Adrian,
So far I've only read the Introduction to Ecologies of the Moving Image, but
looking forward to the rest of it; I've given some thought to Peirce's
categories in relation to both the arts and geography, because of my
connection with a local organization whose focus is "Land | Art." So I'm
glad you've posted this question, and I've read your blog post with some
care.
I think your "EMR" treatment of the categories is much more Peircean than
your MER version, and may well serve your pedagogical purpose better.
However, I think it's still missing something that goes to the core of
Peircean phenomenology, which is itself at the core of his cenoscopic
philosophy. Peirce's phenomenology, unlike some other inquiries that go by
that name, is all about the elements of the phenomenon. As he said of it at
the end of his first Harvard Lecture in 1903, "I will not restrict it to the
observation and analysis of experience but extend it to describing all the
features that are common to whatever is experienced or might conceivably be
experienced or become an object of study in any way direct or indirect."
Whereas you identify "experience" with Firstness, Peirce associates it much
more closely with Secondness, the dyadic, the "Outward Clash." Firstness for
Peirce is quality (or in logical terms, possibility), and is monadic in the
sense that the subject/object distinction simply does not apply to it. Both
"subjectivity" and "objectivity" (terms which Peirce preferred to avoid)
appear in the universe of existence, the world where one encounters the
Other, the external world. Thirdness does mediate between these universes,
but how one conceives of this mediation depends on one's conceptions of
Firstness and Secondness.
What difference does this make in your teaching practice? That depends on
its context, among other things, and I won't hazard a guess here. What I
have to say about Peirce's "categories" is woven into my online book Turning
Signs (see link below), so I won't try to summarize here the implications
for semiotics and "geophilosophy." But I do think they amount to something
deeper than a terminological preference.
Gary f.
} Experience is our only teacher. [C.S. Peirce] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs
gateway
From: Adrian Ivakhiv [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 9-Feb-16 11:34
To: Peirce-L <[email protected]>
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] How do Peirce's categories best fit the study of the
arts?
Dear all:
I'm struggling with a way of tying Peirce's categories down to the 3 main
elements by which we can make sense of art works: their materiality, our
experience of them, and their meanings. Putting it that way suggests one
ordering, but a deeper thinking through of the process (and nonlinear)
nature of the categories suggests another. I'm interested in gauging what
Peircians may think. I'd appreciate any comments directly on the web site
below:
http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2016/02/09/rethinking-the-3-categories/
Thanks!
Rethinking the 3 categories
February 9, 2016 by <http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/author/aivakhiv/> Adrian
J Ivakhiv
I've been struggling with how my triadic framework for interpreting art
works relates to C. S. Peirce's <http://www.textlog.de/4254.html>
categories.
When I first developed my triadism (
<http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2014/12/29/emis-cinematic-materialism-a-respon
se-to-reviews/> fleshed out in
<http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/ivakhiv.shtml> Ecologies of the Moving
Image) into the non-Peircian terms of
<http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2014/03/08/rethinking-the-three-ecologies/>
materiality, experience, and representation - which I did in the context of
teaching a course on the environmental arts - I loosely considered the first
of these to be analogous to Peircian firstness, the second to secondness,
and the third to thirdness.
The point, in my teaching, was not to adhere strictly to Peirce, since my
students weren't studying him, but just to have a handy triadic formula that
would be useful for making sense of the eco-arts in ways that get beyond the
customary overemphasis on representation in favor of experience (including
affect) andmateriality. Materiality deals with the stuff that's just there
(one element); experience involves a second - the artist, the reader or
viewer, et al. (two); and representation makes sense and meaning of the
stuff and its shapers and perceivers in real-world contexts (three); thus
Peirce's categories loosely fit. Whether students got the Peirce or not,
they could follow that.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this way of
ordering the three may be un-Peircian. Or at least that there was a second
way of connecting it to Peirce that was sufficiently different from the
first and had important consequences.
Let me break it down here.
To continue reading, go to
http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2016/02/09/rethinking-the-3-categories/
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