> On Aug 18, 2014, at 8:53 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Is quality material? - You write interesting mails to the list, but the > formal/material distinction does not do the job you seem to think it does.
It seems one place he uses the distinction he is discussing causes, attempting to clarify Aristotle’s famous four categories. There he seems to use form/matter more in the sense of external vs. internal cause. That’s obviously a distinction entirely relative to the object and scale one is investigating. It may be added that a part of a cause, if a part in that respect in which the cause is a cause, is also called a cause. In other respects, too, the scope of the word will be somewhat widened in the sequel. If the cause so defined is a part of the causatum, in the sense that the causatum could not logically be without the cause, it is called an internal cause; otherwise, it is called an external cause. If the cause is of the nature of an individual thing or fact, and the other factor requisite to the necessitation of the causatum is a general principle, I would call the cause a minor, or individuating, or perhaps a physical cause. If, on the other hand, it is the general principle which is regarded as the cause and the individual fact to which it is applied is taken as the understood factor, I would call the cause a major, or defining, or perhaps a psychical cause. The individuating internal cause is called the material cause. Thus the integrant parts of a subject or fact form its matter, or material cause. The individuating external cause is called the efficient, or efficient cause; and the causatum is called the effect. The defining internal cause is called the formal cause, or form. All these facts which constitute the definition of a subject or fact make up its form. The defining external cause is called the final cause, or end. It is hoped that these statements will be found to hit a little more squarely than did those of Aristotle and the scholastics the same bull’s eye at which they aimed. From scholasticism and the medieval universities, these conceptions passed in vaguer form into the common mind and vernacular of Western Europe, and especially so in England. Consequently, by the aid of these definitions I think I can make out what it is that the writer mentioned has in mind in saying that it is not the law which influences, or is the final cause of, the facts, but the facts that make up the cause of the law. (EP 315-316) (Excerpted from one of the longest paragraphs I’ve seen this side of Ayn Rand) It seems to me that there’s a bit of ambiguity over “form” and Peirce distinguishes teleology or final cause which is external from the defining internal cause or form. Although if I recall the scholastics well enough they might use form for this final cause. Hopefully this helps. I’m not sure he uses these oppositions of form/matter that often. Interestingly it’s closely related to the type/token relationship as well and he sometimes adds a third, tone. Later he changes this to mark, token and type. This is from his The Ten Main Trichotomies of Signs from Dec 24, 1908. (EP 2:488) That probably represents his most mature thought on the subject although one could argue that type, token and tone are quite different from the fourfold taxonomy of Aristotle on causation. Just to add, it’s also worth considering in terms of causation and Aristotle’s taxonomy Peirce’s own conception of inside/outside of the sign. Typically Peirce is interpreted to consider habit formation as something that occurs within the sign. This “within” is often seen as the psychic aspect whereas externally it’s considered chance. (Bringing in some of Perice’s metaphysics now) This gets at the interesting ontology of creation Peirce gives in 1891 that I’d quoted here a few weeks ago. in the beginning -- infinitely remote -- there was a chaos of unpersonalized Feeling, which being without connection or regularity would properly be without existence. This Feeling, sporting here and there in pure arbitrariness, would have started the germ of a generalizing tendency. Its other sportings would be evanescent, but this would have a growing virtue. Thus, the tendency to habit would be started; and from this, with the other principles of evolution, all the regularities of the universe would be evolved. At any time, however, an element of pure chance survives and will remain until the world becomes anabsolutely perfect, rational, and symmetrical system, in which mind is at last crystallized in the infinitely distant future. (CP 6.33) Again I think some parallels to neoPlatonism of late antiquity, especially Plotinus, are relevant here for thinking through how Peirce regards Aristotle. But again, I also recognize that Peirce’s ontology is extremely controversial. Many who love Peirce still balk at much of his metaphysics. While I think Peirce’s thought tends to hinge all together, one can probably separate his notion of signs without adopting his metaphysics of signs, mind, and matter. I confess that it’s an implication of Peirce’s thought it seems to me that the universe is losing mind as it becomes more regular. Which seems an odd thing to have in his metaphysics. Peirce often refers to it as crystallization of mind.
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