We will continue to have different views..
1) I strongly reject that there is any ordinality in the categories. They are
descriptions of modes of organization - and there is no evidence that the
process must move from Firstness to Secondness to Thirdness. Certainly - a
universe made up of only ONE of these modes is impossible. And certainly, the
qualia of Firstness do, gradually, interact, and do, gradually take up habits.
But I hesitate to ascribe such a linear order for we can have a sign/'thing'
operative only in ONE of the modal categories. And it won't necessarily move
from that; i.e., a weather vane in Secondness.
2) I see induction as a process of gathering data. That's all. I don't see it
as leading to a law, but as confirming that law. Abduction is, in my view, the
generation of the hypothesis....to be 'proven' as far as possible by induction.
Deduction is the weaker of them all, for it almost removes itself from
reality..and simply pronounces its righteousness.
3) Secondness is, as Peirce notes, 'the element of struggle' 1.322. a 'mutual
action between two things regardless of any sort of third or medium, and in
particular, regardless of any law of action" (1.322). And...he rejects the
'idea of a law'..being essential to the idea of one thing acting upon another'
1.323....[I know he sometimes uses the term 'law' to refer to Secondness' but
this is only the singular action of an interaction, not the gestation of the
law/habit'.] He continues: 'the idea of second is predominant in the ideas of
causation and statical force" 1.325.
and 'For that reason, pure dyadism is an act of arbitrary will or of blind
force; for if there is any reason, or law, governing it, that mediates between
the two subjects and brings about their connection. The dyad is an individual
fact, as it existentially is; and has no generality in it. 1.328.
This is mechanical necessity but, within the organism of the two units
interacting, there is no general rule or law. That is, the wind moving the
weather vane is a mechanical kinetic action, but there is no Thirdness in
either that mediates the interaction between them. It was simply an interaction
'of brute forces'. "Law is a matter of thought and meaning" 1.345. And
mechanics doesn't include thought. It may be the RESULT of thought - as the
operation of the bicycle is the RESULT of the thought that created such a means
of transportation.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Jerry Rhee
To: Edwina Taborsky
Cc: E Valentine Daniel ; Peirce-L
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 8:19 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce on Knowledge Representation
Edwina and list,
Btw, what you call “induction”, I call deduction and vice versa; that is,
there is a conflation of labels only. This would also suggest that there is
ordinality in the categories, that abduction and induction are opposite poles
of reason, that induction is the concluding step.
That should release some frustration (meaning I agree with you), except for
the comment about Secondness being without laws. This is not true because:
one, two, three…
chance, law, habit-taking…
tychism, anancism, agapism…
absolute chance, mechanical necessity, and the law of love.
Best,
Jerry Rhee
On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 6:23 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Val Daniel - thank you also pointing this out. I've argued against that
space-enclosing equilateral triangle for years. It is NOT representative of the
Peircean triad; instead, the best image is of the 'three prongs' - or, as I
wrote in my first comment this morning - that 'umbrella spoke triad', outlined
in 1.347. I wrote:
5) I do, however, quibble with your triangle. Peirce himself didn't use the
triangle. See 1.347, where he uses an 'umbrella spoke triad'. This image
OPENS the semiosic process to networking, whereas the triangle, in my view,
is a closed, one-way linear process and obscures the power of semsiosis.
That closed triangle is the wrong image of the semiosic process - and has
been discussed before - but I don't keep archival data. But thanks for that
comment.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: E Valentine Daniel
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 6:20 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce on Knowledge Representation
Hello Mike, Edwina, Jerry, fellow-archivists among the P-Listers:
I notice that Mike's table of threes was accompanied by a diagrammatic
representation of the sign (with its three constitutive correlates) by a
space-enclosing equilateral triangle. Peirce never used this particular
diagrammatic representation but used instead the diagram of a three prongs
converging/diverging in/from a point to represent the triadic sign. In
addition to being more effective (and truer-to-Peirce) representation, not
only of the sign qua sign but also as the best opening gambit for representing
semiosis itself, some contributors to that deeply archived conversation
provided the list with many other logical and philosophical reasons and
arguments in favor of the three-pronged representation of the signs over the
triangular representation of same. Is there anyone on the list who, per
chance, either saved that particular discussion or can lead me to that string
of yester-year? Besides being personally grateful to such a lead I also think
that it would shed critical light of the table provided by Mike.
Thank you.
val daniel
E. Valentine Daniel
Professor of Anthropology
Columbia University
1200 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10027
(212) 854-7764
e...@columbia.edu
On Mar 22, 2016, at 3:24 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
I think tables can be fraught with problems. For example..I agree with
Jerry's question about:
1) deduction/induction/abduction....corresponding to the modes of
Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness.
