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
