Gary R., Gary F., André, List,
In what follows, Im respondingat least in partto some suggestions that
Richard Atkins makes in his 2010 Transactions article An Entirely Different
Set of Categories: Peirce's Material Categories about how we might understand
Peirce's phenomenological account of the material aspects of the categories.
Two quick points: for my part, I dont think it is all that difficult to make out the
general ideas behind Peirce's formal and material categories--and the relationship
between the two. The formal categories are articulated in response to the kinds of
questions I tried to set out in the last email. I'm practically quoting from Peirce in
"The Logic of Mathematics; an attempt to develop my categories from within."
He makes the same kinds of points in the 1903 lecture on phenomenology, but in less
straightforward terms.
What then, is the general idea behind the material categories? The line of
argument for the formal categories that I've tried to point to is conditional
in form. What formal properties would have to be in experience in order for us
to draw valid synthetic inferences from what we've observed? Once the formal
analysis is complete, he has not yet shown that the three formal elements are
actually a part of our ordinary experience. Much of the burden of a
phenomenological theory is to make this out, and to show that all three formal
elements are found in virtually every part of our experience--both actual and
possible. The methods used in phenomenology teach us how to identify the
elemental categories in the complex systems of qualities, objects and
interpretants that flow in our experience in the process of semiosis. When we
try to move beyond this general idea, things get a bit more difficult. Peirce
says a number of things about the material categories (or as I would put it,
the categories viewed in their more material aspects), and it is hard to see
how all of the things he says are supposed to cohere. As a starting point, I
would try to clarify his distinction between what is formal and what is
material. He makes some really interesting points about the history of this
distinction--and he points out that Kant turns Aristotle's way of thinking
about this distinction on its head. I wonder what Peirce is doing with Kant's
way of looking at this basic distinction? (see CP 6.353-63)
With that much said about the distinction between what is formal and material, I think
any reconstruction of Peirce's account of the material aspects of the categories should
start from the points that he first made in the lectures leading up to "On a New
List of the Categories." His initial remarks are about the character of the
categories considered formally. The category that is first is reference to a ground.
The category that is second is reference to an object. The category that is third is
reference to an interpretant. Then he turns to the categories considered materially. The
category of quality is single reference to a ground. The category of relation (later
brute fact) is double reference to ground and object. The category of representation
(later mediation) is triple reference to ground, object and interpretant. On my reading
of Peirce' account of the categories, this early idea of single, double and triple
reference is at the root of all of the later developments and refinements of his account
of the categories--both formal and material--in phenomenology (i.e., and phaeneroscopy).
Now, for the second quick point. Gary F. says: "Jeff, Im interested in your question, 'is
there any kind of formal relation between the parts of a figure, image, diagram (i.e., any
hypoicon) that does not have the form of a monad, dyad or triad?' That certainly sounds like
iconoscopy, but I confess that I have no idea how we would go about investigating that
question." The answer to the question involves the whole of Peirce's semiotic--and not just
his account of the iconic function of signs. So Peirce is bringing quite a lot to bear on the
question. For starters, however, I think we should consider the examples he thinks are most
important in formulating an answer. What Peirce sees is that, in mathematics, the examples we need
are as "plenty as blackberries" in the late summer. (CP 5.483) What do you know, it is
late August. Let's go picking.
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2014 4:09 PM
To: Gary Richmond; Peirce-L; Gary Fuhrman; André De Tienne
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy, iconoscopy, and trichotomic category
theory
Gary R., Gary F., André, List,
Peirce makes two suggestions for doing phenomenology, and both are reflected in
the place he gives this kind of science in his architectonic.
1) We should ask: what formal categories must be in experience in order to
make valid synthetic inferences from the things we've observed? Or, putting
the question in a more particular form: what formal elements must be in the
observations we made of some surprising phenomenon in order to draw a valid
adductive inference to an explanatory hypothesis? The same kind of question
could be asked about inductive inferences from a set of data.
2) In order to answer this question, we should look to math and see what kinds
of mathematical conceptions and principles might be borrowed from this science
so as to give us insight into those formal features of the phenomena we observe.
These suggestions are reflected in Peirce's placement of phenomenology between
math and the normative theory of logic.
In order to see why these suggestions might be helpful for understanding
Peirce's theory of phenomenology (i.e., phaneroscopy), I'd suggest that we take
up a sample problem. Here is a question that mattered much to Peirce. What
kinds of observations can we draw on in formulating hypotheses in the theory of
logic about the rules of valid inference? Peirce's answer to this question is
that we are able to make a distinction between valid and invalid inferences in
our ordinary reasoning, and that we can classify different kinds of inferences
as deductive, inductive and adductive. The process of drawing on our logica
utens in making arguments and reflecting on the validity of those arguments
supplies us with the observations that are needed to get a theory of critical
logic off the ground.
