"Jeffrey Brian Downard" <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote:
Edwina, Jon S., List, All,
As I have suggested on other occasions, it will likely improve the quality of our discussions if we make our aims clearer when we make a remark or engage in a line of inquiry. That way, we'll have some assurance that different people aren't working at cross purposes or talking past each other. Here are some of the purposes I see guiding our various discussions:
1. We want to understand some conclusion that Peirce has drawn and determine whether or not it really was the position that he adopted at some point in his inquiries, or perhaps was his considered view all things considered.
2. We seek to reconstruct some of the arguments found in one or another text to see we might gain a better understanding of how the arguments work--and how they fit with other arguments Peirce made.
3. We want to better understanding Peirce's own aims and methods. He says that one of his major aims was to develop a method of methods. As such, we're trying to learn better how to employ these methods in our own inquiries.
4. We are guided by a hunch that Peirce had some useful ideas, and we want to borrow some of those ideas, modify as needed for our own purposes, and then engage in our own inquiries.
5. We are pursuing our own inquiries using our own methods and, for the sake of curiosity, we want to see how our own methods and conclusions compare to some of Peirce's. At times, when the views diverge, some might want to suggest that Peirce was likely wrong or seriously misguided--at least when viewed in from the perspective of our own methods and conclusions.
6. We have our own views and methods and we don't care much about what Peirce really thought--except to point out that some things he said appear, on their face, to be entirely crazy.
Posts that fit the description under (6) seem out of place on the list. They are distracting and tend to undermine the health of the discussion of those pursuing the other aims. The aims expressed in 1-3 have, I take it, been guiding much of the discussion on the list since its inception when Joe expressed the guidelines for engaging in the dialogue. Personally, I have found myself doing the things listed in 4-5 at various times in my own reading thinking, but much of my work is guided by the aims expressed in 1-3. Having said that, each of us needs to make a decision about when it is appropriate to make posts to the list when our aims fall under (4) or (5)--especially when we are jumping into a conversation between people who are really guided by aims (1-3). For those who do think it is reasonable to jump into such conversations and make remarks that are really guided by such different purposes, it will help to spell out the purposes so others don't waste their time trying to respond by showing, based on textual evidence, that such a view does not reasonably reflect what is found in the texts.
Finally, to respond to your remark about those who spend time focusing on the way Peirce defined key terms--such work is essential to doing 1-3 well. It certainly isn't the only thing that needs to be done, but for such purposes, it is an important starting point.
I fully recognize that there is a considerable difference between the aim of seeking to find the truth about Peirce's own views and how he arrived at such conclusions, and the aim of pushing inquiry further and seeking the truth, all things considered. Both are admirable goals, and those of us who seek to engage in the more scholarly task usually do so with a longer term goal of drawing on the arguments and methods for the sake of finding the truth about the questions at hand.
My hope in making these points is to remind myself that my purposes may not always match the purposes of others, and I want to avoid the confusion and conflicts that arise when people work at cross purposes. My hope is that others, too, will make their purposes clearer--especially when they say things that, on their face, do not fit well with the arguments and explanations Peirce gives. As Jon S. has pointed out, your remarks about definitions do not fit with Peirce's methods--both with respect to doing the history of philosophy and also with respect to doing philosophy.
Yours,
Jeff
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2017 6:52 AM
To: tabor...@primus.ca
Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: RE: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] semantic problem with the term
ET: But a thing that bothers me about some of the focus of this list is its isolation from reality; that is, it's all about words and definitions. But Peirce wasn't focused on that.
CSP: ... the woof and warp of all thought and all research is symbols, and the life of thought and science is the life inherent in symbols; so that it is wrong to say that a good language is important to good thought, merely; for it is of the essence of it.
CSP: The body of the symbol changes slowly, but its meaning inevitably grows, incorporates new elements and throws off old ones. But the effort of all should be to keep the essence of every scientific term unchanged and exact; although absolute exactitude is not so much as conceivable.
CSP: ... when a man has introduced a conception into science, it naturally becomes both his privilege and his duty to assign to that conception suitable scientific expressions, and that when a name has been conferred upon a conception by him to whose labors science is indebted for that conception, it becomes the duty of all,—a duty to the discoverer, and a duty to science,—to accept his name ... whoever deliberately uses a word or other symbol in any other sense than that which was conferred upon it by its sole rightful creator commits a shameful offense against the inventor of the symbol and against science, and it becomes the duty of the others to treat the act with contempt and indignation.
CSP: Having thus given some idea of the nature of the reasons which weigh with me, I proceed to state the rules which I find to be binding upon me in this field ... Seventh, to regard it as needful to introduce new systems of _expression_ when new connections of importance between conceptions come to be made out, or when such systems can, in any way, positively subserve the purposes of philosophical study.
John, list - yes, I agree with your comments.
But a thing that bothers me about some of the focus of this list is its isolation from reality; that is, it's all about words and definitions. But Peirce wasn't focused on that. As John points out, he used his terms in a variety of ways; - and his focus was on the pragmatism of semiosis. That is - what is the pragmatic function of Peircean semiosis?
In Peirce, we read about semiosis within protoplasm, within crystals, within the formation of matter [matter is effete Mind]. None of this deals with terminology but with the pragmatic function of semiosis - which Peirce sees, as far as I can understand, as the gradual evolution of Mind. Mind is NOT a synonym of the human mind or consciousness but of the natural world. And we see this dynamic flexible action within the ten classes - which, as triads, enable this adaptive evolving capacity of Mind into Matter.
If one focuses only on words and terms, then, it is just as easy, indeed easier, to use the semiotics of such as Saussure or Morris ..for these are all about 'this' means 'that' - and one can get readily into the seeming joy of 'hidden meanings'. But Peirce doesn't deal with this; his semiotics is an active, adaptive and evolving process of generation of Mind-into-Matter - a much more difficult analysis.
Matter, to exist, obviously has a form. A form obviously must have continuity of type; therefore, to consider that Peirce didn't 'say these words' is to ignore the basic focus of his work. ..which is a vast, vast exploration of the nature of and the function of, this universe.
Edwina
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