Edwina, are you really saying that individual humans are so “informationally closed” that they are incapable of reasoning? Or that the ‘reasoning’ of an individual human cannot involve genuine “Thirdness”? If so, your analysis based on “modal categories” would appear to be very much at odds with Peirce's phenomenological analysis as presented in these Lowell lectures, especially this first one. Not to mention his dictum that all thinking is dialogic.
Concerning “relativism,” one common form of it argues that the moral standards of one community cannot be judged as good or bad by another community. “Relativism” then is not a matter of individual vs. community; it's a matter of whether it's possible for some ethical ideals to be really better than others. “Relativism” says no, there are no universal ethical standards. Stephen Rose's “triadic thinking” says yes, there are. Peirce's argument concerning logic is that a reasoning process, whether carried out by an individual or by a community, can be good or bad, and the validity of the judgment depends (ideally at least) on the real nature of reasoning itself, and not on the feelings or beliefs of any individual or community. This would be analogous to an argument for universal ethical standards (though it's not yet clear to me whether Peirce would carry the analogy that far). Gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 30-Sep-17 17:44 To: Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>; Stephen C. Rose <[email protected]> Cc: Peirce List <[email protected]>; John F Sowa <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1.4 The communal might be present but in degenerate form. Remember, there are three modes of Thirdness - and three types of irrational 'Fixation of Belief'; i.e., deriving one's beliefs via Tenacity, A Priori or Authority. Edwina On Sat 30/09/17 5:39 PM , "Stephen C. Rose" <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] sent: Everything does move past the individual to social or community or whatever name we give the living. Because triadic thinking inevitably moves to expression and action there is no way the social element cannot be present in some form. amazon.com/author/stephenrose <http://amazon.com/author/stephenrose> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 4:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected] <javascript:top.opencompose('[email protected]','','','')> > wrote: John, list, I acknowledge your point, but even that rock's reaction involves Thirdness; i.e., the material composition of the rock that defines how it will react to an external force. I think my possibly irrelevant point was/is that Thirdness necessarily involves the community - either past or present community - but, something beyond the informational isolation of the individual. I agree with your comment that relativism "seems to be a more intellectual process (reasoning) than an immediate feeling or reaction. " What I'm trying to include is its closure to information. Edwina
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