Dear Clark
I do not know if there is a connection from Timaeus to Aristotle who ‘s hyle
has inspired Peirce synechism. It is true that Hyle contains the possibilities
for making a limited amount of forms (inspired from Plato’s ideas). Pierce –
inspired by Hegel and Schelling’s objective (German ) idealism- sets the whole
thing in motion and develops Scotus extreme Scholastic realism. His idea of
Cosmogony is close to Hegel’s dialectics but in the improved version of the
three categories interacting much the same way producing signs. But it is not
clear to me where or how matter emerges other than as stiffened habits, which
is pretty close to how we understand elementary particles like bosons and
fermions. We also see matter as 99,99% emptiness.
Best
Søren
Fra: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com]
Sendt: 24. november 2015 17:48
Til: PEIRCE-L
Emne: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:8949] Re: Terms, Propositions, Arguments
(I broke out your responses to make them a little easier)
On Nov 24, 2015, at 6:46 AM, Søren Brier <sb....@cbs.dk<mailto:sb....@cbs.dk>>
wrote:
Which order are you speaking of here? Plotinus, among the neoplatonists has two
classes of absolute otherness. On the one is the One which is pure potency and
the origin of all the emanations
I THINK THIS IS WHAT PEIRCE HAD IN MINE KELLY PARKER WROTE A PAPER ON THIS AND
INCLUDED IN HIS BOOK The Continuity of Peirce's Thought.
Yes I think though Parker deals with both. He points out that in the earliest
Peirce in his more Kantian rather than Hegelian stage that Being and Substance
were the unthinkable limits - the start and end. (W 2:49-59)
Yet somewhat following Aristotle he has matter as pure privation which is also
absolutely Other
THIS I DO NOT KNOW AND DO NOT THINK PEIRCE MENTIONES.
Substance are pure habit is this matter. It’s not quite the same as Aristotle
since he’s moved in a more neoPlatonic form. But then the neoPlatonist were in
many ways reconciling the arguments of Aristotle, Plato and the Stoics. Parker
provides a quote relevant to our other discussion on reversibility and habits.
Pairs of states will also begin to take habits, and thus each state having
different habits with reference to the different other states will give rise to
bundles of habits, which will be substances. Some of these states will chance
to take habits of persistency, and will get to be less and less liable to
disappear; while those that fail to take such habits will fall out of
existence. Thus substances will get to be permanent. (CP 1.414)
My sense is that “fall out of existence” simply is due to this being a
continuum. Those without permanence disappear as a practical interaction. So
the more permanent something is the more it can act and the less permanent the
less it can act. I suspect that is what Peirce means in the other quote as well
(CP 8.318)
Within Hebrew mysticism, especially certain forms of Kabbalism, there’s a
notion of Tzimtzum. (I tend to follow the traditional interpretation that the
Jewish mystics got this from gnosticism and neoplatonism but there’s a strain
that argues for the influence going the other way or at least co-evolution. In
any case the major form is Lurianic Kabbalism which is a 16th century
phenomena) This is the idea of God withdrawing to create a space within himself
that creation can take place. In other words a primal nothing creates a
secondary nothing.
I HAVE SEEN NOTHING LIKE IN PEIRCE
No. I can’t think of it either. Although it’s something to keep in mind. The
question is the move from a place of pure possibility to actuality. To be
actual is to have a place. I think there are parallels to the idea in the
mature Peirce’s conception of the sign. The sign points to its object by a
guess. But this guess requires a space or a gap. That gap functions in an
analogous way. (And in the Continental tradition the various aspects of this
gap become quite significant and are explicitly tied to the Khora of the
Timaeus)
The connection of matter and form is significant in Aristotle of course even if
the creation of the elements in the Timaeus is different. However in Aristotle
hyle is rich and fertile and open to possibilities. Thus it’s pure potency but
a pure potency *different* from how form is pure potency. One is giving and one
is receiving. So if we read Peirce and are connecting to these ideas we have to
be careful not to assume potency is always the same type of potency. With Duns
Scotus matter is already determined in a sense in that it’s a material cause of
individuation. That’s different from Aristotle or most of the neoPlatonist. I
think Peirce usually is following Duns Scotus in terms of haecceity, quantity
and individuation. (Although not exactly the same
All that said though people have written on pre-firstness (Being in Peirce’s
early categories) as being Khora. (Inna Semetsky has according to my notes
written on this although I don’t have a reference I could find - just comments
in Peirce-L more than a decade ago) To me the type of possibility in this
pre-firstness is more the One than Matter in the neoPlatonic conception.
However this issue of moving from pure possibility to actuality seems to
require two aspects - a place for the actuality to become actual and then
potency of putting in the possibility.
From what I can see (and admittedly I’ve not studied a ton on Peirce’s
cosmology here) Peirce just doesn’t deal with this. Typically when dealing with
potency he’s talking firstness not this nothing. So even in Peirce we have to
distinguish between potencies.
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