the difference between discussing formal
properties that hold between propositions (modal or non-modal) and forming a
"1st order" proposition out of the discussion of contingent
propositions and the formal properties. This could be made clearer by
noting the following:
>[Jim] "P" is a contingent proposition
>[Jim] "P" & "-P" are feasible.
>[Jim] "&" and "feasible" are part of the metalanguage used to
discuss contingent propositions.
>[Jim] "feas. P" & "feas.-P" are ill-formed.
>[Jim] Explanation: "Feasibility" is a 2nd order predicate used to
discuss....
It does appear that you understand the difference, though the example could
be misleading. We often do not have distinct words for the object and the sign,
and, even in the case of the word "true" where we can distinguish "true"
(corresponding to the real, to the genuine, etc.) from "real," "genuine,"
etc., nevertheless the word "true" does double duty and we do use the
word "true" about objects in order to call them genuine, real, authentic,
rather than in order to call them signs corresponding to the real. In the
cases of "possible," "feasible," etc., we're not always going to have enough
words to make the distinction easily. Thus saying that some proposition "Hs" is
feasible could be taken to mean that "Hs" is something which
is feasible as a proposition. Thus formal logic has functors and
ordinary English has adverbs which grammatically modify the whole
clause. Some of the functors are too powerful for 1st-order log
>[Jim] This looks strangely similar to where we started in terms of
rephrasing "she is possibly pregnant" as 'it is possible that "she is pregnant"'
or ':she is pregnant" is possible.' But then, 2nd order assertions obey
the theory of NLC cognition except we talk of feasibility, optimality,
possibility and even assertibility. "Assertibility" would be an even
higher-order predicate. Wasn't your initial concern with certain epistemic
predicates that qualify "1st order" predicates?
To the contrary, my initial concern was with the categories {substance,
accident, whetherhood, and object(s)-to-object(s) relations (e.g.
mappings)}.
As I've said, the point is that the mind must be able to treat things in
terms of alternatives to the actuality with which it is presented, and all the
normal minds of which we actually know do this, even that tribe http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,414291,00.html whose
language was recently found to contain none of the grammatical conjunctions
which enable the _expression_ of complex structures of such thoughts. But they do
say, just as we sometimes do, "You go there, you see it" in the sense of
"If/when you go there, you'll see it." Living among polyglot immigrants, I
hear that kind of talk all the time. Anyway, meaning and implication are in
terms of alternatives to that which is. Saying that we can and should
treat such matters in terms of descriptions of signs is like saying that
philosophy needs a mirrorish shield in order to keep
Best, Ben Udell
Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com |
- [peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New... jwillgoose
- [peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New... Benjamin Udell
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- [peirce-l] Re: The roots of speech-act theory in the New... Benjamin Udell
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