Holy crap! I was never said anything about abstracting particles from
generals, or counting particles. You gave everything I said the wrong
interpretation. We have a serious communication breakdown here.
On 10/16/15 7:32 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Matt- see my replies below:
----- 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 6:04 PM
*Subject:* Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] A Second-Best Morality
Edwina,
This gets at something that's been bugging me for a long time
regarding the categories.
1) MATT: 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.
EDWINA: Sorry - I don't know what you mean by this (second without
that third).
2) MATT: 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.
EDWINA: Gravity is real and universal and exists quite
independently of mankind, and defined by its physical effects -
namely, the attraction of mass for other mass. Again, totally
independent of man - after all, gravity as a force existed long
before mankind! Surely you aren't referring simply to the formula
for figuring out the effect (Newton's Law). Gravity as that force
is quite indifferent to the mathematical formula.
3) MATT: 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.
EDWINA: No. Thirdness is a generalization of habitual modes of
organization and there is no discrete particle (a Secondness)
within Thirdness.
4) MATT: 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.
EDWINA: No- you don't abstract a particular from a general. What
happens is that the 'right-now' instantiation (Secondness) of a
long-term general (Thirdness) is guided within its 'right-now'
emergence by the rules/laws of the general.
5) MATT: 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.
EDWINA: Thirdness is not a third particular existential unit.
Thirdness is a continuous non-particular general mode of
organization. It cannot exist per se, i.e., on its own. It exists
only as expressed within individual instantiations (Secondness).
Your terms of 'second' and 'third' refer to NUMBERS, not to the
Peircean categorical modes - which are modes of organization - and
have nothing to do with numbers.
Firstness is a mode of experiencing an interaction - it is an
'acceptance of stimuli' (say a blast of heat) _without_ awareness
of it as 'heat'; without even awareness of it as differentiation
from yourself.
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
--
Matt
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