Jeff, some responses interleaved …
Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] Sent: 7-Dec-15 15:35 Gary F., Gary R., List, Sorry for the errors in transcribing Nathan's table. I put it into my notes, and then added a bunch of ideas myself, and then tried to subtract what I had added and managed to subtract the wrong terms. Having said that, let me ask: where in the texts will I find this table? My assumption is that the table isn't taken from any particular text, but that Nathan put it together based on suggestions Peirce makes in a number of places. GF: Yes, I think so, but the primary source for Table 6.2 seems to be MS 478, i.e. “Sundry Logical Conceptions” in EP2. JD: If the latter is the case, then I think I get the general gist of what he is trying to do, but I'm not able to see how he arrived at the particularities of this list. It is quite possible I'm missing something obvious, in which case I am hoping that someone will straighten me out. Otherwise, if I'm missing something less obvious, then I'm still hoping to get pointed in the right direction. My aim was to make sense of what Peirce says about more and less degenerate and genuine forms of the universal categories in the Lowell Lectures. So far, I'm not able to tease out what Peirce is doing there with any confidence. My hope was to turn to a secondary source, like Nathan's essay, for some guidance. Thus far, I'm not able to map what Nathan says onto Peirce's remarks about these more and less degenerate forms. So, I'm still puzzled. GF: I think Nathan’s essay is a good one, for the most part (though I don’t like some of the examples he gives for the ten classes of signs). But it’s not an essay intended for Peirceans, so he doesn’t bother to cite exact sources. JD: The reason I was turning to the remarks about the different forms of the universal categories is that I thought it might give us insight into how Peirce is drawing from the phenomenology as he classifies the different sorts of signs and sign relations in NDTR. At the start of the essay, Peirce says that triadic relations can be divided into 1) Triadic relations of comparison, 2) Triadic relations of performance, and 3) Triadic relations of thought. This fits, I think, with points he makes about the laws of comparison in his account of genuine triadic relations in "The Logic of Mathematics." As such, I'm just trying to draw on those remarks about the requirements for making comparisons for the sake of interpreting the first division between kinds of signs in NDTR. The comments Peirce makes in this essay about the first division of signs won't seem very puzzling if taken in isolation. When read in light of these other essays, however, I think there are puzzles a plenty. GF: Perhaps, but I think it’s better to take each essay in its own terms first before trying to map them onto each other. That method makes it easier, in my opinion, to distinguish between mere terminological variations and deeper conceptual differences. --Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354
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