I'd see it as abduction/induction/deduction
2) And I have a problem with symbols/generality/interpreter. What?
Symbols are, as the Relation between the Representamen and the Object - in a
mode of Thirdness. So, how have you put them into a mode of Firstness?
And 'generality' is the opposite of Secondness.
And an 'interpreter'? An external agent-who-interprets? As Thirdness?
3) I also have a problem with your putting these three categorical
modes in a linear order, as First/Second/Third. There is no ordinality in the
categories.
4) I also reject your 'past/present/future', for the nature of
Firstness is its very 'presentness', while the nature of Secondness is its
'past' - ie, that is has closure.
5) And reject your 'sign/object/interpretant' for the three nodal sites
can be in any one of the three modal categories.
6)And reject your 'conscious[feeling]; self-consciousness;
mind.....though i see your point. But feeling is not the same as consciousness.
When you become conscious of that feeling, you've moved out of Firstness.
That's as far as I've gone.
Edwina Taborsky
----- Original Message -----
From: Jerry Rhee
To: Jerry LR Chandler
Cc: Peirce List ; Mike Bergman
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 2:06 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce on Knowledge Representation
Hi Mike,
I like your table of threes. I think tables such as yours help
others to extract the regularity for themselves. Peirce did that exercise:
“This list is fortunately very short…I find only three, Quality,
Reaction, Mediation. Having obtained this list of three kinds of elements of
experience…the business before me was the mixed one of making my apprehension
of three ideas which had never been accurately grasped as clear and plain as
possible, and of tracing out all their modes of combination. This last, at
least, seemed to be a problem which could be worked out by straightforward
patience… I said to myself, this list of categories, specious as it is, must be
a delusion of which I must disabuse myself. Thereupon, I spent five years in
diligently, yes, passionately, seeking facts which should refute my list….”
But he also discovered some dangers in the method; that he will have
trouble communicating it to others because the force of evidence can only be
apprehended through experience.
Among your list is “induction deduction abduction”.
I think it ought to be abduction deduction induction (then
recursion).
Would you mind justifying why yours and not mine?
Also, as Edwina mentioned, there are differences between interpretant
and meaning. So why interpretant and not meaning?
Finally, I think a person working in AI should be concerned with what
makes for a good abduction as opposed to any other formulation. So why eros
and not epithumia?
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-01.htm
hth,
Jerry Rhee
On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 10:15 AM, Jerry LR Chandler
<jerry_lr_chand...@icloud.com> wrote:
Mike, List:
Thanks for posting your views on your interpretation of CSP’s
writings in relation to AI.
While I agree with many (if not most of your comments,) I offer a
comment on only one:
The nature needed to be the sign because that is how information is
conveyed, and the trichotomy parts were the fewest “decomposable” needed to
model the real world; we would call these “primitives” in modern terminology.
Here are some of Peirce’s thoughts as to what makes something “indecomposable”
(in keeping with his jawbreaking terminology) [7]:
“It is a priori impossible that there should be an indecomposable
element which is what it is relatively to a second, a third, and a fourth. The
obvious reason is that that which combines two will by repetition combine any
number. Nothing could be simpler; nothing in philosophy is more important.” (CP
1.298)
The logic of this proposition is grounded on the meaning of the
term “com-bines”, that is a binary operation is intrinsic to such a Liebnizian
perspective.
However, if the logical operation of composition of parts of a
whole FUSE the elements into a singular object (as in CSP’s usage of the notion
of a continuum), then one can imagine the whole is not subject to separation,
that is, decomposition. Example: Antecedent is sand. Consequence is glass.
The logical operation is heat.
In modern mathematics, this conundrum expresses itself as the
relation between discrete and continuous mathematics, between finite
arithmetics and topologies.
To further confound the tensions between CSP’s proposition and
Mother Nature, the logic of the chemical combinations may be a single bindings,
double bindings, and triple bindings. Typically, if these bindings are
antecedent premises, decomposition of such bindings result in different
consequences.
Thus, the assertion that:
Nothing could be simpler; nothing in philosophy is more important.”
(CP 1.298)
may not be so simple.
Cheers
Jerry
On Mar 22, 2016, at 9:17 AM, Mike Bergman <m...@mkbergman.com>
wrote:
Hi All,
Here is my take on how Peirce may contribute to knowledge
representation for the area I work in, knowledge-based artificial intelligence:
http://www.mkbergman.com/1932/a-foundational-mindset-firstness-secondness-thirdness/
I welcome any comments or suggestions (or errors of omission or
commission!), since we plan to use this approach much going forward.
Thanks!
Mike Bergman
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