I heartily agree with John.
Kirsti
John F Sowa kirjoitti 11.1.2017 17:32:
On 1/10/2017 2:21 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Forster's /Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism/.
Re: The favorable review by Nathan Houser and the highly critical
review by T. L. Short.
I believe that both reviewers saw the same issues, and they
represent complementary rather than opposite opinions.
The last paragraph of Houser's review summarizes the "shortcomings".
From http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29410-peirce-and-the-threat-of-nominalism/
But there are shortcomings that must be mentioned; most notably
Forster's mixing of references to Peirce's early and later writings
and, to some extent, a neglect of Peirce's more developed ideas.
For example, Forster makes frequent reference to symbols as the class
of intellectual signs that pragmatism addresses, but it will be known
to readers acquainted with Peirce's late semiotic writings that there
are several kinds of symbolic signs, including arguments, and it might
be wondered whether Forster means to refer to all of them. Also, there
are some signs that are not symbols (e.g., different classes of
legisigns) which are general signs and might be supposed to be subject
to pragmatic analysis. One wonders whether Forster had Peirce's early
work in mind where he used just three classes of signs: icons,
indexes,
and symbols. Another example is what Forster says about Peirce's proof
of pragmatism. He concentrates on Peirce's earliest proof, which
Peirce
found to be inadequate, and neglects his later sustained attempts to
formulate more satisfactory proofs. Forster ingeniously reconstructs
an alternative to Peirce's early proof based on his early semiotic
conceptions, but he doesn't mention that in 1907 Peirce constructed
his own proof of pragmatism also based on an analysis of semiotic
conceptions.[5] These shortcomings, as well as Forster's decision,
however practical, not to examine related work of other scholars,
detract from the usefulness of his book as a sourcebook for Peirce's
main theories and doctrines. But as an account of Peirce's answer to
nominalism and as a general account of Peirce's overall system of
philosophy, Forster's book is a notable accomplishment.
These are the issues that Short emphasized, and I believe rightly so.
Short noted that Forster quoted very few of the citations verbatim,
and his summaries and paraphrases used terminology that CSP himself
never used.
By ignoring the development from Peirce's early to later views,
Forster created what Houser called "a general account" of Peirce's
system. Whether you call it general, inaccurate, distorted, or
unreliable is a matter of opinion. It may be a useful introduction,
but it's important to read Peirce's originals for a more precise
understanding of the issues.
John
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