John: Agreed, empiricism started in the 'middle ages' - and my point is that no 'thought-ideology' exists in a vacuum. Empiricism became an observable if peripheral force in the 13th century, as did the shift towards empowering individuals.
I consider that philosophical ideologies do not exist in a vacuum but co-exist with political ideologies. My point is which ones are dominant? No- I am not confusing societal 'logic' [??]....with scientific logic. [I hate the term sociological for the abuses of thought found within so many sociology treatises]... Philosophic ideology is not the same as scientific logic. I am suggesting that a philosophical ideology is correlated with a societal ideology - and that empiricism, which began at least to emerge in open discourse in the 13th c, is correlated with the political ideology that affirmed support for individual interaction with the world. I certainly agree: Peirce wasn't political at all. My point is only that HIS analysis, with its three categories, works very well to disempower the extremes of both empiricism and idealism. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce-L Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 11:12 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - I don’t agree. Edwina. Empiricism started in the Middle ages and went through periods of profound social transformation since while being changed relatively little. I don’t think it is a political ideology. I think that confusing sociological and scientific logic with each together leads to confusion, with which your post is rife. Much of what you say about empiricism just strikes me as irrelevant, with multitude counterexamples I won’t go into here except to note that empiricism co-existed with m any political ideologies. I don’t think that Peirce was particularly political in his logic or methodology, though I understand his politics tended to towards the conservative. He didn’t write much about real political issues of his time, and I doubt it was a major influence in his overall though. John Collier Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal http://web.ncf.ca/collier From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: Sunday, 05 February 2017 5:58 PM To: John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za>; Peirce-L <PEIRCE-L@LIST.IUPUI.EDU> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - I think that even a philosophical ideology , eg, the 'classic form of empiricism', has to be grounded in the societal infrastructure. Political ideologies certainly must be grounded; I think it's an error to say, for example, the 'democracy is the best political system', for any political system must give political power to that section of the population that produces wealth and so enables continuity of that society. If the majority of the population are producing wealth, then, democracy is the most functional political system. If only a minority are producing wealth [and this was the case for most of mankind's economic history], then, democracy would be dysfunctional. What about philosophical ideologies? Are they isolated from grounding in the societal infrastructure? I've outlined my view of the enormous societal impact of the rise of empiricism, which empowered ordinary individuals to interact, as they saw fit, with the world. The slippery slope downside is that it easily moves into the randomness of postmodern relativism and chaos. What about realism? How does it societally function? It removes the individual from sole access to 'truth' and inserts a 'community of scholars'. This removes randomness from the analysis. It posits a truth system based around general rules, where individual articulations of these rules are just that: individual and transient versions but almost minor in their real-life power except as versions of those rules. This has its own slippery slope of fundamental determinism and we've seen the results in many eras in our world history, including modern times. Peirce dealt with this with his focus on the freedom of Firstness and his view that the rules [Thirdness] evolve and adapt. This would enable a society to have a rule of law, with local variations - something required in a 'growth society' - i.e., a modern society as differentiated from a no-growth or pre-industrial society. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: John Collier To: Jerry LR Chandler Cc: Peirce List ; Eric Charles ; Helmut Raulien Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2017 3:18 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Nominalism vs. Realism - “The union of units unifies the unity” Jerry, I think we are using ‘empiricism’ differently. I was using it in the classic form, not just to refer to anyone who uses the natural world as a touchstone for clarifying meaning and discovering the truth. I am an empiricist in this latter sense, but not the former. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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