Jerry, List:
I believe my metaphysics are those of C.S. Peirce. Peirce's pope-positivism is also assumed explicitly in our book, Every Thing Must Go, which does take modern physics as a starting point. So perhaps I have made my ideas clear, and the resulting argument is pretty straight-forward. Most metaphysical problems, especially of the sort you are concerned with, are dissolved on this approach, which was certainly Peirce's intention. As I said in my response to Franklin, you can take the negation of some of Peirce's central claims, and get other results. I have yet to see a clear statement of either your objections to the Peircean position, or what you consider to be an alternative. Starting by stating explicitly which parts of Peirce's methodology you reject might help me here. I have been using Peircean methodology more and more explicitly since my PhD thesis (1984), which uses Peirce's pragmatic maxim (a version of it - he had many versions that are presumably equivalent at some level - much like Kant's categorical imperative) and his positivist motives. I have been minimizing my metaphysical commitments for some time, though I spent a period as a raving Platonist when I was an undergraduate, probably under the influence of reading too much B. Russell rather naively. This is a Peirce list, after all. But I think that it is actually a relevant question which of Peirce's basic assumptions (all thought is in signs, objectivity requires that differences in meaning are determined by differences in expectations of possible experience, there is an identifiable set of external object to which some of our signs pick out that are mostly accessible through sensory observations - some exceptions involving evaluation of outcomes, but still involving observation and possible observations) one can coherently give up. Assuming we disagree, and I am not convinced there is any meaningful basis for the apparent disagreement, and I don't yet see what it is, I proposed some possibilities recently of where we disagree, like rationalism of a form that rejects the Pragmatic Maxim, or Peirce's empirical criterion for cognitive significance, or both. (Rationalism I take to be, as is traditional, that there are synthetic a priori truths, i.e., truths discoverable and justifiable by reason that are not the results of definitions and/or methodological commitments). Unlike the Logical Positivists, I don't think it is possible or wise to try to eliminate metaphysics entirely. Their program collapsed in its own terms. But it is best to keep it minimal. I think the alternative produces unclear ideas of an especially convoluted (involuted?) sort. However that may be, I am still not at all clear what our different presuppositions are, let alone what the basis of the difference might be. My metaphysics is not just physics, but a physics supported but not implied position called Structural Realism in the philosophical literature. Actually, I have a slightly more restrictive form that Cliff Hooker and I call Dynamical Realism. Being more restrictive means that it requires additional argument, the arguments being distinctly metaphysical and not physical. It is the starting point for many of my recent papers that have something like "A dynamical approach to ..." in the title. My scientific background (I did research in government, business and academics) is in planetary science, which is mostly the study of inorganic dynamical systems, so it is my touchstone for scientific methodology (arguably the notion of complexly organized systems originated in a lab in the building that held most of my classes, run by Lorenz - planetary dynamics is another source). John Collier Professor Emeritus, UKZN http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Jerry LR Chandler [mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@me.com] Sent: Sunday, 06 December 2015 7:13 PM To: Peirce-L Cc: John Collier Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] signs, correlates, and triadic relations - The union of units unify the unity. List, John: 3.418. "Thus, the question whether a fact is to be regarded as to referring to a single thing or to more is a question of the form of the proposition under which it suits our purposes to state the fact." On Dec 6, 2015, at 6:26 AM, Franklin Ransom wrote: On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 5:02 PM, John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote: Jerry, I was talking about the manifestations of first ness, not the concept of firstness, when I said that firstness has no structure. You are not talking about the manifestations of firstness if you think they have structure. You aren't talking about Peirce, here when you say things like [John Collier] Part-whole relations and mereology in general only arise when we get to what Peirce calls existence, i.e., seconds. Part-whole relations are a deep component of one's metaphysical perspective. Basically, that is irrelevant to what I was saying, and to Peirce's views on firstness (which I take to be definitive of the notion). Basically, John, your response is irrelevant to what I am saying. By way of background, I have had a lifelong interest in metaphysics and the relations between the sciences and metaphysics. Obviously, my interest is closely related to medicine and the biological sciences where the science of physics can contribute by contributing utterly simplistic calculations of the relevant but relative units for particular situations (identities.) The physical units, in and of themselves, are given biological meaning only by the union of them. Back to the issue at hand. Metaphysics, as an mode of human thinking and communication, must start with words, words with meaning for the author, either as utterances or symbolic expressions on a 'sheet of assertion' or another media. No one individual (such as physicist) can impose, for humanity as a whole, a particular meaning on the starting units, or the union of such starting units, or, more generally, on part-whole relatives and part-whole relations. More directly, a metaphysical proposition may be stated in many different languages and symbol systems. Thus, the mereology of metaphysical propositions may draw upon terms and symbols as desired by the author of metaphysical propositions. Further, a metaphysics without part-whole relations (scaling) and identity can hardly be a metaphysics AT ALL as neither emergence or evolution could be relatives. Frankly, I interpret your metaphysics, after reading your posts for more than a decade on this and other list serves as well as personal conversations from time to time, your metaphysics is merely the science of physics (unless you have had a recent epiphany.) >From my perspective, you capture the essence of being with your defense of the >phrase, "It's from bits". CSP is clear enough about meaning of a fact or a unit of measure: 3.418. "Thus, the question whether a fact is to be regarded as to referring to a single thing or to more is a question of the form of the proposition under which it suits our purposes to state the fact." Let's just agree to disagree, John. Cheers Jerry
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