Gary F., List:
There is much to digest here. As you quoted, Peirce called the universe "a
great symbol of God's purpose, working out its conclusions in living
realities" (CP 5.119; 1903). This suggests to me that "God's purpose" is
the Object of the universe as Symbol, and "living realities" constitute its
Interpretant, since that is what the conclusion of any Argument must be (CP
2.95; 1902). As constituents of that Interpretant, the laws of nature
would presumably have the same Object ("God's purpose") and the same
relation to that Object (Symbol) as the universe itself. Besides the
still-difficult (for me) notion of a non-conventional Symbol--which
obviously applies to the universe itself, not just the laws of nature
within it--this raises the question of what Peirce meant by "God's
purpose." As I mentioned in the other thread, I take it to be the *summum
bonum*--the "development of Reason," which is the growth of knowledge about
both God and the universe that He has created and continues to create (CP
1.615; 1903). Hence the laws of nature in some sense *represent *the
development of Reason, which is perhaps the very basis for calling them
"something in nature to which the human reason is analogous."
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Sat, Apr 8, 2017 at 7:47 AM, <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
> Edwina, Jon S.,
>
>
>
> As John has already pointed out, the key idea in the Peirce quote I
> supplied is “that there is something in nature to which the human reason
> is analogous.” If all thought is in signs, all reasoning and all knowledge
> is in signs. If we ask what kind of sign the laws of nature are analogous
> to, those laws are dynamic objects of the signs we are now using to
> describe them. If we agree that those objects are themselves signs, that
> the real Universe is a vast representamen, “precisely an argument,” any
> knowledge we can have of them must be both *in* signs and *of* signs
> which are real. It follows that the real signs we are talking about are
> analogous to the signs we are using to talk about them, which are
> propositions (symbolic dicisigns as well as legisigns).
>
>
>
> But one thing we know about the symbols we use is that they cannot supply
> acquaintance with their dynamic objects. Only by collateral experience can
> we know anything about those objects, the signs we call “the laws of
> nature.” If you assert that they are symbols, your assertion is meaningless
> unless you call upon your collateral experience of symbols to indicate the
> dynamic object of the symbols we are using. Your collateral experience
> consists of having done the sort of thing we are doing right now,
> participating in an ongoing argument. Our hypothesis that the “laws of
> nature” are symbols participating in an argument is empty of content unless
> those laws, those signs, are analogous to the signs in which our thought
> about them is expressed. Our thought is thus metaphorical insofar as it
> deploys that analogy.
>
>
>
> In short, my claim was not “that our primary experience of these natural
> laws is metaphorical.” My claim was that our primary experience of
> *symbols* and of *propositions* is our own use of them to participate in
> arguments. Unless your use of the word “symbol” differs from the
> conventional use well formulated by Peirce, our acquaintance with its
> dynamic object can only be drawn from the *commens*, and only by analogy
> with that can we mean something definite by asking whether the laws of
> nature are symbols.
>
>
>
> Gary f.
>
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