Ben, List: I agree; that is why I acknowledged the distinction between unembodied qualities as medads (feelings) and embodied qualities as monadic predicates (concepts).
Regards, Jon On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 10:49 PM, Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jon S., list, > > I don't have a quote handy, but Peirce said specifically that the > pragmatic maxim is for clarifying not qualities of feeling, but > conceptions. I suppose that that could include conceptions of qualities of > feeling, but not the qualities of feeling themselves. A mechanical quality > (such as the unscratchability or 'hardness' of a diamond) is not a quality > of feeling. Instead it's an if-then property that we think of as a quality > as if of feeling. Peirce said something to that effect, but it may take a > while for me to dig it up. > > Best, Ben > > On 1/9/2017 11:07 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote: > > Ben, List: > > BU: This rule-style of formulation reflects a major difference between > Peirce's generals and Peirce's qualities of feeling which are generals when > reflected on but are not rules and are not formulated as rules. > > I am not convinced that there is a significant difference here, at least > when it comes to applying the pragmatic maxim in order to ascertain the > meanings of our concepts of qualities--as *monadic* predicates embodied > in *actual* things--at the third grade of clearness. As with generals, > we define them using a subjunctive conditional that is true regardless of > whether the relevant test is ever actually performed. "For all *x* , if > *x* is hard, then *x* would resist scratching." "For all *x* , if *x* is > red, then *x* would primarily reflect light at wavelengths between 620 nm > and 750 nm." The difference is that qualities are also real as *medads* > --possibilities not predicated of anything actual, but simply being what > they are independently of anything else. > > BU: At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's become > less clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first thought you meant. > I'm trying to put it in the context of your regarding the use of the word > "general" as evoking the possibility of exceptions. > > It was not really about that; more the idea that a general as a continuum > whose multiple instantiations are *different* --even if only > infinitesimally *distinguishable* --seems more plausible than a universal > whose multiple instantiations are somehow supposed to be *identical* . > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 4:52 PM, Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com > wrote: > > Jon S., list, > > _*Universum* _ in the sense of the whole world goes back at least to > Cicero in the 1st Century B.C. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/h > opper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Duniversus > > You wrote, > > Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert the > existence of anything. So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be true even if > neither cats nor mammals exist. > [End quote] > > Yes, that's my point about "if a cat, then a mammal" - as a compound term > in the form Cx→Mx, it's true of absolutely everything in the world (the > actual world, at least), and this is reflected by the usual kind of logical > formulation "For all *x* , if *x* is a cat, then *x* is a mammal" (i.e., > "For all *x* : *x* is not a cat and/or *x* is a mammal"). This rule-style > of formulation reflects a major difference between Peirce's generals and > Peirce's qualities of feeling which are generals when reflected on but are > not rules and are not formulated as rules. With the conditional form > "Cx→Mx", Peirce's generals are maximally general in a sense, just not > pertinent in all cases. As you note, it doesn't entail the existence of > anything, at least not of anything in particular (in Peirce's view a > universe of discourse smaller than two objects should be ruled out, so the > existence of at least two objects is automatically, if not always > relevantly, entailed by any term or proposition in a Peircean universe). > > You wrote: > > Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to think > that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence multiple > instantiations of the same general are not identical, just different parts > of the same continuum, which is why they are continua themselves and not > necessarily distinguishable from each other. > > At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's become less > clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first thought you meant. I'm > trying to put it in the context of your regarding the use of the word > "general" as evoking the possibility of exceptions. > > Anyway, your idea that Peirce chose "general" because it suggests the > possibility of exceptions remains appealing. One could extend the idea to > include the possibility of growth and evolution (as of a genus, and as of a > symbol); the idea of the "universal" true of absolutely everything seems > somehow more static and uniform. Mathematics could get away with it because > of mathematics' having its counterbalancing imaginative freedom, but for > the other things "general" seems better. > > Best, Ben > >
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