> On Dec 5, 2016, at 7:05 AM, John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > > On 11/29/2016 2:57 PM, Clark Goble wrote: >> Treating thirdness as something real in the universe independent >> of what any particular person thinks about it is key. > > That is not a new point. Scientists have always assumed that the > laws of nature are "really real".
It’s a major point but not an universal one. Especially among physicists Feynman’s loose adoption of a kind of instrumentalism was influential. So it wasn’t just Mach or certain aspects of the positivists. Of course most physicists who haven’t studied any philosophy end up with an incoherent mess of views on the nature of physical laws. Sometimes a realist, sometimes an idealist, sometimes a Feynman like denial that anything matters but calculating. At least in my experience with physicists. (Chemists are somewhat different due to a more practical field) However I think what Peirce did differently was in thinking of the laws of physics in terms of thirdness. I don’t think most others - even those who were realists about law - put them in quite that formulation. (If only because few thought of things in those terms)
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