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}Gary R, list
Thanks for the quote. I've two, hopefully brief, comments.
1] I don't think that a 'thing' is real in itself, It is
existential, but its attributes, its modal nature, can be real - if
that modal nature includes Thirdness, which is to say, includes
generals or habits.
2] Thirdness, or generality or habits, has to be understood as
distinct - spatially and temporally - from the modal categories of
Firstness and Secondness.
Firstness operates in the Open Here and Now - ...this
undifferentiated 'instant'..and 'this space'..with no sense of past
or future time and no sense of 'other space. It is that immediate
sensation.
Secondness operates in the Distinct Here and Now - this 'instant' as
differentiated from the past or next instant and this space as
differentiated from Other Space. It is that distinct, closed
oppositional awareness of self-not self.
Thirdness operates in Past/Future or Progressive Time and non-local
space. That is, its properties, as generals, have no 'glue'
confining them to 'hic et nunc' time; they are spread out; they are
the same in the past and in the future; they are continuity. And -
they are common to a lot of 'instances' over space. As such, these
Generals are of course, real general possibilities.
3] BUT Thirdness or 'the real' , being composed of generals
operating only in past/future time and non-local space, can only
exist, within the temporal and spatial finiteness, the 'nowness' of
matter operating in the mode of Firstness and/or Secondness. These
two modal categories provide the 'hic and nunc' existentiality to
Thirdness.
Therefore - a General or an open general possibility, is 'real'
but, being without current time and space, it remains an abstract
open, vague continuous force. As a force, does Thirdness depend on
being articulated within existential Firstness/Secondness? I think it
does; its properties are general and open to change within the 'being
made existential' - but - I don't see that Thirdness/ generals can
continue-to-be-Real without that semiosic connection. That is, I
don't see Thirdness/generals as functioning separated from
Firstness/Secondness.
Edwina
On Mon 16/10/17 5:12 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, list,
I'm glad the quotation proved helpful to you. There does remain the
question of the generality and reality of habits and habit formation
towards the future, evolutionary tendencies, 'would-bes', etc.
Since I've decided to rest my eyes for the rest of the day (I may in
fact listen to that Mozart concerto), I'll just offer another quote
and a brief comment to suggest what I have in mind for perhaps future
discussion (I'd recommend that if we do take the discussion further
that we do so in a separate thread).
1911 | A Sketch of Logical Critics | EP 2:457-458 (in Commens
Dictionary)
For what is it for a thing to be Real? [—] To say that a thing is
Real is merely to say that such predicates as are true of it, or some
of them, are true of it regardless of whatever any actual person or
persons might think concerning that truth. Unconditionality in that
single respect constitutes what we call Reality. Consequently, any
habit, or lasting state that consists in the fact that the subject of
it would, under certain conditions, behave in a certain way, is Real,
provided this be true whether actual persons think so or not; and it
must be admitted to be a Real Habit, even if those conditions never
actually do get fulfilled.
I would assume that we are in agreement as to Peirce's initial
answer to the question he poses as to what it is for something to be
Real. But the question of the reality of habits as "would bes" yet
remains to be considered. Note that his description here of a
habit--a "lasting state that consists in the fact that the subject
would, under certain conditions, behave in a certain way, is Real"
concludes with the idea that "it must be admitted to be a Real Habit,
even if those conditions never actually do get fulfilled."
Now I recall Jon S also suggesting that something like this is the
case not only for real generals (habits) but for real possibilities
as well. It seems to me that Peirce's "extreme Scholastic realism"
does argue that there are both real generals and real possibles, and
that their reality is not dependent on whether the conditions
bringing them into existence "actually do get fulfilled."
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York 718
482-5690
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 3:17 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary R - thanks; that's a great quotation. And yes, it does bring
in his 'objective idealism' which is NOT equivalent to 'idealism'.
Agreed - without the reality of generals, a theory is nominalistic -
it can't be otherwise, for it is reduced to only two modal
categories: Firstness and Secondness.
That's a vital comment - that ". . . reality means a certain kind of
non-dependence upon thought, and so is a cognitionary character
Essentially, to me that means that reality doesn't depend upon what
you or I may think of it but is itself, an operation of a general
Mind. And most certainly, universals as generals do not, per se, in
themselves, 'exist'. Instead, these generals 'exist'...within
instantiations. "Matter is..mind hidebound with habits' 6.158
BUT - we can certainly have semiosic Signs [that triad] without
generals. Just think of a rhematic indexical sinsign [a spontaneous
cry] operative only in Secondness and Firstness.
Edwiina
On Mon 16/10/17 2:38 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com [2]
sent:
Jon S, Edwina, list,
This remains a thorny issue, apparently. I personally have found the
quotation below useful in thinking about the distinction Peirce makes
between 'reality' and 'existence' and, by extension, the difference
between realism and nominalism. In his late work Peirce held any
theory which did not accept real generals and real possibles to be
nominalistic.
In this passage the first sentence, which makes reality
"non-dependent on thought" and of a "cognitionary character," has led
some commentators to suggest that the passage also points to Peirce's
"objective idealism."
". . . reality means a certain kind of non-dependence upon thought,
and so is a cognitionary character, while existence means reaction
with the environment, and so is a dynamic character; and accordingly
the two meanings, he [the pragmatist] would say, are clearly not the
same. Individualists are apt to fall into the almost incredible
misunderstanding that all other men are individualists, too -- even
the scholastic realists, who, they suppose, thought that "universals
exist." [But] can any such person believe that the great doctors of
that time believed that generals exist? They certainly did not so
opine. . . Hence, before we treat of the evidences of pragmaticism,
it will be needful to weigh the pros and cons of scholastic realism.
For pragmaticism could hardly have entered a head that was not
already convinced that there are real generals" (CP 5.503).
