Thread:
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14286
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14290
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14313
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14350
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14351
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14352
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14359
GF:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14383
JLRC:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14388
Jerry,
Thanks for addressing the substance ...
The object I had in mind for this thread appears to have gotten lost in the
intervening fray, so let me go back and repeat what I said in the beginning:
As I read, read again, and scan ahead through Frederik's book, I find the issues
it raises very stimulating and its overall perspective very "amen"-able, if you
will, from my customary spot in the amen corner. If I appear too often or only
critical, it is probably because I don't normally find I have anything pressing
to add until we come to a point of divergence from the overall accord.
At this point in our reading, I can already see "the garden of forking paths",
normally such delight to ramble through, threatening to overgrow our sight of
the end-in-view we wandered into these woods to reach.
One thing that helps me in situations like that is to copy out selected passages
from the source text, the ones that seem to light up as I read them the first
time, before my vision is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought and too
much bandying of words about.
So I'm going to set aside this thread for that. Don't worry if a lot of the
passages I collect here come from different points in the book than we happen to
be discussing at any given time, or from other sources that may come to mind.
There is no need to bother with them until such time as their bearing on present
business becomes evident.
It had been my wish to go through the issues in a careful, critical, methodical,
and even plodding manner if that's what it takes to resolve them even a little.
But maybe the time is not ripe for that yet, and I have in the meantime
been drawn into other, equally engaging, engagements. So let me just make a few
off-the-cuff remarks that come to mind.
As I recall, I began with Frederik's citation of Hilpinen's citation of Peirce:
• http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14350
To which I added the following thoughts:
Points and questions that come to mind on reading this selection:
Assertion. Brings to mind my first university course in logic (Stoll, perhaps).
Based on what I later learned was a tradition extending from Frege to Quine,
the text made a distinction between considering or contemplating a proposition
and actually asserting it. This was invoked, for example, to explain the
difference between a conditional (→) and an implication (⇒). I would eventually
find more sensible ways of understanding this.
Force. Seriously, experience has forced me to realize that nothing can truly
force anything to be an icon or force anyone to regard anything as an icon.
Independently and Separately. These concepts require definition. As a rule,
logicians and mathematicians do not define them the same way normal people do.
In puzzling over the paragraph that FS quoted from KS I thought it might help to
examine a bit more context. So I went back to my NEM copy of KS and there it
was already lined in the margin. So I reckoned that I had probably already put
it on line sometime. As it turned out I had already done that back in 2005.
For my part, having a parsed-out copy on hand by link with the full context in
which we had been discussing it before is one part of what I need to figure out
what is going on there.
So I posted the link and text:
• http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14351
• http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-November/003187.html
The reason I keep using these links is not just for the sake of one bit of text
or another, but because they link into a context of quotations, commentary, and
discussion from a time when I had far more time for these particular inquiries
than I am ever likely to have again and when I was far more deeply immersed in
the issues that I can afford at present. So I must continue to beg indulgence
for that and I suggest it's just possible that others may derive good gain from
my recycling efforts.
Springing from this text, the following questions came to mind:
• http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/14352
Pure Icon and Pure Index. What in the world could those be?
And how could a "degenerate" something be a "pure" anything?
And while we're at it, must there also be pure symbols, too?
Peirce more or less finesses the first two questions with his statement that:
> | Absolutely unexceptionable examples of degenerate forms
> | must not be expected. All that is possible is to give
> | examples which tend sufficiently in towards those
> | forms to make the mean suggest what is meant.
That may work for the specious signs but does it apply to the genus of symbols?
With that da capo and recap I can now restore the context and continuity of the
present point in space-time-&-mind.
Regards,
Jon
Jerry LR Chandler wrote:
List, Jon:
> These are excellent questions! What do you think about these extentions?
>
> These questions penetrate to the heart of CSP's rhetorical stance as
> illustrated by the triadic triad:
>
> qualisign, sinsign, legisign, icon, index, symbol, rhema, dicisign, argument.
>
>
> If these terms are to form a coherent pattern of inferences, is it necessary
> that the terms themselves, under different situations and constraints, be
> impure? (That is, have more than one qualitative or quantitative meaning?)
>
> Further questions about the purity of thought arise readily...
>
> In particular, does the concept of a decisign emerge because of the
> differences between pure and impure indices, such as the indices between
> chains and branched chains of inferences?
>
> On a technical note, often CSP's chains of inferences appear to start with
> Lavoisier's principle of purity which is necessary for all exact (pragmatic)
> logic of chemistry and molecular biology?
>
> Does Lavoisier's principle of purity have any influence on CSP's use of the
> terms, Pure Icon and Pure Index?
>
> Cheers
>
> Jerry
>
--
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