Gary,
Yes, I think it’s true that Peirce’s explicit references to Firstness,
Secondness and Thirdness become central to his work only in the 20th Century —
starting perhaps with the Minute Logic of 1902, where he first connects them
with “phenomenology”, or perhaps with the Carnegie Application, I forget which
came first. In the Welby letter we’ve been looking at, which is from 1904, his
use of the “-ness” forms should make it clear that his references to “a second”
and “a third” in the definition of Thirdness are not references to
instantiations of Secondness or of Thirdness. Whatever those things are, they
are only second and third in relation to “that which is such as it is,” which
is first in that relation — which is triadic because it is what it is only by
virtue of its being involved with them both in a way different from the way
that any one of the three is related to any one of the others.
As Peirce said somewhere else, I’m sure that’s as perfectly clear as a bottle
of ink.
} All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. [Kurt Vonnegut] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
From: Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com]
Sent: 28-Oct-15 17:50
To: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Peirce's categories
Gary, list,
Thanks for your contribution to the discussion of this question which, however,
seems to focus on Peirce's writings on categories prior to the 20th century.
At the moment my sense (and that's pretty much all it is, while I do think that
at least a mini-research project is in order) is that as he approaches, then
enters, the 20th century that Peirce uses the -ness suffix more and more,
especially in introducing his tricategoriality into a discussion. Once that's
been done, the context makes it clear what is first (i.e, 1ns), etc. in the
ensuing discussion.
So, in a word, I think he sees that employing the -ness helps disambiguate its
use in any given context, especially in introducing his no doubt strange, to
some even today, notion of three phenomenological categories.
Best,
Gary R
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