As we all know, any kind of scientific observation we make might contain one or
another kind of observational error. As such, we have to ask the following
questions. Once we have a set of observations in hand, how should we analyze
them? What is more, how can we correct for the observational errors we might
have made? We could frame the same kinds of questions about the study of
speculative grammar as I've stated for a critical logic. For my part, I'm
working on the assumption that Peirce's analysis of the elements of experience
is designed to help us give better answers to these kinds of questions than we
are able to get from other philosophical methods--including those of Kant,
Hamilton, Mill, Boole, etc.
The study of icons, I take it, is part of a general strategy of thinking more carefully about
question (1) listed above. Gary R., are you thinking about "iconoscopy" or
"imagoscopy" differently? I think that the careful study of icons can be especially
helpful in setting up a theory of logic because of the essential role that icons have in the
process of making of valid inferences.
With this much said, let me ask a question that I think is really basic for
understanding Peirce's phenomenology: is there any kind of formal relation
between the parts of a figure, image, diagram (i.e., any hypoicon) that does
not have the form of a monad, dyad or triad? That is, take the space in which
a diagram or other figure might be drawn, and take the relations between the
parts of any diagram (both actual and possible), and ask yourself: how are the
actual parts of the token diagram connected to each other and to all of the
possible transformations that might be made under the rules that are used to
construct and interpret the diagram? Is there any formal relation between the
parts of the diagram and the space in which it is constructed that does not
have the character of a monadic, dyadic or triadic relation?
We see that Peirce makes much of the role of icons in necessary reasoning,
including the necessary reasoning by which mathematicians deduce theorems from
the hypotheses that lie at the foundations of any given area of mathematics.
The suggestion I'm making is based on the idea that icons have a similarly
essential role in the framing of a hypothesis and the drawing of an inductive
inference. Do you know of a place where Peirce argues this kind of point? One
sort of place that comes to my mind is the discussions he provides of the
process of formulating hypotheses in mathematics.
--Jeff
Jeff Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
NAU
(o) 523-8354
________________________________________
From: Gary Richmond [[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2014 11:15 AM
To: Peirce-L; Gary Fuhrman; André De Tienne
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Phaneroscopy, iconoscopy, and trichotomic category theory
Gary, list,
I suppose I expected--or at least, hoped--that Gary F. would respond to my post
on some of the issues we'd been discussing recently regarding phenomenology, a
topic of some considerable interest to both of us and, hopefully, to others on
the list as well. So, in an off-list email to him I expressed this hope, and
Gary wrote back in a message he said I could reproduce here. (I've interleaved
my own comments within the substantive parts of that message)
Ive already agreed that iconoscopy is probably the only way to make
phaneroscopy scientific, if its formulations themselves are scientific.
I would concur, especially if your qualification is met. But, for now, iconoscopy is the
subject of but a single, as far as I can tell, unpublished article by Andre de Tienne
(who, as I earlier suggested, thought the term 'iconoscopy' didn't exactly catch his
meaning, that something like 'imagoscopy' might come closer). There were also several
discussions of de Tienne's ideas in 2009 (as interest was shown in then by Martin
Lefebvre, myself, and others) and again in 2011 when both Gary F. and I discussed them in
the slow read of Joe's paper, "Is Peirce a Phenomenologist?" See:
https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg00043.html
Still, the idea of this second phenomenological science seems sound to me, and
even necessary. Continuing:
But I dont have a proper response to this:
So what exactly are "the elements of the phaneron" once one's stated the
obvious, that is, the three universal categories?
I dont think thats obvious at all, or maybe I dont get what you mean by
obvious here. Its not even obvious to many list members what it means that
the three categories are universal . So Im stumped for an answer to that
question.
Hm. I guess I'm stumped by your being stumped. It may be that some, perhaps many, list
members don't 'get' Peirce's categories at all, let alone see them as 'universal'. But
some people do observe "the elements of the phaneron" and do see them as
universal. I would even suggest, by way of personal example, that I saw them before I was
even exposed to Peirce's writings, and before I could give them names (certainly not
firstness, secondness, and thirdness, but, perhaps, something vaguely approaching
something, other, medium). This is merely to say that, if Peirce is correct and that the
elements of the phaneron are truly universal, then there's no reason why anyone attuned
to that kind of observation shouldn't and couldn't have touched upon them before having
Peirce's precise and helpful names for them.