Well, whether that quotation proves useful or not, I think that it's
probably unlikely that this issue will be resolved in this thread, and
that it may be indeed be a good time for Gary F to commence posting
material from Lowell 2.
Best,
Gary R
Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York718 482-5690 [3]
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 1:48 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Edwina, List:
Your response seems rather uncharitable; I honestly have neither the
time nor the inclination to revisit the argument right now.
That said, I offer my sincere thanks for clarifying how you
distinguish reality and existence, as well as your careful limitation
of "things" to the latter. I would simply question the notion that
anything can exist while having no generality whatsoever.
And we explicitly agreed a few months ago to use the term Sign to
designate the triad of Immediate Object, Representamen, and Immediate
Interpretant.
Regards,
Jon
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Jon - that's a specious attempt to revisit this argument - i.e.,
your saying that 'some people might not have heard this debate
before'. Well, tough, frankly it's not worth hearing about - and -
I'm not going to revisit it with you.
I disagree that existence is a subset of reality, for that implies
that both have the same qualities. An existence/ entity can exist
within only the mode of Secondness and thus, have no generality in
it, but reality requires generality. I disagree that 'some THING'
can be real yet not exist'. If it's a 'thing' then it exists. Reality
is Thirdness, or generality and is not a thing.
And we've been over your rejection of the Sign as a triad of
Object-Representamen-Interpretant and your confining of the term
'Sign' to refer only to the mediate Representamen. Again, read 4.551
to its end.
There is no positive point in continuing this discussion since it's
been done to exhaustion before.
Edwina
On Mon 16/10/17 1:02 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
I know that we have been over this ground before, and I am not
interested in repeating our past discussions, but there may be some
following along now who were not on the List back then.
Especially late in his life, Peirce carefully distinguished reality
from existence, treating the latter as a subset of the former.
Everything that exists is real, but something can be real yet not
exist--and this is precisely the case with all generals in themselves
(not their instantiations), as well as some possibilities that have
not been (and may never be) actualized.
Likewise, anything that is general is (by definition) not
particular. If all Signs are particulars, then (by definition) no
Signs are generals.
Regards,
Jon
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 11:27 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Jon - we've been over these terms before. Read 4.551 and you'll see
the triad - and it's elsewhere as well.
You know perfectly well that by Sign [capital S] I refer to the
triad of Object-Representamen-Interpretant. The Representamen is
general when in a mode of Thirdness.
But you know all of that anyway.
Edwina
On Mon 16/10/17 12:22 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
I think that it would be helpful if you could clarify exactly how
you distinguish reality from existence in your statements below.
I am also wondering where in Peirce's writings you find the view
that every Sign is "a triadic particular...existent in space and
time." On my reading, that would preclude any Sign from being truly
general.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [4] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [5]
On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 8:50 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary, list:
I presume you are being sarcastic.
I have always accepted the reality of generals and have posted this
view frequently. What is Thirdness????? My point, also posted
frequently, is that these generals, as real, are only 'existential'
within 'material' instances, i.e., Signs, which are a triadic
particular...existent in space and time, whether as a concept/word or
a material entity [bacterium]. I don't see that Reality/Generals have
any existence 'per se' outside of their articulation within
Signs...and this view has been stated often enough by me - and of
course, by Peirce.
So, sarcasm aside - we await your next posting.
Edwina
On Mon 16/10/17 9:21 AM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
Edwina, List,
It’s good to see that you now accept the reality of generals, as
your previous post appeared to reject it. That said, we need to focus
on logical issues rather than metaphysical ones, as we dig deeper into
Peirce’s Lowell lectures. For Lowell 2 especially, which is all
about “necessary reasoning” and the logic of mathematics, we’ll
need to clarify those issues. I’m ready to start posting from Lowell
2 tomorrow, unless others need more time to digest Lowell 1 before we
move ahead.
As you are no doubt aware, CP 4.551 is a paragraph from “
Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism” (1906), which was his
last and most complete public statement on Existential Graphs and
their relation to his pragmaticism. In order to understand that
context, and its place in Peirce’s whole system, I think we need to
follow the development of EGs, starting with his first presentation of
them to an audience, namely Lowell 2. Thanks to the SPIN project, we
now have a chance to follow that development step by step. Peirce
regarded this as the best way of resolving the logical issues we have
been discussing in this thread. As someone with zero formal training
in formal logic, I’m really looking forward to this as a way into
deeper understanding of Peirce’s whole philosophy.
Gary f.
From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
Sent: 16-Oct-17 08:24
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; Jeffrey Brian Downard
Subject: Re: Re: RE: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 1: overview
Jeff, list
"Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in
the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical
world"....not only is thought in the organic world but it develops
there. But as there cannot be a General without Instances embodying
it, so there cannot be thought without Signs"...4.551
Peirce was not a materialist, nor am I am materialist. I am not
saying that there is nothing 'real' outside of the material world. I
am saying that 'reality' - understood as 'a General' only 'exists'
within 'instances embodying it'. This means that
Mind/thought/reason...which is a General, functions within Signs, and
Signs are triadic instances [see his explanation in the rest of
4.551]... A triadic Sign is a 'material' unit, in that it exists in
time and space, even if it is existent only as a word rather than a
bacterium.
Re your first two points - since deduction, induction, abduction,
can be valid in themselves as a format, I presume you are talking
about the true/false nature of their premises....and since the debate
seems to be on the Nature of Truth - then this issue, the truth/false
nature of the premises is relevant. Taking that use of the terms into
account [truth/false nature of the premises] , I agree with your
outline of these three forms of argument..
And I also agree with your other two points.
I don't see that my position, which rests on 4.551 and other similar
outlines by Peirce, rejects or is any different from his analysis.
Edwina
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