> On Nov 30, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > > Interestingly relative to Scotus the middle voice argument usually is made by > the proponents of analogy against Scotus. Heidegger sees this voice as key to > understanding the pre-socratics (since he’s caught up on Plato being the > source of philosophical error as much if not more than Descartes). So his > examples of “to arise” (middle voice) and “to give birth to” (active voice) > arise both out of medieval but also these early Greek ways of speaking. The > key to the middle voice is that things happen without necessarily someone or > something making them happen. The actor is just missing.
Just to expand on that a little since I suspect those not familiar with middle voice might be a tad confused. Middle voice didn’t exist in Latin. It did in Greek. Usually it relates to a subject being both the actor and receiver of the action. So it a double move of passive and active. Ockham thought this was necessary for logic, although it’s not quite clear why. It comes up relative to Scotus over analogy which in practice is the debate over univocal or equivocative terms. For Scouts Being is univocal. Ockham who wants things to be more mental than Scouts uses middle voice to get around certain arguments because the middle voice enables both active and passive. Later starting at least with Nietzsche and perhaps earlier idealists (I don’t know the history that well) it pops up in German idealism. With Heidegger it’s important for his phenomenology because it enables a happening that isn’t controlled by either the object or the “subject" (Daesin). So this middle place and middle voice is a great way to get at what he’s after. I think his notion of poles (strife) ends up being tied to it as well. In Peirce the sign-token is this middle ground between active determination from the object and a certain passivity in the interpretant. As a sign (as opposed to sign-token) it thus is both active and passive in itself. Further there’s a certain sense of equivocation since the move back from the interpretant or sign-token to the object is only available via a guess. Peirce gets at the issue of analogy more formally too in his writings on metaphor and analogy. While he’s a bit brief in his comments leading to various debates over his intentions, it seems like he uses the notion of icon here. A metaphor is an icon in what could be multiple ways. An analogy is an icon in terms of a single property. I think this gets around some of Ockham’s arguments against Scotus but leaves a certain openness to metaphor and analogy which of course gives them their power. Unlike say the 20th century Continental philosophers though Peirce never focuses in on metaphor as a key for understanding signs. However the gap between object and the rest of the sign ends up having a similar function. (See for instance his letters to Lady Webly on signs in his mature period)
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