Phenomenology is admittedly a difficult science to grasp and even more
difficult to 'do', so I can imagine that many folk, including many
philosophers, haven't developed, or fully developed, the kinds of sensibilities
and abilities which Peirce thought were essential in doing this science--that
is, they haven't developed them any more than, for example, I've developed some
of the mental skills necessary for taking up certain maths. But, as to our
interests and talents, vive la difference!
Also its still not clear to me how category theory or trichotomic is
related to phaneroscopy and iconoscopy, or why its part of Peircean
phenomenology (rather than logic or semiotic, or even methodeutic). It seems
to take the results of phaneroscopy (as articulated by iconoscopy, I suppose)
and apply them to the analysis and classification of more complex phenomena
such as semiotic processes. If so, then it should be subordinate to
phenomenology in the classification of sciences, not part of it
Here I must completely disagree. While it is true that trichotomic can and will
be applied in principle to semiotic, it is my opinion--well, more precisely, my
experience--that trichotomies are discovered in phenomenological observation.
And I personally have no doubt that Peirce observed them in this way. It may be
that one needs a kind of logica utens to sort out some of these structures
after the fact of the observation of them, but, for example, it is possible in
observing many phenomena, to 'see' that firstness, secondness, and thirdness
form a necessary trichotomy within them,so to speak; and that 'something',
'other', 'medium' requires a vectorial progression from 1ns, through 2ns, to
3ns, and in precisely that (categorial, in this case, dialectical) order.These
are, of course, two of the most basic expressions of (a) trichotomic and (b)
vectorial progression. At the moment I can see no other place for the
observation of such trichotomic structure and the establishing of this as a
principle for the use by sciences which follow phenomenology except at the end
(the putative third division) of it.
In logic, of course, Peirce considers diagrams more essential than language;
but I dont see how diagrams can be used in phenomenology to avoid language, so
I dont have a useful suggestion for doing that either, although I wouldnt
want to say that it cant be done. I was hoping somebody else would have a
better response.
But certainly very many, perhaps most, diagrams of considerable value to and
use in science necessarily require language, or use language as an adjunct.
This, for example, is the case for some of the trichotomic diagrams Peirce
offers in certain letters to Lady Welby. The diagrams I use in trikonic are
meant, first, to show the categorial associations of the terms of a genuine
trichotomic relationship (those icons/images identified in what might be called
an iconoscopic observation, then given names) and, second, to show the possible
vectors (or paths) that are possible--and, some times, evident-- in some of
them. A logica utens allows one to extrapolate rather far in this vectorial
direction, in my opinion. But such a use of logica utens is the case in
theoretical esthetics and ethics as well. Ordinary logic (logica utens) need
not and probably cannot be avoided in the pre-logical (i.e., pre-semiotic,
pre-logica docens) sciences.
If any of the above is useful as a prompt for a further explanation of category
theory , feel free to quote it and reply with a correction! Meanwhile, yes, I am
busy with a number of things these days &
Yes, your remarks have been at least personally useful, especially in seeing
that until the first two branches of phenomenology, phaneroscopy and,
especially, iconoscopy, are much further developed, trichotomic category theory
will lack a solid basis. Still, important science has been accomplished in all
the post-phenomenological sciences without this grounding and I expect this to
happen in trichotomic as well.
Peirce clearly saw the categories as a kind of heuristic leading him to a vast
array of discoveries along the way. It is not surprising, then, that late in
life he settled on an essentially trichotomic classification of the sciences.
It seems to me that if one allows for a second phenomenological science,
iconoscopy, that it makes sense to at least look for yet a third one--perhaps
especially in this science which discovers three universes of experience.
And further, it seems to me that the first of the semiotic sciences,
theoretical or semiotic grammar, gets one of its most important principles,
namely, trichotomic structure (cf. object/sign/interpretent;
qualisign/sinsign/legisign; icon/index/symbol; rheme, dicent, argument; the
trichotomic structure of the 10-adic classification of signs; etc.) not out of
thin air, but from some science preceding it according to Comte's principle of
the ordering of the sciences, that those lower on the list drawn principles
from those above them.
Suffice it to say for now that in my opinion trichotomic category theory ought be placed
in phenomenology, not further down in the classification of the sciences (Gary, you
suggested methodology, which makes no sense to me at all), And, rather than being
"subordinate to phenomenology," it seems to me that, within phenomenology, and
at the conclusion of it, that it provides exactly the bridge leading to the normative
sciences, but especially to semiotic grammar.
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690<tel:718%20482-5690>
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