John, Edwina, Stan, and lists,
It seems to me that the debate you are having about the meaning of
"gravitation" may be resolved based on the principles of Peircean
semiotics, especially the irreducibly triadic nature of the sign. The
following is my way of applying the principles of Peircean semiotics to
your debate:
"Gravitation" is a word and, as such, is irreducibly triadic, a la Peirce.
That is, "Gravitation" is an irreducible triad of Object, Representamen,
and Interpretant.
GRAVITATION is the whole triad and IRREDUCIBLE to any one or two elements
of the whole:
f
g
Gravitation as Object --------> Gravitation as a Representamen
---------------> Gravitation as Interpretant
(Firstness)
(Secondness) (Thirdness)
(Gravitation as IS) (Gravitation as
EXPERIENCED) (Gravitation as THEORIZED/MODELED)
|
^
|
|
|___________________________________________________________|
h
Figure 1. A diagrammatic representation of "Gravitation" as a Peircean
sign or a mathematical category. The three mappings, f = sign generation,
g = sign interpretation, and h = correspondence, are thought to commute,
i.e., f x g = h.
In other words, the word "Gravitation" used in the human society is an
irreducible triad of its Object (i.e., a reality extant even long before
humans appeared on this planet), its Representamen (e.g., 'gravitiation' in
English, 'Joong Ryok' in Korean), and its Interpretant (e.g., the 'action
at a distance' for Newton, the 'curvature of spacetime' for Einstein).
My (fallible) impression is that Stan tends to focus on the interpretant
aspect of Gravitation, Edwina on the Firstness aspect of Gravitation, and
John seems to point out the importance of what I call Step h. Please
correct me if I am mis-reading your thoughts.
All the best.
Sung
On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 10:58 AM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote:
> Stan, it’s what we call the cause of all those things, which everyone
> recognizes is a single thing, whatever their theory. No theory needed. No
> special discourse needed. Only the name might differ. Each of those things
> itself is subject to your same reductive argument, because they are all
> generalizations. I am calling you out for either egregious inconsistency
> (failure to treat all generalizations the same)or else pointless ad hockery
> (picking some things we name, but not others). Or both.
>
>
>
> Of course we need ideas to put things together (abductions), but that
> says nothing about what they refer to. We can be mistaken about the nature
> of the reference (as people were for a long time about gravity, and
> probably still are), but naming something does not make it exist. Nor does
> it affect its nature.
>
>
>
> I would admit that there is a consistent system that would agree with your
> claim here, but it is called anti-realism, not constructivism. All
> philosophers these days are constructivists (also called
> representationalism), at least since Locke, who put semioisis into the
> philosophical terminology. But this is not incompatible with realism. So
> many of your arguments simply do not make the point you intend, or else are
> entirely uncontroversial, or both.
>
>
>
> If gravity were a construction, if someone didn’t believe in it they could
> jump out of a 20th floor window and suffer no problems. The generality
> that this sort of thing is impossible is called gravity. You don’t need an
> accurate theory, or any theory beyond a generalization, which in this case
> fits the mind independent facts rather well. Peirce was quite right to use
> the example.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:* Stanley N Salthe [mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu]
> *Sent:* April 26, 2015 11:20 AM
> *To:* biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
> *Subject:* [biosemiotics:8462] Re: Natural Propositions, Ch.
>
>
>
> John, Edwina -- Falling down, difficulty in hill climbing, etc., do not
> need human discourse (although the ideas used to meliorate these problems
> will be discursive). But GRAVITATION IS human discourse. How can anyone
> not see this? Even naming these phenomena without a developed theory
> uniting them would still be (rhythms, sounds).
>
>
>
> STAN
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 9:26 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
> Stan, for heaven's sake, gravity doesn't need any human discourse in order
> to exist. The laws of organization of a cell, in the egg as it transforms
> into a bird, don't need any human discourse in order to function. The laws
> of organization of a chemical molecule don't need any human discourse to
> function. These normative patterns, these habits of organization common to
> a species, to matter, to....are all examples of Thirdness.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:* Stanley N Salthe <ssal...@binghamton.edu>
>
> *To:* biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
>
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 26, 2015 9:12 AM
>
> *Subject:* [biosemiotics:8459] Re: Natural Propositions, Ch.
>
>
>
> Frederick -- Gravitation is a human discourse theory. Perhaps you mean
> instead the feeling of being heavy, and of not being able to flu upstairs.
>
>
>
> STAN
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk>
> wrote:
>
> Dear John, Stan -
>
> Thirdnesses in nature are kinds, patterns, laws, generalities - Peirce
> sometimes used gravitation as an example.
