> On Apr 8, 2017, at 10:46 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Indeed, Peirce defined "potential" as "indeterminate yet capable of > determination in any special case" (CP 6.185; 1898), but wrote that "Ideas, > or Possibles"--i.e., the constituents of the Universe of 1ns, "whatever has > its Being in itself alone"--are "incapable of perfect actualization on > account of [their] essential vagueness" (EP 2:478-479; 1908). I found this > distinction very helpful in sorting out Peirce's cosmology when we were > discussing it on the List last fall.
I think this is more the distinction for Peirce between generality and vagueness. The difference is in who is able to make the determination. Vague could mean there is a determinate quality which is simply unknown or that the thing itself is developing that quality. Whereas generality is wrapped up in being able to simply pick one and is wrapped up in his notion of continuity. My thought is that these are vague because they are symbols under growth and are coming to have the properties they will have one day. In the same way that I might only be able to speak vaguely of my son’s qualities since his life is just partially underway. > I think that both of us agree with Edwina that all three Categories were > present from the very beginning of our existing universe. I should hasten to add that I agree with that too. I take Peirce’s cosmology to be in logical time before there was anytime. Further, while I differ somewhat with Edwina regarding what Peirce believed about this, my own views are actually closer to hers.. > Gary quoted Clark as having written, "I think Peirce has [two] categories of > chance. One is discontinuous whereas the other is continuous. This ends up > being important in various ways." However, I do not recall seeing that > statement in any of Clark's messages, and it also does not show up in the > List archive. More importantly, where does this notion arise in Peirce's > writings? I could have sworn I put that in the email. Looking I realize I didn’t. Part of it arises out of the continuum behind the continuum which we’ve discussed in the past here with the blackboard metaphor. I draw a chalk line on the board. This discontinuity is one of those brute acts by which alone the original vagueness could have madea step towards definiteness. There is a certain element of continuity in this line. Where did this continuity come from? It is nothing but the original continuity of the blackboard which makes everything upon it continuous. (6.203) The one quote I’d give would be this one: My definition of a continuum only prescribes that, after every innumerable series of points, there shall be a next following point, and does not forbit this to follow at the interval of a mile. That, therefore, certainly permits cracks everywhere. (4.126) That’s not fully satisfying though although it points to the distinction. I was primarily thinking of the two tendencies after rereading Reynold’s paper “Peirce’s Cosmology and the Laws of Thermodynamics” which I referred to last week. An other way of putting the distinction is as reversible and irreversible rather than continuous and discontinuous. The idea that ideas spread continuously yet can also change really is the same distinction.
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