Edwina,
This gets at something that's been bugging me for a long time regarding
the categories.
Compare the laws of mathematics and the law of gravity. No law needs to
be instantiated, which means the second within that third need not be
two existing things. Gravity and mathematics are laws that are real
without regard to any physical effects that act in their accord. This is
why I say, within relativist-historicism, that the law of gravity is a
creation of man, whereas the bruteness of things acting in its accord
may not be.
I do question, within Peircean philosophy, whether what we call
bruteness is really just a more refined third abstracted from a complex
of thirdness. We can deduce, from knowledge of the form of a third, that
a second is within; but we can't say anything about that second. Seconds
have to be abstracted from Thirds, otherwise you'll have to admit that
there might be a second completely isolated from reality and therefore
unknowable. So seconds' constant association with their thirds, in
reality, I think leads some people to think they're experiencing
secondness when it's really a less complex level of thirdness. A second
without regard to a third cannot be defined. It has no character without
that third, nor relation (e.g., there is no concept of measuring their
distance without introducing a third, so the very concept of distance
has no meaning without a third, nor is there a force of their impact
until a third is introduced), so it can't be whiffed. This is the reason
that idea of 'experiencing firstness' always struck me as an absurdity.
I have to believe that they're only whiffing a paired down third.
Matt
On 10/16/15 2:27 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Matt- when I said that 'gravity is a natural force' - I meant it is a
law that 'forces' matter to behave in interaction with other
matter according to the strength of the gravity.
Is gravity a mode of Thirdness? Certainly, habits are arrived at via
construction. Now, Secondness assumes that 'something concrete exists'
- some THING...differentiated from some OTHER THING. That's where the
idea of 'Secondness' comes in - that duality, that dyad. Now, to be a
'Thing' means that it is organized in itself. This, to me, suggests
that it already is operating - just in itself - within the
organizational mode of Thirdness. So - the interaction between the
two things may be strictly within a mode of Secondness but the
existential nature of each thing - must include Thirdness. So - is
gravity a mode of Thirdness?
I'm going to say - yes. I'm not 100% sure but I can't see it as
anything else. Laws are, after all, Thirdness. Gravity is a natural
law - a law 'natural' to matter and when gravity interacts with matter
- it does X. When there is LESS gravity, then, matter behaves
differently. So, this law, this gravity actually organizes how matter
functions. So - I'll conclude that gravity is a mode of Thirdness.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Matt Faunce <mailto:mattfau...@gmail.com>
*To:* Edwina Taborsky <mailto:tabor...@primus.ca> ; Peirce-L
<mailto:peirce-L@list.iupui.edu>
*Sent:* Friday, October 16, 2015 2:10 PM
*Subject:* Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A Second-Best Morality
On 10/16/15 12:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Matt- the 'precognitive' physical world functions in all three
modes: Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. After all, the
habits of formation of a molecule of water are an example of
Thirdness and an example, according to Peirce, of the operation
of Mind. I will yet again, repeat from 4.551 (I ought to know it
by heart by now!)...
"Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in
the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical
world".
Yeah, "pre-cognitive" was a bad choice of words, since "cognition"
is distinguished from "thought". I conflated the two terms. I was
just thinking of Secondness.
Hmm, I find your comment that 'a constructed god' is as real as
gravity to be questionable. Gravity is a natural force; an
ideology about a god(s) is imagined by man.
I was talking about the law of gravity, which isn't a force.
Margolis counts the world of secondness as prior to any
construction. I'm weighing this against the more Madhyamaka idea
of it all. I can see how we should think that the secondness
abstracted from the law of gravity is not a construction.
If you're referring to gravity as a third, then you're making the
distinction, about what is constructed and what isn't, in a
different place than me. I think all thirds are constructions.
Matt
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