Agreed - that immediate/dynamic interpretant as cut off from the final interpretant is nominalism. But, i still see Derrida as the ultimate kabbalistic mystic, with The Word as the 'primal cause'; that is, it isn't speech and its 'presentness' that is primary but the non-present 'writing' ...existing outside even of the 'differance' between words..As we know, Derrida rejected logic (i.e., reason) as the basis of language and instead opted for 'utterances' in actual discourse. He obviously wasn't that interested in the objective world. I'm not an expert on Derrida, having been turned off by his rejection of logic and reason and the objective world....so - the above are only my vague memories of my readings on him.
Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Clark Goble To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L Sent: Friday, October 23, 2015 1:44 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Seeing things On Oct 23, 2015, at 11:24 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote: Clark - yes, the Heidegger-Derrida mysticism of The Word. That was/is - truly terrible! Pure nominalism - but made authoritative by the aspatial and atemporal mystic essentialism of The Word. Yes, I just don’t think Heidegger and Derrida were doing word mysticism. Just that a lot of people who missed the key phenomenology part were able to ape the language. To me both Heidegger and Derrida were realists in the same mold as Peirce (albeit with a very different style of language focused on metaphor). To see this one need only look at the place of key scholastic realists on the thought of Heidegger and Derrida. And yes - Peirce's outline of the Final Interpretant - which is how 'every mind' would act. Perfect. But nominalism instead rejects this Final Interpretant and instead, focuses strictly on the Immediate Interpretant. Is it tied up with metaphor? I think the dynamic interpretant can be aligned with metaphor. And agreed - that we may never reach the 'final truth' - but Peirce was well aware of that as you know. The real issue are what are the implications for philosophy of the final interpretant being at best off in an infinite future. I think in particular the problem for Derrida was that most of philosophy at the time thought that the final interpretant was here in the present in our presence. This is key for say the positivists but is really part of what Descartes introduces as epistemology. I don’t think we appreciate in these years where few are epistemological foundationaglists just how widespread this view affected philosophy. Arguably the whole reason Peirce critiques most philosophy as nominalistic is wrapped up with this legacy of Plato and Descartes. The idea of a present final interpretant. If under Descartes we have thoughts that correlate with things then the immediate thoughts take the place of the final interpretant. However if you recognize the problem with this then all you’re left with are the names in the mind. That is the immediate and dynamic interpretant without the final interpretant is nominalism. Nominalism arises because of how the mind is cut off from reality. The combination of shifting the nature of truth plus scholastic realism avoids all this.
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