Edwina, a few responses,
ET: “this is simply how YOU choose to read Peirce.” GF: Yes. That is exactly what I said in my post, and I gave my reasons for choosing to read that way, and said explicitly that people who read differently have a right to do so. ET: “you cannot claim that your method produces 'the correct Peirce'.” GF: I neither made nor implied any such claim. You are the one who applies the word “correct” to your own reading, as for instance in your post to Mary the other day. ET: “I read ALL of Peirce.” GF: Really? That’s much more than I can claim. And I read Peirce sentence by sentence, paper by paper, and often have to read papers more than once. You are truly fortunate if you are not subject to such limitations. ET: “I'm not belittling you! I focus only on the issue and never on the person.” GF: You are accusing me of doing what you yourself are doing in this very post: focusing on me, or rather on your misreading of me. I guess you don’t consider methods of reading an important semiotic issue, which is fine, but if you want to make more personal attacks, I suggest you take them offlist. Just don’t expect me to respond. I’m going back to studying Peirce’s Lowell lectures — my way, of course: I’m not finished with reading Peirce as you are. Gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: 13-Dec-17 08:50 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu; g...@gnusystems.ca Subject: Re: RE: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.4 Gary F, list I disagree with you. I don't think that you have a right to assert that 'all I ask of an interpreter of Peirce' is..... You and I are equal - and this sentence of yours denies that equality and instead inserts you as The Authority on How To Read and Understand Peirce. Instead - this is simply how YOU choose to read Peirce. Others do not choose this method. And you cannot claim that your method produces 'the correct Peirce'. It is simply YOUR method. Your outline of how I read Peirce is quite incorrect. As I said - I read Peirce in a holistic manner, which means - not 'free' as you belittle the term - but that I read ALL of Peirce, and don't read him as do you and a few [not all] others do - in a literary manner, i.e., as if he were writing literature and you approach it as a literary critique of all the years of his work, in a year by year, essay by essay, text-based and linear manner. Furthermore - you seem to be suggesting that the massive amount of work [all those volumes are not bits and pieces] already available to us - somehow doesn't tell the 'truth', the 'full story' about what Peirce meant. I doubt that a few more essays/pages/articles can really change the basic framework and thought of Peirce that is already to be found in what we have available. Peirce was a very thorough and consistent thinker - and his analysis is found already in what we have available... I choose a different approach to Peirce - and you have no right to assert that your method is superior - No-one is asking you to change your method of reading Peirce - and I'm not belittling you! I focus only on the issue and never on the person. Given this, all that I ask of you - is that you respect other researchers in Peirce...rather than belittling them. You can - and should - certainly disagree with their conclusions - but I consider that you should focus your critique on the topic and points raised in those conclusions - rather than belittling their person, their intellect, their way of working...and suggesting that their way does not lead to 'enlightenment' while your way does. Edwina On Wed 13/12/17 7:59 AM , <mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca> g...@gnusystems.ca sent: Edwina, All I ask of an interpreter of Peirce is that he or she read the whole text, exactly as Peirce wrote it at the time and in the context he was working in, and see for themselves what it means — realizing that its implications for the reader might differ from the implications of a previous (or subsequent) reading of the same text. The alternative method (which you’ve called “holistic” and I’ve called “free”) is to pick out a few phrases here and there, rearrange them to suit one’s preconceived ideas, fill the gaps with some phrases of your own invention, and defend that “reading” against all others. Interpreters have a right to read that way, of course; the trouble is that if you read a text that way, it can never mean anything new to you, and thus can’t extend or deepen your understanding of Peirce’s work as a whole. I don’t object to people reading that way, or even posting such readings to the list in opposition to others, but I can’t read or post that way myself because I’m still learning from Peirce. That’s why I keep coming back to Peirce texts that I’ve read before, hoping to see what they mean that I didn’t see before, in the light of other texts I’ve read in the meantime, such as the one Jeff quoted in his post last night. I’m in no rush to arrive at a Final Interpretation of Peirce, I just want to keep learning. I am certainly learning from reading these Lowell lectures — especially so because I never had a chance to read entire drafts of them until the SPIN project made the manuscripts available online. Reading a whole text as Peirce wrote it is what I would prefer to call a holistic reading. Before this, I had to settle for the bits and pieces selected by editors of the Collected Papers and scattered around in its several volumes. The transcriptions of the Lowells that I’ve put on my own website are my attempt to remedy that situation, or at least improve on it, for those who don’t have the time or inclination to read the manuscripts themselves. Gary f. http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm }{ Peirce’s Lowell Lectures of 1903
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