>
> Best
>
> F
>
>
>
> Den 26/04/2015 kl. 15.05 skrev Stanley N Salthe <ssal...@binghamton.edu>
>
> :
>
>
>
> John -- It would be useful to have an example of mediation/Thirdness in
> Nature that does not depend upon human discourse.
>
>
>
> STAN
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 9:00 PM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote:
>
> Stan, list,
>
>
>
> No, mediation, or thirdness does not depend on language. There are many
> cases of irreducible triads in nature other than in languages as the term
> is usually understood, and as Stan uses it below. You don’t have to be a
> pansemiotician to accept that.
>
>
>
> It is one thing for us to have mediate consciousness of generality and for
> there to be a generality that is not reducible to its instances. The idea
> that we create such things through the power of our thought is, frankly,
> ridiculous.
>
>
>
> Peirce once said: "The agility of the tongue is shown in its insisting
> that the world depends upon it." Charles Peirce CP 8.83 (1891). That sort
> of thing is best left to coffee shop philosophy.
>
>
>
> The distinction made in the first paragraph above needs to be made, even
> for an antirealist, or they soon get tied in knots. I won’t proceed to tie
> the knots.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:* Stanley N Salthe [mailto:ssal...@binghamton.edu]
> *Sent:* April 25, 2015 10:39 AM
> *To:* biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
> *Subject:* [biosemiotics:8441] Re: Natural Propositions, Ch.
>
>
>
> Gary -- Regarding:
>
>
>
> That's right--rather than immediate consciousness of generality, we have
> *mediate* consciousness of same.
>
>
>
> S: Here again I see the necessity of social construction. Mediation
> generally arrives via language, and languages are many and differ among
> themselves. So Thirdness would differ from language group to language group
> and therefore is not 'real' in the realist sense.
>
>
>
> STAN
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 7:54 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> That's right--rather than immediate consciousness of generality, we have
> *mediate* consciousness of same. This is one of the principal reasons why
> I consider Peirce's idea of the tripartite/tricategorial minimum of time
> being the *moment* (cf. Bergson's duree) versus the (abstract) *instant*
> to be so important.
>
>
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
>
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>
> *Communication Studies*
>
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>
> *C 745*
>
> *718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 6:39 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca>
> wrote:
>
> Gary R - exactly. Thanks for providing the quote.
>
>
>
> There is no 'immediate consciousness of generality' and 'no direct
> experience of the general'...and Thirdness is a factor of our perceptual
> *judgments*; that is, reasoning, which is to say, the act-of-Thirdness,
> (and I include physico-chemical and biological systems in this process) is
> grounded in the experience of perception.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> *From:* Gary Richmond
>
> *To:* biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
>
> *Cc:* peirce-l at list.iupui.edu
>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 24, 2015 5:33 PM
>
> *Subject:* [biosemiotics:8435] Re: Natural Propositions, Ch.
>
>
>
> "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)
>
>
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
>
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
>
> *Communication Studies*
>
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>
> *C 745*
>
> *718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Tommi Vehkavaara <tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi>
> wrote:
>
> Edwina
>
> If I can see right you are disagreeing with Peirce, then.
> However, I have a suspicion that there is not much real disagreements, but
> you just use words differently as me (or Peirce). I can easily agree that
> "Generals (...) are not akin to discrete matter" or that "we don't directly
> experience them as 'things-in-themselves'. A general is not a separate
> existentiality."
>
> But your statement that "We extract/synthesize generals within our direct
> empirical experience via our reasoning/cognition" I do not think is the
> whole story when it comes to Peirce's logical theory of perception (in
> 1903). That is (approximately) what happens in abductive reasoning, but its
> limit case, the formation of perceptual judgment is not reasoned because
> there is no self-control, nor question about its validity - it is always
> valid about the percept.
>
> Yours,
>
> -tommi
>
>
> Edwina wrote:
> Tommi, I'm going to continue to disagree. Generals, which are Thirdness,
> are not akin to discrete matter in a mode of Secondness. Peirce is
> following Aristotle in asserting that we know the world only through our
> direct experience of it. BUT - as he said: 'the idea of meaning is
> irreducible to those of quality and reaction' (1.345) which is the
> 'directly perceptual'. That is, within our direct experiences, we can, by
> 'mind' (and I mean 'mind' in a broad sense) understand generals. This is
> not reductionism. But since generals are laws, then, they are a 'matter of
> thought and meaning' 1.345) . These are 'relations of reason' (1.365) and
> not of fact (sensual experience of Secondness). So, 'intelligibility or
> reason objectified, is what makes Thirdness genuine' 1.366.
>
> We extract/synthesize generals within our direct empirical experience via
> our reasoning/cognition - since generals are as noted, an act of Mind - but
> we don't directly experience them as 'things-in-themselves'. A general is
> not a separate existentiality.
