Frederik, lists, Frederik, thank you for these very helpful remarks. Coincidentally. on the recommendation of Torkild Thellefsen I've recently read Nathan Houser's paper "The Scent of Truth" (*Semiotica* 153 - 1/4 (2005), 455 - 466). I recommended the paper to Ben Udell, so he may sound in on this as well. Nathan writes:
The importance of perception is that in what Peirce calls ''the perceptual judgment'' it attaches the equivalent of text, at the propositional level, to sensations, and, in so doing, introduces an intellectual component into consciousness. We know nothing about the percept otherwise than by testimony of the perceptual judgment, excepting that we feel the blow of it, the reaction of it against us, and we see the contents of it arranged into an object, in its totality . . . (CP 7.643) We might say that sensations, composed of elements of firstness and secondness, are apprehended on a higher plane, where the feeling component is recognized as characteristic of (a sign of ) something else (the 'other' that is indexically indicated by the element of secondness). Perception adds a symbolical component to consciousness and in so doing introduces the mediatory element constitutive of thirdness. What is the essential ingredient or element in the elevation of sensations to perceptions or, in other words, in the movement from the second level of consciousness to the third level? The clue is in Peirce's use of the word 'judgment' to distinguish the perceptual element that serves as the starting point of knowledge from its pre-intellectual antecedents. A judgment involves an act of inference or, at any rate, nearly so, and in what else could we expect to find the source of intellect? Of the three kinds of inference identified by Peirce, it is only abduction that can operate at this primitive level of thought. Strictly speaking, according to Peirce, perceptual judgments are the result of a process that is too uncontrolled to be regarded as fully rational, so one cannot say unequivocally that perceptual judgments arise from sensations (or percepts, as the sensory component in perception is called) by an act of abductive inference, but Peirce insisted that 'abductive inference shades into perceptual judgment without any sharp line of demarcation between them' and that 'our first premisses, the perceptual judgments, are to be regarded as an extreme case of abductive inferences' (CP 5.181). This helps explain Peirce's commitment (somewhat reconceived) to the maxim: 'Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu.' (CP 5.181). (The scent of truth, 461-2) These passages seem to support what you just wrote. Do you agree? Btw, Cathy Legg wrote that in the Q&A of a paper she presented at APA recently she was asked exactly what is a percept in the perceptual judgment. She thought it was "a good question." I think Nathan's parenthetical remark in the paragraph just above provides a neat answer: it is "the sensory component in perception"). Best, Gary [image: Gary Richmond] *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* *C 745* *718 482-5690* On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 1:19 PM, Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk> wrote: > Dear Gary, lists > > In the discussion of this P quote > : > > "If you object that there can be no immediate consciousness of generality, > I grant that. If you add that one can have no direct experience of the > general, I grant that as well. Generality, Thirdness, pours in upon us in > our very perceptual judgments, and all reasoning, so far as it depends on > necessary reasoning, that is to say, mathematical reasoning, turns upon the > perception of generality and continuity at every step (CP 5.150) > > > it may be too easy to get the impression that as there is "no immediate > consciousness of generality", there must be, instead, perception as > immediate consciousness of First- and Secondness from which generatlity is > then, later, construed by acts of inference, generalization etc. But that > would be to conform Peirce to the schema of logical empiricism which seems > to have grown into default schema over the last couple of generations. > And that is not, indeed, what Peirce thought. What IS "immediate > consciousness" about in Peirce? He uses the term in several connections. > Sometimes he says it is a "pure fiction" (1.343), sometimes he says it is > identical to the Feeling as the qualitiative aspect of any experience > (1.379) but that it is instantaneous and thus does not cover a timespan > (hence its fictionality because things not covering a timespan do not > exist). > But Feelings are Firstnesses and, for that reason, never appear in > isolation (all phenomena having both 1-2-3 aspects). So > immediate-consciousness-Feelings come in company with existence (2) and > generality/continuity (3). That is why what appears in perception is > perceptual judgments - so perception as such is NOT "immediate > consciousness". It is only the Feeling aspect of perception which is > immediate - and that can only be isolated and contemplated retroactively > (but then we are already in time/generality/continuity). Immediate > consciousness, then, is something accompanying all experience, but > graspable only, in itself, as a vanishing limit category. Thus, it is > nothing like stable sense data at a distance from later generalizations. > > Best > F > >
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