> On Jun 23, 2016, at 5:18 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> > wrote: > > Wouldn't it make things clearer if we, like Peirce, made a distinction > between the immediate object conceived of as a possibility, or as an > actuality, or as a necessity? On the basis of this modal division between the > the three ways in which the immediate object of thought may serve as a > presentation in mind, he makes a distinction between signs that are > descriptive, those that are designative, and those that are copulative.
I think that’s a very helpful way to think of it. Thank you for bringing it up. It seems to me that Peirce ties all this to the different modalities of being. That is to which of the three universes it belongs. It’s worth noting for list members who might not be as familiar with the terminology that Peirce ties the possible to the notion of idea. Likewise while Peirce calls necessity habit, his notion of habit doesn’t entail absolute necessity the way it sometimes is conceived of in philosophy. More a tendency. > 2) Two qualities can be in two different sorts of relations to each other: > a) independent (somewhat resemble and somewhat differ); b) one a mere > determination of the other, where the order differs in evolution or synthesis > versus involution or analysis. It’s worth noting that this is what in later semiotic terminology became diachronic and synchronic. Requoting part of your Perice quote: We do not obtain the conception of Being, in the sense implied in the copula, by observing that all the things which we can think of have something in common, for there is no such thing to be observed. We get it by reflecting upon signs -- words or thoughts; we observe that different predicates may be attached to the same subject, and that each makes some conception applicable to the subject; then we imagine that a subject has something true of it merely because a predicate (no matter what) is attached to it -- and that we call Being. The conception of being is, therefore, a conception about a sign -- a thought, or word; and since it is not applicable to every sign, it is not primarily universal, although it is so in its mediate application to things. Being, therefore, may be defined; it may be defined, for example, as that which is common to the objects included in any class, and to the objects not included in the same class. But it is nothing new to say that metaphysical conceptions are primarily and at bottom thoughts about words, or thoughts about thoughts; it is the doctrine both of Aristotle (whose categories are parts of speech) and of Kant (whose categories are the characters of different kinds of propositions). (CP 5.294) This is a remarkably dense passage. In particular he cautions about treating being as a being (what is common to the things) The second part “that we call Being” is a bit trickier. He seems to be saying that it is the “attaching to the same subject” that is being. That is being is what enables us to make that attachment such that something is true. In 20th century phenomenology this is the idea of a subject having an “as structure.” That is I am able to treat something as something. The latter part seems at first glance to contradict the first sentence. But what I think he’s saying is that what is not common to objects but what is common to objects in a class (or objects excluded from the class) is being. That is being is what enables objects to be in the class but is not a common property of objects. > What role, if any, does the conception of a mean, or an average, or a normal, > play in the account of being when he says: [Peirce quote as above] I can’t see mean having any play except perhaps indirectly as immediate objects for signs that act as a collective to produce an interpretant that is the immediate object that we are concerned with. That is we might think of say for example quantum mechanics. In QED we calculate all possible paths to determine the measured phenomena. Ignoring for a moment the metaphysics behind Feynman’s approach (he certainly did) we can see this as the experienced phenomena (immediate object) being a kind of mean of signs. I suspect we can come up with many more examples of this. Tying this to the quote I already commented on, the immediate object in this case is not “in” the prior signs but is a result of them. I don’t think that’s what Peirce is getting at though — I think his point is more a point about being as a being. However his point about reflection is more that the property we attribute a subject is a kind of judgment or interpretation (following the more Kantian take) attributed to the subject rather than necessarily something “in” it. Since you bring up Kant I should note that Heidegger draws upon Kant for a pretty similar analysis of understand to what Peirce is doing with being above. Heidegger’s concern is quite different and I think his analysis of verstehen (understanding) ends up being deeper and more profound. For Heidegger the bringing together of understanding and possibility has a projective character which he then takes in a more existentialist direction than Peirce cares about. For Heidegger though interpretation is less a cognitive act than a more full bodied activity in which people work out possibilities. My sense, perhaps wrong, is that when Peirce so often ties together idea and possibility as Firstness (generally but also particularly relative to the immediate object) he is also seeing things as a little more broad than Kant does. Although I think I agree with you that his thinking is largely coming from Kant. What’s interesting in Peirce (and where he goes well beyond Heidegger) is that it’s not merely people “working out possibilities” but the universe itself.
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