List,
John says: We should also remember that there are thousands of pages of MSS that have not yet been transcribed and studied. Nobody knows how much more might be discovered about all these issues. But the fragments that do exist show that he had intended much more. That kind of sentiment is what motivates the SPIN project, which has the aim of recruiting volunteers to transcribe the manuscripts using online collaborative tools. Taken together, Gary F and Jon S have transcribed about 1000 pages of the MS. If, say, 150 people did the same over the course of the next several years, then the Peirce community would have searchable online transcriptions of all of the MS--and those transcriptions could be corrected and amended little by little as more readers made use of the transcriptions. Alternately, if some hundreds of volunteers each transcribed a smaller number of pages, then there would less need for so many "super-volunteers" like Jon S and Gary F who have taken on the more Herculean task of transcribing whole lectures like the Lowell Lectures of 1903 or multiple drafts of essays like the Neglected Argument. I want to encourage anyone who has time and interest to engage in the project--even if it is just to transcribe a few pages or to make corrections in transcriptions made by others. For those who would like to join in the collaborative transcriptions efforts, here is a link to the online FromThePage transcription platform: https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts C. S. Peirce Manuscripts | FromThePage<https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts> fromthepage.com C. S. Peirce Manuscripts - collection overview. The goal of the Scalable Peirce Interpretation Network (SPIN) is to develop a model environment for distributed collaboration that can support an international network of researchers, students, and citizen scholars in cooperative efforts to encode and interpret handwritten manuscripts, including those of high complexity. As our testbed, we plan to use the "Logic Notebook" that Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of Pragmatism, kept as the seedbed and greenhouse for his ideas together with related sets of manuscripts in logic and semiotics. We are treating the pages in the MS 145 folder as a sandbox. Take the platform for a test run and play with the toolset. The enhanced set of LaTeX tools for encoding the algebraic formulas and graphical diagrams have been added, and a set of guidelines for making the encodings is ready to go. Here are links to Transcription Guidelines on the SPIN Project website, digital images of the Ma Here is a link to a short video that explains how to get started: https://vimeo.com/242639899 Here are the transcription guidelines: https://sites.google.com/site/spinpeirce/transcribe Those who have made transcriptions of the text will tell you that the efforts are quite enjoyable because it often feels like you are having a personal conversation with Peirce, it is fun to discover new things hidden in the MS, and it is rewarding to make a contribution to a larger Peirce community. Yours, Jeff Jeffrey Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy Northern Arizona University (o) 928 523-8354 ________________________________ From: Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 10:33 AM To: Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Biosemiosis (was Lowell Lecture 3.12 John, Edwina, list, I've nothing to add at the moment, I too completely agree with the thrust of John's post. Let's hope that some of those untranscribed manuscripts will one day yield more relevant material on this topic. In reading Whitehead years ago I too noted many similarities to Peirce's thinking. Has there been any work (articles, dissertations, etc.) comparing the thinking of the two? As I recall, John, some of your papers touch on this. But I'm wondering if there has been any more extensive work in this area? Best, Gary R [Gary Richmond] Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York 718 482-5690 On Sat, Jan 20, 2018 at 11:40 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: John, list Thank you so much for your perceptive and articulate post. Of course - I strongly agree. And I emphasize that semiosis is operative not merely in the more complex or larger-brain animals, but in all matter, from the smallest micro bacterium to the plant world to the animal world. And yes, even in the complex adaptive multi-unit systems such as human societies. I keep saying that 'plants talk to each other' and we are certainly finding out, by research, that they do just that. However, semiosis is not equivalent to communication - a view that many become, I think, entrapped in. My view is that semiosis is morphological; that is, it forms matter ...transforming matter from one finite form to another finite form - within that semiosic triad. And of course, this includes the physico-chemical realm where semiosic transformation also takes place, albeit at a, [thankfully] slower pace - which slow pace maintains the stability of this realm. The biological is a dynamic, active, constantly transformative and thus, is a ' productive of diversity' realm. Again - thanks so much for your post. Edwina On Sat 20/01/18 11:19 AM , John F Sowa [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> sent: Edwina and Gary R, I changed the subject line to biosemiosis in order to emphasize that Peirce had intended semiosis to cover the full realm of all living things. Note what he wrote in a letter to Lady Welby: CSP, MS 463 (1908) > I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, > called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which > effect I call its Interpretant, that the latter is thereby mediately > determined by the former. My insertion of “upon a person” is a sop > to Cerberus, because I despair of making my own broader conception > understood. I believe that "despair" is the primary reason why he didn't say more. His insistence on continuity implied that the faculties of the human mind must be continuous with the minds (or quasi-minds) of all living things anywhere in the universe. But if he had said that, he would have been denounced by a huge number of critics from philosophy, psychology, science, religion, and politics. Edwina > I do think that limiting Peircean semiosis to the human conceptual > realm is a disservice to Peircean semiosis... I won't repeat my > constant reference to 4.551. Gary > I believe, you've had to depend on CP 4.551 as much as you have > (there are a very few other suggestions scattered through his work, > but none of them are much developed). The reason why there are so few is that Peirce felt a need to throw a "sop to Cerberus" in order to get people to take his ideas seriously. I'm sure that he would gladly have written much more if they were ready to listen. For a very important and carefully worded quotation, see CP 2.227: > all signs used by a "scientific" intelligence, that is to say, > by an intelligence capable of learning by experience. That comment certainly includes all large animals. In addition to explicit statements about signs, it's important to note his anecdotes about dogs and parrots. He observed some remarkable performances, which implied "scientific intelligence". Although he didn't say so explicitly, he wouldn't have made the effort to write those anecdotes if he didn't think so. Since Peirce talked about "crystals and bees" in CP 4.551, he must have been thinking about the continuity to zoosemiosis, and from that to the intermediate stages of phytosemiosis, biosemiosis by microbes, crystal formation, and eventually to all of chemistry and physics. He would have been delighted to learn about the signs called DNA and the semiosis that interprets those signs in all aspects of life. Many people have observed strong similarities with Whitehead's process philosophy. ANW also had a continuity of mind-like things from the lowest levels to something he called God. He wrote most of his philosophical books at Harvard, and he also wrote some sympathetic words about Peirce. He admitted that he hadn't read much of Peirce's work, but Clarence Irving Lewis, the chairman of the philosophy dept. at that time, had studied Peirce's MSS in great detail. And Whitehead was also the thesis advisor for the two graduate students, Hartshorne and Weiss, who edited the CP. ANW must have absorbed much more than he cited in his references. We should also remember that there are thousands of pages of MSS that have not yet been transcribed and studied. Nobody knows how much more might be discovered about all these issues. But the fragments that do exist show that he had intended much more. John ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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