>
> Dear Edwina
>
> That is Peirce's conception that "perceptual judgments contain elements of
> generality, so that Thirdness is directly perceived" presented in his
> Harvard lectures (that Frederik too refers to):
>
> A bit larger quote from EP 2:223-24: "I do not think it is possible fully
> to comprehend the problem of the merits of pragmatism without recognizing
> these three truths: first, that there are no conceptions which are not
> given to us in perceptual judgments, so that we may say that all our ideas
> are perceptual ideas. This sounds like sensationalism. But in order to
> maintain this position, it is necessary to recognize, second, that
> perceptual judgments contain elements of generality, so that Thirdness is
> directly perceived; and finally, I think it of great importance to
> recognize, third, that the abductive faculty, whereby we divine the secrets
> of nature, is, as we may say, a shading off, a gradation of that which in
> its highest perfection we call perception."
>
> Yours,
>
> -Tommi
>
> On Apr 24, 2015, at 8:24 AM, Tommi Vehkavaara <tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi
> <mailto:tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi>> wrote:
>
> Dear Frederik
>
> It is not clear to me how the "Austrian" (Brentano-Husserl-Smith)
> conception about "fallible apriori" categories like food, organism, etc.
> could be compatible with Peirce's conception of pragmatism, at least as
> formulated and argued in Peirce's Harvard lectures 1903:
>
> “The elements of every concept enter into logical thought at the gate of
> perception and make their exit at the gate of purposive action; and
> whatever cannot show its passports at both those two gates is to be
> arrested as unauthorized by reason.” (EP 2:241, CP 5.212, 1903)
>
> For me at least this appears rather as a quite explicit denial that there
> could be room for a priori concepts or categories (and mathematics
> included), if by a priori is meant prior to senses. I cannot see how
> Peirce's idea that we are able to observe real generals directly, could
> change the situation in any way, because our access to generals (whether
> real or not) has nevertheless perceptual origin.
>
> So it is not clear what is your position here, is it that you favor the
> fallible a priori -doctrine over this Peirce's idea about the logical role
> of perception in cognition, or do you think they have no differing
> practical consequences, i.e. that they mean the same. Or perhaps you think
> that Peirce changed his view in this matter later so that his more mature
> view would be compatible?
>
> This is part of the greater problem that bothers me concerning the scope
> and applicability of Peirce's doctrine of signs and such (positive)
> metaphysics as he describes its source, but I will not go to these now.
>
> Yours,
>
> -Tommi
>
> You wrote as a response to Howard:
> FS: Haha! But that is not the argument. The argument that the categories
> food and poison are a priori, not which substances are nourishing or
> poisonous for the single type of organism.
>
> HP: I would say your statement that food and poison are a priori
> categories is only a proposition. It is not an argument. I agree that your
> realist mental construct of an abstract or universal category like food is
> logically irrefutable (except to me it violates parsimony).
>
> So I will only restate the empiricist's concept of food as whatever
> organisms actually eat that keeps them alive. In evolutionary terms
> survival is the only pragmatic test. How do logic and universal categories
> explain anything more?
>
> FS: I think we have been through this before. You say "Food as whatever
> organisms actually eat" - but this IS a universal category. It does not
> refer to empirical observations, individual occurrences, protocol
> sentences, measurements in time and space, all that which empiricism should
> be made from. It even involves another universal, that of "organism". It is
> no stranger than that.
>
> So I see no parsimony on your part. I see that you deny the existence of
> the universals you yourself are using.
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> *******************************************************************
>
> "Cousins to the ameba that we are, how could we know for certain?"
> - Donald T. Campbell
>
> *******************************************************************
>
> University of Tampere
> School of Social Sciences and Humanities - Philosophy
> Tommi Vehkavaara
> FI-33014 University of Tampere
> Finland
>
> Phone: +358-50-3186122 (work), +358-45-2056109 (home)
> e-mail:tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi
> homepage:http://people.uta.fi/~attove
> https://uta-fi.academia.edu/TommiVehkavaara
>
> *******************************************************************
>
>
> --
> *******************************************************************
>
> "Cousins to the ameba that we are, how could we know for certain?"
> - Donald T. Campbell
>
> *******************************************************************
>
> University of Tampere
> School of Social Sciences and Humanities - Philosophy
> Tommi Vehkavaara
> FI-33014 University of Tampere
> Finland
>
> Phone: +358-50-3186122 (work), +358-45-2056109 (home)
> e-mail: tommi.vehkava...@uta.fi
> homepage: http://people.uta.fi/~attove
> https://uta-fi.academia.edu/TommiVehkavaara
>
> *******************************************************************
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701
www.conformon.net
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