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A word or two about the second part of Lowell 3.14, CP 1.543 . Whatever "subject of inquiry" we are talking about, it must be something "before the mind" in some way, to use the language Peirce uses to introduce Phenomenology earlier in Lowell 3. That makes it a Phenomenon; hence it "involves three kinds of elements." The "principle of our procedure" in this Phenomenological inquiry seems to apply recursively, even to the "kinds of elements" themselves. "And so we have endless questions, of which I have only given you small scraps." Why should we take the trouble to engage in the "most laborious study" required to answer these endless questions? Because, according to Peirce, "it forces us along step by step to much clearer conceptions of the objects of logic than have ever been attained before. The hard fact that it has yielded such fruit is the principal argument in its favor." Is that really a hard fact? Or is it merely Peirce's opinion that the conceptions attained in this way are so much clearer than any attained before? Can it be a hard fact - the epitome of Secondness, as described by Peirce earlier - that one conception is clearer than another? If so, what does that tell us about the nature of "hard facts"? Gary f. From: g...@gnusystems.ca [mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca] Sent: 20-Jan-18 18:50 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.14 Continuing from Lowell 3.13, https://fromthepage.com/jeffdown1/c-s-peirce-manuscripts/ms-464-465-1903-low ell-lecture-iii-3rd-draught/display/13940: A representamen is a subject of a triadic relation to a Second, called its Object, for a Third, called its Interpretant, this triadic relation being such that the Representamen determines its Interpretant to stand in the same triadic relation to the same Object for some Interpretant. [CP 1.542] It follows at once that this relation cannot consist in any actual event that ever can have occurred; for in that case there would be another actual event connecting the interpretant to an interpretant of its own of which the same would be true; and thus there would be an endless series of events which could have actually occurred, which is absurd. For the same reason the interpretant cannot be a definite individual object. The relation must therefore consist in a power of the representamen to determine some interpretant to being a representamen of the same object. [543] Here we make a new distinction. You see the principle of our procedure. We begin by asking what is the mode of being of the subject of inquiry, that is, what is its absolute and most universal Firstness? The answer comes, that it is either the Firstness of Firstness, the Firstness of Secondness, or the Firstness of Thirdness. We then ask what is the Universal Secondness, and what the Universal Thirdness, of the subject [in hand?]. Next we say that Firstness of Firstness, that Firstness of Secondness and that Firstness of Thirdness that have been described have been the Firstness of the Firstness in each case. But what is the Secondness that is involved in it and what is the Thirdness? So the Secondnesses as they have been first given are the Firstnesses of those Secondnesses. We ask what Secondness they involve and what Thirdness. And so we have endless questions, of which I have only given you small scraps. The answers to these questions do not come of themselves. They require the most laborious study, the most careful and exact examination. The system of questions does not save that trouble in the least degree. It enormously increases it by multiplying the questions that are suggested. But it forces us along step by step to much clearer conceptions of the objects of logic than have ever been attained before. The hard fact that it has yielded such fruit is the principal argument in its favor. http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell3.htm }{ Peirce's Lowell Lectures of 1903
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